David Cameron

[The Esk]

Batman back to your cave!!

Notice no one has said anything about Brown. So lets be clear on this. The credit crisis was not caused by Brown but he certainly sowed the seeds in this country with the deregulation of the financial sector. Brown's so called strong and resilient economy was based on the back of rising house prices which was fueled by poor lending strategies which meant that this was all based on debt so when it all starts to go pearshaped you get the opposite of boom, bust.

What comes first? Falling house prices which lead to bank losses, or bank losses which lead to falling house prices?

The banks initially lost money on their exposure to CDO's (read American subprime). That in turn lead to banks not willing to lend to each other, which lead to the Northern Rock crisis, a massive tightening of the mortgage market and a more aggressive attitude by the banks re arrears and subsequently repossessions.

All of the above lead to a fall in house prices and the subsequent contraction of the economy and to where we are today.

Unless you expect Government to monitor banks' attitude to risk and lending in good times as well as bad, there's little to point the finger at Brown, in my opinion.

 

[Dylan]

I'd be one hell of a PM imo.

Screw that. Manny for PM!!!!!

 

[GhostOfDixie]

I'd be one hell of a PM imo.

Suicide mate would rocket, we'd all be doomed.

 

[Robert Jarvis]

Sorry Esk, but the relaxation of the regs permitted self certifying loans and the greedy banks stepped into the breach, but if the regs had not loosened tight control would have been maintained.

As for Brown, he destroyed the pension industry and many life insurance companies.

He helped the banks but no help was given to MG Rover or Peugeot to keep their factories open, result tens of thousands of jobs gone.

Also got rid of tens of thousand public sector jobs and you will probably say good, but what about their families, how many were buying houses and suddenly careers shattered.

Look at the extra taxes created, insurance premium tax, passenger tax, the back door increase in income tax by keeping personal allowances down.

The 10p cock up which hit millions of the less well paid and who have only been given half back.

For me the most obscene thing was one year increasing the state pension by 50p per week, I know that one because my Mum is an OAP.

It is now fact that gas and electric price increases in this country have been double that on the continent, the governmant could have stepped in like the French did and have a price freeze, no they sat back and raked in the VAT as with the fuel.

F*** to Brown.

 

[Slight_Return]

F*** to Brown.

*UCK to Brown. seconded, thirded and fourthed. he flogged our gold reserves to the chinese at record low prices as well.

the man is a moron. he hasn't even been voted in.

 

[The Esk]

Also got rid of tens of thousand public sector jobs and you will probably say good, but what about their families, how many were buying houses and suddenly careers shattered.

.

Robert, I'll not answer each of your points just now, but I'll tell you where I agree with you, and that's in the loss of jobs public sector or otherwise.

Nothing is so economically and emotionally crippling as for a family's breadwinner to lose their job - I know because I saw it happen to my Father in the summer of 1979 just a few weeks after Thatcher came to power.

He had worked in Dunlop's in Speke all his working life, on the shop floor. After 28 years service he and all his co-workers were made redundant with immediate notice one Friday morning. Instead of going onto the shop floor they were told by security guards to go to the canteen and queue for an envelope (with their redundancy notice and cheque in it). They were then escorted from the premises, he wasn't even allowed into his locker to pick up his few possessions.

That experience destroyed him - he had no transferable skills and never found paid employment again.

Unemployment levels may be relatively low but for the unemployed they're 100%.

 

[Slight_Return]

Unemployment levels may be relatively low but for the unemployed they're 100%.

Tory benefit reform seems a bit tasty as well, forcing those on benefits out to work for their benefits. If the unemployed could work, surely they would rather earn something like a wage instead of claim the pittance that ''job seekers allowance' constitutes.

As for forcing paraplegics and MS sufferers and cancer victims and aids sufferers through medicals and interviews to qualify for specific benefits, its all sounding a bit germany 1939 to me.

 

[Reidy's Bottle Of Grecian]

cameron is the classic example of why public schools should be raized to the ground.
the chav generation should torch the lot of em.
have they never heard of dennis the menace and softy walters.
stop 'em breeding with family and we'll be 1/2 way to getting rid of the likes of cameron

 

[Jamo Martinez]

*UCK to Brown. seconded, thirded and fourthed. he flogged our gold reserves to the chinese at record low prices as well.

the man is a moron. he hasn't even been voted in.

Didn't stop George W. first time round

 

[Bruce Wayne]

Public schools are the only decent schools in the country. At least with them still present we stand a chance of churning out some educated youngsters. I'll certainly be sending my children private given half the chance rather than sending them to a state school and be used as a political football by Whitehall. This comes from both working in state schools and seeing first hand the academic quality of those that go on to become teachers in them. Neither is high. I remember Boris Johnson looked into this for science teachers a few years ago and found just 28% of science teachers graduated from a Russell Group university.

Those that can do, those that can't teach

Never a truer word said. Teaching is now a profession filled with people choosing it because they can't get a job doing anything else.

 

[Reidy's Bottle Of Grecian]

and the public school system is seen by those who attended one as the be all and end all, it breeds a

better than thou

attitude, a system full of the pompous & the inbreds, who have to earn their big salary whilst treading on the masses and denying the worker the right to wash his hands, go for a slash on work time, 3p an hour pay rise.
it's these twits and braindeads that proliferate the likes of the conservative party, they see government as a business that has to make maximum profit each year. we have rebuilt europe since the 2nd world war yet the infrastructure of our own country is falling apart.

 

[Bruce Wayne]

Well a quick glance at exam results and so on would suggest that in a great many cases public school students are better than us, at least in an intellectual sense. Sadly many state run schools are little more than exam factories now, dictated by league tables. The notion of learning for the sake of learning is long gone and students rote learn in order to pass exams in far too many instances. Universities for instance traditionally gave the student the time and space to learn of their own fruition and expected them to use that to read widely on the topic of their choosing. Alas now universities regularly bemoan the quality of freshers who arrive having been mollycoddled by the state system and often expect things handed them on a plate. That so many institutions now see fit to offer booster courses in basic skills is a damning indictment of the state education system.

a system full of the pompous & the inbreds, who have to earn their big salary whilst treading on the masses and denying the worker the right to wash his hands, go for a slash on work time, 3p an hour pay rise.

Which company do you work for? That certainly doesn't sound like any company I've ever come across in the last decade. I thought that kind of management went out in the 70's.

 

[Nebbiolo]

Never a truer word said. Teaching is now a profession filled with people choosing it because they can't get a job doing anything else.

Oi, my wife is a teacher

But she couldn't get a job doing anything else at the time

I have to admit that when I was university, there were quite a few people doing education that I would not have let loose on my kids (not that I've got any kids (thank god)). I even wondered how some of them got the grades to do education. But there happened to be quite a few that were really talented individuals. Some really did see it as a vocational calling and were excited about working with children and helping them through life. Unfortunately, in Britain in particular, I think the system really grinds people down. Teachers end up as shells of their former selves.

I do think standards in British schools have dropped to a degree. One of the problems is too little a focus on teaching young people skills other than academic skills; that is, how many young people would really benefit from focusing on technical skills such as engineering, woodwork, building, design and so on? Obviously, all children should be competent at reading and mathematics, as well as having a basic grasp of science, history, geography and so on. But other than that, what is the point of ramming more than the pupils want to know, down their throats? Why not give them something worthwhile to do instead? Leave the academic stuff to the pupils that appreciate it.

The Danish system is superior, although there does seem to be drop in what is expected from the pupils. I know my wife, who teaches English and German to sixth form students, finds it surprising that so many of the students can literally coast through three years of study without ever having the possibility of graduating at a level that will lead onto university. If that is the case, it seems futile them continuing with an academic syllabus, and surely a technical education would serve all concerned so much better?

Or maybe I'm wrong.

 

[Bruce Wayne]

In my defence I do speak from some experience as I myself went to a PGCE open day at Southampton University in my younger days, and indeed have several friends that are teachers. Every single one of them went to a former polytechnic. Of course that isn't to say that formal education is the only way to learn, indeed tacit knowledge in many ways surpasses the more explicit kind. The thing is, to get that tacit knowledge you have to have a love of learning instilled in you by someone, and I fear that, as you say, very few teachers have the fire in their eyes to inspire students in the way they require because the system is so bloody awful.

It's something that covers a multitude of sins. Class sizes for instance. I appreciate that the children picked are probably the more obediant ones but if you look at the Royal Society Christmas lectures there must be nearly 100 kids there, attention glued on the person delivering the lecture. I have this romantic notion of teachers as being just such people, worldly wise, able to bestow vast knowledge upon eager minds. Instead they seem increasingly to be average minds happy to do whatever for a quiet life, except of course when the unions decide to crack the whip.

 

[Nebbiolo]

The teachers get it in the neck from all sides these days. They've got the kids to cope with, their parents and the educational authorities. My wife even had parents phone up the headmaster to tell him, to tell her, not to give their little dears so much homework! These were the parents of 17 year olds for goodness sake. And you know what, instead of telling the parents to bugger off, she indeed had to give them less homework. And why is this? It's because the school is worried that it won't attract children if the work is seen as too hard. So what the hell is the point of it existing? As well, what about the young people who really want to be given a good education but get held back because the school is littered with individuals that have no intention of doing any work? In my day sixth form was for two things: (1) retaking your O levels; and (2) taking A levels and being prepared for university. It wasn't about babysitting kids until they're legally adults.

It's all changed.

Bring back the cane.