Bolitics UKIP Nutters

[bickster]

Are Labour not pledging to scrap the bedroom tax? Increase tax on the highest earners? mansion tax? banker bonus tax? And so on?

Labour aren't the only party planning to scrap the bedroom tax, nor increase tax on the highest earners. The Mansion tax is a Liberal Party policy they've taken on and the bankers bonus tax is a silly headline grabbing stupidity. They need to regulate the banks so it can't happen again but being as it was Labour that as good as deregulated them in the first place… go figure.

[peterms]

Land tax. Replaces lots of other taxes, hard to evade, drives productivity (land set aside for rich guys to shoot pheasants on would do very badly and pay a lot, a small site used for active production of food or goods would do better).

Better would be to expropriate the property owners whose ancestors stole the land in the first place, of course, but this will do as a tame alternative.

[Awol]

Land tax. Replaces lots of other taxes, hard to evade, drives productivity (land set aside for rich guys to shoot pheasants on would do very badly and pay a lot, a small site used for active production of food or goods would do better).

This is an interesting idea, but (as I'm sure you know) lots of farmers are far from being wealthy people so what about real agricultural land - as opposed to shooting estates?

National Trust/National Parks?

[dont_do_it_doug.]

Land tax... Neat idea, I wonder what the Sheriff of Nottingham is up to these days?

[chrisp65]

Land tax... Neat idea, I wonder what the Sheriff of Nottingham is up to these days?

 

I think he's busy checking whether people with Parkinsons are fit to work and just hiding in their spare bedrooms.

[PauloBarnesi]

I suppose it's because anyone with power are from Tory based education and so the only people with actual left wing views are in the working class. Every part of the current political spectrum seems to be right wing or right wing with liberal tendencies.

 

 

Isn’t it time we did something to stop the increasingly black and whiteness of education of ‘public [i.e. Eton, Westminster, etc]/private’ versus ‘state’? Labour’s idealistic idea to get rid of grammar schools done with the best of intentions, seems to have made the problems worse. Neither Labour nor Conservatives seem to want to really tackle it.

[Eames]

 

I suppose it's because anyone with power are from Tory based education and so the only people with actual left wing views are in the working class. Every part of the current political spectrum seems to be right wing or right wing with liberal tendencies.

 

 

Isn’t it time we did something to stop the increasingly black and whiteness of education of ‘public [i.e. Eton, Westminster, etc]/private’ versus ‘state’? Labour’s idealistic idea to get rid of grammar schools done with the best of intentions, seems to have made the problems worse. Neither Labour nor Conservatives seem to want to really tackle it.

 

Trouble is the whole education system is tailored to support those who are academically minded so grammar/private or comp will always benefit the most intelligent, or rather, those who are best suited to pass a specific type of exam. Grammar schools (I'm a product of that system) work for those kids who are able to cope in a highly academic environment but do very little to support the social/emotional development on the child and where something goes wrong, the consequences are generally far greater for the child, since the school doesn't have want or need the level of pastoral care that a comp will have. 

 

We shouldn't be forcing all kids into a system where you have to pass academic exams in subjects that will ultimately be of little or no relevance to them. Far better to have academic/grammar schools for those who are able to access them, and technical schools where kids who can't or don't want that academic education can learn a trade/skills from an earlier age with a view to them setting up their own businesses in future - and this approach works just the same for bricklaying or engineering. You just spend longer at the school learning the trade.

 

In regards to private education I have no intrinsic objection to people paying for their children's education but private is by no means better in terms of the quality of the education delivered. What I do have a problem with is that you are essentially buying access and networking. The more expensive the school, the better the network - two candidates at a job interview and one went to the same school as the interviewer - will only end up one way. Somewhat hypocritically though, my eldest is in private school and my youngest will go there too..... if you can't beat em. Join em. 

 

 

EDIT. 

 

I've just realised this post is massively OT so.... er.....**** Farage.  

Edited October 27, 2014 by Eames

[PauloBarnesi]

The thing with grammar schools is that it was based not on background or money, but on intelligence, trades traditionally wanted educated, literate, etc employees. I don’t think I agree that any school is better/worse at pastoral care; you get good and bad from my own experience as a child and a parent. 

 

I agree that we should have schools for children depending on ability, rather than a fit one system.

 

One thing I would say about private/public school is that sports wise they have much better facilities (in part to the stupid idea of selling off sports fields), but also the importance they place on sport. 

 

Anyway Farage went to Dulwich.

[Awol]

I suppose it's because anyone with power are from Tory based education and so the only people with actual left wing views are in the working class. Every part of the current political spectrum seems to be right wing or right wing with liberal tendencies.

Isn’t it time we did something to stop the increasingly black and whiteness of education of ‘public [i.e. Eton, Westminster, etc]/private’ versus ‘state’? Labour’s idealistic idea to get rid of grammar schools done with the best of intentions, seems to have made the problems worse. Neither Labour nor Conservatives seem to want to really tackle it.

Trouble is the whole education system is tailored to support those who are academically minded so grammar/private or comp will always benefit the most intelligent, or rather, those who are best suited to pass a specific type of exam. Grammar schools (I'm a product of that system) work for those kids who are able to cope in a highly academic environment but do very little to support the social/emotional development on the child and where something goes wrong, the consequences are generally far greater for the child, since the school doesn't have want or need the level of pastoral care that a comp will have.

We shouldn't be forcing all kids into a system where you have to pass academic exams in subjects that will ultimately be of little or no relevance to them. Far better to have academic/grammar schools for those who are able to access them, and technical schools where kids who can't or don't want that academic education can learn a trade/skills from an earlier age with a view to them setting up their own businesses in future - and this approach works just the same for bricklaying or engineering. You just spend longer at the school learning the trade.

In regards to private education I have no intrinsic objection to people paying for their children's education but private is by no means better in terms of the quality of the education delivered. What I do have a problem with is that you are essentially buying access and networking. The more expensive the school, the better the network - two candidates at a job interview and one went to the same school as the interviewer - will only end up one way. Somewhat hypocritically though, my eldest is in private school and my youngest will go there too..... if you can't beat em. Join em.

EDIT.

I've just realised this post is massively OT so.... er.....**** Farage.

You're not married to Diane Abbot, are you?

[blandy]

...the whole education system is tailored to support those who are academically minded so grammar/private or comp will always benefit the most intelligent... 

... better to have academic/grammar schools for those who are able to access them, and technical schools where kids who can't or don't want that academic education can learn a trade/skills - and this approach works just the same for bricklaying or engineering. You just spend longer at the school learning the trade...

I don't mean this disrespectfully, Eames, but "Engineering" being something you learn at some sort of trade school? Really? Lot's of people wrongly think engineering is "fixing cars" or installing pipework or cabling and so on. But it isn't.*

Engineering is designing and developing and improving and problem solving etc. via the application of scientific principles - in other words it requires areas of knowledge and understanding that can't just be learnt at a "trade school".

 

And to be honest, technicians and plumbers and many trades are also looked down on in the same way you have inadvertently done with Engineering.

 

What's this got to do with UKIP? well the kind of mentality of UKIP, against "that Europe" (where engineering is treated correctly and recognised for what it is and does) is likely to lead to a further dumbing down of the UK, more concentration on "service industries" and banking and insurance and so on, and less on design and innovation and production.

The Th***cherite Conservative / UKIP knowing the price of everything and value of nothing approach has been and is massively damaging to this country.

 

 

 

 

* yes I am an over-sensitive engineer

[Eames]

Agree....probably a poor example but hopefully you got the gist. Those trades shouldn't. be looked down upon at all.

[darrenm]

The woman who sits right behind my monitors always has the wrong idea about everything. I disagree with her about almost everything she says but I can't be bothered to be goaded into an argument. Everything she says is ill conceived and faux outraged.

 

She's just said "guess how much our government contributes to Spanish bull fighting". £30m apparently according to her.

 

Anyway, just found out she stood as a UKIP candidate for a local election a few years ago.

 

All makes sense.

[dAVe80]

[villaajax]

Smear Bulgarians? Isn't that an actual UKIP policy?

[Avfc96]

Confuse happiness.

Edited October 29, 2014 by Avfc96

[mjmooney]

Tax people of colour.

[snowychap]

Trouble is the whole education system is tailored to support those who are academically minded so grammar/private or comp will always benefit the most intelligent, or rather, those who are best suited to pass a specific type of exam. Grammar schools (I'm a product of that system) work for those kids who are able to cope in a highly academic environment but do very little to support the social/emotional development on the child and where something goes wrong, the consequences are generally far greater for the child, since the school doesn't have want or need the level of pastoral care that a comp will have.

That seems to be very confused.

The 'most intelligent' are quite often not the most academic or, more especially, the ones best suited to pass any specific exam.

Pastoral care is better in a comprehensive school than elsewhere?

We shouldn't be forcing all kids into a system where you have to pass academic exams in subjects that will ultimately be of little or no relevance to them.

There's a problem there that undermines education when it is of 'little or no relevance' - how and when is this decided and by whom?

Far better to have academic/grammar schools for those who are able to access them, and technical schools where kids who can't or don't want that academic education can learn a trade/skills from an earlier age with a view to them setting up their own businesses in future - and this approach works just the same for bricklaying or engineering. You just spend longer at the school learning the trade.

When do people get to decide this and how? Or when is it decided for them? Edited October 30, 2014 by snowychap

[ismail-villa]

Smear the French, wouldn't be too bad tbh

[Eames]

 

Trouble is the whole education system is tailored to support those who are academically minded so grammar/private or comp will always benefit the most intelligent, or rather, those who are best suited to pass a specific type of exam. Grammar schools (I'm a product of that system) work for those kids who are able to cope in a highly academic environment but do very little to support the social/emotional development on the child and where something goes wrong, the consequences are generally far greater for the child, since the school doesn't have want or need the level of pastoral care that a comp will have.

That seems to be very confused.

The 'most intelligent' are quite often not the most academic or, more especially, the ones best suited to pass any specific exam.

Pastoral care is better in a comprehensive school than elsewhere?

We shouldn't be forcing all kids into a system where you have to pass academic exams in subjects that will ultimately be of little or no relevance to them.

There's a problem there that undermines education when it is of 'little or no relevance' - how and when is this decided and by whom?

Far better to have academic/grammar schools for those who are able to access them, and technical schools where kids who can't or don't want that academic education can learn a trade/skills from an earlier age with a view to them setting up their own businesses in future - and this approach works just the same for bricklaying or engineering. You just spend longer at the school learning the trade.

When do people get to decide this and how? Or when is it decided for them?

 

1) Fair comment - I'm probably conflating intelligence and academic ability. Perhaps "Those children who are most academic" and yes, my experience is that Pastoral care is vastly superior in Comprehensives than elsewhere. I'm not saying there isn't good practice in Independent of Grammar schools, but your bog standard comp on the whole will have a wider range of support available delivered by people more experienced in using it. 

 

2) Perhaps you need to give kids the choice of the route they want to take and then let them decide the curriculum accordingly. Forcing kids at 14 who have a reading level of a 7-8 year old to do French or Biology GCSE exams is ridiculous and creates a feeling of worthlessness and ineptitude. 

 

3) In Eames' utopia? 12? 13? It would be decision for the child and parents based on advice from teachers. 

[mjmooney]

This subject (schools/education) warrants a thread of its own.