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Blunders that show Tristram Hunt must try harder, much harder

Published: 18:44 EST, 13 July 2014 | Updated: 18:47 EST, 13 July 2014

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Even though more than 1,000 schools were closed last week on the strength of a two-year-old strike vote by the National Union of Teachers, the silence from Tristram Hunt, Labour’s education spokesman, was deafening.

Hunt isn’t just shy of criticising Labour’s union paymasters, he’s reluctant to use his own full title: the Hon Dr Tristram Hunt (son of Lord Chesterton). He went to University College School in leafy Hampstead, which is part of the elite Eton group of independent schools.

While the union planned further disruption, Hunt found time to record a promotional video for Tata Group — which last week axed 400 jobs at its steelworks in Wales — for the Hay Festival, which is much loved by the chattering classes.

In exchange for his film about A-level revision, Hunt was described in Tata’s promotional material as one of the world’s ‘greatest academics’.

Hunt isn't just shy of criticising Labour's union paymasters, he's reluctant to use his full title: the Hon Dr Tristram Hunt (son of Lord Chesterton)

His revision advice included going for a walk or swim, and going to bed at the normal time. Then, when you have arrived focused in the exam room, he says: ‘Take a cool breath, turn over the pages, and read all the questions.’

It’s profound stuff from Hunt, whose book Ten Cities That Made An Empire has a number of inaccuracies, including calling Viscount Powerscourt ‘Powerhouse’, and getting the wrong date for the Corn Laws.

Perhaps one of our greatest academics hadn’t taken a cool breath before he wrote it.

The striking public sector unions have given £23 million to Labour since the general election — which might explain why the 44 press releases issued by the party over the past week have not mentioned or given any view on the industrial action.

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One of the latest wheezes of Red Ed Miliband is for a non-elected House of Lords. His policy wonks are looking at proposals for a new second chamber made up of representatives from the four regions of the UK. The idea is for them to be ‘indirectly elected’ by elected politicians, with the public excluded from the process.

It’s a similar idea to one first floated by Lord Bryce, who suggested 246 members ‘indirectly elected by regional groups of MPs’. And when did Bryce come up with this undemocratic scam? In 1918. Nice to know that Red Ed’s modernisation of the Labour brand continues apace.

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Huhne

Former Lib Dem cabinet minister Chris Huhne (left), jailed for eight months for lying about speeding, has attacked his sentence.

‘There is something about the British psyche that likes to see other people suffer. Are we much different today to the 30,000 people who gathered in 1849 to witness the public hanging of a husband and wife at Horsemonger Lane, Southwark. Prison is the new public execution.’

Do you remember Huhne ever demanding a review of prison sentencing in his eight years as an MP, and six as an MEP? Course not

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The Local Government Association wants a share of the VAT applied to fizzy drinks to combat obesity. They could start the slimming down process by turning their attention to the grotesque bureaucracies in our town halls, which functioned without a hitch last week despite tens of thousands of local government workers joining the industrial action.

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Will the former Downing Street communications chief Andy Coulson edit the prisoners’ newspaper Inside Time — or will he find it difficult to do the job without hacking the Governor’s telephones?

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New Labour's Council fat cats

Why do so many public officials expect fat cat salaries? There are 636 council officers earning more than the Prime Minister’s £142,000.

Margaret Hodge, the combative Labour chairman of the Public Accounts Committee, blames Tony Blair.

‘That started under New Labour,’ she told The Leadership Gap, a Radio 4 programme presented last week by John Tusa, the former BBC World Service MD.

‘There was the attempt to put in incentives and rewards for good performance. That was good; but we made the mistake of thinking if you’re running a local authority or if you’re running an NHS Trust, it’s the same as running a big business.

‘It’s not, and we’ve got absurdly out of kilter in how we pay some of the people in leadership roles in our organisations.’

Blair at least practises what he preaches. He has made around £100million since he left office.