A Levels-The rewards of success for their architect.

-This year's A Level grades were very good despite tightening up the sylabus and marking (although the overall " pass" rate above grade F is still 98%).

-There is a much better social distribution of top grades than previously so more less well off students will be  going to good universities.

-There are 30,000 additional university places than last year thanks to increased government funding.

Much of this success story is down to Michael Gove, summarily replaced as a supposed electoral liability by the new "Peace in our Time-I love teachers" lady.  Students and their parents might like to join Mr Gove in reflecting on the justice or otherwise of being thrown out of office for being disliked by those to whom any  reforms of a too often  underperforming state educational system are abhorrent.

Unfortunately the executioner, David Cameron, marooned on an island of lack of feeling for realities outside his own close knit circle and advisors, has by ditching one of his best and most loyal performers, again devalued his own leadership.

Footnote: Another area in which British politics is currently flying blind is foreign affairs. Few/none of our leading politicians has a deep experience of or even interest in matters beyond our shores. Perhaps if they took their families on holiday to places further afield than Spain, Portugal and Italy (yes, that's Dave, Nick and Ed this month) they might just start to sniff, smell, feel and even understand a wider world. It will take time but it's never too late to start. Meanwhile sorry to anyone threatened with genocide in these holiday months,- we just can't get our heads around it. It's all too much.

ISIS-Britain Flexes Its Muscles.

Following today's very limited US attacks on Isis militants "to protect American nationals and interests", -note no mention of the 100,000 or more Iraqis facing threats of imminent genocide,- the UK has weighed in.

Definately no military intervention but a couple of million pounds worth of tents, solar powered lighting, meals and bottled water. That's a big comfort. At least people can be slaughtered in tents, aided maybe by electric light and having had a portion of a meal and a gulp or two of water. There are a few more millions going to charities "already on the ground". Unfortunately there is no sign of any in the affected areas. Never mind. At least when its all over and its safe to venture out of Baghdad or wherever they are holed up they will be able to afford to get to the scene of whatever has happened in more, newer and shinier 4x4s.

Isis must be quaking in its shoes.

Didn't we do well..................Afghanistan "Rebuilding".

The Times reports that the cost of "rebuilding" Afghanistan has now exceeded that of the post WW2 Marshall Plan for rebuilding Europe. The US has forked out £61.5 billion since 2002 and the UK(which actually spent its Marshall Plan money on social engineering in setting up the NHS rather than actual engineering) has thrown in £890 million.

 Those sums are on top of the actual military operations on which the US has spent a staggering £296 billion and the UK £22 billion.

In both cases one is entitled to ask "For what?"

In both cases the answer has to be "Nothing" or at best "Very, very, little".

Between the western allies, actually mainly the US and UK, we have destroyed Afghanistan's infrastructure, failed to put in place a stable non corrupt and Taliban-proof government and in the process lost and had maimed for life large numbers of our own soldiers.

With all the redevelopment money spent we might expect to see a new, disciplined, well trained and effective armed and police forces, a network of excellent highways, new, well equipped school,hospitals and power stations as well as replacements for shattered homes. In other words a fine new model state working robustly and able to stave off any future attempts by the Taliban or others to put the clock back.

Instead the US watchdog on Government spending is said by the Times to have reported that most of the projects are undermined by poor planning,shoddy construction, mechanical failures and inadequate oversight. In other words there is precious little to show for the billions and what there is is unlikely to last long before collapsing or breaking down, probably for ever. The same continues to go for most misguided foreign aid but that's another story. Our legacy in both human and physical terms will be dismal.

 As we have said before, anyone with any idea of Afghan history, its social /tribal history or anything to do with it would have said that at the beginning and never have embarked on this adventure. Even a flight over the country tells most people that idealistic visions of democratic, or indeed any unified, rule have any chance of realisation. Despite that the UK ,led by the US and the Bush/Blair relationship, did. In the British parliament barely a voice against was raised against it by anyone in any party. Most were actively supportive with the grave tones and seriously furrowed brows which are intended to denote deep understanding and wisdom at such times. Even now most of our politicians, terrified of accusations that they have thrown away hundreds of British and many more Afghan lives for nothing,- as they have,- remain in denial. They mutter things about it all having been worth it. It hasn't. Worse, having created this mess (Yes, Mr Blair) we will now blame the Afghans for not resolving it and we will walk away leaving them to their fate. 

Clegg wrings his hands. ( ps That's not new)

Today's Times has plenty to send sane readers reaching for the nearest bucket. The prize for cringeworthiness must though go to the soon-to-go on hols Nick Clegg..

Talking about educational policy following the unceremonious and dubiously motivated departure of Michael Gove, possibly the highest achieving and certainly most energetic member of the Cameron cabinet, Nick has been speaking. "We need to reset the relationship (between government and the teaching unions), not I should stress by abandoning all government policy or reforms, but by ensuring that where there is debate and discussion between the teaching profession and the government, it is conducted in a spirit of mutual respect and that we seek out every opportunity to celebrate, and not always to denigrate, the fantastic work that teachers do."

Taking the last bit first, we note the absence between the words " that" and "teachers" the word "good". That's crucial. Everybody knows that good and excellent teachers are magnificent. Most also know that a minority are not good, not good at all. It's probably always been thus but it's an issue that has in the interests of the affected children to be tackled head on, however loud the howls of protest by the militant unions. Poor performance must never be celebrated. It simply can't be tolerated and everyone has to be aware of that. Good teachers will applaud being relieved of the burden of the inadequate ones. They, the good ones, the school heads, the pupils and most parents will know who they are but the unions will usually defend through thick and thin their "right" not to be sacked. That's absurd and not in the interests of the majority of the members who they are also meant to represent.

Then there are the weasel words  about not abandoning all government policy or reforms. Note the word all. It is key. Here Clegg is opening an avenue of comforting compromise to Gove's change resistant adversaries. He is cynically implying that, given a shot, the Lib Dems would be ready to curry favour with the supply side of the educational establishment by retreating from at least some of the reforms. He's giving no guarantees though. That would require balls, -and not of the Ed variety,- and he will always keep his on the fence. No wonder both major political parties fear having to do some sort of deal with his party after the next General Election. It is quite possible that neither would now contemplate a new coalition and would instead go for a minority government which would then go for an overall majority in a new election maybe six months later. In retrospect this is probably what the Conservatives should have done in 2010 as losing a second election against the spectre of a possible return of Gordon Brown should have been unthinkable.

Finally there are the words about "mutual respect", a very fashionable concept. Everyone it is said deserves respect or in some circles respek .The notion of it having to be earned rather than taken for granted is absent. The obsession with giving equal weight to,shall we say less well formed, ideas to as much more considered ones is of course very politically correct as well as nice , warm and fuzzy. It goes a long way to explaining why getting a lot of things done is a glacial process and why even some of the most energetic eventually lapse into tears and despair.

It seems that Mr Clegg chooses to fail to understand that a 5 year parliament is a very short period of time. Tony Blair had the same problem in his first term. He had some great and widely supported ideas on public service reform but thought he had all the time in the world to deliver them. He didn't. Iraq hove into sight at the beginning of his second term .That was the end of time and energy to focus on his original programme and what could have been a great political legacy began to turn to dust.  Michael Gove though understood it perfectly. To achieve anything it must be complete and robustly nailed into place within the five years, or it might never happen. That's why he came out of the trap fast, didn't waste too much time, trampled on a few feet but got his measures as far down the track as quickly as he could before Cameron's wobbly knees and Australian "How to Win" adviser derailed him.

As joint leader of the coalition, Clegg should be saying he's full of admiration for what Gove achieved and that if anyone thought that his departure indicated a government withdrawal from the hard parts they could think again as the reforms are here to stay. Instead, sadly increasingly true to form ,he opportunistically went into MCavity "I wasn't here mode". Expect to see more of that as the General Election approaches. 

Half way through the year...................

We are half way through 2014, heading into the British mid summer holiday-strewn time of year. How are we doing? (Let's leave sport out of this).

Already the Iraq mess looks worse by the day and intransigent President Maliki makes a unified solution ever more difficult. At home Andy Coulson has been banged up for phone hacking, albeit probably in a nice prison for the better classes of criminal rather than the real thing ,while all his co-defendents have been found not guilty. On the troublesome sports field the almost pointless England World Cup team headed home to Luton on their charter after their final defeat by diminutive Puerto Rico a team rated lower than Scotland in the Fifa ( that fine body of men) tables. What more can go wrong? Probably quite a lot actually but let's not be too miserable. It's mid summer after all.

Back to Iraq. Despite the excesses of Saddam and the Baath Party weren't the Sunnis the west's best friends back in the days of Saddam? Not now. The extreme and fundamentalist organisation, Isis, has swept out of Syria and across northern Iraq leaving a bloody trail of murder in its wake and promising more for its opponents throughout the country.Using terror to subjugate its opponents and settle old scores is a primary weapon. No peace and reconciliation on their part. Indeed Isis has named itself as the successor to the Ottoman Empire and declared a "Caliphate" across a swathe of Syria and Iraq , while warning Muslims everywhere that they are now the boss and they had better get in line and do whatever the charming new Caliph tells them. That fortunately is unlikely but they have been extremely successful in marking out a domain and describing their ultimate ambitions (Watch out Spain). Meanwhile women are banished back to the home, most forms of pleasure are forbidden and mosques of rival groups are being demolished. The fate of any remaining Christians, their freedoms and buildings is clear.

There isn't much sign of peace and reconciliation from President Maliki either . His army has gone on the rampage and indulged in retaliatory killings of Sunnis. Not a wonderful response if he wants to keep the country together. He needs every friend or at least neutral he can  get and to be pushing for national unity if for no other reason than to encourage America to do more to keep his head out of the Isis noose.His actions don't make it easy for anyone to help him and just to rub the point in the Kurds, historically badly treated by everbody,  have staked out their share of the country and plenty of oil.

In the field of peace and reconciliation, post Arab Spring Egypt isn't doing any better. Again , rather than talk about peace and reconciliation President al Sisi is sharpening divisions between supporters of ousted democratically elected though equally divisive President Morsi .

Next door to the left in Libya, nasty but stable under Gadaffi, chaos and loss of life continues. To the right Israel and Hammas have escalated mutual provocation with Hammas looking determined to provoke Israel into serious bloodshed ,-probably mainly of its own people but the leadership has never cared much about that,- in an attempt to up the ante.

That's the Middle East.

Back home politics are already mired in what is going to be a long and tedious drag towards the General Election in May next year. From the autumn onwards it is going to look increasingly like a World War 1 battlefield.

We have just had what looks very much like a media-manufactured passport crisis. People,inevitably mainly hard working families spending the last of their hard earned cash on a holiday, have been finding that new passports have been taking longer than usual to come through. That's not surprising at this time of year and by shouting "crisis" from the rooftops the media have done their best to create one. Applications "inexplicably" surged in June and now the wait is another week or two. No surprise there. What would you do if you want to travel in say November? Yes, you've done it. Shout about a crisis and you make one.

This hulabaloo disappeared almost as quickly as it arrived when the perceived much bigger opportunity to castigate David Cameron came into sight. The dull, grey, Eurocrat, Luxemburg's Mr Junker, was about to become President of the EU. Few leaders actually wanted him. Some, including Merkel had indicated that they would help Cameron to block him but come the day they melted away and let something everybody knew wasn't the right answer happen. All very EU and exasperating to Cameron and most of thinking UK Plc.(that isn't all of it) to whom this spat exemplified much of what is wrong with the organisation. In the almost certain knowledge that he would lose the battle and it being too late to go back to a softly softly behind the curtains campaign, Dave went for broke and forced a vote. The result was that he stood alone. Howls of protest from the usual suspects including the CBI whose only interests here are those about their perception of what's good for business. They have none in the fundamental question of sovereignty and nor have Labour or the LibDems. Two these two Europe is a nice socialist place.  The reality is that the tactic was as good as any and better than many. By forcing a crisis Cameron is more likely to get something out of the whole affair than he would wringing his hands and begging for scraps of comfort from the overladen EU table. He does need though to reposition the argument . It should not be about concessions for Britain. it should be about a looser, much more free EU for everyone. The target should be the hugely expensive overweight and stifling apparatus which in business terms is simply an enormous overhead and most of all the ditching of the idea of an eventual European mega-state .No majority of its citizens anywhere has ever voted for that.

The next sky filling issue to roll in has been allegations of the "establishment" stifling reporting and evidence of widespread child abuse in high places until at least the 1980s. A wide ranging top level enquiry has been set up to expose who was up to what. All well and good but it will take a lot of time and many millions of pounds. There is also the risk that it will distract attention and resources from probing what is going on here and now, something instinctively popular with politicians. Its conclusions are likely to be pretty much what everybody already knows.  The "establishment" , including the aristocracy, political parties, the churches, schools (private boarding in particular) , and other high level enclosed groups, have indulged in some bad behaviours for centuries. These have been covered up directly and indirectly (He's terribly influential you know") enforced silence and a muzzled police force. Any career minded police officer will have been made very aware of cases where the message is "Go no further".

 Given a free shot  these powerful groups, now reinforced with some very sensitive celebrities, would keep it that way as we have seen from their promotion and support of  the media muzzling proposals coming out of the Leveson report. It is only recently that 24 hour rolling news coverage, a breakdown in respect for authority and authorities of all kinds has led to high level coverups and blindness being seriously challenged.

Rumours of a cabinet reshuffle have been flying about for some time now and Monday 14th July looks like the date. Inevitably pure rumour has been added to by leaks, one courtesy of a loudly spoken mobile "I'm on the train" conversation by a young lady out to impress her fellow travellers. Why do these people do it? We constantly hear details of confidential upcoming contracts, the transgressions of Flossie or Bill who "just can't hack it" who come Monday are about to be fired. Too much information. Unless we are a competitor or a friend of Flossie or Bill,- which we might be,- we just don't want to know. Back to this Monday it looks as if Dave will be out to convince that he has no problems with women. The boys had therefore better not get too excited. It's not entirely about best person for the job.

Whatever the cabinet looks like by Monday evening , the reshuffle and a few new smiling faces are very unlikely to deal with a problem currently common to the top of all three parties. The Conservative and Labour leaders are surrounded by small coteries of long standing trusted mates, some going back to school days. Nick Clegg on the other hand is surrounded by 20 paid advisors. Maybe his supposed old mates perhaps either don't exist or are suspected as maybe having long knives in their pockets. In all three cases the result is that the men themselves are seen as remote from other MPs, let alone party members. They are surrounded by a wall of gatekeepers and minders who keep the boss free of contamination by real contact with lesser mortals. The everlasting stage managed meetings between political suits and the masses in the form of teachers, nurses, smarty turned out factory workers etc don't hack it. The masses aren't daft.

Any new ministers will not have much time to be be seen displaying their wisdom, gravitas and deservedness on live TV before Parliament breaks up for its very long summer recess/hols. School,- which many of its members have never mentally left those days behind so they are still free to think in terms of prefects, sports and even the occasional beatings,- breaks up on July 30th. It does not then return with its tuck boxes and suntans from overseas fact finding tours until 13th October. The prefects and pupils ,all of course strictly ranked by seniority, then have to manage nearly a whole month before the Half Term Exeat begins on 11th November. After that, hey ho, it's just a month until they head home for Christmas.

Thumbnail guide to Britain's Euro Elections outcomes.

- Contrary to expectations nobody other than the LibDems got a bloody nose. The percentage take of the votes and the resultant numbers of MEPs came to:

                                                      %                                        MEPs

UKIP                                         27.49                                      24
Labour                                       25.40                                      20
Conservative                             23.93                                     19
Greens                                        07.87                                     03
Lib Dem                                     06.87                                      01

-Although  Labour on the left  came out marginally ahead of the Conservatives, the combined Conservative and UKIP vote on the right soundly beat them by gaining 51.42 of the total share and 43 MEPs against 20
Even the cave dwelling Greens did better than the LibDems. The message here is that if anyone on the right thinks they are likely to get what they want by voting UKIP at the General Election in May 2015 they are going to be sorely disappointed. All they will achieve is a socialist , interventionist tax and spend Labour government, something the majority clearly don't want. Even less will they like the resultant Prime Minister, Ed Milliband who clearly doesn't like them.

-The UKIP win, much hyped in advance and since by the media, should not yet cause too much hysteria and panic in the ranks of any party. Its ingredients are too complex and mixed in likely lifespan to benefit from kneejerks. Careful and wise (now that might be a problem) consideration over the summer is required. One factor affecting a string of constituencies along the line of Britain's major north-south high speed railway line HS2 is how those Conservative voters who opted for UKIP because they opportunistically oppose the project will vote next year. As above, if these people really insist on voting UKIP out of rail-rage all they will do is to let Labour, whose project it originally was  in. If that happens HS 2 will still go ahead but possibly with some cost saving reductions by reducing Chiltern and other landowner- protecting tunnels and cuttings. Labour doesn't much care for the vociferous rural lobby and why shouldn't the Liverpudlians, Mancunians be able to enjoy the much vaunted outstanding scenery they will pass through in their hundreds of thousands?

-Nigel Farage comes over as a man of the people, the sort of bloke anyone could have a good chat with anywhere. He's also the sort of man who you would be likely to meet in the pub, cafe, bus, anywhere. None of the Party leaders get anywhere near that. As result much of what they say, however good or bad is simply filtered out. People stop listening. They are not taken in by carefully arranged and managed PR photoshoots in schools and hospitals (mainly) and selected faux "man of the people" surroundings and they certainly don't like feeling they are being spoken down to.

- David Cameron opens his mouth too often about too many issues ranging from football managers to anything else he thinks might make him look as if he is feeling people's pain, whatever it is. Dave is probably a nice enough bloke, has limited life experiences outside his own small coterie and caste and is never going to break out of that mould. He is an average manager, not a leader and certainly not a man driven by a vision of Britain and the world in 50, 25 ,10 years time or probably even tomorrow morning.

-Ed Milliband isn't a forward looking visionary either. Any vision he has is from the rear view mirror. He is stuck in the same old grooves. His Marxist father sits heavily on one shoulder and Unite's Len McClusky on the other. Both are people of the past and both drag him there too. When faced with any situation he can only trot out the same old phrases designed, through constant repetition,to take insidious root in the electorates' sub conscious. Increasingly though they irritate and make said electors feel an urge to throw up. How many more times must we hear "The cost of living crisis" , "Hard working families" (what about hard working singles, bone idle families etc?), "For the many not the few" and the rest. Apart from the cost of living crisis many of the rest go back to Gordon Brown's time. Didn't he do well? Do people really, really want a re-run?

Nick Clegg was beaten and truly routed but has so far held up remarkably well against the subsequent LibDem plots, attempted coups, rumours of deep divisions and disloyalties. Such things are the substance of top level or even bottom level (something maybe we should be careful of talking about unless we stray into other contraversial territory) politics. Every politician needs to keep firmly in sight former UK diplomat Percy Craddock's warning: "It isn't the other side you've got to worry about. It's your own." The same goes in much of business and industry but that's another story. It's very lonely at the top and real friends are very few. Caesar may have be the best known to be surprised by Brutus but the tally of Bruti grows relentlessly.

Next up in the elections game is the Newark by-election this week. Here the focus is on an older UKIP candidate versus a shiny new young wealthy, London based Tory boy straight out of standard box. When will they ever learn? A UKIP win against a      Tory majority is almost unthinkable but..................... This could be the tail and of the Euro election UKIP bubble. Then comes the will they, won't they, debate over whether the UKIP vote is just a one-off protest against the current state of UK politics and politicians with their attendant whiffs of  shallowness, greed, self interest, lack of vision and class issues or whether it is something more deep rooted. In some areas it probably is here to stay at least for a while. In others, voters should think very carefully about what they really want and who/what they are really voting for. Certainly the most likely effect of a big UKIP vote in may 2015 is a Milliband-led Labour government. One way to ensure HS2 and another London runway is built maybe as that is where they were in 2010, but the downsides to another 5 years (at least ) of Brownite style government may not be something at the top of everyone's list of preferences. 

Thought for the day...............

................... for service providers and manufacturers.

If you can do it right why do it wrong?