TUC National Demonstration Against Cuts

[OrangeBernard]

Who's going? I've just booked my train tickets. Its my first protest, any advice or tips? Bit worried about kettling.

or bombing Libya

But it's ok spending 'fucking millions of pounds' on shit 'state' schools, yeah?

It's just so patronising to suggest poor people can't set up free schools. I suspect, just like non poor people really, some can't be arsed, some don't care and some don't know how to.

How many professional middle classes have the free time? they just find it somehow, if they want something enough.

If additional funds would make a shit school better and it serves the whole community I don't see why not.

Cameron obviously reckons money matters in education, otherwise why would he pretend to ring fence the budget?

You're right Jogon, I can't be arsed. Tbh, I can't be arsed to get out of bed some days, but that's cancer for you

" Shit " schools aren't shit because they don't have flashy new classrooms or dining halls.

They're shit because they have too many kids who don't want to work, have no ambition, are rude, disruptive and come from backgrounds of educational apathy and indifference.

Labour has shown us all, quite clearly, that throwing money at such a problem does absolutely nothing to solve it. What changes it is a fantastic Head, brilliant teachers and engaged parents and kids.

Wubbly - why are you taking this so personally?

I can't actually be arsed to set up a free school, as it happens. I'm perfectly happy with the ones my kids are at.

Sitting in a freezing cold, damp classroom with a dodgy roof sharing one textbook between four kids (as I did under the last Tory government) does not make learning easy.

One of our local comps was a 'shit' school, a terrible reputation.

It was demolished, a new state of art building, fabulous facilities. Same site, same head, same board, same teachers, same catchment, same kids. In a couple of years it's results have gone through the roof. 93% getting 5 GCSE at A-C, 67% including english & maths. The figures before were around 30%.

The kids who go there are really proud of their school and they are proud of themselves. Feeling like they actually matter enough to have a decent place to go to school seems to have been a great motivation to them and perhaps the head and the teachers?

Glitterknicks.

I was a kid in the Seventies. Over 30 in every class, regular strikes and half the school out in freezing portacabins .

Oh, and this was under Labour.

I'm not taking it at all personally jogon. I'm merely pointing out that, when it comes to being poor, you haven't got a scooby.

Wubbly.

With all due respect, you haven't a fucking clue about me or who I am or where I come from.

So don't presume.

I'm reminded of a colleague I worked with many years ago.

We were discussing the problems of unemployment under Thatcher. My DF had lost his trade of 25 years and we were struggling to make ends meet. After 3 years without a sniff of a job, DF was working 2 unskilled jobs, DM working full time, I left school to get an office junior job and help out with the finances.

My privately educated colleague, living in flat paid for by Daddy, explained how she fully understood what it was like to be unemployed and recounted the tale of when she herself had to sign on 'once'. She remembered it well, she told me, as she used the money to buy her first Sony fucking Walkman.

All political parties are committed to the welfare state but the money has run out. All parties would have cut.

The money hasn't 'run out'. The UK has never been richer.

Not everyone agrees cutting will harm the UK. You invest in countires if they are prudent. If we cut we may not lose ouf AAA international credit rating which is very helpful to our success. If you don't cut and don't balance the books people don't want to invest here.

Mostly the people who have little interest in the welfare of society say this.

I am sure there is a difference in view between right and left no the thread as to the Lord helps those who help themselves but no political party has any plan to dismantle the welfare state and had a Labour got in we would have been cut cut cutting away almost as hard.

Actually, the Tories are making quite substantial changes to the welfare state. Abolishing the EMA, increasing tuition fees to £9000 and privatising the NHS are all very substantial changes. Furthermore, this isn't about New Labour or the Tories. What New Labour would do is irrelevant, and doesn't make it right or wrong.

No political party is proposing to take big chunks of the state away,. The Coalition is tinkering.

This 'tinkering' is putting hundreds of thousands of people out of work and endangering people's lives.

The bigi ssue is labours over spending is leading if the points on the thread above are correct to some poorer people losing some services. The finger of blame should be pointed at Labour.

No, the finger of blame should be pointed at the financial sector, which caused a banking crisis, which cost the public nearly £1 Trillion pounds - that £1,000 Billion:

www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/politics/163850bn-official-cost-of-the-bank-bailout-1833830.html

Not only did the public pay for this bailout, but the crisis caused a recession, putting people out of work, reducing demand, reducing tax receipts, and putting people on welfare. The deficit shot up from 3% of GDP to over 11% of GDP after the bank bailouts. The blame should be laid fairly and squarely at the banks. The only way New Labour are to blame are for deregulating the financial sector. It is not public spending which is the cause of our current economic situation.

Howeer if people choose for political ends to point it at the Coalition I am sure it will cope and in 4 years the Tories will win a resounding victory.

For 'political ends', you are clearly blaming New Labour for something which was caused by the financial sector.

She was clearly a tit, though Wubbly.

You don't know anything enough about me to know if I have any experience of poverty or not.

Jogon, with respect, I've read a whole lot of your posts on this thread where you've made some pretty negative assumptions about whole groups of people you know nothing about.

I at least have formed my opinion based upon what you have said.

You have NO idea what experience of poverty I have. None. And it pisses me off that you make such sweeping statements when you know nothing about a person. It doesn't make for good debate.

applauds ttosca

I speak as I find Jogon.

I do agree with you on one point though, my colleague was certainly a tit.

Wubbly.

Show me where you found evidence to support your statement that I know nothing of poverty.

Jogon, I really can't be arsed to trawl through your every post, FFS.

You have made countless derogatory posts regarding benefit claimants smoking, getting laptops, living in big houses. You've suggested that disabled benefits are paid without evidence or checks. You seem to be entirely unaware of the obstacles that those living in poverty have to overcome to simply access life in the way most of us take for granted.

It just doesn't come across as particularly empathetic.

Now it's my opinion, that's about as much time as I'm prepared to spend on justifying it. Take your own advice and don't make it personal, please.

wubbly could you please name this school that was rebuilt to miraculous effect, I would be interested to read the ofsteds.

It would kind of give away my location london, so I'd really rather not.

Handy that eh?