On 4 June, 15:15, Tony Polson wrote:
Mizter T wrote:
On Jun 4, 10:21*am, Tony Polson wrote:
But where James is right is that, once in power, Blair didn't know what
to do with it. *He came to power promising that his top three priorities
were "Education, education, education" then presided over the most rapid
decline in educational standards in living memory.

Proof? In the round, educational standards have improved. But we've
been here before, and so I'll just repeat what I said then - "I
suspect you have very little exposure to what goes on in education
these days, and not enough to have a properly informed opinion on it."

You're entitled to your view. *But in the last few months, I have been
working with a University engineering faculty looking at entry
standards, specifically in mathematics. *I admit that I have a narrow
view based only on this area, but there is a very widespread view in
academia that the standard of maths ability of entrants to undergraduate
engineering courses has gone down very significantly over the last 30
years, and rapidly over the last ten. *However, exam results -
specifically A Level grades - appear to have gone up. *

Along with other volunteers, I compared A Level mathematics papers from
the late 70s, late 90s and 2009. *I also took it a stage further and
compared the current A Level paper with the O Level mathematics paper I
sat in 1969 at the age of 14. *Direct comparison is not easy because the
standard syllabus has changed, however I had the additional benefit of
studying what was called "Modern Mathematics" in 1971/2 and this was
more directly comparable with today's standard syllabus.

The conclusion all of us drew was that the 1970s A Level paper demanded
much higher standards than today's. *There seemed to be more of a
decline from the late 90s to today than there was from the late 70s to
the late 90s. *In my opinion, the 2009 maths A Level had more in common
with the 1972 modern maths O Level. *

No wonder the majority of students in 2009 will get A grades!

And of course it is grades on which NuLabour wish to be judged. *Well,
it is obvious that, if you dumb down the subject, more people will get A
grades. *But these grades are meaningless if they are not materially
better than an O Level grade.

Several University engineering departments now wish to commission a
fully funded study - to be carried out by experts rather than unpaid
volunteers. *Their concern is that their first year undergraduates need
expensive remedial maths teaching to bring them up to an acceptable
standard in order to continue with a degree course. *

They get no additional funding for this remedial teaching. *Of course
the relevant Ministry won't fund the study either, as it would make the
Government look incompetent. *So that's why it was done with volunteers..

Labour doubled spending on the NHS in real terms only to squander the
money on increasing the salaries of consultants, GPs and nurses and
employing vastly more of them, to the point where there was hardly any
money left for patient care. *The doubling of spending (tripling in cash
terms) led to an increase in procedures (the best available index of
output) of only 17%. *Now it's true that nurses needed to be paid
significantly more after a decade of declining remuneration, but does
your local GP really deserve to be paid £107,000 on average, or a
consultant £170,000? *This was the price Labour paid for getting them to
agree to a modernisation that is far from the significant root and
branch reform of the NHS that was needed.

Healthcare has improved significantly.

In some areas, yes. *But not in cancer care, where the UK's survival
rates are among the lowest for developed countries. *

Wages for many in the NHS needed to go up too, as you concede.

In return for which an increase in productivity should reasonably have
be expected, whereas there have been significant *reductions* in
productivity. *Had the number of doctors and nurses been increased by
17%, a 17% increase in treatments might have been a reasonable
expectation. *In fact, the numbers have increased by far more than that,
but without the expected increase in output. *The reduction in
productivity is alarming, but perhaps not surprising when we employ
double the number of nurses compared to other developed countries,
obviously adjusted for population.

I absolutely agree that the very
high pay settlements reached with consultants and GPs were absolutely
astounding - essentially it seems as though the DoH moronically simply
agreed to the BMA's opening gambit in the negotiations.

And what about dentists? *They get trained at huge expense to the
taxpayer - about £140,000 each - and are then allowed to reject working
in the NHS altogether. *Even those who choose to work in the NHS have
seen a near-doubling in pay. *In private dentistry, the sky's the limit..
A friend I have known for 51 years has a senior position in teaching,
and he tells me that average income for a dentist is now around
£147,000. *They used to be the poor relation (to doctors) but are now
well ahead. *He is considering returning to dental practice because his
salary would more than double.

If you are looking for the area of the NHS that was most grossly
mismanaged by NuLabour, look no further than dentistry.

I also agree that by no means did the NHS as a whole manage to get
anything near as big a bang out of the bucks that were spent as should
have been the case.

That's because Gordon Brown only ever had one measure of success; that
being how much money Labour spent. *When it came to what outputs were
being achieved, Brown couldn't care less, and neither could a succession
of heath ministers.

It's the same across all spending departments; Labour just hasn't got a
clue how to manage *anything*.



And then there was the illegal war(s). *Blair cynically looked at them
from a party political point of view, and realised that he would be
toast with some of New Labour's new Middle England voters if he opposed
the war(s). *So he wrong-footed the Conservatives and joined up with
some of the most repugnant war criminals that have enjoyed power since
1945 - Cheney, Rumsfeld and their idiot stooge, Bush, all for domestic
party political gain.

I disagree - I really don't think Blair approached Iraq from a party
political standpoint at all. I think he essentially agreed to back
Bush, and then justified it to himself and others by focussing on the
evilness of Saddam Hussein's regime coupled with the somewhat forlorn
hope that the new Iraq could be a beacon to the rest of the Middle
East (and to an extent the wider world), plus a few other ideas (e.g.
felling a 'rogue state' would demonstrate to others that they should
be good).

Blair's view was (and is) well known within the party. *If he had
rejected taking part in Bush's wars, the Conservatives would have had a
field day. *Labour's traditional pacifism would not have gone away, and
NuLabour could not credibly claim to be New had it not been seen to
reject one of the key factors that had made it unelectable in the dark
days of Michael Foot. *

Of course Blair didn't want anyone to realise that was the reason for
taking part, which is why the dodgy dossier had to be "sexed up" leading
to Dr David Kelly's unfortunate - but highly convenient - demise. *

There's no shame in admitting that we were convinced by Blair's
arguments, though. *I was, but subsequent events made it abundantly
clear that we were systematically and comprehensively lied to.

I don't think either Afghanistan or Kosovo/Serbia were approached from
a party political angle either (and I would also demur with you in
labelling them as "illegal wars" but that's moving onto new territory).

I agree that they are different cases and should not be lumped in with
Iraq. *There was at least some basis for taking part in some sort of
action in both places. *However, I remain unconvinced that Britain
should be taking any further part in military activity in Afghanistan.

So if you took your O level in 1969 at age 14, how old were you when
you allegedly graduated from Liverpool University? You may want to
refer to your biography that you put on line on one of the many forums
you populate. Your age seems more elastic than many Hollywood film
stars. Surprising that someone reviewing maths papers can't add up!