Thursday, September 21, 2006
Alan Johnson in a op-ed for the Guardian http://politics.guardian.co.uk/publicservices/comment/0,,1877205,00.html argues that the Labour spin machine has been successful in moving the centre ground of politics to the Left and that this should be it's greatest achievement, which David Cameron is flattering by imitation. Let's be straight about 2 things, firstly moving the centre of politics to the left is NOT good, and secondly, we Conservatives are not following!
Since 1997 there has been a marked shift in society as a consequence of "leftism". Political correctness is rife. Cherie Blair was questioned under legislation she herself makes her living out of as a Human Rights lawyer when she playfully tapped a 17 year old on the shoulder during a press conference. The school system is failing 40, 000 children who are in schools wherer the success rate of gaining 5 GCSEs is at 1% in spite of the dumbing down of the exam system so that they have no realistic hope of finding a job. Quotas that control every facet of life are handed out from central government. The public sector payroll has exlpoded with hundereds of thousands of jobs being created by NDPB's, quangos, boards, many of which duplicate each other or are functionally useless so that almost 40% of those in emlpoyment draw their salaries from the state or local government. Europe is gaining ever more power over British citizens as even this week our Government stealthily intends to hand over the court system without proper public debate. Our armed forces are over-stretched and under-equipped fighting expeditionary conflicts all over the world while foreign issues such as Zimbabwe, where we ought to be involved, are left ignored. Thought crimes are more heinous than real crimes.
In his piece Mr Johnson argues that standards have risen, yet the CBI now suggests that many school leavers are unemployable. More and more students are getting Grade A's through an ever more lax and coursework based exam system that no longer requires geunine knowledge or the ability to read, write, punctuate, and express an opinion based in original thouhgt. It isn't the children's fault, they only study the syllabus that teachers are required to teach. What they end up with is a clutch of exam passes in this "there's no such thing as second place, we are all winners here" world of education before being thrown out into the cut and thrust world of work and survival. Equally with more and more students being sucked up into the Higher Education sector that are not necessarily equipped to be there, many are coming out of newly created second rate "universities" with degress that will only get them as far as a job in a call centre, and with suffocated debt to boot. Education, Edjukashun, Edksn!
Mr Johnson also talks about the "success" of dragging people into state dependency at an earlier age through Sure Start. It's always been the leftist agenda to make people so dependant on the state they are scared to stand on their own two feet and thus reject the state, and the controls the state wishes to impose on our lives. Make us scared of others in the trumped up "war on terror" (I've often wondered how it is one can actually wage war on an abstract noun, but that is a thought crime in today's state) and we become so dependant on the state that we walk mesmorised into ID cards that we are required to carry at all times or face a hefty fine for non-compliance. We don't like the idea, but the state provides so we must please the state.
What we Conservatives are offering is freedom of choice. The ability to openly express views and opinions without the fear of being monitored or silenced under "anti-terror legislation". heckle our conferences if you will, you won't be dragged out as Labour supporters have found to their cost! We want to promote community values where welfare comes from the local community not handed out a la Oliver Twist. No thank you sir, I won't have another! We want to enable people to use their enterprise to get on in life by prepapring them through a robust education system and an open market to explore ideas and be creative and reap the rewards of their endeavour, not have them sequeezed by the burden of taxation. But we want to provide the framework for them to do it resopnsibly.
What Mr Johnson doesn't want to admit is that every time Labour persuade the electorate to experiemnt with leftism, the people sooner or later reject it. His is a last ditch plea against the better judgement of an electorare that he knows deep down is about to ditch Labour no matter who they annoint to succed Blair.
Since 1997 there has been a marked shift in society as a consequence of "leftism". Political correctness is rife. Cherie Blair was questioned under legislation she herself makes her living out of as a Human Rights lawyer when she playfully tapped a 17 year old on the shoulder during a press conference. The school system is failing 40, 000 children who are in schools wherer the success rate of gaining 5 GCSEs is at 1% in spite of the dumbing down of the exam system so that they have no realistic hope of finding a job. Quotas that control every facet of life are handed out from central government. The public sector payroll has exlpoded with hundereds of thousands of jobs being created by NDPB's, quangos, boards, many of which duplicate each other or are functionally useless so that almost 40% of those in emlpoyment draw their salaries from the state or local government. Europe is gaining ever more power over British citizens as even this week our Government stealthily intends to hand over the court system without proper public debate. Our armed forces are over-stretched and under-equipped fighting expeditionary conflicts all over the world while foreign issues such as Zimbabwe, where we ought to be involved, are left ignored. Thought crimes are more heinous than real crimes.
In his piece Mr Johnson argues that standards have risen, yet the CBI now suggests that many school leavers are unemployable. More and more students are getting Grade A's through an ever more lax and coursework based exam system that no longer requires geunine knowledge or the ability to read, write, punctuate, and express an opinion based in original thouhgt. It isn't the children's fault, they only study the syllabus that teachers are required to teach. What they end up with is a clutch of exam passes in this "there's no such thing as second place, we are all winners here" world of education before being thrown out into the cut and thrust world of work and survival. Equally with more and more students being sucked up into the Higher Education sector that are not necessarily equipped to be there, many are coming out of newly created second rate "universities" with degress that will only get them as far as a job in a call centre, and with suffocated debt to boot. Education, Edjukashun, Edksn!
Mr Johnson also talks about the "success" of dragging people into state dependency at an earlier age through Sure Start. It's always been the leftist agenda to make people so dependant on the state they are scared to stand on their own two feet and thus reject the state, and the controls the state wishes to impose on our lives. Make us scared of others in the trumped up "war on terror" (I've often wondered how it is one can actually wage war on an abstract noun, but that is a thought crime in today's state) and we become so dependant on the state that we walk mesmorised into ID cards that we are required to carry at all times or face a hefty fine for non-compliance. We don't like the idea, but the state provides so we must please the state.
What we Conservatives are offering is freedom of choice. The ability to openly express views and opinions without the fear of being monitored or silenced under "anti-terror legislation". heckle our conferences if you will, you won't be dragged out as Labour supporters have found to their cost! We want to promote community values where welfare comes from the local community not handed out a la Oliver Twist. No thank you sir, I won't have another! We want to enable people to use their enterprise to get on in life by prepapring them through a robust education system and an open market to explore ideas and be creative and reap the rewards of their endeavour, not have them sequeezed by the burden of taxation. But we want to provide the framework for them to do it resopnsibly.
What Mr Johnson doesn't want to admit is that every time Labour persuade the electorate to experiemnt with leftism, the people sooner or later reject it. His is a last ditch plea against the better judgement of an electorare that he knows deep down is about to ditch Labour no matter who they annoint to succed Blair.
# posted by Sherington Tory @ 12:21 PM 
