DEM not gonna CON dis NATION: Rolling UK politics in the short-lived Cleggeron era

Sounds like my old grammer school.

showing ur age imo

At some point during the second half of the 1800s state-funded education did happen for v. small kids iirc.

yeah, but i think it was locally funded. the state only mandated education from 1870 iirc. when central government got involved in determining things, funding, etc, idk.

this is bad because it will probably 'create' a multiple-tier system. and LEAs are quite capable of doing that themselves thankyouverymuch.

x-posts re: cage - Ah, maybe it was more general then. (I did an Education module or 2 at uni, which was a lot of history, but I can't remember much. I guess schools for the blind etc. might have been funded from outside the church, but it seems something that would have been left to religious institutions)

For 'simple' read 'simply' and for 'Malivian' read 'Maldivian'. More haste, more typos.

Yah I get that it's p. diff. but I think the diffs are as interesting as any similarities, re. attitudes to corps vs. govts w/r/t control of education / social engagement in general.

x-posts

Guild schools: Merchant Taylor's, Haberdashers' Aske's etc etc. all 17th century.

attitudes to corps vs. govts w/r/t control of education / social engagement in general.

corporations VERSUS governments? i don't think you're getting it

This is bad because power shifts from dodgy locally accountable LEA to dodgy centralised HM Gov once again. Gove totally pretending this wasn't the case on the Beeb this morning, but it's bullshit. Paymaster calls tune, ultimately, plus where the money comes from doesn't mean too much as long as the current national curriculum/inspection system stays as it is.

Lever Bros/Cadburys/et al was as much about stopping Bolshevism as giving their workers a decent house. I can just imagine Cameron wandering about Bournville and looking at the pretty houses and thinking "Oh, why can't all of England be like this?" It's his Big Society with added temperance for the proles. Or something. tbh the more stuff they come out with the more confused I get.

Menawhile in the Commons Osbourne hasn't turned up for questions leaving Laws to answer questions about cuts, as was completely predictable. Come to think of it I can hardly remember Osbourne ever saying anything in the House, although he must have done.

corporations VERSUS governments? i don't think you're getting it

"People's attitudes to corporations" versus "people's attitudes to governments"

Ned that's exactly what I was thinking. Does d-cam really beleive that the free market will produce results in keeping with his ideas of social cohesion via modern capitalist mechanisms? Is he willing to try it because of some lingering fondness for the way red-brick corporations were once seen as indivisable from place and community? Which would be kind of naive for someone so allegedly big-up on political history.

x-post

I have no idea what Cameron really thinks. He seems to be terribly good at talking though.

Sounds like my old grammer school.

― Ned Trifle (Notinmyname)

Did you see what I did there? A damning indictment imo.

Lever Bros/Cadburys/et al was as much about stopping Bolshevism as giving their workers a decent house. I can just imagine Cameron wandering about Bournville and looking at the pretty houses and thinking "Oh, why can't all of England be like this?" It's his Big Society with added temperance for the proles. Or something. tbh the more stuff they come out with the more confused I get.

― Ned Trifle (Notinmyname), Wednesday, 26 May 2010 06:11 (27 minutes ago) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

Liberalism

I don't think the people in this government have worked out what its supposed to stand for yet, let alone anyone else. Except for slashing public spending, they seem pretty set on that.

Still don't believe for 1 minute that Cameron is a 1 Nation Tory or any kind of Liberal other than economic. Don't understand where this impression of him might come from.

^OTM but he is up and down, through and through an economic liberal.

whoops, sent too soon

OTM but he is up and down, through and through an economic liberal and from this come a lot of social program. Saltaire and Port Sunlight are as much about productivity as they are about philanthropy, possibly more so. It's all about pure fordism, keep the proles happy and productive and they make more money for the bosses and don't gripe. Call it enlightened self interest but it is all about the money.

but

I got there eventually

ed, no disrespect, but you have no idea about/consistency in what you're talking about

it was the liberal party that pushed for universal state-provided education, consistently

Fordism is only one possible version of economic Liberalism tho and I don't think it applies so easily in our exciting post-manufacturing economy. Cameron seems much more of a Thatcherite/Monetarist and both those schools are too busy misreading Adam Smith to worry much about keeping a replaceable workforce content.

Private sector unprivatised Fordism back to the Govt in the guise of mass education for vocation, really.

cadbury's were quakers iirc -- i dunno what people are trying to argue, though, really. basically that victorian capitalism was bad and instead we should have had ________________? super

profit

Yeah they were Quakers. I lolled a little when somebody upthread said the ConDems are Victorian Liberalism plus Temperance I mean JEEZ.

Keeping a contented, productive workforce is only really an issue if you need to hang onto your workers. I don't see any valid points of comparison between 19th century and 21st century UK. Even Marx's critiques have been undone a lot by the fact that Capitalism didn't quite play out how he guessed.

xpost to history mayne - not sure it's an either Victorian capitalism or ... tho is it? (ignoring the counterfactual aspects). It's more a case of Victorian capitalism, plus a helluva lot more controls, checks and legislative protection for the unprotected ie not laissez faire (as indeed, through a mixture of evangelical concern, market necessity, social pressure in various forms, began, in a haphazard way, to happen, if I remember my history correctly)

ConDems are Victorian Liberalism plus Temperance I mean JEEZ.

I think that's you misreading me (or my poor phrasing). I was trying to think just what Cameron had in mind when he was talking about the Big Society (remember that?), I wasn't trying to suggest he was interested in bringing back temperance.

ed, no disrespect, but you have no idea about/consistency in what you're talking about

it was the liberal party that pushed for universal state-provided education, consistently

― long time listener, first time balla (history mayne), Wednesday, 26 May 2010 06:48 (2 minutes ago) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

I think I have been very consistent on this point. Religious/economically motivated philanthropy -> universal education is a very short mental leap. It's all about the state providing a happy, healthy, skilled and compliant workforce. I'm not saying Cameron is a Fordist, I'm saying that Titus Salt was a progenitor of Fordism. There is no room for that kind of industrialist in today's world. I think that Cameron accepts that the state has to facilitate new actors to play the roles once played by Patrician Liberal Capitalists. He's not pure Thatcherite either, possibly only by necessity, vouchers haven't reared their ugly head again, there's no evidence of any moves to tempt people to abandon state provision.

Self interest is being played upon to give the opportunity to people who have the time and resources to be proactive to create the kind of schools where the middle classes can isolate their children, (possibly with the deserving poor), from the harsh realities of Broken Britain. In return Business and the state gets a class of better educated labour, whilst the class that always gets left behind, gets left behind.

I don't see any valid points of comparison between 19th century and 21st century UK.

This is of course precisely the point, but the idea that the market (or a benevolent company) can solve all ills, now as then, holds sway in large parts of the conservative party. It's a bit like the good job BP is doing with that oil spill, it's just a matter of getting the right people in place with the right tools. Easy.

well, we're not getting laissez-faire (a phrase i don't agree with), but some kind of private raid on the 'public' purse, so far as i can tell. public purse being controlled by corporate interests. hey maybe someone should start some kind of labour representation committee or s.thing.

re. cadbury: would we have crunchies under socialism?

xpost

Religious/economically motivated philanthropy -> universal education is a very short mental leap. It's all about the state providing a happy, healthy, skilled and compliant workforce.

this is just too conspiratorial/reductive for me, and again, what are you counter-proposing? how should the course of history have run? in any advanced economic system, education would be there to produce disciplined/healthy workers. that's not specific to capitalism. i doubt you'd argue that the NHS exists only to keep the workforce going. i mean, you could but...

well, we're not getting laissez-faire (a phrase i don't agree with), but some kind of private raid on the 'public' purse, so far as i can tell. public purse being controlled by corporate interests.

Yep, wd agree on both points (l-f was always a bit bullshit as a historiographical phrase because it suggested a sort of natural order of things, whereas of course, it was a policy oriented towards the already wealthy keeping that wealth). And that private raid on public purse thing makes me weep hot tears of rage every time I see examples of it.

We've paid about a thousand times over and over again for the bloody rail network + bailouts.

Don't forget the rental hospitals/schools.

I wouldn't argue that the NHS was founded on that principle but there was a similar to trajectory in healthcare. Philanthropic institutions -> State provision which has come to be seen as an unarguable necessity in the modern state. The difference between Health and education is we haven't (as yet) invited have a go heroes to found their own hospitals. Liberalism provided the necessary progressive steps that allowed social democracy to flourish and then, quite rightly withered. Now that which "conservatism" seeks to conserve is the LIberal state that evolved over the last 2 centuries. It is testament to the endurance of Liberalism that both left and right in the UK are tempered by the desire of the population to maintain a social contract that was born in Liberalism. The NHS is the only institution left from the socialism of the mid 20th century and there has been no particular desire to revive any of the other institutions.

The difference between NewLabour/CodDem Liberalism and a more left wing attitude is that the former is focussed on a two tier system which allows the best to succeed at the expense of those with the least opportunities to start with.

I am not opposed to a multi-streamed educational system but part of that has to be the enabling mechanism that allows any individual the opportunity to go down any stream. I have no confidence that this education policy will do anything for the most disadvantaged in society.

The NHS is the only institution left from the socialism of the mid 20th century

Also the modern social security system plus comprehensive education?

What else was there?

Nationalised industries

Or perhaps, more accurately, Nationalised industries

Incidentally a man has climbed up the scaffolding on the HofP and is sitting outside the Speaker's kitchen window while Mrs Speaker tweets from inside and fields calls from journos trying to get an interview with him. Modern world, eh?

If he isn't wearing a 10 bob superhero costume I ain't innerested.

By the way, I wish the Coalition of Cunts would be honest enough to admit it's not Big Society vs. Big Government, it's Big Society vs. Local Government

Big Government vs. Local Society

Ignoring the 24 hour news cycle and celebrity politics, and getting on with the business of government:

Grant Shapps MP, the Minister of State for Housing & Local Government, is set to join author and broadcaster Kevin McCloud and environmentalist Jonathon Porritt for the launch of a new housing development in Swindon tomorrow.

The Triangle, a 42-home development in Swindon, is the first scheme by Hab Oakus, the joint venture between Kevin McCloud’s development company, Hab, and housing group GreenSquare.

Still difficult to see where this government is going and how bad it's going to be. What happens with the banking levy will be the acid test, I think - the "polluter pays" principle seems to be very popular and a no-brainer in terms of the voters but will the government go for it or just fudge the issue?

Where exactly is Vince Cable these days? Remember him? Face on side of Lib Dem battle bus with Cleggy? The People's Chancellor? Most popular Liberal (Democrat) politician since Lloyd George? Then David "Toryboy" Laws gets his job in the new government and Vince gets shunted sideways into a department which has its budget slashed immediately by Osborne? Oh, here he is now.

Yet more of the business of government: http://news.bbc.co.uk/today/hi/today/newsid_8707000/8707921.stm

He wouldn't be getting us to back a pair of donkeys there, would he?

Poor choices, should have gone with Mr Optimistic at Ayr and Looks The Business at Wetherby.

I take it Fuck the Poor isn't running today then.

http://www.heraldscotland.com/polopoly_fs/cameron-and-clegg-1.1029394!image/3243539318.JPG_gen/derivatives/landscape_620/3243539318.JPG