This is a re-post of a blog piece I wrote on my education site, mrchadburn.co.uk Excellence takes time. It isn’t an instant thing. This is what frustrates me about one of the debates on the future of teaching. Most discussion… Continue Reading
As one of, I suspect, a silent majority, I want to deliver an alternative New Year message. I’m not going to wish you a happy new year because, if you are part of the silent majority you won’t appreciate the… Continue Reading
This week, it appears, saw the demise of the (certainly for me) detested South Yorkshire Combined Authority Devolution Deal. It broke up in acrimony when, after the non-South Yorkshire councils had already withdrawn, two of the 4 South Yorkshire authorities,… Continue Reading
One measure the Conservatives want to push through parliament is where, in a ballot for strike action, a union needs to persuade 50% of its membership before a strike can take place. I don’t want to argue one way or… Continue Reading
In my second of three posts on electoral reform, I want to focus on wasted votes. A wasted vote is defined as a vote which does not help elect a candidate. By definition, our first past the post electoral system… Continue Reading
This week saw the anniversary of the Peterloo Massacre. On 16th August 1819 at St Peter’s Field Manchester, cavalry charged a crown of 60-80000 people. They had gathered to protest about a lack of parliamentary reform at the time. Of… Continue Reading
Yesterday I visited Brighouse to spend some time with family. We had a drink and a meal in the Wetherspoons pub there which was called “the Richard Oastler”. I’m always intrigued by names from the past which I’ve not heard… Continue Reading
At 1pm 100 years ago in a field hospital in Belgium Captain Noel Chavasse died of his wounds. He was one of many who died that day – the early days of the horrific battle of Passchendaele. To me looking… Continue Reading
It is August the 1st and another Yorkshire day. Twitter, Facebook and the Yorkshire Post are full of things to make you proud to be from Yorkshire or to have chosen God’s own county as your home. Last year I… Continue Reading
About three weeks ago I was walking to the train from work and, as I often do, I was listening to the radio. It happened to be Radio 4 and the programme was “In the Criminologist’s Chair”. Not my usual… Continue Reading