Charles Clarke is right, Ed Balls should be sacked. But for different reasons than the former Home and Education Secretary had in mind.

An educational desert?

Only totalitarian regimes control every aspect of education down to the smallest details of the curriculum. The most successful governments are content with the slimmest of oversight roles.

After the war, when British State education was a lot better than it is now, government interference was minimal. I read somewhere that the Ministry of Education was housed in a small lean-to building attached to one end of Waterloo Station. Within its tiny portals were housed a handful of civil servants and a Minister. That nano crew managed the teaching of more than nine-tenths of children in the United Kingdom.

Compare that frugal regime with the overflowingly voluptuous, wasteful and ineffectual operation we have now under Ed Balls, Secretary of State for Children and Anything Else We Can Blow Your Money On.

So, yes, Charles, let’s send Balls to the knacker’s yard, but let’s also dispatch a scout to find a suitable lean-to at Waterloo Station.

Preferably one not overrun by dossers, winos and crackheads, of course.

Mark Almond in The Times:

“Turkey needs the EU less and less. Since it has a customs union with the EU many Turkish companies have anyhow got what they want from EU membership — access to markets — while millions of Turkish farmers know that the Common Agricultural Policy will never featherbed them as it once protected French farmers.”

Why can’t our political class see that too?

So pigs are not that calamitous after all. The latest version of the ‘flu virus — grotesquely labelled Swine Flu — is now being downgraded by the puffed-up World Health Organization.

After a week of global mayhem caused by its theatrical raising of the “threat level” to a starry 5 — the flu world’s equivalent of 10 on the Richter Scale — we can all breathe safely again in public. Even while our fellow citizens are sneezing their way through the hay fever season.

Gordon Brown rode the publicity horse, naturally. “We have enough antiviral drugs for half the population and we’re reordering millions more face masks and doses of Tamiflu.” Phew, SuperGordo’s on the job. We’re all saved from the pig disease.

It was good then to see cheery old Postman Pat (Alan Johnson), on the Andrew Marr show yesterday, exclaim, “It’s only flu, for heaven’s sake.”

Now there’s a Health Secretary to die for.

He’s not Prime Ministerial material, alas, but it’s satisfying that some politicians of the old British school remain in place, especially among the aliens of NuLabour.

Keep the bon mots coming, Alan.

Continuing with our rehabilitation of pigs after a bad week for our little pink friends, new research suggests that the best cure for a hangover is a bacon sandwich. I’m not making this up.

Researchers at the University of Newcastle, home of the legendary Newky Broon beer, have made this important discovery.

Elin Roberts of the university’s Centre for Life reveals all, “Food doesn’t soak up the alcohol but it does increase your metabolism helping you deal with the after-effects of over indulgence. So food will often help you feel better.

Bread is high in carbohydrates and bacon is full of protein, which breaks down into amino acids. Bingeing on alcohol depletes neurotransmitters too, but bacon contains a high level of aminos which tops these up, giving you a clearer head.”

So a visit to a greasy spoon after a night on the razzle is just what the doctor may now order. A bacon sarnie, washed down with a pint of ebony tea in a cracked mug, is at the cutting edge of medical science.

Who says elegant dining is a thing of the past?

Have you ever wondered why some politicians consider themselves Prime Ministerial material when virtually the entire country does not?

Take the case of the two music hall acts of British politics:

Harriet Harman (stage name: Mad Hattie Harperson), Deputy Leader of the Labour Party and presiding genius behind the retro (circa 1917 Russia) Equalities Bill.

And Boris Johnson (stage name: Buffoon Boris) the colourful Mayor of London.

Hattie, who apparently believes six impossible things before breakfast, is, in reality, a hardline, hatchet-faced, militant feminist whose every instinct is to drive out and destroy any sign of excellence, or spark of talent, the nation may harbour. Her own yawning lack of exceptionality is an indication of how she would like us all to be.

This morning she denied she would challenge Gordon Brown for the leadership, after campaigning openly and behind closed doors for months. Lack of courage, plus a dearth of any sort of ability for the job, rules her out in any case. Self-knowledge, Ms Harriet!

As for Boris, he’s certainly upped his performance lately and downed his buffoonery. He remains a highly educated and intelligent member of the political elite. Recently, he seemed to be challenging David Cameron for the job of Prime Minister before Cameron had even entered Downing Street.

Did he suppose that the Conservatives — up to 20 points ahead in the polls — were going to ditch one old Etonian for another just a year before an election is due? Sometimes high intelligence is as big a handicap as the lack of it. Boris should ask Hattie about that.

Charles Moore, writing in this week’s Spectator, suggests the difference between them is that Cameron was an Oppidian at Eton, while Boris a mere Colleger.

Eton a hotbed of class distinction? Harriet really does have a job on her hands.

According to Ben Brogan’s new blog over at the Telegraph, William Hague is making waves behind the scenes.

The Conservative’s Shadow Foreign Secretary is preparing the ground for a quick referendum on the European Union Constitution aka the Lisbon Treaty:

William Hague, we know, presented Sir Peter Ricketts at the Foreign Office with a series of clear requests that left little doubt about what’s in store. The head of the diplomatic service was asked to prepare a Bill for a referendum on the Lisbon Treaty that must be ready for publication within days of the Tories taking over.

Now that’s the best news I’ve heard all week.

John Evans

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