MAGA? MEGA!

The Government should learn from the success of Trump's slogan, the greatest slogan, and reverse all their education policies. Make Education Great Again!

I’m not much of a Trump fan. Trump’s divisive style, at worst, is the divisive style of Bridget Phillipson. But I’m even less of a Harris fan, if you can remember who she was, and of the whole progressive movement.

I like DOGE. I love America’s appreciation of success. I love that America’s Constitution embodies the British Common Law. Trump has a point about Europe free-loading on the US defence budget, for decades.

I don’t like protectionism. Trump’s said too many beastly things to, and about, women. He’s said some things that are trashy for democracy. I’m worried about Russia.

But “they” support trans rights over hard-won freedoms of women, such as female-only spaces and women’s right to compete in sports. Hillary called tens of millions of voters “deplorables”. “They” and their critical race theory judge black people, and white people, by the colour of their skin.

One thing I love, love, love is MAGA. Make America Great Again. Here I explain why I love it so much (yes, really) and why MAGA! is the opposite of what this Labour government is doing to the economy, and to education.

MAGA!

It’s a great slogan y’know. It’s the greatest slogan. It’s a slogan that would win ten out of every five fights with other slogans.

MAGA is optimistic, forward-looking (GREAT!) and nostalgic, backward-looking (AGAIN!) and patriotic (AMERICA!) It’s the opposite of the progressive promise of change for change’s sake, and the implicit threat to everything anyone likes about their country, childhood, and national story. Everyone’s noticed that.

Make? Has anyone else noticed how terrific the word “Make” is?

• It’s an imperative. Who’s making America Great? YOU ARE! Not me. YOU!

• It’s realistic. It doesn’t pretend the flawed humans in government will Make America Great. YOU WILL! And if you don’t, it won’t be. Remember JFK “ask not what your country can do for you, but what you can do for your country”? That was a great slogan too.

• It’s trust, agency, and empowerment. You’re powerful. You’re significant. You steer your ship. You’ll do the right thing. This is Cognitive Behavioural Therapy for 300 million Americans.

• There is no imaginable counter-punch. Sorry, you said “DON’T make America great?” Are you serious?

Don’t expect somebody else to make America great. Don’t waste your energy extracting value from the system. Whinging gets you nowhere. Don’t be a grifter, a looter, a moocher. There are no free lunches.

You’re better than all that. Work harder, or better, or on more useful stuff; create value (collectively, or individually, whatever) and America - and your life - will be Great.

Make. Act. Do. And own the results.

And guess what? People loved it and voted for it.

Reeves?

One place to start is the Governments’ Missions. Growth is the Government’s priority. The Government’s going to Kickstart Growth (#1). Which is amazing, because it means you don’t have to.

How far we’ve come since John Stuart Mill, On Liberty

“A state which dwarfs its men, in order that they may be more docile instruments in its hands even for beneficial purposes--will find that with small men no great thing can really be accomplished.”

Rachel from Accounts is going to “fight for growth”. How? By taking from everyone unlikely to vote Labour (farmers, independent school parents, landlords, small businesses, investors) and hosing cash at everyone that did (long-term benefit claimants, unions and public sector workers). A recipe for growth, Reeves-style…

Rachel Reeves is, of course, a bluffer extraordinaire. She’s no great brainiac and she’s entirely un-serious. She's written plagiarised a boring anthology of great female economists, leaving out (for example), Harriet Taylor Mill and (ahem) me. She fibbed about chess. She fibbed about her CV. And it’s obvious she’s fibbing about the economy.

She’s a sarf London gal with the gift of the gab and a brass neck. She might be flogging dodgy gear from a barrow next to Del Boy and Rodders, and I wouldn’t be buying. (And no, before anyone starts, I’m not being snobbish or misogynistic. I have high expectations of women, and Londoners, and market-stalls, and Reeves falls far short of them.)

Unlike MAGA! Reeves is handing us 100%, 18-carat, zero-sum, share-of-pie, adversarial economics. You’re not going to work harder/better/on more useful stuff. You know nobody else will either. And because it’s common knowledge that nobody is going to work harder/better/on more useful stuff, we know there’s no growth, only redistribution.

As my great friend and correspondent wrote at Twentieth Century Motors, this is a programme for looters.

That was the evil, the sort of hell-horror evil that preachers used to scare you with, but you never thought to see alive. Not that the plan encouraged a few bastards, but that it turned decent people into bastards, and there was nothing else that it could do! And it was called a moral ideal!

You can just hear Rachel Reeves bellowing at some abstract amorphous thing “the economy” - GROW! GROW OR I’LL BE VERY CROSS! Sorry Rachel, but your gab doesn’t give that far. Only people’s actions grow the economy, and all your policies (except arguably Heathrow) are encouraging people to Make Britain Shit Again!

How incredibly depressing. Literally so. One of the tenets of Cognitive Behavioural Therapy is to believe in, and own, your locus of control. You steer your ship, and if you do, life can improve. Events happen, and you navigate them. MAGA!

In the Reeves economy, by contrast, YOU are powerless and pointless, in an economy that you know perfectly well won’t grow. You aren’t growing it, and you know nobody else is growing it, and you particularly know the people your taxes go to won’t grow it, because Reeves didn’t think to seek productivity from them in return for pay increases at your expense.

Like at Twentieth Century Motors, victimhood is encouraged; hard work and innovation makes you a mug. Don’t make Britain great. Don’t even think about it.

Phillipson?

As well as a haircut, Reeves and Phillipson share the same depressing outlook. You’re actively discouraged from making your kids’ education better, you know nobody else is making it better, you know teaching unions are being given tools to make it worse.

That’s what happens if you cultivate votes-from-victimhood. Phillipson has such low expectations of parents, that faced with the shocking reality of reception-age kids that aren’t lavatory-trained (and their parents don’t care), have never seen a book, and can’t sit still without a screen….she’s not going to bother exhorting parents to be GREAT AGAIN. She’s going to say all those are the responsibility of others, to be lumped on teachers, and paid for by the people (feepaying parents) that have taken the most responsibility for their own kids. Parents! I’ve got this! There’s a bowl of cornflakes and an overworked teacher in a non-existent dining hall to give your kids a really miserable start to the day.

Yes, I know. Most state school parents do potty-train their kids, read to them, and manage TV time. These basic parenting tasks require only time and love. But that’s not the point. The point is that the problems of state-schools are, in these other tragic stories, home-grown. When so many children are so badly let-down by their parents, it’s reasonable to ask if the state can really make a difference, or if instead some positive MEGA! rallying-cry to take responsibility (and grow up) might be a more cost-effective solution.

And, meanwhile, those GREAT parents in state schools need more choice not less.

The list goes on (and these are exactly the arguments thrown at parents on social media for daring to oppose the Education Tax):

• If kids go to school on an empty stomach, that’s because dastardly Tories;

• If school’s a non-selective secondary near a Grammar, and its performing badly / teachers are unmotivated / kids don’t turn up, that’s because of the Grammar; you and your children should really abandon hope; ideally, we’ll have the teachers reinforce victimhood and inadequacy;

• If your school doesn’t keep up with Michaela, it’s because those kids at Michaela come from ethnic minorities with an unfairly massive work ethic; those expectations and ambitions aren’t for you, or people like you;

• If your kids don’t get enough sport/exercise/music after school, it’s nothing to do with the fact you let them put the telly on from 3.30 to 9pm. It’s the fault of feepaying parents.

In all cases, there’s absolutely nothing YOU can do about it. That is my low expectation of YOU, and I’ll reinforce it with lashings of soft bigotry.

I am going to do it for you, with other people’s money. Except, what I’m doing won’t work, and you know it won’t work. Depressed yet?

Finally, of course, there’s our favourite subject, the “unfairness” of independent schools boo-hiss “creaming off” the bright and motivated children. Yes, state school parents, everything that’s wrong with YOUR schools is because THOSE children aren’t in them. Don’t YOU feel any obligation to support your schools, by volunteering, donating, or agreeing to pay more taxes. I am going to take THEIR money and I’m going to be in control.

It’s so divisive and ugly. Why instead can’t we have Make Education Great Again! MEGA!!

MEGA!

How about a radical education policy that empowers parents and calls them to action? Picking up on James Tooley’s excellent book The Beautiful Tree or

A Personal Journey into How the World's Poorest People are Educating Themselves

How about if we start by rediscovering family in early years? Government can’t solve the problems of children. But you can. You can wean your children onto carrot sticks, you just have to deprive them of junk. You can get your children reading, you just have to switch the TV off and, y’know, read to them. You can get your kids outside stretching their legs, you just have to show them the way. These behaviours are free and easy. YOU are expected to do these things, to Make Education Great.

How about if we told all families that they had ways to make more of state education for their children via voice and/or exit; if instead of revving up activists to demand more posh kids at their state schools…..how about if we said all parents can and should engage with their kids’ education, in cash or kind, and it’s the job of schools to respond to and encourage that behaviour, and government will help not hinder.

And, if we need money, how about we stop promising state school parents that “others will pay”?

Aspiration at other’s expense…isn’t aspiration

Here's the PM banging on again about how “all parents have aspiration for their children” while claiming "There's no point in the Tories pretending they're interested in state education".

This is of a piece with Phillipson. Excuse me, but “aspiration” entails work, sacrifice and discipline. “Aspiration” for others to be responsible for your children is abdication. “Aspiration” for more spending on education, paid-for by others, when most people that receive free education could easily contribute more to it, is just greed.

It’s letting state school families right off the hook. They don’t need to “pretend” any interest in their feepaying peers; they are free to argue for their destruction. Meanwhile, no matter how many times over independent school parents pay for state education, “there’s no point pretending they’re interested”.

Families. Don’t do anything. Bridget Phillipson will make your schools shit for you. There is nothing, absolutely nothing, that YOU can, or should, do. That’s for others to pay for, in absolution for their Original Sin of taking care of their own. They’re trying to Make Education Great! and Bridget won’t have it.

How to pay for Making Education Great Again!

Well, obviously, don’t tax the bejesus out of people currently paying 4 times for education. That’s right, four. FOUR!

1. When we pay our taxes

2. When we pay more taxes because we work harder, longer, more ambitiously or later in life to earn school fees

3. When we pay school fees

4. …and now, when we pay VAT as an extra contribution to state schools.

Instead, a great solution is found here. Rightly, the author notes that Free at Point of Delivery totally fails to deliver the promised engagement and egalitarian outcomes. On any critical cost/benefit analysis, there is no reason why the state pays 100% of education expenses for the millions of affluent children in state schools.

Needing £1.5bn, higher earning state school families should pay. If they won’t pay, why should we? When we hear “boo-hiss, meanie feepaying parents just not wanting to pay a bit more tax”, when “a bit” is ~£3k per child…. can anyone please introduce me to a single high-earning state school family wanting to pay more tax, where “a bit” could be just £300-400 per child (if you looked at the top half by household income)?

We’re always told we should have education like Finland. Well, one aspect of Finnish education is that lower/middle earners pay more tax. Much more tax. Well, OK. You could have had a policy that told voters to Make Education Great by paying for it, individually (via vouchers with topups) or collectively (by having everyone pay more taxes). Instead, Labour sold the utterly depressing policy of abdicating responsibility to others.

YOU can do nothing. Bridget encourages YOU to do nothing. Others will pay, and she’ll be in control. Depressed yet?

Recommendation for Conservatives, Reform and Lib Dems. You need a policy that Makes Education Great Again! Labour’s education policy is the opposite.

MEGA!!