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June 27, 2005
When will they learn? Will they ever learn?
The publication of a study by the Sutton Trust, a Trust fund set up to provide assistance to disadvantaged youngsters of a major study into educational opportunity and future employment options, makes damning reading for Blair and his cronies. Essentially it points out that the Labour Party's drive to destroy the system of Grammar Schools which served this country and the Middle Classes and Working Class scholars so well for nearly 500 years has helped to widen the gap between rich and poor, rather than, as Labour trumpetted would happen, close it.
It must be no surprise to anyone with even half a brain that almost all Labour MP's, and certainly all Labour Ministers, have made damned sure that their children have places in either the remaining Grammars or in Public Schools, while everyone else's kids have to suffer under the failed Comprehensive system. It should not escape anyone's notice either that many of the Middle Class Islington types who head up all the policy making "focus groups" and who are so quick to vote for this shower of hypocrites, also make sure that their children have the places in Grammars or Public Schools that Labour has, by its removal of Grammars, denied the very people they claim to be helping or representing.
I have said it before, and I say it again, there is no "working class" representative worthy of the name at the helm of the Labour Party! Blair is a Public Schoolboy, Brown is a Grammar product, as are six more of their cabinet. Ten more are from Independent School backgrounds. In other words, 17 out of 23 have had access to "privileged" education - education opportunities their policies deny to deserving and intelligent children from real working class backgrounds!
This reduction in opportunity for children from lower income backgrounds, whose parents may not be able to afford to move to catchment areas for better schools or who cannot afford the extra coaching for selective schools, has resulted in a widening of the gap between well-off and not so well-off. And it is getting worse all the time! As the Comprehensives continue to sink under the incompetence of Whitehall and political meddling, as the sheer size of the schools grows beyond what teachers and principals can hope to control, more and more children slip through the net and leave schoool with woefully substandard educations.
And all this is voted for by Blair's sycophantic following among Middle Class professionals and semi-professionals - mainly women - who consider that this is "fair and reasonable" and "providing the best education and opportunity for the underprivileged". Naturally Tarquin and Samantha simply have to go to a fee-paying instiutution, dear - they are so bright and MUST have special tuition!
Yet these are also the morons who are, according to the latest figures released by the Watchdogs, paying the Lion's share of the tax burden. Under their hero's leadership the tax burden for anyone in the upper tax bands has risen steadily and is now (inclusive of direct, indirect and stealth taxes) standing at 55% of income! Their personal savings are being demolished by this grasping and wastful government at an unprecendented rate, their pensions have been destroyed (alongside everyone else's!), the "great" public services have never been so poorly managed, so inefficient, or so riddled with nepotism - and yet these idiots will still protest that Blair and his deceitful and dangerous cronies are "the only fair and representative government!"
All the "new" money purportedly being poured into "public services" is actually going straight into a burgeoning bureaucracy and not into service delivery. Most of it is double-accounting - a practice that would swiftly land any private company in court! All of the money is the taxpayers anyway and not the government's, yet we seem to have less and less control over this dishonest and deceitful horde of career politicians who have no hestitation in awarding themselves huge pay rises and perks (And bomb-proof pensions!), and their hangers on, the ever present Sir Humphreys of Whitehall, continue to waste it liberally and without check. Even with the swingeing tax rises this shower of deceivers have introduced, government borrowing is rising steadily and has reached an all time high. So much for Brown's "fiscal probity!" The last Labour shower who borrowed on this scale also devalued the Pound by 50% and then tried to print money to get out of the hole. (Is that the sound of the Royal Mint Printworks we hear thumping away?)
Latest predictions from the Treasury and confirmed by the much more reliable City analysts is that taxes will rise still further - by another 3% at least before the end of this term.
So, will the Middle Class chatterers and Champagne Socialists ever learn? Not until little Tarquin or little Samantha are forced to forgo their places at the fee-paying school because Daddy cannot afford the tax bill and the fees or until they find themselves without the opportunities for the best jobs or professional qualifications - because Blair's tax and spend has caught up with them, or his "selective diversity" policies have barred them from Oxbridge or the better universities.
Then and only then will these Champagne Socialists learn the truth - Labour is a deceitful and seriously vindictive and dictatorial party. Not only that, Socialism is a chimera, one which destroys far more than it offers. There really is no substitute, as our forefathers knew, for self discipline, hard work, and merit in all human effort.
One paper recently asked "Who will fight for the battered Middle Class?" The answer, sadly is "no one" - because too many of them are so wrapped in the thrall of Labour's spin and deceit; they are blinded to the truth. As long as they continue to vote Labour, to donate to Labour, and to perpetuate the lies of Socialism and Labour, they deserve everything they get.
Posted by The Gray Monk at June 27, 2005 02:16 PM
Comments
"Latest predictions from the Trasury and confirmed by the much more reliable City analysts"
Heh. Trust me, they aren't.
(more generally, if you're posting about grammar schools, it makes the article much less painful to read if you spell and punctuate their name correctly...)
Posted by: john b at June 29, 2005 09:27 AM
When Comprehensives came in, one was famous for its success - Holland Park. Years later I met a chap whose children had gone there, who explained to me how it was done. One saved so much money by avoiding school fees that one could afford to spend freely on tutors. How amusing that, years later, it turned out that the Blairs were hiring tutors from Westminster. Plus ca change...
Posted by: dearieme at June 29, 2005 10:57 AM
"The last Labour shower who borrowed on this scale also devalued the Pound by 50% "
Gosh yes, I remember those terrible times. The Pound was devalued down to $1.05, in the Socialist holocaust that was....1985.
Posted by: dave heasman at June 29, 2005 11:45 AM
My apologies for the spelling errors - just shows how reliant I have become on "Spellchecker" - my typing has never been up to much and when rushed I often don't spot the errors! Actually the devaluation was earlier than 1985 - try the decimalisation scam which revalued the Penny down to 100 in the pound from 240 (remember that the PENNY is the base unit of the Pound) and the last Wilson/Callaghan government who turned on the printing presses and tried to print their way out of a depression. I can recall a point in 1967 when you could get £1.40 for each SA Rand - which is now worth less than SAR10 = £1. It resulted in the Winter of Discontent and the pound being worth less than the dollar for a short spell.
The Comprehensive system is a complete failure because it cannot address either the needs of the brighter children or the slower ones. The result is the disruption we see - and probably a lot of the bullying and truancy as well.
Posted by: The Gray Monk at June 29, 2005 04:47 PM