There is Nothing Like a Dame - Jenny Harries Rewarding Failure

It is well entrenched in the culture of Westminster that failure is always rewarded.

Those of you wondering why Covid restrictions have been, at times, bizarre and slow to be lifted should cast their eyes to the advice and statistics given to ministers by the UK Health Security Agency (UKHSA) headed up by the recently "Damed" Jenny Harries.

Dame Jenny has a history of giving wrong/misleading advice wrt Covid viz:

1 March 2020, Harries stated "the virus will not survive very long outside," and "many outdoor events, particularly, are relatively safe,"^[19] and warned that it was "not a good idea" for members of the public to wear a mask in which the virus could get trapped, thus increasing the risk of infection.^[20] 

2 Harries suggested in March 2020 that the World Health Organisation (WHO)'s advice to "test, test, test" people for COVID-19 and trace their contacts was primarily intended for countries that were less well developed than the UK, arguing that "there comes a point in a pandemic where that is not an appropriate intervention": "The clue for WHO is in its title. It is a World Health Organisation and it is addressing all countries across the world with entirely different health infrastructures and particularly public health infrastructures. We have an extremely well-developed public health system in this country and in fact our public health teams actually train others abroad. So the point there is that they are addressing every country, including low- and middle-income countries, so encouraging all countries to test of some type," Harries said; other highly developed countries remained committed to extensive testing and experienced fewer deaths.^[22][23][24] 

3 In December 2021, The Telegraph reported that it was understood that Harries was the source of a contested figure that there was an average 17-day delay between infection and hospitalisation for COVID-19, used by Health Secretary Sajid Javid. Former Treasury statistician Simon Briscoe was quoted as saying that the figure seemed like either a "deliberate statistical sleight of hand designed to deceive, or incompetence" and that if deliberate, officials were "in effect trying to buy time, as officials realise that data of rising hospitalisations is needed to justify lockdown.

4 Harries and UKHSA was rebuked by the Office for Statistics Regulation (OSR) over  the statistics watchdog over claims that 200,000 people were catching Omicron per day which were not supported by evidence.

5 UKHSA admitted it had misunderstood the U.S. health authorities’ position on their five day isolation recommendation. The UKHSA had claimed the U.S. isolation period started after a positive test, so some time after infection. In fact, the U.S. advice was that its five-day isolation began when symptoms started. Ministers are furious that she has yet again misled them with erroneous data.

Given that the latest debacle comes just days after she was "Damed", it surely is now the time for her to be promoted away from anything to do with health and indeed from the UK. I suggest she be made ambassador to some small country, where she can do no further harm! 

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Nanny's Race To The Bottom

As loyal readers are only too aware, Nanny has the misguided view that children must never experience failure. In her warped view, the experience of failure will cause the children untold "damage" and "heartache".

Nanny is of course talking out of her posterior on this issue (as she does on so many other issues).

Failure, and learning to cope with failure, is an essential part of a child's development; it is necessary in order for the child to develop into a mature well rounded adult, with sense of self responsibility, capable of handling life's knocks.

Aside from trying to eliminate the concept of competition and winners/losers in school sports, Nanny has also tried to dumb down the exam system in order to pretend to herself and the hapless examinees that she has created a generation of academic intellectuals.

The reality, as is only too evident, is that she has created a nation of intellectual pygmies; unable to perform even the most basic of tasks in the adult world, and who need to be placed on remedial courses in order to be able to function in real jobs.

I am pleased to say that the Education Select Committee has also come to the same conclusion. It notes that the current system of exams and exam boards has created “perverse incentives” in which multiple examiners strip content out of syllabuses, stage training seminars for teachers and sell textbooks packed with exam tips to help schools inflate their overall scores.

The Telegraph reported that Graham Stuart, the committee’s chairman, said that politicians and exam boards had been in “denial” over a drop in standards in recent years, despite a notable decline in public confidence.

Mr Stuart said:

“The public have lost confidence in exam standards and this needs to be put right. We’ve got to stop the dumbing down of the courses young people sit and stop exam boards competing on how ‘accessible’ their syllabuses are.”

Nanny's system has, perversely, created competition between schools and exam boards; sadly it is a competition in a "race to the bottom" (as per a quote in the report).

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Utter Knobheads - The Central Wales Football Association

Oh dear oh dear, when will Nanny ever learn that competition and the ability to deal with failing and losing are essential elements in a child's education?

You only have to look at what happens to people who were cosseted from failure as kids to realise the damage that this does to them as adults, they end up becoming contestants (who are all "winners") on The Apprentice!

Anyhoo, Russell Hughes-Pickering and Dilwyn Roberts-Young, who give up hours of their time to coach the Aberystwyth and District Junior Football League a junior football league, discovered to their cost that Nanny does not like competition.

Both men were disciplined and ordered to step down for 12 months following a complaint.

What was their crime?

They were accused of breaching the Central Wales Football Association’s regulations, which ban under-11s from taking part in competitive matches. For reasons best known to Nanny, she has decreed that teams belonging to the league must play each other on a friendly basis, with no league table or points being recorded.

Unfortunately the two men organised a knockout competition. Needless to say, some sad git (clearly with nothing better to do in his/her life) complained.

Not only have they been suspended, but they must also pay a £75 fine, £50 costs and £50 for not being represented at the disciplinary hearing.

Ker Farking Ching!

By not allowing children to compete and experience failure/losing, Nanny is denying them the ability to grow, learn and develop into mature self responsible adults (isn't that a form of child abuse?).

The Central Wales Football Association, utter knobheads!

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Nanny Bans Humiliation

I see that Nanny is sticking her unwanted nose into sporting matters again.

This time the focus of her gimlet eye is Telford Junior Football League.

Nanny is worried that publication of the football results will embarrass the players.

Can you guess what she has done to stop the embarrassment?

Yes, that's right, Nanny now only records games in the Telford Junior League as either 1-0 wins or 1-1 draws.

Those in charge of the league claim that the new policy is in line with Football Association guidelines.

Oddly enough the FA says that this is bollocks, and that there is no such rule.

To add to the stupidity, the league will (next season) stop recording results for under-11 teams altogether.

Children need to learn about winning and losing from an early age. By engaging in this form of pc nonsense, the Junior League are in effect retarding the children from being able to learn to handle failure and the occasional snipe from rivals.

Is this denial of the right to learn from failure not in itself a form of child abuse?

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Everyone's A Winner!

School Stickers, a provider of rewards for primary and secondary schools, surveyed 300 primary and secondary schools recently and found that approximately 200 of them engaged in the bizarre practice of rewarding all pupils on sports days (whether they won or not).

For why?

In order to ensure that nobody felt left out, and that "feelings" were not hurt.

Within the findings the survey also noted that 9% of schools wouldn't single out "winners" at all.

Through "kindness" these schools are destroying the children's chances of being able to develop into healthy, well balanced and mature adults.

Failure is character building!

I have failed many times over the years, at many things, but have picked myself up and got on with my life. Without learning how to cope with failure these children will grow into emotionally stunted adults.

Now you know one of the reasons why our national football team sucks!

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Failure is Character Building

I must admit to enjoy watching the BBC's scripted "pretend business" show "The Apprentice", were the contestants really so successful in their current roles (as they claim) there is no way on planet earth that they would give these roles up to work for Sir Alan as an apprentice.

Anyhoo, the show does provide an interesting example of how the Nanny state has cushioned an entire generation from failure. What is particularly striking is how often it is that, when these business "masters/mistresses of the universe" are fired by Sir Alan, their "I am supreme" egos collapse and their bottom lips tremble (and that's just the boys).

Why is this?

Their upbringing by Nanny has wrapped them in cotton wool, they have never experienced failure.

I have failed many times, in many tasks; my first driving test, exams, relationships, all sporting competitions, world domination etc. Yet I did not collapse into a heap, I got back in the saddle and had another go.

Failure is character building, and is an essential part of growth.

Nanny by denying young people/children the opportunity to fail, and by not stretching them to the point of failure, is denying them an essential element in their development that they need to grow into mature well balanced and responsible adults.

Failure is necessary and essential to growth and development.

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The System

Listening to our "walking dead" Prime Minister the other day, prattling on about how "the system" (wrt MPs' expenses) was at fault for the claims for floating duck islands, fake mortgages, moats etc I was struck by how what the PM said exemplifies the very heart of the problem of the Nanny state.

The PM ignored the fundamental issue, it is not the system that is at fault but the people. It was not compulsory for our MPs to claim for duck islands and moats, they did so voluntarily and with gusto!

The PM and these greedy MPs are using the "procedures" argument as a defence, in exactly the same manner that a doctor, social worker, police officer, teacher, FSA CEO or council officer uses "rules and procedures" to justify what they do and to justify their mistakes.

How many times have we heard the phrase "we followed the procedures"?

That is meaningless if the end result is failure/death, or a cold hearted application of a petty rule.

Nanny's rules and procedures proactively encourage people to stop thinking for themselves and taking personal self responsibility for their own actions/mistakes.

The PM so eloquently highlighted (unintentionally) the very weakness at the heart of the Nanny state; namely, no one needs to ever take personal responsibility anymore, so long as they follow procedures.

Without personal responsibility, individuality, risk taking and thinking outside of the box we are most assuredly set on the path to our own self destruction; as we drown in bureaucracy and petty rules, all of which have been designed to suffocate initiative and growth.

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Big Brother - Nanny's DNA Database For Babies

Nanny's desire to record all of her subjects on a DNA database will not be mollified by ethics, decency or public outcry.

Nanny's best chum the ever hapless and hopeless Home Economics Minister (sorry Secretary of State for The Home Orifice), Jacqui Smith, has found herself trying lamely to defend a decision to place a baby's DNA on the national database.

Smith admitted that the child was aged under one at the time its profile was taken by police and stored.

I would remind everyone that, aside from the obvious point that a baby is unlikely to commit a crime, the age of age of criminal responsibility is ten in England and Wales.

Why therefore did the state choose to take the baby's DNA sample?

The most likely explanation is that the baby was at a crime scene, and all persons present had their DNA taken.

OK, that sounds just about plausible.

However, could Ms Smith explain why the baby's DNA sample (having been eliminated from the enquiry) was not then destroyed instead of being place in the database?

Even our "friends" in Europe think we are overdoing this. The European Court of Human Rights condemned the system as excessive and disproportionate, claiming it "could not be regarded as necessary in a democratic society".

Oddly, back in December Ms Smith said that the Nanny would take "immediate steps" to remove the profiles of children under ten.

So why then does this baby's DNA remain on the database?

To further expose her lack of comprehension of the basic tenets of a democratic and just criminal justice system, Ms Smith said it was her intention to treat innocent people with "greater flexibility and fairness".

Errmmm...call me old fashioned...but isn't that what the system was meant to be doing already?

Is Ms Smith suggesting that the system does not, at present, treat innocent people fairly?

Isn't that the hallmark of a dictatorship?

Ms Smith is a fine example of a ZaNuLabour frontbencher:

- lacking in initiative,
- lacking intelligence,
- lacking understanding of the basic principles of law,
- lacking empathy with the voters,
- a failure,
- disliking democracy and,
- ignorant.

Vote ZaNuLabour for more of the same.

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The "Light" Touch

Nanny, in the shape of Gordon "Smiler" Brown and his chum Darling, has been loudly harrumphing recently about the banking crisis and how the banks have behaved disgracefully. Nanny has been particularly vocal recently about bonuses (ie rewarding failure), and Sir Fred "The Shred" Goodwin's pension of £650K per annum.

Needless to say Nanny is so cross that she has demanded that Sir Fred stop drawing on it (or face "legal" action), that the banks restrain their bonuses and is threatening a tougher regulatory regime.

Now, in the midst of all of this political spin (so willingly regurgitated by the ever so compliant and malleable media) designed to tap into people's latent disgust over the size of some bankers' pay packets, and the destruction of value by some of Britain's "leading" banks, lies a little problem for Nanny.

Can you guess what that is children?

Yes, that's right, she was in charge of the system during the years of boom:

1 Brown set up the tripartite regulatory system, which has proven to be such a failure.

2 Mervyn King (Governor of the Bank of England) and Hector Sants (CEO of the FSA) have both stated that Nanny insisted on a "light regulatory touch" during the boom years.

3 Sir Fred has stated that his pension was approved by the government, in the shape of Lord Myners.

4 Were Nanny to completely nationalise the "naughty" banks, as her media dogs and political midgets who support her are urging her to do, shares in every other bank in the UK would fall to zero, as people realised that their bank would be next. The result being the complete collapse of the capitalist banking system in this country.

5 Nanny allowed 100% mortgages in the boom years, now she wants them banned. Ironically, Northern Rock (now owned by us) has now been given Treasury approval for 90% mortgages. Isn't 90% almost as bad as 100% in a falling market?

Bottom line, the banking system needs to be saved (the people who destroyed value can be shot after it is saved) and Nanny knows this full well.

Why is she so vocal in her harrumphing then?

Why doesn't she speak more honestly about why the system needs to be saved?

The answer is simple, she is every bit as culpable as the bankers for this crisis; as it happened on her watch, as a result of her "light" touch and her tripartite system.

By the way, isn't it strange that at the very moment Mervyn King and Hector Sants publicly start having a go at Brown and his tripartite system, the details of Sir Fred's pension pot (agreed by Myners in October 2008) are leaked to the press via Peston?

Isn't it odd that Sir Fred's pension is making the lead in the media, such an easy story because it involves a hated banker, instead of the failure of Brown's tripartite system?

It seems to me that Nanny is trying to divert our attention again.

FYI, if you want to read my daily thoughts on finance and issues relating to this crisis pop over to www.loanbuster.net.

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Well Said Dame Stella!

I doff my hat to Dame Stella Rimington, ex head of MI5, who has lambasted Nanny's lackeys in the government for turning this country into a police state and for using fear to kowtow the population.

Here is an article in the Telegraph about what she said:

Dame Stella accused ministers of interfering with people’s privacy and playing straight into the hands of terrorists.

“Since I have retired I feel more at liberty to be against certain decisions of the Government, especially the attempt to pass laws which interfere with people’s privacy,” Dame Stella said in an interview with a Spanish newspaper.

“It would be better that the Government recognised that there are risks, rather than frightening people in order to be able to pass laws which restrict civil liberties, precisely one of the objects of terrorism: that we live in fear and under a police state,” she said.

Dame Stella, 73, added: “The US has gone too far with Guantánamo and the tortures. MI5 does not do that. Furthermore it has achieved the opposite effect: there are more and more suicide terrorists finding a greater justification.” She said the British secret services were “no angels” but insisted they did not kill people.

Dame Stella became the first woman director general of MI5 in 1992 and was head of the security agency until 1996. Since stepping down she has been a fierce critic of some of the Government’s counter-terrorism and security measures, especially those affecting civil liberties.

In 2005, she said the Government’s plans for ID cards were “absolutely useless” and would not make the public any safer. Last year she criticised attempts to extend the period of detention without charge for terrorism suspects to 42 days as excessive, shortly before the plan was rejected by Parliament.

Her latest remarks were made as the Home Office prepares to publish plans for a significant expansion of state surveillance, with powers for the police and security services to monitor every email, as well as telephone and internet activity.

Despite considerable opposition to the plan, the document will say that the fast changing pace of communication technology means the security services will not be able to properly protect the public without the new powers.

Local councils have been criticised for using anti-terrorism laws to snoop on residents suspected of littering and dog fouling offences.

David Davis, the Tory MP and former shadow home secretary, said: “Like so many of those who have had involvement in the battle against terrorism, Stella Rimington cares deeply about our historic rights and rightly raises the alarm about a Government whose first interest appears to be to use the threat of terrorism to frighten people and undermine those rights rather than defend them.”

In a further blow to ministers, an international study by lawyers and judges accused countries such as Britain and America of “actively undermining” the law through the measures they have introduced to counter terrorism.

The report, by the International Commission of Jurists, said: “The failure of states to comply with their legal duties is creating a dangerous situation wherein terrorism, and the fear of terrorism, are undermining basic principles of international human rights law.”

The report claimed many measures introduced were illegal and counter-productive and that legal systems put in place after the Second World War were well equipped to handle current threats. Arthur Chaskelson, the chairman of the report panel, said: “In the course of this inquiry, we have been shocked by the damage done over the past seven years by excessive or abusive counter-terrorism measures in a wide range of countries around the world.

“Many governments, ignoring the lessons of history, have allowed themselves to be rushed into hasty responses to terrorism that have undermined cherished values and violated human rights.’’

A Home Office spokesman said: “The Government has been clear that where surveillance or data collection will impact on privacy they should only be used where it is necessary and proportionate. The key is to strike the right balance between privacy, protection and sharing of personal data.

“This provides law enforcement agencies with the tools to protect the public as well as ensuring government has the ability to provide effective public services while ensuring there are effective safeguards and a solid legal framework that protects civil liberties.”

In her interview, in La Vanguardia newspaper, Dame Stella also described the shock of her two daughters when they discovered she was a spy and told how she used most “gadgets” when she was in office except for “a gun’’.

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Nanny Bans Paddling Pools - Again

Oh dear oh dear!

Not content with trying to stop people swimming in lakes and rivers, Nanny has now decreed that paddling pools (ie those public areas with usually less than 12 inches of water) present a clear and present danger to the health and safety of children.

Can you guess what Nanny wants to do children?

Yes, that's right, she wants to employ lifeguards at these pools!

Failure to employ a lifeguard may mean that the pools will have to be closed.

Nanny has told our "beloved" and "respected" local councils (her frontline storm troopers in her war against the people) to drain their pools, or put trained lifesavers on site.

By way of example, Carmarthenshire Council has been told its eight pools must have the same safety cover as a beach.

Is Nanny totally bonkers, or has she been smoking something "special"?

I well remember using my local paddling pool to sail my model ships etc. Never once did I drown. However, my mum was always with me when I went "paddling" (just in case I drowned in the 8 inches of water) so maybe therein lies a possible solution????

Here's a radical thought, why not let parents be responsible for the health and safety of their kids rather than the state.

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Prats of The Week - The Dangers of Red Ink

Tis the year end, and time for my very last "Prats of The Week" Award for 2008.

This week's award goes to the prats in Nanny's educashunal department, who have banned teachers in schools across the country from marking pupils' work with red pens.

For why?

Red, in Nanny's view, upsets and demoralises the kids as it is "confrontational" and "threatening".

Crofton Junior School, in Orpington, has banned red ink. Its Marking Code of Practice states:

"Work is generally marked in pen – not red – but on occasion it may be appropriate to indicate errors in pencil so that they may be corrected."

Headmaster Richard Sammonds said:

"Red pen can be quite demotivating for children. It has negative, old-school connotations of See me and Not good enough".

Good grief!

How are children meant to achieve their best, if they are not stretched and challenged?

What use will these children be as adults, if they have never faced failure and constructive criticism?

We are breeding a nation of passive intellectual immature dullards.

Nanny's educashunal department, well deserving "Prats of The Week"!

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Nanny Bans Spleeeling

Oh dear, Nanny is worried about the dangers that educashun might instill a sense of failure in children.

How so?

Surely educashun instills confidence?

Ah, how naive we all are for thinking that!

For you see dear readers, when you teach a child something like spelling what happens if he/she makes a mistake?

In my day I would be made to write the offending word out several times, until I got it right.

Now we live in more enlightened times, Nanny tells us that learning to spell and making mistakes in spelling will give rise to a sense of failure.

I am grateful to Nanny for pointing this out, now that I have reached a ripe and productive middle age I now realise that in fact (because I made spelling mistakes...and still do) I am in fact a failure.

Anyhoo, if you think that I am making this all up think, I would like to direct you Whitminster Endowed Church of England Primary School, near Stroud.

Headmistress Debbie Marklove recently decreed that pupils will not be given lists of words to learn by rote as homework.

For why?

There is a risk that children will feel a "sense of failure" if, having learned the words at home, they were unable to spell them at school the next day.

She has even written to the parents to tell them about the change:

"You will notice that the children will not be given spelling lists to learn over the week and then be tested in class.

We have taken the decision to stop spellings as homework as it is felt that although children may learn them perfectly at home they are often unable to use them in their daily written work.

Also many children find this activity unnecessarily distressing.

The spelling patterns will continue to be taught explicitly in the classroom and assessed as part of the normal marking by the teacher."

Errmmm...how would she have been abel to rite that lettter if she coodent spell proper?

Surely no one would have been able to understand it?

Mrs Marklove went on to dig her own grave by saying:

"If children are given spellings to learn and get five out of five when practising with mum and dad and then only get one out of five the next day at school, it can give them a sense of failure.

I've heard comments in the playground from children asking each other what they got and, where this can be a positive thing when they get five out of five, it can also impound failure."

A small piece of advice for Nanny's teechers, competition is good as it encourages pupils to stretch themselves.

Learning to compete, and fail, is vital in order to be able to interact and succeed in the adult world. Those adults who as children have never tasted failure, and have not picked themselves up afterwards, are usually immature spoilt individuals who cannot cope in the adult world.

Nanny is stunting children's growth by not stretching them in this way.

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CRB Checks for Swimmers

You know how Nanny is so afraid of anything happening to children that she insists that all who come into contact with them on a professional level (eg teachers, volunteers, coaches etc) have CRB (Criminal Record Bureau) checks done first?

Well, she has thought about it and realised that there is a failure of logic.

Cue the dramatic roll on the drums!



For you see dear readers, teachers, volunteers etc are not the only adults to come into contact with children...are they?

Adults pursuing their ordinary day to day activities may come into contact with children as well.

Thus Nanny is tightening up her CRB rules and insisting that local swimming clubs (who wish to have Swim 21 accreditation) perform CRB checks on all those over 18 who join...lest they come into contact with those in the club who are under 18.

Errmmm...am I alone in thinking that this is not a tad paranoid?

Given that people in the clubs swim together, what precisely could happen in such a group scenario?

I would also note that adults are not placed in the same swim lanes as the under 18's.

Those who join clubs under the age of 18 do not have to have a CRB check. However, as and when they turn 18 they do. Additionally, coaches who wish to teach at more than one club have to have CRB's performed at each club they work at (even though the check is performed by the same police force and same call centre).

Has Nanny totally lost the plot here?

Now here is a little question for Nanny.

You know how much she loves her forthcoming great waste of resources, namely The 2012 Olympics?

Will all British Olympic athletes (and indeed foreign ones too) need to be CRB checked before the London games, given that there are competitors who will be under 18?

This is but the thin end of the wedge, Nanny will soon insist that all adults have a CRB check performed.

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Power - Another Failure!

My thanks to EDF for plunging Frost Towers back into darkness again today, with yet another power cut.

Their last power outage was on August 9th.

As I said then:

"How the fark am I meant to keep my beer, tonic and other mixers chilled or indeed maintain a stock of firm ice cubes for my tinctures?"

My laboratory experiments have also been seriously affected by this outage.

Who do I sue?

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Power - A Failure

Given that we live in a Nanny state, where we are all protected from all forms of risk and threat, how is it Frost Towers is without power this morning?

EDF inform me that they don't know why, and don't know when it will be back.

How the fark am I meant to keep my beer, tonic and other mixers chilled or indeed maintain a stock of firm ice cubes for my tinctures?

Who do I sue?

FYI, this was published using a laptop and piggy backing off soemone else's wifi.

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Nanny Bans Competition

In the real world we have to face up to the fact that there are others competing for the same things (material, social, jobs, power, ego related etc) that we are; it's called life.

Sometimes we win, sometimes we lose.

We learnt to compete, and deal with failure, when we were young.

We were lucky!

In Nanny's world competition is bad, as that means there are losers. Therefore she has banned competition.

Children under the age of eight have been banned by the Football Association from playing in football leagues and cups, as there are fears that they are under too much pressure from competitive parents.

The new rules stipulate that matches can still be played, but that the results must be kept private and no league tables can be compiled.

Additionally children should not compete in knockout tournaments where there are trophies or medals.

This idea is complete bollocks!

How else will they learn how to deal with success and failure?

How do you play football non competitively?

Failure is character building.

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The Dangers of Flowers

Pity the poor elderly residents of a care home in my borough of Croydon, who have been told by our "respected" local council to take down the plastic flowers in their care home.

Croydon council has placed posters in the elderly people's home asking them to remove the tubs of plastic flowers that residents had placed in the accommodation, along with some ornaments, to add a splash of colour.

Nanny says that they pose a fire hazard to Tonbridge House and have said that failure to take heed of the warning "may result in legal action", leading to eviction.

Bastards!

It is no small irony that in days of yore the false blooms have been a success with the authorities, being featured in the council's own magazine.

Some residents have had their fake shrubs for 40 years. Bernard Towner, 65, called the decision "ridiculous".

However, the council has stood by its decision saying that pots placed in the corridors could be an obstruction if the building needed to be evacuated.

Resident Bernard Towner, 65, said:

"The wording of the letter was so aggressive - we might have been a bit more understanding if someone had come to speak to us but this was the first warning we got.

It's ridiculous really - I was talking to one lady who said she has had her flowers there since she moved in 40 years ago."

A council tenancy officer ordered their removal after visiting Tonbridge House last week. Posters were put up demanding the corridors were cleared due to health and safety fears.

The worker said the residents were in breach of their tenancy agreements, and that their flower pots and trinkets were a fire hazard.

As said:

Bastards!

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Balls By Name, Balls By Nature

Nanny's special little pet, Ed Balls (Schools Secretary), is living up to his name by recently spouting complete shite.

In his view, and this is the most amazing piece of Big Brother "double speak" that I have read in a long while, grammar schools damage educational standards.

Just think about that for minute.

Balls is saying that by trying to turn out well educated pupils, grammar schools are damaging educational standards.

What kind of standards is Nanny setting herself?

Nanny and Balls have a priority to "improve" the quality of educashun in their state run schools. Fair enough, and quite correct.

Now you and I would do this by improving the quality of educashun, teaching and stretching the pupils.

Not so under the Balls "vision". His method is simple, ensure that the most gifted children are not syphoned off by grammar schools, that way the average performance of the state school will rise by default; even if it means that those who are bright will be held back by the slowest in the class.

A great way to run an education system, and a very regressive step back to the old Labour policy of class war and envy.

Balls went on to say that the system left secondary modern pupils feeling as if they were failures. Wee all fail at some stage in life, those who survive are those who pick themselves up and try again. Nanny would have us collapse in crumpled heap on the floor in self pity and self loathing, never to try again.

Balls stated in black and white:

"Let me make it clear that I don't like selection. We don't support new grammar schools.

Overall, secondary moderns are around twice as likely to be below the 30 per cent benchmark than the average school. I've heard first-hand how some of the young people starting in these schools feel on day one that they have already failed."

This is the politics of division and envy, something that Labour should have abandoned decades ago.

Balls would do well to remember that those who are often most disruptive in class, are those who are not being stretched or challenged by the system. Grammar schools offer an opportunity for stretching bright pupils, Nanny should not try to deny them that opportunity.

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A Nice Little Earner - Bin Brother

Nanny's local councils, much like Nanny herself, are desperate to raise cash. Their bloated defined benefit pensions schemes and high payroll costs for their executive teams are bleeding the local taxpayers dry.

However, council tax alone is not enough to quench local councils' thirst for money, they need another source.

Enter stage left "Fines".

Fines are a brilliant way for local councils to raise extra cash, all they have to do is to make something illegal then watch as the money rolls in from the fines that their "enforcement" officers impose.

One of the latest new "illegal" activities invented by Nanny is that of overfilling your bin, as Gareth Corkhill of Copeland in Cumbria recently found to his cost.

Mr Corkhill has a wheelie bin which is only emptied once a fortnight by his local council, as such it gets rather full and the lid does not shut.

As we all know, in Nanny's Britain, a non shutting lid is a "no no" and exposes the offender to a fine.

Last summer two of Nanny's enforcement officers, wearing stab proof vests, arrived at his home. They issued him with a £110 on-the-spot fine for failure to close the lid of his wheelie bin.

Mr Corkhill did not pay that fine.

The result being that he has just been taken to court and ordered to pay £210 plus a £15 victim surcharge to help victims of violence (note there was no violence in this case), in addition to the fines he has also been given a criminal record.

His local council, Copeland in Cumbria, said that Mr Corkhill's family had caused problems for "the battle to reduce waste".

Nanny is using the criminal law to shore up her crumbling finances. Once the government/state goes down that path, you know the country's farked!

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