The Secretary of State for Children, Schools and Families doesn't know something that any five year-old could have told you - the colours of the rainbow:

No, Ed, it's actually red, orange, yellow, green, blue, indigo and violet. Maybe you should go back to school and check some things before you try and come up with some policy ideas - and especially before designing the cover of your departmental paper.

I wonder how longer before he makes another such Balls-up?

How important is family? It seems that for the Secretary of State for Children, Schools and Families, is remarkably blasé about his own:

So it appears that the man who is supposed to be telling us how to manage our families is pretty much neglecting his own.

Maybe Ed Balls should put down a few of the balls he is juggling. Having both he and his wife attending Cabinet is most certainly not going to be ideal for their family situation, and considering the amount of time that a political career requires, to have both of them doing it must cause a lack of time for their children. Since Balls' ministerial brief includes Children and Families, it seems ironic that he and his wife must be, considering their inevitable workload, pretty much neglecting theirs.

Source: The Guardian

Social engineering is live and well in our schools under Labour:

"Middle-class teenagers are being turned into "whipping boys" as ministers discriminate against them in favour of students from poor homes, teachers warned.
Education is being "dumbed down" as universities turn their attention towards easy subjects like surfing studies, beauty therapy and knitwear to attract more working-class students, it is claimed.
In a fierce attack, the Professional Association of Teachers called for the Government to halt its drive towards so-called "social engineering"." (The Telegraph)

The education system has been dumbed down under Labour, and they want to ruin it even more. Aside from the educational conscription plans to have all teenagers stay at school until they are 18, which I have written about plenty, they now have another stupid plan - making students declare whether or not their parents have degrees when they apply to university.

This is a disgusting, sickening, attempt at social engineering in our universities. What possible relevance to my education does it have whether my parents have degrees or not? Technically, only one of my parents does - the teaching certificate my mother took was not a degree then, though it has become so since. But how does that make any difference to my education?! None. What it is is simply an attempt by this "class-warrior" government to make discriminate against the middle class.

The BBC article has this line in it:

"The government says it "makes no apologies" for giving poorer children more chances to succeed."

Well it fucking well should. Children should not be discriminated against because their parents happen to be "middle class", and there shouldn't be any "positive" discrimination for those who have "working class" parents. What they are also implying is that the working class are thick and thus need more chances to be able to succeed, which is hardly an enlightened view.

The Professional Association of Teachers conference passed a motion demanding that the government "stop interfering in educational life chances for our young people with attempts at social engineering" - and they are completely right. Keep your grubby hands out of our schools, Balls.

Sources: The Telegraph, BBC