Does anyone agree that there is a need for forum space to mention all those things that are of interest in the short term but, would not necessarily sustain a half a dozen or a dozen comments.
For example: Yesterday was the last day of the Six Nations rugby competition. Only of interest perhaps, to few on these Forums. I’d like to have placed a reminder but couldn’t find the last Six Nations subject, so didn’t bother.
Another example: Lord Neuburger, President of the Supreme Court mentioned that it was desirable that people should not be prevented from venting their often frustrated opinions on contentious issues for fear of condemnation. He thought that commentators who were opposed, were inhibited by the prospect of disapproval, from discussing rascism, homosexuality, ordination of females etc.
My Six Nations snippet was that it was a generally good result. Ireland won (by points difference) the Six Nations title from England. England won the Triple Crown and France was beaten ! Result.
By: Beermat - 13th February 2016 at 10:01
Example – George Osborne. He often claims that low bond prices (caused by quantitative easing) are caused by his fiscal policies – he thinks that shows him to be a genius, when it actually shows he doesn’t understand the difference between fiscal and monetary policy.
Osborne has claimed that low inflation is a result of his policies – but cannot point to why. (Clue, George.. oil prices).
George Osborne has no more than GSCE maths, and is singularly unqualified to run an economy.
He gushingly praised the Irish economy just before it imploded. He has presided over the longest decline in wages in the UK on record
I think it’s fair to infer that any positive changes to the economy are pretty much accidental as Osborne bimbles in his tabloid-created bubble of praise. If it wasn’t for some very smart treasury Sir Humphreys he’d be dangerous.
Couldn’t resist either!
By: Beermat - 13th February 2016 at 09:29
“…this is the legacy of the last administration, something we are working hard to reverse”.. Oh, no, wait, that the response to bad economic news, isn’t it?
Of course, if you take those on zero hours, waiting for the phone to ring out of the unemployment figures then they get lower. If you include the hundreds of thousands of near-slave immigrant workers that allow Tesco to pay b*gger all for agricultural produce into the employed figures then they go up.
Hurrah, pip pip and trebles all round!
By: Creaking Door - 13th February 2016 at 01:13
They couldn’t run a drinking session in a brewery, but go a long way in British politics. It is these people being in charge that has got us where we are.
And by that you mean: fastest growth currently in the developed world, one of the lowest unemployment rates, one of the highest employment rates, falling public borrowing, strong currency, low interest rates, low taxes, free healthcare…
…sorry, couldn’t resist! :dev2:
By: Meddle - 12th February 2016 at 22:24
Look at it now – superficially if you like – complete with female ‘facilitators’ with voluminous skirts and dangling earings.
I’m too young to understand this stereotype. I thought the big moral dilemma of the ’80s was women beginning to wear trousers in the workplace? When were ‘voluminous skirts’ a source of contention?
By: John Green - 12th February 2016 at 22:10
Beermat
Strangely, weirdly, I find myself in broad agreement. What you describe is known as commercial ’empire building’; and, it goes on everywhere, public or private. It is designed to make people feel important and justify differential salary grades.
By: Arabella-Cox - 12th February 2016 at 16:08
Same in the industry I work in.
Thus it rather gets my goat when folk such as John seek to blame sandal wearing hippies for all ills merely due to a black out or two in the ’70’s which they can’t get over, when the real damage today is being done by the children of the right, I’m all right jack sod everybody else brigade.
By: Beermat - 12th February 2016 at 16:00
I’ll show my hand. I work for a private company, but one which sells its products exclusively to the UK public sector.
On a day-to-day basis, what is preventing the public sector departments that I deal with from being as effective as they could be is the overwhelming number of ‘consultants’, internal and (increasingly) external, all with their own lucrative spanners in the works. There are business consultants, delivery consultants, even ‘consultancy management’ consultants. Everyone is a bleedin consultant, very few in any given building are actually doing anything in the way of the public service we all pay for, and those that do are getting laid off on a daily basis on the recommendation of these highly paid outsourced but embedded staff, to ‘save on costs’.
So no, it’s not people in sandals. They retired long ago. It’s the tw*ts who think they are on ‘The Apprentice’. In my darker moments I might call them ‘Thatcher’s Children’.
This is what I see every day at work, so forgive me if I am vociferous when I say you have the wrong target, JG.
One day I will write down what I know about Birmingham City Council and DC’s (and Bliar’s) outsourcing contractor of choice, Capita. That will, of course, be the day I retire (I will be given no option).
By: Arabella-Cox - 12th February 2016 at 15:59
John Green is the father of David Cameron, Michael Gove and Jeremy Hunt and I claim my £5. (*3 = £15) 🙂
By: Beermat - 12th February 2016 at 13:18
It’s because I recognise that none of us is necessarily instinctively perfect that I did that.
Until I can see how PISA arrived at all this information I’ll not comment on whether the OECD are wasting their time with it.
Which conclusion? If it’s the one about the nature of the current crop of successful politicians it is only an opinion – I have met David Cameron, and he had exactly the attitude I have seen a hundred times among the output of public schools (not an inevitable thing, but common among those desiring a career in politics). He is also very far from the brain of Britain 😉
I’d be interested in how you show my conclusion, or rather my opinion, to have no merit whatsoever. Not just false, but without merit? Is that applying Telegraph logic? “Makes statement. Person making it not right wing. Therefore: Statement has no merit whatsoever (no need to demonstrate falsehood)”.
Did you ever do formal logic at your good school?
By: John Green - 12th February 2016 at 12:34
Yes my friend, perhaps you are a parent in a million. How many others do not share your commitment ? I believe that it is the majority. Your conclusion has no merit whatsoever.
I think that on the subject of education, the OECD are wasting their time.
By: Beermat - 12th February 2016 at 12:11
To qualify the above – There is a variation on Maslow’ pyramid to do with child development between 1 and 5 that is still used to describe some aspects of parent-child interaction, and where it might go wrong. I know this because I have taken a personal interest in the development of my own children. For my kids I have even taken the time to go on a course that explains some of the theory and practice of early years education, and thus, by professional example, gives some help in avoiding the less obvious pitfalls at home. This is a course with genuine value, one that attempts to explain just what it is that teachers do when we entrust our kids to them and at the same time address the ‘It’s the parents, isn’t it?’ accusation. And it’s one that the Conservatives are trying to shut down.
Making every effort to get it right is not the same as throwing money at their education, while thinking that makes you a good parent. What can happen when you do is you produce a vacuous fool who looks and sounds plausible when delivering a soundbite, can win a debating society argument, and has the mental acuity of a teaspoon. They couldn’t run a drinking session in a brewery, but go a long way in British politics. It is these people being in charge that has got us where we are.
By: Beermat - 12th February 2016 at 10:54
How about the voluminous skirts, dangling earings, beards and sandals? Is your use of 1980’s sitcom stereotypes in 2016 also deliberate self-mockery?
Maybe I shouldn’t take the p*ss too much – perhaps you have been in solitary confinement for a few decades, and are still catching up?
To help you – there has been a LOT of interference in education over the intervening years. NONE of it has anything to do with Maslow (who apparently died in 1970). Or skirt volume.
By: John Green - 11th February 2016 at 17:45
Yes. There’s more than a hint of that !
By: Rii - 11th February 2016 at 17:43
Whiteboards ? The language of the ‘left’. Similar to ‘headteacher’ rather than the more directly correct; ‘headmaster’ or, ‘headmistress’. In the language of the ‘left’, ‘blackboard’ is to be avoided.
I can’t tell if this is satire or not.
By: John Green - 11th February 2016 at 17:18
Fifty years ago, the newly politicised State education system was just getting into its stride. Look at it now – superficially if you like – complete with female ‘facilitators’ with voluminous skirts and dangling earings and males resplendent in beards and sandals – or, is that the other way around.
All spouting pyschobabble most of which I’ve forgotten apart from the rancid Maslow and his ‘Hierarchy of Needs ‘.
Thank Heaven and their forward looking parents that my two grandaughters were able to go to a good quality private school, ensuring a sound start to their education and sparing them from the corrosive State claptrap of endless political correctness.
By: John Green - 11th February 2016 at 16:56
If, as you say, some significant fault lies with the parents, and I do agree with that, don’t forget that they, themselves, are the product of a broken system.
By: charliehunt - 11th February 2016 at 15:59
Well my mother taught for most of her working life, for a short while in the private sector but predominantly in state education finally retiring as Deputy Head, very disillusioned in the mid-eighties. There wasn’t actually a great deal wrong with the system 50 years ago but government after government has sought to tinker and fiddle and generally fkuc about with it until it is no longer fit for purpose.
I do not agree that parents are to blame although their general disinterest hardly encourages good decision making. I have and still am experiencing, through family, poorly run private schools alongside exceptionally well run state schools, which are outperforming the private sector locally.
I have no idea how PISA arrive at their conclusions but they come across as too simplistic. Although we know from both higher education institutions and employers that the quality of interviewees is often very poor. I have always felt that the Offsted quango’s terms of reference are often irrelevant and frequently misleading as compared to the role the old schools inspectorate played.
But our system is certainly in a mess.
By: Arabella-Cox - 11th February 2016 at 13:50
As for the OECD report, like Charlie, I went and found it. Britain’s apparently a bit rubbish.
So lets see, 18 years of tory crap, 13 years of labour (tory lite) crap. I’m alright jack, look after no. 1, sod the rest. Total of 31 years of tory inspired crap.
Them’s the facts.
My parents both trained as teachers in the late 60’s and both eventually got out as soon as they could due to the ever increasing level of administrative and general bullsh*t that detracted from the real role of educating kids. I don’t imagine it’s got better in the years since.
One was in state education and one ran a very successful private enterprise.
The real issue is not the education system it is the parents. Just like the rest of the issues Britain is experiencing it is the people of those fair isles that are responsible for the situation they find themselves in.
By: Beermat - 11th February 2016 at 13:01
No, John. White Board. A board that is white. In colour. A white board. Not in the ‘language of the Left’, just in the language of the English.
http://www.viking-direct.co.uk/mb/browse.do?N=1288987
When exactly did you last work in education?
By: John Green - 11th February 2016 at 11:41
Whiteboards ? The language of the ‘left’. Similar to ‘headteacher’ rather than the more directly correct; ‘headmaster’ or, ‘headmistress’. In the language of the ‘left’, ‘blackboard’ is to be avoided.
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