Psychoactive Substances: Rolling UK Politics in The Neo-Con Era

well, shit. defeated

take that sassanachs

another glorious victory for scotland ☓ ✊

Who needs Euro 2016?

on reflection I'm glad this was defeated. I used to hate working sundays. we weren't paid any extra and it meant you had about half as many free weekends so no one wanted to do it. one guy suddenly announced he was too christian to do it or w/e, which was blatant nonsense and meant more sundays for the rest of us which we resented, but he just wanted to spend the weekend with his kids. anyway apparently that's the first defeat for cameron this parliament

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/politics/a-black-day-for-disabled-people-as-government-pushes-through-cuts-to-esa-a6918421.html

Pieces of shit

Nice work from the government of the 5th wealthiest country in the world

A survey of 500 people in the affected group found that 28 per cent of people had been unable to afford to eat while in receipt of the the benefit. Around 38 per cent of respondents said they had been unable to heat their homes and 52 per cent struggled to stay healthy.

I genuinely just don't understand the motivation or logic behind it. it doesn't seem high enough profile to be for media/signalling purposes, it's a small amount of money; it seems incredible that it could be anyone's priority

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-35783651

Mock indignation at Livingstone's Savile jibe when the real story is their squared-jawed former armed forces golden boy is grubbing money from hedge fund managers.

"No regard for the victims, no regard for the pain and anger he will have caused,

LOLz x1000

http://www.politics.co.uk/news/2016/03/15/zac-goldsmith-warns-ethnic-minorities-that-sadiq-khan-will-p

Looks like Goldsmith is trying to mobilise the Indian / Sri Lankan communities against Khan. The Tories did quite a lot of this at the General Election too - pandering to right-wing Hindu groups and, in pockets, using Labour and the Liberal Democrats' willingness to support an end to caste-based discrimination against them.

The fact that Khan is a Muslim is an added bonus.

Zac Goldsmith really is a weapons-grade cunt, isn't he? Honestly can't believe how patronising that is.

Cameron in 'lacking empathy' shocker

Yorkshire post endorsed tories at the GE, so fuck them tbh

Fair enough Downing St knocked out a template article for the regional press cause that's all the regional press is worth

xp
fuck the YP indeed, the only reason they didn't run it was probably timing. The news of cuts to proposed flood defences in the region last year and the closure of 2 important A+Es means that this type of words in series stuff won't even cut it with tory voters in some parts.

A Downing Street spokesperson said 'we do not give one fuck' the Yorkshire Post was entitled to its opinions.

Reports coming through that Morgan is going to announce every school in the country is being taken out of local government control and made an academy.

what?!?

http://www.theguardian.com/education/2016/mar/15/every-english-school-to-become-an-academy-ministers-to-announce

Back in October, David Cameron said he wanted "every school an academy… and yes - Local Authorities running schools a thing of the past"

LOL Grauniad:

"Draft leglislation, to be published possibly as early as Thursday..."

What happens to ownership of land and property attached to schools which are moved from local authority control?

well, this seems like it'll be a total shitshow

What happens to ownership of land and property attached to schools which are moved from local authority control?

lol I'm sure local authorities will be encouraged by central govt to drive a hard bargain

from what I can work out the "charity" (private trust running the academies) either a) gets everything for nothing or b) gets everything on a 125 year lease for minimal rent

there'll be a fucking revolution if they try this. one of the very few undisputed public policy successes of the last 10-15 years is the sudden, across-the-board improvement in primary education. for millions of parents there is nothing to fix and everything to lose.

Had to pick a secondary school for our lad this year and was utterly dismayed to find that there was nothing in feasible travel distance that wasn't already an academy. So we reluctantly resigned ourselves to putting him in one that was, the application process wrapped up at the start of this month...and the very first letter we got from them tried to sell us a fucking ipad.

there'll be a fucking revolution if they try this.

my fb feed is full of "If only we had a decent opposition/Of course Corbyn is the real villain" bollix. I need to stop reading it.

I thought most secondary schools in England were academies now anyway?

I think the number of people out there saying 'fuck yeah, local authority control of schools!' is likely to be quite limited. Parents at 'good schools' might be open to the idea of heads being given more control, parents at less good schools might be open to anything that could conceivably bring improvement. Academies are not a good way to do either in their current form but it will be interesting to see how much passion it generates.

Between Apr 2011 and Nov 2014 the proportion of mainstream state-funded schools that were "free" or "academy" went from 2% to 22%. Now, I guess that's all of the UK and primary+secondary combined. I expect the proportion for England-only secondaries is much higher.

About half of secondaries, fewer primaries.

Academy system is England only.

2,075 out of 3,381 state secondaries are academies (as of about a year ago).

FWIW, we went through the secondary school process for Ava this year. We took an active dislike to the two Harris academies in the area, but, once we'd knocked out single-sex and faith and 30min-on-a-bus, we inevitably had to put down some schools "with academy status" (= academy, just not in name?) on the list. She got her first choice, thank goodness, which was a co-ed community school 20min walk away.

I hope those of you with kids are looking forward to the extra time you'll be spending with them when the entire teaching profession strikes again and again.

Don't local authorities actually take a load of shitty bureaucracy off the desks of headteachers?

it will be interesting to see how much passion it generates

I suspect that, as with the NHS, a lot of people will only cotton onto the implications once it's too late.

*meekly raises hand*

xp and won't care that much even once they have cottoned on.

I find it difficult to gauge how popular the academy concept is, tbh. Quite a few of the negative aspects, like the weak safeguards against religious takeover or the overuse of exclusions, are welcomed by sections of the parents. There is no evidence to suggest they are particularly useful but they haven't been disastrous either.

I heard earlier that academies are at liberty to set their own pay scales, that sounds like not a good thing. I had a bad experience with a free school a few years back and think anything to do with Blair is poison - so boo to this Tory malignity.

Is this going to apply to special schools as well? Not that they could contrive to make them any worse in my area ᕙ(⇀‸↼‶)ᕗ

Maintained schools can set their own pay scales too these days.

Our two will be done with school in about two years, thank god.

isn't massive centralization of bureaucracy supposed to be what the tories are against?

But they are for centralizing to unaccountable bodies, i.e. their friends. Its a very coherent model.

my fb feed is full of "If only we had a decent opposition/Of course Corbyn is the real villain" bollix. I need to stop reading it.

― "This is the worst part." (stevie), Tuesday, 15 March 2016 Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

The Blairite opposition would oh wait

Well, they're for transferring public assets into private hands, they're mostly entirely nihilistic about how this is achieved, or the consequences.

lol "lord adonis, you've always been a fierce opponent of academisation, what say you to these proposals?"

centralization of powers previously held by local authorities took a real surge under the Thatcher governments. the problem with local authorities from a Tory point of view is that many of them aren't Tory.

i still haven't read a proper explainer about what these 'charities'/trusts/private concerns etc get out of their 'sponsorship' of academies - and what the government gets out of it. what's in it for them? why do something so radical?