Education is a fiscal right.................

As you've probably guessed, those of you that stumble across these missives of mine, this is not a "daily blog"! There's a lot to be said for lengthy breaks between blogs; the down side is that most people think you've died (some may think that's an upside, but, hey, every silver lining has a cloud) the real upside is that the bitterest fruits of my imaginings remain stuck on the branches of my mind........sorry, waxing lyrical there, I won't do it again, promise. Suffice it to say that it takes a lot to get me to write stuff; I think on events much the same as everyone else does and I figure you have enough of your own dilemmas and daily annoyances to cope with than to have them crumpled up with my waste-paper-jottings. However, there are times...........

I think it's because I have a stunted development when it comes to socialism that the change and debate that's accompanied the new rules concerning school of choice in the good ol' U of K has finally ignited my ire and brought me back to the Blog. No, relax, I'm not going to sound off about the state of our kids' education or the plethora of new rules and regs that teachers have had to put up with, my beef is a far more wide ranging one than that. You will, however, have to put up with some background information otherwise all my international readers (?) will be totally mystified by what follows and, along with most others, think these are the ravings of a self-delusional lunatic............erm.......think I might have just shot myself in the foot there..........

The latest scam our Labour government has come up with concerns the filling of places in secondary schools (12-18 age group for those of you reading from foreign climes). As with any education system there are good schools and not so good schools and many of the rich and well-positioned members of our "fair and equal" society clocked on to the fact that 1) the poor people's children were getting places at the good schools simply because they lived in the catchment area (i.e. near to) of those good schools and so were being turned out as well educated and potentially high-achieving members of our society and 2) their children were not getting this advantagous start in life because the school they lived near resembled a mid-eighties Beiruit back street where the pupils were being turned out as poorly educated orang-utans. This must have filled them with real alarm; I mean, fancy the outcome? All of sudden these snot-nosed little urchins were being better educated than the chinless wonders of commuter-belt parents; with that as a stepping stone who knows what might happen? They could find that their darling little Tarquin deQuincey-Ryan, who's father is "something in the city" and big in gilts, is having to take orders from Bert Smith, who's father is something in the gutter but big in whippets; that would never do! So these new-money people decided to turn things to their advantage and stifle this threatened social upheaval by using the tried and tested methods that had stood them in good stead and on the throats of the lower classes for centuries; they bought their way into the game and had the lower orders sent off for lack of spondulics. Finding out where the achieving schools were they paid over the odds for properties that would put them in the succeeding-school's catchment area thereby pricing the riff-raff out of the market and claiming the area as their own. This created an exclusive school property for these dollar-snobs and ensured that it would continue to be their kids that were handing out any whippings that would undoubtably be needed in order to keep the lower orders in order.............if you see what I mean.

To stop this happening, our "level playing field government" have instigated a lottery system. This will mean that, once the school has taken up all of the local clientele a lottery system will be instigated for the remaining places; you know, put all the names in a drum, give it a shake and draw until all the positions are full; can you believe this? This is a government of adults, or so we are led to believe, and this is the upshot of their 15 years of considered ruminations on how to tackle the obvious shortcomings of school places in the UK............by turning it into a lottery? And they really think this will stop the moneyed-classes from gaining what they see as righfully theirs. Jesus, it'll just mean they'll have to offer bigger bribes to the schools in order to get their sprogs to the best ones, that's all. They've already begun by getting this "equality" government to allow them to sponsor schools..................takes some believing doesn't it, that they expect us to believe our children will get a good, well balanced education from a school funded, in the main, by a multi-national conglomerate that sells "stuff" to the masses? Have bears had their first porta-loo delivered yet? I don't fuckin' think so! That new oven for the kitchen, that new set of football strips, that collection of Shakespeare books for the new library? You want it then toe the line, buster or we'll move down the road and steal all your good teachers for that new school! All the major supermarkets do it with the chosen customers they find. Like those precious, small wine-makers the supermarket predators move in, get several small artisan winemakers to join together, modernise the process, pump it up, buy all the produce at low prices then cancel the buy-off when something else or fashion takes their fancy and leave the massively overproducing vinery with no market to sell to; the Labour party are doing it, they called them loans and dole out knighthoods, do you think the lucre-laddies won't follow suit? The one thing new money has remembered are Mr Coward's immortal words; "Camp Freddie, everybody in the world is bent".

What we have now, then, is a lottery, basically a gamble to get a good education for your children that will be bent, bribed and bullied by the Ferrari fathers and four-wheel driving cash cows who transport their offspring the four-hundred yards to school each day. As far as these models of citizenship are concerned good eduction isn't a socialist principle, it's a commodity that can be bought and sold like any other, so don't look to them to cut you break.