Culling the Lords

I CAN think of no better way to mark the centenary of the outbreak of the First World War than the suggestion to switch off every light at the exact moment that war was declared. The snag is that the moment in question on Monday, August 4 is 11pm. And by that time most of us who care about marking the centenary will have already switched the lights off and gone to bed. At the going-down of the sun we put on our jim-jams.

I HAD hoped to see the war described as the First World War throughout the centenary year. Sadly, the American-style "World War One" seems to be everywhere.

THE House of Lords with 780 members is now the world's second biggest legislature, after China's Politburo. A new report suggests trimming the Lords by enforced retirement at 80 and axing the last of the hereditary peers. Here' s another idea. Let's chuck out all those Lords who, when they were MPs, raged against the Lords, threatened to scrap it and swore they would never accept a peerage. How quickly their principles crumbled at the whiff of ermine.

BEWARE of Jemima Puddleduck and Mrs Tiggywinkle. According to researchers in Toronto, the "fantastical and unrealistic" portrayal of animals in children's books can damage a child's understanding of real animals. Does anyone seriously believe kids don't know the difference between real rabbits (dull, timid, frequently run over) and Peter Rabbit ( cheeky, heroic, little blue jacket)? Kids have an amazing ability to understand facts while enjoying fiction. Consider the eternal fascination of Mr Toad in Wind in the Willows. Toad is simultaneously small enough to sit down for tea with Mole and Ratty yet big enough to drive a car and disguise himself as a washerwoman. Kids have no problem coping with such contradictions. It's only when you're older that you wonder what on earth was going on in Kenneth Grahame's head.

A WEEK is a long time in politics 13 months is an eternity. As the weeks tick away to the May 2015 General Election, memories will fade and anger will cool . We are told that some traditional Conservatives are threatening not to support the Tories in the next election because of gay marriage. But there is plenty of time for people to realise that, although same-sex marriage changes the nature of all marriages in ways we may not even yet understand, the sky will not fall in. David Cameron's master stroke was to get this issue out of the way in plenty of time, denying Labour and Lib-Dems a stick to beat him with.

A READER takes me to task for making light of the anger and demoralisation felt by teachers. Don't blame me, blame the teaching unions. For the past 40 years they have complained that their members are overworked, underpaid, demoralised, assaulted by pupils, confronted by parents, victimised by head teachers and asphyxiated under heaps of red tape. In short, teachers and their unions have portrayed teaching as a career from hell, to be avoided by all sane people. Anybody who, being fully aware of that, becomes a teacher and then moans about the conditions deserves only limited sympathy.

BUT if you think teachers have it hard, spare a thought for university lecturers as Labour considers cutting university fees from £9,000 a year to £6,000. As the unis peer into a funding black hole and market forces bite, only the most market-worthy will survive. Watch out for the scrapping of pointless courses and a cull in academia. What is the market value of a second-rate lecturer in a third-rate university helping fourth-rate pupils achieve fifth-rate degrees which are worth precisely nothing?

SO farewell, the Competition Commission, scrapped this week. Why was there only one?