Sunak asks a homeless man if he works in business

Wyllow3

Finland: it's through income tax.

this 2022 article focuses on special needs and in doing so also describes the system as a whole.

www.heischools.com/blog/finlands-approach-to-special-needs-inclusion

Although Finland has a wonderful approach to the value of education to the individual and the country I don't think we would be able to transpose it intact to the UK.

I can already imagine the comments on GN when it was discovered that children will not start school until they are seven. Then there are those who will blanch at no testing at all for the first six years of education (they trust the teachers). I can hear the outcry now. I hope I'm wrong but I can't see the Daily Mail and it's readers going along with this, sadly.

DaisyAnne

I wonder why you think I don't know this. Do you think you must be right simply because have a more extreme answer to the challenges?

My answer was simply that the wealthy tax-avoiders pay their tax. If you think that is extreme, then I don't know what to say.

Getting yourself in a pickle over it will not solve it.

I'm not in a pickle DaisyAnne, I'm despondent, and I'm angry - angry that Tory governments, which are the interface between the wealthy elite and the rest of us have for years deliberately neglected and underfunded the public services that the majority rely on, to the point they are collapsing - all of them, the police, social care, the NHS, mental-health care, while the rich simply get richer and the poor get poorer. But I'm not advocating hunting them down with pitchforks and burning torches... I just want them to pay-back to the society that has enabled their wealth and their prosperity.

You must know that not all those who are wealthier are as you describe. Just as not all those with less are angels in disguise. Sadly, the extremist will deny any grey area.

Yes, I'm sure - in fact I know - that some very rich people are happy to pay their tax... some have come out and publicly said so, but they are very much a minority. The fact remains that a small percentage of the population own most of the wealth. Wealth accumulates wealth, it is handed down through the generations - they didn't acquire it through working 12-hour shifts in the NHS.

I'm tired. I'll leave it there.

DaisyAnne.

You appear to have quite a concern about extremism. And yet you start a thread about an incident that you think shows how out of touch the current PM is and how thoughtless he is, when its evident that he's trying to engage with a person completely unlike him.

I have no time for Sunak and his government, but I don't think making up and spreading stories about him, and trying to damn his character, is the way to go.

Remove the plank from your own eye before you try to remove the speck from others'.

One of my friends is a headteacher and she thinks politics shouldn't be involved in education at all and it should be run by people that understand education, not government ministers who have other strengths

Dickens

DaisyAnne

I wonder why you think I don't know this. Do you think you must be right simply because have a more extreme answer to the challenges?

My answer was simply that the wealthy tax-avoiders pay their tax. If you think that is extreme, then I don't know what to say.

Getting yourself in a pickle over it will not solve it.

I'm not in a pickle DaisyAnne, I'm despondent, and I'm angry - angry that Tory governments, which are the interface between the wealthy elite and the rest of us have for years deliberately neglected and underfunded the public services that the majority rely on, to the point they are collapsing - all of them, the police, social care, the NHS, mental-health care, while the rich simply get richer and the poor get poorer. But I'm not advocating hunting them down with pitchforks and burning torches... I just want them to pay-back to the society that has enabled their wealth and their prosperity.

You must know that not all those who are wealthier are as you describe. Just as not all those with less are angels in disguise. Sadly, the extremist will deny any grey area.

Yes, I'm sure - in fact I know - that some very rich people are happy to pay their tax... some have come out and publicly said so, but they are very much a minority. The fact remains that a small percentage of the population own most of the wealth. Wealth accumulates wealth, it is handed down through the generations - they didn't acquire it through working 12-hour shifts in the NHS.

I'm tired. I'll leave it there.

But you started your post with "Do you know what the real problem is? People in poverty, poor people, people on low wages..."

Well, yes. Possibly, but not necessarily, more than you do. Why the need to tell my your views on tax. Don't you think I could have any simply because I am not statist in my views.

You have lost me. I have no idea what you were trying to explain or add to my knowledge - or why.

my me

DaisyAnne

Your sympathies are with the homeless.
You think Sunak is out of touch and tactless.

... what should we do - we, "us", as a society - about the disparity between the two worlds of the homeless man, Dean, and the comfortable, privileged world of Sunak?

If asking those in 'Sunak's world' to pay their fair share of tax is extremism - what do you suggest? We can sympathise with the homeless until the cows come home, but sympathy alone doesn't get them off the streets or give them a job or a roof over their heads.

As volver said, you started a thread to highlight how out of touch Sunak is, and I believe quite a few GNs would agree with you.
However, when it's pointed out that the conversation between the two men wasn't quite how the media portrayed it - we're accused of leaping to his defence; because - in the interests of accuracy in the media, some of us think it's counter-productive to damn a politician (whoever he is) just for the sake of it.

So here's my quandary - you can respond or not, because I'm leaving this topic alone now, although I am interested to understand your POV on the matter.

You must be aware that your OP would elicit a response, from those who care about homelessness and impoverishment, from those who dislike Sunak and what he stands for, and from those who are concerned about both. And then you discover that there are a few like-minded posters who become an "us" who want to challenge the status quo. But that "worries" you for some reason which I can't grasp. When it's pointed out that the conversation wasn't accurately reported, that it was a mis-representation of what actually took place, it becomes an issue of 'leaping to the defence of Sunak' and 'extremism'.

I don't know what I'm missing, but I am just not 'getting' this. Why did you make your original post, what was the purpose? Should we just agree with you about Sunak and empathise with the homeless - and leave it at that? Is that what you expected?

DaisyAnne

You have lost me.

Clearly.

I have no idea what you were trying to explain or add to my knowledge - or why.

The fact is - I wasn't attempting to add anything to your knowledge, but simply explain why some of us (that fearful "us") might have concerns over accurate media reporting, and to suggest - for your consideration - that asking very rich people to stop avoiding their taxes might go some way towards alleviating the impoverishment of people like Dean.

But if you have no idea of what I'm talking about, then I'll make this my last comment to you.

Wishing you the best for the New Year.

JaneJudge

One of my friends is a headteacher and she thinks politics shouldn't be involved in education at all and it should be run by people that understand education, not government ministers who have other strengths

That's all very well, JJ, but education has been a political football for at least the last 40 years. When my children were at school i the '80s it was Thatcher who decided that teachers were too 'left wing' and that they shouldn't be left to their own devices to decide what and how to teach. Remember the introduction of the National curriculum and SATs. To tell teachers what they were to teach and to ensure that they were taught it... I'm pretty sure that the National Curriculum was devised by teacher 'experts' whose views coincided with hers.

And the political 'battle' has continued ever since. But the 'battle' was as much a teacher led affair as a disagreement between 'left' and 'right' and 'progressives' opposed to 'traditionalists'. When Labour was in power it skewed more towards the 'progressives, with 'learning through play' and 'discovery learning' and when the tories came back in it changed back to more traditional curriculum, with, for example', Gove insisting on the chronological teaching of British history and a more formal approach to learning.

It's all complicated by the fact that teacher trainers had their own pet theories of learning and their own view of the curriculum, which naturally, they would pass on to their trainees.

I have followed the debate via twitter since retiring and the two views seem to be as pervasive as ever. And seen in a political light. So even if it were 'run by people who understand education', it's a moot point as to which 'understanding' would prevail. It often depends on who has the ear of the Ministers... Or are the most determined lobbyists...

JaneJudge

One of my friends is a headteacher and she thinks politics shouldn't be involved in education at all and it should be run by people that understand education, not government ministers who have other strengths

👍 and that's why private schools have it good!
They are not funded by the government. They therefore charge what they want in the way of school fees, they don’t have to do SATs or follow a prescribed curriculum, and they have freedom in how they operate and teach. They are independent just that, and mainly very successful. It works.
But no one is naive enough to think they too aren't part of the political football.

MaizieD 👏👏👏
You are right about the ‘teacher-led aspect of the battle as well as the government input.
I remember the progressive let children write freely instead of learning letters and spelling. Great in R/Y1 but a nightmare for teachers who had to undo the incorrect spelling further up, because of course correcting their spellings earlier would damage their self-esteem!
I remember the original science NC with 17 Attainment Targets each with their statements of attainment!
The main benefit was that some subjects e.g. history were no longer taught depending on what period the teacher liked to teach or had collected resources for. I saw repetition in several schools because one school taught Romans in Y3 whilst another taught it in Y4. Ok maybe, unless you changed schools.
I remember supporting students who had been taught learning through play with no idea of the structure that needed to go into setting up activities.
I remember more recently the switch from Reception children being expected to read and write by the end of Reception, to they shouldn’t do anything formal in EYFS.
Thank heavens there now seems to be a happy medium in many schools.
I was astonished to find that all schools did not teach multiplication tables, right from KS1. Who made it compulsory?
Teachers are always on the receiving end of whatever new strategy is introduced, by whichever government.

I saw repetition in several schools because one school taught Romans in Y3 whilst another taught it in Y4.

That made me laugh, Mollygo. In my late 1950s Junior school we learned history from the Romans through to the Normans. Then at secondary school we did the whole lot all over again

At least we got their chronological order well fixed in our heads...

Think yourself lucky you're not in Scotland where the history curriculum has been so politicised that a parent complained that his fourteen year old daughter was doing the Highland Clearances for the FOURTH time!

Dickens

DaisyAnne

You have lost me.

Clearly.

I have no idea what you were trying to explain or add to my knowledge - or why.

The fact is - I wasn't attempting to add anything to your knowledge, but simply explain why some of us (that fearful "us") might have concerns over accurate media reporting, and to suggest - for your consideration - that asking very rich people to stop avoiding their taxes might go some way towards alleviating the impoverishment of people like Dean.

But if you have no idea of what I'm talking about, then I'll make this my last comment to you.

Wishing you the best for the New Year.

I expect an explanation of your accusations. If you believe you were not making something up to suit the tone of your post, then say where I made a single comment on people paying their taxes prior to the post below. Otherwise, be big enough to apologise.

You said in your post of Thu 29-Dec-22 02:25:00
My answer was simply that the wealthy tax-avoiders pay their tax. If you think that is extreme, then I don't know what to say.

While continuing to put that idea forward, you still refuse to enlighten us about why you think I believe that to be extreme or where I said such a thing.

varian

Think yourself lucky you're not in Scotland where the history curriculum has been so politicised that a parent complained that his fourteen year old daughter was doing the Highland Clearances for the FOURTH time!

In days of yore I was taught about the history of Cyprus. This was my second secondary school - a Bi-Lateral School run by the MOD. Coming back to my third secondary school, boarding, an English curriculum and moving from a school of 500 (on a good day - no shooting), to around 1200 pupils was quite a shock. I can understand why forces parent send children to boarding schools early. They have no real idea if they will be moved frequently of reposted several times.

I have always believed most children survive their schools and just a few thrive. But I could be biased

parent parents

DaisyAnne

Dickens

DaisyAnne

You have lost me.

Clearly.

I have no idea what you were trying to explain or add to my knowledge - or why.

The fact is - I wasn't attempting to add anything to your knowledge, but simply explain why some of us (that fearful "us") might have concerns over accurate media reporting, and to suggest - for your consideration - that asking very rich people to stop avoiding their taxes might go some way towards alleviating the impoverishment of people like Dean.

But if you have no idea of what I'm talking about, then I'll make this my last comment to you.

Wishing you the best for the New Year.

I expect an explanation of your accusations. If you believe you were not making something up to suit the tone of your post, then say where I made a single comment on people paying their taxes prior to the post below. Otherwise, be big enough to apologise.

You said in your post of Thu 29-Dec-22 02:25:00
My answer was simply that the wealthy tax-avoiders pay their tax. If you think that is extreme, then I don't know what to say.

While continuing to put that idea forward, you still refuse to enlighten us about why you think I believe that to be extreme or where I said such a thing.

I expect an explanation of your accusations. If you believe you were not making something up to suit the tone of your post, then say where I made a single comment on people paying their taxes prior to the post below. Otherwise, be big enough to apologise.

You didn't comment on people paying their taxes. I did.

Nobody envies them, or their wealth - most on here would not feel comfortable having so much wealth whilst a huge percentage of the world's population are going without the basics of life, we simply want them to pay the taxes that many, if not most, seem able to avoid - not evade, it's all legal, but avoid. They metaphorically rape the world's resources and the people who work to provide them in usable form, because sheer greed can never be satisfied, never sated.

Your response was:

I wonder why you think I don't know this. Do you think you must be right simply because have a more extreme answer to the challenges?

Getting yourself in a pickle over it will not solve it. Being extreme will not solve it.

... I don't believe I need to make any apology. And I'm not returning to this thread to find out if you're still insisting on one because, as you also said:

You have lost me. I have no idea what you were trying to explain or add to my knowledge - or why.

It's simple. You made a post on a contentious event reported in the media. And got a mixed bag of responses. Which is fairly normal on social media. You appear to be irritated by those that enlarge on the issue making points you don't agree with, which is also normal.

And I am leaving this thread to allow the discussions on education to continue, which I believe will also add another dimension to the issue.

If you think my posts have broken any GN rules, then feel free to report them.

I am sorry not to reply to you earlier Dickens but life has been quite busy this week. I will take each bit and try an clarify. I would like to understand where you are coming from and what you are trying to say.

You didn't comment on people paying their taxes. I did.
So you agree that you had no basis for suggesting that I might find your opinion extreme.

Nobody envies them, or their wealth
I am pretty sure that isn't true, but I haven't fact-checked.

Most on here would not feel comfortable having so much wealth whilst a huge percentage of the world's population are going without the basics of life
That's certainly one opinion although it does sound as if you think everyone will always share your view. I have to puncture your balloon but I doubt that is true.

we simply want them to pay the taxes that many, if not most, seem able to avoid - not evade, it's all legal, but avoid.
You obviously feel strongly about this but the thread wasn't about taxes it was about a PR stunt.

They metaphorically rape the world's resources and the people who work to provide them in usable form, because sheer greed can never be satisfied, never sated.
As I said, you obviously feel very strongly about this off-topic point.

You made a post on a contentious event reported in the media.
The OP was a quote from a Reuters report which I thought others might find interesting to discuss. My only comment in the OP was "could Sunak be more out of touch or more tactless" and my sympathies to the homeless. The event was contentious - isn't that what "News and Politics" is about? The quote from Reuters was simply a report and my comments on the OP were not contentious, they were simply one persons opinion. Had it been a Royal doing this I imagine I would have receive cheers and slaps on the back. We are all biased, consciously or unconsciously.

... You appear to be irritated by those that enlarge on the issue making points you don't agree with, which is also normal.

I wasn't "irritated". I came back in after a page full of discussion to say I hadn't changed my view. I talked about the mans reply and said I felt Sunak lacked empathy and comprehension. I mentioned a previous PR stunt and how the Tory client media had reacted to this one. I mentioned that this was put out as a fact finding visit. Nowhere, in that post, did I mention anyone else's post other than to say we all need to be aware of our own bias. However, I was a bit saddened by the idea that a physical disability is something to make fun of. But that's the world we live in.

I still don't know what your problem is but it appears to be a personal one with me not agreeing with your views. I hadn't read your post about taxes until you made an assumption about my thoughts on it. I then went back and checked out why you were putting my views in the way that you did. As I thought, I hadn't offered a view. There is not compulsion to do so, you know. Everything had gone very off topic at that point.

There's not a lot more to be said (if anything) about Sunak's visit to the shelter. Of course it was a PR stunt but some of the media chose to be selective in their reporting.

However some of the diversions from the OP are interesting, despite the knickers often being in a twist.

Dinahmo

There's not a lot more to be said (if anything) about Sunak's visit to the shelter. Of course it was a PR stunt but some of the media chose to be selective in their reporting.

However some of the diversions from the OP are interesting, despite the knickers often being in a twist.

Was one side more selective than the other Dinahmo? This was advertised as a fact finding visit. Did everyone miss the bit where he asked those he spoke to if they were getting help from the government? Or the bit where he asked if they had any ideas how things could be done better to help them get back into work and get a home? No? Then I would say that makes this a PR stunt using some of the most vulnerable people in society, not a fact finding mission. Both sides of the press were biased but the truth in the middle does not show Sunak to be empathetic or someone who shows knowledge and understanding of others circumstances.

What was it you found interesting in the off topic "diversions"? We could always start a new thread

DaisyAnne I posted earlier that the Guardian showed a clip where the young man is talking to Sunak about finance and it was obvious that he instigated that topic. So no I don't think that the Guardian was biased.

The discussions about school were interesting but my particular interests are taxation, the economy and the national debt. These have been covered many times and, like one or two others who hold similar views to me, I do get fed up with repeating myself, explaining facts to those who only believe. The footballification of politics!

I think it very important to accept that news sources are biased and so am I. I usually don't think they are when their bias agrees with mine

I haven't heard of fooballification!

James O'brien on LBC often uses the term " footballification" and expands it referring to people who have their football scarves tied
so very tightly round their necks that it cuts off the blood supply to the brain.

varian

James O'brien on LBC often uses the term " footballification" and expands it referring to people who have their football scarves tied
so very tightly round their necks that it cuts off the blood supply to the brain.

varian

James O'brien on LBC often uses the term " footballification" and expands it referring to people who have their football scarves tied
so very tightly round their necks that it cuts off the blood supply to the brain.

I've heard him use the word but not that explanation. It's a good one.