Brentwood, Essex, England

The most interesting, and yet fundamentally irrelevant one though, came from one friend who insists that it's unacceptable that the "privileged" are over represented in the Tory Shadow Cabinet. He based this on the assertion that several of them have been educated in private schools and then went onto Oxbridge (mostly Oxford). He clearly feels that being privately educated gives you an unfair start in life.

There's little doubt in one sense that it does - apart from anything else, look at the Labour cabinet that also has plenty of privately educated people - Straw, Harman, Balls for a start (Straw apparently attended Brentwood School on a scholarship/funded place - which only proves that simply looking at the school proves nothing about background!)

However, I'm not convinced that being privately educated makes all that much difference - after all, state education didn't exactly stop the Milliband brothers getting into the cabinet.

My son is four - he seems quite bright, though it's hard to be objective about this. If he ends being educated in our part of Essex, he has a number of good state schools to chose from, in Brentwood or in Chelmsford (or possibly in his case, Hornchurch). There is little doubt in my mind that the key influence in whether or not he goes to Oxbridge is not whether or not I pay for his education - but whether or not he has the natural ability to do so.

The reason for this is simple - the school really isn't the determining factor for most children in terms of their future - it's the parents. If you come from a background where university education is taken for granted, you most likely will end up going to university. If you come from a background where it isn't - then your chances of going are considerably lower (my paternal grandmother didn't go to university partly because she felt it wasn't for her - it was my father who was the first to go). I am the eldest of eight - the only two who don't have degrees are the two who aren't old enough to have graduated yet - and several of my siblings either have or are studying for postgraduate degrees. None of us went to posh schools - in fact my secondary school was particularly ordinary.

The state schools, such as King Edward VI in Chelmsford - that regularly rank at the top of the league tables and often send 10 to 20 to Oxbridge each year - are in one sense self perpetuating. The sort of parent that values academic excellence is more likely to send their child to that school than the parents who don't (and for what it's worth - an academic education isn't for every child - it may not be for mine).

So it's not the schools that matter - it's the parents. And if you're unfortunate not to have the "right" set of parents, you are doing to start at a disadvantage.

I can't begin to imagine the horror of what Jamie Bulger's parents have had to go through over the last 17 years. I know that if something similar happened to my little girl, I'd be devestated. Should it be done by an adult while we're out here, that adult would be hanged - and I genuinely believe my principled objections to capital punishment might well crumble in the face of such a horrendous event.

Here's the point though - even hanging the culprit wouldn't bring her back. And nothing that we do to Robert Thompson and Jon Venables can bring James Bulger back either.

Here's another point - a lot of emphasis is put on the entirely understandable anger that Denise Bulger in particular exhibits towards her son's killers, as though this should some how influence how they are treated. Imagine however, that her reaction had been the stoic one of Gordon Wilson on the night of his daughter's murder by the IRA. His pain was no less, but his personality combined with his religious faith clearly affected how he reacted to the loss of his child.

I first became aware of the reports regarding Jon Venables return to gaol through a Facebook update of an old friend which read "Good riddance to Jon venables, I hope he gets put in a cell with a big hairy paedo... I'd pay to watch the big brother version of these two getting aquainted... Oh and why oh why at 27 is his identity being protected...." (incidentally said friend lives in Ireland, so it's not his taxes that are paying to protect their identity). This was then followed up with a comment by him "As for Thomson... keep looking over your shoulder son..." Sadly, this attitude seemed typical of the gross over reaction of some in the media.

(Incidentally, I find the above reaction particularly shocking as it is from a friend who professes to be a Christian - and yet he seems to forget the principle that all people are equal in the eyes of God.)

There appears to be a growing body of opinion that somehow we should know what specific terms of his release Venables breached to be locked up again - despite everything, it does seem probable it was more than a mere technical breach. One press report suggested he'd been to Liverpool several times - including attending a Premier League game at Goodison. If so, then the man's an idiot - there was a significant if small possibility he could be recognised (I met an old primary school friend some years back, having not seen him since we both left primary school, and we quickly recognised each other). A member of the Question Time audience on Thursday suggested we should know as it would help put the issue to rest. In fact, as the above quote from Facebook shows, this debate will only be put to rest when both Venables and Thompson are dead - so we could be dealing with this for another 70 years!

The Question Time panel, with the except of Carol Vorderman, generally agreed that in this case the law should the law should be allowed to proceed in it's own way in the full knowledge of the facts, as opposed to the more emotional response that many in the public feel. This has to be the correct way to proceed - if we start dealing with this in an emotional manner based on incomplete or inaccurate press reports, or even the feelings of the mother, then we end up with a situation where justice and the rule of law cannot prevail.

One final thought - Venables and Thompson were arrested on the 20th February 1993 for Jamie's murder. Six days later, two children - Jonathan Ball, who was only a year old than Jamie, and Tim Parry, aged 12, were murdered in nearby Warrington. As far as I know, no one has ever been convicted of their murders - but if we did find the adults who killed them, and convicted them - their murderers are unlikely to spend much if any time in gaol under the Good Friday Agreement. Is murdering a child somehow more acceptable when it's being done by an adult in pursuit of a cause?

Julia Llewellyn Smith has an article in the Telegraph today in which she discusses the impact of extended maternity leave on mothers. Much of the article is anecdote about mothers, who have high flying compensation packages and don't hesitate to exploit them to the full (while simultaneously complaining about welfare scroungers). The one piece of data though is "studies show three female doctors have to be trained to produce the same 'work time output' as two men."

We're constantly told that there is a pay gap between men and women - there are a number of reasons for this, and it's certainly not as simple as plain sexual discrimination. According to the NSO, there were 28.9 million people in employment in the UK last year. Let's assume that 15 million of those are men.

Wayne Rooney, John Terry and Frank Lampard between them earn over 400k a week - or alternatively, three footballers earn 20 million a year between them as a base salary (before bonuses or other endorsements). I make that those three men alone add £1.33 to the average male salary in the UK. When you include the rest of the Premier League - that suddenly adds a lot to the gap. But the fact that Premier League footballers earn a lot is hardly news - nor does it really make that much difference to what the man on the street earns. The reality is that the really well paid entertainment stars up the rate, and it does seem the bulk of them are men (women's football is not as well paid, and girl groups don't appear to have the staying power of boys groups - see the X Factor voting patterns).

But even when you bring it down to the level of somewhere like the NHS, where salaries are set according to bands which you have to work your way up through. The overall cost of hiring a man of 25 on 25k a year is less than that of hiring a woman of 25k. This is because the cost of hiring the woman is increased by her maternity benefits - this does carry a cost, in terms of paying her for the nine months she might not be working as well as paying her replacement. In addition, this is exacerbated by the pension costs - many women are entitled to receive pensions at 60, whereas men have to wait 65. As women tend to live longer, the cost of supplying a pension of X to a woman is more than it is for a man of the same age, never mind how much more it is if you allow the woman to claim the amount five years earlier.

None of this is to suggest that sex discrimination doesn't happen - but it's to point out that there are often hidden financial costs to legislation that is meant to level the playing field. As has been pointed out elsewhere (and in much fruitier language - don't read if easily offended) if the results of the legislation you pass creates perverse and unintended incentives, why then express surprise that people act on those incentives?

As for the idiotic idea that childless women should somehow be entitled to "maternity" leave, words fail me.

In a sense, she is right. The current recession isn't the fault of the state sector. However, the deficit quite clearly is.

Deficits occur because the government spends more money than it receives. (I know this should be obvious, but Toynbee appears to believe that taking money from people and spending it through an inefficient public sector somehow drives growth, so I can't assume anything). If we are run to deficit in the bad times (Keynsian economics), then the counter side to that is during the good times, you run a surplus, in order to be prudent and have some money in the bank to pay for the deficit in the bad times. The problem is that over the last 12 years, the government haven't felt the need to do that, spending it all on a splurge of increased public spending - believing the solution to any problem was a combination of top down targets and throwing more money at it - while simultaneously increasing the tax burden (the removal of the cap on NI, the increase in NI, the abolition of the 10p tax band) - all of which was presided over as Chancellor by the current Prime Minister (whose arrival in number 10 was greeted with such huge enthusiasm by Toynbee).

It may not be fair that the public sector might be carrying the can for a deficit that wasn't their fault - but nor is it fair that in the private sector there are hiring freezes and staff reduction programs in large companies for employees who aren't responsible for the recession either.

Particularly intriguing is this quote:

So, thats the clear admission then. The attempt is to get this Treaty through before the Tories can "wreck" it by actually reflecting the will of the British people on the treaty (anti Lisbon parties easily took over 50% of the votes in this years Euro elections).