THE FOURTH OF JULY

[John Brown]

Unlike the sunlit socialist uplands found in world leading command economies epitomised by personal freedom and economic success in Russia and North Korea?

There no no evidence to justify a claim of their superior intellect, although there is zero evidence they are uniquely thick. What is abundantly clear is that spending more on education materially improves the capability (social and intellectual) of those who benefit.

Politics of envy - social and financial benefits of tax and status changes are debatable. Denying those who work hard and/or intelligently the freedom to spend as they desire is fundamentally destructive. It removes any benefit through risk taking and hard work.

That Ofsted needs improvement is reasonable. That it is a "bully boy against state education" is unjustified. State bodies marking their own homework is unacceptable - it needs independent scrutiny unafraid of making difficult judgements.


Whether more should be invested in education is a matter of opinion (I may agree). But we need to be very clear about what gives - more taxes or cuts elsewhere.

Positive discrimination is thoroughly inequitable. Selection should be based on ability irrespective of gender, race, religion, parental wealth, education etc.

Positive discrimination is sometimes the only way out of a self perpetuating imbalance. Women in company boardrooms, for example. Of course I agree that, in principle, selection should be based on ability, but in practice it often isn't.

 

[Spectric]

There no no evidence to justify a claim of their superior intellect, although there is zero evidence they are uniquely thick. What is abundantly clear is that spending more on education materially improves the capability (social and intellectual) of those who benefit.

They have a different form of interllect that is socially biased so as they use others to achieve their objectives, in other words keeping their hands clean whilst others do the work to make them richer. You often find that people with a trade or ability to use their hands to produce something find more satisfaction in this aspect than being in charge of others or running a business and therefore do not become very rich. It has always been said that an engineer makes a bad businessman because in business you have to focus on a much broader range of subjects. What you do find is that people with the ability to make money have a different mindset to your average joe, making money comes easy but fixing something is often beyond them. I think that education in places like Eaton or Harrow is not all about knowledge, it is aimed at personal development and socialising with like minded people to form a ladder for your future, you don't discuss ohms law or how to sharpen tools in those social circles.

 

[whereistheceilidh]

They have a different form of interllect that is socially biased so as they use others to achieve their objectives, in other words keeping their hands clean whilst others do the work to make them richer. You often find that people with a trade or ability to use their hands to produce something find more satisfaction in this aspect than being in charge of others or running a business and therefore do not become very rich. It has always been said that an engineer makes a bad businessman because in business you have to focus on a much broader range of subjects. What you do find is that people with the ability to make money have a different mindset to your average joe, making money comes easy but fixing something is often beyond them. I think that education in places like Eaton or Harrow is not all about knowledge, it is aimed at personal development and socialising with like minded people to form a ladder for your future, you don't discuss ohms law or how to sharpen tools in those social circles.

Now there is a conversation I would like to sit in on....a common room in Eton with students having an energetic discussion on the best way to sharpen a chisel....... I sincerely believe that would bring about a change in our society.....an appreciation & understanding of the importance of practical skills ....

 

[Terry - Somerset]

The skills required to motivate others to work collectively are completely different from those required of a craftsman.

The former manage enterprises which can produce many, the latter only one at a time. This is not downplay the skills a craftsman deploys - quite simply they have less economic value than those who can produce more. Perhaps not the best of analogies, but:

• individually excellent musicians cannot play a symphony without a conductor
• individually talented football players would not win many matches without a manager
• individual craftsmen could not efficiently build a house without a project manager

A specialist organisation for which I once worked needed a manager for a business unit with ~25 staff. My boss thought the principal requirement was someone with excellent specialist skills.

I saw the need for someone to motivate staff, develop good relationships with customers, deliver services on time, manage budgets and individual performance etc. Specialist skills were but one of several attributes.

Private education benefits from smaller class sizes and better support for those lacking some skills or ability. They encourage children to realistically aspire to leadership roles in a way in which state schools with limited budgets and pupils from disadvantaged backgrounds find difficult.

Private schools average spend per pupil is twice that of the state sector. It is no surprise that their students out-perform. It is not that state school teachers do a poor job - simply the budget difference overwhelms any performance difference.

For the record - I am not the product of a private education!

 

[Spectric]

The skills required to motivate others to work collectively are completely different from those required of a craftsman

Depends upon the management level, I always found that when the trades people you are looking after know you not only know the job but have also done it then there is a level of respect and the job gets done. The worst case is when somebody comes in with there degree who has never been on the tools tries to tell the skilled people how it should be done or that they could work faster, now things go wrong. Where so many managers go wrong is not being part of the overal team, work with everyone else and don't come across as superior and things go smoothly.

 

[sploo]

They have a different form of interllect that is socially biased so as they use others to achieve their objectives, in other words keeping their hands clean whilst others do the work to make them richer. You often find that people with a trade or ability to use their hands to produce something find more satisfaction in this aspect than being in charge of others or running a business and therefore do not become very rich. It has always been said that an engineer makes a bad businessman because in business you have to focus on a much broader range of subjects. What you do find is that people with the ability to make money have a different mindset to your average joe, making money comes easy but fixing something is often beyond them. I think that education in places like Eaton or Harrow is not all about knowledge, it is aimed at personal development and socialising with like minded people to form a ladder for your future, you don't discuss ohms law or how to sharpen tools in those social circles.

Well put. Certainly engineers tend to make poor businessmen in my experience. We (I say we, as I'm in an engineering field) are far too focussed on areas that aren't necessarily the best for maximising sales (or profit on those sales).

As for the Eton and Harrow set, I suspect nepotism is a large driver in the success of their alumni. Indeed, I wonder if there is any data that might show the relative success of former pupils who attended due to some form of grant or scholarship (and who didn't have parents in positions of power or privilege) vs those who do. I've no doubt that simply getting to know the right people would be very advantageous, but being related to them is probably even better.

 

[whereistheceilidh]

'.....They encourage children to realistically aspire to leadership roles.....'
Not in my experience Terry. I have done a fair amount of practical work for the products of Eton, Harrow & a number of other noble education establishments. Almost universally they have failed to grasp the practical elements of the work they required, as well as other issues such as the effects of tides & weather.
It is the appreciation of pratical elements that are not understood, not just by managers but especially business owners & it is frequently here that British business fails.

 

[Spectric]

are far too focussed on areas that aren't necessarily the best for maximising sales (or profit on those sales).

I would also add honesty, we would say it as it is and not hide certain things within a sales pitch. The one area engineers always face friction with are the bean counters, we like a good sound job whilst they want cost savings and accept things that we know are not always in the best interest of the end user.

 

[sploo]

I would also add honesty, we would say it as it is and not hide certain things within a sales pitch. The one area engineers always face friction with are the bean counters, we like a good sound job whilst they want cost savings and accept things that we know are not always in the best interest of the end user.

Definitely. You never want an engineer in front of a customer

 

[Jacob]

....

Private education benefits from smaller class sizes and better support for those lacking some skills or ability. They encourage children to realistically aspire to leadership roles

Realistically? They produce id iots and talentless leaders. Johnson, Cameron, Sunak...etc.
This is the problem. In fact private education should be a bar to public office. The ones with talent go off and succeed, it's the ones without who end up in politics, finance, law, management.
Paula Vennells is a particularly extreme example but not untypical - privately educated, completely out of touch with ordinary people, an ingrained confidence in her own ability, a sense of entitlement to massive salaries and bonuses, but dreadfully incompetent.

 

[John Brown]

I would also add honesty, we would say it as it is and not hide certain things within a sales pitch. The one area engineers always face friction with are the bean counters, we like a good sound job whilst they want cost savings and accept things that we know are not always in the best interest of the end user.

Using terms like "bean counter" is just as bad as the "bean counters" looking down on those who work with their hands, in my opinion. I'm sure we need people to perform all sorts of roles in society, even the telephone sanitizers, although I do think the remuneration is unfairly tilted towards some occupations.
The thing I find distressing, though, is that we appear to have run out of lettuce jokes.

 

[Yorkieguy]

Not ideology it's simple economics. What you were saying that large areas of the highlands have no value. Asset tax would be on the parts which do have value. Looking at house prices in the highlands, values seem to be not that different from the UK

There are no mass movements of the wealthy when tax rates change. Even the Laffer curve puts top sustainable tax at 70%. Funny how Reagan and Thatcher ignored that!

Economy post war was booming. We built NHS, council houses....etc etc

I'm not sure how you reached that conclusion.

It's true that 'activity' was booming, and there was pretty much full employment, but it was all on borrowed money. Economically at the end of WW2, Britain was bankrupt, but there were totally unrealistic sky-high expectations that it would become a 'land fit for heroes'.

I was born in June 1939, so I lived through the post-war era. It was characterised by demarcation disputes, low productivity, adversarial labour relations, leading to lack of capital investment, an overly large public sector, decline in heavy industry, strikes in the labour-intensive car industry, turning out poor quality cars on machinery which was clapped-out during the war years. During the 'winter of discontent' 1978/79, rubbish piled up in rat-infested streets and bodies went unburied.

Harold Wilson (1974-76) was elected on a slogan of ‘13 years of Tory Misrule’ (Sounds familiar!).

His record as prime minister was soon seen as one of failure, that sense of failure was powerfully reinforced by Jim Callaghan's term as premier (1976-79). Labour seemed incapable of positive achievements. Unable to control inflation, unable to control the unions, unable to solve the Irish problem, unable to solve the Rhodesian question, unable to secure proposals for Welsh and Scottish devolution, unable to reach a working relationship with the Common Market, unable even to maintain itself in power until it could arrange a general election on the date of its own choosing.

The Unions rejected continued pay restraint and in a succession of strikes over the winter of 1978/79 (Winter of Discontent), secured higher pay, although it had virtually paralysed the country, tarnished Britain's political reputation, seeing the Conservatives surge ahead in the opinion polls.

"The Day That Britain Went Bust" - December 15 1976:

When Labour Chancellor Denis Healey went cap in hand with his begging bowl to the International Monetary Fund to bail out Britain.

https://www.chathamhouse.org/public...2016-12/britains-big-bailout-december-15-1976

It was little wonder, therefore, that Margaret Thatcher resoundingly defeated Labour in 1979.

The fall of James Callaghan in the summer of 1979 meant, according to most commentators across the political spectrum, the end of an 'ancien régime', a system of corporatism, Keynesian spending programmes, subsidized welfare, and trade union power.

During World War II the government was forced to borrow heavily in order to finance war with the Axis Powers. By the end of the conflict Britain's debt exceeded 200% of GDP, as it had done after the end of the Napoleonic Wars. As during World War I, the US again provided the major source of funds, this time via low-interest loans and also through the Lend Lease Act.

By the end of World War II Britain had amassed an immense debt of £21 billion. Much of this was held in foreign hands, with around £3.4 billion being owed overseas (mainly to creditors in the United States), a sum which represented around one third of annual GDP.

At the end of the war Britain Lend Lease was ended but Britain needed to continue to make payments for Lend Lease and import food but with industrial production turned over to wartime needs there was little export sales to cover the costs. In 1946 Britain took a loan for $586 million (about £145 million at 1945 exchange rates), and in addition a further $3.7 billion line of credit (about £930m at 1945 exchange rates). To the total loan of $US3.75bn, Canada contributed another US$1.19 bn, both at the rate of 2% annual interest. The debt was to be paid off in 50 annual repayments commencing in 1950. However, some of these loans were only paid off in the early 21st century.

It took until 31 December 2006 that Britain made a final payments of $83m (£45.5m) to the US & $23.6m to Canada.

The Tories haven't covered themselves with glory this last few years, but looking back over my long life, every time that Labour have been given the keys to the car, they've crashed it. That's why they've spent so many years in opposition as little more than an angry 'protest group'. Too much 'welfare' rather than 'workfare' keeps people in poverty. Labour are more obsessed with redistributing wealth than creating it.

 

[Jacob]

I'm not sure how you reached that conclusion.

It's true that 'activity' was booming, and there was pretty much full employment, but it was all on borrowed money. Economically at the end of WW2, Britain was bankrupt, but there were totally unrealistic sky-high expectations that it would become a 'land fit for heroes'.

I was born in June 1939, so I lived through the post-war era. It was characterised by demarcation disputes, low productivity, adversarial labour relations, leading to lack of capital investment, an overly large public sector, decline in heavy industry, strikes in the labour-intensive car industry, turning out poor quality cars on machinery which was clapped-out during the war years. During the 'winter of discontent' 1978/79, rubbish piled up in rat-infested streets and bodies went unburied.

Harold Wilson (1974-76) was elected on a slogan of ‘13 years of Tory Misrule’ (Sounds familiar!).

His record as prime minister was soon seen as one of failure, that sense of failure was powerfully reinforced by Jim Callaghan's term as premier (1976-79). Labour seemed incapable of positive achievements. Unable to control inflation, unable to control the unions, unable to solve the Irish problem, unable to solve the Rhodesian question, unable to secure proposals for Welsh and Scottish devolution, unable to reach a working relationship with the Common Market, unable even to maintain itself in power until it could arrange a general election on the date of its own choosing.

The Unions rejected continued pay restraint and in a succession of strikes over the winter of 1978/79 (Winter of Discontent), secured higher pay, although it had virtually paralysed the country, tarnished Britain's political reputation, seeing the Conservatives surge ahead in the opinion polls.

"The Day That Britain Went Bust" - December 15 1976:

When Labour Chancellor Denis Healey went cap in hand with his begging bowl to the International Monetary Fund to bail out Britain.

https://www.chathamhouse.org/public...2016-12/britains-big-bailout-december-15-1976

It was little wonder, therefore, that Margaret Thatcher resoundingly defeated Labour in 1979.

The fall of James Callaghan in the summer of 1979 meant, according to most commentators across the political spectrum, the end of an 'ancien régime', a system of corporatism, Keynesian spending programmes, subsidized welfare, and trade union power.

During World War II the government was forced to borrow heavily in order to finance war with the Axis Powers. By the end of the conflict Britain's debt exceeded 200% of GDP, as it had done after the end of the Napoleonic Wars. As during World War I, the US again provided the major source of funds, this time via low-interest loans and also through the Lend Lease Act.

By the end of World War II Britain had amassed an immense debt of £21 billion. Much of this was held in foreign hands, with around £3.4 billion being owed overseas (mainly to creditors in the United States), a sum which represented around one third of annual GDP.

At the end of the war Britain Lend Lease was ended but Britain needed to continue to make payments for Lend Lease and import food but with industrial production turned over to wartime needs there was little export sales to cover the costs. In 1946 Britain took a loan for $586 million (about £145 million at 1945 exchange rates), and in addition a further $3.7 billion line of credit (about £930m at 1945 exchange rates). To the total loan of $US3.75bn, Canada contributed another US$1.19 bn, both at the rate of 2% annual interest. The debt was to be paid off in 50 annual repayments commencing in 1950. However, some of these loans were only paid off in the early 21st century.

It took until 31 December 2006 that Britain made a final payments of $83m (£45.5m) to the US & $23.6m to Canada.

The Tories haven't covered themselves with glory this last few years, but looking back over my long life, every time that Labour have been given the keys to the car, they've crashed it. That's why they've spent so many years in opposition as little more than an angry 'protest group'. Too much 'welfare' rather than 'workfare' keeps people in poverty. Labour are more obsessed with redistributing wealth than creating it.

So would we have been better off without NHS, council housing and other public spending ventures?
Have the Tory cuts (on and off since 1979) improved things?
Was "austerity" a useful exercise from which we have all benefitted?
Should it be continued by Starmer?
Did the tax cuts since WW2 produce the boom in investment which was forecast?
Are we now better off without the burden of the motor and other industries?
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_taxation_in_the_United_Kingdom

 

[Spectric]

Harold Wilson (1974-76) was elected on a slogan of ‘13 years of Tory Misrule’ (Sounds familiar!).

Yes it is not good if someone wins by default because the others are not in favour, no different to getting high exam results having been given the answers first. On a good note it looks like Starmer is just one of the lads, quote " Now, that might not sound like much to some people but you can't underestimate how important it is for working class families like mine, " . So things are really much worse than we first thought, forget those who thought they were middle class because they are not even working class according to Starmer, if Starmer represents working class then there must be a lot more millionares out there than first thought but in reality who is he. Perhaps if they are so different and Starmer has in his words changed the party permeantly it is in reality only labour in name, no one really knows who they are so perhaps they should have re named the party to differentiate it from the old one.

 

[RobinBHM]

The Tories haven't covered themselves with glory this last few years, but looking back over my long life, every time that Labour have been given the keys to the car, they've crashed it.

I respectfully disagree with the idea that Labour have always "crashed the economy"

If you want to state that Labour "crashed the economy in 2008 (GFC) then equally it is fair to state that Conservatives crashed the economy following pandemic in 2020. (both external factors outside of UK govt control)

the evidence shows Labour and Conservative have performed about the same, with some arguments saying Labour have performed better

https://www.channel4.com/news/factc...arty-has-a-better-track-record-on-the-economy

​

Shefield university study on comparison of does economy grow faster under labour or conservative:

"We examine the growth of the UK economy under the administration of the Conservatives andLabour, the two political parties which have alternated in power since 1955. Our main findingis that the UK economy has grown with a similar pace under either government, howeverLabour administrations seem to do better in tackling recessions and show a more consistentperformance. Labour’s advantage becomes more pronounced if we discount the effect of the2008 Financial Crisis."
https://shura.shu.ac.uk/27982/8/Algarhi-DoesUKEconomy(VoR).pdf

 

[Spectric]

So would we have been better off without NHS, council housing

Having social housing was a great thing to have, it ensured everyone could raise a family with a roof over their heads. The worst thing done was to allow people to buy there council house at knockdown rates knowing it would cause hardship to many families wanting a roof over their heads, well done Thatcher.
I think people like Rommel, Wellington or Caesar would have congatulated her on that plan had it been in a war room, it meant that those that took the bait had a mortgage and now striking was off the table and she had the upper hand over the unions.

 

[Spectric]

I respectfully disagree with the idea that Labour have always "crashed the economy"

They can tend to be a bit easy going with our money but guess who sent interest rates soaring in 92. It began with Jim Callahan in 79 and the ERM but the impact hit under Lamonts time in number 11 on black wednesday so they have all had some bad patches.

 

[sploo]

Realistically? They produce id iots and talentless leaders. Johnson, Cameron, Sunak...etc.
This is the problem. In fact private education should be a bar to public office. The ones with talent go off and succeed, it's the ones without who end up in politics, finance, law, management.
Paula Vennells is a particularly extreme example but not untypical - privately educated, completely out of touch with ordinary people, an ingrained confidence in her own ability, a sense of entitlement to massive salaries and bonuses, but dreadfully incompetent.

I think that it's a bit too much of a sweeping generalisation to put all private education into the same pot. Certainly there are the elite schools that are completely out of reach to the "normal man", and yes, they do seem to have a habit of producing people whose confidence in their own abilities far outstrips their ability.

Seeing some of Vennells' responses in the Post Office hearings makes you wonder how on earth people who appear to lack even the most basic levels of competence end up in the positions they're given.

 

[Yorkieguy]

Education is too important to be left to the market. Free market ideology has been an abject failure, so in principle, yes.

First step could be to remove their tax advantages and charitable status.

Labour have said they wish to impose VAT of private school fees.

That will probably make some less well-off parents not send their children to private schools, so they won't be paying VAT on fees that they won't be paying. Instead, their children will be being educated in a state schools at our expense. But, those will be the children of aspirational often working class parents who make sacrifices, take out loans etc. (Starmer's 'hard working families'?). The really wealthy will be unaffected by such trivialities as 20% VAT. None of this will lift educational standards in State schools. So VAT of school fees will have a net cost - not a benefit, other than to fuel a philosophical desire to abolish private education.

A major factor in how well-educated children are (or aren't) in the State sector is parental background and involvement/lack of involvement. Too many children who start primary school haven't been socialised with other children, don't know how to hold a pencil, let alone a knife and fork. Some aren't even toilet trained, don't know their full names and address, don't know any letters of the alphabet or numbers. This can't be laid at the door of the teachers or the government.

By the time such kids are 7, they'll have dropped behind, and will never catch up.

Apart from that, too many children don't even turn up at school.

in the 2021 to 2022 school year, the overall absence rate was 7.6%
22.5% of pupils missed 10% or more of their school sessions – known as ‘persistent absence’.
a total of 194,229 school sessions were missed.

There are marked differences between people of different ethnic backgrounds, which reflect differing cultures, lifestyles, parenting, and attitudes to education. For example, Chinese children's absence is 3.6%. Black African, 4,4%, White British (almost the highest absence level), is 7.9%. Little to do with ethnicity as such - everything to do with how children are brought up, and how engaged parents are/aren't in their children's education, and how stable their home background is.

Not only do many children not turn up for school, their parents don't bother to turn up to parents' evenings to discuss their children's progress/lack of, and how they can be part of the process. Very dispiriting for teachers.

htttps://www.ethnicity-facts-figures.service.gov.uk/education-skills-and-training/absence-and-exclusions/absence-from-school/latest/#:~:text=The%20data%20shows%20that%3A,the%20highest%20overall%20absence%20rates

More shockingly perhaps, Government statistics suggest that 17 million adults – 49% of the working-age population of England14 – have the numeracy level that we expect at primary school, between the ages of 9 and 11.

https://www.google.com/search?q=Adu...QBgiSBwQxNS4yoAeWPw&sclient=gws-wiz-serp#ip=1

Likewise, the UK national average for literacy is between 9 to 11 years. To put that into context, The Guardian Newspaper has a reading age of 14 and the Sun Newspaper has a reading age of 8.

https://www.google.com/search?q=Ave...AIgGAZAGCJIHBDE3LjGgB554&sclient=gws-wiz-serp

All of whom have the vote if they choose to use it!

Another step would be to extend Ofsted to the private sector. This would work both ways and Ofsted might have to improve its act instead of being bully boy against state education.
More importantly to invest much more in the state sector. Preferential higher ed entrance to state educated, positive discrimination, etc etc.

Not sure how you formed the impression that Ofsted doesn't inspect Private Schools.

All independent schools must be registered by the Department for Education (DfE), and they must meet the requirements of The Education (Independent School Standards) Regulations 2014 in order to remain registered. Ofsted inspects about half of all independent schools in England, which are referred to as ‘non-association’ independent schools. The rest of the schools belong to independent school associations and are inspected by the Independent Schools Inspectorate, which has been approved by the DfE.

https://assets.publishing.service.g...iation_independent_schools_parent_leaflet.pdf

 

[RobinBHM]

So VAT of school fees will have a net cost

Im sure its difficult to know what will pan out in reality, but the best evidence I can find so far is that it would have little impact on numbers going to private school and will raise around £1.4b

Removing tax exemptions from private schools likely to have little effect on numbers in the private sector, raising £1.3–1.5 billion in net terms​

https://ifs.org.uk/news/removing-ta...ely-have-little-effect-numbers-private-sector