The Wardman Wire

The University and College Union has published a “report” claiming that there is a “true postcode lottery for education”, based on a belief that the percentage of people in any Parliamentary Constituency with higher qualifications determines how likely people from that area are to obtain such qualifications:

This report shows how access to education is divided up, using national league tables and an analysis of 21 of our biggest cities. It shows that where you live is a key determinant of whether you will gain qualifications.

The Press Release postulates this link:

The union said today that it believes education holds the key to improving social mobility, tackling poverty and extending opportunity for all. However it warned that the report shows the current divide between the haves and have nots is growing, with where you live largely determining your access to education.

That paragraph is fine, apart from the last sentance. The research to prove this link has not been done or documented. The UCU material is a simple ranking of data produced by a third party, interpreted to suggest that where people who already have degrees (actually NVQ Level 4 which means HND or above, not degree) live is a measure of areas with high or low educational achievement, and hence to all the wonderful unjustified conclusions splattered across the press today.

This video, produced by Brynmawr filmmaker Peter Watkins-Hughes in conjunction with Gwent Police and Tredegar Comprehensive School, has quickly become an international viral hit. Featuring young women from the school it has very little dialogue so has featured on blogs all over the world because the visual message is extremely impactful (literally).
‘Cow’ tells the tale [...]

Regular readers of the Wardman Wire will know that I’ve been involved with others in a campaign to place a spotlight on the mismanagement and asset-stripping of the chain of 25 bookshops which used to go under the name of SPCK. See the SPCK SSG News and Information blog for more information about the overall campaign.

A community of campaigning bloggers, and a wider international network based mainly on Facebook and other social media sites, has had a significant role in this over a period of more than 2 years – gathering information, exposing a fraudulent bankruptcy attempt, keeping the Charity Commission on the case, and keeping the spotlight on the case. But this still has a long way to run – notably because there are still many small businesses who were simply never paid. The ex-SPCK staff will be having a well-deserved victory party, though.

The two Facebook groups are We Support Dave Walker (who was “Cease and Desisted” after 18 months of objective reporting), and A group for all those people who mourn the tragic demise of SPCK Bookshops, which still have a combined membership of well over 500 activists and supporters.

For today, I’m highlighting the huge credit due to the USDAW legal team and the ex-staff who kept on going for so long. This is the full USDAW Press Release. The “notes to editors” at the end have a good summary of the history of the aspects of this case dealt with by USDAW.

This is an idea for a new non-partisan (or cross-party) group blog to cover Welsh Politics.

Most people know that I have been running a blog aggregator (politics-wales.co.uk) for a couple of years, with a combined Welsh Politics news feed at feeds.feedburner.com/politics-wales.

At present the site has a problem in that it has been auto-hacked through a weakness in the version of Wordpress used. I can clear it out, but it will take a full day to rebuild the site in another, clean, account. I can build a brand new blog in less time than that.

I am wondering if now – 1 year before a General Election – is a suitable time to move the politics-wales site over from being a pure aggregator to being a political group blog about Welsh Politics, since I can build one of those just as easily. This seems to me to be a gap in the market in commentary on Welsh Politics.