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

i fucking hate that piece of shit

Roll on the next Scottish independence referendum.

who owns the buildings/land? will that change?

School buildings and land in local authority maintained schools are owned by the LAs. As part of the academisation process these are transferred to the charitable trust (be that a single academy, or a multi-academy trust) that will run the school. This is either a permanent transfer or a long (99 or 125 I think) lease at no cost.

It's uncharted territory, but I think there are enough covenants in place that if the buildings / land were to stop being used for educational purposes they would transfer back to state control.

'transferred'. sorry is this russia in 1991??

Its Russia in 1901.

https://skwalker1964.wordpress.com/2012/09/07/the-nhs-act-allows-the-coalition-to-give-away-the-nhs-a-labour-govt-can-take-it-back-but-will-it/

Robert Peston ‏@Peston · 2h2 hours ago

Cutting benefits to disabled raises £1.2bn, which is same as cost of cutting capital gains tax & raising 40% tax threshold. #Budget2016

BETTER TOGETHER

transfer, transfer, transfer

Just transfer it, no bigs

Guess what? We've just heard that Network Rail is staying in public ownership! The government's Shaw Report which was considering 'full privatisation' has concluded:

“The report team has dismissed privatisation of the whole company…The report team is not recommending the introduction of private sector capital at the whole company level, recognising that, for the foreseeable future, Network Rail ownership will remain in the public sector.”

This is great news! It’s not the whole answer. Network Rail is still planning to sell off assets like railway stations so we need to keep fighting. But it's an important victory. So let’s take a moment to remind ourselves why we campaign – because sometimes it works!

sorry to be churlish and not celebrate but i'm still reeling about this schools thing.

if every school becomes an academy or free school, that makes teachers' unions completely obsolete, correct? national agreements on pay and conditions do not apply? sorry, isn't this UTTERLY beyond the pale??

i don't think the NUT will fold overnight

if you think this is bad (it is, obv) you shd see what's happening to the FE sector

Existing staff will transfer over on a TUPE usually and would probably still be bound by collective bargaining, new staff would not, though obviously teaching unions do more than just bargain centrally on pay.

Now I am starting to realise when I had a bad experience with a special free school, possibly the reasons why the very good headmaster left and they brought in this inadequate, nasty piece of shit as replacement.

SV's point about TUPE v relevant. my experience is that people will be TUPE'd over, but that new people coming in plus cultural pressure will force the pace. people who don't want to fit in with that pace will be "managed out". it wont take long before the entire employment landscape has changed. safeguards are worth nothing.

That is definitely true of a corporate environment and possibly true of sponsored academies but whether that culture would be pervasive in head-run schools being transferred over by default, I don't know,

did you know that all new schools are free schools and all free schools are academies?

Has anyone asked the question what an announcement about education policy is doing in a Budget speech? Education policy that only applies to England into the bargain. Could it be that this was a chance to have Osborne announce a major policy that would be very popular on the Conservative back benches, bolstering his Prime Ministerial credentials in the process? Or is there a more innocent explanation?

I was wondering that myself.

Part of it is the Tories wanting to take as much focus out of the Brexit infighting.

Maybe not a good idea then for Osborne, in said Budget speech, to use statements made by the (non-partisan) Office for Budget Responsibility to put the heebie jeebies up potential Brexiteers.

Everyone should study maths until they're 18 years old.... Why was this in the budget?

LOL

Its not going to take all the talk out of Brexit (nothing is), but I'm thinking one scenario is that warning from the OBR about the economic impact. The other scenario is talk about the OBR warning and other shit like selling out schools and learning maths till 18. Momentarily diverts focus, says that they are governing the fuck out of councils as well as fighting to remain in the Eurozone etc.

Enjoyed watching Sajid fucking Javid squirm on Newsnight. Claims he would not be part of government that would cut disability benefits; mutters angrily about welfare cap

did you know that all new schools are free schools and all free schools are academies?

Yes, but i don't know if it makes sense to always conflate the arguments against the two.

The free school policy is bad - it has some good elements and lots of interesting schools have come out of it but it's essentially the wild west - there seems to be very little oversight and insufficient safeguards to stop people with no experience or expertise from setting them up. The LRB article makes a strong case against it. It's also a huge waste of money.

Forcing failing schools to partner with third-parties, typically private sector companies, to become academies is bad. It's not cost-effective, there's limited evidence to show it's educationally effective and has similar problems with oversight and the ideological turning of blind eyes to problems.

Beyond that, it does get more complicated. Most of the academies that have been set up since the forced academisation of 'under-performing' schools have been the 'outstanding' schools who were given the freedom to do it if they wanted to. Again, there are arguments against it - the idea that it might give particular advantages including extra funding to schools already doing well is one - but it's not the same thing as turning the keys over to Ark or letting a bunch of cowboys pressure local families into petitioning for unnecessary new schools.

Extending that to other schools and making it compulsory requires its own set of arguments to oppose and they have to go beyond the grey areas around who has the right to sell off playing fields. It's not always going to be easy, but opponents might need to get across the reasons why ostensibly positive things like 'additional parental choice' and 'increased independence for headteachers and school administrations' are actually negative.

thank you for that SV. a lot to understand here.

i did not even twig that capital gains tax is going from 28% to 10%. jfc.

two CGT rates, one cut from 28 to 20, the other from 18 to 10.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-35824456

"The higher rate of CGT will be cut from 28% to 20% this April.

In addition, the basic rate of CGT will be cut from the current 18% rate to 10% at the start of the new tax year, in three weeks' time on 6 April."

Ah got it

I don't have much to contribute to this thread today beyond that I feel really, really depressed about the damage this govt is wreaking, and utterly powerless about it, and defeated by the way most of the media is entirely in their pocket and brainwashing the majority of the public into ignorance, obliviousness, selfishness and heartlessness.

I've probably shared this before, but my dad was disabled, we lived in council housing all my childhood, on benefits as much of the time my dad's relapses would mean he couldn't work (he was a self-employed tax accountant); I only went to university because there were no fees, and because I qualified for a full grant. And as grateful as I am for all that, I just think: If I'd been born 20, 30 years later, where would I be? In a Britain that scorns the disabled, scorns people who aren't born rich or don't take riches? I would be nowhere. And I have no idea what I could possibly do to help the people in those same circumstances (or worse, or different) now. What kind of world is my daughter going to inherit? When does this change? When do we get to wipe the smug smiles off the faces of Osborne, IDS, Gove, Cameron, et al?

Don't know how to answer that tbh :(

This last Budget seems considerably more barefaced, less afraid of looking outright nasty, than previous Budgets. That might be because they're no longer in coalition, but I suspect it's a combination of Osborne seeing minimal threat from Corbyn, and positioning himself in a jostle for leadership votes among the Tory right.

Everyone should study maths until they're 18 years old.... Why was this in the budget?

'to ensure the future workforce is skilled and competitive'

competitive workforce. that's the point of education now.

most of the media is entirely in their pocket

arguably it's the other way round, but otherwise, yeah. :-(

many more will have to suffer, many more will have to die

One bright spot - the Lords have shot down the govt's union-busting legislation?

Fucking insane when the Lords are more socially progressive than the Commons

Yeah they won't tolerate that for long.

The sainted report on Why Labour Lost The Election doesn't paint a terribly flattering picture of a lot of the electorate or their priorities.

Electorate mostly seems to have made a conscious choice to kick down, not up, when times are hard, because it is easier and you can get more immediate satosfaction that way.

We'll see how long that lasts. There is a feeling that Hunt will fuck up in a massive way. Reckon that'll trickle down.

We can say this is a real low but Cameron and Osborne are only progressing what New Labour started. 'Maths till 18' looks like classic New Labour policy.

I had a conversation with my MP about bigots: a lot of the people [in Camden] who complain about 'immigrants' are really complaining about boisterous twenty-something men who play as hard as they work, in much the same way British twenty-something men act when they're let off the chain for the first time (my neighbours don't really address the behaviour of young British men, or characterise it as inconsiderate, unless the guys are ~brown~). If we could reframe it as young-man behaviour instead of 'migrant' behaviour, and somehow encourage them to set better boundaries, might that help?

As to the budget, this academy thing has the potential to piss off every single middle-class person in the country... and WTF was up with announcing an un-consulted/huge education policy in the budget?

(my neighbours don't really address the behaviour of young British men, or characterise it as inconsiderate, unless the guys are ~brown~).

tbh that's probably because ur neighbours are racist and don't really give a fuck about boisterous behaviour.

As to the budget, this academy thing has the potential to piss off every single middle-class person in the country..

It should delight them. The more control individual schools have over admission, the easier it is for parents with the sharpest elbows to game the system to get their kids into the best ones.

otm

BB, most of my working-class/estate-dwelling neighbours aren't actually racist - was just commenting on something my MP got as feedback from some older people who aren't representative of the wider group, but their opinions are amplified purely through moaning to him.

Old people with racist views, whodathoughtit?

life-long Tory voter 'quits party' and sabotages website over 'appalling' disability cuts

A disability campaigner and life-long Conservative

lol

It does beg the question of what exactly he expected of the Conservative Party. Unless he's all "taking from this lot of vulnerable people was okay, but you've crossed a line now".