Occupy Mumnset - Mumsnet, i know you are P(p)olitical. Seriously, can't you tell your advertisers to fuck off if they are workfaring?

[Tortington]

i got an e-mail telling me i had % of retailers that are involved in the workfare scheme and it occured to me that Mumsnet is usually on the side of good

oh staff of MN you know me well, whilst i was disappointed that the Maccy D advertising question was even asked, i wasn't arsed tbh. i've always shouted 'its a business not a charity' ...

but this is different - It is very very wrong, and you are perpetuating the wrongness by advertising them.

Capitalism works for the frivolities in life - things we don't need. Rely on capitalism for everything else and you get China growing opium instead of wheat and rice, because opium is more profitable.

According to the mail, anyone opposed to workfare is a
"Dope smoking, bed lounging, TV watching Trotskyist"

David Cameron is peaking today about how we need to support big companies and is due to say that people who don't are Job snobs.

Notice how, we have rich white men telling us we are at war with terror and muslims are extremists. Well now rich white man is at war with anyone who opposes big business and anyone not in agreement with him is an extremist.

'Government privatising everything and then buying back from private enterprise is stifling competition, not increasing it, because Government doesn't want to take risks on small businesses.'

It's not about taking risks. Why do you think that in times of war, government takes over and requisitions capital equipment in order to meet the nation's needs. Government can do a better job.

But if government created nationalised banks, how would the private bankers be able to make such huge profits and pay themselves such huge salaries?

"speaking" I am so tired!

Then why don't you suggest she work for a charity?

I have and it's something we're actually in the process of looking into.

Cool.

RBS is making a loss again. Some American wanker banker on Radio 4 calls for the right to re-instate huge bonuses to retain the talent.

These people have governments over a barrel and anyone who dares to point this out is an extremist anti-capitalist.

Government requisitioning things during wars etc is taking a HUGE risk, because they have a huge hole to dig us all out of called a war. It does show that if everyone felt they had a common aim and an idea of the common good, things might work more smoothly, because we would all be working together. Or maybe it shows we should all blow each other up.

There is no risk in government creating their own training companies instead of paying millions to outside companies and creating millionaire owners of these companies for supplying services to the government. It would be cheaper to let the government run it and all the profit would go back to the nation.

You want capitalism to create dynamic competitive industries which create innovative new products, but if you have essentially monopoly type services that supply the government, then there is no need for private industry to profit from this.

Who are Tory party Donars, Are they tax payers, no most are tax dodgers and they have the ears of those in power. Cameron is a red faced, naive puppet to capitalist money makers.

There is no possibility of this Government not privatising everything from the NHS to welfare assessments, welfare payments and training. Why are schools immune? they are not- we have creeping privatisation through free schools.

Cui bono?
It is the same with the progressives. In reality, cui bono?

State run or private run, you end up with monopoly type essential services - after an extended period of chaos with the private option as companies compete with each other to make the biggest profit out of the consumer. The only difference now seems to be that you are expected to keep choosing between a handful of big providers who all offer a bad deal which they keep changing and deliberately (or inefficiently??... are they no good at recruiting and training staff??... the State could do it just as badly) making it difficult for you to change provider without losing money mysteriously from your bank account as you find you are paying two suppliers at the same time whilst the original provider has actually cut you off. It's like having a bunch of cats all working against each other and forgetting you are even there in the process. And now the bunch of cats are saying that the problem is not their greed and inefficiency, it's the State's inability to educate properly. So, we are now pulling apart State education, so that it too can become deeply confusing and forget about the needs of the entire population in the process. When that doesn't result in a more useful workforce, then we will be told it's because the people of this country are genetically useless and there's no doing anything with them. At which point, big business will move on in disgust.

Or a process of cleansing of the population will be implemented... whether via starvation and neglect or via a more proactive method.

No. What this government is doing on education is excellent. They really care about education and are determined to reverse the dumbing down process. Gove has warned that exam marks will deteriorate because they will no longer accept dumbing down and grade inflation.

They don't believe in dumbing down the population or the nation. Standards will rise and enterprise will thrive. They are slowly turning the nation around and making it competitive in the modern world.

Companies are constantly making the point that Brits are unemployable because young people in particular can not read or write.

And their answer to this is to privatise the education system. One of the last remaining state provided services.

It isn't that state education isn't capable of educating, it is a case of Governments not seeing a need for high levels of literacy because a highly educated workforce would be harder for the "cats" to exploit and profit from.

If businesses can successfully make the case that state ed is failing it leaves the door open for them to come in and make profits.

The American health care insurers have been making a similar case over the NHS since the 80's and now Mkinsey has been allowed to write the new Health and social care bill.

I'm underwhelmed by Gove. He want's a return to children parroting learnt facts instead of teaching children to be creative and resourceful. Clear in my mind why that is.

The current government think it is better at primary level to work at the level of the slowest - ie not to move on to a new subject until an entire class, working together, have got the point. I guess that's a good way of boosting numbers in the private sector for those who can afford a bit more stimulation for their children, and saving money in the state sector by making a teacher's job much easier, and of standardising everything so that we all know what low level we are at. And in the secondary sector, a focus is to be had on traditional subjects, which are easily taught in more traditional and cheap ways. This is cheaper and would be great for the brighter children, but it wouldn't increase the number of children who can benefit from that method. There would still be a great swathe of children who don't learn well that way who are having to stay in school doing something not very useful for them. So, in my view, it's just another method of making State education an option only for those who can't get out of it.

minima, you're wrong. Our industries need top talent in order to compete worldwide. We need the best educated workforce possible or we will decline in prosperity. Schools exist to train people for teh future, not for supermarket shelf stacking jobs.

The state education has not been good enough. We have far too many failing schools and we are letting our children down. That is not due to teh schools themselves or the teachers, it is due to misguided political policies.

This government needs to turn this round, and part of that is to allow some private competityion to see if standards rise. If this fails then they will be lambasted by progressives and their newspapers. But it will not fail, it is bound to work, and that is what worries the progressives, because their policies will be shown to have failed, dumbing down will be banished and grade inflation will disappear.

Yeah, private competition is 'bound to work'. It's worked so well in the past...

'He want's a return to children parroting learnt facts instead of teaching children to be creative and resourceful'

He wants children to read, write and think. He wants excellence and that is what we will get. He doesn't want creative spelling and inventive spelling, he wants traditional, correct spelling and that is what we will get. He is turning it around, not for jimself, but for teh children of teh country. He will get lots of abuse from progressives, but that won't deter him from teh task.

So, you think education will benefit from private competition, but health won't? Surely our employers want us educated AND healthy? Or do you mean a bit more private competition on educational ideas????? Which means Gove cannot inflict good spelling on schools. And nor can people really vote with their feet in order to get all schools ensuring good spelling, because they can't move around the country in search of the good state schools regardless of the effect on their paid employment. And those who currently can't spell are the least likely to look for the best schools, so it won't improve their spelling one iota. Those who already can spell under the current system, however, will get very hett up.

(forget the extra t!)

'So, you think education will benefit from private competition, but health won't?'

Yes. Progressives often deride the great company, McDonalds, but it has excellent training and its own university. IBM and other companies provide great training for staff. I don't think that private companies cannot help educate or train people, just as I don't think that the publishing of books by private publishers harms the education of the nation.

Health is more difficult, due to possible conflicts of interest about saving money. I don't know enough about all the pros and cons in that area to judge whether some private input is useful or not.