Comrade Cummins explains why Community Wealth Building via procurement is not a panacea. He also shows how to steal more time from the Chair; he was only due a minute, which is an act of contempt to delegates. What can you say in one minute, particu7oalry if you wish to oppose a motion, and how much time does the NEC get to speak? And the shadow cabinet? Unite report on the speech here The video is below/overleaf ...
Labour & Education
Labour Party Conference is just two months away and so I am considering what I would like to see discussed. I think it important that we workout what a National Education Service means and so I with some help from some friends have developed the following words.
Conference notes
- that the government continues to promote privatisation of the schools system through academies and free schools, with a culture of competition based on ever-more onerous testing and Ofsted inspections. This is bad for students, school workers and society.
- our manifesto pledge to “ensure that all schools are democratically accountable…”
- our manifesto pledge to “abandon plans to reintroduce baseline assessments and launch a commission to look into curriculum and assessment, starting by reviewing Key Stage 1 and 2 SATs”
Conference believes that “public”/private and grammar schools are also incompatible with an egalitarian and democratic education system serving the many, not the few.
We call for the next Labour government to
- Immediately stop all academisations and the opening of any new academies or free schools.
- Place all state schools & FEs into full local authority control.
- Abolish “public”/private schools by taking them into local authority control.
- Ensure all schools are comprehensive, secular community schools, open to all.
- Immediately abolish Ofsted, all SATs tests and league tables.
- Restore national pay bargaining for teachers, implement the National Education Union’s maximum class size demands, and introduce a national Workload Charter.
(196 Words) with no Trigger.
I say with no trigger because motions to Labour Party conference must refer to an event between the publication of the National Policy Forum report and the 14th September. This is referred to by me, as an event trigger.
Motions need to be under 251 words long. So if you think I’ve missed anything important add or replace some of the demands and we’ll put them together at the composite meeting. If you get this through your CLP drop a comment on this blog. …
Vive the Daily Mirror
It was the “Grand National” yesterday, so I bought a copy of the “Daily Mirror” for its tips and form card. It’s good to see that its instincts are coming back, the inside front page had a picture of a Tory poster which has the question “How much does it cost to clean a hospital?”, which had been defaced with the comment “You should know, you privatised hospital cleaning!”. …