Gary's views

TEACHERS

This week is a nervous time for many households who will find out whether they have been allocated their first choice of school for their child. I can remember it well first time around and am about to go through it all again, one step removed, with the grandchildren. Most years I also do my best to help a number of constituents battle the system and try and get their loved one into their chosen place of learning.

For busy, committed parents few things are more important than seeing your children settled into a good school. It can set them up for life. It is a weight off your mind. No wonder that being in the catchment area of a top-ranking school can add thousands of pounds to the value of a house.

We are fortunate in this area to have excellent schools at both primary and secondary level. I have not yet visited a school in Plympton, Plymstock or Ivybridge that I would not have been happy to send a child of mine. This cannot be said of every part of Plymouth. Many of our schools are truly outstanding.

What makes a school successful? Leadership from the top is crucial, setting the culture of a nurturing, aspirational but disciplined environment. Then, the ability and commitment of teachers makes all the difference. I do not think we say a huge “thank you” enough to the dedicated teachers we have in this part of the world. When I was preparing for university we used to have an expression: those that can, do – those that can’t, teach. This is utter rubbish and always was. I can still remember the teachers who made an impact on my life: John Lello, Mr Bacon, Miss Prior, Jim Shapter, Terry Townsend. Where would I be without their input, I wonder?

Inspirational teachers are worth their weight in gold. This has become even more true as traditional family structures have broken down over recent decades. With the rise of working mums, kids are spending more time at school and the impact of the school environment that much the greater. For some, responsible and encouraging male teachers are the nearest thing to a positive male role model in their lives.

Teachers have to deal with ever more unruly pupils, top-down initiatives and complex rules. If the next generation turn out OK, which I think it will, we owe today’s teachers a huge debt of gratitude.

UNDERCLASS

What are we going to do about the underclass? Not a very nice phrase, I know, but, in all its harshness, it seems to be the best one on offer.

I refer to the group of people out there who live outside or beneath any norms of behaviour that the majority of us respect. They do not work or pay taxes, they know every trick in the book to cheat the welfare system and they live in chaotic, ever-shifting households. They underachieve at school and then live on the margins of society for the rest of their lives. Alcohol and drugs are commonplace, as is having children in a plethora of short term relationships, then giving these kids no positive input, ensuring that the next generation terrorise the rest of us in the same way.

The leaders of an independent caring charity I met with last week surprised me by saying in effect that their patience was running thin with people who have no intention of living responsibly – looking after a flat or paying rent, but continue to expect the state to fund their disordered lifestyles. They were calling for a more robust approach from government to tackle this kind of welfare dependency. This point of view seems to be spreading amongst many good-hearted professionals who have spent their lives in the support sector. The pendulum is beginning to swing.

We do people no long term favours if we constantly pick up the tabs for them irrespective of how they live. I accept that many of the men and women who live in this netherworld ever had much of a chance in the first place. They never had any love or encouragement when they were small, no positive role models, no framework of stability. I also accept that they are of equal individual value to our creator as I am.

But that does not mean the state can carry on writing a blank cheque. Britain’s escalating underclass eats up the lion’s share of the welfare budget and commits most of our crime.

Apart from better education, zero tolerance and tougher welfare rules, it seems to me that early intervention is the key: to somehow intervene in the generational cycles that perpetuate the problem. It would be highly controversial to pluck more children from these households of chaos and place them with families who can nurture them properly, but is there any other way?

What do you think?

POST OFFICES

In May of this year a battle Royal is set to commence. I refer not to local council elections which will come and go, as usual, without interfering in most people’s lives, but to a fight of a much higher order. In May, the Post Office will be announcing which of Devon’s post offices will be culled in the next instalment of the government’s policy of closing 2,500 around the country. It will be unveiled as a consultation exercise, of course, but do not be fooled. Elsewhere in the country very few branches have escaped closure once initially on the hit list.

The criteria used in this massacre of yet more cherished institutions are: customer numbers, proximity to other branches, financial benefits to Post Office Limited of closure and relative size of the branch. In rural areas, the proximity test will be met if the post office in question is more than 3 miles from the nearest other branch. In suburban areas (and I can think of 3 or 4 branches in Plympton and Plymstock) which may well appear on the kill-list, the distance is one mile.

In many areas it will be the vulnerable who will suffer most, having to relocate elsewhere to draw their pension or buy their stamps or licences. The reason for this closure plan is to save money. This is the same reason why the railway branch lines faced Beeching’s axe in the 1960’s. How short-sighted. What would we give now to have back all of that local railway infrastructure so that we could have small trains chugging from village to town getting carbon heavy cars off the road and keeping our rural areas alive.

What can be done? When the list is announced it is my intention to support every community that organises itself in a campaign to keep its post office open. If you feel yours is under threat, you may want to be thinking about this now. We cannot do much to challenge geography – although we must make sure that the distances are measured in the way humans, not crows, have to travel - but the amount of business conducted over the counter is a crucial factor we can change. If you want to retain your post office as the hub of your community, please use it as often as you can in the next few weeks. Use it or lose it was never a more worrying maxim.