On Balance

It looks as if the new City Academy in Consett is not going to be sponsored by Sir Peter Vardy's Emmanuel Schools Foundation, and I am in any case a supporter of the consortium including both the local authority and the University of Durham. But with the serious likelihood that the man who runs a lapdancing club there, among other venues less than befitting what was once a proud town, is to have the license of another of his establishments extended to four of five in the morning, the balancing influence of an Emmanuel Academy seems positively attractive.