Sunderland afc
Player Valuation: £8m
Day off work. Go on then.
General strike/protest
- Thread starter magicjuan
- Start date
- Status
Elong
The fire rises
Have you seen 95% of our fans? I'm more embarrassed to be an Evertonian than a Tory.
magicjuan
Player Valuation: £60m
Most people do....
I tend to generalise about things, ideas, ideals and ideologies...
chrismpw
Player Valuation: £70m
That is not a logical deduction to make. Why even state it?
To quote an Oysterband lyric "everywhere I go I hear what's going on, and the more I hear the less I know"
And in the ensuing confusion, with people distracted by the media, the government gets on with its agenda.
Destroying the poor?
chrismpw
Player Valuation: £70m
What motivated me to teach, my entire career, was a value/passion of my subject, and a drive to contribute to society.
My subject (science) should be seen as essential, since we live in a science based world and economy. However it has been reduced to simply a means of getting a c grade to look good on league tables. It is increasingly learned by students who are spoon fed to an exam, and aspire to little more than being unquestioning office fodder. Frankly I looked at self interested voting sheep who consent to this government's policies and looked at what society has become. We pay entertainers (singers, actors, sports people) more money than they know what to do with, while those that society truly need to function, the nurses, teachers etc are perennially set irrelevant targets, judged by clipboard holding fools to intimidate us into implementing government ideas, and paid a comparative pittance. In my resignation letter, I pointed out that 15 years of parents being told that they have choice, and schools are in competition for their bundle of joy, hyperactivity and allergies, has actually encouraged parents to think that they know better about education than the person trained to do the job. I have had so many arguments with parents about what set little Chardonnay should be in, it's untrue.
I'm digressing! The upshot is, I no longer value the society I have been contributing to, and feel it doesn't value me.... So bugger 'em!
chrismpw
Player Valuation: £70m
Breaking their spirit, more like. Why destroy the poor when you view them as cattle on a tax farm, or consumers for the shopkeepers who are your mates?
magicjuan
Player Valuation: £60m
Every great nation or Empire collapsed because of the same attitude, ours is just technological which has allowed the west to be more flippant and hold a disregard for life and resource.
Clint Planet
Utter Cad.
Everyone thinks they know best when it comes to educating our children. They've all got an opinion.
Clint Planet
Utter Cad.
Thank God our schools have finally been liberated by our national free spirit George Osborne
At last our schools will be “set free” by George Osborne. They’ll be “free from local bureaucracy”, no longer run by councils but governed instead by academies, such as the one set up by carpet millionaire Lord Harris. It seems incredible that up until now, no one has taken the obvious step of handing over our entire education system to carpet millionaires.
To start with, carpet millionaires are so much more accountable than local councils. At least we get to vote for carpet millionaires in the annual carpet millionaire elections, in which Lord Harris stands against John Lewis and Ted who goes door-to-door selling rolled up mats he swiped from a warehouse in Luton.
Up until now, the law has stated that parents should be “consulted” about a school becoming an academy. Now that consultation has been done away with, ridding us of another layer of bureaucracy, because there’s nothing more annoying when someone wants to make a massive change to your child’s life than some bureaucrat who wastes time asking for your opinion. You don’t see child traffickers faffing around like that; that’s why they get things done.
Once a school becomes an academy, it’s free to run as it pleases, setting rates of pay, employing non-qualified teachers or – as some academies have proposed – inviting businesses such as Apple to set up a store inside the school. This makes a school truly free, because instead of being stifled by a local council, your child’s life will be controlled by a kindly, multinational, predatory global corporation.
And there’s never a hint of bureaucracy with Apple, who sometimes wait as long as four days before bringing out a new model with new sockets that render everything you bought last week obsolete and useless. That’s because they care.
Another way the academy system can fight bureaucracy is by paying consultants. For example, the Griffin Schools Trust paid £800,000 to an education consulting company, because it’s important to take advice on how to eliminate expensive bureaucracy. And to make absolutely certain the Griffin Schools Trust was receiving the best possible advice, £700,000 of the money was paid to a company owned by the same people that ran the Griffin Schools Trust. The money was apparently initially to repay work done by those people to set up the school and later in lieu of their salaries, but all the same, it’s best to take advice off someone you trust – and who do you trust better than yourself? You don’t get innovative measures like that taken in schools run by a stodgy old local authority.
Academies, it is claimed, produce higher exam results, but schools that have been compelled to become academies have a worse record than schools that have remained as part of the local authority. More than 1,000 teachers working at the Harris chain of schools left within three years, resulting in some students being left for entire lessons without teachers, even in their GCSE years. This shows how far the Government is committed to its brave, hippie vision of setting kids free from bureaucracy.
Soon Osborne will announce the next stage, yelling: “Don’t let maths teachers control your thoughts by telling you what numbers to write down, man, set yourself free of their bureaucracy with our teacherless academies, where you can think of whatever number turns you on.”
Then the Government can get on with reducing bureaucracy everywhere. They can shut down cardiac units in hospitals, setting victims of heart attacks free of the health authority, so instead of being forced to be stretchered around by a paramedic they’ll receive a £30 voucher to spend however they like, on a non-qualified doctor or a priest, or if they prefer on a giant bucket of chicken nuggets if they manage to pull through by themselves. At last they’ll have the choice.
The last dribbles of social housing can be sold to developers, setting tenants free from local bureaucracy, giving them the choice of which park to sleep in, rather than be constrained by the red tape of owning a key.
English State schools to become academies by 2022
The Chancellor has become such a free spirit that, when asked why he’s missed all the economic targets he set himself, he answered: “The important thing is we set out to achieve those targets.” That’s a beautiful, non-elitist, inclusive attitude – it doesn’t matter if any of us achieve our targets, as long as we set out to achieve them.
Maybe this loving vibe will be adopted at the Olympics and, instead of only the “winner” getting a gold medal, everyone who set out to do well gets one, including Mr Tidbury from Worthing who set himself a target of winning the 200m butterfly but never learned to swim, as he popped in the bookies on the way to the pool instead.
When Osborne was asked again about the missing his targets, he said: “I’m the first Chancellor to be independently assessed.” You can’t tie Osborne down with the bureaucracy of an answer that vaguely pertains to the question. He’s set himself free and answers whatever question he likes. When he was asked again, I thought he’d say “Alpha Centauri” or “Sir Stanley Matthews.”
Instead he settled for: “I’m the first Chancellor to look at what we spend on welfare.” What a revelation, that supposedly when Denis Healey was Chancellor he used to say, “I haven’t got time to bother with what we spend on welfare, I’m the Chancellor.”
But this is a Chancellor who’s opened his mind, so every aspect of our lives – even schools – is no longer run with the old bureaucratic sense of co-operation (such as the NHS, which nobody likes), but with the free market business model, such as the banks. In recent years they have proved to be so much more reliable, efficient and free.
- Mark Steel
At last our schools will be “set free” by George Osborne. They’ll be “free from local bureaucracy”, no longer run by councils but governed instead by academies, such as the one set up by carpet millionaire Lord Harris. It seems incredible that up until now, no one has taken the obvious step of handing over our entire education system to carpet millionaires.
To start with, carpet millionaires are so much more accountable than local councils. At least we get to vote for carpet millionaires in the annual carpet millionaire elections, in which Lord Harris stands against John Lewis and Ted who goes door-to-door selling rolled up mats he swiped from a warehouse in Luton.
Up until now, the law has stated that parents should be “consulted” about a school becoming an academy. Now that consultation has been done away with, ridding us of another layer of bureaucracy, because there’s nothing more annoying when someone wants to make a massive change to your child’s life than some bureaucrat who wastes time asking for your opinion. You don’t see child traffickers faffing around like that; that’s why they get things done.
Once a school becomes an academy, it’s free to run as it pleases, setting rates of pay, employing non-qualified teachers or – as some academies have proposed – inviting businesses such as Apple to set up a store inside the school. This makes a school truly free, because instead of being stifled by a local council, your child’s life will be controlled by a kindly, multinational, predatory global corporation.
And there’s never a hint of bureaucracy with Apple, who sometimes wait as long as four days before bringing out a new model with new sockets that render everything you bought last week obsolete and useless. That’s because they care.
Another way the academy system can fight bureaucracy is by paying consultants. For example, the Griffin Schools Trust paid £800,000 to an education consulting company, because it’s important to take advice on how to eliminate expensive bureaucracy. And to make absolutely certain the Griffin Schools Trust was receiving the best possible advice, £700,000 of the money was paid to a company owned by the same people that ran the Griffin Schools Trust. The money was apparently initially to repay work done by those people to set up the school and later in lieu of their salaries, but all the same, it’s best to take advice off someone you trust – and who do you trust better than yourself? You don’t get innovative measures like that taken in schools run by a stodgy old local authority.
Academies, it is claimed, produce higher exam results, but schools that have been compelled to become academies have a worse record than schools that have remained as part of the local authority. More than 1,000 teachers working at the Harris chain of schools left within three years, resulting in some students being left for entire lessons without teachers, even in their GCSE years. This shows how far the Government is committed to its brave, hippie vision of setting kids free from bureaucracy.
Soon Osborne will announce the next stage, yelling: “Don’t let maths teachers control your thoughts by telling you what numbers to write down, man, set yourself free of their bureaucracy with our teacherless academies, where you can think of whatever number turns you on.”
Then the Government can get on with reducing bureaucracy everywhere. They can shut down cardiac units in hospitals, setting victims of heart attacks free of the health authority, so instead of being forced to be stretchered around by a paramedic they’ll receive a £30 voucher to spend however they like, on a non-qualified doctor or a priest, or if they prefer on a giant bucket of chicken nuggets if they manage to pull through by themselves. At last they’ll have the choice.
The last dribbles of social housing can be sold to developers, setting tenants free from local bureaucracy, giving them the choice of which park to sleep in, rather than be constrained by the red tape of owning a key.
English State schools to become academies by 2022
The Chancellor has become such a free spirit that, when asked why he’s missed all the economic targets he set himself, he answered: “The important thing is we set out to achieve those targets.” That’s a beautiful, non-elitist, inclusive attitude – it doesn’t matter if any of us achieve our targets, as long as we set out to achieve them.
Maybe this loving vibe will be adopted at the Olympics and, instead of only the “winner” getting a gold medal, everyone who set out to do well gets one, including Mr Tidbury from Worthing who set himself a target of winning the 200m butterfly but never learned to swim, as he popped in the bookies on the way to the pool instead.
When Osborne was asked again about the missing his targets, he said: “I’m the first Chancellor to be independently assessed.” You can’t tie Osborne down with the bureaucracy of an answer that vaguely pertains to the question. He’s set himself free and answers whatever question he likes. When he was asked again, I thought he’d say “Alpha Centauri” or “Sir Stanley Matthews.”
Instead he settled for: “I’m the first Chancellor to look at what we spend on welfare.” What a revelation, that supposedly when Denis Healey was Chancellor he used to say, “I haven’t got time to bother with what we spend on welfare, I’m the Chancellor.”
But this is a Chancellor who’s opened his mind, so every aspect of our lives – even schools – is no longer run with the old bureaucratic sense of co-operation (such as the NHS, which nobody likes), but with the free market business model, such as the banks. In recent years they have proved to be so much more reliable, efficient and free.
- Mark Steel
chrismpw
Player Valuation: £70m
Quite.... On the basis that they've all been in a school. Well most of us started life in a hospital ward, but that doesn't make us brain surgeons.
There is an entire industry, in education, existing selling snake oil to schools. It saddens me that I have colleagues dumb enough to buy the stuff. I remember when teachers were cannier than that.
chrismpw
Player Valuation: £70m
A superbly written, insightful commentary! Thanks for posting. Best read in ages.Thank God our schools have finally been liberated by our national free spirit George Osborne
At last our schools will be “set free” by George Osborne. They’ll be “free from local bureaucracy”, no longer run by councils but governed instead by academies, such as the one set up by carpet millionaire Lord Harris. It seems incredible that up until now, no one has taken the obvious step of handing over our entire education system to carpet millionaires.
To start with, carpet millionaires are so much more accountable than local councils. At least we get to vote for carpet millionaires in the annual carpet millionaire elections, in which Lord Harris stands against John Lewis and Ted who goes door-to-door selling rolled up mats he swiped from a warehouse in Luton.
Up until now, the law has stated that parents should be “consulted” about a school becoming an academy. Now that consultation has been done away with, ridding us of another layer of bureaucracy, because there’s nothing more annoying when someone wants to make a massive change to your child’s life than some bureaucrat who wastes time asking for your opinion. You don’t see child traffickers faffing around like that; that’s why they get things done.
Once a school becomes an academy, it’s free to run as it pleases, setting rates of pay, employing non-qualified teachers or – as some academies have proposed – inviting businesses such as Apple to set up a store inside the school. This makes a school truly free, because instead of being stifled by a local council, your child’s life will be controlled by a kindly, multinational, predatory global corporation.
And there’s never a hint of bureaucracy with Apple, who sometimes wait as long as four days before bringing out a new model with new sockets that render everything you bought last week obsolete and useless. That’s because they care.
Another way the academy system can fight bureaucracy is by paying consultants. For example, the Griffin Schools Trust paid £800,000 to an education consulting company, because it’s important to take advice on how to eliminate expensive bureaucracy. And to make absolutely certain the Griffin Schools Trust was receiving the best possible advice, £700,000 of the money was paid to a company owned by the same people that ran the Griffin Schools Trust. The money was apparently initially to repay work done by those people to set up the school and later in lieu of their salaries, but all the same, it’s best to take advice off someone you trust – and who do you trust better than yourself? You don’t get innovative measures like that taken in schools run by a stodgy old local authority.
Academies, it is claimed, produce higher exam results, but schools that have been compelled to become academies have a worse record than schools that have remained as part of the local authority. More than 1,000 teachers working at the Harris chain of schools left within three years, resulting in some students being left for entire lessons without teachers, even in their GCSE years. This shows how far the Government is committed to its brave, hippie vision of setting kids free from bureaucracy.
Soon Osborne will announce the next stage, yelling: “Don’t let maths teachers control your thoughts by telling you what numbers to write down, man, set yourself free of their bureaucracy with our teacherless academies, where you can think of whatever number turns you on.”
Then the Government can get on with reducing bureaucracy everywhere. They can shut down cardiac units in hospitals, setting victims of heart attacks free of the health authority, so instead of being forced to be stretchered around by a paramedic they’ll receive a £30 voucher to spend however they like, on a non-qualified doctor or a priest, or if they prefer on a giant bucket of chicken nuggets if they manage to pull through by themselves. At last they’ll have the choice.
The last dribbles of social housing can be sold to developers, setting tenants free from local bureaucracy, giving them the choice of which park to sleep in, rather than be constrained by the red tape of owning a key.
English State schools to become academies by 2022
The Chancellor has become such a free spirit that, when asked why he’s missed all the economic targets he set himself, he answered: “The important thing is we set out to achieve those targets.” That’s a beautiful, non-elitist, inclusive attitude – it doesn’t matter if any of us achieve our targets, as long as we set out to achieve them.
Maybe this loving vibe will be adopted at the Olympics and, instead of only the “winner” getting a gold medal, everyone who set out to do well gets one, including Mr Tidbury from Worthing who set himself a target of winning the 200m butterfly but never learned to swim, as he popped in the bookies on the way to the pool instead.
When Osborne was asked again about the missing his targets, he said: “I’m the first Chancellor to be independently assessed.” You can’t tie Osborne down with the bureaucracy of an answer that vaguely pertains to the question. He’s set himself free and answers whatever question he likes. When he was asked again, I thought he’d say “Alpha Centauri” or “Sir Stanley Matthews.”
Instead he settled for: “I’m the first Chancellor to look at what we spend on welfare.” What a revelation, that supposedly when Denis Healey was Chancellor he used to say, “I haven’t got time to bother with what we spend on welfare, I’m the Chancellor.”
But this is a Chancellor who’s opened his mind, so every aspect of our lives – even schools – is no longer run with the old bureaucratic sense of co-operation (such as the NHS, which nobody likes), but with the free market business model, such as the banks. In recent years they have proved to be so much more reliable, efficient and free.
- Mark Steel
magicjuan
Player Valuation: £60m
There was a situation, which I read about in Naomi Klein's ' Shock & Awe', regarding how the education system was shifted in New Orleans after the floods and opened up to free market thinking, which, though eerily similar to this, was tantamount to racial and class exclusion. Each child was allocated a base amount to cover very basic educational needs everything else was topped up by the parents, those who could afford it had their children go off to university etc, the predominantly black poorer community saw fewer and fewer opportunities. Like gerrymandering education. It'll happen here.
Clint Planet
Utter Cad.
If those black kids really want to get on, they'll just knuckle down and graft their way out of poverty.
General strike? Hell, yes!
General strike? Hell, yes!
- Status