The Lib Dem Case For Fees.

There are 3 main Lib Dem arguments for voting in favour of the new fees; 1. the new fees are more progressive than at present. 2. the deficit needs cuts and why should students be spared? and 3. 'There is no alternative' to increased fees.

1. is actually true (though debts are larger, monthly payments will be less because of the higher 21k threshold and loans are written off earlier) though it is sort of besides the point when university/college grants face 80% cuts and a lot of 'lesser' Universities that are full of working class students will close as a result and the scrapping of the allowance to 16-17 year olds - the EMA is particularly mean to the poorest.

2. and 3 are complete b***shit.

2. Public sector expenditure on welfare, health, education, transport and other public services are still below the European average. Only on law and order and defence does the UK spend more, and what a surprise that a Tory led government has spared the MoD from the largest cuts. Until 2008 Labour had cut the national debt it inherited from the Tories, only when taking on the £1.4 trillion private sector debts of the banks did public sector debt balloon.

3. Increasing student fees is a political choice, why not cut winter fuel payments or bus passes instead? Or better still why not find the £83 billion of cuts in extra taxes on the richest 50% of the population who have 93% of the country's wealth around £8 trillion at current market capitalisation (thats £8,000 billion - a 2% tax on land values market cap. of £4 tr. would raise £80bn).

"Thatcher ****ed The Kids"

Local News - Round Up.

The Tories have upset dog owners in Brighton and Hove - by planning to ban dogs from all beaches, rather than allow them on a couple of beaches, as at present. There was a march organised along the seafront this weekend that was supported by Hove Labour MP Celia Barlow and several local councillors. I always thought a Tory administration would be more friendly to dog owners, but apparently not.

The return of...

City News to Brighton came as a shock to many, as the Tories had a long history of opposition to it when Labour was in charge of the council, funny how when the Tories took over they quickly brought it back. Good to see partizan party politics is alive and well and looking to what is good for the party rather than the people. No wonder people are fed up of these machiavellian political games.

The local school lottery system put in place by the Labour administration last year, has been making the national news and the Argus and Daily Mail are doing their best to talk up local private schools and the disenchantment of the middle classes. Frankly, surely a lottery system has to be fairer than just allowing places to be decided solely by a bidding war for houses in the catchment areas of the schools with the best results.

Talking of the Daily Mail and Argus, the Tory press are still trying to make capital out of 24 hour opening. Somehow they never seem to explain how binge drinking has increased, when alcohol sales have fallen and opening times have lengthened. I ain't no mathematician, but shurely shome mistake? They make a lot of the increase in the small number of low level violent binge drinking incidents between 12am and 2am, but conveniently forget to mention incidents have fallen at every other time, particularly drastically at the old violence spike points of 11.30pm and 2.30am.

After the closure of Vernon Gardens Day Centre for adults with learning disabilities, the Tories continue to run down social services in Brighton and Hove. The Adult Social Care budgets and Children Services budgets in particular (children are assessed for need but no longer can get access to many services, 42% cuts in some units). While trying to blame these cuts on not enough central funding for the free pensioners bus travel (the government have provided over £500m nationally), the Tories proudly proclaim on the front of their new propaganda magazine City News 'Lowest Council Tax Rise Ever'. Surely funding these services should come a higher priority than holding down council tax by a small amount?

Thankfully no sign yet of the proposed underground carparks the Tories promised under Montpelier Crescent and Hove Lawns. Why do the Tories always claim that building more car parks and re-phasing traffic lights and traffic flow even more in the favour of car drivers, at the expense of pedestrians, is the answer to congestion? Surely rather than encourage even more cars into a clogged city centre, the Tories should be doing something to discourage cars? Brighton already has a high number of pedestrians and cyclists killed on our city's roads. Has anyone noticed how long pedestrians have to wait to cross Montpelier road by Waitrose, or trying to cross the interminable dual carriageway that spoils the seafront, the lights can take an eternity to let pedestrians across. Pedestrians are just not a priority at the moment, haven't we got this the wrong way round?

Finally, another nail in the coffin of local democracy looks like being rushed through by the Tories. For some unfathomable reason the Labour government is allowing local councils to abolish committees that are currently appointed in proportion to seats the parties hold, and allowing a cabinet system that will mean the main party dominating debate. The Tories don't have to implement this change until May 2009, but with undue haste (and sadly with the support of some Labour members) it is being hastily introduced.

What to make of Tory U turn on Grammar Schools.

David Willetts on Grammar schools;

"there is overwhelming evidence that such academic selection entrenches advantage, it does not spread it."

Now that the Tories have finally admitted what we on the Left have been saying for years, how can they still defend the existing grammar schools?

The Labour party fear the Press and Middle England reaction to abolishing them - but now the Tories have admitted that grammar schools are harmful - what is their excuse?

In effect this is a headline grabbing statement for the Tories that makes little difference to their policies. They knew that opening more grammar schools and introducing more selection was out of the question anyway (even Thatcher knew this), so they probably thought why not use this non-issue to help continue the false re-branding of the Tories as caring & sharing.

As Polly Toynbee says the Tories may be wolves in sheep's clothing but the Labour party is not shooting them down at the moment. We should be.

What also worries me is what the Tories see in academy schools as advantageous to their voters. A lot of us on the left are deeply worried about Blair's schools - especially the evangelical take over of some of them. Cameron has found another issue to paint himself as the 'heir to blair' but hopefully people will get to know the real Cameron once the election comes.

British Children In A Bad State?

This UNICEF report seems to suggest exactly that (although considering British children claim the most risky behaviour it is curious that second only to Sweden, the UK has the lowest deaths from accidents and injuries - perhaps British children are just more honest about their situation or prone to exagerate more? Both of which might explain why if you exclude all the stats relying on the children's opinions and rely on actual facts, our rating improves significantly).

I am not at all surprised by these findings, after suffering 18 years of brutal Thatcherism just 10 years ago, no wonder we still have close to American levels of poverty and inequality. Changes in income can take a generation to affect levels of accumulated wealth and we are still suffering the effects of the Tories.

As for the depressed state of our children and their poor education, is that really very surprising when most of their parents read the Sun and the Mail, something that almost guarantees increased ignorance and negativity.

And before you jump to conclusions about Labour's near 10 years of power, don't we actually need to see what the position was in 1997? For all we know things were considerably worse, and the actual child poverty figures from 1997 suggest exactly that.

If anything this report emphasises why we need more of a Labour government that has reduced child poverty by a third, not return to a Tory government that tripled it!

Ruth Kelly. A Hypocrite?

Surely Ruth Kelly would only be a hypocrite if she was saying people shouldn't use private education or that state education was as good as going private. Clearly this is not her position and nor is it the position of the majority of left of centre activists who long ago accepted private education as part of the landscape.

What doesn't feel 'right' about this in the traditional Labour ranks is that a Labour ministers's (everyone expects it of the Tories) financial privilege is being used to give a child an educational advantage.

The way to address this is to make state funding per capita the same as private education. This is something this government aspires to (as Gordon Brown stated in his budget). State education has improved under Labour and continues to improve. What this decision tells us is that state education still has a long way to go.

Educational selection is getting more determined by wealth.

Here we are, into the ninth year of a Labour government and we still have 164 grammar schools. The number of grammar school pupils has increased from 3.1% in 1983 to 4.4% in 1997 to 4.6% in 2004. (An interesting aside, only 20% of Tory MPs went to a comprehensive. Imagine what an accomplishment it is to have recruited 80% of your MPs from the most privileged 10% of the population (and I bet the rest went to good rural comprehensives!). Better than this, 59% of Tory MPs went to a fee paying independent school, it is 39% for Lib Dem MPs and 18% for Labour MPs. Just goes to show what a decent secondary school education can do, eh? Classless society indeed! The figures are even worse for ministers - the Tories have EIGHT old Etonians in their shadow cabinet alone including their leader and 13 of the 15 Etonians in total).

Do we still believe in comprehensive education? What is going on?

The evidence is stark. The more grammar schools an area has, the lower the overall average attainment of pupils in that area (this is comparing ALL selected pupils including the results of grammar pupils, with those in non-selected areas).

Grammar schools are only the tip of this hierarchical system funded by taxpayers money. Selection goes much much deeper. The wealthier you are, the better state education you get. Haven't we got this the wrong way round? Shouldn't a Labour government target resources to the poor, not the well off. The poor pay their taxes as well (a higher proportion of their income than the rich), shouldn't they get the same level of service?

Of course selection has always been there. Nobody wants to go to a secondary modern school, but the name doesn't necessarily give the selection away.

I went to a comprehensive in the West Midlands, but I failed my 11 plus. A lot of the most able pupils who would have gone to my comprehensive were creamed off to a grammar school 3 miles away. So really my comprehensive was largely a secondary modern. Saying that I was lucky because the comprehensive I went to was fairly good, not brilliant but much better that some secondary schools in the area.

Today this school is in demand, and my parents house probably wouldn't fall into the catchment area, despite being only 15 minutes walk away. I hear it had trust status and introduced an admissions test under Tory rule. Now those with the money probably just buy into the catchment area (or more cheekily, temporarily rent). This is grossly unfair, purely selection by wealth.

From Tuesday's Guardian comes even more interesting stories on how the selection process works. Parents have to fill in complicated application forms, attend interviews, re-find religion, any hoop they can jump through to get their children into the better schools. Parents are encouraged to make six choices from a wide range of schools in the area. Some parents don't even get an offer from their sixth choice. It can be heartbreaking for children who are rejected from the school their friends are going to, this already labels them failures. All people want, is a good local school, i.e. we need to make sure every school delivers a good education. There is realistically only one way to do that, but those of you who went to grammar schools or who defend inequality are not going to like it.

We need to make sure the middle class children don't all congregate in a few 'good' schools, we need to spread them around evenly by offering the incentive that every state school (3800) is guaranteed a place for it's top pupil at Oxbridge. This goes right to the heart of those who protect privilege and the class system. The truth is that, depressingly, there isn't the political will for such an upheaval, not even in the Labour party. The privileged middle classes, not surprisingly don't want selection in state schools to end, because their children are getting a better education at the expense of all taxpayers.

The suspicion has to be that these complicated, time consuming and stressful selection procedures are designed to put off those parents from the more deprived backgrounds.

Considering all this, it seems hard to believe that the new education bill could be even worse than the current system, but apparently that is the case.

LEAs are elected and for all their failings do provide some democratic control, they do try and ensure a more level playing field and stop some of the most overt selection in schools. For example, ensuring there is a proportion of non-Catholics in a Catholic school. This bill is determined to remove control of admissions from LEAs and place them with..well almost anyone with 2 million quid. More Reg Vardy creationist schools here we come. What is Blair playing at?

Some of the new bill is to be welcomed - after some pressure from backbenchers, parent interviews will be banned and there are some reasuring noises on selection but the devil will be in the detail when it goes through committee stage. Here is hoping for the best (the bill is so complicated that is all we can do), it surely can't get much worse, but then I don't remember what it was like before 1965 when comprehensives came in, neither apparently does Blair if the worst is to be believed about this bill.

Stephen Pollard's 'big ideas' to save the Tories!

Stephen Pollard is at it again! I've not seen such idiocy since Thatcher appointed Keith Joseph as Education Secretary!

First he goes on about the voucher scheme that lost the Tories the last election, as though it will win them the votes they need to win the next election. It is a right wing ruse to fund the rich minority who can afford to send their children to private schools masquarading as 'empowerment' of the people. What crap! Then he hits the jackpot with this 'Adam Smith Institute' inspired crackpot idea.

"The tax system is also ripe for reform. A flat tax would benefit both entrepreneurship and the poor. The most advanced analysis so far, by Richard Teather for the Adam Smith Institute, has looked at the impact of a flat rate of 22% (equal to the current basic rate tax) and a personal allowance of £12,000 (between the minimum wage of roughly £8,750 and the average income of around £22,000). Although everyone would benefit from an increase in personal allowances, it would lift 10 million out of income tax altogether. The biggest gains (12% of their income) would be for those on an income just below average. And the poorest third all benefit proportionately more than the richest third."

Why not abolish tax altogether, Stephen? How stupid is this guy? It sounds great doesn't it, reduce income tax and raise allowances! What about all the cuts to public services this would entail or does he have a secret tax he's not telling us about, get real! This is probably the best way I have seen for increasing poverty, its even worse than Thatcherism, and this is supposed to persuade people to vote Tory, give me strength!

New Labour ditching 'clause 4' was all about persuading people we had ditched our left wing past. How are these right-wing ideas, one they have already tried out in an election, the 'Tories clause 4', as he claims? It doesn't even make sense, but then neither does anything this ex-Daily Express editor says!

Why Stephen Pollard is talking crap (as usual).

Today, Pollard is on about education. He rightly denounces selection by wealth in the state sector, where middle class families buy into the catchment area of a good school.

He also makes a good point via (Nick Cohen in the Observer) that private schools do not have to put up with the disadvantage of unruly pupils being forced upon them.

His solutions however, are Tory voucher schemes and Grammar schools. This is very lazy and completely ignorant of him.

He argues that selective schooling is not right wing and somehow is the socialist route to take, utter crap! He even goes on to muddy the water by claiming that right and left wing are completely meaningless anyway. He slags off SureStart and Working Families Tax Credits as somehow "slowing the process of redistribution". He is totally wrong!

Firstly voucher schemes, an expensive bureaucratic nightmare, are just a way for the rich to fund their private education with tax payers money. What help will that be to the working class?

Secondly Grammar schools, which continue to hang around many years after they have been proved detrimental to the education pool of an area. It is a well known fact that in areas where Grammar schools exist, the median pupil's average results in the area take a nosedive. The Grammar school pupils may do better but the state sector pupils suffer substantially, for the obvious reason that all their bright peers have been removed. Children learn just as much from other pupils as they do from the teachers.

So what is the solution to selection by wealth in the state sector, I hear you ask?

The best and simplest solution I have heard is that every state school in the country (around 3000) gets a place at Oxbridge for their brightest pupil. This would mean that middle class parents would no longer have the incentive to concentrate their children in a few schools. They would have to take an interest in all schools as the best way of getting their children to the top universities. This would mean all children will benefit.

As for private schools, lets stop their tax free status! They already cost the state sector millions by poaching all the best staff from the state sector. They should have to pay compensation for this, or take on the expense of training their own teachers for once.

It is quite simple to solve these educational problems, the real problem is educating the politicians and people like Pollard, that these solutions matter!