January 25, 2006
Whale dies; UK Education Bill in death throes?
Firstly, I am sad to say that the whale in the Thames has died -- apparently, after getting lost it suffered from "dehydration, muscle damage and failing kidneys".
A less cute casualty may well be our Government's Education Bill -- the Education Select Committee of MPs have suggested radical changes to the bill (placing far more restrictions on the extent to which schools can select their pupils, and giving schools much less independence from local government). To make matters more complicated the Conservative minority on the Committee have released a dissenting report insisting that the Government should stick to the plans in the Bill.
So far as Blair is concerned, this means he is left with a very awkward choice -- either he can push through his legislation by relying on votes from the Conservative opposition party, all he can seriously water down his plans in order to win the Labour Party's approval. Relying on the Conservatives to get the Bill through would make Blair a lot less popular with his own party -- to the extent that it could seriously shorten his time as Prime Minister. Blair has very publicly made clear how important this legislation is to him, so is in a very awkward situation. We may now be watching the death throes of the Education Bill, the Blair Government, or even both.
Posted by jon_mendel at 11:33 PM
January 20, 2006
A whale heads for Downing Street
For a while now, I've been wanting to start a blog -- to track what is very likely to be the final period of Tony Blair's time as Prime Minister of Britain. This government has been responsible for some radical changes to Britain's domestic politics, and also our involvement in a number of foreign interventions. It's going to be interesting to watch what happens as Blair's leadership comes to an end - and to see what opportunities this gives us to intervene in politics here, to change things for the better.
Anyway, enough about my motivation -- I'm sure you'd rather hear about the whale. A 7-tonne whale has made its way up the River Thames, and is now swimming around the London area. As well as this are very actual whale, there are also now several metaphorical whales slowly making their way towards Downing Street. There have recently been further revelations about the Blair government's possible complicity with US 'rendition' of prisoners. Attempts to change the UK education system - to give schools more independence, and introduce more selection of pupils - are also becoming extremely controversial, even with the Labour Party's own MPs.
So, this blog is going to track the literal whale which is swimming around London (which will hopefully be returned to the sea before it comes to any serious harm) as well as the numerous metaphorical whales which are much more likely to crash into Downing Street in the coming months. For now, though, I'll leave this as a start to the blog - waiting to see where these various whales get to before I write any more about them.
Posted by jon_mendel at 05:34 PM
