No, Tristram, no

Three points re Tristram Hunt's speech on schools:

1. Hunt has announced plans for local school commissioners who would oversee all types of state-funded schools."

What is this? Who are these? Who appoints them? What do they do? Why are they better than having local councils? Why are they better than what would be my preference: local council governance with teacher, governor, parent and pupil representation?

2. He has talked up Singapore's education system. Singapore is a very different society, Tristram. The education systems we make, Tristram, are a mixture of being both a reflection of the kind of society we have and the kind of society that education makes. Simple question, Tristram: do you want to live in a society like Singapore?

3. Hunt has talked of the virtue of taking 'oaths'…what does the swearing of oaths do? Well, Tristram Hunt would know about oaths, because he's an MP. MPs swear oaths. So if oaths are a good idea, Tristram would know just how successful MP oath-swearing has been…over, let's say, the last twenty years…On a scale of one to ten, Tristram, how successful has MP oath-swearing been in giving us MPs who are not corrupt, venal and greedy?

New Poem: Gloves

My aunt didn’t have pets but she looked

after two gloves. Indoors, it was no big

deal, we hardly noticed that she sat with

the gloves beside her on the sofa. You’d

sometimes see her patting them or

stroking them. They had their own chair

at the table. When she came to the door

to say goodbye she nearly always had

them sitting folded over her arm. It really

was no big deal. The only time it was

more of a thing was when she came over

to our place. She brought the gloves with

her in a cat basket. When she arrived, she

put the basket down on the floor and slid

the gloves out of the cat basket. They were

with her all the time she was at our house,

then when she went home she eased the

gloves back into the cat basket. The basket

was always on the seat beside her in the

car. As she drove off, we waved to her. I

think there was once or twice I waved to

the gloves.

New Poem: Dog

When I was a kid, we had a dog that

could wee bubbles. You didn’t have to

feed it anything special - not soapy water

or anything like that. What would happen

is that he just got into a certain kind of

mood and you’d see him wandering about

for a bit, he’d walk round in a circle and

then he would stand very still for a bit

and the bubbles would come out. You

could never tell when he would decide

to do it and you couldn’t make him do it.

It was just when he felt like it. I told my

friends that he could do it but they didn’t

believe me. Then they would come

over and I would say, ‘Jack, wee bubbles!’

but he never would. And even if one of them

came over for sleepovers, he wouldn’t do it.

So none of them believed me when I said

that he did.

New Poem: Hospital

When I was in hospital, once I started to get

better they would let me get up and walk

about. I used to walk out of my ward, and

down the corridors. Bit by bit I was getting

stronger. One time I got to the end of one

corridor I hadn’t walked down before and

there was a ward in front of me. I was

feeling a bit bored so I thought I would

just pop in and have a look. I noticed

that it was very quiet. For a moment I

wondered if everyone in the ward had

died. It was all so still. Instead of walking

out - which is what I should have done -

I went further into the ward. The beds

were all where they normally are, all

along the walls, some with drips or

machines of some kind. None of the

beds were empty but instead of people

in them there were chess pieces. Not

ordinary chess pieces. Human size ones.

They just lay in the beds. Not moving.

Or making any sound. Pawns, knights,

kings, queens and the rest. I thought

that I would be able to figure out some

kind of order to it: kings and queens in

some kind of special beds, or maybe the

pawns would be the nurses or the cleaners

but no, it was nothing like that. It was

just that there were all the different chess

pieces in the beds. Though now I think

about it, I don’t remember seeing a

bishop. There should have been four.

But I don’t remember there being even

one of them.

New Poem: Curtains

There was a kind of curtain or drape. Well,

two actually. I was wearing a jumper and

pushed myself through the gap between

the two curtains. There had been times when

people wanted to keep the two curtains

closed. They had sewn velcro all down the

edges of the curtains. As I pushed through,

I was attacked by the velcro. It grabbed my

jumper, down the sleeves and across my

chest. I lifted my arm and pulled it down again

quickly but the velcro stuck. The curtain

swelled up around me and into my face. I

turned round and the curtain wrapped me up.

The velcro sealed me in. I wrenched my head

back. The curtain folded over my face. I

felt my feet taking off from the floor. I lay

in mid-air and waited for someone to come

and help me. I thought, if I lie very still, I’ll

be able to breathe through the curtain that

was lying across my mouth. My arms were

tight next to my sides. The less I move, I

thought, the less I’ll need to breathe. I

listened.

New Poem: Running Away

I was in the High Street, late. Just the

street lights. The department store

that isn’t there anymore was up ahead.

One of the doors opened. Someone

came out. And then someone else.

They were naked. And smooth.

Then another one. And another. All

of them naked and smooth. Soon there

were ten or eleven of them. None of

them had hair. Or shoes. And they

weren’t walking. Or running. More like...

sliding. Their arms didn’t bend. Or their

legs. The street lights shone on their

backs. Their faces didn’t move. They

didn’t speak. They had no eyes.

New Poem: White Paint

We turned up in the yard because there

was an ad in the paper. There was a man

there who asked us if we had ever done any

painting before. I said yes. He sent me to

the top of a ladder and on to a plank. It was

high up, under the roof. There was no ceiling.

I had to paint what was the underside of the

roof. There were three of us up there. It was an

empty factory, or a hangar. Our plank was about

seven feet under the roof so we had to paint

above our heads. The man said it was best not

to look down.




It was a hot day, the sun shining on to the roof

outside. It wasn’t just that it was hot doing painting.

The roof was hot. The man said we were toshers.

Just put it on. And get it done. As the paint went on,

the heat made it fume. I could feel it spread out

under my face, into the spaces behind my eyes. It

made me smile. Thick cream paint.




I looked across to the other guys. They were

toshing. I smiled. They smiled. One of them laughed.

Don’t look down, he said. I’m not sure he said

it to me. He may have it said to the other guy. I nodded.

He nodded. There was a day at the beach. The

sand was a million fragments of glass, each

pointing towards my eyes. There was a link between

my eyes and being sick. You could look at

the brightness for so long that it flowed into your

stomach. Light waves making sick waves.

There was a presentation day once and

everyone was told to go on to the platform, shake

hands and get off the platform as quickly as

possible but this boy Jeff, got up there and waved.

He waved to his mates and they all cheered. And

that had been wrong. Jeff was wrong. He had done

a wrong thing. Jeff was wrong to have done that.

The paint was white. The smile was more like a grin

now. Like I had to pull my lips back to make room

for the fumes in my face.




The roof moved. The paint was white. The waves

reached my legs. Milk into a bucket from the cow.

Thick with bubbles. You could paint with milk.

Warm milk with cream. And it’s cream that makes

butter. Shaking it up till it gets thicker. It’s the

shaking that makes it thick.




I had to kneel down. I knelt down. I looked

across to the other guys. One of them was standing.

He had stopped painting. He was standing. I said,

‘Whooo.’ He said, ‘Yeahh.’ I said, ‘I’m kneeling.’ Then

he knelt down too. I said, ‘I’m going to lie down

now. I’m going to lie down.’ I lay down on the plank.

He lay down on the plank too. I looked at the other

guy. He was pressing on. ‘He’s good,’ I said.

He said, ‘Don’t shut your eyes.’ I shut my eyes.