Breakfast goes to back to school

Did Education Secretary Michael Gove’s apology tour of schools ever happen? Ok BSF may have been an inefficient way of delivering it but kids deserve to be taught in 21st Century schools not Portacabins.



Good to see a post from Breakfast again.

Loved the way you managed to slip "recent disappointment at losing funding for a massive rebuilding programme" into the blog.

You didn't see the Breakfast phone-in blog hiding anywhere there did you Shelagh? It may be under a desk or in the chemistry lab.



It certainly isn't anywhere to be found on 5 live these days.

I'm not surprised they're disappointed and I'm not surprised you felt it necessary to highlight it. All part of the BBC's left wing bias. Why have all the Labour leadership candidates hardly ever been off 5live, including Ed Balls this morning? I'm also guessing that you wrote this blog rather than Shelagh, although it's in her name.

So the BBC can only talk about how great the coalition is or they are accused ‘left wing bias’ – they can’t win. Substandard school buildings where a feature of the previous Tory government and there is nothing wrong with the issue of BSF being discussed. I’m betting Toby Young and the like will be on the BBC today saying how great Free Schools are now his school is one of the first 16, well that's his kids future sorted.

Obviously the BBC doesn't understand the concept of "cuts", not when it has a guaranteed income of £3.5bn every year, and increasing every few years. How about halving that and trying to carry on the same?

Dom, I think it is true to say there has been vast exposure on the BBC of the Labour leader candidates. I know that it is because we are talking of a potential PM here, but as only 60000 people get to vote for the leader, it is irrelevant who wins until they do, as the vast majority of the population are not voting in this election. So it has been completely overhyped. I hope the BBC offers the same facility to the next opposition party to seek a new leader.

Carrie I agree the BBC’s Labour leadership coverage has been over the top and doubt when Clegg loses his Sheffield seat at the next election there will much focus on the resultant Lib Dem leadership elections.



My point is that referring to the scrapping of BSF does not make the BBC biased. From my own experience there are lots of schools is desperate need of rebuilding and it is something that worries parents so it right to discuss it. Today’s story about 16 Free Schools getting the go ahead is not getting the debate it justifies despite the fact many parents are against it and see it as diverting money from their kids education to help a few vocal middle class parents like Toby Young get independent style education for free. Is the BBC scared of upsetting the coalition now, fearing what will happen at the license fee review?

Good to see a post here Shelagh.

Nigel - Re message 4 - when can we expect to see the breakfast related blogs on the 5 live blog page?

I second Zelda's question.

Well, it's not today! No phone-in blog on 5live blog page.

No phone in blog today either and no 5live connect page either. It keeps coming up with page 404 error message.

5live connect page working now.

Where is this phone in blog? Is it ever going to appear?

As Nigel is in violent agreement that a little bit of transparency goes a long way perhaps he could tell us:



1. What the 5 (FIVE!) people response for breakfast blogging do now they aren't blogging?



2. How it is possible for none of those 5 people to have 5 minutes to muster a few words each day?



3. Why it isn't possible to launch a generic blog for breakfast, or general comments related to programming (aka a message board)



4. Why did they give up blogging?



5. Why these services just disappear without any communication? Just as Victoria's did?



6. And most importantly, why none of these questions were answered weeks ago when many of us where asking them.



Nigel you have made a good start, but there is a lot of work to be done communicating to your community.



This is important as:



(a) 5Live has set the expectation, not the listeners that there will be regular breakfast blogs, yet you fail to deliver.

(b) You want to encourage and develop the community, not disenfranchise contributors I presume.

(c) the BBC spends thousands of pounds of license fee payer money maintaining the blog network and it needs to be properly utlised by staff or closed down.



Look forward to your comments.



ALSO, you promised us a post on Twitter. Thanks.

As there is no blog for this mornings phone-in (what a surprise) and there is nowhere else relevant to post this; Can I just say that the picture of those pregnant women on the 5live connect page is hideous and very unflattering. Please find better pictures of pregnant women in future.

I had a look at Connect today.



For a long while it was running 10 minutes behind (so much for an instant feedback channel) and overwhelming majority (over 90%) of contributions were SMS requiring no editing.



This much trumpeted (and over-rated) service operates only while the programme is on (another failing incidentally) but what puzzles me most is what does Hasit do after reading and approving SMS messages between 9am-10am?



He isn't writing a breakfast blog. I presume he hangs around until 12 noon to push record on the web camera and stop at 2pm.



What I'm struggling to understand is why can't 30 minutes a day be spent reading and replying to blog messages.



I suspect there is much Twittering going on in the meantime. Oh, and mandatory LFC research.



Nigel, as I've asked before, how many Interactive staff do you have and what are their responsibilities? I'm sure we'd all love to know.

OK, so I am going round the bend. Nicky Campbell said this morning that we can contribute to the phone in on the Breakfast Blog. Where is it? Does it exist? PLEASE someone point me in the direction of the Blog or is NC just having one of his little jokes?????

Nicky was in good form this morning. With Sheila as his running mat, they come close to being psychic. (I wonr mention Ant anddec)

I suppose next years move to Salford will make big news.