For once, I agree with Cameron?

I do this for a reason. I want you to donate to a children’s charity and write to me. Please see the About Lesley page or read the instructions at the end of this post…..

I am not as political as many. I know that I don’t like extremes, be they left or right wing. I would define myself as a liberal, not the Liberals in the current Government who have been diluted, their policies corrupted by constant compromise for (what appears to me to be) very little return.

I am not a huge fan of David Cameron. The economic policies of cut, cut, cut will, I feel, snip away at the infrastructure of our society. Before everyone starts howling at me I know there need to be cuts but there is surely a balance? I don’t believe that depending on the rich to generate all the wealth will work. There must be investment to allow small business to keep going, to keep schools thriving to provide us with a future workforce that is educated and motivated.

I will go no further than this. I am not an economist, I am not a politician. I am sure the paragraph above will annoy enough people so I should to move on to the point of this blog….

David Cameron appeared on the This Morning programme yesterday. He was interviewed by Phillip Schofield, someone I normally admire for his integrity. However, it appears Mr Schofield had a rush of blood to the head. He lifted a list of names of politicians/public figures from the Internet; people who had supposedly been embroiled in the abuse of children in previous decades. He presented the list to David Cameron and wanted his comments on it. Cameron sensibly left the paper without looking and talked about what needs to happen. What was Mr Schofield thinking?

My thoughts?

The Internet is a wonderful thing. Full of useful information, opinion and fun. I love doing research, reading blogs and sprouting nonsense on Twitter and Facebook. However, it is also full of opinion being presented as fact; it promotes conspiracy  theory as ‘the real truth’. When you read anything you need to assume that fact-checking will be required, either using your own common sense or actual fact checking.

I assume Philip Schofield considers himself a smart man, a responsible broadcaster, I know I have always thought so. He comes across as caring and sensible. I consider lifting a list from the Internet to be a dumb thing to do. It is a cheap trick. If you want to be considered a serious broadcaster, even in a magazine programme, then don’t resort to tabloid tricks. He may as well have worn a redtop bandana when he tried this. I am quite angry with him for doing this and reckon he knows he messed up. People will believe him to be right because it was Phillip Schofield, I hope he takes the time to put them straight.

With all the furore over the Savile scandal and repercussions rippling through Government and media now is the time for serious investigation. There are so many people out there who are living with the legacy of abuse. Why would we endanger getting to the facts by stirring up public opinion which may impact any future prosecutions? I understand that we need answers, I want them myself. However, I am prepared to be patient to allow the facts to be uncovered and allow the Justice system to work.

What we need now is not cheap sensationalism. I know this may be hard for people to accept but now is the time to be calm and wait. I expect there to be proper and diligent examination of facts and statements. I expect there to be arrests and charges made where the facts support this. I then expect there to be full and frank disclosure. I don’t think this is too much to ask but I know that this may take time. We need to stop the emotional stunts, this will do no favours to those who have suffered abuse. Give this horrendous situation the seriousness it deserves.

I close, as always, with this:-

• Please donate to a valid children’s charity of your choice.
• Visit this blog and comment about your donation. Please also tell me what you wanted to be when you were 8. I still want to collect those tales and hope that some child will read about your words and deeds and want to do the same when they are older.

I will:-

• Add your donation to the Totals page on this blog, totals are updated weekly.

• I will also write some words about the current donations and the charity

• Store all comments so that everyone can read them.

Thank you for reading,

Lesley

Education – Facts and the CIA? That Internet is Amazing….

I do this for a reason. I want you to donate to a children’s charity and write to me. Please see the About Lesley page or read the instructions at the end of this post…..

The Internet is an amazing thing. Facts, the rambling of people (like me), Sights to shock and thrill, lies and half-truths can all be found. I try to be very specific in my searches and do have a decent virus checker for all those reasons. Today I wanted to blog about education and how much is spent per child by country. I was quite boggled when I came upon this website – https://www.cia.gov/library/publications/the-world-factbook/rankorder/2206rank.html and what a little goldmine of facts it is…..

The site shows spend on education as a proportion of GDP. It also shows population breakdowns, GDP and a myriad of other facts about each country dated by year for accuracy. I decided to take a few of the facts and perform some small analysis on dollar spend per child on education; the table below is the result. You will have to double-click to see the detail:-

There is of course one big missing. I am not an economist, I cannot take it to the next level by balancing one economy against the other to give a deeper analysis. However, at face-value it does make me think.

I ask myself, what is education worth to you? What is it worth to your children? What is education worth to those in poor countries? We in the developed world take education as something that is always there. For those who are not as fortunate as me education is the escape for their children. Perhaps they realise it is too late for them but not for their children. What would teachers in poorer countries be able to achiveve with one or two dollars more per child? What would volunteering to help at your local school do for your community? I am hoping to do this shortly, I wonder what you would like to do?

I am delighted to have found the site above, I will be going back to it again. I know life is full of lies, damned lies and more statistics but sometimes it does one good to look at the numbers.

I close, as always, with this:-

• Please donate to a valid children’s charity of your choice.

• Visit this blog and comment about your donation. Please also tell me what you wanted to be when you were 8. I still want to collect those tales and hope that some child will read about your words and deeds and want to do the same when they are older.

I will:-

• Add your donation to the Totals page on this blog, totals are updated weekly.

• I will also write some words about the current donations and the charity

• Store all comments so that everyone can read them.

Thank you for reading.

Lesley