Gazing at the present through the past.

[jobob_80]

Before the general election, the Independent published this article. The journalist who wrote it is on my twitter feed, and re-tweeted a link to it today. I did read it at the time, but reading it today has had a profound impact on me.

Comments

[plucky_lass]

I found that very hard when I was teaching in Castlemilk - there was a boy I taught who even in Primary 6 had a real flair for science, he was going beyond my a-level physics with his questions and pushing my univresity level chemistry. But unless someone shows him how to use his talent he'll go on the dole like his parents before him because that's all he knows. I know there was only a slim chance of peopel like him getting to university before, but it seems to have entirely gone now.

[jobob_80]

I took a group of four of the brightest S3 and S4 kids to Strathclyde university for a quiz against other schools. Although all four were bright enough, they went very shy when faced with the other kids, and hardly answered a question. It was so obvious to me that they weren't used to being amongst clever people, and they lacked confidence in their own abilities because of this.

I sometimes wonder what happened to the kids I taught afterwards. Especially a few of them -- the bright kids, the enthusiastic kids and the one first year who decided I hated her and sulked out of class.

[hubcap_reloaded]

Cameron's theory seems to be "big society, small state". But to me that's not just nonsense, it's terrifying nonsense. If something is important, than it should be provided centrally, funded by all and available to all equally (where equal need is identified).While I am personally big on the ol' government-protecting-the-populace concept and the attached left-wing accoutrement (contrary to the strange world of student politics where people wealthier than I tell me I'm not down with the kids in the ghetto, or something) what you have to understand here is a central ideological point that divides the left and right

[jobob_80]

There are grand ideas behind most policies. But that still doesn't make them right. In this case, I think I'm right -- private or voluntary sectors don't have the reach to be able to offer fairness or equality. So the answer to me isn't to take the government out, but to employ fewer Sir Humphreys and more Mary Poppins, so to speak, in the public sector.

[hubcap_reloaded]

Hey, I ain't gonna be heard to say it isn't a bollocks theory! :-) Like I said, I'm substantially too left wing (and too alert when I grew up in the era of the shitty privatisations) to think much else.

I just wanted to be clear that the policy in question doesn't only arise from wanting to kick the poor in the mean bean machine: because it's easy in this sort of discussion to paint the Tories as "the nasty party" when that's isn't always fair.

Of course, "isn't always" is another way of saying "sometimes"...

George Q

[hubcap_reloaded]

From observation of social commentary on the TV and elsewhere, it seems to me that there's a stretch of middle-England who don't know how rich they are. People who will complain at losing child benefit while paying for independent schooling for their children. People who can afford to have a stay-at-home parent, or employ a nanny. People whose homes are worth upwards of a million pounds. These people seem to know nothing of the reality of poverty in today's Britain, and appear to have fallen hook, line and sinker for the "they're all scroungers" school of political discourse. I say England because Scotland's population is highly concentrated in the Central Belt, and it's difficult not to have to travel through the really poor areas on occasion -- up here we see the boarded-up shops and the broken windows and the grafitti. Besides, "well-off" in Scotland doesn't seem to be anywhere near the level of richness you see in England.I'm not sure entirely how fair this is, because the nature of the recession is so great that it woudl be

[jobob_80]

Technically I didn't lose as I voted lib dem. Of course, the lib dem I voted for weren't the lib dem I got, and also lib dem weren't ever going to win a seat in Paisley. I think that's why I feel powerless, actually: my vote went nowhere and a party I wanted to support let me down.

[hubcap_reloaded]

my vote went nowhere and a party I wanted to support let me down.

I think part two is the more frustrating part, for me. While the First Past The Post system does produce constituencies where it's more or less redundant to vote (Raj and I might as well have just stayed in and watched telly, all the good it did us not voting Labour) at least you think you know what you'll get when a Labour/Tory/SNP/Whatever safe seat is elected.

Clegg & Co have sold themselves for years as "a better choice than the other lot" and the first serious chance they get, they fall back on a pretty big promise re: uni fees. That's the kind of blow which isn't going to be forgotten and leaves people looking for a social conscience party with a bit of a miserable selection.

George Q

[rose_kolodny]

I agree with Jo.

[lilaclemur]

Like Jo, my parents came from council-housing, my mother's side living off benefits due to my grandpa's disability, and yet, through government investment in further education (up to and including the creation of the university they met at) they both went to university, and my father is now one of the leading figures in his field in the European academic community. While my minimum-wage job isn't as successful as Jo's growth-industry role, I'm the black-sheep, earning half what my middle sister earns as a simple retainer, my little sister's just sat her GCSEs coming out with 8 A*s and 2 As, and the other two are doing undergraduate degrees, despite illness that qualifies her for incapacity benefit in the case of my sister