Tory haters: shouldn't you start reining this in?

[Abitwobblynow]

Because the golden geese who have to pay for what you believe are entitlements and who you despise so much, are flying away:

"Almost half of all Britons who emigrate each year are professionals and company managers, potentially threatening the country?s supply of highly skilled workers, research for the Home Office found.
The attractions of a better lifestyle and climate, as well as career opportunities, meant a ?large and increasing? number of executives, scientists, academics and doctors have chosen to leave Britain in the last 20 years, the report said.
Business leaders blamed high rates of income tax for the ?disturbing? rises in the number of professionals leaving Britain for countries such as Australia, American and Canada. Around 149,000 British citizens emigrated last year, and 4.7 million now live overseas."

What do you think? Has the class resentment poison gone just a bit too far, and isn't it just a bit outdated? And was Labour right to stoke this narrative up?

The "lie" that education is the answer?

Dear God. Now one can see where it comes from.

But it's not about literacy. Literacy is a given. Similarly, just because you have been to University does not mean that you are of the calibre that employers want, or indeed have the right skills. The problem is that no-one is listening to the employers, who to be fair, are increasingly transparent about what they want.

Also, much of the reason why we're a more unequal society is because "the middle" employment sector (skilled manufacturing etc) is getting eroded by globalisation and that unfortunately will probably keep happening

Literacy is not a given. A good education matched with a view that work is an aspiration not a tiresome bore.

We emigrated because we hadn't had a job since the Tories got in under false pretenses put that in your pipe and smoke it

How are people being 'let down' by an education system that sees higher rates of literacy than at any other time in the country's history?

And MinitheMinx - I would agree that pre-distribution is even better. Again, this is something that we had in the post-war years. Now it's just a few people at the top getting billions shovelled at them by politicians.

www.worldliteracyfoundation.org/interim-report.html

Do you bother reading what dissenters really write, Brycie?

I made it clear that addressing injustice via my profession in both an indivudual caseload sense and via activism and voluntary work is and always has been a priority for me. I am nor employed in a profession that exists solely to enrich the bank accounts of its employees. I try to generate mental health.

I went to a bog standard comprehensive. My parents did too as children of working class parents (Maternal grandfather died of Industrial disease due to being a miner). I've never been privately educated, nor grammar nor have my children. Neither have I moved to an area to gain better access to quality state schools. We took what we g.ot, worked hard for every penny and I continue to facilitate the learning of others via voluntary and statutory activism. I am not nor will ever be a water cooler activist.
Big, big error of assumption Brycie and typical.....

Yes but Brycie that doesn't take away from the fact that literacy rates are now at the highest they have ever been in the UK.

What EU thinks

Digby Jones at the last election

Digby Jones is a knobber and twat of the lowest order. Come on, you must be able to do better than that buffoon.

Mignette: well done. As I say - shame for the children who can't rely on their parents and have to rely on their schooling.

Well remember that although literacy rates have increased, the numbers of jobs available to people with little education has decreased at a faster pace, so overall, opportunity to those with only a basic education has fallen.

I just dont think literacy rates are that useful in explaining what's happening in the UK. If you're not literate, you're basically unemployable whereas immediately post-war, you weren't.

Is the EU also a knobber and twat of the lowest order?

Digby Jones wants higher levels of numeracy and literacy and you think he's a twat?

Well this is proving to be even more revealing about lefty thought than I could possibly have imagined.

Yes it is a shame. But disingenuous to infer that this problem did not exist prior to the Labour administration because it did.

Quite Richman: it's not all about literacy. We are a highly developed country. At the very least all should be literate and numerate to a high degree. At the very least.

It is now institutionalised. Mine and my husband's family advanced through educational opportunities without parental support.

Considering how Labour made education their mantra, and considering the billions they threw at it, to consider it merely "a shame" after thirteen years of the ability to actually do something about it, is rather an understatement.

It's a humiliation and a crime.

But Brycie, more people in the UK are now literate and numerate than at any time in the past, and yet we live in a more unequal society. It's not just about education. Rather, it's to do with political and economic structures which ensure that there is a small elite at the top with lots of money and power while everybody else struggles to even house themselves, feed themselves and keep themselves warm (and I do not believe that is an exaggeration - the insane cost of housing in this country is having a massive effect on people's quality of life and their health).

Exactly, Wallison. And watch this ugly scenario of abuse of wealth and power grow ever more sordid and criminal over the next few months.

wallison But basic literacy and numeracy need to be set in context vs the opportunities to a set of people with those skills. Yes, basic numeracy and literacy may have risen, but so has the demand, so we're still lacking educationally. In other words, the bar has been raised and we haven't jumped it. Low level jobs have been cannibalised by technology and globalisation, and there's nothing that a government of any political persuasion could do to stop it.

The Conservatives are responsible for the introduction of tuition fees which will certainly cause a brain drain. Why pay to study here, when there are such exciting opportunities abroad for a similar price? My son is already talking of going to America for his degree

Mind you, he is only eleven.

I thought Labour introduced tuition fees and The Tories just increased them. Stupid policy anyway, but there you go. I dont know why they dont create a list of core skills that employers need and say "If you study these and work in the UK for 10 years after graduation (not necessarily consecutively) we'll pay for your Undergrad"

Labour introduced tuition fees. hth.

I agree the bar has been raised, whilst literacy and numeracy has improved it hasn't necessarily kept pace with what is now demanded.

There is a hollowing out effect in the economy where the middle class once were. The working class may have been illiterate but they had some social mobility post war because we had a manufacturing industry. Now we see the middle slipping towards the bottom and the bottom falling in the pit.

I think re-nationalisation and pre-distribution is the answer. If the banks up sticks because of regulation....let them...their businesses is not our business. Many of these so called "banks" are not banks in the sense that they lend or offer services to small/medium businesses, what they do is offer the rich another route to investment where the money is tied up in derivatives or derivatives, the money never sees it's way into the real economy. Capital is not being invested into job creation in the private sector because the golden 3% is not being realised. So let the rich up sticks, they already checked out years ago.....they might still be seen living here but their assets and their loyalty are long lost.

Re-nationalise what though? Very few countries bother having nationalised industries that don't break even. It just doesn't make sense