As part of my ongoing sustainable lifestyle experiment I have made a wormery (using the blueprint in Chris Catton and James Gray's masterwork "The Incredible Heap"). It is a sort of luxury hotel for relatives of earthworms that prefer living in compost heaps. The grand plan is that these intriguing little critters will chew through vegetable waste from the kitchen and turn it into crumbly compost which is excellent for plants, instead of it ending up in landfill. Cost only £4.40, which is not bad.
Did Nick Clegg endorse school vouchers or didn't he? Well, the evidence that he did is rather strong. Not only Rachel Sylvester in the Telegraph on 29 October but also self-confessed Clegg fan Jasper Gerard, writing up an “exclusive interview” in the Observer on 21 October, state that he did. Gerard writes, quoting Clegg: "'I want a sense of empowerment on a daily basis for people accessing health care and good education.' Well that's clear. But he differs from free marketeer Tories in that 'having lived in Europe and had children born in hospitals in Europe, they have a far greater sense of equity in health and education. It is not like a supermarket but the patient, pupil or parent has entitlements which the provider of services has to meet.' So according to his 'pupil premium', parents would be given a voucher to spend in their preferred school; but while a flaw in such schemes is often that the savvy middle class pack the best schools, Clegg ...
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