Reply to: The triumph of Blairism

[Troll]

Actually, no not fine. Going back to my original ironic comment (remember irony?) it was Cambridge High School and Harrow Tech I attended, among my fourteen schools since my family were in the Forces and I got around a bit. I had four grammar schools (hint - don't change curriculum in the 5th form) and I always maintain I got an education and four decent science A levels despite school, not because of it. On the other hand, I've been reading since I was three, so perhaps some of it has stuck - I'm still a black belt at Trivial Pursuit (and agreed, that is not about intelligence, merely rote learning)

So if you're sufficiently smart to hold yourself up as a comparator for good schooling, Mr Troll, you may have worked out that it's not clever to make unfounded assumptions.

I must admit I am struggling a bit to see what your point is

If your family were in the forces & moved around then surely you would have taken advantage of the assisted place scheme and gone (boarded?) to a Private School

Are you saying that the 14 schools including Grammar included Comprehensives, and that in your opinion the Comprehensives were the equivalent of the Grammar schools?

Or are you just suffering the effects of last-word-itus ?

[wendigo100]

I don't think boasting about how clever you are on a public BB is a great sign of intelligence.

Bloody huge though, my IQ. Enormous! A large portion!

I must have got Prescott's share as well.

[malvolio]

No, of course it isn't. And you will notice I said "passed", I didn't say I joined - bunch of self-congratulatry wuckfits in my experience.

Definition of an "intelligent terminal" by an ex-boss of mine - one that runs out of the room when you shout "FIRE"...

[DimPrawn]

I don't think boasting about how clever you are on a public BB is a great sign of intelligence.

[malvolio]

I passed a Mensa qualification test, so presumably I'm above average - but I agree that an intelligent guess can be made on most multiple choice questions.

It's the old argument about what defines intelligence isn't it? I certainly don't think it's anything to do with IQ, that merely means you think the same way as the test setter. I prefer the biological assessment as being the abiltiy to correlate apparently unrelated bits of information to produce something new - chimp learns that ants climb sticks, chimp learns that sticks fit into holes in anthills, chimp works out that putting a stick in an anthill means you can get at the ants. But I doubt that chimp could predict the next in the sequence JFMAM... (assuming he spoke English!)

[wendigo100]

But what is your IQ? Mine's bloody large!

And being good at quizzes is not all about rote learning. Many answers can be worked out, perhaps by elimination, or by recognising connections between facts.

[malvolio]

Actually, no not fine. Going back to my original ironic comment (remember irony?) it was Cambridge High School and Harrow Tech I attended, among my fourteen schools since my family were in the Forces and I got around a bit. I had four grammar schools (hint - don't change curriculum in the 5th form) and I always maintain I got an education and four decent science A levels despite school, not because of it. On the other hand, I've been reading since I was three, so perhaps some of it has stuck - I'm still a black belt at Trivial Pursuit (and agreed, that is not about intelligence, merely rote learning)

So if you're sufficiently smart to hold yourself up as a comparator for good schooling, Mr Troll, you may have worked out that it's not clever to make unfounded assumptions.

[Ardesco]

I went through comprehensive school while most of my freinds went through private and without a doubt I will be sending all my children to private. The private schools give you far more useful contacts than comprehensive schools and it's not what you know, it's who you know!

[Troll]

All grammar schools were going to be abolished years ago, when I went to school. Therefore I went to the local comprehensive and it was quite good - we had proper teachers that knew their stuff and a small percentage of us went to the 6th form and got A-levels.

Your original comment "I take it you're a product of comprehensive education - I will adjust my postings accordingly" was not about the comprehensive system of today. You were implying that because someone has had a comprehensive education, that they were somehow less worthy or intelligent. In other words, Mr Troll, you are an intellectual snob.

If you are happy with your experience with comprehensive education, then that's fine

[CaribbeanPirate]

<mode id="Old jokes are the best">
I went to a good school - it was approved.
</mode>

[oraclesmith]

According to NL spin nothing:

6. Record levels of literacy and numeracy in schools

8. Funding for every pupil in England to double (since 1997) by 2007-08

Would you agree with NL that the comprehensive system in the UK is producing world class students, easily employable and in demand by industry?
Do you also subscribe to the NL view that selection is wrong and all Grammar schools should be abolished?
Is your local comprehensive is so good that you would have no hesitation in sending your children there?

All grammar schools were going to be abolished years ago, when I went to school. Therefore I went to the local comprehensive and it was quite good - we had proper teachers that knew their stuff and a small percentage of us went to the 6th form and got A-levels.

Your original comment "I take it you're a product of comprehensive education - I will adjust my postings accordingly" was not about the comprehensive system of today. You were implying that because someone has had a comprehensive education, that they were somehow less worthy or intelligent. In other words, Mr Troll, you are an intellectual snob.

[BoredBloke]

Did you know that in the UK more people work in Indian restraunts/takeaways than work in mining AND shipbuilding.

[wendigo100]

1. Lowest inflation since the 60s
2. Low interest rates
3. Introduced the National Minimum Wage
4. Record police numbers in England and Wales
5. Cut overall crime by 35 per cent
6. Record levels of literacy and numeracy in schools
7. Best-ever primary school results
8. Funding for every pupil in England to double (since 1997) by 2007-08
9. Lowest unemployment for 29 years
10. Written off up to 100 per cent of debt owed by poorest countries
11. 78,700 more nurses
12. 27,400 more doctors
13. Brought back matrons to hospital wards
14. Devolved power to the Scottish Parliament
15. Devolved power to Welsh Assembly
16. Banned anti-personnel mines
17. NHS Direct offering free convenient patient advice at any time
18. New Deal - helped over a million people into work
19. Local government funding has increased by a third in real terms
20. Equalised the age of consent for gay men
21. Free entry to all national museums and galleries
22. Overseas aid budget more than doubled
23. Restored city-wide government to London
24. Child benefit up 25 per cent since 1997
25. Created Sure Start to help children from low income households
26. Introduced the Disability Rights Commission
27. £200 winter fuel payment to pensioners & extra £100 for over-80s
28. The biggest rolling stock replacement programme ever seen on our railways
29. Negotiated the historic Good Friday Agreement in Northern Ireland
30. Over 30,000 more teachers in England schools
31. Implemented the Freedom of Information Act
32. All workers now have a right to 4 weeks’ paid holiday
33. Record rises in the state pension
34. 700,000 children lifted out of relative poverty
35. Introduced child tax credit giving more money to parents
36. Banned handguns
37. Cut long-term youth unemployment by 75 per cent
38. Free nursery places for three and four-year-olds in England, Scotland and Wales
39. Free fruit for all four to six-year-olds at school
40. Free school milk for five, six and seven-year-olds in Wales
41. Record police numbers in Scotland
42. Implemented the Human Rights Act
43. Cleanest rivers, beaches, drinking water and air since the industrial revolution
44. Free TV licences for over-75s
45. Banned fur farming and the testing of cosmetics on animals
46. Halved maximum waiting times for NHS operations
47. Free local bus travel for over-60s
48. Record number of students in higher education
49. Extended the Race Relations Act so that all public bodies and functions now have a duty to promote race equality
50. Five, six and seven-year-olds in class sizes of 30 or less

Record spending, record legislating, record headlines. But to what effect? How has it changed what we see in the UK?

Twenty questions

1. Have improvements to the NHS been any better than negligible?
2. Are children better educated now?
3. Has crime gone down? Has gun crime gone down? Have detection rates gone up?
4. Are we involved in less wars?
5. Are there more jobs in private enterprise?
6. Are there less taxpayer-funded state jobs?
7. Have we got better funded pensions?
8. Are people in less debt?
9. Is the country balancing the books or even running a budget surplus?
10. Are roads less crowded?
11. Is public transport less crowded, and is it faster?
12. Are there less racial tensions?
13. Is immigration better controlled?
14. Has the cost of our most basic and non-competitive supplies - water and power - gone up no more than wage inflation?
15. Have constitutional changes helped anyone other than professional politicians?
16. Has the freedom of information act stopped the government vetoing requests for information that is nothing to do with national security and everything to do with protecting Party interests?
17. Is the environment any better, or even any policies in place to slow down its getting worse?
18. Do we pay less tax now?
19. Do the public have less form-filling and other red tape to cope with now?
20. Are politicians more trusted now than they were in 1997?

How did you do?

0 Yeses - Well done
1 to 5 Yeses - Everyone is entitled to the odd, diverse opinion
6 to 10 Yeses - You aren't paying attention
11 to 15 Yeses - You aren't very bright
16 to 19 Yeses - You aren't paying attention and you aren't very bright
20 Yeses - You are a lying government minister

[Nipple Clamp]

Irony is a form of utterance that postulates a double audience, consisting of one party that hearing shall hear and shall not understand, and another party that, when more is meant than meets the ear, is aware, both of that “more” and of the outsider’s incomprehension.
HTH

But the party that hears and doesn't understand can be understood by both the other parties to be present only in their imagination.

[bogeyman]

Thatcher ruined the country I grew up in and loved, just as Bush is ruining that in which I now live. She spawned a generation for whom the making of money is the only measure of achievement, turned vices (greed, philistinism) into virtues (private enterprise, pragmatism), and did irrevocable damage to educational and cultural institutions. My parents' generation (75+) benefited not one whit from the Thatcher ecomonic revolution and are still eking out a living on their pensions. Did anyone say Northern Ireland or Falklands? What short memories we have. When she dies, show me her grave, hand me my dancing shoes, and strike up the band.

Heh! Heh! Heh!

We'll see about that, puny human!