I will leave you to decide what the 'F' stands for! After 11 years of government the "Education, education, education" Labour party is bringing out its, oh, I don't know, 4th? 5th? major white paper on education which appears now to be undoing all that was proposed under the previous white papers. 'Ed (Blinky)' Balls made me shiver this morning as he stared at me maniacally out of my TV screen with his bulging eyes. As usual with all government ministers, I switched the sound off, and fell to wondering exactly how high our education service rates in 'Blinky's' scale of priorities. Only a couple of weeks ago he was all fired up with the hope that he would be the next Chancellor, and his full-time employment appears to be a despairing attempt to keep 'ur wee Gordie' in Downing Street, but on the other hand, there are increasing rumours that he is now far more concerned with getting himself elected leader when the men in white coats finally knock on the door of No. 10.
In the meantime, education is sluiced down the pan, and we can all laugh or weep, according to taste, at the recent story of 18-year-olds who were unable to understand the term "despotic tyranny" in a recent A-level history exam! Even more vomit-inducing is the sight of semi-educated smart Alecs here sneering, not at the thickoes with no vocabulary, but at the people who are genuinely shocked at this example of abysmal ignorance. And these university-educated slobs consider themselves, rightly, I suppose, as prime examples of our brave, new wave, younger generation of intelligentsia! God help us all!
It must now be a truth universally acknowledged that all ministers of education are a waste of precious oxygen and so is their Westminster department, to say nothing of the countless fat, leeching bureaucracies that have spawned around the country under the title of local education authorities. The solution is simple: close down all the LEAs, give every parent a voucher, sell all the schools to their teachers (formed into a co-operative) for a penny and tell them to get out there and earn their living by providing a good service to their customers, the parents.
"...semi-educated smart Alecs here sneering, not at the thickoes with no vocabulary, but at the people who are genuinely shocked at this example of abysmal ignorance. "
Learning's for squares, man! Gotta feel, not think, ya know?
Posted by: JuliaM | Tuesday, 30 June 2009 at 12:16
'Oh yeah, feelins, thas's righ, er, but I dunno wot that means, iver!'
Posted by: David Duff | Tuesday, 30 June 2009 at 13:14
'Despotic tyranny' - wouldn't that be a 'tautology'?
Posted by: Louise | Friday, 03 July 2009 at 03:57
Hello, Louise, good to see you out and about and I hope that augers well for you.
There has been a considerable discussion on the somewhat careless language used by the examiner. One particular Eng. Lang. swot claimed that it was not a tautology because the word 'despotic' implies cruel, arbitrary rule by one person where-as the word 'tyranny' is simply cruel and arbitrary rule by any number of people, say, the tyranny of a majority.
Posted by: David Duff | Friday, 03 July 2009 at 08:14