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mike-jay

Listed below are comments made by mike-jay between Tuesday, 1st December 2009 and Sunday, 6th December 2009.

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Schools and the Class War debate 11:32am on 06 Dec 2009 #84 sa

You are quite right, of course, but my question was specifically about 'a parliament of independents', not about independently minded members of a party.
Schools and the Class War debate 7:23pm on 05 Dec 2009 #75 xTun

Is there any democratic country that produces more acceptable governments? If there is, we might try copying them. But I suspect that they all suffer from the same flaws.
Schools and the Class War debate 3:54pm on 05 Dec 2009 #72 sa

has there ever been a parliament of independents making decisions by force of argument - or simply by force of personality - or simply by force?

I agree that whipping is non-democratic and should be abolished. Every vote should be a free vote. But I suspect that as patterns of agreement emerged in a group of independents, so would political parties be born.
Schools and the Class War debate 2:33pm on 05 Dec 2009 #68 xTun

Your point is well understood and there will be many sympathisers, but there are two significant difficulties:

1. Imagine a HoC filled with fresh-faced independents after sweeping away the old, discredited guard. What are their policies? What were they elected to do ? Where is their manifesto? How will they reach a concensus on anything - and, if they do manage it, is that what the majority of citizens want? It could become a House of Chaos.

2. There is the old saying that 'All power corrupts, and absolute power corrupts absolutely' (or something like that). So what would be the chances of a new lot going the same way as the old lot?

It's a pity, but that's life!
Schools and the Class War debate 1:41pm on 05 Dec 2009 The UEA emails are sufficiently significant to have prompted formal investigations, possibly the release of all relevant data, and the promise of a thorough re-analysis by the Met Office that will take 3 years.

The email significance is not necessarily related to climate change patterns over x number of years, but to the basic honesty of scientists in this field of investigation. Why did they feel the need to tweak (a word used by a professor at the UEA on Newsnight) data to make it more acceptable in some way? How many more scientists are 'tweaking' data?

A fundamental question seems to concern climate patterns over the last 1000 years or so, not the last 150 years. This would cover periods of both increased global temperatures of around 1000 years ago and periods of decreased temperatures as in the mini-ice age of a few hundred years ago. The validity of Mann's 'hockey stick' graph has also been widely questioned - and in some reports claimed to have been discredited owing to faulty analysis by ignoring various modifying factors.

A prime difficulty is that reasonably reliable direct temperature measurements have only become available since the mid-1800s, and estimates of earlier temperatures rely on methods which may be dubious - such as tree ring interpretations.

However, a glance at Google (e.g. on global temperature history) reveals a vast number of reports - pro and con - on climate changes and it is clear that there is much investigative activity going on. The picture should eventually become clearer, even if it only reveals that hard and fast conclusions may be somewhat limited.
Schools and the Class War debate 10:52am on 04 Dec 2009 Why is this blog going all 1984 Orwellian, with unmemorable numbers taking over from memorable names.

Has the BBC been 'got at' to move further down the (New Labour?) road towards totalitarianism and total state control? Why are we now having to sign in more often or re-register, struggling to remember our 'user name' and password? Shall we soon have to take our new ID card to a police station before we can register - being filmed by CCTV all the way and leaving our DNA for the records?

Maybe asking these kinds of questions will lead to a knock on the door in the small hours...
Schools and the Class War debate 7:35pm on 03 Dec 2009 #19 U127...

So why bother to look at education systems in other countries to get ideas? The principle is the same. And all parties have tried that.

The only problem would be the excessive emphasis on academic subjects, but that's one of the main failings of the comprehensive system. It was designed to replace grammar schools, and technical and vocational education went out of the window. Now, years later, attempts are being made to correct a situation that could most effectively have been avoided by modest tweaking of the 1944 tripartite system.
Schools and the Class War debate 4:52pm on 03 Dec 2009 #7 stan

"Rather than jeer at Eton we should be using it as a standard for every state school..."

Precisely!

But wait. Wouldn't that be making everyone equal by 'levelling up' rather than 'dumbing down'. Can't have that - too difficult. And might change the core vote.
Schools and the Class War debate 11:58am on 03 Dec 2009 So it's back to the class war, apparently, for the coming General Election.

It's ironic that Labour, who profess to hate class divisions (real or perceived) keep them alive and kicking as the last desperate bullet in their election armoury, when needed. When success is assured - as under Blasir in 1997 - the message is equality for all. One nation.

The most ludicrous aspect is, as your blog points out, the vociferous use of the class weapon by equally privileged, elite and wealthy people such as Brown and Cox. And there are plenty of Labour MPs who went to Oxford or Cambridge or other elite universities - the next rung up the ladder from Eton.
Accident prone and overly nervous? 8:47pm on 01 Dec 2009 #47 BR

Paying for private education in the hope that it might be of better quality than state education isn't the same as having a range of options within the state system, all broadly following the same academic curriculum, to offer secular, religious, ethical, or philosophical choices for those who can't afford, or don't wish to pay extra for their children's education.

Provided a school does not teach or indoctrinate pupils in a way that could be illegal or constitute a threat to society or to law and order, what is the problem? Could it be a form of secular bigotry - along the Dawkins lines - that generates fevered antagonism to non-secular schools?

It's a bit like the climate change debate, isn't it?

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