Letter of the week: The state of education

Photo by Marcus Bastel / Millennium Images,

I enjoy Andrew Marr’s insights into Westminster politics, but his knowledge of state education seems limited (Politics, 14 March). He asserts that the Children’s Well-Being and Schools Bill is a product of a “union-driven agenda”, without providing evidence. He implies the briefing against Bridget Phillipson – that she has listened to “all the wrong people” on the bill – is justified but provides no evidence. He refers to “comprehensive-school thinking”, but the majority of secondary academies are comprehensive schools. In fact, as Alasdair Macdonald wrote in the New Statesman (Another Voice, 28 February), there is no evidence that academy schools are any better at raising attainment than local-authority-maintained schools.

Since Michael Gove was belatedly sacked from the post in July 2014, there have been no fewer than ten education secretaries. It is high time that education had a secretary of state able to combine intelligence with longevity. Phillipson is obviously intelligent and interested in the job, and should be encouraged by her leader to stay in post and develop her ideas.
Michael Pyke, the Campaign for State Education

A pledge of allegiance?

Perhaps Megan Gibson (Newsmaker, 14 March) is right to suggest Mark Carney cannot save Canada from the threat posed by Donald Trump. Keir Starmer seems to agree: he has ducked any opportunity to speak up for the country, despite the sacrifices of the more than 100,000 Canadian soldiers who died assisting Britain in the two world wars. My father was posted overseas in the Canadian Army from 1940 to 1945 and endured horrors. My mother once admitted to me in tears that when she went down to meet him at the train station in Regina, Canada, upon his return, his condition was so terrible she failed at first to recognise him. Starmer should recognise some sort of obligation.
David Orr, Sherwood Park, Alberta, Canada

Operation profit

Jason Cowley’s incisive article about the British Council (Encounter, 14 March) made distressing reading. Losing £50m a year and preparing to sell its assets is a road to bankruptcy, not salvation. But it is wrong of the British Council to imply its problems have been caused by the Foreign Office.

English Teaching Centres have been costing the British Council money for perhaps ten years or more. Where once it had more than 100 centres in 80 countries, producing a profit, a much smaller network now runs at a loss. It was absurd to suggest (as the British Council did at a recent meeting of the Foreign Affairs Committee) that its strategy is to ensure the teaching centres simply aim to “break even”. Learning once again how to run commercial operations profitably is essential. The British Council has been a magnificent and valuable organisation, and can be again.
Chris Hickey, Berkhamsted

Correction: The 14 March Encounter incorrectly stated the British Council’s annual government grant is £165,000; it is £165m

Silencing the critics

First, Alison Phillips had a go at the BBC over Gaza: How to Survive a Warzone (Media Notebook, 28 February). Then Hannah Barnes devoted her column to similar charges (Out of the Ordinary, 14 March). Who will make the case for the programme? As one of those fortunate to see it, I found it moving and authentic, with no evidence of overt bias in favour of Hamas. Indeed, one of the children featured was as critical of Hamas as the Israel Defence Forces when it came to the destruction of Gaza.

At a time when it is difficult to show what is happening in Gaza as a result of Israel’s decision not to allow journalists to enter, we need to have access to stories like the one Gaza sought to tell, however imperfectly.
David J Hunter, Richmond, North Yorkshire

Free versus prose

I was unsurprised that Steve Bannon prefers the free verse Homeric translations by Robert Fagles over mine (The NS Interview, 28 February). My translations aim to recreate the alien, ancient and traditional qualities of the original, avoiding the friendly, loud American idioms and clichés that are so prominent in the work of my late-lamented and much-beloved colleague Professor Fagles – who was, for what it’s worth, a lifelong Democrat. My Homeric translations have acquired a weird notoriety in certain little pockets of the internet, due to some people being amazed that I could be a successful classicist and translator and yet at the very same time, mirabile dictu, not a man.

None of that is news, nor is it out of keeping with many other cultural currents of which your readers are well aware. But I wanted to urge you to make a small correction to the piece, namely you say, not in quoting Bannon (who presumably knows little about poetic form) but your own narrator voice, “Wilson’s lean prose”. I spent over a decade working on these translations, with the primary purpose of providing 21st-century Anglophone readers with a version of Homeric poetry that would render these magical and gripping works of traditional metrical verse into a traditional verse form in English, to pay due honour to the rhythmical, regular sonic qualities of the originals – in contrast to the numerous existing modern translations that use prose or unmetrical free verse. I drew on my own decades-long training and immersion in metrical verse in both ancient/Homeric and English traditions. I know this is not what the essay is about, so I am sorry to trouble you with such a minor detail. But whenever I see references to my metrical verse translations as “prose”, I admit that I die a little.

Since the mid-19th century, many modern and contemporary poets have broken down the lines between verse and prose in interesting and creative ways, and in such cases, the distinction can seem moot. But when a translation of an epic poem uses a regular traditional meter all the way through, there is no ambiguity about its verse form. It’s a simple matter of fact. I will end by noting that neither poetic form nor the gender of the translator need have anything to do with politics. And yet here we are.
Emily Wilson, chair of the Department of Classical Studies, University of Pennsylvania

How jazzy

In the period of time that Kate Mossman declares Lady Gaga faded from view (The Critics, 14 March), she recorded two albums of grown-up jazz with Tony Bennett, the first of which went platinum on release, and toured with him. Would that we could all fade from view so successfully!
Tim Mann, Waterlooville, Hants

À bientôt,not au revoir

I wish Phil Whitaker well in Canada. So many of us who first turn to his words of wisdom will miss his good sense, professionalism and honest reporting. I hope he and his family settle happily there, and his new patients quickly recognise the quality of their new recruit. Many thanks for your years of dedication to general practice, you’ll be greatly missed.
Judith Varley, Birkenhead, Merseyside

Ed: The NS would like to reassure readers that Phil Whitaker will return to writing Health Matters, from his new HQ, this summer

Add it to the list

I convulsed with laughter while reading about Nicholas Lezard’s 1950s shopping basket (Down and Out, 14 March). To add to his list, I suggest: boiled-to-death ham and lettuce with exotic piccalilli for Sunday tea, with pineapple chunks and Carnation condensed milk to follow. I can already hear the church bells tolling for Evensong. Put your hats, coats and reverent faces on.
Peter Sheal, Fyvie, Aberdeenshire

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