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Originally Posted by jedward fever
Stephen Hawking hasn't got cancer and hopefully he never does as my Grandad was treated disgracefully by them.
Also one of my Sister's friends husband is dying of cancer and he only found out when he went on holiday to Australia because the NHS would keep holding him off.
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No but he was given 2 years to live at the age of 21. He's now 70.
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Originally Posted by Angus
It is the same thing though. People should have the choice as to how they spend THEIR own money. For example, why do people place such store on going to University? IMO, it's because they know that a degree will give them better career prospects and higher earning capacity to enable them to have a better lifestyle than those who either cannot afford to go to Uni, or don't have the academic ability to do so. Are you suggesting that those who invest 3-4 years of their lives in their future career prospects should be told what they can and can't spend their money on?
There will always be a hierarchy in society and to suggest it could ever be otherwise is naive. Those that contribute more will expect more out of life.
I brought up two sons on my own, I was always struggling financially, but I ensured they both won scholarships to private schools based on their academic ability because I certainly had no money to pay school fees. The reason i did so was to give them the best education I could (smaller classroom sizes, enhanced discipline and rigorous expectations and lots of extra curricular activities to stimulate and inspire them) because no matter what else happened in their lives, their education was something that could never be taken away from them.
People who pay school fees to send their kids to private schools and pay for private health care are actually doing the rest of society a massive favour by freeing up scarce resources for others, and remember that those same people have already paid for their right to state education and healthcare through their taxes and therefore have a perfect right to take full advantage. Thank goodness they don't otherwise the entire system would collapse under the burden of all those extra people.
It is just human nature to want to better oneself and climb the social ladder in terms of enhancing one's lifestyle -who in their right minds would advocate mediocrity?
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It's about offering equality of opportunity though, with private schooling causing such immobility between class and income levels it essentially means that such things are often decided by birthright, and not by effort or by ability.
If David Cameron had not been born into privilege and been lucky enough to go to Eton which allowed him to then go on to Oxford, would he be in the position he is today? Possibly but it's unlikely. The current cabinet is full of people who either went to a public school or who went to Oxbridge, in fact out of all the Prime Ministers under the current Queen only three have not gone to Oxford. You might say anyone can go to Oxford if they work hard enough and it's true to an extent, and to their credit Oxford has been doing more to allow those from State schools to get a place there, but still it is the case that private school kids are
four times more likely to get straight A's at A-level. To add to this
here's an article from the Guardian that shows that "Fewer than 1% of the poorest university students in England go to Oxford and Cambridge"
I don't begrudge anyone for sending their kids to a private school, and I can understand why you did it and where you're coming from, I just think it's more fair that everyone should carry out their education from the same starting point, so that it really does reward hard work and effort, and not birthright. Perhaps I'm too idealistic in thinking that but that is my view anyway