‘Jake R’ left a few interesting comments on my post about the election yesterday, and these naturally need to be addressed. Firstly, he points out that Mr Howard claims that immigration costs this country £2 billion. Be that as it may, the (fiscal) cost of the war in Iraq was $82bn, with the UK paying a large sum of that. See this, for example. Why is it that Mr. Howard was not opposed to spending such large amounts on blowing up innocent people, when he begrudges it to refugees? Moreover, although the exact figure varies from source to source, Howard’s figure is a pittance compared to the total sum of money the UK is making.

So why is Mr. Howard so concerned about this issue? The UK is wealthy and prosperous, and to turn away these refugees would be in breach of the 1951 Geneva Convention, the text of which can be found here. Thus, I feel that underlying all of Mr. Howard’s arguments is basic and bog-standard xenophobia.

Similar things can be said of his attitude towards schools. He preaches discipline and an end to what he terms “yob culture”. This is all very well and good, but Mr. Howard does not address the underlying causes of this culture. More worryingly from my perspective, he has pledged to overturn Labour’s inclusive education policy. Inclusive education is the first step towards a society more tolerant of disabled people; although Mr. Howard claims that many “good” special schools will be closed, most research suggests that there is no such thing. To quote Navin Kikabhai’s “No Such thing as a Good ‘Special’ School – The Expropriation of Education” (2002):

[quote=”Navin Kikabhaiurl:http://www.inclusion-boltondata.org.uk/FrontPage/data39.htm”%5D

Thomas (1997) found that 70 per cent of special schools do not enter any pupils for GCSE, Thomas further went on to use the 1995/6 school performance league tables to show that 93 per cent of mainstream Year 11 students obtained at least one A* – G grade, whereas only 16 per cent of Year 11 students in special schools obtained at least one A* – G grade. This overtly revealing statistic draws concern given that the largest group of pupils in special schools are labelled as having ‘Moderate Learning Difficulties,’ nearly 55,000, and yet in mainstream schools students would have all entered for GCSE (Thomas, 1997).

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Thus in wanting to reverse the trend towards inclusion, the Tories are doing a very dangerous, stupid thing. However, when this subject has been broached on this site before, it has caused animosity between me and certain people whose opinions I otherwise respect in the utmost, so I better not go too far into this.

Either way, the above is an outline of why I will not vote conservative. There are, naturally, other reasons, but you get the picture. However, labour is not much better: they led us to war on a lie, and introduced tuition fees. The war I have discussed before, so it is tuition fees which I will turn to. How can everyone have access to education, when you have to pay for it? After all, innate intelligence pays no heed to how rich one’s family is; therefore access to education – all education – should be free. No matter how much Blair tries to sugar coat this issue, it’s still wrong. On the other hand, from a personal perspective, through various Labour initiatives I have access to the help I need to go to university: I can pay the wonderful Esther to help me, and it was labour who brought about Home Help, without whom I’d be stuck. Labour also introduced Direct Payments, which helps out millions of disabled people, giving them the independence they deserve.

Without any reasonable opposition from the liberal democrats, labour must get re-elected. I keep worrying, probably irrationally, that the Tories would cut the DP system and home help. Then where would I be? Stuck at home with…Grandma.

*Shudder*