Are you Dr Bruce Banner in disguise?

Having now watched the cr@p that is Jo, with it's utterly incomprehensible mix of accents, I am happy to reaffirm just how very high-quality a version that was.

Eh?

What has happened in Sweden since joining the EU has been a steady erosion of what made the place a good model for a state with a socialist bent to a prime example of what happens when you chuck that away and adopt the model we have done since Thatcher. In fact they went further and that idiot Gove has based his free schools ideas on the Swedish model despite plenty of evidence the Swedish model is rubbish.

If what has happened there recently is due to the economic model they follow it is because they follow the same one as us!

He seems to think Sweden is Scandinavia

Well funnily enough I just spotted this: Free schools education.

Well funnily enough I just spotted this: Free schools education.

DaveO wrote:Well funnily enough I just spotted this: Free schools education. Rather OT, but I can confirm, having access to assorted photo libraries, that that is an entirely typical picture of Gove. Nobody needs to search for the ones that make him look as though he's three stops short of Upminster.

DaveO wrote:Well funnily enough I just spotted this: Free schools education. Rather OT, but I can confirm, having access to assorted photo libraries, that that is an entirely typical picture of Gove. Nobody needs to search for the ones that make him look as though he's three stops short of Upminster.

When you apply real-life financial rules to the idea of a private company running a free public school using public finances, then it really has no long term future does it ?

There is a crucial issue of profit returns year-on-year and as we've already seen elsewhere, ongoing investors are always looking for a better return each year, its not enough for M&S to make £564million profit to Apr '13 and to pay dividends on that simply because they made a bit more last year and its enough to send shockwaves through the traders when M&S don't make additional profits year on year - the shares have to keep rising or new investors won't jump on board when others jump off.

Try and equate that to a business model totally dependent on public funding which is fixed and will not vary from one year to the next other than for inflation, how do you increase your profit margin in subsequent years ?

Well exactly. It makes no sense for free public schools to have to turn a profit and it therefore makes no sense for private companies to run them. Even fee paying public schools tend to rely on charitable status or they may also be unsustainable as the fees would be even higher.



Because in this country the ordinary taxpayer will pay. I predict we will see the same kind of "privatising profit, socialising the debt" we saw with the bank bailouts if what happened in Sweden happened here.

This government would not allow what happened in Sweden to occur. The private companies would be seen like banks in that they would not be allowed to fail as there is no way Gove would want such a thing tarnishing his pet project.

Now some might say that would be a good thing because it would mean the students wouldn't suffer the disruption that follows when the company that provided their education went bust. But it would not be because in order for the companies to be sustained we will have to pay through nose so they remain profitable and indeed not only that but as you mentioned actually offer the prospect of growth.

Free schools run by for-profit companies is a totally bonkers idea. So Gove will most likely go for it and put in place mechanisms to socialise the debt if any of them do go bust.