Rob Shorrock

Jeremy Paxman resembling a bear in a honeypot presided over Monday nights newsnight debate between Professor Lewis Wolpert from the BHA and Truth in Science. on whether it is right to teach religious intelligent design theory on a par with scientific theory and therefore in the school science curriculum.

The approach of Truth is Science is to beguile inexperienced science teachers to teach 'intelligent design theory' as a critical position, or option, when teaching theory of evolution. Truth in Science claim that a huge number of their teaching packs have been requested, but are less clear on how they are being used in the classroom. My guess, is that science teachers are requesting them more for a laugh than any intention to use them. Well, that's my hope anyway.

Intelligent Design theory, by the way, isn't new and can be traced back to William Paley in his work from 1802 that the design of many things is so complex it is indicates that there has to be a designer - and of course this designer is God.

 Post-modernism has well and truly hit the science curriculum with this entry if it is being seriously considered. Science is a method of understanding the world based on empiricism. Intelligent Design starts from the assumption of a supernatural designer (to be precise a Christian God as I doubt the authors would have much truck with any others) and makes claims that science teaching should treat its views about the birth of the universe etc as a critical equivalent to a scientific theory.

Which goes to show that they do not undertstand the scientific method. Namely, if they are scientists and their hypothesis is that God is the intelligent designer they should work to disprove this. Unfortunately, for them anyway, this would probably be contrary to their faith as the key point of religious faith is to believe without the need for evidence.

Richard Dawkin takes this on in article for the Guardian. I will be taking it on with Lincolshire LEA to make sure that this stuff is being treated appropriately.

Discussions about a town\parish council in Grantham have started again through the vehicle of the Engagement DSP. This was an item that came up from the last Grantham Local Forum.

There is a growing groundswell of opinion that Grantham is underrepresented within the district council as it does not have a town council, unlike Stamford and Bourne and the plethora of parish councils covering the smaller towns and villages. There is also a strong perception that this problem is compounded by the fact that the cabinet of the district council contains no Grantham councillors.

The last attempt to ballot Grantham citizens on a town council in 2002 was an abortive affair - a turnout of only 2.6% of the electorate. However, a significant majority were in favour. The whole process was poorly publicised and there was no consistent campaigning to generate discussion and debate resulting in the final damp squib result which was below the required turnout to make it legitimate.

The local government white paper pledges to give new powers to parish and town councils and it would seem right that a open and genuine debate and discussion  about a town council in Grantham is stimulated. Hence, the decision of the engagement dsp to recommend to cabinet that a public assembly is held to have this debate and identify a critical mass of people that want to be involved in a campaign to establish one. Involving a multiplicity of people from the start has got to be a progressive move. This is an issue about awareness and debate - it is not just about procedure.

I think we also need to widen the debate to look at the structure of local government as a whole. If parish and town councils are able to have more powers, what does this mean for the current district and county councils' in Lincolnshire? As a local party we have pressed for reform for a long time and the idea of unitary authorities has been appealing for political and economic reasons.

I would be interested in any views about this, or any experiences that people have had of going through the process of setting up a parish or town council.

Cheers

I see that the government has decided to push ahead with the rather contentious notion that parents are utterly culpable for their anti-social offspring. Super-nannies" are to be brought in to try to improve parenting in 77 areas of England with high levels of anti-social behaviour, Tony Blair has said.

These psychologists will work with parent to develop better parenting skills and hence keep their kids on the straight and narrow. All of this, will be headed up by the deeply authoritarian Louise Casey and the 'Respect' Task force, which sounds to me like a rather expensive Maoist absurdity. Coupled, with the extension of compulsory parenting education, we are seeing a real assault on working class people, many of which will be lone mothers trying to raise children under extreme economic and social difficulty. Women are the group that are going to be most affected by this initiative.

The problem with all of this is that the evidence for whether it works or not is completely nebulous. If we look to America the evidence for the success of HeadStart (the inspiration for Sure Start in the UK) is minor in making a significant difference to childrens' life chances. Class, poverty and economic status remain the significant determinants of future academic and economic success.

The focus of the government of shifting parenting expertise from working class people to the state in an attempt to deal with anti-social behaviour and other percieved ills is deeply flawed. The real success of Sure Start programmes in this country were the ones that were developed by volunteers in the community. Parents who felt a need to come together and seek out solutions to issues that they had. Unfortunately, these were superseded by wave after wave of professional Sure Start programmes and the notion of a grass roots organisation was kicked into touch. Coupled with this was a 'professionalisation' of community action - experts and agencies had to be involved in everything that working class people wanted to do in their communities. Democratic and community control was rarely a feature.

It is worthwhile pondering that if the government sunk a fraction of what it spends on agency led initiatives into local housing compacts, tenants groups, community centres etc with some clear objectives of what they would like to see would these groups be able to deliver just as well or even better or are the issues which affect our communities just a matter for the professionals?

GOOD NEWS!

Results of the stock transfer ballot in South Kesteven:

In favour of transfer: 1278 (26.8%)

Against transfer: 3494 (73.2%)

Turnout 75.6%

This is an absolute majority of all tenants eligible to vote in the district. Superb!

What is clear is that the million pounds that went into the propaganda machine of the council and South Lincolnshire Homes was a complete waste of taxpayers money. This is bourne out if you go into the dim and distant past and look at the polls that were carried out as part of the options appraisal process. Before the council even made the decision to go down this route 62% of the polling sample were saying that they were against stock transfer. Therefore, it would seem that all the glossy leaflets, DVDs, the use of council staff to promote transfer, the mobile display unit and all the money pumped into a fledgeling housing association actually had a negative effect and more people decided that they would vote to stay with the council. The pro transfer campaign may have had a better result if they did nothing at all!

But the major and inescapable conclusion in all of this is that people want to be told the whole truth not the just the convenient bits. Above all they want to be treated like adults and have their questions answered fully and honestly. Like us they knew their were risks associated with transfer, but the pro campaign refused to talk about the risks. The pro transfer campaign was unwilling to debate issues and ideas and the councils portfolio holder refused to speak at tenants meetings. Not engaging the opposition - a tatic recommended by consultants - spectacularly backfired.

There are still a huge number of questions that need answering about all of this. But for now, it is celebration time!!!!