George Foulkes
As we face further major cuts in Council schools might be worth checking where the SNP Cabinet send their children
Some time ago the Noble Baron Foulkes of Cumnock blocked me from receiving his Tweets...a badge of honour for me. I had pointed out to him that there was something slightly ironic about a Labour Aristocrat. He failed to see the amusing side of that.
Anyway, I'm obliged to Rosanna Cunningham for re-tweeting the above beauty and giving me the opportunity to see what I otherwise would have missed.
Irony doesn't appear to be a word in his Nobleness's dictionary, for not only is he a Peer of the Realm, but the daft old bugger himself went to a fee paying school in Herefordshire, to-wit the independent, fee paying The Haberdashers' Aske's Boys' School in Hertfordshire (Motto: Serve and Obey...well, the ultra loyalist took that to heart.)
Really, people who live in glass houses should try to remember not ever to throw stones. Otherwise we all laugh at them.
Verily, a poltroon!
ReplyDeleteOhhh lovely word...
DeleteYou'd think, after going to a school with the name haberdasher in it, he'd know when to button his lip.
ReplyDeleteLOL ... Sharp as a razor, Jim.
Deletetris
ReplyDeleteOne could point out that the noble Lord was but a child when
he was sent to a school by his parent and probably had no say in the decision as most children do not,
Its unlikel he was also a card carrying member of new Labour either
still dont let that stop you attacking a great Scot.
The fact is your right in the suggestion people like some in the
higher reaches of the Labour party who argue against the privileged
in their day job and then without a hint of shame send their own children to private education ( comrade Diane Abbott for one she of the hard left but not when it applies to her family )
It just the hypocrisy of if Labour dun it or do it then that
is justification for the high minded snp doing the same or more.
when it was and is wrong for people who espouse equality and fairness
to then use their wealth and influence to perpetuate the inequality
they claim to fight against.
It should not matter what party they belong to still, that would
mean admitting some snp individuals are just the same as Labour people
once in power and the Independence cause means morality and truth must
go out the door??? sad but true.
Now tell me seeing as Cameron has all but come in supporting like Nicola and the many but not all in the snp for a YES vote in the
coming EU referendum.
Mayhap they will share a common platform together if not in
physical reality but a spiritual and political union in a common
struggle for a YES vote win.
now that will be interesting wont it and if they win will they
warmly congratulate each other.
He's hardly a great Scot. He once tried to get some road workers sacked. He crashed his car, whether under the influence or not was not proven, but he blamed the workers for not putting up proper signage etc. This claim was ridiculed and thrown out.
DeleteWell, it's true that the young lord wouldn't have had much say in his schooling. I just think that, in his situation I'd have gone out of my way to avoid that as a subject. Public schoolboy laughs at the possibility that some SNP ministers may send their kids to independent schools, without knowing if they do or not.
DeleteIt's not David Cameron's fault that he went to Eton; he was probably registered before he was even born, but we'd all laugh like drains if he then criticised the independent school sector, or as they call it, somewhat weirdly in English, Public School.
I could have picked on Diane Abbott. I have to say it really surprised me that she sent her kids to private schools. I really thought she was genuine. But many others have done it too, Harman, Blair, etc.
I don't know how many of the SNP MSPs or MPs, or as Mr Foulkes suggested, Cabinet ministers send their kids to public schools. I don't know if that information is available or indeed if any do.
Personally I think that state education would be better if the rich didn't have the option of sending their kids to alternatives... rather like hospitals, but, I can understand that people want to have choices and if you have money you must have the right to spend it on what you want to. If we ever banned the private health or education systems, I'm sure the very rich would simply send their kids to Switzerland or wherever. Already, I understand that many Brits go abroad for their operations, to India, Pakistan or Eastern Europe.
As for the EU referendum, I understand that Nicola has said that she will not physically share a platform with Cameron.
I wonder if that is becasue she has learned from Labour's experience of sharing platforms with the Tories, and the Liberals' experience of being in government with them. Seems like they are toxic.
Of course every political party except UKIP want the UK to stay in the EU, so I suppose that you could say that she will be fighting for the same thing as Cameron, as will Mr Corbyn, Caroline Lucas, Ruth Davidson, Kezia Dugdale, Leanne Wood, Patrick Harvie, and even Wee Willie Rennie etc etc... I imagine given the vast amounts of money that the EU pours into Northern Ireland, that the NI politicians will want to stay too. They have little hope of getting that kind of money from London.
It's one of these rare times that the left and right agree.
You are as likely to get a spiritual bond between Sturgeon and Cameron as you are between Corbyn and Cameron.
Frankly I think the whole thing is hilarious. When the UK wanted to join the EU way back in the 1960s, Charles de Gaulle vetoed the application. His reason was that Britain wouldn't fit into the Common Market. They would always want everything THEIR way.
He was right.
Britain thinks itself superior to everyone except the Americans. Mere Europeans really shouldn't be telling it what to do. Why only the US president stands between the Queen and God himself.
Cameron is making an ass of himself over the negotiations.
The important newspapers want out of Europe. I'd not be surprised if there is a brexit.
And to be honest, I couldn't really care much less.
But Jim, he dances a good jig on the pavements of London's street and scares the pants off old ladies while assaulting the police.
DeleteAnd I reckon that his nose can be seen from outer space on a dark night.
Not for nothing they call him Rudolf.
If I had the money, I would have sent my kids to private school. And I'd bet most others would as well. But to be honest, where you send your kids to school is a private matter. Where it does become an issue is where you start to criticise others for doing so, whilst doing it your self. As did a certain socialist Labour MP who knows Jeremy Corbyn rather better than most people.
ReplyDeleteIt's not where you come from - it's what you do that's important.
(Bit philosophical for a Saturday!)
zog
I certainly agree that people should have the choice.
DeleteBut for as long as they do there will be this divide.
But we shouldn't rail against these things. In a more equal society, where the difference between the rich and poor was less pronounced, perhaps we'd all be able to afford to send our kids to good schools, and maybe the good schools would all be in the public sector.
An elderly relative of mine needed a hip operation. He was in his 80s and in a lot of pain. He was comfortably off and had a choice between waiting for the NHS to have a place for him, or pay a large sum and get the operation privately.
He reckoned he didn't have that many years left and didn't want to spend them in pain while his money lay in the bank waiting to be disbursed to his already comfortably off kids.
I can see why he would do that.
But an alternative would have been to tax him and his likes a bit more and for everyone to be able to enjoy a faster better health service which didn't involve a long wait for elective operations.
Foulkes is the personification of a Scottish Labour working-class hero. Darling, Brown et al: champions of the poor!
ReplyDeleteBeyond parody [almost]. Nah, they're all hypocritical scum.
I suspect they like to think of themselves as aspirational, which is the new buzz word.
DeleteI know many people who are aspirational. They aspire to be able to afford enough to eat, and, at this season of war, ill-will and greed, to be able to give their children at least something.
Och leave the poor jaikie b#stard alone. Alcohol brings out the worst in some people. Lucky the Scottish NHS is there to treat them.
ReplyDeleteAnd with that, I'm off to see The Silencers - again. Glasgow's agogo.
Saor Alba
LOL. Have a good night...
DeleteHertfordshire, Herefordshire? I don't know which it is, but it has to be one or the other. Can't be both at once.
ReplyDeleteAye right enough. It was one of them, but does anyone care :) (Think its Hertfordshire.)
Delete