Gosh.
In my small world nothing much happens any more.
I read about stuff of course.
And I can see how easy it is to get facts and statistics and information wrong.
I watch the news most nights, I have been known to watch Question Time but usually switch off before the end having concluded that the audience are usually more articulate, sensible and informed than the panel.
Why is it that ill informed prejudice can be broadcast as though it were a rehearsal of carefully researched fact?
I am all for debate in the public square, I have participated in one or two televised debates myself, on the Jimmy Young Show I debated Norman Tebbit and I was invited on to the Robert Kilroy Silk show to debate drug use.
I did my research for these opportunities made sure that I had a set of handwritten cards each one containing a fact or two pertinent to the argument.
But, its more complicated than that, or I'd rather stick to the known facts about benefit fraud, such as the reality of how much less, at 0.7%, fraud actually is than the public perception that it is 27%, is actually, televisually pretty dull.
Better to go for a quick attention grabbing headline.
Mr Gove, as an ex journalist knows this better than most.
His comments on the causes and effects of the First World War were one example of putting the attention grabbing headline before the facts.
But his latest, that his aim is that you might visit any school in the country and there would be no distinction between private and public education, using the distinction appropriately in so far as in the education sector generally, public means private, with other public schools being described as State.
But does this mean that student/teacher ratios will change in the two sectors? Will there be a fairer sharing of resources? Will State Schools be given their sports fields back rather than having them sold off for housing or industrial development?
One estimate I read suggested that if the State sector had the same access to playing fields as the private, it would require 50% of the countryside being designated as school playing fields.
All of these discussions need to be engaged with in a serious way and disagreements need to be negotiated courteously.
The least courteous forum is Prime Ministers Question Time and the baying and braying across the benches sets a very low bar for the discussion of social and cultural issues but as we consider the landscape in 2014 surely it must become clear to most blinkered and prejudiced that a whole class and generation have seen their jobs disappear and there will be more of that to come as many technical and office jobs become computerised.
As we monitor the rising flood waters and the significant changes in the weather it must surely occur to someone that climate change is not just a passing feature of cyclical weather patterns and that human activity is having a telling and profound effect on the environment we rely on to sustain human life?
When I bought my first subscription to cable TV I noted that the handset contained a button marked Vote. It occurred to me that this provided a whole new way to engage with debate in the public square. My proposal for an Academy in Bradford was that at its heart there would be a commitment to citizenship and to honour this the Academy would have an Agora, a physical debating chamber at its heart and debate would contribute to both pedagogy and management.
I read recently about someone called Katy Hopkinson, I had never heard of the young lady but apparently she took part in a recent TV Debate, the criticism of her performance by Owen Jones in the Independent described the Hopkinisation of political discourse likened it to 'panto'.
Well, Oh yes it is or Oh no its not, but as Question Time, whether the PM's or the BBC's, also gets close to pantomime with its heroes, the hardworkers, or its villains, the shirkers I find myself making a plea for faith and values to be restored to the public square in order to create a better space for the community to begin or deepen conversation about our culture and the critical issues confronting our society.
So having made my plea I will press publish and settle down with a good book.
In my small world nothing much happens any more.
I read about stuff of course.
And I can see how easy it is to get facts and statistics and information wrong.
I watch the news most nights, I have been known to watch Question Time but usually switch off before the end having concluded that the audience are usually more articulate, sensible and informed than the panel.
Why is it that ill informed prejudice can be broadcast as though it were a rehearsal of carefully researched fact?
I am all for debate in the public square, I have participated in one or two televised debates myself, on the Jimmy Young Show I debated Norman Tebbit and I was invited on to the Robert Kilroy Silk show to debate drug use.
I did my research for these opportunities made sure that I had a set of handwritten cards each one containing a fact or two pertinent to the argument.
But, its more complicated than that, or I'd rather stick to the known facts about benefit fraud, such as the reality of how much less, at 0.7%, fraud actually is than the public perception that it is 27%, is actually, televisually pretty dull.
Better to go for a quick attention grabbing headline.
Mr Gove, as an ex journalist knows this better than most.
His comments on the causes and effects of the First World War were one example of putting the attention grabbing headline before the facts.
But his latest, that his aim is that you might visit any school in the country and there would be no distinction between private and public education, using the distinction appropriately in so far as in the education sector generally, public means private, with other public schools being described as State.
But does this mean that student/teacher ratios will change in the two sectors? Will there be a fairer sharing of resources? Will State Schools be given their sports fields back rather than having them sold off for housing or industrial development?
One estimate I read suggested that if the State sector had the same access to playing fields as the private, it would require 50% of the countryside being designated as school playing fields.
All of these discussions need to be engaged with in a serious way and disagreements need to be negotiated courteously.
The least courteous forum is Prime Ministers Question Time and the baying and braying across the benches sets a very low bar for the discussion of social and cultural issues but as we consider the landscape in 2014 surely it must become clear to most blinkered and prejudiced that a whole class and generation have seen their jobs disappear and there will be more of that to come as many technical and office jobs become computerised.
As we monitor the rising flood waters and the significant changes in the weather it must surely occur to someone that climate change is not just a passing feature of cyclical weather patterns and that human activity is having a telling and profound effect on the environment we rely on to sustain human life?
When I bought my first subscription to cable TV I noted that the handset contained a button marked Vote. It occurred to me that this provided a whole new way to engage with debate in the public square. My proposal for an Academy in Bradford was that at its heart there would be a commitment to citizenship and to honour this the Academy would have an Agora, a physical debating chamber at its heart and debate would contribute to both pedagogy and management.
I read recently about someone called Katy Hopkinson, I had never heard of the young lady but apparently she took part in a recent TV Debate, the criticism of her performance by Owen Jones in the Independent described the Hopkinisation of political discourse likened it to 'panto'.
Well, Oh yes it is or Oh no its not, but as Question Time, whether the PM's or the BBC's, also gets close to pantomime with its heroes, the hardworkers, or its villains, the shirkers I find myself making a plea for faith and values to be restored to the public square in order to create a better space for the community to begin or deepen conversation about our culture and the critical issues confronting our society.
So having made my plea I will press publish and settle down with a good book.
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