This reminds me of one of the questions to test moral maturity. It concerns a boy who has stolen some apples, crosses a bridge, which collapses, and he is drowned. The children are asked whether the bridge would have collapsed if the boy had not stolen the apples. The very young say 'no' - it collapsed because he was bad. Moral maturity comes some time after the age of 11 when children say there was no moral connection, it is mere circumstance. Conclusion, the Wail is stuck at a very low level of moral reasoning.

Not sure what all the fuss is about here, to be honest. Anyone who thinks this is an 'outlier' or unusual clearly doesn't enjoy the pleasure of laughing at the online version of the DM very often.

Okay, like a seventies club entertainer going on the telly 'they clean it up a bit' for the 'family version' disributed to newsagents.

But tosh like this, and worse, appears on the Daily Mail website, er, 'daily'. That goes a long way to explaining why it is just about the most popular English language news site in the world.

A wise man once pointed out that no-one went bust underestimating the public's intelligence.

Change to the D. Express - oops!, they seem to have a similar version of the story.

Not only is it completely illogical (cause and effect?), it's utterly disgusting in its disrespect.

This is too far, even for the Mail.

very tastelss although i must admit i expect nothing less

Daily Fail are just keeping up to their usual high standards of ground breaking journalism.

@Paul Wilks

Nicely put. That model could be extrapolated across any number of pseudo-patriotic, bullshit events, championed by the 'voice of middle England'. Let's run with it...

The Mail have obviously listened and softened their tone. The headline now reads:

"Girl, 13, crushed to death by a falling branch as she sat on park bench on the day her teachers went out on strike"

with a new subhead:

"Complaints had been made to the council about 'dangerous' tree"

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2010193/Teachers-strike-Sophie-H...

NS readers may wish to go to the article and make their comments there.

What about all the children who get knocked down going to, or returning from, school? That must be sirs' fault as well.

B Small, you're evidently only counting teacher-pupil contact time. Add on time to plan and prepare the lessons before teaching them, then evaluating how the lesson went afterwards - not to mention assessing the pupils. Take a relatively small class size of 20, and 20 hours contact per week. That's 400 hours worth of work to sift through and assess each week - not to mention any revision of lesson plans needed in light of what the pupils did or did not achieve. There's also several batches of parents evenings a year and the increasing trend for "twilight" Insets. Oh, and there's also supervision of pupils during lunchtime, lunchtime clubs, after school clubs, registration, tutorials... all of which increase the length of the real working day.

The Sun used my friend's killer to make a political point. He was released after 6 years because he was deemed mentally ill.

The Sun only mentioned mentioned my friend's name once in the article and it was pretty emotionally difficult to see him used merely as a pawn in the The Sun's agenda.

The right-wing media always says that people don't respect victim's enough, well from my experience neither do they.

If such a tragedy had happened on the day of the Royal Wedding would the Mail have made the same link?

Although the Mail's article is the worst example of sensationalist journalism. I find it ridiculous how much teachers are paid in combination with their unbelievable holiday entitlements, compared to other Civil Servants such as Police Officers, Fire Fighters and Nurses.

The fact remains, would that poor child still be alive today if her school had been open for business as usual?
In the real world of the private sector, my pension was scaled back because the fund became unaffordable for my employer. The same is going to happen to the public sector pensions too, strikes or no strikes.
The revenue generating sectors of the economy pay for the likes of teachers, don't therefore expect to keep better pensions than those who are footing the bill!

What's with the IQ test every time we post on NS? what worries me is I've got one or two of them wrong; -back to school Nick!

Feneon.
The bridge collapse had nothing to do with apples, or the poor boy being naughty.
I have it on good authority that immediately prior to the incident Eric Pickles had walked over it.

Daniele, my CEO and most of the main board of my company are in the same scheme - all sharing the revisions to career averaged earnings, increase of 3% contributions and working another two years.
I am not "pathetic", it's just that because I don't buy into your deluded and irrational views on state sector pensions you resort to insults.
The gravy train now arriving at platform 1 is terminating!

@Bill White/John Smith/B.SMALL:

Could you get your story straight? Are the teachers incompetent (unable to keep discipline), or do they have superhuman abilities to soak up curriculum changes, advances in their subject, changes to their teaching responsibilities and professional development generally without any conscious effort or expenditure of time; and to deliver lessons without any time or effort spent planning them?

(I'm not a teacher, nor have I played one on TV; but I have delivered professional training).

To all the envious poor private sectors losers, tell you what. Why don't you go and get yourself a degree then a PGCE then become a teacher and have a dream lifestyle and fantastic holidays for the rest of your life (probably until you are 70). Of course you will have to control AND educate some kids , 30 at a time,that the Police and the courts can't control but hey! think of that life of luxury!
Daily Mayall:
Why don't you find out how much your employer's pension is worth? A packet I reckon because he probably has stolen his employees' pensions telling them there was no more money in the kitty.You are pathetic!

In sense it could work for public sector workers. Such a blatant, transparent smear should demonstrate to the public that any pretence the Mail has as a news provider is nonsense. The Mail and it's slightly loftier cousin The Telegraph are simply instruments of our right wing establishment and are fit for toilet paper and not much else.

The great private pension scandal is still not out. Private sector workers still believe the lies of their employers that pensions for them are not affordable while the top executives have pots of money put away for themselves.How gullible can British workers be?
Emplyers used to say paid holidays would ruin the country when they were
first forced to give them to their workers. Same for maternity leave, same for every scrap of workers'right. The right to strike had to be fought by people with great courage.
And today what have we got? people who are too wimpish and too brainwashed by the "Daily Mail" to demand their basic right to a decent pension. Worse they resent the workers in the public sector who still have some kind of pension.How pathetic is that?