... vision of a standard national exam system will ensure that qualifications are only awarded to students with appropriate levels of literacy and numeracy. This change can deliver fairness and transparency, which is what our education system desperately needs.
The first from the separatist agenda of Plaid Cymru the second in support of the Conservatives at Westminster ....... should be a test of the ability of pupils rather than of their teachers, assessing independence of thought and response rather than be a regurgitation of prepared answers, and that it should develop scholarship and curiosity.
Too few Scots want independence, less than 40%, so ...
Increase the voting population, the young are easily influenced, voting age reduced to 16 for the referendum.
Ignite an underlying conflict ...
Scottish sporting celebrations that will be dominated by the old enemy, the Commonwealth games will precede the referendum, good timing.
An option that cannot be given without UK wide approval ...
... devo-max, fiscal federalism, the UK wide electorate will not underwrite a constitutional change that gives preferential treatment to one part of the Union.
Westminster says "No", the votes go to Salmond, game over ...
Salmond wins,
the party begins !
... but Rosemary Agnew, the country's Freedom of Information Commissioner, said ...... the Salmond administration cited Section 18 when it refused to reveal whether the information was held. This can mean the information would be exempt from release or the authority considers its release would not be in the public interest.
Salmond is under the impression that the electorate should believe his word, the Freedom of Information Commissioner thinks otherwise, myself ...... In the commissioner's view, the role of [the FoI Act] is important not only in ensuring transparency in information held by public authorities, but also in enabling transparency in information about process.
In this case, the commissioner considers that it is in the public interest to know the type of information that the ministers were taking into account in developing policy in relation to such a significant issue as independence
Of course, if Salmond wishes to pursue his illusions, his political smoke and mirrors with kilt, then he needs to keep the electorate in the dark .......... together with every other citizen of the UK, is more than capable of coming to a conclusion when given sufficient information, we are not illiterate peasants of a medieval society, and as there is nothing of national security involved there can be no reason to hide the information.
A former pupil has transformed her old school from one “ruled by children” to an “outstanding” primary. Hollin Primary School in Middleton, Rochdale, near Manchester, was placed in special measures after being castigated by Ofsted for inadequate teaching and leadership, and erratic attendance. Elaine Hibbert, 57, who first joined the school aged 5, returned five decades later as a “super-head” and last week it was rated outstanding.
Mrs Hibbert, who turned around two failing schools before returning to Hollin, describes the culture of struggling schools as akin to Lord of the Flies.
“Nearly all my headships have been in schools that have failed or are about to fail, schools that are usually in very damaged communities,” she said. “My first was in 2000 at a primary school in Oldham. Expectations were low. It took just under two years to come out of special measures.”
Her second was in Rochdale. “The head teacher had gone off sick, and when there is no leadership at the top the teachers batten down the hatches and become very insular. It’s a broken regime and the children get hold of the school and forge their rule on it. Pupil presence in failing schools is always very strong.” By the time Mrs Hibbert left in 2009, it was rated outstanding.
She arrived at Hollin Primary in the same year. Once she set out her plans, half the staff decided to leave. In the 1950s there had been an “immense amount of pride” in the new council estate where she grew up. It now has endemic unemployment. “The aspirations of many parents were very low but they still wanted a good deal for their children,” she said. “One of the issues was the lack of trust parents had in the school. In modern schools you have to try a lot harder to earn respect from children and parents.”
She added: “I’ve found, quite sadly, that parents challenge teachers as a matter of course. There’s no point challenging a teacher if the child is not at the expected standard or if the parent has not made sure the child is at school every day, or isn’t doing homework.
“Teachers would never criticise a parent for challenging them about the curriculum or the progress their child is making, but what frustrates teachers is being challenged over how they deal with behaviour, and sanctions they have put in place.”
Parents and children reacted with disbelief when they heard she was from the estate where they lived. She said: “We didn’t have a uniform in those days. The parents were all really hard-working but when you see old school photos we look like ragamuffins.” Teachers were treated “like gods” and dinner ladies ruled with a rod of iron.Since she became head, results in the Key Stage 2 tests taken by 11-year-olds have risen from the low 40s to 100 per cent in reading, writing and maths. Mrs Hibbert said: “The whole ethos of the school has changed.”
The Times 9 July 2012.
Are too many of our Olympic athletes from private schools, as the prime minister suggested last week? Only about 7% of British children attend independent schools — whereas one third of the British Olympic team was privately educated.
However, this figure looks positively egalitarian when you compare it with the percentage of Cameron’s cabinet ministers who went to private school (67%), or judges (70%) or the chief executives of big businesses (54%) or journalists (54%). It seems a bit rich to pick on the athletes.
Rod Liddle The Sunday Times
Is there a John Ball out there, we promise not to let them hang you .............. our cabinet ministers (don't ignore the last government) seem devoid of morality and logic.
... our Judges sit in judgement over a system that is weighed against the little person.
... Big Business, banks that collude, where are the judges, you and I would be in prison if we did similar.
... journalist, so much to say, so little time, why are you not calling these wastrels to account.
Compliance is much more about giving senior management, and the regulators where they exist, cover from culpability than rooting out bad behaviour. “We did our best, the right boxes were ticked, how could we know?” they are able to say.
We need rendition of every one of those involved in this scandal, to the only commonwealth that has both the will and the teeth to send a message of worth to the bankers throughout the world that there is "nowhere to hide". To do this Britain need Uncle Sam like never before.
As we arrived, outside there was a token Nationalist protest – about a dozen demonstrators had draped out dozens of Scottish Flags at the entrance to the launch as if our flag was a nationalist symbol.Obviously they had not read ODN’s article from last week where we firmly established that it was a symbol of a Scotland united within the United Kingdom and not a separatist icon. I doubt they realised the irony but they were in fact flying our flag!It was quite a different type of launch from the Yes Scotland launch of a few weeks past and rightly so. Perhaps lessons were learned from that and a more realistic approach to starting a campaign on the serious issue of Scotland’s future was adopted – placing this in the hands of the real people of Scotland and not just celebrities and political personalities.Although the interviews with the representatives of the people of Scotland were a little rehearsed they still came over as genuine. These were ordinary men and women, young and old, from all backgrounds and, like us, they were people who believed passionately that Scotland should remain within the UK. It was good to hear this voiced by the actual people of Scotland rather than just the politicians.In our opinion, the shipbuilders from the Clyde were the star attraction. They were suitably blunt when it came to their turn to be interviewed - as only Glaswegians can be. “We fight together, we work together and as the slogan says, we are Better Together”.There was no way they wanted to leave the Union!The politicians were also there of course, but apart from Alistair Darling’s flagship speech, their presence was much more low key, mingling with the crowd and not intentionally making themselves the stars of the show, although they proved a magnet for the press.Alistair Darling said in his speech that when Scotland votes in the referendum, we will face a historic choice which will shape our country and our families' futures, not just for the lifespan of a parliament, but for generations to come.“Chairing this campaign,” he said, “Is one of the most important things I have ever done in politics - the decision we make is the most important we will make in our lifetime."He also warned that a vote for independence was like buying Scotland's children a one-way ticket to uncertainty.Willie Rennie, the Scottish Lib Dem leader gave the closing remarks saying, “Your decision is not really just for you, it's for future generations too - it is a big responsibility to make a decision about what legacy you want to leave for future generations.“But it is a decision that we will take together - throughout this campaign, you will hear why we are safer, stronger and better together - you will hear from all three parties here today but more importantly you'll hear from individuals like the people here today."From every corner and every community in Scotland we will take nothing for granted in the campaign to keep our family together, we will work for every single vote."Annabel Goldie, the former Conservative leader in Scotland, was a real knockout as an interviewer. She may not have been able to reverse the Tories fortunes here in Scotland, but members and supporters of all political parties have always liked and trusted her. She will be a great asset to this type of campaign where politicians have to reach out in a genuine way to the people of Scotland.We had opportunity to interact with most of the politicians there, building on previous contacts, and, with some, even grabbing a chat – including Alistair Darling, Johann Lamont, Margaret Curran, Anas Sarwar, Ruth Davidson, David McLetchie, Annabel Goldie and Murdo Fraser.Most we know already and have had discussions with about ODN – to agree with both how we could support them and also how they could support us as we reached out at a grass roots level to those who wished to preserve the Union, including many with no real political inclination at all.Not surprisingly, the SNP have commented already on the launch. The main thrust of Alex Salmond’s response however seems to be that Better Together is a “Tory-led campaign, which is intent on conceding nothing to the people of Scotland.”.He claimed that Alistair Darling was operating as the frontman for a Tory-led campaign.In our opinion, Alistair Darling is no one’s front man as evidenced by his willingness stand up for his views to Gordon Brown in the last Labour government. Hopefully the people of Scotland will see through Alex Salmond’s claim.In fact Alex Salmond actually had nothing positive to say about Independence anywhere in his rebuttal to Better Together - only negative comments - which seemed a little ironic as in the past he has often accused the pro-Union campaign of being excessively negative.I think the most interesting observation on the launch however came from one ODN supporter we dispatched down to Haymarket station early Monday morning, to pick up one of the leaflets being distributed at Scottish stations, as a prelude to the launch. As he approached he saw no sign of leaflets being clutched or even being read by commuters streaming from the station. Indeed he wondered if the information he had got had been wrong. However it was not wrong and a leaflet was soon in his hands although it had obviously not been of much interest to the other commuters.This does point to a general indifference in the population at large. We suspect that it’s not that they don’t care about the future of Scotland or really want to split from the rest of the UK - but this is no longer exciting new news and the campaign still has a further two and a bit years to run – time enough in most people’s plans to get involved later – if it looks like being a close call.It’s very easy to forget this as we mingle and chat to other passionate Unionists involved in the campaign and who want the real push to start now and keep going at a frantic pace til 2014.That strategy just won’t work.Indeed, if we expect others to share this passion we may be disappointed. The reality is that we are in this for the long haul and the campaign to save the Union must in fact be a long term campaign that is carefully and strategically thought out.We cannot sprint for 100m and then expect to have enough stamina to win the much longer and more strength sapping 15,000mThe positive thing however is that with the launch of Better Together a balance has been restored and at ODN we welcome this.For too long – even before the launch of the Yes Scotland campaign – the SNP have made the debate on Scotland’s future a one horse race. There was no other voice of any consequence!But there is now a powerful and credible counter to this. We are indeed “Better Together”At One Dynamic Nation we are committed to working together in partnership with Better Together and will keep you posted on developments and where you can help.We issued a press release on the day of the launch where we pledged the following:-“To demonstrate our support and to keep actively representing our own followers, many of whom we hope will also be actively involved in the united Better Together campaign and to avoid duplication of effort, we propose:-
- · To work with Better Together as a partner contributing to a united campaign in defending the Union.
- · To offer advice, knowledge, expertise, experience and resource to Better Together.
- · To support Better Together in a public way including promoting this organisation on our web site and in any material we generate including our weekly newsletter.
- · To continue to represent those who have no particular political affiliation or who do not wish to be publically associated with an organisation that is a political initiative and to represent their interests
- · To work at grass roots level and continue to grow by promoting the Union and gathering support for it at this level primarily through social media, word of mouth and our weekly newsletter which now has a credible and steadily increasing circulation.
- · To work with Better Together on research projects, coordinating efforts, so that resource is not duplicated.”
The Chancellor must scrap their bizarre hereditary status, then make them pay fair taxes ...
...They are our guests. We should be flattered that they have chosen to live here rather than anywhere else in the world. They tend to use private schools and private GPs. They employ nannies, chauffeurs and endless builders as they convert their basements into swimming pools. They buy £500 Laboutin shoes — think of the VAT on those — and they give employment to our bright graduates as tutors to their children. Britain’s 200,000 non-doms are an asset to our country..............................These aren’t people who will flounder if the Government toughens up the rules. The Treasury should look to America, where above the entrance to the US Internal Revenue Service in Washington are Oliver Wendell Holmes’s words: “Taxes are what we pay for civilised society.” The wealthy come to Britain because it is civilised. They need to pay to keep it that way.
For the many thousands of people from across the world who visit my blog each week, housing benefit in the UK is described here .... and here.It was David Cameron that believes the £2 Billion annual cost to be a scandal, I agree with him, but for very different reasons ...
... establish Justice, insure domestic Tranquility, provide for the common defence, promote the general Welfare, and secure the Blessings of Liberty to ourselves and our Posterity, ... (We the People of the United States, in Order to form a more perfect Union, ... do ordain and establish this Constitution for the United States of America.)... must look to themselves for the future because politics is in perpetual failure, the proof of this failure is with the "pork barrel" politics of a world wide self appointed political elite that has brought the world to its knees. In Britain today the political elite is part of a 21st century aristocracy that includes bankers, the media, and a very small group of industrialists from all corners of the world.
... at Friday’s launch promises to get rid of all the stuff Scots hate:
Westminster, the Tories, Trident nuclear submarines in the Clyde, Scottish troops sent to fight “illegal wars in Iraq”, public spending cuts imposed by a mean-spirited, perfidious Albion. And to keep all the bits they love: oil, gas, financial services and malt whisky.
Scottish or British, a simple choice!
SIR – I write as a Welsh-speaking Welsh woman whose roots lie deep in the culture and history of Wales, but I think of myself not just as a Welsh person but also as a member of the United Kingdom, of which the Queen is the constitutional head.
The Welsh are a race of warm, hospitable and tolerant people and as a race we must feel ashamed that the leader of Plaid Cymru was so rude and bigoted as to refuse to attend the Service of Thanksgiving held on Thursday to mark the Queen’s Diamond Jubilee.
The Plaid Cymru leader was just invited to attend a service, along with 600 other people, to pay tribute to a lady who has worked for 60 years in a job that she did not actually choose to do and which she has fulfilled in an exemplary fashion. She has won the respect, loyalty and, indeed, love of people not just in Britain but all over the world.
But suddenly, in Wales, Leanne Wood, leader of Plaid Cymru for less than 60 days, could not show respect for a lady who has served her country for 60 years.
I feel ashamed and embarrassed on behalf of all the people of Wales.
M WATKINS... the original letter can be viewed here at walesonline.
Marine Parade, Penarth
DAVID CAMERON is to use £ 1 billion of taxpayers’ money to guarantee thousands of risky mortgages in an effort to kick- start a housing market recovery and boost the construction of new homes. Under a government scheme to be launched tomorrow, banks will be encouraged to offer mortgages to borrowers with only a 5% deposit, provided they use the money to buy new-build flats and houses worth up to £500,000.
The housing minister, Grant Shapps, has said that up to 100,000 first-time buyers and home movers will be helped by the Newbuy scheme over the next three years.
However, loans on new homes are notoriously risky, and banks hate lending more than 75% of the value — so the government has had to underwrite the risk to persuade them to take part. It means up to £1 billion of taxpayers’ money will be used to protect banks against losses if buyers default on their loans. The scheme is a calculated bet that increasing demand for homes will provide a quick economic boost.
GEORGE OSBORNE is to signal more cuts in corporation tax in the budget, setting out a plan to reduce it to 20%, significantly lower than other large western economies. Treasury sources say the chancellor is determined to give priority to business in his speech on March 21, despite political pressure to use it to announce populist tax changes
Osborne has already cut corporation tax. It was 28% when he took power, is now 25%, and will shrink to 23% over this parliament. He is expected to set a new target of 20% for later years. America has a basic rate of 35%, and France 33.3%. In Germany it is 15% but additional social taxes mean an effective rate of more than 30%. Ireland, which lures multinationals with low taxes, takes 12.5%.
Other business-friendly measures from Osborne will include details of infrastructure and credit-easing plans outlined in the autumn statement. Treasury officials have been working on the credit-easing plan — a government guarantee that will both make available and cut the cost of loans to small and medium-sized firms — and have reached agreements with most of the banks. The scheme is said to be ready to proceed from budget day.This is Westminster working for Wales.
GKN is in advanced talks for an ambitious £800m deal to buy Sweden’s biggest aerospace company. The FTSE 100 engineering group is set to swoop on Volvo’s aircraft business, which makes engines and components for the world’s largest aerospace and defence manufacturers. If GKN clinches the deal, it would represent one of the biggest acquisitions by a British manufacturing company since the banking crisis.
.... The move to snap up the Volvo division is a sign of the confidence running through Britain’s manufacturing sector. It could also mark the start of a deal spree in the industrial sector, likely to be led by American giants such as GE, Dover and Honeywell, that have built up huge war chests during the economic slowdown. GKN employs 40,000 people in more than 30 countries. It is a supplier of aircraft components to both Airbus and Boeing and makes parts for most of the big carmakers. The company raced into pole position for the Volvo business after MTU Aero Engines, Germany’s leading engine maker, dropped out of the auction. Other bidders included the buyout groups Carlyle and Nordic Capital.And the Welsh Assembly First Minister, he should be remembering that GKN was spawned in 1759 when the Dowlais ironworks opened, he should be asking the question "... how many new jobs will GKN bring to Wales", it would be high value employment ............, the problem is we haven't been growing skills, instead we wasted a decade or more building an impoverished people (nation building) rather than fitting them for the future !
Volvo put its aero engine business up f or sale in November. The division makes the RM12 engine for Saab’s Gripen fighter jets, used by the Swedish military, as well as supplying engine components to the three main jet engine manufacturers — Rolls-royce, GE and Pratt & Whitney. GKN’S aerospace division is its biggest after Automotive, the car parts unit. It recorded sales of £1.5 billion in 2011. The group l ast month reported a 15% increase in fullyear pre-tax profits to £417m, on sales up 13% to £6.1 billion. On Friday GKN’S shares closed at 212.5p, valuing the company at £3.3 billion.
A GROUP of City financiers has announced plans for a chain of more than 2,000 schools, 10% of the state system, with profits shared among staff in the style of the John Lewis retail chain. Clarendon Academies, which would be the largest school group in the country, has been given approval by the education department to work with schools and is in talks with three of them.
The schools would be expected to generate a surplus, with half going to teachers in the form of benefits such as additional pension contributions, and help with housing costs. The rest would go to a central charity to fund building projects at the schools. Investors, who include unnamed wealthy individuals, would receive a fixed return on money lent to the venture.Clarendon plans to combine the traditional academic curriculum of independent schools with the centralised administration of former local education authorities (LEA), with efficiencies generating a surplus from government funding. The best state sector anti-truancy policies could, for example, be combined with a private-school approach to sport.
Clarendon has been set up by Nigel Brassard, an investment banker, and Edwin Richards, a private equity investor, and its educational programme devised by Martin Stephen, former high master of St Paul’s, the £18,825-a-year boys’ school in London, and Philip Limbert, executive head of Invicta, a girls’ grammar school in Maidstone, Kent, and Valley Park, a nearby comprehensive.Stephen said: “We are trying to broker a compromise between the ethic of the independent schools, which is very traditional, and the clout of the old LEA.” Running state schools for profit is controversial and opposed by the Liberal Democrats. A contract won by the Swedish company IES to run a free school in Suffolk is one of the few examples.
A massive £75,000 discount is proposed ............. another red and green line in the sand, England only I'm afraid.
... achievements like the Equal Pay Act and the minimum wage "do not belong to one nation of the UK", he says. "They are British achievements."
My father would have related to every word, and I guess I couldn't have disagreed, if he carries on like this he can backfoot Salmond and Co .............The story of the Scotsman, the Englishman, and the Welshman is not just the start of a good joke. It is the history of social justice in this country.It was a Scotsman, Keir Hardie, who founded the Labour party a hundred and twelve years ago. An Englishman, Clement Attlee, who led the most successful Labour government in history. And a Welshman, Nye Bevan, who pioneered that Government's greatest legacy, our National Health Service.
Placing a cap on benefits is not a repudiation of the founding principles of the
welfare state. The purpose of support is to foster independence
When William Beveridge wrote his famous report of 1942 that set the blueprint for what later became known as the welfare state, his founding idea was helping people back towards independence. The safety that public assistance would provide was a reward for contribution and Beveridge always envisaged welfare payments as a way of smoothing income through difficult times.
Some of the Liberal Beveridge’s modern successors, led in the House of Lords by Lord Ashdown of Norton-sub-hamdon and Lord Avebury, are opposing the proposal by Iain Duncan Smith, the Work and Pensions Secretary, to place an annual cap of £26,000 on the receipt of benefit payments. There were two important principles embedded into the Beveridge settlement: that there should be some link between what you put in and what you get out; and that welfare assistance should be a temporary expedient, actively designed to help people back into work, which ought to pay better than unemployment.
It is surely no part of the original prospectus for welfare that some families should be able to draw a household income that amounts to a salary of £35,000 before tax. To declare a limit at or about this level is an important statement of intent and an important marker about the virtue that this society values, namely work. Mr Duncan Smith has conceded that some families may have to move into smaller houses and that some children may have to share bedrooms as a result. But, at an annual income of £26,000, these families are not among the poor and local authorities will retain the obligation to house those people who struggle to find accommodation in the rental market.
None of which is to say that there are no issues that need to be addressed. A coherent system would punish feckless parents but not their unfortunate children. There will be cases of people who lose their jobs and find that the commitments entered into in more prosperous times suddenly take them over the benefit limit. Effective transition arrangements will be necessary.
There is no doubt that, in the absence of a serious strategy for regional pay, this will be more difficult to implement in London and the South East. The majority of the 67,000 unemployed families who will be affected by the imposition of a cap at £26,000 live in this region, where property prices are high. There is an issue here that is bigger than just the excessive payment of benefits. There will always be a problem with the welfare bill climbing — especially the bill for housing benefit — when the cost of housing is so high.
This structural cause needs to be addressed alongside the consequences. Unless and until the Government finds a coherent strategy to allow all regions of the country to grow — which includes pressing on with the liberalisation of the planning laws to allow the building of more houses — the cost of housing will continue to be visited on taxpayers in the form of higher welfare payments.
If the opponents of the cap were making these arguments about how the failures of the nation turn up in the welfare bill then they might carry more weight. As it is, they are simply a plea to retain a welfare system which has long since slipped clear of the intentions of its founders.
The Church of England bishops, in particular, have managed to avoid both economic reality and popular opinion at the same time. When they call on the Treasury to make a moral call they might reflect that it is also incumbent on them to make a serious economic argument. At a time of severe pressure on the public finances, the country is not engaged in a morality play but, even if it were, the bishops have got the morality call wrong.
A welfare state that works is one that encourages independence. That was Beveridge’s insight and a test that the welfare state now fails.
... he write, while many might dismiss tax havens as offshore homes for spivs, money-launderers and the odd celebrity, in fact they help big companies and the super-rich to avoid paying tax, tax that totals "$1000 billion" each year.
The dispute has severely dented India’s reputation as a safe place for foreign companies to do business. Many are facing similar tax cases that could be affected by the judgment, including Cadbury, GE, Vedanta, AT&T, Sanofi-Aventis and SABMiller. The companies declined to comment on the decision, although one representative said: "Clearly, it does provide some encouragement."... recognise the household names that are siphoning off the taxes from India through the use of offshore tax havens or countries that give advantage to business.
