Six of the best: the traits your child needs to succeed

Hilary Wilce in The Independent

What makes a child do well in school? When I ask parents that question, they always have lots of great answers: a high IQ, a terrific school, well-run lessons, skilled teachers, a creative curriculum, high expectations.

Although all these things help, the real secret of great learning lies elsewhere – inside children themselves. Increasingly, researchers are discovering that what children bring to the classroom matters every bit – and in many ways more – than what the classroom can offer them.

Children with the attitude and disposition that encourage good learning will flourish even in a mediocre school, while those who come with a mindset that hampers learning won't be able to make much of even the best educational opportunities.

Numerous studies in the US and elsewhere show that test scores leap, often by more than 10 per cent, when children are encouraged to develop good attitudes towards themselves and their learning. As a result, schools around the world are starting to offer programmes to help their students develop key character strengths.

A recent "positive education" conference at Wellington College in Berkshire drew participants from America, Singapore and Australia to discuss how teachers can help students "grow" their inner cores.

But parents have been left out of this learning loop, and often don't realise that there is far more to securing a good education for their children than simply bagging a place at the best school in the neighbourhood – schools and teachers can only turn children into terrific learners if those children's parents are laying down the foundations at home that will encourage pupils to step up to the challenges of the classroom.

There is growing evidence that character traits such as resilience, persistence, optimism and courage actively contribute to improved academic grades. And there are six key qualities that parents can foster in their children that will help them do their very best in school. These are:

1. Joie de vivre

The ability to love and appreciate life might sound wishy-washy in the hard world of exam results, but love and security feed a host of qualities that great learners need. These include the ability to be open and receptive, to be willing and to feel connected.

Meanwhile, cultivating an attitude of appreciation means being able to enjoy the journey of learning, wonder at nature, relish a good story, feel good about achievements, and enjoy the companionship of the classroom. All of which, in turn, feed confidence, excitement and curiosity back into the learning loop.

2. Resilience

For years, resilience has been known to be essential for great learning. Martin Seligman, the US psychology professor who has studied this extensively, has shown that it helps children think more flexibly and realistically, be more creative and ward off depression and anxiety.

Resilient children give things a try. They understand that learning has plenty of setbacks and that they can overcome them. Resilient children talk to themselves differently from non- resilient ones, and don't turn mistakes into catastrophes ("I've failed my maths test, it's a disaster. I'll never get maths!"). Instead, they look at a wider, more positive picture ("Ugh, that was a horrible test, and I screwed up, but I didn't do enough work. Next time I'll do more revision, and it'll probably be a better paper as well").

3. Self-discipline

There are many famous pieces of research that show that children's ability to control their impulses appears to lead to better health, wealth and mental happiness in later life. In school, self-discipline is central.

Great learners need to listen, absorb and think. They need to keep going through difficult patches, stick at hard tasks, manage their time well and keep mental focus. Children who bounce about the classroom shouting the first answer that comes into their heads will never be great learners.

Of course, a joyless, overly controlled child will never be one either. Balance matters. All children need to develop a functioning "internal locus of control".

4. Honesty

Honesty matters for great learning because its opposites – deception and self-deception – hinder progress. Great learners don't say "I'm brilliant at science" but, "I'm OK on photosynthesis, but not sure I've nailed atomic structure yet." And this needs to start early.

The pre-schooler who speaks up and asks what a word means in a story, rather than pretending to know, is already on the way to being a skilful learner. Honesty allows children to build good links with teachers and mentors. It grows confidence, attracts goodwill, and gives children an infallible compass with which to steer their learning.

5. Courage

Learning anything – piano, physics, tennis – is about approaching the unknown, and stepping up to new challenges. Great learners are just as frightened of this as others, but can overcome their fear and find focus.

They are able to try, fail, and try again. They can also navigate school life skilfully. Children need moral courage to turn away from distractions and to be willing to be seen as "a geek" if they want to study, while developing courage also helps them to stand their ground through the temptations of the teenage years.

6. Kindness

Great learners are kind to themselves. They understand that learning is sometimes hard, and not always possible to get right, but keep a "good" voice going in their heads to encourage themselves on.

A kind disposition also draws other people to them and bolsters their learning through the help and support of others, as well as allowing them to work productively in teams and groups. A kind disposition also feeds listening and empathy, which in turn foster deeper, more complex learning.

All these character qualities are great for learning – and also for life. Research shows that they help people build more confidence, face challenges better, earn more money, have more satisfying careers, build stronger relationships, and keep depression and anxiety at bay. Yet, sadly, figures also show that increasing numbers of children are growing up with less ability to control their moods, direct their actions, or show empathy and self-mastery, while many mental health problems, including eating disorders and self-harm, are on the rise.

Our children badly need us to help them develop stronger, more flexible backbones, and all the qualities that contribute to a strong inner core can be actively fostered and encouraged by parents (parents and schools working together is even better). Just as muscles grow stronger with regular exercise, so character traits are strengthened by thoughtful encouragement and reinforcement.

Hilary Wilce is an education writer, consultant and parent coach. Her new book, 'Backbone: How to Build the Character Your Child Needs to Succeed' (Endeavour Press, £2.99) is now available

Vaastu shastra to oil massages: Bhargava reveals what killed Air India

Sindhu Bhattacharya in First Post.Business 

Who killed Air India? Jitender Bhargava, who spent more than two decades with the airline in several executive positions, has spared no one in his book ‘Descent of Air India’. The ministry of civil aviation, successive Air India chairmen, employees and of course the various ministers who have held sway over the airline – everyone has been in the line of Bhargava’s fire. He has leveled serious charges against at least one Chairman of the airline and one minister who held charge of the Ministry of Civil Aviation for long years. But in this long narrative of what ails the airline, what led to its decline and what should be done to improve its fortunes, Bhargava has also managed to regale his readers with some rather interesting anecdotes. 

The one about former Chairman V Thulasidas resorting to vaastu shastra when the airline’s financial health was fast declining shows how instead of tackling the situation, Thulasidas allegedly waited for divine intervention. This is the same chairman who allegedly doubled the aircraft order for Air India which subsequently pushed the airline into deep losses. Bhargava says vaastu expert Raj Shekhar Chawla from Hyderabad was appointed to guide the chairman on “where to place his desk, where to conduct his meetings with colleagues and which doors to the conference room to keep shut or open”. He also narrates Thulasidas’ alleged penchant for having an AI employee accompany him from his house to work and back every day, with a peon being instructed to keep the lift doors open when the chairman’s car was nearing the office!

In this long narrative of what ails the airline, what led to its decline and what should be done to improve its fortunes, Bhargava has also managed to regale his readers with some rather interesting anecdotes. 

What is ‘shortfall allowance’? It’s the money that senior pilots were paid even if they did not fly as many hours and junior pilots flew by 1994. Because earnings of a senior pilot cannot be below those of a junior one, never mind how many hours of flying the senior did. This scheme, which replaced fixed daily allowances for pilots till then, led to an increase in expenditure of Rs 307.2 crore during 1995-1999 says Bhargava. It also meant that often, senior pilots were indeed being paid for not flying. Ludicrous, isn’t it? 

Even Naresh Goyal and his legendary powers of persuasion find a mention in the book. Bhargava has alleged that since 1970s, Jordan’s ALIA group wanted air traffic rights to India despite there not being enough air traffic between the two countries. This request was refused once, then a second time in 1979. But in 1981, ALIA was granted full traffic rights. “The local manager of the airline representing ALIA was none other than the current chairman of Jet Airways – Naresh Goyal”. 

But the most unctuous reference is made to Kerala oil massages which the then minister Shahnawaz Hussain wanted on board Air India flights. Bhargava says the minister announced this decision to the media first and then asked the airline to implement it. Never mind if some passengers object to the smell of the oil, if the aircraft’s upholstery would get spoiled, even if there is no space really to accord anyone having a massage some privacy. “The minister suggested that we provide some curtained enclosure within the aircraft.” The author says though the massage was feasible in a separate enclosure, it would also warrant a bath on board! This is when the proposal was finally buried. To assuage the minister’s wish however, a Delhi-based company was persuaded to introduce the Kerala massage at Delhi airport and the service continued till Shahnawaz was minister. 

The author speaks of new uniforms for cabin crew and ground staff and how Ritu Beri went one up on designers such as J J Valaya and Tarun Tahiliani in 2007, when new aircraft induction meant new uniforms. Bharagava alleges that Beri was rejected in the first round of approvals for uniform designing but she offered to waive the designing fee and the tendering process was shelved mid way. “How Ms Beri was compensated for her efforts makes for an even more interesting story. Thulasidas deputed a team of Air India officials to her farmhouse on the outskirts of Delhi. …….Initially she offered to supply the sarees at Rs 4000 each but that was way more than the amount we were paying the existing vendor – Rs 1600 per saree. When the team brought that to her notice, she agreed to drop the price to Rs 3600. She sourced the uniforms from one of our existing vendors and we ended up paying an additional amount Rs 2000 per saree…… J J Valaya and Tarun Tahiliani took AI to court for wasting their time and effort and were reimbursed all costs in an out-of-court settlement”. 

Did you know that earlier, officials from the Air India’s Commercial Department would visit large corporate houses with a flight timetable and a small gift – a clay model of the Maharajah or grey overnight bag – to promote airline’s sales? Bhargava says he suggested that this practice be restarted sometime in 2002 and that airline’s senior managers should personally meet Ratan Tata, Ambanis, Birlas, Mahindras and the Godrej family members to hardsell Air India’s First and Business Class offerings. Of course, the airline never took up this suggestion.  

Sir John Major gets his carefully-crafted revenge on the bastards

Tory former prime minister's speech was a nostalgic trip down memory lane, where he mugged the Eurosceptics

• Simon Hoggart
• The Guardian, Tuesday 22 October 2013 16.46 BST

Sir John Major made a lunchtime speech in parliament in which he got his revenge on the Eurosceptics and other enemies Photograph: Gareth Fuller/PA

John Major, our former prime minister, was in reflective mood at a lunch in parliament. Asked about his famous description of Eurosceptics as "bastards", he remarked ruefully: "What I said was unforgivable." Pause for contrition. "My only excuse – is that it was true." Pause for loud laughter. Behind that mild demeanour, he is a good hater.

The event was steeped in nostalgia. Sir John may have hair that is more silvery than ever, and his sky-blue tie shines like the sun on a tropical sea at daybreak, but he still brings a powerful whiff of the past. Many of us can recall those days of the early 1990s. Right Said Fred topped the charts with Deeply Dippy, still on all our lips. The top TV star was Mr Blobby. The Ford Mondeo hit the showrooms, bringing gladness and stereo tape decks to travelling salesmen. Unemployment nudged 3 million.

Sir John dropped poison pellets into everyone's wine glass. But for a while he spoke only in lapidary epigrams. "The music hall star Dan Leno said 'I earn so much more than the prime minister; on the other hand I do so much less harm'."

"Tories only ever plot against themselves. Labour are much more egalitarian – they plot against everyone."

"The threat of a federal Europe is now deader than Jacob Marley."

"David Cameron's government is not Conservative enough. Of course it isn't; it's a coalition, stupid!"

Sometimes the saws and proverbs crashed into each other: "If we Tories navel-gaze and only pander to our comfort zone, we will never get elected."

And in a riposte to the Tebbit wing of the Tory party (now only represented by another old enemy, Norman Tebbit): "There is no point in telling people to get on their bikes if there is nowhere to live when they get there."

He was worried about the "dignified poor and the semi-poor", who, he implied, were ignored by the government. Iain Duncan Smith, leader of the bastards outside the cabinet during the Major government, was dispatched. "IDS is trying to reform benefits. But unless he is lucky or a genius, which last time I looked was not true, he may get things wrong." Oof.

"If he listens only to bean-counters and cheerleaders only concerned with abuse of the system, he will fail." Ouch!

"Governments should exist to help people, not institutions."

But he had kind words for David or Ed, "or whichever Miliband it is". Ed's proposal for an energy price freeze showed his heart was in the right place, even if "his head has gone walkabout".

He predicted a cold, cold winter. "It is not acceptable for people to have to make a choice between eating and heating." His proposal, a windfall tax, was rejected by No 10 within half an hour of Sir John sitting down.

Such is 24-hour news. Or as he put it: "I was never very good at soundbites – if I had been, I might have felt the hand of history on my shoulder." And having laid waste to all about him, he left with a light smile playing about his glistening tie.

-------

Steve Richards in The Independent

Former Prime Ministers tend to have very little impact on the eras that follow them. John Major is a dramatic exception. When Major spoke in Westminster earlier this week he offered the vividly accessible insights of a genuine Conservative moderniser. In doing so he exposed the narrow limits of the self-proclaimed modernising project instigated by David Cameron and George Osborne. Major’s speech was an event of considerable significance, presenting a subtle and formidable challenge to the current leadership. Margaret Thatcher never achieved such a feat when she sought – far more actively – to undermine Major after she had suddenly become a former Prime Minister.

The former Prime Minister’s call for a one-off tax on the energy companies was eye-catching, but his broader argument was far more powerful. Without qualification, Major insisted that governments had a duty to intervene in failing markets. He made this statement as explicitly as Ed Miliband has done since the latter became Labour’s leader. The former Prime Minister disagrees with Miliband’s solution – a temporary price freeze – but he is fully behind the proposition that a government has a duty to act. He stressed that he was making the case as a committed Conservative.

Yet the proposition offends the ideological souls of those who currently lead the Conservative party. Today’s Tory leadership, the political children of Margaret Thatcher, is purer than the Lady herself in its disdain for state intervention. In developing his case, Major pointed the way towards a modern Tory party rather than one that looks to the 1980s for guidance. Yes, Tories should intervene in failing markets, but not in the way Labour suggests. He proposes a one-off tax on energy companies. At least he has a policy. In contrast, the generation of self-proclaimed Tory modernisers is paralysed, caught between its attachment to unfettered free markets and the practical reality that powerless consumers are being taken for a ride by a market that does not work.

Major went much further, outlining other areas in which the Conservatives could widen their appeal. They included the case for a subtler approach to welfare reform. He went as far as to suggest that some of those protesting at the injustice of current measures might have a point. He was powerful too on the impoverished squalor of some people’s lives, and on their sense of helplessness – suggesting that housing should be a central concern for a genuinely compassionate Conservative party. The language was vivid, most potently when Major outlined the choice faced by some in deciding whether to eat or turn the heating on. Every word was placed in the wider context of the need for the Conservatives to win back support in the north of England and Scotland.

Of course Major had an agenda beyond immediate politics. Former prime ministers are doomed to defend their record and snipe at those who made their lives hellish when they were in power. Parts of his speech inserted blades into old enemies. His record was not as good as he suggested, not least in relation to the abysmal state of public services by the time he left in 1997. But the period between 1990, when Major first became Prime Minister, and the election in 1992 is one that Tories should re-visit and learn from. Instead it has been virtually airbrushed out of their history.

In a very brief period of time Major and his party chairman Chris Patten speedily changed perceptions of their party after the fall of Margaret Thatcher. Major praised the BBC, spoke of the need to be at the heart of Europe while opting out of the single currency, scrapped the Poll Tax, placed a fresh focus on the quality of public services through the too easily derided Citizens’ Charter, and sought to help those on benefits or low incomes. As Neil Kinnock reflected later, voters thought there had been a change of government when Major replaced Thatcher, making it more difficult for Labour to claim that it was time for a new direction.

The key figures in the Conservative party were Major, Patten, Michael Heseltine, Ken Clarke and Douglas Hurd. Now it is Cameron, George Osborne, Michael Gove, William Hague, Iain Duncan Smith, Oliver Letwin and several others with similar views. They include Eurosceptics, plus those committed to a radical shrinking of the state and to transforming established institutions. All share a passion for the purity of markets in the public and private sectors. Yet in the Alice in Wonderland way in which politics is reported, the current leadership is portrayed as “modernisers” facing down “the Tory right”.

The degree to which the debate has moved rightwards at the top of the Conservative party and in the media can be seen from the bewildered, shocked reaction to Nick Clegg’s modest suggestion that teachers in free schools should be qualified to teach. The ideologues are so unused to being challenged they could not believe such comments were being made. Instead of addressing Clegg’s argument, they sought other reasons for such outrageous suggestions. Clegg was wooing Labour. Clegg was scared that his party would move against him. Clegg was seeking to woo disaffected voters. The actual proposition strayed well beyond their ideological boundaries.

This is why Major’s intervention has such an impact. He exposed the distorting way in which politics is currently reported. It is perfectly legitimate for the current Conservative leadership to seek to re-heat Thatcherism if it wishes to do so, but it cannot claim to be making a significant leap from the party’s recent past.

Nonetheless Cameron’s early attempts to embark on a genuinely modernising project are another reason why he and senior ministers should take note of what Major says. For leaders to retain authority and authenticity there has to be a degree of coherence and consistency of message. In his early years as leader, Cameron transmitted messages which had some similarities with Major’s speech, at least in terms of symbolism and tone. Cameron visited council estates, urged people to vote blue and to go green, spoke at trade union conferences rather than to the CBI, played down the significance of Europe as an issue, and was careful about how he framed his comments on immigration. If he enters the next election “banging on” about Europe, armed with populist policies on immigration while bashing “scroungers” on council estates and moaning about green levies, there will be such a disconnect with his earlier public self that voters will wonder about how substantial and credible he is.

Cameron faces a very tough situation, with Ukip breathing down his neck and a media urging him rightwards. But the evidence is overwhelming. The one-nation Major was the last Tory leader to win an overall majority. When Cameron  affected a similar set of beliefs to Major’s, he was also well ahead in the polls. More recently the 80-year old Michael Heseltine pointed the way ahead with his impressive report on an active industrial strategy. Now Major, retired from politics, charts a credible route towards electoral recovery. How odd that the current generation of Tory leaders is more trapped by the party’s Thatcherite past than those who lived through it as ministers.

Universities should ditch the talk of investing in the future

Instead of research academics need to focus on giving students what they want for their money: that is, a well-rounded education

• 
• • Simon Jenkins
  • The Guardian, Wednesday 23 October 2013

Illustration by Belle Mellor

Money talks. After two years of tuition fees at £7,000-£9,000 universities are apparently rolling in cash, and their students are demanding value for it. Universities are expected to deliver not just education but jobs. Courses are being tailored to "employability". Research is concentrated in the elite Russell institutions. Now the universities minister, David Willetts, is calling for a "cultural change" to reverse the trend of too much time going on scholarship and not enough on teaching. Is this a new dawn in higher education, or a new darkness?

Willetts has celebrated the 50th anniversary of the Robbins report with a pamphlet questioning one aspect of the expansion it stimulated. Pre-Robbins, British universities devoted 60% of their time to teaching and 40% to research. Now those percentages are reversed, so that universities are "lopsided away from teaching". Only in the former polytechnics does teaching predominate.

Today's students may not realise how far this has gone, but their graduate parents might. Contact time has declined. Essay writing has halved. Fifty years ago two-thirds of students received oral (as well as written) feedback, now two-thirds get none. Willetts wonders how this was ever allowed to happen.

The answer is easy. Willetts and his Whitehall predecessors made it happen. Universities have become creatures of government, paid to do what government says. Ever since Thatcher abolished the arms-length university grants committee and eventually"nationalised" higher education in 1988, universities have followed the money.

Many academics prefer research, writing and conferencing to the hard tutorial grind. I know, as I was briefly one myself. But the price was to allow government to "assess" their work and demand ever more. They sweated over papers, often of staggering obscurity. Civil servants totted up pages and citations, and tested for "impact and translational value". Willetts may complain that students suffered, but whose fault is that?

The surge in student fees has led universities to a new accountability, not to government but to their customers. For the first time they have had to look out to their market place rather than back to their founders and traditions or up to their government. In this change in accountability research is bound to take a knock. The student market cares little about it. Students want an education that stimulates them for three years and gets them a job. Universities such as Bath are popular because they emphasise job-finding. With 40% of new graduates going into "non-graduate" initial careers, the league tables that matter are those indicating successful job placements.

To outsiders, universities remain extraordinarily conservative enclaves. They stick to the medieval three-term, three-year courses. Specialism is almost obligatory: a Briton wanting to study arts and science together had better go abroad. People at the peak of their vigour are thought unable to absorb teaching for more than six months a year, and are still sent home to help with the harvest each summer. Any business run with so little concern for new techniques of operating or delivering a service would collapse.

When research was the activity of an autonomous minority of scholars it could look after itself. Today it costs the taxpayer millions of pounds and is spread over three dozen Russell and 1994 Group institutions. Such spending has to be justified. And here universities sold the pass. In the years following Robbins, the economists Mark Blaug and John Vaizey debated whether higher education was a consumer service or an investment. Blaug advocated the former and won the argument – but he lost the war. Academics loved to think of themselves as "investing in the nation's future". But in claiming so, they conceded the field to the Treasury. If universities were an investment, where was the return?

The argument continued. Even as new undergraduates rushed to arts subjects, government became obsessed with "the nation's manpower needs" and believed this meant driving universities towards science and technology. Still today the science budget remains "ringfenced", as if it were a branch of national security – and despite decades of market evidence that Britain's prosperity was demanding more financiers, lawyers and designers.

The return from teaching that universities most often cite is graduate lifetime earnings. But this is personal rather than collective. Besides, such a validation has consequences. Three years ago 600 Bristol students staged a revolt over receiving too little teaching, fearing it would jeopardise their careers. When Surrey revealed (improbably) that all its drama graduates had jobs, it was inundated with 50 applicants per drama place.

The Institute for Public Policy Research recently advocated a return of the polytechnics as specialised vocational academies. University College London is introducing a "liberal arts" course that marries arts and science. Where universities appear to be ailing, Willetts is talking of sub-contracting them to private companies, bringing the free-school principle to state higher education. In America this mercantilist approach went to extremes when some graduates sued their old law school for training too many of them, and thus wrecking the jobs market.

There is a backlash to all this. Conservatives such as Cambridge's Stefan Collini inveigh against rate-of-return education, suggesting it means death to the humanities and reduces academics to "door-to-door salesmen for vulgarised versions of their market-oriented product". The vice-chancellor of Reading, Sir David Bell, warns against having to "put a premium on employability … on preparing students for what is to follow", as if that were some sort of betrayal. When a student has £30,000 in prospective debt round his or her neck, employability is bound to apply.

If I were an academic I would stop pretending I was "investing in the nation's future". I would stop using such language. I would try to give students what they want for their money, usually a well-rounded education and a mild sense of obligation to society, and tuck my research into my spare time. That would be my "rate of return". As long as universities play the investment game, they will find students and taxpayers alike asking to scrutinise their accounts.

From Roy Hodgson to Carol Thatcher, this fixation on celebrity gaffes tells us nothing about racism

Britain is a nation in denial. While celebrity stories grab the headlines, true discrimination is thriving and largely ignored

• 
• • Joseph Harker
  • The Guardian, Tuesday 22 October 2013

‘It was great that we celebrated Jessica Ennis and Mo Farah at London 2012, but the common conclusion, that this proved our nation was at ease with diversity, was pure delusion.' Photograph: David Davies/PA

In the past seven days two stories have shown how little we know about race in modern Britain. First, the one that dominated the headlines: what Roy Hodgson said to the England team at half-time in their World Cup qualifier, and what he meant by using the word "monkey" to refer to a black player. Everyone, it seemed, had an opinion. Comment columnists and sports writers weighed in. Radio stations ran phone-ins. Arguments raged.

There's no doubt that, given the history of monkey chants at football grounds during the 70s and 80s, Hodgson was at the very least stupid and incredibly insensitive to use such a word in reference to one of his own team. It's right that he apologised. But what concerns me about this story is not whether Hodgson's a racist but the way it skews our understanding of how racism impacts on modern society. Media reporting is now all about what TV and sports personalities say, rather than what ordinary people do out there in the real world. And the discussions are always centred on whether the alleged target was justified in being "offended".

So the stories we hear are: should Carol Thatcher have called a black tennis player a "golliwog"; should England football captain John Terry have called an opponent a "fucking black cunt"; should Ron Atkinson have called a footballer a "fucking lazy thick nigger"? How should they be punished? Should they be sacked? And in too many cases the abusers quickly become martyrs, the new victims of a nation gripped by political correctness – you just can't say anything nowadays, can you?

And liberal commentators have caught on too. When talking about such issues as sexism, or gay rights, or disability, or antisemitism, their regular refrain is: "Imagine if they'd been talking about black people, just think of the fuss that would have been made."

And added to this, controversial comments by black personalities are seized upon as proof that there's an equal and opposite racism coming from the other side: Rio Ferdinand agreeing that Ashley Cole was a "choc-ice" – outrageous; Diane Abbott tweeting that "White people love playing 'divide & rule'" – the woman who campaigns against racism turns out to be just as racist herself.

In the endless coverage of all this, let's not pretend we're actually talking of racism; these are celebrity gaffe stories for the search-engine age. Though the issues are, for black people, irritating and possibly offensive, they are as relevant to racism as a cough is to tuberculosis. The fact you were once upset by a tweet doesn't mean you understand what racism's about.

The second race story last week addressed the real issues. An undercover BBC London investigation into lettings agents showed the massive extent to which black people are being denied homes – without them even knowing it. One reporter posed as a landlord and asked the agents not to show his rental property to African-Caribbean people. The agents – even the Asian ones – readily agreed. To test the agents' willingness, two other reporters, one black, one white, posed as prospective tenants. As the agents had promised, the black hopeful was told the property had gone; the white prospect was invited for a viewing.

Ten agents were found to be discriminating in this way; even more shocking, one of them said on (hidden) camera: "Ninety-nine per cent of my landlords don't want Afro-Caribbeans or any troublesome people." If true, and there's no reason to doubt his claim, it throws open all sorts of questions about how widespread discrimination is in modern Britain. This investigation, after all, took place in a city often held up as being at ease with difference. If it's happening in London, it can happen, and probably does, anywhere in Britain. And to cap it all, the black "rejects" would have no idea they were being discriminated against; they wouldn't have suspected a thing, unless this happened over and over again – in which case they'd risk being labelled paranoid for blaming it on their skin colour.

This is the true story of racism in the UK: how it is still so casual, and how it excludes and disenfranchises thousands. It's a story, though, which attracted minimal media attention. A news article in the Guardian and the Telegraph, but no interest from any other newspaper, and no battalions of columnists giving their opinions.

No celebrities involved; only black people affected. No story. As they say, if a tree falls in the forest and no one hears it, does it make a sound? If blatant racism occurs, and no one reports it, does it exist?

How things have changed. In 1988 a similar investigation took place by undercover BBC reporters in the city of Bristol. The documentary Black and White, broadcast over five successive weekdays, exposed discrimination in jobs, housing and the leisure industry and shocked the nation. Stunned viewers asked themselves how this could be happening in a country they believed to be so tolerant, and where discrimination was supposed to be illegal.

The documentary had a massive impact, opening people's minds to the fact that racism wasn't simply about National Front marches, skinhead thugs, abuse and violence. Geoff Small, the black undercover reporter, recalls: "For weeks afterwards, white people would approach me in the street and offer their sympathy and sincere apologies for what I'd gone through." Now, however, we look back on the 70s and 80s with a sneer. We believe we're so much more sophisticated now. Alf Garnett and the Black and White Minstrel show have gone; we've heard all about police racism through Stephen Lawrence; we see black faces presenting TV shows; many minorities have been successful in business; and we've even had black faces in the cabinet. For Christ's sake, even the President of the United States is black!

These steps, important though they are, are mainly about individual achievement; and the problem is that now, in this allegedly postracial era, the rose-tinted glasses of our diversity training are in fact blinding us to the reality for most black people – which has changed little in the intervening years. In case we need reminding, jobless rates are twice as high for black people as for whites, unemployment is a staggering 56% for young black men; black pupils are less likely than their white peers to get five good GCSEs and are routinely marked down by their teachers; they are three times more likely to be permanently excluded than the overall school population; stop and search rates are over five times higher for black people; and black people are five times more likely to be jailed.

But the story Britain likes to tell itself is that discrimination has gone away – that now we're used to black and brown people living among us, the barriers have come down. It was great that we celebrated Jessica Ennis and Mo Farah at London 2012, but the common conclusion, that this proved our nation was at ease with diversity, was pure delusion. As is the dominant view that the rise in interracial relationships and "beautiful" mixed-race babies shows that racism is on the way out.

The fact it persists undiminished is, it seems, too much for our society to take. And to keep the fantasy in place, we look for excuses: if there are more black jobless it's because of their poor attitude to work; if they perform badly at school it's their laziness and culture; if they're overrepresented in the criminal justice system then they're just naturally more aggressive. If black people could only sort out these self-inflicted problems themselves, everything would be OK. After all, doesn't every business say it welcomes job applicants from all backgrounds? The doors are open, why aren't you coming in?

Needless to say, this proves problematic for genuine anti-racists. It's the problem doctors used to have in "proving" that smoking causes cancer. You can't show it in individual cases, but when you track the increase in smoking and compare it to the increase in cancer rates, it becomes obvious. As for inequality, the general statistics show the racial disparities but individual cases are almost impossible to prove, allowing the deniers to claim that no barriers exist.

We certainly need the facts and figures, but what history shows is that most of us only react to this kind of thing when we see it with our own eyes. Would the abuse allegations at Abu Ghraib prison in Iraq ever have been believed were it not for the photographic proof? Statistics, unfortunately, can be manipulated and argued over endlessly. But seeing individuals act in a certain way is far more damning. What if, for instance, the BBC team had gone undercover with recruitment agents, or in the teachers' common room, or the judges' golf club? And what about the police? Ten years ago another undercover BBC investigation caused a storm after exposing the raw racism among trainee officers, most of whom used terms of racial abuse on a daily basis.

To investigate all these would, of course, be a significant undertaking; but we need to change the terms of the debate. If we are to achieve genuine equality, which most people say they want, then we need to show how racism can operate, indeed thrive, without a sign telling the world it exists. Without visible proof, we look set for years more discrimination, and years more denial.

Cricket: Quotas: less black and white than ever

Affirmative action is among the most bitterly divisive issues of the age. Particularly in sport, which depends on fairness, which in turn begins with equality of opportunity

Rob Steen

October 23, 2013

 

	Whether quotas were right for Zimbabwe or not, their current side is one far more reflective of the nation's demographics © AFP  Enlarge

"The heroes of our nation, dedicated to building the foundation of cricket for generations to come." Thus does the Cricket South Africa website hail its most important employees. Scroll down and you'll find an even more important assertion: "We can't undo the past, but we can shape the future."

Quotas cannot undo the past: their function is to shape the future by undoing the legacy of the past. Hence the recent decision to oblige South Africa's six franchises to field at least one black African in every match (for amateur teams the requirement doubles). On the face of it, this doesn't sound terribly onerous. It's certainly a far cry from the system Kevin Pietersen insists, disingenuously, drove him to England. One fact justifies this latest condition: 22 years after readmission, Makhaya Ntini remains the sole black African to have won 30 Test caps.

Affirmative action - or, as we Brits prefer, positive discrimination - is one of the most bitterly contested issues of the age. To some it oozes pros; to others, copious cons. To some it redresses prejudice, ancient and present; to others it either ignores other socio-economic factors or simply incites another form of prejudice, usually against those unfortunate enough to be paying for the sins of their fathers. In sport, purportedly the ultimate meritocracy, affirmative action is especially divisive. It will plainly take decades, even centuries, to atone for the sins of apartheid. South African sport has sought to balance those lopsided books via selection quotas, known officially as the "target transformation" policy, a step taken to equally justified and perhaps even more turbulent effect in Zimbabwe.

The complexity of all this is captured by Fisher v University of Texas, a legal case in the USA that is threatening to reverse the 2003 landmark decision in Grutter v Bollinger. Mindful of the Equal Protection Clause of the 14th Amendment, the US Supreme Court was tasked with deciding whether race can be a factor in deciding university admissions. In June, the case was thrown back to a lower court, a move welcomed by proponents of affirmative action: the principle, after all, had not been reversed. Recently, however, the "race-neutral" approach has even been advocated by the Project 21 leadership network, a group of African-American conservatives.

****

By contrast, Kevin Brown, a law professor at Indiana University and author of a forthcoming book on affirmative action, believes it would be a "massive mistake" to substitute consideration of an applicant's socio-economic background for his or her race. "We seem to be forgetting why affirmative action was created in the first place. Yes, of course it's true that individuals from poor backgrounds, regardless of skin colour, face obstacles in obtaining the kind of academic success valued by higher education institutions. But blacks and Latinos are disadvantaged in American society, even when adjusting for socio-economic factors."

Education, of course, is much more important than sport. Besides, why should sport be expected to discriminate, however positively, when other branches of the cultural tree are not? It may be his greatest weakness, but try telling Woody Allen to hire more black actors. He would argue, not unreasonably, that he makes movies about the world he knows, a world of white masters and black servants / prostitutes / entertainers. Sport differs because its legitimacy depends on fairness, and fairness begins with equality of opportunity. Without such foundations, its social value vanishes.

Cricket first tiptoed down this rocky road four decades ago, when the International Wanderers, a private party comprising several eminent English and Australian players, took on multi-racial XIs in South Africa. Such ventures ended in 1976, after hundreds of schoolchildren were killed in Soweto while protesting the government's education policies.

How illuminating, then, to dip into Luke Alfred's The Art of Losing, published last year, and learn that just three members of the South African team at the 1992 World Cup had voted in the whites-only referendum that approved the continuation of President FW De Klerk's reforms (had the decision gone the other way, warrants Alfred, they would have had to return home mid-tournament). Ahead lay those trials by quota.

In 1998, encouraged by the ANC, the United Cricket Board of South Africa laid down the law: the starting XI for each international match should include at least four players of "colour". Quotas were also introduced at provincial level. Adherence was never strict.

The first major row erupted in 2002 when the national selectors chose Jacques Rudolph ahead of Justin Ontong against Australia, only to be overruled by Percy Sonn, the board president. As a consequence, Ontong, who counted Rudolph as a friend, endured one of the most fiery and unenviable of baptisms. Double-edged swords don't come much more jagged than this. Knowing you've been picked not on your merits but because what was once an unfortunate accident of birth was now an advantage must play merry hell with one's self-esteem.

A relentlessly controversial figure whose administrative career would bring him to the heights of the ICC presidency and the depths of fraud allegations and alcohol-fuelled public disgrace, Sonn was roundly criticised by the cricketing fraternity; yet even those who believed he should have been focusing his efforts on improving coaching facilities for black schoolchildren understood his motives. "No doubt Sonn," noted theGuardian, "has seen too many examples of lip-service being paid to a quota system while, behind the scenes, not much is being done to attack the roots of an historic injustice."

Reflecting the elitism of a sport showing few signs of gaining traction in a black community conspicuously more enamoured of football, South Africa's 2007 Rugby World Cup-winning XV numbered only a couple of non-white faces. In cricket, another sport dominated by the elite white schools, politicians and administrators believed reformation should be a top-down process, billed as "targeted transformation". "As long as we have an abnormal society," Norman Arendse, the CSA president at the time, emphasised in 2007, "quotas and targets are not only desirable but also a constitutional imperative."

	Why should sport be expected to discriminate, however positively, when other branches of the cultural tree are not?

This prompted some problematic arguments. When Graeme Smith wanted to omit Ntini from a critical World Cup match, he was obliged to justify himself in a lengthy one-on-one with the CSA chief executive,Gerald Majola. Many argued that dressing-room morale was being undermined. By 2010, according to Tony Irish, the South Africa Cricket Association CEO, matters had become intolerable: "The players feel that as soon as a racial number is set for selection of the team (whether or not one calls this a quota or a target) it leads to a divisive dynamic within the team, and it is also degrading to the players of colour who should be there on merit, yet are labelled a quota/target player."

Cue a letter sent to Arendse and his fellow board members in 2007 by a group of senior players led by Ashwell Prince, soon to become the national team's first coloured captain. In it, they demanded an end to "artificial" selection at the highest level. Later that year, Makhenkesi Stofile, the sports minister, scoffed at the quotas as "window dressing", signifying a shift towards the notion that victory on the field would be a more effective form of inspiration.

****

In this sphere, Zimbabwe is well ahead of its big brother. It was the quota system that spurred 15 white players to mount a rebellion in 2004, led by Heath Streak. Today Streak is adamant that most of the nation's professionals, regardless of skin colour, were opposed to quotas and that his black colleagues, whose job options were far narrower, declined to revolt only because they feared the repercussions. The recent Test victory over Pakistan by a team far more reflective of the nation's demographics suggests that the angst has been worthwhile.

"Some sort of compensation or attempt at rectification is due to those non-white sportspeople who were directly or indirectly disadvantaged by apartheid." So acknowledged Dr Carl Thomen of the University of Johannesburg, in his 2008 book Is it Cricket? An Ethical Evaluation of Race Quotas in Sport. These "compensatory efforts", he nonetheless concluded, "must not come via the same principles which got us into the mess of apartheid in the first place". In writing his book, he sought "to show that the negative consequences of such policies far outweigh any good they may realistically claim to do".

Upon reading those sentiments a few weeks ago, I emailed the author. Surely, given the opportunities afforded the likes of Ntini and Hashim Amla, the quota system had been justified? He was not for turning. "I'm not sure that that policy was responsible [his italics] for their selection. Perhaps they were thrown in a bit earlier than otherwise, but I'm not sure you can credit the quota policies of the time with their success. The problem with quotas is that they are ethically indefensible, and they actively do damage. 'Necessity' doesn't come into it; they are evil, plain and simple."

Evil, really? How, then, do we describe apartheid? The counter-argument was summed up by my guest last weekend, John Young, a sportswriter, author and retired schoolteacher from the Western Cape and Thami Tsolekile's erstwhile agent. "Quotas were necessary precisely so that merit could be acknowledged," he reasons. "Good black players would never have been picked without them."

There's one mathematical equation we all know: wrong + wrong never = right. But sometimes being wrong for the right reasons can be preferable to being right for the wrong ones.

Action man: Give Justin Welby an issue and he will speak out

TERENCE BLACKER in The Independent 

Monday 21 October 2013

He fights the wrongdoings of the payday loaners and now the Big Six – what next?

News broke this weekend that the Archbishop of Canterbury and the Duchess of Cornwall have held a meeting to discuss poverty. Both have expressed their concerns about the behaviour of payday loan firms, and have supported the idea of local credit unions. They also share a belief in a pragmatic approach to contemporary problems: Justin Welby has suggested that the Church of England might set up shop as a moneylender while the duchess joined the London Mutual Credit Union in Peckham, where she is not a resident.

All this is something of a break with the recent past. Imagine a similar meeting but between the duchess’s husband, Prince Charles, and the last Archbishop of Canterbury, Dr Rowan Williams: the agonising over terms of reference, the anguished beard-tugging over what exactly constituted poverty, the reference to St Thomas Aquinas and Laurens van der Post, the ever-thickening fog of well-meaning abstraction.

The idea of a dynamic former oil executive taking over as head of the Anglican Church has, admittedly, taken some getting used to. Like many non-believers, I rather liked the gentle, beardy Dr Williams, with his tentative, non-prescriptive faith. I sensed that his God and my good were vague enough to be rather similar.

The new action-man Archbishop seems to have no time for windy theorising. His progress has been that of a businessman with a meeting to get through, rather than an academic wrestling with an abstruse intellectual problem.

Apart from his payday initiative with the Duchess of Cornwall, he has recently attacked energy companies for maximising profit, spoken out against the pursuit of economic growth, expressed views about same-sex marriage, regretted the influence of the colonial past in the running of the Church, welcomed tax changes for married couples, and supported the building of affordable houses.

He is, in other words, a thoroughly modern public figure, who sounds off confidently and unambiguously about the issues of the day. A glance at the nice old duffers who have preceded him – Coggan, Runcie, Carey, Williams – is enough to reveal how far he has already taken the church away from the old, grey establishment of which it was once part.

It is probably a sensible move. The words of politicians have become increasingly woolly and meaningless (last week, for example, we learned that coalition government means that the Liberal Democrats can simultaneously support and oppose free schools), and the public is looking for guidance elsewhere.

Archbishop Welby is moving towards the real shadow cabinet, the small group of public figures who speak out and influence opinion on the issues of the day. In this unofficial opposition, he could take on the role of Home Secretary, while Jamie Oliver is in charge of Health, Stephen Fry speaks on culture, and Chris Packham covers the environment. Among the junior shadow ministers can be found young thrusters like Russell Brand, Charlotte Church, Louise Mensch and Joey Barton.

In their own individual ways, these people – celebrities with attitude – have more sway over the way people think and the topics that matter than any number of the Gregs and Nicks who are in government.

They now include the Archbishop of Canterbury.

A few more telling soundbites, and he will be on The Graham Norton Show, telling twinkly anecdotes on Desert Island Discs or contributing to a “What Turns Me On” lifestyle column in one of the Sunday newspapers.

For those who like the Anglican Church to be a solid, slightly dull presence in our national life, the Welby way will no doubt be distressing – he is hardly, in the words of the hymn, a still, small voice of calm. But at a time when politicians are trying to please everyone, the press is widely distrusted, and the BBC has lost its way, perhaps it is not such a terrible thing that the Church of England has found itself a confident, slightly bumptious new voice.