Labour: Education has improved over 13 years

I was brutally awoken this morning by the sudden, hard onset of a wall of high blood pressure when I heard Nick Ferrari on LBC pose this question to one of Labour's Shadow Education ministers, Kevin Brennan:

"So Mr Brennan, do you believe that education has improved over the last 13 years under Labour?"

Brennan replied:

"Yes, education has improved under Labour"

I started furiously reaching out for my mobile to ring in but fortunately other listeners had got there before me. The anger was palpable. Accusations live on air included “liar”, "they should hang their heads in shame", “there should be a law against MP’s lying like that”, “rubbish” and many more. Caller after caller.

I have never, ever heard any MP admit they were wrong. Ever. I suspect that it’s due to the media training that teaches them never admit liability for anything and never answer a direct question unless you can convey your latest policy line or spin.

Journalists should simply state to these “education deniers” that they are liars and unless they retract that statement, the interview is over. Plain and simple.

The last caller summed up the situation quite well. He was a teacher and had been teaching for the last 30 years and stated quite categorically that standards had dropped and compared an O-level maths paper with a GCSE and said a C in the O-level paper would be the equivalent of an A* nowadays.

There was also mention that modules were being removed from certain subjects because pupils found them too hard, especially maths and the sciences and some schools, in order to improve their league positions, encouraged the pupils take the easier subjects e.g. Travel and Tourism instead of Geography.

Glad to see Michael Gove at least attempting to tackle this one.

"Fighting ‘them’ on the Sandwell"

Please visit Anna's site and spread the word about this gross injustice.

Waking up to Oona King in the morning

I awoke to the shrill sound of socialist bollocks being transmitted over LBC on the Ferrari show, today hosted by James Whale.  Oona King was there obviously to promote her chances of becoming the Labour representative for the next London Mayor and as always, simply does not accept or get why she and her party were thrown out at the last election.

She thinks the coalition should not cut spending because millions will be thrown onto the scrapheap like they were when Thatcher was in power.

Fortunately help was at hand by the deluge of listeners and emails that accused her beloved Labour party of always leaving the country in a bankrupt state by spending all the family silver.  One angry listener challenged Oona as to whether she had managed a balance sheet?  Oona in her best defence said "of course" before listing a load of public sector non-job and fake charity positions that she previously worked in. 

So that would be a no then.

Then, with that irritating, condescending, sarcastic chuckle she always adopts when she says something that she thinks is obvious and yet we howl into the air at her righteous indignation and blindness in the unworkable ideology held onto so dearly by socialists, she compares the spending cuts to this fantastic analogy:

"Well, you don't panic and rush to pay off your mortgage earlier, do you?"

Good god.  Don't let this woman within sniffing distance of a budget.  Even James Whale had a go at her alongside some more irate listeners.

With her radar warning receiver flashing hotter than a set of Christmas tree lights, she dumped the chaff and flares that are employed by an ambushed socialist saying: "are there any Labour voters out there?", "what about the NHS?" followed by the classic, Thatcher's misquote, "there's no such thing as society".

A hideous, hideous woman with a hideous, hideous belief in a misguided ideology.

Jeff Randall: Peter the Great's poisonous pen will do Britain a power of good

Wonderful paragraph:

It is where a dysfunctional clique took the United Kingdom into an illegal war, dismantled border controls, encouraged unprecedented immigration, debased educational standards, attacked the independence of our best schools and universities, botched devolution, eroded British sovereignty, pumped up a consumer debt bubble, ran our private pension system into the ground, messed up financial regulation and wrecked the country's balance sheet.

Also came across a great comment:

Despite endless warnings from history, people like this constantly find themselves in positions of power. Elected, I presume by the kind of people who think history should be ignored because it has the word 'tory' in it.

Telegraph

A "Car Crash" Labour Poster Campaign Launch

When you can't get your barrel scraping poster campaign right, it's time to accept those P45s...


h/t BBC


Wonderful!

The "Presidential" Debate

Stifled. Saccharine. Staged.

A bit of an anticlimax and a bit dreary. I hope they spice the remaining shows up a little: perhaps let the audience cheer and boo and possibly even throw things.

Alistair Stewart tried to emulate a pre-emptive multitasking protocol and ended up stopping the natural flow of the debate somewhat. This riled Brown at various points whose preferred debating tactics include interruption, continuing after the allotted time and head-shaking.

Cleggy came across as the most natural, spoke into the camera and cleverly listed all the audience member’s names in his closing speech. A media masterclass although one criticism was that the “try us, not the old lot” wore thin towards the end. Also, I wondered whether Cleggy had recently bought some shares in a northern steel making company as he kept mentioning Sheffield every time he spoke.

Cameron came across quite statesmanlike, like a premier-in-waiting. No PMQs style anger at Brown which was a pity. I noticed his body language was effectively closing Brown off whenever he spoke. I wonder whether he was briefed not to get angry this time, although it would be great if the final session at the BBC, the subject header being “The Economy”, Cameron will get the green light and let rip into Brown. Now that would be some great entertainment.

Brown. Good grief. He just can’t get enough tractor stats and anti-Tory rhetoric in fast enough. His body language is awful: the glaring at Cameron, the shaking of his head, the constant interruption of Cameron whenever he spoke, his pre-briefed clichéd jokes about Ashcroft, his “I agree with Cleggy” nonsense, the whole Brown package is a liability and Campbell and The Prince of Darkness must be scratching their scales wondering what they can do with this car wreck of a persona.

Overall Cleggy had the most to gain and the boy done good, as predicted by Guido.

Cameron had the most to lose and managed to play safe. Too safe if I had to be honest. Initially he looked a little "rabbit in headlights" but made up for it by the better closing speech. Safe and statesmanlike.

Brown lost that one with a quite dismal, cringe worthy performance. He has a face for radio and a personality for hiding behind a deskful of Nokias. I’m afraid it’s no use the spin doctors saying Brown is serious about issues and prefers to get on with the job: this is the brave new media world where we expect our leaders to be media savvy and friendly and not look like autistic accountants with a severe case of haemorrhoids. It ain’t the 1940’s anymore. This is where the ovine populace will place a cross on the leader that looks and sounds the most like Simon Cowell.

Sad, but true.

Power Cuts like it's 1979

Fucking Labour - on the UPS, last bar of power and I have a deadline for the USA.

Cnuts.

I've found the 30% who vote Labour!

A thick, deluded, partisan, ignorant, non-thinking idiot standing next to a Labour activist

Ever wondered why Labour still hold 30% of the voting slice?  I did.  And now I know why and where.

Some old crone on LBC this morning rabbled on and on and said the most ridiculous, partisan claptrap and refused to be corrected.  She said:

• Tony Blair inherited a country that had a terrible debt in 1997
• The Thatcher government was more corrupt than this Labour governement
• We had 3 million unemployed in 1997
• Gordon Brown had reduced this debt and had given more workers jobs
• The hospitals are better and the schools are better
• Interest rates were apparently 16% in 1997 when Tony Blair took over
• We had three day weeks under Thatcher

The worse thing about the conversation, is that despite the evidence proffered by James Max, she refused to believe it, like an eco-scientist receiving a collection of Hadley CRU emails.

This, dear reader, is where your labour voting slice comes from.  Thick, ignorant, partisan individuals who refused to open their eyes and think for themselves.

We live in a country where people unquestionably believe what they are told.

The BBC at its biased best

It looks like Nick Robinson's blog is going into overdrive as he once again desperately tries to make up for the slow start to the failed coup attempt on Gordon Brown.  Guido and Tory Bear were reporting the news after midday.

The BBC have been piling on the toadying to Not-quite-so-new Labour, completely removing all but the mere hint of a whisper of the Tories from the front pages.

It was rumours abound as Peter "will he, or won't he arrive at Newsnight" Mandelson finally buckled under pressure from Mr Dale to cast his spell over Gordon's inevitable descent into oblivion.

David Vance of Biased BBC fame has report the "sheer pro-Labour entertainment value" of James Naughtie's Today program, where once again the BBC are giving a platform for Labour MPs to get their daily message out unhindered and unchallenged, liberally sprinkled with the usual "nasty Tories" rhetoric.

And of course, best leave it up to the ineffable Pie Muncher Puncher to summarise the situation with his erudite demeanour delivered using a syntax that has upset many a Babelfish:

+++ Latest Poll: Labour going, going, gone +++

Just seen this latest poll from Mr Dale's site:

CON 40%(-1) LAB 18%(-10) LIB DEM 18%(-4)

More details here...

"Eject Eject Eject!"

I get the feeling that the Labour party are going through the same emotions as this trainee pilot!

You know, keep your nose up and clean, keep burning the taxpayers money, and hope no Guido Falcon spoils your despicable troughfest by headbutting your titanium fan blades causing a flameout!

The only difference with this brave scenario of decent military aviators versus the scumbag politicos, I hope due to their fiscal incompetence, MPs have found that they couldn't afford the parachutes.