PUBLIC SECTOR UNIONS always like to talk of the public service and the their members dedication to it; whose professionalism, they would like us to believe, is second to none. Whether in the classroom, the town hall, or on the wards, the British public are being well served by its public sector workers.
Like other myths such as the NHS being the finest healthcare system in the world, and the BBC the finest broadcaster; the union bosses estimation of their member’s qualities border on the complacent .
The last government stood four square behind such self-righteousness and mauled any opposition in parliament to such a cosy view of the public sector. It reached the stage where, despite the NHS’s obvious deficiencies, the Tories feared to offer criticism of a traditionally Labour institution which, it is true, the public distrusted the Tory’s management of.
Labour poured billions into the NHS on coming to power; two thirds of which went on the pay and conditions of the medical profession, while one third remained for patient care. They should have been challenged at the time by the Tories, but, like Labour today, they were trying to regain the public’s trust on an issue that, electorally, they were seen as being antagonistic too.
Labour has always referred to the NHS as ‘our NHS’ – meaning not the country’s, but their own demesne, handed them by Aneurin Bevin - and was to be forever remain their own.
The Labour Party also embraced state education with the same willingness to claim ownership of it. It was they who started the destruction of the grammar schools and replaced them with the comprehensive system of education – class prejudice and an anti-elitism has always been to the forefront of Labour’s ideology. Even New Labour under Blair, could not entertain the continuance of the grammar schools.
As for private education, it has always been a matter of, do what I say, not what I do as far as Labour is concerned: Diane Abbot, while being the latest adherent within Labour’s ranks to support such duplicity, she is by no means alone. What’s good for the goose, is definitely not good for the gander.
The welfare state is yet another spiritual home of the Labour Party. From being, as it was originally intended by a Liberal no less, a safety net for those temporarily bereft of a job to stop them falling either upon the workhouses’ meagre rations, or Madam Bountiful and her charitable prejudices.
Now the welfare state has taken more and more responsibility upon itself, until the original safety net has evolved into what I describe as a supermarket where there is now row after row of different entitlements to meet almost any human condition, from unemployment and disability to housing… right through to death.
THE PUBLIC SECTOR UNIONS are the overlords of all of the above, and the Labour Party are their fixers. The unions finance Labour; they have a determining say in who leads Labour; and they can be useful in deploying their members to strike action whenever a Tory government tries to put the public finances back on the right path, as the Coalition are now trying to do.
The Education Secretary, Michael Gove, is at present trying to rid our schools of incompetent teachers who are capable of literally messing up a child’s future, and it is surely in the interests of teachers themselves, if, as their union representatives tell us, they care about their pupils. But, do they put their members before the children they teach?
Apparently, only 18 teachers have been sacked for incompetence over the past 40 years[1]. This, in a population of 400,000 teachers, seems an inadequate total when compared to the private sector where bad performance is punished on a regular basis.
In our schools there is a practice of removing a bad teachers from one school to another. This takes the form of a headmaster in one school writing a glowing reference for a poor teacher who he or she wishes rid of. This teacher then inflicts his or her lack of skill on another body of pupils.
This occurs because headmasters fear the union representative who may create havoc, if the worthless pedagogue is given the sack.
In the education sector, it has been easier to land a human on Mars than to sack an incompetent teacher. Today, to remove an ineffectual teacher means months of negotiation with the teachers union before they can sack the idiot.
Which means that it is easier to pass the bad teachers around the system like pass the parcel; than it is to try and sack them.
THE EDUCATION SECRETARY, Michael Gove has given, with the backing of head teacher’s, the power to fire a teacher within a term, rather than the year it now takes. But of course the unions’ beg to differ. The general secretary of the NAS/UWT Chris Keates has accused Michael Gove of wishing to destroy the teaching profession as well as state education.
Gove is on the right track and needs to stand his ground if his prime minister is willing to do so on his behalf. Our education system has been sadly diminished by the last Labour government who ideologically believed in the dumbing down process, in order that everyone should win prizes - whether on the sports fields or in education; dumbing down leaves parents happy and willing to vote for Labour, believing that educational standards remain the same. This was the belief at the time of New Labour… just give the people what they want and make them feel happy, which was Labour’s remedy for clinging to power.
Time will tell whether the education secretary’s plans work. But if past practice is anything to go by, things will carry in the same old way. For teachers, nurses, doctors and social workers, all believe they know better than politicians…so when the politicians pull the levers, nothing changes.
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