Listen to Melissa Benn, one of several contributors to Mark Lawson’s recent Radio Four programme on the representation of politics in fiction and the arts.

Listen to an interview with Melissa Benn on the website of poet and writer James Nash……………….and later this month, on November 21st at 8pm, Melissa is one of a number of contributors to a special programme on Radio Four, written and presented by Mark Lawson, on the representation of politics in fiction and the arts. The Radio Times are doing a special feature on the programme. Check out the Radio Four website for more details nearer the time.

Take a look at this very interesting link.

With the Tories apparently converting to all-ability schools, despite internal opposition, the debate on academic selection seemed one argument that had run its course, despite the continuing existence of 165 grammar schools, that no government dares touch.

Not so. The argument rumbles on, boosted by recent publication of Alan Milburn’s study on social mobility: the latest example being a fairly pallid offering from Mary Warnock in the Independent.that was robustly rejected by Professor Richard Pring in the letters page, a couple of days later.

Here is Pring’s excellent letter reproduced in full:

Grammar schools are divisive, unjust and ineffective

Friday, 31 July 2009
It is difficult to understand how a philosopher of Mary Warnock’s distinction could still peddle the myths about grammar schools (“Children need to be taught to think highly of education”, 29 July). Far from rescuing “children from disadvantaged homes”, the 11-plus examination failed to do just that – despite its pretensions to detect innate intelligence accurately at the age of 10-plus, when most took the tests.

The Crowther report, exactly 50 years ago, expressed its concern that so few of those from the bottom quarter in terms of poverty, who did in fact get to grammar school, actually obtained an O-level; 40 per cent of those from the unskilled working-class who passed their 11-plus left school without a single qualification.

Those who, like Mary Warnock, want to bring back grammar schools, or wish to retain the remaining 165 (which distorts comprehensive provision in about 45 per cent of local authorities) must subscribe to three propositions: first, that it makes sense to distinguish a minority group (about 20 per cent) of intelligent young people (the rest not capable of handling abstract ideas or learning for its own sake, as the Norwood report in 1943 put it); second, that this intelligence is fixed, not to be acquired through subsequent experience or teaching; third, that that innate quality can be accurately measured by IQ tests.

The injustice of such assumptions was demonstrated in the 1950s when Phillip Vernon showed how coaching could shift pupils’ IQ scores by as much as 14 points. And that partly explains why the children from more advantaged homes did so much better.

Professor Richard Pring

From time to time in this blog I hope to celebrate some of the most impressive women and men of contemporary politics.

Below,  a profile of one such woman that appeared in this week’s Guardian.

Katherine Rake: Feminism’s calm champion

Katherine Rake has led The Fawcett Society, the UK’s leading campaign for human rights, for seven years. On the day she bows out, she tells Kira Cochrane about being vilified as ‘worse than Hitler’, the postcode lottery for rape victims – and why she never gets angry.

Read the rest of the article here

Below, an opening extract from the Guardian news report today, on the Fawcett report, ‘Not Having it All: How Motherhood Reduces Women’s Pay and Employment Prospects’ and the link to the rest of it.

‘Women with children earn about 22% less than their male colleagues, according to a new report that explores the “devastating” impact of motherhood on earnings.

“Before becoming parents, men and women are equally likely to be employed, but childbirth marks the start of a great divide, which continues even after children have left home and does lasting damage to women’s careers,” the report finds’

Read the rest of this article here.

And for more details of the tenacious campaigning organisation that brings these issues to our attention on a regular basis, go to the Fawcett Society website.

Six months after paperback publication, One of Us continues to remain on both the VIntage and Richard and Judy bookclub bestseller lists. Vintage also continue to recommend the novel as one of its essential fiction reads.

BBC Audio books have recently recorded a full, unabridged length CD of the novel – playing time 10 hours and 39 minutes -read by the actress Sophie Ward.