Letters | 25 June 2011

Gove’s moves

Sir: If Michael Gove (‘On the edge of his seat’, 18 June) really wants to do something about exams, then he would bring back O-levels in place of GCSEs. But that would entail denouncing the Prime Minister who made the change, formerly the education secretary who closed more grammar schools than were left at the end of her tenure. Can you name her? I think you can.

David Lindsay
County Durham

Sir: Michael Gove has no answer for how to revive the fortunes of the Conservative party in Scotland: ‘I don’t think there is any single thing that can be done.’ But might I suggest that better Tory candidates — like, say, Mr Gove himself — running north of the border would help?

Currer Ball
By email



Safeguards for justice


Sir: In your editorial (‘A law unto themselves’, 18 June), you rightly deplore the pressure from the judiciary to reduce the right to jury trial. However, over the last few years, it is the government that has reduced the right to a trial by one’s peers. Many district judges (magistrates’ courts), the old-fashioned stipendiary magistrates, have been appointed. These individuals are supplemented by a number of deputy and locum district judges and they replace lay magistrates. This means that many summary trials are conducted by individuals. This individual is judge and jury.

Simultaneously, government has given powers of arbitrary punishment to a vast range of individuals and bodies. It is obviously wrong that local authorities can benefit from ‘fines’ imposed by their own officers. Tony Blair’s knee-jerk suggestion of dragging young men to cash machines has been implemented as a ‘penalty notice for disorder’. The police can hand out ‘tickets’ for shoplifting. The previous government has been rightly criticised for inventing a whole new raft of crimes.