Brown loses Sun newspaper backing

[dang65]

Labour has ****ed around with schools and the curriculum every two years (without fail), so much so that no new initiative or idea is given a chance. It's Labour constant tinkering that has caused the mess in education - if they'd done nothing for 10 years, we'd be in no worse a state.

I've had at least one of my children in the education system since 1994 (two of them still there now) and they are all doing really well. The technology and facilities in all the schools have been hugely improved, the children are happy and treated fairly and with encouragement. What is this "mess in education" of which you speak? Have your kids been neglected and confused by the "constantly changing curriculum"? (I haven't noticed it constantly changing, or even varying much at all in all that time, not to the point of causing any problems for the children anyway.)

[Moscow Mule]

Been to Alton Towers too many times so the rides are a bit boring. Also my best mate lives down there so it is an excuse to meet up for a few beers

Fair enough. I could ride Air all day and not get bored though...

[Moscow Mule]

I've had at least one of my children in the education system since 1994 (two of them still there now) and they are all doing really well. The technology and facilities in all the school have been hugely improved, the children are happy and treated fairly and with encouragement. What is this "mess in education" of which you speak? Have your kids been neglected and confused by the "constantly changing curriculum"? (I haven't noticed it constantly changing, or even varying much at all in all that time, not to the point of causing any problems for the children anyway.)

You should try having an over-stressed department head as a wife. This is what I hear every time we get around to talking politics. I believe her and her colleagues...

Some schools are good, some bad. The bad ones have got worse in the last 10 years.

[BoredBloke]

Fair enough. I could ride Air all day and not get bored though...

Because my son is disabled we get a pass that allows us to take him on using the exit. it means that when we go we get on all of the rides about 4 times each and last year we went about 6 times because we bought the family pass. But after a while they just become boring. So we figured we would give the other parks a go.

[The Lone Gunman]

What, rather than vote Tory? Yeah, you're probably right.

You (and a few others) constantly deride members of this board as being rampantly Tory.
Most people on here can present a reasonable argument as to why they do not like NL. Take TEs explanation in this thread for instance.
Yet you seem blindly willing to support NL based solely on a what appears to be a hatred of anything to do with Thatcher.

Labour have fcuked up the UK big style, in every department. The NHS, the schools and transport systems are surviving in spite of not because of NL policy. The transport system is crap. Schools are providing minimal curicula (?) and the NHS is being crushed by the weight of its beurocracy.

[BoredBloke]

You should try having an over-stressed department head as a wife. This is what I hear every time we get around to talking politics. I believe her and her colleagues...

Some schools are good, some bad. The bad ones have got worse in the last 10 years.

My daughter struggled at school and was in the bottom set for a few subjects. Once in these groups there is no hope. They are lumped in with the disruptive kids and have the worst teachers. Often they don't appear on the stats because they don't get entered into the exams.

My wife works in a special needs school. There used to be 3 in our area, all small providing care to local kids with a wide range of learning difficulties. They decided to merge the schools and built a (PFI) school on the grounds of a local comp. The school, while quite nice is very sterile. They are not allowed to hang things on the walls. They also get picked on by the local 'normal' kids. They don't have the facilities they used to have and the kids have to travel longer distances. For some reason they are all about to lose the special needs allowence in their wages soon. This dispite still having to do the unpleasant things a normal TA would not do. There are not many TA's in a normal comp who would have to change the sh1tty pants of some 17 year old lad for the pay they get.

[dang65]

I must admit that education is a lot better under Labour. In 97 we had lots of kids failing their exams, now we have A levels with a 97 percent pass rate. I have no idea how they did this as the kids themselves don't apprear any brighter but the stats don't lie. It's almost like they have made the exams easier or somefink init!

Well, it was 87% nationally in 1997 and 97% in 2009. That's not an unbelievable leap, more like signs of a solid improvement in general education standards from primary school up.

[sweetandsour]

Yeah, this is probably the problem. I don't suppose many people on this forum even use the NHS, public transport, schools or social care, or ever did under the Tories either, so who would notice the difference.

I only stopped using the local NHS GP three years ago when I could stand it no longer.

The practice had a "target" that no patient should wait more than two days for their appointment.

So if all the appointments for the next two days were booked they wouldn't let you make an appointment and would just tell you to "call back after 2pm" - which really means that you are in a competition to be the first caller after 2pm.

I live in London and don't own a car so I use public transport a lot.

The tubes and suburban trains seem to be much the same as ever. They are busier now but the tubes do run later than they used to years ago.

I use the mainline trains from time to time to visit my family and this service has got steadily worse and worse over the last few years.

• The new trains are less comfortable for passengers than the old ones.
  
• The journey at the weekend is frequently disrupted by engineering works and I am expected to take a bus for part of the journey or go the long way around.
  
• I pay for first class tickets now because the standard class experience is so unpleasant.
  
• Cost wise there is not much in it between taking the train and hiring a car for the weekend.

[BoredBloke]

Well, it was 87% nationally in 1997 and 97% in 2009. That's not an unbelievable leap, more like signs of a solid improvement in general education standards from primary school up.

So an exam which is almost impossible to fail! Also, it is easier to move from 77% to 87%, it's a shedload harder to go from 87% to 97%

I well grant you that the dumbing down of the a levels was not started under NL but it was taken to new levels. The insistance that 50% should go to uni dispite 50% not being up to the task was stupid. Instead we have a uni system which gives students a worthless degree for a ton of debt but no job to go to when they have graduated. That doesn't even touch on the high drop out rate which we have now.

[dang65]

You should try having an over-stressed department head as a wife. This is what I hear every time we get around to talking politics. I believe her and her colleagues...

But that's not really an objective way to judge the state of an industry. I mean, does anyone have a partner that doesn't come home and spend half an hour raging about the stress-outs in the office? My missus used to work as a guide for the National Trust and you'd think she was in charge of air traffic control at Heathrow, FFS.