Cameron Snared

The Labour party took the extraordinary step of calling the Prime Minister to the House of Commons today to answer an emergency question about the Culture Secretary’s contacts with News International.

This might not seem extra-ordinary in that the Speaker has been granting emergency questions at an unprecedented rate since he took office (only 2 granted under his predecessor, over 100 since he took office!), but calling the PM to the despatch box is not something that happens every day and I hope it doesn’t become a regular occurrence because I feel it would water down the impact.

David Cameron is a good Commons performer and my impression was that he gave a good explanation of himself and of James Hunt today, so probably off the hook.

This was quite a clever move by the Labour Party though, because getting off the hook today is not the problem Cameron faces. He has now stood up in the House of Commons, in full view of the public and defended his Hunt’s behaviour. This is fine so long as Hunt is not found to have done anything seriously wrong, but if he is, and is forced to resign, the Prime Minister is in trouble and will be the next in line.

I think past experience (look up Stephen Byers, Peter Mandelson, David Blunkett, Beverley Hughes) shows that once the media scents blood, they don’t let go, so the Prime Minister might well have saved his (and Hunt’s) skin today, only to regret it in a few weeks or months.

Game Change

I watched the US film Game Change last week. It’s based on a narration of the of the 2008 Presidential election by John Heilmann and Mark Halperin.

The book covers the whole caboodle including primaries through to Obama’s inauguration. This film focussed only on saga surrounding Sarah Palin’s nomination as VP running mate for John McCain.

I have to say, I was blown away by the film. It was almost 3 hours long, but was absolutely gripping throughout. It made really good use of actual footage from the election that added a very real sense of drama to the production.

Juliane Moore played Sarah Palin and was uncanny, even beating Tina Fey; but respect has to go to her for playing it straight and not hamming it up. Like the book implies, the story of the 2008 election is gripping enough without needing to take cheap shots.

Personally, I left the film feeling quite sympathetic towards Palin. I’m sure this wasn’t the intention of the book authors who have left no doubt about their own views or the film makers, who have clearly worked very hard to tell a balanced story.

The reason I felt that way was twofold:
- She didn’t ask for this! Unlike many US politicians (we see this happening now in Republican circles) who fall over themselves to ingratiate themselves with the nominee and get their name on the ballot. Palin did not, the call came as a complete surprise. She was called out of the blue by a bunch of arrogant advisers on the McCain who had plopped some figures into a formula (woman + republican + pro life + maverick) and come out with Palin. Her sense of duty in accepting is clear, and is obviously the reason she did it.

Of course that doesn’t let her off the hook; she could have ‘fessed up and admitted to herself and the campaign that she wasn’t up to it, that her family were not prepared etc. But she didn’t, and let’s be honest, how many of us would?!

- I had forgotten how vicious, vitriolic and personal the attacks on her were! It was not just the nature of the attacks that were cruel, but their rapidity! Even before she had been formally announced, she was being accused (based on nothing) of lying about being the mother of her last child and all sorts of other deeply unpleasant things! I might be naive, but that just seemed grossly unfair and unpleasant to me. I remember thinking it at the time, and this film brought it back to me.

None of this is to say she was a good pick. She wasn’t. She wasn’t ready, she had negligible experience and was chosen for all the wrong reasons! And the way she has behaved since has been bizarre.

But I think the oddest thing I was left thinking was “what is she’d been given another 4 years?!” Given more time and exposure, could she have gained more experience and insight to combine with clearly formidable communications skills and saved the Republicans from the dismal primary they’ve just experienced?!

The art of the interview

Like most of the programming on BBC4, I almost didn’t notice that it had a season of programmes about television interviews. Thanks to the wonderful BBC iPlayer, I was able to hit ‘series record’ for one of the programmes “Talk at the BBC“.

It’s an absolute gem. It is very simply put together, basically a series of best bits from interviews in the 50s, 60s and 70s with no narration or fancy editing, just the name of the interviewee and year of interview before the clip. It is so enjoyable to watch, I watched the first two episodes on my laptop on a train journey from London back to Exeter last Friday after quite a stressful day and it made everything better.

I thoroughly recommend it.

Particular highlights are:

• any of the interviews with Bette Davis where you are just hooked in immediately by her style and frankness
• Muhammad Ali explaining to Michael Parkinson why he converted to Islam (second episode)
• a truly bizarre clip from a series called “A Woman Wonders Why” (first episode)
• a full on weird and slightly creepy interview with Joan Crawford (second episode) that confirmed my status as cheerleader for team Bette in that celebrity feud!
• very moving section of an interview with Jacob Bronowski about his experience of visiting Auschwitz (second episode)
• very funny anecdote from David Niven about his first experience with a woman (first episode)

I can’t wait for the third instalment.

UCAS forced to drop post qualification admissions

The Guardian is reporting today that UCAS’ plans to introduce post-qualification admissions have been dropped.

This is a terrible mistake. It’s not UCAS’ fault, I think they have done everything they could to push and promote the benefits of this change. The climbdown has happened because Universities, schools and A-level examination boards have chosen to take a reactionary position, arguing that the curent system works just fine!

At the moment student applications to Universities are based on predicted grades made almost a year before they complete their A-Levels (usually before any formal coursework has been submitted, and module results are received). Research by UCAS shows that only 10% of predicted grades are accurate. ONLY 10%! Meaning that 90% of students are making applications based on false information.

What is worse is that the community of prospective students worst affected are those from poorer backgrounds, who are consistently predicted lower grades than they achieve, and tend to ‘under apply’ i.e take a cautious approach to make sure they get in to University, rather than apply for courses at the top end of what they could potentially achieve.

Wendy Piatt, Director of the Russel Group, argues:

“The main losers would be prospective students and, in particular, those from disadvantaged backgrounds, who benefit from special access schemes, summer schools and other outreach activity,” she said.

Hmmm, I suspect most prospective students from disadvantaged backgrounds would prefer to make applications on the basis of a proper and accurate reflection of their A-Level grades rather that “special access schemes”. Especially since its usually the Russell Group that makes a big deal of the need to stick to admission by ability not background and that they shouldn’t have to make special arrangements!

These changes would have required some reorganisation and a lot of work by Universities to shift their admissions processes around, and schools and exam boards would have had to shift their teaching back a few weeks. It would have been worth it. The gains in terms of transparency and clarity for applicants would have made a significant difference.

HARRUMPH!

League Tables – pah

You can forget all about those conventional league tables. University Ranking Watch have come up with something far more reliable, a league based on the number times a University has won University Challenge. Perfect, unbiased and inmanipulable (if that isn’t a word, it should be!).

1.      Oxford                                                                             39
2.      Cambridge                                                                    21
3.      Manchester                                                                    8
4=.    Imperial College London                                   5
4=.    Open University                                                5
6=.    Durham                                                             4
6=.    Sussex                                                               4
8=.    St. Andrews                                                                 3
8=.    Birkbeck College, University of London         3
10=.  Bradford                                                            2
10=.  Dundee                                                              2
10=.  Keele                                                                 2
10=.  Leicester                                                            2
10=.  Belfast                                                               2
10=.  Warwick                                                            2
16 =  Lancaster                                                           2
16=.  LSE                                                                   1
16=.  Cranfield                                                           1
16=.  Sheffield                                                            1
16=.  York                                                                   1

Times Higher Education comedy photo watch

After a few fallow weeks, I am delighted to report that the Times Higher is back on fine comedy form this week. With not one but TWO excellent photos to accompany some interesting stories.

First up is a story about a rather depressing review of HEFCE funding for Centres for Excellence in Teaching and Learning “Cetls’ impact assessed: the sector hardly felt a thing”. Of course there is only one image that springs to mind, 1940s school gym:

That’s actually quite a good story, accompanied by a very good comment piece by Paul Ramsden

A few pages in, there is a story about the new chair of the Engineering and Physical Science Research Council (Don’t throw stones . . . build bridges) calling for closer co-operation and communication between the council and its customers. What better than a photo of three men sitting on a rather peculiar contraption:

The ultimate email flowchart

Everyone should use this! (thanks to the Daily Infographic)

 

A return of the “too many people go to University” argument?

An interesting post on the Spectator’s Coffee House Blog tonight showing employment statistics for recent graduates.

It is pretty grim reading:

“. . . the unemployment rate among recent graduates — those who graduated in the last six years — stands at 9.1 per cent, higher than the overall unemployment rate of 8.4 per cent. It’s even worse for those who graduated in the last two years — the unemployment rate among them is 18.9 per cent, up from 10 per cent before the recession.”

Not unfamiliar news to anyone working in Higher Education. What the article doesn’t highlight is the fact that the ONS statistics show recent graduate employment rates are broadly in line with non-recent graduates and non graduates:

It’s a shame that the author has used this as an opportunity to make a gibe about university expansion:

“It’s a stark reminder that Labour’s push to get as many people as possible to go to university didn’t benefit all those who did.”*

It’s not an outright attack, but when put together with some of the attacks on Les Ebdon and OFFA last month you can start to see that elitist narrative start to develop again, that the answer to all problems in HE is to reduce the number of students attending University. I had thought we’d managed to put that to bed.

* - I’m choosing ignore the fact that the push to get more people into university started under Margaret Thatcher in the late 1980s and has been continued ever since!

Social Media: How to do it #4 – Going viral

The most desired outcome of any marketing campaign is to “go viral”.

Going viral is cheap but risky. While the term has recently become quite common and widely used, the concept is not new. Basically, going viral means that a person(s), company or organisation produces something that is so interesting and catchy that it sticks in somebody’s mind and they go on and share through word-of-mouth with their friends, colleagues and contacts, thus going viral!

Advertising and marketing companies have been at it for decades, anyone remember the silly Smash (instant mashed potato) adverts? The ghastly “Whassup” adverts from the late 90s? Once seen never forgotten!

Whether you like the delivery is not the point, it’s whether you remember the message and associate it with the brand and (most importantly) find it compelling enough to pass on to others, thus spreading the word about your brand or product.

The success of youtube is almost entirely dependent on viral communication, where people spot interesting, funny, horrifying or any other way memorable videos and send them around their friends and contacts using email or social media networks.

There are four ingredients to success:

1. Get the message and medium right: Your message will only be passed on if it is saying something worth hearing and says it in a way that is somehow surprising or out of the ordinary and connects or relates to your target audience.
2. Early adopters: Find a community of people who will be interested and passionate about your campaign. They will take it on board and be willing to pass on to others, they are usually among the first to get exposed to the message and who transmit it to their immediate social network, where they will connect with ‘messengers’.
3. Messengers:These are people with an exceptionally large number of social connections and can amplify your message to hundreds of contacts. But they will only do so if you have something interesting to say and an interesting ay of saying it.
4. Originality and Timing: Be the first to do whatever you are doing. Do not think that because somebody else has communicated successfully in one way, that you can guarantee success by copying them, you can’t! You will only go viral if what you are doing is both original and gets out first.

So how is higher education doing? Hmmm, not great I’d say. HE is a very conservative sector that is deeply sceptical of anything new or different. But there are some good examples. The most recent of which I have found is this video produced for the Central Institute of Technology in Australia.

It is very unconventional. You may or may not like the style, but there is some good information in there about the Institute and it is clearly doing its job, it has been viewed almost 2 million times is just 3 weeks!

Lords reform – what will Labour do?

I sincerely hope that Nick Clegg does not get his way and that the House of Lords remains (largely) as it is. Constitutional reform is one of those areas policy that I am as conservative as you can get. If it ain’t broke don’t fix it!

No legislature in the world is perfect, and as much can be said of the Lords. But in their specific duty of revising legislation to make sure it is worthy of turning into law, they have no parallel. A house of experts who have seen the effects of Government from the inside (ex-ministers and civili servants) and outside (business, charity, social, cultural, academic and religious leaders) and can make razor sharp, analytic amendments to Bills that do not receive that kind of scrutiny in the Commons.

The two houses balance themselves out perfectly. The Commons reflects the political will of the country, the Lords reflects the collective expertise of the country.

The House of Lords is much cheaper than any of the other legislatures (Commons, EU Parliament, Welsh Assembly, Scottish Parliament).

If we were to do away with the House of Lords, Parliament would still need to draw on the expertise contained in it. But probably through much more bureaucratic and exclusive means such as extensive pre- and post-legislative scrutiny, select committee hearings etc.

Finally, the argument that the second chamber could be elected and not pose a challenge to the supremacy of the first is utter tosh! Why would 200 elected senators just accept that they have less right to command the legislative agenda than 600 MPs?! It is palpably ridiculous to suggest they would.

Anyway, rant over!

Most interesting for me at the moment is waiting to see what Ed Miliband will do. Most commentators are suggesting that he will do what most oppositions do and find a niggly part of the bill that he doesn’t like the vote against on that basis, despite the fact that it was in Labour’s manifesto to reform the Lords.

I think a cleverer approach would be to watch and wait while Lib Dems and Conservative MPs tear at each other causing a whole load of strife and publicity about an issue the public will be totally bored by, then to step in and offer a grand bargain. Vote with the Lib Dems and reformist Conservative MPs to give the Bill an overwhelming majority on the Commons. That way building bridges with Lib Dems, undermining the coalition and appearing like a leader who just wants to get on with debating matters of importance.

I sincerely hope Labour takes the easy road and finds some reason to oppose this Bill because I want to see the Lords stay as it is. But it might not work out that way.