Conservative Manifesto Launch

[anastaisia]

read it here

shall we pick this one to pieces too...

I'm still trying to work it out. The BBC seems to have a stupid person's digest but it still seems a little bit well - anarchic.

It reminds me of a health and safety briefing I got during a previous incarnation when the personnel lady said that all staff were entirely responsible for themselves and consequently if anything happened to you it was entirely your own fault.

anastaisia kindly put a link to the manifesto in her op - I'm trying to understand it.

Oh no - I really thought he'd said he'd abolish KS2 Sats. That was something that would have really helped everyone.

I'll peruse the text this evening but I think the graphics are brilliant!

"We will reduce youth unemployment and reduce the number of
children in workless households as part of our strategy for tackling poverty and inequality."

I think I know what they mean and am sure it's NOT removing a proportion of children from non-working households. Have to say it made me grin though.

Riven for PM on that basis [gtin]

Doh! I meant of course!

I just saw Mumsnet on the BBC news.

I guess the schools thing is pretty important to me too. I'd hate a company to be making a profit from my child's schooling. I also agree with the guy from Cardiff who said that the most important factor in a child's success is not the school but the parental involvement in their education.

they'll be up chimneys

so not only do we have the longest working hours in europe - now we have to find time to run schools and hospitals too - for free!

and where does the money come from? central government? how does this save money? its presuming we know a hell of a lot more about running a multi million pound budget than the professionals currently paid to do so.

what utter horseshit.

"We will reduce youth unemployment and reduce the number of
children in workless households as part of our strategy for tackling poverty and inequality." = "we'll force those on benefits into jobs that pay peanuts and leave their kids in the care of someone else also being paid peanuts, ala the u.s welfare to work travesty"

I really hate this parents running schools thing.

I've never heard a better argument for mobilising kids whose parents are educated and pushy, while leaving the rest to fester in under-achieving schools.

If they can't commit to even trying to improve schools themselves and giving all children, rich or poor, a decent education, I think they should step aside now.

Good on you Laugs....if the 'parent running schools' thing happens we'll be left with underfunded schools full of children whose parents don't care and whose government doesn't care.

However, knowing how hard it is to organise a playgroup, I don't think any parents will get round to running a school.

Schools now are better than they've ever been (and also more similar than they've ever been) but - now we have more choice - we as parents worry about them more than is necessary (IMO!)

The free schools thing is one of the things I like best.

" I'd hate a company to be making a profit from my child's schooling"

Alicatte - Sorry to break it to you - but many company's already make a profit from your dc's schooling: Stationary supplier, school lunch providers, builders, IT and computer suppliers....... It's just their actual education where you can't reward results with a profit (even the Tories are balking at that - seemly).

So let's have a think. I am an education professional with over 16 years experience, now at a senior level. My DH is a class teacher with 15 years experience of inner-city schools as a literacy and SEN manager. Knowing what we know about the education system from the inside, there is no way on earth either of us would dream of starting our own school, or even presume that we could, and we are probably more qualified than many. I just can't understand how such a policy could possibly work even if the will and energy (and money) were there. If there aren't any decent schools in an area then the government should ask itself why and do something about it, not ask us to sort it out. Builde - your point about playgroups sums it up! Companies will end up running schools for a profit, and who would they be accountable to for driving up standards? Shareholders?

jackstarbright,

I guess my point was that as we currently have the option, within actual education in the classroom, to spend ALL the government allocated money on the process - it seems a shame to spend less and add to the host of companies making a profit.

Not, of course, that there is anything intrinsically wrong with making a profit. It is just such a waste to let companies cream off profit when the current arrangement allows us not to.

Alicatte - I actually can't find any reference to profit making from schools in the manifesto. And recently the Tories have been denying that they will allow it.

I guess it all comes down to polical orthodoxy? Do you believe public services are inherently cost effective with tax payer's money is spent in the most effecient way? Or do you believe organisations respond best to incentives, such as profit?

I am responding to the BBC news report just after lunch today which featured Justine from Mumsnet. In this report it was explained that parents would be able not so much to start schools themselves as to be able to invite companies and charities to start schools for them - hence my concerns.

To be honest, I can't find much that is very clear in the manifesto - its why I'm finding it so difficult. It puts me in mind of a kind of 'doublespeak' I don't know what they mean so I am very grateful to the political interpreters on the BBC.

MissM has made me worry about shareholders now - how could such a conflict of interest be resolved?

The ones they have in Sweden are profit-making, but the Tories apparently decided they wouldn't be allowed to make a profit here (against the advice of this Swedish advisor.

Actually they're less widespread than I thought in Sweden - 10% of children are in them. I thought it was more.

Thanks for that Vesela,

Its a bit of mixed report though - I went down to the bottom line (bad habit of mine) and it said that the Swedish Education Minister thought that the education in Sweden was bad relative to the rest of Europe. He also seemed to be saying that it was 'selection' that made the free schools relatively better at the moment. Then the advisor said they needed to make a profit so they could subsidise the education of less well off children.

Couldn't we just pay up front?

I haven't read it, but have been listening to radio 4 for the last hour or so, so have got a general overview. What I took away from it was that there is no appetite from parents to set up their own schools, so that's just nonsense.

Only four pages about the economy - I presume that's because they don't really know what their going to do OR they do, but don't want us to know.

More involvement from individuals in the local community - I remember care in the community, so no thanks.

Frankly, I struggled to get through that, and did skim through quite a bit.

The fox-hunting paragraph (tacked onto the end of 'civil liberties' simply made me laugh. I mean, come on, it's such an utterly petty thing to include in an election manifesto in which people are voting to try and salvage some sort of life out of the financial mess we're in right now.

As for the rest of it, there seemed to be an awful lot there that maybe seemed a good idea to some hiher up being idealistic, but linking the pay of Sure Start workers to their results seems a scary precedent to set. Results-based pay is a really great way to stress out your workforce and disillusion them. Combined with the threats to cut funding to bad hospitals, and the opportunity for any helicopter-parent with a big idea to start their own school if the fancy it, this just looks like step one of a descent into chaos.

I can just see endless quangos having to appear in a few years to try and monitor this mess, along with reams of management staff busily assessing medical professionals and social workers, reducing their effeciency even more. And as for the workhouse Work Programme idea... it took me six months just to get through all the flipping medicals for my ESA claim the first time (during which I was in benefits limbo, unable to work and unable to be confident my claim would properly go through); the thought of doing that all over again because they've decided to force sick people into work is just infuriating. I have to get back into a return-to-work programme '6 to 8 weeks' after giving birth as it is.

But on the plus side, it does look like quite a few graphic artists made a mint doing those pictures, so at least someone's benefited.