A tipping point

I have professed my disdain for the generally execrable Nu-Labour editorial toadying of The Times over the past few years. Permit me, however, to detect a change in the mood at Murdoch's lair.

Three leader columns today and none of them exactly favourable.

First up, economic competence:

In the 1980s the belief that Britain was doomed to decline lingered for some time after the Thatcher reforms had paved the road to economic recovery. Labour, by contrast, has benefited from revived national confidence that Britain had rediscovered the secrets of market-led success. That confidence appears increasingly misplaced.

Not very encouraging reading for the Jelly-bellied Flag-flapper.
How about education, education, education then?

In fact, the figures for the bulk of the nation’s pupils are even worse. If the exam results from independent schools, which focus relentlessly on core subjects, are excluded, the percentage falls further, to 42 per cent [of pupils achieving C grade or better at GCSE in Maths and English]. For boys the picture is even more dismal: only 37.8 per cent of those sitting English and maths last summer achieved a C grade or better.

UPDATE: Bartholomew has more. For the "most improved" school,

Its 75 per cent of pupils achieving five or more GCSEs drops to 22 per cent when maths and English are included. The survey also shows that no pupil gained a double science GCSE, only three per cent gained at least a C grade in a modern foreign language or history and eight per cent in geography.

By contrast, 85 per cent passed the vocational GNVQ in ICT and 48 per cent the GNVQ in science, both of which count for four high grade GCSEs.

Staggering.

Finally, a little bit on the tax take:

After paying their own tax, the nanny’s tax, the nanny’s national insurance contributions and another £3,000 in employer’s national insurance contributions, parents in Central London are spending, on average, £43,850 a year on nannies.

Of this, barely £20,000 is the nanny’s to spend. The rest goes to the Exchequer, where the Chancellor is the only happy party to the transaction.

Ouch.

To paraphrase, this feels to me more like the beginning of the end...