[Boiler]

Try travelling 20 miles out of London on the train- that won't be particularly cheap.

Kings Cross to Welwyn Garden City (19 miles) - single walk-up fare £12.50.

[Tubby Isaacs]

I regret to tell you Andy is sticking it to the English National Opera.

It’s been suggested that the ENO move to Manchester. Lots of people don’t want to move. I dunno, maybe they’re just settled ar a personal level or have solid professional reasons for preferring London.

If the ENO go, I’m sure they will make a go of it. Even if some big names don’t move up permanently, lots will, another premium arts attraction for Manchester and great outreach will be done with local children.

Andy’s response? You lot think we’re unwashed up here (do they think that?!) and we probably don’t want you anyway.

[Oboogie]

A Blairite, a Brownite and a Corbynite walks into a pub, the barman says, "Hello Andy Burnham"

[The Weeping Angel]

I regret to tell you Andy is sticking it to the English National Opera.

It’s been suggested that the ENO move to Manchester. Lots of people don’t want to move. I dunno, maybe they’re just settled ar a personal level or have solid professional reasons for preferring London.

If the ENO go, I’m sure they will make a go of it. Even if some big names don’t move up permanently, lots will, another premium arts attraction for Manchester and great outreach will be done with local children.

Andy’s response? You lot think we’re unwashed up here (do they think that?!) and we probably don’t want you anyway.

This is one of my problems with Burnham the way he plays the up to the chipy northernor who has a go at those poncy southernors routine and this is a prime example.

[Tubby Isaacs]

Straight talking populist Andy is back. And don't the "Blair forced everyone to go to university" brigade BTL love it.

Say you want to boost vocational education by all means, but why take a pop at universities and the education system?

Didn't we just have an expensive failure with schools designed to go for technical education from age 14? I might be an academic snob or something, but I think I'd prefer my hypothetical child to do regular schooling till at least 16, probably 18, and then specialize in what they want. Regular schooling does include practical subjects not particularly associated with universities.

[Andy McDandy]

Yes, and perhaps give a l name to the places that teach these multiple technical disciplines. Something suitable, like "many technologies", but in ancient foreign, all classy like.

[Yug]

I don't see Andy Burnham having a pop at universities. He said education policy has concentrated on getting kids into universities. Which is true. Vocational training schemes have been largely neglected, and what the government has made available generally isn't fit for purpose. As for technical schools being an expensive failure, just about everything the Tories have done since 2010 has been an expensive failure. Things would work better if the country was being run by people who are less interested in saying "Look at me, I'm important", and more interested in running the country. And we're not going to get that until the Tories have been booted out.

[Tubby Isaacs]

Fair point, he's not having a pop at universities themselves, and maybe I'm reading too much into it from some of the comments, but our university numbers aren't very different to other countries. People go to university because they and their parents want that. Teachers aren't kidnapping kids who want to be plumbers and taking them at gunpoint to study gender studies. The government sees universities as an enemy, and makes it very expensive to go to them. I'd prefer it if the tone were "We've some excellent universities, let's boost vocational education too".

[mattomac]

There is a lot of the sector that teaches vocational courses.

Issue is whenever a politician or a newspaper journalist talks about Universities they talk about the ones they went to or believe are good.

They haven’t a clue how 90% of the sector is like, I thought Wes Streeting would get Education but they went with Health, he would have been pretty knowledgable as he actually visited campuses and met him a few times when he was NUS.

The University sector in this country is one of its best assets but it is massively in trouble, you see the Government going on about fast tracked doctors who don’t go University, but those courses are delivered by staff who have gone to University and there aren’t anywhere near the number.

Like everything it’s been run down by this shithouse of a government.

[Andy McDandy]

When journalism is dominated by Russell group arts graduates, this is to be expected. Higher education is presented through a number of filters:

1. Dreaming spires, Brideshead Revisited, boat race, punts. Makes you proud to be British.

2. Mickey Mouse courses, David Beckham studies, cancel culture, all the education but no common sense.

Tied into this is the idea that university is wonderful for the right sort of people. Doctors, lawyers, classical scholars quipping in Latin. Not for the likes of you or me.

[Bones McCoy]

When journalism is dominated by Russell group arts graduates, this is to be expected. Higher education is presented through a number of filters:

1. Dreaming spires, Brideshead Revisited, boat race, punts. Makes you proud to be British.

2. Mickey Mouse courses, David Beckham studies, cancel culture, all the education but no common sense.

Tied into this is the idea that university is wonderful for the right sort of people. Doctors, lawyers, classical scholars quipping in Latin. Not for the likes of you or me.

Point 2 is another tory talking point straight out of the Republican playbook.

Hey Gammons, this book larnin' ain't for your grandkids.

[Youngian]

Andy’s been told to wind his neck in as Labour isn’t a debating society and the stakes are too high for ‘Labour splits’ stories.

[The Weeping Angel]

I have to admit over the last couple of years I've found myself going off Burnham

[Andy McDandy]

Funnily enough, 20something SpAds fresh out of uni and into Tufton Street, acting all full of themselves and treating everyone else with contempt featured abit in Anthony Seldon's accou nt of Johnson's tenure. Basically, if you're a SpAd, chances are you're a cunt.

[Tubby Isaacs]

https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfr ... dy-burnham

Greater Manchester is revolutionising technical education – whether London likes it or not
Andy Burnham

Yawn.

"London" (or as she's otherwise known, Gillian Keegan, the Education Secretary).

The BTL people have taken Andy's bait. This is proper Labour, Almost like Starmer didn't mention skills the other day.

[Tubby Isaacs]

At long last, everyone is talking about technical education. Given this, it was a little deflating last week to hear the education secretary, Gillian Keegan, throw cold water over our plans. “We don’t want schools in Manchester having one thing, schools in Liverpool another,” she said.

Is that actually right? The needs of Liverpool’s economy are different from those of Manchester’s economy. It follows that we will only make technical education work if we adopt a more devolved approach.

For once, I'm actually with Keegan here if we are talking about schools from age 14, as Andy seems to be. Just because an area might have more of a particular kind of employer than another at the moment shouldn't mean that its kids are prepared too directly for those jobs. What you want is general vocational skills, just as academic education provides general skills. Industries can decline quickly, and even when they don't in terms of output, they may quickly need fewer workers.

I'm confused over what powers Andy has now and which ones he thinks he needs.

[Malcolm Armsteen]

Of course.
Schools are for generic skills, tertiary colleges for specific vocational training.

Think plumbers.

[Tubby Isaacs]

How are those 14-19 colleges doing these days? I haven't heard much about them, but I know that some high profile ones had problems. My reading of that was parents thinking "Hmm, great, but I'd prefer my kid to do traditional education till at least 16, thanks". I would guess lots of people in Greater Manchester agree.

I'm no sort of expert, and I have a personal academic bias, but 14 seems far too young.

[Tubby Isaacs]

Seen this posted elsewhere. It's from a Sam Freedman substack.

Parity of esteem isn't within the gift of the government or the Mayor of Greater Manchester. It's down to the labour market- academic qualifications generally get you the best paying jobs. Parents who want kids to go down that route probably aren't snobs, and many will have done more physical work themselves.

Vocational education is a classic example. One of the most reliable applause lines at an education event is to say something like: “we must end the stigma against vocational qualifications and create parity of esteem with academic routes”. You will struggle to find anyone who disagrees with the principle of valuing vocational courses more highly. Unfortunately, politicians and policymakers have been saying the same thing for around 170 years – Prince Albert set up a Royal Commission in 1851 that fretted about our lack of focus on industrial skills. You would have thought that they might have figured out by now that esteem is not in their gift to give.

The misdiagnosis here is the belief that academic qualifications are more valued either for reasons of cultural snobbery, or because vocational qualifications are poor quality. But it is simply a function of labour markets. The vast majority of the best paid jobs are only available to graduates and, in practice, to graduates of the most prestigious universities. The best way to get on to those courses is by doing A-levels. It is therefore entirely rational to esteem academic qualifications more highly. And there is no country in the world where this isn’t true.

As Sam says, you get applause for saying this stuff- see Keir yesterday. But I think you could very easily look silly when asked about your own kids, who almost certainly are taking the "academic snobbery" route you've just trashed.

[Youngian]

University/polys were open to those who’d completed vocational day release BTEC and HNC in the mid 80s and still is now. I know sparks who went onto electrical engineering degrees. Once you’ve completed a bridging course to upgrade the maths, universities will snap you up to have mature students with practical experience in their classes.