The 2015 Popularity Contest (aka UK General Election )

[Clint Planet]

PLEASE don't start this again. Everyone is fully convinced of their own views on this topic, and no-one accepts anyone else's arguments.

But it's important!

 

[The Esk]

Clint, I'm interested in your thing about equality of opportunity, as the country obviously has a 'free' education system for all children, so that in itself should be equality of opportunity, but that doesn't sound like it's enough for you.

I don't believe poverty in itself is a barrier to achievement, as evidenced by the excellent school results of poor children from most migrant communities. That suggests parenting is a much bigger factor than anything, and I mean the parenting skills and attitudes rather than their wealth or resources.

You've said, I think, that no child should suffer as a result of useless parents, yet don't seem to have suggested any way around that. You said a bit earlier that the presence of private education/healthcare harms the state system by their mere presence. Do you believe that the welfare system does the same to the parenting situation in that it enables useless parents to have children? If you don't think so, what do you think will improve the parenting skills/outlook of currently useless parents?

I'm sorry I do not have time currently to answer this, I hope to do so later this evening.

For now though, LSE produced a report which studied 5000 families over 15 years which proves conclusively the link between parental wealth and academic achievement.

So for the majority of the population poverty does impact achievement. There are of course exceptions.

 

[The Esk]

I reject the Utopia comment. I'm not saying we can build a Utopia: I am saying we should aim to make things better for everyone, not least the children who are victims of their parents' circumstances. It is not pie in the sky to wish to do so.



Oh, I agree. I think you (and Bruce and just about every right wing person) equate all of this with increasing benefits and mums living on the dole with 8 kids and another on the way. It really isn't as simple as that, though. This country needs to invest in people. It needs to give back some self-respect to the working class. It needs to work at creating an atmosphere of opportunity and mutual respect. Difficult, but not impossible.

To do anything less is to punish those children below the breadline (in the United Kingdom in the 21st Century!) simply for being poor.

Tremendous post. Well said.

 

[Clint Planet]

Clint, do you honestly believe that the responsibility for poor educational outcomes lays more with the government and the 'establishment' than the childrens parents?

It's a massively complex issue of course, mate, and it would be wrong to lay the blame at any one door. God knows, plenty of the parents I deal with don't really value education but then again, man do. Much of what botghers me though is not so much the "educational outcomes" as the lack of opportunity to advance yourself and break out of the poverty trap.

 

[roydo]

I'm sorry I do not have time currently to answer this, I hope to do so later this evening.

For now though, LSE produced a report which studied 5000 families over 15 years which proves conclusively the link between parental wealth and academic achievement.

So for the majority of the population poverty does impact achievement. There are of course exceptions.

I would suggest that was the biggest waste of 15 years since Noah was a lad.

Make the state system as good as anything the wealthiest can buy. Not the other way around.

 

[bluemangroup]

Tremendous post.

I've seen better.

 

[Clint Planet]

Tough audience tonight.

 

[The Esk]

I've seen better.

Name them

 

[The Esk]

Make the state system as good as anything the wealthiest can buy. Not the other way around.

I agree entirely. However until there is the political will to bring about the improvements necessary, then the poorest in society will suffer.

 

[rascal]

Odds update from Paddy Power:

No Overall Majority
10/11
Labour
15/8
Conservatives
3/1

 

[roydo]

I agree entirely. However until there is the political will to bring about the improvements necessary, then the poorest in society will suffer.

Yep.

 

[Mrk]

Leaving the EU allows us to trade freely with the rest of the world. This is libertarian.

Not a good start. Is that balls Libertarian, the belief in free markets is just as much a conservative/liberal ideology as it is a libertarian ideology.

It also allows for more equal immigration based on worth to the country, not having to blindly accept anyone from Europe and thus result in restrictions on the numbers from other parts of the world. The current immigration policy, weighed massively in favour of European immigration, is not libertarian. To end it and shift the policy based on the free market's need for labour is libertarian.

You can't have free markets without free movement of people - so again, that's just wrong. It's quite laughable that you're even trying to spin immigration control as libertarian. How on earth can the state being in control of who can and cannot enter the country ever be defined as libertarian? Genuinely laughable.

UKIP do not oppose same-sex marriage

Yes, you're right, recently they changed their stance from opposing SSM to simply not supporting it. Very libertarian.

nor do they have a policy on banning the Burkha (a simple Google search will tell you this, yet you're just regurgitating anti-racist assumptions of the party). Their stances are libertarian.

I didn't say it was policy, I clearly said "supports/speaks out in favour of" - Farage has repeatedly spoke out in favour of a Burka ban.

Multiculturalism is not a part of the libertarian ideology. It is not libertarian.

What does this even mean?! Nobody, including myself suggested multiculturalism is libertarian, simply that UKIP promote a national culture/identity. That's what isn't libertarian.

The NHS is a fundamental part of the UK and any party would be foolish to privatise it. UKIP's tax on the super rich for luxury goods is about as non-libertarian as they get, but when the vast majority of their policies follow suit with the libertarian ideology then they're going to be classified as part of it. You're always going to get exceptions with each party. (i.e. the Conservatives legalising same-sex marriage when an actual conservative would oppose it).

So you start this sentence by confirming that UKIP aren't Libertarian (because a socialised healthcare system is anything but Libertarian) and you end it by saying "the vast majority of their policies follow suit with the libertarian ideology" when they quite clearly don't...

Libertarianism is not Liberalism and the fact that you've failed to provide any evidence to the contrary (especially seeing as you've tried to provide "evidence" (I use this term loosely as the majority of your points were incorrect) elsewhere) suggests that you know full well that you know you've made an incorrect statement and are simply trying to repeat it ad infinitum to get it across.

Libertarianism is a strand of Liberalism, they are not mutually exclusive.

 

[Tree13]

But it's important!

Yes, it is. And that's why I for one will greet you with open arms when you finally realise that I'm right and you're wrong.

Until then, let's not rehash the same arguments over and over.

 

[Bruce Wayne]

I'm sorry I do not have time currently to answer this, I hope to do so later this evening.

For now though, LSE produced a report which studied 5000 families over 15 years which proves conclusively the link between parental wealth and academic achievement.

So for the majority of the population poverty does impact achievement. There are of course exceptions.

I'd be keen to read the study if you could link me up when you get a minute. I'm not discounting wealth as a factor, and am not really expecting someone living in poverty to do as well as those with a huge amount of opportunities available to them (although it's certainly possible), but more that not all people in poverty do badly at school (and life). That suggests that there must be something those families are doing well that can be replicated.

I'm not sure it's feasible, nor even possible, to level the playing field entirely, and it becomes a slippery slope when the only answer is to provide more and more, when some seem to be doing really well with the abundant chances they're already given.

 

[Bruce Wayne]

Do you not think that the existence of the class system and private schooling creates an unequal playing field, holding back people who are not "from the right background"?



Just because a certain section of the community are able to surmount the obstacles placed befroe them, does not mean that other children are not held back. Poverty IS a barrier to achievement. It's slightly disturbing that you're trying to make out that it isnt.



I think it's a massive, long-term, mess of a problem which is so incredibly deeprooted that it will take a long time to ever rectify. As I've said before, the British "working class" are held in such contempt by the ruling class these days that I truly despair of this country. "Benefit Street" seems to be the oprating stereotype with which to beat them and yet I see such a different type in and around my school (along with the 'Baby Peter' types, of course). They are keen to get on and yet are somehow held back.

[/QUOTE][/QUOTE]

For sure, poverty is a barrier to achievement in the same sense that my genetics is a barrier to me winning the Tour de France. Just because I can't realistically compete with the elite athletes doesn't mean I can't do the best I can with my circumstances though.

I'm not for one minute advocating that everyone has to be a brain surgeon, merely that they do the best they can to fulfill the potential they have.