Is Politics Too Posh?
Brillo’s “Posh and Posher: Why Public School Boys Run Britain“ documentary broadcast last night made a powerful case that the dominance of British politics by the privately educated and the products of Oxbridge results from the abolition of grammar schools.
The ability of those from modest backgrounds to progress on merit has been undermined by a failing state education system. The ending of the grammar school system means that bright children from modest backgrounds don’t have a well-trodden route to follow to the top, hence the dominance of politics once again by the privileged.
Old friend of the blog Gary Elsby made an appearance, blaming the selection of Tristram Hunt rather than him as the local Labour Party candidate on Peter Mandelson. Others may beg to differ…
Aye it is too posh!
Tristram Hunt needs stuffing and mounting, not necessarily in that order.
But not by me.
Mounted and then stuffed by me, in that order.
Was it just me or did Tommy Sheridan look like a gurning cu nt, a lunatic, a mad fucker in that photo from the reliance van ?
Where is the Tommy Sheriden story
Sherryden – just lying scum
And the bbc gave his wife air time but nothing from the prosecution.
Three years – reduced to half for good behaviour and half again as it was not a crime involving violence.
Result: Nine months for those who do not have a grammar school education
3 years for perjury… I’m not worried.. Dave ?? DAVE!!!!
I’m free!
Thought Twistam was your very good friend Mandy
Ohh, I’ll be stuffing Tristy at the Hoist club later tonight!
Right on cue.
What a knob!!
Meanwhile, in the real world
http://www.thewellingtonnews.co.uk/content/wheelie-bin-fire-warning-video-shropshire-fire-and-rescue
Wheelie bin fires… the caption in the video said “Don’t put them out until the day of collection” ?
From what I see of our new Labour voter filled cities the video should concentrate on getting them to put the rubbish in bins first before going on to putting the bins out.
Thanks my love. That’s given I a few ideas. Orright?
if you live in a flat, where are you going to keep 2 weeks + of rotting rubbish?
why would you want to keep it?
That’s why weekly collections were a sensible idea. But Labour didn’t like that, so they went for the ‘rat friendly’ two week collection service.
If its an officially certified rat friendly service that’s good isn’t It?
State Egalitarianism Rules OK!
I agree with Ed.
“All animals are equal, but some animals are more equal than others.”
We certainly have a right menagerie in power now, don’t know how long it will last, but I hope the other shower do not get in again, at least without reforming themselves beyond recognition and start talking sense, someone has got a very hard job in deed, I do not think Panda is up to it.
On the education issue and public schools, they select pupils by exam from a relatively small pool (wealthy individuals) a very small of very bright pupils get a bursary. Education should be valued by the amount a pupil learns according to his/her ability, which comes down to the quality of teaching and removing troublesome pupils before they affect the others, it only takes 1 or 2 in a class, the teachers should be able
to convey information that is understanderable the pupils, no good having a brilliant teacher but unable to put over the information.
Vote UKIP and bring back grammar schools. I went to a horrendous school thanks to Labour and don’t wish it on anyone.
Government can’t do education. They can do a crèche and that’s all you really get.
‘cept the Creche lasts for life and nobody really matures as an individual !
Wish I could laugh about it but it’s sick and so sad. 85% of school leavers and first time voters in ICM poll want grammars back, yet we’re totally ignored by everyone except UKIP.
Maybe government shouldn’t even try to Do schools (it’s a miserable failure at Health too)?
Maybe there’s something about Force (i.e. Government) that makes it unsuitable for Schools, Hospitals, Saving, Insurance, Society and Arts…
+1
When you have a baby Sandra just remember to tell it repeatedly it will eventually become Prime Minister.
You must then make sure it is in total fear of you. None of this mummy is your friend nonsense just abject fear.
Then by any means send it to Eaton or the girls equivalent and, when this subservient to mummy ofspring becomes Prime Minister is when you get out of accounts and rule the country. +1
“.. lover of Chelsea …”
;;;;;;;;
Why do all politicos have to mention football? It’s so fucking boring.
And it usually imcludes a car crèche.
“Im on Sky News!”…..” Should i get me kit off?”.
You should fucking drown yourself. You’re a bloody pain in the arse.
Why not you did for everyone on campus when you were a student.
I only want to see if you with your kit off if you have a willy Sally
For god’s sake NO, I have a weak stomach!!!!!
Why stop the habit of a lifetime!
Like waving a flag in the Albert Hall
I went to Oxford, and everyone who had anything to do with the Oxford Union “debating” society (mast is silent) was regarded as a Huhne
To want to join it means you have been thinking about a career in politics and that you know better than everyone else since the age of about 16. When you in fact, obviously know fuck all at that age.
and now they are in charge
I joined mainly to watch and chunter from the sidelines. Some of the lectures were interesting, the debates mostly allowed Jacob Rees Mogg to p*ss everyone off. No change there then.
Oh, and like most of the scientists, I was Northern and Grammar. It was the PPE ists you had to watch.
Bring back academic elitism! Nothing wrong with it.
The trouble is stopping Academic Elitism turning into cliqued-out credentialism.
I remember Rees-Mogg at the OU too. At time of Gulf War I he compared Saddam to “Mista Hitler”. He was Berty Wooster without the charm. I soon lost interest in the OU. Being Grammar school educated, I had work to do and it was fully of chinless wonders.
Oi, don’t knock the Open University
A debating society is an institution which teaches you to lie with aploom.
Consider this.
Anyone who has attended a debating society will attest that on arrival a participant is given a point of view usually directly opposite from that which they hold on that subject.
They are then encouraged to argue that case, even though it goes against the very fabric of their being.
That is what debating societies of our so called great universities do to our young people.
Politicians are breast fed on this.
That is why they are consummate liars.
Interesting. I was chairman of the debating society at my public school, and I was never under any pressure to argue a point of view which I did not hold.
However, I remember there was one boy who delivered the most brilliant tour-de-force speech extolling CND. When I spoke to him later, it turned out that he had nothing but contempt for that organisation, and his speech had been a deliberate intellectual exercise.
Elloit Toohey perchance?
Ellsworth Toohey — evidence that Ayn Rand met Mandlescum in a previous life.
The British are culturally inclined to feel that the natural order of things is to be ruled by someone who is upper class. This is the natural equilibrium so it politics always reverts to this as the “mean”.
I blame them Normans coming over here and destroying the Anglo-Saxon hierarchy. Then imposing their top down rule and wiping out the more egalitarian way of things. Taking all our jobs an’ land. Bloody Foreigners, stuff yer Domesday Book!
Don’t even get me started on the Romans.
I’m British and I’m not so ‘culturally inclined’. I know a lot of British people and none f them are either. Do you think perhaps a) you’re talking bollocks, or b) you only know arselicking toadies
I thought Brillo did a reasonably good job.
Just wish he’d also concentrated more on the narrow, exclusively political-activist route that they all follow – and the dangers that come from having a professional political class who basically owe their entire existence and entire subsistence to the state and have no knowledge or experience of anything outside politics – irrespective of their educational background.
Got rather het up last year when mad nads was on tv,saying being an MP was a profession,public service is just a word on an MP’s expense’s form.
“[David Cameron] was then employed for a further three months in Hong Kong by Jardine Matheson as a ‘ship jumper’, an administrative post for which no experience was needed but which gave him some experience of work.”
See, he comes from the working class
I agree M St. G. Brillo did a good job and it was significant that Mandy actually said that the selection got narrower as it went from University, to Oxbridge to Oxbridge PPE types. Also fascinated to see that Parsons chap, certainly not a right winger, advocate the return of grammars.
Maggie made an appearance and slagged off Shirley Williams and Antony Wedgewood-Benn for their public school background. But wasn’t it Tony Crossland who was the rabid anti grammar school politician. Didn’t he used to foam at the mouth when asked about them and vowed to destroy them all?
Totally agree.
Thatcher destroyed more grammar schools.
There’s probably a sign above the entrance doors to the Oxbridge Colleges that reads, “Abandon all common sense ye who enter these hallowed Halls!”
Politicians are hoons whether they seem posh or not. Education has fuck all to do with that level of stupidity.
It’s true of Oxford but not of Cambridge. Most of us Cantabrigensians do something useful in later life, or undertake genuine study and research (i.e. finding things out, rather than just waffling). Hence, relatively few go into politics. It’s been like that since at least the 16th century, when Erasmus preferred the intellectual atmosphere at Cambridge to the ‘chill subtleties’ of Oxford.
Oi. There are _some_ scientist types at Oxford you know. They aren’t all PPE wafflers.
I believe this www thingy had something to do with an Oxford physicist…
Yes, but don’t all you Cantabrigensians do something wqhen you find out something of interest, like pass it to an enemy of the country?
Having read the comments by Mr Elsby when he was a regular commenter on this blog, I can quite see why Labour in Stoke might not have wanted him to stand as a candidate for Labour in the parliamentary elections.
This was one of the best BBC documentaries in a long time.
The state system is no longer giving the right kind of stimulus to bright pupils to enable them to compete for top jobs, because it has abandoned selection on merit, which was the cornerstone of the grammar schools.
Dumbing down the A level system may increase the number of pupils who pass, but does not improve the chances of the bright pupils to distinguish themselves.
The Education system in this country is not fit for purpose and is the greatest barrier to the future success of the UK.
Because the political class is removed from the lives of the majority of ordinary people, it has little conception of what issues the average family faces.
Paradoxically the great drive of the educational establishment for equality has reduced the opportunities available to bright children from working class families.
Couldn’t agree more. The political class we are saddled with is greedy, self-regarding and generally incompetent. And I see no prospect of it being anything else.
It was first class but deeply depressing.The worst of it is that it was so self-evidently true and I believe that most people realised years ago that the clever but less well off kids with little or no connections were stuffed by the equality agenda of the state education establishment.
The evidence is there already in the results of the 1958/1970 cradle-to-grave surveys.
Good comment Hugh, I know a man who is a consultant surgeon. His father was a bricklayer. The social mobility was a direct result of him passing the eleven-plus and going to the (very good) local grammar where his potential was spotted and encouraged.
Mind you, if there wasn’t a grammar, his Dad could have found him a job on a building site.
A friend of mine has a 1st in Maths from Oxford. He came away less than impressed with the intelligence of a lot of the other students. He won’t employ people that went to a public school.
that is too right, they basically learn how to pass exams, which isn’t such a bad thing, involves lots of hard work, but means you can’t really think
on the other hand, a 1st in maths from oxford is also a certain personality type lol
but these Union types brillo was on about, they really are fucked up because they spend no time thinking and just get by on exam skills.
Exams test your ability to do exams, mostly.
Judging by your writing and punctuation you did not excel at English whilst sliding through the edukashon system.
blame the left wing techers i say
since your sentence began with a clause “Judging by…”, a comma would have been punctually correct but hey who cares it’s the interweb
why not go back in time and tell shakespeare how to punctuate, then deal with all the terrible stuff on blogs later on
I’m posh and incredibly well-educated, but I’m also a complete and utter cretin.
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/newstopics/politics/defence/8284935/Scrapping-the-RAFs-4bn-Nimrod-fleet-risks-UK-security.html
The word “perverse” was never more appropriate.
Dave, the heir to….. Healey.
He should complete his retro tour de force by having the Nimrod airframes (along with HMS Ark Royal and her Harriers) shot to pieces by the army, as Labour did with those of the TSR2. Just to be sure.
at least you are not a misandrist comme moi
Private, selective Girl’s school education will do that to some girls. Probably best to designate your husband a ‘woman’ and let him suffer the humiliation of an all-wimmin shortlist. I bet he can hardly sleep with the shame.
You forget, these fuckers have no shame.
W.W.
Brillo made a good case on the Beeb web site today. It explains why Ed M lisping over the dispatch box looks utterly stupid. Cameron and co are better educated for sure – the effective Labour people are waiting for the socialist left lunatics to wear themselves out before they return. Aside from the quotas of women (fairer sex) and ethnic minorities, the powerbrokers are very much ruling the roost.
Decent education with differentiators for brighter kids to really shine is important. The socialists don’t like the idea of excellence, rather everything must be the nulled down to equal sameness – mediocrity.
Blah – pours another glass…
Miliband probably has an education that is as good as Cameron had.
So… why the difference?
There’s an old saying: “You can educate a stupid person, but the only result will be a stupid person with an education.”
That’s the Miliband difference!
Its also upbringing. The militwits were raised in a marxist family.
Read Mark and Engles communist manifesto.
Then you will realise we were all brought up in a marxist ‘family’ called Great
Britain.
er since 1950s influx of foreigners, now called the uk.
There do seem to be a lot of marxists in UK. Union types, luvvies and other assorted armchair socialists. Foreigners – do you mean eastern european escapees like militwits family, straw, etc.?
And the BBC
You need to re-familiarise yourself with the ten point plan put forward in the communist manifesto
A little reading…
http://www.tnellen.com/cybereng/harrison.html
It would never happen here without the due process of law being invoked to do the task of hampering. Little things at first, like ankle restraints for a new teenage underclass, then unthinkably high-placed targets picked off. Thoughtcrime finally slipping in through judicial overreach.
Couldn’t agree more. The state system has been dumbed down to fuck. But ‘free schools’ aren’t the answer.
Mind you – all these private school/Oxbridge brains at the top of Government, business and finance…
Good job they weren’t comp-educated oiks or the country would really be in the shit. Phew.
Yep taxpayer subsidising of schooling is wrong. Parents should pay for the education of their own children, and the state should restrict itself to making sure children are being educated.
That is what you meant…
You’re projecting there, AC1.
Oi.
And if they are not being educated, what could the state do then, as the state would not be responsible for education?
Well obviously if the Parents were neglecting their responsibility to educate their won children then it should step in and consider whether the parents are the sort that should be looking after children.
You odious c u n t.
I bet you’re the type who knocked out a few kids, then gets annoyed with them and just hopes the school will look after them for a few hours and get them out of your hair…
If I annoyed you and you match the above then you’ve made my day.
You should fucking drown yourself. You’re a bloody pain in the arse.
Agreed, but the tax system should favour the parents!
The tax system shouldn’t favour anyone except those who work.
The tax system should favour anyone who is a tax payer and not a tax eater.
it should favour bankers
I nearly fell off my chair listening to Mandelson….hahahaha……’yes it is getting posher and narrower’…..WTF…..his ‘sponsoring’ of Tristram Hunt, his ‘love of money’ and ‘privilege’ and holidays on yachts with various elitists. He really doesn’t give a damn…..odious man.
Good programme overall by Brillo though I thought.
zorro
The good people of Stoke, just like those in Salford, will get what they voted for.
The likes of mandy and the millies want to be in control of the plebs who are supposed to be kept under control.
All the bright kids in sink schools have Lady Plowden and Shirley Williams to thank, when they abolished Grammer schools they took away the only real chance working class kids had of getting on in life.
The country is now run by two public school boys who have never had a job, however they don’t have to worry about schools their kids somehow get into the best schools in London even if they have to travel across half a dozen boroughs to get there. Or you can go the Diane Abbott route and send your kids to private school using tax payers money. The stench of hypocrisy is so bad you can smell it from a 100 miles away.
You are so right. They did!!
What’s more I suspect people like balls,bliar and brown did it deliberately.
They really did not want the hoi polloi of the working classes shouldering in on their little gold mine . Look now much money they have troughed from us!!
or you can go the route of the parents of Robert Peston, and insist you send you son to the local state, Highbury Wood, and somehow still rise to greatness
Oh yeah….The Hon Robert Peston, son of Labour peer Lord Peston and receiver of all his scoops from his father and his father’s Labour party mates.
Everyone knows it.
Need to get a narrative going now that the economy is going down the shitter? Need to plant the seed and get the public to believe that it’s the bank’s fault there’s no money left and not the government’s? Need to precipitate a financial panic so that you can ride to the rescue (after six months getting all your ducks in a row) to a great fanfare?
Who you gonna call? Bob Peston.
Don’t forget to mention the Tory-led coalition a couple times at least.
What are we talking about here. Is this about balls and yvette (bliar and brown…and the rest of the failed labour crew) and their public school
education and their oxbridge uni politics/failedkeynesianeconomic route into politics?
It is isn’t it?!!!
This is all about spend spend spend and tax tax tax to create public sector officer jobs paying £32k pa that count pram wheels, encourage people to walk more, inspect contents of our fridges, and talk about people taking up cycling. Nothing that makes a profit to pay the taxes for labour’s spending spree then??!!
Can you imagine edb on a cycle or edmiltwit walking anywhere. Of course not . But like the lying politicians that they are they will tell us that they do it all the time
I say there’s that chap Elsby, he really is the most frightful rotter! Not a proper Comrade-Chap at all! If what that he says is true then well done to Peter!
Alistair Campbell on Newsnight again, fuck off and get cancer and die you twat.
its Al-jabeebbra (bbc joke) where the Al bit stand for Alistiar in alistair campbell but also al-quaida or jazeera or something really funny like that
Oh my aching sides.
Oi Sock-puppet. Feck orf.
Remember what the High Court Judge said about Campbell in the Maxwell trial. He instructed the jury to ignore his testimoney as he was an unreliable witness. Add that to his drink problem and we have a real star running the country with Bliar. Funny the press and the Beeb never seem to mention this.
Good pic of Prezza on the front page of tomorrow’s Mail.
His head on a spike?
Does it mention he was having a affair with his secretary and his wife was so desperate to be Lady Prezza that she will put up with any humiliation. Add to that he tried to get his son eased into his safe seat in Hull and you have a prime example of a modern political family.
Fuck Britain, fuck the military and the Tory party. I’ve got my place in the history books and that’s all that matters.
let’s go to the country in May – we’re only 39 -34 down in the polls, and that’s without Labour having a leader
You’ve got your place in the history books as the worst Conservative leader of all time.
You total disgrace.
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/newstopics/politics/defence/8284935/Scrapping-the-RAFs-4bn-Nimrod-fleet-risks-UK-security.html
That thing you get advertising money from – the nimrod thing about security, is it a wikileaks thing? – you know, we are all going to die without nimrod, we are all going to die if wikileaks exposes the lying scum at the heart of governments. That sort of nanny thing?
Ermmmm not really “Its because of our scorched earth policy Gordon spent all the money before Dave got there. It’s Gordon’s legacy to an ungrateful electorate
But nimrod has been around since before the second world war – or seems like it. So why lay the update at Brown’s door? Over the decades, there has been plenty of opportunity to update these antiques.
(Just asking).
You just know there’ll be some really complex reason why you can’t just strip out all the natty electronics from the Nimrods and install them in a cheap second-hand 737 for a fraction of 4bn quid.
But I bet you could do it. But then BAe wouldn’t be able to bill you 4bn quid for an upgrade or a ‘replacement’.
Did you youngsters know that Nimrod is a modified Comet, with bells and whistles added for the spooks? Look up ‘Comet’ and ‘De Havilland’.
Fortunately a Comet without square windows.
You’d think a 50s airframe design would have been retired by now…
Far too much sexism, gender & class inequality in politics.
I’ve lost the all women candidate list along with my exepenses.
YEs, there are not enough public schoolgirls ruinng the country
I don’t particulary care what the educational background of politicians is provided that said education is adequate, and that they are competent and honourable. Sadly, the latter two seem to be in rather short supply.
Example – the recently appointed Shadow Chancellor of the Exchequer. Impeccable education, but not a successful record when close to the levers of power.
Another example – the late Speaker Thomas. Not a man from a privelidged background, but highly regarded for his contribution to public life. Why so few like him nowadays?
but not a successful record when close to the levers of power.
Understatement of the week.
A fucking awful record when close to the levers of power. Wrong on everything. Belligerently wrong. Stridently wrong. Confidently WRONG. Wrong, wrong, wrong.
If he was in charge of shovelling shit he’d cut his foot off with the shovel and blame Thatcher. And this was the bug-eyed imbecile whispering in Brown’s ear. No wonder we’re fucked.
If he was in charge of shovelling shit he’d cut his foot off with the shovel and blame Thatcher.
Brilliant, jgm2.
Continuing the theme, Balls should grow a beard so we can set fire to it and put it out with a shovel.
Lord Tonypandy of gobshyte…
+1.
Not loved universally by Welsh people, who I am informed like to piss on his grave.
@3 animal farmer
I knew a lot about politics from the age of 7 – so I never attended a single debate at the Oxford Union because I found those interested in them far too childish (all three parties had big-name speakers for their clubs in my first term – well worth my subscription, but many of those attending betrayed their ignorance which was worse at 18 than mine was at 7). The only intelligent political discussions I could have were with the “Liberal Party Group” (a *relatively* intelligent subset of the Liberal Club, who never noticed that I was a paid-up member of my home Conservative Party) and the Treasurer of the University’s Communist Party (who did know my political affiliation).
In my youth Manchester Grammar sent more boys to Oxford than Eton did: the Butler Education Act gave a massive boost to social mobility; however it is not just Labour’s destruction of its tri-partite education system that has barred the route to the top for bright working-class boys (it is now easier for pretty working-class girls) but the maltreatment of bright boys in state schools.
I don’t understand how they can think they can “debate” about anything at all, when they are only half way through a fairly basic course in basic politics and economics in their first year. Yet they already think, about 3 years ago when they are 15 or 16 years old, ooh yeah I will be good at leadership and politics! I suspect it is because they already realise how easy it is to lie and play the system.
Brillo getting an hours prime time slab of BBC to lavish praise on grammar schools must be an example of this inherent Left Wing bias we never stop hearing about
Yeah, it happens that often that is goes unnoticed usually. BTW, it was that spiteful little shit public schoolboy socialist, Anthony Crosland who helped to abolish the Grammar Schools. Talk about pull up the ladder.
He didn’t pull up the ladder. He assured that the OTHER ladder was destroyed; his remains in place.
Just because the BBC occasionally and rarely air opinions that are not left wing, that does not make them impartial. Compare how many times that the BBC air such non-left wing opinions with the number of times they air left wing opinions
Anon, you clearly do not listen to radio 4 comedy programmes on at 6.30. They all appear to run to a formula which is relentlessly leftist.
Then thetre is 10 o’clock live on channel 4. Oh dear!
Free schools are open to all kids regardless of background and they all get a good chance to enter top universities.
Yes, I too have worked in Russia.
Yes we too can have a nation of Postman Pats, hope n’ change!
of course if you one of the comrades in the people’s party, first of all you chose a good area where the local comp is not swamped by the offspring of the underclass. To ensure they get further, you hire discreet private tutors – ees simples
The grammar school system was always despised by the lefties because it took working class kids out of the estates, gave them an education, sent them to university, and horror of horrors made them middle class. (and potential tory voters) Oh dear can’t have that! So they pushed the line that grammar schools were “elitist” and in the end the conservatives even went along with it (well, after all, they can send their kids to private schools or the few remaining excellent state schools)
None of them will have the balls to bring back grammars because they know the leftie media will scream “elitism” but the fact is they were the best way of giving clever but poor kids a leg up the social ladder.
Couldn’t agree more. The destruction of the grammar schools will be seen on a par with Henry VIII and the abolition of the monasteries.
Spot on Ratsniffer.
I’m probably being thick but why are Public schools so called when the general public have bugger all chance of getting their kids educated by them ? Is it supposed to be ironic ?
Dates back a long time. Public schools were for the kids of not-so-rich people who couldn’t afford to have their kids educated by a tutor.
Got it in one.
Kent I believe still has the 11 plus and entry to grammar schools. When I lived there as a lad, one of the options for higher-scoring 11+ pupils was Sevenoaks Public School, paid for by the LEA.
Does this mean that grammars are not banned, as generally claimed, but at the discretion of the education authority?
Existing Grammar schools can remain but no more can be created.
170 …that sounds like the ‘Direct Grant’ system – abolished by Crosland and Williams (in 1966?) – such schools (often originally Church Schools) were forced to choose between becoming Comprehensives, or Private Schools (to be picked off later).
Birmingham definitely still has LEA funded Direct Grant grammar schools.
Look how many Birmingham schools are still in the top 20. My old school used to be top of that chart. And the ‘O’ Level one.
And remember, Birmingham schoolkids are now minority white. Those schools are packed to the rafters with the doctors, dentists, lawyers, councillors and MPs of the future. Practically all Asian. Meanwhile the comprehensive schools of the legacy white enclave cities of Newcastle, Glasgow, Cardiff etc etc are producing street rioters, hairdressers, Labour voters and bus drivers.
Birmingham definitely still has LEA funded Direct Grant grammar schools.
Look how many Birmingham schools are still in the top 20. My old school used to be top of that chart. And the ‘O’ Level one.
And remember, Birmingham schoolkids are now minority white. Those schools are packed to the rafters with the doctors, dentists, lawyers, councillors and MPs of the future. Practically all Asian. Meanwhile the comprehensive schools of the remaining white enclave cities of Newcastle, Glasgow, Cardiff etc etc are producing street rioters, hairdressers, bus dr*vers and Labour voters.
Bucks still has grammars and very popular they are too.
Stun is right, and there were boys on free places paid by Kent CC when I was at Sevenoaks in the mid-1970s. The free places were abolished around that time, but Kent still keeps a grammar system, at least in some areas.
Thanks in part to the boys on free places, Sevenoaks was a pretty brainy school then, which gave it the reputation to attract even brighter offspring of Hong Kong millionaires to replace the boys on free places. The academic record is now better than ever (in the top ten schools, however you choose to measure) but the character of the place has altered significantly and the fees have soared to provide the creature comforts that Hong Kong millionaires expect for their precious offspring.
The evolution of Sevenoaks School neatly illustrates the Neill thesis in action.
The class war has always been a middle class civil war. The middle class are driven by envy of a ruling class that has virtually ceased to be and hatred of the working class.
What we need to do is abolish Public Schools. Then everyone will be on the same level. That is the lowest level. On second thoughts just get rid of all schools; think of how much that would save! And every one would have the same opportunity.
How about Pol Pot year zero and all that? Any that are left alive we can tax to fuk and no one will know any different, init.
As the government holds the view that students should have to pay for their university education why not force all students who decide to stay on at school and sit A Levels pay for their sixth form education? Why should hard working families whose children leave school at 16 and get a job have to subsidise the Sixth Form education of the middle class who will go on and earn more money than them? In fact any Year 9 student who chooses academic GCSEs should have to pay for their education. Why should working class families whose children are studying GCSEs in hairdressing have to sudsidise middle class children who will go on in life and earn more than them? In fact, why should any family who pay 40% tax be allowed to educate their children at the taxpayers expense when clearly they have a much higher chance of success in life as it is more than likely they will live in a more prosperous area? In fact, why should any family who live in a “leafy suburb” rich or poor be allowed to educate their children at the taxpayers expense as clearly the children at the suburban school will have a much greater chance of success than a child at an inner city sink school? In fact, why should a child at an inner city sink school who lives with their mother and father be allowed a taxpayer funded education as clearly they will have a much better chance of success than a child growing up with a single mother? In fact, why should a child with a single mother who is not a crack addict have a taxpayer funded education when they will clearly have a much better chance of success than a child whose mother is a crack addict? In fact, why should a child with a any kind of parent receive a taxpayer funded education when they will have a greater chance of success than an orphan?
+1
From what I remember of Mr Elsby’s comments, they veered between the inane and the insane. Jeez, I miss him.
I’m from da ghetto, ya. I know how da real people live, ya. I’m well working class and thing, ya.
From the belly of the beast……..
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/magazine-12279627
(I am having a comment modded. I feel like I have arrived.
)
Huh, all you have to do to get modded is to mention ‘Stаіnеs’ or ‘bаnkruрtсу’.
Or Billy Fagg
You notice the BBC attitude is about “lifting people out of poverty” rather than stopping people being trapped in poverty…
Rather telling IMHO.
Something that Andrew Neil touched on but is forgotten about Eton and Westminster is that they are highly selective too. And not just on your parent’s ability to come up with 30K a year after tax.
These are smart kids. The smart kids of rich people. They’re smart and well-connected. Of course they’re going to do well.
What was far more instructive was the headmistress at his old school dancing around Neil’s questions about ‘Are the bright kids getting the opportunities I got’ played with the dead-bat non sequitur about ‘more kids going to university’ than ever.
Yeah. But which universities? Sorry but Brighton is still a poly as far as I’m concerned. And Luton. And ‘Greenwich’ isn’t a University either even if they have nabbed some nice buildings off the Admiralty.
Good show though.
Look the unemployment figures are millions lower for having 50% of people off the list for 3 or 4 years in the post-18 crèche, they now even get people to pay for those years!
Interesting points missed out would have been:
are there people who were like me?
where are the people who were like me?
Who are the most prominent people under 45 who went to comps?
(He ended up only interviewing the guy from stoke with a grudge)
Oh, and this prog wouldn’t have been made if David Davis had won.
David Davis did well to not point out that there would be no class-war element at all to the Labour campaign if he had won.
It’s not Cameron’s fault he went to Eton but there are sections of the electorate who have very easy to push buttons about folks back-ground and schooling and I have little doubt that the mere fact Cameron went to Eton cost the T*ries a fair few votes.
Davis talked about an historical ‘deferential’ propensity for many working class people to vote T*ry. As if they wanted to be ‘ruled’ by somebody ‘born to it’ who, by virtue of their birth and upbringing knew what they were doing and how to conduct themselves. What was left unsaid is that Labour voters now seem to suffer from the antithesis of this and seem determined to vote for any c*unt no matter what manner of fuckwit as long as he has ‘working class’ credentials – see John Prescott and his Stepford Voting constituency for details.
There was the chap in Glasgow Eastlands who had started the community centre who wouldn’t vote Labour simply because there was no ‘working class’ candidate. Fuck knows who Labour got in Glasgow Eastlands who wasn’t working class but we know, for sure, they’d have elected Tristram Hunt if he’d stood for Labour but will spit tacks till doomsday about posh-boy Cameron.
well, thats not about my questions!
Cameron being posh makes him much more self confident, and better at his own self PR. So in a contest against someone like DD he’s at an advantage, for all sorts of reasons that don’t make him better at running the country (but make him better at sucking in votes).
If you’re posh, and a spiv, people don’t think “arthur daley”.
Gary Elsby is a complete twat a real comedian, a right Labour groupie who kept us in stitches with his conspiracy theories and utter Gordon Brown devotion (until banned) on Boultons Sky blog.
If he is your friend Guido then you have go down in my estimation like a flat soufflé with me
38,700 results for gary elsby.
Gary should get a free teashirt off Guido just for keeping his windowlickers entertained,think the best laugh was when a woman from the party that shall not be mentioned beat him in the local council elections,his comments on a few of the blogs were highly entertaining afterwards.
Sammy Wilson (East Antrim) (DUP): Further to that point of order, Mr Speaker. “Erskine May” makes it quite clear that someone should apply for an office under the Crown. Should I, as the Member for East Antrim, in a fit of despair when I see who will replace Gerry Adams, express publicly the view that I wished that I was not a Member of a House that contained such a person, would the Chancellor take that as an indication that I should no longer be a Member of this House and therefore appoint me to an office of the Crown? That seems to be the implication of the ruling that you have made.
Not effin posh enough
What on earth was she thinking of wearing that dress? Who does she think she is? Carla Bruni?
“Do i look like the sort of woman who would have a tattoo?”
It would be a Twattoo in your case, surely ?
You look like you’d have the whole of the edinburgh tattoo and the black watch aswell, you slaaaggg….
I think you’ll find they’re called a ‘tramp stamp’ now.
I believe that those ridiculous top-of-the bum, winglike tattoos are called ‘arse antlers’.
I wonder where Andrew Neil got his hair piece stitched or woven on to his skull.
Looks like the same place and design as Silvio Berlusconi the Italian PM. serial OAP groper and voyeur.
Normally, at about this point, Private Eye would attach a suitable photo of Andrew Neil with a young laydee.
And wearing a baseball cap like a complete hague…
It looks like his brillo pad has gone rusty. Did anyone else spot the marks where the implants had fallen out?
Look, I’m a regular kinda guy. I sorted out the Country’s ‘Education, education, education’ in 1997 so Brillo is clearly wrong.
If by ‘sorting it out’ you meant hiding an additional 1.5 million people every year from the unemployment statistics at their own expense so they could get a job in a call centre where they still have to stick their hand up to got to the potty then yes, you sorted it out.
I love you Tony.
Hi Tat,
Sock-puppeting again I see. My comments on your bizarre moniker switch must’ve been too close to home. Why are you afraid of your old moniker?
Coz he’s a liar and a coward. Remember how he left in a hissy fit, having spat the dummy for being modded? “FREE SPEECH, FREE SPEECH!!!!!” he shrilled, something, incidently he incessantly tries to deny others.
He was never going to come back, NEVER! Yet he sneaked back in the next day and has never left since. He just uses throwaway monikers or childishly uses other people’s.
He was also going to bring down this site. Fuck knows how; perhaps by overloading it with Youtoob vids, who knows?
He was even going to start his own blog. There’s a laugh.
What a total knob he is.
Right on cue.
What a knob!!
+1
Yep you really sorted it out, when the GCSE results are analysed correctly it turns out that only 16 % of kids got A -C grades in maths, english, science and a language.
Education,Education Education – more lies
The yoof of today have a great deal to thank Bliar for, a degree in media studies and a bill of ~ £30k
GCSE A = A/B O level.
GCSE B = C/D
GCSE C = E GCE / Grade I CSE.
The BBC are planning to do another documentary on Grammar Schools, could it be a hatchet job?
Closing down Grammar Schools was a wonderful way of preserving the job opportunities for the privately educated not just in politics but law, medicine and business.
“Testimony Films is making a BBC4 two parter on the history of the grammar school in Britain and we are keen to hear from readers who went to a grammar school or taught in them.
-We are looking for memories between the late 1920’s and the 1970’s.
-We’re especially interested in any stories of scholarship boys and girls from humble backgrounds who really benefitted from a grammar school education.
-We’re interested in stories of inspirational teachers who may have helped shape the lives of the children they taught.
-We’d also like to hear from those who for whatever reason feel they didn’t enjoy or benefit from their grammar school education.
If you have a story to tell of your grammar school days please contact:
EMILY SIVYER on 0117 925 8589, or email: emily.sivyer@testimonyfilms.com or send a letter to TESTIMONY FILMS, 12 GREAT GEORGE STREET , BRISTOL , BS1 5RH.”
you forgot history or geography, which is in the “english bac”
So, as I didn’t do either – not in that 16%.
Well, my personal opinion of Brillo was raised somewhat during this show. The politicians will however remain scumbags. An honorable politician is harder to count than on one hand.
It’s like reading todays papers, after scr*wing over Equitable Life policy holders who were stupid enough to save for retirement. Because of a toothless regulator, the savers will all get shafted properly by virtually no compensation, and that’s before Cameron’s tax rises bite into the savings, and Gordon Browns tax raid of £5bn a year on private pensions (coalition have no intention of scrapping that tax), and Bank of England governor Mervyn King quantitatively easing his hands on savers and pensioners retirement money.
NOBODY should ever vote for the LibLabCon crooks, teach them a lesson, the politicians and their crooked banker friends engineered this recession and the biggest robbery in history of the planet, a redistribution of wealth from the people in the middle and bottom to the crooked politicians and crooked bankers.
They can all be educated in posh schools or university, but you can boil it down to this – they are just posh crooks.
Right on cue.
What a knob!!!
Sarah said:
“I think it matters that politicians at the moment don’t represent the United Kingdom. I don’t think that’s a good thing.”
Who, do you suppose, they are representing?
Sarah said:
“If you come from a wealthy background you’re more likely to get a good education and reach the top.”
She’s bloody sharp, this girl!
That’s be “benefits” of a comprehensive education….. muttered the headmistress.
Parents send their brats to private schools to turn them into self reliant and well connected winner. Doesn’t always work, but has a reasonable record.
State run comprehensives are designed to turn their victims into state reliant, Labour voting losers. They are extremely successful at it.
Note too that the PPE lecturer was saying most of his colleagues were ‘of the left’. The (leftist) state indoctrination goes all the way to the top. Private school kids, from a (probably) more right wing back-ground may be able to resist three years of indoctrination from 18 – 21 but state-school educated kids will have heard nothing else since their parents took that picture of them all dressed up at the front door on their first school day 13 years ago.
Yep, I have a good memory, and remember some of the things I was taught in my History class (One being FDRs New Deal “ending” the American great depression, which seemed to uniquely affect the USA in duration whilst his “fixes” where happening).
Subsequently I’ve unlearned quite a lot and are much better able to guess the future, rather than using my School indoctrinated nonsense.
Comprehensive education = factory fodder
The second world war resolved the economic problems at the end of the 30′s nothing to do with the economic thinking of the time.
The rise of the professional political class is the problem. If it could have been a requirement to have achieved something before standing for parliament (regulated by OfCand, perhaps) we might have been saved from going through some of the wildly expensive and utterly futile experiments in non streamed education that has destroyed social mobility over the last 30 years.
I can think of a lot of things I would have enjoyed had I not decided to fork out for my children’s private education; a necessary requirement for a sound one.
Then of course the whole aim of Socialism is to maintain a client class. Can’t fault the success there….
I think you should say forked out twice (once for the state creche via extorted tax and once for the school you chose for your children.)
I’ve bloody had to fork out even though I don’t have any children.
I hear Cameron and his Oxbridge mates have recieved an invitation to The Russian Submarine Captain’s Ball.
Gary Elsby is clearly a delusional idiots, in that he genuinely believes the socialist crap that spouts from his most ugly facial orifice. Therefore PM, I am sure had nothing to do with it, nor needed to.
However of course the country is run by Oxbridge graduates of the highest of upper-classes, it was even when Thatcher was supposed to be in charge of the illusion which has always been British democracy.
The Establishment run the entire show, always have, and it seems always will.
After tens of millions of British and European people had been needlessly sacrificed back in the 40′s, the establishment needed to take a back seat for a while, other wise some people may have started asking questions like,”what was that recent murderous sacrifice really for”
So they gave us nice sounding cuddly things like a monopolized health service, and a few millions totally crap council houses, and bided their time for 45 years getter forever more rich and powerful with their next scam, namely The Cold War.
Then they decided 45 years of this gravy train was getting a bit boring, as they had stolen virtually everything they could from the Russian people, so the plan moved on, and the wall was finally told to come down. The proverbial THEY then started turning their screws on the Western ‘democracy’s’ namely Europe Australasia, Canada, and The USA.
It took them only the next 25 years to steel virtually everything they could from the westernized mugs, as the establishment had already made perfectly certain that most of the western worlds population no longer possessed the common sense they were born with.
Now that they have stolen just about as much as they can safely steel from the entire planet without mass starvation taking place absolutely everywhere, the real heavies will undoubtedly move in to put the finishing touches to the establishments Great Plan.
What exactly the heavies are going to do, I have little real idea, just a few idol speculations. One thing is for sure, it will not be very nice to say the lease, and many people will not live to see the end of The End Game.
Very funny. So Labour is responsible for keeping the working man out of politics. Hilarious. Hoist by their own petard. That’s where rigid dumbfuck ideology gets you.
Elby, please let us have some of Crossland and William’s quotes about why they wanted to do away with grammars. They make interesting reading. Keep the workers under the yoke?
Since we’re speaking of public schools, why hasn’t this blog covered that champagne socialist, but nevertheless hot Labour Totty, Ellie Gellard since April 12, 2010?
“J David Morgan, Hazel Blears, Emily Vinson, James Colquhoun, Shelly Asquith
Ellie Gellard is on Facebook”
April 2010 interest nothing of has she done HMM!
Yet another legacy/failed policy to add to the many that Labour have been responsible for……on top of failed wars;busted economy they have now finally finished off “social mobility” as well….
Robet Peston is the son of a Liebore politician?
How can the BBC get away with it?
Imagine the uproar if Carole Thatcher were chairing Question Time.
Couldn’t be worse than whichever Dimblebore is doing it now.
They would only have to lie in wait until she made some slightly un-PC remark of air and get her booted out…. Oh!
“The ability of those from modest backgrounds to progress on merit has been undermined by a failing state education system. The ending of the grammar school system means that bright children from modest backgrounds don’t have a well-trodden route to follow to the top, hence the dominance of politics once again by the privileged.”
this has always been the case it’s just that there are different circumstances that prevent/limit people from modest backgrounds. One way or another the privileged will find ways to maintain their privilege
Seems the rich who used to sponser bright kids to the universities with education awards and burseries etc have found that charity begins at home,the rich Liebour shites never sponsered anybody and the lot of thieves in charge before May 6th 2010 pulled up the ladders to stop state sponsership and even screwed up kids education from nursery to 6th form and the toss pots still vote for them and their kids futures,vote crap get crap.
What I found odd is that only 20 MPs are from Eton, but theres 8?12? on front benches. So run of the mill MPs might be from all sorts of places.
An interesting ommission: Derek Draper. If he had only been 90% twat he’d have been a prominent MP.
To me, the most corrosive thing that has happened is that they’re all career politicians who were spads, and have never done anything else or wanted to do anything else.
I mean … if you were good at something else by the time you were 25-30, would you really arse about with that lot?
Slime Watson is in the same category as Dolly Draper and he is a prominent Zanu backbencher having been Brown’s Minister for Mud Slinging as Guido called him…
…but I thought kids were getting better grades now and everything was hunkydory.
Its all Shirley Williams’ fault.
I’m sorry to say the my fellow-Wykehamist Dick Crossman was the brains and driving force behind the abolition of selective state schools. Unfortunately one can only say of Richard Crossman that he was a socialist intellectual, the very dregs of society. Crossman even snapped at fellow-Labour MPs who took their children out of comprehensive schools, because they were doing badly, and sent them to independent schools instead. Crossman was able to do this because his own children were already grown up, so it didn’t apply to him.
Altogether a very bad hat, I’m afraid. His prejudices and theories have blighted millions of lives.
He’s still a hero of the left though.
Not quite in the same league as Mao or Stalin or Pol Pot or even Mugabe.
But a hero nonetheless.
A white-man’s Diane Abbott then?
Always thought it was Anthony Crosland who was responsible: “If it’s the last thing I do, I’m going to destroy every fucking grammar school in England. And Wales and Northern Ireland”.
While Crossman sent his own choldren to private schools…
No.Crossman’s children went to the local comp.Sadly his son committed suicide whilst(I think) still a sixth-former.
Crosland destroyed the grammer schools.
How come so many comments are timed long before our host’s posting ?
Have you lot all developed psychic powers ?
shhhh…it’s the post that must not be named…
Fortunately, in Scotland we still have a meritocracy, where bright children whose parents have modest incomes can still receive a good education and rise to the top. Without that, you would never have had the benefit of my leadership.
You are living proof that scum always rises to the top.
What about Mummy’s trust fund, Gordon?
I went from a secondary modern to grammar. What a difference, suddenly a future beyond just leaving school existed, the two schools were like chalk and cheese. The grammar also went to great efforts to help pupils from poor families, not just financial aid for things like the uniform but also making them believe that the sky truly is the limit.
You are saying secondary moderns were shit.
In a nutshell, yes. There were some very good teachers at the secondary modern but there were also some very bad ones too and even though everyone knew who the bad ones were, nothing was ever done. This would not have been tolerated at grammar, where I have to say all the teachers were of top calibre.
Anyway, how can you get down to the business of learning if you are in a class where a lot of them don’t want to or can’t learn and the teacher is unable to control the class?
Perhaps the conservative party would have progressed more on this issue if they were able to take it on. “how do you stop schools becoming sink schools”
Your last question needs sorting out whatever happens. Unless one is happy to have sink schools where other people’s children go.
I went, in Birmingham, to what was, at the time, the school that topped all the National ‘O’ and ‘A’ Level league tables. Even today I think it’s in the top ten. I have to say that a lot of the teachers were shit. ‘Way-hay-hay – look at me, feet under the table, bright kids, I don’t have to do fuck all and they’ll make me look good’.
I had two teachers who simply read their ‘O’ level notes that they’d written out twenty or thirty years prior from an exercise book which we dutifully copied into our own exercise book. One of them did exactly the same for ‘A’ Level Chemistry. Inspirational teachers? Maybe one.
Furthermore, my kids went to a very well-regarded (private) school in Scotland to the age of eight or nine and the teachers there were exactly the same. Completely complacent. Well-behaved kids from aspirational families – it was still little better than a creche albeit without thugs disrupting the class. But when I tackled the teachers about my daughters shit maths they couldn’t have been more contemptuous or dismissive if they’d worked at it. ‘Nothing to be concerned about’ – the financial world falling apart around them because so many people haven’t a fucking clue about basic maths and what an interest rate is and what a percent is and borrowing shit-loads of cash they’ll never be able to afford and these complacent fuckers not worried about the building blocks of maths. Another reason I pulled the plug on the fucking place.
It is slightly better at their new St Cakes in England but basically, what you are paying for is not outstanding teaching or even shiny new facilities [particularly not shiny new facilities]. What you are paying for is to keep them away from disruptive fuckers who not only have no interest in their own education but are actively seeking to sabotage everybody else’s education too. And that goes double for the parents.
Brummie wanker
jgm2
Inspirational teachers? none, that’s none at all.
Your last paragraph. Completely accurate.
I see kids trooping in to the inner city
school by my office and they look like they’re
going to a camp. That’s refugee or worse,
not holiday. Poor little sods.
Yep, couldn’t wait to leave it myself. I’d be a racial minority by now if I’d stayed.
I must have been four or five so about 1970/1. It’s one of my youngest memories walking through Northfield with my mum and seeing a lack man. Never seen one before.
Mummy- what’s wrong with that man?
‘He was born that way’
‘But will he get better mummy?’
Genuine innocence. Never seen a black man before. Thought the poor fucker had some terrible disease.
Right now there’s probably some Asian kid in Erdington pointing at a white bloke in the street and having the same conversation with his mum.
‘No son, he’s your MP- he was born like that’.
I didn’t have teachers that were really inspirational, but some of them liked what they were doing and were happy to meet interested kids, and so were pretty good at their jobs.
They did also have to hone their skills with hoons. Every day of the week.
I’ve been to a lot of shit schools recently as part of an IT contracting job, and it does seem that the more commited and professional teachers are at the worst schools. The worst schools also seem to have very driven managers / heads, but that could be just when they are shitting themselves because of Ofsted inspections.
By contrast the one public school I went to did seem a bit complacent, but one school is hardly evidence. I asked how they stopped kids doing naughty to things to and on the computers, they said we basically punish them and tell their parents. That was the wrong answer, the right answer is “we expect you as IT professional to tell our teaching staff that the pupil in question has shown a, err, somewhat hands-on interest in computers.” Trying to hack into things is a good way to find out how they work, and so is smashing up hardware sometimes.
As for the “disruptive fuckers”, I’ve seen nearly everything on my rounds, there does seem to be a successful method for dealing with them now that all the teachers follow, it basically seems to say, the disruptive fucker is harming the others, therefore we are justified in getting the policeman in right now and getting him removed from the premises by the parents. The actual offense is dealt with later, but the upshot is the lesson goes on largely as planned.
Most teachers can just press a button / call / email to get the security in immediately these days, so it’s just far easier for the teacher to send the problem up the line, and get on with what he is actually going to keep his job for, which is improving grades (whatever that means).
As above
Comprehensive education = factory fodder
We closed the factories. And the mines.
Probably best to give them a university degree, hide them from the dole for five more years – hope something turns up in the meantime.
As a former secondary modern school pupil I would say that they were a lot less shitfilled than comprehensives.The system was streamed into A CLass B Class and C class.The A’s were the brightest who had just failed the 11 plus.
In spite of a somewhat lower academic regime than grammars when I left school out of a total of 1000 in my school only a handfull of pupils were still basically iliiterate and innumerate.Comprehensives (1 size fits all) came in with the socialist takeover of the LEA’s resulting in abolition of Grammar schools and the brightest consigned to an educational cul de sac whilst trendy ideologues experimented on the lesser achievers culminating finally in the Blair approach of “lets give everyone a diploma no one will notice and we wont be clearing up the shite”
One size fits all is just crazy.
I’ve known of quite a few comps for various reasons. There wasn’t one that I came across that didn’t have setting.
They were
Caption Competition
http://politicalbetting.s3.amazonaws.com/2011+Jan/EdM+and+Ken+embracing.jpg
Absolutely downright filthy entries only please
In my opinion it is not Posh enough.
Himalayan glaciers are actually advancing rather than retreating, claims the first major study since a controversial UN report said they would be melted within quarter of a century.
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/earth/environment/climatechange/8284223/Himalayan-glaciers-not-melting-because-of-climate-change-report-finds.html
Brillo has a nice pad. But why all the photos of himself!
Aye. Spotted that. I know what I look like but if I forget then there’s a mirror in the bathroom.
Port Out at Second Home.
Nice one.
Guido
Will you please do a super scoop and make public all the phone hacking by the Daily Mirror and Co…
We need a police investigation of the Mirro phone hacking as well…
Let us see Alky Campbell and Toilets Maguire and ED’s new spin doctor squeal……
Oh, dear. I did say that the alleged phone hacking campaign by Labour might turn on them and bite them on the arse. Ooops! Seems like I was right.
they must be getted
FROM THE DAILY MIRROR 26/01/2011 !!
“New phone hack claims to be probed
25/01/2011
Prosecutors will expand their review of evidence gathered during the phone hacking inquiry to include fresh claims swirling around the scandal, the Director of Public Prosecutions has said.
Keir Starmer said any evidence from “recent or new substantive allegations” will be assessed by a senior barrister as part of an ongoing inquiry into material already held by Scotland Yard.
His announcement came as former MP Paul Marsden stated that his phone may have been hacked by a journalist at the Daily Mirror in 2003.”
Read more: http://www.mirror.co.uk/news/latest/2011/01/25/new-phone-hack-claims-to-be-probed-115875-22873972/#ixzz1CEMfwK4F
Go Camping for 95p! Vouchers collectable in the Daily and Sunday Mirror until 11th August . Click here for more information
Support for Labour has surged to a three-year high, a Reuters/Ipsos MORI poll showed on Thursday, with the Conservatives fucked as gloom about the economy deepens.
The January Reuters/Ipsos MORI political monitor showed support for Labour up four percentage points to 43 percent, while Conservative support dropped five points to 33 percent, the lowest level since the party took power last May. The Liberal Democrats rose two points from last month’s two-year low to 13 percent.
“Satisfaction with the government and its leaders has declined significantly since December,” said right wing political blogger,Guido, adding that the approval rating of Prime Minister David Cameron was at its lowest since the hoon took office in May.
But we all knew that winning the election was a posoned chalice or crockful of shit. It would have been better to have lost, and then Labour would have had to clean out their own stables.
With Gove in charge of education, do not expect to see schools stream pupils by ability anytime soon.
But why don’t they stream pupils, it’s bloody common sense?
Yes, it is common sense, because all people are different, will learn at different rates, and respond to different subjects and teaching methods.
I get the impression that Gove wants schools to take more responsibility themselves, so whether a school streams pupils will be down to that school’s policy and practice. The sensible headteachers will probably want to, leaving a few idealogical bigots enforcing one-size-fits-all. That will reflect in the school’s reputation., to the point where no parents want to send their children there, or the bigots are replaced by teachers with a more pragmatic outlook.
When I was at Uni, it always seemed to me that those who were ‘into politics’ were bespectacled nerds with lisps or wild-eyed class-war nutters, hell-bent on revolution (i.e. getting pissed and smoking roll-ups all day). Also, there were the future back-bench fodder who took on jobs with the students’ unions but overall politics was very much a minority sport. I guess it’s the same today.
Hence, those with real talent will end up going into business, law, finance and the like, where they will end up doing real jobs.
Politics is the X-Factor for ugly people: the candidates are irritating attention-seekers, rehashing old ideas and passing them off as new. And, as with the X-Factor, the ‘winners’ are simply puppets for the real power-brokers.
One wonders whether it might just be that the great majority are missing an obvious truth. It is my view that Eton and PPE Oxford instil no skills that are of any practical use to man or beast. These twerps simply could not get any job other than professional bullshitting.
All my friends and colleagues, almost exclusively mathematicians, engineers, scientists, systems analysts (and synthesists) despise politicians and their practices.
Also, they might choose the bullshitting ‘professions’ because their equally useless parents, rich through successful and lucrative bullshitting, can’t even change a fucking light bulb. Ergo, if you are shite at everything useful, join the political classes. Result – just pass laws to take the poor peoples money away from them and spend it on yourself.
I present as evidence that ludicrous dick Rees-Mogg. Who the hell would be able to keep a straight face when that pompous juvenile pitched up for a ditch digger’s job interview?
Slightly cynical, perhaps, but with more than a grain of truth. It used to be said in my workplace that those engineers that couldn’t hack real engineering went into management to escape; not universally true, but remarkable how often it did seem apposite.
Did you see Pete Waterman on the daily politics yesterday? He can’t find enough skilled engineers to employ in his Steam Engine business. Says he took one on straight out of University with all the right quals on paper but he was useless and couldn’t even flash up the computer. His business is booming with a full order book for the next decade and he needs 30 more engineers.
He is running his own 4year apprenticeship scheme but that obviously takes time. Highly critical of governnment money being wasted on so called apprenticeships where training companies make big bucks sitting apprentices in class rooms for six months and then issue them with a piece of paper. Not fit for purpose.
Not really a good example. The university system should not be training locomotive boilersmiths and steam fitters, that’s not the technology that’s going to pay down Britain’s debts by exporting the things and skills the rest of the world wants to buy.
It is however, true today that technical education in craft skills has diminished in quality and quantity, and there’s an issue to be addressed. A good apprenticeship – if you can find one – is still the best bet for someone wanting to make a living using their hands.
Disagree. Highly qualified Engineers are required to plan and control the refit of a steam locomotive, get the figures wrong and a lot of people can get killed.
Ever tried designing anything?
(By the way, I do know a bit about locos – I’ve made and fitted many bits on them in a voluntary capacity. I’m sick of the sight of fitted bolts. The skills are high and refined, but not the sort required to produce the drawings and calculations to prove a chemical plant design, or to design a reliable mobile phone network.)
Er.. excuse me. I have done (and still do) both and I came up via the apprenticeship route to professional status. The trouble is with the change of rules that prevent you getting Chartered status unless you have a degree. I didn’t spend three years at University. My professional qualifications were earned when I wasn’t on the shop floor earning a living and developing craft skills.
I thought the requirement for Chartered status was an accredited degree or equivalent approved qualification (the Mechanicals used to have their own exams, and tough they were too – don’t know if they still do).
We need qualified and competent professionals, technicians and craftsmen, and we probably aren’t getting it entirely right with the training of any of those. Finally of course, there’s no substitute for good experience, and nobody can teach that.
My point above was that University is not the right place to be training craftsmen. However, given the complex nature of modern technologies, the country does need more people capable of an analytical approach to design and problem-solving, and good degrees do try to confer that way of thinking.
Right on the money.
Cameron has no leadership qualities at all. He is a manager (managing the finances to give grief to all except the NHS and ID budgets) shown perfectly by the utterly fucking unbelievable scandal about Nimrod which people would accept keeping were he able to show some guts.
It is hardly surprising his approval ratings are falling. He is wet enough to shoot snipe off.
Not convinced about Nimrod. The scandal was about how little the taxpayer got for the investment. A textbook example of how to waste enormous sums of money achieving very little.
But having spent the money, good value or not, and then not use the kit is a scandal.
Why scrap them? Surely they could have mothballed the damned things. Think Green Goddess fire engines!
The Green Goddesses are now rotting in the former Yugoslavia, in particular Montenegro.
John Harvey-Jones did something “practical” at University and he atteneded a conference with 5 other guys from ICI. They were given the task of assembling something as a group and they dismissed the contributions of the guy who had not attended uni. They were delighted when they saw that their group had “completed” the task and were surprised to learn that they had failed because while the 5 were discussing what they were going to do the non-graduate had finished the assignment on his own.
Academic education is only as good as the use you put it to.
Just so, Kathryn. After teaching in Uni for a few years I came to the view that the whole point of University education is that you learn to teach yourself. To do so, it is necessary to think. So I read philosophy in my spare time – which was not a lot of time on an engineering Bachelor’s course!
What I do not perceive much of in most politicians is thought. The left, particularly, seem to be driven by emotion, most of it negative. Almost all of them, left and right, seem to be driven more by party loyalty than by public duty.
Aside, John H-J was a man I much admired. Very, very bright and extremely pragmatic. Sadly, he drove himself so hard that, by the time he could afford the fine wines that he so much enjoyed, his doctor forbade!
I learned engineering in my spare time, it was easy once I’d studied philosophy for 3 years. Philosophy applies to everything and gives you all the shortcuts you need to understanding anything. (apart from that last statement)
John H-J says that was the incident that thought him not to ignore people on the shop floor as having nothing important to say as regards how a company is run.
He was the anti-thesis of those that read someone’s elses interpretation of The Corporate Report and used the misunderstanding of Maximising Shareholder Value for their own ends.
Ed – we’ve tried your plan.
It didn’t work.
How is the other Ed’s blank sheet of paper coming on?
Why are there so many public school boys/girls in politics and in better jobs?
A few years ago I did a write-up on an art show at a minor public school. The pupils were all very talented and they had been taught some really good techniques and created some first rate works of art.
A month later I did a write-up on an art show at a local comprehensive school. The pupils were just as talented as those at the minor public school, but the work they produced was, sad to say, lacking.
What was the difference between the pupils at the two schools? I wondered. I realised that the difference was that the teachers at the minor public school gave a damn. They took the trouble to teach their pupils techniques, how to draw, how to paint, how to fire pots, etc. But the comprehensive school teachers had not taught their pupils, but had, instead, just let them to get on with it. Were they lazy? Lacking in time? Or employing an outdated “let them express themselves freely” concept, which left the pupils unable to draw, paint or sculpt properly?
If a pupil from the minor public school was up against a pupil from the comprehensive for a place at art college, who would be best placed to get the place? Who would have the better portfolio?
The reason why public school pupils do so well in life is because their teachers want to teach and, in general, like teaching. Many comprehensive teachers seem to be teachers for other reasons. As a consequence public school pupils will do better. And that is NOT the fault of the public schools or their pupils.
The Leader of the House of Commons (Sir George Young): May I reiterate what you have just said, Mr Speaker? Of course my right hon. Friend the Prime Minister would never intentionally mislead the House. The House will be aware that the only way to enact a resignation is to appoint the person to one of the relevant positions. The Prime Minister was aware of the process to appoint Gerry Adams to be steward and bailiff of the Manor of Northstead. It might have been better for my right hon. Friend to have said “is being appointed” instead of “has accepted”, and I am happy to make that clarification for the record…
That is what you get with a University of (ugh) Essex graduate in the speakers chair rather than someone from Camford who went to public school!
The trotskyist/ hard left influence on comprehensie education has done the damage. The hard left in it’s belief in continuous revolution has broken down the authority between the parent and the child and the teacher and the pupil.
1.The lack of discipline means that 25% or more of a class or school can ruin the education of every one else.
2.The only way to have equality is the equality of lowest common denominator
3.If primary schools and comprehensives should have setting according to ability from the age of 9 .
4. There should be high expectations, moving able pupils ahead if required .
5. Rules should be clear and those who break them should be punished including expelling.
6. There needs to be teachers with the academic ability to teach to Grade A at “A” level maths, further maths, science and modern languages: many comprehensives lack such staff.
7. Competitive sport should be compulsory .
8. Teachers with experience of industry and armed forces should be encouraged to become teachers .Too many pupils , especially from working class fail to respect middle class teachers because they consider they have only know the reality of school and university and consider they have never done proper jobs.
8. Are too many disinterested children taking A levels which means teachers spend less time with those who are enthusiastic?
9. Are inner city schools above 1000 too diffficult to manage?
Spot on!
A disaster!
A tragedy!
2.The only way to have equality is the equality of lowest common denominator
That is, unfortunately, what equality has always been about.
A telling comment by Elsby, that to get on, you had to be one of Mandleson’s “children” it could have been , people, guys, girls, chaps, ladies, clan, insiders but he chose “children”
Not something he just said on the spur of the moment but a phrase that was in general use around Westminster!
This programme was the first in a series.
Episode 2 – Is Politics too Gay?
Episode 3 – Is Politics too Jewish?
Episode 4 – Is Politics too Dishonest?
Episode 5 – Is Politics too Bad-tempered?
Episode 6 – Is Politics too Fat and Ugly?
New Series planned for next year: Is Journalism too………?
If you can’t read this, blame a teacher.
Blogged on this–all are welcome to read.
Essentially: yes, social mobility is horrendous in this country, and in politics especially, but reinstating grammar schools is a crappy solution.
http://www.politicalreboot.co.uk/2011/01/social-mobility-case-for-grammar.html
Right on cue
What a knob!