Hi AC

I completely agree with you about maverick teachers. They make such annoying colleagues too! Quite often they bowl over kids and parents with a bit of a cult of personality but you know it's all a bit smoke and mirrors and the basics aren't being covered.

By the way, can you see them making Rachel de Souza head of ofsted? (Gulp!)

I did find your Billy Bragg reply and found it really interesting. I hadn't read the Times article at that point. Listening to him live, he was really careful not to specifically 'diss' Corbyn - or any of the Labour Party but I found it significant that he wasn't actively 'pro' either. Overall you just got the sense of how frustrated he was that the Labour party were beating themselves up fighting over 20th century problems in the 21st-century world. The political landscape has changed since 2008. Nobody is getting support from the middle any more so why try to fight for it? Everyone who has tried to rely on the old style political norms has come a cropper. He gave lots of examples, for example the lib dems assumed their voters would go back to them after the coalition - it didn't happen. The Labour party in Scotland thought they would always be able to count on their support – it doesn't happen. The Conservatives assumed the country would vote for Brexit and so on. Add to this what the popularity of Farage and Trump and it's clear that politics has changed forever.

He was just making the point that he wished the Labour Party could see this and be ahead of the game and move forward in a progressive way. For me, I just can't bear the in fighting and weakness. I want a strong voice fighting my corner!

He also talked about how in the old days it was much easier to group together as like-minded people. He used the metaphor that it was like being on a raft on the river as opposed to today when it's like being on a raft on the ocean. The Internet is brilliant but it's too big!

I've had a lovely restful holiday and a brilliant time in Edinburgh but we came home early as Mr Bwod's dad was very ill. He died yesterday :(

2016 has not been a good year. Too many sad things happening.

Hope you've had a good summer though. It sounds like you've had lots of adventures visiting different places. More fun than decorating I should imagine! I hope it wasn't too stressful for the children collecting their GCSE results today (or their teachers!)

Posted By: Bravo win or die, Aug 25, 20:57:18