#U-turn

[zegalba]

[eaglesnick]

“‘Private education is not fair. Those who provide it know it. Those who pay for it know it. Those who have to sacrifice in order to purchase it know it. And those who receive it know it, or should. And if their education ends without it dawning on them, then that education has been wasted.”  - Alan Bennett.

One year ago almost to the day, Sir Kier Starmer, our new prime minister, promised to end the “snobbery” that surrounds academic vs vocational education. Speaking in Gillingham Kent, he said the ‘class ceiling' needed to be broken and he vowed to fight the existing reality that social background - and by default, economic background  - determines a child’s future opportunities.

This pledge was part of his fifth mission statement where he promised to “break down the barriers of opportunity at every stage for every child.”  More importantly he emphasised:

“This mission is my core purpose and my personal cause: to fight, at every stage, for every child, the pernicious idea that background equals destiny, that your circumstances, who you are, where you come from, who you know, might shape your life more than your talent, effort and enterprise.

“No, breaking that link, that’s what Labour is for. I have always felt that. It runs deep for me.” (Keir Starmer:05/07/23)

Starmer is absolutely right when he says a child’s socio-economic background determines the opportunities open to them. Money buys privilege. One reason private schools are so popular among better off parents, especially the very rich, is that class sizes are so much smaller than in the state sector, and as is well known, “smaller classes lead to higher quality education”. From early years of prep schooling right through to the elite universities such as Oxford and Cambridge, money buys academic success. It is no accident that 60% of top university student intake is private school educated, while just 25% is from state schools: the rest being overseas students.

But it is not only the quality of education than counts when it comes to future opportunities – social networking also plays a major role. Sending your child to a private school not only increases their chances of academic success, it also builds up “social capital".

This interesting headline says it all:

Getting the job: it's not just who you know, its how you know them" (nature: 23/1022)

If you know them from public school, especially boarding school, then you are recognised as "one of us" and you reap the advantages.

The dominance of the privately educated throughout Britain’s "upper echelons of power" was recognised by the conservative Prime Minister John Major, who was shocked at the difference a private education made to opportunities for success.

Starmer’s ambition to end the disadvantage of being a state educated pupil by raising educational standards in state schools is admirable but it is not enough. In a report into who gets the top jobs published in 2013 the researchers came to this depressing conclusion.

.”Our work discounts the notion that higher education levels the playing field between students of differing socio-economic backgrounds. Beyond academic achievement, our analysis suggests there are other reasons why wealthier and more advantaged students, and particularly those who attend a private school, are significantly more likely to secure a top job."  ( Macmillian, Tyler and Vignoles:“Who gets the Top Jobs? The role of family background and networks in recent graduates’ access to high status professions.” ; IOE December 2013)

Nothing has changed since 2013. In 2019 Statistica carried this headline:

“The UK's top jobs are dominated by the privately educated…our report shows, the most influential people across sport, politics, the media, film and TV, are five times as likely to have attended a fee-paying school.”  (Statistica: 25/06/19)

And in 2023 we had this report:

“Private school alumni…gain a disproportionate share, relative to their small numbers, of highly influential jobs in British public life and in business. (UCL: Private schools and British Society: 29/11/23)

Given Starmer’s “mission” to break the ‘class ceiling” is at the ‘core’ of his being, then he has gotten off to a very poor start in trying to remedy this gross social inequality. Originally he promised to strip private schools of their charity status.

“Keir Starmer vows to scrap charitable status for private schools” (LBC: 28/11/22)

Less than a year later, like so many of Starmer’s pledges, this plan was abandoned.

According to The Conversation (27/06/22) charitable status for private schools is worth “£3 billion a year”. It is certainly true that Rugby School is “raking in millions a year thanks to London rental property”. (Coventry Live: 06/04/2025).  Eton College, Britain’s most famous private school and the provider of 20 British prime ministers, has been described as having:

“…huge investments in securities and property - £568mn at August 2022 – chipping in handy amounts each year, tax-free thanks to its charitable status”. (Financial Times: 29/09/23)

Under Starmer the privilege provided by private education is to continue. Money buys smaller class sizes, better academic attainment and a build up of social capital through networking with others from wealthy families. Hiding behind the bogus claim of charitable status these schools for the privileged save millions of pounds in tax relief while the state sector is starved of sufficient funding. Rather than doing yet another U-turn, Starmer should have been planning to  close  private schools altogether.

If he is willing to surrender so easily to privilege and wealth on his “core” beliefs then he has no right to be Prime Minister, and his claims that his administration is all about "change" is just hollow rhetoric.

[identifying-moves-in-posts]

U-Turn

Bug | 20pp | power 70 | acc 100

After making its attack, the user rushes back 581 miles to visit Buc-ee's.

this stupid little beaver bitch

[maviaden]

hafta ortası yapılan kaçamaklar.

[rightnewshindi]

टॉयलेट टैक्स पर विवाद के बाद सुक्खू सरकार का यू टर्न, फजीहत होने के बाद डिप्टी सीएम ने रद्द की अधिसूचना

Himachal News: विधानसभा चुनाव के दौरान मुफ्त गारंटी योजनाओं को लागू करने के बाद कर्ज के बोझ तले दबे हिमाचल प्रदेश की कांग्रेस सरकार ने शौचालय की संख्या के आधार पर टैक्स लगाने संबंधी एक आदेश जारी किया है, जो एक बड़े विवाद का कारण बन गया है. सरकार के आदेश का भाजपा और सोशल मीडिया पर जमकर मज़ाक उड़ाया जा रहा है. इसके बाद सरकार ने इस आदेश को वापस ले लिया है. हिमाचल सरकार पर फिलहाल 96000 करोड़ रुपये…

[wisdomfish]

You had better repent—you had better turn around, go the other direction, and understand that the only was you will ever know God, salvation, and forgiveness is by understanding that God has appointed a Judge who will judge all sinners. And that Judge is none other than Christ Jesus, who died on the cross as a sacrifice for sin, and whom God raised from the dead to affirm that His sacrifice was complete and sufficient. ~ John MacArthur

[doggendoodle]

call me urshifu the way my blows are wicked

performing the "u-turn of blowjobs" because i do a little bit and run away and also it does bug type damage

[dailyworldecho]

[hinamie]

morning glory

[cryptocism]

"just as I did, in 1983."

you'd never know my favourite parts of the show are the fucked up insane bits when my first instinct is to draw the cheesiest thing imaginable

[inkskinned]

because sometimes there are invisible tests and invisible rules and you're just supposed to ... know the rule. someone you thought of as a friend asks you for book recommendations, so you give her a list of like 30 books, each with a brief blurb and why you like it. later, you find out she screenshotted the list and send it out to a group chat with the note: what an absolute freak can you believe this. you saw the responses: emojis where people are rolling over laughing. too much and obsessive and actually kind of creepy in the comments. you thought you'd been doing the right thing. she'd asked, right? an invisible rule: this is what happens when you get too excited.

you aren't supposed to laugh at your own jokes, so you don't, but then you're too serious. you're not supposed to be too loud, but then people say you're too quiet. you aren't supposed to get passionate about things, but then you're shy, boring. you aren't supposed to talk too much, but then people are mad when you're not good at replying.

you fold yourself into a prettier paper crane. since you never know what is "selfish" and what is "charity," you give yourself over, fully. you'd rather be empty and over-generous - you'd rather eat your own boundaries than have even one person believe that you're mean. since you don't know what the thing is that will make them hate you, you simply scrub yourself clean of any form of roughness. if you are perfect and smiling and funny, they can love you. if you are always there for them and never admit what's happening and never mention your past and never make them uncomfortable - you can make up for it. you can earn it.

don't fuck up. they're all testing you, always. they're tolerating you. whatever secret club happened, over a summer somewhere - during some activity you didn't get to attend - everyone else just... figured it out. like they got some kind of award or examination that allowed them to know how-to-be-normal. how to fit. and for the rest of your life, you've been playing catch-up. you've been trying to prove that - haha! you get it! that the joke they're telling, the people they are, the manual they got- yeah, you've totally read it.

if you can just divide yourself in two - the lovable one, and the one that is you - you can do this. you can walk the line. they can laugh and accept you. if you are always-balanced, never burdensome, a delight to have in class, champagne and glittering and never gawky or florescent or god-forbid cringe: you can get away with it.

you stare at your therapist, whom you can make jokes with, and who laughs at your jokes, because you are so fucking good at people-pleasing. you smile at her, and she asks you how you're doing, and you automatically say i'm good, thanks, how are you? while the answer swims somewhere in your little lizard brain:

how long have you been doing this now? mastering the art of your body and mind like you're piloting a puppet. has it worked? what do you mean that all you feel is... just exhausted. pick yourself up, the tightrope has no net. after all, you're cheating, somehow, but nobody seems to know you actually flunked the test. it's working!

aren't you happy yet?

[heyhanibee]

adult aang studies 4 2day!!!☺️

[pacipinka]

*taps mic* is this thing on? Yeah okay so every vampire in the vampire chronicles is turned at critical a moment in their lives and beyond just the body they are in when they are turned, their mentality stays at that standstill for their entire immortality, Lestat was turned against his will, he was clinging onto Magnus begging him to be freed, so he’s constantly seeking freedom and only finding loneliness and thus turning back to people again and again, however he can’t STAND being told what to do, since he desires agency in his life so desperately, Armand was turned after years and years of abuse and lack of control but such a desire for genuine love, by a man he ‘loved’ so wholly who he felt was barring his love from him, he needs control in his life, he needs a ‘master’ but he does not desire it, it does not fulfill him, he is trapped in a room but the door is unlocked! Louis was mourning his brother, he felt like an utter failure and so he’s always seeking family, seeking people he can care for, he can coddle, he can prove he is good too, but he loves people who either cannot stand coddeling and need a sense of looseness to live (Lestat) or people who grow out of coddling who prove to Louis he will always fail the people he loves (Claudia), Claudias turning, in many MANY ways mirrors lestats in that it was against her will, she was stolen from her home, and in her immortality she desires freedom but unlike Lestat does not have the agency/ form to get it, she will always be small, she will always be looked down on, even by Lestat who cannot deny how much she is just like him *taps mic* ARE YOU LISTENING TO ME!! NONE OF THEM CAN BREAK THE CYCLE!!! TO BREAK IT WOULD BE TO UNDO THE VERY FIBER OF THEIR IMMORTAL SELVES!! THE CYCLE IS THE BLOOD THEY DRINK IT IS THE HEART IN THEIR CHEST AND IT ROLLS AND ROLLS DOWN THE MOUNTAINS AND VALLEYS OF THEIR LOVE FOR EACH OTHER AND IT CAN NEVER BE STOPPED BECAUSE THEY WILL NEVER STOP LOVING EACH OTHER!!!!!!!!!!!!

[ssenza]

It is calming to see something familiar in another

inspo x x

[rightnewshindi]

'जो राम को लाए हैं हम उनको लाएंगे’ गाना गाने वाले कन्हैया मित्तल ने मारा यू-टर्न, अब भाजपा में रहने का किया फैसला

'जो राम को लाए हैं हम उनको लाएंगे’ गाना गाने वाले कन्हैया मित्तल ने मारा यू-टर्न, अब भाजपा में रहने का किया फैसला #News #RightNewsIndia #RightNews

Kanhaiya Mittal: हरियाणा में बीजेपी नेता और ‘जो राम को लाए हैं हम उनको लाएंगे’ गाना गाने वाले कन्हैया मित्तल ने अपने बयानों से यू-टर्न ले लिया है. मंगलवार को उन्होंने कहा कि वो बीजेपी के साथ रहेंगे. मित्तल ने अपने बयानों के लिए वीडियो संदेश जारी कर माफी भी मांगी है. उन्होंने कहा कि पिछले दो दिनों से मुझे ये एहसास हुआ कि मेरे सनातनी भाई बहन और खासकर बीजेपी का शीर्ष नेतृत्व मुझे इतना प्यार करता है…