Are underprivileged migrant schoolchildren just smarter or are they harder workers than other children with similar backgrounds? Or perhaps it’s just that hope hasn’t been drained out of migrant families? Yet.

Schools in deprived areas with a high intake of white, working-class children tend to receive poor Ofsted assessments, while those with a high proportion of migrant children fare significantly better. Amanda Spielman, the chief inspector of schools in England, puts this down in part to white, working-class communities suffering the “full brunt of economic dislocation in recent years and, as a result, can lack the aspiration and drive seen in many migrant communities”. Which sounds about right, except that nothing about this seems recent. The very problem is that it’s ingrained.

It seems farcical to pit poor “indigenous” kids against poor migrant kids (they’d have plenty in common – poverty, for one thing). It also barely needs stating that most migrant children would be dealing with many challenges that make their achievements all the more impressive. However, there’s one factor that migrant children might not have to contend with – the generation above them (maybe even two or three generations) being systemically ground down by entrenched lack of opportunity and the prevailing atmosphere of demotivation that this generates.

Work hard, and you’ll get somewhere? Could they be blamed for thinking that it’s a lie?

This could produce two markedly different environments in otherwise economically similar homes. The migrant family (still full of hope about opportunities in Britain) sends the child off to school with the incentivising message: “Work hard, and you’ll get somewhere.” Then there’s the other family, the end product of generations that have seen industry collapse, communities devastated, higher education monetised, apprenticeships disappear. Where are they supposed to find the will or the energy to say to their children: “Work hard and you’ll get somewhere”? Could they be blamed for thinking that it’s a lie?

With this in mind, it’s a miracle that so many disadvantaged families continue to encourage and support their children at school. If some don’t, the reason seems to be rather more complex than “poor Britons don’t give a toss about their kids’ schooling”, when the vast majority do. Far from being uncaring and indifferent, these parents, like their parents before them, could simply be exhausted and demotivated, not to mention ashamed and embarrassed. After all, these are communities that have been practically gaslit by a society that, for all the glaring inequality, has the gall to tell them that it’s all their own fault they didn’t get anywhere.

Ofsted chief: families of white working-class children 'lack drive' of migrants Read more

The result is a deeply embedded hopelessness that migrant families, for all their other challenges, have yet to experience or, indeed, pass on as a toxic inter-generational inheritance. Put bluntly, it could be that deep-rooted despair and cynicism about life chances in the UK hasn’t managed to kick the spirit out of migrants yet. Well done to migrant children for doing well at school; let’s hope that it isn’t bred out of them.

You’re right, Barry Manilow, we did know and it made us love you all the more

Facebook Twitter Pinterest Barry Manilow: It’s great that, these days, he gets to live openly.’ Photograph: Ian West/PA

Is the semi-closeted gay man a thing of the past? Barry Manilow has said that, even though he didn’t officially come out for years, “everyone knew”. (The news “broke” with his wedding to Garry Kief in 2015).

I know a bit about Bazzer, perhaps a bit too much (my mother was president of the Rutland branch of the Barry Manilow Fan Club. True). He was the living embodiment of the semi-closeted gay man. Not out of the closet, but not fully in either; even the delirious, knicker-throwing, Copacabana-ing housewives at his concerts would probably have been shocked had the “Manilove” (that dared not speak its name) turned out to be straight.

What Manilow doesn’t say is how for years he tried to keep the gay issue away from his “brand”. But was this so surprising, considering the era when he started out? Manilow would have been terrified of alienating straight fans, but also criticised for not being properly out. It’s great that, these days, Manilow gets to live openly. For others, the semi-closeted syndrome probably isn’t completely over, even in the supposedly enlightened west. However, not coming out in the past wasn’t a failure, rather a tragic part of social history.

Melania Trump, if you want to send out a message, just leave him

Facebook Twitter Pinterest Melania Trump: was it just a crass fashion choice? Photograph: Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images

The jury is still out on the meaning of Melania Trump’s “I really don’t care, do u?” jacket. Was it just a crass fashion choice (from an experienced model who knows the power of clothing) or more than that?

While President Trump claimed that it was Melania’s comment on fake news, this seems the least likely theory of the bunch. Certainly, it would be interesting if Melania was rebelling – against her husband, against his “tender age” policy of separating migrant children from their parents, against his whole regime. It would be wonderful if images of Flotus (the first lady of the United States) in a cheap Zara jacket managed to discredit the Trump administration more than millions of outraged liberal tweets.

However, even if Melania were rebelling, are such stunts enough? Granted, she managed to get the world’s attention. (Where media coverage is concerned, Melania seems to be finally realising that trying to ride the tiger is more dignified than clinging on desperately.) However, some of this global attention must alight on the fact that, mutinying or not, she’s still Mrs Trump. Even the culpable Ivanka has no choice about being his daughter. Melania willingly remains Trump’s wife, when she could be something so much better – his ex-wife.

I’ve always felt that it was sexist nonsense to suggest there should be any more onus on Trump’s womenfolk to calm and humanise the White House Greystoke than on, say, those lion-shooting, putty-faced sons of his.

It’s unfair to blame Melania for what Trump does – only Trump is responsible for what Trump does – but Melania does need to answer for Melania. And, right now, Melania remains with a man who thought nothing of separating distressed children from their parents and placing them in cages. Even if the slogan was Melania’s way of rebelling, a jacket is not enough.

• Barbara Ellen is an Observer columnist