UK Resistance in Boston, Lincolnshire

UK Resistance - Working Class Action today visits in Boston in Lincolnshire to highlight the concerns of local people and the failure of their elected representatives to acknowledge those concerns and act upon them.

In recent years, some areas of Lincolnshire have experienced a 33% rise in population. Many people are concerned about this and also the propensity of local employers to employ only foreign labour. Working class people who raise concerns about immigration are automatically condemned as racist; we believe this response creates frustration and is also counter-productive to our development as a society. Politicians pretending nothing is wrong will only lead to people simply in search of a better life being targeted. In the last five years alone, racially or religiously aggravated offences in Lincolnshire have risen by 22%. This is unacceptable, but simply a result of the genuinely held concerns of people not being addressed.

Locally, unemployment has risen 18% in the last 12 months, well above the national average. In some areas of Boston, a third of people live in fuel poverty, our elderly and disabled are literally forced to decide between heating and eating every winter. There is a housing crisis in Lincolnshire, yet extra government funding amounted to a paltry £419,940. There are also concerns regarding rise in drug and alcohol-fuelled anti-social behaviour on the streets. Under-funded and over-worked law enforcement and health services are buckling under the strain. Cancer patients are told that medicine to save or prolong their life is too expensive. The state education system is failing generations of our children. Long established shops and small businesses are disappearing, former proud working class areas turned into ghettos.

Local MP, Mark Simmonds, asked Parliament for more resources to solve the problems, but in such austere times we believe our politicians should be brave and confront the real issues instead of continually turning to hard-working tax-payers to paper over the cracks. In opposition, the Conservatives called on Labour to address the situation, why have they not acted themselves now the roles are reversed? The problem is, we have idealistic ex-public school pupils running all the mainstream parties. They’re totally detached from reality, terrified of taking tough decisions due to media response and re-election concerns. Instead of dealing with the issues, they raid pensions, raise retirement age, increase tax on petrol, road-tax, alcohol, tobacco and expand VAT on food. In other words, like the banking crisis, they expect you to pay for their folly. Easy come, easy go.

Unlike our politicians, UKR will confront the real issues and channel genuinely held concerns positively by encouraging ordinary people to stand up and speak out and our politicians to start listening to working class common sense again. We do not want problems to fester and leave it to our already under-funded and overstretched police force or NHS to pick up the pieces when frustrations boil over. Our emergency services are decent, dedicated people who contribute to society by serving it, but our politicians cynically take advantage of that altruism.

Our politicians turn out every four years to beg for votes, promise the world, then slope off and change nothing. Proven inept and incapable, they are failing in the basic task of representing us. It is mismanagement of epic proportions which has a negative effect on people’s lives, yet none of them seem to think they are answerable anymore. They will never get back in touch with reality if voters don't remind them they are still answerable to the electorate.

How many times do you hear ordinary people like us say ‘what’s the point? We’ll never change anything’. We believe we can change things, peacefully and democratically. Granted, there is no difference between the main parties anymore, but we believe that once the political gravy train looks like hitting the buffers for certain individuals they will sit up and take notice, especially in safe seats such as Boston and Skegness. Over the coming months and years we intend to confront our elected representatives and insist they address the concerns of ordinary working class people again.

We have lost the Labour Party and the trade unions to speak out on our behalf, so we have to do it for ourselves. We've seen people from Boston stand up for issues they care about in recent months and achieve recognition. We’ve also seen supposedly safe seats, which the main parties take for granted such as Bradford West, overturned by people power. We can do the same thing with working class communities and build voting blocs that will regain us representation again.

This is the first of many actions by UK Resistance – Working Class Action, the peaceful and democratic fight back of the patriotic working class starts here, in Lincolnshire.

We are the working class resistance, long live the resistance

By George, he's done it yet again....

RESPECT Party candidate George Galloway last night won the Bradford West by-election by 10,140 votes, a swing from labour of over 5 thousand in a turn-out of around 50%. Galloway claimed that it was the "most sensational victory in by-election history". Labour MP Toby Perkins bizarrely claimed it was Galloway's appearance on televisions Big Brother which was responsible for the win. Labour’s Head of Cultural Fascism, Harriet Harperson, admitted the result was "very bad" for Labour. Galloway, who commanded a 56% share at the ballot box, said the "mammoth vote" represented the "Bradford Spring" and was a "total rejection" of the three major parties which constitute the British political system. Galloway said he thought there was a ‘tidal wave waiting to break across many parts of the country and last night it broke in Bradford. It's a wave of alienation towards the mainstream political parties and their leaders.’

Adam Boulton floundered on Sky News, outclassed by Galloway and reduced to apparently trying to oust a confession from Galloway that he was now a Muslim. CH4's Jon Snow tweeted that it was “a protest vote”. Snow's tweet actually proved how remote from reality the ruling left-wing middle class establishment is. People have quite simply had enough of the empty promises of our political class, their idealistic but wholly impractical and naïve politics. It was obvious why the metropolitanista were glum, in subsequent interviews, Galloway pin-pointed everything which is wrong with New labour, no real leaders anymore and no working class participation whatsoever. Galloway told BBC Radio 4's The World At One that Labour had lost touch with its traditional core voters: "If Labour doesn't go back to being a Labour Party again, it will never command the support - let alone the enthusiasm - of the kind of people who supported it for at least 100 years."

Bradford Spring-board for patriotism

It might not be readily apparent to patriots, but this is a landmark result in the fight to regain political representation for the English people. Instead of bemoaning the result, claiming he played to the Islamic bloc vote, or that sectarianism is the winner etc, we should take the massive positives which are apparent from Galloway's win.

Apathy rules amongst the English, how many times do you hear people talking about the political process and saying "I don't vote, what's the point, we'll never change anything". Well it certainly doesn’t amongst the electorate of Bradford West. Our friends in the north demonstrated to us that the three-party stranglehold over British politics can be broken. Yes, you can change things you don’t like. Yes, you can get rid of inept politicians and replace them with people who will speak out and support YOUR interests.

Bradford West could be the turning point for the English patriotic resistance movement. It should, if we have ANYTHING about us, spur English people into voting again. We should learn from it. Can we change it? Yes we can! We have been brainwashed into believing we cannot change anything and that we can't survive without the three main parties. We need to reciprocate the feeling of change emanating from West Yorkshire now, and ensure OUR VOICE is heard in the same manner as the voters of Bradford West. If we do not learn, adapt and capitalise from this safe large Labour majority being overturned, then perhaps we deserve everything we get.

All three main parties pay scant regard to the wishes of their electorate anymore. They send our children to their deaths in their foreign wars, they use our money to bail out their chums in the banking industry. They tell us we're all in it together, while they screw us into the ground with taxes, but allow their corporate peers to avoid paying their dues to the society which spawned them and facilitated their enormous wealth. Our elderly and disabled have to choose between eating and heating every winter, our cancer patients are told there is no money for drugs which could save or prolong their lives, while we send billions in foreign aid abroad. They can do it only because we allow them to. It’s obvious why they get away with it, many of us are so stuck in our ways, we are cowards in the face of change. The majority of us are still voting out of family loyalty, or allegiance to principles or policies which our three main parties have long abandoned, discarded as irrelevant. If we keep being reactionary, and moaning about everything that arises with resignation, we are finished. Instead, we should be looking to learn and adapt. We will not gain any ground while the three party system is strong and settled, that is why Bradford West is such a positive result for us, we need to perpetuate this air of political subversion.

An English Ummah

The patriotic resistance of this country needs to learn from Bradford West. It is no good individual political parties announcing manifestos when they have no electorate, that makes them just as bad as the main parties. You will never inspire the English by turning up every four years in a suit spouting political rhetoric. We need to talk to ordinary people who are disenfranchised from the system, educate them that they can make a change. Bradford West was fought on the issues which voters in the constituency wanted confronting. We need to appeal to people in the same fashion, form patriotic bloc votes like RESPECT is showing us can be done. We need to engage with the abandoned English working class, listen and address their concerns.  If we do, we might finally smash this middle class metropolitan political cartel which currently has the country in a stranglehold.

However, we have to be honest with ourselves and overcome self-inflicted obstacles first, such as our penchant for anti-intellectualism and our habit of mocking anyone who cares enough to stand up and be counted in a credible manner. We have to establish a patriotic intelligentsia, which would operate within the system it seeks to topple. We have to play the game, if we don’t, we lose, simple as that. We have to look at our approach, nationalist or patriotic groups up to now have not spoken in a language that ordinary people have responded to in any great number, certainly nowhere near enough to make a mark. We have to admit our failings and address them.  This is our Dunkirk, where we realise the path we have trodden might not have been the right one, that others are ahead of us in the game, it’s the moment where we take stock, adapt and prepare to retake the fight to our enemies.

There needs to be a clear strategy, laborious work done at grassroots level to re-engage ordinary people adrift from politics. We need to represent ourselves but we also need an electorate. The reason the main parties only address middle class concerns is because they are the only people who vote in any great number still. We need to forget small party allegiances and policies for now (all patriotic parties and groups should work together, we can sort it out afterwards). All groups with similar aims need to call a ceasefire and stop arguing with each other, the reds did it and attained power. If we are to survive, never mind prosper and regain lost ground, we need to form a bloc vote and vote according to OUR interests. Bradford West should sound the death knell for English apathy. but we have to accept that we need to learn lessons wherever they may come from, educate ourselves, re-politicise our people and most importantly VOTE.

We are people on whose backs the greatest empire the world has ever seen was forged. We are the descendants of people who paid the ultimate sacrifice for this country without a second thought. Now is the time to resist in the manner of our forefathers, in a credible and effective fashion. England is the birthplace of political radicalism, we are sons and daughters of Lilburne, of Place, descendants of Shurmer and Bevin, people who spoke out for the ordinary man in the street without fear and regardless of consequence. It is time to pay due respect to such illustrious forebears by using our heads and salvaging what is left of this once great nation and our way of life…..

Birmingham Mail prints UKR response to Maureen Messent

The Birmingham Mail today published the response from UK Resistance - Working Class Action to the discriminatory outburst by one of its columnists, Maureen Messent.

Although great offence was caused by the Messent article, the newspaper publishing the response, albeit an edited version has hopefully gone some way to reducing frustrations felt by members of the working class after reading such discriminatory bilge.

UK Resistance - Working Class Action will continue to oppose any discriminatory attacks on the working class of this country in a credible, positive and effective manner.

We are the resistance, long live the patriotic resistance!


We, the people!

Class Discrimination: The last acceptable form of bigotry in modern Britain?

Class discrimination is the last acceptable form of bigotry in modern Britain. Why? Because the people instigating this particular form of bigotry are from the ruling class. The middle class, the internationalist, metropolitan class, the class which makes the rules, decides what governmental legislation contains and therefore makes the law of the land. 

Discrimination

Under UK law, anti-discrimination legislation covers one or more of the following groups who possess what are known as 'protected characteristics'.

Anti-discrimination laws protects people who are treated differently based upon their sex, race, (colour, nationality, ethnic or national origins), marital or civil partnership status, disability, religion, sexual orientation, age, gender reallignment, maternity and even trade union membership. People who associate with any of these groups are also protected under discrimination legislation.
The law specifies that there are three different kinds of discrimination:

1) Direct discrimination occurs when someone is treated less favourably on the grounds of race, colour, nationality or ethnic/national origin.

2) Indirect discrimination is when one racial group is given preference over another, or if a policy that applies to everyone, but it is disadvantageous to a particular protected characteristic is introduced.

3) Victimisation, occurs when someone with a protected characteristic, or an associate, is singled out or persecuted because of that protected characteristic.

Discrimination against the working class, who don't possess any unprotected characteristics, is common-place, even in equality-obsessed modern Britain. It is allowed because the working class are not a recognised ethnic group. Even though a survey conducted in 2011 found that only 17% of people in Britain still considered themselves working class, therefore are obviously a recvognised minority, discrimination because of dialect, dress or address are not included in The Equality Act 2010. Consequently, privileged and privately educated middle class millionaires are free, in some cases on working class licence-fee payers money, to abuse, mock and lampoon the working class with total and utter impunity.

It is an indisputable fact that the social groups which constitute the British class system markedly differ, some far more than others.
If they didn't our middle class friends who run Britain's elitist media wouldn't be able to point out the differences and ridicule us. 

The British class system is traditionally defined by a range of distinctions, accent, manners, background, occupation, interests or hobbies or the company one chooses to keep. There are stark differences between the working class minority and the ruling middle classes, many of which lead to discrimination. Working class honesty, which manifests itself  mostly in blunt terminology, is now regarded as vulgar. There is also blatant discrimination against people who retain their regional accent. Working class children in some schools are now being given elocution lessons to rid them of any semblance of local identity. It is quite simply social engineering, in this case dressed up as teaching pronunciation. Can you imagine the middle class establishment doing that to any other social, cultural or ethnic group?

Of course this discrimination, which ranges from mockery to virtual ethnic cleansing, is all part of the great British classless society swindle. A society where class doesn't matter, but where the toffs are still laughing at the oiks, even though they are actually people who have been deserted by the metropolitan elite that is mocking them. The point that they are actually products of the wanton and selfish desertion by what now constitutes mainstream British society which they have constructed is obviously lost on our 'betters'. The fact that they are referring to the abandoned working class from former proud manufacturing powerbases upon the backs of whom the country, empire and their cossetted, priveleged lives were built upon is obviously lost on them.
Working class people are regularly and openly mocked by an elitist middle class dominated media, the Daily Mail thought a Paddy Power advert showing 'chavs' being shot 'hilarious'. Spiked! Online thought nothing of running a headlines entitled 'Close encounters of the chav kind'. FHM magazine also joins in, printing headlines such as 'Chav Chanteuse', when ironically describing the working class 'mockney' (which does what it says on the tin) caricature adopted by middle-class Lily Allen. The sickeningly politically correct BBC, thinks nothing of leading with the needless headline 'Burberry versus the chavs' when discussing how the fashion label wishes to distance itself from working class people. It doesn't stop with the media either, online bookseller Amazon has a 'chav tag' which enables patrons to categorize working class literature and working class authors as such. There are online games such as 'Chav Hunter' which the authors of encourage users to 'take out the chavs hanging around town' with weapons.

If the working class didn't differ so obviously from the ruling middle classes, our friends in the media wouldn't be able to point it out. 
The two classes differ to the point where, as defined by the Oxford Dictionary, it can (certainly now the socio-economic and more importantly education gap between the two classes has widened) be successfully argued they are different ethnicities.

Ethnicity as defined by the Oxford Dictionary:

adjective

• relating to a population subgroup (within a larger or dominant national or cultural group) with a common national or cultural tradition: ethnic and cultural rights and traditions leaders of ethnic communities.

We are always being told we live in a multicultural society, where everyone is equal, as working class people, we do not possess the 'political power' which is used to exclude white people per se from discrimination legislation by sociologists (i.e. power x discrimination = racism), we are a separate ethnic group entirely to the ruling majority middle class.

We are being discriminated against, terms such as 'underclass' or 'chav' are highly offensive and let's be honest, are actually purposely engineered to dehumanise us in the eyes of the general populace. If we are dehumanised the rest of the human race cannot empathise with our plight. It's that simple.

The working class have no representative bodies to credibly defend them anymore, that is until now.

UK Resistance - Working Class Action finds terminology such as chav or underclass highly offensive and deeply insulting. We do not recognise the existence of an underclass, we do however acknowledge the presence of an abandoned working class, who we stand alongside.
In this new age of equality, UK Resistance - Working Class Action finds it insulting that one group should be ignored so blatantly by discrimination legislation.

UK Resistance - Working class Action believes that discrimination legislation should apply to the English working class as it does to any other group.

We damand parity under the law of the land. We call for working class people to be recognised as the minority we now indisputably are. We believe the working class should be classified as a social group with protected characteristics under the law, particularly discrimination and hate speech laws.

It is time to end the hypocrisy.
It is time for equality and time for it now!

We are the patriotic working class resistance, long live The Resistance!

Shameless Bankers

British based bank HSBC has been fined £10.5m and ordered to pay £29.3m in compensation by the Financial Services Authority (FSA) for the mis-selling  of investment bonds to elderly people in care.

In other words, in almost Dickensian fashion, they have been conning the elderly and infirm.

2,485 customers of the bank's subsidiary company, NHFA, were advised to invest in the bonds to finance their care costs. Unfortunately, many of these people, with an average age of 83 and who were already in care, had a life expectancy of less than 5 years and started to cash in the bonds sooner than expected. meaning their capital was quickly eaten away. 87% of NHFA customers were sold inappropriate bonds, resulting in the largest retail fine to date from the FSA.

HSBC, said it identified problems at NHFA and had closed the business to new customers in July, and alerted the FSA. HSBC said it was 'profoundly sorry'. NHFA was the leading supplier of independent financial advice on products to help pay for long-term care, with a market share of nearly 60%.
According to the BBC, HSBC reported pre-tax profits for the first six months of the year of $11.5bn (£7bn), up 3% on the $11.1bn the bank made a year earlier.

After everything that's gone on, they are still taking the piss....... I'm sure you will agree, it doesn't get much lower than targetting the elderly

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-16032593
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/finance/personalfinance/consumertips/banking/8935361/HSBC-fined-10m-for-mis-selling-to-pensioners.html

Hello, we are the working class......

In the first of hopefully many political actions, UK Resistance - Working Class Action activists chose the Liberal Democrat Party conference in Birmingham for their first outing. The Liberals were chosen because it was a convenient cost-effective location for a first mobilisation and the party is currently propping up the current coalition government.

The idea was, and is, to prove to ordinary apolitical working class British people that they can still have an impact politically. Any impact would be viewed as a result, simply because working class people in the UK have purposely been excluded from the political process and are now convinced they cannot change things.

Activists dressed smartly to facilitate more response from the middle class delegates, yellow tee-shirts were purchased to give the impression the people handing out the leaflets were Lib Dems. The leaflets were given a Victorian theme, the reasoning behind this was two-fold. 

Firstly we wanted to allude to the classic Victorian Gladstonian liberalism of the party which had been abandoned by the party, secondly we simply wanted people to take them. and at least read the first few lines before they realised what they were. 

Secondly, delegates might see the design and think it was a play that delegates, in a strange city and bored of an evening (in the distant future we plan to advertise and hold talks in conference towns which delegates can go to where we will put our case across). 

Therefore they were entitled 'Betrayal Most Foul!' and based on a Victorian music hall poster. 

After the First World War the Liberals formed a coalition with the Tories, the next election was known as the coupon election, where Liberals were sent coupons informing them if they were standing at the next election, or being left out in favor of the Tories, to keep the coalition going.

This was referred to this as we reasoned that the people attending would be politically aware, especially about the history of their own party. 

BETRAYAL MOST FOUL!

To be played out in Birmingham, and subsequently on a national stage by the Liberal Democrat Party Players!

STARRING: N.W.P. CLEGG AS �THE BRIDESMAID
AND J.V. CABLE as �THE EVIL BANKER

This leaflet is not on behalf of any political party. It is a direct plea to the Liberal Democrat

rank and file from the LOWER ORDERS of old England.

We find ourselves poorly-educated, under-employed and unrepresented by any of the political parties, betrayed and abandoned now we are SURPLUS TO REQUIREMENT.

The Liberal Party was once renowned for being the home of the FREE-THINKER and of benefactors to the

disadvantaged. It is a party which gave rise to such political collosi as:

William GLADSTONE ‘The PeoplesWilliam’
a patron of electoral reform and opponent of corruption. Herbert ASQUITH, social reformer and

conqueror of the Lords.

David LLOYD-GEORGE,
scourge of the warmonger, supporter of the disadvantaged and infirm.

David Penhaligon, a true constituency MP, totally in touch with the ordinary people he represented.

After years in the wilderness, the Liberal Democrats were finally handed the chance of a role in government

by the British people.

However, led by a closet Tory, ably assisted by an ex-banker, your party has merely become a mirror image of those it allegedly opposed. Under your coalition, the rich get richer, the poor get poorer, the now publicly subsidised financial sector more blasé and ordinary people face widespread cuts to basic services.

You hold the BALANCE OF POWER, yet do nothing but COMPLY with a draconian TORY AGENDA.

Have you not learned from history?

Are you to wait, like sheep waiting to be sheared, for a COUPON ELECTION and another hundred years in the wilderness?

The Liberal Democrats have continually promised so much, yet you have attained power and simply assimilated, if the truth be known because it is an easier path to tread! Imagine Mr. LLOYD-GEORGE shying away from speaking out because it was the easier option!

In fact, in the face of the utmost intimidation, LLOYD-GEORGE made a speech against the Boer War in this very city! Now is your chance to do the same, show the British public you have principles and speak out for what is right.

It is time for you to act, stand up at this conference, shatter the ridiculous charade and
speak out as TRUE PRINCIPLED LIBERALS in the manner of your ILLUSTRIOUS PREDECESSORS such as Mr.LLOYD-GEORGE.

Be brave and seize the opportunity! British politics is a moral vacuum, be remembered as someone of substance who stood up for their convictions! Now is the time to end this pantomime and reclaim your party!

PLEASE DISPOSE OF THIS LEAFLET CAREFULLY

PASS ON TO ANOTHER FREE-THINKING LIB-DEM AND KEEP BRITAIN TIDY

The conference was set to run from Saturday 17th to Wednesday 21st September. Two UK Resistance activists attended on the Friday before to ascertain the situation regarding security and where delegates would be best targeted. It appeared we weren't the only people who were attempting to get their message across, a banner was hung across the bridge which connected the nearby Hyatt Hotel with Birmingham's International Conference Center.

As the two activists toured the area, senior Liberal Democrat John Hemming was spotted giving a television interview on Broad St. As Hemming walked away after being interviewed, one activist handed him a leaflet. Hemming read it then called the activist back to enquire where he was from and said he would read the literature.So already, after a couple of hours activism, our message was getting across to senior members of the party.

Day 1 The Leaders Speech

On day 1 of the conference we had four activists on the ground around the conference center. As well as the conference we were covering various fringe meetings throughout the day and also local hotels and restaurants which delegates might use.

Two activists were positioned outside the conference center and two acted as a 'locate and leaflet' team touring the city center looking for delegates, who by now were noticeable by the yellow necklaces they wore to hold their conference passes.

The response to the leaflets was mainly positive, in some cases very positive. One Liberal told one activists that the Victorian theme had struck a chord with him (proving we can connect with these people whenever we want to) and had reminded him of the classic liberalism of William Gladstone. He asked what we wanted him to do, we replied that we would like him to share it with his colleagues, which he assured us that he would and thanked us for writing it as he said he agreed with every word.

Secondly we had a political writer, take interest, he said he was very interested in talking to us about our campaign. He even said he would offer some advice on writing, which is brilliant as anything we can learn is positive obviously.

Other delegates reacted positively, there were few refusals, we had been given yellow necklaces (minus the passes obviously) by sympathetic delegates who assured us that wearing them would encourage people to accept our lierature.

We didn't realise Nick Clegg would be speaking on the first day of conference, however, this enabled us to reach most delegates on the first day as most attended to hear Clegg speak.

As proceedings were drawing to a close, one delegate came out of the conference center and asked to speak to the author of the leaflets. He was asking why we were doing it, who we were and was amazed that we weren't aligned with any party, he presumed we were SWP! He asked about the coalition, how we felt when it was announced, what we thought of its actions since.

He was informed that as working class people we felt excluded from modern politics. This was our attempt to repoliticise the working class of this country so we might have a voice once more. He listened to the concerns of the activist intently, shook their hand at the end and said it had been fascinating.

He added that he felt it was a mistake not putting a contact address on the leaflets, but he was informed that this had purposely been ommitted because we were not speaking for a group, but our people, the British working class, and we could be found on many isolated and abandoned council estates across the country.

Day 2 Communist Protest

A march was being held by the TUC against public sector cuts by the coalition government. This obviously ensured that security was higher around the conference center than the day before. Broad Street outside the conference center was blocked off while the march took place.  

UK Resistance activists carried on regardless and handed out leaflets outside and around the conference center. Again there was a positive response, ex-Lib Dem MP Lembit Opik was handed a leaflet which he said he would read and other delegates also responded well. However, with the leaders speech being the day before, we found that we had already successfully targeted most conference delegates.

Therefore, it was decided that this would be the final day of our first experiment as we believed we had achieved our objectives. Aided by Clegg's speech, we had reached most delegates who would be attending the conference. We had received a positive response to our literature, we believe in the way we approached this we portrayed the working class in a more positive light, facilitating the positive response.

This was the first in hopefully many innovative political actions by UK Resistance - Working Class Action.

We demand to be heard. If our politicians aren't prepared to shape up, we will educate and repoliticise ourselves to ship them out.

Dumb and dumberer - The state of state education

We believe education for the masses in the UK has been markedly dumbed down, and the state is purposely doctoring examination results to disguise the fact. Judging by our admittedly brief research, it would appear we are not alone in this belief.

Speaking in 1999, headmaster of Winchester College James Sabben-Clare, said the government and exam boards should admit that the value of the A level as the "gold standard" had been debased: "Only 20 years ago, the most successful schools had about a third of their candidates getting A grades - this year it was three-quarters," But he added that he knew that 'the leavers of 1999 were no cleverer overall than those of 20 years before'. (Education: A levels under fire, BBC News 4 October 1999)

     In 2000 a professor at Durham University, Carol Fitz-Gibbon claimed in 2000 that examiners were marking papers less strictly and that it was then easier to score higher grades than it had been previously. (Exams not dumbed down, say heads, BBC News 7 August 2000)

Ex-Chief Inspector of Schools Chris Woodhead warned in 2004 that: ‘We're spending more and more to keep our children at school longer and longer, and yet they know less than their peers did 20, 50, 100 years ago'. (Sad truth of falling standards: the 11-plus that would give today's sixth-formers a headache, The Independent, Oliver Duff, Friday, 26 November 2004- http://www.independent.co.uk/news/education/education-news/sad-truth-of-falling-standards-the-11plus-that-would-give-todays-sixthformers-a-headache-534609.html) Also in 2004 a study by Coventry University revealed, that GCSE's had been so dumbed down that an A* at maths GCSE in 2004 was only just equal to a grade E at 'O' level GCE in 1997. The chief executive of the Careers Research Advisory Centre, David Thomas, said the percentages of students obtaining A-grade passes "are now starting to get rather alarming".

(Exam board head denies 'dumbing down', The Independent, Richard Garner 16 August 2004 - http://www.independent.co.uk/news/education/education-news/exam-board-head-denies-dumbing-down-556740.html)

     Speaking in 2005 Shadow Education Secretary Tim Collins said 'Some questions in today's A-levels are suspiciously similar, if not identical, to questions in O-level papers from 20 or 30 years ago'.

     In 2007 the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD), which compares education standards in 57 countries (the countries included account for 90% of the worlds economy), showed that British children had dropped from 7^th to 17^th place in reading, in science they had plummeted from 4^th to 14^th and staggeringly in mathematics they had fallen from 8^th to 24^th place. (British pupils falling in world rankings, Times Online, Nicola Woolcock and Alex Frean 5 December 2007 - http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/life_and_style/education/article3001335.ece)

     Speaking in 2007, George Turnbull of the ‘Qualifications and Curriculum Authority’ said, 'Generations of youngsters have gone through school without having any spelling, grammar or punctuation instilled in the way they did at one time'. (Are school standards slipping? BBC News, Melissa Jackson 16 August 2007)

     In 2008, speaking to the schools select committee, David Robb from Imperial College London, said that universities routinely had to hold ‘catch up’ classes for students who had received excellent A-level results, but who still struggled with basic disciplines such as maths and science. (Falling school standards: Can students cope at University, Anthea Lipsett 12 June 2008 - http://www.guardian.co.uk/education/mortarboard/2008/jun/12/fallingstandardscanstudents)

     Also in 2008 the Royal Society of Chemistry warned that standards in science exams in UK schools had been eroded and the system was failing a generation. (In reply the government said that standards in science subjects were improving year after year, but the RSC countered that the students were taught to answer: ‘undemanding questions to satisfy the needs of league tables and national targets’ rather than learning how to problem solve. Chief Executive Richard Pike said 'We know that enthusiastic teachers are being compelled to 'teach to the test' to meet the demands of school league tables which draws mainly on the recalling of facts, with no reference to logic or mathematics. That means the brightest pupils are not being stretched, or trained in mathematical techniques, because they can get a grade A* without doing a single calculation'. (Science exam standards 'eroded', news.bbc.co.uk, Angela Harrison 26 November 2008 - )http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/education/7750717.stm)

     Papers obtained under the Freedom of Information Act showed that examiners had voiced concerns that wrong answers were being accepted in some exams, but their fears were dismissed by the Qualifications and Curriculum Authority. (Wrong answers in school tests marked as correct by examiners, The Telegraph, Julie Henry 27 September 2008 - http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/3089305/Wrong-answers-in-school-tests-marked-as-correct-by-examiners.html) The same year, a government think-tank Reform stated that: ‘School mathematics exams in England have become easier, shallower and less demanding.’ The report went on to say that: ‘Analysis of public maths exam papers taken by 16-year-olds between 1951 and 2006 shows standards have declined markedly. A simplification trend began in the 1980s with an attempt to show mathematics in context, but the syllabus remained comparable to that of earlier years. But there was a steep decline in standards from 1990 onwards, once GCSEs were introduced’. The report added that the noticeable increase in achievement since the 1990s was ‘highly misleading’. (Maths exams have become easier, BBC News 3 June 2008 )

     In 2009 Dr Pike of the RSC said that 'the science community has identified entire science papers with no underlying maths, and science questions with no science. This is a blatant breach of expected standards'. ('Fine exam boards' that dumb down, BBC News Online 6 November 2009 - http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/education/8345453.stm)

     Added to this often ignored plethora of opinion that education is being dumbed down, we have an unsupervised educational system where plagiarised coursework can be handed in for up to half of the final mark. This is simply gives unscrupulous student’s licence to cheat. If you doubt this simply Google the number of Internet sites where coursework is 'for sale'. Most exam boards are aware of the sites that exist to sell coursework to students and a quick Google with a few key words from candidates' supposed own work usually exposes the students. That is not to say that some don't get past the exam boards without being caught, and no exam board can monitor the amount of individual teacher help the pupils receive.

     Traditionally O-Levels were completed wholly by students working under strict and supervised exam conditions and only 1 in 5 of the population could achieve 5 passes. For instance, Coursework under current GCSE English provision counts for a maximum of 40% of the final GCSE. This includes Speaking and Listening (usually worth 20%). This is open to abuse, through candidate plagiarism or teacher cheating.

     Standards in English have dropped. Some of this is down to cheating and exam boards' tacit collusion; mostly it is down to governmental pressure on exam boards to show that standards are improving, so they drop the pass mark for passing, even if overall standards are falling. Critics of the education system say that year-on-year improvements in school-based examinations including SATs tests, GCSEs and A-levels may be because of "dumbing down" of exams which are simply easier to pass. Exams are routinely multiple choice and children also have the option of unlimited re-sits of ‘bite-size’ modules. Teachers are also instructed by examination governing bodies not to mark pupils down for grammatical or spelling errors.

     The Government denies these claims, but the facts obviously speak for themselves. There is also competition between opposing exam boards, with some even producing text books which instruct students how to pass the exam. (How Labour's 'reforms' of A-levels have dumbed down exams, Daily Mail, Laura Clark 25 February 2010 - http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1253582/How-Labours-reforms-A-levels-dumbed-exams.html)

     The state also points to the fact that there are more people attending university than ever before, but as the study by Coventry University shows, attaining the qualifications needed for entrance to University is not as demanding as it once was. The rise in university attendance also keeps students off the unemployment register, with the introduction of tuition fees it also enables universities to grow and employ more people.

Why would they allow standards to drop so much? Wouldn’t that be against the national interest to have a uneducated population? Of course, it depends on what the 'national interest' of the ruling classes is, and it appears it is not the same national interest ordinary patriots would identify with.

     By dumbing down the population, they have excluded many people from the democratic process. The less educated, the lower the horizons of people and the more apathetic they are. They do not expect as much, are more easily pleased and don't have the temerity or the will to become politicised. How many times have you heard "It's pointless voting, we'll never change anything"? Therefore the ruling middle class can follow a solely middle class agenda at home and abroad.

     It is happening, and happening now. If the state wont educate us, we need to educate ourselves and our children if the British are to survive as a people. Wake up, and equip yourself with education, before it is too late.