Mumsnet Talk

see here so not just The Mirror!

A 'clarification' that muddies the water further?!

Anyone, politician or otherwise, who says 'my child is very gifted' makes me want to chunder....

Ah. The clarification means that what she actually said is that it is impossible to get an education at a state school for a gifted 5 year old. So that's all right then.

seeker

No, that is not what the clarification means. According to her she actually said that where she was living at the time it was impossible to find the right provision from the local state schools. Saying, for example, that the state schools where I live do not provide properly for a child with ASD is not the same as saying it is impossible to get an education at a state school for a child with ASD.

Saying that you can't get adequate education for a child with ASD where you live is very different from saying it was impossible to get an education for a gifted 5 year old!

I'm sure little Hutchings opined at the supper table, "Mater, I wish to be a cardio-respiratory surgeon! Kindly arrange suitable education for me forthwith!"

DadOnIce nice attempt at making her out to be posh and rich but she's struggling to afford many things like most normal people

Which makes it all the odder that she couldn't see that her remarks could, at best, be considered 'inflammatory'!

I'd suggest that for most people genuinely "struggling to afford things", school fees are not top of the list - regardless of how badly you might think your child fits into state education.

DadOnIce I was actually talking about the fact that her car broke and she couldn't afford to fix it - and other normal things

I confess I was attempting to inject a little levity (I held off calling him Tarquin), but I do think my basic point stands - that if you are genuinely in need, school fees are simply not on your radar. If you can afford them at all, even if it's by "scraping together", you're already on a different planet financially to many of your would-be constituents. None of this takes away from the fact that she's made a very ill-advised comment and is now attempting a hilarious backtrack.

Oh, dadonice- be careful! I get pulverised every time I suggest that!

dadonice has spoken unmitigated sense throughout this thread

Can you have unmitigated sense? Well, if you can, he most definitely has!

Yes, you can . I have decided.

Just treading more carefully on these threads than I used to under my last name Looking back over some of them, there has been a little wilful revisionism which I was not around to correct... and I was accused of having "cronies"!!

I used to live in Eastleigh and I must admit I would not have sent the dc to a secondary school there. Leave Thornden out of it. You would not get into Thornden if you live in Eastleigh itself. And, sorry to say so, but Thornden wouldn't be Thornden if it swapped its kids with those from an Eastleigh school.

That being said, you wouldn't say so to anyone living there, let alone if you were hoping to be the MP!

Thornden is in Eastleigh, as a point of boundary law! but I know what you mean, and yes, I doubt Thornden would do as well if it had to swap intake with one of 2 of the other schools in the Borough.

And no, it's pretty stupid to declare that if you want to be taken seriously as the local population's representative!