Who governs Britain?

TGF UKIP

Any pretence that The Speccie is anything other than a Clique publication is comprehensively shattered when a Google account becomes mandatory to view CH links.

The Mekon will be pleased with you, Fraser.

Grumpy Optimist

Thank you Fraser for bringing this up - and presumably this will also be clear to Michael Gove. We are a Great Repeal Act soon - and one part of this must be to outlaw this kind of abuse.

muddy

I am a governor of a school that applying for Academy status. The teachers are happy with the decision - including the union rep - but we have still receibed an FOI request from the NUT. Worrying.

Your analysis is absolutely correct regarding independence.

PS the "leaked letter" link does not work

John Bailey

Our unelected, unaccountable Government in the EUSSR.

Next question?.

John Moss

If the unions get even close to succeeding, Gove should introduce a second Academies Bill making all schools academies with immediate effect and legislating for ALL school funding to go straight to schools on a per pupil basis.

Richard of York

@ John Moss
His mandate for this would be what?

Occasional Ostrich

This is the battle the Sainted Margaret should have been fighting in 1973. And although she didn't, she had a second opportunity to put one of her 'attack dogs' (Lord Young perhaps?) onto it in the late '80s instead of p*ss*ng about with the community charge. (Yeah, OK, I know that needed fixing too, but it was a battle lost the moment she gave Kinnock to misrepresent it as 'the poll tax'.)

Occasional Ostrich

RoY, before you start bleating about mandates, review your Lords and Masters' legislation over the 13 years to last May.

Norman Dee

Working over the weekend richard ? surely not paying for it yourself when the state could be paying for it at your so called "job" in the NHS

Stewart

Fight thuggery with thuggery. Kneecap your local NUT rep today! I jest of course but well done Spectator for exposing the Union special interests in this area. They themselves need to be exposed to a wider audience however. The suggestion of giving their names to the local media when such threats are made is worthwhile. A wider campaign against the special interest groups that thrived so under Labour must be waged to bring their influence down. I'm thinking about the fascist environmentalists in particular.

yank

Nicely done, Mr. Nelson. A very important topic, and here laid out so efficiently.

If you're looking for a good fight in these dog days, this would be it. Those who want to improve the educational system can join those who believe in limited government, and empowering it.

Best to put the dollars with the kids and their parents, and not the school or the administration. Thus, you strip away a power base. You're killing 2 birds with 1 stone. They'll fight you, but it can be done.

The smart Left understands the need for all this... so don't be afraid to find allies across the way. They'll peel off from the statists, those who want to stubbornly retain that power base. But if you can put aside the partisan rancor, they'll be there. They know what's right.

And as for the statists, you can turn the class warfare around on them. Why is it they want to trap the poor in horribly performing schools? Why should these NOT be afforded choice in the education of their children, as the anointed scrounge for themselves? As here, they'll have no answer, and the intellectually honest among them will be forced to adopt the good governance being advocated here.

Moraymint

I've felt for many years now that the NUT needs to be comprehensively destroyed; its grip over a third-rate education system is a scandal, and sinister to boot.

Colin

Be careful, the last time a left wing, Tory government, asked "Who governs Britain"; it quickly found out that it wasn't them...

Sevo

Britain, particularly after 13 years of awful Labour government, is ruled by a faceless army, hundreds of thousands strong, of bureaucrats and minor officials who hold power but not responsibility.

In local councils, in devolved regional"government," in the vast managerial ranks of the NHS, the unions, the myriad quangos, traffic wardens and clampers, Customs & Revenue, the BBC, and of course in the state educational system, these professional meddlers - most of whose job prospects would be dire at best in the private sector - have done everything they can to entrench themselves, grow their power bases, benefit from the state gravy train, feather their retirement nests, and make life miserable for the rest of us (those who, lest they forget, pay their salaries and generous pension plans).

Unlike MP's and ministers, Britain's "jobsworth class" cannot be turfed out by election; they are not subject to market forces; and their waves of PR people and communications consultants have become experts at manipulating the left-leaning press and bien-pensant intelligentsia into endowing them with a nobility of purpose that could not be more at odds with their petty, self-serving agendas.

Labour, of course, quickly realized that it could buy the electoral allegiance of these voters and their families by embarking on an continuous expansion of the state, thus providing the sinecures needed to keep growing this class of the party faithful. That the general election was as close as it was is testimony to the brilliance of this perpetual-motion-machine (at least until the money runs out, which it eventually did) political strategy.

If the Cameroons do nothing else, they could still secure a sun-lit place in the history of this much-diminished nation by hacking back the numbers, expense and powers of this network of parasites. One can only hope that Gove & Co. will take the gloves truly off in their struggle against these bullies.

Sevo

Britain, particularly after 13 years of awful Labour government, is ruled by a faceless army, hundreds of thousands strong, of bureaucrats and minor officials who hold power but not responsibility.

In local councils, in devolved regional"government," in the vast managerial ranks of the NHS, the unions, the myriad quangos, traffic wardens and clampers, Customs & Revenue, the BBC, and of course in the state educational system, these professional meddlers - most of whose job prospects would be dire at best in the private sector - have done everything they can to entrench themselves, grow their power bases, benefit from the state gravy train, feather their retirement nests, and make life miserable for the rest of us (those who, lest they forget, pay their salaries and generous pension plans).

Unlike MP's and ministers, Britain's "jobsworth class" cannot be turfed out by election; they are not subject to market forces; and their waves of PR people and communications consultants have become experts at manipulating the left-leaning press and bien-pensant intelligentsia into endowing them with a nobility of purpose that could not be more at odds with their petty, self-serving agendas.

Labour, of course, quickly realized that it could buy the electoral allegiance of these voters and their families by embarking on an continuous expansion of the state, thus providing the sinecures needed to keep growing this class of the party faithful. That the general election was as close as it was is testimony to the brilliance of this perpetual-motion-machine (at least until the money runs out, which it eventually did) political strategy.

If the Cameroons do nothing else, they could still secure a sun-lit place in the history of this much-diminished nation by hacking back the numbers, expense and powers of this network of parasites. One can only hope that Gove & Co. will take the gloves truly off in their struggle against these bullies.

Rhoda Klapp

Say I am a supporting patrnt. Is my name liable to be revealed as part of a FIOA request? Or may it be redacted, under Data Protection? First off, get good FIOA advice. Government departments seem to be able to delay these requests interminably.

JohnAnt

I don't recall an NUT Party canvassing at the GE.
NUTs need a kicking.

TGF UKIP

Ah Fraser, I see the Google account is no longer mandatory though your pasting doesn't work as it is too small to be readable and doesn't seem to be capable of being "blown up" unless some CHer can tell this technophobe how that can be done.

Tiberius

It's just getting harder and harder to find anything substantive to moan about, isn't it, TGF, my old mate.

Fraser: Cameron cannot allow this policy to fail. The credibility of the Government depends upon it. And as a parent, governor and patriot, I cannot bear to think that state education (and all that currently goes on within it) could continue to wreck opportunity for further generations.

Gove simply has to find a way to win this battle.

Mike

TGF UKIP -

If you click on the pasting, it expands, just try it !

William Boyd

We know City academy results are improving at a rate faster than the national average but that has only come at the price of excluding more students and taking less lower-class children i.e. to say at the expense of the very clientle they were designed to serve.

You don't quote a base-line for these schools (just their 'improvement'). Here's Ofsted on The West London Academy earlier this year:

"In mathematics, English and science, attainment remains significantly below the national average, but the academy's data shows that current Year 10 and 11 students are on course to reach standards that are closer to average."

That's not impressive and it grates to reflect that this is a purpose designed Foster & Partners no less £25 million plus to build school whereas Mickey Gove has just axed a £55 billion school building program ostensibly because it's not cost effective when everyone knows the real reason is 1 he's an arrogant unattractive hysteric poseur and fraud who thinks he can do what he wants when he wants deaf to all advice to the contrary 2 what he wanted to do was free funds for his Free Schools so that's what he did and that really is the reality of the man and his policy understood by all but the most blinkered and blimpish of his admirers on the Right.

Fundamentally city academies were designed to improve educational standards in underpriviliged neighbourhoods. It's widely accepted it hasn't been a very successful experiment and certainly not one deserving the rapid expansion it received without proper evaluation of its merits.

The Tory proposal for academies and Free Schools are of a quite different nature.

It's absurd to hold up the struggling City academies as evidence of the soundness of their plans when they were conceived for very different reasons and when their success has yet to be adequately demonstrated.

Odd by the way you should cite improving grades as evidence of success when your lot routinely dismiss these as grade-inflation.

As for the post code lottery that's just the way things are and always have been. It's become a real problem lately because of the housing bubble but that is after all just a blip (yes really imagine not all of us are going to get as rich as Croesus or Tony Blair playing the property game) and things will right themselves in due course. I think it was you who blithely asserted a few weeks ago that the housing market was set to rise 10% this year and another 10% next year - a magnum of champagne, Frasier, that 10 years from now the housing market will be, in real terms after adjustment for inflation, be at least 20% off their current levels (50% is quite possible - it happened in Japan).

The only real solution to the post code lottery lies not in social engineering experiments with banding nor with parentally controlled academies but with the steady improvement of our existing schools.

By all means have your parentally controlled Free Schools but not at the price of failing to maintain that steady improvement in the maintained system.

As for Gove he can't and won't last. Out before Christmas is my guess.

Everyone knows that too.

TGF UKIP

Why on earth, Hon Sec, would I have anything to moan about when your lad keeps giving and giving. Indeed, so much ammunition are your "progressives" providing it's sometimes difficult to know where to start.

I do hold out some hope, though, that one day the penny's finally going to drop with you. As a W Midlands accountant and SME FD you do represent the perfect target for the Clique's contempt.

Indeed, Ross Clark's piece in the house mag some months back summed up Dave pefectly in his piece entitled, as I recall, "Cameron sells out the middle classes."

TGF UKIP

Mike, thanks, when I do click on it now it does shift position and become a little clearer if not larger and it will print out at least part of the letter in normal A4.

TGF UKIP

Fraser, but should the government have accepted the "consultation" landmine amendment or is that just another of your mate Gove's cock ups?

Roger Dodger

@ROY

His mandate would be the fact that he is a member of the elected government and the MPs that voted for it would be representatives of their constituents.

Dixon

TGF UKIP
August 28th, 2010 6:29pm

Report this comment

"Ah Fraser, I see the Google account is no longer mandatory though your pasting doesn't work as it is too small to be readable and doesn't seem to be capable of being "blown up" unless some CHer can tell this technophobe how that can be done."

Hes right. I tried opening it in a photographic application.Apparently someone thoght it a good idea to scale the image to 200 X 453 pixels! Blacked out bits...why, you cannot make out a single word. Doh!. I guess it makes the file easier to upload...funny, I always assumed that Speccie used broadband, like its readers. Still, I guess its necessary to prioritise all the "clevver" animated adverts etc.

Fergus Pickering

Mandate, Richard? What's all this balls about a mandate. A Government doesn't need a mandate. It just needs a majority. What mandate did Blair have to wage war - and not just in Iraq? What mandate did Brown have to sign the Lisbon treaty. Mandate's just a leftie word, buit it doesn't apply to YOUR governments, does it? If the Government thinks the schools need changing,(and by God, who but pinko diehatds doesn't thinkj so?) then they can go ahead and change them. If the people don't like it then they will vote for you lot next time round, won't they? Back to your phones, Richard.

Minnie Ovens

Sevo,

Was worried that was going to be a rant but in the end.....nicely put.

Tiberius

If, TGF, you are asking whether I welcome the reduction in corporation tax rates (without interest charges being disallowed), the answer is yes.

paulg

The schools debate is the central question that will decide the next election. The conservatives will stand or fall on this one issue because this one issue has the central component of emotion, and emotion cannot be beaten in an argument especially when you can show results; it will swing the election.

People will sacrifice anything so long as their children are able to move forward, and get on in the world.

Whilst the right wing commentariat will hold off on the government on this one issue alone.

Parents and labour supporters will vote conservative so long as their children are central to the governments priorities.

It cannot be over stated how important this is.

In five years time we need a substantial amount of children from the state sector being admitted to Russell group universities - under their own steam, because they are good enough. To show the conservative initiatives are working.

As for Michael Grove he is intellectually up to the job, but some times you need real vicious bastards to push it through and, you only find them that in people who have worked in business. Phillip Green would have been ideal helping in this cause.

We are staking the rent on this bet and we need to make sure its a risk not a gamble.

MikeF

It should be "try to force" not "try and force". The latter formulation is nonsensical.

TGF UKIP

I'm delighted for you Hon Sec that you were at least able to trawl up something. Nearly as easily pleased in fact as your teenage editing alter ego who awarded your and his beloved Cam a very generous 5/10 in his NoW column a fortnight ago.

Tiberius

Well Fraser's association with The Screws continues to puzzle me, TGF (unless it's something to do with the opportunity for coffee with Trevor Kavanagh, or just the cash) but dismissing Osborne's corporate tax policy so lightly only proves my point that you really have little to complain about.

In fact it was James who first reported that Osborne was valiantly looking to promote corporate growth (with all its advantages) at a time when the new government was going to have to wrestle with cuts following the wreck of an economy bequeathed by Brown.

Commentator

Tiberius, I think you have missed half the story on corporation tax. There is no net tax cut, as the Coalition has admitted. The reduction in the rate is being paid for by reducing capital allowances (i.e. manufacturing gets hit) and the bank levy (which will simply encourage more of the financial services industry to go offshore).

Tiberius

You appear to have missed the other half, Commentator. In any one year, not all companies will be able to claim capital allowances.