what do people want from bookshops? (clue, check their title)

hearing of the marvellous sales figures at our parent company, and its tumbling share price as a result, I've been considering something other than politics for a change.

It is fairly apparent to anyone who goes into our sister store (purveyors of Cd's, DVDs, games, and annoyingly these days, cheap books), that they are falling flailing on their arses. They keep hitting up related areas of product, sales gimmicks, etc, all to no avail. They tend rather to overlook the fact that what made you popular is what sells. Now, obviously it may be you are part of a dying retail area: The Internet is changing everything yadda yadda....

But if you are attempting to maintain yr niche, or adapt it, a company does well to remember what people will still need you for, and this is as true for my employer as her sister company:

1) no-one really shops for pleasure on the Internet. They would prefer to be in shop with items in hand, browsing, reading labels, comparing prices. As most of the silly market research i have to listen to points out: a CD/DVD/book in the hand is worth two on the Internet. the sense of possession when you leap onto something physically there, is much greater than browsing an image. so bearing this in mind

2) YOU SHOULD STOCK AS MUCH RANGE AS YOU CAN. yes, you can never compete with the Internet in terms of what you have in; but equally, the Internet is no more than a catalogue. it has no physical product to put in people's hands. people go back to record shops and book stores for new and different things. why would anyone go into a different branch on their holidays, for instance, if they didn't expect to see something different from home. Furthermore, the chance purchase is based on surprise, is based on people picking something up adjacent, seeing something on a shelf, and looking at it, turning it over. People want to peruse as much choice as they can reasonably find.

3) it is pointless to stock hundreds of copies of something huge, that will be cheaper on the Internet, and could be orderedquickly by your store if desperately needed. Those big items, the ones everyone knows about, by all means stock a good quantity, but remember they are the ones that will be sold largely online and in supermarkets. NEVER CHASE THE VERY CASUAL BUYER, THE MOST PRICE CONSCIOUS BUYER, AT THE EXPENSE OF CORE CUSTOMERS. Yes, you want them, but they are fickle and there is little point in overstocking discounted items for them when the regular users are so tired of you having nothing new that they give up on you entirely. So if you have space for 40 copies of the latest massive sellers, by all means get it, but not if it means pushing out half the subject range. Everyone knows where they can get The Girl With the Deathly Nigella Code or whatever, you'll never win their loyalty by having it in all the time.

4) Prices should be sensible. there is no point devaluing the product, even though you obviously have to compete. Rather than being extreme in your prices, hit a sensible medium. This is a bit problem with the sister company. a CD/DVD comes out at £9,goes on offer at £5 and then goes up to £14-£16. Shops underestimate, i think, how irritating price changes are; especially those that change every couple of weeks (as we did with some items over Xmas). put the CD out at £10, and mostly leave it there. perhaps include it in multi buys, but keep a steady price. People are conservative in shopping terms, and will buy at a reasonable price when the item is there to be taken. Adding an extra £6 onto its price once the item is older is likely to drive people elsewhere; Better to have it at £9 when new, and then maybe up the price by a pound or two after a couple of months. Better still, just price it in the middle and have done. Price reliability is greatly underestimated. And avoid doing what we have done this year and last, by keeping a book on offer even when it is getting close to Xmas. A bit of plain dealing instead of milking will almost certainly go down well. Customers that trust you, consider you fair minded regarding price, are much more likely to keep coming back.

On a more specific noet, our store has, i gather, been singled out for an experiment. Not a particularly clever one, by the sound of it. we are to reduce our non-children's books space to 50% of the store, and expand our Related Product. Given we are the only proper bookshop in the county, and highly dependent on a core of regulars, this will undoubtedly prove unwise. I got quite a few comments over Xmas about how ----- section was half what it used to be; any more shrinkage and many will probably give up entirely. I'm all for experimenting, provided its a clever experiment that takes consideration of the market. The increase in RP seems bizarre, its percentage margin per item may be good, but you'd still need to sell 10 cards for instance to make up the margin on a book. and the margin amount is more important than the percentage, i would've thought. Plus, Related Product is, as the term accurately puts it, "related", its an extra. To expand the range of RP at the expense of books is the equivalent of a restaurant adding lots more sides or starters to its menu and cutting the range of main meals. Few people go in for the sides or starters. After early movement in the right direction at the start of the year, it would seem we are looking into making the same mistakes Smith's made for so long. Jack of all trades, master of none. Smith's figures only improved once they shrank their core concerns; and even now they aren't doing so well to suggest there is a big market for competitors. Finally, Smith's are, item for item, cheaper and more downmarket than we are; it would be unwise to compete when our products are marginally more expensive, and to lower the prices would remove the margin to a financially pointless degree. If the company has any market to expand into, it may be better served by posters and prints, which are these days less available on the high street.

The future, you feel, still remains in rediscovering the core of what we do well, and doing to the highest standards with best staff at sensible consistent prices.

reading the paper the other day, i was confronted by Neo-liberal cliche that bothered me slightly. a person wrote in bemoaning the State "crowding out" free enterprise, and arguing that the private sector are "wealth creators", and the State some kind of parasite.

having been reading some economic theory recently, i thought about this, and came to the conclusion such distinctions are largely bollocks. some reasons why

the notion that wealth is "created" at all is flawed in the first place. Wealth comes from the exchange of labour for money in the production of goods/services. A worker is as much part of wealth creation as any investor or manager. Capital (financial/land/technical) alone does not produce more wealth, it requires labourers. so in a sense the wealth is inside all workers from a furniture maker to a shop assistant to librarian. These people provide the service/product. You could own the whole process, but without people to make/operate/ staff/sell, there would be no end product. the Capitalist is often the least necessary person. This is clear from small businesses, who borrow their capital, from the bank without the bank taking profits or a managerial role.
As such, the economy is the movement and exchange of labour in the production of goods/services, in return for money or payment of some kind, which in turn becomes spent on more services/goods (rent, food, clothes, luxury goods, whatever) which provide jobs for other people. The economy is just a flow of labour and money. To suggest something is created from nothing is plainly simplistic. The point is that economic success is maintenance of that flow. The State providing jobs does a similar role to a bank really in getting someone from a position where they earn nothing (unemployment) and can spend nothing, to a position where they earn (provide a service/good) and spend money.
The latter, as Keynes points out, effects a multiplier: if a state builds something, say houses, and gives jobs to people to build them, it also increases private sector employment: The houses require materials, transport, and sundry other private services which equals jobs in the private sector; The jobs also equal disposable income which is spent...... in the private sector,again increasing jobs in the private sector. The State, as well as providing necessary services (health care, council houses, education, social care and on....) that are often better in accountable state hands, produces economic consumers, or, to be fairer, gets these people back into a situation where they can work and in turn provide economic demand that businesses benefit from. In times of economic downturn, where the private sector is saving not spending, and unemployment is low, equalling low demand for goods (a spiral of non- consumption/ unemployment which is stagnation), the state can effectively jump start the economy by spreading employment and confidence.
Even if you accept that states taxing to spend is somehow parasitic upon private revenues, actually the state is taking from "excess" funds (profits, incomes, CGT), which in a depression are highly unlikely to be spent or invested (the latter insensibly, if at all): uncertainty as to future gains means investment is less likely and saving more likely. Saving exceeding spending is central to economic downturns. The State by appropriating these funds through taxation, is using these funds more sensibly economically, as follows:

A) taking, for example, £120000 income tax from someone on several hundred thousand, pays for the state to provide perhaps 6 or more public sector workers providing a necessary service. this removes them from unemployment and non-consumption, and puts them back to employment and consumption. The people are now, no longer taking from state (benefits) but working for it, and in turn, spending money in the private economy.

this is economically better than a large accumulation of private wealth, which is less likely to be spent (particularly in diverse maintainable spends; the luxury good market is an unstable one) if spent at all. As is said earlier, a key factor in depressions is the preference for liquidity (saving) over investment, especially amongst the rich. The employees spend more diffusely, more necessarily, and ultimately more maintainably (food, clothes, etc,).

AND

it performs the valuable social function of redistributing wealth; the excessively rich paying for jobs of poorer sections in necessary areas. It is, surely, better to have a rich man paying tax to employ someone, than paying tax to pay their benefit and trap them in a cycle of poverty and non-consumption that doesn't benefit the economy.

Either way, in the end, public or private, money flows back into the economy.
The government performs the important function (the one the private sector often fails to do in downturns; note how companies lay off staff, and banks refuse to lend) of keeping this flow (of labour for money for goods for labour for money for goods,.... and on) going. which is what a healthy economy is about, surely?


(and as a important socialist caveat, The state can do this in way that is accountable and concerned with social well being, not mere private profit, and diffuses money across the population)

Public Image

I was watching the Labour Leadership special edition of Question Time last night (i made an exception to my usual rule about avoiding serious annoyance prior to sleep), and found it largely interesting and thoughtful. There was, however, one question, fairly innocuously phrased, that grabbed my brain. A quite averagely photogenic young lady asked if a recent report showing public sector pay to be, on average, higher than private sector pay made their defence of public sector workers seem a bit daft (my paraphrase from memory).

The implication was fairly clear: public sector workers are overpaid, and should stop whinging, the cuts are necessary etc etc. As someone whose parents have both worked in the public sector, and who, himself, has worked in both, it prompted some anger and annoyance.Partly because i felt no-one was robust in their attack on the implication of the question

David Milliband was right to point out that, due to contracting out, many of the lower paid roles in the public sector are now technically private sector, this skews the analysis quite a bit. But even if we put that aside, the facts are hardly so clear. Yes, public sector median is higher, but the mean average is usually lower. Even allowing for someone wanting to take the median as their average (mathematicians and social scientists of all stripes will see the issues with both), the difference actually isn't that great, being (on average, NOT in every instance) around a couple of grand more a year (I'm quoting from 2007 figures, having not found the recent report yet). And that awful, excessive median figure??
£20,000 a year.

Of course there will be issues with this, many will be part-time working (possibly due to cutbacks), and so earning less (though obviously the pro-rata rate is correct). Either way it can hardly be considered excessive. Actually it is a little surprising, because, of the half dozen people i know/have known working in the public sector, only one person earns over £20000 (and that after 30 years in this area of work, and being quite high in his department). most are paid sub-£18,000. My pay, private sector retail, is £12000 pro rata; it seems too little for my efforts, but then who's doesn't? i certainly don't grudge friends who do a similar role in county libraries their £13000. they are paid fairer than i am, but equally they work very hard. In some areas of the public sector pay is not enough; my mother until recently worked for years as a domestic (cleaner) in an old people's home; it was filthy, physically unpleasant and tiring work; she often left a hour after her shift ended (a sense of duty, they call it), because of under staffing; she has trouble with her back because of it; it is also essential work (can you imagine anywhere short of a hospital that would be dirtier, yet hygiene would be so important??)......she got paid just over £12000 pro-rata. Tell her she was overpaid. if you told me, i would be inclined to boot you down the stairs.


Of course, as the newspapers gleefully point out every day, excessive top public sector pay is a concern. Frankly, no-one is more concerned than your average public sector worker, who isn't terms and conditions go down, while the top brass get brassier every year. But these people are not typical. And sadly, they are rarely, the ones losing substantial sums in pay reviews.No, the people who are, are those on £14k say, who in some cases have lost nearly £10% of their income.
And while top pay in the sector is often high, it is still nowhere close to the sums earned by big private sector executives. You can quibble with whether a council leader actually deserves his £150k, but its difficult to see how his actual role is worth less than the head of (an example close to my heart) a major entertainment goods retailer on £800k. the former administers essential services for millions of people, the latter sells luxuries to us.

The bigger problem, and the one which prompts the private sector to point in the opposite direction, is the often grossly unfair pay scales in the private sector. The public sector gets attacked for earnings that rarely go below £12k pro-rata (except, perhaps, those contracted out to the private sector), and rarely go above £200k pro-rata, while the private whistles and looks the other way, when someone points out its bottom salaries frequently go below £10000 (16-21 year olds mainly), and its top salaries often are in excess of £500k. Of course, it is only fair to point out that most small businesses operate a fairer pay scale than this; the benefits of actually knowing and working with your staff day to day i guess. But in terms of the big private companies, comparable to councils, the NHS, etc, then unfair pay scales are the norm.

the most disappointing thing, though, a point which speaks sad volumes about attitudes in our society now, is that ordinary private sector workers seem to be buying into this tactic. Instead of saying "hang on, why are we paid so badly? how can we get a fairer pay system?", many are looking at the public sector (which performs valuable, often essential, roles: Education, NHS, Care homes, Social Services) and asking "why should they be better paid?". you can probably guess who i blame for the growth of such attitudes., so i won't state it. But the public sector has protected itself better against the relative erosion of pay and conditions partly because of the unions good work. Retail, for example, is rarely unionised because of large scale part-time work, and a rapid turnover of staff. organised resistance is tricky to say the least, especially in a "flexible labour market" where replacement workers are easy to come by, and jobs are much needed.

If Labour has any aim, as the progressive party it is, but has rarely shown in recent government, it should be to stop the growth of excessive pay difference in all sectors, public and private, and to encourage a better society where pay is fairer and taxation more progressive. Pleasingly, there was some evidence of that feeling among the leadership panel last night, but they really need to be louder and firmer on it. 90% of people in this country earn under £40k, and they are all being squeezed, and they all need Labour to be clear it is fighting for them.

Scroungers!

It is a bit difficult to wake up these days without the economic softening up being gently whispered in your ear by Avon bunnies in business suits....

Closely followed by whispers of scroungers..... immigrants... a wasteful benefits system.... in fact the usual right-wing trick of necessary cuts being made to cover ideological warfare and the greed of a stupidly rich few. We all know swingeing attacks on not just the poorest sections, but ordinary middle income earners are coming too..... they point the finger at scroungers, immigrants.... but really, dear people, they mean most of you.... anyone on child benefit, income assistance, rent support? they mean you. anyone here use schools, the NHS, social care, social services, council services whatsoever? they mean you. It is alright saying no frontline services will be cut, but besides being a lie, it is also a simplification: if you cut support staff, administrative staff, then those frontline staff will spend more time doing those tasks than the "frontline" ones they are purposely employed for...... more paperwork for teachers and headteachers, doctors, nurses, social workers.

The coalition has so far proved unsurprisingly adept at it: Ian Duncan Smith's rhetoric is little more than Norman Tebbit's with a smile and a hug; the slightly sinister hug that mafia dons give those they have killed in the next scene. But they're Tories, you expect it.

What is more concerning is the way this rhetoric is being clutched at by Labour leadership contenders ( a peculiarly drab, middle class version of X-Factor, where everyone is desperate to seem 'normal' and 'down with the proles'.... ). Much silly balls (and, of course, silly Balls) is being stressed about a need to deal with ordinary fears over immigration, scroungers, and a "something for nothing culture".... apparently what lost them the election (an election where only 36% voted for the Tories, but 52% voted for Libs or Labs) was a failure to outflank the opposition on the right..... thus, we have them murmuring how they should show they are "tough" on immigration.... "tough on benefit cheats".... want to help ordinary working families.... as if ordinary working families don't need unemployment benefit, child benefit, or support with any aspect of their lives.

The Labour party got duped into this crap before, under Blair. Just because an (actually relatively small) section of working and middle class people get conned into believing such scapegoating crap, a newspaper myth that uses a very small minority to blacken the name of a much larger and more honest set of people who really need help (ask the 2 million plus unemployed if they wanted to lose their jobs, if they enjoy living at pure subsistence level, with a huge dent in their self-confidence and self respect...), doesn't mean their argument is right. the popular argument, if it draws on prejudice, is almost always wrong.

Congratulations working class folk! you've bought the shit again! the people who are actually screwing you (who took huge salaries and ran your economy into the ground) now want to pay less tax than they should, and want you to sacrifice for them.... well, not you obviously (you're decent, ordinary, hardworking)...... but THEM.... the others.... the scroungers... the immigrants...
Of course the argument recurs now, because the last few years have made most people rightly sceptical of the value and work of the wealthiest. Support for fairer taxation (more on the richest £100k plus earners, less on low earners, and more on unearned incomes and business profits), and sympathy for the downtrodden has been on the rise, because many more people fall into that category; of course, at this point, the scapegoating starts again, the media sleight of hand that attempts to divide and conquer..... we are back to the "deserving poor and "the undeserving poor".... could they be deflecting attention? Of course they bloody are.

The grotesque image rather reminds you of the wealthy kid who's nicked your tuck money all year, suddenly turning round at the point of confrontation and pointing at the scruffy, slightly foreign kid that smells funny, and shouting "but he's got a packet of Fruit Pastilles!".... and waiting for everyone's fear and prejudice to kick in.

But, as anyone who is on benefits knows, and anyone who has friends on it too, will tell you: life on these benefits is hard, and given the difficulty of obtaining them and their tendency to fuck up, you really wouldn't want to be on them very long..... sure, there are a few exploiters of the system (always are, in any system; many of whom will see the self-interest and greed our society cultivates , and think well this is how the system works for me), but most people on them are honest and doing the best they can to get themselves out of difficult straits. Unemployment and incapacity is soul-destroying, confidence-sapping and frankly boring... people want to work. people want to achieve. They don't want to be treated with contempt, and made to feel wasters by people with large houses, large unearned incomes, and considerably more political influence than them.

Part of the problem, i guess, is the myth the successful construct for themselves: everything i have is deserved (even my £200k income)..... everything I've achieved is through my own merit and hard work (even though i went a top private school, and a friend of a friend got me this job), therefore why should i be taxed more. Truth is, we are all guilty of it. I like to think the good things are my just reward, and the bad things aren't my fault (the lie of merit). No-one denies many of these folk work hard, or that in some sense they deserve success for their work.... but The truth is people's background and opportunities, their networks, and their accents, and then just plain old luck.... the self-made millionaire is the exception not the rule..... most people work hard all their lives and get nowhere near £50k, let alone higher, through no lack of ability. The mistake of the successful is not to realise their luck or their better chances, and to assume that everyone else who achieves less is stupid or lazy, or undeserving. it is rubbish.

A combination of the City and business mismanagement with goverment borrowing rather than increasing the tax yield, created this "crisis" (which isn't as serious as many across the world). Now a small section of people (CBI-endorsed, discredited rightwing economists, and the upper middles classes who wish to hang on to their material and social advantages) want to escape their responsibilities. They got seriously rich in the boom, and now they aren't prepared to help the rest of us in the crash, by absorbing some of the trouble..... poor souls.... its truly hard to cope on £100k a year, rather than £150... you must understand.

As for the racial scapegoating of immigrants (and much of it uses racial fears).... well, it happened in the 80s causing social division, and it happened in the 30s (some place called Germany had serious problems with it.)

Decreasing benefits and more stringent means testing, fewer and poorer public services, and greater unemployment are not an acceptable price for so-called "economic recovery"... it is no recovery at all to force millions of people into greater hardship, while protecting the incomes and advantages of the highest earners. (90% of people in Britain earn under £40k; it is entirely justifiable to protect them over the very few earning £100k plus; besides when the average income is that low, is the earning of £250k truly acceptable in a time of economic contraction??)

If the Labour party, or the Condem Coalition for that matter, wants to get people off benefit, then firstly do nothing to threaten an increase in unemployment. That should be the first concern. Secondly, do not cut services essential in enabling bearable life for the mass of people in this country; poorer public services equal poorer opportunity for not just the weakest, but even those on middle incomes (most of use these services, particularly education and the NHS). Thirdly, don't cut benefits and make them ridiculously stringent: the majority of honest claimants will be the ones to suffer; instead work on increasing low pay levels, so it is genuinely affordable for those supporting families, assisted by state help, to leave those benefits for work. Make it pay to work, don't punish those who are trying. Finally, actually do something about affordable housing, about social housing, council housing; the country desperately needs these things; if housing is affordable, then fewer people will need benefits to help them live, and fewer will need rent assistance.
Don't punish those in hardship; make working life fairer, and properly rewarded, for those going into it.

a couple of poems

Bushes
Ripe shiny bushes play in the heat,
The bees are flicking back and forth
As whittled hopes relax on walls
Of crumbling insignificance.

If you shut down outside sound,
Collapse, your head just by the bush,
You hear so much vibration
Of life, of order, of swirls
Of magic-eye occurrence,
You can almost forget
A world beyond it.

New Town, Old Problem
The three-stories and factories, now reclaimed
By vegetation: old ships with broken windows, brown,
And home to obese pigeons, feeding
From upturned polystyrene cartons
Swept across the glasshouse casino car-park.
Twenty years in disregard, even squatters
Have moved on, these places worse than deathtraps.
The trade decayed because the town couldn’t face
The railway and the outside world, and then, finally,
It had no reason but to hold people in.

The guidebooks will tell you its countryside is
Some of the finest in the region: marbled halls,
and patchwork fields that tumble across the motorway
(the land-barons stopped the train, but not the car);
The locals do not stop to look, as if they know
Somehow, this nostalgia is to blame,
For a “burgeoning retail sector”: all they have to show
For a town that looks regrettably the same
As almost every other New Town craphole
whose funding dried up, circa 83.

Hmm, Interesting argument

turning on the ever-declining BBC Breakfast News this morning, i was fortunate enough to hear another statement from the banking fraternity explaining precisely why they should be paid on the Croesus scale. they've been doing a lot of this lately. nearly every couple of days, the Brekkie news has some small item on the bankers pay and why it might be alllllll fiiinne. one does rather wonder whether the Beeb might have friends in the community.

today's fatuous argument was that "actually Bankers are paid quite reasonably compared to say film stars or Footballers". the latter grouping bore the brunt of the comparison, unsurprisingly.

Now, few people would disagree that footballers are grossly overpaid. in fact the big similarity between footballers and bankers seems to be how massively unequal the pay distribution is: no-one can seriously argue that Robinho (to give a highly pertinent example) is 100 times better than your average League Two player, and you certainly couldn't argue that he works 100 times harder, and you'd find it just as hard to make a similar argument for the pay difference between your local bank employee and the top investment bankers. The people at the top in nearly all professions are hugely overpaid; perhaps the only exception being public services, where often the wage distribution is a little better (only a few people earn over £150k a year in most councils, and most of the lowest earners earn higher wages than they would in equivalent private sector roles). it's an endemic evil of capitalism, but not an ineradicable one.

anyhow, there are three important ways in which football clubs and banks differ greatly, and thus should not be subject to similar standards:

1) Football clubs generally pay bonuses for Good performances, Bankers appear to expect their bonus as a yearly perk independent of any kind of above-average performance. let's face it, we all know it must be a tax dodge in some way. Darling's one year tax on bonuses isn't gonna change that; the banks will just pay it from their profits this year in the knowledge the tax won't apply next financial year.

2)The fortunes of football clubs do not impact as centrally or seriously on the overall economy: as far as i know no-one (well no normal person) invests their savings in a football club, and even fewer are likely to get their mortgage from one. several football clubs go into administration every year, to much sadness on the part of fans and commentators, but thankfully little financial discomfort to them. Their lack of prudence affects relatively few people. The banks are central and defining to the state of the economy, and their behaviour affects our lives in nearly every detail.

3) Football clubs are not owned substantially, or bailed out by, the British electorate. quite a few of the banks are. So, of course, it seems perfectly reasonable that the banks should be made to behaviour in a fiscally responsible manner that benefits the wider public.

The counter-argument has always been that the market is king: but as Keynes and various others knew, the market is not a divine force, and can, and should, be manipulated and regulated to benefit the wider society. As a few politicians are acknowledging, the riskier activities need to be separated off from the everyday banking altogether, or even cut out completely. It would be far better for the banks, whether the retail or otherwise, to treat consistent long-term small scale growth as the aim, not ludicrous quick term rewards, and expensive payouts to both shareholders and bankers. It is this sort of nonsense that caused this downturn in the first place. That and the linked lack of regulation of the City and its banks.

but what, ask the bankers, of the Footballers, the film stars???!! well, we could always just increase the taxation levels on earnings over £200k for everyone........60%, 70%, say,: that would be a start, wouldn't it?

persistent niggle

quite a while ago now, whilst having a conversation with a friend (albeit a fairly new one), i was asked what one thing would make me happier. not in a personal sense, but in a wider social/political sense; its probably seemed a good question to stop me roaming all over the china shop of my political and moral grumbles. "what one thing, if you could apply from it tomorrow, would you have happen or change or whatever?"

i thought about this. mostly while admiring the girl's pleasing belief that one thing could make me happy. in a world of sometimes blithe innocent unthinking cheerfulness, i possess a list of things as long as my "to read" or "albums to buy" lists that i would like to see change. my anger and annoyance is multifarious and insatiable.

however, after several years of consideration (my productivity is definitely increasing, folks) i have managed to think of one thing that, while it wouldn't make me completely happy, would make me happier, and relieve me of periodic persistent rage.

i would like, no, love to see all private education abolished.

this probably isn't a surprise to anyone who's grasped the unsubtle tenor of my political views. it is, though, something which looms for me far above every other iniquity of the current state of the country.

i cannot fathom how it is allowed (i hope one day in the future it will be looked back on with the same "how could they allows this???" type disbelief that we associate with burning witches and children working up chimneys). It is one of the more disturbing sights and sounds of the media to see people appear from the woodwork to justify private education on television and radio. usually people who either work in the private schools, or people who send their children to them. red of face and vociferous they often are. the classic argument in defence is as follows:

"why should we prevent parents providing the best possible education for their child? we have a right to use our hard work and labour to gain better opportunities for them?"

the simple answer is "no. you don't" i can understand you want the best for your child. but your child is of no more importance than anyone else's. they do not deserve "better opportunities" than anyone else. we cannot claim to live in a fair society, a meritocracy if you like, where some children have better educational opportunities. And certainly not better opportunities based on their parent's earnings or property. any "right" that is based on money or power is spurious and unjustifiable.

i used to use a two question method on people that argued there was nothing wrong with private education; it seemed the quickest, and clearest, route to making the issue clear:

1) why would you purchase education for your child?

(answer: because i wish to provide them with the best possible education and

opportunities. let's face it, no-one would spend the money otherwise, would they?)

2) why should your child, important to you as they may be, talented as they may be, gain better opportunities by dint of your greater wealth than other parents?

(answer, usually more garbled and annoyed: because i have worked hard for my money and

i have right to do whats best for my child..... or words to that effect)

needless the say, the second answer is not in any way satisfactory. it is based on a falsely competitive notion of society (ironically, people who have a lot of money and are used to buying their privileges get astonishingly, and entertainingly, angry when other factors prevent them accessing the thing they want: for instance, not getting into school or a club or whatever because their religion or their child's ability is considered "wrong").

Furthermore, the nastier implication, never mentioned, is that they worked hard for their money and deserve the privileges it brings. well, firstly there should be no privileges in education, and secondly, it would be nice to have them openly tell other parents: "I'm afraid you don't work hard enough, my dears, or you too could have our opportunities". because that is what the argument amounts to, effectively: my child is more deserving than yours, and my wealth is proof of this. your poverty is proof you don't deserve the best

anyway, the view is pretty abhorrent to most people. my favourite retort is that the rest of us are merely "envious"; yes, too bloody right we are, in some sense, envious; only in another sense, a sense these people will never understand, we aren't.

Because we don't form our ethics and beliefs around what money we have, and what our position will allow us to do. "if you had the money you'd do it too" they often say.

but, simply, no. we would not send our children to private schools, no matter how much we'd like them to experience the highest quality of education and facilities (and that itself is often a moot point; not all private schools are remotely good anyway, many are there merely to take financial advantage of wealthier parents deluded hopes for better chances), we don't feel that something is right to do merely because we have the money or power to do it. if my having a lot of money (oh, the thought!) allowed me to get away with murder then that would not make me commit the act or feel it justifiable. wanting the best for your child is justifiable and understandable, but not a reason for acting to put them ahead of the pack.

in fact, quite honestly, it wouldn't matter whether you were a bad parent, lazy and feckless, who had no desire to improve your child's chances, they still deserve as much chance and as high a standard of education as the wealthiest, most doting parent's child. arguably they deserve it even more, because they have no parental support, no financial advantage, and almost certainly no emphasis on achievement in their lives.

every child, from richest to poorest, brightest to dimmest, whitest to blackest, deserves the same highest standard of education and opportunity. no-one should be exempt from either the best or the worst. if the local school is failing, then all the children in that area should be subject to that failure, just as if the school is excellent that excellence should benefit all children. we cannot have a system where children from wealthier backgrounds go state schools when they are good, and then get bought out when they are bad. it isn't a fair way of doing things. and it leads to my final point:

the continuance of the private sector only works to diminish the state sector. it drains money, it drains resources, and perhaps worst of all, by allowing the wealthier in society to escape the state system, it strips much of the impetus for increased funding and improved quality and standards. what is more, it maintains a state of social immobility whereby your background and your parents background works to determine your opportunities in life. and no-one surely would agree with that?

so, yes, i think your child deserves the best; but he/she also deserves the same as every other child. your having money or power (or for that matter, the right address or religion) should be no factor in their getting "better opportunities" than their peers. no child has more right to better opportunities than any other child. the sooner we get rid of the private system, and get everyone working under the same system (on a level playing field, as the principle has it), and working to make it the best it can be, the better for everyone. otherwise, the whole country will remain tied to a socially immobile class system it misguidedly thinks it has grown beyond.