Nature trumps nurture in exam success

Richard Garner in The Independent

Genetics has a more powerful influence on pupils' GCSE exam results than teachers, schools or family environment, according to a new study published tonight.

Researchers from King's College London found that genetic differences account for 58 per cent of the differences between pupils' GCSE exam scores - while environment (home or school) only accounted for 29 per cent.  They also found boys' results were more likely to reflect their genes than girls.

The bombshell conclusion is bound to thrust the debate over the role of genetics in education back to centre stage - just two months after Michael Gove's outgoing senior adviser, Dominic Cummings, told his boss he believed genetics outweighed teaching when it came to determining pupil performance.

He also arranged a meeting between the Education Secretary and leading geneticist Professor Robert Plomin, one of the authors of the new research, to discuss the issue.

In a 250-page "private thesis" - which has since been made public, Mr Cummings argued that the link between intelligence and genetics had been overlooked up until now in the education system.

The controversy was fuelled when London Mayor Boris Johnson appeared to suggest more resources should be devoted to the education of those with high IQs, arguing: "Whatever you may think of the value of IQ tests, it is surely relevant to a conversation about equality that as many as 16 per cent of our species has an IQ below 85 while about two per cent have an IQ above 130."

The influence of genetics on intelligence has been almost a taboo subject in education policy circles for years following the publication of a book nearly two decades ago in the United States, The Bell Curve by Robert J.Hermstein and Charles Murray, suggesting there was a link between race and intelligence.

As Dr John Jerrim, from London University's Institute of Education who has conducted research into the impact of genes on children's reading ability, put it genetic research has often in the past "been linked with right-wing political views".

Today's research acknowledges  the danger of "a deep-seated fear  ... that accepting the importance of genetics justifies inequities - educating the best and forgetting the rest".

However, it adds: "Depending on one's values, the opposite position could also be taken, such as putting more educational resources into the lower end of the distribution to guarantee that all children reach minimal standards of literacy and numeracy."

The study, based on  11,117 identical and non-identical twins, shows that a child's genes are a more important indicator of educational performance across all the core subjects - accounting for 52 per cent of the difference in scores in English, 55 per cent in maths and 58 per cent in science.

"The significance of these findings is that individual differences in educational achievement at the end of compulsory  education are not primarily an index of the quality of teachers or schools," the report says.  "Much more of the variance  of GCSE scores can be attributed to genetics than to school or family environment."

The researchers compared the exam performance of identical twins who share 100 per cent of their genes with non-identical twins who share on average 50 per cent of their genes.  They argued that - if identical twins' exam scores were more alike than those of non-identical twins -the difference was due to genetics rather than environment.

They added:  "A remarkable finding is that the estimates of heritability and shared environmental influence do not differ substantially across diverse subjects.  The humanities subjects have the lowest estimate (40 per cent) and science subjects the highest."

The researchers said that a previous study which showed strong genetic influence on performance in the early years had been "surprising" but it was even more so to find such a strong link at GCSE level. "The surprise stems from thinking that, as these subjects are taught at school, differences in educational achievement are primarily due to differences in teaching," they added.

Nicholas Shakeshaft, lead author of the paper and a PhD student at the Institute of Psychiatry at King's College London, said: "Children differ in how easily they learn at school.  Our research shows that differences in students' educational achievement owe more to nature than nurture."

The researchers argue that it could be expected that countries with a "one-size-fits all" national curriculum - as the UK has - might yield higher heritability estimates than countries with a more flexible system.

However, they add that "one major misconception" of their findings would be to conclude genetic influences "diminish the importance of schools".  "The differential impact between good and bad schools is not great," the report adds, "but the difference between schools and no schools is likely to be enormous".

Instead, the findings argue an individually tailored approach to a child's education is more likely to combat any lack in performance due to genes rather a universal, one-size-fits-all approach to the curriculum.

Earlier, Dr Claire Haworth, from Warwick University and deputy director of the twins programme, argued genetics should be covered in teacher training - especially if it helped trainees to explain variations in the way different children learn.

Improving the understanding of genetics in schools was key to dispelling some of the myths around the science.

Why do private schools still attract the most memorable teachers?

It's not surprising that Alan Bennett's The History Boys is Britain's most popular play. The unfairness within our education system endures

• 
• • Martin Kettle
  • The Guardian, Wednesday 11 December 2013 20.30 GMT

Dominic Cooper and Richard Griffiths as Hector in The History Boys, a film of the play by Alan Bennett. Photograph: Allstar/BBC/Sportsphoto Ltd

There are obvious pitfalls in reading too much into the news that Alan Bennett's The History Boys has just been voted the nation's favourite play. After all, Bennett's 2004 play had a long run in London, toured extensively over many years and has been made into a successful movie. So the simple fact is that a lot of people have seen and enjoyed it. This familiarity means The History Boys was therefore in an ace position to win the contest organised by the English Touring Theatre.

Conversely, the limits of access surely also explain why Bennett's play did not top the poll in London and the south-east of England, where the palm for favourite play went instead to Jez Butterworth's Jerusalem. There's no way that Jerusalem, with its life-enhancing celebration of anti-authoritarianism and the spirit of William Blake, would bomb outside London. On the contrary. It's just that theatre-goers in the rest of Britain have had much less chance so far to see Butterworth's wonderful 2009 play than Londoners have.

Other geographical differences also counsel against over-interpretation. It may be tempting to suppose that Ulster's recent history has something to do with Hamlet, not the Bennett play, topping the poll in Northern Ireland. All those ghosts of the past, those dead bodies, those unavenged murders, that instability at the heart of the state; maybe it all adds up. But Hamlet is also the favourite in south-west England, where ancestral internecine conflict and grievance is generally – though I may be wrong – less pronounced. So the easy explanation seems to fall short.

So what does explain the slightly curious fact that a play about a group of northern state school sixth-form boys preparing for Oxbridge in the 1980s touches such a modern national chord? Availability of and access to performances is obviously important. The sociology of theatregoers probably matters too. The play's wit, character and pace give it further advantages – there's no denying that we British like a laugh in our plays. Bennett's much-loved status, as he approaches his 80th birthday next year, undoubtedly helps as well.

But the deeper answer to the status of The History Boys also lies somewhere in the synergy between two other things. The first is hinted at by the fact that Bennett's play topped the poll in north-west England, north-east England, eastern England and the Midlands. Bennett writes about – and also for – the neglected half of Britain that is neither bathed in the glow of London's excitement and prosperity, nor culturally distinct enough to be governed by devolved institutions. In his quirky way Bennett is the playwright, rather as JB Priestley once was, of the post-industrial England of which so many in the south are both ignorant and disdainful.

The second factor, which overlaps the first in some ways, is that The History Boys is not in the end just a comedy about school and growing up – though of course it is both these things too. It is also an angry lament for the passing of a state school education system of which Bennett himself is such a flowering.

In spite of what you may read in Private Eye, there are one or two of us Guardian columnists who are wholly state educated and proud to have sent our own children to state schools too. As someone who not only went to a state grammar school in the north of England – like the one in The History Boys – but also to the very school in Leeds that Bennett (whose father was our local butcher when I was a boy) attended himself, there is nothing quaint or exotic to me about the world of his play. My school was like that.

Moreover, like Bennett, I am a history boy. My generation falls halfway between Bennett's own and the one he depicts in his play. Nevertheless, the school he describes in his introduction to The History Boys is in every way one that I recognise, with its excitements, its insecurities, its snobberies and its occasional very real cruelties. I can never forget the long-haired boy who was called into the headmaster's study and physically restrained while another teacher attempted to cut off his hair. The boy broke free, ran screaming from the school, and rightly never came back.

But I also recognise the pride and the civic benevolence. As Bennett says in that introduction, if you got into Oxbridge, as he did and I did, you got your photo in the local paper and your education was paid for. Bennett's wholly correct assertion that there was genuine civic pride in such achievements was brought home to me when, as an undergraduate, I applied for an extra year of grant from Leeds education department. Back came a letter, handwritten by the chief education officer, Mr Taylor, agreeing to the application on the grounds that he was confident I would continue to bring distinction upon Leeds in the years ahead. A letter like that seals a deal with a place for life, I can tell you.

We live in a different country today, of course. Good secondary and higher education and training for all – and not just for some, as in the 1960s – are expensive. Good teachers don't grow on trees and are not cheap to train or retain. As Ofsted said only this week, access to the best teaching is often down to good luck as much as to socioeconomic status.

But this unfairness is not equally shared. Nearly 60 years ago, the undergraduate Bennett was struck by the unfairness that memorable teachers – like the unforgettable Hector he placed in a state school in The History Boys – seemed to be concentrated in the private schools. That unfairness is still with us today. The price Britain pays for the privileges bought by the few for their children is still far too high – and we all know it.

The History Boys is "about" lots of things. A large part of it, though, is about the fact that the chance to thrill to, and benefit from, great teaching is neither a high enough public priority nor shared out fairly.

The crucial line in the play is the last one. Hector says simply: "Pass it on." What is to be passed on is partly the love of knowledge, of ideas, thinking and talking, of education. But there is also a more indignant political message about passing on the unfinished business of educational unfairness. You can't look at Britain today and not see how unfinished that work is. That is surely part of the explanation of why Bennett's play connects so powerfully with so many.

Reclassifying ketamine is more fiddling while the crack pipe burns

Why can't we have an honest conversation about drugs?

 

• 
• • Suzanne Moore
  • The Guardian, Wednesday 11 December 2013 20.00 GMT

Why can't we talk about our history of intoxication? Photograph: guardian.co.uk

Tis the season to be off your head, legally and in a ladylike manner. At the moment there is a lot of focus on the harm that us people (ie, women) do to ourselves with our: "Yay, it's wine o'clock." Or, as the Sun explains: "So many mums open the wine once the kids are in bed. The cork rarely goes back in the bottle."

One might ask why women's lives are so stressful that self-medication is needed, and why alcohol is such an astonishingly cheap way to get wasted. Legally.

I stress legal because the news that government advisers want ketamine reclassified from a class C to B drug is more fiddling while the crack pipe burns. The drug wasn't banned until 2006, but someone who gets caught with it will now face up to five years in prison instead of two. A heavy price, one feels, for the person who wants to anaesthetise themselves of an evening. Send them to prison where drugs are the currency? It's almost as if government advisers don't live in the real world.

Sure, the long-term effects of ketamine (bladder damage) are not nice and I have never doubted that it is dangerous. When I was 16, two boys I knew broke into a veterinary surgery and injected it. The dose was for horses, not humans. They both died stupid, stupid deaths.

Reclassifying it might mean a few students may now think twice. But those who will be thinking really hard are the manufacturers who will design a legal substance that guarantees the effects of ketamine and can be sold online. For this is how prohibition works hand in hand with capitalism and organised crime. Recently, we have all experienced contact highs – cooking up meth (Breaking Bad), cheering on Nigella (coke), Paul Flowers (a vile cocktail of everything and ill- considered banking). We watch Russell Brand's abstinence monologues that do indeed break the barriers of space and time.

There is no joined-up drugs policy. It is rare that I say a good word about George Osborne but, as I have said in the past, I don't care if he took cocaine. Because I don't. And to be fair to Nick Clegg – maybe I really am out of my mind – he admits that in the war on drugs, drugs won, acknowledging that many senior police officers want decriminalisation. Addiction, Clegg declared recently, is a health issue, not a criminal justice one.

Facts remain a dangerous substance in this debate, as Professor David Nutt knows. In 2009, he said that illegal drugs should be classified according to the harm, both social and individual, they cause. Alcohol would certainly have a high classification. Booze and tobacco, he said, were more harmful than LSD, cannabis and ecstasy. So he had to be got rid of, as few politicians ever seem to be able to expand their minds enough to consider actual evidenced-based policy-making.

Decriminalising certain drugs would inevitably mean misuse. But the unsayable thing is that many of us use drugs, legal and illegal, at certain stages in our lives. And enjoy them.

Instead, however, we hand over the trade to organised crime, which is why Mexico is in the state it is now, upping its poppy production massively. We have spent 10 years trying to bomb or bribe away the only cash crop the Afghans can grow (the opium poppy). What do we want them to sell? Cabbages? This year is a record one for the crop, produced mainly in Helmand, so that has really worked.

You may be the sort of person who does not want to drink or take drugs. You may not wish to expand your mind, or lose it. You may not want to connect the handing-out of mood-altering SSRIs (selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors) with kids smoking skunk and mums' little wine clubs. You may think it's no longer cool to neck any pills other than statins. You may want to move to Uruguay, which has just legalised marijuana, though I can't think of anything worse than being in Montevideo with a load of gap yahs. It's not my drug of choice, as I like things that make you want to talk.

I would like the real drug conversation, not the gurning, coked-up, aren't-we-amazing one. Not the one where Tulisa is a threat to civilisation. Why can't we talk about our history of intoxication, personal and political? Those who make the laws that would make me a criminal are not coherent in their logic. They are cowards, afraid of a media that is neither clean nor sober. Drugs, legal and illegal, are a fact of life. Even life-enhancing. There will be casualties of drugs but there are casualties of not facing reality. Both need to be managed. Honestly, I really cannot snort another line of this hypocrisy.

Cricket and war - Champs today, chumps tomorrow

In separating sportsmen into two distinct categories - tough men and cowards - we not only miss the subtlety, we miss the whole truth

Ed Smith

December 12, 2013

 

Alastair Cook's dismissal in Adelaide may well have been a statistical inevitability following a long sequence of (mostly successful) hook shots © PA Photos

Gutless, spineless, clueless, cowardly, stupid, scrambled minds, send them home.

I am, of course, referring not to players but to those critics who think that every mistake that happens in sport reveals a cowardly soul lurking underneath. Sport is more complicated than brave men against weak men.

There has been a rush to explain England's disastrous two Test matches in Australia in terms of morality. That is the easy way of talking and writing about sport. Retain the adjectives, just swap over the proper nouns. Here is a template. It is easy to adapt, and can last several decades of use with a little tinkering around the edges:

"The fractured, divided and self-absorbed Australia/England team (delete according to whether you are discussing this Ashes series or the last one) have proved woefully incapable of showing the guts, fortitude and will power to match the ruthless, united and courageous team spirit of England/Australia. Sadly, England/Australia give the impression of being more interested in money, glory and fame than in putting their bodies on the line for their country. There is a clear lack of leadership from Clarke/Cook, and one senses that old wounds have not properly healed between key senior players. If this is the best XI wearing the three lions/baggy green, then one wonders about the moral collapse and decadence of a once proud old/young nation."

Job done. Save as a Word document and just remember to delete "England" or "Australia" given the state of the series, everything else stands. Sadly, as a casual explanation of why England won 3-0 at home and now trail 2-0, it does not advance the story very far.

Let's start with the charge of moral cowardice. I have increasingly lost confidence in the concept of a "bad dismissal". That is because I am yet to see a "good dismissal". I accept that running down the pitch with your eyes closed, holding the bat by the toe and trying to hit the ball with the handle - well, that is a bad dismissal.

But most dismissals - nearly all of them - only have any meaning when placed in their proper context. And I don't mean the old cliché of "the match situation". I mean the context of the batsman's whole career record of playing that shot. David Gower scored several thousand Test runs playing majestic cover drives. He also got out numerous times doing it. To argue the dismissals were "soft" while believing the runs were "invaluable" is simple contradiction. He could not have scored the runs without risking the dismissals. It's a question - all taken together - of whether Gower playing cover drives was a better bet than a potential replacement doing something else. And, of course, Gower was the right choice.

	Moral courage is not revealed in the nature of mistakes but in their frequency - or, more accurately, in the case of good players, the infrequency of mistakes

During his Ashes-winning innings of 158 at The Oval in 2005, Kevin Pietersen played a series of risky hook shots against Brett Lee. In a way, he was forced into it. When he tried to be defensive, he looked like getting out any moment - so defensiveness was not a rational strategy, let alone a brave one. So he took a risk. And top-edged and was dropped. Then he did it again. And the ball just made it over the ropes for six. And then again. Coward/hero, fool/champion, disgrace/legend.

It is the same tribal fan - and the same polemical columnist - who shouts "hero" more loudly than anyone when a six is scored, and then chants "villain" more loudly still when the same shot lands in the fielder's hands. What a champion to take on the bowler! What a fool to take such a risk! The inconsistency here is not the batsman's, it is the spectator's.

Moral courage is not revealed in the nature of mistakes but in their frequency - or, more accurately, in the case of good players, the infrequency of mistakes. Alastair Cook's career average on the hook shot is well ahead of his (healthy) average for all the other shots. Yet, by the laws of statistics, even high-percentage shots occasionally cause dismissals. Yes, it looks bad when you get out hooking. But the wider point is lost: even to save a game, batsmen must play some shots to keep a modicum of pressure on the bowlers. Given that I am not a trained psychologist with access to hundreds of hours of private conversations with Cook, I am not in a position to judge whether his Adelaide hook shot was caused by "the pressures of captaincy" or whether it was a statistical inevitability following a long sequence of (mostly successful) hook shots. But I can guess with some confidence it was the latter.

That brings me to the wider argument. The moral dimension of "bad dismissals" is always invoked. Never mentioned is a subtler moral failing. Imagine a sports match as two old-fashioned armies meeting on a battlefield. Their purpose is to advance. When the front lines engage, the direction of travel will be determined by tiny acts of skill and bravery.

Surveying the melee from the sidelines, it is all too easy to ridicule the errors that catch our eye - the maverick who has broken ranks, the vainglorious solo charge. But the battle is really won elsewhere. Somewhere on the front line, an infantryman inches a foot closer to his ally, hiding his own shield slightly behind his friend's. Hence one man becomes fractionally safer and more protected - but if the action is repeated a thousand times, the army as a whole becomes significantly smaller and weaker. No one individual can be singled out as a hopeless failure. But the whole group suffers a collective diminution.

	Kevin Pietersen at The Oval in 2005: bravado or foolishness? © Getty Images  Enlarge

So it is in cricket. First slip inches behind the wicketkeeper to make it less likely he will drop a catch - simultaneously narrowing the cordon as a whole and making the opposition batsman safer. An opening batsman fails to hit a half-volley for four because he is too cautious: an opportunity missed to be brave because he has failed to exploit an advantage offered to his team. After all, a few good shots could have knocked the bowler off his length. A fingerspinner who doesn't dare to give it a proper rip because he fears being hit for six: he is allowing the opposition army to inch forward every ball. A swing bowler who doesn't attack the stumps but settles for the safe option of pushing it wide of off stump: he is allowing the opposition to settle in and become comfortable on the battlefield.

Critics delude themselves that the only form of bravery in batting is survival. Yes, no batsman ever scored runs from the pavilion. But I have seen countless teams imperceptibly yield an advantage - through timidity, through fearfulness, through the desire not to stand out for the wrong reasons - an advantage that they never subsequently reversed. Once the whole army is retreating, even the bravest soldiers can fail to hold the line.

And so it has been with England on this tour. So in place of "out-fought", "out-toughed", "out-machoed", "out-sledged", "out-hungered", I have a simpler word: outplayed.

I arrived in Australia this week to commentate on the Ashes. I've been chatting to some legendary Australian cricketers of the 1970s - when men were men, moustaches were mandatory, and Jeff Thomson bowled like lightning. These are not the types to excuse softness in anyone. Yet they've told me that Mitchell Johnson has been bowling awesomely fast, by any standards. And the pitch in Adelaide, though placid, was slightly uneven in bounce. Enough to make it very challenging from the perspective of simple technique, let alone bravery. "I wouldn't have wanted to duck due to low bounce," one ex-player told me, "but standing up and playing carried serious risks too. All round - pretty bloody difficult. I'd have rather faced Lillee!"

No one said Test cricket should be easy, of course. But the central truth about this series so far is that extreme pace - as it often has in Test history - has exposed weaknesses that would have otherwise survived unobserved.

It is one of the great themes of history. Ask any real leader - from business, sport or the military - to explain his success. There will be a smile of recognition (assuming he has a brain, that is) and a nod of acknowledgement. He will know that had circumstances become fractionally more difficult, had the enemy been one degree more imposing, then all his best-laid plans could have been blown away.

In separating sportsmen into two distinct and permanent categories - winners and losers, tough men and cowards - we not only miss the subtlety, we miss the whole truth.

For England, one comfort remains. This England team, for all its achievements, has never quite captured the public imagination. When they have won, it has been with measured professionalism not memorable daring. As a result, they have felt more respected than loved.

Well, I have good news for them: turn this one around, and they'll never have to worry about a lack of adulation again.

Follow Mandela's example, and roar with laughter at all this rightwing fawning

Nelson Mandela not only made history, he did so in such a way that made others – from David Cameron to Elton John – want to rewrite their own 

• 
• • Marina Hyde
  • The Guardian, Friday 6 December 2013 17.05 GMT

Illustration by Andrzej Krauze

Asked for his feelings on meeting the Spice Girls in 1997 – shortly after Mel B had compared their "girl power quest" with the anti-apartheid movement – Nelson Mandela obliged. "I don't want to be emotional," he explained, "but this is one of the greatest moments of my life."

The twinkly-eyed gag was taken at face value by the group and plenty of dullard commentators, who were bemused, when they should simply have been amused. Mandela was a very funny man. In fact, every time I read the remark again I find myself laughing – not at Geri et al, which says something about how Mandela elevates even the cynical, but with him, who somehow contrived to tread the most elegant path through the unique absurdities of much of his later existence.

Less adroit, it must be said, are many of those lumbering to salute him in death – a global throng of Zeligs, from politicians to press, whose lifelong reverence for Mandela as a man and leader of a struggle was simply failed by the greatest superlatives. How on earth did apartheid endure so long, younger viewers may be wondering, considering everyone who was anyone seems to have been on Mandela's side?

"Nelson Mandela was a hero of our time," intoned David Cameron, who went off on a jolly to apartheid South Africa in 1989, with all expenses paid by a firm lobbying against sanctions. " President Mandela was one of the great forces for freedom and equality of our time," declared George W Bush, neglecting to mention that the ANC were still on a US terror-watch list until 2008, which meant the secretary of state had to certify that Mandela was not a terrorist in order for him to visit the country.

You have to laugh – mostly because that is probably what Mandela would have done. How often photos showed him roaring with laughter next to fawning leaders or dignitaries or whoever wanted a piece of him that day. I always imagined him getting the cosmic joke of it all – here he was, feted often by people who either couldn't have given a toss in his darkest times, or had transparently wished him ill.

Sainthood can be very sanitising, of course, and the right have a vested interest in smothering the realities of Mandela's radicalism under a lead blanket of tributes. But Mandela not only made history, he also did so in such a way that he made others wish to rewrite their own histories. In some cases, they seem to have done this because the argument against apartheid – and it actually was a matter of debate for plenty of people at the time, kids – was won so totally that to retrospectively admit in public that you were on the wrong side of it, or in effect on the fence, became akin to saying you were as politically witless as you were wicked.

Others have since discovered misty-eyed pasts. Not long ago, I asked Nigel Farage if Nelson Mandela was a political hero, on the basis that he has to be everyone's these days. "He's a human hero," the Ukip leader replied reverentially. "That day he came out of Robben Island" – it wasn't Robben Island, but anyway – "and stood there and forgave everybody, I just thought: 'This is Jesus.'"

Now, Farage was a rightwing Conservative activist in 1990, and doubtless it was uncharitable of me to think it odd that he should have thought about Mandela in those terms at that time, considering it would have been bizarrely uncharacteristic of his tribe (it wasn't awfully long after the Federation of Conservative Students used to wear Hang Mandela badges, while in the US the likes of Dick Cheney were voting against resolutions calling for his release). But more importantly, my scepticism – for which there was absolutely no evidence, I should say – was irrelevant. The point was that Farage believed he had thought that, and it is part of his personal folklore.

It's not just politicians, naturally. All self-respecting self-regarders jostled to touch Mandela's robe. At a 90th birthday party in London, Elton John sang a worshipful Happy Birthday to him – a track that presumably wasn't on the set list when Elton played Sun City in 1983. "My respects to an extraordinary person, probably one of the greatest humanists of our time," declared Thursday's tribute from Sepp Blatter, the man who demanded the frail elder statesman present himself at the World Cup final in South Africa, to the vocal distress of Mandela's family given he was mourning the tragic death of his 13-year-old great-granddaughter.

"Death of a colossus," was the headline in yesterday's Daily Mail, who marked his 1990 release with "The violent homecoming". "Violence and death disfigured the release of Nelson Mandela yesterday …" began that take on history.

They all came round in the end. Lesser people – minuscule folk such as myself, in fact – would occasionally have felt overwhelmed with the urge to inquire, even smilingly: "Well, where the hell were you when I was rotting in a cell for the best part of 30 years?" But in his superhuman magnanimity, Mandela never once mentioned it. So to follow his example in an infinitely smaller way, perhaps we should just roar with laughter ourselves at all the rightwing Mandela-venerators crawling out of the woodwork to weave themselves into his achievements. Such monumental progress could only be achieved by someone with the grace to understand a political reality: it is better that Johnny should come lately than not at all.

Malta selling EU passports to foreign investors for £546,000

Want to buy citizenship? It helps if you're one of the super-rich

Malta has announced it is selling passports to foreign investors for £546,000, but that's cheap compared with other countries, such as Britain and the US

A foreign investor looking to get a passport for an EU country would be better off looking at Malta's citizenship deal. Photograph: Alamy

Citizenship is like rhythm: if you weren't born with it, it's not easy to get. However, in the EU there is a fast-track for the super-rich. The Maltese government now has a scheme to attract "high-value" foreigners to the country, by selling passports for £546,000. Which, by passport standards, is pretty cheap.

The move has ruffled feathers in the UK. In part, because of worries about unchecked immigration; the passport grants its holders full EU citizenship, including freedom of movement (Maltese citizenship also come with a visa waiver on entry to the US). Labour's shadow immigration minister, David Hanson, told the Financial Times the move risked being "a backdoor route" to EU residence and was "not a tight or appropriate immigration policy". The government faces calls from British and European politicians to intervene and put a stop to the plan.

But the main reason the UK is annoyed is not because we worry foreign millionaires will come here to claim benefits. It is probably that Malta's scheme is more attractive than our own deal for super-rich settlers. The British equivalent, the Tier 1 (Investor) visa programme, assesses applicants on the basis of their ability "to invest £1,000,000 in the UK". Foreign investors who hold £10m of their money here can apply for permanent residence after two years living in the country. Compared to Malta's plan, it looks like a load of hassle.

About 20 countries operate similar systems. In the US, Immigrant Investor Visas are awarded to foreign nationals who invest $1m in the economy and create 10 full-time jobs for US citizens within two years of arrival. Those who do so are awarded permanent residence and, after three more years, can apply for full citizenship. In the Canadian province of Quebec, "Immigrant Investors" must invest $800,000 CAN (£457,000) in an interest-free, five-year bond and show at least two years of proven management experience. (Canada suspended its nationwide immigrant investor programme in July 2012 but Quebec's continues.)

The European schemes tend to be more lenient. Greece, Cyprus and Macedonia offer fast-track resident permits for foreign investors who spend a minimum of €250,000 to €400,000 (£210,000 to £335,000) in the country. Spain grants a residency visa to foreign buyers who spend €500,000 (£418,000) or more on Spanish property, though the wait for permanent residency and EU citizenship is five years.

The major beneficiaries of such schemes are the Chinese global rich. Since October last yea, 318 residence permits have been issued in Portugal to foreign property buyers who spent over €500,000. Of these, 248 went to Chinese nationals; 15 went to Russians, and nine each to Angolans and Brazilians.

The Maltese system may be the most open of the lot: its applicants do not need to be resident in the country, and are not expected to prove any further investment in the islands' economy. It is expected to attract around 40 people in its first year, rising to 300 a year from 2014.

But their stay may be short-lived. Polls show 53% of Maltese oppose the move, and the opposition leader, Simon Busutil of the Nationalist Party, has pledged to revoke the passports if returned to power. In fairness to him, it won't be hard to expel citizens who have never actually lived there in the first place.

David Moyes, just like John Major, is destined to fail

Sport is no different from politics. There is a syndrome that means it's all but impossible for one star to follow another

• 
• • Jonathan Freedland 
  • theguardian.com, Tuesday 10 December 2013 11.00 GMT

Manchester United manager David Moyes is discovering how hard it is to follow a predecessor of star quality Photograph: Dave Thompson/PA

You don't have to be a football fan to understand the trouble with David Moyes. Anyone familiar with the highest reaches of politics will recognise his predicament immediately. For those who turn rarely to the back pages, Moyes is in his first season as the manager of Manchester United. He inherited a team that had just won yet another title as Premier League champions, but under him they are struggling. Now ninth in the league, they are a full 13 points off the top spot. What's more, Moyes has broken a few awkward records. Under him, the team have lost at home to Everton (his old club) for the first time in 21 years and on Saturday lost to Newcastle at Old Trafford for the first time since 1972. Tonight another unwanted feat threatens. If they lose to the Ukrainian team Shakhtar Donetsk, it will be the first time United have suffered three successive home defeats in 50 years.

Watch Moyes attempt to explain these results, or defend his performance, in a post-match interview or press conference and, if you're a political anorak, you instantly think of one man: John Major. Or, if you're an American, perhaps the first George Bush. For what you are witnessing is a classic case of a syndrome that recurs in politics: the pale successor fated to follow a charismatic leader and forever doomed by the comparison.

Major may be earning some late kudos and revision of his reputation now, but while prime minister he was in the permanent shadow of his predecessor, Margaret Thatcher. Bush the elder was always going to be dull after the man who went before him, Ronald Reagan. So it is with Moyes, who was given the hardest possible act to follow – inheriting from one of the footballing greats, Sir Alex Ferguson.

It's a pattern that recurs with near-universal regularity. Tony Blair was prime minister for 10 years; Gordon Brown never hit the same heights and only managed three. Same with Jean Chrétien of Canada and his luckless successor Paul Martin. Or, fitting for this day, consider the case of Thabo Mbeki whose destiny was to be the man who took over from Nelson Mandela and so was all but preordained to be a disappointment.

It's as if an almost Newtonian law applies: the charisma of a leader exists in inverse proportion to the charisma of his or her predecessor. Moyes is only the latest proof.

What could explain the syndrome? Does nature abhor one star following another in immediate succession?

One theory suggests itself, though it draws more from psychology than physics. Note the role, direct or indirect, many of these great leaders had in choosing their successors. Could it be that some part of them actually wanted a lacklustre heir, all the better to enhance their own reputation? United could have had any one of the biggest, most glamorous names in football at the helm, yet Ferguson handpicked Moyes. Did Sir Alex do that to ensure he would look even better?

For this is how it works. Once the great man or woman has gone, and everything falls apart, their apparent indispensability becomes all the harder to deny. Manchester United fans look at the same players who were champions a few months ago, now faring so badly, and conclude: Ferguson was the reason we won.

If that was his unconscious purpose in picking the former Everton boss, then Sir Alex chose very wisely. And Moyes can comfort himself that, in this regard at least – like Major, Bush, Brown and so many others before him – he's doing his job perfectly.