Parlez~me~'n~Tory

Rightly wry, satirically right

Here’s a thought…

A few days ago Ian Craig, the chief schools adjudicator, recommended a range of new penalties to be introduced to punish parents who break school admissions rules by giving false addresses, fibbing about their ‘real’ address and moving house just to personally gain from the postcode.

Fair enough, I can understand that. But who is it that’s behind this mandate?

None other than the Secretary of State for Children, Schools and Families Ed Balls MP who along with his wife Yvette Cooper MP according to the Telegraph’s MP’s expenses research ‘flipped’ their homes a number of times

After being elected to Parliament for the first time in 1997, Miss Cooper, now the Chief Secretary to the Treasury, designated a modest property in her constituency of Castleford, west Yorkshire, as her second home, and began claiming mortgage interest payments on her parliamentary allowances.

In May 2005, after Mr Balls was elected MP for Normanton, Miss Cooper “flipped” her second home to the family house she shared with her husband and their three children in south London. The couple both began claiming a half share of the £1,466 mortgage interest, a sum of £733 each compared with the £530 she had been paying in Yorkshire.

Two years later, in May 2007, the couple moved again, to a larger, £655,000 property in north London which they designated their second home. Their mortgage interest payments increased to just over £1,031 each.

They also put the bill for the £2,000 cost of removal vans and men on their parliamentary expenses.

…and just in case you thought they were hard up

Yvette Cooper

Job: Chief secretary to the Treasury

Salary: £141,866

Total second home claims

2004-05: £19,428

2005-06: £14,234

2006-07: £15,995

2007-08: £12,219

Ed Balls

Job: Secretary of State for Children, Schools and Families

Salary: £141,866

Total second home claims

2004-05: Not elected

2005-06: £13,618

2006-07: £15,979

2007-08: £12,219

I put it to you Mr and Mrs Balls, you potentially gave false addresses, fibbed about your ‘real’ address and moved house just to personally gain from the postcode.

You are no better than those you seek to suppress.

Guest blog post contributed by the ChiefWhip over at LabourLost.org

First published 14th October 2009 at LabourLost.org as [Education! Education! Education!]

Back in 1997 Tony Blair and New Labour campaigned for office with the rallying call of “Education, education, education”.

It proved to be at the heart of their manifesto and at the heart of the desirous British people.

The public were tired of John Major’s sleazy Cabinet. They wanted change, they wanted to force change and by god they did, sweeping New Labour into Government with Tony Blair as Prime Minister.

The Labour Party spin machine tells a remarkable story of how investment upon investment made good the pledge of education, education, education but whilst history shows the investment was correct the people currently in charge tell quite a different story.

In the 10 years between 1997 and 2007 the core “per pupil” funding rose by 48% in real terms, that equates to £1,450 more per year per child. Fact.

But for all that investment did it go to the right areas and what is the result?

Well, according to a speech given yesterday by Sir Terry Leahy [knighted by the UK Government in 2002 and a current member of Gordon Brown's National Council for Educational Excellence] the standards are woefully low.

Sir Terry who is the boss of Tesco further stated, [because of this] Employers like us are often left to pick up the pieces.

Is Gordon Brown listening? Will he heed the warning?

Previously Tesco has sponsored a number of Labour Party events, though Sir Terry’s criticism will be seen as issuing further evidence to the Government of business turning its back on the party ahead of a General Election.

The moral of the story here is that investment is not enough, correct and accurate targeting and readjustment when and where required is just as important as cash in hand.