"She established more comprehensive schools than any other secretary of state for education. She raised the school leaving age. She set up the Bullock Committee which produced a ground-breaking report on language and learning still held in awe by teachers of English.
She accepted the James Report on teacher training and in-service education recomend that teachers should be released for in-service training for periods equivalent to one term in every 7 years of service. Her most substantial White Paper - Education, A Framework for Expansion - envisaged that within ten years “nursery education should become available without charge to those children of three and four whose parents wish them to benefit from it” , that the number of teachers in schools would increase by 10% above the number required to maintain existing class size.
She was given a standing ovation at a National Unions of Teachers conference. She set up the commission which produced the Warnock Report on special educational needs, and the legislation based on the report introduced the concept of statementing to secure appropriate provision for children with additional learning needs. Her government funded the most lavish programme of technical and vocational curriculum development the country had ever seen..."
Hopefully no numpty Labour councillors will try and stop it on the basis that it will 'Take business out of the City Centre'. But I'm not going to bet on it.
Edit: Got turned down a decade ago ! It seems, on the basis they wanted the site for industrial use. Talk about being stuck in the past...
RT @polittiscribe: @eljmayes: I suspect the only Argentinian representation at Margaret Thatcher’s funeral will be Carlos Tevez sweeping the roads afterwards..
Estimed impact of Welfare reform research by University of Sheddield Hallam
"The following list shows which towns and cities in each British region will be hardest hit by Government welfare reforms. Figures show the average amount that every working-age adult stands to lose per year.
North-East: Middlesbrough £720 North West: Blackpool £920 Yorkshire and the Humber: Hull £630 East Midlands: East Lindsey £610 West Midlands: Stoke £670 East of England: Tendring £620 London: Westminster £820 South East: Hastings £690 South West: Torbay £700 Wales: Merthyr Tydfil £720 Scotland: Glasgow: £650
"In the carriage with us is the man Miliband thinks might hold an antidote to such fatalism. Arnie Graf is the 69-year-old US veteran trainer of “community organisers”. If all goes according to plan, Graf’s system will transform the Labour Party from a centralised, rusty machine for mass leaflet delivery into a thriving ecosystem of grassroots campaigners. The key, Graf tells me, lies in giving ordinary members ownership of the policymaking process. "
" VIP invitations are white and those guests will be seated under the dome of the Cathedral - they have a red or green stripe - which designates port or starboard."
Like the way they managed to avoid 'right or left'!
We will have to disagree. My gut feeling is that those who vote Labour in 2015 will not be expecting bread and circuses should we end up with a Labour government. I don't see any polling evidence for this - most people seem to believe austerity is necessary, most people seem to agree that public spending cuts are necessary. But maybe I am wrong.
Well the tories have barely scratched the surface with "cuts" (spending is sill rising FFS!) and are plumbing the depths in the polls.
Electorates don't just want to have their cake and eat it, they want to have and eat 2 cakes, a voucher for 25% off the next one and a signed photo of Mary Berry, all paid for by "the bankers".
When inevitably a government is forced to make this country live within its means, it will do what one might call a "full Monti" and go to 10% in the polls like in Italy.
"In the carriage with us is the man Miliband thinks might hold an antidote to such fatalism. Arnie Graf is the 69-year-old US veteran trainer of “community organisers”. If all goes according to plan, Graf’s system will transform the Labour Party from a centralised, rusty machine for mass leaflet delivery into a thriving ecosystem of grassroots campaigners. The key, Graf tells me, lies in giving ordinary members ownership of the policymaking process. "
They could do very well.....
I will never see the day that labour decentralise
I too, 'hae me doots'.....but if they can pull it off......I wonder if Miliband (in some ways) is turning out to be a bit like George W Bush.....he says something.....then does it.....and people are surprised....going 'where did that come from?'
We will have to disagree. My gut feeling is that those who vote Labour in 2015 will not be expecting bread and circuses should we end up with a Labour government. I don't see any polling evidence for this - most people seem to believe austerity is necessary, most people seem to agree that public spending cuts are necessary. But maybe I am wrong.
Well the tories have barely scratched the surface with "cuts" (spending is sill rising FFS!) and are plumbing the depths in the polls.
Electorates don't just want to have their cake and eat it, they want to have and eat 2 cakes, a voucher for 25% off the next one and a signed photo of Mary Berry, all paid for by "the bankers".
When inevitably a government is forced to make this country live within its means, it will do what one might call a "full Monti" and go to 10% in the polls like in Italy.
Of course the other option is to put it off indefinitely until the market shut you down.
If Labour want to try that route then good luck to them.
RT @polittiscribe: @eljmayes: I suspect the only Argentinian representation at Margaret Thatcher’s funeral will be Carlos Tevez sweeping the roads afterwards..
Does anyone know if German representatives were invited to Churchill's funeral?
Interesting comment on the Dalrymple forum by someone called Caleb:
"What strikes me about the economic arguments against Mrs Thatcher, specifically regarding the coal industry, is just how muddle headed they are. What was the U.K. supposed to have done? Should it have just kept plowing enormous amounts of money into unprofitable industries? Where do these people think such money comes from? It doesn't grow on trees and it is a zero sum game. For every pound the British government spent directly, indirectly, or forced industry to pay, to the coal industry, there was a pound that wasn't spent on something else that was more productive. Reductio ad absurdum would say that if there were more unproductive jobs than the tax base could support, then the entire system would break down and the nation would be bankrupted, which was precisely the problem the U.K. was facing. This is, incidentally, what happened in formerly communist countries. People like Mr Jones are flogging a dead historical horse. Communism was an utter failure. Get over it.
The solution then is either to reform an industry so that it does become competitive, or let it die a quiet death. Maybe the coal industry was a relic of the past. I don't hear anyone crying for all the blacksmiths who don't have jobs anymore, and for good reason.
In terms of what to do with the people who worked in the coal industry, the solution is not welfare. It's to let industry produce suitable new jobs that allow people to still enjoy the same level of dignity and prosperity by not burdening them with high taxes and other regulations, probably in conjunction with an education system that has high standards.
The world has moved on and, largely, those kind of manual jobs are gone. One guy can now operate an enormous piece of machinery in an open cut mine in Australia or Mongolia and replace dozens, if not hundreds of traditional miners. The same is true in most resource industries. Likewise, in the industrial sector, you either have to value add or you have to have dirt cheap labour. In that sense, Britain is caught in no man's land in the middle. That's the real issue. These guys like Mr Jones completely miss the obvious point that at the time, Britain was hopelessly inefficient compared to West Germany, Japan or the United States. It may have had some chance though. However, once countries like China, India, Brazil, etc. reformed their governments and/or economies (China began in the late 70s under Deng Xiaoping), there was never going to be a future for the West in anything other than being highly educated or technically proficient. There simply wasn't and isn't. This issue transcends both left and right governments. People like Mr Jones seem to hope that the world would ignore the effect of a couple of billion (or more) new entrants into the world labour market. It's like trying to hold the tide back with your hands.
The real story is twofold. Many countries in the West were caught napping, resting on their laurels. The second is that they simultaneously debased their entire social and educational structures, and these issues have in turn flowed into the economic sphere.
If the unions and coal miners had really cared about Britain, they wouldn't have been trying to milk every last drop from every other Briton. They would have seen the writing on the wall and got with the times."
Tony Blair has issued a warning to Ed Miliband about turning Labour back into a left-wing party of protest.
In an article for the New Statesman, he says Labour is "back as the party opposing 'Tory cuts'". As a result it is in danger of becoming a "repository for people's anger" rather than a party with answers to the country's problems.
Ed Miliband said he took Mr Blair's comments seriously but said the party was "moving on and moving forward".He said he was leading the party "in my own way", adding that it was important to assess where Labour had gone wrong in the past and "sketch out a different vision for the future".
The former prime minister has been increasing his profile in the UK in recent months. He does not mention Mr Miliband by name in the article but is explicit in his criticism of the party's strategy under his leadership.
"Mr Miliband told the BBC: "I always take Tony Blair very, very seriously, but I think what the Labour Party is doing under my leadership is moving on and moving forward. I'm leading in my own way and I think that is what's most important.
"I'm proud of the last Labour government, but I think we got some things wrong. I think the most important thing a political party needs to do is assess where it got things wrong, listen to the electorate and sketch out a different vision for the future.
"That's what we're doing - tackling the issues that matter to people today, like the crisis in standards of living, how we get jobs and growth moving, something Tony Blair talks about today. Those are the priorities of the British people."
Mr Blair's article was seized on by the Conservative Party, with chairman Grant Shapps saying the former PM was right to warn that "Labour aren't a credible party of government under Ed Miliband".
"The only plan Labour have is more of what got us into this mess in the first place - more spending, more borrowing and more debt," he added."
So is Ed M ashamed of Blair's last Labour government or is he just proud of Brown's Labour government...
We will have to disagree. My gut feeling is that those who vote Labour in 2015 will not be expecting bread and circuses should we end up with a Labour government. I don't see any polling evidence for this - most people seem to believe austerity is necessary, most people seem to agree that public spending cuts are necessary. But maybe I am wrong.
Well the tories have barely scratched the surface with "cuts" (spending is sill rising FFS!) and are plumbing the depths in the polls.
Electorates don't just want to have their cake and eat it, they want to have and eat 2 cakes, a voucher for 25% off the next one and a signed photo of Mary Berry, all paid for by "the bankers".
When inevitably a government is forced to make this country live within its means, it will do what one might call a "full Monti" and go to 10% in the polls like in Italy.
Of course the other option is to put it off indefinitely until the market shut you down.
If Labour want to try that route then good luck to them.
The IMF/Troika/EU's treatment of Cyprus recently might focus a few minds.
"I'm proud of the last Labour government, but I think we got some things wrong. I think the most important thing a political party needs to do is assess where it got things wrong, listen to the electorate and sketch out a different vision for the future.
"That's what we're doing - tackling the issues that matter to people today, like the crisis in standards of living, how we get jobs and growth moving, something Tony Blair talks about today. Those are the priorities of the British people.".
Bending to the whims of the electorate - sounds like more Brownite spending/borrowing.
It seems Sheff Council stopped a huge NEXT development there recently. Ok So some extra roads will have to be built around the area to cope with the extra traffic, but... Rome wasn't built in a day ! I'm wondering if I can create a petition in favour of the store. Obviously its not a Gov't issue so a 10 Downing St petition would not be inappropriate here but the bods at Sheff Council need to know this is wanted. Labour ><
Parents and staff at the school where one of the orchestrators of the Baroness Thatcher "death parties" taught have told of their disgust at his behaviour
'I look good in a corset!': drama teacher behind Thatcher campaign unrepentant Romany Blythe, the drama teacher exposed as the architect of an internet campaign to “celebrate” Baroness Thatcher’s death, today said she welcomed the publicity.
"Some of those Zombie towns should be left as ghost towns and abandoned - look at the wildlife that has arisen out of Chernobyl."
Mr. Ghost,
Throughout history towns and cities have grown in response to specific factors and then declined and disappeared when those factors went away. The difference is that now we have a mindset that human settlements are somehow permanent and are trying to keep them going regardless. Throughout my lifetime HMG has been pumping money into declining areas, using every strategy that they can to bring them back to life, with very limited success but at vast cost. Sooner or later such efforts will have to cease. Detroit in the USA is proving an interesting case study.
Maybe, because we are in the middle of the change period, we just don't see what is happening. Perhaps there was once a move to keep Babylon going by renovating its river docks as a tourist attraction or perhaps moving the Persian Chariot Licensing Centre there. Maybe too there were ancient Nimbys who protested about the concreting over of the Nineveh region.
Just heard Dame Shirley Bassey will be attending Mrs T's funeral. Will be interesting to see how many "celebs" turn up... Will help with our PB "Name That Famous Tory" competitions on rainy bank holidays! :^O
'I look good in a corset!': drama teacher behind Thatcher campaign unrepentant
And why not, after an NHS boob job:
"They danced in the streets when Hitler died too': Drama teacher who organised Thatcher death parties remains unrepentant as it's revealed she had NHS breast implants
Dave, Sam and their three children will be staying with Frau Merkel and Professor Joachim Sauer this weekend at Schloss Meseburg. Meseburg is a baroque castle in Saxony-Anhalt, restored to its former glory by the Messerschmidt Foundation at a cost of 25 million Euros.
Following restoration, the foundation persuaded Merkel to lease the property as the official guesthouse of the Germany government with Bush being the first notable guest.
A touch grander than Chequers, we all hope the young Cams are not overawed by their new surroundings.
As its gone a bit quiet can I ask for a quick straw poll, as it were, on gas bills. We have just had the one for the last quarter and it was £306, which I didn't think was too bad all things considered (12 room house in the coldest winter for yonks). However, Herself has gone off the deep end and is raging about the end of civilisation as we know it. Should I be more concerned?
Q: Can you see any circumstances in which you would use nuclear weapons against North Korea?
Cameron says the whole point about deterrence is that you do not want to use them...
Q: Would you give the order to use nuclear weapons?
The whole point is not to use them, Cameron says.
I'm not a fan of the nuclear deterrent, but I can see that they are no deterrent at all if people do not believe that you are prepared to use them.
The whole point is that they cannot act as a deterrent if you are not prepared to use them.
People have said that the British nuclear deterrent lacks credibility, because of some arcane technical reliance on the Americans, but Cameron has now fatally undermined the nuclear deterrent by not clearly answering that he would be prepared to order their use.
Trident is now a paper tiger. Well done Cameron - you've just taken a massive step towards nuclear disarmament.
As its gone a bit quiet can I ask for a quick straw poll, as it were, on gas bills. We have just had the one for the last quarter and it was £306, which I didn't think was too bad all things considered (12 room house in the coldest winter for yonks). However, Herself has gone off the deep end and is raging about the end of civilisation as we know it. Should I be more concerned?
About the Mrs or the gas bill ? Do both just to be on the safe side.
Q: Can you see any circumstances in which you would use nuclear weapons against North Korea?
Cameron says the whole point about deterrence is that you do not want to use them...
Q: Would you give the order to use nuclear weapons?
The whole point is not to use them, Cameron says.
I'm not a fan of the nuclear deterrent, but I can see that they are no deterrent at all if people do not believe that you are prepared to use them.
The whole point is that they cannot act as a deterrent if you are not prepared to use them.
People have said that the British nuclear deterrent lacks credibility, because of some arcane technical reliance on the Americans, but Cameron has now fatally undermined the nuclear deterrent by not clearly answering that he would be prepared to order their use.
Trident is now a paper tiger. Well done Cameron - you've just taken a massive step towards nuclear disarmament.
It's an impossible question for him to answer, given the rather fragile situation over in North Korea (which if your summation is correct, was mentioned in the question).
If he said 'yes', or anything equating to it, then he would be accused of escalating the tension. Neither can he say 'no'. Instead he has gone for an answer that says neither.
As its gone a bit quiet can I ask for a quick straw poll, as it were, on gas bills. We have just had the one for the last quarter and it was £306, which I didn't think was too bad all things considered (12 room house in the coldest winter for yonks). However, Herself has gone off the deep end and is raging about the end of civilisation as we know it. Should I be more concerned?
Hurst , sounds reasonable to me. I pay £114 per month for a 4 bed detached up here in the frozen North. Must say I hardly ever look at the bills so no idea how much it is per quarter but it does cover me over the year.
Comments
http://ioelondonblog.wordpress.com/2013/04/09/thatcher-and-education/
"She established more comprehensive schools than any other secretary of state for education. She raised the school leaving age. She set up the Bullock Committee which produced a ground-breaking report on language and learning still held in awe by teachers of English.
She accepted the James Report on teacher training and in-service education recomend that teachers should be released for in-service training for periods equivalent to one term in every 7 years of service. Her most substantial White Paper - Education, A Framework for Expansion - envisaged that within ten years “nursery education should become available without charge to those children of three and four whose parents wish them to benefit from it” , that the number of teachers in schools would increase by 10% above the number required to maintain existing class size.
She was given a standing ovation at a National Unions of Teachers conference. She set up the commission which produced the Warnock Report on special educational needs, and the legislation based on the report introduced the concept of statementing to secure appropriate provision for children with additional learning needs. Her government funded the most lavish programme of technical and vocational curriculum development the country had ever seen..."
This time for Sheffield:
http://www.thestar.co.uk/community/60m-ikea-store-for-sheffield-1-5572163
Hopefully no numpty Labour councillors will try and stop it on the basis that it will 'Take business out of the City Centre'. But I'm not going to bet on it.
Edit: Got turned down a decade ago ! It seems, on the basis they wanted the site for industrial use. Talk about being stuck in the past...
RT @polittiscribe: @eljmayes: I suspect the only Argentinian representation at Margaret Thatcher’s funeral will be Carlos Tevez sweeping the roads afterwards..
Seeing as that cash has failed to improve any of those dumps why the whining when it gets taken away.
Some of those Zombie towns should be left as ghost towns and abandoned - look at the wildlife that has arisen out of Chernobyl.
" VIP invitations are white and those guests will be seated under the dome of the Cathedral - they have a red or green stripe - which designates port or starboard."
Like the way they managed to avoid 'right or left'!
Electorates don't just want to have their cake and eat it, they want to have and eat 2 cakes, a voucher for 25% off the next one and a signed photo of Mary Berry, all paid for by "the bankers".
When inevitably a government is forced to make this country live within its means, it will do what one might call a "full Monti" and go to 10% in the polls like in Italy.
Shame that.
Electorates don't just want to have their cake and eat it, they want to have and eat 2 cakes, a voucher for 25% off the next one and a signed photo of Mary Berry, all paid for by "the bankers".
When inevitably a government is forced to make this country live within its means, it will do what one might call a "full Monti" and go to 10% in the polls like in Italy.
Of course the other option is to put it off indefinitely until the market shut you down.
If Labour want to try that route then good luck to them.
In an article for the New Statesman, he says Labour is "back as the party opposing 'Tory cuts'". As a result it is in danger of becoming a "repository for people's anger" rather than a party with answers to the country's problems.
Ed Miliband said he took Mr Blair's comments seriously but said the party was "moving on and moving forward".He said he was leading the party "in my own way", adding that it was important to assess where Labour had gone wrong in the past and "sketch out a different vision for the future".
The former prime minister has been increasing his profile in the UK in recent months. He does not mention Mr Miliband by name in the article but is explicit in his criticism of the party's strategy under his leadership.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-22105195
"Mr Miliband told the BBC: "I always take Tony Blair very, very seriously, but I think what the Labour Party is doing under my leadership is moving on and moving forward. I'm leading in my own way and I think that is what's most important.
"I'm proud of the last Labour government, but I think we got some things wrong. I think the most important thing a political party needs to do is assess where it got things wrong, listen to the electorate and sketch out a different vision for the future.
"That's what we're doing - tackling the issues that matter to people today, like the crisis in standards of living, how we get jobs and growth moving, something Tony Blair talks about today. Those are the priorities of the British people."
Mr Blair's article was seized on by the Conservative Party, with chairman Grant Shapps saying the former PM was right to warn that "Labour aren't a credible party of government under Ed Miliband".
"The only plan Labour have is more of what got us into this mess in the first place - more spending, more borrowing and more debt," he added."
So is Ed M ashamed of Blair's last Labour government or is he just proud of Brown's Labour government...
If Labour want to try that route then good luck to them.
The IMF/Troika/EU's treatment of Cyprus recently might focus a few minds.
To misquote a topical note of mid term bottom wobbling on your part :
You turn if you want to .... the Coalition is NOT for turning !!
What about your own convictions and ideas rEd ?
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X-NCn4Mxc_Y
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/politics/margaret-thatcher/9986361/Parents-and-staff-disgusted-by-Thatcher-death-party-teacher.html
Parents and staff at the school where one of the orchestrators of the Baroness Thatcher "death parties" taught have told of their disgust at his behaviour
https://www.sheffield.gov.uk/your-city-council/petitions.html
Ding Dong.
'I look good in a corset!': drama teacher behind Thatcher campaign unrepentant
Romany Blythe, the drama teacher exposed as the architect of an internet campaign to “celebrate” Baroness Thatcher’s death, today said she welcomed the publicity.
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/politics/margaret-thatcher/9986497/I-look-good-in-a-corset-drama-teacher-behind-Thatcher-campaign-unrepentant.html
Am I a wet?
Mr. Ghost,
Throughout history towns and cities have grown in response to specific factors and then declined and disappeared when those factors went away. The difference is that now we have a mindset that human settlements are somehow permanent and are trying to keep them going regardless. Throughout my lifetime HMG has been pumping money into declining areas, using every strategy that they can to bring them back to life, with very limited success but at vast cost. Sooner or later such efforts will have to cease. Detroit in the USA is proving an interesting case study.
Maybe, because we are in the middle of the change period, we just don't see what is happening. Perhaps there was once a move to keep Babylon going by renovating its river docks as a tourist attraction or perhaps moving the Persian Chariot Licensing Centre there. Maybe too there were ancient Nimbys who protested about the concreting over of the Nineveh region.
Some good news for a change - there have been only three homicides in London over the last 30 days:
http://www.murdermap.co.uk/Investigate.asp
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-22105322
"They danced in the streets when Hitler died too': Drama teacher who organised Thatcher death parties remains unrepentant as it's revealed she had NHS breast implants
Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2307367/Margaret-Thatcher-death-party-teacher-Romany-Blythe-unrepentant-revealed-NHS-breast-implants.html#ixzz2Q9naEZpj
Ding Dong!
It was actually Dave 31 Ed 24. See- http://d25d2506sfb94s.cloudfront.net/cumulus_uploads/document/1dhz3dkvkg/YG-Archive-Pol-Sun-results-100413.pdf
Following restoration, the foundation persuaded Merkel to lease the property as the official guesthouse of the Germany government with Bush being the first notable guest.
A touch grander than Chequers, we all hope the young Cams are not overawed by their new surroundings.
http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/a/ae/Schloß_Meseberg.jpg"
[Creation Commons licence for photo permitting sharing]
The whole point is that they cannot act as a deterrent if you are not prepared to use them.
People have said that the British nuclear deterrent lacks credibility, because of some arcane technical reliance on the Americans, but Cameron has now fatally undermined the nuclear deterrent by not clearly answering that he would be prepared to order their use.
Trident is now a paper tiger. Well done Cameron - you've just taken a massive step towards nuclear disarmament.
I love the way this 'Thatcher Protest' is an 'orgy of buying stuff from tax-avoiding multinationals...'
The old gal would love it! (Tho she'd think they should be paying their tax...)
If he said 'yes', or anything equating to it, then he would be accused of escalating the tension. Neither can he say 'no'. Instead he has gone for an answer that says neither.
What should he have said, in your opinion?