Than debate something that is none of their concern.
MPs are debating ways to stop holiday prices rising during school holidays.
The Westminster Hall debate was prompted by an e-petition – signed by more than 167,000 people – calling for a cap on price increases.
So, because 167,000 economic illiterates have signed a petition to tell the world that they are cretinous economic illiterates the equally economic illiterate morons on the green benches are thinking of poking about in the matter. Things can only get worse…
That said, some of the solutions involve easy remedies:
Other proposed solutions include making it easier for parents to take children away in term time, and staggering school holiday dates to reduce peaks.
Yup – really, really simple solution. Remove the state from the equation and this could happen overnight. It is the state, after all, that has created a problem whereby parents are fined for taking their children out of school in term time. Remove the state and you remove the problem.
“It’s time to stop the holiday companies cashing in on school holidays and let parents have some guilt-free family time! Enforce action that caps the percentage increase on holiday prices in school holidays.”
The aren’t “cashing in”, what they are doing is discounting off-peak holidays to sell them and reduce demand during the high season. Supply and demand and all that. But the basic principle is beyond the hard of thinking cretins who see the state as a solution to a problem that was created by the state in the first place. And you have to be incredibly stupid to even begin to think that a cap on the amount a private enterprise that is dealing with international suppliers may charge is a sensible proposal. Which, pretty much sums up the lackwits who are behind this whole idea.
I am all for the idea of removing the taxes on flying, though – just as I am all for dramatically reducing taxes across the board.
Lord spare us from the state and the cretins who worship it.
Yet these are the same watermelon scum who can see the “benefits” in culling whole populations to save “world recourses?”
Can they not add two and two…. oh bloody HEL! Sorry, stupid question.
I’ll delete my draft saying just about the same thing, then. Cheers. đ
In any case, for all their complaining, it isn’t just about the high cost of taking holidays during the school breaks. Many of these parents braying for permission to whip their kids out of school are as keen to be able to do it at a time that is most convenient for them as they are about saving a few bob. But I bet they’ll be the first (and loudest) ones complaining when their kids’ teachers (who are, after all, often also parents themselves and presumably would have the same rights as any other parent in the country) start to absent themselves from school in order to take advantage of the new “family friendly” holiday arrangements. I bet they haven’t thought of that …
But who is paying whom? The parents (and all other taxpayers, including those with no children – a separate matter which I won’t go into here) are paying the teachers to do a job. This, in my view at least, means it is an asymmetric situation. By way of an example from the real world, i.e. private sector:
(a) You go into a restaurant, order a meal, pay for it then walk out without eating it. Your choice, no harm done. Many may call you silly or wasteful but you have exercised your right to spend your money in the manner you see fit.
(b) You go into a restaurant, order a meal, pay for it and are then told “the chef’s not in today, no food for you, now get lost” with no refund. Most, if not all, would agree that you have been robbed.
So from a purely economic point of view, it’s not “apples for apples”. So long as the school provides supply teacher coverage, I don’t see a problem with teachers taking some holiday during term time though. It’s co-ordinated disruptive strike action which is the problem.
All this aside, the argument really revolves around the state believing that children need to be “protected” against their parents’ decisions, even when this is against the will of both parent and child. This is not a far step away from the state claiming complete ownership/control of children and is worrying to say the least. School seemed like prison many years ago, however it appears to have become considerably worse.
To add to the above, no parent should be in a position of having to ask permission to take their kids out of school. Parents should be the ones who have to give permission for their kids to GO to school. And not just regarding family holidays: in cases of disagreement over syllabus/lesson content, the parents’ decision should reign supreme too (even if they are considered “wrong” by the majority).
Don’t be silly, Matt.
Parents don’t have rights over their children any more – they’re just occasional nurturers acting on behalf of the true ‘owners’ of children; our old friend “The State”. Think of the orphaned pups in ‘Animal Farm’ and you’ll get the idea.
Kids whose allegiance is to The State don’t need bribing, cajoling or threatening into submissive compliance. The left has long wanted to destry the family as a cohesive unit – it prevents unswerving loyalty to The State.
Oh I’m in no doubt as to what the current state of affairs is and the reasons for it!
The trouble is that most parents, having been indoctrinated by the same system, are currently almost blind to the facts you point out and are still under the delusion that they are in control. We can only hope (and it’s a very small, unlikely hope) that they start to wake up soon. This is where the current kerfuffle over holidays might prove useful – whilst it is a relatively trivial issue, when compared to the lack of parental control over what children are taught, it is disproportionately emotive and more easily understood by the masses.
Personally I also believe that the current legal definition of and attitude towards a “child”, i.e. an entity totally incapable of rational decision-making, is somewhat lacking. In most of these cases I believe it would be beneficial if the opinion/desire of the child was given some consideration too, as opposed to being treated as a commodity under the total control of the school and/or parent.
Up to the age of 11, my eldest was in a private “prep” school. On the two or three occasions when we holidayed during term time, it was near the end of a term and did not conflict with exams and the school were fine with it – even encouraging, realising he would gain far more from 8-10 days in Southern Europe / Africa. They even whispered that there was an “allowance” of 10 non attendance days permitted. A contrast to the unenlightened attitude of the state school he attended prior to that one. One of many reasons why I chose to remove all my children from UK education.
Without doubt the best option is to remove one’s children permanently from the UK state education system. Our eldest got a decent enough education, largely because we were able to move into the catchment of one of the better state run schools, but the rest have done very well out of their private school here in Queensland. Trips back to the UK have occasionally involved missing a week or so of schooling (they only get three weeks off during the harsh, bitter Queensland winters), but we have made sure that this has not been at critical times. We’ve never asked the school for permission, rather informed them that the children would be absent. This year we are making it just three weeks as it is our youngest’s final year and she doesn’t want to miss any schooling. That’s fine, her choice, next year we’re completely free of school holidays.
I get your point about who pays whom, Matt, but I think you may have missed mine. I wasnât saying it was either a good or a bad thing that teachers might wish to take their own children on holiday in term-time; the point I was making was that if the rule comes in that parentsâ decisions are paramount when it comes to whether or not their children go to school, I canât see the powers-that-be making an exception for teachers and forcing them only to take their family holidays during school breaks. Whether they should or not is another question, but Iâd bet my bottom dollar that they wouldnât, through fear of the backlash and/or the enormous leverage it would give the teaching unions to demand lots of other things (like more money or shorter working days or more staff or strikes â you name it, theyâd ask for it) to make up for (and you can just hear them saying this now: âTeachers being the only parents in the country who are told when they can or canât take their children on holiday.â)
As I said, I can’t see a problem with teachers taking some holiday during term time so long as a supply teacher is provided to cover for them. The fire service, railways, power stations etc. all need to provide 24-hour staffing, 7 days a week – much more arduous requirements than schools – and yet their staff are able to take holidays largely when they want, assuming it is possible to rearrange shifts. Shift swaps are something which members of staff are often able to agree among themselves for mutual benefit. Perhaps if school days weren’t arranged in such a monotonous, regimented way it would be a better environment for kids and staff alike?
I wasn’t thinking along the lines of a rule being brought in. There is currently a rule which effectively says “the state has control of your child and its whereabouts for the majority of the week: you will be prosecuted if you disagree”. This rule needs to go. How the school decides to deal with staffing issues is a matter for the school, with the caveat that not providing a service which has been charged for should be treated as breach of contract. Perhaps providing council-tax payers with a refund for every strike day, then docking the school’s budget for the following year would sharpen their minds?
Bear in mind that the system is currently skewed the other way. Teachers can, and do, go on strike already and are not prosecuted for it, nor are the public refunded, whilst parents are being threatened with prosecution for actions which affect nobody but their own family. Somewhere along the line the meaning of “public servants” seems to have been lost.