... the elephant in our room

[aka Calum Da Jazbo]

... several different items in the media have rubbed an existing but growing disenchantment with how we do things in the UK; we are world class 'not talkers', especially about the things that are embarrassing to us or the establishment ...

this piece is for USA readers but it contains this telling paragraph:

Yet one of the most significant things Sahlberg said passed practically unnoticed. "Oh," he mentioned at one point, "and there are no private schools in Finland."
This notion may seem difficult for an American to digest, but it's true. Only a small number of independent schools exist in Finland, and even they are all publicly financed. None is allowed to charge tuition fees. There are no private universities, either. This means that practically every person in Finland attends public school, whether for pre-K or a Ph.D.

Finland is always one of the best performing nations on educational criteria ....

and we have as Mr A Neill has prominently announced on TV done away with the grammar school kids .... everyone has to go 'private' or 'bog standard' in the UK ... in this Country we subject ourselves to the most basic division in our society with our choice of private and public education ... i doubt we could ever realise the Finnish practice of one system staffed by professionals with autonomous responsibility for their own work ... or match their social mobility

but this piece also highlights a facet of the issue .. we are preoccupied and find it hard to address the issues of so called 'elitism'

Hilary Mantel's wonderful insights into the Royal Women as objects of contemplation also shows us that we are still wedded to the post imperial monarchy and its pretensions to majesty [and how effectively they do pretend!]

the elephant in the room is class and status, our culture is shot through with distinctions, 'edges' or lines that may not be crossed, superiority either implied or inferred with venomous dislike ... these days it has a managerialist and meritocratic market ideology about it, but the loot still carries the weight hence the bonuses and soaring salaries at the upper ends ...

what fascinates though is that the demographics of the old rigidities of class have changed, the right thinking classes are older and smaller [the Tory back benches are reflection of the ageing dry bones europhobes and the new generation of privately educated middle class middle aged nasty party types but look at UKIP and its recent polling .....


we are in the midst of decline, not just the financial crisis and its consequences .... but as the end of empire still takes its time, some aspects of class are growing wildly pernicious ... the income differentials are truly intimidating to any who pay attention to the social and personal consequences of poverty and powerlessness in highly unequal societies; ... the demographics and the face of the class system are changing but class is reinventing its presence and potency in our midst with private education at its deep rooted radical driver

so we fuss and fret at any imposed social exclusion that might be termed 'elitist' ... novel opera painting whatever ... but continue to live and behave in a society riddled with exclusions and social distances that we scarce acknowledge ... and hence the opprobrium for 'elitist' intellectuals or aesthetes .... who may ironically may be the truest protagonists of human equality and social justice that we have ...

opposition to our class system is not crystallised and the demographics move onwards to an older native and younger and faster child bearing immigrant population .... we are a remarkably multi cultural society in many respects but the fascination is to see how our class system reproduces itself now ....it is and it is more and more unequal, unjust; and distressing that we do not see it as the issue in the UK ... it is so deeply entwined with our concepts of nationhood, gender, regional identities and notions of 'career' ...

it is the spirit of 44, the Education Act that we are losing along with the spirit of Beveridge ... we stand no chance of "rebalancing our economy" without facing up to the challenge of rebalancing our society and culture ... the middle is not being squeezed but squashed, it already has the neo liberal boot on its collective face and the great corporate vampire squid sucking the £ out of its life

[amateur51]

A powerful, insightful and ultimately deeply depressing piece Calum - I mean, have you tried learning Finnish?

It's given me some insight into Ken Loach's latest film and his motives for making it and why he got so het up on the radio last Monday.

[Mandryka]

Loach has been over the media a lot in recent weeks. I esteem him highly as a film-maker, but - as his tv and radio appearances make painfully clear - he has nothing to contribute to the great debate rather than harping on the 'capitalism is evil and ought to be done away with' theme upon which he has based a large part of his (very successful) career. At no point has he been able to suggest what he would replace capitalism with and how it would work better than the system he decries.

I'll see his new film, because I'm genuinely interested in his work. But I knew many people (most of them Labour voters) who lived under the Attlee government and not one of them enjoyed the experience.

[amateur51]

Loach has been over the media a lot in recent weeks. I esteem him highly as a film-maker, but - as his tv and radio appearances make painfully clear - he has nothing to contribute to the great debate rather than harping on the 'capitalism is evil and ought to be done away with' theme upon which he has based a large part of his (very successful) career. At no point has he been able to suggest what he would replace capitalism with and how it would work better than the system he decries.

I'll see his new film, because I'm genuinely interested in his work. But I knew many people (most of them Labour voters) who lived under the Attlee government and not one of them enjoyed the experience.

And I know plenty who are very proud of the experience and burn with a passion about the present government's tricksy privatisations.

Your move

[gurnemanz]

everyone has to go 'private' or 'bog standard' in the UK ... in this Country we subject ourselves to the most basic division in our society with our choice of private and public education ... i doubt we could ever realise the Finnish practice of one system staffed by professionals with autonomous responsibility for their own work ... or match their social mobility

I started my teaching career in 1972 quite idealistic about the new comprehensive schools, genuinely believing that we could create a state system that would be so good that eventually there would no need for parents to spend money on private education. It would not be necessary to abolish them because they would wither and die or become harmless anachronisms like stately homes. I did my teaching practice in a brand new, custom-built establishment, which reinforced that belief. When I started looking for a full-time job, however, it proved very hard to find a school to work in that actually was "comprehensive", i.e. which all or most secondary-age children in a given catchment area attended, without creaming off. I found one in the end in a locality where there were no easily accessible private day schools. Some lawyers and doctors actually trusted us with their offspring. We had special needs and Oxbridge candidates under the same roof.

40 years later, having done my bit and being recently retired, I am bound to admit that there has been little progress towards a system such as they have in Finland. It would seem that the Establishment has not shown sufficient commitment to making state schools good enough for their own children and we still have the phenomenon of Labour MPs compromising their principles when selecting schools for their children.

Having said all that, I would also assert that although the division and internal conflict which pervades British society, industry and institutions has had obvious drawbacks, it has also led to a kind of creative tension and national bloody-mindedness which can be rather positive and productive.

[aka Calum Da Jazbo]

Having said all that, I would also assert that although the division and internal conflict which pervades British society, industry and institutions has had obvious drawbacks, it has also led to a kind of creative tension and national bloody-mindedness which can be rather positive and productive.

.... indeed but rather too little on the positive and productive i fear and rather too much of the constraints and stifling antagonisms ...

[rauschwerk]

...the elephant in the room is class and status...

I suggest that underlying those is galloping inequality, promoted by successive governments' tax regimes and by their turning a blind eye to tax havens, which allow rich individuals and multinational corporations to avoid paying their fair shares of taxes.

[Serial_Apologist]

A powerful, insightful and ultimately deeply depressing piece Calum - I mean, have you tried learning Finnish?

It's given me some insight into Ken Loach's latest film and his motives for making it and why he got so het up on the radio last Monday.

Yes, one of the most pressing debates being shunted off to a polite early Monday morning chat show was also in there too. I dare say those who proved, to me, unexpectedly antagonistic to Loach on that SSW and my defense of him, would have said, yes, well, he could have always refused to appear in such a programme context, but there aren't many opportunities for putting the case.

[Serial_Apologist]

Loach has been over the media a lot in recent weeks. I esteem him highly as a film-maker, but - as his tv and radio appearances make painfully clear - he has nothing to contribute to the great debate rather than harping on the 'capitalism is evil and ought to be done away with' theme upon which he has based a large part of his (very successful) career. At no point has he been able to suggest what he would replace capitalism with and how it would work better than the system he decries.

In his positive comments about the Attlee government, Loach actually did point out that its mistake was in being top down, never devolving the issue and the practicalities of control and desicionmaking to the rank-and-file but rather keeping it in the hands of what was to become an overpaid management echelon, indistinguishable from private industry boardrooms.

[Mandryka]

In his positive comments about the Attlee government, Loach actually did point out that its mistake was in being top down, never devolving the issue and the practicalities of control and desicionmaking to the rank-and-file but rather keeping it in the hands of what was to become an overpaid management echelon, indistinguishable from private industry boardrooms.

True, this was definitely one of that government's mistakes, if you're looking at it from the perspective of someone who expected a complete transformation of society from a radical Labour government. But Attlee and his cabinet just weren't made like that, were they? They were, for the most part, upper middle-class people who believed that the gentleman in Whitehall always knew best and placed great faith in the bureaucratic institutions which they felt had served Britain so well. Social reformers they may have been -revolutionaries they certainly weren't!

[amateur51]

True, this was definitely one of that government's mistakes, if you're looking at it from the perspective of someone who expected a complete transformation of society from a radical Labour government. But Attlee and his cabinet just weren't made like that, were they? They were, for the most part, upper middle-class people who believed that the gentleman in Whitehall always knew best and placed great faith in the bureaucratic institutions which they felt had served Britain so well. Social reformers they may have been -revolutionaries they certainly weren't!

My parents and their parents certainly felt that the NHS was revolutionary and they worked hard to make it work because of that

[Serial_Apologist]

True, this was definitely one of that government's mistakes, if you're looking at it from the perspective of someone who expected a complete transformation of society from a radical Labour government. But Attlee and his cabinet just weren't made like that, were they? They were, for the most part, upper middle-class people who believed that the gentleman in Whitehall always knew best and placed great faith in the bureaucratic institutions which they felt had served Britain so well. Social reformers they may have been -revolutionaries they certainly weren't!

Indeed Mandy; and there was also the issue of what on the far left we used to call "economism" deep-set in the mentality of the trade unions, right through to the end of the '79 Labour government, which said, baldly, "our job is not to question control, but to get for our members a larger slice of the cake", disregardful of what the consequences in terms of capitalist logic implied for what had to be done.

A very good case was told to me by my line manager, at a large engineering works; and in a sense it unfortunately partly undermines what both of us are saying. After WW2 the Attlee government, or at least one part of it, attempted tentative initiatives at "worker participation" in some larger enterprises, as a corollary to the start of its nationalisation programme. Ironically they did not apply similar initiatives to the sectors to be nationalised. Anyway, this line manager recalled the trade unions at the plants of this company only being prepared to countenance the idea of worker representation on the board if first the workforce were offered a sizeable wage increase - which the company management then turned down as uneconomic, whereupon the trade union bureaucrats turned around and said, "See, this is what you get for offering concessions".

There are other tales one could tell - many of such instances involved Communist Party trade union top reps and negotiators, or CP sympathisers, who were obeying the line handed down from Moscow that revolutionary aims were out of sync with "peaceful coexistence" (remember, this was before The Bomb), and the British working class was "not ready" for socialism.

[Mandryka]

Indeed Mandy; and there was also the issue of what on the far left we used to call "economism" deep-set in the mentality of the trade unions, right through to the end of the '79 Labour government, which said, baldly, "our job is not to question control, but to get for our members a larger slice of the cake", disregardful of what the consequences in terms of capitalist logic implied for what had to be done.

A very good case was told to me by my line manager, at a large engineering works; and in a sense it unfortunately partly undermines what both of us are saying. After WW2 the Attlee government, or at least one part of it, attempted tentative initiatives at "worker participation" in some larger enterprises, as a corollary to the start of its nationalisation programme. Ironically they did not apply similar initiatives to the sectors to be nationalised. Anyway, this line manager recalled the trade unions at the plants of this company only being prepared to countenance the idea of worker representation on the board if first the workforce were offered a sizeable wage increase - which the company management then turned down as uneconomic, whereupon the trade union bureaucrats turned around and said, "See, this is what you get for offering concessions".

There are other tales one could tell - many of such instances involved Communist Party trade union top reps and negotiators, or CP sympathisers, who were obeying the line handed down from Moscow that revolutionary aims were out of sync with "peaceful coexistence" (remember, this was before The Bomb), and the British working class was "not ready" for socialism.

Interesting stuff, S_A. The innate conservatism of the British Labour movement played a big role in it ultimate failure.

[Serial_Apologist]

Interesting stuff, S_A. The innate conservatism of the British Labour movement played a big role in it ultimate failure.

So you admit then that not all forms of left wingery are ultimately dstructive?

[aka Calum Da Jazbo]

Has The British Labour Movement Ultimately Failed?

it ain't over yet seems to me, the unions may be going through a services and managerial phase currently but watch that space ... The Establishment is not what it was but keep watching that space too ....
social class divisions are more entrenched and divisive now than at any time since WW2