No surrender to capitalism

28th April 2000, 1:00am

Share

No surrender to capitalism

https://www.tes.com/magazine/archive/no-surrender-capitalism
JOHN PATTON, president of the Educational Institute of Scotland, is a Derryman, not least in his command of a well-turned phrase. Over the Easter holidays he described the CBI as “blinkered and whingeing”, and lambasted an “oppressive and autocratic” Education Minister.

But his fiercest invective was turned on former minister Brian Wilson, now in charge of Scottish industry. An STUC meeting saw Wilson embark on a eulogy of the World Trade Organisation and regret disruption to its meetings.

The enragedEIS supremo said that far from being “a cosy gathering of benign philanthropists”, the trade summit was more of a “covert caucus of multinationals whose principal mission, driven by greed, is to maximise shareholder profits around the world by minimising wages to non-trade union labour in the poorer nations”.

The outburst was well received. Patton’s three-year stint as head of English at a secondary school in Zambia probably gave him an edge over Wilson on the economic facts of Third World life.


Want to keep reading for free?

Register with Tes and you can read two free articles every month plus you'll have access to our range of award-winning newsletters.

Keep reading for just £1 per month

You've reached your limit of free articles this month. Subscribe for £1 per month for three months and get:

  • Unlimited access to all Tes magazine content
  • Exclusive subscriber-only stories
  • Award-winning email newsletters
Recent
Most read
Most shared