THE HONEYBALL BUZZ

I can only imagine what a tense morning it must have been for A-level students awaiting their exam results last Thursday.  I still remember my own results day, more years ago than I care to think.  It was great to read about all kinds of achievements, especially those who had obtained such impressive results, sometimes in the most difficult of circumstances.

It was all very admirable. And it is precisely because of this that I was so angry to read the front page story in the Guardian yesterday: ‘top universities secretly list “banned” A-levels’.

The report said that the Russell Group of universities, which represents the 20 leading UK universities that are committed to maintaining the very teaching and learning and research experience, had drawn up an unofficial list of  ‘banned’  A-level subjects.

If this is true it will be responsible for shattering the dreams of tens of thousands of  state school pupils.

On a different topic, I was intrigued to see that the coalition government, still in its infancy, is already cracking. Rows between cabinet ministers were reported in today’s Mail on Sunday. But this was not between Lib Dem and Conservative ministers but two Tory grandees, none other than Iain Duncan Smith, Work and Pensions Secretary and the Chancellor of the Exchequer, George Osborne.

The ‘blazing row’, reported the Mail on Sunday, concerned the Treasury showing a lack of respect towards Duncan Smith’s department.

The Mail reported that “According to one source, the frustrated former Tory leader told the Chancellor: ‘I am not prepared to tolerate the appalling way you treat my department. Your officials must show more respect to my staff. They do not deserve to be treated in such an arrogant and rude way.’”

The Mail on Sunday continued by saying, “Mr Osborne is understood to have defended his officials, hitting back: ‘If you come up with proposals that work, they will be treated with respect.’” You can read the detail here

Caroline Flint writing in the latest issue of the New Statesman, talks of the difficulty female politicians still have in reaching the top and why the election Julia Gillard in Australia will be no different despite its good history of democratic credentials ( it gave women the vote before the UK and was also the first country in the British empire to allow women to stand for Parliament.)

She rightly argues that many decisions are dominated by ‘power politics’, and that male networks are still pervasive and powerful.  

Although I agree with much of her article, she failed to mention how different things are in Europe where we have a relatively healthy gender balance. Of course, nothing’s perfect, but by comparison the European Parliament and the European Commission are streets ahead of many EU member states and other counties around the world.

I was surprised by Caroline Flints’s failure to mention the EU.  She is, after all, a former Europe Minister. You can read her article here.