Best Of

As somebody who has a vote in the Greater Manchester mayoral election I have noticed a lot of Labour adverts about this in the last few days on my social media accounts.

I thought you lived in Sheffield - how come you get a vote in Manchester?

I work in Manchester and still own an apartment in Manchester.

Eugh, people claiming to own an "apartment" in this country will be first up against the wall come my revolution.
I blame the private schooling.

Streeting if he launches a leadership contest would certainly help Burnham assuming he wins the by election tomorrow and is eligible to run. As Burnham has said he will join a leadership challenge but not directly that he would challenge Starmer. Starmer has also made clear he would contest a leadership contest and it is different to the situation Brady was in as under Tory rules now a simple VONC can remove a leader but under Labour leadership rules a full leadership challenge and election is needed (indeed before the rules were changed under Hague even Thatcher contested the first round of the 1990 leadership election). Corbyn of course survived a 2016 leadership contest against Owen Smith even though most Labour MPs nominated his opponent. Starmer would also beat Streeting most likely and would hope to get some of his preferences against more leftwing Burnham

Morning all

After yesterday's 50/1 boilover in the Queen Anne, most of the bookies willnow have their winter holidays sorted.

On to day two and the quality falls off after a stellar opening day - I think the Ascot programme needs more balance and in truth (and I know it'll get me a one way trip to the Tower and not on the District Line), there's not really five days worth of quality - it should go back to four days and have the huge handicaps on a special Heath meeting on the Saturday.

MY view and as always I'll be in a minority of one.

Today's selections:

Queen Mary: RUIZA (each way)

Queen's Vase: POINT OF LAW

Duke of Cambridge: CATALONIA DELCARPIO

Prince of Wales: ALMAQAM

Streeting makes clear he will challenge Starmer next week, if Burnham wins and Starmer doesn't decide to resign over the weekend.
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/c4gyeg2207yo

He's doing Burnham a big favour both in wielding the knife, and immediately precipitating the contest, as Burnham now has no need to worry about the timing or the optics of making the challenge himself.
I wonder if there's any coordination and/or if he's expecting something in return ?

If Streeting has enough followers to challenge for the leadership then Burnham (assuming he wins) will need to give him a substantial role, for party management reasons if nothing else. The opposite also applies.

Streeting doesn't have the numbers, particularly if Starmer defends his position, he's desperately trying to resurrect his career after flushing it down the toilet.

Rather sadly, the job you achieve in life (barring things like ill-health, accidents and wrongful imprisonment) is largely down to your own efforts and character: character is destiny and a' that. So the public school debate is a non-sequitur.

What is the problem, and it's going to get much worse when the boomers die, is the money and inheritance that wealthy parents gift their children. You can be very, very stupid but if you had wealthy parents you are not going to die in a council house, even if you deserve it.

So if Labour really wanted to increase class mobility, they'd tax houses not public schools.

No, as May discovered that is political suicide as far more voters own houses or have parents who own houses than attend public schools.

The biggest increases in social mobility in the last 100 years (bar the expansion of white collar office jobs after WW2) arguably came from Thatcher's sale of council homes so more could own their own homes and grammar schools, Labour of course opposed both

Parents could own their own grammar schools?

Impressive.

Grammar schools were and still are where they exist the only state schools which really tend to challenge the top private schools on Oxbridge entry and admission to the top professions like law and medicine

That is unsurprising as they are selective. If you only let in the most academically gifted students then you will tend to have a lot going on to top universities and academically challenging courses. It doesn't necessarily tell you anything about the quality of the school.

Yes and I have no problem with selective schools at all, they are the best way for bright children from working class or lower middle class backgrounds to get to a top university and top professional or managerial career

They are the best way of letting pushy middle class parents game the system while leaving most kids to rot in under-resourced secondary moderns.

You are more likely to get into Oxbridge or a Russell Group university or law and medicine from a grammar than most comps and academies if you are from a working class or lower middle class background. Comprehensives/academies are largely secondary moderns anyway unless from the leafiest middle class suburb or prosperous town and plenty of high schools in selective areas do OK

You are more likely to go to a top university from grammar school regardless of your background because grammar schools only let in people who are likely to go to a top university. A system that divides children into academic successes and failures at 11 will always favour children whose parents understand the system, ie the pushy middle classes. Not that I am criticizing the pushy middle classes, they are the people this country's prosperity largely rests on!

At my small market town those who failed the 11 plus went to the secondary modern with an expectation they could work on a farm, on the line at the jam factors or at Chapman's stationary products. At secondary year 4 the classes were split at the Grammar school into an A and a B stream with the B stream doing CSEs and the A stream doing O levels. The B stream were often referred to by dyed in the wool grammar school staff who swept around the place in their moth eaten gowns as "less able" students. The expectation was they could work on a farm, on the line at the jam factory or at Chapman's stationary* products.

*Customer asks a W H Smith Saturday girl; "do you keep stationary". "No" replies the girl, "my boyfriend likes me to writhe like a wild animal".

And many of the A stream became doctors, lawyers, academics, business leaders etc

Strangely enough, they were quite a disappointment (myself included). The poshest of posh boys became a big cheese on Wall Street and later in life achieved his own pre- bankruptcy notice in the London Gazette.

I think you missed my key point. All the secondary kids and half the grammar school kids didn't necessarily achieve their full academic potential. That is not a success story for me.

Only about 10% of pupils will ever achieve the academic potential needed to become doctors, lawyers, accountants, bankers, academics, company executives, engineers etc. 40% might do some form of middle class office/admin work or become a middle manager or teacher or nurse or police officer, the rest will do a bluecollar job of some form with a few unemployed.

The grammar schools at least ensured a fair number of their pupils got into that top 10%