Even the extraordinary offer via email received this morning from Mrs Halifat Mohammed offering me an inheritance of 18.2 million pounds has failed to lift my spirits.
This week had been truly depressing, pies and pasties going up twenty percent, cretins from the government inspiring panic at filling stations, cretins from the Labour Party getting statesman like in condemnation of Conservative idiot ministers, then spending Friday wondering why George Galloway has run rings round them in Bradford.
The thing is most politicians are in politics for self promotion,if you ask me, you've only got to think why fewer and fewer bother to vote in elections and the sad reason is we no longer believe that politicians give a toss, something you can probably trace back to those days when the lackeys in Mrs T's government worried that their message wasn't getting through, when the real problem was that the public understood to well the malign agenda of the rich getting richer.
Local politics, this week Kent conservatives have worried much about grammar schools, deciding to extend the number of places offered by encouraging an annexe school, you will of course note that Kent Conservatives are not to vexed about the continuing problems of education in Ramsgate, as once again the Marlowe Academy continues that tradition of failure, which I'd say is the result in part of selective education. The idea of selecting children at eleven to succeed, seems more suited to the eugenics, favoured by fascists in nineteen thirties. In Kent children are simply written off early on with a high proportion of children coming from deprived backgrounds, do don't expect Kent tories meet any time soon to worry about kids in Ramsgate.
Marriage features prominently, with Thanet just at the moment as our local diversity experts bring this up for debate at thanet council, not sure myself quite why it's necessary for gay couples to get married, as I understand it civil partnership offers the same legal protection, so whereas the problem? Also in our diverse culture I understand that some communities go in for bigomous marriages and nobody says anything, so if it's that important why not fake up a ceremony and just call yourself married and who would give a damn.
Finally I listened to the BBC giving the news that 75% of Thanet residents had voted against night flights at Manston, or even that a majority of residents were against night flights, of course were the BBC to have honestly reported the matter they might have just told us that a minority of local cranks stirred up a sh*t storm. Even local labour were in favour of night flights until the just before the last local elections, but hey that's politics for you.
Just before I leave you, a propaganda sheet comes through the letter box, on the back a picture of council leader Clive Hart with deputy leader Alan Poole they're smiling why? God help us.
PS Still life is not all bad this week, series 5 of Mad Men started this week, what a joy a drama series without murders, or medical emergencies just people getting along as best they can.
Tony Annexe the Marlow to Dane court problem solved
ReplyDeleteTony I should like to point out that Mrs Halifat Mohammed offered it to me first, so it will be cold pies for you
ReplyDeleteI thought that the point about academy schools was that they were funded centrally and are outside of county council control.
ReplyDeleteI dont think all is as rosy as it seems with the creation of a new annex in Sevenoaks to an existing grammar school. First they have to find such a grammar school in the catchment area that is willing to get involved and also get its staff involved. No doubt if KCC puts up the reported £15 millions required then they would want a say in the running of the school. Left to their own devices the existing grammar schools would want to super-select in Sevenoaks and pupil from outer London would flood in and we would be back to square one.
You may have also noticed Tony that KCC cabinet member Kevin Lynes has died aged 53. You have a link to his blog on your blog.
A bit of a local career polititian with an over egged cv and always a yes man to the leader of the council.
“A bit of a local career polititian with an over egged cv and always a yes man to the leader of the council.”
ReplyDeleteThat was until he stood against him
Thanks for sharing this. Your thoughts are why I no longer need to blog about such matters as you can rant far more effectively than I can. Stupidly I bought the Isle of Thanet Gazette on Friday. Now THAT is depressing! What a rag! And as for that 'doctored' pic of the Arlington Tesco plastered all over Margate Old Town windows ...at least Arlington House didn't get its listed status ... or was that always an April Fool Joke ?
ReplyDeleteDon't despair, Tony, just remember there is ALWAYS remedy.
ReplyDeleteWhen we vote, we are handing our power over to another, and when those others have been collectively corrupted by the banksters, since time immemorial, then we end up where we are today.
To begin with they dropped us a few crumbs, to keep us happy while they expanded their empire, now those crumbs are being dropped more selectively, to those who play the game. For the most of us, there will be no more crumbs.
If we learn a bit about the law, we can begin slapping commercial liens on them right and left.
They will not know what has hit them.
Tony, if the Marlowe problems stem in part from selection perhaps you can explain why other non selective secondary schools in Thanet are not also in special measures.
ReplyDeleteWhatever the failings or otherwise of the Thatcher regime, her government recovered this country from the near basket case collapse of the Wilson/Callaghan years. Perhaps you have forgotten our slide to near obscurity in the world financial leagues, the winter of discontent, the unburied dead and the unemptied dustbins.
As for all the other depressing news like 20% hike on our pasties, granny tax and still inadequate reduction in the stifling national welfare bill, you have to remember that this is not a Tory budget but one heavily influenced by the Lib/Dems.
Perhaps the most depressing thing at the moment is that the likes of Clegg and Cable are punching well above their weight.
Anon 1.46 it was Chard and Ferrin that stood against Carter not Lynes. I an sure if one of them gained control we would hve seen a very different less arrogant KCC cabinet.
ReplyDeleteI would imagine that your "depression" has been made worse by the news that your Government wants to extend powers of email scrutiny and surveillance of the population at large. Given the amount of hostile comment you posted about the last Labour Government, CCTV cameras, and what you bleated was the erosion of civil liberties, you must be horrified by this further reversal of one of your (Liberal Democratic) "principles". As someone recently said in Parliament, Clegg spends his days saying no, then rolls over in front of Cameron and says yes. You must feel so proud.
ReplyDeleteClegg is a commie change agent, discouraging opposite sex marriage, whilst at the same time pushing for same sex marriage, wtf is that all about???
ReplyDeleteHow much longer are we going to put up with this nonsense?
12:35 As a Tory let me say you are talking nonsense about Clegg rolling over. The complaint of most people I know is that we have a Conservative led government following Lib/Dem policies and having to suffer inadequates in ministerial roles in order to govern.
ReplyDeleteMany are now of the opinion that we would be better to ignore the Lib/Dems and see if they want to risk bringing the government down and the resultant election. With Cameron's and Milliband's joint pathetic performances the result of that could be anyone's guess, but the certainty would be the almost totally disappearance of Clegg & co.
Tom Clarke, I don't for a minute believe that any of this is happening by chance.
ReplyDeleteCameron is running international affairs, while Clegg is forcing through the domestic changes, and that is the way it was set up to happen, in my opinion.
They are both globalist change agents.
The most depressing thing Tom Clarke is that people like you are at ease with toffs like Cameron and his ilk, as for local schools not being in special measures, I understand that some of the basic secondary local schools also have an element of selectivity, if I remember correctly one presumably right wing head made it clear that foster children were not welcome.
ReplyDeleteAt the end of the day grammar schools have the effect of discriminating against children from poorer backgrounds and it is no surprise that when challenged about child welfare in broader terms Kent conservatives get quite hostile and even abusive as earlier postings would show.
How wrong can you be, Tony, for no way am I at ease with Cameron although I do not condemn people because of their 'toff' background. After all some of our best PMs historically were what you might describe as toffs. No, for me he is typical of the smoothie modern political careerist, lacking in real life experience and more concerned with holding office. In many ways just another Blair.
ReplyDeleteAs for the selectivity of other schools, other than the denominational element on the two church schools, it is largely non existent and not at all on academic ability.
Basically the Marlowe was built in the wrong place and it might have been better to preserve the two good Ramsgate schools, Ellington and Hereson, as seperate entities and spent some of the wasted millions enlarging and improving their facilities.
Just to finalise this, I had three children through the Thanet secondary education of which two went to grammar schools and one to a denominational school. One loved her grammar school, but only in the sixth form, one hated hers throughout and the third has enjoyed the whole experience of secondary education.
In my view we should have more selection, but extend it to arts, technoligies and sport, as well as academics so we get the right youngsters in the right places to develop their talents. The one size fits all comprehensive experiment has laregely failed. Oh, and not just in Kent.
Oh, and before some smartarse picks up on my spelling which should have read 'largely' - it was typographical. In other words my fingers are too fat and the keyboard too small.
ReplyDeleteTom you cannot denign the blighted lives of children who are given a second rate education here in thanet, I totally agree with streaming secondary age children, however having the misfortune to attend Charles Dickens, at a time when aspiration stopped at factory fodder type jobs, I don't doubt that things are every bit as grim as they were in the seventies.
ReplyDeleteChildren should have chance to compete, Kent's policy of excluding aspiration from 80% of children at the arbitary age of 10 in reality favouring those families from the wealthy families, totally wrong but still no surprise as conservative policies are all self interest.
Sorry, Tom, but you sound increasingly like Steve Ladyman. In Thanet there are several very good non-selective schools who regularly get their sixth formers into universities. The Thanet sixth form forum also means that youngsters can go to the sixth forms of the grammars from the secondaries and some go the other way depending on schools specialities. Ursuline, for example, is a specialist sports college and some youngsters choose its sixth form for that reason..
ReplyDeleteI would be the first to agree with you that historically the secondary moderns did not perform that well but times have changed. Also, being a kid from a council estate who went to a grammar, along with several of my friends from the same primary, I can tell you it is nothing to do with wealth. All the extra tuition in the world will not help you with the Non-Verbal Reasoning paoper if you haven't got the IQ in the first place.
Tony, if the Pentagon have their way, we shall no longer feel depressed, in fact we shall no longer feel much at all.
ReplyDeleteLeaked Video: Nanotech frontal lobotomy vaccine, spread by flu virus, ready to be rolled out (which usually means they have done it already), to "combat terrorism".
Of course, as always, it is really to combat we the peasants.
However, as always, there must be a remedy, otherwise the elites (and their lackeys) would be hit by it too and I believe that remedy might be colloidal silver administered through an inhaler or nebuliser.
I will make a photo pictorial of how to manufacture colloidal silver from scratch in your kitchen, and post it.
I have been making and using colloidal silver for the past couple of years and can confirm that it has been highly beneficial.
ReplyDeleteMake Your Own Colloidal Silver
Tom Clarke, you are talking to yourself now! A joke, not picking you up. But clearly you and Tony Flaig are both content with your Parties doing what they - and most local bloggers - castigated Labour for at the last General Election. Clearly civil liberties get eroded under Labour, but it's a good thing when it's done by a Tory/Lib Dem Coailition?
ReplyDeleteStop using their crap services . Only then will they start giving a dam about the childrens education, who needs the state dumbing down institutions . We could do without all the freemason or common purpose graduate head teachers running them .
ReplyDeleteFoster contract carers could give a dam about foster childrens education, they get paid ridiculous sums whilst the schools babysit for them.
Home education is the way to go if you dont want your children bio-metrically fingerprinted in school behind your back without your consent (just to get a library book out) and in school nurseries. The over paid and rated councillors know about it, as do the mp's and do nothing.
6:01 Please don't include me in on the snoopers charter. Like many things being instigated by this mismatch of a government, I don't agree. Then I am well to the right of Cameron and would like to see some real clear water between the two main parties rather than them both trying to introduce the same 'big brother is watbhing you' type state.
ReplyDeleteThey are not only dumbing the children down in schools they are also starving them under Cameron's watch
ReplyDeleteChildren Are Going Hungry: School Meals are ‘Made Smaller to Save Money’
http://zen-haven.dk/children-are-going-hungry-school-meals-are-made-smaller-to-save-money/
Should stop the over stuffed sandwichs that KCC have at there meetings instead and send them all into the canteen, might save a few bob
The UK's biggest export is 'English Socialism', a complete misnomer, of course, as there is nothing English about it, nor is it even remotely social.
ReplyDelete21 Signs That The UK Is Being Transformed Into A Hellish Big Brother Surveillance Society
"Why would anyone want to live in the UK at this point? Well, if you enjoy having every little detail of your life dictated to you by elitist control freaks then you might like living there. But most of the rest of the world is absolutely horrified that the UK is being transformed into a hellish Big Brother surveillance society...
...Sadly, most of the rest of the globe is going down the exact same path that the UK has gone. The UK is several years ahead of most of the rest of us, but eventually almost every nation on earth will be just like them."
Its the youth who could teach the elders a thing or to, they are far more awake to the truth !
ReplyDeleteOneTaste Presents - SGB
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q_cxhRJwfiA