Ed Balls - "It is still our party that has been setting the policy agenda" (Don't laugh).

I cannot believe the complete and utter codswallop I've just read on the BBC. Ed Balls spoke today to Labour supporters, and came out with a real work of fiction.

Ed said: The Labour government has "made some mistakes".

Ed has been paying attention then.

Ed said: "It is still our party that has been setting the policy agenda,"

No Ed, your party has stolen the Conservative policy agenda and come up with nothing else but even longer plans than the plans that have taken years to fail.

Ed said: "And I believe that as a party and a government we have shown the strength to deal with difficult times and keep setting the agenda and responding to the concerns of the British people."

The strength to back out of an election when the polls hinted that you may have lost your majority. You may have set one agenda, but you went and cancelled it. And as for responding to the concerns of the British people, the response we wanted on the EU Treaty Referendum was not the "sod off" we received.

Ed said: "In the Queen's Speech next week we will set out our programme: to respond to the rising aspirations of the British people; to ensure security for all; to entrust more power to Parliament and the people; and to build a Britain where everybody can rise as far as their talents will take them."

That, I can agree with Ed - if you remove the word Parliament. Parliament already has all the power it needs to ride roughshod over the citizens of this country.

Ed said: "And we will put the concerns of families in every part of our country first."

Sorry Ed, when did your party start talking about family? I thought the notion of family was one of those ridiculous Tory values that should be rubbished.

Ed said: Conservative policies "hold people back. Whether it's on families, health or education, the Tories' vision is a vision of a two-tier Britain. David Cameron stands for a two-tier Britain, two tiers of opportunity - not just holding young people back from reaching their full potential, but holding the whole country back from what we can achieve together."

Lets get this straight Edward, the Tories are the ones who have been calling for the support of the family unit. On health, the Tories are the ones calling for A&E and Maternity wards (that you are trying to close) to remain open. On education it's the Tories that want to bring back streaming and competitive sporting events in our Schools. It's the Labour government that has held people back by refusing to acknowledge that some kids are smarter than others. You have been responsible for the dumbing down our education system so that we have gone from a nation known for its academic excellence, to a nation known for its underachievement.

Ed, you may talk out of your backside, but you've got some balls.

Experts say individuals are not responsible for being fat (Obesity).

Well I say what a load of cobblers. You are what you eat and no one forces food into your mouth. This is not a nation of fools. We are all more than aware what food types are likely to make us fat if we eat too much of them. The only people who are not personally responsible for being fat are young children, in which case the blame is 100% on their parents.

I totally agree that this is a major problem. It is estimated that obesity will cost the country £46bn by 2047 if the country continues to get fat at the same rate we are seeing now.

We need to put an end to all the myths about being fat. It is not so much to do with glands or genes, but it is to do with how much food you cram into your cake hole and how long you spend sat on your arse.

Does this new Politically correct world have anything to do with this problem? I was a teenager in the 80's with plenty of access to junk food, but my school was not awash with fat kids. There could be one good reason for that and it's not very PC: fat kids got the piss taken out of them.

Any Liberals can leave their wishy washy complaints in the comments.

Sent from my BlackBerry® wireless device

The GTC want to scrap under-16 School tests (I don't)

The General Teaching Council (GTC) want all under-16 exams scrapped, as they believe they are demoralising children.

I, as a father of three children believe in testing. The results that my children bring home give me an indication of how they are progressing, and whether my wife and I need to become more pro-active in their education. I do not want to wait for their GCSE results to drop on my door mat to find out what their chances of making it in life are. Sats at 14 are a baseline indication of a child’s current standard, without which, it would be difficult to identify the areas that require working on.

My 14 year old daughter has just received a set of disappointing results, this has given me a chance to talk her through them and point out to her the consequences of not fulfilling her potential. Given the information contained in her results, I can now ensure I pay more attention to her homework and the time she spends socialising with her friends.

I am absolutely furious that the GTC claim that tests demoralise children. I am sick and tired of these sandal wearing fools telling us we should not hurt our children’s feelings by having a system of winners and losers. Without competition we would still be living in bloody caves and our children will be in for one hell of a shock when they leave school, only to realise that they have to compete for jobs.

There are winners and losers in life and as soon as our children realise that, the better it will be for them. Sticking our collective head in the sand and hoping for the best, will not be beneficial to our children, or the country.

Daily Referendum Results - Should we bring back Corporal Punishment in School?

Should we bring back Corporal Punishment in School?

YES 82%

NO 16%

DO NOT KNOW 2%

The results of each Daily Referendum are archived by the British Library.

Is Corporal Punishment the answer?

Corporal punishment refers to the use of physical punishment to correct behaviour. The term derives from the Latin corpus, meaning body.

A 2005 survey of nearly 1,700 parents by the ParentMail website found 20.8% would welcome the restoration of corporal punishment in schools, with 44.4% saying they would like it to be an option.

Although the various methods of corporal punishment were steadily outlawed throughout the 20th Century - the use of the birch in schools was famously abolished in 1948 - it was not until after the 1967 Plowden report, 'Children and their Primary Schools', that the abolition of corporal punishment in state schools was treated as a major issue, and in 1986 it was outlawed altogether.It was not until 1998 that corporal punishment was outlawed for the few remaining independent schools that retained the practice.

Phil Williamson, head of the private Christian Fellowship school in Liverpool, went to the European Court of Human Rights to challenge the ban on corporal punishment in independent schools, which took effect in 1999. The campaign was supported by the parents at the school and backed by 40 other Christian schools across the UK. The court agreed that there was nothing to prevent schools using corporal punishment on children with the consent of their parents. But the UK court of appeal finally rejected the bid in 2005.

Mr Williamson feels the last 20 years have proved the legislation to be "an absolute disaster". "Teachers are less safe, there is more bad behaviour and violence in schools and that translates into more bad behaviour in society. I think Ofsted and the politicians are out of touch with what is really going on in schools."

In 1989 the Elton Committee said: "There is little evidence that corporal punishment was in general an effective deterrent either to the pupils punished or to other pupils."

In 1998 Baroness Warnock, of the School Standards and Framework Bill Committee said: "We are in a position to prevent corporal punishment in schools. We are probably not in a position to prevent corporal punishment in the home. It is not that corporal punishment is good in one case and bad in the other. It is bad in all cases."

Ref: BBC News, Politics.co.uk

Q. Should we bring back Corporal Punishment in School?

To view the results go to:

http://dailyreferendum.co.uk/

Child well-being (Mary Whitehouse was right).

The league table for child well-being across 21 industrialised countries has shown the UK to be at rock-bottom. I don't believe the government are totally to blame. We as a nation are slowly losing are moral fibre and our ability to feel shame in response to our poor behavior.

I remember as a child sitting in front of the TV with my family and laughing at what we thought was the nosey do-gooder Mary Whitehouse. She was seen as overly prudish by a large portion of the population and was ridiculed by parts of the media. Now a quarter of a century later I desperately wish we had taken notice of the prophetic Mrs Whitehouse. We and our children are now bombarded with mindless crap on daytime TV and reality shows in the evening.

Daytime TV programmes such as Jeremy Kyle, Trisha and Ricki Lake profess to help people overcome their problems. Utter shite, all these programs do is parade societies low life and morons across our screens, barely capable of communicating without grunts these people just shout, scream and swear. It is morbidly fascinating watching how poorly people can behave, it makes you cringe but people can't help watching. Most worryingly these programs are aired during the hours parents and children are at home together.

Reality shows such as Big Brother are designed in much the same way. The producers rely on the fact that if you put people from different backgrounds into stressful situations they will start behaving badly towards each other. Big Brother is just a old fashioned freak show, people tune in just to see the arguments, foul mouth rants and tantrums, without which there would be no show. Don't get me wrong, being an ex-sailor I've nothing against swearing, I've just got a problem with when and where it is used.

BLEEP: This really gets on my nerves, if something has to be excessively bleeped before the watershed then it should not be aired. You can watch one of these daytime shows where almost every word has to be bleeped, it's like bloody Morse code. Children are intelligent enough to realise what is being said and because mostly young mothers watch this crap, they believe it is an acceptable way to behave. I think we have all been out shopping and heard something like this from a young mother: "shut the f*ck up Brittany I'm trying to buy some fags." Nobody even thinks of reprimanding these idiots for their behaviour because you just know that all you are only going to get for your trouble is a foul mouthful.

I believe the recent behavior of contestants on Big Brother has shown us that we have let our moral values slip too far towards the gutter. We have put a foul mouthed moron with the mental age of a 12 year old (at best) on a pedestal and now we have been embarrassed internationally.

Gordon Brown thinks he can fix this with lessons in Britishness - crap, what our children need is moral guidance at school and in the home. When children are young and impressionable, it really is a case of monkey see monkey do. You cannot watch a soap episode now without someone getting punched or slapped. This is not how things happen in the real world. If this happened in your local it would be closed down within a week or very empty.

We now have a generation of kids who have no respect for the law, their parents or their school teachers. Unfortunately some of the young parents of these children are no better and it's only going to get worse unless something is done about it. For a start we could give the Police the powers to deal with groups of yobs. Curfews and dispersal orders in New York reduced crime by a staggering 55%, surely this would be a great initiative that could be easily implemented in our country.

The watershed could be moved to 10 pm and any show that requires excessive bleeping should only be aired after this time. The bleep was brought in to allow shows to be aired where one or two swearwords were used. It has now been abused to allow shows that are a constant torrent of bad language to be shown before the watershed.

As far as Jade Goody being a racist goes, I don't believe she is. She is just a girl who is thicker than a whale omelette and we have made her famous for it. Now through an international embarrassment we are paying the price. Unfortunately Jade is now seen by many as a role model.

Mary Whitehouse I am so very sorry.

Mary Whitehouse, I am so SORRY.

The public morals champion began her career with the Clean Up TV Campaign in 1964. It became the National Viewers' and Listeners' Association (NVLA) the following year and she finally stepped down as its president in 1994. Following Mrs Whitehouse's death in 2001 the Archbishop of Canterbury, Dr George Carey, said: "In reminding broadcasters and others of their obligations in respect of taste and decency she greatly enriched the public debate about media freedom and responsibility."

I remember as a child sitting in front of the TV with my family and laughing at what we thought was the nosey do-gooder Mary Whitehouse. She was seen as overly prudish by a large portion of the population and was ridiculed by parts of the media.

Now a quarter of a century later I desperately wish we had taken notice of the prophetic Mrs Whitehouse. We and our children are now bombarded with mindless crap on daytime TV and reality shows in the evening.

Daytime TV programmes such as Jeremy Kyle, Trisha and Ricki Lake profess to help people overcome their problems. Utter shite, all these programs do is parade societies low life and morons across our screens, barely capable of communicating without grunts these people just shout, scream and swear. It is morbidly fascinating watching how poorly people can behave, it makes you cringe but people can't help watching. Most worryingly these programs are aired during the hours parents and children are at home together.

Reality shows such as Big Brother are designed in much the same way. The producers rely on the fact that if you put people from different backgrounds into stressful situations they will start behaving badly towards each other. Big Brother is just a old fashioned freak show, people tune in just to see the arguments, foul mouth rants and tantrums, without which there would be no show. Don't get me wrong, being an ex-sailor I've nothing against swearing, I've just got a problem with when and where it is used.

BLEEP: This really gets on my nerves, if something has to be excessively bleeped before the watershed then it should not be aired. You can watch one of these daytime shows where almost every word has to be bleeped, it's like bloody Morse code. Children are intelligent enough to realise what is being said and because mostly young mothers watch this crap, they believe it is an acceptable way to behave. I think we have all been out shopping and heard something like this from a young mother: "shut the f*ck up Brittany I'm trying to buy some fags." Nobody even thinks of reprimanding these idiots for their behaviour because you just know that all you are only going to get for your trouble is a foul mouthful.

I believe this weeks revelations on Big Brother have shown us that we have let our moral values slip too far towards the gutter. We have put a foul mouthed moron with the mental age of a 12 year old (at best) on a pedestal and now we have been embarrassed internationally. Gordon Brown thinks he can fix this with lessons in Britishness - crap, what our children need is moral guidance at school and in the home.

When children are young and impressionable, it really is a case of monkey see monkey do. You cannot watch a soap episode now without someone getting punched or slapped. This is not how things happen in the real world. If this happened in your local it would be closed down within a week or very empty. We now have a generation of kids who have no respect for the law, their parents or their school teachers. Unfortunately some of the young parents of these children are no better and it's only going to get worse unless something is done about it.

For a start we could give the Police the powers to deal with groups of yobs. Curfews and dispersal orders in New York reduced crime by a staggering 55%, surely this would be a great initiative that could be easily implemented in our country. The watershed could be moved to 10 pm and any show that requires excessive bleeping should only be aired after this time. The bleep was brought in to allow shows to be aired where one or two swearwords were used. It has now been abused to allow shows that are a constant torrent of bad language to be shown before the watershed.

As far as Jade Goody being a racist goes, I don't believe she is. She is just a girl who is thicker than a whale omelette and we have made her famous for it. Now through an international embarrassment we are paying the price.

Mary I am very sorry.