That is still some way below typical figures in the seventies in Britain, but it rather dents the thesis that the majority of Americans are disenfranchised by a system in which they see themselves as powerless.For the pessimists about the state of democracy in the present era of big money, professionalised campaigns and diluted ideology, the prediction is a surprising one. Especially because the contest between Al Gore and George W Bush has been so lacklustre. But the paradox of this year’s campaign has been, for all the sense that the nation regards both candidates with an equal lack of enthusiasm, that the race promises to be the closest since 1960.Close elections are the key to turnout. There was much handwringing in this country about the decline in turnout from 78 per cent in 1992 to 71 per cent in the 1997 general election. It was said that people, and especially young people, were alienated as never before from politics. The truth is that the figure for 1997 was about the same as in previous elections when the outcome did not seem in doubt (although in 1970 the common expectation was confounded when Ted Heath won).

The 1992 figure was about the same as other elections that seemed on a knife-edge (the record turnout on a full franchise was 84 per cent in the close-run 1950 election).In the US, the Clinton-Dole contest of 1996 was over long before the voters got to the polls.There are implications here for electoral systems that condemn large sections of the electorate to “safe” states or constituencies. But the real lesson for this country is clear, and it is a lesson that William Hague and Charles Kennedy should consider carefully. It is up to the Conservatives and the Liberal Democrats to make the next election competitive.Give the electorate a close election, in which their vote might make the difference, and they will turn out.. Do you have nothing to worry about? Then let the Post Office help you. Do you have nothing to worry about? Then let the Post Office help you.
For all those people who are not worried about broken rails, delayed trains, the sitting room being 4ft deep in rich alluvial hydrogen dioxide, the loose tiles on the roof, Granny Edith’s blown-down aerial, the cat that has not been seen since the fireworks, BSE in the entire stock in the freezer, the closed petrol station and the fact that several hundred litres of unleaded is leaking in the garage, all of you – worry about this.Have you posted your Christmas cards yet? Because if you have not, you may have to kayak to all the far-flung parts of this sodden nation to deliver them yourself.The country will be most grateful to the Post Office for this advance warning of possible delays because it reminds us that there are only eight weeks to go until 25 December, and some of us might have been foolish enough to think we had plenty of time to deal with the insurance claims and do the Christmas shopping..

The circumstances in which teachers find themselves are the greatest influence on their role and on the skills and qualities which they will need to perform their role well. The circumstances in which teachers find themselves are the greatest influence on their role and on the skills and qualities which they will need to perform their role well.
One morning in South Africa a couple of summers ago, I visited a prestigious, formerly white, now mixed secondary school, so well-appointed that it would put our city technology colleges to shame The afternoon was different. I was driven to a shanty-town black school in a combination of a ramshackle shed and a second-hand ship’s container. The teachers had no obvious resources or services.The same is true here, but perhaps to differing degrees.

Eton and Harrow are worlds apart from some of the dilapidated schools I feel guilty about in the inner city And their pupils are different too It is not simply social economics or class. In the inner-city, to have a deep respect for and demonstrable understanding of a child’s present and past culture is the first essential step to unlocking their minds. Without it, not as much can be achieved with those children, whose disposition to learning is distracted by other more pressing circumstances and where self-esteem is fragile. So many of our inner-city schools present an essential challenge. Especially for any one of those teachers whose task is to teach in a mainly mono-racial, or mono-faith school where their own origin or identity is different.Important contextual influence is more than the pupils’ background, the building and the equipment It is also time In the Sixties, the ultimate sanction was the cane Now it is exclusion. Each brings its massively damaging but different consequence to the individual. The first was a more deferential age of compliance, while the present one is of rights and a debate about values and responsibilities, to which the media acts as an almost irresistible megaphone.Yet teachers today can still prove their lineage to Socrates in the skill of their questioning and through the need for supplementing this with a far deeper understanding and deployment of what might be called the “deus ex machina”, or “alter ego” technique.

It is a device I have observed among talented teachers over the years, and think it deserves careful analysis by the profession. You see it in the nursery and infant class among teachers who deploy teddy bears who acquire personalities of their own as they are sent on adventures with youngsters and adults alike. They write stories, and develop conversation and writing, as well as a sense of geography and adventure.The same phenomenon emerges later in the teenage years. I have seen an urban teacher grab the attention of a challenging Year 9 class by the use of a large glove puppet. Such behaviour was to the amused delight of the teenagers, but in practice it was of course governed by the extraordinary skill of his amazing boss, a talented English teacher who even allowed the glove puppet sometimes to mark the pupils’ work!More cautiously you see it in the drama, history, or philosophy teachers as they variously use painted masks and characters with whom to discourse in imagined one or two-way conversations. So characters in history can be points of reference to events in other ages – travellers through time, as it were, engaging with youngsters whatever era they may be studying.It is present too in the drama studio, where the lively lessons often involve youngsters themselves acquiring more than one character and where masks and imaginary conversation are legion. Their colleagues in science, who used famous scientists from the past to describe more vividly the breakthrough in knowledge that has informed us all down the ages, were using the same technique.What all these devices have in common is the potential to “unlock the mind” by the use of imaginary or distant personae with whom the learner relates, but in a way that is subtly if indirectly guided by the teacher..