“To win the people, always cook them some savoury that pleases them.” Aristophanes, The Knights
Local elections loom and a stellar cast of the utterly hopeless will be banging on your door soon to beg for your vote. They will promise to change things they barely understand let alone have any power to do so. Roll up, roll up!
Here in Britain, still a home to good old democracy, we can still do a good job of making a Banana Republic look palatable, especially in Bradford.
The CEO of Bradford Council, Invisible Kersten, launched the elections last week. The Council website stated helpfully there are a number of ways to have your say…you can vote in person at a polling station, by post, or by appointing someone you trust.
Here in Bradford we have helpful chaps who will not only collect your vote but will fill it in for you. Roll up, roll up!
Just Not Rocket Science
Conservative MP Robert Halfon is Chair of the Parliamentary Education Select Committee plus a regular contributor to the pages of The Yorkshire Post.
More often than not he is well worth a read and appears to have far better grasp of matters than the calamitous Gavin Williamson, Secretary of State for Education.
Writing last weekend – see here Halfon made some suggestions as to how children might catch up on lost schooling.
Would you believe it, in there was good old PE as a means of boosting mind and body? Here are some key points:
…one in three primary school age children is overweight or obese, and that children living in the most deprived areas are almost twice as likely to be obese…inactivity among today’s young people is estimated to cost £53.3bn during their lifetimes.
There is also an established link between physical activity and better mental health. Children…are 20 per cent less likely to suffer from a mental health disorder…extra-curricular activities linked to sport increased their (under-achieving children) numeracy skills, on average, by 29 per cent.
I will bang on about this till the worms have me but it is clearly not rocket science. How many more generation of kids will the politicians fail simply because they fall within the state system?
Footnote
Figures announced this week in Bradford stated “that 22.3% of reception children in the district were classed as overweight or obese. This rose to 40.8% by the end of Year 6 (aged 11).” It is simply pitiful.
Brutalism
More news from the Ray Charles School of Architecture and Conservation here in Bradford with the latest plans – aka quick fix on the cheap – to restore another spectacularly ugly building. This time it is Arndale House on Charles Street.
Apparently the windows are knackered so conservation goes out of the…window! Plans have now been submitted to fit UPVC to save a few quid. Specialist developers – Bodgit, Cladit and Legit – confirmed that they had done a buy one, get one free “special” and the windows would look “minty”.
And here is a great quote from the T&A article: It was feared that replacing the floor length windows with UPVC windows in three segments would spoil its Brutalist character. Even Kevin McCloud (Grand Designs) on acid would not come out with claptrap like that.
As for the Bradford Civic Society: Sadly, these kinds of decisions risk setting a precedent for low quality design in central Bradford, which could ultimately lead to a saturation of poor-quality flat conversions. Wakey, wakey here in Shoebox City.
Only in Bradford would we be considering saving a giant breeze block. Once again it is merely about knocking a few more numbers off the ridiculous figure committed in the Local Plan.
It is also indicative of the wholesale lack of appetite from external investors in Hapless’s Happy Valley.
Leave a Reply