YP Comment: Labour Party hits the buffers - Leadership battle lurches on

The fact that the ‘traingate’ story stemmed from his botched attempt to show the reality of travelling by rail in this country is symptomatic of his lacklustre leadership since taking over from Ed Miliband last September.

His landslide victory was heralded by many as a fresh start for the Labour Party. But less than 12 months on and he is embroiled in another leadership battle – one that has exposed bitter party divisions not seen since the early 1980s, when the breakaway SDP was formed.

Labour’s MPs have shown an overwhelming lack of confidence in Mr Corbyn’s leadership and are now hoping his challenger, the Welsh MP Owen Smith, can oust him and in doing so help restore the party as a genuine electoral force. However, the fact that Mr Smith wants to stop Theresa May formally triggering Brexit unless she promises a referendum on the final deal or calls a general election to approve it suggests that he, too, is out of step with the majority of people in this country.

At a time when Labour ought to be tackling crucial issues such as education, housing and the financial crisis afflicting care of the elderly due to spending cuts, it finds itself stuck in a leadership contest that is likely to change nothing.

The Corbyn camp blames the mainstream media for the negative publicity their man has attracted, but this simply will not wash. It was left to Barnsley Central MP Dan Jarvis yesterday to pick up the baton and ask whether the Prime Minister’s reticence over metro mayors raised questions about the Government’s commitment to devolution.

The sad truth is that the Labour Party is in a mess of its own making when it should be holding the Government to account.

GCSEs - girls still doing better than boys

TENS of thousands of teenagers in Yorkshire will receive their GSCE results today with girls once again expected to outperform boys in the majority of subjects.

Analysis of the predicted grades shows the results are likely to mirror those from last year when 73 per cent of female pupils were awarded at least a C grade, compared with just under 65 per cent of their male counterparts.

In some instances the gender gap is even wider with girls more than 15 percentage points ahead in English and doing better in 47 of the 49 subjects. Education experts claim the key reasons that girls are outperforming boys at GCSEs is because they are better at coursework and less prone to rushing their studies.

However, this isn’t the only disparity. Historically there has been a North-South divide in GCSE results with little sign of the gap narrowing. Last year, 69 per cent of pupils gained an A* to C grade, but in Yorkshire and Humber this figure dropped to 65 per cent with the region lagging behind the top performers.

Despite the impressive overall figures, this is a worrying trend and one that needs to be addressed if we are to see greater parity in our education system.

It is no doubt one of the reasons why the Government is changing the way students are graded. Instead of being scored with grades A* to G, from next summer, pupils studying English language, English literature and maths will be marked numerically – from nine for the top-performing students down to one for those at the bottom.

It must be hoped that these changes can help bridge the gaps which thus far have proved so stubborn to close.

History reboot

IT is thanks to the wonder of technology that we can now see William Wilberforce and Amy Johnson – two of Yorkshire’s greatest heroes and heroines – in a completely new light.

Up until now the only pictures of Wilberforce, the Hull-born MP who led the abolition of slavery movement in the 19th century, came from a few portrait paintings, while 
our image of Johnson, the first woman to fly a plane solo from England to Australia, was shaped by grainy black and white footage from the 1930s.

But now computer scientists at the University of Hull have created digital 3D versions of these two influential figures to produce life-sized projections and screenings that will be shown at various points across Hull.

This is more than just a Hollywood gimmick, for it not only brings the dusty pages of history to life but will help introduce these great pioneers and titans of their age to a whole new audience.