Sandwell Councillor Elaine Costigan

At a Libertarian Party meeting at weekend we were having a chat about the qualities needed to be a local councillor. Most of us agreed that some councillors were genuinely in it to help their local communities, some just to push their parties forward regardless of the impact on local people and some were just in it because they craved status. Elaine Costigan, a Sandwell councillor who defected last week to Labour over the school rebuilding programme, falls into the third category.

I've just seen Councilor Costigan on BBC news, and she doesn't strike me as being very bright. Because the government cocked up its announcement about the schools rebuilding programme, she has defected from the Tories to Labour. The rest of the piece showed kids in Sandwell who claimed their schools were so cold that they could hardly hold their pens in classes and had trouble concentrating. As the Coalition only seized power in May I assume that cold hasn't been a problem in the last four months.

So Councillor Costigan leaves the Tories to join Labour, the Party that has been in power since 1997 and, in that time, allowed the schools of Sandwell, which also has a solid Labour majority on its council, to deteriorate to such an extent that kids are too cold to hold a pen in the classroom. Thank God I was educated in the 1970s, in a good old fashioned school built by the Victorians. Even with power cuts and fuel shortages we were never so cold we couldn't hold a pen!

I'm even more grateful that it was a direct grant school so that idiot councillors like Councillor Costigan couldn't cock up my education.

The Headmaster Ritual

I've spent some time this week in a couple of local schools and it was a tremendous experience. If you read the newspapers and watch the TV news you get the impression that kids do nothing but run around stabbing each other, and the occasional teacher. Not so in these schools.

In both I found the pupils to be polite and attentive and the teachers dedicated and professional. Neither was a particularly 'posh' school, I would guess they were full of kids with parents ranging from middle class to working class, in fact the full spectrum. Note no upper class as they have been wiped out after decades of socialism and pinko liberalism.

My last school experience had been in a particularly pretentious private school where the juniors were made to wear Dicken's style smocks. And yes that was this century! I used to think that if I had kids I would send them to private school, not a chance now.

Anyway, as I do occasionally I will now indulge my Morrissey/Smiths addiction with The Headmaster Ritual. Here is a link to the live Smiths' performance on YouTube, and below are the words. Singalong now:

Belligerent ghouls
Run Manchester schools

Spineless swines
Cemented minds


Sir leads the troops
Jealous of youth
Same old suit since 1962


He does the military two-step
Down the nape of my neck


I wanna go home
I don't wanna stay
Give up education
As a bad mistake


Mid-week on the playing fields
Sir thwacks you on the knees


Knees you in the groin
Elbow in the face
Bruises bigger than dinner plates


I wanna go home
I don't wanna stay


Da-da-da ...


Belligerent ghouls
Run Manchester schools


Spineless bastards all ...


Sir leads the troops
Jealous of youth
Same old jokes since 1902


He does the military two-step
Down the nape of my neck


I wanna go home
I don't want to stay
Give up life
As a bad mistake


Please excuse me from gym
I've got this terrible cold coming on
He grabs and devours
He kicks me in the showers
Kicks me in the showers
And he grabs and devours


I want to go home
I don't want to stay...


Da-da-da ...

Of course you could always change it from Manchester to wherever you want, such as Merseyside.