BNP on Question Time

A very high proportion of the kids at our nearest primary are children of first generation African immigrants. Somalis, Nigerians, Ghanans (sp?), Ethiopians. It is actually a very good school and several children every year win scholarships to private schools. For this reason, amazingly, several middle class parents from surrounding enclaves have started sending their children there. If the children spoke Polish, Estonian, Lithuanian, and Slovenian, I still would have the same concerns. I would also be loathe to send my kids to school if they were likely to pick up the indigenous cockney accent. It is true that inner London has had high levels of people of non-Anglo Saxon races for decades but there used to be pockets where you could move to and find a decent school and these pockets have got smaller and smaller. As I mentioned, people like me have been cornered into Dulwich and East Dulwich and whilst there are enough primary school places in the borough as a whole, East Dulwich always runs out of places. A persons's enunciation and articulation is just as important as their educational atainment in employment prospects. I appreciate that you and I may use slang that has its roots in Jamaican, but we both know how to speak differently in say a job interview. When I hear the secondary school children on the 148 bus every morning, they don't know any other way of speaking. I know that if I ever interviewed them for a job that required them to speak to the public, clients or our networks, I would never employ them. jude

C A Jones Have you considered home tutoring, Jude? My boys are grown up now but if I did it again I would do it at home. Even tho they went to good schools they still managed to pick up bad manners and unsuitable friends. Luckily they grew out of both.

I would worry about them not aquiring social skills if I kept them at home. I enjoyed school because I made lots of friends. My preferred option for primary are in this order: i) St Anthony's Catholic School, Dulwich (top primary in the borough and around 25% ethnic minority. Free school meals to less than 5%). We are both practising Catholics so we have a very good chance of getting a place. ii) Private school (we can afford this comfortably for one child and probably with a struggle could stretch to two). iii) Move in with my parents in Woking, Surrey and send to local Catholic school there. iv) Move in with Pat's parents in Laois, Ireland and send them to school there v) Home schooling Sending them to a failing or what I consider to be unsuitable school wouldn't even feature on the list. In terms of secondary school, we will send them to one of the grammar schools in Orpington if they're bright, to the Oratory if they're not and if we couldn't secure either of those options, an Irish boarding school would be affordable. jude

Maybe you should concentrate more on the joys of having them and less on what you plan to do with them Jude!

Years ago, that was possible. You had children and they simply attended the nearest school, end of story! Also, the joy of having children and wanting the best for them are not mutually exclusive! I would add, this isn't about immigration (at least not in the suburbs and outside big cities). There is a wider problem with declining educational standards and indiscipline in schools. I have also argued here before that I don't think the comprehensive system can ever support bright children adequately (My primary reason for supporting UKIP is their pledge for a grammar school in every town). jude

C A Jones I went to Grammar School and I think they should be re-instated. It is not fair for studious academics to be in classes with kids who are not. Teaching goes at the rate of the slow children leaving the bright children bored and open to mischief.

I went to a grammar school and look what happened to me!!

C A Jones Exactly my point, Eman. The quotes that stick in my mind are things like John Lydon's unforgettable "Turn the other cheek too often and you'll get a razor thru it!"

"A persons's enunciation and articulation is just as important as their educational atainment in employment prospects. I appreciate that you and I may use slang that has its roots in Jamaican, but we both know how to speak differently in say a job interview. When I hear the secondary school children on the 148 bus every morning, they don't know any other way of speaking." Well, if there's one place that young people are most likely to speak in a slang filled and incomprehensible fashion, I'd say the bus journey to and from school is probably it. I don't think this tells us anything much about their future job prospects. Most young people soon work out how they should and shouldn't talk in job interviews.

That remains to be seen. Last time I interviewed (for an admin post) around half of the applicants under the age of 25 didn't make the second round due to their 'poor verbal communication skills' as I wrote on the assessment sheets. jude

C A Jones Some times I think half the population are losing the use of language except of a most rudimentary nature. Txt spelin is fkn up de ritten word. Consumerism is their new god. Advertisers learnt a lot from the Nazi war propaganda machine.

C A Jones Yes, giving the ignorant a voice is not a good idea. They don't know what's good for them.

C A Jones What's ovies?

"That remains to be seen. Last time I interviewed (for an admin post) around half of the applicants under the age of 25 didn't make the second round due to their 'poor verbal communication skills' as I wrote on the assessment sheets." Well in the next few weeks I'll be interviewing candidates for some new jobs we're providing under the government's Future Jobs Fund - for young people aged 18 - 24 who've been unemployed for 10 months or more. I'll let you know if I can understand any of their answers.

Of those I interviewed, I could understand their answers. I just felt that their manner of speech was not appropriate for somebody answering the telephone at an organisation which has to deal with enquiries from all kinds of people from academics to students to research scientists. The job you're interviewing for may have a different requisite standard of spoken English. Also, our opinions on what kind of level of spoken English would be tolerable in a colleague are bound to be coloured by our different political bias and world-view. I suspect that more people (especially in large commercial organisations) would gravitate towards my feelings on this issue. jude

Ah well, I'd suggest they live a little, relax...stop working to a pro forma thinktank agenda. The economists will always be horizon scanning for the setting required for the millstone; white bread, wholemeal or f*cking tooth cracking journey bread. I know which I'd prefer :-)

C A Jones There's always Hovis Best of Both... B-)

...high in moral fibre and kibbled goodness, hurrah for diversity :-)

I was reading a report by Labour MP Frank Field on immigration. His report claims that people from outside Europe account for two thirds of immigration. One problem is that once people have been working here for a few years citizenship is almost guaranteed. I can't see how this fits with Bukh's claim that "I'm not sure what it's got to do with immigration - which in the last ten years has primarily been from Eastern Europe". We need some immigration because the birth rate of british born people has fallen below the 2.2 required to sustain the population. However, we have been attracting too many of the wrong kind of people and losing too many of our best graduates to a better quality of life abroad (especially in sciences). There is the argument that immigrants will do the low-paid jobs that british people won't do, but they would do them if you put a time limit on the social security safety net. As in a recent report from America that "In the latest sign of the Las Vegas Valley’s economic free fall, U.S. citizens are starting to show up in the early mornings outside home improvement stores and plant nurseries across the Las Vegas Valley, jostling with illegal immigrants for a shot at a few hours of work". jude

C A Jones If you refuse 'suitable' employment your meagre benefit is halved. An ex company director must take a job as a shelf-stacker if me is on offer. If our manufacturing hadn't gone abroad for cheap labour and lax regulations we wouldn't be in this mess.

Mr. Nazi Wifebeater - I can only say "Fuck off!" C. A. Jones

I take it you don't agree then Carole? :O)

I got incensed before I got to the last bit. I've always had a problem with premature verbal ejaculation. Carole

'tis but a mild suspicion, but Mr NWB may be adopting a slightly outre style, as in : http://www.thedailymash.co.uk/politics/politics-headlines/bnp-to-offer-f...

I'm not so sure lenchenelf. I suspect NWB is an aspiring facist using ABCtales for his own devious ends. We must be vigilant. Given half a chance he will take over the world.

Or at least Norwich ;O)

However, it's not a question of being equal, it's a question of having the same rights whatever your IQ might be. I'm of the opinion that a large number of BNP's supporters may well have a lower IQ than yours or mine. You're suggesting they have no right to vote? Democracy is of course flawed, but I don't agree with some of the original thinkers on ABC, who can argue with great force and skill for anarchy, for example. It seems the choices boil down to three: democracy, dictatorship (or despotism if you prefer the royalty option) or anarchy. The trouble is after a short periods of anarchy the people start demanding a strong man to lead them. Usually this turns out to be a demagogue who will blame all society's ills on a minority group. He will persuade whole countries that this group requires dealing with. People will die at places like Auschwitz or Katyn or Choeung Ek. No, people aren't all equal, but denying people civil rights or the right to appear on a television programme on the grounds that you despise what they say is wrong. There were some arguments above that the BNP shouldn't have been allowed on Question Time, but I doubt it had any effect other than to boost the viewing figures. Doubtless these figures reflected some people who would not fall into the programme's normal demographic profile. Personally, I feel someone who takes a country to war on the basis of a lie should be kept from our television screens. Still, he was good enough to tell us he had taken the advice of "God". Rant over.

I don't what to give the impression that I think 'It can't happen here': Like FZ I believe it can, I also believe that muzzling people is the first step. Doesn't anyone read Voltaire any more?