It was superb to hear Robert McCartney, now Chairman of the National Grammar Schools Association, on The Moral Maze last night. He broke one of the great taboos and pointed out the fact that the Secondary Modern schools were vastly better than that which has so very often replaced them, delivering exactly as much academic and technical education as most people really need and can take in.
In the flesh, I have heard him speak powerfully of the disenfranchisement of the people of Northern Ireland by the failure of the main British parties to organise there, thus making the constitutional question the point of elections, even though very few (and very rich) must ever have been those who woke up every day worrying about it. The Tories’ little-known organisation in Northern Ireland, now being wound up, was meaningless in the absence of that of the others, and constituted the ridiculous spectacle of an integrationist secession from the UUP under the aegis of what was itself the party of the Anglo-Irish Agreement.
Although there is much of the unsung prophet about McCartney, it is nevertheless hard not to chuckle at the thought of an integrationist party which existed only in Northern Ireland; Trotskyist parliamentary candidates, and anarchist parties, do rather spring to mind. But then again, what alternative did he have? (Although what stopped him, once an MP, from joining Labour at the address of the flat that he presumably kept in London, and then applying for the Labour Whip?)
Westminster politicians and their approved pundits may and do bemoan the carve-up of Northern Ireland’s government between the most grotesquely exaggerated expressions of the two “sides”. But, going at least all the way back to the creation of Stormont, they have only themselves to blame.
Instead of taking a peerage, David Trimble should have applied for safe Tory seats over him. He would have got one. How many applications do they receive from Nobel Laureates?
But McCartney can never be a Labour MP, because he is in favour of the grammar schools, and thus also of the excellent Secondary Moderns. So what is ostensibly the party of Ellen Wilkinson and George Tomlinson does not want to know.
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Of course McCartney is regarded by those who know him as an idiot.
ReplyDeleteAnd powerfully rejected by the electorate as was his UKUP.
We have a saying here about "starting a row in an empty house". McCartney is the sort of man who actually looks for empty houses to start a fight in.
The UUP have now of course joined with the British Conservative Party.
The alliance are already linked to the Liberal Party.
And Mark Langhammer...previously a Councillor of the "Bring A Bottle Party" (honestly!) in Newtownabbey has given up his losing fight to have Labour organise in Norn Iron......and is now a member of the (Dublin) Irish Labour Party.
There is nothing wrong with argumentative politicians. We have far too much "consensus" these days, and Northern Ireland is now arranged specifically so that everyone is in government all the time, with no one asking any questions.
ReplyDeleteMcCartney was spot on and very eloquent about the grammar schools last night. He might have asked why, if comps were so wonderful, Peter Hain imposed them on Northern Ireland as a punishment?
It is Labour's fault that either Gerry Adams or Peter Robinson has ever been an MP when their seats should have been safe Labour, but couldn't be. And half a dozen or more Labour MPs from Northern Ireland would have ensured a more sensible education policy.
But Alliance aren't really the LDs John, that's the point. Nor are the UUP the Tories even now.
ReplyDeleteExactly.
ReplyDeleteNorthern Ireland would never have got into the condition that it did if votes there had counted towards changing, or not changing, the government.
Whereas now they don't count twice over: at Westminster, and at Stormont.
The Alliance Party is very much the Lib Dems.
ReplyDeleteThe problem with argumentative politicians is that they argue with their own members to the extent it collapses. The UKUP for example.
Gerry Adams of course a Catholic Grammar School Boy. Like...me. Funnily enough the same Catholic Grammar School.
I should point out that he is three years older than me.
And he looks it.
ReplyDeleteHowever close may be Alliance's relationship with the Lib Dems, they are not the same party. The Tory organisation is Northern Ireland has been, and remains, ridiculous without Labour and Lib Dem ones.
As long ago as the Forties, Sinn Fein was bemoaning the erosion of its base of support by the policies of the Attlee Government. But Attlee never seemed to get the message.
So those people were left still having to vote for Sinn Fein, and the Protestant working class was left still having to vote for UUP, because there was no one else for them to vote for.
Actually Gerry is looking surprisingly chipper these days. I bumped into him at a book signing last month...
ReplyDeleteHe bought me a cup of tea and a wagon wheel at the book signing.
I feel....compromised.
The image of him with a cup of tea and a wagon wheel is just priceless.
ReplyDeleteDespite McCartney's claimed left-wing sympathies, these were not noticed when he was an MP. No surprise that he has emerged supporting another right wing cause.
ReplyDeleteThis is not a "right-wing" cause. This is the cause of "Red Ellen" Wilkinson of the Jarrow Crusade, and of George Tomlinson, when they were Education Ministers. This is the cause of Sidney Webb and R H Tawney. And this is the the cause of Labour councillors and activists around the country, not least while Thatcher, as Education Secretary, was closing so many grammar schools that there were not enough left at the end for her record ever to be equalled.
ReplyDeleteThe Tories love comprehensive schools. They suit their own nastiest side down to the ground. They saved private schools, almost all of which would have closed within ten years if comprehensivisation had not come along. And they actively restrict the best schools to those whose parents can afford either private school fees or wildly inflated house prices.
Now wonder that the Tories spent eighteen years leaving the comps exactly as they were, and recently voted in favour of a Government Bill banning the creation of any more grammar schools.
As I recall Gerry actually had a cup of tea and a Twix.
ReplyDelete