Peter, just read Dan Woods comment on your input in the Thomas Cook thread, are your latest comments here a case in point? 
Hello John, and thanks for your thoughtful rebuke.
I am a controversialist and make no bones about it, but I am open to comments like yours (and Danās and others in their turn), and yours has been instructive.
I accept that there are significant Islands of true altruism and benevolence amongst the aristocracy, particularly in more distant history, and British history has many remarkable landmarks that give testimony to the wisdom, foresight and generosity of industrialists and entrepreneurs: Cadbury and Rowntree come easiest to my mind but there are scores of others.
The fabric of British society is emblazoned with their creative genius spread wide to their fellow men, women and children. And still is, small scale but still worthy, to people like you and your children, it seems.
My concern is that the spirit they expressed hasnāt been institutionalised except by warriors of the left. Socialism, the cooperative movement, and communitarianism are now terms of abuse, and pioneers like Jeremy Corbyn are demonised and humiliated for giving voice to the miserable poor, and for articulating fairness in the distribution of wealth created by working people, and in the ownership of resources and the means of production.
I believe you are an honourable man, and I respect your views. My own views are addressed to those who need to know that there are still people who will challenge injustice and undeserved privilege wherever and whenever it rears its uncouth and ugly head.
Where I am properly challenged I will always acknowledge an error. The count of my apologies should not be tallied against me, and prove my wrongness. We are all prone to error, itās how we learn, and weāre never too old for that, I reckon.
I wish you and your family well. 
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Socialism always seems to me to be a case of -not equality at the highest level but drag everyone down. Mediocre education system ?-get rid of private schools-forcing those children into an already struggling system . Canāt afford to buy a house ? -stop people owning a rental property ( that they worked hard to buy) and make them sell it. Next will probably be stopping private healthcare and make them use the NHS.
I donāt know enough about Labourās proposals to comment on them in more depth. However speaking from a teacherās perspective there are still a few points I would like to make as I feel quite passionately about it.
To begin with, Art, the subject I teach (I am currently not teaching but making my own work, but this does not preclude me from teaching again in the future) is under sustained attack in the state sector. Whereas in many private schools it is flourishing. To give but one example, at one of the best schools in the country, St Paulās School for Boys it is mandatory at GCSE. The value of art as a visual language and as a way of critically understanding the world is recognised and nurtured.
I am not denying the value of stem subjects but with the advent of AI, the ability to think creatively is ever more important. In addition to this to quote from the Uk governmentās own website " The creative industriesā record contribution to the UK economy is Ā£92bn in a sector growing at twice the rate of the economy."
I went to an independent school and have also taught at several. Does this mean I think the rest of the population shouldnāt benefit from a good, interesting and well rounded education that instills a love of learning?
- N.b. this does not mean there are not currently any good state schools, there are. But to quote from the article listed at the end of my post āā¦the academy and free school movement has made things worse for working class children, with more segregation and polarisationā.
Everyone should have access to opportunities for education and continuing education. However this should not just be linked to employment potential but rooted in an appreciation of the value of lifelong learning.
To those that think that socialism drags everyone down I urge them to take a long look at Trumpās America. Although I guess what you have there is socialism for the rich.
This is the reason I brought up the Finnish model of education in a previous post. In a more equal society everyone benefits. I think the Uk would maybe offer something more varied educationally, but donāt think current institutions canāt adapt and progress.
In this thread people have made repeated references to funding. Of course funding is important, but I will say the following until I am blue in the face. A great deal of the problem is to do with ideology and a culture of accountability. If you free up good teachers to teach, then the quality of the provision will rise dramatically.
I also urge you to read the following article:
The UK does come across as broken. The current society does not work for a large section of the population. Part of that is to do with ingrained inequality and a better education is one way of remedying this.
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Bravo, Marijke, bravo! I endorse everything you say, especially your faith in the selfless commitment of teachers to the full human flourishing of the children (and adults) they teach; your belief in their skill, their passion, their imaginative talents, and their ideals of autonomy, respect for each child, andā¦beyond and inclusive of their disciplined mastery of their calling, the wish that all should be free.
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Yes, me too! Bravo Marijkeh! I havenāt been back to UK for decades, had no idea the rot had gone so far in state schools, as to diminish ā¦
I thought my niece was, perhaps, a bit too wild, in having opted out of the state system, altogether, and āhomeschooledā. Not so. Her two enormous boys (18 and 15)ā¦seem to me to be vastly better off, much happier, freer to choose and more importantly, to know how to choose, the best life paths for themselves, than any might be who are shut in classrooms with too many others, and no decent arts opportunities. Maybe in a few hundred more years Britain may be a bit less of a divided society.
Yes of course there must always be, at very least, an attempt to make sure of " equal opportunities ". The most shocking indifference to inequality, in basic necessities of life, makes me think of the place as one of the worst places to live. Iāve already written about the shameful free for all, in property profiteering, and do hope that Brit fascination for big money from homes āshortageā is never permitted to take hold in France. Though it may already be too late. Just like in Wales, when whole villages were permitted to be taken over by Englanders who gaveā¦ not half a toss, for the incredible history and true culture/language of Wales.
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One of the most interesting research results relevant to this discussion is that kids that go to university from state schools with worse A-Level results than kids from private schools tend to end up with better degrees. What does this mean?
The obvious explanation is that by taking kids from privileged backgrounds and focusing resources on them, private schools do indeed get better exam results, but when things get more evened out over the the course of university life, the actual ability of the kids comes through.
What does this mean for UK society as a whole? Most obviously, private schools focus resources on the wrong kids: those with mediocre ability from privileged backgrounds, rather than the more able from poorer backgrounds. Which may be why the UK ends up with mediocre management, mediocre politicians, etc, etcā¦
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Well, except that they might not get to the best universities (Russell group or Oxbridge make a difference to employment prospects) or the best degree subjects.
As to why - take your pick: more grit, realisation they need to work their socks off to get a better degree to overcome the social limitations of their background (which they ultimately donāt), more practice working without support, maybe other reasons.
As it happens I sort-of agree with the comments in your last paragraph, as a nation we have tended to fail the bright lower class, in the same way that we have failed the less academically inclined over the years - sadly I donāt see that changing.
Isnāt this what grammar schools were supposed to address?
And they did, briefly, before being abolished (mostly, a few live on).
But the lower rungs - sec moderns and technical schools never really provided the foundation that they were supposed to for the less academic - so the 11+ became something you āfailedā and that stigma stuck.
Iām with you Barrieā¦letās bring in more zero hour contracts, abolish the minimum wage, increase class sizes, empower landlords to increase rental incomes. It comes to something when the good old British elite canāt stomp all over the poor. Do you reckon Boris can get India back for us while heās at it?
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If that system didnāt work, good chance it was because at least in part, the product of a society that still, really didnāt approve of āthat sort of thingāā¦
The attempted dissolution of upstairs and downstairs.?
Whaaat? Unthinkable!
I remember (shut up!)ā¦being mystified by the very public, neo-verbal abuse from a plummy sounding, exceptionally smart young woman. My very first experience of āa better class of personā.
She was my First year form teacher ( in a then, recently reclassified to āgrammarā from private, school).
Raised by the C of E, it wasnāt done, for me, to insult someone considered to be of a ālower orderāā¦ I think my church school for littlies got it right, and I lacked vocabulary in those days.
The priests hadnāt taught me how to say ā¦buggar off.
Not even politely.
Everyone glued to tellies for a few decades, ought to have sorted it out, plus so much travel around the world etcetc.
Although āThe Frenchā are still called ālazyā and ārudeā, by Brit trippers who think everyone on the planet, should accept that a ten hour + day, with obligatory brown nosing, of wannabe VIPsā¦or authority figures ought to be the global bog standardā¦ But I know nuthin.
I live in a supposed socialist country where 15% of children attend private schools, why is there no outcry about inequality here?
Youāre in danger of stereotyping āgritty northernersā there Paul - but note I deliberately chose the word āabilityā rather than something like āintelligenceā (a concept that I think is empty of any real content) - precisely because āabilityā includes aspects like application, along with aptitude, etc.
Iāll offer a personal insight into one of the many aspects of this: I come from a very poor working-class family, and did my homework etc on the living-room table with normal family life going on all around me, television on, etc (we had no television in my early years, but did by the time I got to my teens) - it was the only place I could work - the only table, in the only heated room, etc. Not surprisingly, the school I went to up to 16 was pretty tough too - plenty of distractions in those classrooms. This was obviously disadvantageous at the time - but throughout my life since Iāve noticed that I am able to concentrate in the most distracting environments, when everybody around me is lost. Just one example of how privilege enhances the performance of kids but at the same time can cripple them as adults - and the under-privilege that holds kids back turns out to be a source of strength for them as adults.
Unfortunately, of course, for most working-class kids the barriers are just too high. I was just lucky - in my teens I was discovered by a couple of perceptive teachers, and at 16 - after many battles in which class-hatred was believe me absolutely evident, and helped by the fact that the Labour government at the time was introducing comprehensive education - moved to the grammar school. In both my English and History A-Levels I was put in the bottom set (they did it on O-Level results, and since I didnāt have any O-Levels - nobody had at my previous school - I was put at the bottom). There were exams at the end of my first term there - in which I came top of both sets from my lowly position in the bottom set (they promptly moved me into the top set and I was groomed for Cambridge - but more, I believe, for the prestige of the school than any concern either for me or for social justice).
I remember a friend giving me books to mark for children at a then, secondary modern, and being told not to go to hard on the red pencil.
The reason I was roped in was that she had do much marking to do it was impossible to get it all done in the time she had available.
I was at the local grammar school at the time and that is over fifty years ago!
I find this fascinating. The reason there is no outcry about inequality (in relation to schools) in France is that private schools here are not, by and large, elitist. There are many reasons for this, some to do with the relatively very low level of private school fees, and the fact that for poor families the state pretty much pays them anyway, some to do with the extent of integration with the state system and local community structures, some to do with wider cultural factors (France is a more equal society anyway, etc).
Iām a socialist, but donāt believe the state should abolish private schools (and as I pointed out earlier in the thread, Labour is not proposing that). There is a good socialist case for private schools (for the freedom to experiment, follow different educational philosophies, etc) - unfortunately it is precisely the elitism endemic in the UK system that leads many to want to radically shake it up, and you canāt really blame them.
Oh, I think they are - unashamedly so!
is well renown for selecting only the finest and best to go on to great things and there are similar schools for other disciplines too.
I read once that the verbal test to get in to Ć©na is very fierce. Candidates face a 10 or so strong panel all firing questions in any sort of order about any type of subject which the candidate has to handle with āeaseā in order to secure a place. Competition is extremely fierce and nothing at all to do with parents wealth or station in life.
In France, you get on by your own merit.
President Macron is a graduate of Ć©na.
I meant elitist precisely in those terms Graham.
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I think this question hinges on the definitions of elite and elitism.
In England elite is characterised by social class and wealth, but primarily by reference to social position in the hierarchy of which the monarch is at the pinnacle, the several layers of aristocracy beneath the royals, their non-aristocratic descendants and then assorted stratified commoners and other forelock-tuggers down to you and me, Graham.
In France elite is characterised by meritocratic esteem and peer recognition, not inherited privilege or wealth. Thatās why people like you stand tall amongst la noblesse. 
Theft works in the opposite direction too, the school I went to in the village where I grew up was quite literally given to the company who took it over as an academy. There were local protests as the main buildings were old with significant local history and they wanted to do some pretty major work that would have turned it into the equivalent of a 1960s high rise, Iāve no idea of the outcome but it shows property and land theft works very nicely indeed for those taking over state schools.
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