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politicalbetting.com » Blog Archive » Why Clegg thinks there are votes to be had in pursuing a fight with Gove on free schools
The paramount objective of the Lib Dems is to minimise seats losses at the general election and the argument with Gove on free schools helps in a number of ways.
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It's certainly an interesting break with Coalition unity. The Conservatives should respond with a clear indication they'll cut the green levy on fuel bills after the next election.
These are not Lib Dems who've defected to Labour - they're Labour supporters who've taken their vote back.
Ask Ed M re his energy doctrines... when needing to win votes and when not so much bothered.
One of the problems of being the least liked party is it encourages tactical voting
Oi Clegg! Free schools: clue’s in the name. They don’t have to listen to what you or any other politician thinks about the curriculum and they’re as free as private schools to take on staff who have not gone through the QTS teacher training programme. So speculate as much as you like, Cleggy: the genie of school freedom is out of the bottle and won’t be put back in under this government.
http://blogs.spectator.co.uk/coffeehouse/2013/10/gove-and-laws-slap-down-clegg-over-free-schools/
That picture of him with the huskies doesn't fit with doing fit with him reversing policy on green taxes. In technical terms it's a bit of a bugger.
"The successful independent school sector has always taken the opportunity to employ teaching staff who do not hold QTS."
BBC - The party leadership was overwhelmingly defeated in a series of votes on the development of free schools and the expansion of academies in England.
Although the votes are not binding on the party, they were embarrassing for leader Nick Clegg just hours before he delivered his main conference address in Liverpool.
In it, he acknowledged the issue provoked "strong passions" but said the party was united in its belief in the importance of fairness in education.
So a chance of Short term gain over principle? – So nothing new there.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-11370147
I suppose that would be understandable if the educational vested interests had been doing a brilliant job for the last 15 years, but since they are doing a job which varies from the mediocre to the disastrous - taking us to near bottom on the key measures recorded by the OECD - it's hard to see where this blind spot arises.
His support has allowed the mushrooming of free schools and continues to do so but now he is trying to paint himself as a sceptic with the only intention of winning votes from employees in the education sector who used to be big supporters of the Lib Dems and who as a rule hate Michael Gove and his project.
Cameron probably supports it as he realises that Lib Dems will have to take votes of Labour for him to have a chance of regaining power.
Whether the teachers fall for it remains to be seen.
If Cameron (or more probably Osborne) has to say: "well we're all for Green policies, but they have to be affordable" and then removes some, then I think that (a) they will get away with it, and (b) it will go down well.
But it seems the Tories have stopped bothering about such niceties since Crosby came aboard.
http://www.spectator.co.uk/features/9057151/carry-on-warming/
Argument is that global warming has had a positive effect on the economy over the last 100 years. Will continue to be positive annually until 2050, and aggregate effect doesn't turn negative until 2080.
Suggests that mitigation may be a better strategy since today's costs are so high to try and reverse a remote future impact
In general, reducing costs to business, reduces costs to consumers. To consider the converse, the whole point of "green" taxes (e.g. APD) was to put people off flying.
The more that consumers are happy to buy, the more the economy grows, and the more taxes that are received.
As for Clegg and the LDs what do they propose to do with the Neets, & functionally illiterate school leavers? If they want to make a difference, offer policies which do something which has an impact on real people, and real lives instead of offering free school dancing courses on pinheads.
It's also good politics for Con because they can say "once we are free of the Lib Dems we will cut Ed Milband's green taxes" (expect Ed's time in the last government to feature prominently in the 2015 GE)
I expect they will then fund greenery through "efficiency savings" - the coalition's answer to Labour's "bankers bonus tax" - rarely quantified but (re-) used frequently!
Read post 70 on this http://www.airliners.net/aviation-forums/general_aviation/read.main/5838970/
According to this, APD is higher for flights that originate in the UK, so a traveller finds it cheaper to fly Manchester to Amsterdam on KLM, then BA Amsterdam - Heathrow - Los Angeles. It is £600 cheaper to do this, largely as a result of APD.
If APD wasn't structured like this, the traveller would presumably go Manchester - Heathrow - Los Angeles.
The problem is that the LibDems (at least until they entered government) were an after-thought at Westminster. As a result the *local councilors* have much more influence in the Lib Dems than in any other party.
Gove's free school policy guts the LEAs - hence why councilors as a group are so opposed to it (e.g. see the Tories in Bromley, I believe). This impacts the Lib Dems much more than other parties
Numbers are your strong point.
Increase of VAT 2.5%
£450 increase equates in tax of 2.5% on a spend of £18,000
Vat not increased on fuel, power etc, not on rates, food kids clothing.
If you are spending 18K on items at the standard rate of tax, you will also be spending up to 12K on other items, home, food etc, so an after tax NI income of 30k.
To pay an extra 450 vat you are not on the breadline. You may not be well off, but not poor.
Pushy parents who want to dictate how their child is educated should send them to private school, not set up a free one.
One of the few reasons I am sometimes glad I don't have children is that I shudder to think how I could afford to offer them the private education I enjoyed.
http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2013/oct/20/nick-clegg-right-reject-free-schools
So your point is worse than pointless, using numbers to scare with no relevance to real life.
The simple and obvious point is that about a quarter of government spending was deficit spending. To eliminate that defict there needs to be either increased taxes (either in rates or extension of tax base) or decreased spending. The "cost of living" is really the cost of living within our means.
http://static.guim.co.uk/sys-images/Guardian/Pix/pictures/2013/10/19/1382218759525/OpiniumObserver-poll-grap-001.jpg
http://www.theguardian.com/politics/2011/jan/11/david-miliband-teaching-haverstock-school
Did the school bother to run CRB checks?
Comfort zone of supporting the producers.
The problem, as ever, for the SCons is that their vote is just too evenly spread to win seats. They could pile on 10 points to climb to 27% and still fail to claim a single gain. Extra votes piled on in no-hope central belt seats ain't going to win the Tories any seats in the Borders, Aberdeenshire or Argyll.
Fife NE is now a huge opportunity for both the SNP and the Tories. It is perfectly feasible that the Lib Dems could plunge to 3rd spot next time, sans Ming. Gordon sans Malcolm Bruce ought to be fun too, but no announcement yet.
Your mentioning candidate quality (Dumfries&Galloway is not the only relevant example) is of course absolutely critical. THe Scottish Tories have an appalling track record in selecting absolute duds in key seats. Has Ruth Davidson finally turned that particular corner? Ah hae ma doots.
Surely a poll among the parents of children in Free Schools, Academies and Public Schools would be more germane?
Free' schools are the gift that will keep on giving. Not only are they daily being exposed as a home for every whacko and loony who wants their name on the door but they're being run by the most unpopular Minister since Norman Tebbit.
I just hope Tristram Hunt get's his act together quickly enough and together with Clegg manages to articulate why this reactionary education is a serious danger not only to the few thousand students who attend them but the many millions who don't
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-scotland-scotland-politics-23928975
Here she is in 1990 doing the Scottish Cup Semi final draw at the home of the SPL Champions.
Yes that's Terry Butcher the England captain in the front row.
Enjoy..
https://pbs.twimg.com/media/BHVpgBaCEAADaSw.jpg
http://www.pressandjournal.co.uk/Article.aspx/3376676
Result in Gordon last time:
LD (Malcolm Bruce) 17,575
SNP 10,827
Lab 9,811
Con 9,111
Grn 752
BNP 699
Malcolm Bruce, LD, Gordon
Menzies Cambell, LD, Fife NE
Frank Doran, Lab, Aberdeen N
Eric Joyce, Ind (Lab), Falkirk
A little more civilised than her previous Scottish footie encounter at the '88 cup final, thousands of fans waving red cards and chanting 'Maggie, Maggie get tae ****, Maggie get tae ****'. Fair play, I'm sure she relished it.
"The Department for Education has just released a statement (below), which can be translated as saying:"
The article says Gove and Laws are as one. On the news earlier it said Laws was at one with Clegg over this. In fact it said he was '100% behind Clegg on this'. I know Laws has identity problems but not exactly someone you'd want to share a trench with
I loved the comment from one of the parents outside the Derby school - "all the schools around here are rubbish anyway, so this one can hardly be worse....."
There isn't one at the moment but everyone thinks one exists.The govt have already taken a big political hit so why not introduce one for real and make some actual cash?
I agree that NE Fife will be interesting. the SNP won through for the Scottish Parliament of course but I think they might find it more difficult for Westminster. Gordon is another seat that really should fall into the SNP's lap but we shall see.
As for Falkirk who knows what the benighted burghers of that poor town think of the party that foisted Eric Joyce on them? Really ought to be an SNP gain although they have a long way to come.
http://www.theguardian.com/politics/2013/oct/18/michael-gove-boston-visit-education
Mr. Smithson, a vote on this [green levy to be axed] could suit the Coalition.
Conservatives get to show they're not so green and care about living costs, Lib Dems get to show they'll stand up to the blues. Labour get a terrible choice. They can vote to abolish a Militax they instigated (maximum hypocrisy) or vote for the green levy, damaging or destroying their energy price line.
I don't think the private school teachers transform tough state schools experiment has gone well so far - Wellington partnership, for example.
And as I've said to death, the idea that teachers have much of a say in schools - or have ever, certainly judging by my 20 years of teaching - is laughable.
*If* (and I am not saying you do) you believe that LEA's stifle innovation in schools and contribute to poor educational outcomes, how would you structure the system to provide some form of oversight?
Gove's approach of central authority, which is lightly used, is not unreasonable. I would like to see elected school boards, but I am not sure we are ready for that!
Using some money that would otherwise be used for tax cuts to reduce a highly visible cost of living would be politically advantageous.
Never seen that before.....
At my school we used to have several unqualified teachers. The headmaster used to employ famous sports people to take various sports and to keep them occupied during the day he used to give them a class.
My English teacher was a professional golfer who knew nothing of English but who was a fan of Bob Dylan. So every lesson he'd get the record player out and that was it. All we lacked was dope and something to nibble
(If it wasn't for spell check I'd be clinically illiterate!)
There are crap teachers, sure - but the ratio/impact of poor managers puts that well into the shade.
In this respect as as well as many others, teachers are neither unique nor a special case.
Also - when threshold came in the idea was to incentivise good teachers to stay in the classroom. Now, to justify/keep it you have to take whole school responsibility for something - with no extra time to do it. Way back you'd have got a responsibility point for it - a bit of extra cash but also, crucially, time. So essentially you become a manager - usually of something relating to a whole school policy that you think is a pile of guff.
I take it things have got worse under the coalition?
Oh and he and Blanchflower and all the other Keynesians haven't been proved wrong on the economy. The economy is only now picking up since the deficit reduction programme has stalled and the government decided to intervene in the housing market, which pretty much proves their point.
Also Police, Armed forces, Diplomatic corps, civil service etc etc.
http://blogs.crikey.com.au/pollbludger/2013/10/19/miranda-by-election-live/?wpmp_switcher=mobile
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-24601870
(That's irrelevant to your point as they wouldn't have had their old uniforms any more but interesting anyway.)