Wednesday 26 September 2012

Should wealthy pensioners get their benefits stopped or is a more thorough reform of the benefits system needed?

Listen here (10 min)
http://news.bbc.co.uk/today/hi/today/newsid_9755000/9755010.stm



The Liberal Democrat leader Nick Clegg has suggested that wealthy pensioners should be stripped of some of the state benefits they all get now, regardless of how well-off they are.
But how much money would this save? And should the government spread the net wider.
"We are going to protect these pensioners' benefits and it is crucial we keep that promise," Conservative MP Mark Reckless told Today presenter John Humphrys.
"The cost of what (Nick Clegg) is suggesting, of having a great new bureaucracy to administer in effect a wealth tax on pensioners... the costs of that would be enormous, far, far greater than anything which would be raised.
"Pensioners have really suffered. Their income from investments and annuities are sharply down. The key issue is we don't want to be means-testing pensioners in this way."
The government's "poverty czar", the Labour MP Frank Field, argued that "we need a new contract with voters" with entry to the welfare and health system coming through contributions"If we don't do anything at all, the cost of the NHS and the payment of current pensions will double as a proportion of our national income.
"I think we need a new contract with voters to say this is where the expenditure you want is going to take us. Can we do a new tax deal with you to ensure the bills will be paid? They are clearly not going to do it through income tax," he added.
"For most of the post-war years, we have wanted governments that spent money we have not been prepared to give them in taxation. The long-term trend, as we age... our health bills and pension bills will totally distort public expenditure."

Tuesday 25 September 2012

Young Vs. Millar over coalition education policy

Toby Young and Fiona Millar are two educational campaigners on opposite ends of opinion over the coalition. Toby Young is famous for his journalism and his comic novel How To Lose Friends And Alienate People (adapted for screen starring Simon Pegg). However he is more recently known as a pro-Free Schools campaigner who actually setting up the http://www.westlondonfreeschool.co.uk/.

Fiona Millar is an an educational journalist and campaigner who is married to Blair's famous 
spin doctor Alister Campbell.  She is an ardent critic of Gove, Free Schools New Academies etc. 

Here is a vitriolic Young attack on Millar from a couple of years ago:

http://blogs.telegraph.co.uk/news/tobyyoung/100063414/five-questions-for-fiona-millar/

Here are links to Millar's Guardian articles


http://www.guardian.co.uk/profile/fionamillar

Both of these characters are excellent suggestions for synoptic knowledge for education policy in this unit. 

Thursday 6 September 2012

Reshuffle analysis from The Economist

Click here.

DAVID CAMERON is by inclination a chairman rather than a chief executive. Not for him the energetic micromanagement of his two predecessors as prime minister, Gordon Brown and Tony Blair. As far as possible, he lets ministers get on with their jobs. He waited more than two years to make the first—and perhaps the only—big cabinet reshuffle of the five-year parliament. When it came, on September 4th, it revealed much about his political strategy.

Gove on GCSE grading scandal and why he thinks the modular system is to blame

Tuesday 4 September 2012

Nick Robinson on reshuffle

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-19481022
Nick Robinson on the reshuffle and implications for NHS and more.

What the prime minister has done is fired and hired, like any business leader, to attempt to address some of the weaknesses.
Problem one: The NHS. Not just selling reforms already passed but - arguably much harder - achieving the efficiencies needed to execute the biggest squeeze on the NHS's finances ever seen. Jeremy Hunt is rewarded for his competence overseeing the Olympics, rather than punished for his alleged failings in handling the Murdochs.

Monday 3 September 2012

Too many targets spoil the effect

http://www.tes.co.uk/article.aspx?storycode=364943

Critique of New Labour's "obsession" with targets from 2002.

New Labour and Thatcher's legacy in education policy

Thirty years after Mrs T's arrival, the Government is still strengthening, rather than dismantling, her education reforms

http://www.tes.co.uk/article.aspx?storycode=6011956

Blair and the choice agenda

http://www.guardian.co.uk/society/2005/oct/12/publicservices.politics

Lansley defends his NHS reforms on Sunday Politics show (April 2012)

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Summary of some of Gove's education reforms by a Politics teacher

Back in 2010, Michael Gove promised a series of major reforms to the education system; which he felt had been overly bureaucratised by Labour. An overhaul of the national Curriculum was first on the agenda, involving a large slimming down of its framework. By focusing on Science, Maths and English in particular Gove’s aim is to give schools more freedom in subjects they teach. Gove also has advocated more teacher power in disciplining students and called for reforms in teacher training. In order to remove the bureaucracy started by Labour, Gove plans to tighten up league tables in an attempt to prevent teachers’ inflating rankings – Schools rewarded based on achievement in 5 core subjects, instead of all subjects.
Read the rest here:
http://alevelpolitics.com/micheal-goves-education-reforms/#more-154

Public opposition to Lansley's NHS reforms?

Local variations in benefits?

This Conservative notion of a universal credit is a mirage | Polly Toynbee | Politics | The Guardian

This Conservative notion of a universal credit is a mirage | Polly Toynbee | Politics | The Guardian:

'via Blog this'

Short article on the Universal Credit (not to be confused with the concept of universal benefits!)

A-Level Politics Help Site – Welfare State:

'via Blog this'

LSE Audio: Will competition improve the NHS?