10/01/2007

"Two Brains" Willetts - More like "Two Planks"

David Willetts is supposedly the genius in the Tory ranks. Called two brain by the Tories because of his enormous intellect, he made an announcement today which showed that he is more likely to be known as "thick as two short planks" in future.

In a blatantly populist statement he announced that under the Tories "Snowballs and conkers would not be banned in school". What a lovely thing to announce, no doubt rejoicing can be heard in the streets of Tunbridge Wells as I type. The problem is, will David Willetts and his party colleagues announce a change in the law that will mean schools will no longer be sued ?

No, thought not. It's more Tory talk, but no action.

6 comments:

Anonymous said...

There's only one person who ends up looking thick here Nich - acceptable risk is a part of most local authority play strategies and could easily be applied to schools. A pathetic LibDem attach on the Tories simply for the sake of attacking them. Why not focus on sorting out your own party policy and dire leader before having a go at others?

Nich Starling said...

Double ignorance.

I have been outspoken in my criticism of Mimg. Obviously you have attacked me without checking your facts.

Are you saying the law will be changed ? Since most schools follow County Council policies on this and most County Councils are Tory, how come they are not telling schools that they can do these things already ?

Why is it always anonymous posters who post insults ?

Tristan said...

A two step plan:
1) Scrap the HSE (and save a load of money in the process)
2) A few court judgements saying that children will be children and schools cannot be expected to protect them from everything, only gross negligence is suing grounds.

We need to get a grip on assessing risk. Playing conkers is not dangerous, there may be 1 in a 1000 accidents, perhaps, but that is not grounds to prevent it being played (of course - it may cause fights and therefore be banned by a school for that reason).
Should we ban running round the playground? There must be countless scraped knees and worse from that...

Nich Starling said...

A good point Tristan.

I can tell you that one school I worked in paid out on a claim when they had done everything correct by the letter of the law, but in the view of Norfolk County Council's solicitors, "You can't expect children to follow safety advice so the school is liable".

Giles Marshall said...

Love the blog - one of my students put me on to you! I agree that Willets' political grasp is usually positioned some considerable distance from his alleged duality of brain power, but the BBC story suggests he may indeed be thinking of legal changes:
"He (Willets)said the Tories would introduce legal changes to encourage school trips without fear of litigation."

Of course your point remains that wishful thinking by aspiring ministers is hardly enough to encourage a battered teaching profession back in to the adventure centres...

Nich Starling said...

Thanks for that. You must have bright students ;-)

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