The United States?

It would not have happened without money borrowed from them after the war which we only finished paying back a few years ago.

It's a shame that every Labour government since has failed to solve the problems with sustaining it.

As if past and present Conservative Governments can take any credit for positive action? Nope...didn't think so! (If anything, the Tories continue to run the NHS into the ground to the point that the only means of rescue is via privatisation , much like our schools) Funny how the Tories one policy promise at the moment seems to be based around Brexit whilst they seem invisible regarding the infrastructure of the rest of the country, probably because we are going to be paying BIG time for the mistake of leaving the EU.

I am a teacher, reluctantly, done a few years supply in secondaries, now in FE.

Academies, like the utilities, NHS bureacracy and privatised rail firms are just gravy trains - the privatisation-lite brings no extra efficiency just a lot of sh*tkickers on the make.

Ofsted are the problem not the solution - all tick box quantifiable philistinism, bureacratic inertia - I've seen foreign language schools who teach German and Japanese businessmen and have to survive in the market - their ideas and training are light years ahead of the state sector, although iniatives like Teach First have tried to fund top scholars into the state system, they're usually robotic hooray henrys with no clue in front of lairy kids.

Forget free schools, academies whatever, all just skirting round the problem - abolish the charitable status for private schools and you'll see the biggest social revolution in this country since Atlee's govt, maybe since Asquith's ... the culture here is you have to pay to get a rounded education with practitioners who have tested their subject knowledge in the real world, understand the link between advanced and basic levels and so know how both to simplify, explain the purpose of their teaching and make it relevant and interesting - but this service is only for elites, it's too good for ordinary folk - it's the English curse: snobbery. I t extends to the toffs playing wugger while the chavs play footy, that's why we're crap at both. No such divide in other countries, football in Italy or Germany is not 'non-U', here we have crap concepts like that, and I believe they go deeper and have more influence than is generally realised.