Teachers for Supply

The Conservatives were forced directly to the defensive in Eastleigh byelection campaign after doctors signed a letter condemning its candidate for suggesting the local state schools weren’t more than enough for her son who desired to become a surgeon.

A letter from cardiologist Dr Aseem Malhotra, another surgeon and 6 named GPs states: “As GPs and surgeons who started their education at state-funded schools, we’re proof that Maria Hutchings’ assertions aren’t true. The education system on this country provided us with the certainty and talents we would have liked to follow our dream career.

“It’s one of these shame that Conservatives like Maria Hutchings desire to do our education system down as opposed to sending the message that whatever your background, you may achieve what you place out to do in life.”

Speaking at the BBC Politics show on Sunday, the Tory chairman, Grant Shapps, dismissed the debate saying: “Every parent wants the very best for his or her child, and whether that’s Nick Clegg or Ed Miliband or Maria Hutchings or myself … i feel it’s perfectly reasonable to go looking for greatest in your children. But it is a undeniable fact that she’s got four children and two or three of them are within the state system, i believe rather illustrates that she believes in it.”

Hutchings in an interview had said her son was “very gifted, which provides us another interesting challenge to find the correct kind of education for him – impossible within the state system. He desires to be a cardiorespiratory surgeon.”

A Labour shadow cabinet minister has distanced the party from a 1998 book by its Eastleigh candidate, John O’Farrell, through which he implied he wished Lady Thatcher had died within the Brighton bombing, and that Britain had lost the Falklands war.

The shadow justice secretary, Sadiq Khan, said: “John O’Farrell is a comedian who, in bad taste, has written a book about this within the 80s and 90s. I’m sure in the event you asked him now whether he agreed that, that you just know he would say no.”

In his book Things Can Only Recover, O’Farrell wrote: “In October 1984, when the Brighton bomb went off, I felt a surge of pleasure on the nearness of her demise and yet disappointment that this kind of chance were missed. This was me – the pacifist, anti-capital punishment, anti-IRA liberal – wishing they’d got her. ‘Why did she need to leave the toilet two minutes earlier’ I asked myself again and again.”

Mike Thornton, the Liberal Democrat candidate, also came under attack after he confirmed that as a native councillor he had voted for five,000 new houses on green spaces within the constituency.

At a hustings – the primary of the byelection – when challenged, he replied: “In fact I voted for them … We want the building.”

The Tories said the important thing claim of the Lib Dems’ campaign is that the party would “protect our green spaces”.

Although the Conservative housing minister, Nick Boles, have been calling for the development of more homes to drive down prices and meet aspiration, Shapps said that Thornton’s showed the Liberal Democrat campaign was in turmoil, a remark that was then simultaneously tweeted by a good number of Tory MPs.

The Liberal Democrat campaign also rounded on Hutchings’ claim to be a native candidate, declaring that during 2006 she tried to get selected in Mid Norfolk (September), Stevenage (October) and Basildon (November).

Looking at my track record it’s fair to mention that i used to be an unlikely candidate for a latest languages degree. I achieved a B in French GCSE, and plummeted spectacularly after I received hasta hoy at AS-level. At parents evening my tutor said that I simply wasn’t cut out for studying languages at an educational level.

Skip forwards four years and you will find me writing from my desk within the University of Rosario in Bogota, Colombia. I’m on a placement year as portion of my language degree which i’m studying on the University of Leeds.

It wasn’t until after sixth form after I volunteered for a year within the Dominican Republic that i started to select up Spanish. Desperate to sustain my knowledge of the language I switched from my politics and philosophy degree to a Spanish and philosophy course.

Studying a language at university involves much more than learning verb conjugations and new vocabulary. You’ve got the choice to take in modules about literature, history and politics. It’s also usually a demand that you simply spend a year abroad, with the intention to practise and live your language – that’s how i finished up spending a year on placement with the British Council in Colombia.

For those taking language courses, opportunities to travel expand beyond your student years: greater than 10% of recent language graduates within the UK were in overseas employment six months after leaving university. Employers at home also look favourably on applicants who’ve a second language, especially when recruiting for jobs in journalism, development, international business and publishing.

The impressive bursaries on offer in case you desire to train to be a language teacher prove how desired language skills are in the present day. Grants of £15,000 and £20,000 are given to language graduates who hold either a 2:1 or a firstclass degree respectively. With 90.3% of 2010-11 language graduates in employment, it’s definitely a topic area to be taken seriously.

But despite all this, the variety of students applying to check European (-6.1%) and non-European (-6.7%) languages at university has continued to fall this year. The variety of students taking languages at A-level has also fallen rapidly during the last decade, with state school students being less more likely to continue language study.

As someone who struggled with French in school, i will understand why students are dispose of choosing languages at an improved level. Students will also be unsure about where the languages route might take them career-wise. There’s also lot of labor involved – especially if you’ve had limited exposure to other languages or little experience of using a language abroad.

For me, the advantages have outweighed the labor. Except for the apparent advantages of getting a second language on my CV, I actually have had the prospect to explore another culture. For my thesis i’m writing about Colombian hip hop and cinema and feature interviewed artists and producers whose work i like.

Looking back i will see that i am not incapable of studying a language – it’s just that the study room environment wasn’t the smartest place for me to begin.

If recent reports on government budget cuts are anything to head by then higher education isn’t yet out of the woods. Latest figures show that BIS will face reductions in its departmental expenditure limit of £150m in 2013-14 and £280m in 2014-15. Long term projections (2015 to 2018) reported recently show BIS facing reductions of nineteen.2%. And keep in mind that these are only numbers to start out the conversation.

The budgetary threat to the sphere remains high and savings might want to be found. But from where We predict that the reply lies in procurement, not only by channelling procurement savings to more productive uses and building a war chest for capital development and recruitment, but as an essential component of university strategy.

The 2011 Universities UK report, Efficiency and Effectiveness in Higher Education, led by Professor Sir Ian Diamond, vice-chancellor on the University of Aberdeen, made several key recommendations, among them the will for the arena to think and act more strategically on procurement.

Every year the world spends within the region of £10bn buying goods and services – a more joined-up approach has the opportunity of large savings. A key recommendation within the Diamond review was that non-pay collaborative spend reach a target of 30% by 2016 from a current baseline figure of 10.42%. So what does this mean for the sector

UK Universities are already good at working collaboratively on procurement. In Scotland the Advanced Procurement for Universities and Colleges (APUC)has made great progress and Wales also has its own body, the upper Education Purchasing Consortium Wales (HEPCW). In England there are four regional purchasing consortia, in London, the North East, the North West and the South.Together these consortia represent nearly all of UK universities plus associated FE colleges and affiliated public organisations.

In addition chairs and heads of the four English consortia, in addition to other specialist purchasing bodies, make up English National Procurement (ENP), the arena representative for collaborative procurement. And this month saw the primary meeting of Procurement UK, arrange at the back of the Diamond Review to offer high level strategic direction.

Despite this good work there remains a scarcity of institutional understanding and engagement with the procurement process. Put bluntly, it isn’t an attractive topic. But there are a couple of simple things which might be done now to make procurement work better. One is to lift awareness among senior university leaders about what these key staff do. Another is to enhance the talents and competencies of procurement professionals, something the British Universities Finance Directors Group (BUFDG) is co-sponsoring throughout the establishment of the Procurement Academy.

We also have to collect auditable data that evidence improvements and impact. Efficiency measurement model (EMM) statistics, collected by Hefce for this purpose, are a start. But we have to take more seriously other available data on capability and capacity of institutional procurement activity. Surveys of procurement activity called procurement maturity assessments (PMAs) just do this but soak up by universities continues to be too low.

Given their importance, i believe there’s a strong case to make PMAs compulsory. We also need more openness and transparency around the sector. Why should an establishment not be capable to see how the deal they’re getting compares with others There are methods of doing this that don’t fall foul of EU and competition law that must be explored more fully.

There also are other considerations. In January the Social Value Act came into power, requiring public bodies to seem beyond lowest price and think about community benefits when choosing to award a freelance. This ties in with the 1 Billion Pound Challenge launched by the University of Northampton in 2012, asking the world to focus more at the 68,000 social enterprises that contributed £24bn to the united kingdom economy last year []. New EU legislation can be at the way with implications for procurement so one can form the main focus of a forthcoming conference organised by Social Business International and E3M.

All this is often set against a backdrop of accelerating sector pressure distinct from direct budgetary cuts. Confusingly, while higher fees and market volatility are resulting in increased financial pressure, the external message to politicians and the broader public (neither particularly well informed about university finances) is that by charging more to get in, universities are in clover.

The political message is obvious. Government want auditable evidence the world is taking action to enhance efficiency and effectiveness in any respect levels. And the field must get thinking about savings with regards to investments that enhance the coed experience, help build new laboratories and recruit new professors. Provided that savings are expressed as tangible outcomes will people sit up straight and take notice.

Professor Nick Petford is vice chancellor of the University of Northampton – follow him on Twitter @nick_petford

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Price £21,395
MPG 39.2
Top speed 118mph

I drove to Big apple last weekend. No, not that one… the only in Lincolnshire. Population 150, it has two roads – Sandy Bank and Dogdyke – and, unlike any other Ny (pop 8.5 million), it’s named after the town of York rather then the Duke of York, the long run King James II. Marooned in the course of the hedgeless expanse of the Fens, there’s little to detain you on this tiny hamlet, but as a driving destination i can not recommend it highly enough. Heading north from Cambridge and the tip of the M11, make your method to Ely after which follow your nose to Boston, Big apple and eventually Lincoln.

The marshland which stretches unbroken from horizon to horizon was drained centuries ago and is home to an astonishing variety of churches and cathedrals – their spires like sharp spikes on an otherwise flatlining hospital read-out. And across this ancient and, let’s be frank, pretty weird landscape, run a few of the straightest, flattest roads in Britain.

To cash in on these runways, you’d ideally would like to be skimming along in something as low, flat and open because the topography – a supercharged Caterham, perhaps, or even the attractive new F-Type Jaguar. Sadly, i used to be bobbling along in a family SUV – the most recent Honda CR-V. It is the fourth generation of the Swindon-built soft-roader and greater than 5m were sold globally. The largest market is the united states, where it sort of feels anything wearing an SUV overcoat will sell, and in lots of respects that’s exactly what the CR-V is – a Honda Civic in utility wear.

For this sort of capable and yet restrained vehicle, the CR-V seems to dramatically divide opinion. Within the same month a review in Top Gear magazine called it “probably the most boring thing on earth” or even worse than watching five hours of The only Show, while a journalist testing it for the Daily Mail described the auto as “the best 4×4 so far”. What is interesting is that both reviewers agreed on the underlying facts. Both said that the CR-V is reliable, capable, reassuring, comfortable, safe and efficient… It’s hard to know what a carmaker is to do if those six adjectives get a vehicle a bad write-up. Is being bland really such a crime It hasn’t stopped Canada, mild cheddar, Tess Daly and the missionary position from playing a part in all our lives.

CR-V sounds like an acronym for something to do with cardiac resuscitation, but it actually stands for the more prosaic (of course) Compact Recreational Vehicle because, well, that’s what it is. This new model is the first to offer both two- and four-wheel drive options, but only with the 2-litre petrol engines. Far better to go for the 2.2 i-DTEC diesel unit, which is cleaner and more efficient than ever before. It’s quiet, purposeful, robust. So if those are characteristics you can’t abide in a car, then look elsewhere.

The real benefit of the latest redesign can be found inside. You couldn’t call it trendy, but there is a pleasing no-nonsense practicality to it all. There are cubbies and cupholders everywhere, the high ceiling and glass roof make it feel light and airy, and the enormous boot can be made even bigger by folding down the rear seats. You could have a lie down if it all got too much.

The CR-V is sober, down-to earth and mature and, though we may resist those forces, when it comes to cars it always pays to be grown-up.

Email Martin at martin.love@observer.co.uk or visit guardian.co.uk/profile/martinlove for all his reviews in one place

Wacky races

Racing demons: Year 6 pupils show off their electric cars. Photograph: Martin Love for the Observer

The humble tissue box doesn’t often spend much time in the limelight, but just occaisonally it enjoys a moment of glory. One such moment came last week. My 11-year-old daughter, along with her classmates, has been building a small electric car in Design Technology at school and for a bit of fun her teacher, Mr Powles, asked if I would go in and judge the results. First of all he explained that the children had been concentrating on three things: speed, driving in a straight line and what the vehicle looked like. Clearly some professional car designers could have done with paying attention. We walked out to the track – which also serves because the wooden walkway to the school dinning room – and set the cars off in waves of six. All started with the same premise: a tissue box on a wooden base with a tiny battery-powered motor powering the wheels with a rubber band. All kinds of vehicles were presented, from tanks to sports cars, buses to ice-cream vans and even an amphibious Duck Tours landing craft. A few failed to move from the start line with wheels falling off and rubber bands becoming disconnected, some careered into the wall or into each other, and a few even made it to the finish line. In the end the quickest and most reliable was Lucy’s red bus (that’s her at the right). Ironic, because I can’t imagine a bus has ever won an award for being quick and reliable before…

Fast food

Speedy eaters: the newest Silver by Aston Martin cutlery designs. Photograph: Observer

Sometimes just owning a car isn’t enough… you want to eat with it too. That’s the case with this stunning cutlery by Silver by Aston Martin. The firm launched its first store in Harrods at the end of last year, but you can buy some of the stuff while you are picking up your Aston in most showrooms, or if that seems like an excessive amount of work, online at grantmacdonald.com/astonmartin/. And later this month they’ll be exhibiting one of its hampers (£2,750) on the Geneva Motor Show next month.