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Feb 2020
9:23pm, 19 Feb 2020
23,059 posts
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Johnny Blaze
I do wonder if the amount of vetting of Cummings' "weirdos and misfits" has been somewhat ramped up now...
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Feb 2020
10:22pm, 19 Feb 2020
2,058 posts
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Pothunter
It could be worse. There’s a clip on Twitter of a South African politician being questioned by a journalist about why she used public money to take her husband to Switzerland. She vehemently denies this, saying she never went to Switzerland, only Geneva...
Sigh
What is it about the type of person who becomes a politician? (Yes, a gross generalisation I admit!)
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Feb 2020
5:54am, 20 Feb 2020
1,757 posts
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um
Slytherin. ^^^^
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Feb 2020
7:02am, 20 Feb 2020
10,704 posts
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Markymarkmark
Pothunter, I was talking about this with a friend the other night.
We decided to 80/20 rule applies. 80% are there to try and make s difference, 20% are the ones that you hear about!
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Feb 2020
7:52am, 20 Feb 2020
2,461 posts
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Fellrunning
Think you're being over generous there. Almost 100% of the ministers who've been given oversight of agriculture in the last 30 years have been, by general agreement, toss useless.
The sole exception (and I really never thought I'd say this) was Michael Gove. He did actually sometimes have things to say that didn't make you want to chew the carpet with frustration. Given time I got the feeling that he could have been, at least partly, brought round to my way of thinking.
The fact that he has, on a couple of occasions, come dangerously close to sounding sensible, probably explains why he now has a non job.
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Feb 2020
7:55am, 20 Feb 2020
2,462 posts
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Fellrunning
*Looks at what he's just written. Looks at mug of tea. Wonders what Shel has put in it......*
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Feb 2020
8:06am, 20 Feb 2020
2,915 posts
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ThorntonRunner
Gove is a strange mix. On the one hand seems an archetype for an entitled Eton tory, but has actually from time to time shown ministerial ability. Can't remember details now, but some of his justice ministry work was enlightened.
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Feb 2020
8:07am, 20 Feb 2020
2,916 posts
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ThorntonRunner
Not sure I can forgive him for pushing the academies agenda when education secretary though
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Feb 2020
8:47am, 20 Feb 2020
19,187 posts
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DeeGee
Done properly, the academies agenda could have been a good thing. Remember that previously, education was controlled at a County Council level. Now, somewhere like the Isle of Wight, or Bedfordshire, or Buckinghamshire, that might well work, but elsewhere there are some incredibly large counties, my own notwithstanding, and different communities have vastly different requirements. What's good for the City of Lincoln, or Grantham, is not necessarily going to be what's good for Spalding, or Skegness, or Louth. Quite large sums of money from already tight budgets were being top-sliced for services such as managed IT, or admissions appeals. On the coast, where schools are far from full, there's no need to fund the council's appeals service. Centrally managed IT doesn't work over 7,000 sq.km with only about 30 miles of dual carriageway when something goes wrong and requires rapid resolution.
The trust for which I am a member of the executive team controls a small number of schools over a geographically constrained area and is able to prioritise the specific local needs defined by the local area, and it is a system that actually works quite well, especially as the schools all have catchments that overlap to a certain extent. An additional bonus is that the operating area for the trust crosses over an LEA boundary, so we're not going to suffer the whim of two different flavours of council with two competing ideologies and two different agendas.
The problem was that, during the first wave of academisation, before the changes in 2010 that encouraged the majority of schools to academise, a small number of large "Educorps", for want of a better word, hoovered up a wide range of geographically diverse and widespread schools in the interests of having a substantial portfolio, rather than in the interests of the schools or their local communities; and certain unscrupulous individuals have benefitted by, for instance, making "interesting" procurement decisions.
The landscape is fluid, and some academies on the periphery of certain trusts' core portfolios are being rebrokered to other trusts, which might well resolve some problems in the long run if it is done properly.
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Feb 2020
9:05am, 20 Feb 2020
2,918 posts
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ThorntonRunner
Horses for courses DG. My experience as then chair of governors of a small primary school that was forced to academise because of changes to schools around us is that an LEA that performed a valuable role in an effective manner was dismantled and we ended up in an academy grouping where you get the impression that a small number of ex-heads saw opportunities for a power and income grab. From central government it was implemented dogmatically as a way to emasculate local councils (as far as their education remit went)
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Fantasy General Election
Jul 2024