I have lots of memories of being bored out of my brain at school as the teacher struggled to explain what were fairly basic concepts to the less bright kids in the class. Not great for engagement and didn't do much to encourage the bright kids with poorer backgrounds to actually knuckle down. In fact, I fondly recall one of those kids setting fire to his desk at the back of the class because he was so bored…

I'm afraid for all the socialists' ideals, 13 year old bullies don't do ideals. They enjoy disrupting the chances of the 'swots' – those who have grasped that there may be more to life in a few years than spitting at teachers…

Ditto Clubber, except instead of the fire, one pupil scrawled "MRS SMITH IS A TROLL" on the white board with a permanent marker, on every page of it (it was one of those roll-over things) whilst she nipped out for some thing.

I have to say the ensuing 15 minutes whilst she tried to work out a) how to get rid of it and b) who did it were entertaining, but hardly educational. Especially as I had no interest in English at that point – probably also due to the fact that whilst my spelling wasn't great, it seemed to be better than most others, so why should I listen, right….

EDIT: Given the fact I only scraped through my GCSEs with a severe lack of interest, yet since freed from the morons I had to share Rivington and Blackrod High School with, I've attained a PhD and a permanent scientist's job in Adelaide; I'm glad I was bright enough to absorb just enough information by osmosis at school. A couple of grades lower, I may not have reached 6th form, never mind uni. I could easily have fallen in with a different crowd at school, and been aspiring to the day when I could be paid to stack beans at ASDA…

Labour admit defeat…

BREAKING NEWSNumber 10 recognises that talks with the Lib Dems have not and will reach not any positive conclusion, and they are now discussing the method of declaring that their side of the negotiation is over, BBC Radio 5 Live's political correspondent Jon Pienaar says.

Tax free pensions are a massive subsidy to the rich.

So TandemJeremy, I conclude from your argument that everyone who has a private pension is rich!?!?

What an idiotic assumption!!!!!

So what you are saying is that people on low incomes don't have private pension schemes.

I bet you work in the public sector and this would ring true given your back to front understanding of the sums of money the state puts into public and private pensions.

The private pension requires the individual to make contributions into a personal fund. The pension is not determined my the level of salary in the last year of employment. The private sector worker builds a fund throughout their working life and tax relief is given on these contributions. This assumes the pension company doesn't go bust. The fund is linked to the markets, so is not protected. It's very risky! For a private sector worker to build a pension the same value as that of the public sector counterpart, they would need to be on 37% higher income than their public sector equivalent. When they retire, they can take a percentage lump sum and the rest must be invested in an annuity. After the pension is set up, there is no guarantee of index linking and the pension can decrease inline with market performance. Pan over to the public sector and you have a cast iron guarantee of index linking and no reductions in income – all shorn up by the tax payer!

The system is patently unfair and i am certain that there will be riots over the matter in the coming decades. Young people are already disgruntled at the burden they are shouldering for the masses of people who retired early and who are going to live a lot longer than the previous generations. They are angry because they have had to accrue debt to get qualified, but can only attain modest incomes. No chance of getting their own home!

Gordon Brown has made the situation worse because he has markedly increased the size of the state sector, reduced the number of years an individual has to work before they become elligible for the state pension and raided billions fron the private sector pension funds.

So who is going to pay for everyone's retirement? There will be more retirees than workers at some stage and with a socialist government, who have no idea how to run an economy, they will be forced to impose crippling taxes. The young will say no! We aren't paying for people to sit at home.

I had a 5% increase in my council tax this year, but when the county I live in is making large cuts. The only reason for the increase is to pay for all the council workers' fabulous final salary pension schemes.

Get real man!

My personal experience of comprehensive education is similar to others – taught not quite to the LCD. We had kids at GCSE age who could barely read and write, who'd been left behind long ago, along with kids who didn't need to do any work to pass with good grades. Both ends of the spectrum were being failed.

I'm currently at a good uni (having done an undergrad at a rather less good uni) and the most startling thing to me is how different the intake is. At my old Uni, I knew of one person who went to private school, with almost all my peers being ex comp students. At my current Uni, it's rare to meet someone who didn't go to private or grammar school.

It's pretty damn clear to me that there's an educational apartheid in this country based solely on whether or not you can afford private education or a house in a grammar catchment. If you can't, then tough luck. The only way I can see out of this is to have more grammar schools, or something very similar, because personal experience tells me that comps don't work.

So Gordon Brown is looking more like a capaitalist to me!

But don't worry about what politicians say, just keep your head in the sand and vote for the party who's ideals that once accorded with your views.

Spongebob – i don't know if that was directed at me, but at no point did i mention voting for Gordon Brown – i mentioned not voting for a capitalist ideology as i feel its morally and ethically wrong.

Conservatism goes hand in hand with capitalism so by default i'm not a Tory. But that doesnt mean i'm 'New' Labour – I've always been one that slated the current labour party for moving away from their supposed core values. In fact i mentioned something along these lines on page 4 🙂

And anyway, what is the point in manifestos if they can be gone back on almost straight away. I voted for the concept that i thought that least strayed from my own 'ideals'.

And yes, the current system is quite obviously, massively, broken

but i thought that the torries were against new grammar schools

instead it would be parent run schools for the better off kids whose parents are gentrifying the rougher suburbs and completely leaving the poorer kids behind

Labour admit defeat…

And the Tories pick up the ticking bomb…

Well i went to a comp. My folks went to public school (top top end) and hated it so much that they vowed to send their kids to state schools (and cut themselves off from trustafarian life/money, they were real hippies). I did really well, So did my friends. Plus I dont feel alienated anywhere. Ive worked the bins and supped with royalty. You need some direct experience to really understand what it feels like for most of the population. School is a great place to start that off. Shame all the toffs go to public school and the 'achievement' driven middle class clammer for grammers.

Classic banner across BBC news screen just now:

Breaking News – luggage seen at back of Number 10

Conservatism goes hand in hand with capitalism so by default i'm not a Tory.

If you're not a capitalist – ie, you don't believe in the exchange of cash for goods and labour, have you ever considered somewhere more aligned with your views? Say, Cuba or North Korea? 😀

Or do you mean you are a capitalist, but you don't subscribe to the "market is king" Neocon outlook?

I did really well, So did my friends.

There are some good comps. Unfortunately there are a hell of a lot of bad ones.

yep, looks like Cameron will be our Lord Protector now

If, as looks increasingly likely, there is a Con-Lib government, will Clegg get a seat in the cabinet, do you think? If so, what?

personal experience tells me that comps don't work.

My personal experience is that they do. My comp was a good school, I got good A levels – went to a red brick uni and got a good degree – so did many many others. The people at my uni who had been to public school have probably gone on to earn more money on average, but then not everyone defines themselves as a person by how much money they earn…

If, as looks increasingly likely, there is a Con-Lib government, will Clegg get a seat in the cabinet, do you think? If so, what?

Home Secretary or Minister for Education

I still think there'll be a minority Con government

tron – Member

If you're not a capitalist – ie, you don't believe in the exchange of cash for goods and labour, have you ever considered somewhere more aligned with your views? Say, Cuba or North Korea?

Or do you mean you are a capitalist, but you don't subscribe to the "market is king" Neocon outlook?

Its pretty much impossible not to enter into the area of capitalism in modern society – but that doesnt mean i think its fair. Neoconservatism is doubly wrong 🙂

Ok, fair enough, its impossible to move away from some form capitalism, but as an overall goal i feel its wrong. Why cant the proceeds be more evently shared rather than the top end hoovering it up – we still live in a very class-ridden society, and the split of voting seems to endorse this (huge swathes of land tory, dense urban areas are not)

Why are you talking about communist nations? Communism implies that TOTAL control is heralded by a centralised (and supposedly shared) power base. That hasn't been discussed here.

I still think there'll be a minority Con government

I suspect that would absolutely delight Labour!

clegg is a bit too much of a blair/cameron clone to have him place too highly in the cabinet

as long as osborne is kept away from the chancelorship we may just survive

though i suspect its a done deal for him

Equality is achieved at comprehensives by pulling the top down not by elevating the bottom up

Pretty much the same as Socialist economic policies really!

From BBC:

1635: The Daily Telegraph's Benedict Brogan says Lib Dem Vince Cable "was seen this afternoon in the Treasury holding meetings with private office people".

Sounds more like a coalition than a minority gov…

spongebob – I suggest you look into the pensions a bit more closely. It is absolutely true that for every £ that the taxpayer supports public sector pensions the taxpayer supports private pensions by £7 and that infact the average public sector pension is small. Why should the taxpayer subsidise private pensions to such an extent – especially as most of this subsidy goes to the very richest

Private pension holders while not absolutely rich are richer than average.

The main driver behind the demise of the final salary private pension is the pension holidays taken by the employers.

Yes it is unfair – I would like to see decent pensions for all.

Now this is clearly a biased source but will counter some of the nasty envious propaganda you have swallowed

http://www.tuc.org.uk/theme/index.cfm?theme=oink

Zulu-Eleven – Member

"Equality is achieved at comprehensives by pulling the top down not by elevating the bottom up"

Pretty much the same as Socialist economic policies really!

Absolute rubbish as has been comprehensivly proven. Those with least opportunity do better in a comprehensive system. Absolute fact of no dispute

press conference imminent

ooh, the germans are chuckling at us for being undecided (on bbc news) 🙂

Why cant the proceeds be more evently shared rather than the top end hoovering it up

Because the proceeds are what motivate the top end people to do well, build up big companies and employ the rest of us. It's why capitalist countries are usually richer (in money terms) than more socialist ones.

Socialist countries like Norway? Netherlands? Germany? Redistribution is certainly possible and these countries do it well.

Those with least opportunity do better in a comprehensive system. Absolute fact of no dispute

Really TJ – better than they did in technical colleges?

Or are you conveniently forgetting that the educational system under the grammar system was significantly deeper and more rounded than just the either/or scenario!

Absolute rubbish as has been comprehensivly proven. Those with least opportunity do better in a comprehensive system. Absolute fact of no dispute

I dispute it – see my story above. Oh, and your comprehensive education should have taught you there's another 'e' in comprehensivly[sic] 😉

So I said 'usually' and you quote the exceptions as a counter argument.

Think about it…….

Yes but there's no top limit to what the rich feel they need/want, and it doesn't make them happier.

The bigger the divide, the less people can relate to each other, and it becomes increasingly "them-us". It's just not healthy I reckon.

London is most unequal city in the developed world, with the richest tenth of the population amassing 273 times the wealth owned by the bottom tenth – which creates a "means chasm" not seen since the days of a "slave owning society", according to a new book.
In Injustice: Why Social Inequality Persists published by Policy Press, Danny Dorling, a professor of human geography at Sheffield University and an expert on social disparity, paints a bleak picture of an extremely unjust Britain where differences in wealth have led to a profoundly divided society.

He says the government's latest figures show that in the capital the top 10% of society had on average a wealth of £933,563 compared to the meagre £3,420 of the poorest 10% – a wealth multiple of 273.

And that's even after 13 years of 'Labour'

Yes but there's no top limit to what the rich feel they need/want, and it doesn't make them happier.

That's why I said rich in money terms. Not the same thing as rich/happy.

And I don't get this idea of monetary inequality being the measure of injiustice. Seems to me that London contains some of the most stratospherically rich people in the world, so of course the equality gap is going to be big.

The wealth inequality does not exist in many other countries to the same extent – even rabidly capitalist countries such as the USA and Japan.

The wealth inequality does not exist in many other countries to the same extent – even rabidly capitalist countries such as the USA and Japan.

TJ, I think you've got it wrong about inequality in the US. There's far more polarisation there BUT the difference is that the poor actually think that they have a chance of joining the rich and are more prepared to accept their lot. (not that that is a good thing of course)

Those with least opportunity do better in a comprehensive system. Absolute fact of no dispute

Well I didn't do better, in fact I've spent the rest of my life playing catch up, so I dispute it.

You've had at least two personal examples on this thread, but you can just ignore those if it helps to give you an "Absolute fact of no dispute" 🙄

Tandem Jeremy – median public sector salaries are £2K higher than median private sector salaries at c£27K/24.5K.

If we accept that the value of the non contributory public sector schemes is c35% (and yes, some schemes aren't non contributory) then that translates to a non funded contribution by the tax payer for each median salary worker of c£9,400 a year.

For someone in the private sector on high rate tax to receive the same contribution to their pension as a pension tax credit, they would need to make payments of £22K a year. Given the median salary for the private sector is only £24.5K and thus not even on the higher rate of tax, the only logical conclusion is that public sector workers receive dissproporionately more benefits than their private sector peers.

Socialist countries like Norway? Netherlands? Germany? Redistribution is certainly possible and these countries do it well.

Interested in this. Are there no poor people in germany then? or are they less poor than our poor? I understood that they are capitalist but with good social policies?
It's interesting to find that some americans class the UK as socialist.

Some Americans class the UK as Communist!

Then again, these types of Americans are also convinced President Obama is an Islamic/Socialist plot against the US & that 'evilution' a plot to destroy the Christian Faith so i don't really put much store in their views…