2015
October 7
Really, Prime Minister
So today I sat and listened to our Prime Minister make his speech to the Tory party conference. I say I sat and listened but actually after a couple of minutes I drifted off into the land of make believe only to come round some forty minutes later and discover I hadn’t drifted off at all. Dear old Dave was actually in the land of make believe and he’d taken me with him.
Apparently this decade, his decade of power, will be remembered as the time when the tide turned and people no longer felt the current was going against them. Well, as Dave’s aim seems to be to make sure that people stand still and if they gain on income tax cuts they lose some of their tax credits, I have to point out that all that will happen is that people will have the tide going against them but from a different direction. If, Dave, you stand still, then the tide will always being going against you.
He promised to end discrimination and finish the fight for real equality. For whom? Is this just sexual, racial or social discrimination? Can we all now go to Eton and have holidays abroad? He is going to tackle big social problems like extremism. Sorry Dave, extremism is a serious problem but not big. Its effect can be massive, its scale is not. Poverty on the other hand is not only a serious problem, it is on a massive scale. In the same way as I am sure we do not tackle extremism by pushing more people into it, neither can we tackle poverty that way.
One of the best bits of my fairy tale was to remember good old Dave saying how much he would like politics, and prime minister’s question time in particular, to be more about substance and less about personality attacks and then indulge in exactly that. Personally I agree it is a tragedy that Osama bin Laden was killed and not brought to trial because I have no evidence he was killed. Mr Corbyn also said the attacks on the World Trade Centre and wars in Afghanistan and Iraq were tragedies and he argued that war was not the solution. Dave, who voted to go to war in Iraq and by doing so be a part of the death and destruction that took place in that country and may have contributed to many of the probelms in that region now, obviously feels aggression never breeds aggression.
Talking of aggression brings me to a little interview Dave did with Laura Kuenssberg at the BBC. I seem to quote them a lot recently but as all I watch on television is news and sport I suppose that’s only natural. I’m afraid I love entertainment too much to watch other shows on a Saturday night in particular. I find judgemental humiliation most unpleasant.
However, Laura, bless her little cotton socks, was questioning the Prime Minister on his immigration policy, if policy is the right word.
She said the British people were becoming frustrated with the fact that Dave had totally failed to achieve something he said he would five years ago. “They’re frustrated, I’m frustrated,” said Dave, identifying with the common man. Sadly Dave, they’re frustrated because you have failed to do what you said you would. You, if you have failed to do what you said you would, should not be frustrated: you should be apologetic, contrite, even admit you are a failure or, possibly, admit you make promises you cannot keep.
I accept that the Tories have put our economy back on the right road. I accept that they are right to try to cut the benefit bill. But, in a modern world of haves and have nots, if you really champion equality then some of those haves could spare a bit for some of the have nots and we all know that.
Overall, I was not impressed and, it is good news that the next Prime Minister will not have tested his “produce” on animals. Now back to my fairy tales. So these pigs had built their houses ……………………….
October 14
Just a short moan, just a short moan
Only a short moan this week because time is of the essence. Why doesn’t everyone else realise this? Why is there this new idea to repeat everything?
I watched University Challenge this week. Nice programme, intelligent young people and, I thought, an intelligent quiz master. At the end of the programme young Paxman says “so it’s goodnight from Exeter (or somewhere), goodnight from Glasgow and goodnight from me, goodnight”. No, the “goodnight from me” was that goodnight; the other one is unnecessary Jeremy. And yet, Alexander Armstrong, another clever bloke, does the same thing.
On the BBC website they sometimes quote messages which have appeared on twitter but why do they quote the message and then show a screenshot of the twitter page displaying exactly the same message, Do they think we might think they were lying and made it up? In which case I need to see all quotes attributed to speeches by politicians repeated as a screen shot in the said politicians own handwriting. Ridiculous.
Watch the news or a sport programme and the same thing. The start of the programme shows a clip, the repeat of which will be shown, sometimes exactly as before, in the main bulletin. Once is enough. Guess what? The time taken would actually give you more minutes to give us more news, more information.
Loosely related to this is the fact that some sports programmes, and the people at SKY are most to blame as they seem to believe in more arty-farty clips than facts, have an introduction to the programme so long that you actually switch channels. One second of usually unrecognisable snippets may keep someone in a job but it ruins my enjoyment and he/she is in the wrong job anyway. I want to watch cricket, F1, tennis whatever not a pop video.
Once will do. I have no idea why they do it. Why oh why, I ask. Why? Why?
October 21
Don’t you dare take a holiday when you can afford it.
Delighted to see that a father who took his children out of school for a term time holiday abroad has had the £120 fine that was imposed on him quashed by a court. Strict new rules on term-time holidays – including fines – were introduced in 2013 to punish parents over absences. It transpires that 86,010 fines have been issued by 98 councils in 2014-15 for pupil absence – either because of holiday or truancy. Not entirely useful information unless you know the split, however the figure was up from 62,204 in 2013-14 and 32,512 in 2012-13. This is a 265% increase in two years.
Now either the education system is so bad that truancy has nearly trebled in this period or someone is raking in the money for families being able to afford a holiday together. It is, according to the 1996 Education Act, the duty of parents to secure education of children of compulsory school age. The parent of every child of compulsory school age shall cause him to receive efficient full-time education suitable—
- a: to his age, ability and aptitude, and
- b: to any special educational needs he may have, either by regular attendance at school or otherwise.
So, though education is compulsory in the UK for children between the ages of five and sixteen, school is not.
Jon Platt who had taken his six-year-old daughter out of school to go to Disney World in Florida, had his fine thrown out after he argued the law required parents to ensure their children attended school “regularly”, and did not put restrictions on taking them on holidays in term time.
Now the Local Government Association has said that a “common sense approach” should be applied to parents in England taking children out of school for holidays. No chance of anyone involved in administration of education doing that then.
The current rule is that children can only miss school if their head teacher grants them permission and permission is only given in “exceptional circumstances”. Fines range from how much we can get to how much more we can get.
Apparently, so I read, 93% of all school absence was down to truancy so term time holidays don’t have much effect on things and it is our education system that has flaws not parents. I am all in favour of fighting truancy and there may be many occasions when parents should be punished. However there are a few instances I am sure where the parent feels helpless to persuade their child to attend school. Those parents should not be punished. Discretion, and a modicum of common sense, is needed.
Every head teacher knows, or bloody well should know, the circumstances of his/her pupils individually. Otherwise they cannot carry out the part of the Education Act I quoted above regarding the provision of efficient full-time education suitable for a child’s age, ability and aptitude, and to any special educational needs he may have. These needs might stem from the child’s home environment and so head teachers should be cogniscent of such matters.
Therefore, any Head can know if a term time holiday is being taken by a family whose child has a good normal attendance record or not. It should be the head’s decision to grant or not grant such a holiday. Of course the Head should take into account the child’s age, the time of the school year, even the length of the holiday but there should be no law upholding that decision.
It is obvious to anyone that children can benefit greatly from travelling and seeing other countries, even communities. It is also a good chance for family time and an emotional break for all.
But obvious though I believe it to be, the schools minister, Nick Gibb, doesn’t see it that way. He said that it has “always been the case that you should not take time out of terms to go on holiday”. He added that taking children out of class can disrupt teachers’ planning, affect the education of other children and affect the child themselves.
Also, dear Mr Gibb on your ministerial salary, families with less income, though no less hard working and possibly more intelligent, often struggle with the high cost of holidays out of term time. A family of four heading to the Canary Islands this half term would pay about £2,000 more than if taking the same holiday the week before or week after half term.
Then we come to the classic gaffe from the DfE. A spokesperson said that “It is a myth that missing school even for a short time is harmless to a child’s education.” Our evidence shows missing the equivalent of just one week a year from school can mean a child is significantly less likely to achieve good GCSE grades, having a lasting effect on their life chances.”
Okay, namby pamby, health and safety, can’t go out it’s snowing, schools, hear this. Next time any school anywhere in the UK closes because of snow, frost, ice or whatever, I fully expect the head teacher and his staff to cough up £60 for each child who has had their life chances ruined forever by missing one day of school. If a school closes because of a teacher’s strike, I expect nothing less than a prison sentence for each teacher that caused this closure. How stupid can this get? Don’t ask me, the DfE have first, second and third call on stupidity.
October 28
And the answer is ……………………
Have I just imagined this exchange today or will I see it in Hansard tomorrow.
Mr Cameron, are you, our Prime Minister an evasive, lying idiot and will you change?.
What I can guarantee is that we remain committed to the vision of not having lying idiots in high office. We believe that the way to make sure this happens is to keep growing our noses ever longer. As for our changes? The Chancellor will set them out in the Autumn Statement.
Mr Cameron, are you, our Prime Minister an evasive, lying idiot and will you change?
What we want is for people to think that there are no lying idiots in high office. But you will have to be patient because on this side of the House of Commons we all have ever increasing noses but we will set out our new proposals in the Autumn Statement and you will be able to study them.
Mr Cameron, are you, our Prime Minister an evasive, lying idiot and will you change?
Let me make two points. First of all we set out in our election manifesto we were going to find £12bn of savings on welfare. And it’s an important point because of course every penny we don’t save on welfare is savings we have to find in the education budget, or in the policing budget, or in the health budget or we might even have to tax the wealthy a bit more. Shit, didn’t mean to say that.
The second point I would make is because of what’s happened in the Lords, of course we should have a debate about how to reform welfare and how to reduce the cost of welfare and I’m happy to have that debate. But it’s difficult to have that debate with Mr Corbyn because he has opposed every single welfare change that we make. I always prefer to debate with people who are in total agreement with me. I don’t care how many, the more the merrier. I love a mass debate in public.
Mr Cameron, are you, our Prime Minister an evasive, lying idiot and will you change?
The answer will be set out in the Autumn Statement when we set out our proposals. I have to say to Mr Corbyn it has come to quite a strange set of events when you have the House of Commons voting for something five times, when there is absolutely no rebellion amongst Conservative MPs or indeed amongst Conservative peers, and the Labour party is left defending and depending on unelected peers in the House of Lords. However I want to pursue this new policy of listening to all questions and pretending they are all unanswerable and unanswered.
Mr Cameron, are you, our Prime Minister an evasive, lying idiot and will you change?
What I said in the election was that the basic level of child tax credits would stay the same. And at £2,780 per child, it stays exactly the same.
But the point is this. If we want to get our deficit down, if we want to secure our economy, if we want to keep on with secure growth, we need to make savings in welfare. Now, even with his deficit-denying, borrow-forever plan, presumably he has to make some savings in public spending. If you don’t save any money on welfare you end up cutting the NHS. You end up cutting even more deeply policing budgets. Those are the truths. They must be. I said them in giving my non-answer to the same question earlier.
Mr Cameron, are you, our Prime Minister an evasive, lying idiot and will you change? Karen wants to know.
What I’d say to Karen is this. If she is on the living wage working in the public sector, next year in April she will benefit from being able to earn £11,000 before she pays any income tax at all. It was around £6,000 when I became Prime Minister. If she has children she will benefit from 30 hours of childcare every week. That’s wonderful news though not quite so good if she doesn’t need it. That is something that’s happened under this government. We have included in all our calculations figures that probably won’t exist. But above all she will benefit because we’ve got a growing nose, sorry economy, because we’ve got zero honesty, sorry inflation, because we’ve got 2 million more people in work, because we’re to train 3 million apprentices in this Parliament. They are being trained in Parliament because we are going to give them all peerages. You may ask why Karen, trying to feed her family will benefit from the extra 2 million in work and 3 million trained apprentices but that’s another one I won’t answer.
The reason the Labour party lost the last election is they were completely untrusted on the deficit, on debt and on a stable economy. And I liked that stance so I have tried to emulate those great Labour figures Tony Blair, Ed Milliband and Gordon Brown and become completely untrustworthy. They wouldn’t care if I didn’t answer a question. They just indulged in a bit of banter and the public loved it just like they love me now. Oh, sorry I seem to have wiped my nose on your jacket without leaving the dispatch box, Now, what was your question? I can’t seem to get the answer. I’m making a bit of a pig’s ear of this aren’t I?
