Cameron: "Cuts will change our way of life"

[VladimirIlyich]

I'm sure i said this would happen about a year ago in this very thread...

 

BBC News - Impact of housing benefit changes 'worse than feared'

 

 

We both forecast this but its not exactly rocket science though is it!(Not that you arent an intelligent person anyway.)

[dennis tooth]

The Department for Education has strenuously denied it has plans to allow academies and free schools to make a profit.

 

A document seen by the BBC suggests its most senior civil servant has proposed reclassifying academies as private firms, which some say could potentially allow them to make a profit.

 

Currently the state-funded, privately run schools cannot pocket any surplus.

 

The DfE says it is not planning to change that.

 

Education Secretary Michael Gove has indicated in the past that he is open to the idea of allowing the profit motive for those running academies and free schools. But the Liberal Democrats are strongly opposed to that notion.

 

The DfE said the document, which bears the name of the department's permanent secretary and is dated October 2012, was purely to do with the "technical treatment of debt" and that it would be "grossly misleading" to suggest the document meant academies could be run for profit.

'Fundamental shift'

 

But the document itself speaks of "fundamentally shifting the basis of our relationship with academies through reclassifying academies to the private sector, possibly coupled with a change in the legal framework".

 

It goes on to talk about potentially adopting a "licensing" or "corporation approach" like the one used in the further education sector.

 

In post-16 education there is not the ban on making profits that there is in pre-16 education, but most colleges are charities and any surplus has to be reinvested into the college.

 

Glynne Stanfield, partner and an expert in education law at legal firm Eversheds, said: "If, as reported, the government does reclassify academies in to the private sector and changes the legal framework then that could allow for-profit organisations to run academies alongside not-for-profit organisations."

 

He said currently further education colleges could convert to a different legal framework that could be a for-profit model, but he was clear that for academies and schools, this would require new legislation.

 

Because of this status, colleges also have more freedoms to borrow against their assets and invest these capital funds into their buildings and facilities.

 

The document suggests the motive for any change of status is to expand its academies and free school programme beyond 5,000 schools without increasing costs. At the time of the report there were 2,309 academies and 79 free schools and it refers to 5,000 academies as a sort of "crunch point" beyond which the existing system appears unsustainable.

Continue reading the main story

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Start Quote

 

Making a fast buck from children's education is wrong and will damage standards.”

Stephen Twigg

Shadow Education Secretary

 

It is clear that the proposals are "radical" and long term, and the document says: "It would be wise to begin now describing what a future operating framework could look like, even if we have no firm plan for moving to it."

 

"This would enable us to both make interim policy decisions that support the longer-term direction of travel and begin creating the conditions needed to deliver it," it continues.

 

It also highlights issues around "risks" that the DfE would have to manage as the result of the academies programme expanding on such a scale.

 

These include "higher project attrition rates, decreased ability to overcome resistance at local level, and more nasty surprises arising from not managing projects as closely as we have up to now".

 

A DfE spokesman said its board did not endorse any plans to reclassify academies as private sector bodies and no such move was anticipated.

'Absurd'

 

"The final say on how academies are classified and thus whether their funds remain consolidated within public accounts would rest with Office for National Statistics, not DfE.

 

"As the successful academy programme grows, we continually review our internal processes and systems to ensure that the service we provide to schools remains of a high quality.

 

"We have repeatedly made it clear that we will not introduce for-profit schools. This story is absurd."

 

A spokesman for the Public and Commercial Services Union said: "It ought to be unthinkable to even consider introducing the profit motive into our schools, and this plan should be binned and never see the light of day again."

 

Shadow Education Secretary Stephen Twigg said: "Making a fast buck from children's education is wrong and will damage standards.

 

"Michael Gove shouldn't experiment in this way. In Sweden, we've seen standards in literacy and numeracy fall and schools collapse since profit making was introduced."

[Stu Monty]

I don't accept the premise that people don't care or that they are selfish and are only interested in what they can get out of the system for themselves. Take a look back at every major charity drive and you will see that the people of this country are all too willing to put their hand in their pocket to help out people in dire circumstances.

 

The problem is that there is a line that everyone has that they will not cross and that is when helping someone else is to their own detriment. I don't think that this is any different in this generation to any that have gone before.

 

The problem is that the amount of money people are being asked to contribute to domestic welfare via taxation and national insurance is doing exactly that.

 

Not strictly true. Giving £1 to charity it to your own detriment. People are selfish. The problem is when that selfishness isn't used in a structure of "I want what's best for me and my kids...which is a fairer, safer, world for everyone". Co-operating with your fellow man in the prisoner's dilemma is selfish, because you are still looking for the best outcome for yourself.

 

The problem is that the population are contributing too much. The target of that frustration shouldn't be those in receipt though, not when the state is subsidising the low wages of the private sector. I'm basically paying my tax so private companies can drive down their wages and make more profit, which is a cataclysmic failure of public policy.

[Tyler Durden]

[YOUTUBE]I0f8NBlmwwE[/YOUTUBE]

 

Not many left with conviction like that

[lifetime fan]

Not many left with conviction like that

 

 

I can't think of one. Certainly not in the cabinet or shadow cabinet.

[lifetime fan]

So Eric Pickles, Gideon's poster boy for austerity and financial management of his department has run up a £217m unauthorised overdraft.

 

Do as I say not as I do.

[dennis tooth]

Meanwhile, while yas was debating game of thrones....

 

[dennis tooth]

[VladimirIlyich]

Meanwhile' date=' while yas was debating game of thrones....

 

 

Well done for stating the bleedin obvious.

[Section_31]

I'm fairly certain we're going to see another Tory government after this.

[Guest Numero Veinticinco]

Why? We don't even have a Tory government now, even with Labour being as unpopular as fuck last time out. Now that UKIP have pinched a massive load of their vote, a Tory government would be quite a fucking thing.

[Section_31]

Just a feeling really, the general zeitgeist. It's a right wing country I'm sorry to say, and getting more and more so.

[Guest Numero Veinticinco]

Yep, and if we had a left-wing party I doubt they'd get elected. Well, unless they had a cool looking, slick operator as leader. Then they'd win a landslide.

[Section_31]

The population has been socially engineered in my opinion. It's turning into a two-tier society rather than being divided along traditional lines. The Tories call it the strivers and shirkers, but it goes beyond that. When you go around the more modern gated estates now people are all out jogging and cycling, wearing the same kind of gear and feeling pretty pleased with themselves. Down the road there's people who're often pretty unhealthy and jobless and live on rough estates. What both sets have got in common though, is they're all morons and don't have a political bone in their body.

[lifetime fan]

Just a feeling really, the general zeitgeist. It's a right wing country I'm sorry to say, and getting more and more so.

 

 

Hope and pray for a NO vote in Scotland.

 

We're fucked otherwise.

[dennis tooth]

 

 

'Cameron a multi millionairre claiming fexpenses or a whisper, a galaxy and a bag of maltesers the fucking pig!' haha

[dennis tooth]

Two pet dogs that faced being put down because their owner couldn’t take them with him when he was forced to move house because of the bedroom tax have been saved.

 

Keith Fleetwood, of Netherley, had failed to find a new home for his nine-year-old Rottweilers and feared he would have to have them destroyed when he left his three-bedroom home for good.

 

But after an appeal in the ECHO a good Samaritan came forward and offered to take Ryker and Beauty in.

 

Mr Fleetwood, 60, and his wife can now move into their new one-bedroom Liverpool Mutual Homes flat in Mossley Hill and the new owners have said he can visit the dogs – which he has had since they were eight weeks old – whenever he likes.

 

Mr Fleetwood said he was still angry that the government’s controversial cut to housing benefit for ‘under-occupancy’ meant he still had to destroy his flock of 40 racing pigeons.

 

But he told the ECHO: “I’ve been looking for the right people to take the dogs in and since I was in the ECHO I’ve had about a dozen people call.

 

“But I wouldn’t let them go to just anyone and I had to sound them all out on the phone to be sure.

 

“The woman who is taking them is going to have them both so it means they won’t be split up and her friend who came with her is a dog trainer so I’m satisfied with where they’re going.” The dogs have now been taken to their new home in Linacre, near Bootle.

 

Mr Fleetwood should soon be able to move into his new property which was found after his housing association Riverside got in touch with LMH to help him downsize.

 

But health and safety rules in the flats meant he could not bring his pets with him.

 

He said he was angry not only to have to part with the dogs but to have to give up his home of more than 30 years in which he raised his children.

 

He must quit the property because its two spare rooms mean his housing benefit will be cut by more than £1,000 a year, which he says he cannot afford.

 

He added: “It’s a heartbreaking decision but what’s done is done. I blame the government for what’s happening to me now and it will take some time to get over it.

 

“People need to stand up to this government like they used to because these policies are really hitting people hard.”

 

A spokesman for LMH said: “The accommodation Mr Fleetwood applied for has shared communal facilities so if he wanted to take it he would not have been able to keep his two large dogs and pigeons because of the impact they would have on other tenants.”

[Section_31]

Ryker, quality.

[Sugar Ape]

His daughter was in my class at school.

[Gnasher]

Just a feeling really, the general zeitgeist. It's a right wing country I'm sorry to say, and getting more and more so.

 

Not entirely true, liverpools not right wing, Scotland's not. Large parts of the country's not. The problem is the media, right wing public school boy tossers.

 

I live in the Rhondda. It ain't right wing here, the valleys have never elected a tory mp, the tories don't even bother campaigning, they'd get bricked.

[Gnasher]

Sorry to go off topic.

 

When i was a kid, as an act of defiance against my community and my parents i told my old man when i grow up i planned on voting tory, the old man looked down on me but didnt say a word.

 

A few weeks latter he took me the top of the village where our local mp was giving a speech. I'd never heard a person of such beautiful oratory, passion, reason, decency and common sense speak like that before. My old man was right, the speakers name was Michael Foot.

 

I'm in no doubt that if a few years later foot had won that election against thatcher britain would be a far far better place to live in now. However the media wanted to ignore what he said and what he stood for and concentrate on his fucking donkey jacket. Bastards.

[Anubis]

Ryker, quality.

 

Always second in command to Beauty, I bet.

[Stickman]

Sorry to go off topic.

 

When i was a kid, as an act of defiance against my community and my parents i told my old man when i grow up i planned on voting tory, the old man looked down on me but didnt say a word.

 

A few weeks latter he took me the top of the village where our local mp was giving a speech. I'd never heard a person of such beautiful oratory, passion, reason, decency and common sense speak like that before. My old man was right, the speakers name was Michael Foot.

 

I'm in no doubt that if a few years later foot had won that election against thatcher britain would be a far far better place to live in now. However the media wanted to ignore what he said and what he stood for and concentrate on his fucking donkey jacket. Bastards.

 

 

Totally agree Michael Foot would have been tremendous leader for this countRy the total opposite of what that bitch and her legaacy would have been.

What everyone forgets is that someone with a different view to the government can actually be elected ( yes you Miliband ) In that Foot was ahead in the polls, and if it wasn't for the Falklands War he would have been PM.

[Tyler Durden]

Not entirely true, liverpools not right wing, Scotland's not. Large parts of the country's not. The problem is the media, right wing public school boy tossers.

 

I live in the Rhondda. It ain't right wing here, the valleys have never elected a tory mp, the tories don't even bother campaigning, they'd get bricked.

 

Maybe not but a lot of people are self centred now and even though they might vote Labour or whoever would seem to carry what I'd describe as Tory traits.

 

Even the working class now seem to think they are better then the so called underclass

[Section_31]

Maybe not but a lot of people are self centred now and even though they might vote Labour or whoever would seem to carry what I'd describe as Tory traits.

 

Even the working class now seem to think they are better then the so called underclass

 

Spot on. Liverpool's a shining example of social engineering. You'd be hard pressed to find any kind of activism there compared to the 80s, it's basically a mini-Manchester as far as AUDI A3-aspiring, wine bar frequenting cunts is concerned.