The brightest and best

@growstuff Yeah! Life's a real blast when you can receive £73 a week for doing nothing (apart from proving that you spend 35 hours a week looking for work).

Seriously? I do not believe that - £73 pw?

Maybe Farage will go and pick cabbages now he hasn't got a job (not that he ever did any work).

I think that quizqueen, a self confessed Farage fan, is a pretty extreme example of the Leave voters. I am sure they were not all as bad.

quizqueen Quote [People will only seek work when payments are stopped for them to stay at home and do nothing.] End Quote.

So you would be prepared to see children begging and starving in Britains streets because their parents have no money to feed them Quizqueen.

Last time that happened in Europe it brought about the Russian revolution and we all know what happened to the hardline supporters of the Tsar

Yeah! Life's a real blast when you can receive £73 a week for doing nothing (apart from proving that you spend 35 hours a week looking for work).

Such compassion quizqueen.

People will only seek work when payments are stopped for them to stay at home and do nothing.

This was on a private page so I've had to photo and crop it, but you get the gist.....

Simplistic solutions to complex questions is the key to populism.

The sign on the bus told us we gave £350m a week to the EU, so we must be better off if we left. (no consideration of the huge range of benefits from EU membership)

There's a housing shortage so let's stop immigration (including all the builders)

Let's bring back hanging (never mind the miscarraiges of justice)

Let's bring back grammar schools (no-one ever wants to bring back secondary moderns so their children can have a second class status)

Let's build more prisons (don't bother looking at the research which shows that non-custodial sentences are often far more effective at preventing re-offending)

Etc, etc, etc.

It's even worse in America where there are proposals to arm teachers to prevent mass shootings in schools (no gun control can possibly be allowed- third amendment)

Apologies for wandering off the OP

Yes they're right maddy, having rolled my eyes at the mention of Latin all I can say is mea culpa for dissing it as a defunct language. On the contrary it is alive in the derivation of so many words, wow they gave the world a lot those Romans I'm really glad I remember a modicum, from the Latin masses of my childhood, although my childhood ears regarded such weekly suffering as an hour long interminable bore of non understandable ramblings, sadly Latin masses have been consigned to history

We seem to be in a period of crazy politics, where some Ministers seem to be trying to make a name for themselves.

Priti Patel comments and proposals at first sight seem rather naive. I have yet to meet any friend or colleague who agree 100% with her proposals. The majority believe her proposals are not practical without damaging the likes of our Care services.

Terribull, my husband studied Latin and French at university, and he’s the same as your husband, always telling me the route of this word or that word. Sometimes he’ll tell me the Latin word, and then the same word in French and in German, in Spanish and even modern Italian. He only studied German to O Level, but picks up languages easily, just from visiting other countries, because of the Latin route, and the Latin and French at university.

It was only when one of my kids got a GCSE in French that I realised I knew more French than him, I say that because I didn't like it at school. There seems to be a consensus "it's the way we were taught". After my father's death one of my French cousins sent me some correspondence my father had with their parents and told me "you know your father spoke perfect French", I knew he spoke some, and I felt quite annoyed that he didn't help me, particularly as he thought everyone should try and speak another language other than their own. Anyway I've gone back to it now and there are times when I've mentally stuck two fingers up to him whilst I'm in the throes of learning

My husband went to grammar school and did Latin as well as French, he was very good at the former, I remember being of the opinion that learning a dead language was a waste of time, but he's definitely persuaded me otherwise, Latin is a help with all the Romantic languages, he's doing Spanish and is always commenting on such and such a word, derived from Latin.

growstuff: ^ "Schools are also responsible, especially those with low ability intakes, because they have pressure put on them to produce good results in maths, English and science. They don't want their average results pulled down by poor language results.^"

This is true. The head of the school I worked in decided to remove German because it dragged down the school's results. It's about what looks good in the league tables - not our children's education.

I watched Jeremy Vine's show this morning and one panelist in particular and the callers accept PP's figure of 8 million unemployed.

Historically, Scotland has had a good reputation for teaching foreign languages.

Apologies for the multiple post maybe it can be deleted ?

GNHQ?

maddyone Yes, other subjects are perceived as easier. A report last year confirmed that they are and results are apparently going to be adjusted this year - we'll see. Schools are also responsible, especially those with low ability intakes, because they have pressure put on them to produce good results in maths, English and science. They don't want their average results pulled down by poor language results.

French was taught in primary school in Scotland from p3 thats 7 years old .I started school in 1959 .Two languages in secondary school and a third at 4th year level IF you added it to your choices .Its still the same here in our schools my G C all started french at primary and the two oldest are doing two languages at High school

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Message withdrawn at poster's request.