Sim-O

Guardian…

European leaders have embarked on a mammoth effort to forestall the ruin of the single currency at what was seen as the most important Brussels summit in years, with France, Germany and the leaders of the eurozone lined up against David Cameron and his campaign to extract a price in return for agreeing to Europe’s new “fiscal compact”.

President Nicolas Sarkozy of France said the two-day summit was the EU’s last chance to save the euro. Chancellor Angela Merkel of Germany, the central figure pushing a new punitive euro regime, voiced confidence that a satisfactory deal would be reached. Cameron insisted he wanted a “fair deal” for Britain and warned he would not hesitate to veto Franco-German proposals unless he got something in return.

Tough-talking Cameron. Showing them foreigners who’s boss, eh?

In what was seen as a warning on behalf of Germany and France, Jean-Claude Juncker, the prime minister of Luxembourg and chairman of the Eurogroup, told Cameron to back off or face the prospect of being sidelined by a new treaty forged simply among the 17 eurozone countries.

Does he really think that all these countries that are directly affected gonna not implement what they think they need to because some jumped up, shiny headed, PR man from Britain thinks it’s a bad move for his tiny country?

The Eurozone, those countries that use the Euro currency, are the majority. 17 out of 27 countries. This summit is about saving the Euro, not bringing closer integration or forwarding the European project. This is not about us. It’s about them.

Cameron hasn’t got a chance, what-ever happens he’s fucked, at home or abroad and he’s just carries on like nobodies noticed.

When you try something, you generally give it a bit of time before heralding it as a success, but nooooo. Free schools, those schools that can be opened by anyone from Old Mother Riley and her cow to Mr Montgomery Burns with public money diverted from other existing schools, have been open a week and Cameron wants them to proliferate…

replicated many, many times up and down the country

Let’s not get over excited here. I know a week is a long time in politics, but in school life, fuck all happens in a week. Lets just wait a little longer and see what really happens, eh?

Ooooh, look at this…

But Vlachos, an associate professor of economics at Stockholm University, is standing his ground. His argument is based on his finding that students who entered gymnasium [sixth form] from free secondary schools on average went on to get lower grades over the next three years than those who had entered with the same grade from municipal secondary schools.

Vlachos suspects that, because schools rather than external examining boards mark students, free schools are more generous than municipal schools in the grades they give. “There’s been tremendous grade inflation in Swedish schools,” he said.

Sweden’s path-breaking educational reforms of the 1990s have come under question since last December when the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development published the 2009 Programme for International Student Assessment.

This showed that Swedish students had dropped to 19th place out of 57 countries for literacy, to 24th in maths, and to 28th in science. This compared with 9th, 17th and 16th in studies done in 2000, 2003 and 2006 respectively.

And Swedes, used to coming near the top of just about every human development index, were appalled.

Jan Björklund, the minister of education, moved to tighten central control over schools and is soon to launch a parliamentary inquiry into competition and free schools.

“Loopholes in the legislation have meant that free schools can elect not to have a library, student counselling and school nurses,” he complained. “And as they get just as much money as the municipal schools, the owners have been able to withdraw the surplus.”

Not exactly a good omen, is it?

Independent…

The scale of private links between David Cameron and News International was exposed for the first time last night, with the Prime Minister shown to have met Rupert Murdoch’s executives on no fewer than 26 occasions in just over a year since he entered Downing Street.

What the fuck is this all about then? 26 meeting in 15 months? Nearly one meeting a fortnight for over a year? Who the fuck did Cunty Cameron think News International are? A fucking PR agency? What? Oh.

What other company gets to have it’s executives meet with the prime minister every other fucking week, not counting short spells when there may be ideas for a policy being bandied about? These weren’t just reporters getting a statement or interview, these meetings were with people that were guiding and and shaping the direction of the News International. What the fuck were they talking about?

I can understand why Cameron would have 15 meetings with the execs from News International since May this year, they do have to get their story straight, don’t they.

I’ll ask again, in normal circumstances, and that period was supposed to be ‘ordinary’ as both Plods’ and New Intls’ enquiries had come to a close, what other fucking company gets it’s top nobs an exclusive audience with the prime minister once a fortnight?

As Libya is about to fall, with *air strikes* against the people, all David Cameron can think about is his mates in the boardroom…

Mr Cameron flew on to Kuwait, where he will deliver a speech making a “liberal conservative” call for widespread political reform in the region.

Since democracy often goes hand-in-hand with open markets, more freedom in the Middle East could deliver commercial opportunities for Britain, the Prime Minister will argue on Tuesday.

All this death of Libyan citizens at the hands trying to overthrow their dictator of forty years is still not quite physically sickening to Cameron, it’s just “quite appalling”. Still much less of a crime than giving prisoners the vote, which did make him feel all weird. Physically.

So now we have another notch in the David Cameron Scale of Horrible Things. Killing civilians with aeroplanes is not quite as bad a criminals voting for other, bigger criminals.

This is excellent.

(Click to enlarge.)

Get your own here.

via Chicken Yoghurt