Yesterday afternoon as I was travelling to visit a client I was listening to the World At One and towards the end of the programme Nick Robinson focused on a discussion that had taken place involving a student who had initially been prevented from going to study as an Vet because of the way her A Level results were put forward. She had been rung up because her Mum was listening to the radio and they were concerned about students and wanted to find out more of the situations. At the same time that they rang her up they had Nick Gibb on the programme and so they introduced the two people together. Although the response from Nick Gibb was not as good as it could have been, the programme continued to stay in touch with the student who following the programme did get offered to go to a high profile College and she was interviewed by numerous other media agencies. However what was most interesting from my point of view apart from her success at getting into a training situation was that Nick Gibb who is not her MP stayed in touch with her, sending emails.

So given that our Government is not very well connected with the people they are supposed to be working for, let us hope that the impact of this one interview has changed the actions from Nick Gibb and that our students are in a better position than was the case. How however do we persuade other Ministers and indeed the whole Government to listen to people rather than keep on claiming they know better. Although John Hayes is not a Minister, he once was and he was talking after the Queens speech on Tuesday. His comment included the following words

up and down this country, and that this Government in this Queen’s Speech are speaking for the silent majority who have been ignored or derided by the metropolitan elite for too long?

Now I know that John Hayes has some very strange views and I am not sure what he means by the Metropolitan Elite as most of his Government is made up of people that have been ignoring many issues for the last decade. However if we can get people like Nick Gibb and his colleagues to focus on the silent majority rather than the people who fund the Conservative Party we will definitely move in the right direction, although in due course the funding may get reduced!