The EDL are not welcome in Telford

If there is one thing that unites the mainstream political parties here in Telford it is a belief that the town's cosmopolitan population is one of its greatest assets. The only group who seem to be ignorant of this is the English Defence League. What the EDL and their supporters fail to understand is that good will and a strong sense of fellowship is the hall mark of Telford; tolerance and acceptance is here in abundance. I have not met one person who has expressed support for the EDL demonstration, and many have told me of their sadness and concern that our town will be subjected to their hateful behaviour. Local people are attempting to build a society where violence and intolerance play no part – this I witness every day, and it fills me with pride for our town. There is always room for reasonable debate about community relations but the EDL are not the people to lead it. They are as unwelcome as their antecedents in the National Front and the BNP and they should stay out of Telford – and everywhere else.

Shame on the Co-op!

You may be aware that the Co-op announced earlier today that it will continue to advertise in the News of the World. This is in stark contrast to the likes of Ford, NPower, Halifax, T-Mobile and others have all announced that they are at least reconsidering their advertising contracts with the NOTW.


In response to today's revelations the Co-op stated: “These are allegations. We have no plans to withdraw our advertising.”

Lets consider some of the facts shall we:

1. The Chair of the Press Complaints Commission today stated that the NOTW lied to the PCC.


2. The former editor of the NOTW and current UK Chief Exec of News International, has told a Select Committee that the paper has in the past paid police officers for information.


3.The private investigator who hacked into Milly Dowler's voicemail, has released a statement in which he made no denial of the allegation, but instead clearly stated that his work was at the request of NOTW journalists.

Want to get the Co-op to change their mind? You can phone their Customer Relations line on 0800 068 6727 or email their Head of Marketing, a lady called Gill Barr Gill.Barr@co-operative.coop.


If like me you are a Co-op member or if you use any of the Co-op's services, why not give them a call or write them an email and tell them - politely, but firmly - how you feel about their much-vaunted ethical policy in the light of their continued enthusiasm to pay money to a newspaper which has ALREADY admitted criminal behaviour, and which on a day to day basis is exposed as have committed more, worse each time.

Book review: Children don't start wars by David Gribble

My review of David Gribble's 'Children don't start wars' has just been published on the Times Educational Supplement's website

As adults we more or less accept that our physical skills and abilities will decline as we get older and, despite what some might say, there is incontrovertible evidence that intellectually we become less alert, less flexible and less reliable after the age of about 25. The question is, does an individual’s ability to make clear moral choices also diminish with age? After all, it is adults who start wars and major international conflicts, not children.

This is the theme of a new book by David Gribble, called Children Don’t Start Wars, in which he asserts that children have moral perceptions which weaken with age and particularly when they come under pressure from monolithic and inflexible institutions and from peer pressure within the adult world.

Gribble argues that children, and especially young children, do not judge, they care; they do not hate, they love. The book begins with an account of how a Puerto Rican high school in Chicago faced up to gang culture and goes on to cleverly deconstruct William Golding’s Lord of the Flies. He also, convincingly in my view, investigates and exposes the shortcomings of many of the long-established research studies, such as that of Piaget, that looked only at the reactions of boys and not girls.

According to Gribble, the systems of parenting and schooling which dominate western cultures are deliberately designed to train children to withstand emotion. In a powerful section of the book, he suggests that part of the growing up process is learning not to cry over fairy tales. This results in people learning not to care too much about the fate of characters in fiction and therefore diminishing its power to move us and leading to a level of indifference to the sufferings of real people.

Children do not make this distinction; they see suffering and want to stop it, see unfairness and want to expose it. Gribble wants us to listen to children more often and more attentively; he wants us to be true to our collective word and ensure that our actions lead to a cleaner, safer and more peaceful planet.

The problem with the book lies not with the main assertion but with the practical classroom application of its contents. Who is this book aimed at: children, teachers or parents? Is it designed to stimulate discussion at classroom level or to inspire busy teachers to think again about the theoretical framework that underpins their own approach to pedagogy?

It is hard to discern the existence of a coherent thread that runs through the entire book. For example, the 19 chapters (the book is 226 pages) range from an exploration of what constitutes collective memory to a chapter titled “objections” that ends with an excursion into etymology.

Though published in 2010, the book is dominated by the author’s personal anecdotes from the 1970s, 1980s and 1990s and fails to engage the reader on almost any level.

Do adults have a monopoly on wisdom? No, of course they don’t - but then again neither do children!