The Lib Dems must be praying for a Corbyn win to allow them to rise from the dead. However an influx from Labour would take them even further from their Liberal roots.
The Liberal Democrats are by no means dead, Mr Sulphate, however much the PB Tories tell one another that we are!
In the byelections yesterday, the Lib Dems came very close to winning two of the three seats at stake - and certainly there was a very impressive increase in the number of Lib Dem votes.
I have been to a number of meetings with new members recently, and the general feeling is that, without the Tory millstone around our necks, we are on the way up again. This may not be reflected yet in the opinion polls, but Lib Dem spirits are high and the mood is positive.
But of course the only gain was for us blue lovelies.
I think you are correct, Miss (which will doubtless come as a great relief to you). Vocational education needs a massive overhaul and to be taken seriously for once.
This has been a problem that has dogged the English education system since the 19th century. A parliamentary commission in the 1880s recommended that England adopt the German system of technical and academic schools. It was ignored. The 1944 education Act made provision for technical schools, very few opened and the idea was shunned by the educational establishment. In recent decades we have had the ongoing squabble about grammar schools, which is about the top ten per cent of academically gifted children, and have been largely ignoring the needs of the majority. Oh, to be sure various governments have announced various initiatives but they have been on a trivial scale compared to the size of the problem and have never actually been followed through.
Until someone rips up the 50% must go to Uni target and gets a grip on the educational establishment, or, to be more precise, just ignores it, we will continue to have a system that fails the students and the nation.
What's rather tragic is that they shunned the idea of technical schools, but opened a whole load of secondary moderns!
A lot of people have criticised the Blair government for the 50% target, but really both parties are to blame in regard to the mess the education system is in right now. It was under Major where many form polys became unis, and the cap on uni places has been removed by the current government. But where I think the Blair government really failed in the everyone 'has to go to uni' culture is that it made those who didn't go feel like failures, and those who don't walk into grad schemes after uni the same way too.
Tim Straker has declared that no public law challenge could be made to the result of the ballot. said that the Labour party had no greater legal status than a members’ club. “This won’t be a matter of electoral law or public law. This is a private matter for the Labour party,” he told The Times. “The only legal basis upon which a challenge could be brought would be some kind of contractual challenge.”
I think there may be some challenge possible if Labour insists on retaining the membership fees from those people whose applications were rejected. Though as it is only £3 per person, that might seem pointless.
@taffys It's because the Tories are only thinking in the short-term - they know that everyone 45+ will vote for them. A Corbyn leadership actually makes things worse, because they are even less likely to feel compelled to solve the issue of housing without any credible opposition keeping them on their toes. There's even a risk that if Corbyn is the figure who backs young people's cause, then that may get dismissed as well.
@Plato Tim Farron is looking moderate right now. It's a tad too much a religiously type for me, but he looks sane in comparison to Corbyn.
You really believe that a country where the capital's average house price is more than 500k, and where half the population will be renting in a decade or so, doesn't have a housing crisis?
The way private schools offer a better future than public schools is nothing to do with academics and everything to do with networking. It basically allows those outside the nepotistic network of advancement to buy their way in.
I think you've got a point in regards to networking. It's one of the big reasons why inequality matters in relation to social mobility. If the wealthy have all the capital, the education and contacts they can access and consolidate the the most powerful positions among themselves.
But there's no clear causal link as to how reducing inequality will remove these structural biases towards the already privileged (and in reality we're not talking super rich, more the comfortable upper middle).
It's also not clear how inequality can be properly addressed without harming the incentives of economic growth. Even the best ideas like Citizen's Income have pretty significant problems of implementation and fairness.
People keep mentioning polls, but by Spring 2016, or even Spring 2017 Corbyn is most likely going to be hammered in real elections - which cannot be dismissed. Given Ed Miliband's record of doing well in polls, but doing mediocre in local/council elections, this will be bad news for Corbyn in a way it wasn't for Ed Miliband.
And while the Tories may wait to hammer Corbyn, the media certainly won't.
The May elections are huge but also come with ready-built excuses.
Scotland? Special case - iceberg hit long ago. Wales? Probably won't be disastrous and in any case, local issues again? London? Candidate issues if Labour loses (and would be no worse than Miliband did) PCCs? Too many independents messing up the numbers. Locals? The only genuine test for Corbyn, not least because 2012 was Miliband's high point, but so far down the list that the media won't go big on them.
By Corbynites yes. Most MPs however aren't Corbynites.
Being the ex-President's daughter pays off: Hugo Chavez's ambassador daughter is Venezuela's richest woman
Diario las Americas claims that Maria Gabriela Chavez, 35, has $4.2billion in assets held in American and Andorran banks Hugo Chavez famously declared 'being rich is bad' and during his lifetime railed against the wealthy for being lazy and gluttonous Efforts to determine Chavez's wealth have been made before, without much luck
Syriza are a good example of the far left's need to have an enemy to define themselves against; when you spend a political career claiming to be oppressed or speaking for the oppressed then taking power can be complicating. You therefore need someone else to oppress you; in Syriza's case the EU.
Corbyn's problem is that Cameron et al are not plausible as oppressors to the majority of the British population.
It's the old joke about Stalin's mother visiting him, seeing his lifestyle and saying "But Josef, what will you do when the communist's arrive."
Out of interest what is Corbyn's housing situation? I remember Frank Dobson stayed on in his Council flat while an MP; is Corbyn in social housing? Or does he own something in North Islington, in which case it must be worth a fair amount!
I think you've got a point in regards to networking. It's one of the big reasons why inequality matters in relation to social mobility. If the wealthy have all the capital, the education and contacts they can access and consolidate the the most powerful positions among themselves.
I agree to a certain extent. Networks introduce inequality to opportunity. They may also skew performance evaluation in favour of insiders. But ultimately, they cannot hide bad performance. What it means is that outsiders need to be better, but IMO that disadvantage diminishes over time for the best performers.
I don't think that's happening, at least in Britain social mobility has become more and more of a problem. If you can't even get your foot in the door then you can't even show your ability.
Would you say (as is currently perceived) that private schools are better than state schools?
I wonder why going to uni was seen as odd by her family though?!
I think it depends on the child. Speaking for my situation (leaving in 1991), and comparing to my own experiences, and those of my friends at various types of schools:
Private schools (we)/(a)re very different to state schools. Mine would let you go and sit in the library or your study to work rather then attend lessons, if they believed that was what you would be doing.
It was much more like a university than a school: it was as if they took the view that your parents were spending good money to send you there, and it was your responsibility to get the most out of that investment. It was up to you to work. In comparison, my friends at state school were rather moddycoddled. But if you needed extra help, many teachers lived on campus and were available well out of normal school hours to help, an advantage I frequently used.
On the other hand, my school was very sporty, and I had significant health problems that meant I was mostly immobile for long periods. It was a reasonably good school but, with hindsight, it was the wrong one for me.
Having said that, I think I came out a much more rounded individual than I would have at state schools: we had access to many more trips and facilities than most state schools had (including an armoury and shooting range). Before I attended, they sent a group of pupils to Inaccessible Island! I lived in a relatively rural area, and I was friends with people from a far wider variety of nations than I would have met in the local state schools.
We would certainly consider sending our child to a private school, but it would have to be the right sort of school for his character, and have clear advantages over the local state schools
As for your last question: it wasn't the 'done' thing for children from that area to go to university. It was not something they expected from their child. As I said, to their credit they supported her well, at a cost to themselves.
I've seen a few offers of legal help to rejected £3ers on Twitter. They didn't look like ambulance chasers - more aggrieved cooperative help centre types.
I really don't see how Labour can keep the money TBH.
Tim Straker has declared that no public law challenge could be made to the result of the ballot. said that the Labour party had no greater legal status than a members’ club. “This won’t be a matter of electoral law or public law. This is a private matter for the Labour party,” he told The Times. “The only legal basis upon which a challenge could be brought would be some kind of contractual challenge.”
I think there may be some challenge possible if Labour insists on retaining the membership fees from those people whose applications were rejected. Though as it is only £3 per person, that might seem pointless.
The way private schools offer a better future than public schools is nothing to do with academics and everything to do with networking. It basically allows those outside the nepotistic network of advancement to buy their way in.
I think you've got a point in regards to networking. It's one of the big reasons why inequality matters in relation to social mobility. If the wealthy have all the capital, the education and contacts they can access and consolidate the the most powerful positions among themselves.
But there's no clear causal link as to how reducing inequality will remove these structural biases towards the already privileged (and in reality we're not talking super rich, more the comfortable upper middle).
It's also not clear how inequality can be properly addressed without harming the incentives of economic growth. Even the best ideas like Citizen's Income have pretty significant problems of implementation and fairness.
What I was trying to say is how the issue of private schools and networking reinforced inequality, not that reducing inequality in itself will remove these structural biases.
I think you are correct, Miss (which will doubtless come as a great relief to you). Vocational education needs a massive overhaul and to be taken seriously for once.
This has been a problem that has dogged the English education system since the 19th century. A parliamentary commission in the 1880s recommended that England adopt the German system of technical and academic schools. It was ignored. The 1944 education Act made provision for technical schools, very few opened and the idea was shunned by the educational establishment. In recent decades we have had the ongoing squabble about grammar schools, which is about the top ten per cent of academically gifted children, and have been largely ignoring the needs of the majority. Oh, to be sure various governments have announced various initiatives but they have been on a trivial scale compared to the size of the problem and have never actually been followed through.
Until someone rips up the 50% must go to Uni target and gets a grip on the educational establishment, or, to be more precise, just ignores it, we will continue to have a system that fails the students and the nation.
What's rather tragic is that they shunned the idea of technical schools, but opened a whole load of secondary moderns!
A lot of people have criticised the Blair government for the 50% target, but really both parties are to blame in regard to the mess the education system is in right now. It was under Major where many form polys became unis, and the cap on uni places has been removed by the current government. But where I think the Blair government really failed in the everyone 'has to go to uni' culture is that it made those who didn't go feel like failures, and those who don't walk into grad schemes after uni the same way too.
The problem is certainly not one of party politics, except that there is the usual refusal of politicians to accept that the other side might actually have a good idea that is worth supporting. The problem has been, right back to the 1880s, that the educational establishment work solely for their own perceived interests and every government for 130 years has refused to take it or has backed down in the face of resistance.
The way private schools offer a better future than public schools is nothing to do with academics and everything to do with networking. It basically allows those outside the nepotistic network of advancement to buy their way in.
I think you've got a point in regards to networking. It's one of the big reasons why inequality matters in relation to social mobility. If the wealthy have all the capital, the education and contacts they can access and consolidate the the most powerful positions among themselves.
But there's no clear causal link as to how reducing inequality will remove these structural biases towards the already privileged (and in reality we're not talking super rich, more the comfortable upper middle).
It's also not clear how inequality can be properly addressed without harming the incentives of economic growth. Even the best ideas like Citizen's Income have pretty significant problems of implementation and fairness.
What I was trying to say is how the issue of private schools and networking reinforced inequality, not that reducing inequality in itself will remove these structural biases.
Speaking for myself, networking with people from school has not helped me one jot, and I can say the same for others who also attended. As it happens, neither has contacts from my family: my dad thinks he's good if he works out how to turn off a computer!
Being the ex-President's daughter pays off: Hugo Chavez's ambassador daughter is Venezuela's richest woman
Diario las Americas claims that Maria Gabriela Chavez, 35, has $4.2billion in assets held in American and Andorran banks Hugo Chavez famously declared 'being rich is bad' and during his lifetime railed against the wealthy for being lazy and gluttonous Efforts to determine Chavez's wealth have been made before, without much luck
Syriza are a good example of the far left's need to have an enemy to define themselves against; when you spend a political career claiming to be oppressed or speaking for the oppressed then taking power can be complicating. You therefore need someone else to oppress you; in Syriza's case the EU.
Corbyn's problem is that Cameron et al are not plausible as oppressors to the majority of the British population.
It's the old joke about Stalin's mother visiting him, seeing his lifestyle and saying "But Josef, what will you do when the communist's arrive."
Out of interest what is Corbyn's housing situation? I remember Frank Dobson stayed on in his Council flat while an MP; is Corbyn in social housing? Or does he own something in North Islington, in which case it must be worth a fair amount!
Well I understand his wife runs her business from home. If you remember thats the one where she buys coffee at 3p a quarter from impoverished peasants and sells it at £10 a go. Or so...
The Times says that Corbyn has compared the US Army to ISIS. I think we can see where the next 5 years are going.
Many thanks to Nick Palmer for continuing to post, despite the unpleasant bashing he is taking from SeanT and SO.
IMO, votes for Kendall or Corbyn are the only sensible ones. Burnham and Cooper won't change much from Miliband, & 2020 will then be a repeat of 2015.
I am surprised by the claim that the Labour party "has no greater legal status than a members’ club. This won’t be a matter of electoral law or public law. This is a private matter for the Labour party"
The Labour Party receives substantial public money. I would have thought that alone made its governance a matter of public law.
In fairness, I think he's looking pretty good. Smile is a lot more natural now he's not leader, I guess that's the pressure being off.
Re Syriza, are they still expected to win? It's remarkable to me that they apparently got credit for standing up for Greece, which would normally be fine, except they did it with a damaging bluff that totally failed. Seriously, they barely seemed to get anything from their brinkmanship. I'm all for rewarding people for taking a bold stand, but they didn't, as far as I can tell, they pretended to take a bold stand and then folded when their bluff was called.
But given the choice of having to pick between the two, who would you put in charge of your bank account? (a) a bunch of competent thieves who don't care a jot about you or the country; or (b) a bunch of naive idiots who have no idea what they are doing but at least try
I suppose b) presuming they were just naiive and did not know their bluff would not work, if the others really are thieves.
Whatever the truth about former Greek governments, I think they are viewed collectively of having placed Greece in the current disastrous situation and of having creamed off loads for themselves and their buddies at the expense of the people. The bulk of those who will vote Syriza again probably see no self-responsibility for those governments, even if they voted for them and held out their hands just like everyone else.
For Tsipras, he lost his bottle on the bluff and sacked its author, Varoufakis, who would have doubled down and started writing scrip. So I don't think it's fair to say that they knew all along their bluff would fail, much as I think Varoufakis is a criminally irresponsible idiot.
I'm still getting a lot of feedback from Broxtowe, including a flood of comments after I endorsed Corbyn. An interesting thing is that the people with most doubts - in some cases real hostility like Southam (who is with respect getting quite nasty about it) - are the veteran members, who have stayed loyal through decades of shifting policies because they think Labour governments are nearly always better than the Tories, and they fear for the party. Most of those will stay on, but anxiously; some will quit.
By contrast, the most enthusiasm is from people who have voted Labour in the past but stopped doing so around 2001, and who have voted LibDems, Green or UKIP. A lot of them say with some bemusement that they'll actually join if he wins the leadership. It misreads them to think they're nutty Trots - these are disaffected mostly middle-class people who felt the major parties didn't represent them. Not many are all that political in the terms of PB (e.g. I doubt if many care much about rail nationalisation or Hamas), certainly not party political.
My view is that the well of triangulation and centralist manouevres has run dry and we need to try Corbyn. I wouldn't say I'm optimistic, but there's a reasonable shot of success, and certainly of an interesting challenge to the crushing orthodox consensus.
Yesterday's thread IMO misreads Corbyn, by the way. The fact that he doesn't trumpet a desire to be PM doesn't mean that he doesn't give a toss. It means that he is opposed to giving himself undue prominence. It's an austere and unfashionable attitude, but not a bad thing.
With respect? WITH RESPECT?
You've shifted your allegiance from Tony "Start the War" Blair to Jeremy "Stop the War" Corbyn. The latter is a man who thinks Hamas and Hezbollah are his friends, who invites the IRA to parliament two weeks after they tried to destroy it, who says known anti-Semites and Islamofascists are "honoured citizens", who wants to quit NATO, abandon Trident, and give the Falklands back to Argentina, and who thinks only some of what ISIS does is "bad" - presumably he's OK with the beheading, or is it the stoning of women?
And you ask for RESPECT.
This is your most shameful episode on pb. You've LOST respect that you will never regain.
Sweden is not in NATO.
Blair has meetings with Hamas and other dubious otrganisations. Conservative and Labour governments and leaders have had meetings with the IRA. Why would you not talk to your enemies?
The way private schools offer a better future than public schools is nothing to do with academics and everything to do with networking. It basically allows those outside the nepotistic network of advancement to buy their way in.
I think you've got a point in regards to networking. It's one of the big reasons why inequality matters in relation to social mobility. If the wealthy have all the capital, the education and contacts they can access and consolidate the the most powerful positions among themselves.
But there's no clear causal link as to how reducing inequality will remove these structural biases towards the already privileged (and in reality we're not talking super rich, more the comfortable upper middle).
It's also not clear how inequality can be properly addressed without harming the incentives of economic growth. Even the best ideas like Citizen's Income have pretty significant problems of implementation and fairness.
What I was trying to say is how the issue of private schools and networking reinforced inequality, not that reducing inequality in itself will remove these structural biases.
Speaking for myself, networking with people from school has not helped me one jot, and I can say the same for others who also attended. As it happens, neither has contacts from my family: my dad thinks he's good if he works out how to turn off a computer!
I think it's rather overplayed.
I went to a Russell Group uni, and networking there has been non-existent job-wise. I then went to a top business school where probably 25% of the class were from the super-wealthy. Networking there is clearly important, although I personally have not used or benefitted from it in my line of work.
My own personal network I have developed professionally, however, is crucial to my business.
I've been saying this for ages. Labour need to elect Corbyn, not because he's a political titan, but because they're unelectable in their current form. Labour needs to be destroyed, so that it can then rebuild itself into something that actually functions as a political party for the masses. Corbyn is the man to destroy the current Labour party.
Labour needs less of the Owen Jones and Poly Totnes types and more of the Southam Observer type, in my book. I could vote for the Labour party then.
Blair didn't get his landslide because people loved Labour, he got it because Tories stayed at home. The Labour vote went up by 2 million, the Tory vote dropped by around 5 million, the LDs got 28 more seats on the basis of essentially no more votes.
Deeply flawed reasoning given that the drop in Con vote was actually just 4.5m and turnout in 1997 was 7% lower than in 1992. Once you adjust for that you get a straight Con to Lab swing of 3m votes.
??? Turnout down. Did he not say the tory vote down ?
His spurious analysis implies that Blair's landside was due to 3m "1992 Tories" staying at home rather than Tories switching to Labour. But comparing the 1992 and 1997 figures without adjusting for turnout is meaningless, since it was much lower in 1997.
Once you do that, the decline in Conservative vote from 1992 is very close to the increase in Labour votes. (about 3m votes). Only around 300,000 Conservative votes were "lost".
I'm still getting a lot of feedback from Broxtowe, including a flood of comments after I endorsed Corbyn. An interesting thing is that the people with most doubts - in some cases real hostility like Southam (who is with respect getting quite nasty about it) - are the veteran members, who have stayed loyal through decades of shifting policies because they think Labour governments are nearly always better than the Tories, and they fear for the party. Most of those will stay on, but anxiously; some will quit.
...l.
My view is that the well of triangulation and centralist manouevres has run dry and we need to try Corbyn. I wouldn't say I'm optimistic, but there's a reasonable shot of success, and certainly of an interesting challenge to the crushing orthodox consensus.
Yesterday's thread IMO misreads Corbyn, by the way. The fact that he doesn't trumpet a desire to be PM doesn't mean that he doesn't give a toss. It means that he is opposed to giving himself undue prominence. It's an austere and unfashionable attitude, but not a bad thing.
With respect? WITH RESPECT?
You've shifted your allegiance from Tony "Start the War" Blair to Jeremy "Stop the War" Corbyn. The latter is a man who thinks Hamas and Hezbollah are his friends, who invites the IRA to parliament two weeks after they tried to destroy it, who says known anti-Semites and Islamofascists are "honoured citizens", who wants to quit NATO, abandon Trident, and give the Falklands back to Argentina, and who thinks only some of what ISIS does is "bad" - presumably he's OK with the beheading, or is it the stoning of women?
And you ask for RESPECT.
This is your most shameful episode on pb. You've LOST respect that you will never regain.
Sweden is not in NATO.
Blair has meetings with Hamas and other dubious otrganisations. Conservative and Labour governments and leaders have had meetings with the IRA. Why would you not talk to your enemies?
I've been saying this for ages. Labour need to elect Corbyn, not because he's a political titan, but because they're unelectable in their current form. Labour needs to be destroyed, so that it can then rebuild itself into something that actually functions as a political party for the masses. Corbyn is the man to destroy the current Labour party.
Labour needs less of the Owen Jones and Poly Totnes types and more of the Southam Observer type, in my book. I could vote for the Labour party then.
Blair didn't get his landslide because people loved Labour, he got it because Tories stayed at home. The Labour vote went up by 2 million, the Tory vote dropped by around 5 million, the LDs got 28 more seats on the basis of essentially no more votes.
Deeply flawed reasoning given that the drop in Con vote was actually just 4.5m and turnout in 1997 was 7% lower than in 1992. Once you adjust for that you get a straight Con to Lab swing of 3m votes.
??? Turnout down. Did he not say the tory vote down ?
His spurious analysis implies that Blair's landside was due to 3m "1992 Tories" staying at home rather than Tories switching to Labour. But comparing the 1992 and 1997 figures without adjusting for turnout is meaningless, since it was much lower in 1997.
Once you do that, the decline in Conservative vote from 1992 is very close to the increase in Labour votes. (about 3m votes). Only around 300,000 Conservative votes were "lost".
What is a reduction in turnout except voters deciding to stay at home ?
Trouble with this article is that most over 50s can remember the 1970s and 1980s and don't want no return to those days.
And they vote. In large numbers.
Just wait till immigration is raised as an issue. Corbyn will lose lots of Labour support with unlimited immigration...
The 70's were great.
Was that the last time Scotland won a football match? Or is it the Bay City Rollers that you are remembering fondly?
Fox, both and lots of wine women and song, monthly pay rises, big moustaches , it was a hoot.
I am with you on this, Mr. G. The seventies were wonderful. The beer and, especially, the fags were cheap, the girls were pretty and didn't run so fast that they weren't catchable, well paying jobs were plentiful and you could have a beer at lunchtime without being cast as a retarded alcoholic. All that has gone sad to say, but some of us have retained our big moustaches grey as they may be.
Hurst, indeed wonderful times, though mine has been gone a long time.
People keep mentioning polls, but by Spring 2016, or even Spring 2017 Corbyn is most likely going to be hammered in real elections - which cannot be dismissed. Given Ed Miliband's record of doing well in polls, but doing mediocre in local/council elections, this will be bad news for Corbyn in a way it wasn't for Ed Miliband.
And while the Tories may wait to hammer Corbyn, the media certainly won't.
Corbyn's personal ratings and LE results will be the things to watch:
It's going to be disastrous. The more his views come out, the more I'm even shocked such an utter lunatic is a part of the parliamentary Labour party, let alone leader. And the trouble is is cult of followers online are so deluded - they literally cannot accept any kind of slightly different POV from their own.
It's so bad I'm thinking of becoming a LD.
TBF I think you'd fit quite well into the LD fold, at least from the views you've expressed on here.
(That is not meant as an insult, just an observation)
How can it not be an insult. I would be mortified if someone called me a Lib Dem
Comments
A lot of people have criticised the Blair government for the 50% target, but really both parties are to blame in regard to the mess the education system is in right now. It was under Major where many form polys became unis, and the cap on uni places has been removed by the current government. But where I think the Blair government really failed in the everyone 'has to go to uni' culture is that it made those who didn't go feel like failures, and those who don't walk into grad schemes after uni the same way too.
It's also not clear how inequality can be properly addressed without harming the incentives of economic growth. Even the best ideas like Citizen's Income have pretty significant problems of implementation and fairness.
It's the old joke about Stalin's mother visiting him, seeing his lifestyle and saying "But Josef, what will you do when the communist's arrive."
Out of interest what is Corbyn's housing situation? I remember Frank Dobson stayed on in his Council flat while an MP; is Corbyn in social housing? Or does he own something in North Islington, in which case it must be worth a fair amount!
Private schools (we)/(a)re very different to state schools. Mine would let you go and sit in the library or your study to work rather then attend lessons, if they believed that was what you would be doing.
It was much more like a university than a school: it was as if they took the view that your parents were spending good money to send you there, and it was your responsibility to get the most out of that investment. It was up to you to work. In comparison, my friends at state school were rather moddycoddled. But if you needed extra help, many teachers lived on campus and were available well out of normal school hours to help, an advantage I frequently used.
On the other hand, my school was very sporty, and I had significant health problems that meant I was mostly immobile for long periods. It was a reasonably good school but, with hindsight, it was the wrong one for me.
Having said that, I think I came out a much more rounded individual than I would have at state schools: we had access to many more trips and facilities than most state schools had (including an armoury and shooting range). Before I attended, they sent a group of pupils to Inaccessible Island! I lived in a relatively rural area, and I was friends with people from a far wider variety of nations than I would have met in the local state schools.
We would certainly consider sending our child to a private school, but it would have to be the right sort of school for his character, and have clear advantages over the local state schools
As for your last question: it wasn't the 'done' thing for children from that area to go to university. It was not something they expected from their child. As I said, to their credit they supported her well, at a cost to themselves.
I really don't see how Labour can keep the money TBH.
New Thread
I think it's rather overplayed.
Out of interest what is Corbyn's housing situation? I remember Frank Dobson stayed on in his Council flat while an MP; is Corbyn in social housing? Or does he own something in North Islington, in which case it must be worth a fair amount!
Well I understand his wife runs her business from home. If you remember thats the one where she buys coffee at 3p a quarter from impoverished peasants and sells it at £10 a go. Or so...
The Times says that Corbyn has compared the US Army to ISIS.
I think we can see where the next 5 years are going.
IMO, votes for Kendall or Corbyn are the only sensible ones. Burnham and Cooper won't change much from Miliband, & 2020 will then be a repeat of 2015.
I am surprised by the claim that the Labour party "has no greater legal status than a members’ club. This won’t be a matter of electoral law or public law. This is a private matter for the Labour party"
The Labour Party receives substantial public money. I would have thought that alone made its governance a matter of public law.
For Tsipras, he lost his bottle on the bluff and sacked its author, Varoufakis, who would have doubled down and started writing scrip. So I don't think it's fair to say that they knew all along their bluff would fail, much as I think Varoufakis is a criminally irresponsible idiot.
Blair has meetings with Hamas and other dubious otrganisations. Conservative and Labour governments and leaders have had meetings with the IRA. Why would you not talk to your enemies?
These are not outlandish actions and policies.
My own personal network I have developed professionally, however, is crucial to my business.
Once you do that, the decline in Conservative vote from 1992 is very close to the increase in Labour votes. (about 3m votes). Only around 300,000 Conservative votes were "lost".
''Russia would take military "countermeasures" if Sweden were to join Nato, according to the Russian ambassodor.''