Saintandy666

Mmmmmm, but people who manage to get into Oxbridge generally have very good brains. You need some of that in the government, but you also need people who know what it is like to actually live the life that many people live. Diane Abbott was hardly born to a privileged background, her mum and dad were a nurse and a welder respectively and her parents were immigrants which I'm sure in the 1950's wasn't that easy. Anyway, the point is you need many types of people in government running the country, and Oxbridge types should be a part of this, but not ALL of it.

The whole oxbridge thing depends on what you want. Do you want a parliament in which you have the smartest people possible in(i.e those who managed to get into Oxbridge)? or... Do you want a parliament that is truly representative and reflective of the people? The best result is probably is probably a mix between the two...

Defining PM's of post war Britain in my opinion are Atlee, Thatcher and Blair(and brown in a strange sort of way given his power within the Blair premiership). Whether you liked what they did or not, you can not say that they didn't change the face of this country.

For a close-season thread, this one is of high standard.

You really proved your clubs critics wrong here. Well done.

Tests are clearly one way of measuring how good a school is, I am not denying that. I'm just saying they shouldn't be the only way as more often than not they do not paint the full picture. Managing to get a C Grade student to an A* is better than getting an A* student to A* to use my example I used earlier again. And improvement can be based one many factors, some are tests yes like cat tests in year 7 or sats in year 6. But other ways can be used as well in conjunction with this, for example teacher based assessment. Also, I don't think people should be taught to the test to simply just regurgitate the facts and not understand or pick up any life skills.

Lowe is a businessman, Cortese is a businessman, they want to get the most money out of the club as possible, it isn't childs playtime. I like Cortese, he seems to be serious about the club, and I think under his directorship we're gonna get somewhere.

This is why CVA type scores are a better measure... Lets pretend that how good a student can be measured on a scale of 100... In School A the average pupil enters with a level of 50 and ends up at 70. An improvement of 20. In School B the average pupil enters with a level of 20, but leaves at a level of 60. An improvement of 40. Under straight GCSE results league tables, school A would come out on top and be the 'best school', but does it really deserve that considering school B excellent record in making pupils achieve more? Very simplistic to be honest, but what I'm saying is, you can't measure how good a school is simply on tests taken at the end of 5 years of enrolment. My point shows one factor, and there are several others which would need to be taken into account for a fairer picture to be drawn.

I just want to second this, I went to a local state school, and why it wasn't necessarily a 'good' school, often getting very poor results and even being in the local newspaper because of how bad some aspects of the school were, I never felt like I was held back because like Wade Garrett said, we are setted. I came out with good GCSE results, and many better than private school kids I have since met. One criticism I have of the current system however is the emphasis on school league tables results only based... (school league tables were a Thatcher idea) Because of this, too much emphasis is placed on pupils getting 5 C's(sometimes quite artificially) rather than teaching to make every child fulfil their potential. This is why I like the CVA scores of measuring schools as opposed to results, because CVA measures improvement based on several factors rather than just 33% GOT 5A* - C grades etc etc Basically, I don't think a school Kensington should be in competition with a school in a more deprived area. Oh, and stop faith based schools.

Mmmmmmm, it's sad really, but it's the way of the world when it is dominated by superpower/s. Nobody can do anything big without the support of one. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_military_expenditures Look at that, we spend the third most on milatary, just behind china, but look at the US's... it's pretty much bigger than everyone else combined...

Israel really is one of the most dangerous countries in the world. This is just one example, and the way they used British and other nations passports to carry out an assassination is another.

Ok, let's put this another way, the money is invented. The banks don't actually have it, they just credit your account. Do you think if everyone went and took all their money out of the banks at the same time, they would actually have it all in cash/assets? And money is a concept that only works if people believe in it, I do happen to believe in it.

Mine's ****, but as I just spent 20 minutes on it, I might as well upload it.

I like the sound of June 1st for a season ticket sales to begin... nice and round

I'm more talking about the dune's of this world. The leading politicians largely agree with me.

Oh yes, he has to stand down(for now). My main point is that the whole situation is over exaggerated. Also what I'm saying is that the ideas that have been chucked around that this was somehow for his own personal pocket are wrong.

Well, I'm talking about money and the recession in general. Money is not backed up by the gold standard as it was used to. When you get a loan from a bank, where do you think the money comes from? The bank basically just magic's it up and types it into your account on the idea that eventually you'll pay it back, it's just electronic and doesn't exist. Do you think the banks actually have the money which everyone has deposited? That's why a run on a banks causes them to collapse. I believe in the system, I'm just pointing out its flaws, though it is entirely irrelevant.

Money is a stupid thing anyway, that needs reforming, most of it doesn't actually exist and isn't backed up by anything, it's just noughts on a screen. Banks are continuously creating money they don't have.

A fair assessment to make perhaps for the last 2 years under Gordon, though he had little choice. http://www.debtbombshell.com/britains-budget-deficit.htm However, if you look at this graph, you'll see that many of the successes were achieved within affordable budget deficit and some even with surplus. You should also note how high the deficit went at the end of the last Tory government.

The NHS has improved vastly under Labour, and so has education as well as poverty(albeit they didn't quite reach their targets on that). What worries me are the role of academies to the best schools only and free schools which are just ridiculous.

Urggggh, now the Torygraph is laying into Danny Alexander. If we aren't careful, we'll soon have the ****ing cleaner in charge of the country, but hey... at least they have a 100% perfect record, never mind the fact they are totally unqualified.

Stupid immigrants, leaving this country with a load of jobs we aren't qualified to do.

No, media forces people to pay back the money. Many MPs over paid back because of media pressure and have since had refunds. I'd like to make a point on the general expenses issue, not David Laws for just a second. The way the media and some people are sending our politicians is ridiculous. Soon, all politicians will be the wealthy, those born with the silver spoon if we continue this way. Back to David Laws, he was not squandering 40,000 or whatever, he needed a second home and £40,000 was a good deal for the tax payer to be fair. However, yes... he did break the rules from 2006 onwards when they were changed and so should face the consequences. On the other side however, I think as he, nor the other man(his Landlord before and during the relationship) profited from it(and I know you'll probs say the other man(Mr. Lundie?) did, but he was a landlord so it wasn't any money on top of what he was paying before the relationship) discretion should be used to understand the other factors and circumstances. And for this reason, I look forward to Mr. Laws return to front bench politics very soon.

He is entitled to a second home allowance. The dispute isn't over whether he was allowed the money, he is allowed it. The dispute is over who he rented his space from.

It was a misjudgement, but I agree with Lord Steel when he says it is a massive overreaction. A sad loss for the country. Let's see what the committee of enquiry says first... and the reason there is so much fuss is the media and the pressure that brings.