Bully Boy Balls Gets His Teachers Pet

Blinky Balls has been branded 'a bit of a bully' over his demolition of parliamentary democracy, as deluded Brown's fag-end government drifts aimlessly along. But there's more to this little outburst than meets the eye. A broadside has been fired against Brown's side-kick as the struggling Supreme Leader bumbles along with post-conference blues.

Not many New Labour politicians can raise the hackles of the Labour left and the Blairite hitchhikers like 'Blinky' Balls.

But it's taken parliamentarian and party loyalist, Barry Sheerman, to say in public what every one has known in private for so long.

Only during Smeargate did Balls' true despicable colours come out, when he was exposed as one of Downing Street's gang of ruthless 'reservoir dogs'.

In the death throes of a discredited government, parliamentary democracy is being devoured in a last ditch bid to shore up power in the hands of a deluded, self important elite.

Now Balls is riding rough-shod over parliament, appointing one of his cronies to the non-job of 'children's commissioner', despite the whole of the commons committee dead set against the decision.

'Children's commissioner' for England was a non-starter anyway. A non-job with a fat salary, big office, big budget. A guaranteed gob making mealy-mouthed pronouncements to suck up to the boss.

All part of Balls' empire building in the stalinesque department of schools, children, dinner ladies, et al, before Cameron's quango-hunters go for the kill.

Sheerman has rightly asked why committees should bother vetting appointments if they were ignored. But hey, why should a little matter of parliament get in the way of a patsy.

During the MPs' expenses scandal, triple flipping Balls escaped the wrath of even the Telegraph.

Despite the Baby P scandal and SATS fiasco, Balls managed to wriggle out of blame, passing the buck with a bucket of whitewash while hiding behind the smokescreen of accountability.

But Balls, propped up by his City pals from his days at the treasury, has only one political protector and that is Beleaguered Brown.

The Orange Party reserves a particular distain for Balls, particularly when he makes occasional forays to woo the left.

There's something distasteful about a politician who's making the most of his privileged upbringing and riding on the coat-tails of one discredited PM to keep him in power, backed up by the macho Downing Street bully boy machine.

But an MP and cabinet crony who thinks he knows better than the commons, imposing his will against that of a respected and influential commons committee, is playing a dangerous game of cat and mouse politics. Balls can survive only as long as Brown survives.

Sheerman's outburst over Balls came as he makes a play for the chair of the PLP which at a stroke would kick Brown into touch.

With Brown drifting along with post conference blues, Sheerman fired an opening shot in the battle to oust Brown and save the Party.

The Balls broadside was delivered with precision to take out his side-kick and stop Balls' leadership dream in its tracks.

Nice one Barry. Now all it takes is for Mandy to make his move with a march of the Millipedes. Before or after Glasgow NE?

Read More...

Academies Giveaway A Desperate Act

Schools are being given away to the highest bidder by a desperate government in a belated bid to boost its stalled academies sham. Ditching the £2m set-up fee, school secretary Ed Balls has been forced to own up to a miserable failure. The fag-end government has resorted to freebies to foist on the public a flagging flagship of its failed New Labour brand.

Teaching unions have branded plans to scrap the £2m up front set-up costs for academy sponsors as a "sign of desperation" just to keep the discredited scheme going.

Balls says academies are moving into a "new phase", NewLabourspeak for failure.

At £2m a pop, only wealthy charities and sponsors could beg or borrow the cash, now a non-starter in recession depression.

Making it easier for private sponsors to rule the roost in English state schools, is a shameful way of playing politics with pupils.

The government is bent on privatising schools by the back door and bent on switching "failing" schools to its discredited costly PFI academies sham, handing control over to big business backers and government sympathisers.

Far from getting to grips with a class divide with any kind of level playing field, New Labour academies spin has made things worse with extra cash pumped into academies having a divisive impact on other schools in that area.

Protests from parents who have to put up with the hype of shallow academies and heavy-handed plans for more, often fall on deaf ears.

Many academies have been oversubscribed - creaming off the best kids to make them look good, leaving the dross to rot in underfunded and under-resourced bog standard comps.

Ramming dodgy ideals down gullible young throats so sponsors can get off on a high school high is despicable. Increasing the number of undemocratic, unaccountable schools makes a mockery of any pretence of listening to local opinion.

Schools are left to fight a government obsession with league tables, to produce record GCSE results, to stave off closure and meet unrealistic targets.

Refurbishment is out of the question. There's not the money to be made or favours to dole out.

What's the cost of building, equipping and staffing a new school, £10m? £170m has been squandered on ubiquitous management consultants to help them bid for shiny new schools under Building Schools for the Future, with little to show for it, according to figures obtained by the Tories under FoI.

So 170 new schools could have been built or refurbished, instead of throwing more money at New Labour cronies in a management consultancy money-spinning venture.

The then schools supremo, Andrew Adonis, surprised many when government moves to privatise state schools and hand them over to undemocratic business backers, were revealed last year with plans for a huge expansion of the flagging academies programme.

The Orange Party is incensed by the idea of more New Labour academies spin and a further 'focus on failure and closure' with a ruthless switch to discredited academies.

What was a twinkle in Blair's starry eyes became a byword for sleeze. City academies were at the centre of the 'Cash for Honours' political scandal when academy business backers were given peerages in return for New Labour Party loans.

Academies are nothing more than a shabby sham with smoke and mirrors accounting to hide away public spending and debt. The programme is a not-so-clever way of building schools under the discredited PFI scheme, to keep the building off the public balance sheet.

Pupils are handed over to an army of non-elected education consultants and bureaucrats in privately managed academies, out of the control of the local education authorities. Pupils are 're-educated' to suit dodgy ideals. Targets are manipulated by sympathisers to suit their own ends.

The government has already earmarked 638 schools in England as 'failures' under the National Challenge programme. They face funding cuts and a switch to the academy programme, unless they meet unrealistic GCSE targets and toe the line. Expanding the academies programme further will result in more schools branded as 'failures'.

But desperate times call for desperate measures if the fag-end government is to press ahead with its private plan to build shiny new temples to New Labour.

Read More...

GCSE Numbers Game Fails Pupils

Pupils are paying the price as pawns in a GCSE numbers game to prop up a government charade. The muddled exams mess has become a measure of failed New Labour performance which is failing children.

When a government department is put under the microscope, spin and manipulation are not far behind.

The government's obsession with GCSE exams is an inflatable joke. They've let the schools down, they've let the pupils down and they've let themselves down. New Labour has failed to deliver on its education promise, according to a Newsnight poll.

Deprived and disadvantaged youngsters in bog standard comps bear the brunt of a government playing politics with education instead of fixing the problems of their own making.

The current GCSE sham should be abolished. Only key subjects of maths and English are needed for entry into some professions. The rest are a mass of inappropriate and dumbed-down meaningless "studies" which are a yardstick for nothing.

A GCSE does what it says on the tin - a general certificate of secondary education. Nothing too taxing, but enough to show that youngsters spent some time at school. GCSE's certainly don't stretch bright pupils. It's difficult to know how the kids keep motivated and keep going.

GCSEs have become a shabby judge with schools reduced to entering pupils for soft option and pointless vocational subjects to boost results and school performance. Obsession with league tables produce record GCSE results, to stave off closure and meet unrealistic targets.

Schools are playing the system, as the government tries to switch "failing" schools to its discredited costly PFI academies sham, handing control over to big business backers and government sympathisers.

The government, with its school secretary, Ed "get me out of here" Balls, cannot keep up the charade for much longer. Today's shocking figures reveal the true extent of a decade of New Labour's failure.

The government record is appalling. Figures released by LibDems reveal after a decade of drivel, the number of 16-year-olds leaving school without even achieving the basic standard of five good GCSEs is expected to top 3 million.

Young people are churned out of a crammed classroom which has no room or time in the over-packed exam-obsessed curriculum to develop their skills and talents.

In the topsy turvy world obsessed with making everyone 'equal', failure is rewarded with a pat on the back and a clutch of worthless pieces of paper.

Rewards for failure does no one any favours. Far from creating a classless society, a decade of New Labour has widened the gap between the haves and have-nots. Class divisions are most noticeable in classrooms.

GCSEs have produced a class-ridden two tier system as independent schools come up with their own solution. More independent schools are switching to the harder iGCSEs this year to stretch pupils. The most able are leapfrogging GCSEs and taking AS levels a year early instead.

That comes at a price. Private schools are financially propped up by taxpayers with the sham of charitable status. State schools are left to muddle along with a discredited Mickey Mouse exam system to make them look good.

State schools, with all eggs in the exams basket, cannot compete on a level playing field. What's fair and equal about that?

The stakes are high. Exam boards compete for candidates. The more they dumb down, the more candidates and entry fees, they get. Schools face being stripped of funding and placed under the control of New Labour sympathisers as part of the 're-education' process.

Meanwhile, the government continues to massage the GCSE figures by introducing course-work modules and more retake opportunities for students, treating academic and vocational qualifications as if they are identical.

Today's artificial 'record' GCSE results come hard on the heels of last week's artificial 'record' A-level results. Both spun in a desperate attempt to prop up a decade of failed government education policies.

The legacy is a lost generation of youngsters branded failures with no future.

Read More...

Bursting The Inflated A-Level Bubble

Mickey Mouse A-levels and dumbed down exams. Too many fresh faces chasing too few places. Thousands of anxious pupils await the fickle finger of fate with yet more record results and record straight As. The inflated A-level results bubble lets everyone down.

After jumping through hoops it's time to jump up and down before the smile is wiped away and harsh reality kicks in.

The goal posts have been moved. The rules of the game have been changed. Dumbed-down exams do no-one any favours. Hard-working students know it's all a con but are forced to go along with the ride.

There are plenty of students who've studied their socks off to win a place at a proper university. The Orange Party takes its mortarboard off to them. But for most it's a reward for failure. Youngsters are left demoralised and fearful of a future with nothing to look forward to than a life on the dole and mountain of student debt.

The system breeds failure. Those at the bottom are given false hope and unrealistic expectations with a dodgy course at scum-bag poly. Those at the top are not being stretched and steered away from 'hard' subjects to 'soft 'studies' so schools and politicians look good.

No doubt Ed "Didn't I Do Well" Balls or one of his minions will be shouting the results from the rooftop. Never mind the quality feel the quantity. Another record pass rate from the most hard-working, cleverest pupils in the world. But there's nothing "progressive" about cheating deprived children out of a proper education.

Balls' cock-eyed schoolboy experiment in social engineering has been a miserable failure. The pipe-dream to improve social mobility has had the opposite effect.

Far from closing class divisions, New Labour policy is widening the gap with a system bending over backwards to be so 'equal' it fails almost everyone.

Youngsters deserve more than dumbed down exams and moving the goalposts to massage pseudo-educational credentials and ministers' egos.

State schools are shunning traditional academic subjects, as the government encourages bog standard schools to take ‘soft options’ with 'studies' in the title. More state school pupils should be going to proper universities to read proper subjects. But the system drives down standards.

A-levels are becoming 'Mickey Mouse' qualifications, according to the think tank Civitas, failing to stretch the brightest youngsters and the government is in the thick of it.

Teachers said better marks were not due to improved lesson standards or more talented candidates. The rise in A grades is because exams are easier to pass and students are granted multiple re-sits blamed in part on the 'modular' system, with courses broken up into bite-sized bits to boost scores.

The system is a shambles. The standard now so low it’s a national disgrace. No-one trusts A-levels not least students, parents, employers and universities.

Times are tough. Universities have been forced to cap places and forced to entice over overseas students to make ends meet. This year some 60,000 will find no place and no job to fall back on.

Ministers should have thought of that before setting off to cloud cuckoo land to get 50 per cent of teenagers into university.

Tories are determined to do something about dumbed-down exams promising to toughen up the examinations system, with a focus on harder questions and more credit for youngsters studying 'hard' subjects rather than the 'soft' options.

That's a welcome start but for years politicians of all colours have dabbled in the education game and A-levels have been reduced to a numbers game.

Today that's to be expected from a stalinesque government department of education, schools, dinner ladies and whatever which has built its fortunes on a lie.

The rot trickled down from Whitehall to Town Hall, as an ideological battle was fought between the do-ers and do-gooders. Rigourous study of an academic subject gave way to idealistic babble about the rounded individual.

Exams have no place in that School of Life. Teachers have been turned into learning support workers. Inspiring teachers imparting a body of knowledge to young, eager minds willing to learn are becoming a thing of the past.

A whole generation is being lost in a sea of confidence tricks, false hopes and unrealistic expectations. Just what is the point of giving everyone a worthless piece of paper? Call it a day and dole out a school leaving certificate.

Reward students with success in proper exams by scrapping crippling student fees and loans. Put more money into funding more places at proper universities for proper subjects.

Leave the universities to set their own entrance exams with their own exam boards. Isn't that where A-levels first started?

Read More...

Silly Billy No Mates Brown

Casting caution and Blears to the wind, Silly Billy Brown has come up with another YouTube video, with an impression of Rory Bremner. And Billy-no-mates Brown has popped up on Facebook with only Mandy for a new best friend.

Silly Billy Brown's excruciating YouTube video was always going to be a gift to satirists and Rory Bremner has got all the ducking and a-divin' down to a tee. As some politicians have remarked already, 'Bremner, Bird and Fortune' would be funny if it wasn't all so damn true.

Now to cap it all, Billy-no-mates Brown has a Facebook page paid for by taxpayers, with only Mandy the Magnificent signing up to be Brown's new best friend. How many more cronies and yes men will have their arms twisted over the next few weeks to join the Brown party?

Today it's still the battle of the cuts and chancellors as sour-graped Balls pushes out Darling and takes time out from his busy schedule ducking responsibility for the Sats fiasco and Baby P scandal to offer a few words on the spat which should be taken at best with a large dollop of Brown sauce and at worse as a pack of lies.

Cut through the crap, tell it how it is. Voters are big enough to take it. That's what shadow chancellor Osborne's masterclass in The Times has done, with a refreshing call for honesty over dishonesty. Now it's New Labour on the back-foot as the schoolboy Mr 10% jibe heads nowhere.

Still bored? Then the Orange Party recommends Philip Johnson's excellent demolition job on the festering New Labour project and a portrait of Brown as a man convinced of his own rectitude.

To surmise that Brown will disappear up his own false rectitude isn't so far off the mark.

Today the struggling Supreme Leader is due to announce details of the long-awaited inquiry into what ranks as the most disgusting and shameful of all Blair's legacies - the Iraq war, as part of the born-again-Brown campaign.

If there's even a whiff that will be held in secret and doesn't have powers to subpoena witnesses under oath - it's a sham. Another pack of lies, deceits and cover-ups which will do nothing to assuage true Labour rebels and LibDems.

A shameful piece of party politicking that will bring only disgust from the families of servicemen and women sent to war ill-equipped on the back of a pack of lies.

YouTube: Clip from 'Bremner, Bird and Fortune', C4

HatTip: Dizzy

Axe graphic: News of the World

Read More...

Brown Is Busted, Get Used To It

Bunkered Brown has run out of time and options. His days at Downing Street are doomed. He's pinning his hopes on pulling a rabbit out of the hat and shuffling the Titanic deck chairs. But there's no plain sailing for a sinking ship. 

If the rabbit turns into a chipmunk and no-one wants to play musical chairs, bunkered Brown is busted. He better get used to it. 

At Westminster all eyes and ears are on Big Ben when the clock strikes 10. Votes will be cast and the die is cast for Brown. Alea iacta est. The next frenzied 24 hours will be a long time in politics.

The Chipmunk scurried back to Salford to spend more time with her expenses after delivering battered Brown a killer blow on the eve of elections. Public humiliation without having the guts to sack her has left the sisterhood seething. A Revenge Of The Chipmunk may be on the cards sticking  the knife in the ex-Supreme Leader.

The backbench revolt is real enough no matter how Mandy tries to spin it otherwise. Brown's fate was sealed by the angry Parliamentary Labour Party who have had enough of a Party leader who doesn't give a toss about them. 

Rebels may well have a cause as they try to gather more than the magic 70 signatures to force a leadership challenge. But the cyber plot of an email doing the rounds to oust the once Dear Leader is a waste of time. There's no need. Mortally wounded, Brown is toast. 

The Orange Party well remembers other letters doing the rounds. They usually don't come to much. A useful seed but little else. The plan is to undermine the PM so much that a top dog will pull the rug from under him.

All the usual suspects are there. Clarke, Byers and Milburn. Once again, there's talk of a 'stalking horse' joining with the rebels to force a contest and stick the knife in. 

But all this mindless manoeuvring is pointless. Beleaguered Brown's fate was sealed by the PLP and Guardian calling on the Party to cut him loose. With friends like that you don't need enemies. 

Disastrous results from today's local and Euro elections are a side-show but they will provide the catalyst for the end-game as Brown is finally forced to face up to reality and admit the game is up. 

The sheer chaos sparked by the MPs' expenses scandal and blind panic over disastrous poll ratings says it all. The government is falling to bits.

The end can only come come at cabinet-level. Pre-emptive strikes by two homes secretary Smith and rocking the boat Blears sent a clear message that the time is up. Out of the chaos a whole raft of challenges have popped up. When the authority of a prime minister is undermined to such an extent it really is time to spend more time with his family. 

The key lies in the once vaunted reshuffle. Flammed up by Downing Street as part of born-again-Brown to re-assert his authority. it was all designed to give the government breathing space and a new lease of life to cling on ahead of the inevitable general election. 

But it's all too late. Brown should have struck while the expenses iron was hot. Two of those earmarked for the sack to show his 'strong leadership' have now gone. His chancellor and foreign secretary don't want to budge. If they are forced out, chances are they would rather quit the cabinet leaving another direct challenge to Brown's authority. 

Brown is not in the business of promoting his enemies to stop the plotting but the neat solution to entice back Blair bruiser John Reid with the poisoned chalice of the home office again fell on deaf ears. Promoting his henchman Balls to the treasury would sign his political suicide note to the PLP and the country. 

It's looking increasingly likely that Brown simply cannot carry out a major reshuffle and that leaves him a dead duck.

The option left is to refuse to budge with the backing of His Master's Voice Balls and the tight cabal of Downing Street cronies in it for the lust of power and glory. Then trying to prise him out clinging on by his fingernails is hugely difficult for MPs or ministers. 

But then a prime minister's power and support simply melts away with a government in meltdown. 

Meanwhile the long-suffering public are angry and fed-up with MPs' expenses and desperate for a general election. Instead they have to put up with the charade of petty power politics. Only through a Euro election and a Middle Earth battle in the English shires can they make their views known at the ballot box. 

But use their vote they must. If only to pick someone who will fight tooth and nail for a referendum on the disgraceful Lisbon Treaty and someone who isn't in it for themselves to feather their nest as the next Euro millionaire on the EU gravy trail. That narrows the field somewhat. 

Mid Picture: Blears "Rocking The Boat" shipwreck brooch 

Read More...

Why Has Saint Vince Set His Sights On Darling?

Saint Vince has launched a scathing personal attack on the fiddling chancellor calling on bunkered Brown's ex-Darling to quit. Meanwhile it's move over Darling as the struggling Supreme Leader plots to ditch his old pal and install his henchman Balls at No 11. The Saint has set his sights on one sinner but why him when there's a whole greedy gang to choose from? Coincidence or all part of a cunning political plan? 

Accusing useless Darling of fiddling away with his hands in the till of the exchequer while the economy crashes and burns, Cable's personal attack in the Mail must be music to the ears of the Downing Street plotters eager to look for any excuse to get rid of a liability. 

Now LibDem leader Nick Clegg has followed Cable in calling on the chancellor to quit over his expenses claims.

Top politicians accusing one of their kind of being a downright crook without the legal protection of parliament are rare. But there's no stopping Saint Vince: 

"Here is the company finance director caught with his fingers in the till. He doesn’t explain. He doesn’t apologise. He just blames his colleagues for not stopping him. His moral authority has vanished. He must go, now."

Cable's attack has been simmering for some time. Today it is unleashed with all the furry fury Vince can muster. As he readily admits - usually he attacks policy not the person but MPs' expenses have changed all that. 

Few sensible souls would disagree with Captain Sensible. Darling is indeed up there with the crooks fiddling his second homes allowance with some dizzy flipping and having the cheek to claim for accountants to fill out his tax form. But Cable should be careful for what he wishes.

If Saint Vince reckons 'serial flipping' Darling must go then who are mere mortals to disagree? But apart from his good-self brought in by Brown as a "people's chancellor" who can fill his boots? Step forward Ed. Not the Young One but the "Smearing" One. 

Cable's outburst comes on the very day when the plot thickens and the Sunday Times reveals Brown's cunning plan to instal His Masters' Voice Ed Balls as chancellor - one of the most despised men in the tight cabal of New Labour cronies. The man who has been accused of leading the smearing sleazy Downing Street reservoir dogs. The man up to his neck in triple second homes fiddling. 

The minister who managed to wriggle out of any responsibility for the Sats fiasco and Baby P scandal. The minister who has created a monolith stalinesque department of totalitarian social engineering. And the minister who along with Brown made a complete balls up of the economy.

Balls has been protected by the Telegraph which chose to bury his expenses fiddles. Darling has been in the eye of the Telegraph storm accused of switching the designation of his second home four times in as many years and no doubt more scandalous revelations will follow.

Cable is the economic oracle on who and what really messed up the economy. He came up whiter than white on the expenses scandal.  

But a very personal attack just isn't his style. By attacking Darling, he's left himself wide open to the accusation of collusion in the nasty sordid world of Brown politics. 

Beleaguered Brown is planning to be in like a shot and unveil his cabinet reshuffle and his "national" plan to deflect away from the humiliating Euro and local election defeats this Thursday. 

One Leader, One Party, One People has a nasty ring to it but suits both Brown and his henchman down to the ground. Does Cable reckon he's in with a chance to be part of that 'national' plan and a national government of 'unity'? 

If Cable is coming out with a genuine heart-felt plea to put someone trusted at the helm of the economy fair enough but if he is using it for personal ambition to climb up the greasy pole of politics any credibility and well-deserved respect will be blown out of the water. 

Cable and Brown go back a long way to the days of John Smith's Labour Party. He should stay clear of the petty Blairite/Brownite New Labour Party politics - unless he plans to rejoin them. Or unless there's a crafty new Lib-Lab plot hatching in the background.  

The Orange Party is quite chilled about the whole shenanigans. 

Brown should go ahead and ditch Darling with the blessing of Saint Vince and install Balls. The Parliamentary Labour Party will have a duck fit. Brown and his henchman may be out on their ears.

New Labour will tear itself apart. Johnson could come up all beaming and Blairite. Cameron will still win the election hands down - only the New Labour Party will have put up one hell of a healthy fight. And that's better than watching a mangy diseased dog die. 

Read More...