It's fantasy politics

KISSING Cecilia behind the bike sheds was a bad idea, but I was only 10 and wasn't to know any better.

The thing is, Cecilia was not the school's most popular girl, and that quick and meaningless kiss landed me very briefly with a devoted admirer... and a lot of bad jokes from my mates.

You expect more foresight from grown-ups, and especially from grown-ups who manage to get themselves elected to high office.

The party conference season that is now upon us could be renamed the Bad Ideas season, as politicians desperately blow ill-judged kisses at the electorate.

This year is a corker, with all to play for in the next General Election, whenever that comes (and it will be soon).

Earlier in the week the Confederation of British Industry, which doesn't need to win votes but obviously fancies itself as a power broker, called for higher university fees.

This is the same mentality that unplugs the TV and takes it to the pawn shop when money is short. You may get enough to keep you going for the rest of the week, but eventually you'll need a new television – and that's going to set you back even more.

The intelligent person finds a way to earn money, not merely a place to pawn the family silver.

Britain's students are the family silver, and if we discourage them from getting degrees, the whole country will suffer in the long term.

Many of the CBI's leadership are well past their sell-by date and will be comfortably retired when any skills gap appears some 20 years down the road.

That wasn't the end of the bad news for education.

On Sunday Ed Balls, the Schools Secretary, said the country could save barrow-loads of money by making schools more efficient.

He boasted that he could shave £2billion of the schools budget by hacking away at what he called the bureaucracy (and what many others would call heads and deputy heads).

One of his big ideas is to get rid of half the head teachers by creating multi-school federations.

Why don't we get rid of Balls at the same time and create a new federated government department: how about the Ministry for Agriculture, Fisheries, Food and Schools – or Maffs for short – which is clearly not Balls's strong subject.

Anyway, I thought it was the job of departmental ministers to defend their budgets against the ravages of the Treasury. We've heard of turkeys voting for Christmas: Balls is the turkey who also volunteered to do the carving.

The rest of the conference season promises to be a fun-filled festival of fantasy politics.

DRACONIAN new laws are on the way to stop children petting animals, as a knee-jerk reaction to the E. coli scare.

Everyone has known about this risk for as long as there were petting farms, so this response is a genuinely bad idea.

Four farms – one of them in Devon – have shut since the outbreak came to light at Godstone Farm in Surrey.

The strain of E. coli responsible is potentially fatal, though none of those affected in this outbreak has actually died, thankfully.

All of these petting farms have prominent signs urging visitors to wash their hands, but there are always people who see life as someone else's fault.

We like to hang our hats on particular causes, and those can be quite illogical.

It was always thus: back in 1996 Thomas Watt Hamilton walked into Dunblane Primary School in Scotland armed with two 9mm Browning HP pistols and two Smith & Wesson .357 Magnum revolvers.

He killed 16 children and an adult, and then shot himself.

The political reaction that followed was as ridiculous as the massacre was dreadful. The Government banned all handguns. To this day, members of our national shooting team have to train in France.

At the time of Dunblane, around 250 children a year died on the roads, which puts the school massacre in perspective.

THE very intelligent Dr David Salter may be thinking his choice of words was also a bad idea.

The Plymouth City Council Cabinet member and councillor for Plympton Chaddlewood was reacting with outrage last weekend to a shocking cloud of smoke from Langage power station that enveloped Plympton and parts west on Friday.

Centrica, which will operate the power station, has a liaison committee to keep in touch with the local community, but the committee was not warned about Friday's belch.

"I see no point in continuing with the Langage Local Liaison Committee, of which I am a member," Dr Salter said.

Centrica, seizing the high ground with relief, quickly pointed out that Dr Salter, though a member, had not attended a meeting since 2007.

The good doctor, spluttering, told this column that Centrica's point was "a red herring".

He may be right about that, but it's worth remembering that in politics red herrings swim just as well as any other fish.

DRAKE councillor Steve Ricketts has found a new ally in his long-running battle to overturn the ban on smoking in public places.

David Hockney, the artist, only slightly better known than Ricketts, is backing calls for a review of the smoking ban which he says is destroying "bohemia".

Hockney wants a separate room set aside for smokers, and that seems like a good compromise.

I'd never want to go back to the smoky old days, though, and it's hard to see how landlords would get round health and safety legislation that now protects staff from having to work in a smoky atmosphere.

Unless, I suppose, the smokers volunteer to clean their smoking rooms the morning after.

Only thinking out loud, Steve.

WE HOPE that anyone travelling from Plymouth to a renewable energy "masterclass" in North Cornwall will car-share.

Good Energy, a company which boasts that it supplies 100 per cent renewable electricity, is running masterclasses on how to generate the stuff.

The first is at the company's wind farm in Delabole, North Cornwall, on Saturday, October 31.

The workshops are aimed at microgenerators wishing to provide energy on a domestic or small commercial scale and at commercial generators who want to generate and export electricity.

Tickets are £20, from GoodEnergy@rem-events.com or phone 0870 043 3929.

THANKS to reader Les Kingwell, who draws attention to Plymouth City Council's latest list of job vacancies: "Head of value for money and efficiency". The pay? An eye-watering £58,000.

Some contradiction, surely? How many potholes could you fill with that money?

THE inscription on the New York City General Post Office promises that "Neither snow nor rain nor heat nor gloom of night" will stop its couriers.

A British version would have to include a get-out clause for strikes, which are now sweeping the country. Mind you, the mail did get through to one reader's house. It was delivered to the right house number... in the wrong street.

With delicious irony, the letter was from the Posties' own union, the CWU, and the envelope revealed that it contained "Important ballot material".

Let's hope the intended recipient doesn't feel too strongly, one way or the other, about getting a vote on whether to strike.