..as does April Fool’s Day
The NUT lived up to ints acronym, in passing a resolution to ban troops visiting schools. How utterly, utterly depressing. Of course, the leadership of the NUT is really a political party, and it is fighting the decision to go to war in Iraq by proxy, using our troops as a political football. Apparently the army targets young people from deprived areas of the country. It may well recruit in some of our poorer areas, outrageously offering the young people there a life of aspiration and discipline, with the chance to learn skills and see the world. But they also recruit in affluent areas - the cadets are extremely well represented in my constituency. It is so sad to see this union give the teaching profession such a bad name, they do not represent the knd of teachers I know. My uncle was on the execuitve of the NUT in the 1960s - a very different union then.
Andrew said on March 28th, 2008 at 10:39 am:
You are right about NUT being a political party, and it saddens me hugely. What saddens me even more is that Oxfam, the well-known anti-poverty charity which also campaigns to eradicate poverty in the United Kingdom, gives the appearance of becoming an arm of the Labour party. The deputy director and head of campaigns of Oxfam’s UK Poverty Programme loves publicly to condemn Conservative policy proposals. This Oxfam senior manager writes on her blog: “Some Tory councillor in Kent wants to sterilise benefits recipients. You know the people that write frothingly awful rightwing-as-fuck comments below any blogpost about the welfare state? Well, one of them actually got elected! Christ.” David Cameron’s appointment of Richard Balfe as his envoy to the trade union movement provides another opportunity for this Oxfam official to sneer at the Tories. She writes: “a Conservative envoy to the union movement. Note how the virulent anti-union rightwinger gets hushed up in the comments by the nodding heads.” She also wants to put more money in the pockets of families living below the poverty line whether in work or not through tax credits and benefits is, and is a staunch supporter of Gordon Brown’s tax credts, even though there is sufficient evidence to suggest that tax credits hide poverty rather than addressing it. What makes this Oxfam manager’s public statements about the Conservative party even more unacceptable is that she happens to be a Labour Councillor in Oxford and a local Labour party spokesperson on poverty in the UK. Isn’t there a conflict of interests here, I wonder.
Tizzy said on April 3rd, 2008 at 1:47 am:
Are you Richard Borrie?
http://tpa.typepad.com/waste/2008/03/council-spendin.html