Manifestos, how I came to love them
I was really joking when I blogged earlier about making all education private because I didn’t have any offspring to educate. Now, according to their manifesto, it appears that the Tories want to do just that and everyone is to be encouraged to go out and create and run their own schools. Great!
Also, I think it’s nice to see all these Old Etonians around. It takes me back to the 1950s of Harold Macmillan and Lord Home, plus a supporting cast of thousands. They are rather classier than the clutter of estate agents and car salesmen that seemed to be ushered into parliament in Maggie T’s time.
Crikey, all the parties seemed to have ruled out all tax rises – income tax, council tax, VAT. The next five years are gonna be a doddle!
(Interesting: my Spellchecker thought I was on about “Old Estonians”. See “Books” below.)
MI5 (An enigma wrapped in balderdash)
There was a story on the BBC News website yesterday about MI5 getting rid of staff who didn’t have IT skills. How did these people get by in the past without them? Why didn’t they get trained in the appropriate skills? How come they are untrainable now and must be sacked? Where are we recruiting from these days? Gay art historians from Oxbridge still, as in the 30s, or media studies oiks from ex-polys?
Books
I have just finished an excellent book called “City of Thieves” by David Benioff. It’s a great adventure yarn, very funny, sad and violent and hinges on the relationship between two very different young men in wartime Leningrad. (At one stage, after being captured by the Germans, they are on their way to gainful employment in the steel mills of Estonia.) I have already reserved “The 25th hour” by the same author – a movie too, I believe, but somehow I missed its 2002 release.
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