Who wants qualified teachers?

  The government have just announced, the day the Olympics start, that academies can employ unqualified teachers. Will the next step be unqualified doctors. Is this really to do with Gove's belief that teacher training is turning students into lefties?

  An alternative idea is that it will save money, employ retired policemen and services men who already have pension and so will work for low pay.  We already have the problem that 40% of mathematics lessons are taught by people who are not qualified to teach mathematics, this will probably go up to 100% in free schools and academies/

  What is also fascinating is that it is announced when parliament is not sitting and that MPOs seem to have no say in this. What is the purpose  MPs? They look after their pay and pensions and screw everyone else, they seem to have no control over ministers who behave like little Hitlers in their own department. Gove is clearly completely nuts as is Hunt but they just get away with it

  Britain needs to have a parliament which exercises some control over the executive.

Lazy MP's?

 The government has given up the timetable bill for the Hose of Lords reform. The process is going to take a long time. Obvious solution just keep meeting. Don't rise for a long recess, MP's could go on holiday on a  rota, you don't expect your bank to close for the summer, so keep Parliament open and just sit till everyone has their say.

House of Lords Reform

  It is clearly essential, whilst the existing lot try to do a good job and occasionally manage to tweak Tory legislation they fail in their main task of controlling the lower house. What are the main objections to the proposed current legislation. If it were elected it would want more powerl, why is that an objection? Only to the arrogance and importance of MP's. They have not shown themselves very useful. If one looks at this current Parliament we have the disastrous policies on the Health Service, that was certainly not in the manifesto of either the Tory nor the Lib-Dems but both Houses let it through. I know the House of Lords did some tweaks and those members of the House who got them through worked very hard but basically it is a Tory plot to dismantle the health service over a long period of time and the Lords caved in. My view is that we need another chamber which has teeth.

  Some argue that this would lead to deadlock and say look at what happens in the States but that is not a bipartite system but a tripartite system which increases the odds of a mess, especially when their is confusion between the head of State and the political leader. In many ways I see the reform not just to the house of Lords but also to the House of Commons.

 As a supporter of electoral reform the idea of some sort of proportional representation to be good. A lot depends on how the system works, as long as one has a choice of who one votes for and not just a party then it can lead to interesting people getting elected. There is also an argument that you will not get experts elected, surely that is up to the political parties to ask people who are distinguished in their field to stand. If the argument is that they would not be willing to stand for election then I would not want them to represent me. Prima donnas are not going to be very effective in such a chamber.

  An argument being used in a time of economic crisis seems to be that parliament should be doing something more important. I wonder what these more important things are? Passing more legislation, slagging of their opponents, ruining the education system, condemning people to poor housing. Having opted for austerity there is nothing the House of Commons can do to revitalise the British economy,  Much better that they argue about House of Lords reform than many other more silly legislation. The self importance of members of parliament would be sad if the consequences were not so serious.

  So let them get on with the reform of the Hosue of Lords and do it properly and please do not end up with the silly system that Tony Blair imposed on European election which was all about the power of the party machines.

The banking mess (Thatchers Legacy 3)

  I wonder why there is a need for an enquiry into the banking mess. Is it really that difficult to find out what went on?  It is always the same, a group of people think they can get away with it, why should anyone break the code.

  You work with a group of people, many become your mates and they are all in this together, The bosses are happy as long as the profits role in. Nobody will interfere even if their are rumours, your mates are trustworthy and we are all having good times. Bob Diamond et al are carrying home loads of loot so let us just get on with it.

  It is very similar to the expenses scandal in Parliament, most of them were into it but no MP told the story, of the present Cabinet, Gove, Lansley, Maude were all implicated. Even Mr Cameron paid back some money he wrongly claimed, it was only £947 but if tgis was a benefit it would soon be stopped if not hauled up in court.

 Is there a solution? Probably not a complete one, just because there is a law against murder does not mean that nobody murders anyone. More vigilance and far more banks, the growth of the size of banks combined with how few there are makes any problem much worse. The big bang helped to create a febrile atmosphere of mergers and bigger is better.

  The argument that the tripartite regulation regime was the cause of the problem just does not hold serious water, to mix some metaphors. The reason for introducing the system was because the Bank of England had failed in its monitoring duties. Going back, Barings, BCCI and Johnson Matthey Bankers, (they collapsed in 1984), all whilst the Bank of England was in charge!

 Why has no Labour politician argued that whilst some activities are the failure of regulation, there were very good reasons for splitting the regulatory functions into different bits after the failures of the bank. But in the end it was a mixture of hubris and cheating which caused the problems in the banking sector.  It is like the police, sometimes thay can act to stop a crime but most crime is not the fault of the police.

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