Democracy goes back to school: fair funding, real representation, and no hiding for expense cheats. Phil Hutty's week

By Phil Hutty, on Monday, February 8, 2010

They say a week is a long time in politics, I have to tell you actually It’s not, well not this week anyway!

With a by-election in full swing and my commitment to meet as many people as I can before the election, it has made for a busy week.

In between canvassing I fitted in a brief visit to a rural primary school, with a very interesting discussion with the head teacher about the value of rural schools. Now I should tell you that I am a big fan of small schools, especially as my son went to one and I know it gave him a brilliant foundation into senior school.

That’s why I simply can’t understand why central government struggles to give our Devon children the money to do the job well (There is an excellent web site called Fairer Funding for Devon Schools, you should check out for more information.) Surely, if you want the best, then you just pay for it – and what could be a better then investing in our future by giving primary education all the resources they need? That means fair funding to all our pupils, not just the ones in London.

On Thursday, I took another break from knocking on doors to go to a second primary school, this time to talk about politics, the general election and school councils. I was given just 20 minutes to explain the whole thing to eager children and introduce the fact that they plan to reinstate a school council there. It was great fun and I hope the children learnt a little something about how precious our democracy is.

Although they certainly won’t be inspired by the four parliamentarians (three Labour MP’s and one Tory Peer) charged with theft and the apparent plan of at least three of them to claim that this should be dealt with by Parliament not in the courts.

Of course they may well be innocent, and they have the right to defend their position. But doesn’t make you want to say, WHAT?! I mean, surely it’s not just a matter for Parliament?

After all, we wouldn’t be allowed to say hey it’s up to my company to investigate any alleged theft, not the courts. Sorry guys, stealing is a crime and it should be up to a jury to decide if you did it, not some internal committee. No one is above the law, absolutely no one.