Wednesday, 4 March 2015

What is wrong with UK education. And how to fix it

Bruce 3 March 2015 2 Edit This

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Time after time there have been measures taken of school leavers and of UK adults showing adult functional illiteracy as high as 20% of the population and functional innumeracy as high as 40%. The Program for International Student Assessment (PISA), which measure the academic achievement of 15-year-old students in mathematics, science and reading has the UK at an abysmal 26th in the world, but this is buoyed up by our excellent private education system, without which we would be performing even worse in the ratings. Basically our education system is not fit for purpose, is dragging back the country and is a national disaster. We have slipped steadily down all the global rankings. We have a real crisis on our hands.

The British education system is designed for Empire. With a very good private education producing officers for the army and navy whilst a poor public (state) education gave the other ranks all the education they needed. The same applies in industry where the managers had good private education whilst the workers learned the minimum in public education. Trades and crafts were learned after leaving school in on the job apprenticeships. This is pretty much the system we have today.

Ironically once it was much better. In the 1950s and 1960s public education became totally egalitarian and meritocratic. Children were tested and streamed on merit and aptitude, not on wealth. The academic cream went to Grammar Schools, those with other skills went to Technical Modern Schools. The private education system withered away because it could not compete. We had global excellence. Many fantastic teachers, often with Oxbridge degrees, had fought a war and knew how the world worked, so they were able to prepare students for a lifetime in the real economy.

And then the left took over. They brought in political correctness. So selection on merit was “wrong”. Actually learning anything was also wrong as “progressive” education was introduced. The teachers unions wielded power, yet they are the biggest enemy of education and of children. The destruction they wrought was so massive that the middle classes removed their children from the state system and private education exploded. The lefties achieved the exact opposite of what they were trying to achieve, an us and them society. With the public system indoctrinating their pupils in socialist ideology such as multiculturalism and thought crime. Whilst the private system taught their students how to succeed in the real world.

Nowadays it is also considered politically incorrect for anyone to be deprived from having a degree. So the polytechnics became universities and useless degrees are now handed out like confetti. Most of these degrees end up conferring no advantage to the individual or to the economy. Practical disciplines, like nursing, became academic subjects and went downhill. A Bachelor’s degree now is worth less than A levels were in 1960. Only a 2.1 or above from a Russell Group university has any credibility. Many polytechnic university graduates are close to functional illiteracy and innumeracy. That more than a third of sex workers are graduates tells you all you need to know about the quality of degrees.

Also the subjects taught are all wrong. In 1960 education was all about Science, Technology, Engineering and Maths (STEM) subjects, which are of real value to the student and to the economy. These have been largely replaced by the soft subjects of the liberal arts, which really are just glorified hobbies. These are academically far easier. They are also mostly totally useless for the student and society. An immense and incredibly expensive waste.

There is a lot to be fixed and the current government has done a lot. But they are held back by rabid left wing unions, ingrained political correctness and a defeatist acceptance of our awful system throughout much of society. So how do we fix it?

The first thing is to get rid of bad teachers. There are a lot of them because for decades it has been nearly impossible to get rid of them. Yet just one bad teacher, over a career, will blight the lives of tens of thousand of children. So the system and the trade unions enforcing their retention is utterly immoral. We need a rigorous teacher evaluation system and the worst must go immediately. Then over successive years the bar can be raised, with re-education of teachers where applicable, dismissal otherwise, so we get to having an excellent teaching profession. An elite who we need to ensure that our population are properly educated.

Next we need a system of thorough pupil testing, evaluation and streaming. A class can only be taught at the rate of the least able pupil, so either everyone else is held back or that pupil is ignored. So not streaming is utterly immoral, unfair for the bright as well as for the less able. The Grammar School (already the top academic stream) that I went to streamed internally into two arts streams and two science streams with maths streamed separately into five groups. So in classes you were surrounded by those of like ability, which made both teaching and learning a lot easier and the results a lot better. In the top arts stream I was able to study all the sciences and in the top maths stream I was able to take and pass my O level a year early.

Children who fail academically at the end of a school year should have remedial teaching instead of a summer holiday. Those who still cannot get up to standard should be held back a year. Any child who has been held back twice and who fails a third time should go into special needs, instead of holding back all the other students.

Then we must look at what is taught and how. School leavers MUST have 100% literacy and numeracy. There is no excuse for anything otherwise. After that STEM subjects must take absolute priority. Liberal arts should be relegated back to hobby status, were they belong. Progressive teaching should be thrown out of the window. Intellectual rigour is needed so that students actually learn their subject and can prove this in an exam.

In Britain we have an excellent private school system and a mediocre public school system. This is morally wrong. For the rich people, who pay twice for their child’s education, once in tax and once in school fees. And for the poor, whose children have no access to the best teachers and the best schools. The answer is an educational voucher system which can be spent at any school. Existing state schools would need no additional payment. Private schools could work with additional top up payments from parents. But in reality the bursaries and grants needed to take on poor but academically gifted students would be so small that private schools would be highly incentivised to select on merit. Overnight a voucher system, allied to rigorous selection, would make our schools vastly more meritocratic. Equality of opportunity, banished by the socialists, would return to our society.

Religion must be thrown out of schools. Believing in a special friend who lives in the sky and who has magic powers is ridiculous and indoctrinating it in a rational education system is absurd. Especially as religion is responsible for most of the tensions within our society. Schools must be oases of secularism. Any school teaching creationism or intelligent design should be shut down immediately and the teachers involved barred from ever teaching again.

One huge problem we have is that most of our teachers have never left school. They have zero experience of the real world that they are preparing students for. This is one reason why many teachers are deluded into thinking that lefty dogma works and into thinking it is OK to indoctrinate it into students. Teaching should become a vocation for mature people, as a second career. This would be especially useful for people leaving the military. Becoming a teacher without several years of valid real world experience should be illegal.

Now to universities. There must be rigorous external audit of their standards. A degree must start to mean something again. Funding must be moved, on a very large scale, from liberal arts to STEM subjects, with a big focus on applying skills to jobs. The number of people attending university needs to be radically reduced. There are many far better ways of learning a vocation. Going straight from a Bachelor’s degree to a Master’s degree should be stopped. Once again real world experience is needed in between. Likewise between Master’s and Doctorship. Right now there are very many people with PhDs who think they are knowledgeable, when they are not. Yet these are the people who end up teaching, in a vicious spiral of ignorance.

Throughout education dogma must be thrown out, whether this is the existence of global warming, the arguments about wealth redistribution or the merits of Margaret Thatcher. Instead we need proper intellectual rigour. Students need to be able to see and understand issues from all viewpoints. They need to be taught to think about the opposite of their prejudices and preconceptions. Because that is what real education is. And currently far too few students are getting it.

Modern Britain was built by the golden, meritocratic, grammar school generation. It provided all our Prime Ministers between Douglas-Home leaving in 1964 and Blair arriving in 1997. Now we have a population with a large, unemployable, dysfunctional pool of people created by the application of socialist dogma. Employers cannot find educated people in this country and are forced to recruit from abroad. Many companies have now been forced to put recruits through internal basic education courses before they are even fit to start job training. The application of socialist dogma to educating children has been an unmitigated disaster which has impaired the life quality of many millions of people. Applying the measures in the article above is an urgent fix that our nation desperately needs. We need an education system that prepares people for real jobs in our real economy.

Further analysis of why our awful education system fails so badly here. (click the highlight)

Is Putin the worst thing to happen to Russia?

Bruce 16 December 2014 26 Edit This

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Over the years Russia and it’s people have been subject to some incredible horrors, Czarist pogroms, Napoleon’s invasion, WW1, The Russian revolution, the barbarity of Communism, gulags and mass murder, WW2 and much more. But Putin will go down in history as being one of the very worst, maybe the very worst. Here is why:

The Russian state exists for the benefit of Putin and just over 100 of his cronies. This is a kleptocracy. They steal the wealth of the nation for themselves and keep the vast majority of the population poor. It is a mafia state. Bribery alone totals an estimated $300bn a year. This is worse than the Czars or communism.
Russia had a chance at democracy. Putin stole this. He knows the result of every election before it happens. Bussing people from polling station to polling station is just one small tactic. Russia is a shamocracy with Putin and his cronies exercising all the power.
When communism fell the oligarchs stole the wealth of Russia. Putin stole much of this back for himself and his cronies. Boris Berezovsky fled to Britain and died suspiciously. Mikhail Khodorkovsky was stripped of his wealth and thrown into prison. Many others met similar fates.
Putin is the richest person ever in history. 37 percent of the oil company Surgutneftegaz and 4.5 percent of natural gas monopoly Gazprom are just a couple of his assets. The huge Swiss based global trading company Gunvor is controlled by him, allowing him to accumulate vast wealth outside Russia. But Putin’s official salary was just 3,672,208 rubles ($102,660) in 2013.
Putin has not developed the economy of Russia. They just suck oil and gas out of the ground and sell it. Siphoning off most of the profit for the mafia cronies. They had a chance to invest in infrastructure and a balanced economy. They didn’t.
Corruption and lack of development have made Russian oil and gas very expensive to extract. They need a high world price to break even and are in very big trouble when the price drops, as it has now.
Putin controls ALL the Russian media and fills it all with lies. Culturally the Russian people are used to being a communist state, so they largely accept this, like lemmings. So the Russian people have a world view that bears no relationship to the truth and they have been deluded into thinking that Putin is a good thing. Putin tries to brainwash the West with his RT channel. This should be banned until a Western channel is allowed throughout Russia.
Putin’s enemies and opponents have two fates. They end up dead or in prison. Putin knows that the reality of his position is so weak that he had to incarcerate a few girls, Pussy Riot. If I published this article in Russia it would be very bad for my health. Guaranteed.
Putin and his cronies are nasty bigots who barbarically suppress anyone who does not conform to their narrow world view. It is not good being homosexual in Russia today.
Putin wants to conquer and control all Russian speaking lands, whether they want it or not. We see this in Georgia and Ukraine. This is like the UK invading modern USA, Australia, New Zealand and Australia.
Putin lies all the time, to everyone. He does not honour agreements, contracts or treaties. He is an unpredictable loose cannon whose main concerns are keeping power for himself and increasing his personal wealth. The people of Russia are just pawns who have no option but to allow him to do this.
The Russian police and judiciary are Putin’s tools, they do what he tells them. Beat people up, kill them, throw them in prison, hit them with massive fines and run protection rackets for their bosses. There is no law and order, just gangsterism.
There is no political opposition to Putin in Russia, it is not allowed. Oppose him and your views will not be reported and the legal system will beat you up and lock you up. If you are lucky.
Russia had a great chance to be part of the global community. To be a thriving democracy with a vibrant economy and the rule of law. Putin has stolen all this from 140 million people for his own narrow personal interests.

The cost to Russia and the Russian people has been horrendous in every way, they are effectively slaves to the Putin mafia, fed lies, brutalised and stolen from at every opportunity. How Russia will ever get itself out of this situation looks impossible.

And worse is to come. Sanctions, a low oil price and an infrastructure riddled with corruption all mean that Russia is a failed economy, in a downwards spiral. Putin is cornered and there is no predicting what he will do. And this is a man with LOTS of nuclear warheads.

Yet another reason why the lefties, who say that the UK should not replace Trident, are utterly mad.

And the West are largely to blame for all this. Being weak, not standing up to him and ignoring his excesses. Thatcher and Reagan would never have allowed this situation to get so out of hand.

More on education

Bruce 4 March 2015 0 Edit This

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After writing my article What is wrong with UK education. And how to fix it, I have been engaged on social media with some interesting views. Basically the progressives and social engineering lefties hate it. The pragmatics who just want the best for our children love it. It is very “marmite”. So I thought that I would expand on it.

Firstly and most important thing to understand is what the education system is for. Many in education and politics don’t understand this. It is to prepare children for the needs of the society that they will live in. Obviously most of this job is done by their family and peers. Education must give children the extra skills and knowledge beyond this.

One of my observations, from a long and active life, is that there is far too much emphasis in our society on academia and vastly too much emphasis on the academia of the “arts”. Something that was just mass entertainment 100, 200, 300 etc years ago is now seen as a subject for endless, futile debate. Many thousands of “academics” have thought far more about Jane Austen’s novels than she did herself. The vast majority of people who succeed in life, who have high life quality and success, do not owe it to academia.

Our state should invest the same resources into every child regardless of their academic prowess. Parents can invest more if they feel like it. The education system needs to look at a wide range of aptitudes and cater for them. To get the best out of people so they contribute the most to society. 11+ should not be an academic pass/fail, it should be an investigation into every child’s aptitudes so that these can be nurtured to most benefit society.

So here are just some of the different aptitudes that we need to understand and make the most of:

True academic. Someone who can absorb a vast amount of information and who has the intellectual horsepower and creativity to take it where nobody has gone before. These people are very rare.

True artist. Turner, Monet, Rubens, Shakespeare, Kipling, Simon Russell Beale. These people are incredibly rare. Most people in the arts, even famous ones, have no talent. Our society is driven by marketing and celebrity instead.

Memory box. At school there was a guy who had memorised the whole British Rail system and every engine on it. Academically he was average for a Grammar School. Likewise we see people on Eggheads, Mastermind etc who are just knowledge sponges.

Practical skills. This seems to be god given gift, most of us are all thumbs. My brother, at 15, was rebuilding motorcycle engines without a manual, at 18 rebuilding factory sealed gearboxes that were supposedly not rebuildable, now he can build a house, with all the trades, to a far higher standard than any building company. We all know someone like this.

Entrepreneurship. The people I have seen make money in life owe very little of it to their schooling. Some people understand that capitalism is all about looking after customers. That risks, investment and hard work bring their rewards. These are the most important people in our society because they make everything else possible. From the owner of your corner shop to Richard Branson they provide the goods and services that we want. And they create the wealth that pays for everything else.

Caring, empathy, social skills. These are immensely important because we live in a society. Mostly they are developed by family and peers, not by teachers. But people who are exceptional in these areas are of great value to society in a whole range of jobs. They should be nurtured to realise this value.

Maths. Yes, education must make us all good at this. But some children are doing differential calculus at 12 years old just for fun. They may have no other skills whatsoever. You will find a lot of these people in the City of London and GCHQ.

Creativity. Not artists but people who are capable of original thinking. Who come from left field. These people are immensely important for human advancement. In politics, in marketing, in creating goods and services. Too often this aptitude is confused with art, which is just plain silly.

Now look at the above (incomplete) list and ask yourself a question. Which of these does our education system recognise, understand and get the best out of? Yes, you got it, our education system fails most people in most areas of their ability. This is why 100% competence at maths and English in school leavers is so important. Because then, at least, people can go off and make the most of their own talents.

Putin’s killed opponents

Bruce 1 March 2015 0 Edit This

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Since the late 1990s a very long succession of opponents of Vladimir Putin have met violent deaths that were convenient for him. Almost certainly in the hundreds of individuals murdered. The only ones we know about are those with high profiles, often businessmen, politicians and journalists. The last of these have been very badly hit with over a hundred that we know of, who criticised Putin and/or his policies, meeting violent deaths. It is very unhealthy for a journalist not to totally support Putin’s lies in Russia. This article is just a short and partial list of human beings who met violent and often nasty deaths and who opposed Putin. Remember always that Putin has absolute power in Russia so no political killing is going to happen without his approval, or orders. And that the Chechen Wars were deeply unpopular forcing Putin into radical action to sustain them.

Galina Starovoitova, on 20 November 1998 gunned down in the entryway of her apartment building in St. Petersburg. A politician and ethnographer known for her work to protect ethnic minorities and promote democratic reforms in Russia. In April 1998, she became the leader of Democratic Russia. Vladimir Putin was appointed as head of FSB in July 1998. Galina Starovoitova tried to prevent such people from coming to power using her personal connections with different political figures and with Yeltsin’s wife. Starovoytova opposed the broad mandate of FSB. She made this part of her political platform in Democratic Russia.

Igor Domnikov, died July 16, 2000 two months after being attacked, hit repeatedly on the head with a heavy object, presumably a hammer in the entryway of his apartment building in southeastern Moscow. Almost certainly this was mistaken identity. Domnikov covered social and cultural issues, for a Novaya Gazeta, the intended victim was an investigative reporter named Oleg Sultanov, who lived in the same building.

Sergey Novikov, killed July 26, 2000, in Smolensk, Russia, he was shot four times and killed at around 9:00 p.m. in the stairwell of his apartment building. He owned the only independent radio station in Smolensk. Radio Vesna often criticized the government of Smolensk Province. On July 23, Novikov took part in a television panel that discussed the alleged corruption of the provincial deputy governor. He reportedly received death threats earlier in the year after announcing his intent to run for the provincial governorship. This is just one of many murders that gave Putin total control of the press. It became very dangerous to oppose Putin and his cronies.

Iskandar Khatloni, on 22 September 2000 Khatloni was attacked inside his Moscow apartment by an axe-wielding assailant. Khatloni was struck twice in the head and then stumbled onto the street. Taken to Moscow’s Botkin Hospital he died that night of a serious head wound. Iskandar was a journalist from Tajikistan who worked for Radio Free Europe and was reporting on human rights abuses in Chechnya. In addition to his journalistic work he was a distinguished poet and had published four volumes of verse. This is typical of how Putin got control of the Chechen news agenda. Report Putin lies and live, report the truth and die.

Sergey Ivanov, died October 3, 2000, in Togliatti, Russia, shot five times in the head and chest, in front of his apartment building. He was the director of the largest independent television company in Togliatti. I am not going to list the 100+ from the media who were killed, you must be getting the idea by now.

Adam Tepsurgayev, shot shot in the thigh and groin he bled to death in the village of Alkhan-Kala on 21 November 2000, in Chechnya, Russia, he was a 24-year-old freelance cameraman. During the first Chechen war (1994-1996), Tepsurgayev worked as a driver and fixer for foreign journalists. Later, he started shooting footage from the front lines of the conflict between Russian troops and separatist guerrillas.

Vladimir Golovlev was shot dead in a Moscow street on 21 August 2002. One of the co-founders of Liberal Russia. A few months earlier Mr Golovlev had left the Union of Right-Wing Forces and become one of the founder members of Liberal Russia, with the political and financial backing of Boris Berezovsky, the businessman and Putin opponent who was living in exile in Britain.

Sergei Yushenkov, shot dead near his house in Moscow on 17 April 2003. A liberal Russian politician who struggled for democracy, rapid free market economic reforms, and higher human rights standards in Russia. Yushenkov was an elected member of all Russian Parliaments from 1989 to 2003 and was the strongest proponent of reform in the Russian Army, he was a prominent critic of the First and Second Chechen Wars. All of which made him a great political opponent of Putin.

Yuri Shchekochikhin, died suddenly in July 2003 from a mysterious illness. The symptoms of his illness fit a pattern of poisoning by radioactive materials. He was an investigative journalist, writer, and liberal lawmaker in the Russian parliament. He made his name writing about and campaigning against the influence of organized crime and corruption. He died just a few days before his scheduled departure to the United States where he planned to meet with FBI investigators.

Nikolai Girenko, killed by a rifle shot through the entrance door of his St. Petersburg apartment on 19 June 2004. An ethnologist and human rights activist. He participated in international human rights defenders’ congresses and provided more than twenty expert examinations at the request of Moscow and St. Petersburg law enforcement bodies and served as an expert witness at trials.

Paul Klebnikov, on July 9, 2004, while leaving the Forbes office, Klebnikov was attacked on a Moscow street late at night, fired at from a slowly moving car. He was an American journalist and historian of Russian history. He worked for Forbes magazine for more than 10 years and at the time of his death was chief editor of the Russian edition of Forbes. Commentators have speculated that the magazine’s story on Russia’s 100 richest people may have triggered the attack. His murder in Moscow in 2004 was seen as a blow against investigative journalism in Russia. Exactly the sort of intimidation that Putin specialises in.

Roman Tsepov, fell sick on September 11, 2004, and died on September 24. A postmortem investigation found a poisoning by an unspecified radioactive material (which only the state could have done). He was a Saint Petersburg businessman, gangster and confidant to Vladimir Putin during Putin’s work at the Saint Petersburg City Administration. When Vladimir Putin’s came to power, Tsepov became one of the most influential figures in the financial and political life of Saint Petersburg. He was also affiliated with Saint Petersburg branches of the Russian Ministry of Internal Affairs and FSB. Presumably his vast criminal and corruption activity became an embarrassment, or a deal went wrong.

Andrei Kozlov, on 13 September 2006 in Moscow two gunmen shot him in the head and neck, he died of his injuries the next day. Kozlov was the first deputy chairman of the Central Bank of the Russian Federation from 1997 to 1999 and again in 2002 to 2006. As head of bank supervision, Kozlov withdrew licences from banks suspected of money laundering and other crimes. Diskont Bank in Russia had been accused of money laundering, Andrey Kozlov revoked Diskont’s license and days later he was murdered.

Anna Politkovskaya, on 7 October 2006 found shot dead in the elevator of her apartment block in central Moscow. She was a journalist, writer, and human rights activist known for her opposition to the Second Chechen War and President of Russia Vladimir Putin. Politkovskaya made her reputation reporting from Chechnya and her articles about conditions there were turned into several books. Russian readers’ main access to her investigations and publications was through Novaya Gazeta, a Russian newspaper known for its often-critical investigative coverage of Russian political and social affairs. From 2000 onwards, she received numerous international awards for her work. In 2004, she published a personal account, Putin’s Russia.

Alexander Litvinenko. poisoning by radioactive polonium-210 which resulted in his death in London on 23 November 2006. An officer of the Russian FSB secret service who specialised in tackling organised crime. In November 1998, Litvinenko and several other FSB officers publicly accused their superiors of ordering the assassination of the Russian tycoon and oligarch Boris Berezovsky. Litvinenko wrote two books, Blowing Up Russia: Terror from Within and Lubyanka Criminal Group, wherein he accused the Russian secret services of staging the Russian apartment bombings and other terrorism acts in an effort to bring Vladimir Putin to power. He also accused Putin of ordering the murder in October 2006 of the Russian journalist Anna Politkovskaya.

Sergei Magnitsky, on November 16 2008 died in Butyrka prison in Moscow after gross mistreatment, attributed first by prison officials as a “rupture to the abdominal membrane” and later to heart attack. Magnitsky was an accountant and auditor who had alleged there had been a large-scale theft from the Russian state sanctioned and carried out by Russian officials.

Stanislav Markelov, shot to death on 19 January 2009 while leaving a news conference in Moscow less than half a mile from the Kremlin. Anastasia Baburova, a journalist for Novaya Gazeta who tried to come to his assistance, was also shot and killed. Markelov was a Russian human rights lawyer. He participated in a number of publicized cases, including those of left-wing political activists and antifascists persecuted since the 1990s, as well as those of victims of police violence. Markelov was a president of the Russian Rule of Law Institute, he represented Anna Politkovskaya, who was killed in Moscow in 2006, Mikhail Beketov, the editor of a pro-opposition newspaper who was severely beaten in November 2008 and many Chechen civilians who had been tortured. Anastasia Baburova received a shot in the head. Brought to the hospital, she died a few hours later , becoming the fourth journalist from Novaya Gazeta to be murdered since 2000.

Natalya Estemirova, abducted on 15 July 2009 around 8:30 a.m. from her home in Grozny, Chechnya, her remains were found with bullet wounds in the head and chest area near the village of Gazi-Yurt, Ingushetia. Estemirova was an award-winning Russian human rights activist and board member of the Russian human rights organization Memorial. She was working on “extremely sensitive” cases of human rights abuses in Chechnya.

Boris Berezovsky, found dead at his home in Berkshire, UK, on 23 March 2013. A post-mortem examination found that his death was consistent with hanging.Berezovsky was a Russian business oligarch, government official and mathematician. He was a member of theRussian Academy of Sciences. An opponent of Vladimir Putin, Berezovsky clashed with the new president soon after his election in 2000 and was a vocal critic for the remainder of his life.

Alexei Devotchenko, died 5 November 2014 in Moscow, some Russian news outlets said he was discovered in a pool of blood in his apartment, while others claimed he was found inside his home. He was a well-known actor, gay activist and very strong and vocal critic of President Vladimir Putin who was prominent for years in the opposition movement. In March 10, 2010 he signed the petition of the Russian opposition Putin must go. On 18 November 2011, in his blog in the Live Journal, Devotchenko announced that renounced the title Honored Artist of Russia and the two State Prizes of Russia in protest against Putin. In March 2014, he signed a letter We are with you! in support of Ukraine.

Boris Nemtsov, shot and killed on 27 February 2015 on a bridge near the Kremlin and Red Square in Moscow. Nemtsov was a scientist, statesman and liberal politician. He had a successful political career during the 1990s under President Boris Yeltsin, and since 2000 had been an outspoken critic of Vladimir Putin. He had been Vice Premier of Russia and a Security Council member from 1997 to 1998. He was elected several times as a Russian parliament member. Nemtsov was a member of the Congress of People’s Deputies (1990), Federation Council (1993–1997) and State Duma (1999–2003). He also worked as Vice Speaker of the State Duma and the leader of parliamentary group of Union of Right Forces. He co-founded Solidarnost opposition movement. In 2010 he co-formed the coalition For Russia without Lawlessness and Corruption, which was refused registration as a party. Since 2012 Nemtsov was co-chair of the Republican Party of Russia – People’s Freedom Party (RPR-PARNAS), a registered political party. Many saw him as the opposition politician most likely to replace Putin.

Obviously we only know the prominent people who were killed. We don’t know about those now dead who didn’t have a big profile. As you can see this is utterly horrendous. Putin is totally unfit to govern other people. And my earlier article on the nature of the man is completely vindicated.

Additional proof of his ruthlessness was the shooting down of MH17 by Russia. In order to stop the Ukrainian airforce from attacking Russian troops on the ground Putin sent advanced Russian Army Buk ground to air missile system into Eastern Ukraine. These shot down several Ukrainian airforce aircraft. The problem was the very many commercial aircraft overflying the area, which Putin seems to have been totally reckless about the safety of. Eventually they shot down what they thought was a Ukrainian cargo aircraft, but it was 777 with 298 people on board. Rather than accept blame Putin has come out with a litany of lies (here and here), that are totally destroyed by aviation experts but which are believed by the hard of thinking. The truth is here and here and here.

More evidence of Putin’s ruthlessness was how he came to power. He became head of FSB in July 1998. It is widely accepted that the FSB bombed Russian apartments in 1999, killing 293 and injuring 651 people in a false flag action. Buynaksk on September 4, Moscow on September 9 and September 13 and Volgodonsk on September 16. The instability caused by these enabled Putin to start the Second Chechyn War and to gain the Presidency. Putin became Acting President on 31 December 1999 when Yeltsin unexpectedly resigned (you can guess what really happened) and won the subsequent 2000 presidential election (Putin fixes elections so he always wins them). Yury Felshtinsky, Alexander Litvinenko,Boris Berezovsky, David Satter, Boris Kagarlitsky and Vladimir Pribylovsky all say that Putin was responsible for the apartment explosions.

Putin uses the techniques of Hybrid Warfare and the Russian philosophy of “‘Maskirovka” against his opponents. He has no honour and will never keep his word, he lies, prevaricates, obfuscates and equivocates in EVERYTHING he does. He acts like a psychopath with a Napoleon Complex. And he is the most dangerous man in the world.