With friends like these, who needs enemies?

THE FRIDAY THING: WE all need friends, but nobody needs them more than politicians, especially the Prime Minister who is beginning to look like David no-mates Cameron.

The church has turned its back on the PM, NHS staff and patients are in a state of angry turmoil, and hard-up folk feel they will soon be getting poorer and may even lose a bedroom or two.

On top of that, chubby Dave is even disliked by more than 100 of his own MPs and by his so-called partners in the dreadful Collision government.

It’s hardly surprising he spends so much time out of the country — at least people in far-flung corners of the globe can pretend they like Dave, if only just a bit, and then only if we give them money we can’t afford to give away.

The next General Election is still two years away and the only things in the Tories’ favour are that the Lib-Dems and Labour may decide they will form the next collision government. So instead of being a war between so-called friends who have never been anything more than mutually-despising enemies, it will be a left-leaning love-in, well for a week or two anyway.

As it stands, the great British public could face the sort of political contest that will have them staying home in their droves.

Does anyone, apart from Labour’s paymasters the unions, really want to see wild-eyed Ed Balls pulling the strings that make the puppet that is Ed Milliband twitch into action?

Is no-mates less popular than Blair? I shan’t ask about Brown; no-one has ever been less popular than him.



TEACHERS are an odd breed. They go into the profession, presumably because they want to teach and believe they have something to offer which will help to improve the lives of the young people.

But the ambition, passion and commitment of the very best teachers is undermined by a degree of militancy rarely seen in any other profession.

The latest round of union conferences saw arguments against the inspection of teachers and scrutiny of their ability, and arguments about the right of school heads to pay the best-performing teachers more than the under-performers.

In most working environments, examination of quality is normal. As a result, those who are the best performers, turn in the best work and show the strongest commitment to the job, get the best salaries.

What’s wrong with that? Why should teachers believe they should be exempt from inspection?

Could they see their militancy as more important than their teaching skills?

Rewarding the best teachers will help to keep them at the school where they work and the children they teach will surely benefit from that. Maybe in the minds of some, that doesn’t matter.



FINAL WORD: Oldham Council has ignored the rumbling threats from Eric Pickles and has followed the likes of Manchester in raising its council tax this year to what the Government sees as an unacceptable level.

The council will argue it needs the money to pay for services but what about plight of those families at the bottom of the well-to-do tables, who will find any increase in council tax a burden too far?

The council leader and the chief executive will justify the increase with the usual glib answers but they will cut no ice with the hundreds, possibly thousands, of Oldhamers who will be tipped over poverty’s edge.