(satire – I think)

UK should not be left defenceless against ‘highly unpredictable and aggressive’ teachers, says Prime Minister

David Cameron has issued a stark warning against any move to abandon Britain’s Trident deterrent in the face of the growing threat of a strike from the National Union of Teachers and other unions.

The Prime Minister said it would “foolish” to leave the country defenceless at a time when “highly unpredictable and aggressive” school teachers were planning a possible strike in UK schools.

His comments come not long after the Education Secretary Michael Gove urged the United States to deploy an advanced missile system to the channel island of Jersey as a deterrent against “Marxist teachers hell-bent on destroying our schools“.

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Related articles by Tom Pride:

US Warning To Mayans Over Threats Of World Destruction

Government ministers announce plan to deter immigrants to UK by making it shit

West Mulls Military Strikes Against IKEA

Tories…

Many people living in social housing in the UK are worried about losing benefits as new arrangements are being introduced this week. Welfare reforms will see tenants’ housing benefits cut if they are deemed to have a spare bedroom in their council or housing association home.

Whatever subtle distinctions politicians are making between the notion of a ‘bedroom tax’ or ‘removal of the spare room subsidy’, the proposals will affect an estimated 660,000 working-age tenants in social housing – 31% of existing working-age housing benefit claimants in the social sector. The majority of these people have only one extra bedroom and there’s a reported shortage of single bedroomed accommodation for people to move into.

The Government doesn’t define what the term ‘bedroom’ means, leaving the decisions to landlords. The bedroom tax makes no distinction between a single or a double bedroom. A room either is a bedroom or is not…

(satire – sort of)

ATOS – the private contractor paid by the government to carry out work capability assessments of disabled people – has declared George Osborne is unable to carry out his duties as chancellor due to “severe disabling conditions such as not being able to count”.

Mr Osborne recently defended parking his car in a disabled parking bay, explaining he is so severely handicapped by his inability to function as Chancellor of the Exchequer that he should himself be parked on disability benefits somewhere far away from the nation’s economy where he can’t do it any more harm.

Some medical experts however, have disputed the results of the assessment. One influential doctor with long experience of assessing disabilities said:

Osborne’s not unfit for work. He’s just a git.

However, a spokesperson for ATOS denied accusations that they had failed to assess the chancellor adequately:

During the assessment, Mr Osborne was…

It’s hard to imagine what life was like when Mary Wollstonecraft wrote her ground-breaking book, A Vindication of the Rights of Woman, published in 1792 – and to understand the leaps of thought that she made as a self-taught woman of her time. Her book has become a landmark document in the development of women’s rights and education. She suggested that culture rather than nature determines many perceptions about gender difference and her work provided a basis for later feminist theory. Her writing was truly remarkable for a woman born in 1759 as the first daughter of an abusive handkerchief weaver from Spitalfields in London.

Showing a strongly independent mind, she refused to accept the inequalities that she experienced between men and women, reasoning that they began with a ‘false system of education’ that valued ‘delicacy’ above all in girls’ development. Women were expected to focus all their attention…

The woman, who is Croatian, has titled this: ‘One photo a day in the worst year of my life’, and relates to events during 2012.

This press-release was by the Labour party was sent to me today by a Labour MP.It was ’embargoed’ until 1 minute after midnight today (Monday), but I can’t find it picked up by the press at all yet, so you may very well be reading it first here..

The press release represents what we’ve all been waiting for, and which I’ve been expecting since a conversation with Andy Burnham a few weeks ago. Emphases are mine:

Burnham: Labour will repeal Cameron’s NHS market

 

– Hundreds of new NHS bodies have not been properly established, leaving NHS at “maximum risk” according to NHS chief.

– From Monday, NHS open to full-blown commercialisation

– Doctors required to put all contracts out to tender and hospitals able to earn up to 49% of income treating private patients

– Doctors not empowered or engaged by changes

-New figures from Labour reveal a third…

Jan Murray’s feature on Frank Coffield in the IfL’s InTuition journal caught my eye recently. (See http://bit.ly/ZxtgNz). Its title, ‘Just suppose this man ran education’, was a nod to the title of his influential 2008 research paper ‘Just Suppose Teaching and Learning became the first priority’.

Frank Coffield’s 2002 contribution to the Association of Colleges (AoC) annual conference became a landmark speech after he pointed out that, ‘there is nothing about teaching and learning in this whole conference, it’s all about finance and businesses and estates…’. He spoke on the subject of ‘Education before Business’ at the WEA Yorkshire and Humber Region’s Annual General Meeting in Leeds in 2009 and his passion for teaching and learning was all the more infectious because of his modesty and gentle humour as a speaker.

It’s a good time for reflection as a long weekend break approaches, so, in the spirit of Coffield…

–…

The real “wasters” are the employers who, by their irresponsible employment practices, cost “the hard-working taxpayer”, “hard-working families” and “the long-suffering unemployed taxpayer”, millions of pounds in compensation, not to mention the pain and suffering that results from employer behaviour.

The NASUWT, the largest teachers’ union, secured £15,610,924 compensation for members in 2012.

The figure represented an increase of 24% compared to the 2011 figure of £12,625,509.

The compensation was awarded for successful claims for unlawful deduction of wages, unfair dismissal, breach of contract, constructive dismissal and discrimination on the grounds of sex, race, disability, age and trade union activity.

Chris Keates, General Secretary of the NASUWT, said:
“It is clear from these cases that if employers operated good employment and health and safety practice, then teachers would not have had to face these traumatic events and there would not be costs of millions of pounds to taxpayers.

“These employers deliberately flout the…