Salute to you all. Once again, I have a quiet cup of tea over the morning Telegraph ruined by splurting out the aforementioned beverage at the sight of yet another piece of bilge penned by that most unscrupulous of Labour-types (my, and aren't there plenty to choose from?), Ed Balls. Well, good readers, you hold him down whilst I call for a nurse, because it is clear that this man needs professional help. His thoughts are rarely classifiable as wholly sane, but this last proclamation from Gordon McBroon's bosom buddy is wholly certifiable.
True to form, the Labour Government is committed to reform in areas by vast changes in the structure of the country, rather than correcting the inherent flaws that exist within the current structure. If something's going wrong, then "legislate" is the cry. More laws have been created since 1997 than you can shake several proverbial sticks at, but the difference to the country is small, apart from the increase in red-tape and difficulty that now now surrounds every decision in the allegedly free lives of Her Majesty's subjects.
Labour have failed the children of this country. This much is without doubt. I ranted only yesterday on the wholesale lie that is the 'graduate' culture now in the UK, and Brown-Balls (we need another name to make a tripartite soliciting partnership) are now out to create the same lie in secondary education.
It is too easy at first sight to agree with the notion that a longer time spent in education or training is a good thing. The truth is, if that education is (1) good quality, (2) good value and (3) ultimately serving a purpose, then yes, it is a good thing. If, however, the education is (1) so focused on short-term league tables, exam results and encouraging general muppetry through "deferred success", (2) indebting the students so that life post-university is poverty stricken with still no real increase in employability and (3) geared purely to help teachers earn more through teaching less to a lower standard, then it is not a good thing. Giving pupils two more years of a failing education system is hardly going to improve their or this country's future.
But wait, I hear you cry. The additional two years are not necessarily in school: they may also go into an apprenticeship or a job which offers at least one day per week in training. But why? What if they have the opportunity to go into work which doesn't offer training? What if they want to go into trades? What is wrong with someone of 16 simply working? For those who do leave school at 16 and head straight into the world of work, they are more likely to emerge five years later as a well trained, disciplined and employable member of society, due to experience, and are more likely to be able to afford to purchase their own home. Compare this to those who emerge from some of the country's second-rate universities with a pointless degree in media and beer-making studies with £15,000 in debt and no useful work experience to offer. As a past employer, I know who I would take on without a doubt.
I have no difficulty with lots of our young people heading to university to study extreme minority subjects. As a conservative, I'm happy for people to take their own decisions, but let them take them with all the facts. A degree is not a direct ticket into employment. It does not make you a perfect employee. And it costs a lot of money to (a) study, (b) pay tuition fees and (c) support yourself for three years without working. The truth is, if you want to work, you may be better heading out there straight from school.
So my final call is this: don't disrupt the lives of those who wish to study at school by making those whom the education system fails stay within the system. If a child has the drive to work at 16, then let them. In fact, to make a positive step forward in the education and life chances of our children, not only let them leave to work at 16, why not at 14? Apart from the highest within the highest professions, five or even seven years work experience will trump any three years at university.
Less, as is so often true, can be more.
Friday, January 11, 2008
Thursday, January 10, 2008
Many a true word is spoken in jest
Greetings, and, as a one-time eminent Regius Professor of Etymology at Cambridge University may or may not have said, if you have been, I'm delighted to hear it.
I find it hard to believe that a week has passed without me stumbling across any aspect of the news, political or otherwise, that hasn't ired me enough to but a digital pen to digital paper. Remove yourself wholly from the thought that nothing has ired me: after all, I live in Her Britannic Majesty's Kingdom in 2008, and there is plenty that raises my blood pressure, but I've been busy and simply haven't had time to dust this blog down and commit any of my certainly committable thoughts to the interweb.
However, currently enjoying a cup of Earl Grey and very dunkable biscuit, I am listening to BBC Radio 4's repeat of 'Doonesburyland', a perfectly acceptable 30-minute documentary about the infamous cartoon strip of the same name which once-upon-a-time inhabited the filthy pages of that far from erstwhile publication, The Grauniad. It was not the general content of the programme which pricked up my ears, but a throw-away line referring to the people who were reading the cartoon in its early years,
The past decade has increasingly created that which is becoming known as the IPOD Generation: Insecure, Pressured, Over-taxed and Debt-ridden. Encouraged by the government to go to university and indebt themselves for a degree which doesn't necessarily improve chances of employment (and nor should it: a degree has never been a career move: a degree should be studied to pursue an interest in a subject. If you want a career-led education, then go to college or an apprenticeship (another thing which New Labour has removed for a reason which no-one yet understands)), these people now emerge, post-degree, into a world with few graduate opportunities, discovering that the average wage outside of London and the public sector is substantially less than the £20k label bandied around (and in Yorkshire is less than £15k), with so much debt that they can't pay it off, and nor will they in any likelihood be able to buy a house for at least 15 years.
In the meantime, the baby-boom generation has sat and, whilst content to get fatter and fatter on the New-Labour milk fed to the middle classes, seeing £60k salaries topped-up by family tax credits, doing anything they can to keep hold of their new-found wealth. But that's not enough: why hold onto their money when they can rob the next generation too? We have seen an unprecedented shift over the past decade from houses as a social necessity to houses as an investment opportunity. Labour new that the old rental system was inefficient, but by opening it up with the new Landlord and Tenancy act as well as artificially underpricing inflation and keeping interest rates hugely below their natural level encouraged more of our fat middle-aged people to gorge themselves on the money supply. With housing inflation rising at more than 10%, why bother saving money for your pension when you can deny the next generation a house and provide for your own retirement through greed?
There are now in excess of 1.2 million buy-to-let properties in the UK. 1.2million homes that are now not available for purchase. I'm far from being a socialist, but housing is one area that could seriously change me. Can you imagine the effect on house prices if this huge swathe of housing was to come onto the market? Yes! It would fall, helping those who have no option to buy to buy, enabling people to stop renting and providing nothing for themselves but a pension for their forefathers. Surely the time has come for a heavy tax to be placed on second- and third-home owners, and indeed more, for those who 'invest' for a living.
Housing is a necessity, not an investment. For those of you with a portfolio of houses, I hope you're proud of the way you're screwing over the country for your own personal gain. Save money for your pension: don't live out your lengthy retirement waiting for me to pay your pension through my taxes because when everything was going good, you couldn't be bothered to save and provide for your own old age.
The only good that will come from all this is that the greedy middle-aged, middle-class fat cats will all die first. It's a shame that I may have to wait until I'm 60 for that to happen. Thirty years more renting: o joy!
The old days:
I find it hard to believe that a week has passed without me stumbling across any aspect of the news, political or otherwise, that hasn't ired me enough to but a digital pen to digital paper. Remove yourself wholly from the thought that nothing has ired me: after all, I live in Her Britannic Majesty's Kingdom in 2008, and there is plenty that raises my blood pressure, but I've been busy and simply haven't had time to dust this blog down and commit any of my certainly committable thoughts to the interweb.
However, currently enjoying a cup of Earl Grey and very dunkable biscuit, I am listening to BBC Radio 4's repeat of 'Doonesburyland', a perfectly acceptable 30-minute documentary about the infamous cartoon strip of the same name which once-upon-a-time inhabited the filthy pages of that far from erstwhile publication, The Grauniad. It was not the general content of the programme which pricked up my ears, but a throw-away line referring to the people who were reading the cartoon in its early years,
"back when baby-boomers were still anti-establishment and hadn't grown fat and rich".Oh, how true. How the poachers have turned gamekeepers under Bliar and McBroon's Britain. After all, there's nothing in this world so 'socialist' as a rich socialist, is there? How easy it is feel 'compassion' for the poor from your north- or west-London £500,000 town house and £70,000 of taxpayers' money falling into your bank account every year.
The past decade has increasingly created that which is becoming known as the IPOD Generation: Insecure, Pressured, Over-taxed and Debt-ridden. Encouraged by the government to go to university and indebt themselves for a degree which doesn't necessarily improve chances of employment (and nor should it: a degree has never been a career move: a degree should be studied to pursue an interest in a subject. If you want a career-led education, then go to college or an apprenticeship (another thing which New Labour has removed for a reason which no-one yet understands)), these people now emerge, post-degree, into a world with few graduate opportunities, discovering that the average wage outside of London and the public sector is substantially less than the £20k label bandied around (and in Yorkshire is less than £15k), with so much debt that they can't pay it off, and nor will they in any likelihood be able to buy a house for at least 15 years.
In the meantime, the baby-boom generation has sat and, whilst content to get fatter and fatter on the New-Labour milk fed to the middle classes, seeing £60k salaries topped-up by family tax credits, doing anything they can to keep hold of their new-found wealth. But that's not enough: why hold onto their money when they can rob the next generation too? We have seen an unprecedented shift over the past decade from houses as a social necessity to houses as an investment opportunity. Labour new that the old rental system was inefficient, but by opening it up with the new Landlord and Tenancy act as well as artificially underpricing inflation and keeping interest rates hugely below their natural level encouraged more of our fat middle-aged people to gorge themselves on the money supply. With housing inflation rising at more than 10%, why bother saving money for your pension when you can deny the next generation a house and provide for your own retirement through greed?
There are now in excess of 1.2 million buy-to-let properties in the UK. 1.2million homes that are now not available for purchase. I'm far from being a socialist, but housing is one area that could seriously change me. Can you imagine the effect on house prices if this huge swathe of housing was to come onto the market? Yes! It would fall, helping those who have no option to buy to buy, enabling people to stop renting and providing nothing for themselves but a pension for their forefathers. Surely the time has come for a heavy tax to be placed on second- and third-home owners, and indeed more, for those who 'invest' for a living.
Housing is a necessity, not an investment. For those of you with a portfolio of houses, I hope you're proud of the way you're screwing over the country for your own personal gain. Save money for your pension: don't live out your lengthy retirement waiting for me to pay your pension through my taxes because when everything was going good, you couldn't be bothered to save and provide for your own old age.
The only good that will come from all this is that the greedy middle-aged, middle-class fat cats will all die first. It's a shame that I may have to wait until I'm 60 for that to happen. Thirty years more renting: o joy!
The old days:
"back when baby-boomers were still anti-establishment and hadn't grown fat and rich."
Thursday, January 3, 2008
And so the blogging starts ...
... at last. It's taken me several months from setting up this blog to get around to publishing anything on it, but it's a new year, and this must surely come above any other resolutions.
I can't promise daily posts, nor can I guarantee that I'll always be witty, erudite, topical and cutting, but I'll do my best. If nothing else, this blog will become a repository of my thoughts, random mumblings and other intellectual detritus that, from time to time, washes up on the shores of life.
To you all (if there are any of you), a happy, peaceful and prosperous 2008.
Salute.
I can't promise daily posts, nor can I guarantee that I'll always be witty, erudite, topical and cutting, but I'll do my best. If nothing else, this blog will become a repository of my thoughts, random mumblings and other intellectual detritus that, from time to time, washes up on the shores of life.
To you all (if there are any of you), a happy, peaceful and prosperous 2008.
Salute.
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