This is the stuff that makes a mockery of @ukparliament.parliament.uk. The whole country knows Keir Starmer is a liar. He lied about antisemitism; he lied his way to the Labour leadership; he lied about the manifesto pledges & Israel’s genocide. But God forbid anyone should say it.
Hi Keith. Sorry this is a late response - I would really like to get along to this on Friday. I had a look at the Eventbrite & it says sales have ended. Is it sold out?
As we sit here, waiting to see if the maniac in the Whitehouse will carry out his threat to obliterate a whole civilisation, the people who’ve spent their precious time undermining the peace & anti-war movement bear a heavy responsibility. What unbelievable arrogance & stupidity.
… to the abandonment of sectoral collective bargaining). If anything, a sober reading of that history would tell you it’s far more likely that we’ll see further watering down, rather than building on these shaky foundations. Without a fight, it’s inevitable. (8/8)
People will say, ‘but this is a start’ - or that it’s better than nothing. To me, that is fantasy land - wilfully ignoring the trajectory of the last years (from the deletion of the Cabinet-level Minister, to the sidelining of a Single Status for Workers … (7/8)
… or any other business lobbyists, but were instead designed to fundamentally shift the balance of power in favour of workers, collectively and individually. (6/8)
At every opportunity since 2019, the Starmer leadership & those around it have used any opportunity to water down what was a comprehensive, systematic set of employment rights policies which - believe it or not - were not designed to be welcomed by the CBI … (5/8)
It’s not rocket science. A Parliamentary Labour Party & leadership that reneges on its election promises, that supports illegal wars & war crimes during a genocide, that cosies up to big business, cannot be trusted on workers’ rights either. (4/8)
… that laid out the detail of the powers that enforcement would have. In particular, there are huge gaps when it comes to resourcing, the representation of trade unions & workers, and adherence to international conventions. (3/8)
This excellent analysis by Institute of Employment Rights experts Ruth Dukes & Dave Whyte shows that the Fair Work Agency hasn’t lived up to the powerful, single enforcement agency envisaged in the 2019 Labour manifesto, or subsequent documents … (2/8)
🧵 Once again, when examined in detail, the Employment Rights Act is shown to be woefully inadequate. www.ier.org.uk/publications... (1/8)
Fair Work Agency’s priorities criticised days before its launch.
Cornerstone of the UK’s Employment Rights Act ‘in danger of becoming a dead duck’, says @unitetheunion.bsky.social General Secretary. Look out for our detailed Briefing on the FWA tomorrow. www.theguardian.com/business/202...
A bonafide lunatic. Happy Easter everyone. 😬
… not least because they are full of educators who are absolutely committed to the children’s interests & welfare. This isn’t about that, it is about the system - the trajectory of education policy & where we are heading.
What do we need to do: (12/13)
Very important point: this is by no means to say that every academy trust displays all of these elements. There are clearly loads of academies that do great work, provide fantastic educational environments & do superb work with parents & the community … (11/13)
… but since the introduction of LMS over 35 years ago, that has been the trajectory. The Academy model is the bridge for an anti-democratic project that has been in process for many, many decades. Specifically, academisation has: (10/13)
Academisation wasn’t the start of the story, but it is the major vehicle for the privatisation of our children’s education as we stand. It often doesn’t look like that from the outside, and many educators do not use the language of privatisation … (9/13)
These leaps, in tandem with the gradual creep of the model, have ultimately led to a less equal, more marketised, more competitive education system, which has been at a tipping point for some time. (8/13)
Academisation then took on a more radical direction under Michael Gove, in the Coalition Government elected in 2010 - with a huge expansion of the project, alongside the development of ‘free schools’. (7/13)
Spearheaded by Andrew Adonis, the idea was that through private sponsorship and increased autonomy, inner city schools in particular would see drastic improvements. (6/13)
The first steps towards actual academisation were taken by a New Labour government in 2000 (initially intended to replace poorly performing secondary schools). It was of a piece with Blair’s NHS reforms & based on a mantra that the market knew best. (5/13)
… was undermined by a drive toward school autonomy, free from the so-called constraints of local authority control. (4/13)
The story doesn’t start with academisation, it starts with Local Management of Schools (LMS), introduced in 1990. That sped a process by which an imperfect, but previously comprehensive model … (3/13)
I can understand that, but I feel we don’t talk enough about the structural dimensions of that inequality & how we got here.(2/13)
🧵 Everyone seems to agree that our schools are full of brilliant teachers, support staff & heads, undermined by a lack of funding & a system that breeds inequality, between schools & pupils. There are reasons for that. The focus for trade unions & many educators is funding. (1/13)
What’s wrong with academisation? My latest Substack:
open.substack.com/pub/mrbensel... @nasuwt-official.bsky.social
Tony Benn was born on this day in 1925. This is one of my favourite speeches by him, later called ‘The Issue is Thatcher’, made on the 22nd of November, 1990 - as she was resigning. It’s worth listening to the whole thing, but this bit particularly hits the mark.
A simple but very important point: it’s not just the extension of academisation, but the academy model that is the problem. Therein lies the difference between the kind of anti-academies campaign we need, and the one we’ve settled for over the last few years.
