Why can't we credit New Labour with anything?
It was my son Peter who alerted me to the ghastly truth. After a BBC radio debate with John Pienaar, he told me: “Matthew Taylor was right, and you were wrong.”
Celebrating the evacuation of Dunkirk
I boarded a Norfolk Line ferry for Dunkirk to celebrate the 70th anniversary of the evacuation. Spitfires flew low alongside us and looped the loop, a great fleet of the original small boats which scooped the men off the beeches escorted us into the harbour, the bagpipes played the Last Post, and the band of the Parachute Regiment played Tipperary, and Run Rabbit Run, and We’ll Meet Again, and The White Cliffs of Dover, and all the other songs you’d expect.
And I joined the rest of the media pack, selecting for interview the best of the Dunkirk veterans lined up for our inspection, recognisable at once by their age, their crisp and clean suits, and their chestfuls of medals. And I ended the day only with questions.
Here's a quango you can axe, Mr Osborne
A socialist supporting Tory government public sector cuts? Sounds against nature. But if the rumours that George Osborne intends to take on the Training and Development Agency for Schools are true, I'll happily hold his coat and cheer him on.
Now the state school has no powerful friends left.
I ought to have smelled a rat when I went to see Lib Dem education spokesman David Laws before the election, and he wriggled like a fish on a hook.
Privatising education was a Conservative idea, but at least when Education Secretary Kenneth Baker proposed handing education to companies, the state school had the Labour Party on its side.
Read more: Now the state school has no powerful friends left.
Absolutely my last word on Triesman
An old friend who knows what he's talking about warns me against sympathising with David Triesman.