Coming to heel
Sit! Um, take a walk. Sniff that other dog’s butt. See? He does exactly what I tell him. Bart Simpson, Bart’s Dog Gets A “F”.
You know, I’ve just watched a report on Channel 4 News about children with special needs being denied the care they desperately require by prevaricating Local Education Authorities, some of who - it is alleged - are breaking the law in doing so.
The LEAs are policed by the Department for Education and Skills which, it is also alleged, has been negligent in ensuring LEAs provide the proper care to these children. So much so, in fact, it is being reported to the Parliamentary Ombudsman by a children’s charity.
At the end of the report, Jon Snow said that Channel 4 News had asked someone from DfES to come onto the programme but that they had “refused”.
Now, forgive me, but don’t we pay these bastards their wages? Give them their jobs? Aren’t they elected public servants. We’re their sodding bosses, aren’t we? If we want to know something shouldn’t it be a case of a representative showing up and saying, “you rang, sir?”
I don’t want to know state secrets, just why parents are having to pay thousands of pounds of their own money to challenge unlawful decisions denying services to their kids which, if this government had an ounce of compassion, would be dished out like honours to Labour party donors.
If you refused to do what your boss had reasonably asked of you, you wouldn’t be met with a faint air of disappointment, you’d be saying, “fries with that, madam,” pretty damn quick.
When I’m running this two-horse toilet of a country, the next time Ruth Kelly can’t be bothered to turn up to tell the people who finance her lavish lifestyle why some of the most vunerable in society aren’t being looked after in the way they deserve, Jon Snow will have the power to send a policeman round to her office and have her dragged kicking and screaming by her hair into the studio. With someone like Charles Clarke maybe a pork chop or similar dragged along on a rope would serve to entice him.
But of course, it’s the same old story. Nobody gives a damn because their kid doesn’t have autism and dyslexia and isn’t banging his head against a classroom wall in frustration because he’s in trouble for being behind in his work.
Fourth largest economy in the world? Get stuffed. Prove it. Show me the bloody money. If these people were asked to run a cake shop they’d be out on their arses inside a week.
Posted on July 20th, 2005 at 8:15 pm
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Absolutely right!
We fail these children and as for ministers hiding away from their department’s failings, there is no better case for a bit of zero tolerance!
I’m afraid it all comes down to priorities and public pressure. There are lots of things we should be doing and could afford to be doing but we are not. At the end of the day, the public may say they are in favour of something, but how many are willing to campaign for it?
Saying all that, you are right, it is a disgrace when politicians can’t even be bothered to defend their position. It’s not that surprising though. I think our media and electoral system help politicians get away with a lot of bad government.
By the way, a minor point, being the fourth largest economy does not mean we are the fourth richest economy. I think we just about make the top fifty!
Neil, you’re entirely right when you say it’s a case of “he who shouts loudest” with Government. Or, with New Labour, “he with the largest donation or influence”.
Going on their past form, I imagine this Government take a strictly utilitarian approach towards these children. Remember when Charles Clarke said learning for learning’s sake was a “bit dodgy”? He doesn’t understand anything that doesn’t contribute to the economy.
And so it is with children with special needs. They’re unlikely to make compliant, efficient little drones like children without learning difficulties - they don’t conform to the one-size-fits-all programme to produce worker ants - and so do not deserve the investment. It’s a form of eugenics.
Learning difficulties often means they have much higher IQs though, which means if the education system could tap into that around the difficulties they’d be suddenly centrally important to economic growth. Did you ever read ender’s game?
As for the cake shop: indeed, charles clarke would embezzle all the eclairs.
I watched the report last night and it nearly had me banging my head against the walls in frustration at the situation. I then made the mistake of watching the BBC’s documentary on the mistreatment of patients in hospitals. I mean, stuffing someone full of diuretics then ignoring their crying for a bedpan for two hours. God help us.
I’m getting worried about this refusal to turn up and answer for these abuses. It may be the conspiracy theorist in me, but this government loves to look to America. There, if a journalist asks a trying question of the administration its the kiss of death to their career, because they lose their access to the Press Briefings and officials. It seems the government is trying to do the same thing here. Its contemptible, and last night was not an isolated incidence. It seems that Channel Four have been having a hard time getting Ministers on since the time they started asking difficult questions about illegal wars.
Someone should start keeping count of the number of times interviews are refused and tally it against the news provider to see if there is a trend. And for fair measure compare it to the possible other committments Ministers may have, like Parliament sitting, or dining with celebrities at Public expense.
As for the cake shop: indeed, charles clarke would embezzle all the eclairs.
I think in that situation, Prescott would pull rank and the Safety Elephant would just be left with the traces of peanuts.
Although we didn’t actually find any cakes in the cake shop, we did find evidence that the baker harboured the intention to bake cakes. We could not take the risk of these weapons of mass delectation falling into the wrong hands. Mr Kipling was unavailable for comment.
The report started by saying that 20% of children were “special needs”. What the hell’s going on? When I were but a lad, the number of poor souls going to the “mental defectives” class was far, far smaller.
Anyway, there are obvious ways to release funds within the education budget for these children; adopt teaching methods that allow ordinary classes to function with larger class sizes, change the system to allow reduction in bureaucratic costs, and bingo, money available. Alternatively, accept that state education in this country is an experiment that’s failed and try vouchers. I write with some feeling having seen one county let down the children of friends very badly.
Show you the bloody money?
We can’t, it’s all been spent on the 20% of our working population who now “work” for the state…
I can tell you what’s going on with the high rate of disabled children, particulary autism. The reason is that the autism rate had reached 1 in 89 in the UK. I’m not kidding.
This was caused by mercury-based US vaccines in the UK medical schedule for children. Last year, these vaccines were banned in the UK, and the goverment finally acknowledged the link. …I suppose that’s a good start.
I’m in the US, and we are firmly still in denial. Our rate is 1 in 166, and should reach 1 in 100 this year. I have an autistic son. He is being treated by removing the massive amounts of mercury, which test results have confirmed.
Amount insurance will pay: $0. Amnount government pays to help: $0. On the “tele”, we are fed the lie by our media, because the drug companies are the biggest advertisers. No one wants to get sued to damages.
The schools here are just as under attack as in the UK. They also are blatantly not providing services that the law requires.
Sadly, no one seems to want to calculate the costs of dealing with these children when they become adults, and cannot provide for themselves financially. The real mess this will cause in both our economies is coming, like an undetected asteroid. It’s not going to be pretty.
We yanks are to blame, plain and simple. In China, they instituted a vaccine program, with US vaccines. Two years ago, they had no autism cases. Today they have over one million. That my friends, is a smoking gun. You are correct when you say it wasn’t like this when we were young. I’m living with the results every day. God help the parents over there of these kids.