No he doesn't.

Thatcher presided over a period of burgeoning meritocracy. That's the last thing the Old Etonian brigade want. Even she went the beginning of our meritocracy have been swept away - mainly, it has to be said, as a result of Labour's crass ideology.

Cibaman wrote:No one will win that debate until they reach equilibrium, a state of steady growth with the budget deficit under control. Both the UK and the US are a very long way off that. Obama may be in the lead now but he's nowhere near the winning post. The French economy isnt the same as the UK's but it is more similar to the UK than is the US. And Hollande's policies are much closer to Labour than are Obama's. But even allowing for the differences, if the French economy significantly outperforms the UK's in the next 2 years, Labour will inevitably cite that at the next election as a vindication of their views on how the economy should have been managed. And ditto for the Tories if the French economy does worse. The state of the French economy will be a big deal at the next election. Creently the French econonomy is way underperforming the British one. It has slipped down the competitiveness rankings significantly, whereas the UK one has improved its competitiveness. The UK economy is about to overtake France's GDP too. That said, the UK is in a mess, a very big mess. I think this article sets things out nicely and shows what a way we have to go to reverse long-term decline: http://www.telegraph.co.uk/finance/comm ... loons.html

Cibaman wrote:No one will win that debate until they reach equilibrium, a state of steady growth with the budget deficit under control. Both the UK and the US are a very long way off that. Obama may be in the lead now but he's nowhere near the winning post. The French economy isnt the same as the UK's but it is more similar to the UK than is the US. And Hollande's policies are much closer to Labour than are Obama's. But even allowing for the differences, if the French economy significantly outperforms the UK's in the next 2 years, Labour will inevitably cite that at the next election as a vindication of their views on how the economy should have been managed. And ditto for the Tories if the French economy does worse. The state of the French economy will be a big deal at the next election. Creently the French econonomy is way underperforming the British one. It has slipped down the competitiveness rankings significantly, whereas the UK one has improved its competitiveness. The UK economy is about to overtake France's GDP too. That said, the UK is in a mess, a very big mess. I think this article sets things out nicely and shows what a way we have to go to reverse long-term decline: http://www.telegraph.co.uk/finance/comm ... loons.html

Post war, the UK had built a meritocracy, where anyone, from any background, could aspire to pretty much any heights.

But from 1979 on, that started to change. One of the ways in which it started to change was that vocational tertiary education started to become removed from the grant system.

So, for example, from the 1950s on, this country produced an extraordinary array of acting and writing talent, with a vibrant theatre and film industry to go with it, covering everything from serious drama to farce, to musical to ... well, just about anything you can think of. And many of those involved were from working-class backgrounds.

But from the very early 1980s on, you could only – for instance – get into an acting course if you had private funds. Indeed, not just that – there were drama departments in good universities closing because of the attack.

This applied in other vocational areas, whether music or even the clergy. The start of the attack on tertiary educational grants was the start of an attack on meritocracy itself.

The demise of grammar schools also played a part. They had been a way for working class children to get a break – for instance, consider both the UK's top architects, Norman Foster and Richard Rodgers both northern, working-class boys from council estates who went to grammar school.

The problem with the grammar schools was not so much with those schools, but with the arbitrary nature of the 11 plus and, indeed, the attitude that accompanied it – ie that you 'passed' or 'failed', rather than it being a way of working out what form of education/training might work best for you; and also that in far too many cases, the subsequent secondary education was of a lower quality than that at a grammar school.

I post that on the basis of my own experience at grammar school and my sister's experience at secondary schools.

But to go back to the beginning: the Thatcher era was most certainly not about creating or extending meritocracy. It was the beginning of the reining back of that.

Mintball has that absolutely right.

I post that on the basis of my own experience at grammar school and some very good friends' experiences at secondary schools.

The 11 plus was not arbitrary. Certainly far less less arbitrary than football or rugby trials (which rely more on human judgement / misjudgement). Should they be banned?

Thatcher attacked many vested interests. During her premiership the percentage of non-public school educated people running top listed companies increased (and since has declined).

Members of the Labour party cynically kicked away the grammar school ladder that had allowed many of them opportunity. To pretend that is not the major cause of the decline in meritocratic advances is disengenous. It is the prinicipal reason.

Of course it was. Why 11? Why not 10? Why not 12? The age was purely a bureaucratic matter.



I haven't. Read my post. Properly.

And by your own logic, if "Thatcher presided over a period of burgeoning meritocracy", then earlier attacks by Labour on the grammar school system, which you now say were "the major cause of the decline in meritocratic advances", and which started rather earlier, are rendered pretty much irrelevant.

How is it, and WHY is it, that the millionaires are going to end up 2-3k better off per month from April?

Have a guess

Heres mine

Most of the cabinet are multi millionaires, most of there mates are, Tory governments are renowned for looking after the rich and kicking the poor. I could go on.

Of course, the Cameron version is that it was so expensive to collect millions off millionaires it was not worth it, much better to let them keep it and let them 'offer' to pay up.

Because this is a government of the millionaires, by the millionaires, for the millionaires.

No - because mature people had come up through that system. As the tap was turned off the later supply weaned - there is a big lead time between destroying the system and people reaching their 40's or whatever.