This morning I cleared my girlfriend’s mail from her mat in Hammersmith. By coincidence the Mayor’s Londoner had arrived the same morning that Hammersmith and Fulham’s hfm magazine had.
The Londoner’s headline, “London schools make the grade”, and the accompanying article failed to mention the vocational qualifications scam that is artificially inflating schools’ performance figures right now. On the whole hfm steered clear of naked propaganda but managed to puff local schools’ performance in an editorial response to a letter stating that: “Overall 59.3% of Hammersmith & Fulham pupils gained 5 or more good GCSE passes.” Again there was no mention that a single GNVQ was worth 4 Cs.
The Mayor insists that Transport for London places three one page ads in the 20 pages of the Londoner to hide the Precept money he is wasting in the TfL communications budget no doubt.
It is scandalous that the Mayor and local authorities in London are squandering our Council Tax to puff themselves and at the same time unfairly competing with local press who will add commentary about real performance and value for money. The Evening Standard covered this issue much more promptly (on 14th October) and properly explained the GNVQ scam.
Phil Taylor 