No. Parents will be on the side that doesnt send their tax money to private schools, doesnt cut good community education, doesnt cut proffesional development for teachers in key areas and doesnt close schools. National has been disgraceful on Education policy, but who’s surprised? Its just history repeating itself.

The level of distrust and downright hatred many of the public have for Labour can only be blamed on her, as usual she in her selfish narcissistic way has insulated herself from most of this by using our tax payer dollars to purchase a job with the UN.

For those of us on the right who yearn for a real National government the demise of Labour is not a good thing at all, we need a strong and effective opposition, we need a party that will drive the Nat’s and their gutless socialist leader back to the right.

Clark has so destroyed the Labour brand that it will not recover until there has been an almost total clear out of what the public perceive to be the last of Clark’s people.

While it may seem strange to some on the right the truth is that our nation will continue down the path of wreck and ruin just as long as we have such a piss poor opposition, Labour needs to find a way to get Andrew Little into the house as soon as possible and manufacture a way of getting rid of Goff, Dyson, Cunliffe, Mallard, King and co completely.

That’s why we need to have more winners in the political arena rather than small-time community leaders who “want to make a difference” and so join their local branch and make it to national politics by being complete sychophants.

Parliament needs to be comprised of high-calibre people in both opposition and govt ranks: real winners from the professions, from business, from diplomacy. Instead we always get a mixed bunch. Some could make it anywhere: people like Lange, Muldoon, Clark, Key.

Others couldn’t even make it to branch bank manager were it not for their sychophancy.

This is cross-generational and if politics matters, we’re only ever going to get high-quality leadership when we lift the salaries and eliminate the dross.

Emphasis upon eliminating the dross and that applies across the spectrum.

The Labour leader delegated his usual role of questioning the Prime Minister to his deputy, Annette King.

Where has this woman been hiding.. and why?

“relevance deprivation syndrome”

The significance of that shouldn’t be underestimated. The job of a politician is different to most. When they succeed they are at the top of the pile, they have power, prestige, privileges, and are in the spotlight. Then suddenly, literally overnight, they drop to the bottom. It must be a huge adjustment to make, individually and collectively.

Without experiencing this elevation then sudden deflation it is hard to appreciate the adjustment necessary. Especially when you are also subjected to sustained derision.

But, that’s the nature of the game, they somehow have to deal with it and gradually work themselves back in to relevance. Or give up.

The Labour leader delegated his usual role of questioning the Prime Minister to his deputy, Annette King.

This was a huge fail in my opinion. If Phil couldn’t handle the jandal then what was he even doing there?

With regards to Phil’s controversial National-hood speech – I was initially suspicious that Andrew Little’s criticism was designed to bring more media attention to the speech. But it has now become apparent no such Machiavellian forces are at work and someone should put a tent over the Labour Party circus.

And what is suprising too is that the Parties on the left (Greens/Progressives) haven’t appeared to benefit from the fall in Labour support. Contrast that with what ACT and Dunne’s mob picked up when National was in the sort of mess that Labour finds itself in right now.

Funny game politics.

It doesn’t surprise me that a lot of teachers leave the profession or go overseas. They get students who have no support or aspirations from their parents, 30-to-a-class and then condemned for not turning them all into A-grade students.

The quality of education of all kids is dragged down by kids who don’t want to learn and are disruptive – how is standards testing going to do anything about that? Apart from proving that some kids are already destined to fail.

The first part of your statement is correct – and has been for ages. The second bit, about proving that some kids are destined to fail is defeatism on steroids. Why should your low expections of some limit the potential of the rest?

…a regular stream of young fellas helping out as labourers / trade assistants and by my reckoning about 1 in 3 are almost completely illiterate.

Sad but true. Except in most cases l would blame their parents. The schools that those kids come from would also have turned out plenty of students who can read and write fine.

I regularly hear about kids starting school who don’t know the alphabet, can’t count and in some cases don’t know the names for colours or shapes. Teachers aren’t miracle workers. And frankly, if you’ve got 30 kids in the class, how much time do you have to work with a kid whose own parents can’t even be bothered to teach them anything, except maybe a contempt for education and authority?

P-R-E-F-U