Manual not included

More evidence has emerged of the genius of the decision to make massive changes to the FE funding system right before an election.

FErret hears that local authorities are likely to have to start work on commissioning FE provision without a manual, as the National Commissioning Framework risks being delayed.

It was due to be published in April, but by then the election will have been announced and purdah descends upon Whitehall.

This arcane ritual is a means by which civil servants demonstrate their independence from the rough and tumble of electioneering by sitting with their feet up for a few weeks.

So hapless local authorities will start planning provision without the guidance they need, all so that a new incoming government can tear it up and start again. It’s enough to make you want to throw a stapler at an intern.

Thanks for nothing

News from broken Britain! Daily Telegraph blogger Andrew Brown is upset at what his headline calls “a child’s horrid rudeness and what it says about the Left’s betrayal of the working class”.

The girl, a college student, bought a soft drink from a newsagent without saying thank you, an act which can be traced back precisely to the publication of Karl Marx’s Das Kapital in 1867.

FErret is so polite that he once thanked a cash machine, but he still thinks it’s a bit of a stretch that one sullen student should be made to stand for all the ills of society. Perhaps she was just having a bad day.

Brown did not let any such considerations get in the way of blithering like an idiot, however. “In the ears there were earrings,” he wailed. “Do they allow earrings at school now?”

Perhaps a deal is in order: teenagers promise to say thank you if media commentators learn what a college is. Or is that too much to hope for?