Philip Green is very rich, ergo he can justify sacking lots of public servants, can't he?

It’s a typical Tory move. Sir Philip Green is very rich. He turned around BHS. He has a yacht, for goodness sake. He was knighted for services to the retail industry. Ergo, he must be able to make just decisions about sacking lots of public sector workers on comparatively measly wages. It’s a no-brainer isn’t it?

Gordon Bennett.

At least Andrew George (whose constituency I am currently enjoying in (buckets and) spades) and Mike Hancock are revolting against the move. Here’s the Independent’s report:

Liberal Democrats who campaigned on a manifesto promising a clampdown on the super-rich have expressed dismay at David Cameron’s decision to ask Sir Philip Green, a billionaire, to “hand out P45s” to poorly paid public sector workers.

 Senior party figures are furious that Sir Philip, a retail tycoon who owns the Bhs and Topshop chains, will lead a review of Whitehall spending before George Osborne wields the axe in the autumn. The fashion mogul has a reputation for lavish birthday parties – one rumoured to have cost £5m – and a complex tax arrangement which sees his Monaco-based wife, Tina, named as the owner of his company Arcadia. All of this sits uneasily alongside the sort of cuts that many fear will hit the poor hardest.

Vince Cable, the Lib Dem Business Secretary, a fierce critic of tax loopholes, was not consulted about the appointment. Mr Cable declined to comment specifically on the appointment, but said yesterday: “We want people to pay their share of tax.”

Choosing the right school for one's child – Do Ofsted reports and league tables actually matter?

One you may have missed – from November 10th 2007

One of the biggest decisions any parent makes is choosing a secondary school for their child.

We’ve just been through that particular mill. It was a process which lasted well over a year, involved over a dozen visits to four schools and three hours of one-on-three time with three separate headteachers.

At several points in this nerve-jangling process, I had to remind myself and my loved ones that we are lucky to have the choice of four (or even, if you extend the parameters a bit, six) excellent state schools. Where I come from, Bude, there is a choice of just one excellent school, Budehaven Community School – above (declaration of interest: two close family members of mine work at said school). If you want your child to go to a different school you’d have to send them to a Public Boarding school (further declaration of interest: that’s what fortuituously happened to me, before the establishment of Budehaven school, I hasten to add) or conceivably, I suppose, drive fifty miles a day to the next available school, if they’ll have you.

So back to West Berkshire and being spolit for choice. We laboured through every conceivable form of research into all four schools. Ofsted reports pored over, headteachers interviewed, open evenings attended, random roaming pupils subjected to on-the-spot inquisitions from my darling wife, other parents’ anecdotes exhaustively followed up etc etc. We did the lot.

It was quite clear which is the best school. That’s a no brainer from the Ofsted reports and the league tables.

But after over a year of deliberation, the truth dawned on me. It doesn’t matter which is the best school. The right school for one’s child is the one that they feel most comfortable with. And, after we subjected the chair of governors and headteacher to a Spanish Inquisition, that’s where one’s child is going.