The People’s Rail

Just a quick one for now. And while we’re at it, how about chaging the name of the country to ‘The People’s Republic of Britain’ or something?

Check out the People’s Rail Charter

You’ve gotta love Steve Bell

Who’d have thought me and the Iron Lady would ever share similar thoughts?!

Sanctions wll do nothing to stop Mugabe

Zimbabwe truly amazes me. It is a country in which no side is right. Certain ethnic groups are not right to unfairly hold land, but just as much, Zanu-PF is not right to terrorise people, withold food, threaten people with death if they don’t vote Zanu and imprison people for subverting government and threatening the death penalty.

This is one of the few situations in the world where an armed intervention would actually be welcomed. Why are we wasting our time in Iraq and Afghanistan when these people need our help? But of course, it’s not as easy as that. What would happen to diplomatic relations with South Africa if a coalition entered Zimbabwe? Why are we allowing South Africa to continue with its farsical ’silent diplomacy’.

But just like in Iraq, the sanctions that the EU is proposing will do little to Zimbabwe but strengthen Mugabe’s position. Who is the one person in the country who will not starve, not run out of water, will be able to afford food, will be able to hire staff as slaves?.. I wont patronise you by telling you who.

You’re damned if you do and damned if you don’t. What is the EU supposed to do? Just as the opposition are considering pulling out due to the violence, Mugabe basically holds his country hostage, threatening obscene acts if anyone encroaches on his national borders. Furthermore, who will rebuild Zimbabwe? Who will take control? Who will have a say in it?

Mugabe will only leave when someone grabs his wrist and pulls him away. Literally

Making the house a home

Bear with me for a few days while I get this place looking the way I want, whilst keeping it readable.

Prty kmniktn

If you can understand that title I’m impressed. Let me know if you can, because I’d like to hire you to decipher Labour Party communications for me.

As well as being a member, I’m on the Labour Party’s mailing list. Although to be honest I don’t know why, because I never read the pointless emails the party sends me. And reading one today has reminded me why. Last time I checked, Labour presented itself as a serious party. But reading the latest press release from yet another General Secretary (what keeps happening to scare them all off?) I felt like I was back in the playground.

I know, as you do, that we as a party have much to be proud about. We have the best leader, the best policies, the best ideas to build a Britain of lasting prosperity and fairness. We have a record of 11 years of progressive politics and of delivering for the British people. And we have people like you on our side.

Do we have much to be proud about? We might have done – once. 42 days, 10p tax bracket… these are things I am most definitely not proud of. We can not keep throwing things we did ten years ago out in to the field and tell everyone how great we were for two reasons: a) that was then and b) in reality, they weren’t that groundbreaking now. Anything that had the true potential to radically change the country in more than a semi permanent way was either never publicised or quietly chopped down, in favour of piecemeal policy that wouldn’t hurt the feelings of the free market.

the best leader? Urr… no. Not saying the Tories or Lib Dems are any better, mind. The best policies? How can we realistically say that when the Labour Party is being challenged and even overtaken by traditionally more right wing parties on traditionally Labour issues? We’re losing the plot. And as for the best ideas – well, if the best ideas are washed up, recycled bits of tosh designed to keep employers with surplus labour and the rich happy, we’ve got ‘em.

‘We have people like you on our side’ – JUST. And I’m not still a member because of New Labour, or because of some random bloke whose raffle ticket came up at the ‘be the next General Secretary of the Labour Party’ stall at the local fair. I’m a member because of the hope and inspiration I see in Chartist Magazine and Compass. At the moment, that is it.

I haven’t mentioned the obvious thing yet – when did shouting louder about who’s dad can beat up who ever win an argument (perhaps before you turned 6)? You can’t be taken seriously if your major talent as a party is to throw a wobbly and stamp your feet on the ground. Grow up.

Apparently the Tories are in disarray. Is that why they are substantially further ahead than us in the polls then? If only we could aspire to be that shambolic mess, maybe we’d stand a chance. Oh no, but of course, we’re too busy ignoring everyone and doing what we feel to notice.

But the piece de resistance of this mailing lies in the sentence that can be found in every single mailiing Labour ever send out – to anyone. ‘gis some money, Gov… I won’t buy crack Gov, honest.’ Bollocks. I’ll donate to the Labour Party when I know it’s going to go on decent policy, or the Campaign to get Denis MacShane Kicked Out of the Party and Thrown in a Ditch.

The party wonders why they lost members like it was out of fashion. That’s because being an ordinary member is pointless. If you want to make a change you have to be actively involved in a countrywide pressure group, be an MP, or spend every waking moment trying your hardest to become the Leader of the Labour Party. But, quite frankly, most of us don’t have time for that.

Oh, I suppose you could become the next General Secretary. I hear they’ll be advertising for the post in the next few weeks.

Education should be built on Equality

Read the offending article here
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It’s good to see that things don’t change. The same dross is being spewed in the newspapers at the moment about how ‘equality’ in education (I didn’t even realise we had equality there) is ruining the intelligence of our proud young boys and girls. Ecxept instead of it coming from where you’d expect, such as rags like the daily mail (BAN THIS SICK FILTH!) it comes from a allegedly reputable source – The Times.

It’s not difficult to get an A at A-level children. If there’s anyone out there taking A levels at the moment, I just want you to remember this. IT’S EASY! DON’T BE STUPID! Of course, Minette Marrin has taken many A levels in her life, and can tell you exactly how tough they are. And somehow, this links in to a debate about equality. Methinks the she doth protest too much (you’ll learn that in your English A level).

The issue with equality in education currently is that people do love to falsely label something. Most people don’t know where they fall on the issue of equality, and fair enough, it’s a tough issue. But some people will use this to their advantage to further their particular cause. In this case, we’re being told we have ‘equality’ in education and that’s a very bad thing. Well, here’s some news – there’s no such thing as equality in education. It’s about as real as that Liberal ideal of equality under the law, and we all know how seriously that particular tenet is taken. If you need a few examples to see what I’m getting at, here they are: Postcode Lottery, Inner-city schools, city academies (sponsored by any dirty corporation you like), PRIVATE EDUCATION, faith schools…

Regardless of what you think about the above terms, you’d have to be one hell of a debater to persuade me that they somehow instill an ethos of equality in to society. And that’s the other thing Marrin misses: equality, in whatever sector, is supposed to transcend borders. Therefore the noble aim of equality in the education system will lead to an ethos of equality in many other areas of society, not least because of socialisation. And, unless you have some kind of twisted right wing (neo) Liberal conception of society, you’ll be able to see (or maybe not see…) how much equality we really have in society.

People need to realise that governments can only do so much. The national and international economic system play a much larger role in education and socialisation than many think. Our common sense comes from the empirical world we live in. And how does that world currently operate? On a system based around trade and selling yourself to the highest bidder, who will never give you a fair price. Such meta-narratives (what a word) permeate in to the social conscious very readily. If they didn’t we’d probably have a different form of capitalism than the one we have now. But apparently this one is the best one, and will never be trumped (thank you Francis Fukuyama).

So a good way to nurture the idea of equality is to have it living and breathing in the school system. But as I’ve pointed above, the system is far from equal. Marrin, like so many other ’social commentators’, misses the point; a system based on the fallacy of ‘choice’ is not a system based on equality. Wanting as many people to get a good, high standard education is not equality. By no stretch of the imagination. What we have is a set of rules and regulations designed to produce productive members of the working world. People are getting less of education and more of instruction. People do not learn for learning’s sake anymore. People do not have the choice of what and how they learn – they apparently have the choice of what school they go to, and the right to know that their inner city school is low in the league tables, so they are somehow getting an inferior education.

So where exactly is this equality I keep hearing so much about? And why is Marrin harking on about the good old days where selection was embraced and whipping children was accepted? Does she not realise that selection still exists? How is giving as many people as possible a chance to better themselves a bad thing? We don’t all have to go to Oxbridge to enrich our lives. In fact, these universities could very well be a place where lots of intelligent people could not flourish. But of course to Marrin ‘intelligent children’ is a homogeneous block of super-kids who all have the same desires, drives, IQs, and aptitude.

Furthermore, her contradiction is almost intolerable for someone who rues the day ‘equality’ was ever muttered in a state institution’s corridor – why is she beating on about this when she agrees that different sections of schooling have been designed, whether it be implicitly or explicitly, for different social classes? Possibily the biggest test of equality in practice – how defined are the classes – not only stares out at us with burning eyes, but shoves two fingers up at us just for good measure. If you’re going to write a polemic, at least make it congruent, yeah?

Her writing strikes me as ever so slightly self righteous:

So too, oddly enough, is the infuriating White, at least in one way. Beneath his old-fashioned class hatred and his atavistic loyalty to discredited progressive teaching, lurks an awkward truth. An academic school education – a traditional grammar school education – is not suitable for most people.

conveniently we don’t know what kind of schooling the distinguished author had – but it just seems to me that in an ideal world she would have added ‘unless you’re intelligent (and rich), like me’ to the end of the above sentence. And, once again, her equality argument falls down. She has no particular moral, philosophical or even political basis for her claim. It’s just her particular gripe. It’s political correctness gone mad! Quick, dive under the table of bigotry and elitism! We’ll be safe there! QUICK! THE YOBS ARE COMING! AND THEY HAVE DEGREES! Yes boys and girls, universities are no longer private members’ clubs. A degree or A-levels no longer denote your social class. Perhaps this is what she is disgruntled about. What was the point of going through all that education if everyone else has it? It’s the educational equivalent to getting the latest fur, car, butler…

Or maybe the author had little schooling (she obviously didn’t study critical thinking or a subject that involves ciritcal thought) and is now jealous that joe schmoe can go educate himself. What a TERRIBLE, DIRTY world we live in.

But finally she says something vaguely intelligent:

children and students vary. Children are born with different abilities, into different environments, which exaggerate those differences: ignoring those differences is no way to help them all, nor is clumsy social engineering.

Yes indeed. But hold on, she hasn’t made another mistake, has she? Oh… She has. Someone who writes for a popular national newspaper should be smart enough to not conflate ‘equality’ with ’same’ – equality does not mean that. Societally, it is not as rigid as the mathematical term. We’re not equal and we will never be equal, but equality doesn’t have to mean uniformity. It can just as easily mean personalising education for social groups and people in different economic and social situations so that everyone can learn the basics and possibly more, and then be in a position to make their own choice about following it up with university. But of course, as all us intelligent people realise, EQUALITY equals COMMUNISM.