I didn't say the Tories are directly responsible for the rich getting richer, but they certainly aren't doing anything about it and the more idealistic of them still believe in trickle-down - Ha Ha Ha I certainly don't defend globalisation and I'm not sure that 'the left' do either, but I'm not here to defend them Where do you think 'the right' stand on globalisation? I went to a Grammar school and would wholly support their re-introduction if they did what they were supposed to I'm concerned that just like the best state schools now the middle-classes would find a way to exclude the less well-off And now I say that I need to look at some figures to see if it worked in my day. I did seem to be there with a lot of kids from Chandlers Ford ???
In mine they ignored me and concentrated on those that were struggling. So I got left with nothing to do all the time, was ignored all the time and went off the rails at 13. Only when I matured at 14/15 did I realise I had to get back on track or leave with nothing and spent the last 2 years of secondary trying to catch up from "wasting" the 3rd year of secondary and ended up leaving with 1 B, 8 Cs and a D instead of the straight A's I was "supposed" to get upon entering secondary. When I say go off the rails I mean I went from the quiet (yet sometimes disruptive*) child, quite solitary and happy with that, to getting fed up with the boredom and playing truant, shoplifting etc. *The disruptive part may be that I was/am ADHD/Aspergers seeing as my sons are both diagnosed as such. I just think that lots of "gifted" children are dumped into the comprehensive system and despite being in top class (I was) for everything it is not enough because it quite literally was too easy for me and I wasn't challenged enough, hence why at an immature age I rebelled. I see no difference here than to Sports or Arts academies. I don't hear many people saying that Football academies should be banned because those that aren;t good enough will be "scarred." If someone has a talent it should be nurtured to its fullest and if that means plucking the bright kids out and pushing them harder then that is a good thing. Far too much of the "but the others will be seen as failures." (Nearly) every boy's dream is to play football but not many are good enough to be "plucked" out into an academy. Where is the uproar about the scarring of every child that isn't good enough?
The important distinction you appear to have missed is that Obama openly expressed a personal opinion, while Putin allegedly oversaw the underhand and illegal hacking of e mail accounts. Btw Imps, as you appear to consider globalisation to be the root of all evil, what is the alternative - a flat earth?
He has a hell of a job on his hands, trying to form a cabinet and a party from scratch must be a nightmare
I think the right are happy to adopt the term globalisation and know it is really the old capitalism with a new name which enables full on profiteering instead of the old restrained version of capitalism. The difference is that the left defend Globalisation while denouncing capitalism. The right don't. When they are both on the same page why vote for the ones that are trying to pretend it is something else. I certainly don;t think the right will be doing anything about globalisation without pressure being applied, however the left are obviously not bothered either while they protect globalisation. What's the point for voting for the left if it will continue anyway? I agree with your first sentence on Grammar schools however you could cover lots of policies with that one. The problem is not with the policy, it is with how the policy is administered. It is a good policy to get people on "disability" back to work if they are able to. The policy there is not the problem it is the administration of that policy where quite obviously people who are not able are being assessed as able. I agree that the administration of grammar school policy will be a problem but that does not make the policy wrong. With both these are problems of the system, not the policy itself. I am sure that gifted children from poor or rich backgrounds can be spotted without any extra tutoring and it shouldn;t be down to paying for extra tutoring to get through the exams. A bright kid is a bright kid poor or rich. Even so if only 5% (my bad example figure) of poor kids get into the grammar school that is 5% more than when there aren't grammar schools so it is still a positive. Try to increase the % from there. I'll take that a 5% chance over a 0% chance every time. I just do not understand that way of thinking. And again if the middle class find a way to exclude the working class then that is another administration problem and not the policy itself. It needs to be administered better. A lot of the constant debate about policy is what happens rather than what should have happened. The solution should be to correct what happens not bin the policy. The left argument always seems to be pessimistic and resists change because of what "might" happen. Or denouncing this as "enabling" something. If something is enabled because of a policy then again sort out that problem. We seem stuck in a politics that won;t change anything for fear of a side effect rather than dealing with that side effect. There may well have been more kids from Chandler's Ford. Would be the same all over the country. Clever people get rich. Clever people tend to be more likely to have bright kids. Poor people tend to be less involved with their children's education than richer people who are more driven. Try and sort that out. Don;t deprive those that did have a chance just because others didn't have a chance. The bright poor kid whose parents are involved and help him/her can't do anything about the other bright kids that didn't get that help so why deprive him/her of that chance to advance? Sort the system out before you complain about policy. I actually got both my boys into what is a grammar school in all but name. IT is pretty selective without being allowed to be selective so they use a back door policy of giving a number of places to each primary school in the city and the closest get the places. Therefore being well away from the Council Estates in all directions it means parents of Council Estate kids would have to transport them across the City which they won't do. So in my kid's primary school there were 4 places offered and only 2 were prepared to do the travelling rather than choose the Comp school they are next to. Posh parents fight for places at this school and most working class parents aren't prepared to put the effort/cost of transport etc in so almost all the places are left over from the "allocations" of the council estate schools and are offered up to boarding pupils or service pupils from the local RAF camps with the rest going to the affluent local area lot. My kids are bright and this is a school that hits over 90% at C or above compared to the Comps that do well to hit 50%. It's a no brainer so we put that effort in and I help with homework etc. If there was a grammar school then my boys could pass the test and then get their transport paid for whereas because I am not choosing the local Comp I cannot claim for transport. So at the minute I as a low income person am out of pocket to get my kid into a good school. I thought the left were fighting for the opposite? The current system is "go to the nearest available school or you will have to pay transport" which eliminates a lot of low earners from this supposed "choice." That was the system under Blair too hence why there is the posh parents buying houses local to the good schools. In effect I am having to pay to get my kids into the best school. Transport is not cheap for low earners.
While I expect you to ridicule me on this, do you not think that all governments "oversee" the exact same sort of thing to influence other countries results? Is a public figure on the TV saying "I endorse X" more influential than a dodgy news story? This is a strategy used in advertising all the time. Get a famous person to promote your product and it works. Do you really not consider the US disrupting any country they don't like the leader of or key figures endorsing someone in an election as any different? Wasn't there a program on BBC last year with CIA / FBI insiders detailing that they are always doing this sort of thing and it could end up taking the internet down in a cyber war? I'm sure I watched something where they were quite literally saying they were in a cyber war DDOS attacks on each other and lots more. Wikileaks puts something out that the "good guys" don't like and twitter/wikileaks goes down. Hmmm. Is this not the pot calling the kettle? I think some people are far too ready to throw mud and turn a blind eye to their own because it suits their own narrative. If Putin has influence over an election then Obama does too. To think that Putin's agencies are guilty of doing something while the CIA/FBI, MI5/6/GCHQ etc are quite literally doing the same all the time is a little naive. It is quite simply Russia=bad so we're angry but we're good so we are OK doing it. I don't think globalisation is the root of all evil. I merely disagree with it because it is presented as something good and nice while the reality is it is all about $$$ and is utilised as cover for removing the old constraints that were on capitalism. It is sold by the social aspect which people get attached to but it THE cause for all the money going upwards. It is rampant capitalism, not restrained capitalism and western governments are quite happy to champion it while pretending they care about inequality. If they cared about inequality they could halt the funds going up the tree but they don't care. They even add to it by handing public funds to the big corp at inflated prices. I don;t mind more funds going to NHS frontlines but at the same time why are we paying above market value for bulk Big Pharma drugs supplies and why are we paying over the odds for investors to build and maintain hospitals? Why are we diverting public funds upwards (in everything not just NHS) and then leaving every state service requiring more funds to run? Because there are so many little chummy deals pushing state money upward. All this needs sorting out. This is what is happening across the western world. Globalisation is not just "foreign" companies moving money around. It is the whole modern concept of the little man paying taxes to be diverted to the top in all these "preferred partner" setups and then the politicians saying "We want to fight inequality because it is bad. We want to tax those at the top more. But Globalisation is good." Globalisation is more the money moving freely. The other parts of physical companies moving or moving people to flood labour markets is just $$$ really. They don't care about people. They just sell the people aspect to turn it into more $$$ to push upward and move globally away from the grabbing hands of...........people. Those people being the ones that "should" have benefitted as a result of a company doing well in their area. Tax funds, employment and people see neither because not only are the profiteers choosing not to employ them, they are demanding policy that floods the labour market, brings the "market rate" down to baseline (NMW) and then not even paying the taxes that their success should be paying. That is globalisation. The only "citizens of the world" are the ones making the money because they make their money from where they employ and do not put the requisite amounts back into the system as recompense. So by pulling the market rate down and government then "subsidising" the difference it takes double the amount out of the state purse. The employee is now paying less taxes into the purse, the company is paying less into the purse and the state is not only seeing that reduced purse but having to put money back into the employees pocket from the state. Hence the people are paying that difference from their own pocket while the employer pays less and then argues over which country to pay their taxes (of any) from the profits they have made. It is a ludicrous state of affairs where in effect the people are paying themselves while the companies just do what they want deciding when and where and if they will give anything back. You can;t fight inequality while supporting this system that is pulling the money upwards (Trickle up) and if you tax the rich you are only receiving a portion of the tax funds you diverted to them anyway. In answer to Shoot Spiderman's post I DO believe in "trickle down." It "should" work. The reason people don't think it works is because people always find a way round paying their dues and that is most often facilitated by the very people, with a nod and a wink, that should be making sure it works.
He has already said he is going to do something that another chap across the Atlantic tried to do last time round and the new guy also doing. That being pushing through policies by Presidential decree!!! Good luck in France restructuring employment law and policy without civil war on the streets!! They may have voted Macron in but they will have the same anti-Macron placards out they waved in 2014/5 once he pushes through that employment reform.
possibly the same with me, but my maths teacher told me that's there's no point in you answering the question, I know you know the answer (I'm not ignoring you!) maybe that subtle difference in teaching changed our concept of the world!
Sticking to the Grammar scholls, I agree and I did say I'd support it IF it worked properly but you're right I'd actually support it if it worked at all Then at least we could argue about how to make it work better
You can't stop globalisation, there are too many forms of communication that will cross boundaries/borders to ever put the genie back in the bottle. However regulation should ensure the worst excesses can be mitigated against. Indeed as Trump tries to set the US coal industry free, the industrialists have realised that in the medium term natural forms of energy will be more cost effective, even China is moving in the right direction. We can but hope that globalisation will provide the answers necessary to meet the needs of an over expanding population that will exhaust resources unless there is a concerted effort coordinated across the globe. To me that is why the separatist policies of this country and the USA are potentially so damaging. It's not about the economic policies of the left or the right, it's about ensuring globalisation facilitates sustainability. As I've said before I'd like my grand kids to live as long as me..
I went to King Edward VI in Soton, when it was a Grammar School and before it became fee paying. With a few exceptions, I'd say there was something seriously wrong with most of those teachers, Not really a great education imo, A lot of them would not have been able to hold down a job teaching in Southampton Comps because they struggled to keep order even in a school where most of the kids were quite naturally academic. The school got good O and A Level results because the kids were bright enough to pass the 11 Plus, but I don't think I got a great education there. Just thought I'd throw that in there.
Global problems need global solutions. Nations turning inwards will benefit no one. Nationalism has been exploited in the past as the last bastion of capitalism in crisis, so if anyone does benefit from the sort of insularity manifesting in things like Brexit, it will be the "Global Elite".
Well, me neither. I could have had a grant, 20 or so years ago, but I chose not to apply for one. Indeed. So it is forcing those who are not so confident about being able to repay the debt in future into lowering their expectations and dreams. That's not great for a growing society that was progressing towards more equality.
Absolutely. Instead of turning inwards we should be embracing our fellow nations. We've taken a huge political, cultural, and I would say moral, step backward in the last year. The generation responsible for tipping that balance [I'm afraid it was the older ones] will need to die out before society can once again progress forward.
I loved Maths and was distraught to end up in the class with the "special needs" class. Through the first year I was head and shoulders above the rest but got a reputation as being disruptive as I kept asking for something to do while the teacher ignored me and helped those that were still working. This happened in virtually all subjects. Then she didn't pick me for the Local radio maths quiz which really wound me up. A week after she made that decision we had the basic numeracy test (that old 60 minute no calculators allowed thing) and I was finished in 40 minutes, Had to sit there for the other 20 minutes of course. The whole (top) class was trudged across the county to another school miles away and the person chosen that should never had been there instead of me buzzed in and got the last question wrong. Of course I knew that answer A week later the numeracy test results came back from EMREB and I was the only 100%. 100% in 40 minutes. Those on the quiz team that should have been there got 96% to 98% while the one that shouldn't have been there got 89% And that sent me over the edge legging days off school, just biking around the parks, shoplifting for the buzz etc. The quiz thing wasn't what sent me over, it was the cumulative of being constantly ignored or overlooked just because I was more able and for years I resented every teacher in that school apart from my Latin teacher and the special needs teachers that were so happy to have a clever kid in their class and enabled me to at least be able to take the "intermediate" level of GCSEs which had a maximum C grade. It wasn't the same exam for all streams. If you were in top class you got to take the higher exam which was the only one you could get As and Bs in. The intermediate was a C max and by rights being in the special needs class by then I should have been taking the lower exams which I think max grade was a D!!! Those 2 teachers fought my corner and with a lot of begging I was allowed to take the intermediate instead of the foundation. They were proper old school teachers thought that were very disciplinarian and welcomed my requests for more work from the start normally giving me twice as much to do at the start. As it was special needs it was also not a set day of work. Each student was doing tailored work in those classes. I think this system is still in place although now it is only higher tier (A-D) and foundation Tier C max. As you can guess by the time I reached 16 and did those exams I was finished with school and left. Got a job within days as a trainee accountant for a local firm and was earning £14k by the time I was 20. Very good wage at that time (1995.) Failed all my financial accountancy exams and passed all my management accountant exams. That being because I was working in management accounts and I struggle to learn anything through theory whereas I can pick up most things if given the opportunity to do it practically. We never had computers at school yet I was writing Access databases from 96 - 2000 by blagging a job using access and very quickly learning it on the job. Comp school "ruined" me if you like because it did not push me and that causes problems. Clever kids MUST be challenged or they become bored and if they become bored they can explode into rebellion and resentment. Doesn't help there was no such thing as ADHD or Aspergers back then, If I have it that is, because back then you were just a disruptive child and needed a good caning or the plimsoll across your hands a few times to get you back in to line. My boys are being pushed by me and their school. However other kids on this estate don't have parents who willpay/put the effort into getting their kids across town and if there was a selective process then the brightest ones would be given free transport rather than told "tough, the local 50% pass rate Comp is the nearest."
I know it's not how you meant it (I hope ) but this part made me think of a Bond villain stroking a cat and plotting how to wipe out a whole generation for the greater good (as he sees it).
Sexist!! Just boys want to play football? Most important sports on the school curriculum should be athletics, swimming and gymnastics. From this starting point children can then develop the specialist sport they choose to participate in. And if a child does not like sport in particular, the gymnastic side will help him or her with yoga, climbing, dance (if you have ever seen ballet, you are really watching floor gymnastics in a very artistic way).
Whilst i don't agree with such high tuition fees, the debt is only paid incrementally out of your pay packet and i think it gets written off if you haven't repaid by 35 or something (if someone can confirm). Either way the debt isn't obligated til the end of time although it is still a daunting prospect if you start earning +20k which you would hope people would be
