More "big ideas" from Gordon Brown's Labour government

This time it's a daily 'culture hour'. I have heard Andy Burnham, the Culture Secretary on the radio twice this morning and each time his performance was woeful. The idea, and I use the word idea loosely, is that "Ministers want pupils of all ages to be offered at least an hour a day of culture during the week." A noble aim but I would have thought that teaching pupils to read, write and do simple arithmetic might be a better idea. Maybe once these were mastered, teachers could move on to teaching some real science and proper history and geography and maybe even a foreign language or two.

The Telegraph reports that "At first, the scheme will run as a series of pilots but Mr Burnham will say that, eventually, the Government intends all children to have access to five hours of culture a week as a right."

The government is setting aside £25 million for this project, that's £15 per pupil, per week - which should cover a lot of theatre visits!


Has any government since that of Stalin and his successors in the USSR been so happy to promote five year plans? Of course whilst this Labour government fail to meet their five year plan targets, except in their own minds, the real resemblance is to the 12th Soviet Five Year Plan - the one that ended among a profound economical crisis in virtually all areas of Soviet economy and a drop in production.