I just wanted to give a quick demonstration of the utterly facile nature of the Conservatives at the moment:
What’s gone wrong? Again if we don’t understand why Labour are failing we won’t succeed. I think it’s because the reform has been topped down. Targets imposed from above, endless re-organisation…
…we’ve got to scrap those top down targets and trust our professionals in the NHS…
…we’ve got to replace those process targets with measures of outcomes that’s what people care about…
…we will reform the police. We will cut out that paperwork, we will get rid of the performance assessments, get rid of the targets…
(Source: Cameron’s 2007 conference speech, BBC News – my emphasis)
Please ignore, for the moment, the idiocy of talking about how ‘measures of outcomes’ are completely different from targets to consider two news articles from the past week:
The government has denied a Tory charge that it has dropped targets for reducing truancy in England’s schools.
(Source: ‘Pupil absences reopen controversy’, BBC News)
The Conservatives have attacked the government over plans to “deep clean” English hospitals after ministers said it would not be centrally monitored.
(Source: ‘Hospital deep clean ‘a gimmick”, BBC News)
Which is it then Dave?
(Edit – oh, and in this article on Jack Straw: “in a speech to Cambridge University’s law faculty” – I was there! 
)
“Where the customer is sometimes right”
This week’s essay is on Thatcherism. Eugh. That’ll be fun, won’t it? Still, for all her faults she doesn’t seem to have been as bad as Calvin who got a nice lecture devoted to him this morning. You don’t really have to martyr yourself to Freud to see that sending round thugs ‘elders’ to people’s houses who are suspected of the grievous act of dancing might indicate a teeny weeny bit of sexual repression lurking underneath the curly-bearded man. Let it out man!
On the topic of sexual repression, you can stop e-mailing me to tell me that Dumbledore’s gay now welcome news as it is! It did remind me of one of the most irritating aspects of the last Harry Potter book, which was (and stop reading for spoilers) the ‘marriages’ of some of the main characters at the end. I don’t have the book to hand, but as far as I can remember – and Sanna semi-confirms this – it doesn’t actually say they are married. Couples, sure, with children, yes, but not married. Evidently David Cameron’s marriage bribe policy doesn’t apply to the magic world.
I’ve already shoved my photos up on Facebook and e-mailed some round, but did mean to blog a few too:
Me and Sophie
Joe, Yang and Irfan
The great hall!
During dinner, my DoS was interested about why people blog. I’m not entirely sure, but to be honest the prospect of writing a private diary fills me with dread (plus the desire to talk in the third person would probably be irresistibly overwhelming) so I’m not planning to stop any time soon 
It’s a busy weekend – Lucy’s visiting! – but luckily I have an extra day to do my essay on due to some fortunate shifting around of times, although I’ve already started writing this week’s piece on affluence. Ah, affluence. The Labour Party’s reaction to affluence during the 1950s can be summed up – if I may be so bold – as a sort of grumpy irritation. My absolute favourite historical fact of the week, though, comes from Contemporary British History, 1931-61:
“The promotion effort to push Limmits, an early slimming product, had to be rethought when research found that working-class women did not particularly mind being overweight, and indeed associated stoutness with a range of positive characteristics.”
Well, it amused me
Oh, and my old friend Ankit sent me photos of his first flight. His first flight! As a pilot! Here I am, can’t even drive, and he’s flying… wow!
Requiring the publication of a certain number of highly amusing quotes in one day:
The Conservatives have lost a battle to keep an £8.3m bequest by a man whose son described him as delusional.
Pharmaceuticals mogul Branislav Kostic, who died in 2005, wrote his will in the 1980s after saying Mrs Thatcher would save the world from “satanic monsters”.
But his only son Zoran, 50, contested the bequest at the High Court, saying his father was “deluded and insane” and he was entitled to the entire estate.
Source: BBC News
So it’s now acceptable to argue in court that one must be ‘deluded and insane’ to donate to the Tories?
(Warning – vital context has been removed from the story in order to facilitate this blog entry.)
The one breathing space in the week – between handing in my weekly essay and Supervision tomorrow – and consequently a perfect time to blog. I’m just committed the intellectual version of gym membership, paying an absence amount of money for lifetime membership of The Cambridge Union Society and hoping that this outlay will encourage me to go. Although I really shouldn’t need much prompting, with an incredible array of speakers and debates to tempt me over three years.
On the topic of extravagant spending, or not, I’d like to take a moment to evangelise the McFlurry. Despite claims to the contrary, a McFlurry is a truly wondrous piece of design – not just for the food – but, I think, for the spoon. After being lured into the bright lights of McDonald’s last night to buy one, I was reunited with the big, thick, square spoon you get with a McFlurry. It’s a power spoon. You don’t peck at a McFlurry, you eat it boldly, griping the spoon \ shovel as required. No-one could argue that masculinity was ever in crisis when we still have the McFlurry.
(Try not to take the above too seriously, yeah?)
Tonight I’m going out to celebrate Yang’s birthday. Happy birthday Yang! He lives down my hall and is currently drowning in medical textbooks which are each the size of a hefty child. While I’m on my cherished Monday afternoon, hehe.
Linda Moffitt on Colombia: “Such a sweet memory of the four of you meeting up in Colombia!” Dec 2, 07:42
