The policies of Blair/Brown were more akin to conservative ideology than anything else. That's why the current government have continued the rollout of academies in schools and continued the laissez faire relationship with the financial sector that was the case under Blair/Brown. It's also the case why none of the privatisations of public sector agencies were ever reversed. I would argue that private schools get better results than many state schools because of a whole host of reasons. The fact that they are privately run is probably less to do with it than other factors such as the affluence of the families that send their kids to those schools and how much those parents value an education. The NHS is amongst the best healthcare services in the world despite flatlining budgets for the past 6 years. It may not be for much longer due to a criminal lack of investment and poor leadership but I know I'd rather have it than not. Lastly IIRC many of the public sector spending cuts were brought about by the deficit caused by the Government having to bail out the banks to the tune of many billions. https://www.nao.org.uk/report/maintaini ... t-schemes/

The policies of Blair/Brown were more akin to conservative ideology than anything else. That's why the current government have continued the rollout of academies in schools and continued the laissez faire relationship with the financial sector that was the case under Blair/Brown. It's also the case why none of the privatisations of public sector agencies were ever reversed. I would argue that private schools get better results than many state schools because of a whole host of reasons. The fact that they are privately run is probably less to do with it than other factors such as the affluence of the families that send their kids to those schools and how much those parents value an education. The NHS is amongst the best healthcare services in the world despite flatlining budgets for the past 6 years. It may not be for much longer due to a criminal lack of investment and poor leadership but I know I'd rather have it than not. Lastly IIRC many of the public sector spending cuts were brought about by the deficit caused by the Government having to bail out the banks to the tune of many billions. https://www.nao.org.uk/report/maintaini ... t-schemes/

Whoa there Neddy.

You're a fan of using empirical evidence and statistics to back up your point. Got one for that? Because every study I've seen recently has shown absolutely no educational benefit to taking schools out of local authority control and putting them in the hands of the private sector. Indeed, one Academy chain has recently had to give back a number of schools because it was failing both educationally and financially.

The stampede to move all schools to Academy status is nothing but a piece of political gesturing. It has absolutely no evidence to support an uplift in educational standards. It's ideology over everything else.

You don't have to look far today to see the private sector being no better than the public, with the massive balls-up on electoral registers in Barnet. The job of compiling them was outsourced by the council, and the private sector company they used missed a load of people's names off meaning they couldn't vote without their polling card.

I have always been a believer in the free market and with the lack of a credible alternative capitalism.

I am becoming increasingly concerned about the lack of spread of wealth - this will lead to anarchy if it allowed to continue. There are only so many pairs of jeans a CEO can buy!!

I disagree that those are the top are s - these people have skills that few us can match - running a company the size of Sainsbury is a huge responsibility and the leaders of these companies in general are doing the best they can for themselves, the company and its employees.

Bastards would be how I describe the likes of IS and other terrorist organisations

Compare the results for Bradford boys and girls grammer schools to any other school in Bradford and then see the power of the private sector.

There's a psychological study out there somewhere - can't remember the name of it now - which asked CEOs of the top companies to complete a profiling questionnaire.

IIRC they scored very similarly to psychopaths, in terms of their inability to consider the impact of their actions on others and their decision making processes.

The conclusion was that in order to be highly successful in a business environment you needed to be wired slightly differently from the "normal" person and be prepared to make decisions that other, rational people probably wouldn't. In short, you had to be a bit of a .

Bradford Grammar is a fee-paying school which selects on the basis of an entrance examination. Comparing it to a state school is comparing Mercedes F1 to one of the back of the grid teams. It's pretty easy to get the best exam results when you're only taking in the brightest kids.

Indeed. Hardly a fair comparison at all.

Bradford Grammar and Leeds Grammar are not in the private sector. They're in the charity sector. Ridiculous though true.

As eluded to above, put the entire intake of Leeds Grammar - either through selected ability or parental resources and support - into Allerton High and they'd probably achieve similar results.

Quote ="Bullseye"The policies of Blair/Brown were more akin to conservative ideology than anything else. That's why the current government have continued the rollout of academies in schools and continued the laissez faire relationship with the financial sector that was the case under Blair/Brown. It's also the case why none of the privatisations of public sector agencies were ever reversed. I would argue that private schools get better results than many state schools because of a whole host of reasons. The fact that they are privately run is probably less to do with it than other factors such as the affluence of the families that send their kids to those schools and how much those parents value an education. The NHS is amongst the best healthcare services in the world despite flatlining budgets for the past 6 years. It may not be for much longer due to a criminal lack of investment and poor leadership but I know I'd rather have it than not. Lastly IIRC many of the public sector spending cuts were brought about by the deficit caused by the Government having to bail out the banks to the tune of many billions. https://www.nao.org.uk/report/maintaini ... t-schemes/'" I'm no apologist for any political party BUT that last statement is it is utter rubbish. The truth is that successive governments from bot sides of the political divide have over spent since 1945, to the point where 25% of all expenditure is borrowed. The national debt now stands well into the trillions and the damage caused by the banking sector collapse is infinitesimal in comparison to it.

Quote ="Bullseye"The policies of Blair/Brown were more akin to conservative ideology than anything else. That's why the current government have continued the rollout of academies in schools and continued the laissez faire relationship with the financial sector that was the case under Blair/Brown. It's also the case why none of the privatisations of public sector agencies were ever reversed. I would argue that private schools get better results than many state schools because of a whole host of reasons. The fact that they are privately run is probably less to do with it than other factors such as the affluence of the families that send their kids to those schools and how much those parents value an education. The NHS is amongst the best healthcare services in the world despite flatlining budgets for the past 6 years. It may not be for much longer due to a criminal lack of investment and poor leadership but I know I'd rather have it than not. Lastly IIRC many of the public sector spending cuts were brought about by the deficit caused by the Government having to bail out the banks to the tune of many billions. https://www.nao.org.uk/report/maintaini ... t-schemes/'" I'm no apologist for any political party BUT that last statement is it is utter rubbish. The truth is that successive governments from bot sides of the political divide have over spent since 1945, to the point where 25% of all expenditure is borrowed. The national debt now stands well into the trillions and the damage caused by the banking sector collapse is infinitesimal in comparison to it.

Andy, as you seem to know quite a bit about the whole Academy project, can you answer me a straight question (and this is not leading and not intended to prove a point). The last time I checked, which was some years ago I must admit, out of the entire education budget, only around 40% was actually spent on costs that actually directly related to the children it was spent on. The rest was lost on administration.
The being the case, surely it makes sense to remove a layer of bureaucracy by taking the local authorities out of the equation? That is not to say that Academies are the answer, because I have no idea if they are or not.

Yep, never mind the thin edge of the wedge, they've gone for the whole butt plug there!

Quite some thread drifting going on here....

It's a transition season.

Not only do fee paying schools select their entrants they have infinitely better facilities, smaller class sizes, generally better behaved pupils, parents with the money to contribute to the new swimming pool or trips to USA. My partner went to one of the above, the father in law was chair of governors. I know the differences.
I have worked in HE for 24 years, which is a much more balanced way of measuring achievement. Repeatedly, kids from non-fee paying schools or those coming in with bursaries out perform those from private schools.

Academies are funded in a very similar way to LA maintained schools. The difference is that their funding comes through central government in the form of grants, rather than out of the LA education budget. The formula used is very similar, so it's a similar amount of public money that goes into running them just out of a different pot. There's also start-up funding of £25,000 from central government which goes towards the cost of conversion to an Academy.

The Academy trust running the school and the Academy chain which runs that Academy trust will still have their own overheads to meet, so the amount of the funding that actually goes into education delivery will vary from school to school and chain to chain.

Re - Juan Cornetto

Others have picked up individual points. I never mentioned the Labour Party at any point in my post. I profoundly disagreed with the ideologically driven, private outsourcing of parts of the NHS under Tony Blair. It wasn't necessary nor was/is it economically efficient.
It was also different to privatising the whole thing.

The NHS regularly comes top or near the top in terms of efficiency.

The private education sector has shown what can be done with higher funding, selective intake, lower class sizes and free from the suffocating shackles of a ridiculous curriculum.
Give Eton the same intake, restrictions and resources as a state run school and you'll no doubt get similar results. Not to mention the monumentally harmful league tables and chasing of exam results.

The gold I don't give a toss about. If you're going to sell it I don't care when and just after the Tories had decimated the health and education sector seemed a good time for a windfall.
As for pensions, I agree it was a wrong move. But, like health, not the same as attempting to eliminate private pensions.

As for the rubbish about public spending, well I'm suprised you're so easily hoodwinked by the neoliberal press. Remind me again how the UK government spending more on hospitals caused Lehmann Brothers to collapse?
As for a narrow metropolitan elite, you do realise who the next Tory leader is going to be don't you? I'll give you a clue they went to the same narrow, ultra elite, university club as the current leader and the Chancellor.

I'm not here to defend Labour, they did daft things like the PPI contracts and academies. Which is why I didn't vote for them in 2005 or 2010. But I will defend them against the neoliberal, Murdoch-inspired lies about too much public spending. That's just utter sh/te.

What always gets missed by the propoganda on that one about the gold by people who just want to paint Brown in a bad light is what he did with the funds. Yes the value of gold went up after selling, therefore missing out on signficant money, but he used the money to buy Euros, which strengthened massively and offset the difference in the Gold sales.

Is it really as bad as selling off the postal service at a low price just to help mates get richer?

Alllerton Grange suck big balls. Roundhay by plenty

WTF is a "neoliberal". And if I have them how do I get rid of them?

Spot on.

The longer you hold on to the postal service the less its value - they sold it too cheap but there didn't seem a host of people wanting to take it off the government's hands.

Do you remember Eddie Rombo? He was one.

I remember Eddie, thought he was an existentialist?

Possibly he was both.

I recall signs of authentic promise and he was clearly a true free thinker in terms of tackling technique but ultimately a disappointingly limited right winger.

The case for or against academies is as yet unproven either way because so many have only been academies for a short period of time. What studies have show though is that successful schools are not likely to improve much for obvious reasons but failing schools have shown good improvements.

What is clear though is that we have to do something to improve our education system as last years OECD international comparison report showed. In the UK, the study shows about one in five youngsters leave school without reaching a basic level of education - and the OECD says that reducing this number and improving skills could add trillions of dollars to the UK economy. Out of 76 countries tested the UK came 20th behind countries such as Ireland, Poland and Estonia and way behind Asian countries like Singapore, South Korea and Taiwan.

We have to make improvements - So giddiup Neddy