Michael Gove's British Values

[SiHart]

Michael Gove wants our children to learn about British values. But what are they? Any guesses?

[Nyder]

I'd like to think it was something simple like "be nice to each other", but I suspect not.


Sent from my iPad using Tapatalk

[Perry Vale]

Getting the plebs to pay for your duck pond and moat?

[Philipnet]

Would that be Amy Pond?


And how many ducks in the duck pond?

[Perry Vale]

I value Amy Pond very highly...

Parliament's champagne bill going up, while the country has enforced austerity? #GreatBritishValues

[Stuart Wallis]

Speaking as an official advisor to the Duke of Edinburgh, I would say marry into the most powerful and least British family in the country; talk down to all peasants (these being all below the rank of Earl); and don't let manners get in the way of anyone remotely foreign or foreign-looking, or would otherwise be easily offended (ie. everyone). It's how the rest of the country's treated eachother and the rest of the world since time immemorial after all...

[Perry Vale]

Do what the Americans tell us to do.

#GreatBritishValues

[Jon Masters]

UK school students are already experts at British values:
- do the minimum work required
- blame everyone else for things which are your fault
- do what you like because it's your rights
- it's better and easier to be famous (and/ or rich) that to actaully be good at anything

[Jon Masters]

Slightly off topic, but I can see why it would be very concerning if a group of people from outside schools were able to exert influence, drive the head out and do their best to follow a narrow pre-planned agenda to get what they wanted.

Unless, of course, they happened to be middle class white people who wanted their school to become an academy......

[Rob McCow]

Great British Values:

Bitching and moaning about our national football team.
Agreeing with the United States about the Middle East.
Electing Twats.
Being old aged pensioners who haven't got a clue about the modern world or teenagers who haven't got a clue about the real world.
Decorating, badly.

[Perry Vale]

Here's a good one for the list, an Englishman's home is his castle....

https://www.gov.uk/dwp-visit

You may get a visit from a Department for Work and Pensions (DWP) officer to check that your benefits payments are correct.

A Performance Measurement review officer may visit you if you’re claiming:

Employment and Support Allowance
Housing Benefit
Income Support
Jobseeker’s Allowance
Pension Credit

Your name is selected at random to be checked. You won’t always get a letter in advance telling you about the visit.
What to expect

The officer will interview you in your home and will want to see 2 forms of identification.

They’ll also ask to see documents about money, savings and rent, eg:

payslips
bank, building society or Post Office accounts
rent book or tenancy agreement
benefits and tax credit awards

Visits usually last up to an hour but may be longer.

You can reschedule your appointment if you need to.

[Richard Brinck-Johnsen]

In light of this morning's reshuffle news the following quote from House of cards springs to mind regarding Mr Gove...

"What, me? Oh, no no no. I'm the Chief Whip, merely a functionary. I keep the troops in line. I put a bit of stick around. I make them jump. And I shall, of course, give my absolute loyalty to whoever emerges as my leader."

[Mike Saville]

In light of this morning's reshuffle news the following quote from House of cards springs to mind regarding Mr Gove...

"What, me? Oh, no no no. I'm the Chief Whip, merely a functionary. I keep the troops in line. I put a bit of stick around. I make them jump. And I shall, of course, give my absolute loyalty to whoever emerges as my leader."

Yeah, it's a bizarre reshuffle, other than of course for the cosmetic set dressing that it is. Parliament is just about to go into summer recess, and there are no new flagship policies due before the next general election so why not leave it be?

Well. Hmmm. Firstly, there's a need to sideline some of those seen by the general public as Thatcherite. So there goes Uncle Ken and William Hague.

Then there's Michael Gove. There's no doubt that there were major reforms necessary to our education system, but he's made himself so unpopular that he needs to be removed to minimise the risks of more teachers' strikes between now and the election. He knows how to work the cameras though, so I think we'll see more of him, not less. It's just he won't have to spend the next ten months explaining and defending his policies.

Oh. And women. Or Wimmin. Or something. I am all for women having a greater representation in government, and I think it'll be a better place for it in the long run, but this will be seen by most of us cynical old duffers as window dressing. If these MPs are the best for the job, then they should have been doing it already, or appointed without the pre released press briefing that they'd be coming. I wish them well in their job, and they'd struggle to be worse than their predecessors, and I hope for a time not too distant when an MP's sex, gender or sexuality aren't part of the conversation.

[Stuart Wallis]

And what a coincidence - just as the CofE vote for the possibility of female bishops - which, given they've got a titular head of the church, but never a female archbishop, sounds more sensible, and less cynical than the timing of this reshuffle.

"What, me? Oh, no no no. I'm the Chief Whip, merely a functionary. I keep the troops in line. I put a bit of stick around. I make them jump. And I shall, of course, give my absolute loyalty to whoever emerges as my leader."

Gove's after my job!

[Jon Masters]

There's no doubt that there were major reforms necessary to our education system.

No, the reform needs to be in the Government's obsession with league tables and a strait-jacket approach to curriculum, and Gove has made that worse not better

It's just he won't have to spend the next ten months explaining and defending his policies.

Which he never did because his only policy was to dismantle the Local Education system and replace it with publically funded schools run by a handful of huge, private, untested and unregulated Academy Chains.

[Mike Saville]

No, the reform needs to be in the Government's obsession with league tables and a strait-jacket approach to curriculum, and Gove has made that worse not better.

Oh, I'm not defending Gove, or the Conservative Party's handling of education. The obsession with league tables isn't a recent invention either- Tory Blair's government was as obsessed if not moreso than the current lot.

However, the current GCSE and A Level is very broken having been devalued by successive governments it needs a huge overhaul, and the idea of returning to proper O levels and A levels rather than the Mickey Mouse ones we have now is a step in the right direction.

Which he never did because his only policy was to dismantle the Local Education system and replace it with publicly funded schools run by a handful of huge, private, untested and unregulated Academy Chains.

That's partly due to the fact that less than a handful of MPs right of centre actually went to a locally run state school, and they've been deemed inferior for generations; and it's easier for a government to denigrate a system than to actually commit the resources necessary to empower the heads to improve it.

I asked a prospective Tory MP when he was discussing the state of parenting today whether he was actually parented or if he went to a private boarding school... because if it's the latter I told him, he has no frame of reference (unless he undertook in government to make Eton and Harrow school places available to all regardless of background or finances)... He left without answering.