Nick Clegg, Probably The World's Most Patronising Politician

I'm pretty annoyed after listening to that patronising pillock who is masquerading, for the time being, as deputy prime minister. His meaningless soundbites are just that, meaningless. I think it's probably the smug, patronising way he delivers the soundbites that really gets on my tits!

In his rage against his perception of Victorian style social division and class conflict he states:

"....it's just not right that if you go into an average classroom, one in five children will be on free school meals. Go into an Oxford or Cambridge lecture theatre and only one in 100 will [have been] on free school meals."

So what are you saying Nicky? That being on free school meals should give you access to Cambridge or Oxford University? No, you're just coming out with patronising platitudes.

He also said:

"..universities need to look behind the grades an applicant has on their CV and look at the potential a youngster has to thrive at university".

When I went to college I had to attend for interview before being made an offer. Doesn't that happen any more? Or again, does Clegg think a dummy with poor grades on free meals should get an unfair advantage over the bank manager's son who gets excellent grades?

The problem, Clegg, is that social engineering wrecked our education system. Under the old grammar school system kids got to grammar schools on merit, which is why you saw kids with unemployed parents sat next to kids whose parents were very wealthy.

When they imposed the comprehensive system on people, in the search for equality, they immediately destroyed equality. The kids on the rough estates went straight to schools full of other kids off the rough estates. Parents with ambitions for their kids had to move to 'better areas' to access the better schools. Sadly, as with most things, when the state intervenes it often has the opposite effect to that intended.

There will always be winners and losers. There will always be people who are academic and those who are not. There will always be people who achieve, and those who don't. Clegg needs to get out a bit more and see the real world and he will realise that we are no longer living in the 1890s. Leave people alone and they will get on with life, some will be successful some will not. More state interference can only make things worse.

Education, Education, Education

Who dares say that our education system is in a mess? Here is a message taken from t'internet:

PASSED ALL MY GCSE'S WITH A EXTRA ONE AT A LEVEL 1 IN ADULT LITRACY! SO HAPPY!

I would have been told to correct that sentence and to write it out a hundred times as a punishment, when I was twelve.

Educational Totalitarians

Having followed the case of Katherine Birbalsingh, the teacher forced from her job for criticising the education system at the Tory conference, I can't help comparing today's comprehensive system to my schooldays in the 1970s. When I do it makes me feel angry at what the state has done.

I was fortunate to pass the 11+ and go to Xaverian College, a school that was 'direct grant', meaning free from the mithering interference of the state, largely meaning Manchester City Council and Labour governments. Furthermore it was a Roman Catholic school run by the Congregation of St Francis Xavier. I'd love a quid for every time somebody has said "oh dear, that must have been bad" when they find out. Actually, I loved school and count myself very fortunate. And no, I never witnessed, or heard of, homosexual activity in the school.

Most of our teachers were Brothers, but we did have lay teachers too. The school encouraged freedom of thought and encouraged us to question. I questioned religion, and the existence of God, to such a degree that I didn't take religion 'O' Level. The first pupil in the history of the school not to do so I was told at the time. Even so I was allowed to continue in classes and to argue my point, as long as it was done properly.

It was the same with politics. We studied politics and history and no argument, put reasonably, was beyond the pale. We were encouraged to defeat those with outlandish views by reason and force of argument, no matter how outrageous the views expressed. The teachers practised what they preached, and treated us like reasonable human beings, most of the time!

Likewise with sex education. Yes, monks in an all boys grammar school did teach sex education, and they were very good at enlightening us about it too. But there was a strong moral element to it, not just teaching about procreation and what to do if you got a girl pregnant.  We were also taught, at the same time, responsibility and respect, not just from a catholic perspective, but towards ourselves, others and our families as human beings.

There are times I look back and think things were better a few years ago, and I wonder if I'm getting old. Then I read about Katharine Birbalsingh and think no, actually it isn't me. Education was, and should still be about, questioning, debating, criticising and developing. But it seems to me that this case shows that totalitarians, who can't bare any criticism or opposition, have taken control of education and are only interested in social engineering rather than developing young minds.

Sandwell Councillor Elaine Costigan

At a Libertarian Party meeting at weekend we were having a chat about the qualities needed to be a local councillor. Most of us agreed that some councillors were genuinely in it to help their local communities, some just to push their parties forward regardless of the impact on local people and some were just in it because they craved status. Elaine Costigan, a Sandwell councillor who defected last week to Labour over the school rebuilding programme, falls into the third category.

I've just seen Councilor Costigan on BBC news, and she doesn't strike me as being very bright. Because the government cocked up its announcement about the schools rebuilding programme, she has defected from the Tories to Labour. The rest of the piece showed kids in Sandwell who claimed their schools were so cold that they could hardly hold their pens in classes and had trouble concentrating. As the Coalition only seized power in May I assume that cold hasn't been a problem in the last four months.

So Councillor Costigan leaves the Tories to join Labour, the Party that has been in power since 1997 and, in that time, allowed the schools of Sandwell, which also has a solid Labour majority on its council, to deteriorate to such an extent that kids are too cold to hold a pen in the classroom. Thank God I was educated in the 1970s, in a good old fashioned school built by the Victorians. Even with power cuts and fuel shortages we were never so cold we couldn't hold a pen!

I'm even more grateful that it was a direct grant school so that idiot councillors like Councillor Costigan couldn't cock up my education.

Education

It's that time of year when we see what a mess successive governments have made of our education system. The only reason there is such competition for university places is because necessary qualifications are being given away.

Last year I remember seeing a lad who had got four top grades at 'A' Level. After his exams he had gone to India for a few months helping in a school in his father's birthplace. They were still doing the internationally recognised GCEs rather than GCSEs. He was amazed at the difference in standards and admitted that he would have struggled to even pass his exams if he had taken them in India, let alone get top grades. That said it all really.

Years ago, when they got rid of selective education, the politicians laid the foundation for today's educational mess. I've never yet been convinced by a supporter of comprehensivre education that it is good or successful, it is based on the most small minded and spiteful class warfare of socialism. 'We are all equal, we are all the same and we will impose that belief when educating the young' sums up comprehensive education.

I went to grammar school, my wife went to a comprehensive. I was given a good start, my wife has got on in life despite her education. I was fortunate being a Catholic in that our schools in Manchester became comprehensive years after the others and we still had the 11+ untl 1976. There was a great social mix at my grammar school, probably as near representative of the populace at large as you could find. At my wife's comprehensive they were virtually all kids from the surrounding council estate with a high level of unemployed parents and an atmosphere of failure and despair.

At my wife's comprehensive only a handful of children went into the sixth form. At my grammar only a handful didn't go on to sixth form and only a handful didn't go on to higher education. Having said that those few places were filled by lads from secondary moderns who had achieved academically at 'O' Level despite having failed their 11+. The system didn't confine 11+ failures to the bin, it nurtured them in a way that suited their particular talents. I know plenty of lads who failed the 11+ but went on to develop hugely successful businesses or developed academically later in life and then went on to university or college as mature students.

What we now see is university being 'comprehensivised'. Even our radical coalition government wants to stop so many people from 'better backgrounds' getting into unversity to make places free for people from 'poorer backgrounds'. Why not just have them selected on merit, whatever the social make-up that produces?

What comprehensive education has done is ensured that the middle clsses have a better chance than those in poorer areas. On sink estates the parents don't care, the councillors are often ill educated and don't care which is why so many parents are desperate to move to 'better' areas so that their kids have the chance of a decent education.

What next? Manchester United forced to take kids into their academy who can barely kick a ball in the interests of fairness? The Halle Orchestra having to take me on as a saxophonist to prove they are not elitist? No, that's stupid. So why do it in education?

Adolf Hitler-German Football Coach

It's been an interesting week with Tom Wise, former MEP, at least being honest enough to admit fiddling his expenses. There are around 650 politicians in Westminster and 700 in Brussels who still won't hold their hands up and admit it!!

So let's have a look at the effects of our interfering, expense fiddling, egotistical politicians interfering in, for example, the education system, which should never be under the control of politicians anyway. The article below, from the Telegraph, is actually quite disturbing.

One in 20 schoolchildren thought Adolf Hitler was a coach of the German football team, a survey said.

And one in six youngsters said they thought Auschwitz was a Second World War theme park while one in 20 said the Holocaust was a celebration at the end of the war.

The survey for a veterans' charity also found one in 10 thought the SS stood for Enid Blyton's Secret Seven, and one in 12 believed the Blitz was a European clean-up operation following the Second World War.

Scottish-based charity Erskine, which provides nursing and medical care for veterans, said it would now take part in a nationwide scheme to educate schoolchildren about the two world conflicts.

The charity questioned 2,000 children between the ages of nine and 15 about their knowledge of the key people and events of the two wars.

While a quarter admitted they did not think about the soldiers who died in the conflicts, and 40 per cent said they did not know when Remembrance Day was, 70 per cent of all those surveyed said they wanted to learn more about the two wars in school.

Major Jim Panton, chief executive of Erskine, said: ''Some of the answers to this poll have shocked us and it has shown that Erskine, amongst others, has a part to play, not just in caring for veterans but in educating society as a whole.

''As we approach Remembrance Day it is hard to believe that 40 per cent of our children do not know when it is. Schoolchildren are the future of the country and it is important that we help them to learn about our history.''

The charity said it wanted some of the 1,350 veterans it cares for every year to share their experiences of the war with younger generations.

Erskine will work in partnership with Their Past Your Future (TPYF) project, a partnership of the Imperial War Museum, the Museums, Libraries and Archives England, the Northern Ireland Museum Council, the National Library of Wales and the Scottish Museums Council, to help schoolchildren learn more about the conflicts.

Andrew Salmond, a project manager for TPYF in Scotland, said: ''This initiative offers a fantastic opportunity to inform young people about the experiences of war - both at home and abroad.

''Some, we know, will convey wartime loss and suffering, others will speak of daring and inspiration. However, all will be of great educational value, offering an insight to what previous generations have endured in times of conflict.''

What a sad indictment of our education system as we approach Remembrance Day. Actually, what a sad indictment of modern Britain.

Political Correctness Gone Mad!

Last week I drove to a college in East Lancashire for a short three hour course. It was a fully recognised course under the control of Lancashire County Council. The participants in the course were all professional people, either professional trainers or professionals who spend a reasonable proportion of their lives training. The kind of people who know how to behave in company in other words.

My sister is a teacher and I have known many teachers over the years, the biggest complaint from all is the level of bureaucracy that now swamps the profession.Secondly, the level of political correctness, although fewer have a problem with that than with bureaucracy in my experience. Until last week I had no idea quite how bad it was.

The session started at 9-30 with the usual announcements about lavvies and fire escapes. We then had a lecture about health and safety and how seriousy they took our safety within this building, and so on. We then moved onto the diversity policy. Then the equality stuff. Then the anti-bullying stuff and then more specific stuff before moving onto the general 'we must respect each other' stuff. All this done by a tutor who had the most patronising gentle tones I have heard since Watch With Mother was on telly when I was about 5. By this time it was 10-15 and steam was issuing from my nostrils.

As if that wasn't bad enough she then cooed that we were about to participate in drawing up our own 'ground rules' so that as a group we could all agree on how we should behave on this course. Up went the flipchart and out came her marker pens. That was it, I could take no more. Up went my hand followed by an 'excuse me' as I gathered my things and started to stand.'Ms' asked if I was unwell and I replied, surprisingly calmly and politely, that I was fine but felt that 1/3 of our time spent on these matters was excessive and, in my view, highly patronising. I then departed to do more useful things.

The experience was extremely disturbing. OK I wasn't beaten about the head or verbally assaulted, but it was extremely patronising and proved to me how corrupted the state has made the education system. It is not about learning or discovering a given subject any more, it is about social and political brainwashing first and foremost. It is about controlling our actions by controlling our thoughts.

I think I'm an extremely tolerant person, I genuinely do not care what colour peoples' skin is, what religion they are or where they were born. There are aspects of all cultures that I dislike, including the English culture, and I will never respect what I dislike, but I will tolerate it if it doesn't actually harm me, my family or friends. I would prefer us to argue with a real fascist and beat him than merely ban him. That to me is the sign of a true democracy.

This overwheening politically correct obsession with race, equality and diversity I neither respect nor am prepared to tolerate any longer, hence my one-man walkout. I have said it before, and probably will again, that it is political correctness that drives a wedge between people from diferent cultures and races. It constantly highlights differences between people thereby creating unhealthy obsessions about perceived differences, from different perspectives, for both the far-right and far-left, traps into which many decent people fall on both sides. If we are just left to get on with things I am sure the vast majority of people would just get along with each other.

The one thing I did forget when I decided I had had enough and walked out was the woman sat at the back of the class taking notes. I would love to see how the OFSTED observer wrote that one up!