Marmora Man

Our brief "meeting of minds" is over. Parents that opt for private education aren't "opting out of society" they are exercising a freedom of choice over where to spend their resources. As a generality, society (or more exactly successive government Department's of Education) have failed many many children by delivering sub standard education. Quite how you can describe a rational choice as "opting out of society" is beyond me.

My, right of centre, libertarian instincts would support fully this approach.

Sagatelsgouni: I have no doubt the Administrator will "put down" those that abuse the forum. However, I do not feel I have ever abused either the forum or forum contributors - so not sure why you raise my name? Perhaps you have a problem with someone expressing support for right of centre policies and philosophy or critiquing some of your more facile postings?

The teachers pension scheme is currently largely funded by taxes - with demographic changes meaning that the cost to taxpayers was set to grow significantly. It is one small part of the annual deficit which meant that by the end of 2009 gov't was spending 25% more than it was taking in taxes every year. This sort of annual deficit is unsustainable and action must be taken. Asking public sector employees to contribute more toward their pensions is both a reasonable and fair part of the solution. See Hutton Report for more details. The teachers pension will remain attractive after the changes which require teachers to pay an additional 3.4% into their scheme to help defray its costs - it is only Sagatelsagouni's Socialist Worker / student union tosh that is arguing otherwise. 1. Teachers pension rights accrued to date will remain unchanged. 2. The scheme remains a Defined Benefit scheme (ie has a defined financial value) 3. Shifting from RPI to CPI has a logic - RPI excludes the costs of a mortgage, CPI does not. Few people pay a mortgage once retired. 4. Almost 100% of teachers are in the pension scheme 5. The average teachers pension will be, at todays prices, > ?12,000 + a lump sum of 3 x pension. Current teachers pensions contributions are 6.4% (from salary) and 14.1% (from employer - aka as taxpayers). Plan is to increase the 6.4% salary deduction to 9.8%. Even after the changes this represents a very good deal and one most private sector employees would be very happy to get. In contrast: Private sector pensions: 1. Average contributions 2.9% (from salary) and 6.4% (from employer). 2. Will be a defined contribution scheme - ie the sum received as a pension depends upon the vagaries of the stock market and annuity providers 3. Less than 50% of private sector employees in a pension scheme 4. Average pension, at todays prices, approx ?2,500. Edited for spelling / typos

Three points: 1. Agree entirely this should be in the East Dulwich area. 2. The child that was killed and the one that was injured - were the accidents in any way attributable to a lack of a lollipop person? If not this is redundant information. Shroud waving is always a poor argument. 3. What is wrong with parents escorting their children to school - that's what my wife and I did 15 years ago, and what a number of parents do in my local ED area - altho' there is a lollipop person also on duty at the local school. Which is a doubling up of care. I work in healthcare - many are opposing the "cuts" there using shroud waving tactics - without considering how the service could be improved or responsibility shifted to individuals and patients, many of whom would relish taking control of their own life and care. I believe the safety of children is a parental responsibility - achieved by personal supervision, appropriate training and, eventually, a gradual handover of responsibility from parent to child at an appropriate age. This may seem harsh - but, as older readers will be aware, I don't think government or the state should be made responsible for areas that are more properly the responsibility of an individual or family.

UDT - to misquote an American politician "I knew Thatcher - Milliband ain't no Thatcher"

DJKQ - As Hugenot has tried to point out - the policies of the Thatcher gov't were the rational response to the economic situation the country was in by 1979. That situation was the result of decades of underinvestment, poor quality products, unreasoning unionism refusing to countenance change, the internationalisation of trade that meant UK could, and did, access cheaper goods (often at better quality)from overseas. Together with a host of other factors. Your own father's approach to change was the sensible and rational approach. To ascribe the resultant fall out to one set of policies, or worse, to one politician is irrational thinking. Making this sorry politico / industrial the history into a "Thatcher hated the northern working classes" fantasy is to perpetuate a myth that seems set to create a victim mentality - never a good idea.

I'm with ???? - we do this journey a lot. If speed is the key then M4 / M5 but we usually prefer to take it slightly slower stopping off as and when. Two stops offs to try on the A303 route - Heston Blumental's Little Chef at the beginning of the A303 or the Lamb Inn at Hindon - which is almost at the halfway point London / Launceston.

Absolutely - and if you can take out one of the Indian restaurants so much the better.

Lyon's Corner Houses - toast, marmite & warm ribena. How we always ended the day after outings in London with my uncle.

Fox & Anchor pub - Smithfield Market. Grimy, gritty but great. Opened at 4.00am for market porters, night staff coming off shift from Barts Hospital (both sometimes in bloodstained white coats) and tired & emotional students on late night benders. Huge fry up breakfasts and pints of Guinness. Now, sadly, 35 years later a Malmaison Hotal.

Chick Wrote: ------------------------------------------------------- > Anyone remember the Peanut sandwich board man in > Oxford St?? Protein leads to passion?? Remember it well.

Our old Peugot 206 was broken into last night on Scutarti Road. Door damaged beyond repair, radio and sat nav (hidden in glove compartment) stolen. Apart from the embuggerance factor and the loss of a useful local runaround car - I'm not sure about claiming on insurance. Our cars are on the same group insurance - if I claim I fear the premium increase will be far larger at least over rtwo years) than the likely cost of fitting another (recycled) door and replacing radio & satnav. Does anyone have any experience - if I ask the insurance company that would inform them of the theft and, presumably, trigger the premium increase anyway.

I too have been exoperiencing intermittent problems. Have an engineer coming out to look see - one option it might be a loose connection between street and house being affected by excess rain recently.

You need to check your cut & paste work. David Laws ceased to be Chief Secretary to the Treasury about 12 months ago.

Labour opposition front bench?

Another vote for handles on the bio recycling bags

See details of The Conversation here

Enemy was good and I enjoyed it when it came out. Don't forget Gene Hackman's earlier and even better wire tapping movie "The Conversation" which Enemy makes some nods towards.

Chippy, If membership of a Trade Union confers so much why is membership continuing to fall? If the members themselves are voting with their feet - there must be something wrong with the offer. Union members maxed out at 13.2m in 1979 but is today 6.5m and falling. The following figures are taken from the Labour Market Analysis & Minimum Wage is a multi-disciplinary team of economists, social researchers and statisticians based in the Labour Market Directorate of the Department for Business, Innovation & Skills (BIS). They draw their data from the annual Labour Force Survey. The statistics referenced comply with the National Statistics Authority standards. a. Trade union density for employees in the UK fell to 26.6 per cent in 2010 (0.9% down on 2009). Trade union membership levels for UK employees fell by 2.7 per cent (179,000) in 2010 to 6.5 million. By comparison, total UK employment rose by just under a half per cent in the year to 2010. b. The hourly earnings of union members, according to the LFS, averaged ?14.00 in 2010, 16.7% more than the earnings of non-members (?12.00 per hour). Over the last ten years to 2010, the average hourly earnings have shown steady growth in both public and private sectors. The trade union wage premium in 2010 was higher in the public sector at 21.1% compared with 6.7% in the private sector. While this tends to support one of your points note the following caveat from the LFS It should be noted, however, that such raw estimates fail to adjust for various differences in characteristics, such as age and education levels, which will partly account for these differences in earnings. c.Public sector employees accounted for 62.4% of union members. Professional, associated professional and technical occupations account for 45.5% of all union members. Overall, these occupations account for 34.1% of all employees. e. Only two sectors show union membership at above 50% - Education and Public Administration & Defence (and since the Armed Forces have no union - this must be the MoD civil service) f. Union membership is higher in companies with more than 50 employees (at 35.3%) and lower in smaller companies (17.1%) g. Middle income earners (?500 - ?999 per week) are more likely to be union members at 38.5%. h. High earners (over ?1,000 per week) have a 19.5% union membership while for low earners (less than ?250 a week) union membership is only 14.6%. i. Union members in the private sector have fallen from 3.4m in '95 to 2.5m in 2010. Union members in the public sector have risen from 3.7m in '95 to 4.1m in 2010. All of this suggests strongly to me that unions are becoming redundant and that it is only in the public sector where unions remain, relatively, strong. It also suggests that, despite union rhetoric, unions tend to benefit the middle earning technical or professional workers and not the low skilled, low paid. I agree entirely with Hugenot's point that the benefits you aver are a trades union benefit are actually available to the majority of all employees regardless of union membership. Management, in the generic sense, is far more professional, informed and sensitive these days - the daft caricature of "them" and "us" beloved by the more ignorant and militant of union officials is a thing of the very distant past - except where the union (cf: Bob CRowe & RMT) exacerbate poor relations. Good managers bring staff and employees with them when introducing change and developments. Both sensible staff and sensible management recognise that effective working together benefits everyone - and a trades union is not a necessary part of this - altho' the more enlightened unions do work well with management.

Exactly - the need for unions to protect employees is pretty redundant these days.

Just because something is legal it doesn't make it moral, necessary or right. This strike is immoral, irresponsible and unnecessary. It is not an action comparable to Annie Besant and her moral, necessary and proper actions to support the Bryant & May oppressed workforce strike for better conditions. This is simply a fat cat unionist flexing his muscles and showing off.

So now this strike (which you believe to be a human right) is about ensuring the continued employment of one union official who spends much of his time quote "recruiting members, organising, helping full-time officials". And you still support the RMT in their action? No matter that his actions were admitted to be outside the appropriate code of conduct. No matter that the strike will inconvenience hundred's of thousands of commuters No matter that the situation is being reviewed by an independent tribunal No matter that the individual concerned is experiencing no hardship No matter that LU has agreed that the individual will be re-instated if that is the tribunal's finding. I understand from earlier posts that if the RMT do not hold Sunday's planned strike their mandate for subsequent strikes fails. This strike is not about protecting the workforce from unfair management practices, it's certainly not about improving the services of LU and it is oing nothing to improve union / management relations. This about demonstrating the union's muscle. To hear Bob Crowe claim that the LU can stop the strike at any time - because all they have to do is give in to his demands, is to hear an irritating and irrational man make irrational statements. As Loz and others have pointed out this sort of behaviour will only accelerate demands for further controls on union action - whether its a requirement for an absolute majority in favour of strikes or the banning of strikes in key services.

I can follow the logic of your "human right" point although I feel it is weak and poorly made. However, but - here I feel we diverge. With rights come responsibilities. The right to strike should be used resonsibly to achieve rational aims and objectives. To use a strike to seek to impose the union's desire to get an individual back into full employ before the full IT ruling when the individual, who has admitted a discviplinary offence but is challenging the panalty awarded, is exoperiencing no hardship (he's suspended on full pay) and, in doing so the union inconveniences hundreds of thousands of commuter jouney's is not a responsible action.

D-C "J'accuse" - GODWIN's LAW