Why Militant was expelled from the Labour Party

The Cane

The late Chris Woodhead was wrong to think educational theory is pointless. Everybody has a theory of education. The taxi driver who took me from Moodlemoot to Milton Keynes station certainly did.

I won’t bore you with everything he said when he found out I was “one of those politically-correct nancy boys called teachers” but it would be no exaggeration to say he wants every classroom to be like a less pleasant version of Guantanamo “to teach the little c*nts to behave.”

I don’t know how many of his passengers get in his cab and tell him how to be a cabbie. Perhaps a lot of them do which would explain why he is so bitter and twisted.

I was not going to go into the detailed educational theory involved so I told him three things:

I went to a school where the school bully was caned every week, sometimes every day. He went in a bully and he came out a bully with a sore backside. It did not help his victims.

My brother went to a school where the cane was used much more often than it was in mine. The behaviour at his school was substantially worse than it was at mine by any measure. The opposite of his theory.

I was caned for drawing a cartoon. It did work. I have never drawn a cartoon since.

It was all anecdotal of course but better than nothing. The temptation after a tiring day was to let him have his say. If everybody does that he will assume everyone agrees with him, “even some ponce of a teacher I had in here the other day!”


(Yes I know Woodhead is still alive but a man can dream!)

Militant 1964-1997

Mass rally on Saturday 13th October,
Assemble in Clair Park,
Perrymount Road,
Haywards Heath
at 9.30am
(Admittedly Nicholas Soames will be there but come anyway!)

New Labour and torture

An astonishing 30 percent of Americans in a recent poll thought that torture was justified. The British government does not torture but it exports the job of torturing to other governments which is just as bad....arguably worse.

It is everybody's nightmare to be tortured but a democratic government which hands over the job to undemocratic governments is disgusting beyond belief.

I can't believe I used to be a member of the Labour Party. What has the party of Keir Hardy become?

Local Accident and Emergency Services

Both major parties aim to cut NHS spending.




The Conservative Party has hypocritically opposed the closure of - for example - the Princess Royal Accident and Emergency department. At the same time they promise massive tax cuts. which can only mean cutting services and so-called "efficiency savings", "cutting out waste"

The Sheffield Survey conducted by the Medical Care Research Unit concluded that "Increased journey distance to hospital appears to be associated with increased risk of mortality. Our data suggest that a 10-km increase in straight-line distance is associated with around a 1% absolute increase in mortality."

To put it another way, more people will die.

The demonstration against the cuts to Princess Royal is on 13th October. Oddly the website does not have the venue but it will be posted here asap.

Save the Princess Royal!

Well that is a rather unusual sentiment for me. I mean the hospital not the parasite.

Martin4VP on youtube

The smoking video on teachertube

Teachertube is rather more difficult than youtube. For example it does not give readymade embedding code.... but it is worth persevering!




Click here if the video does not appear on your browser!

Signs of the Times

Oh well probably there are better ones but these are good for a small smile anyway.