What Price Education?

This photograph of Nicky Morgan, the education secretary, actually tells you all you need to know about her. The same wide-eyed manic stare of Jeremy Hunt, the same vacant facial expression of Iain Duncan Smith masking a dim mind, the same furtive look of George Osborne as she internally adds up the money she can steal from taxpayers. This, God help us, is the face of British education for the foreseeable future. A future in which all schools, that's right all schools, will become academies. So what's so good about acadamies? Are they regularly out-performing state run schools? Hardly. Are they more efficient in terms of spending tax payers money? Far from it. So why do the Tories want to effectively privatise education? There are two main reasons. First and foremost is their desire to see a return of Grammar schools, though the model they are thinking of is far from the Grammar schools of the past. Rather than an escape route for clever working-class kids the Tory version is a means to entrench privilege amongst the better-off middle-class and, therefore, more deserving members of our society. Second, but by no means least, their model is one in which tax payers money will be channeled into the greedy hands of already wealthy Tory supporters. Only yesterday it was revealed that a Birmingham Academy Trust has been siphoning off tax payers money to the tune of over £1 million and then handing it to one of their head teachers, Liam Nolan, who just so happens to also be the Trusts Accounting Officer and Chief Executive. It has also been revealed that the Department of Education has failed to monitor the money that has been siphoned off by other so-called Trusts and then paid to private companies as "consultancy fees". Much of this money, surprise surprise, has ended up in the hands of friends and relatives of the trustees. In other words tax payers money is being diverted out of education and into the grasping hands of those who support and bankroll the Tory party. Fraud on a huge scale with more than a side-order of political corruption. Despite this the mad-eyed Nicky Morgan has told the National Union of Teachers today that the course she has outlined is irreversible and there is nothing they can do or say that will persuade her otherwise. Nor should the public think that some sort of control can be exerted on these Trusts by parent trustees. Only today Nicky Morgan has made it abundantly clear that parent trustees will not be welcome and that trustees should be "business people". In other words cronies of the Tory party who will be willing to divert at least part of the money they steal into Tory party funds. After the debacle over Iain Duncan Smith's resignation it is time that the people who did not vote for this criminal government, the 63% majority, to take the gloves off. This is not politics as most people would understand it. This is organised crime and those responsible for it over the last six years should be impeached, tried for conspiracy and fraud and given lengthy jail sentences.

What Does Cameron Mean By British Values?

In the wake of the "Trojan Horse" school scare in Birmingham David Cameron has said that he wants "British Values" to be part of the curriculum. The problem, however, is what "values" Cameron wants taught. He heads a government that persecutes the unemployed, the sick and the disabled, a government that shows no concern over the housing crisis, ignores environmental concerns, favours tax cuts for the rich while the wages of ordinary people continue to shrink and takes no action while utility companies steal what little money we do have. Apparently then the "values" that Cameron favours are greed, selfishness, arrogance and a complete disregard for the plight of others. The truth is that Cameron and his fellow Tory crooks have no values and certainly not any that any of us would want taught in our schools. Meanwhile with Gove in charge of education our schools are being turned over to various corporate sharks, religious maniacs and right-wing dingbats. It also begs the question why, in Britain, we still allow superstitious mumbo-jumbo to be taught in our schools in the first place? Schools are for education not to indulge the irrational belief systems of those who want to use religious observance for their own perverted ends. One thing for sure is that no one in the government has any interest in encouraging critical or original thinking. What they want is a straightjacket designed to shackle young minds to an unthinking acceptance of the status quo - to be good, obedient Tory voters and to accept their place in the great scheme of things without question. While the Tories are busily engaged in turning our schools into machines for the dissemination of Tory propaganda what right do they have to complain when some other control freaks want to do the same?

Tories Plunder Education.

Michael Gove, the man who thinks that the slaughter of millions during Word War I was "a jolly good idea", has stolen up to £15 billion of public assets in the form of 3,000 schools and given them away to Tory party "donors". These schools are being subsidised by the taxpayer even as the new owners award themselves huge pay awards of up to £300,000 per year. These same owners are also awarding juicy and expensive contracts to the other companies they own stealing yet more public money while padding out their expense accounts with such items as 1st class rail travel and junkets to prestigious holiday destinations for "conferences." Worse yet many of them are transferring their profits to tax havens and avoiding paying any tax on the proceeds of their criminal activities. This is what the Tories mean by "private sector efficiency" as a bunch of crooks, conmen and spivs efficiently transfer taxpayers money into their own pockets, the whole process overseen by an equally criminal bunch of politicians gratefully pocketing "donations". As with all "privatisations" where publicly owned assets are given away to Tory corporate sharks who receive taxpayers money and then return some of that money as "donations", this is nothing more than money laundering on a staggering scale. Meanwhile George Osborne has splashed out £10,000 more in taxpayers money to Royal Academy of Dramatic Art (Rada) for acting lessons in order to boost his performance in Parliament and in the television studios. The official explanation for this is that Osborne is trying to improve his "communication skills" - in other words he is using taxpayers money to make his lies more believable. The Tory party has now morphed from a political party into a gang of confidence tricksters, stealing public money while distracting the rest of us with spurious tales about the need for austerity. They have taken greed and selfishness to new levels and are now plunging headlong into outright criminal activity.

Michael Gove Now Entirely Absent.

The BBC interviewed what appeared to be an empty suit today about the shortage of school places. Michael Gove could just be made out as he did his best to disappear into the background and deny that he is in any real sense the Education Secretary. "I can't remember where I've been for the last three years," he told the BBC. "There has been some speculation that I am the Education Secretary but, to be honest, I wouldn't know. Everything that has happened in my alleged Department in the last three years has been entirely the fault of Labour who, it would seem, are still secretly in charge of Education. I remember going to bed the night before the General Election but, after that, it's a complete blank. I know I've been taking swift action but I can't remember for the life of me what that action was. I blame the British people who should have voted Tory in the last election. If we'd won I would now be the real Education Secretary and, believe me, things would be a lot different. Examination results would be better, every child would have their own personal tutor, teachers would be better trained and all this would have been delivered at half the present cost. Its tragic that I was never afforded the opportunity to do something about this mysterious mess in the education sector. Still, at least with the new lobbying law going through Parliament today no one will be able to talk about it during the next General Election.

Tories Laundering Public Money.

So, the Tory story is that private enterprise is more "efficient" than the public sector and offers better "value for money" to taxpayers. Eager to prove this Michael Gove is busily engaged in privatising the education sector, promising that things will then miraculously improve. He's not wrong, though not in the way most people would wish. It turns out that one of the largest of the education trusts, the Academy Enterprise Trust, registered as a charity to avoid paying tax, has been stealing public money and diverting hundred's of thousands of pounds into the pockets of its trustees and executives. Instead of going to the schools to improve educational standards this money has found its way into the offshore bank accounts of a bunch of crooks appointed by Michael Gove. Why would any minister in his right mind allow this? Is it sheer coincidence that Gove has raked in over £500,000 in donations to the Tory party - more than any other Tory minister? The conclusion, that public money is being diverted into the hands of private enterprise who then pass some of this on to the Tory party in the form of "donations", seems inescapable. Privatisation, it would seem, is nothing less than a money laundering scheme for the Tory party. In the case of Gove this might be over-stating the case somewhat - though not by much - since much of the money given to him has come from a disgraced aluminium trader wanted by the FBI and a Mayfair nightclub owner. However, the vast majority of the donations he has gathered have come from so-called "supper clubs" in which money is handed over to the Tory party under a veil of secrecy by unknown individuals. If this is not simply organised crime then what is?

Goves Education Policy "Just One Damned Thing After Another."

It was perhaps inevitable that when choosing his cabinet Cameron would look for the most inappropriate people on offer in order to divert attention away from his own incompetence. Thus Iain Duncan Smith, a man who lied on his own CV and a religious madman without an ounce of Christian charity in his entire body, was put in charge of work and pensions, while Andrew Lansley, a greedy self-serving conman, was put in charge of the nation's health. The list of morons, madmen and swivel-eyed nutters in Cameron's government is almost endless, but his greatest triumph was in putting Michael Gove in charge of Education. This philistine has now unveiled his education policy and, as expected, it is a litany of Tory prejudice and yearning for a return to 19th century "values." History has been given special attention and, consulting with the likes of such "experts" as Lord Ashcroft who is to history what Saddam Hussein was to international harmony, he has come up with a curriculum fit only for the rubbish bin of history. Lessons are to concentrate on "Great Men" such as Clive of India and Benjamin Disraeli and British history is to be the central feature. Basically our children are to be fed a diet of jingoism so they can understand our special position in the world - a position that disappeared, along with the Empire, nearly a century ago. This, Gove tells us, will fit our children to the modern world - the Tory one in which China doesn't exist, disillusioned little brown people beg us to re-establish the Empire and the world awaits with baited breath for our next high-tech innovation. No wonder the Tory candidate for Eastleigh, Maria Hutchings, feels that state education is not "good enough" for her son. It isn't and it won't be good enough for our children either after Gove has finished with it.

Britain: The End Game.

There can be little doubt that education in Britain has become the preserve of the rich while working class kids have been told that there is no point in harbouring unrealistic ambitions. To a large extent, as the present government demonstrates all to clearly, this was always true. None but the rich could ever contemplate a career as a barrister, for instance, since that career was always dependent on being rich enough to work and study without an income and because opportunity was always dependent on who you know. Academia is similarly weighted in favour of the rich for exactly the same reasons while a career in higher education is a virtual impossibility without a piece of paper from one of the only two universities that count in this country - Oxford and Cambridge. Today the "Independent" has revealed the true cost of a university education - £100,000 for those without the benefit of mommy and daddy to pay it for them and have to take out loans. The Tories, with the toady LibDems who betrayed their principles over the issue, counter this with the argument that students only have to pay this back if they get really good jobs and are paid the average wage of an office junior. Nothing could be better calculated to blunt the ambitions of an ordinary working-class or even lower middle-class kid than this. What is the point of ambition when all it will get you is a crippling debt repayment schedule? For the likes of Cameron and Osborne this is hardly an issue - their trust funds took care of their education and will take care of the education of their descendants far into the future. The unspoken truth of this is that the entire education system is based on a false assumption - that only the children of the rich can truely appreciate or deserve to benefits of a good education. The children of the poor need not apply. What, then, will Britain look like in the future? The largely uneducated being lorded over by a bunch of chinless wonders without a brain cell to share between them? Yes. It was that way for most of Britain's history and is set fair to continue, after a brief "glitch" between the end of World War II and today, into the far future.

David Willetts Welcomes The Latest Batch Of Geniuses.

David Willetts, the Minister of State for Universities and Science, has written in the "Guardian" today about his joy at the latest "A" level results. "There is little doubt," he told our reporter, "that this government, especially the Tory bit, has been responsible for one of the greatest evolutionary advances in the history of the human race. Modern British teenagers are now the most intelligent humans that have ever walked the planet. In the two years that we have been in power we have made a quantum leap forward in trems of education that puts Labour's progress in the shade. Almost every child taking "A" levels today is an out-and-out genius and are on a par with Einstein, Mozart and Leonardo Da Vinci. Now if we can only teach them the difference between their, there and they're we'll have it made." Meanwhile hat manufacturers have registered their total amazement at the sudden rise in the demand for large sizes. "Some of these kids have brains the size of the Head Mekon," one spokesman told us, revealing both his age and his propensity for collecting old issues of the "Eagle.". "I for one fully expect that this generation will solve problems like world hunger, the energy crisis, global warming, life, the universe and everything in very short order."

Tories Target Schools For Privatisation.

Something strange is happening to our schools. Good schools, many of them outstanding according to previous Ofsted reports, are now suddenly failing and are being threatened with "remedial" action. Many of them are now described by the government as "not as good as they appear" even as they continue to achieve exam results that are well above average. So what is going on? Many headteachers accuse the Ofsted inspectors of not being up to the job and point out that few of them have ever taught let alone headed up a large school. The truth, as usual with this government, is a little more subtle. Many of the inspectors are not employed directly by Ofsted but work for private companies being paid huge amounts of money in "consultancy" fees. They are busily undermining confidence in the best schools in order to soften them up for privatisation - cherry picking the best ahead of time and uninterested in those schools that cannot be turned into a quick profit. The same process is going on within the NHS where hospitals are being starved of funds in order to drive them into bankruptcy. Not content with stealing the NHS the Tories are also busily engaged in stealing our schools, stealing the futures of both old and young alike.

Nick Clegg Talks Bollocks.

In a major speech today in South London, Nick Clegg has broken the world record for talking absolute bollocks. "Several years ago I travelled across Europe and studied the education system there. I was amazed at the diversity and how successful that diversity was. German schools, for instance, taught in German while French schools taught in French. I immediately thought that's what we need in England - diversity so that no one will have a bloody clue as to what is going on. I'm even willing to allow some schools to continue teaching in English if they feel they absolutely must. But the main thing is that free schools will allow wider choice amongst those rich enough to buy properties next to good schools. That's the good thing about diversity, it makes for a good cover for allowing the rich to jump to the head of queques. I'm looking forward to a whole new class of fatcats appearing in Britain - the plutocratic headmaster - and to the entrenchment of privilege based on wealth which, as I'm sure you'll know, has always been a cherised principle in liberal thinking." Asked about the NHS by a particularly bolshy reporter Nick Clegg replied. "I'm not talking about plundering the bloody NHS, I'm talking about plundering the education system for Christ's sake. Can't you people concentrate on one thing at a time? I resent the way that our callous indifference to the NHS is continaully linked to our callous indifference to everything else! Get a bleading grip!"