It has been announced that a single Department for Wealth will be set up to replace both the Department for Work and Pensions (which has increasingly shrunk what it is supposed to promote) and the Department of Health (which will soon be privatised and run by a conglomerate of tobacco, alcohol and fatty food businesses).
At a press conference today, a Government spokesperson explained that the new department would provide a much needed focus on helping real wealth creators to make a profit out of any situation. For example, businessmen who run casinos, sell sugary snacks as well as slimming diets, or charge more with the help of confusing tariffs, will be praised and given incentives to generate even more wealth. But people who are paid for their hard work by the state are to be dismissed as a drain on the national resource. So nurses who save lives, teachers who raise aspiration, social workers who protect the vulnerable, so long as their work fails to make a profit out of those in need and is financed by the public budget, will all be classified as ‘unaffordable’.
When asked if payment from the state would automatically rule one out as a ‘wealth creator’, it was pointed out that the Government would draw a sharp distinction between those who merely earn a publicly financed wage (firefighters, care givers, benefit administrators, ambulance drivers, etc) and are thus NOT wealth creators, and those who concoct a massive profit out of state funded contracts (makers of land mines and missiles, expensive pharmaceutical drugs, or suppliers of overcharged IT services to public bodies), who would be celebrated (and most probably knighted) as wealth creators.
The Government wanted to stress that although historically many wealth creation activities have been hampered by unhelpful regulation, especially in those cases where they were branded illegal, the new Department for Wealth would be dedicated to sweeping away both social prejudices and statutory red tape.
Its first task would be to remove all hindrance to currently legal wealth creating activities by inviting true wealth creators to name any tax, inspection or regulatory intrusion that they would want to see removed. Removal would then swiftly follow unless anyone objecting could prove beyond reasonable doubt that the alternative would lead to harm substantially greater in monetary terms than the potentially higher profit to be made.
Secondly, it would review the many wealth creation activities that are at the moment stigmatized by the label of criminality. The dealing in narcotic drugs, the trafficking of weapons and people, the extortion of money from intimidation, etc all generate considerable wealth for their perpetrators and their employees. The Department for Wealth would take a fresh look at their role in a wealth-focused plan for national renewal, and ensure they are all presumed innocent unless evidence can be amassed to establish they should not be given the sacred economic freedom to pursue greater profit.
Republican strategists in America are apparently taking a keen interest in this development in the UK as some of them are considering putting forward, in the next Presidential elections, a proposal to replace the entire Federal Government by a single State Department for Wealth. It will underpin their campaign slogan: “We help those who help themselves … to other people’s money.”
Tuesday, 14 February 2012
Wednesday, 1 February 2012
Welcome to the Premier League of Education
Having heard the latest league table results on schools’ ‘performance’, one leading pundit (known to some as the ‘Schools Minister’ in the game) said the results revealed a “shocking waste of talent”. He was flabbergasted that so many disadvantaged children, in care or on free school meals, were failing to get good passes compared with the better-off kids. He thundered that mediocre schools must not be allowed to “coast”.
But what are the heads of schools at the lower end of the league supposed to do to turn things around? According to one report, ‘How to succeed in the Premier League of Education’, recommended by many seasoned right wingers, there are three options to break clear of the relegation zone and start rising to the top.
First, the most effective way of cutting out failures is, apparently, cut out the failures by not admitting them to your school in the first place. By hook or by crook, get some form of selection in, and keep children mired in debilitating socio-economic conditions out at all costs.
Secondly, in some areas, even a crypto-selection process might not get you very far, because the quality of life is just too depressing all round. It’s a fact that schools which can count on a ready supply of well-off mums and dads win more A* trophies than their competitors. Heads must therefore learn to take all the blame themselves if they don’t move away from areas where the children come from poor families; where many of their parents have lost their jobs as a result of stringent cuts made by the government; and where their home life is further wrecked by rapidly diminishing welfare support.
Thirdly, since ultimately the Premier League is all about the wealthy winning (would City – in Manchester or London – win anything without having managed to grab a larger share of money than anyone else?), for those schools which are stuck in deprived areas, give them a chance of enjoying an injection of concentrated wealth. For the lucky few who are able to attract private money (from a kindly philanthropist, a born again creationist, a Russian oligarch, or an Arab sheik), they can rebrand and rebuild themselves, while others would lose more public funding – thus giving the minority even more of an advantage in beating the rest.
In the unforgiving Premier League of Education, the few who know how to get their hands on other people’s money will flourish, while the rest will struggle to keep afloat, with the constant threat of being relegated to the bottom of the heap and stigmitised as failures. That is no more than a reflection of the plutocratic society promoted by this Government of Millionaires, for Millionaires, by Millionaires (23 out of the 29 Cabinet members are millionaires).
At the end of the day, it’s not even a game of two halves, but a game of a tiny elite kicking the living daylight out of everyone else. Despite the huge disadvantages they are lumbered with, and all the problems exacerbated by government cuts, countless Heads, teachers, pupils and parents give their best in securing real improvements beyond the comprehension of ignorant pundits. Of course they cannot by themselves overturn the social and economic injustice foisted on their communities, but for what they have managed to achieve against all odds, they deserve our praise and admiration.
But what are the heads of schools at the lower end of the league supposed to do to turn things around? According to one report, ‘How to succeed in the Premier League of Education’, recommended by many seasoned right wingers, there are three options to break clear of the relegation zone and start rising to the top.
First, the most effective way of cutting out failures is, apparently, cut out the failures by not admitting them to your school in the first place. By hook or by crook, get some form of selection in, and keep children mired in debilitating socio-economic conditions out at all costs.
Secondly, in some areas, even a crypto-selection process might not get you very far, because the quality of life is just too depressing all round. It’s a fact that schools which can count on a ready supply of well-off mums and dads win more A* trophies than their competitors. Heads must therefore learn to take all the blame themselves if they don’t move away from areas where the children come from poor families; where many of their parents have lost their jobs as a result of stringent cuts made by the government; and where their home life is further wrecked by rapidly diminishing welfare support.
Thirdly, since ultimately the Premier League is all about the wealthy winning (would City – in Manchester or London – win anything without having managed to grab a larger share of money than anyone else?), for those schools which are stuck in deprived areas, give them a chance of enjoying an injection of concentrated wealth. For the lucky few who are able to attract private money (from a kindly philanthropist, a born again creationist, a Russian oligarch, or an Arab sheik), they can rebrand and rebuild themselves, while others would lose more public funding – thus giving the minority even more of an advantage in beating the rest.
In the unforgiving Premier League of Education, the few who know how to get their hands on other people’s money will flourish, while the rest will struggle to keep afloat, with the constant threat of being relegated to the bottom of the heap and stigmitised as failures. That is no more than a reflection of the plutocratic society promoted by this Government of Millionaires, for Millionaires, by Millionaires (23 out of the 29 Cabinet members are millionaires).
At the end of the day, it’s not even a game of two halves, but a game of a tiny elite kicking the living daylight out of everyone else. Despite the huge disadvantages they are lumbered with, and all the problems exacerbated by government cuts, countless Heads, teachers, pupils and parents give their best in securing real improvements beyond the comprehension of ignorant pundits. Of course they cannot by themselves overturn the social and economic injustice foisted on their communities, but for what they have managed to achieve against all odds, they deserve our praise and admiration.
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