More Education, Education, Education? Medicine and Education a few parallels.

While driving home earlier this month a few us “customers” of state funded education heard that the Party feel that parents who “cheat” should be penalised for advancing their children. When we say cheat we mean trying to get their children into the best schools. Not too long ago the Party felt that co-payment should be verboten and so we here at ND Central started to note a few parallels between education and healthcare.

No surprise here given that one of us at ND Central was a victim of the “Old” Labour Party educational policy which dictated that all comrade serfs’ children, regardless of their ability, should be downgraded to a Party sponsored education, called comprehensive schools.

At the same time that the Old Labour Party elite, sorry they were called MPs then, who were the “true socialists” in those dim and distant days, felt it was totally acceptable for their children to be sent to Public schools (no doubt on MPs’ expenses). At that same time they, as parents, sorry political commissars, insisted that other parents’, their serfs’, children should be given the same “choice” that they had and given a true Soviet equalitarian comprehensive based education as opposed to a State funded (via MPs expenses) private or Public school education.

Such disadvantage is continued in this country in the course of “socialised medicine” and “socialised education” so that any black, inner city child with the intellectual ability to be a doctor will be denied a chance of a decent education, not because of race sex gender etc for these forms of discrimination are now outlawed, but because they live in the wrong street and because their parents cannot afford it.

This is fundamentally wrong.

Ability should be fostered, rewarded, encouraged and not penalised. A poor child who becomes a doctor will more than pay for their education via taxes (we estimate about 70% of their income per year will go to the State if that child becomes a GP) and the admission of people from various backgrounds will help enrich medicine by providing a rich vein of social experience as well as intellectual excellence and ability.

It was the same 30 years ago that one of us experienced “socialized education” but manage to rise above it even though it meant leaving the shores of Northernshire to experience true world-class education. Things are worse now due to the numerous reforms denying advancement via education to those gifted and the need for a large financial input in order to afford education. And that is if you have to live in the right area with access to good schools to start with.

Remember that everyone in the UK pays for state sponsored education and medicine via their taxes but not everyone gets a decent education (or healthcare) despite paying for it.

Given the “market” economy so beloved by the current Party Commissars in healthcare surely the fact that schools that are popular should mean that the money follows the patient, sorry pupil?

Oops we think there may be a cock up there. We think there may even be a slight “market” cock up here? The ZaNu Labour “market” theory would dictates that the consumer, the taxpayer, would have choice. We pay our taxes (our money as customers of the State) we want to go to school X or hospital Y.

Doesn’t work fellow comrade workers as the Party, all powerful, dictates your “choice” of healthcare (via “Choose” and Book run by the local commissars at the PCT), and your education (via local commissars at local Councils), in the same way it denies your children Blair care and Blair education using the well known Socialist Principle of all Gordons and Tonys are equal but some are more equal than others.

So No Joe the Plumber care here in the UK. No Joe the Plumber education here either. But Joe the Plumber (UK) works in a real market and charges what the hell he likes and gets his healthcare for free and knows his rights. You dear patient, or parent, operate in a true Soviet, or “socialized” market called the health service or school system. You can have any “choice” of school or healthcare as long as the Party approves.

Dissent, try to use your nouse, money or private healthcare and the Party disapproves and you will be penalized. Try to get your child into a good school and the Party will get you. Try to get your patient to see the right consultant and the Party will get you.

Old and Za Nu Labour are the same Party separated by a few decades but some of the names and most of the ideas are the same bar some mild tinkering with words and ideas and suits replacing donkey jackets.

Anyone see a headmaster refusing a Prime Minister’s child education based on his address? Doubt it but it is not the same for you or I comrade? We don’t get Darzi care when we are ill we get whatever cheap crap the people in the lower streams of a Northern comprehensive think is right for you based on their huge inability.

For some of the people running local healthcare now weren’t bright enough to hack it in the private sector or get into a University or medical school. They went into NHS management after failing several times in other jobs first.

Clearly in this respect Old and New Labour have succeeded. Don’t foster and encourage ability penalize it. You get what the Party provides and it is presided over by the least able of all, the NHS manager. The ones we know of were in the bottom third of a mixed ability comprehensive school in a large Northern industrial town.

Try to do better and you are penalised either financially by having to pay for better healthcare and education, or by the State denying you better care or education, that you have paid for by taxes and taking you to Court if you try to better your child.

So much for the every child matters agenda and the Children’s Act putting the child’s interests at the centre of any decision making process. So much for the mantra of “education, education, education” so often quoted from a former Party leader.

Education is the current way to advance oneself in our society and it should be provided on the basis of merit. If a child from an inner city school has the potential to be the next Einstein is recognized he or she should be sent to the best schools locally based on ability not location. If that child’s parents recognise this fact they should be encouraged in the same way that if they wanted to see a better surgeon at another hospital for a particular condition rather than a less good one locally they should be given real choice to do so.

Praise be to the Party who provide “choice” as a word but not as an option. Thirty years ago choice was limited in education locally but in healthcare it wasn’t. Now both are limited more than every before and more “choice” is in fact less.

No wonder the Americans are worried. More management means less progress and choice. Pay more get less. More Choice anyone?

Regardless of the politics who loses? The patient and their kids.