The Friday Letter - Sport, housing, politicions

I noticed that Kevin Rudd (PM of Australia), after seeing Great Britain's success in the Olympics, has decided that the reason for this was the National Lottery. Undoubtedly the Funds from the National Lottery has helped, but when you look back, Team GB's success came from hard work and dedication, and the framework that allowed this came from how Australia did it. Fortunately that funds were spent wisely and the end result was the 19 gold medals with the silver and bronze too. Team GB had seen how Australia had done it and did similar. Now Australia are thinking of doing similar! We copy them, they copy us... strange! And as far as the lottery is concerned, that is open for concern as Australia has a problem with gambling, and so question arises, is it easy to get off the lottery than the pokies (slot machines).

Education in Australia might be taking a turn for the worse with the introduction of league tables. Here in the UK league tables has changed education from teaching students a subject and how to use it in the world (or how useless it is) to how to pass exams so the school came go up the league table. I know this is a very sweeping statement and there are schools out there who teach well, but when universities complain that the level of education is lower now than 10 years ago, but the pass rate is at an all time high,it make you wonder, is there something not working properly?. Also employers are saying students don't know how to use the knowledge they have. Personally I think a better way would be something like a short list of areas, like, happiness of students/ teachers/ parents, cleanliness, attendance, discipline, would a student recommend the school to a friend, would a parent recommend the school to a friend, points 1 - 5 and a yes/ no answer. These, I think would be more informative than league tables.

I've been waiting for the UK government to announce their package to help the housing market. There seems to me to be too much emphasis put on the housing market and the value of houses. The only time the value of a house matters is when you are about to sell it and buy another, or when you are about to buy for the first time. At this point one of the main hurdles is finding a mortgage, and this only after doing some math and making sure one can afford it, now AND in the future. The govt. has suspended stamp duty on housing up to £175000 for 12 months. This means that if you want to buy a property for £175000 you will 'save' £1750. When I say save, its not actually a saving, its something else you don't have to pay. They have also said that if you are a first time buyer you might be able to get an interest free loan of up to 1/3 of the value of the property for five years. Now, for some this will be good, assuming there aren't too many hoops to jump through to get the loan. Years ago, the housing market wasn't as 'fluid' as it was a year ago, so why so much emphasis to this. Money I would suggest. The suspension of Stamp duty will 'cost' the govt. £650 million. This actually means hat the govt would not be getting £650 million over the next year in taxes. Yes, if you move house, you are taxed! If you pull out a mortgage, the interest you pay to the back is taxed, and therefore you pay more so the banks can make a bit of money too. But at the end of the day, after about 25 years, the house you live in and have been toiling every day to pay the mortgage, will be yours.

And now, there's even more going on in politics with Mr Clark's writings in the Statesman. Incidentally, I agree with him. Politicians in the Labour Party and particularly Gordon Brown's supporters don't and have been knocking him as an embittered man. And call me cynical, but they seem to be the young and up-and-coming, and feathering their own nest, "look at me, I'm loyal Mr Brown". But what I like about this is that once in a while there comes a man with his head screwed on right, who knows that his career in his party is no more and therefore he might as well speak sense rather than the "party line". It makes me wonder that if they had spoken out when younger and think about the country rather than their career in "the party" and speaking the "right thing" in the light of his party boss, the country might just be in a better place. And when interviewed, Mr Clark was quite straight forward and clear about the position the Labour Party and the country . The politicians who are knocking Mr Clark just seem to repeat and repeat the same old mantra as if repetition would make it true, and that "forces beyond our control" like "the free, open market" has caused the problems and not them and their policies. Who has been supporting the open market the last ten years? Who hasn't put regulation in place. Look at the game of football. A free and open game is beauty to watch, BUT its done within the rules and regultions of the game. Without the rules and regulations the game of football would be a farce, anarchy. If there are no regulations in the "free and open" market, the natural tendency of a capitalistic society is to take advanage of the situation and make as much money as possible, at the expence of others. But I digress, I look forward to more from Mr Clark. The more people like him speak out, speak sence, the better this country will be, and politics as a whole.