Toynbeeising Soaps

Polly Toynbee's call for soap opera's to become more politically engaged has inspired me to have a go at writing a Polly approved script for Coronation Street:

Betty: Pint of your usual Ken?

Ken: How can I drink when child poverty is increasing by 13% a month according to an Institute of Studies report and the Tory government are determined to throw the poor onto the bonfire?

Betty: Oh I know luv, I've tried getting a grant to turn the Rovers into a Sure Start Centre but it was impossible thanks to vicious Tory Cuts.

Ken: I don't have time to drink anyway, as I've got to get home to watch Ed Miliband's speech to the TUC now.

If anyone has any other ideas for Toynbeeising the soaps please feel free to offer your contributions.

The Influence Of The MSM....

.... is a lot less than is widely thought.

After the Tucson massacre there was a concerted campaign by the media, led by the New York Times and the local sheriff, to smear their political opponents by linking the killer to "polarising rhetoric", which was naturally only found on the right not the left.

So you'd think with such a concerted campaign of vilification would have results. Actually no, according to a Pew Survey, the proportion of the US population who believe that the shooting was linked to political rhetoric is.... 0.6%.

There are probably more people who claim to have been abducted by aliens.

Festive Christmas Prisoner Propaganda

One of the myriad of anti-prison groups have generated some coverage with this seasonal PR piece, faithfully reported by the BBC as news:

More children will be separated by prison than divorce this Christmas, the Prison Reform Trust has said.

The organisation is calling on people to think about the distress faced by prisoners and their families.

It says putting criminals in overcrowded prisons and breaking up families does nothing to make the public safer.

First of all it is an obviously bogus claim that prison has a bigger impact than divorce in separating children from their parents. There are millions of divorced parents whereas the prison population is stuck at around 80000, most of whom are not parents anyway. Secondly it is equally untrue to claim that locking up criminals doesn't make the rest of us safer, do these people think that if criminals are jailed then someone else will carry out the crimes that they would have committed in order to keep the numbers up?

Lastly if they think that Christmas will make the public more receptive to pro prisoner propaganda then they are deluded. The worst time of year for this sort of thing is when the inevitable spate of burglars nicking the presents of children arrives.

Ed Balls Does It Again!

The OECD education rankings that showed that British children are performing poorly in measures of literacy, science and numeracy were released earlier this month. Oddly enough enough I can't find any reference to the results on the Department for Children, Schools and Families* website. Since the results were released the department has managed to find room for press releases such as:

KEVIN BRENNAN PLAYS FOR LITERACY AND NUMERACY SUCCESS AT WEMBLEY
BALLS AND JOHNSON ANNOUNCE REVIEW OF CHILD AND ADOLESCENT MENTAL HEALTH SERVICES
ED BALLS LAUNCHES PLAN FOR CHILDREN
ED BALLS ANNOUNCES PILOTS TO HELP CHILDREN WITH DYSLEXIA

I realise that parents, children and teachers are all on tenterhooks waiting to hear about Kevin Brennan's Wembley exploits, but you would have thought that the publication of the most widely recognised international education rankings would merit a brief mention.