I didn’t pass judgment on whether Damian Hockney should stand down from the London Assembly when I wrote about his defection. However, UKIPwatch relays a good case, if true, for him to stand aside:

A UKIP spokesman said that in 2003, Mr Hockney had proposed a motion, passed by the party’s National Executive Committee, requiring any successful UKIP election candidate who later left the party to resign their seat.

‘UKIP asserts that Mr Hockney has a moral obligation, if not a legal one, to adhere to a rule which he himself was a vocal advocate of,’ said the spokesman.

Interesting interview in the Guardian today with Kat Fletcher, President of the National Union of Students, who I was at uni with. Our politics differ somewhat (although she once told me I seemed more left wing every time she saw me) but I was pleased for her when she finally took the presidency having been pipped at the post by Labour’s Mandy Telford the previous year.

I see the Guardian site also has a copy of the new guidelines for dealing with intruders in the home. This is an unrelated point.

Damian Hockney, elected as a UKIP London Assembly member, has defected to Veritas. Although the new party has yet to be officially launched, Kilroy has appointed him deputy leader.

As if the Right wasn’t already split enough between UKIP and the Tories, there is now another party in the ring. This will be seriously damaging to UKIP; its effect on the Tories probably won’t be seen until the General Election.

This defection demonstrates, once again, the problem of using “closed list” proportional representation. Hockney was elected based on UKIP’s votes across London. He was positioned on the UKIP party “top-up” list by UKIP itself. Although voters would have known the names on the list (and Hockney was top), the votes were cast for UKIP. The only votes cast directly for Hockney were in the West Central constituency seat – where he came fifth.

That’s not to say he should resign his seat. He’s not required to and he wouldn’t be able to fight a by-election as he would be automatically replaced by a new UKIP assembly member. But this shows why the single transferable vote, with a choice of individual candidates rather than just party names, is still the way to go.

Tim Collins thinks young people’s lack of knowledge about British history is an “outright scandal”. He may be right, but his prescrption – to make history compulsory up to 16 (it can currently be dropped at 14) is a nonsense.

I dropped history at 14 and don’t consider myself uninformed. Certainly I know less about twentieth century history than those who took the subject to GCSE level, but the time spent not learning history wasn’t wasted: much of it was spent on physical sciences, an area in desperate need of new graduates.

“When surveys show nearly a third of all 11 to 18-year-olds think that Oliver Cromwell fought at the Battle of Hastings and when fewer than half know that Nelson’s ship at Trafalgar was called HMS Victory we have to take action.”

Again, possibly true. But since all of that was covered by the history I studied between 11 and 14 (which I understand is still pretty much the case), extending history teaching won’t help. Perhaps better teaching is needed, or for the subject to be made more accessible, but if it’s failing for 11-14-year-olds, don’t force two more years of it on GCSE students.

Which subject should I not have studied in order to take history? (Well, I’d say design and technology, but the Tories made that compulsory, grumblegrumble, so presumably they thought it more important than history.) French? Chemistry? English Literature? Music (which was probably the most rewarding)? There are only so many hours in the school week.

If it is essential that every pupil knows about the Battle of Hastings, does the same apply to the Battle of St Albans, or of Falkirk? Arguably, more knowledge of how people lived in the past, rather than lists of famous dates (“Hitler and the Henrys” as Simon Schama says), would serve young people well, but that doesn’t seem to be what Tim Collins wants.

I’m a bit of a trivia buff so I like to know the facts of battles and monarchs, but – and I hate the say this – does it really matter if a 17-year-old thinks that Cromwell fought at Hastings? They’ll look silly at a pub quiz or on Weakest Link, but is it going to make them a worse doctor or plumber or police officer or maths teacher? Or less British?