A classic example. Libertarians think that in a ‘free market’ consumers will pick cars with good emissions if they want. Ignoring that EVERYONE is affected by air pollution and global warming. The free market will just give everyone lung cancer.
You just pull that from your own backside?
Trump is not a libertarian FWIW. Secondly there are libertarian ways to deal with negative externalities like pollution. Again libertarianism isn't anarchy.
Please do not resort to being rude.
I am being sincere here: can you educate me on these libertarian ways to deal with negative externalities?
I’m not sure I like the Labour ‘abolish public schools’ policy.
I’m not sure how abolishing them will make any difference to anything. It certainly wont help the working class.
Maybe remove their tax exemption status unless they provide more paid scholarships and work in conjunction with the state sector to help raise standards all around?
It is a policy driven by class envy despite the fact our too private schools are amongst the best schools in the world, provide many scholarships and bursaries and tend to share facilities now with the local community and attract pupils from across the world
It's not class envy, it's pure self interest. If you or your kids don't go to these schools you'd self evidently be better off if they didn't exist, since their function is to provide advantage to those who attend them relative to everyone else. I wouldn't abolish them, because I believe in freedom, but I would certainly not go out of my way to make life easy for them, and I would look to ways to nullify their ability to provide advantage at the expense of others.
Not true, your kids could get a scholarship to them for example if their IQ is high enough or they have strong sporting or musical ability
Why should they need to get a scholarship? The local comp should be as good as any private school. Anyway the whole education system is being privatized in full view and nobody does anything about it.
What an absurd statement, that is like saying every shop should be Harrods and therefore we should close Harrods because it gives consumers an unfair advantage over the corner shop down the road.
The fact is even if every private school in the country closed down most parents would send their children to a grammar school or an outstanding comprehensive, free school or academy not the bog standard requires improvement or inadequate comprehensive down the road because by definition parents want the best for their children.
But it isn't at the expense of others. It is at the expense of the parents who are paying to provide an education privately that would otherwise be paid for by the state (and thus all tax payers)
So those parents who do pay for private education are paying to educate their own children and also paying taxation that goes towards paying to educate all those children in state schools.
Put all students who are currently in private schools into the state sector and you have to find significant extra funding and capacity to cope with the new students
Surely it is better to focus on improving the standard of education in the state sector so that the achievement gap is narrowed.
The politics of envy is driving this policy plus a huge amount of hypocrisy. Parents are always going to want the best for their children. If they want to pay to have their children privately educated - that is their right.
Too many on the left who were privately educated - or who have had their own children privately educated - seem to want to pull up the ladder. They have enjoyed the benefits that they are now seeking to deny others.
That is just wrong.
Obviously the problem with that argument is that parents who are having their children educated privately have no direct incentive to support funding of the state sector. Indeed, they have an incentive to support cutting the function of the state sector.
Have you any evidence to back up that? Or is it just conjecture?
I think it's self-evident.
Their children aren't in the state sector, so they have no direct incentive to support more funding for the state sector.
Inasmuch as their taxes go towards funding the state sector, they have an incentive to support cutting that funding.
Speculation is not evidence. And no, it is not 'self-evident.' That is just another way of saying you have no proof for something you passionately believe.
You have been asked to prove a statement you've made. If you can't prove it, just say 'no' and move on. Honestly, are you a Principal Examiner for AQA?
[Really silly bits ignored]
You didn't have to delete them though. I'd have been interested to see your reply however silly you thought your remarks were.
I have to admit though, I was going a bit far with that last subclause and I apologise. You spell far too well to be a Principal Examiner for AQA.
But it isn't at the expense of others. It is at the expense of the parents who are paying to provide an education privately that would otherwise be paid for by the state (and thus all tax payers)
So those parents who do pay for private education are paying to educate their own children and also paying taxation that goes towards paying to educate all those children in state schools.
Put all students who are currently in private schools into the state sector and you have to find significant extra funding and capacity to cope with the new students
Surely it is better to focus on improving the standard of education in the state sector so that the achievement gap is narrowed.
The politics of envy is driving this policy plus a huge amount of hypocrisy. Parents are always going to want the best for their children. If they want to pay to have their children privately educated - that is their right.
Too many on the left who were privately educated - or who have had their own children privately educated - seem to want to pull up the ladder. They have enjoyed the benefits that they are now seeking to deny others.
That is just wrong.
Obviously the problem with that argument is that parents who are having their children educated privately have no direct incentive to support funding of the state sector. Indeed, they have an incentive to support cutting the function of the state sector.
Have you any evidence to back up that? Or is it just conjecture?
I think it's self-evident.
Their children aren't in the state sector, so they have no direct incentive to support more funding for the state sector.
Inasmuch as their taxes go towards funding the state sector, they have an incentive to support cutting that funding.
Speculation is not evidence. And no, it is not 'self-evident.' That is just another way of saying you have no proof for something you passionately believe.
You have been asked to prove a statement you've made. If you can't prove it, just say 'no' and move on. Honestly, are you a Principal Examiner for AQA?
Simple question, if you had no choice but to send your children to the local equivalent of ‘Grange Hill’ would you actually want the state to do something about their education system?
I am a teacher, a union rep and a school governor.
And you think I don't want the government to do something about the shambles in education?
Out of interest, what is the solution? Just a lot more money?
Alternatively you just don't know what a libertarian is and are just tilting at windmills.
I've had libertarians try to explain it to me. I was quite interested to hear about it when I first heard about it a few years ago. I'm a liberal, and I naively thought the name is similar, perhaps this is something I can get behind. It didn't quite work out that way! My experience of reading about it has left the same impression on me. It's just a gale of naivety and self-contradiction.
Utter codswallop.
There is nothing self-contradictory about libertarianism, which is just a modern name for liberalism since liberal has been hijacked by people who can often be illiberal.
Libertarians are liberals - economically and socially. People who believe that individuals can best run their own lives without massive interference from a large state.
That doesn't mean that there should never be state interference or that the state never has to get involved. We're not anarchists.
I'm not sure what you think a "large" state is. Should there be state funding schools? State funded healthcare? Child protection services? Elderly care? State pensions? State housing? Should roads be fixed by councils? If I'm playing loud music at night, is there someone my neighbours can call about it? Should my local shop be allowed to sell alcohol to 15 year olds? Can I build a house in the middle of the local nature reserve? Can I burn tyres in a school playground just for fun?
But it isn't at the expense of others. It is at the expense of the parents who are paying to provide an education privately that would otherwise be paid for by the state (and thus all tax payers)
So those parents who do pay for private education are paying to educate their own children and also paying taxation that goes towards paying to educate all those children in state schools.
Put all students who are currently in private schools into the state sector and you have to find significant extra funding and capacity to cope with the new students
Surely it is better to focus on improving the standard of education in the state sector so that the achievement gap is narrowed.
The politics of envy is driving this policy plus a huge amount of hypocrisy. Parents are always going to want the best for their children. If they want to pay to have their children privately educated - that is their right.
Too many on the left who were privately educated - or who have had their own children privately educated - seem to want to pull up the ladder. They have enjoyed the benefits that they are now seeking to deny others.
That is just wrong.
Obviously the problem with that argument is that parents who are having their children educated privately have no direct incentive to support funding of the state sector. Indeed, they have an incentive to support cutting the function of the state sector.
Have you any evidence to back up that? Or is it just conjecture?
I think it's self-evident.
Their children aren't in the state sector, so they have no direct incentive to support more funding for the state sector.
Inasmuch as their taxes go towards funding the state sector, they have an incentive to support cutting that funding.
Speculation is not evidence. And no, it is not 'self-evident.' That is just another way of saying you have no proof for something you passionately believe.
You have been asked to prove a statement you've made. If you can't prove it, just say 'no' and move on. Honestly, are you a Principal Examiner for AQA?
Simple question, if you had no choice but to send your children to the local equivalent of ‘Grange Hill’ would you actually want the state to do something about their education system?
I am a teacher, a union rep and a school governor.
And you think I don't want the government to do something about the shambles in education?
You're advocating that they narrow it down to you and sack you?
On Johnson's hospital visit, politicians seem to think they can turn up in hospitals, get some captive patient to say how wonderful the hospital is so the politician can make a political out of it. I imagine these people feel manipulated. Kudos therefore to the man who answered back to Johnson today.
The specific Johnson comment is that he doesn't seem to cope well with situations. A more competent politician would have said something bland and moved on.
He was ambushed by a Labour activist with a clear agenda
I’m not sure I like the Labour ‘abolish public schools’ policy.
I’m not sure how abolishing them will make any difference to anything. It certainly wont help the working class.
Maybe remove their tax exemption status unless they provide more paid scholarships and work in conjunction with the state sector to help raise standards all around?
It is a policy driven by class envy despite the fact our too private schools are amongst the best schools in the world, provide many scholarships and bursaries and tend to share facilities now with the local community and attract pupils from across the world
It's not class envy, it's pure self interest. If you or your kids don't go to these schools you'd self evidently be better off if they didn't exist, since their function is to provide advantage to those who attend them relative to everyone else. I wouldn't abolish them, because I believe in freedom, but I would certainly not go out of my way to make life easy for them, and I would look to ways to nullify their ability to provide advantage at the expense of others.
Not true, your kids could get a scholarship to them for example if their IQ is high enough or they have strong sporting or musical ability
Why should they need to get a scholarship? The local comp should be as good as any private school. Anyway the whole education system is being privatized in full view and nobody does anything about it.
What an absurd statement, that is like saying every shop should be Harrods and therefore we should close Harrods because it gives consumers an unfair advantage over the corner shop down the road.
The fact is even if every private school in the country closed down most parents would send their children to a grammar school or an outstanding comprehensive, free school or academy not the bog standard requires improvement or inadequate comprehensive down the road because by definition parents want the best for their children.
We need more choice in education not less
Do you think more choice in education will improve the education of the poorest and most disadvantaged children, or just the middle classes?
On Johnson's hospital visit, politicians seem to think they can turn up in hospitals, get some captive patient to say how wonderful the hospital is so the politician can make a political out of it. I imagine these people feel manipulated. Kudos therefore to the man who answered back to Johnson today.
The specific Johnson comment is that he doesn't seem to cope well with situations. A more competent politician would have said something bland and moved on.
He was ambushed by a Labour activist with a clear agenda
God forbid the ordinary people have agendas! How is that even allowed?
Are you basically saying that liberals should oppose regulation of the markets? Because if so, I would disagree entirely. Personal freedom does not come with the freedom to oppress.
We’ve had this argument before anyway so I know where this is going.
Easily sorted... From the Cambridge Dictionary
Libertarian - the belief that people should be free to think and behave as they want and should not have limits put on them by governments
Liberal - believing in or allowing a lot of personal freedom, and believing that society should change gradually so that money, property, and power are shared more fairly
Out of interest, what is the solution? Just a lot more money?
Well, there are few problems in the world that can't be solved by more money. And certainly an issue in the state sector going back to certainly the 1960s and the changes to grammars/sec mods has been chronic underfunding. That affects both capital stock, and teacher recruitment and retention, which has a knock-on effect on class sizes. But I don't think more funding alone is the solution. For example, when we had BSF under old Ballsup, much of the money was wasted and quite a lot of the schools built were of such bad quality the money used was effectively also wasted.
Most of the problems are sufficiently complex and deep rooted however that that's only part of the solution. Appalling mismanagement by LEAs, DfE, OFSTED and Ofqual are also big problems. One of the reasons I was foolish enough to be keen on Gove at the start was that he said he would take that lot on. But unfortunately he sold out to them and went after teachers instead. Easier to criticise people you don't have to work with on a daily basis, maybe?
If you wanted a fuller answer, give me nine months and I'll send you the book.
But it isn't at the expense of others. It is at the expense of the parents who are paying to provide an education privately that would otherwise be paid for by the state (and thus all tax payers)
So those parents who do pay for private education are paying to educate their own children and also paying taxation that goes towards paying to educate all those children in state schools.
The politics of envy is driving this policy plus a huge amount of hypocrisy. Parents are always going to want the best for their children. If they want to pay to have their children privately educated - that is their right.
Too many on the left who were privately educated - or who have had their own children privately educated - seem to want to pull up the ladder. They have enjoyed the benefits that they are now seeking to deny others.
That is just wrong.
Obviously the problem with that argument is that parents who are having their children educated privately have no direct incentive to support funding of the state sector. Indeed, they have an incentive to support cutting the function of the state sector.
Have you any evidence to back up that? Or is it just conjecture?
I think it's self-evident.
Their children aren't in the state sector, so they have no direct incentive to support more funding for the state sector.
Inasmuch as their taxes go towards funding the state sector, they have an incentive to support cutting that funding.
Speculation is not evidence. And no, it is not 'self-evident.' That is just another way of saying you have no proof for something you passionately believe.
You have been asked to prove a statement you've made. If you can't prove it, just say 'no' and move on. Honestly, are you a Principal Examiner for AQA?
Simple question, if you had no choice but to send your children to the local equivalent of ‘Grange Hill’ would you actually want the state to do something about their education system?
I am a teacher, a union rep and a school governor.
And you think I don't want the government to do something about the shambles in education?
I don’t doubt it just struggling to understand the support or private schools. I’ve always believed if people wanted to educate their children away from the great unwashed that was their right, what I’ve never believed is that they should be able to buy a better education because they could afford it.
On Johnson's hospital visit, politicians seem to think they can turn up in hospitals, get some captive patient to say how wonderful the hospital is so the politician can make a political out of it. I imagine these people feel manipulated. Kudos therefore to the man who answered back to Johnson today.
The specific Johnson comment is that he doesn't seem to cope well with situations. A more competent politician would have said something bland and moved on.
He was ambushed by a Labour activist with a clear agenda
Yeah. For his child to receive first class care. What a bastard.
I’m not sure I like the Labour ‘abolish public schools’ policy.
I’m not sure how abolishing them will make any difference to anything. It certainly wont help the working class.
Maybe remove their tax exemption status unless they provide more paid scholarships and work in conjunction with the state sector to help raise standards all around?
It is a policy driven by class envy despite the fact our too private schools are amongst the best schools in the world, provide many scholarships and bursaries and tend to share facilities now with the local community and attract pupils from across the world
It's not class envy, it's pure self interest. If you or your kids don't go to these schools you'd self evidently be better off if they didn't exist, since their function is to provide advantage to those who attend them relative to everyone else. I wouldn't abolish them, because I believe in freedom, but I would certainly not go out of my way to make life easy for them, and I would look to ways to nullify their ability to provide advantage at the expense of others.
Not true, your kids could get a scholarship to them for example if their IQ is high enough or they have strong sporting or musical ability
Why should they need to get a scholarship? The local comp should be as good as any private school. Anyway the whole education system is being privatized in full view and nobody does anything about it.
What an absurd statement, that is like saying every shop should be Harrods and therefore we should close Harrods because it gives consumers an unfair advantage over the corner shop down the road.
The fact is even if every private school in the country closed down most parents would send their children to a grammar school or an outstanding comprehensive, free school or academy not the bog standard requires improvement or inadequate comprehensive down the road because by definition parents want the best for their children.
We need more choice in education not less
There's a world of difference between luxury consumer products and education. Education is both a right and an obligation.
A £15 tin of boiled sweets is a want, not a need and not a duty.
On Johnson's hospital visit, politicians seem to think they can turn up in hospitals, get some captive patient to say how wonderful the hospital is so the politician can make a political out of it. I imagine these people feel manipulated. Kudos therefore to the man who answered back to Johnson today.
The specific Johnson comment is that he doesn't seem to cope well with situations. A more competent politician would have said something bland and moved on.
He was ambushed by a Labour activist with a clear agenda
God forbid the ordinary people have agendas! How is that even allowed?
Yep an genda which featured 1 item - enough doctors and nurses to care for his sick child.
Cameron would have known how to answer the question
A classic example. Libertarians think that in a ‘free market’ consumers will pick cars with good emissions if they want. Ignoring that EVERYONE is affected by air pollution and global warming. The free market will just give everyone lung cancer.
You just pull that from your own backside?
Trump is not a libertarian FWIW. Secondly there are libertarian ways to deal with negative externalities like pollution. Again libertarianism isn't anarchy.
Trump is an idiot, a spiteful one at that. "The federal government has been fighting this fight against clean cars for the last few years. At first, it began with automakers lobbying for a repeal of Obama-era standards, which were being achieved ahead of schedule and under budget. A vast majority of the US agrees that these higher fuel economy standards are a good thing. When the EPA announced they would slash rules even more severely than automakers expected, California responded by stating that they would not be changing their standards. Automakers then realized that this would result in a split market, which would cause them great difficulty. Automakers lobbied the government to reconsider, and then made a deal with California to mostly keep the higher standards, to avoid the specter of having a split market. California’s Air Resources Board has a meeting this Thursday to discuss this voluntary agreement.
After California and the automakers settled this whole situation on their own, this administration responded in the petty way we’ve come to expect by investigating the automakers for voluntarily agreeing to meet higher standards."
"Meanwhile, this is just another example of the GOP fighting against the interests of just about everybody simply because they are angry at having to obey the law. They are fighting against the interests of consumers (save money on fuel), businesses (automakers’ desire for regulatory certainty), and the environment (cleaner air). All this because they don’t want California to have its legitimate, long-held authority to make the world a better place."
On Johnson's hospital visit, politicians seem to think they can turn up in hospitals, get some captive patient to say how wonderful the hospital is so the politician can make a political out of it. I imagine these people feel manipulated. Kudos therefore to the man who answered back to Johnson today.
The specific Johnson comment is that he doesn't seem to cope well with situations. A more competent politician would have said something bland and moved on.
He was ambushed by a Labour activist with a clear agenda
And lied about there being press there when the cameras were rolling !
A classic example. Libertarians think that in a ‘free market’ consumers will pick cars with good emissions if they want. Ignoring that EVERYONE is affected by air pollution and global warming. The free market will just give everyone lung cancer.
You just pull that from your own backside?
Trump is not a libertarian FWIW. Secondly there are libertarian ways to deal with negative externalities like pollution. Again libertarianism isn't anarchy.
Please do not resort to being rude.
I am being sincere here: can you educate me on these libertarian ways to deal with negative externalities?
There are libertarian arguments in favour of, for example, putting taxation on negative externalities then letting the free market deal with those. By taxing an externality the market will have an incentive to deal with the externality and the market can eliminate the externality better than a command economy picking winners can do so.
We can see this in the way for example cars have become more fuel efficient in response to fuel taxation.
Furthermore a libertarian principle is that one person should be able to do what they want, so long as they are not inflicting harm upon others. If toxins are producing harm to others then there is a libertarian argument in favour of banning those toxins just as there is a libertarian argument in favour of banning rape, abuse or murder.
People who attack libertarians tend to think libertarians believe in a zero state. That is anarchism not libertarianism.
On Johnson's hospital visit, politicians seem to think they can turn up in hospitals, get some captive patient to say how wonderful the hospital is so the politician can make a political out of it. I imagine these people feel manipulated. Kudos therefore to the man who answered back to Johnson today.
The specific Johnson comment is that he doesn't seem to cope well with situations. A more competent politician would have said something bland and moved on.
He was ambushed by a Labour activist with a clear agenda
No: Mr Johnson and his operation ambushed the gentleman with the child.
On Johnson's hospital visit, politicians seem to think they can turn up in hospitals, get some captive patient to say how wonderful the hospital is so the politician can make a political out of it. I imagine these people feel manipulated. Kudos therefore to the man who answered back to Johnson today.
The specific Johnson comment is that he doesn't seem to cope well with situations. A more competent politician would have said something bland and moved on.
He was ambushed by a Labour activist with a clear agenda
The "agenda" being his sick child. And was terrible at handling it.
If all the sharp elbowed and wealthy parents who pay for private education were using the state sector, I have no doubt that it would be better resourced on a per pupil basis than it is now.
I have a bridge for sale. Are you interested?
That's a bit of a non-sequitur, but I assume you're saying that you disagree with me.
It is a conjecture, of course, and so not possible to prove, but I would note that:
(A) countries on that are like us but don't have such large private sectors, eg Scandinavian countries, seem to have better resourced schools;
(B) parents of kids at private school seem more likely to be Tories, and spending on state schools has grown more slowly under Tory governments than under Labour ones recently;
(C) public services used by the rich, like universities, seem to be better resourced than those used disproportionately by the poor, like local council services;
(D) I have attended conferences, lunches, dinners etc where politicians meet wealthy people, and I have never heard one of the latter raise the issue of state school spending, while I have also observed that almost without fail these people educate their children privately.
What is your evidence in support of the opposite conjecture?
A classic example. Libertarians think that in a ‘free market’ consumers will pick cars with good emissions if they want. Ignoring that EVERYONE is affected by air pollution and global warming. The free market will just give everyone lung cancer.
You just pull that from your own backside?
Trump is not a libertarian FWIW. Secondly there are libertarian ways to deal with negative externalities like pollution. Again libertarianism isn't anarchy.
Please do not resort to being rude.
I am being sincere here: can you educate me on these libertarian ways to deal with negative externalities?
There are libertarian arguments in favour of, for example, putting taxation on negative externalities then letting the free market deal with those. By taxing an externality the market will have an incentive to deal with the externality and the market can eliminate the externality better than a command economy picking winners can do so.
We can see this in the way for example cars have become more fuel efficient in response to fuel taxation.
Furthermore a libertarian principle is that one person should be able to do what they want, so long as they are not inflicting harm upon others. If toxins are producing harm to others then there is a libertarian argument in favour of banning those toxins just as there is a libertarian argument in favour of banning rape, abuse or murder.
People who attack libertarians tend to think libertarians believe in a zero state. That is anarchism not libertarianism.
This all sounds quite far away from the way I've understood libertarianism. The libertarians I've met before have been quite strident in opposing exactly the kinds of things you're advocating here. And I'm quite clear that they were not anarchists. They believed in a state, but one that was *incredibly* limited in scope. Are you sure you are a libertarian?
I really can't fathom the mentality of someone who decides the create a political. 'moment' when his daughter is in a high dependency unit.
Fair enough. Let me explain it to you.
1) your daughter is extremely ill and in a high-dependency unit 2) you believe that the current government funds her care poorly 3) in walks a representative of the government 4) you get angry that he is using the visit for publicity purposes 5) he lies to your face about there being press present 6) you get angrier.
And now that you have had it explained to you, you can now fathom the mentality.
I’m not sure I like the Labour ‘abolish public schools’ policy.
I’m not sure how abolishing them will make any difference to anything. It certainly wont help the working class.
Maybe remove their tax exemption status unless they provide more paid scholarships and work in conjunction with the state sector to help raise standards all around?
It is a policy driven by class envy despite the fact our too private schools are amongst the best schools in the world, provide many scholarships and bursaries and tend to share facilities now with the local community and attract pupils from across the world
It's not class envy, it's pure self interest. If you or your kids don't go to these schools you'd self evidently be better off if they didn't exist, since their function is to provide advantage to those who attend them relative to everyone else. I wouldn't abolish them, because I believe in freedom, but I would certainly not go out of my way to make life easy for them, and I would look to ways to nullify their ability to provide advantage at the expense of others.
Not true, your kids could get a scholarship to them for example if their IQ is high enough or they have strong sporting or musical ability
Why should they need to get a scholarship? The local comp should be as good as any private school. Anyway the whole education system is being privatized in full view and nobody does anything about it.
What an absurd statement, that is like saying every shop should be Harrods and therefore we should close Harrods because it gives consumers an unfair advantage over the corner shop down the road.
The fact is even if every private school in the country closed down most parents would send their children to a grammar school or an outstanding comprehensive, free school or academy not the bog standard requires improvement or inadequate comprehensive down the road because by definition parents want the best for their children.
We need more choice in education not less
We need an education system for all not just the rich, reread your post to realize that if you sorted out the BOG STANDARD comp down the road you wouldn’t need private schools. You are displaying the views that drove me away from the conservative part forty years ago which are getting worse
Alternatively you just don't know what a libertarian is and are just tilting at windmills.
I've had libertarians try to explain it to me. I was quite interested to hear about it when I first heard about it a few years ago. I'm a liberal, and I naively thought the name is similar, perhaps this is something I can get behind. It didn't quite work out that way! My experience of reading about it has left the same impression on me. It's just a gale of naivety and self-contradiction.
Utter codswallop.
There is nothing self-contradictory about libertarianism, which is just a modern name for liberalism since liberal has been hijacked by people who can often be illiberal.
Libertarians are liberals - economically and socially. People who believe that individuals can best run their own lives without massive interference from a large state.
That doesn't mean that there should never be state interference or that the state never has to get involved. We're not anarchists.
Go on then. Give us an example of how a Liberal is illiberal and a Libertarian is not?
Freedom to oppress?
It depends how you define Liberal. Especially with a capital-L, not I never capitalised the L in my post. Interestingly the word is used very differently in the modern era in different nations, largely on a party political nature.
In the United States the term Liberal has been adopted to essentially mean Democrat and is used as a misguided insult by supporters of the GOP. In the United Kingdom it is more associated with the Liberal Democrats and their predecessors, regardless of whether their policies are liberal or not. In Australia the term Liberal is interestingly used by their equivalent of the Conservative Party.
Many so-called Liberals are not economic liberals and oppose laissez-faire which is a tenant of economic liberalism.
Are you basically saying that liberals should oppose regulation of the markets? Because if so, I would disagree entirely. Personal freedom does not come with the freedom to oppress.
We’ve had this argument before anyway so I know where this is going.
Define oppress.
Oppressing others would violate libertarian principles. Keeping someone as a slave would be very illiberal for the slave. But it depends what you mean by oppression.
A classic example. Libertarians think that in a ‘free market’ consumers will pick cars with good emissions if they want. Ignoring that EVERYONE is affected by air pollution and global warming. The free market will just give everyone lung cancer.
You just pull that from your own backside?
Trump is not a libertarian FWIW. Secondly there are libertarian ways to deal with negative externalities like pollution. Again libertarianism isn't anarchy.
Please do not resort to being rude.
I am being sincere here: can you educate me on these libertarian ways to deal with negative externalities?
There are libertarian arguments in favour of, for example, putting taxation on negative externalities then letting the free market deal with those. By taxing an externality the market will have an incentive to deal with the externality and the market can eliminate the externality better than a command economy picking winners can do so.
We can see this in the way for example cars have become more fuel efficient in response to fuel taxation.
Furthermore a libertarian principle is that one person should be able to do what they want, so long as they are not inflicting harm upon others. If toxins are producing harm to others then there is a libertarian argument in favour of banning those toxins just as there is a libertarian argument in favour of banning rape, abuse or murder.
People who attack libertarians tend to think libertarians believe in a zero state. That is anarchism not libertarianism.
Well I don’t disagree with any of that.
The issue is, how do you agree on what externalities to tax? US libertarians seem to think there are no bad externalities.
I don’t doubt it just struggling to understand the support or private schools. I’ve always believed if people wanted to educate their children away from the great unwashed that was their right, what I’ve never believed is that they should be able to buy a better education because they could afford it.
That seems contradictory. But to answer your question, getting rid of private education instantly would put a huge and conceivably fatal strain on the state sector. I'm already teaching 25% above timetable partly due to a local private school closing and us having to put on extra classes as a result of an influx of pupils. Believe me that's exhausting.
It might happen anyway due to other issues. Pensions are a massive headache given the way the government has buggered up increased employer contributions (up 48% for all employers from this month) and I know several private schools have consulted on leaving the TPS. That would also wreck our pension scheme (I can feel the private workers muttering and grumbling and saying 'so what?' but believe me it will be a killer on staff retention if the pension goes.)
So it is something I think only a total fool who doesn't know what he's talking about would propose. However, it is Corbyn so I don't know why I'm surprised.
I've just caught up with Bozo's Comical Ali turn in the hospital.
Oh what fun the upcoming general election campaign will be. We mainly thought that Boris's reluctance to campaign during the leadership race was an example of the front runner risk averse strategy. It turns out he's total crap at simple interactions with the public in any less than ideal situation.
Boris is starting to make Mrs May look like a titan in comparison.
I've just wasted a lovely sunny afternoon watching "Ad Astra". Utter crap. I muttered that phrase to myself at least seventeen times during the course of the film. I should have walked out.
On topic, is this table adjusted for false recall? I understand YG so adjust for VI questions but I don't know if they have done so here. If those Corbyn approval figures are just for the people who did actually vote Lab in 2017, it's not as bad as if it also includes those who did vote Lab but now say they didn't.
Off topic, if anyone was still wondering whether the nature of the matter the supreme court was hearing today was wholly political in nature, a quick run through Aiden O'Neil's submissions for Cherry and others should leave them in no doubt.
If all the sharp elbowed and wealthy parents who pay for private education were using the state sector, I have no doubt that it would be better resourced on a per pupil basis than it is now.
I have a bridge for sale. Are you interested?
That's a bit of a non-sequitur, but I assume you're saying that you disagree with me.
It is a conjecture, of course, and so not possible to prove, but I would note that:
(A) countries on that are like us but don't have such large private sectors, eg Scandinavian countries, seem to have better resourced schools;
(B) parents of kids at private school seem more likely to be Tories, and spending on state schools has grown more slowly under Tory governments than under Labour ones recently;
(C) public services used by the rich, like universities, seem to be better resourced than those used disproportionately by the poor, like local council services;
(D) I have attended conferences, lunches, dinners etc where politicians meet wealthy people, and I have never heard one of the latter raise the issue of state school spending, while I have also observed that almost without fail these people educate their children privately.
What is your evidence in support of the opposite conjecture?
How about that private education grew under Labour when state spending was rising?
On Johnson's hospital visit, politicians seem to think they can turn up in hospitals, get some captive patient to say how wonderful the hospital is so the politician can make a political out of it. I imagine these people feel manipulated. Kudos therefore to the man who answered back to Johnson today.
The specific Johnson comment is that he doesn't seem to cope well with situations. A more competent politician would have said something bland and moved on.
He was ambushed by a Labour activist with a clear agenda
Well that just about sums you up, beyond parody I’m afraid just think a little bit about the background to this incident.
I've just caught up with Bozo's Comical Ali turn in the hospital.
Oh what fun the upcoming general election campaign will be. We mainly thought that Boris's reluctance to campaign during the leadership race was an example of the front runner risk averse strategy. It turns out he's total crap at simple interactions with the public in any less than ideal situation.
Boris is starting to make Mrs May look like a titan in comparison.
Unusally bitchy Lord W?
I thought he did fine in hos encouter with the Labour member at hospital.
I remember when Cameron got ambushed by a Lib Dem activist with a disabled kid. People said he was terrible handling etc etc etc, but his polling went up.
I don't think in general the public take to politicians being gotcha'ed in that way or when the media door-stop them.
I've just wasted a lovely sunny afternoon watching "Ad Astra". Utter crap. I muttered that phrase to myself at least seventeen times during the course of the film. I should have walked out.
It's getting good reviews and is my type of film (languid, pretentious, austere, great FX) so I was planning to see it. What is wrong with it?
I've just wasted a lovely sunny afternoon watching "Ad Astra". Utter crap. I muttered that phrase to myself at least seventeen times during the course of the film. I should have walked out.
Never watch films that are heavily advertised.
...????!!
Yes, perhaps I should clarify that. I don't mean trailers in the cinema. I mean adverts on radio etc. I've heard a lot of adverts for Ad Chevette or Ad Zafira or whatever it's called. Based on past experience, it's probably shit then. Although I note it's gotten a 4 star review in at least one paper.
I've just caught up with Bozo's Comical Ali turn in the hospital.
Oh what fun the upcoming general election campaign will be. We mainly thought that Boris's reluctance to campaign during the leadership race was an example of the front runner risk averse strategy. It turns out he's total crap at simple interactions with the public in any less than ideal situation.
Boris is starting to make Mrs May look like a titan in comparison.
Which is a surprise really given that we all (well, apart possibly from HYUFD) expected Johnson to be pretty much as he has been on the actual governance, but we thought he would be good at connecting and campaigning.
I've just wasted a lovely sunny afternoon watching "Ad Astra". Utter crap. I muttered that phrase to myself at least seventeen times during the course of the film. I should have walked out.
I thought you had a job? Or have I got you mixed up?
I remember when Cameron got ambushed by a Lib Dem activist with a disabled kid. People said he was terrible handling etc etc etc, but his polling went up.
I don't think in general the public take to politicians being gotcha'ed in that way.
How did it work out for Farron when a Brexiter shouted nonsense at him?
I don’t doubt it just struggling to understand the support or private schools. I’ve always believed if people wanted to educate their children away from the great unwashed that was their right, what I’ve never believed is that they should be able to buy a better education because they could afford it.
That seems contradictory. But to answer your question, getting rid of private education instantly would put a huge and conceivably fatal strain on the state sector. I'm already teaching 25% above timetable partly due to a local private school closing and us having to put on extra classes as a result of an influx of pupils. Believe me that's exhausting.
It might happen anyway due to other issues. Pensions are a massive headache given the way the government has buggered up increased employer contributions (up 48% for all employers from this month) and I know several private schools have consulted on leaving the TPS. That would also wreck our pension scheme (I can feel the private workers muttering and grumbling and saying 'so what?' but believe me it will be a killer on staff retention if the pension goes.)
So it is something I think only a total fool who doesn't know what he's talking about would propose. However, it is Corbyn so I don't know why I'm surprised.
Of course I agree that you can’t just abolish private schools. I wouldn’t do it I would just try and make it a complete and utter waste of money because the state system is so good.
On topic, is this table adjusted for false recall? I understand YG so adjust for VI questions but I don't know if they have done so here. If those Corbyn approval figures are just for the people who did actually vote Lab in 2017, it's not as bad as if it also includes those who did vote Lab but now say they didn't.
Off topic, if anyone was still wondering whether the nature of the matter the supreme court was hearing today was wholly political in nature, a quick run through Aiden O'Neil's submissions for Cherry and others should leave them in no doubt.
YouGov base their 2017 General Election data on responses from members of the panel based on responses from members of the panel on the day or immediately afterwards. There is no issue with false call because they have have the data
On Johnson's hospital visit, politicians seem to think they can turn up in hospitals, get some captive patient to say how wonderful the hospital is so the politician can make a political out of it. I imagine these people feel manipulated. Kudos therefore to the man who answered back to Johnson today.
The specific Johnson comment is that he doesn't seem to cope well with situations. A more competent politician would have said something bland and moved on.
He was ambushed by a Labour activist with a clear agenda
Johnson is making a habit of being ambushed. Also by the Luxembourg prime minister. Arguably, Mr Bettel shouldn't have continued with the press conference, but I don't think he set Johnson up. Something went wrong in that meeting.
I've just caught up with Bozo's Comical Ali turn in the hospital.
Oh what fun the upcoming general election campaign will be. We mainly thought that Boris's reluctance to campaign during the leadership race was an example of the front runner risk averse strategy. It turns out he's total crap at simple interactions with the public in any less than ideal situation.
Boris is starting to make Mrs May look like a titan in comparison.
Emphasises the mistake the Opposition (particularly the Libdems) made by not agreeing to an election. He would have fallen apart.
Maybe this is how Boris is going to get round the Surrender Bill. Let the EU throw us out!
Sadly for hope of a resolution - even a bad one - they are allergic to being so definitive on this issue of course.
However it is unclear if the deadline will be backed by other European leaders, who would have to come on board with it to enable it to carry any legal weight.
Takes the sting out of a bit of posturing when it is so obvious
Given he could just decide to submit nothing and get no deal if they were serious, I wonder if they are assuming parliament will be recalled, otherwise there's no one to force Boris to speak to them before October!
I don’t doubt it just struggling to understand the support or private schools. I’ve always believed if people wanted to educate their children away from the great unwashed that was their right, what I’ve never believed is that they should be able to buy a better education because they could afford it.
That seems contradictory. But to answer your question, getting rid of private education instantly would put a huge and conceivably fatal strain on the state sector. I'm already teaching 25% above timetable partly due to a local private school closing and us having to put on extra classes as a result of an influx of pupils. Believe me that's exhausting.
It might happen anyway due to other issues. Pensions are a massive headache given the way the government has buggered up increased employer contributions (up 48% for all employers from this month) and I know several private schools have consulted on leaving the TPS. That would also wreck our pension scheme (I can feel the private workers muttering and grumbling and saying 'so what?' but believe me it will be a killer on staff retention if the pension goes.)
So it is something I think only a total fool who doesn't know what he's talking about would propose. However, it is Corbyn so I don't know why I'm surprised.
Of course I agree that you can’t just abolish private schools. I wouldn’t do it I would just try and make it a complete and utter waste of money because the state system is so good.
I don't think - no matter who gets educated there - there is any realistic way of reducing class sizes in the state sector to match that ofthe private sector. Christ Church Brecon, one example off the top of my head, has a staff-student ratio of 1:9. Round here, it's about 1:27. So instantly, a tripling of spending on staff would be needed. Plus three times as many classrooms, three times as much admin, three times as many inspections...
But let's say that it doesn't have to get to *that* level. Let's say about 1:18 is the ideal spot, the sort of ratio a mid-ranking university aims for. That would be around a 50% increase. So every year, the national education system would cost as much as the revised projected budget for HS2.
I just don't see that happening. There are other things that can be sorted out that would make it easier and would help, but unfortunately as long as parents are willing and able to pay triple or quadruple what the state sector can afford their children will have an advantage. This is despite the fact a number of private schools are actually when you burrow down to it not very good. Smaller class sizes are what give the advantage.
I remember when Cameron got ambushed by a Lib Dem activist with a disabled kid. People said he was terrible handling etc etc etc, but his polling went up.
I don't think in general the public take to politicians being gotcha'ed in that way or when the media door-stop them.
Yeah. If a leader stands there and soaks it up the public will generally be sympathetic (I mean its unreasonable to blame any PM for an individuals care falling short of expectations in the same way it would be daft to personally praise the PM if you receive good care)
What isn't a good look is the May apprach where you never actually come into contact with members of the public and you also want to avoid slagging off the person you've encountered after the event - Like when Gord met up with Mrs Duffy.
There are libertarian arguments in favour of, for example, putting taxation on negative externalities then letting the free market deal with those. By taxing an externality the market will have an incentive to deal with the externality and the market can eliminate the externality better than a command economy picking winners can do so.
We can see this in the way for example cars have become more fuel efficient in response to fuel taxation.
Furthermore a libertarian principle is that one person should be able to do what they want, so long as they are not inflicting harm upon others. If toxins are producing harm to others then there is a libertarian argument in favour of banning those toxins just as there is a libertarian argument in favour of banning rape, abuse or murder.
People who attack libertarians tend to think libertarians believe in a zero state. That is anarchism not libertarianism.
This all sounds quite far away from the way I've understood libertarianism. The libertarians I've met before have been quite strident in opposing exactly the kinds of things you're advocating here. And I'm quite clear that they were not anarchists. They believed in a state, but one that was *incredibly* limited in scope. Are you sure you are a libertarian?
Everyone will define limited in different ways. Just as not all socialists are the same, not all libertarians are the same.
Allowing market-led solutions to problems is very libertarian IMO.
Unless you are a total anarchist there must be taxation, it makes sense to me that taxation should be as low as necessary - which then means where do you put it. In my eyes putting it on externalities is the best place to put it, especially optional externalities so I can opt-out of paying taxes by not doing what has the externality.
It is a fundamental principle of economic liberalism that the market is best placed to determine prices such that both consumer surplus and producer surplus are maximised. Taxation and Tariffs change the price resulting in tax revenue but also a "deadweight loss". It makes sense to me both that what is lost should be negative externalities and that the market is best placed to fix these externalities, given the right nudge.
I've just wasted a lovely sunny afternoon watching "Ad Astra". Utter crap. I muttered that phrase to myself at least seventeen times during the course of the film. I should have walked out.
Never watch films that are heavily advertised.
...????!!
It's not that crazy an idea - you heavily promote something pretty badbecause you make most money opening weekend, and then if it is really bad and there's steep drop off because of negative word of mouth you've already made your money back. I must have seen Bad Times at the El Royale trailers a dozen times, and while it was not completely terrible it was not very good.
That one gave an example of a rule of thumb for me, which is do not trust a trailer which involves footage of the actors or director telling you how great the movie is and how much fun they had working on it. They can make great trailers out of bad movies, if they couldn't make a good trailer without splicing in the actors saying it was good, don't trust it.
Big blockbusters are an exception of course, they get hugely promoted regardless of quality. And in As Astra's case I've been to the cinema at least 20 times this year and only seen 1 trailer, so it cannot have been advertised that heavily.
On Johnson's hospital visit, politicians seem to think they can turn up in hospitals, get some captive patient to say how wonderful the hospital is so the politician can make a political out of it. I imagine these people feel manipulated. Kudos therefore to the man who answered back to Johnson today.
The specific Johnson comment is that he doesn't seem to cope well with situations. A more competent politician would have said something bland and moved on.
He was ambushed by a Labour activist with a clear agenda
Johnson is making a habit of being ambushed. Also by the Luxembourg prime minister. Arguably, Mr Bettel shouldn't have continued with the press conference, but I don't think he set Johnson up. Something went wrong in that meeting.
The problem was that Johnson was told where the press conference was scheduled to take place three hours before hand. It was pointed out that their were quite a few demonstrators outside by U.K. journalists, it was not until minutes beforehand he decided he wanted another venue when it was impossible to accommodate the journalists. Anyway he should have just gone out and faced them down, he must realize that it is now far more likely that there will now be organized anti Johnson protests wherever he goes.
I remember when Cameron got ambushed by a Lib Dem activist with a disabled kid. People said he was terrible handling etc etc etc, but his polling went up.
I don't think in general the public take to politicians being gotcha'ed in that way or when the media door-stop them.
Yeah. If a leader stands there and soaks it up the public will generally be sympathetic (I mean its unreasonable to blame any PM for an individuals care falling short of expectations in the same way it would be daft to personally praise the PM if you receive good care)
What isn't a good look is the May apprach where you never actually come into contact with members of the public and you also want to avoid slagging off the person you've encountered after the event - Like when Gord met up with Mrs Duffy.
To be fair, they've responded quite well for once (unlike their Twitter cheerleaders):
I don’t doubt it just struggling to understand the support or private schools. I’ve always believed if people wanted to educate their children away from the great unwashed that was their right, what I’ve never believed is that they should be able to buy a better education because they could afford it.
That seems contradictory. But to answer your question, getting rid of private education instantly would put a huge and conceivably fatal strain on the state sector. I'm already teaching 25% above timetable partly due to a local private school closing and us having to put on extra classes as a result of an influx of pupils. Believe me that's exhausting.
It might happen anyway due to other issues. Pensions are a massive headache given the way the government has buggered up increased employer contributions (up 48% for all employers from this month) and I know several private schools have consulted on leaving the TPS. That would also wreck our pension scheme (I can feel the private workers muttering and grumbling and saying 'so what?' but believe me it will be a killer on staff retention if the pension goes.)
So it is something I think only a total fool who doesn't know what he's talking about would propose. However, it is Corbyn so I don't know why I'm surprised.
Of course I agree that you can’t just abolish private schools. I wouldn’t do it I would just try and make it a complete and utter waste of money because the state system is so good.
I don't think - no matter who gets educated there - there is any realistic way of reducing class sizes in the state sector to match that ofthe private sector. Christ Church Brecon, one example off the top of my head, has a staff-student ratio of 1:9. Round here, it's about 1:27. So instantly, a tripling of spending on staff would be needed. Plus three times as many classrooms, three times as much admin, three times as many inspections...
But let's say that it doesn't have to get to *that* level. Let's say about 1:18 is the ideal spot, the sort of ratio a mid-ranking university aims for. That would be around a 50% increase. So every year, the national education system would cost as much as the revised projected budget for HS2.
I just don't see that happening. There are other things that can be sorted out that would make it easier and would help, but unfortunately as long as parents are willing and able to pay triple or quadruple what the state sector can afford their children will have an advantage. This is despite the fact a number of private schools are actually when you burrow down to it not very good. Smaller class sizes are what give the advantage.
It’s when they then vote for lower taxes to help them pay their schools fees that I get pissed off about
I remember when Cameron got ambushed by a Lib Dem activist with a disabled kid. People said he was terrible handling etc etc etc, but his polling went up.
I don't think in general the public take to politicians being gotcha'ed in that way or when the media door-stop them.
Yeah. If a leader stands there and soaks it up the public will generally be sympathetic (I mean its unreasonable to blame any PM for an individuals care falling short of expectations in the same way it would be daft to personally praise the PM if you receive good care)
What isn't a good look is the May apprach where you never actually come into contact with members of the public and you also want to avoid slagging off the person you've encountered after the event - Like when Gord met up with Mrs Duffy.
To be fair, they've responded quite well for once (unlike their Twitter cheerleaders):
Which has its own effect of course. Incidents like this or Duffy or whatever, even if the politician handles it well or at least not terribly, their supporters will be a lot louder and in so doing make people think that;s what the politician thinks. It's like all those fervent Corbynistas who think all the anti-semitism complaints are just whipped up smears, so even though he has said he doesn't think that, people will assume he does.
I remember when Cameron got ambushed by a Lib Dem activist with a disabled kid. People said he was terrible handling etc etc etc, but his polling went up.
I don't think in general the public take to politicians being gotcha'ed in that way or when the media door-stop them.
Yeah. If a leader stands there and soaks it up the public will generally be sympathetic (I mean its unreasonable to blame any PM for an individuals care falling short of expectations in the same way it would be daft to personally praise the PM if you receive good care)
What isn't a good look is the May apprach where you never actually come into contact with members of the public and you also want to avoid slagging off the person you've encountered after the event - Like when Gord met up with Mrs Duffy.
To be fair, they've responded quite well for once (unlike their Twitter cheerleaders):
twitter.com/paulwaugh/status/1174359315387486209
#10 PR game seems to have got a bit better than under May. That is the absolutely correct response.
It’s when they then vote for lower taxes to help them pay their schools fees that I get pissed off about
I just can't help but feel even if that's true - which we don't know it is - that under those circumstances they'd still vote for lower taxes so they could afford private tutors. Meanwhile, the increased numbers in the state sector with scarce resources not increasing would stymie further those who are struggling to access education.
I remember when Cameron got ambushed by a Lib Dem activist with a disabled kid. People said he was terrible handling etc etc etc, but his polling went up.
I don't think in general the public take to politicians being gotcha'ed in that way or when the media door-stop them.
Yeah. If a leader stands there and soaks it up the public will generally be sympathetic (I mean its unreasonable to blame any PM for an individuals care falling short of expectations in the same way it would be daft to personally praise the PM if you receive good care)
What isn't a good look is the May apprach where you never actually come into contact with members of the public and you also want to avoid slagging off the person you've encountered after the event - Like when Gord met up with Mrs Duffy.
To be fair, they've responded quite well for once (unlike their Twitter cheerleaders):
twitter.com/paulwaugh/status/1174359315387486209
#10 PR game seems to have got a bit better than under May. That is the absolutely correct response.
It's not always better. Their sending out Kwarteng to criticise the judges, among other sources, then say that is not their view, was not well handled.
He was ambushed by a Labour activist with a clear agenda
Isn't handling Labour activists with an agenda what Conservative PMs are paid to do? Especially on predictable points like "you're destroying the NHS"?
At the last GE, I watched Cameron's utterly inept successor as my MP handling these questions marginally better than Johnson. Even diehard Tory loyalists (only two years ago such people still existed) cringed at his awfulness. And our tenth-rater hadn't been president of the Oxford Union, or touted as the Great Communicator.
Apart from what we all knew about him anyway, Johnson's clearly not well. He's manifestly not a man we want with his finger on our nuclear button, or to urge caution on Trump over Iran. Whatever your views on Brexit, the Tories have to find a PM in reasonable mental shape.
This is no time to trust our government to a reincarnated George III
I’m not sure I like the Labour ‘abolish public schools’ policy.
It is a policy driven by class envy despite the fact our too private schools are amongst the best schools in the world, provide many scholarships and bursaries and tend to share facilities now with the local community and attract pupils from across the world
It's not class envy, it's pure self interest. If you or your kids don't go to these schools you'd self evidently be better off if they didn't exist, since their function is to provide advantage to those who attend them relative to everyone else. I wouldn't abolish them, because I believe in freedom, but I would certainly not go out of my way to make life easy for them, and I would look to ways to nullify their ability to provide advantage at the expense of others.
Not true, your kids could get a scholarship to them for example if their IQ is high enough or they have strong sporting or musical ability
Why should they need to get a scholarship? The local comp should be as good as any private school. Anyway the whole education system is being privatized in full view and nobody does anything about it.
What an absurd statement, that is like saying every shop should be Harrods and therefore we should close Harrods because it gives consumers an unfair advantage over the corner shop down the road.
The fact is even if every private school in the country closed down most parents would send their children to a grammar school or an outstanding comprehensive, free school or academy not the bog standard requires improvement or inadequate comprehensive down the road because by definition parents want the best for their children.
We need more choice in education not less
You don't really mean for the poorest in society to have any choice at all though do you? In all those towns across the UK with just one secondary state school, the majority of people have no choice at all, and never will - their kids have to go to that one school. What they need is for that school to be well-run and well-funded.
Government should take the following steps to level the playing field imo:
1. VAT on private scool fees - money raised to go to increase state education spending per pupil. 2. Remove charitable status from private schools - it's a sham. 3. Limit UK universities' private school intake percentage to the actual proportion of pupils in private education (7% atm, I believe). Introduce this gradually over 5 years to avoid unduly penalising parents who believed their private school fees were buying a better chance of a top universit place.
On Johnson's hospital visit, politicians seem to think they can turn up in hospitals, get some captive patient to say how wonderful the hospital is so the politician can make a political out of it. I imagine these people feel manipulated. Kudos therefore to the man who answered back to Johnson today.
The specific Johnson comment is that he doesn't seem to cope well with situations. A more competent politician would have said something bland and moved on.
He was ambushed by a Labour activist with a clear agenda
Even Labour activists have sick children and are allowed an opinion. And he was right about the press.
I've just caught up with Bozo's Comical Ali turn in the hospital.
Oh what fun the upcoming general election campaign will be. We mainly thought that Boris's reluctance to campaign during the leadership race was an example of the front runner risk averse strategy. It turns out he's total crap at simple interactions with the public in any less than ideal situation.
Boris is starting to make Mrs May look like a titan in comparison.
BJ is cringe worthy - when the crowds start chanting 'hey BJ how many NHS patents has Brexit killed today'. That will be interesting!
Just watching (briefly) this UK withdrawal from the EU debate in the European Parliament from Strasbourg earlier today on BBC Parliament.
Most of the contributions are from British MEPs who are just hurling vitriol at each other. The most rational contributions, surprisingly including respecting the vote, were from other non-British European MEPs.
It wouldn't surprise me if they'd be pleased to get shot of us. They just want a new practical deal for the long term.
Maybe this is how Boris is going to get round the Surrender Bill. Let the EU throw us out!
Veni, veni Emmanuel.
Let's see.. my take on it would be "if you want a *deal* by Oct 31, get your act together by Sep 30".
Despite the wishful thinking from the Mail, I'm not sure that logic stretches to no extension either, especially if BJ gets VONCd and Corbyn/Harman/Clarke/Swinson/Bercow/The Queen/Dangermouse is activated to request one.
I’m not sure I like the Labour ‘abolish public schools’ policy.
It is a policy driven by class envy despite the fact our too private schools are amongst the best schools in the world, provide many scholarships and bursaries and tend to share facilities now with the local community and attract pupils from across the world
It's not class envy, it's pure self interest. If you or your kids don't go to these schools you'd self evidently be better off if they didn't exist, since their function is to provide advantage to those who attend them relative to everyone else. I wouldn't abolish them, because I believe in freedom, but I would certainly not go out of my way to make life easy for them, and I would look to ways to nullify their ability to provide advantage at the expense of others.
Not true, your kids could get a scholarship to them for example if their IQ is high enough or they have strong sporting or musical ability
Why should they need to get a scholarship? The local comp should be as good as any private school. Anyway the whole education system is being privatized in full view and nobody does anything about it.
What an absurd statement, that is like saying every shop should be Harrods and therefore we should close Harrods because it gives consumers an unfair advantage over the corner shop down the road.
The fact is even if every private school in the country closed down most parents would send their children to a grammar school or an outstanding comprehensive, free school or academy not the bog standard requires improvement or inadequate comprehensive down the road because by definition parents want the best for their children.
We need more choice in education not less
You don't really mean for the poorest in society to have any choice at all though do you? In all those towns across the UK with just one secondary state school, the majority of people have no choice at all, and never will - their kids have to go to that one school. What they need is for that school to be well-run and well-funded.
Government should take the following steps to level the playing field imo:
1. VAT on private scool fees - money raised to go to increase state education spending per pupil.
(Sighs) But as I have repeatedly pointed out, that would bankrupt state education by closing most private schools. So it would raise next to no money, if any at all, and throw a huge strain on the state sector it's quite unfit to cope with.
Ydoethur after 15 years as a school governor vice chairman of both a large comprehensive and also a large junior school from 83 to 98 I saw how difficult it was to make ends meet. I’m horrified by multi academy trusts and the pressures that teachers are under, my daughter has just got a PGCE after having to abandon local journalism to find a sustainable career but I will always defend the state system after all all three of my daughters have multiple degree level qualifications despite being state educated. It should just be more consistent all round.
Ydoethur after 15 years as a school governor vice chairman of both a large comprehensive and also a large junior school from 83 to 98 I saw how difficult it was to make ends meet. I’m horrified by multi academy trusts and the pressures that teachers are under, my daughter has just got a PGCE after having to abandon local journalism to find a sustainable career but I will always defend the state system after all all three of my daughters have multiple degree level qualifications despite being state educated. It should just be more consistent all round.
Agreed. But what's being proposed would make matters far worse.
It's not class envy, it's pure self interest. If you or your kids don't go to these schools you'd self evidently be better off if they didn't exist, since their function is to provide advantage to those who attend them relative to everyone else. I wouldn't abolish them, because I believe in freedom, but I would certainly not go out of my way to make life easy for them, and I would look to ways to nullify their ability to provide advantage at the expense of others.
Not true, your kids could get a scholarship to them for example if their IQ is high enough or they have strong sporting or musical ability
Why should they need to get a scholarship? The local comp should be as good as any private school. Anyway the whole education system is being privatized in full view and nobody does anything about it.
What an absurd statement, that is like saying every shop should be Harrods and therefore we should close Harrods because it gives consumers an unfair advantage over the corner shop down the road.
The fact is even if every private school in the country closed down most parents would send their children to a grammar school or an outstanding comprehensive, free school or academy not the bog standard requires improvement or inadequate comprehensive down the road because by definition parents want the best for their children.
We need more choice in education not less
You don't really mean for the poorest in society to have any choice at all though do you? In all those towns across the UK with just one secondary state school, the majority of people have no choice at all, and never will - their kids have to go to that one school. What they need is for that school to be well-run and well-funded.
Government should take the following steps to level the playing field imo:
1. VAT on private scool fees - money raised to go to increase state education spending per pupil. 2. Remove charitable status from private schools - it's a sham. 3. Limit UK universities' private school intake percentage to the actual proportion of pupils in private education (7% atm, I believe). Introduce this gradually over 5 years to avoid unduly penalising parents who believed their private school fees were buying a better chance of a top universit place.
Should we also limit the proportion of people in university by skin colour? How about eye colour? Or is there something especially abhorrent about having a public school education foist upon you by your parents that requires government to intervene?
I remember when Cameron got ambushed by a Lib Dem activist with a disabled kid. People said he was terrible handling etc etc etc, but his polling went up.
I don't think in general the public take to politicians being gotcha'ed in that way or when the media door-stop them.
Two comments.
First I suspect Cameron handled the situation vastly better than Johnson.
Secondly, hospitals are closed and quite sensitive environments. It's intrusive of politicians to call in with press to burnish their political credentials. Inmates likely feel manipulated when dragged into this propaganda effort. Kudos therefore to the gentleman today for pushing back. This isn't a Johnson specific issue, but calling this situation an ambush is massively inaccurate in my view. Who's ambushing whom? Did the parent of the child lure Johnson into the hospital, along with his entourage of people apparently only pretending to be TV crews and press?
It's not class envy, it's pure self interest. If you or your kids don't go to these schools you'd self evidently be better off if they didn't exist, since their function is to provide advantage to those who attend them relative to everyone else. I wouldn't abolish them, because I believe in freedom, but I would certainly not go out of my way to make life easy for them, and I would look to ways to nullify their ability to provide advantage at the expense of others.
Not true, your kids could get a scholarship to them for example if their IQ is high enough or they have strong sporting or musical ability
Why should they need to get a scholarship? The local comp should be as good as any private school. Anyway the whole education system is being privatized in full view and nobody does anything about it.
What an absurd statement, that is like saying every shop should be Harrods and therefore we should close Harrods because it gives consumers an unfair advantage over the corner shop down the road.
The fact is even if every private school in the country closed down most parents would send their children to a grammar school or an outstanding comprehensive, free school or academy not the bog standard requires improvement or inadequate comprehensive down the road because by definition parents want the best for their children.
We need more choice in education not less
You don't really mean for the poorest in society to have any choice at all though do you? In all those towns across the UK with just one secondary state school, the majority of people have no choice at all, and never will - their kids have to go to that one school. What they need is for that school to be well-run and well-funded.
Government should take the following steps to level the playing field imo:
1. VAT on private scool fees - money raised to go to increase state education spending per pupil. 2. Remove charitable status from private schools - it's a sham. 3. Limit UK universities' private school intake percentage to the actual proportion of pupils in private education (7% atm, I believe). Introduce this gradually over 5 years to avoid unduly penalising parents who believed their private school fees were buying a better chance of a top universit place.
Should we also limit the proportion of people in university by skin colour? How about eye colour? Or is there something especially abhorrent about having a public school education foist upon you by your parents that requires government to intervene?
Incidentally it's 7% overall in private education but it's nearly one in five a-level students.
It's not class envy, it's pure self interest. If you or your kids don't go to these schools you'd self evidently be better off if they didn't exist, since their function is to provide advantage to those who attend them relative to everyone else. I wouldn't abolish them, because I believe in freedom, but I would certainly not go out of my way to make life easy for them, and I would look to ways to nullify their ability to provide advantage at the expense of others.
Not true, your kids could get a scholarship to them for example if their IQ is high enough or they have strong sporting or musical ability
Why should they need to get a scholarship? The local comp should be as good as any private school. Anyway the whole education system is being privatized in full view and nobody does anything about it.
What an absurd statement, that is like saying every shop should be Harrods and therefore we should close Harrods because it gives consumers an unfair advantage over the corner shop down the road.
The fact is even if every private school in the country closed down most parents would send their children to a grammar school or an outstanding comprehensive, free school or academy not the bog standard requires improvement or inadequate comprehensive down the road because by definition parents want the best for their children.
We need more choice in education not less
You don't really mean for the poorest in society to have any choice at all though do you? In all those towns across the UK with just one secondary state school, the majority of people have no choice at all, and never will - their kids have to go to that one school. What they need is for that school to be well-run and well-funded.
Government should take the following steps to level the playing field imo:
1. VAT on private scool fees - money raised to go to increase state education spending per pupil. 2. Remove charitable status from private schools - it's a sham. 3. Limit UK universities' private school intake percentage to the actual proportion of pupils in private education (7% atm, I believe). Introduce this gradually over 5 years to avoid unduly penalising parents who believed their private school fees were buying a better chance of a top universit place.
Should we also limit the proportion of people in university by skin colour? How about eye colour? Or is there something especially abhorrent about having a public school education foist upon you by your parents that requires government to intervene?
If there was no significant advantage parents would soon stop 'foisting' private education on their children.
It's not class envy, it's pure self interest. If you or your kids don't go to these schools you'd self evidently be better off if they didn't exist, since their function is to provide advantage to those who attend them relative to everyone else. I wouldn't abolish them, because I believe in freedom, but I would certainly not go out of my way to make life easy for them, and I would look to ways to nullify their ability to provide advantage at the expense of others.
Not true, your kids could get a scholarship to them for example if their IQ is high enough or they have strong sporting or musical ability
Why should they need to get a scholarship? The local comp should be as good as any private school. Anyway the whole education system is being privatized in full view and nobody does anything about it.
What an absurd statement, that is like saying every shop should be Harrods and therefore we should close Harrods because it gives consumers an unfair advantage over the corner shop down the road.
The fact is even if every private school in the country closed down most parents would send their children to a grammar school or an outstanding comprehensive, free school or academy not the bog standard requires improvement or inadequate comprehensive down the road because by definition parents want the best for their children.
We need more choice in education not less
You don't really mean for the poorest in society to have any choice at all though do you? In all those towns across the UK with just one secondary state school, the majority of people have no choice at all, and never will - their kids have to go to that one school. What they need is for that school to be well-run and well-funded.
Government should take the following steps to level the playing field imo:
1. VAT on private scool fees - money raised to go to increase state education spending per pupil.
(Sighs) But as I have repeatedly pointed out, that would bankrupt state education by closing most private schools. So it would raise next to no money, if any at all, and throw a huge strain on the state sector it's quite unfit to cope with.
Bring back the grant maintained schools scheme. Allow local authorities to go into partnership with local private schools. Oxbridge used to be dominated by intake from grammar and grant maintained schools. Do it again. Just don't dumb down the university intake standards
I’m not sure I like the Labour ‘abolish public schools’ policy.
I’m not sure how abolishing them will make any difference to anything. It certainly wont help the working class.
Maybe remove their tax exemption status unless they provide more paid scholarships and work in conjunction with the state sector to help raise standards all around?
It is a policy driven by class envy despite the fact our too private schools are amongst the best schools in the world, provide many scholarships and bursaries and tend to share facilities now with the local community and attract pupils from across the world
It's not class envy, it's pure self interest. If you or your kids don't go to these schools you'd self evidently be better off if they didn't exist, since their function is to provide advantage to those who attend them relative to everyone else. I wouldn't abolish them, because I believe in freedom, but I would certainly not go out of my way to make life easy for them, and I would look to ways to nullify their ability to provide advantage at the expense of others.
Not true, your kids could get a scholarship to them for example if their IQ is high enough or they have strong sporting or musical ability
Why should they need to get a scholarship? The local comp should be as good as any private school. Anyway the whole education system is being privatized in full view and nobody does anything about it.
What an absurd statement, that is like saying every shop should be Harrods and therefore we should close Harrods because it gives consumers an unfair advantage over the corner shop down the road.
The fact is even if every private school in the country closed down most parents would send their children to a grammar school or an outstanding comprehensive, free school or academy not the bog standard requires improvement or inadequate comprehensive down the road because by definition parents want the best for their children.
We need more choice in education not less
There's a world of difference between luxury consumer products and education. Education is both a right and an obligation.
A £15 tin of boiled sweets is a want, not a need and not a duty.
There is nothing wrong with first class educational establishments, just the hard left destroying excellence as usual
It's not class envy, it's pure self interest. If you or your kids don't go to these schools you'd self evidently be better off if they didn't exist, since their function is to provide advantage to those who attend them relative to everyone else. I wouldn't abolish them, because I believe in freedom, but I would certainly not go out of my way to make life easy for them, and I would look to ways to nullify their ability to provide advantage at the expense of others.
Not true, your kids could get a scholarship to them for example if their IQ is high enough or they have strong sporting or musical ability
Why should they need to get a scholarship? The local comp should be as good as any private school. Anyway the whole education system is being privatized in full view and nobody does anything about it.
What an absurd statement, that is like saying every shop should be Harrods and therefore we should close Harrods because it gives consumers an unfair advantage over the corner shop down the road.
The fact is even if every private school in the country closed down most parents would send their children to a grammar school or an outstanding comprehensive, free school or academy not the bog standard requires improvement or inadequate comprehensive down the road because by definition parents want the best for their children.
We need more choice in education not less
You don't really mean for the poorest in society to have any choice at all though do you? In all those towns across the UK with just one secondary state school, the majority of people have no choice at all, and never will - their kids have to go to that one school. What they need is for that school to be well-run and well-funded.
Government should take the following steps to level the playing field imo:
1. VAT on private scool fees - money raised to go to increase state education spending per pupil.
(Sighs) But as I have repeatedly pointed out, that would bankrupt state education by closing most private schools. So it would raise next to no money, if any at all, and throw a huge strain on the state sector it's quite unfit to cope with.
Bring back the grant maintained schools scheme. Allow local authorities to go into partnership with local private schools. Oxbridge used to be dominated by intake from grammar and grant maintained schools. Do it again. Just don't dumb down the university intake standards
Do you mean 'direct grant?' Grant maintained was 'opting out' of LEA control under Major.
Now direct grant really was a state subsidy to private schools...
I remember when Cameron got ambushed by a Lib Dem activist with a disabled kid. People said he was terrible handling etc etc etc, but his polling went up.
I don't think in general the public take to politicians being gotcha'ed in that way or when the media door-stop them.
Yeah. If a leader stands there and soaks it up the public will generally be sympathetic (I mean its unreasonable to blame any PM for an individuals care falling short of expectations in the same way it would be daft to personally praise the PM if you receive good care)
What isn't a good look is the May apprach where you never actually come into contact with members of the public and you also want to avoid slagging off the person you've encountered after the event - Like when Gord met up with Mrs Duffy.
On Johnson's hospital visit, politicians seem to think they can turn up in hospitals, get some captive patient to say how wonderful the hospital is so the politician can make a political out of it. I imagine these people feel manipulated. Kudos therefore to the man who answered back to Johnson today.
The specific Johnson comment is that he doesn't seem to cope well with situations. A more competent politician would have said something bland and moved on.
He was ambushed by a Labour activist with a clear agenda
Well that just about sums you up, beyond parody I’m afraid just think a little bit about the background to this incident.
Of course I agree that you can’t just abolish private schools. I wouldn’t do it I would just try and make it a complete and utter waste of money because the state system is so good.
I don't think - no matter who gets educated there - there is any realistic way of reducing class sizes in the state sector to match that ofthe private sector. Christ Church Brecon, one example off the top of my head, has a staff-student ratio of 1:9. Round here, it's about 1:27. So instantly, a tripling of spending on staff would be needed. Plus three times as many classrooms, three times as much admin, three times as many inspections...
But let's say that it doesn't have to get to *that* level. Let's say about 1:18 is the ideal spot, the sort of ratio a mid-ranking university aims for. That would be around a 50% increase. So every year, the national education system would cost as much as the revised projected budget for HS2.
I just don't see that happening. There are other things that can be sorted out that would make it easier and would help, but unfortunately as long as parents are willing and able to pay triple or quadruple what the state sector can afford their children will have an advantage. This is despite the fact a number of private schools are actually when you burrow down to it not very good. Smaller class sizes are what give the advantage.
Are you mixing class size and staff:pupil ratio there?
My kids' ("bog standard") comp has 46 teaching staff for 700 kids which is c1:15. Of course, class sizes are more than that (I guess similar to your 27) because of varying subject choices, non-contact time etc etc.
No problem if you're comparing the same figure for both (ie class sizes of 9) of course
I am subsidising state schools thro my personal taxes
What does that even mean?
Are you also ‘subsidising’ the military?
Well, yes, as taxpayers we do subsidise the military.
But taxpayers do not 'subsidise' private schools. It is dishonest to say they do - the worst form of Campbellite spin. And ironically, by diverting attention away from the real issues private education raises and discrediting the people who use it, it weakens their argument for change.
I agree that it is a waste of energy. However ‘subsidise’ is not the right word. The whole point of taxation is that it is more efficient for us, as a society, to fund things that benefit society as a whole, with those with greater means contributing more. This is not subsidy, this is just taxation. Otherwise you get into the realms of people who don’t drive whinging about subsidising roads despite buying goods that are delivered by road. Those who whinge about subsiding healthcare despite relying on people who would be dead without the NHS.
The list goes on.
You can talk about the ‘politics of envy’ but that goes both ways. The ‘politics of resentment’ is just as bad.
Perhaps we should all start a list of things that our taxes DO actually go on that people resent paying for.
I wonder how high up the list @Sunil_Prasannan's one man crusade to travel every yard of railway line in the UK would feature?
I’m not sure I like the Labour ‘abolish public schools’ policy.
I’m not sure how abolishing them will make any difference to anything. It certainly wont help the working class.
Maybe remove their tax exemption status unless they provide more paid scholarships and work in conjunction with the state sector to help raise standards all around?
It is a policy driven by class envy despite the fact our too private schools are amongst the best schools in the world, provide many scholarships and bursaries and tend to share facilities now with the local community and attract pupils from across the world
It's not class envy, it's pure self interest. If you or your kids don't go to these schools you'd self evidently be better off if they didn't exist, since their function is to provide advantage to those who attend them relative to everyone else. I wouldn't abolish them, because I believe in freedom, but I would certainly not go out of my way to make life easy for them, and I would look to ways to nullify their ability to provide advantage at the expense of others.
Not true, your kids could get a scholarship to them for example if their IQ is high enough or they have strong sporting or musical ability
Why should they need to get a scholarship? The local comp should be as good as any private school. Anyway the whole education system is being privatized in full view and nobody does anything about it.
What an absurd statement, that is like saying every shop should be Harrods and therefore we should close Harrods because it gives consumers an unfair advantage over the corner shop down the road.
The fact is even if every private school in the country closed down most parents would send their children to a grammar school or an outstanding comprehensive, free school or academy not the bog standard requires improvement or inadequate comprehensive down the road because by definition parents want the best for their children.
We need more choice in education not less
Do you think more choice in education will improve the education of the poorest and most disadvantaged children, or just the middle classes?
It will improve education across the board, currently the poor tend to be trapped in the lowest quality schools while the middle classes choose the best catchment area
Not true, your kids could get a scholarship to them for example if their IQ is high enough or they have strong sporting or musical ability
Why should they need to get a scholarship? The local comp should be as good as any private school. Anyway the whole education system is being privatized in full view and nobody does anything about it.
What an absurd statement, that is like saying every shop should be Harrods and therefore we should close Harrods because it gives consumers an unfair advantage over the corner shop down the road.
The fact is even if every private school in the country closed down most parents would send their children to a grammar school or an outstanding comprehensive, free school or academy not the bog standard requires improvement or inadequate comprehensive down the road because by definition parents want the best for their children.
We need more choice in education not less
You don't really mean for the poorest in society to have any choice at all though do you? In all those towns across the UK with just one secondary state school, the majority of people have no choice at all, and never will - their kids have to go to that one school. What they need is for that school to be well-run and well-funded.
Government should take the following steps to level the playing field imo:
1. VAT on private scool fees - money raised to go to increase state education spending per pupil. 2. Remove charitable status from private schools - it's a sham. 3. Limit UK universities' private school intake percentage to the actual proportion of pupils in private education (7% atm, I believe). Introduce this gradually over 5 years to avoid unduly penalising parents who believed their private school fees were buying a better chance of a top universit place.
Should we also limit the proportion of people in university by skin colour? How about eye colour? Or is there something especially abhorrent about having a public school education foist upon you by your parents that requires government to intervene?
If there was no significant advantage parents would soon stop 'foisting' private education on their children.
You seem to have missed the point.
Discriminating against children and denying them a further education for something they didn't choose and had no say in is incredibly cruel and demonstrates your utter lack of empathy.
Unless you are a fan of the concept of original sin I cannot fathom why you would want to punish a child for decisions made by their parents.
On Johnson's hospital visit, politicians seem to think they can turn up in hospitals, get some captive patient to say how wonderful the hospital is so the politician can make a political out of it. I imagine these people feel manipulated. Kudos therefore to the man who answered back to Johnson today.
The specific Johnson comment is that he doesn't seem to cope well with situations. A more competent politician would have said something bland and moved on.
He was ambushed by a Labour activist with a clear agenda
Well that just about sums you up, beyond parody I’m afraid just think a little bit about the background to this incident.
I am subsidising state schools thro my personal taxes
What does that even mean?
Are you also ‘subsidising’ the military?
Well, yes, as taxpayers we do subsidise the military.
But taxpayers do not 'subsidise' private schools. It is dishonest to say they do - the worst form of Campbellite spin. And ironically, by diverting attention away from the real issues private education raises and discrediting the people who use it, it weakens their argument for change.
I agree that it is a waste of energy. However ‘subsidise’ is not the right word. The whole point of taxation is that it is more efficient for us, as a society, to fund things that benefit society as a whole, with those with greater means contributing more. This is not subsidy, this is just taxation. Otherwise you get into the realms of people who don’t drive whinging about subsidising roads despite buying goods that are delivered by road. Those who whinge about subsiding healthcare despite relying on people who would be dead without the NHS.
The list goes on.
You can talk about the ‘politics of envy’ but that goes both ways. The ‘politics of resentment’ is just as bad.
Perhaps we should all start a list of things that our taxes DO actually go on that people resent paying for.
I wonder how high up the list @Sunil_Prasannan's one man crusade to travel every yard of railway line in the UK would feature?
Not true, your kids could get a scholarship to them for example if their IQ is high enough or they have strong sporting or musical ability
Why should they need to get a scholarship? The local comp should be as good as any private school. Anyway the whole education system is being privatized in full view and nobody does anything about it.
What an absurd statement, that is like saying every shop should be Harrods and therefore we should close Harrods because it gives consumers an unfair advantage over the corner shop down the road.
The fact is even if every private school in the country closed down most parents would send their children to a grammar school or an outstanding comprehensive, free school or academy not the bog standard requires improvement or inadequate comprehensive down the road because by definition parents want the best for their children.
We need more choice in education not less
You don't really mean for the poorest in society to have any choice at all though do you? In all those towns across the UK with just one secondary state school, the majority of people have no choice at all, and never will - their kids have to go to that one school. What they need is for that school to be well-run and well-funded.
Government should take the following steps to level the playing field imo:
1. VAT on private scool fees - money raised to go to increase state education spending per pupil.
(Sighs) But as I have repeatedly pointed out, that would bankrupt state education by closing most private schools. So it would raise next to no money, if any at all, and throw a huge strain on the state sector it's quite unfit to cope with.
The simple fact is that the tax relief I receive on my son’s education and his school being recognised as a charity is materially less than the cost of him being educated in the state sector which is being saved. The net effect of private education is that more money is spent on education than would otherwise be the case. That is a good thing.
There are other arguments against private education. It creates an elite, it consolidates divisions in society, it means children are not getting an equal chance. But the economic argument based on tax relief is the weakest argument that there is.
I’m not sure I like the Labour ‘abolish public schools’ policy.
I’m not sure how abolishing them will make any difference to anything. It certainly wont help the working class.
Maybe remove their tax exemption status unless they provide more paid scholarships and work in conjunction with the state sector to help raise standards all around?
It is a policy driven by class envy despite the fact our too private schools are amongst the best schools in the world, provide many scholarships and bursaries and tend to share facilities now with the local community and attract pupils from across the world
It's not class envy, it's pure self interest. If you or your kids don't go to these schools you'd self evidently be better off if they didn't exist, dvantage at the expense of others.
Not true, your kids could get a scholarship to them for example if their IQ is high enough or they have strong sporting or musical ability
Why should they need to get a scholarship? The local comp should be as good as any private school. Anyway the whole education system is being privatized in full view and nobody does anything about it.
What an absurd statement, that is like saying every shop should be Harrods and therefore we should close Harrods because it gives consumers an unfair advantage over the corner shop down the road.
The fact is even if every private school in the country closed down most parents would send their children to a grammar school or an outstanding comprehensive, free school or academy not the bog standard requires improvement or inadequate comprehensive down the road because by definition parents want the best for their children.
We need more choice in education not less
We need an education system for all not just the rich, reread your post to realize that if you sorted out the BOG STANDARD comp down the road you wouldn’t need private schools. You are displaying the views that drove me away from the conservative part forty years ago which are getting worse
You were obviously never a proper conservative anyway but an ideological left winger determined to do down excellence and drag everything down to the lowest common denominator.
You sort out the bog standard comp by forcing it to compete with better schools and raise its game and giving parents choice, not by attacking better schools
Comments
I am being sincere here: can you educate me on these libertarian ways to deal with negative externalities?
The fact is even if every private school in the country closed down most parents would send their children to a grammar school or an outstanding comprehensive, free school or academy not the bog standard requires improvement or inadequate comprehensive down the road because by definition parents want the best for their children.
We need more choice in education not less
I have to admit though, I was going a bit far with that last subclause and I apologise. You spell far too well to be a Principal Examiner for AQA.
Should there be state funding schools? State funded healthcare? Child protection services? Elderly care? State pensions? State housing?
Should roads be fixed by councils? If I'm playing loud music at night, is there someone my neighbours can call about it? Should my local shop be allowed to sell alcohol to 15 year olds? Can I build a house in the middle of the local nature reserve? Can I burn tyres in a school playground just for fun?
(Couldn't resist and apologies etc)
I'll get my cape .....
Libertarian - the belief that people should be free to think and behave as they want and should not have limits put on them by governments
Liberal - believing in or allowing a lot of personal freedom, and believing that society should change gradually so that money, property, and power are shared more fairly
Chalk and cheese IMNSHO
Most of the problems are sufficiently complex and deep rooted however that that's only part of the solution. Appalling mismanagement by LEAs, DfE, OFSTED and Ofqual are also big problems. One of the reasons I was foolish enough to be keen on Gove at the start was that he said he would take that lot on. But unfortunately he sold out to them and went after teachers instead. Easier to criticise people you don't have to work with on a daily basis, maybe?
If you wanted a fuller answer, give me nine months and I'll send you the book.
If they pay me enough in severance I'll be very happy with that solution!
Education is both a right and an obligation.
A £15 tin of boiled sweets is a want, not a need and not a duty.
Cameron would have known how to answer the question
"The federal government has been fighting this fight against clean cars for the last few years.
At first, it began with automakers lobbying for a repeal of Obama-era standards, which were being achieved ahead of schedule and under budget. A vast majority of the US agrees that these higher fuel economy standards are a good thing.
When the EPA announced they would slash rules even more severely than automakers expected, California responded by stating that they would not be changing their standards. Automakers then realized that this would result in a split market, which would cause them great difficulty.
Automakers lobbied the government to reconsider, and then made a deal with California to mostly keep the higher standards, to avoid the specter of having a split market. California’s Air Resources Board has a meeting this Thursday to discuss this voluntary agreement.
After California and the automakers settled this whole situation on their own, this administration responded in the petty way we’ve come to expect by investigating the automakers for voluntarily agreeing to meet higher standards."
"Meanwhile, this is just another example of the GOP fighting against the interests of just about everybody simply because they are angry at having to obey the law. They are fighting against the interests of consumers (save money on fuel), businesses (automakers’ desire for regulatory certainty), and the environment (cleaner air). All this because they don’t want California to have its legitimate, long-held authority to make the world a better place."
https://electrek.co/2019/09/17/why-epa-cant-revoke-california-emissions-rules-op-ed/
We can see this in the way for example cars have become more fuel efficient in response to fuel taxation.
Furthermore a libertarian principle is that one person should be able to do what they want, so long as they are not inflicting harm upon others. If toxins are producing harm to others then there is a libertarian argument in favour of banning those toxins just as there is a libertarian argument in favour of banning rape, abuse or murder.
People who attack libertarians tend to think libertarians believe in a zero state. That is anarchism not libertarianism.
It is a conjecture, of course, and so not possible to prove, but I would note that:
(A) countries on that are like us but don't have such large private sectors, eg Scandinavian countries, seem to have better resourced schools;
(B) parents of kids at private school seem more likely to be Tories, and spending on state schools has grown more slowly under Tory governments than under Labour ones recently;
(C) public services used by the rich, like universities, seem to be better resourced than those used disproportionately by the poor, like local council services;
(D) I have attended conferences, lunches, dinners etc where politicians meet wealthy people, and I have never heard one of the latter raise the issue of state school spending, while I have also observed that almost without fail these people educate their children privately.
What is your evidence in support of the opposite conjecture?
And I'm quite clear that they were not anarchists. They believed in a state, but one that was *incredibly* limited in scope. Are you sure you are a libertarian?
1) your daughter is extremely ill and in a high-dependency unit
2) you believe that the current government funds her care poorly
3) in walks a representative of the government
4) you get angry that he is using the visit for publicity purposes
5) he lies to your face about there being press present
6) you get angrier.
And now that you have had it explained to you, you can now fathom the mentality.
Oppressing others would violate libertarian principles. Keeping someone as a slave would be very illiberal for the slave. But it depends what you mean by oppression.
The issue is, how do you agree on what externalities to tax? US libertarians seem to think there are no bad externalities.
It might happen anyway due to other issues. Pensions are a massive headache given the way the government has buggered up increased employer contributions (up 48% for all employers from this month) and I know several private schools have consulted on leaving the TPS. That would also wreck our pension scheme (I can feel the private workers muttering and grumbling and saying 'so what?' but believe me it will be a killer on staff retention if the pension goes.)
So it is something I think only a total fool who doesn't know what he's talking about would propose. However, it is Corbyn so I don't know why I'm surprised.
Oh what fun the upcoming general election campaign will be. We mainly thought that Boris's reluctance to campaign during the leadership race was an example of the front runner risk averse strategy. It turns out he's total crap at simple interactions with the public in any less than ideal situation.
Boris is starting to make Mrs May look like a titan in comparison.
Off topic, if anyone was still wondering whether the nature of the matter the supreme court was hearing today was wholly political in nature, a quick run through Aiden O'Neil's submissions for Cherry and others should leave them in no doubt.
Well that just about sums you up, beyond parody I’m afraid just think a little bit about the background to this incident.
I thought he did fine in hos encouter with the Labour member at hospital.
I don't think in general the public take to politicians being gotcha'ed in that way or when the media door-stop them.
I've heard a lot of adverts for Ad Chevette or Ad Zafira or whatever it's called. Based on past experience, it's probably shit then. Although I note it's gotten a 4 star review in at least one paper.
https://twitter.com/nickeardleybbc/status/1174388971465560065?s=21
https://twitter.com/imrankhan/status/1174357923037949953?s=20
However it is unclear if the deadline will be backed by other European leaders, who would have to come on board with it to enable it to carry any legal weight.
Takes the sting out of a bit of posturing when it is so obvious
Given he could just decide to submit nothing and get no deal if they were serious, I wonder if they are assuming parliament will be recalled, otherwise there's no one to force Boris to speak to them before October!
But let's say that it doesn't have to get to *that* level. Let's say about 1:18 is the ideal spot, the sort of ratio a mid-ranking university aims for. That would be around a 50% increase. So every year, the national education system would cost as much as the revised projected budget for HS2.
I just don't see that happening. There are other things that can be sorted out that would make it easier and would help, but unfortunately as long as parents are willing and able to pay triple or quadruple what the state sector can afford their children will have an advantage. This is despite the fact a number of private schools are actually when you burrow down to it not very good. Smaller class sizes are what give the advantage.
What isn't a good look is the May apprach where you never actually come into contact with members of the public and you also want to avoid slagging off the person you've encountered after the event - Like when Gord met up with Mrs Duffy.
Allowing market-led solutions to problems is very libertarian IMO.
Unless you are a total anarchist there must be taxation, it makes sense to me that taxation should be as low as necessary - which then means where do you put it. In my eyes putting it on externalities is the best place to put it, especially optional externalities so I can opt-out of paying taxes by not doing what has the externality.
It is a fundamental principle of economic liberalism that the market is best placed to determine prices such that both consumer surplus and producer surplus are maximised. Taxation and Tariffs change the price resulting in tax revenue but also a "deadweight loss". It makes sense to me both that what is lost should be negative externalities and that the market is best placed to fix these externalities, given the right nudge.
That one gave an example of a rule of thumb for me, which is do not trust a trailer which involves footage of the actors or director telling you how great the movie is and how much fun they had working on it. They can make great trailers out of bad movies, if they couldn't make a good trailer without splicing in the actors saying it was good, don't trust it.
Big blockbusters are an exception of course, they get hugely promoted regardless of quality. And in As Astra's case I've been to the cinema at least 20 times this year and only seen 1 trailer, so it cannot have been advertised that heavily.
https://twitter.com/paulwaugh/status/1174359315387486209
https://twitter.com/trussliz/status/1174393836484931584
Government should take the following steps to level the playing field imo:
1. VAT on private scool fees - money raised to go to increase state education spending per pupil.
2. Remove charitable status from private schools - it's a sham.
3. Limit UK universities' private school intake percentage to the actual proportion of pupils in private education (7% atm, I believe). Introduce this gradually over 5 years to avoid unduly penalising parents who believed their private school fees were buying a better chance of a top universit place.
Most of the contributions are from British MEPs who are just hurling vitriol at each other. The most rational contributions, surprisingly including respecting the vote, were from other non-British European MEPs.
It wouldn't surprise me if they'd be pleased to get shot of us. They just want a new practical deal for the long term.
Despite the wishful thinking from the Mail, I'm not sure that logic stretches to no extension either, especially if BJ gets VONCd and Corbyn/Harman/Clarke/Swinson/Bercow/The Queen/Dangermouse is activated to request one.
First I suspect Cameron handled the situation vastly better than Johnson.
Secondly, hospitals are closed and quite sensitive environments. It's intrusive of politicians to call in with press to burnish their political credentials. Inmates likely feel manipulated when dragged into this propaganda effort. Kudos therefore to the gentleman today for pushing back. This isn't a Johnson specific issue, but calling this situation an ambush is massively inaccurate in my view. Who's ambushing whom? Did the parent of the child lure Johnson into the hospital, along with his entourage of people apparently only pretending to be TV crews and press?
Not sure if this has been mentioned but the Brexit Party now has a County Councillor in Surrey:
https://www.getsurrey.co.uk/news/surrey-news/surrey-first-brexit-party-councillor-16939861
Now direct grant really was a state subsidy to private schools...
She is a bigot.
https://twitter.com/GuidoFawkes/status/1174314704589807616?s=20
My kids' ("bog standard") comp has 46 teaching staff for 700 kids which is c1:15. Of course, class sizes are more than that (I guess similar to your 27) because of varying subject choices, non-contact time etc etc.
No problem if you're comparing the same figure for both (ie class sizes of 9) of course
Discriminating against children and denying them a further education for something they didn't choose and had no say in is incredibly cruel and demonstrates your utter lack of empathy.
Unless you are a fan of the concept of original sin I cannot fathom why you would want to punish a child for decisions made by their parents.
There are other arguments against private education. It creates an elite, it consolidates divisions in society, it means children are not getting an equal chance. But the economic argument based on tax relief is the weakest argument that there is.
You sort out the bog standard comp by forcing it to compete with better schools and raise its game and giving parents choice, not by attacking better schools