Better late than never

I did see this news item earlier or, to be absolutely accurate, early yesterday evening but decided to have dinner at the best Polish restaurant in London (well, one of the two best but this one is a good deal cheaper than the other one).

We have another and quite an important defection from the Conservatives. No, not Douglas Carswell or Daniel Hannan. Heaven forfend. But Roger Helmer, who has had a good deal of trouble with the party and has been semi-detached in the European Parliament for some time, has finally taken the plunge.

I first saw the news on Autonomous Mind (the Boss's great buddy) who linked both ConHome, where Tim Montgomerie does a fair job of explaining Helmer's decision and where the comments are surprisingly well balanced  and the BBC news item.

It took him a long time and a good many problems not least the most recent one over who should move up to take his place at the head of the Conservative list when he retires. As readers might recall, Mr Helmer decided to stay on when he realized that CCHQ was going to mess around with the list to prevent Rupert Matthews from becoming an MEP. Now CCHQ can rejoice at having lost an MEP as Mr Helmer will not resign but then nobody ever does when they cross from one party to another. With the party list system that is undoubtedly a problem but so far nobody has managed to solve it. Then again, individual MPs who cross the floor in the Commons refuse to resign and have a by-election so all arguments for Mr Helmer to resign will be ignored.

At the moment UKIP is whooping with joy. But problems will arise. What will happen at the next European elections? Will Mr Helmer stand? If he does he will expect to be top of the list in East Midlands. That might cause some frictions. Even more importantly, just how does the Great Leader, Nigel Farage feel about this? He is, naturally enough, grinning happily as he stands next to the new UKIP MEP. But let us not forget that the question, which is raised every time UKIP does badly in elections about the leader, "if not Nigel Farage then who" will now have a very different answer. It is no longer nobody but "what about Roger Helmer". Interesting times ahead in UKIP.

Well, that was worth it

A friend sent me these links as it is hard to find the story in the British media. From LiveLeak: a delightful little snippet of Libyan NTC Islamists destroying British and Commonwealth war graves in Benghazi. The lads seem to think this is quite a good way of passing their time. And just in case you are about to tell me that the story is dubious here is the statement by the Commonwealth War Graves Commission:

It's now reported from Benghazi that two Commonwealth War Graves cemeteries have been damaged in attacks over the weekend - both the Benghazi War Cemetery and now the Benghazi British Military Cemetery. We are awaiting a detailed report but in both cemeteries, headstones were broken and disfigured. Both cemeteries will be restored to a standard befitting the sacrifice of those commemorated at Benghazi, but this could take some time because we will need to source replacement stones.

Mr Cameron, why exactly did we intervene in Libya? What are we getting out of the whole adventure? An ally?

How long do we go on wasting money

A new charity has been set up to deal with the lack of numeracy among the British population, especially its children.

Poor numeracy is blighting Britain's economic performance and ruining lives, says a new charity launched to champion better maths skills. The group, National Numeracy, says millions of people struggle to understand a payslip or a train timetable, or pay a household bill. Government figures show almost half the working population of England have only primary school maths skills.

A government spokeswoman said poor numeracy was a national scandal.

The new organisation quotes from research suggesting weak maths skills are linked with an array of poor life outcomes such as prison, unemployment, exclusion from school, poverty and long-term illness.

Poor numeracy is, indeed, a problem at that very basic and other levels. Our engineering firms are struggling to find a sufficient number of British employees not because every foreign worker will take lower wages or work 20 hours a day but because our schools do not teach basic numeric skills without which it is impossible to study engineering.

Poor numeracy means that basic economic factors remain a closed book to most people.

Poor numeracy means that any old rubbish produced by the Warmists, the Europhiliacs or the plain old statist banker-bashers is accepted without the slightest question by a hefty proportion of the population with politicians and the media cheerfully playing to the gallery.

In fact, this blog has already noted that City AM was starting a campaign to improve teaching of basic economics and suggested that Mr Gove's call at the time for maths teaching up to the age of 18 was misguided until the standards of teaching are improved.

I have also written about the campaign started by the Evening Standard to "get London reading", which called for volunteers to go into schools to teach children, for most of whom English is the first language, to read. Similar campaigns are being waged in other cities.

So there we are: in a country where many billions of pounds are spent on a national education system, where children start attending school earlier than in any other country and stay in compulsory, free at the point of delivery education for longer than in any other country, we are desperate for volunteers to teach basic literacy and numeracy because teachers apparently cannot be expected to do so. Is it not time we drew the obvious conclusion about our education system and about a large number of teachers who work in it?

While we are on the subject of London's schools I need to appeal to any reader who lives in London. Do NOT vote for Siobhan Benita, the former civil servant who happens to be female and rather photogenic, thus getting a good deal of media time and who has, therefore, been described as a radical. Actually, she is an old-fashioned left-wing statist who cannot envisage any system in which individuals or orgganizations of any kind are allowed to take any decisions for themselves. She is also remarkably ignorant about the role of the Mayor, preferring to run on the well-used ticket of "being against the white, male, middle class establishment". (I wonder how Ken Livingstone and Jenny Jones, the Green candidate, feel about that.) Oh yes, let me not forget that she is also a mother and used to work for Sir Gus O'Donnell.

If all the above had not disqualified her from being allowed anywhere near even a whelk stall, never mind a fishmonger, here is the clincher:

She is at her most passionate on education, and even if it is technically beyond the remit of Mayor of London, she says she is committed to reform in London. She is no fan of academies and "unfair" choices.

She says that grammar schools do not lift up the less well-off: "At the moment we have a system where if you can pay to tutor your kids - which is what most people do - and move into an area where the schools are good, then you're fine.

And if not, you're left behind. I say choice doesn't work. I don't think you should stop as Mayor until you're saying that every school in London needs to be excellent."

It strikes me from those and some other paragraphs that even the Evening Standard is beginning to tire of her performance. Let us hope she is soundly trounced.

On the New Culture Forum

Andrew Breibart - my short obituary.

Here are the figures

As readers of this blog know I have very little time for Open Europe's endless call for that elusive reform of the EU. However, when they deal with facts, they are worth listening to as they have the resources and they use them to produce good research of primary material.

Here is their analysis of the second Greek bail-out. The figures are not good. Well, you would not have expected them to be so. Reading the key points will take a couple of minutes. Then go and have a stiff drink.

A moderately happy birthday to the BBC World Service

The BBC World Service (formerly, when I was working there full time, the World and External Services) was celebrating its 80th birthday yesterday. The video shows some of the amazing features of Bush House, its home since 1940, which they will be leaving this summer, to relocate in Broadcasting House, whence they had been driven by a German bomb.

The move from Bush House has been discussed for years, if not decades. It makes a great deal of sense both from financial and technical point of view. Still, it is a sad thought when one thinks of the historic events that took place in that building and the many broadcasts that went out from there at so many historic moments. I have many personal memories of the place but am looking forward to seeing the new equipment in the new Broadcasting House that is never going to be as attractive but may be more useful.

Needless to say, it being the BBC, there was a row about the birthday celebrations with the highly regarded former managing director John Tusa protesting at what he saw as the ridiculously wrong decisions taken about the invitation list.

This is sad news

There is, I know, a good deal of sad news around but this has affected me more than others

Andrew Breitbart, one of the most influential conservative bloggers in the US, the founder of Big Hollywood and Big Journalism, among others, the scourge of the left-wing media (not many others) has died of a heart attack at the age of 43. I am told, that, as ever, there is a great deal of rejoicing in what in America is called liberal circles. Well, they are right from their point of view if more than a little tacky: he was an enemy they feared.

Here is Ed Morrissey's obituary on Hot Air. More on Gateway Pundit and Michelle Malkin. There will be many stories in the hours and days to come so I apologize ahead for not posting any more links.