I also went to a huge Comprehensive school in South London in the 60s and the standard of education was particularly good at that time, partly due to the fact that classes were streamed on ability and the brightest pupils were able to progress in the top stream and so on down to the bottom stream. It was Labour's left-wing policy of abandoning streaming as well as discipline that buggered state education through the late 70s onwards and it's been lurching all over the place since. My missus has worked in a school for over 30 years and she really feels the problem has been constant changes in teaching methods which has driven many good quality staff out of the profession, if teachers have such little confidence in the methods what chance do the pupils have?...
Not only did the Cable and Balls moments make great memories, Yvette Cooper goes home to a cooked meal now...
Spot on. And the concerning thing is that private schools have kept streaming and discipline, so the gap widens...
How many people still identify themselves as 'working class`in a positive sense ? One of the tragedies of the last 30 years in England is that the poorest 30% or so are only that - poor, with nothing much else in common. In the past the poorest 30% were 'working class', politically active and often unionized, that has all gone and the poorest 30% of today have become mostly lost to politics. In order to go back to its roots the Labour party must be able to reach people who have never voted (the 35% of non voters, who probably include a great many of our poorest citizens). Maybe Corbyn is the man for this.
I didn't say '**** off if you don't agree with me' did I? The '**** off' was meant for the people that high-jacked the Labour party into something for their own personal advancement and are now appalled at the fact that the party may be reverting into what it was supposed to be. If you hate the Tories but couldn't vote for Corbyn, vote for somebody else.
Jesus ****ing wept, are you still peddling that bollocks? The 'devastation' was wrought by the ****ing bankers you smug ****.
Do you mean the unregulated bankers who were lauded under Labour such as Fred (the Shred) Goodwin whose bank, under his charge, managed to lose £23 billion with such shocking mismanagement it was all but criminal yet who was Knighted under a Labour government in 2004? I remember well also, Gordon Brown saying "it's the end of boom and bust" just months before the collapse of our banking system starting with Northern Rock and followed by the emergency bail outs in 2008. A cogent argument with facts is far more useful than reverting to asterisk insults which are the domain of the blinkered and ignorant.
I went to Wren in the 60s when it still had streaming,and I did ok. Living in Manhattan, retired, and have a pretty good life. The people who moan and complain seem to be the ones who made nothing of their lives and are jealous of those who did. Tough!
Yes, the bankers that were deregulated by Margaret Thatcher.The failure of the Blair and Brown governments was that they didn't reverse Thatcherism, the cause of most of our current ills. They didn't create the problem, they failed to solve it. Thatcher was the architect of the devastation.
Well, they only had three terms in office in which to impose regulation! That either suggests Labour were satisfied with the policies or were incompetent. My view is that they were both. Anyway, with today's news I am delighted that a Labour administration will not be troubling my beloved country for some many years.
This gives the Tories at least another ten years and sufficient time to try and correct the devastation left to our economy by the Blair and Brown administrations. You haven't addressed my point. The Tories ****ed us up and Labour didn't change it. Whose fault does that make it?
The policies when in motion under the Tories didn't result in the banking meltdown that occurred under Labour. Same policies, similar term of governance with those policies for both parties yet hugely different outcomes. Labour didn't alter the policies they actively supported and rewarded those that abused them.
Oh my sweet Jesus! The banking crash was a global phenomenon. Do you really think it would have been different under the Tories?
I didn't mean you specifically, I meant the hard left wing in general, as soon as you disagree with their fairytail ideas you are verbally abused. Surely the Labour Party are supposed to be the viable opposition or choice? They are nothing but a protest party now, the country as a whole doesn't want a hard left government, the last election showed that. If Corbyn somehow manages to stay in charge to the next election then I'll be voting Tory, I'll have to take an acid bath when I get home but it's better then the alternative.
Best part is that before his economically illiterate policies make me unemployed (and millions of others) He's cracked the ISIS problem. He's going to negotiate with people who won't him dead (and any other non- believers) Happy days, as a leader we can send him to Raqqa to negotiate in person
