Is this the UK's most sexist school?

If you can't read the text (taken from a poster on the rear end of a speeding bus in Kingston) it says:

Above the picture of a boy and pilot "Speed on the wing.  For a life in the air."

Above the picture of a girl and woman "Testing materials.  For a life in fashion."

You can presumably find out more about their equal opportunities policy at www.stgeorgesweybridge.com

Balgreen Halt reborn

The ever excellent Liberal England - possibly overstretching his geographical remit - dug out some excellent footage of disused railways in Edinburgh, including footage of Balgreen Halt on the Corstophine branch line.

But Balgreen Halt is not really disused anymore with a tramstop of the same name on the increasingly successful Edinburgh tramline.  And my visit to Edinburgh last week wouldn't have been complete without a ride on the tram coincidently to Balgreen:

It was 15 years ago today...

The A-Z of Corbsplaining

Labour Uncut has a rather wonderful and humourous A-Z that probably reveals just a little too much of the internal machinations of Jeremy Corbyn's Labour Party.  It's just too good not to share.

My personal favourite is:

Burnhamite – A malleable substance that can bend and merge to form any shape required of it before ultimately imploding.

Lib Dems still in denial

On Monday I spent an enlightening day at Lib Dem conference.  I've been mulling over events then and the various media reports and analysis for the week and although the majority are positive about the party's future I'm less sure.

The lack of corporate sponsors and the wide open spaces of the exhibition areas might have suggested a party on its knees - but the stories of hundreds of first time delegates and new found confidence were only slightly exaggerated by party bigwigs.  But, but but...

The Trident debate was a great traditional political occasion - more than a thousand voting delegates packed into the hall, party big wigs wheeled out to speak in front of the camera - including the venerable (but increasingly mistified Shirley Williams) - and also deployed at the back of the hall  to vote down the insurgents.

The vote was won narrowly on a single and very old argument - that the Lib Dems needed to have serious policies if they wished to be taken seriously as a party of government. There were some other really silly arguments including those of Gerald Vernon-Jackson who said we needed to spend £100bn on a weapons system to stop the poor in Portsmouth going to Tory foodbanks, but they were rightly discounted.

The reality is with just 8 MPs the Liberal Democrats are a very long way from being considered a 'serious party of government' in Westminster.  They are also a long way from government in Edinburgh and Cardiff.  Tim Farron gets to question David Cameron once a month alternating with the DUP, Plaid Cymru and the Greens. 

The reality is actually the Lib Dems are a long way from being considered a serious party of opposition.  So the party need to stop playing by the old rules.  Having a small number of clear positions - different to Westinster establishment - would be a good place to start.  Unfortunately the leadership flunked it in Bournemouth on Trident.

Friday favourite 141

Here are Aussie Beatles tribute band Beatnix performing Led Zep's 'Stairway to Heaven' as if it were 1962.

It's absolute genius...

Edinburgh Waverley to Tweedbank in 3 minutes

In a rather strange back to front view - here's the full journey on the reinstated Borders Railway.  What srikes me is the lack of twin track - something that will no doubt will have to fixed at enormous cost as passenger numbers exceed predictions.

Exclusive - Farage reacts to new Coetzee role

The news that Nick Clegg's 'world class' strategist, Ryan Coetzee, has been appointed to run the yes to EU campaign has at least one supporter:

 

Put your money on a big NO vote...

How the Lib Dems won a landslide in Grove

Cllr Jon Tolley writes about his campaign  on his blog.

So what did the Lib Dems actually stop the Tories doing?

Today's budget rather gives the lie to the Lib Dem 'Scooby Doo' message of 'look what the Tories would have done if it wasn't for the meddling Lib Dems'.

The budget contained  two major public policy changes. Firstly switching the focus from the government subsidising low pay to the government forcing employers to pay a living wage.  And secondly lengthening the period of fiscal consolidation to smooth the public spending cuts.  These two changes would almost certainly (rightly) have been supported by the Lib Dems if they had remained in government (and the latter was basically the party's economic position two months ago).

The fact that both leadership candidates slammed the budget on the basis that the Tories were returning to right wing form without the Lib Dems was as predictable as it is wrong.  And it is extremely worrying for the future of the party that both contenders simply basically rehashed the disasterous Coetzee/Clegg messaging - the messaging that was comprehensively rebuffed by the electorate a few weeks ago.

The Scooby Doo message was ineffective as it relied on people understanding a bunch of imponderables - it's impossible to judge the effects of things that didn't happen.  And it was part of a wider failure of the Clegg leadership of failing to define a distinctive Lib Dem agenda for government meaning people could not tell what part of the coalition policy was down to which party.

But now that Osborne and the Conservatives have comandeered a fairly major part of both the Lib Dem and Labour economic policy and are likely to dominate the economic centrist space for the foreseeable future some rethinking is needed - and fast.

I don't expect Labour to come up with any credible rethink, but the Lib Dems must.  If whoever wins the leadership can't find a new and better vision for the economy that understands the values being promoted by Osborne's budget today, then there is little hope for the party.