Reflections of a stormy petrel

My older friends will remember my loathing of Tony Blair's educational reforms and general performance in the area of schooling. Well, now the Tories have proved that they can do worse still. This morning, the Daily Jail's website carried this triumphant header: "End of teachers' national pay deals: Union fury as heads win power to freeze salaries. Annual rises for teachers will be scrapped and heads given almost complete freedom to dictate salary increases in the shake-up outlined in the Autumn Statement."

Just for this, Osborne ought to be hanged, and I am not, repeat not, exaggerating. The man is either mad or bent on the ruination of what is left of the national school system. Does it take a great deal of intellect to realize that, in a situation in which teachers and heads have very little power and in which they are constantly at odds with parents and bad students, the last thing that needed doing was to set them at each other's throats? Is that the Thugcherite view of education? Why did nobody explain to him in words of one syllable that to make teachers and heads natural enemies would mean chaos in the school and the further encouragement of the culture of underachievement and gangland? Do these fucking morons from Eton WANT to destroy the country, in the intervals of trying to stuff "gay marriage" down its throat?

In a just world, the scumbag Willie Walsh would be sacked by the shareholders. But British Airways has this moronic tradition of macho management and attempted union-busting. It has never done it any good, it has repeatedly led to disastrous strikes as well as other ruinous developments (such as the disaster of the opening of Heathrow Terminal 5, which was botched because nobody dared tell management that they were making a mess of it), but they cannot seem to see through it. It's always someone else's fault. Well, in this case the fault is entirely management's, and I hope they bloody well pay for it.