The following exchange in the House of Commons was last week publicised on Michael Gove – the Education Secretary’s – website:

Mr Edward Leigh (Gainsborough) (Con): The previous Labour Government tried in their last Bill to bring in compulsory sex education. The Bill before us is an excellent Education Bill, which I fully support, because it is all about devolving power to schools. Will my right hon. Friend assure me that he will resist any amendments on Report that would bring in compulsory sex education for primary schools?
Michael Gove: I am grateful to my hon. Friend for, as ever, leaping straight on to sex-I know that it is a subject of great interest to him and to many in this House. I always feel that one should discuss money before discussing sex, because the one and the other are so intimately connected in the minds of so many Members. That is why I was so anxious to ascertain whether Opposition Members were proud of the economic record they bequeathed. I am happy to reassure my hon. Friend that I will not accept amendments in Committee that seek to make the curriculum any more prescriptive or intrusive.

The utter inappropriateness of the Education Secretary’s comments about sex and money aside (in any other workplace, this would probably count as harassment), the attitude that both the Member for Gainsborough and the Secretary of State show towards Sex and Relationships Education (SRE) is appalling.
This country is in crisis when it comes to relationships, especially where young people are concerned. The Department of Education’s own advisory group on violence against women and girls reports that

• 33% of girls and 16% of boys responding to the [NSPCC] survey reported some form of sexual partner violence.
• 25% of girls (the same proportion as adult women) and 18% of boys reported some form of physical partner violence.
• Around 75% of girls and 50% of boys reported some form of emotional partner violence.
• Younger participants (aged 13 to 15 years old) were as likely as older adolescents (aged 16 and over) to experience some forms of violence.

This level of violence in teenage relationships then translates into similarly shocking rates of relationship violence against adult women and adult men, both in heterosexual and same-sex relationships.
Other commentators before me have pointed out that when it comes to SRE in primary schools we are not talking about teaching 4-year-olds about inserting tab A into slot B. We are, instead, talking about teaching children to understand and value their own bodies, be confident in themselves, and start thinking about what it means to be in a relationship with another person – emotionally, mentally, as well as physically. What exactly is so disgusting, or scary, or worrying about that? Do we really want to deny that to our children and expose them to the horrors of relationship violence? To me, that amounts to state-sanctioned child abuse.
Perhaps if Messrs Gove and Leigh had benefited from quality Sex and Relationships Education, they wouldn’t have to resort to the kind of undignified sniggering more commonly associated with 12-year-olds behind the bike sheds than the House of Commons. Perhaps then we would have an education system which is not afraid to tackle some of the key issues of our time head-on rather than running away and sticking our collective heads in the sand.

After my two posts on Newcastle libraries last week and earlier this week, David Fay, the City Libraries Manager got in touch and put the information in context. Here is an extract from his note:

Newcastle’s draft budget proposals, published on January 26, highlight that some changes will be made to the way in which some library services are delivered. Newcastle is a high-performing library service that continues to be well-resourced and supported by the City Council. The idea of a ‘Library Express’ was first developed as part of a review of libraries in 2006 and our first Library Express opened in Fawdon in December 2008. A Library Express is a collocated service with a mixture of dedicated staffing hours, self service and support from partners in a shared building (which can be a library or other suitable location).

Fawdon has been a significant success with rising book issues and library visits since the library building closed and relocated to a nearby community centre (after years of falling library business levels). We are now looking at extending this model, to maintain a library presence in all locations and to make sure that no libraries are closed.

This obviously sounds pretty sensible and like good news. I did write back with a couple of questions. I asked whether there were any figures on lending or footfall from before and after the Fawdon pilot, and also what the impact of the plans would be on jobs. Here’s what David said:

The figures for Fawdon pre and post Library Express are:

Issues:
2007/08: 14,058
2009/10: 14,751

New Members:
2007/08: 8
2009/10: 141

Visits:
2007/08: 12,948
2009/10: 18,629

The book issue figures may not look dramatic but in the previous dedicated library they were falling year on year so any increase needs to be set against this loss. New members and visits are much improved though.
Implementing Library Expresses will reduce staffing (Fawdon currently has unstaffed periods) although we will be working to make sure busy periods are covered and that staff will organise special activities like class visits. We have not agreed a final number of libraries yet but the number of full-time equivalent posts transferring could be between 8 – 10 (but this could be less). No library will be entirely self service there will be staffed periods most days.The staffing reductions will be through the use of self-issue and partnership working (Fawdon is a self-issue library). There will also be freephone links to larger libraries so that if people want to join the library or have a problem with their ticket when someone will be on hand to help. In considering Library Express locations we will also consider proximity to other full-time libraries (which in some cases could be less than 1 mile away)
I should stress that we have been keeping vacant posts available for some time so no colleagues with a permanent contract will be at risk because of these proposals.

Personally, from the information I have I am satisfied that the proposed changes to Newcastle City Libraries are not exclusively cost-cutting measures. They seem well thought through, they have been successfully trialled, and from the numbers for the Fawdon pilot the Library Express scheme does actually appear to improve the library service for end users. If it increases footfall, new memberships and issues, that looks good to me. I would of course be keen to hear from anyone in Fawdon who uses their local library.
In the meantime, I would like to thank David Fay for taking the time to get in touch, explain the situation and answer my nosy questions.

Regular readers of this blog will know that I firmly believe in keeping my friends close and my enemies closer, so I’ve been browsing the No to AV campaign website (I trust you can google). What strikes me every time I attempt to engage with the No campaign are the persistent attempts to have their cake and eat it – which are clearly failing.
This week’s “weekly reason to vote no” is the classic Nick Clegg quote calling AV a “miserable little compromise”. It’s yet another demonstration of how the No campaign is having to do the splits to try to appeal to both supporters of First Past the Post and those of us who would love to see further electoral reform beyond AV and towards proportional representation.
AV, the No campaign’s literature says, is not a proportional system (this is true, by the way, and no one claims otherwise) – implying that it is not sufficient reform. In an attempt to gain credibility with supporters of proportional representation, the campaign claims that some of their supporters – Labour MP Margaret Hodge for instance – would like to see PR, but that AV is not the right kind of reform.
At the same time, the No campaign has a detailed list of what it sees as the benefits of First Past the Post. Strong governments (ahem); one person, one vote (ahem) – you know the deal.
So which is it? Do we like First Past the Post, or do we think AV is insufficient as reform goes? Or are we simply trying to scupper the only chance of electoral reform that this country has? For all of the No campaign’s assurances that it does not take an official position on PR and that that is a separate debate, let’s face the facts here. PR is not on the table. The ballot paper will ask you to choose between two options: First Past the Post, and the Alternative Vote. Personally, I struggle to believe that this government would take a No to AV vote as desire for further or different reform. If that is what we return, it will be spun as a victory for FPTP, we will be told how much the country loves its electoral system which has worked for generations, and we will not see reform in our or our children’s lifetimes. I have talked elsewhere about why I think AV is worth having in its own right, but over and above that, as someone who truly believes that a proportional system is the way forward, voting no to AV is not an option for me.
The other thing I struggle with, of course, is to believe anything from a campaign which claims that “AV ensures that the BNP will gain more votes and more legitimacy, while not giving any help to small parties like the Green Party.” That is one attempt to do the splits too far.

Recap for those who missed my last post: Newcastle City Council is planning to turn eight libraries into “Library Express” services, with limited facilities, no staff and possibly combined with other agencies like community centres. It is not clear yet which libraries, and the plans are supposed to be implemented between April and September.
If you want to help save our libraries, here are a couple of pointers:

• The Council is looking for input on its 2011 budget, and the survey specifically contains a question about the library service. You can access the survey here. Deadline is February 11th, so please do fill it in and let them know what you think.
• Go into your local library and talk to the staff and members of the public there to find out how much they know about the plans and how they feel about them. Comment here to let me know.
• In the meantime, I’ll be looking to get in touch with the Coalition of Resistance (email me if you’re reading this), see how I can get some local media attention on this, and also look into other ways of contacting the council more directly, beyond the budget survey. I’ll keep you posted. Obviously, comment/email me if you have any thoughts on this.
• I have also asked the guys who run the map of planned library closures to add the Newcastle data to the map.

It is Save Our Libraries Day today, and I’m sitting in Newcastle City Library. It is a spacious, brightly lit building. At the same table as me are an elderly gentleman wearing a Newcastle United scarf and doing meticulous research on British royal families, and a skinny goth girl absorbed in a novel. There is WiFi here, though I haven’t bothered to ask about the access details. People are coming and going, browsing books, using computers, looking up local information and bus time tables. The staff are friendly and helpful.
The map of planned library closures doesn’t list anything for Newcastle, and there are no actions planned here today, but I thought it appropriate to wander up here, pay my fines (£2.82 – the price of being both selfish and forgetful about returning some books a couple of months ago) and talk to the staff to see if they knew anything about planned closures and changes to the library service in Newcastle.
The librarian who collected my fines (and very helpfully pointed out that I could renew books both by phone and online) says that eight libraries across the city are planned to be turned into “express libraries”: limited self-service sort of places with no staff, possibly combined with other agencies like community centres. It is not clear yet which eight, and the plans are supposed to be implemented some time between April and September. The librarian is clearly worried by this but tries to be as factual in her account as possible.
This kind of vandalism is going on all around the country: libraries planned to be closed, hours reduced, skilled and experienced staff cut to be replaced by volunteers. Now, perhaps our millionaire-riddled government can be forgiven for thinking that the library is where Papa smokes his cigars, but for the rest of us, libraries are a vital part of our community. They provide a place of learning, meeting spaces, access to important documents and information, access to the Internet, a way of participating in our society, a source of inspiration, cultural events and exhibitions, and a myriad other benefits and services to everyone in our community.
Libraries have been a second home for me for over two decades now. I actually still remember signing up for the library in my primary school. I had to get my parents to sign a form saying they would pay for any books I lost or damaged. My Dad sat me down and explained that, while he would sign the form, looking after the books I took out from the library was my responsibility and he did not expect me to lose or damage them. I was seven years old. I am 29 now, and I have yet to lose or damage a library book, late fines notwithstanding.
When we moved to Austria I was horrified to find that my new primary school didn’t have a library. I made extensive use of both our local city library and the libraries in all of my secondary schools, occasionally even skipping class to sit in the library and read instead. This was a time when most of my pocket money went on books, but there was so much more to the libraries than that. There were books I couldn’t buy because they weren’t available in Austria (pre-Amazon!) or because they were out of print; there was space to sit and think; I could take a risk and read a book I was unsure about spending money on. My school library was where I first got on the Internet – I would come in early and spend the hour before the first lesson on the Web, occasionally joined by my art teacher who was Canadian and used the computers to stay in touch with family and friends. I remember being taken by my IB German teacher to the National Library in Vienna – a vast building full of reading rooms, where most of the actual books were kept in underground archives, and you had to go through index card catalogues and request the book you wanted to be brought up for you.
The next library that truly became my home was at the University of Bath. A five-level, glass-fronted building, its front half houses computer terminals for student use, while the rear is full of books and journals. (Legend has it that the architects didn’t quite realise how heavy books were, and that if they filled the whole place with just books, it would collapse.) I practically lived in that place for four years. I roamed the compact shelving in the basement in search of old academic journals, I used the microfilm readers to look up obscure economic data, I spent my nights on the Internet, chatting to far-away friends and avoiding my coursework until 3 o’clock on the morning of the deadline, and when it came to writing up my dissertation, I banned my boyfriend from the building and camped out at a terminal with a sign next to me asking my friends to please go away until I was done.
Emotionally attached to Bath though I am, my favourite library in the world is Berlin State Library (the new building in Potsdammer Strasse). From the outside, the building is a 1970s concrete monstrosity. Once inside, though, you find yourself in a well-lit space, on multiple levels, with balconies connected by stairs and walkways. It is absolutely stunning. Unlike in the Viennese National Library, some of the books are directly accessible (though by far not the full 10 million). There are reading rooms, as well as smaller desks and reading areas hidden in between the book shelves. It is quiet and serene, a temple to learning. I did part of the research for my MA thesis there, and I wish I could have spent a lot more time there than I did.
To this day, I cannot enter a library without feeling a sense of awe as well as happiness. There is something about a building full of books, a space dedicated to human knowledge and achievement, that I find incredibly inspiring. It doesn’t matter if it is the small community library in Heaton or the State Library in Berlin – they both open windows to other worlds for all of us. Conversely, closing libraries is like closing minds, closing doors on opportunities.
I joined Newcastle City Libraries a few months ago when I needed to do some research for a piece of writing, after several years of not having a library card. Every time I’ve been to the City Library it’s been a delightful experience (even when I’ve had to pay fines), and I have found new and exciting books, or learned something new. Losing access to these spaces and resources would have a detrimental impact on me, and on the local community here in Newcastle. Don’t let it happen.

Cross-posting this from the Yes to Fairer Votes North East blog…
I have a confession to make (in case you hadn’t noticed): I’m a huge West Wing geek. One of my favourite moments is when President Bartlet hires Will Bailey at the end of the fourth season. The President says: “There’s a promise that I ask everyone who works here to make: Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful committed citizens can change the world. Do you know why?”
And Will replies, “Because it’s the only thing that ever has.”
The Yes to Fairer Votes campaign office in Newcastle is hardly the White House, but that statement is as valid here as anywhere else.
Sometimes, when you’re really really passionate about something, it’s very easy to feel that you’re the only one in the world who cares, that no-one else feels the same way, and that you’re swimming upriver. When I first got involved with the Yes campaign, I felt that way. I checked for local Facebook groups, I checked all of the affiliated organisations like Take Back Parliament, but somehow the North East seemed terribly under-represented. Since then, though, we have reached out to campaign supporters across the region and we are starting to build a solid network of passionate and committed volunteers across the region.
Every time I speak to a supporter – on the phone, in the office, or at campaign events – I am struck by the passion I encounter for electoral reform. People are tired of MPs who have jobs for life and no incentive to actually represent their constituencies. They are tired of not being able to vote for the party they actually support and having to vote tactically. They are tired of having their votes wasted. And they are jumping at the chance to have a go at changing the world.
I hear a lot of first-hand accounts of how our current electoral system lets people down. My own MP, a former cabinet minister and Labour whip, is in a seat so safe that he won’t even turn up at campaign events if there are other candidates there. Unlike one of the MPs down the road, my one at least holds a surgery – once a month, and in public. Last year, when the government pushed the highly controversial Digital Economy Bill through the wash-up process before the general election, I tried to get in touch with my MP: I wrote three separate letters, and called both his Parliamentary and constituency office twice, to no avail. This is how our democracy lets us down because MPs like mine can get elected with only 42% of the vote – or even less!
But I’m digressing. What I really want to get across is how amazing it is to be able to come together with a group of like-minded individuals and change the world. Every time I have reached out to our volunteer network and asked for help I’ve been overwhelmed by the response: whether it’s been for a street stall in Newcastle, our phone bank, or our campaign launch event on the Millennium Bridge, people have happily given up their time, travelled long distances, battled the snow, and tried something new they’ve never done before (anything from telephone canvassing to giving television interviews!) – all for this campaign.
We come from all walks of life, all ages, all political backgrounds. We are a small group of thoughtful, committed citizens, and we’re changing the world.

Like the rest of the country, I’ve been watching the London student demonstrations over the past month and been absolutely appalled at the behaviour of the police. Unlike the rest of the country, I grew up in a totalitarian state and have always been wary of the police. The Met have not exactly done anything to challenge my prejudice: Charging on horseback into a crowd of children, keeping said children in a confined space in the freezing cold for hours without access to food, water, toilets or medical care, pulling disabled people out of their wheelchairs and beating at least one protester to within an inch of his life – all of these incidents have only served to confirm my prejudice. So it was refreshing to see on Sunday that things can be different.
I’ve been keeping an eye on the Newcastle University Occupation. I’ve not been as involved with it as I would have liked to. I took some food to them, and I tried to get in to talk to them about electoral reform, but by the time I got my act together the university had stopped letting non-students into the building. I retweeted some of their tweets when I saw them, read their blog.
Throughout, I’ve been extremely impressed with the occupation. Their acts of protest have been incredibly imaginative, especially given the scarce resources they had. They were clearly committed to education and learning, putting on an alternative lecture programme when the university decided to move the lectures which were scheduled to take place in the occupied Fine Arts Building, even though both the students taking part in the occupation and the lecturers concerned were quite happy for them to take place there. When they finally suspended the occupation, one of the key reasons was to allow students who needed the Fine Arts Building for their learning to return and complete their degrees. During their action on the Tyne Bridge, the students made sure they only blocked the middle two lanes so as not to cause too much disruption. Leftover food at the end of the occupation was donated to an asylum seeker charity. The students I spoke to were all friendly, passionate and committed, and I was sorry to see the occupation suspended.
I was lucky enough to be in town on Sunday for the students’ post-occupation carnival and march. A crowd of between 50 and 100 people came down Northumberland Street and to Monument, flanked by police. They were dressed up and making noise. Once they got to Monument, the students (and a not-insignificant number of lecturers) lined up and between amusing and imaginative chants (“Cameron has a shiny face, it’s so shiny!”, “Nick Clegg is Tory, he wears a Tory hat, when he sees tuition fees he says ‘I’ll treble that!'”) members of the occupation, lecturers and union representatives addressed the crowd, thanking us for the support given.
By far the most impressive and inspiring moment was when a member of the occupation thanked the police who – by all accounts, including an incident when the occupation called the police in response to the university trying to remove one of their locks – have had a collaborative approach throughout the past month and have ensured the safety of everyone involved. One of the policemen came forward and shook hands with the student.

This shouldn’t be news. This should be how policing works. I am glad this is how it works in Newcastle.
And just because it was so much fun, here are a couple more pictures from the carnival.

What a jolly-good so-called recession we’re having, according to Lord Young. Interest rates are down so we’re paying less on our mortgages, and losing 300,000 jobs in the public sector is well within the margin of error. We’ve never had it so good! While we’re at it, why not let them eat cake?
Lord Young has now retracted and apologised for his comments, with what possibly counts as the understatement of the year – “inaccurate and insensitive”. What remains, though, is the dawning sense of realisation that the UK electorate appears to have got Marie Antoinette and her chums to run the country, during what is already a very difficult time for those below the 90th income percentile. (And remember, earning about 50k puts you that 90th percentile!)
One has to wonder whether a cabinet of millionaires – some self-made like Lord Young, others living off trust funds while telling us no one should get something for nothing like George Osborne – is in the best position to steer the country through the tough economic choices we’re facing and act in “the national interest” – if such a thing exists in the first place. Lord Young’s pronouncement is only the latest in a series of examples of members of this government being hopelessly out of touch with reality.
So maybe next time we’ll think twice before hiring Marie Antoinette to run the country. In the meantime, where’s that cake?

Earlier this week, the Labour party tried to use an arcane Parliamentary procedure to hold up the Parliamentary Voting System and Constituencies Bill. To you and me, that’s the AV referendum bill, and both the government and sections of the media the media tried to convince us that Labour’s only motivation was to try and scupper or delay the referendum. Lord Falconer, who tabled the motion to delay the bill, claims that his and his party’s concern is mainly around the second part of the bill – the one that deals with reducing the number of MPs in the House of Commons and equalising the size of constituencies. Regardless of their true motivation, I do think Labour have a point in challenging the second part of the bill.
In my own head, I have affectionately come to call the Parliamentary Voting System and Constituencies Bill the “AV and Gerrymandering Bill”. I find supporters of the coalition government get very upset by the allegation of gerrymandering, and strictly speaking the proposed redrawing of constituency boundaries isn’t likely to particularly benefit one party. Having said that, it is likely to have at least as fundamental an impact on our political system and landscape as changing the voting system to AV, and while the general public is being given a referendum on one of these issues, the government appears to be going out of its way to stop us from having a say on the other half of the bill. To quote from Labour List,

The way the change is being rushed through, though, is of more concern. It states that:
“a Boundary Commission may not cause a public inquiry to be held for the purposes of a report under this Act.”
Contrast this with s.6 of the 1986 Representation of the People Act, which the Bill intends to repeal, which gives 100 electors the power to force the Boundary Commission to exercise an inherent discretion to hold a public inquiry.

Sure, cutting the number of MPs in the House by 50 out of a current 650 doesn’t seem like a big deal – there’ll be fewer of them to fudge their expenses, the cynics might say. The proposed make-up of the constituencies, however, is another matter. For those of you not in the habit of reading Parliamentary bills (It’s fun – your should try it!), what’s proposed is the following:

• Retain two exception constituencies which will continue to have natural borders, determined by history and geography (Orkney & Shetland, and the Outer Hebrides – none of the other island constituencies get to retain their integrity);
• divide the population of the rest of the UK by 598 (the number of remaining constituencies) and call the number you get U (U is currently around 75,000);
• then draw the constituency boundaries in such a way that no constituency (except the aforementioned two) has a population of less than 95% of U or greater than 105% of U;
• whilst trying to keep Wales, Scotland, England and Northern Ireland separate, i.e. have no constituency straddling the borders.

In practice, what this means is that you start in one corner of the UK and draw a line when you reach 75,000 people; then you move on to the next bit and draw another line at the next 75,000; and you repeat this another 596 times. I reckon about 10 constituencies in, you will have lost any meaningful historical and geographic boundaries you and I might be familiar with from past elections. Not only that, but at the next election, you get to do it all again. You get a sudden influx of people into Bradford? You might as well start over with a blank piece of paper.
One of the negative effects of this approach will be on smaller parties, as LDV pointed out back in August. Most smaller parties tend to establish strongholds in particular constituencies, and this is a process which takes years if not decades. By moving to rigid constituency sizes and flexible and unnatural constituency boundaries, this tactic becomes futile.
Here’s the thing that really gets me though. Proponents of First Past the Post have two arguments why FPTP is a good voting system. The first is that it produces decisive election results and clear majority governments (and we’ve seen how well that’s going recently). The second is the constituency link: the fact that one MP represents a particular geographic area and set of voters, that they can be expected to address local constituency issues as well as attend to national matters in Parliament. This is one of the big arguments for moving to AV rather than a proportional system, as AV retains that constituency link. And yet, those same proponents of FPTP and the constituency link (no other party is as attached to FPTP as the Tories) are proposing to change the way we set constituency boundaries to something that will, for all intents and purposes, break the constituency link. No MP (other than possibly those representing Orkney & Shetland and the Outer Hebrides) will have an incentive to truly build a link with their constituency and properly represent their constituents if they know that in 5 years’ time the constituency they’ll be standing in will be profoundly different.
So next time someone extols the virtues of FPTP and the constituency link at you, or tries to get you to vote against AV in May, do ask them what they think of the second part of That Bill. It should make for interesting conversation. In the meantime, if you want to try your hand at gerrymandering, here’s a fun online game. It’s a bit US-centric but it gets the point across.