Looks like tonight is "let's find some dirt on Starmer" night, dredging up stuff from his past, long before he was LOTO, including where his parents sent him to school. Smacks of desperation to me. Still, he'll know what attack lines to expect from the tabloids when the next GE gets under way. Though I thought PB may do better.
Starmer is clearly an anti-semitic, hypocritical private-school educated, serial DPP prosecutor who hates his country. Or something like that.
Does his wife know that he is anti-semitic?
Well, presumably she can testify he screws a Jew on a regular basis.
Thanks for the advice on the phone Max, its been interesting.
Think I'll leave it another 12 months before upgrading, checking and there's still no 5G in my area and still no sign of it coming any time soon. Without 5G there just doesn't seem to be much point changing.
But will bear in mind the Pixel 7 probably when I do get around to upgrading instead of just going for another Samsung automatically.
The coronavirus numbers this evening aren't inspiring - yet we can't go back. For too many people and you see it often on here, the very concept of a return to restrictions is anathema.
The prevailing ethos now is we "live with" the virus which I suppose we could have done in March 2020. We have nearly 80% of those aged 12 and above doubly vaccinated. In Newham, I estimate 55,000 people over 12 are not yet doubly vaccinated so there's still plenty of fuel for the virus.
I confess I'm starting to get concerned about the pace of the booster rollout. @MaxPB was waxing lyrical about getting 2.5 million vaccinated per week - I see little sign of that currently. Mrs Stodge and I are approaching five months since our second vaccination and I'm getting concerned the immunity the second vaccination provided will be wearing off in a few weeks.
Unless we get the booster programme moving, we'll be back in a bad position with weakly protected or unprotected people mixing indoors as we move into late autumn and winter.
Much of Europe is moving faster on both kids and boosters; if we are not careful the position last spring will reverse, and even PB Tories will have to stop going on about our vaccination triumph…
It’s too late, isn’t it? We’re behind Western Europe now.
I say this provocatively in the hopes someone will correct me.
tl;dr
UK has a big waning immunity problem — bigger than Western Europe because of starting vax earlier — which is much more likely than masks to explain UK’s ongoing higher case & death rates https://t.co/8ofsYZjYR2
Potentially we're heading for fairly deep doohdooh and the "it's over" attitude isn't helping.
1000 deaths a week is 10% of all deaths, roughly. I'm not sure we should be as chilled about this as we are; it feels like the borderline between "sad but hey-ho" and "f@#* this is bad".
Why should we not be chilled about ~1000 deaths a week? Close to ten times that many die of natural causes anyway every single week even pre-Covid and we never freaked out about that.
People will be dying until the end of humanity of one thing or another and as this is now endemic, we're never going to see zero Covid deaths again potentially.
The vaccines have done the job in giving us enough herd immunity to prevent exponential growth kicking off and overwhelming the NHS again, but there'll still be cases especially amongst antivaxxers and still be breakthrough illnesses that could kill off some elderly vulnerable people.
That can't and shouldn't be stopped.
I have a lot of sympathy with that view.
But what is infuriating is that the UK could have started on teenagers three months ago, and could have started really pushing boosters at the start of last month. If they had done both those things, then we wouldn't have started to have the hospitals filling.
And right now, the hospitals aren't too full. And it's OK. And we don't need to consider new measures. (And half term is just a week away.)
But the hospitalisation situation doesn't have to get that much worse before we do need to start worrying.
Yes absolutely the JCVI really screwed up and its good that Javid eventually said enough was enough and overruled them. We need sometimes to have politicians decide and not "experts" with their own transparent political agendas and that was a good call - and one Hancock should have made months sooner.
Looks like tonight is "let's find some dirt on Starmer" night, dredging up stuff from his past, long before he was LOTO, including where his parents sent him to school. Smacks of desperation to me. Still, he'll know what attack lines to expect from the tabloids when the next GE gets under way. Though I thought PB may do better.
Starmer is clearly an anti-semitic, hypocritical private-school educated, serial DPP prosecutor who hates his country. Or something like that.
The grammar school stuff is hysterical considering the difference between Thatcher's life experience & rhetoric versus the amount of grammar schools she actually closed.
It didn't harm her.
▶ USAGE The use of a plural noun after amount of (an amount of bananas; the amount of refugees) should be avoided: a quantity of bananas; the number of refugees
The coronavirus numbers this evening aren't inspiring - yet we can't go back. For too many people and you see it often on here, the very concept of a return to restrictions is anathema.
The prevailing ethos now is we "live with" the virus which I suppose we could have done in March 2020. We have nearly 80% of those aged 12 and above doubly vaccinated. In Newham, I estimate 55,000 people over 12 are not yet doubly vaccinated so there's still plenty of fuel for the virus.
I confess I'm starting to get concerned about the pace of the booster rollout. @MaxPB was waxing lyrical about getting 2.5 million vaccinated per week - I see little sign of that currently. Mrs Stodge and I are approaching five months since our second vaccination and I'm getting concerned the immunity the second vaccination provided will be wearing off in a few weeks.
Unless we get the booster programme moving, we'll be back in a bad position with weakly protected or unprotected people mixing indoors as we move into late autumn and winter.
Much of Europe is moving faster on both kids and boosters; if we are not careful the position last spring will reverse, and even PB Tories will have to stop going on about our vaccination triumph…
It’s too late, isn’t it? We’re behind Western Europe now.
I say this provocatively in the hopes someone will correct me.
tl;dr
UK has a big waning immunity problem — bigger than Western Europe because of starting vax earlier — which is much more likely than masks to explain UK’s ongoing higher case & death rates https://t.co/8ofsYZjYR2
Potentially we're heading for fairly deep doohdooh and the "it's over" attitude isn't helping.
1000 deaths a week is 10% of all deaths, roughly. I'm not sure we should be as chilled about this as we are; it feels like the borderline between "sad but hey-ho" and "f@#* this is bad".
Why should we not be chilled about ~1000 deaths a week? Close to ten times that many die of natural causes anyway every single week even pre-Covid and we never freaked out about that.
People will be dying until the end of humanity of one thing or another and as this is now endemic, we're never going to see zero Covid deaths again potentially.
The vaccines have done the job in giving us enough herd immunity to prevent exponential growth kicking off and overwhelming the NHS again, but there'll still be cases especially amongst antivaxxers and still be breakthrough illnesses that could kill off some elderly vulnerable people.
That can't and shouldn't be stopped.
I have a lot of sympathy with that view.
But what is infuriating is that the UK could have started on teenagers three months ago, and could have started really pushing boosters at the start of last month. If they had done both those things, then we wouldn't have started to have the hospitals filling.
And right now, the hospitals aren't too full. And it's OK. And we don't need to consider new measures. (And half term is just a week away.)
But the hospitalisation situation doesn't have to get that much worse before we do need to start worrying.
Yes absolutely the JCVI really screwed up and its good that Javid eventually said enough was enough and overruled them. We need sometimes to have politicians decide and not "experts" with their own transparent political agendas and that was a good call - and one Hancock should have made months sooner.
Hancock had other things on his mind
Fake news.
Hancock was hard work!
Really? He was a complete flop in office, if not necessarily in his office.
"Blair was a salesman. Cameron was also a salesman, to a lesser extent. Starmer doesn't appear to be one - and he needs to sell his vision for the country, to both the country and his own party." - pretty much the whole reason I think Sir Keir won't be PM - plus the fact he is up against a very charismatic salesman
In a way, they appear polar opposites. Starmer may have a vision (I've no idea given he seems incapable of saying it); Boris doesn't have a vision beyond the end of his nose, but can sell the snot that dribbles out by the barrel-load.
We need a hideous scientific experiment where the two are merged together. Starson or Johnmer.
(I actually quite like Starson. Very sci-fi)
I saw a clip of Blair as LotO at PMQs the other day, and he seemed like he was bossing it vs Major (the famous one "I lead my party, he follows his", seems so horribly smug watching it now), and to an extent Cameron did with Brown, from what I can recall.
Miliband and Sir Keir always seem like they are earnestly whining about it being so unfair to me; maybe it's just the lack of gravitas in their voices. They seem like kids complaining about their parents, in comparison to the last couple of LotOs who became PM
No, he doesn't come over as whining to his parents about it being so unfair. The "wooden" critique is fair enough but you're just indulging yourself with this. Surprised you haven't as yet found fault with his eyebrows btw. Or have I missed that?
Comes over to me as whining to his parents about it being so unfair. He has a whiny voice, like Ed Miliband has, and coupled with his whole schtik being how nasty the govt and Boris are, it seems a bit "poor me"
Don't know about his eyebrows - he looks like a Teddy Boy who likes a beer to me, but Boris is no pin up either, so it doesn't really affect things
A deathly dull teddy boy with a whiny voice who likes a beer. It's pouring out now.
No point opposing such naked prejudice with reason, I've learnt this, but just on the voice - it's not whiny, it's a touch flat & nasal, which is completely different.
And what about your man "Boris". How does HE come over to you? Eg when he stands up and says he's going to "get social care done". Does this sort of thing come across as dynamic and determined, or like he has no clue what he's talking about and operates on pure bullshit?
Ooh, prejudice!!!
I used to absolute despise Boris, based almost solely on a combination of class hatred and inability to see how anyone could fall for his bluster - I wouldn't say he was my man now, I voted for him with a heavy heart and a lot of sadness at finally going over to the dark side. But he was the only one offering to honour the referendum result. As I have got older I can appreciate that a bit of charisma and optimism goes a long way, and dreary righteousness is unappealing
Ok, you're being your best self with that answer, so I'll take it without disbelief or rancour. At least for now.
Let me fill you in on what a contemptible prick starmer is:
Starmer as DPP was effectively in charge of prosecutions before juries. He was the country's leading authority on Not Prejudicing Trials. Against that background, he held a press conference to announce that the admittedly appalling Chris Huhne would be prosecuted for lying his head off. Now, what is the likely effect of that press conference on a potential juror? They are going to think, if they pay any attention at all, There wouldn't have been a press conference about this on national TV if there was nothing in it. And what's the benefit of holding the press conference? It's to raise Kier's fucking political profile.
An unprincipled twat.
Not my field at all. Was that a very unusual thing to do then? A prosecutor announcing a prosecution?
How many press conferences on upcoming prosecutions have you heard Max Hill QC give in the last 3 years?
So it was unusual, was it. Ok. I'm not au fait with DPP normal practice or with SKS's record in the role. He did it for 5 years so I imagine he trod on some toes. If the charge is he was corrupt and/or incompetent, that's a new one on me. I hope he wasn't, given he's likely our next PM. I hope it's generally felt by those in the know that he was effective in the job. Not the best DPP ever, maybe, but by no means the worst. This would be my hope.
In stock here for October delivery and you get the free headphones.
How on earth do you cope with a phone with only 128GB storage space?
I got the 256GB, but I could probably do just fine with 128GB. My whole life is streamed. I have little to no locally stored music or videos. Only my own phone camera pics are on the phone and even those I have backed up to the cloud at full res with Google. I see no point in local storage for media and anything, err, sensitive I'd store offline and not on my phone anyway.
Corbyn really did bequeath Starmer a toxic legacy.
The problem is that Starmer isn't up to the job either.
Nonsense. I am not a Labour supporter, but Starmer has a great deal more credibility than the Clown that currently occupies No10. It is a long time before the next election. The big problem that Starmer has is not his own ability or credibility, it is that there is still a large part of the Labour Party that is even more ludicrous than many of those of the current government benches. History will judge how he does the long haul.
He reminds me a lot of Cameron: Massively underestimated by those in his own party that would rather have someone else, and derided by his opponents because they are simply too tribal or plain stupid to realise that he might just make it.
I agree with some of that: but Cameron always had a vision - even if you disagreed with it. Starmer seems unable to project any vision he may have without writing a WORN (*) magnum opus. Events haven't helped him, as the country and media are concentrating on bigger events.
Blair was a salesman. Cameron was also a salesman, to a lesser extent. Starmer doesn't appear to be one - and he needs to sell his vision for the country, to both the country and his own party.
(*) Write Once, Read Never. A common form of computer documentation.
"Blair was a salesman. Cameron was also a salesman, to a lesser extent. Starmer doesn't appear to be one - and he needs to sell his vision for the country, to both the country and his own party." - pretty much the whole reason I think Sir Keir won't be PM - plus the fact he is up against a very charismatic salesman
In a way, they appear polar opposites. Starmer may have a vision (I've no idea given he seems incapable of saying it); Boris doesn't have a vision beyond the end of his nose, but can sell the snot that dribbles out by the barrel-load.
We need a hideous scientific experiment where the two are merged together. Starson or Johnmer.
(I actually quite like Starson. Very sci-fi)
I saw a clip of Blair as LotO at PMQs the other day, and he seemed like he was bossing it vs Major (the famous one "I lead my party, he follows his", seems so horribly smug watching it now), and to an extent Cameron did with Brown, from what I can recall.
Miliband and Sir Keir always seem like they are earnestly whining about it being so unfair to me; maybe it's just the lack of gravitas in their voices. They seem like kids complaining about their parents, in comparison to the last couple of LotOs who became PM
No, he doesn't come over as whining to his parents about it being so unfair. The "wooden" critique is fair enough but you're just indulging yourself with this. Surprised you haven't as yet found fault with his eyebrows btw. Or have I missed that?
Comes over to me as whining to his parents about it being so unfair. He has a whiny voice, like Ed Miliband has, and coupled with his whole schtik being how nasty the govt and Boris are, it seems a bit "poor me"
Don't know about his eyebrows - he looks like a Teddy Boy who likes a beer to me, but Boris is no pin up either, so it doesn't really affect things
A deathly dull teddy boy with a whiny voice who likes a beer. It's pouring out now.
No point opposing such naked prejudice with reason, I've learnt this, but just on the voice - it's not whiny, it's a touch flat & nasal, which is completely different.
And what about your man "Boris". How does HE come over to you? Eg when he stands up and says he's going to "get social care done". Does this sort of thing come across as dynamic and determined, or like he has no clue what he's talking about and operates on pure bullshit?
Ooh, prejudice!!!
I used to absolute despise Boris, based almost solely on a combination of class hatred and inability to see how anyone could fall for his bluster - I wouldn't say he was my man now, I voted for him with a heavy heart and a lot of sadness at finally going over to the dark side. But he was the only one offering to honour the referendum result. As I have got older I can appreciate that a bit of charisma and optimism goes a long way, and dreary righteousness is unappealing
Ok, you're being your best self with that answer, so I'll take it without disbelief or rancour. At least for now.
Let me fill you in on what a contemptible prick starmer is:
Starmer as DPP was effectively in charge of prosecutions before juries. He was the country's leading authority on Not Prejudicing Trials. Against that background, he held a press conference to announce that the admittedly appalling Chris Huhne would be prosecuted for lying his head off. Now, what is the likely effect of that press conference on a potential juror? They are going to think, if they pay any attention at all, There wouldn't have been a press conference about this on national TV if there was nothing in it. And what's the benefit of holding the press conference? It's to raise Kier's fucking political profile.
An unprincipled twat.
So despite all evidence to the contrary, he is actually a politician?
Yeah killer point. But if he can't behave honourably as a lawyer, what can we expect from him as a politician?
We already know that.
He stayed in Corbyn's Shadow Cabinet and said he'd serve in a real Cabinet and support Corbyn as PM even after all the antisemitism came up.
He is the worst sort of self-serving careerist.
He also talks of wanting to give people from the same background as him the chances he got - He went to a Grammar School, which he wont reintroduce as far as I know, which turned into a private, fee paying school whilst he was there. So either his parents paid, in which case poor kids wont get that chance or, as some claim, the state paid for him to go private, in which case, is his government going to pay for bright poor kids to go to private school?
Surely, in the GE campaign, a journalist will ask him outright "Who paid for you to go to Private School?"
I'm not sure the state covering costs of students who passed the 11 plus would be that big a story to be honest.
That he did pass the 11 plus is more interesting. Presumably he wishes he could have gone to a bog standard comp, but again, I'm not sure it's that big an issue. The Tories don't want to bring them back where they were abolished, so it's not like he will have to give an opinion on this.
He says he wants kids from ‘umble backgrounds like his to get the same chances he did - he’s not going to let them go to grammar school & he’s not going to pay for them to go private like he did. So what’s the plan? ‘Make every comprehensive brilliant’?
Strip private schools like the one he went too of their charitable status.
Corbyn really did bequeath Starmer a toxic legacy.
The problem is that Starmer isn't up to the job either.
Nonsense. I am not a Labour supporter, but Starmer has a great deal more credibility than the Clown that currently occupies No10. It is a long time before the next election. The big problem that Starmer has is not his own ability or credibility, it is that there is still a large part of the Labour Party that is even more ludicrous than many of those of the current government benches. History will judge how he does the long haul.
He reminds me a lot of Cameron: Massively underestimated by those in his own party that would rather have someone else, and derided by his opponents because they are simply too tribal or plain stupid to realise that he might just make it.
I agree with some of that: but Cameron always had a vision - even if you disagreed with it. Starmer seems unable to project any vision he may have without writing a WORN (*) magnum opus. Events haven't helped him, as the country and media are concentrating on bigger events.
Blair was a salesman. Cameron was also a salesman, to a lesser extent. Starmer doesn't appear to be one - and he needs to sell his vision for the country, to both the country and his own party.
(*) Write Once, Read Never. A common form of computer documentation.
"Blair was a salesman. Cameron was also a salesman, to a lesser extent. Starmer doesn't appear to be one - and he needs to sell his vision for the country, to both the country and his own party." - pretty much the whole reason I think Sir Keir won't be PM - plus the fact he is up against a very charismatic salesman
In a way, they appear polar opposites. Starmer may have a vision (I've no idea given he seems incapable of saying it); Boris doesn't have a vision beyond the end of his nose, but can sell the snot that dribbles out by the barrel-load.
We need a hideous scientific experiment where the two are merged together. Starson or Johnmer.
(I actually quite like Starson. Very sci-fi)
I saw a clip of Blair as LotO at PMQs the other day, and he seemed like he was bossing it vs Major (the famous one "I lead my party, he follows his", seems so horribly smug watching it now), and to an extent Cameron did with Brown, from what I can recall.
Miliband and Sir Keir always seem like they are earnestly whining about it being so unfair to me; maybe it's just the lack of gravitas in their voices. They seem like kids complaining about their parents, in comparison to the last couple of LotOs who became PM
No, he doesn't come over as whining to his parents about it being so unfair. The "wooden" critique is fair enough but you're just indulging yourself with this. Surprised you haven't as yet found fault with his eyebrows btw. Or have I missed that?
Comes over to me as whining to his parents about it being so unfair. He has a whiny voice, like Ed Miliband has, and coupled with his whole schtik being how nasty the govt and Boris are, it seems a bit "poor me"
Don't know about his eyebrows - he looks like a Teddy Boy who likes a beer to me, but Boris is no pin up either, so it doesn't really affect things
A deathly dull teddy boy with a whiny voice who likes a beer. It's pouring out now.
No point opposing such naked prejudice with reason, I've learnt this, but just on the voice - it's not whiny, it's a touch flat & nasal, which is completely different.
And what about your man "Boris". How does HE come over to you? Eg when he stands up and says he's going to "get social care done". Does this sort of thing come across as dynamic and determined, or like he has no clue what he's talking about and operates on pure bullshit?
Ooh, prejudice!!!
I used to absolute despise Boris, based almost solely on a combination of class hatred and inability to see how anyone could fall for his bluster - I wouldn't say he was my man now, I voted for him with a heavy heart and a lot of sadness at finally going over to the dark side. But he was the only one offering to honour the referendum result. As I have got older I can appreciate that a bit of charisma and optimism goes a long way, and dreary righteousness is unappealing
Ok, you're being your best self with that answer, so I'll take it without disbelief or rancour. At least for now.
Let me fill you in on what a contemptible prick starmer is:
Starmer as DPP was effectively in charge of prosecutions before juries. He was the country's leading authority on Not Prejudicing Trials. Against that background, he held a press conference to announce that the admittedly appalling Chris Huhne would be prosecuted for lying his head off. Now, what is the likely effect of that press conference on a potential juror? They are going to think, if they pay any attention at all, There wouldn't have been a press conference about this on national TV if there was nothing in it. And what's the benefit of holding the press conference? It's to raise Kier's fucking political profile.
An unprincipled twat.
Not my field at all. Was that a very unusual thing to do then? A prosecutor announcing a prosecution?
Unprecedented to hold a press conference about it afaik. Normally you just publish the trial date in the court list and expect the press to pick up on it.
Looks like tonight is "let's find some dirt on Starmer" night, dredging up stuff from his past, long before he was LOTO, including where his parents sent him to school. Smacks of desperation to me. Still, he'll know what attack lines to expect from the tabloids when the next GE gets under way. Though I thought PB may do better.
Starmer is clearly an anti-semitic, hypocritical private-school educated, serial DPP prosecutor who hates his country. Or something like that.
Um, abject fail there, squire. Things he did as DPP is a bit different from, let's say, ill judged tweets in his teens, surely? A DPP who prefers furthering his own career to the interests of justice surely deserves at least a mention?
Not an anti Semite btw. Just a tolerator of anti semitism. So that's ok.
Well, I suspect that Starmer's track record on honesty and integrity as DPP probably stands up better than the current PM's record on honesty and integrity as a professional journalist. But of course that's whataboutery.
"Blair was a salesman. Cameron was also a salesman, to a lesser extent. Starmer doesn't appear to be one - and he needs to sell his vision for the country, to both the country and his own party." - pretty much the whole reason I think Sir Keir won't be PM - plus the fact he is up against a very charismatic salesman
In a way, they appear polar opposites. Starmer may have a vision (I've no idea given he seems incapable of saying it); Boris doesn't have a vision beyond the end of his nose, but can sell the snot that dribbles out by the barrel-load.
We need a hideous scientific experiment where the two are merged together. Starson or Johnmer.
(I actually quite like Starson. Very sci-fi)
I saw a clip of Blair as LotO at PMQs the other day, and he seemed like he was bossing it vs Major (the famous one "I lead my party, he follows his", seems so horribly smug watching it now), and to an extent Cameron did with Brown, from what I can recall.
Miliband and Sir Keir always seem like they are earnestly whining about it being so unfair to me; maybe it's just the lack of gravitas in their voices. They seem like kids complaining about their parents, in comparison to the last couple of LotOs who became PM
No, he doesn't come over as whining to his parents about it being so unfair. The "wooden" critique is fair enough but you're just indulging yourself with this. Surprised you haven't as yet found fault with his eyebrows btw. Or have I missed that?
Comes over to me as whining to his parents about it being so unfair. He has a whiny voice, like Ed Miliband has, and coupled with his whole schtik being how nasty the govt and Boris are, it seems a bit "poor me"
Don't know about his eyebrows - he looks like a Teddy Boy who likes a beer to me, but Boris is no pin up either, so it doesn't really affect things
A deathly dull teddy boy with a whiny voice who likes a beer. It's pouring out now.
No point opposing such naked prejudice with reason, I've learnt this, but just on the voice - it's not whiny, it's a touch flat & nasal, which is completely different.
And what about your man "Boris". How does HE come over to you? Eg when he stands up and says he's going to "get social care done". Does this sort of thing come across as dynamic and determined, or like he has no clue what he's talking about and operates on pure bullshit?
Ooh, prejudice!!!
I used to absolute despise Boris, based almost solely on a combination of class hatred and inability to see how anyone could fall for his bluster - I wouldn't say he was my man now, I voted for him with a heavy heart and a lot of sadness at finally going over to the dark side. But he was the only one offering to honour the referendum result. As I have got older I can appreciate that a bit of charisma and optimism goes a long way, and dreary righteousness is unappealing
Ok, you're being your best self with that answer, so I'll take it without disbelief or rancour. At least for now.
Let me fill you in on what a contemptible prick starmer is:
Starmer as DPP was effectively in charge of prosecutions before juries. He was the country's leading authority on Not Prejudicing Trials. Against that background, he held a press conference to announce that the admittedly appalling Chris Huhne would be prosecuted for lying his head off. Now, what is the likely effect of that press conference on a potential juror? They are going to think, if they pay any attention at all, There wouldn't have been a press conference about this on national TV if there was nothing in it. And what's the benefit of holding the press conference? It's to raise Kier's fucking political profile.
An unprincipled twat.
Not my field at all. Was that a very unusual thing to do then? A prosecutor announcing a prosecution?
How many press conferences on upcoming prosecutions have you heard Max Hill QC give in the last 3 years?
So it was unusual, was it. Ok. I'm not au fait with DPP normal practice or with SKS's record in the role. He did it for 5 years so I imagine he trod on some toes. If the charge is he was corrupt and/or incompetent, that's a new one on me. I hope he wasn't, given he's likely our next PM. I hope it's generally felt by those in the know that he was effective in the job. Not the best DPP ever, maybe, but by no means the worst. This would be my hope.
Judging from the things @Cyclefree says, he was probably the best DPP the country ever had.
In the same way that Khrushchev was much the best leader of the Soviet Union, and for the same reason.
I keep having my Laptop fan getting very loud for the past week now and Chrome comes grinding to a halt, after doing a few diagnostics it seems that Chrome is going up to using almost 100% of CPU for no apparent reason. And it only seems to be happening when I have vf.politicalbetting.com open. Its not happening all the time, but it is happening quite frequently.
Closing Chrome drops the CPU use back down to next-to-nothing, and it seems closing just the PB tabs within Chrome is doing the same thing too.
There seems to be something on vf.politicalbetting.com or on my Laptop linking with that, that's driving that to happen.
Has anyone else had anything like this happen? I'm not sure if its happening with just Chrome or Firefox too.
Hmmm...
We have no control over the vf. site. Do you see the same issue on the regular site?
I only ever use the regular site (unless it's down for whatever reason) and have had no problems there at all.
Checking the vf site with Google Dev tools (F12) doesn't reveal anything amiss. There's a couple of minor problems as you would expect but nothing to suggest CPU usage would go to 100%.
I don't think you have much to worry about from a website POV. Is more than likely a Chrome issue and/or Windows update issue.
I can simply no longer use the pb site, the only way I can comment here is on the vf site.
Corbyn really did bequeath Starmer a toxic legacy.
The problem is that Starmer isn't up to the job either.
Nonsense. I am not a Labour supporter, but Starmer has a great deal more credibility than the Clown that currently occupies No10. It is a long time before the next election. The big problem that Starmer has is not his own ability or credibility, it is that there is still a large part of the Labour Party that is even more ludicrous than many of those of the current government benches. History will judge how he does the long haul.
He reminds me a lot of Cameron: Massively underestimated by those in his own party that would rather have someone else, and derided by his opponents because they are simply too tribal or plain stupid to realise that he might just make it.
I agree with some of that: but Cameron always had a vision - even if you disagreed with it. Starmer seems unable to project any vision he may have without writing a WORN (*) magnum opus. Events haven't helped him, as the country and media are concentrating on bigger events.
Blair was a salesman. Cameron was also a salesman, to a lesser extent. Starmer doesn't appear to be one - and he needs to sell his vision for the country, to both the country and his own party.
(*) Write Once, Read Never. A common form of computer documentation.
"Blair was a salesman. Cameron was also a salesman, to a lesser extent. Starmer doesn't appear to be one - and he needs to sell his vision for the country, to both the country and his own party." - pretty much the whole reason I think Sir Keir won't be PM - plus the fact he is up against a very charismatic salesman
In a way, they appear polar opposites. Starmer may have a vision (I've no idea given he seems incapable of saying it); Boris doesn't have a vision beyond the end of his nose, but can sell the snot that dribbles out by the barrel-load.
We need a hideous scientific experiment where the two are merged together. Starson or Johnmer.
(I actually quite like Starson. Very sci-fi)
I saw a clip of Blair as LotO at PMQs the other day, and he seemed like he was bossing it vs Major (the famous one "I lead my party, he follows his", seems so horribly smug watching it now), and to an extent Cameron did with Brown, from what I can recall.
Miliband and Sir Keir always seem like they are earnestly whining about it being so unfair to me; maybe it's just the lack of gravitas in their voices. They seem like kids complaining about their parents, in comparison to the last couple of LotOs who became PM
No, he doesn't come over as whining to his parents about it being so unfair. The "wooden" critique is fair enough but you're just indulging yourself with this. Surprised you haven't as yet found fault with his eyebrows btw. Or have I missed that?
Comes over to me as whining to his parents about it being so unfair. He has a whiny voice, like Ed Miliband has, and coupled with his whole schtik being how nasty the govt and Boris are, it seems a bit "poor me"
Don't know about his eyebrows - he looks like a Teddy Boy who likes a beer to me, but Boris is no pin up either, so it doesn't really affect things
A deathly dull teddy boy with a whiny voice who likes a beer. It's pouring out now.
No point opposing such naked prejudice with reason, I've learnt this, but just on the voice - it's not whiny, it's a touch flat & nasal, which is completely different.
And what about your man "Boris". How does HE come over to you? Eg when he stands up and says he's going to "get social care done". Does this sort of thing come across as dynamic and determined, or like he has no clue what he's talking about and operates on pure bullshit?
Ooh, prejudice!!!
I used to absolute despise Boris, based almost solely on a combination of class hatred and inability to see how anyone could fall for his bluster - I wouldn't say he was my man now, I voted for him with a heavy heart and a lot of sadness at finally going over to the dark side. But he was the only one offering to honour the referendum result. As I have got older I can appreciate that a bit of charisma and optimism goes a long way, and dreary righteousness is unappealing
Ok, you're being your best self with that answer, so I'll take it without disbelief or rancour. At least for now.
Let me fill you in on what a contemptible prick starmer is:
Starmer as DPP was effectively in charge of prosecutions before juries. He was the country's leading authority on Not Prejudicing Trials. Against that background, he held a press conference to announce that the admittedly appalling Chris Huhne would be prosecuted for lying his head off. Now, what is the likely effect of that press conference on a potential juror? They are going to think, if they pay any attention at all, There wouldn't have been a press conference about this on national TV if there was nothing in it. And what's the benefit of holding the press conference? It's to raise Kier's fucking political profile.
An unprincipled twat.
So despite all evidence to the contrary, he is actually a politician?
Yeah killer point. But if he can't behave honourably as a lawyer, what can we expect from him as a politician?
We already know that.
He stayed in Corbyn's Shadow Cabinet and said he'd serve in a real Cabinet and support Corbyn as PM even after all the antisemitism came up.
He is the worst sort of self-serving careerist.
He also talks of wanting to give people from the same background as him the chances he got - He went to a Grammar School, which he wont reintroduce as far as I know, which turned into a private, fee paying school whilst he was there. So either his parents paid, in which case poor kids wont get that chance or, as some claim, the state paid for him to go private, in which case, is his government going to pay for bright poor kids to go to private school?
Surely, in the GE campaign, a journalist will ask him outright "Who paid for you to go to Private School?"
I'm not sure the state covering costs of students who passed the 11 plus would be that big a story to be honest.
That he did pass the 11 plus is more interesting. Presumably he wishes he could have gone to a bog standard comp, but again, I'm not sure it's that big an issue. The Tories don't want to bring them back where they were abolished, so it's not like he will have to give an opinion on this.
He says he wants kids from ‘umble backgrounds like his to get the same chances he did - he’s not going to let them go to grammar school & he’s not going to pay for them to go private like he did. So what’s the plan? ‘Make every comprehensive brilliant’?
That does seem a good plan considering 90% of pupils go to Comps.
Doesn't it simply mean that he wants other children to progress academically and go on to university then a highly successful career?
Looks like tonight is "let's find some dirt on Starmer" night, dredging up stuff from his past, long before he was LOTO, including where his parents sent him to school. Smacks of desperation to me. Still, he'll know what attack lines to expect from the tabloids when the next GE gets under way. Though I thought PB may do better.
Starmer is clearly an anti-semitic, hypocritical private-school educated, serial DPP prosecutor who hates his country. Or something like that.
The grammar school stuff is hysterical considering the difference between Thatcher's life experience & rhetoric versus the amount of grammar schools she actually closed.
It didn't harm her.
▶ USAGE The use of a plural noun after amount of (an amount of bananas; the amount of refugees) should be avoided: a quantity of bananas; the number of refugees
The coronavirus numbers this evening aren't inspiring - yet we can't go back. For too many people and you see it often on here, the very concept of a return to restrictions is anathema.
The prevailing ethos now is we "live with" the virus which I suppose we could have done in March 2020. We have nearly 80% of those aged 12 and above doubly vaccinated. In Newham, I estimate 55,000 people over 12 are not yet doubly vaccinated so there's still plenty of fuel for the virus.
I confess I'm starting to get concerned about the pace of the booster rollout. @MaxPB was waxing lyrical about getting 2.5 million vaccinated per week - I see little sign of that currently. Mrs Stodge and I are approaching five months since our second vaccination and I'm getting concerned the immunity the second vaccination provided will be wearing off in a few weeks.
Unless we get the booster programme moving, we'll be back in a bad position with weakly protected or unprotected people mixing indoors as we move into late autumn and winter.
Much of Europe is moving faster on both kids and boosters; if we are not careful the position last spring will reverse, and even PB Tories will have to stop going on about our vaccination triumph…
It’s too late, isn’t it? We’re behind Western Europe now.
I say this provocatively in the hopes someone will correct me.
It’s in Dr Campbell’s latest video. Our natural immunity is lower because people were vaccinated longer ago - hence we are to an extent victims of our early success - exacerbated by not much having happened since. Even older Americans are often boosted up, now.
Thanks for the advice on the phone Max, its been interesting.
Think I'll leave it another 12 months before upgrading, checking and there's still no 5G in my area and still no sign of it coming any time soon. Without 5G there just doesn't seem to be much point changing.
But will bear in mind the Pixel 7 probably when I do get around to upgrading instead of just going for another Samsung automatically.
Fair enough, if your current phone works for you then why bother indeed. I was planning on keeping this S20 for at least a year but I can't stand it, have to go back to the proper Google experience. I mean one of the Samsung software updates actually made the data connection stop working properly. It took them two months to release an update to fix it. Not much of a smartphone for that two months.
Corbyn really did bequeath Starmer a toxic legacy.
The problem is that Starmer isn't up to the job either.
Nonsense. I am not a Labour supporter, but Starmer has a great deal more credibility than the Clown that currently occupies No10. It is a long time before the next election. The big problem that Starmer has is not his own ability or credibility, it is that there is still a large part of the Labour Party that is even more ludicrous than many of those of the current government benches. History will judge how he does the long haul.
He reminds me a lot of Cameron: Massively underestimated by those in his own party that would rather have someone else, and derided by his opponents because they are simply too tribal or plain stupid to realise that he might just make it.
I agree with some of that: but Cameron always had a vision - even if you disagreed with it. Starmer seems unable to project any vision he may have without writing a WORN (*) magnum opus. Events haven't helped him, as the country and media are concentrating on bigger events.
Blair was a salesman. Cameron was also a salesman, to a lesser extent. Starmer doesn't appear to be one - and he needs to sell his vision for the country, to both the country and his own party.
(*) Write Once, Read Never. A common form of computer documentation.
"Blair was a salesman. Cameron was also a salesman, to a lesser extent. Starmer doesn't appear to be one - and he needs to sell his vision for the country, to both the country and his own party." - pretty much the whole reason I think Sir Keir won't be PM - plus the fact he is up against a very charismatic salesman
In a way, they appear polar opposites. Starmer may have a vision (I've no idea given he seems incapable of saying it); Boris doesn't have a vision beyond the end of his nose, but can sell the snot that dribbles out by the barrel-load.
We need a hideous scientific experiment where the two are merged together. Starson or Johnmer.
(I actually quite like Starson. Very sci-fi)
I saw a clip of Blair as LotO at PMQs the other day, and he seemed like he was bossing it vs Major (the famous one "I lead my party, he follows his", seems so horribly smug watching it now), and to an extent Cameron did with Brown, from what I can recall.
Miliband and Sir Keir always seem like they are earnestly whining about it being so unfair to me; maybe it's just the lack of gravitas in their voices. They seem like kids complaining about their parents, in comparison to the last couple of LotOs who became PM
No, he doesn't come over as whining to his parents about it being so unfair. The "wooden" critique is fair enough but you're just indulging yourself with this. Surprised you haven't as yet found fault with his eyebrows btw. Or have I missed that?
Comes over to me as whining to his parents about it being so unfair. He has a whiny voice, like Ed Miliband has, and coupled with his whole schtik being how nasty the govt and Boris are, it seems a bit "poor me"
Don't know about his eyebrows - he looks like a Teddy Boy who likes a beer to me, but Boris is no pin up either, so it doesn't really affect things
A deathly dull teddy boy with a whiny voice who likes a beer. It's pouring out now.
No point opposing such naked prejudice with reason, I've learnt this, but just on the voice - it's not whiny, it's a touch flat & nasal, which is completely different.
And what about your man "Boris". How does HE come over to you? Eg when he stands up and says he's going to "get social care done". Does this sort of thing come across as dynamic and determined, or like he has no clue what he's talking about and operates on pure bullshit?
Ooh, prejudice!!!
I used to absolute despise Boris, based almost solely on a combination of class hatred and inability to see how anyone could fall for his bluster - I wouldn't say he was my man now, I voted for him with a heavy heart and a lot of sadness at finally going over to the dark side. But he was the only one offering to honour the referendum result. As I have got older I can appreciate that a bit of charisma and optimism goes a long way, and dreary righteousness is unappealing
Ok, you're being your best self with that answer, so I'll take it without disbelief or rancour. At least for now.
Let me fill you in on what a contemptible prick starmer is:
Starmer as DPP was effectively in charge of prosecutions before juries. He was the country's leading authority on Not Prejudicing Trials. Against that background, he held a press conference to announce that the admittedly appalling Chris Huhne would be prosecuted for lying his head off. Now, what is the likely effect of that press conference on a potential juror? They are going to think, if they pay any attention at all, There wouldn't have been a press conference about this on national TV if there was nothing in it. And what's the benefit of holding the press conference? It's to raise Kier's fucking political profile.
An unprincipled twat.
So despite all evidence to the contrary, he is actually a politician?
Yeah killer point. But if he can't behave honourably as a lawyer, what can we expect from him as a politician?
We already know that.
He stayed in Corbyn's Shadow Cabinet and said he'd serve in a real Cabinet and support Corbyn as PM even after all the antisemitism came up.
He is the worst sort of self-serving careerist.
He also talks of wanting to give people from the same background as him the chances he got - He went to a Grammar School, which he wont reintroduce as far as I know, which turned into a private, fee paying school whilst he was there. So either his parents paid, in which case poor kids wont get that chance or, as some claim, the state paid for him to go private, in which case, is his government going to pay for bright poor kids to go to private school?
Surely, in the GE campaign, a journalist will ask him outright "Who paid for you to go to Private School?"
I'm not sure the state covering costs of students who passed the 11 plus would be that big a story to be honest.
That he did pass the 11 plus is more interesting. Presumably he wishes he could have gone to a bog standard comp, but again, I'm not sure it's that big an issue. The Tories don't want to bring them back where they were abolished, so it's not like he will have to give an opinion on this.
He says he wants kids from ‘umble backgrounds like his to get the same chances he did - he’s not going to let them go to grammar school & he’s not going to pay for them to go private like he did. So what’s the plan? ‘Make every comprehensive brilliant’?
You keep perpetuating this myth. Starmer didn't go to a private school. And yes, make every comprehensive brilliant is what we want.
In stock here for October delivery and you get the free headphones.
How on earth do you cope with a phone with only 128GB storage space?
I got the 256GB, but I could probably do just fine with 128GB. My whole life is streamed. I have little to no locally stored music or videos. Only my own phone camera pics are on the phone and even those I have backed up to the cloud at full res with Google. I see no point in local storage for media and anything, err, sensitive I'd store offline and not on my phone anyway.
I have about 50 GB worth of apps alone.
It was a no brainer for me to get the 1TB iPhone.
50 GB? What the hell kind of apps??
Business apps, dictionaries and thesauruses, games, and quite a few photo and video apps.
Looks like tonight is "let's find some dirt on Starmer" night, dredging up stuff from his past, long before he was LOTO, including where his parents sent him to school. Smacks of desperation to me. Still, he'll know what attack lines to expect from the tabloids when the next GE gets under way. Though I thought PB may do better.
Starmer is clearly an anti-semitic, hypocritical private-school educated, serial DPP prosecutor who hates his country. Or something like that.
And I bet there were some unsolved crimes during his time as DPP.
I keep having my Laptop fan getting very loud for the past week now and Chrome comes grinding to a halt, after doing a few diagnostics it seems that Chrome is going up to using almost 100% of CPU for no apparent reason. And it only seems to be happening when I have vf.politicalbetting.com open. Its not happening all the time, but it is happening quite frequently.
Closing Chrome drops the CPU use back down to next-to-nothing, and it seems closing just the PB tabs within Chrome is doing the same thing too.
There seems to be something on vf.politicalbetting.com or on my Laptop linking with that, that's driving that to happen.
Has anyone else had anything like this happen? I'm not sure if its happening with just Chrome or Firefox too.
Hmmm...
We have no control over the vf. site. Do you see the same issue on the regular site?
I only ever use the regular site (unless it's down for whatever reason) and have had no problems there at all.
Checking the vf site with Google Dev tools (F12) doesn't reveal anything amiss. There's a couple of minor problems as you would expect but nothing to suggest CPU usage would go to 100%.
I don't think you have much to worry about from a website POV. Is more than likely a Chrome issue and/or Windows update issue.
I can simply no longer use the pb site, the only way I can comment here is on the vf site.
Oh what problem are you having on the main site?
Everything has run fine for me for ages (since it was reformatted and went responsive) It's always super fast etc
March 16th. Half the cases of Covid-19 in this country have been since March 16th. All that stuff last Christmas, that wasn't even half way to where we are today. Pretty unexpected.
This discussion illustrates what I was saying earlier:
The coronavirus numbers this evening aren't inspiring - yet we can't go back. For too many people and you see it often on here, the very concept of a return to restrictions is anathema.
The prevailing ethos now is we "live with" the virus which I suppose we could have done in March 2020. We have nearly 80% of those aged 12 and above doubly vaccinated. In Newham, I estimate 55,000 people over 12 are not yet doubly vaccinated so there's still plenty of fuel for the virus.
I confess I'm starting to get concerned about the pace of the booster rollout. @MaxPB was waxing lyrical about getting 2.5 million vaccinated per week - I see little sign of that currently. Mrs Stodge and I are approaching five months since our second vaccination and I'm getting concerned the immunity the second vaccination provided will be wearing off in a few weeks.
Unless we get the booster programme moving, we'll be back in a bad position with weakly protected or unprotected people mixing indoors as we move into late autumn and winter.
Much of Europe is moving faster on both kids and boosters; if we are not careful the position last spring will reverse, and even PB Tories will have to stop going on about our vaccination triumph…
It’s too late, isn’t it? We’re behind Western Europe now.
I say this provocatively in the hopes someone will correct me.
It’s in Dr Campbell’s latest video. Our natural immunity is lower because people were vaccinated longer ago - hence we are to an extent victims of our early success - exacerbated by not much having happened since. Even older Americans are often boosted up, now.
If that were the case the data would show an increase in infection amongst older people. That's not the case at all.
We are seeing an increase in infection in older people. Not off the charts, but an increase nonetheless.
Are you referring to cases? The ONS infection survey is flat as a pancake.
The coronavirus numbers this evening aren't inspiring - yet we can't go back. For too many people and you see it often on here, the very concept of a return to restrictions is anathema.
The prevailing ethos now is we "live with" the virus which I suppose we could have done in March 2020. We have nearly 80% of those aged 12 and above doubly vaccinated. In Newham, I estimate 55,000 people over 12 are not yet doubly vaccinated so there's still plenty of fuel for the virus.
I confess I'm starting to get concerned about the pace of the booster rollout. @MaxPB was waxing lyrical about getting 2.5 million vaccinated per week - I see little sign of that currently. Mrs Stodge and I are approaching five months since our second vaccination and I'm getting concerned the immunity the second vaccination provided will be wearing off in a few weeks.
Unless we get the booster programme moving, we'll be back in a bad position with weakly protected or unprotected people mixing indoors as we move into late autumn and winter.
Much of Europe is moving faster on both kids and boosters; if we are not careful the position last spring will reverse, and even PB Tories will have to stop going on about our vaccination triumph…
It’s too late, isn’t it? We’re behind Western Europe now.
I say this provocatively in the hopes someone will correct me.
It’s in Dr Campbell’s latest video. Our natural immunity is lower because people were vaccinated longer ago - hence we are to an extent victims of our early success - exacerbated by not much having happened since. Even older Americans are often boosted up, now.
If that were the case the data would show an increase in infection amongst older people. That's not the case at all.
We are seeing an increase in infection in older people. Not off the charts, but an increase nonetheless.
Are you referring to cases? The ONS infection survey is flat as a pancake.
ONS is quite lagging though. Probably two weeks out of date. I’d expect to see moderate rises this week in the older population.
Good point. It will be interesting to see the next release. I'm not convinced that immunity would fade so suddenly, in the space of a fortnight.
Looks like tonight is "let's find some dirt on Starmer" night, dredging up stuff from his past, long before he was LOTO, including where his parents sent him to school. Smacks of desperation to me. Still, he'll know what attack lines to expect from the tabloids when the next GE gets under way. Though I thought PB may do better.
Starmer is clearly an anti-semitic, hypocritical private-school educated, serial DPP prosecutor who hates his country. Or something like that.
And I bet there were some unsolved crimes during his time as DPP.
Not for want of press conferences, anyway.
I love those classic "DPP on his last day before retiring" crime movies.
March 16th. Half the cases of Covid-19 in this country have been since March 16th. All that stuff last Christmas, that wasn't even half way to where we are today. Pretty unexpected.
This discussion illustrates what I was saying earlier:
Anyone who hasn’t realised that the Tory’s game is to put up taxes now in order to bring them down just before the election is not paying attention.
And what they'll do is raise taxes on working people with NI and lower income tax. It will be a net transfer of wealth from working people to retired people.
Corbyn really did bequeath Starmer a toxic legacy.
The problem is that Starmer isn't up to the job either.
Nonsense. I am not a Labour supporter, but Starmer has a great deal more credibility than the Clown that currently occupies No10. It is a long time before the next election. The big problem that Starmer has is not his own ability or credibility, it is that there is still a large part of the Labour Party that is even more ludicrous than many of those of the current government benches. History will judge how he does the long haul.
He reminds me a lot of Cameron: Massively underestimated by those in his own party that would rather have someone else, and derided by his opponents because they are simply too tribal or plain stupid to realise that he might just make it.
I agree with some of that: but Cameron always had a vision - even if you disagreed with it. Starmer seems unable to project any vision he may have without writing a WORN (*) magnum opus. Events haven't helped him, as the country and media are concentrating on bigger events.
Blair was a salesman. Cameron was also a salesman, to a lesser extent. Starmer doesn't appear to be one - and he needs to sell his vision for the country, to both the country and his own party.
(*) Write Once, Read Never. A common form of computer documentation.
"Blair was a salesman. Cameron was also a salesman, to a lesser extent. Starmer doesn't appear to be one - and he needs to sell his vision for the country, to both the country and his own party." - pretty much the whole reason I think Sir Keir won't be PM - plus the fact he is up against a very charismatic salesman
In a way, they appear polar opposites. Starmer may have a vision (I've no idea given he seems incapable of saying it); Boris doesn't have a vision beyond the end of his nose, but can sell the snot that dribbles out by the barrel-load.
We need a hideous scientific experiment where the two are merged together. Starson or Johnmer.
(I actually quite like Starson. Very sci-fi)
I saw a clip of Blair as LotO at PMQs the other day, and he seemed like he was bossing it vs Major (the famous one "I lead my party, he follows his", seems so horribly smug watching it now), and to an extent Cameron did with Brown, from what I can recall.
Miliband and Sir Keir always seem like they are earnestly whining about it being so unfair to me; maybe it's just the lack of gravitas in their voices. They seem like kids complaining about their parents, in comparison to the last couple of LotOs who became PM
No, he doesn't come over as whining to his parents about it being so unfair. The "wooden" critique is fair enough but you're just indulging yourself with this. Surprised you haven't as yet found fault with his eyebrows btw. Or have I missed that?
Comes over to me as whining to his parents about it being so unfair. He has a whiny voice, like Ed Miliband has, and coupled with his whole schtik being how nasty the govt and Boris are, it seems a bit "poor me"
Don't know about his eyebrows - he looks like a Teddy Boy who likes a beer to me, but Boris is no pin up either, so it doesn't really affect things
A deathly dull teddy boy with a whiny voice who likes a beer. It's pouring out now.
No point opposing such naked prejudice with reason, I've learnt this, but just on the voice - it's not whiny, it's a touch flat & nasal, which is completely different.
And what about your man "Boris". How does HE come over to you? Eg when he stands up and says he's going to "get social care done". Does this sort of thing come across as dynamic and determined, or like he has no clue what he's talking about and operates on pure bullshit?
Ooh, prejudice!!!
I used to absolute despise Boris, based almost solely on a combination of class hatred and inability to see how anyone could fall for his bluster - I wouldn't say he was my man now, I voted for him with a heavy heart and a lot of sadness at finally going over to the dark side. But he was the only one offering to honour the referendum result. As I have got older I can appreciate that a bit of charisma and optimism goes a long way, and dreary righteousness is unappealing
Ok, you're being your best self with that answer, so I'll take it without disbelief or rancour. At least for now.
Let me fill you in on what a contemptible prick starmer is:
Starmer as DPP was effectively in charge of prosecutions before juries. He was the country's leading authority on Not Prejudicing Trials. Against that background, he held a press conference to announce that the admittedly appalling Chris Huhne would be prosecuted for lying his head off. Now, what is the likely effect of that press conference on a potential juror? They are going to think, if they pay any attention at all, There wouldn't have been a press conference about this on national TV if there was nothing in it. And what's the benefit of holding the press conference? It's to raise Kier's fucking political profile.
An unprincipled twat.
So despite all evidence to the contrary, he is actually a politician?
Yeah killer point. But if he can't behave honourably as a lawyer, what can we expect from him as a politician?
We already know that.
He stayed in Corbyn's Shadow Cabinet and said he'd serve in a real Cabinet and support Corbyn as PM even after all the antisemitism came up.
He is the worst sort of self-serving careerist.
He also talks of wanting to give people from the same background as him the chances he got - He went to a Grammar School, which he wont reintroduce as far as I know, which turned into a private, fee paying school whilst he was there. So either his parents paid, in which case poor kids wont get that chance or, as some claim, the state paid for him to go private, in which case, is his government going to pay for bright poor kids to go to private school?
Surely, in the GE campaign, a journalist will ask him outright "Who paid for you to go to Private School?"
I'm not sure the state covering costs of students who passed the 11 plus would be that big a story to be honest.
That he did pass the 11 plus is more interesting. Presumably he wishes he could have gone to a bog standard comp, but again, I'm not sure it's that big an issue. The Tories don't want to bring them back where they were abolished, so it's not like he will have to give an opinion on this.
He says he wants kids from ‘umble backgrounds like his to get the same chances he did - he’s not going to let them go to grammar school & he’s not going to pay for them to go private like he did. So what’s the plan? ‘Make every comprehensive brilliant’?
You keep perpetuating this myth. Starmer didn't go to a private school. And yes, make every comprehensive brilliant is what we want.
So Wikipedia suggests starmer went to the school as a grammar school, then when it became a fee paying independent he stayed on and was exempt from fees. So it’s not unfair to argue both sides. He was educated at a private school, but he didn’t choose that (or his parents didn’t) and he didn’t pay for it.
Corbyn really did bequeath Starmer a toxic legacy.
The problem is that Starmer isn't up to the job either.
Nonsense. I am not a Labour supporter, but Starmer has a great deal more credibility than the Clown that currently occupies No10. It is a long time before the next election. The big problem that Starmer has is not his own ability or credibility, it is that there is still a large part of the Labour Party that is even more ludicrous than many of those of the current government benches. History will judge how he does the long haul.
He reminds me a lot of Cameron: Massively underestimated by those in his own party that would rather have someone else, and derided by his opponents because they are simply too tribal or plain stupid to realise that he might just make it.
I agree with some of that: but Cameron always had a vision - even if you disagreed with it. Starmer seems unable to project any vision he may have without writing a WORN (*) magnum opus. Events haven't helped him, as the country and media are concentrating on bigger events.
Blair was a salesman. Cameron was also a salesman, to a lesser extent. Starmer doesn't appear to be one - and he needs to sell his vision for the country, to both the country and his own party.
(*) Write Once, Read Never. A common form of computer documentation.
"Blair was a salesman. Cameron was also a salesman, to a lesser extent. Starmer doesn't appear to be one - and he needs to sell his vision for the country, to both the country and his own party." - pretty much the whole reason I think Sir Keir won't be PM - plus the fact he is up against a very charismatic salesman
In a way, they appear polar opposites. Starmer may have a vision (I've no idea given he seems incapable of saying it); Boris doesn't have a vision beyond the end of his nose, but can sell the snot that dribbles out by the barrel-load.
We need a hideous scientific experiment where the two are merged together. Starson or Johnmer.
(I actually quite like Starson. Very sci-fi)
I saw a clip of Blair as LotO at PMQs the other day, and he seemed like he was bossing it vs Major (the famous one "I lead my party, he follows his", seems so horribly smug watching it now), and to an extent Cameron did with Brown, from what I can recall.
Miliband and Sir Keir always seem like they are earnestly whining about it being so unfair to me; maybe it's just the lack of gravitas in their voices. They seem like kids complaining about their parents, in comparison to the last couple of LotOs who became PM
No, he doesn't come over as whining to his parents about it being so unfair. The "wooden" critique is fair enough but you're just indulging yourself with this. Surprised you haven't as yet found fault with his eyebrows btw. Or have I missed that?
Comes over to me as whining to his parents about it being so unfair. He has a whiny voice, like Ed Miliband has, and coupled with his whole schtik being how nasty the govt and Boris are, it seems a bit "poor me"
Don't know about his eyebrows - he looks like a Teddy Boy who likes a beer to me, but Boris is no pin up either, so it doesn't really affect things
A deathly dull teddy boy with a whiny voice who likes a beer. It's pouring out now.
No point opposing such naked prejudice with reason, I've learnt this, but just on the voice - it's not whiny, it's a touch flat & nasal, which is completely different.
And what about your man "Boris". How does HE come over to you? Eg when he stands up and says he's going to "get social care done". Does this sort of thing come across as dynamic and determined, or like he has no clue what he's talking about and operates on pure bullshit?
Ooh, prejudice!!!
I used to absolute despise Boris, based almost solely on a combination of class hatred and inability to see how anyone could fall for his bluster - I wouldn't say he was my man now, I voted for him with a heavy heart and a lot of sadness at finally going over to the dark side. But he was the only one offering to honour the referendum result. As I have got older I can appreciate that a bit of charisma and optimism goes a long way, and dreary righteousness is unappealing
Ok, you're being your best self with that answer, so I'll take it without disbelief or rancour. At least for now.
Let me fill you in on what a contemptible prick starmer is:
Starmer as DPP was effectively in charge of prosecutions before juries. He was the country's leading authority on Not Prejudicing Trials. Against that background, he held a press conference to announce that the admittedly appalling Chris Huhne would be prosecuted for lying his head off. Now, what is the likely effect of that press conference on a potential juror? They are going to think, if they pay any attention at all, There wouldn't have been a press conference about this on national TV if there was nothing in it. And what's the benefit of holding the press conference? It's to raise Kier's fucking political profile.
An unprincipled twat.
So despite all evidence to the contrary, he is actually a politician?
Yeah killer point. But if he can't behave honourably as a lawyer, what can we expect from him as a politician?
We already know that.
He stayed in Corbyn's Shadow Cabinet and said he'd serve in a real Cabinet and support Corbyn as PM even after all the antisemitism came up.
He is the worst sort of self-serving careerist.
He also talks of wanting to give people from the same background as him the chances he got - He went to a Grammar School, which he wont reintroduce as far as I know, which turned into a private, fee paying school whilst he was there. So either his parents paid, in which case poor kids wont get that chance or, as some claim, the state paid for him to go private, in which case, is his government going to pay for bright poor kids to go to private school?
Surely, in the GE campaign, a journalist will ask him outright "Who paid for you to go to Private School?"
I'm not sure the state covering costs of students who passed the 11 plus would be that big a story to be honest.
That he did pass the 11 plus is more interesting. Presumably he wishes he could have gone to a bog standard comp, but again, I'm not sure it's that big an issue. The Tories don't want to bring them back where they were abolished, so it's not like he will have to give an opinion on this.
He says he wants kids from ‘umble backgrounds like his to get the same chances he did - he’s not going to let them go to grammar school & he’s not going to pay for them to go private like he did. So what’s the plan? ‘Make every comprehensive brilliant’?
You keep perpetuating this myth. Starmer didn't go to a private school. And yes, make every comprehensive brilliant is what we want.
Indeed, the truth is much worse. He went to a grammar. In all seriousness, I'd like to hear his thoughts on grammars. Does he think his school was incidental to his own personal success in life? If not, what aspects of his education does he think we should bring in for comprehensives?
Looks like tonight is "let's find some dirt on Starmer" night, dredging up stuff from his past, long before he was LOTO, including where his parents sent him to school. Smacks of desperation to me. Still, he'll know what attack lines to expect from the tabloids when the next GE gets under way. Though I thought PB may do better.
Starmer is clearly an anti-semitic, hypocritical private-school educated, serial DPP prosecutor who hates his country. Or something like that.
And I bet there were some unsolved crimes during his time as DPP.
Not sure. Was Starmer DPP when Boris conspired to get Darius Guppy beaten up? That may have been earlier.
March 16th. Half the cases of Covid-19 in this country have been since March 16th. All that stuff last Christmas, that wasn't even half way to where we are today. Pretty unexpected.
Cases is a bad metric to use given how little testing was done at the start of the pandemic.
Deaths is a good metric to use for the kind of point you are making.
Looks like tonight is "let's find some dirt on Starmer" night, dredging up stuff from his past, long before he was LOTO, including where his parents sent him to school. Smacks of desperation to me. Still, he'll know what attack lines to expect from the tabloids when the next GE gets under way. Though I thought PB may do better.
Starmer is clearly an anti-semitic, hypocritical private-school educated, serial DPP prosecutor who hates his country. Or something like that.
Um, abject fail there, squire. Things he did as DPP is a bit different from, let's say, ill judged tweets in his teens, surely? A DPP who prefers furthering his own career to the interests of justice surely deserves at least a mention?
Not an anti Semite btw. Just a tolerator of anti semitism. So that's ok.
Well, I suspect that Starmer's track record on honesty and integrity as DPP probably stands up better than the current PM's record on honesty and integrity as a professional journalist. But of course that's whataboutery.
No, I don't dispute that for a second. Just hard to know how to vote when your best answer to "your man's a c--t" is "yebbut his opponent is a bigger one."
The coronavirus numbers this evening aren't inspiring - yet we can't go back. For too many people and you see it often on here, the very concept of a return to restrictions is anathema.
The prevailing ethos now is we "live with" the virus which I suppose we could have done in March 2020. We have nearly 80% of those aged 12 and above doubly vaccinated. In Newham, I estimate 55,000 people over 12 are not yet doubly vaccinated so there's still plenty of fuel for the virus.
I confess I'm starting to get concerned about the pace of the booster rollout. @MaxPB was waxing lyrical about getting 2.5 million vaccinated per week - I see little sign of that currently. Mrs Stodge and I are approaching five months since our second vaccination and I'm getting concerned the immunity the second vaccination provided will be wearing off in a few weeks.
Unless we get the booster programme moving, we'll be back in a bad position with weakly protected or unprotected people mixing indoors as we move into late autumn and winter.
Much of Europe is moving faster on both kids and boosters; if we are not careful the position last spring will reverse, and even PB Tories will have to stop going on about our vaccination triumph…
It’s too late, isn’t it? We’re behind Western Europe now.
I say this provocatively in the hopes someone will correct me.
It’s in Dr Campbell’s latest video. Our natural immunity is lower because people were vaccinated longer ago - hence we are to an extent victims of our early success - exacerbated by not much having happened since. Even older Americans are often boosted up, now.
If that were the case the data would show an increase in infection amongst older people. That's not the case at all.
We are seeing an increase in infection in older people. Not off the charts, but an increase nonetheless.
Are you referring to cases? The ONS infection survey is flat as a pancake.
The coronavirus numbers this evening aren't inspiring - yet we can't go back. For too many people and you see it often on here, the very concept of a return to restrictions is anathema.
The prevailing ethos now is we "live with" the virus which I suppose we could have done in March 2020. We have nearly 80% of those aged 12 and above doubly vaccinated. In Newham, I estimate 55,000 people over 12 are not yet doubly vaccinated so there's still plenty of fuel for the virus.
I confess I'm starting to get concerned about the pace of the booster rollout. @MaxPB was waxing lyrical about getting 2.5 million vaccinated per week - I see little sign of that currently. Mrs Stodge and I are approaching five months since our second vaccination and I'm getting concerned the immunity the second vaccination provided will be wearing off in a few weeks.
Unless we get the booster programme moving, we'll be back in a bad position with weakly protected or unprotected people mixing indoors as we move into late autumn and winter.
Much of Europe is moving faster on both kids and boosters; if we are not careful the position last spring will reverse, and even PB Tories will have to stop going on about our vaccination triumph…
It’s too late, isn’t it? We’re behind Western Europe now.
I say this provocatively in the hopes someone will correct me.
It’s in Dr Campbell’s latest video. Our natural immunity is lower because people were vaccinated longer ago - hence we are to an extent victims of our early success - exacerbated by not much having happened since. Even older Americans are often boosted up, now.
If that were the case the data would show an increase in infection amongst older people. That's not the case at all.
We are seeing an increase in infection in older people. Not off the charts, but an increase nonetheless.
Are you referring to cases? The ONS infection survey is flat as a pancake.
ONS is quite lagging though. Probably two weeks out of date. I’d expect to see moderate rises this week in the older population.
Good point. It will be interesting to see the next release. I'm not convinced that immunity would fade so suddenly, in the space of a fortnight.
No, me neither. Ultimately it’s complicated. Things such as the weather can play a role too, as we head into the poorer weather, there is less attraction for sitting outside.
Corbyn really did bequeath Starmer a toxic legacy.
The problem is that Starmer isn't up to the job either.
Nonsense. I am not a Labour supporter, but Starmer has a great deal more credibility than the Clown that currently occupies No10. It is a long time before the next election. The big problem that Starmer has is not his own ability or credibility, it is that there is still a large part of the Labour Party that is even more ludicrous than many of those of the current government benches. History will judge how he does the long haul.
He reminds me a lot of Cameron: Massively underestimated by those in his own party that would rather have someone else, and derided by his opponents because they are simply too tribal or plain stupid to realise that he might just make it.
I agree with some of that: but Cameron always had a vision - even if you disagreed with it. Starmer seems unable to project any vision he may have without writing a WORN (*) magnum opus. Events haven't helped him, as the country and media are concentrating on bigger events.
Blair was a salesman. Cameron was also a salesman, to a lesser extent. Starmer doesn't appear to be one - and he needs to sell his vision for the country, to both the country and his own party.
(*) Write Once, Read Never. A common form of computer documentation.
"Blair was a salesman. Cameron was also a salesman, to a lesser extent. Starmer doesn't appear to be one - and he needs to sell his vision for the country, to both the country and his own party." - pretty much the whole reason I think Sir Keir won't be PM - plus the fact he is up against a very charismatic salesman
In a way, they appear polar opposites. Starmer may have a vision (I've no idea given he seems incapable of saying it); Boris doesn't have a vision beyond the end of his nose, but can sell the snot that dribbles out by the barrel-load.
We need a hideous scientific experiment where the two are merged together. Starson or Johnmer.
(I actually quite like Starson. Very sci-fi)
I saw a clip of Blair as LotO at PMQs the other day, and he seemed like he was bossing it vs Major (the famous one "I lead my party, he follows his", seems so horribly smug watching it now), and to an extent Cameron did with Brown, from what I can recall.
Miliband and Sir Keir always seem like they are earnestly whining about it being so unfair to me; maybe it's just the lack of gravitas in their voices. They seem like kids complaining about their parents, in comparison to the last couple of LotOs who became PM
No, he doesn't come over as whining to his parents about it being so unfair. The "wooden" critique is fair enough but you're just indulging yourself with this. Surprised you haven't as yet found fault with his eyebrows btw. Or have I missed that?
Comes over to me as whining to his parents about it being so unfair. He has a whiny voice, like Ed Miliband has, and coupled with his whole schtik being how nasty the govt and Boris are, it seems a bit "poor me"
Don't know about his eyebrows - he looks like a Teddy Boy who likes a beer to me, but Boris is no pin up either, so it doesn't really affect things
A deathly dull teddy boy with a whiny voice who likes a beer. It's pouring out now.
No point opposing such naked prejudice with reason, I've learnt this, but just on the voice - it's not whiny, it's a touch flat & nasal, which is completely different.
And what about your man "Boris". How does HE come over to you? Eg when he stands up and says he's going to "get social care done". Does this sort of thing come across as dynamic and determined, or like he has no clue what he's talking about and operates on pure bullshit?
Ooh, prejudice!!!
I used to absolute despise Boris, based almost solely on a combination of class hatred and inability to see how anyone could fall for his bluster - I wouldn't say he was my man now, I voted for him with a heavy heart and a lot of sadness at finally going over to the dark side. But he was the only one offering to honour the referendum result. As I have got older I can appreciate that a bit of charisma and optimism goes a long way, and dreary righteousness is unappealing
Ok, you're being your best self with that answer, so I'll take it without disbelief or rancour. At least for now.
Let me fill you in on what a contemptible prick starmer is:
Starmer as DPP was effectively in charge of prosecutions before juries. He was the country's leading authority on Not Prejudicing Trials. Against that background, he held a press conference to announce that the admittedly appalling Chris Huhne would be prosecuted for lying his head off. Now, what is the likely effect of that press conference on a potential juror? They are going to think, if they pay any attention at all, There wouldn't have been a press conference about this on national TV if there was nothing in it. And what's the benefit of holding the press conference? It's to raise Kier's fucking political profile.
An unprincipled twat.
So despite all evidence to the contrary, he is actually a politician?
Yeah killer point. But if he can't behave honourably as a lawyer, what can we expect from him as a politician?
We already know that.
He stayed in Corbyn's Shadow Cabinet and said he'd serve in a real Cabinet and support Corbyn as PM even after all the antisemitism came up.
He is the worst sort of self-serving careerist.
He also talks of wanting to give people from the same background as him the chances he got - He went to a Grammar School, which he wont reintroduce as far as I know, which turned into a private, fee paying school whilst he was there. So either his parents paid, in which case poor kids wont get that chance or, as some claim, the state paid for him to go private, in which case, is his government going to pay for bright poor kids to go to private school?
Surely, in the GE campaign, a journalist will ask him outright "Who paid for you to go to Private School?"
I'm not sure the state covering costs of students who passed the 11 plus would be that big a story to be honest.
That he did pass the 11 plus is more interesting. Presumably he wishes he could have gone to a bog standard comp, but again, I'm not sure it's that big an issue. The Tories don't want to bring them back where they were abolished, so it's not like he will have to give an opinion on this.
He says he wants kids from ‘umble backgrounds like his to get the same chances he did - he’s not going to let them go to grammar school & he’s not going to pay for them to go private like he did. So what’s the plan? ‘Make every comprehensive brilliant’?
You keep perpetuating this myth. Starmer didn't go to a private school. And yes, make every comprehensive brilliant is what we want.
By definition only selective grammars or selective private schools can be academically brilliant.
Comprehensives can be better than average in terms of results, for example if in leafy catchment areas but as they take all abilities they never match the top grammars or private schools academically
March 16th. Half the cases of Covid-19 in this country have been since March 16th. All that stuff last Christmas, that wasn't even half way to where we are today. Pretty unexpected.
Cases is a bad metric to use given how little testing was done at the start of the pandemic.
Deaths is a good metric to use for the kind of point you are making.
Even hospitalisations is a reasonably good metric. It still doesn't really track perfectly because COVID today is not like what we had at the beginning, if it was we'd already have beaten it with vaccines.
Corbyn really did bequeath Starmer a toxic legacy.
The problem is that Starmer isn't up to the job either.
Nonsense. I am not a Labour supporter, but Starmer has a great deal more credibility than the Clown that currently occupies No10. It is a long time before the next election. The big problem that Starmer has is not his own ability or credibility, it is that there is still a large part of the Labour Party that is even more ludicrous than many of those of the current government benches. History will judge how he does the long haul.
He reminds me a lot of Cameron: Massively underestimated by those in his own party that would rather have someone else, and derided by his opponents because they are simply too tribal or plain stupid to realise that he might just make it.
I agree with some of that: but Cameron always had a vision - even if you disagreed with it. Starmer seems unable to project any vision he may have without writing a WORN (*) magnum opus. Events haven't helped him, as the country and media are concentrating on bigger events.
Blair was a salesman. Cameron was also a salesman, to a lesser extent. Starmer doesn't appear to be one - and he needs to sell his vision for the country, to both the country and his own party.
(*) Write Once, Read Never. A common form of computer documentation.
"Blair was a salesman. Cameron was also a salesman, to a lesser extent. Starmer doesn't appear to be one - and he needs to sell his vision for the country, to both the country and his own party." - pretty much the whole reason I think Sir Keir won't be PM - plus the fact he is up against a very charismatic salesman
In a way, they appear polar opposites. Starmer may have a vision (I've no idea given he seems incapable of saying it); Boris doesn't have a vision beyond the end of his nose, but can sell the snot that dribbles out by the barrel-load.
We need a hideous scientific experiment where the two are merged together. Starson or Johnmer.
(I actually quite like Starson. Very sci-fi)
I saw a clip of Blair as LotO at PMQs the other day, and he seemed like he was bossing it vs Major (the famous one "I lead my party, he follows his", seems so horribly smug watching it now), and to an extent Cameron did with Brown, from what I can recall.
Miliband and Sir Keir always seem like they are earnestly whining about it being so unfair to me; maybe it's just the lack of gravitas in their voices. They seem like kids complaining about their parents, in comparison to the last couple of LotOs who became PM
No, he doesn't come over as whining to his parents about it being so unfair. The "wooden" critique is fair enough but you're just indulging yourself with this. Surprised you haven't as yet found fault with his eyebrows btw. Or have I missed that?
Comes over to me as whining to his parents about it being so unfair. He has a whiny voice, like Ed Miliband has, and coupled with his whole schtik being how nasty the govt and Boris are, it seems a bit "poor me"
Don't know about his eyebrows - he looks like a Teddy Boy who likes a beer to me, but Boris is no pin up either, so it doesn't really affect things
A deathly dull teddy boy with a whiny voice who likes a beer. It's pouring out now.
No point opposing such naked prejudice with reason, I've learnt this, but just on the voice - it's not whiny, it's a touch flat & nasal, which is completely different.
And what about your man "Boris". How does HE come over to you? Eg when he stands up and says he's going to "get social care done". Does this sort of thing come across as dynamic and determined, or like he has no clue what he's talking about and operates on pure bullshit?
Ooh, prejudice!!!
I used to absolute despise Boris, based almost solely on a combination of class hatred and inability to see how anyone could fall for his bluster - I wouldn't say he was my man now, I voted for him with a heavy heart and a lot of sadness at finally going over to the dark side. But he was the only one offering to honour the referendum result. As I have got older I can appreciate that a bit of charisma and optimism goes a long way, and dreary righteousness is unappealing
Ok, you're being your best self with that answer, so I'll take it without disbelief or rancour. At least for now.
Let me fill you in on what a contemptible prick starmer is:
Starmer as DPP was effectively in charge of prosecutions before juries. He was the country's leading authority on Not Prejudicing Trials. Against that background, he held a press conference to announce that the admittedly appalling Chris Huhne would be prosecuted for lying his head off. Now, what is the likely effect of that press conference on a potential juror? They are going to think, if they pay any attention at all, There wouldn't have been a press conference about this on national TV if there was nothing in it. And what's the benefit of holding the press conference? It's to raise Kier's fucking political profile.
An unprincipled twat.
So despite all evidence to the contrary, he is actually a politician?
Yeah killer point. But if he can't behave honourably as a lawyer, what can we expect from him as a politician?
We already know that.
He stayed in Corbyn's Shadow Cabinet and said he'd serve in a real Cabinet and support Corbyn as PM even after all the antisemitism came up.
He is the worst sort of self-serving careerist.
He also talks of wanting to give people from the same background as him the chances he got - He went to a Grammar School, which he wont reintroduce as far as I know, which turned into a private, fee paying school whilst he was there. So either his parents paid, in which case poor kids wont get that chance or, as some claim, the state paid for him to go private, in which case, is his government going to pay for bright poor kids to go to private school?
Surely, in the GE campaign, a journalist will ask him outright "Who paid for you to go to Private School?"
I'm not sure the state covering costs of students who passed the 11 plus would be that big a story to be honest.
That he did pass the 11 plus is more interesting. Presumably he wishes he could have gone to a bog standard comp, but again, I'm not sure it's that big an issue. The Tories don't want to bring them back where they were abolished, so it's not like he will have to give an opinion on this.
He says he wants kids from ‘umble backgrounds like his to get the same chances he did - he’s not going to let them go to grammar school & he’s not going to pay for them to go private like he did. So what’s the plan? ‘Make every comprehensive brilliant’?
You keep perpetuating this myth. Starmer didn't go to a private school. And yes, make every comprehensive brilliant is what we want.
Indeed, the truth is much worse. He went to a grammar. In all seriousness, I'd like to hear his thoughts on grammars. Does he think his school was incidental to his own personal success in life? If not, what aspects of his education does he think we should bring in for comprehensives?
I went to a grammar school. It's what folk who passed the 11+ did back in those days. But I'm totally opposed to them. Contrary to popular myth, they were a brake on social mobility, not a conduit to it. The vast majority of people didn't go to grammar school; the middle classes, and boys, were over-represented. Any good educationalist (as I am/was) knows that the grammar school system constrained social mobility by consigning vast swathes of the age group to secondary modern schools, where expectations and attainment were low.
Today's equivalent of grammar school kids thrive in the comprehensive system, as all the educational data indicates.
Does anyone have the number of booster doses given per country ?
Our World in Data has them per 100 people but without the UK - probably because for some reason the government dashboard does give them.
But by my calculation the UK is way ahead of any western country.
The UK is around 7% based on NHS England stats.
Got mine 3 weeks ago, then shingles a week later. Probably coincidence but I do wonder. There are a number of case reports of shingles being triggered by vaccination, including covid 19.
Looks like tonight is "let's find some dirt on Starmer" night, dredging up stuff from his past, long before he was LOTO, including where his parents sent him to school. Smacks of desperation to me. Still, he'll know what attack lines to expect from the tabloids when the next GE gets under way. Though I thought PB may do better.
Starmer is clearly an anti-semitic, hypocritical private-school educated, serial DPP prosecutor who hates his country. Or something like that.
And I bet there were some unsolved crimes during his time as DPP.
Not sure. Was Starmer DPP when Boris conspired to get Darius Guppy beaten up? That may have been earlier.
Guppy contacted Boris from prison to organize the assault. The person to be beaten up was a journalist who had crossed Guppy.
Looks like tonight is "let's find some dirt on Starmer" night, dredging up stuff from his past, long before he was LOTO, including where his parents sent him to school. Smacks of desperation to me. Still, he'll know what attack lines to expect from the tabloids when the next GE gets under way. Though I thought PB may do better.
Starmer is clearly an anti-semitic, hypocritical private-school educated, serial DPP prosecutor who hates his country. Or something like that.
And I bet there were some unsolved crimes during his time as DPP.
Not sure. Was Starmer DPP when Boris conspired to get Darius Guppy beaten up? That may have been earlier.
Starmer was DPP when Boris Johnson was investigated for theft.
March 16th. Half the cases of Covid-19 in this country have been since March 16th. All that stuff last Christmas, that wasn't even half way to where we are today. Pretty unexpected.
You have to take into account that there were millions of people infected in spring 2020 which didn't become official cases because of the limited testing at that time.
Looks like tonight is "let's find some dirt on Starmer" night, dredging up stuff from his past, long before he was LOTO, including where his parents sent him to school. Smacks of desperation to me. Still, he'll know what attack lines to expect from the tabloids when the next GE gets under way. Though I thought PB may do better.
Starmer is clearly an anti-semitic, hypocritical private-school educated, serial DPP prosecutor who hates his country. Or something like that.
And I bet there were some unsolved crimes during his time as DPP.
Not sure. Was Starmer DPP when Boris conspired to get Darius Guppy beaten up? That may have been earlier.
You take whataboutery to heights which its early pioneers can never have dreamt of.
Looks like tonight is "let's find some dirt on Starmer" night, dredging up stuff from his past, long before he was LOTO, including where his parents sent him to school. Smacks of desperation to me. Still, he'll know what attack lines to expect from the tabloids when the next GE gets under way. Though I thought PB may do better.
Starmer is clearly an anti-semitic, hypocritical private-school educated, serial DPP prosecutor who hates his country. Or something like that.
And I bet there were some unsolved crimes during his time as DPP.
Not sure. Was Starmer DPP when Boris conspired to get Darius Guppy beaten up? That may have been earlier.
Guppy approached Boris to organize the assault. The person to be beaten up was a journalist who had crossed Guppy.
Corbyn really did bequeath Starmer a toxic legacy.
The problem is that Starmer isn't up to the job either.
Nonsense. I am not a Labour supporter, but Starmer has a great deal more credibility than the Clown that currently occupies No10. It is a long time before the next election. The big problem that Starmer has is not his own ability or credibility, it is that there is still a large part of the Labour Party that is even more ludicrous than many of those of the current government benches. History will judge how he does the long haul.
He reminds me a lot of Cameron: Massively underestimated by those in his own party that would rather have someone else, and derided by his opponents because they are simply too tribal or plain stupid to realise that he might just make it.
I agree with some of that: but Cameron always had a vision - even if you disagreed with it. Starmer seems unable to project any vision he may have without writing a WORN (*) magnum opus. Events haven't helped him, as the country and media are concentrating on bigger events.
Blair was a salesman. Cameron was also a salesman, to a lesser extent. Starmer doesn't appear to be one - and he needs to sell his vision for the country, to both the country and his own party.
(*) Write Once, Read Never. A common form of computer documentation.
"Blair was a salesman. Cameron was also a salesman, to a lesser extent. Starmer doesn't appear to be one - and he needs to sell his vision for the country, to both the country and his own party." - pretty much the whole reason I think Sir Keir won't be PM - plus the fact he is up against a very charismatic salesman
In a way, they appear polar opposites. Starmer may have a vision (I've no idea given he seems incapable of saying it); Boris doesn't have a vision beyond the end of his nose, but can sell the snot that dribbles out by the barrel-load.
We need a hideous scientific experiment where the two are merged together. Starson or Johnmer.
(I actually quite like Starson. Very sci-fi)
I saw a clip of Blair as LotO at PMQs the other day, and he seemed like he was bossing it vs Major (the famous one "I lead my party, he follows his", seems so horribly smug watching it now), and to an extent Cameron did with Brown, from what I can recall.
Miliband and Sir Keir always seem like they are earnestly whining about it being so unfair to me; maybe it's just the lack of gravitas in their voices. They seem like kids complaining about their parents, in comparison to the last couple of LotOs who became PM
No, he doesn't come over as whining to his parents about it being so unfair. The "wooden" critique is fair enough but you're just indulging yourself with this. Surprised you haven't as yet found fault with his eyebrows btw. Or have I missed that?
Comes over to me as whining to his parents about it being so unfair. He has a whiny voice, like Ed Miliband has, and coupled with his whole schtik being how nasty the govt and Boris are, it seems a bit "poor me"
Don't know about his eyebrows - he looks like a Teddy Boy who likes a beer to me, but Boris is no pin up either, so it doesn't really affect things
A deathly dull teddy boy with a whiny voice who likes a beer. It's pouring out now.
No point opposing such naked prejudice with reason, I've learnt this, but just on the voice - it's not whiny, it's a touch flat & nasal, which is completely different.
And what about your man "Boris". How does HE come over to you? Eg when he stands up and says he's going to "get social care done". Does this sort of thing come across as dynamic and determined, or like he has no clue what he's talking about and operates on pure bullshit?
Ooh, prejudice!!!
I used to absolute despise Boris, based almost solely on a combination of class hatred and inability to see how anyone could fall for his bluster - I wouldn't say he was my man now, I voted for him with a heavy heart and a lot of sadness at finally going over to the dark side. But he was the only one offering to honour the referendum result. As I have got older I can appreciate that a bit of charisma and optimism goes a long way, and dreary righteousness is unappealing
Ok, you're being your best self with that answer, so I'll take it without disbelief or rancour. At least for now.
Let me fill you in on what a contemptible prick starmer is:
Starmer as DPP was effectively in charge of prosecutions before juries. He was the country's leading authority on Not Prejudicing Trials. Against that background, he held a press conference to announce that the admittedly appalling Chris Huhne would be prosecuted for lying his head off. Now, what is the likely effect of that press conference on a potential juror? They are going to think, if they pay any attention at all, There wouldn't have been a press conference about this on national TV if there was nothing in it. And what's the benefit of holding the press conference? It's to raise Kier's fucking political profile.
An unprincipled twat.
So despite all evidence to the contrary, he is actually a politician?
Yeah killer point. But if he can't behave honourably as a lawyer, what can we expect from him as a politician?
We already know that.
He stayed in Corbyn's Shadow Cabinet and said he'd serve in a real Cabinet and support Corbyn as PM even after all the antisemitism came up.
He is the worst sort of self-serving careerist.
He also talks of wanting to give people from the same background as him the chances he got - He went to a Grammar School, which he wont reintroduce as far as I know, which turned into a private, fee paying school whilst he was there. So either his parents paid, in which case poor kids wont get that chance or, as some claim, the state paid for him to go private, in which case, is his government going to pay for bright poor kids to go to private school?
Surely, in the GE campaign, a journalist will ask him outright "Who paid for you to go to Private School?"
I'm not sure the state covering costs of students who passed the 11 plus would be that big a story to be honest.
That he did pass the 11 plus is more interesting. Presumably he wishes he could have gone to a bog standard comp, but again, I'm not sure it's that big an issue. The Tories don't want to bring them back where they were abolished, so it's not like he will have to give an opinion on this.
Theresa May did in her 2017 manifesto and Major also pushed for expanding grammars as PM.
Current Tory policy though yes is little different from Labour policy ie keep them where they are but don't expand them (though Labour when they were last in government also enabled balloting to close them)
Corbyn really did bequeath Starmer a toxic legacy.
The problem is that Starmer isn't up to the job either.
Nonsense. I am not a Labour supporter, but Starmer has a great deal more credibility than the Clown that currently occupies No10. It is a long time before the next election. The big problem that Starmer has is not his own ability or credibility, it is that there is still a large part of the Labour Party that is even more ludicrous than many of those of the current government benches. History will judge how he does the long haul.
He reminds me a lot of Cameron: Massively underestimated by those in his own party that would rather have someone else, and derided by his opponents because they are simply too tribal or plain stupid to realise that he might just make it.
I agree with some of that: but Cameron always had a vision - even if you disagreed with it. Starmer seems unable to project any vision he may have without writing a WORN (*) magnum opus. Events haven't helped him, as the country and media are concentrating on bigger events.
Blair was a salesman. Cameron was also a salesman, to a lesser extent. Starmer doesn't appear to be one - and he needs to sell his vision for the country, to both the country and his own party.
(*) Write Once, Read Never. A common form of computer documentation.
"Blair was a salesman. Cameron was also a salesman, to a lesser extent. Starmer doesn't appear to be one - and he needs to sell his vision for the country, to both the country and his own party." - pretty much the whole reason I think Sir Keir won't be PM - plus the fact he is up against a very charismatic salesman
In a way, they appear polar opposites. Starmer may have a vision (I've no idea given he seems incapable of saying it); Boris doesn't have a vision beyond the end of his nose, but can sell the snot that dribbles out by the barrel-load.
We need a hideous scientific experiment where the two are merged together. Starson or Johnmer.
(I actually quite like Starson. Very sci-fi)
I saw a clip of Blair as LotO at PMQs the other day, and he seemed like he was bossing it vs Major (the famous one "I lead my party, he follows his", seems so horribly smug watching it now), and to an extent Cameron did with Brown, from what I can recall.
Miliband and Sir Keir always seem like they are earnestly whining about it being so unfair to me; maybe it's just the lack of gravitas in their voices. They seem like kids complaining about their parents, in comparison to the last couple of LotOs who became PM
No, he doesn't come over as whining to his parents about it being so unfair. The "wooden" critique is fair enough but you're just indulging yourself with this. Surprised you haven't as yet found fault with his eyebrows btw. Or have I missed that?
Comes over to me as whining to his parents about it being so unfair. He has a whiny voice, like Ed Miliband has, and coupled with his whole schtik being how nasty the govt and Boris are, it seems a bit "poor me"
Don't know about his eyebrows - he looks like a Teddy Boy who likes a beer to me, but Boris is no pin up either, so it doesn't really affect things
A deathly dull teddy boy with a whiny voice who likes a beer. It's pouring out now.
No point opposing such naked prejudice with reason, I've learnt this, but just on the voice - it's not whiny, it's a touch flat & nasal, which is completely different.
And what about your man "Boris". How does HE come over to you? Eg when he stands up and says he's going to "get social care done". Does this sort of thing come across as dynamic and determined, or like he has no clue what he's talking about and operates on pure bullshit?
Ooh, prejudice!!!
I used to absolute despise Boris, based almost solely on a combination of class hatred and inability to see how anyone could fall for his bluster - I wouldn't say he was my man now, I voted for him with a heavy heart and a lot of sadness at finally going over to the dark side. But he was the only one offering to honour the referendum result. As I have got older I can appreciate that a bit of charisma and optimism goes a long way, and dreary righteousness is unappealing
Ok, you're being your best self with that answer, so I'll take it without disbelief or rancour. At least for now.
Let me fill you in on what a contemptible prick starmer is:
Starmer as DPP was effectively in charge of prosecutions before juries. He was the country's leading authority on Not Prejudicing Trials. Against that background, he held a press conference to announce that the admittedly appalling Chris Huhne would be prosecuted for lying his head off. Now, what is the likely effect of that press conference on a potential juror? They are going to think, if they pay any attention at all, There wouldn't have been a press conference about this on national TV if there was nothing in it. And what's the benefit of holding the press conference? It's to raise Kier's fucking political profile.
An unprincipled twat.
So despite all evidence to the contrary, he is actually a politician?
Yeah killer point. But if he can't behave honourably as a lawyer, what can we expect from him as a politician?
We already know that.
He stayed in Corbyn's Shadow Cabinet and said he'd serve in a real Cabinet and support Corbyn as PM even after all the antisemitism came up.
He is the worst sort of self-serving careerist.
He also talks of wanting to give people from the same background as him the chances he got - He went to a Grammar School, which he wont reintroduce as far as I know, which turned into a private, fee paying school whilst he was there. So either his parents paid, in which case poor kids wont get that chance or, as some claim, the state paid for him to go private, in which case, is his government going to pay for bright poor kids to go to private school?
Surely, in the GE campaign, a journalist will ask him outright "Who paid for you to go to Private School?"
I'm not sure the state covering costs of students who passed the 11 plus would be that big a story to be honest.
That he did pass the 11 plus is more interesting. Presumably he wishes he could have gone to a bog standard comp, but again, I'm not sure it's that big an issue. The Tories don't want to bring them back where they were abolished, so it's not like he will have to give an opinion on this.
He says he wants kids from ‘umble backgrounds like his to get the same chances he did - he’s not going to let them go to grammar school & he’s not going to pay for them to go private like he did. So what’s the plan? ‘Make every comprehensive brilliant’?
You keep perpetuating this myth. Starmer didn't go to a private school. And yes, make every comprehensive brilliant is what we want.
Indeed, the truth is much worse. He went to a grammar. In all seriousness, I'd like to hear his thoughts on grammars. Does he think his school was incidental to his own personal success in life? If not, what aspects of his education does he think we should bring in for comprehensives?
I went to a grammar school. It's what folk who passed the 11+ did back in those days. But I'm totally opposed to them. Contrary to popular myth, they were a brake on social mobility, not a conduit to it. The vast majority of people didn't go to grammar school; the middle classes, and boys, were over-represented. Any good educationalist (as I am/was) knows that the grammar school system constrained social mobility by consigning vast swathes of the age group to secondary modern schools, where expectations and attainment were low.
Today's equivalent of grammar school kids thrive in the comprehensive system, as all the educational data indicates.
FWIW, I went to a comp and feel that I've underachieved because of bad choices I made when I was 16. I blame my comp for that 100%.
Corbyn really did bequeath Starmer a toxic legacy.
The problem is that Starmer isn't up to the job either.
Nonsense. I am not a Labour supporter, but Starmer has a great deal more credibility than the Clown that currently occupies No10. It is a long time before the next election. The big problem that Starmer has is not his own ability or credibility, it is that there is still a large part of the Labour Party that is even more ludicrous than many of those of the current government benches. History will judge how he does the long haul.
He reminds me a lot of Cameron: Massively underestimated by those in his own party that would rather have someone else, and derided by his opponents because they are simply too tribal or plain stupid to realise that he might just make it.
I agree with some of that: but Cameron always had a vision - even if you disagreed with it. Starmer seems unable to project any vision he may have without writing a WORN (*) magnum opus. Events haven't helped him, as the country and media are concentrating on bigger events.
Blair was a salesman. Cameron was also a salesman, to a lesser extent. Starmer doesn't appear to be one - and he needs to sell his vision for the country, to both the country and his own party.
(*) Write Once, Read Never. A common form of computer documentation.
"Blair was a salesman. Cameron was also a salesman, to a lesser extent. Starmer doesn't appear to be one - and he needs to sell his vision for the country, to both the country and his own party." - pretty much the whole reason I think Sir Keir won't be PM - plus the fact he is up against a very charismatic salesman
In a way, they appear polar opposites. Starmer may have a vision (I've no idea given he seems incapable of saying it); Boris doesn't have a vision beyond the end of his nose, but can sell the snot that dribbles out by the barrel-load.
We need a hideous scientific experiment where the two are merged together. Starson or Johnmer.
(I actually quite like Starson. Very sci-fi)
I saw a clip of Blair as LotO at PMQs the other day, and he seemed like he was bossing it vs Major (the famous one "I lead my party, he follows his", seems so horribly smug watching it now), and to an extent Cameron did with Brown, from what I can recall.
Miliband and Sir Keir always seem like they are earnestly whining about it being so unfair to me; maybe it's just the lack of gravitas in their voices. They seem like kids complaining about their parents, in comparison to the last couple of LotOs who became PM
No, he doesn't come over as whining to his parents about it being so unfair. The "wooden" critique is fair enough but you're just indulging yourself with this. Surprised you haven't as yet found fault with his eyebrows btw. Or have I missed that?
Comes over to me as whining to his parents about it being so unfair. He has a whiny voice, like Ed Miliband has, and coupled with his whole schtik being how nasty the govt and Boris are, it seems a bit "poor me"
Don't know about his eyebrows - he looks like a Teddy Boy who likes a beer to me, but Boris is no pin up either, so it doesn't really affect things
A deathly dull teddy boy with a whiny voice who likes a beer. It's pouring out now.
No point opposing such naked prejudice with reason, I've learnt this, but just on the voice - it's not whiny, it's a touch flat & nasal, which is completely different.
And what about your man "Boris". How does HE come over to you? Eg when he stands up and says he's going to "get social care done". Does this sort of thing come across as dynamic and determined, or like he has no clue what he's talking about and operates on pure bullshit?
Ooh, prejudice!!!
I used to absolute despise Boris, based almost solely on a combination of class hatred and inability to see how anyone could fall for his bluster - I wouldn't say he was my man now, I voted for him with a heavy heart and a lot of sadness at finally going over to the dark side. But he was the only one offering to honour the referendum result. As I have got older I can appreciate that a bit of charisma and optimism goes a long way, and dreary righteousness is unappealing
Ok, you're being your best self with that answer, so I'll take it without disbelief or rancour. At least for now.
Let me fill you in on what a contemptible prick starmer is:
Starmer as DPP was effectively in charge of prosecutions before juries. He was the country's leading authority on Not Prejudicing Trials. Against that background, he held a press conference to announce that the admittedly appalling Chris Huhne would be prosecuted for lying his head off. Now, what is the likely effect of that press conference on a potential juror? They are going to think, if they pay any attention at all, There wouldn't have been a press conference about this on national TV if there was nothing in it. And what's the benefit of holding the press conference? It's to raise Kier's fucking political profile.
An unprincipled twat.
So despite all evidence to the contrary, he is actually a politician?
Yeah killer point. But if he can't behave honourably as a lawyer, what can we expect from him as a politician?
We already know that.
He stayed in Corbyn's Shadow Cabinet and said he'd serve in a real Cabinet and support Corbyn as PM even after all the antisemitism came up.
He is the worst sort of self-serving careerist.
He also talks of wanting to give people from the same background as him the chances he got - He went to a Grammar School, which he wont reintroduce as far as I know, which turned into a private, fee paying school whilst he was there. So either his parents paid, in which case poor kids wont get that chance or, as some claim, the state paid for him to go private, in which case, is his government going to pay for bright poor kids to go to private school?
Surely, in the GE campaign, a journalist will ask him outright "Who paid for you to go to Private School?"
I'm not sure the state covering costs of students who passed the 11 plus would be that big a story to be honest.
That he did pass the 11 plus is more interesting. Presumably he wishes he could have gone to a bog standard comp, but again, I'm not sure it's that big an issue. The Tories don't want to bring them back where they were abolished, so it's not like he will have to give an opinion on this.
He says he wants kids from ‘umble backgrounds like his to get the same chances he did - he’s not going to let them go to grammar school & he’s not going to pay for them to go private like he did. So what’s the plan? ‘Make every comprehensive brilliant’?
You keep perpetuating this myth. Starmer didn't go to a private school. And yes, make every comprehensive brilliant is what we want.
Indeed, the truth is much worse. He went to a grammar. In all seriousness, I'd like to hear his thoughts on grammars. Does he think his school was incidental to his own personal success in life? If not, what aspects of his education does he think we should bring in for comprehensives?
I went to a grammar school. It's what folk who passed the 11+ did back in those days. But I'm totally opposed to them. Contrary to popular myth, they were a brake on social mobility, not a conduit to it. The vast majority of people didn't go to grammar school; the middle classes, and boys, were over-represented. Any good educationalist (as I am/was) knows that the grammar school system constrained social mobility by consigning vast swathes of the age group to secondary modern schools, where expectations and attainment were low.
Today's equivalent of grammar school kids thrive in the comprehensive system, as all the educational data indicates.
Which is why we have so many comprehensive educated surgeons, QCs, partners in city firms, CEOs, top journalists and actors and PMs and top civil servants compared to when we had more grammar schools of course and comprehensive educated pupils dominate our elite with private school pupils nowhere to be seen. Oh wait.....
I keep having my Laptop fan getting very loud for the past week now and Chrome comes grinding to a halt, after doing a few diagnostics it seems that Chrome is going up to using almost 100% of CPU for no apparent reason. And it only seems to be happening when I have vf.politicalbetting.com open. Its not happening all the time, but it is happening quite frequently.
Closing Chrome drops the CPU use back down to next-to-nothing, and it seems closing just the PB tabs within Chrome is doing the same thing too.
There seems to be something on vf.politicalbetting.com or on my Laptop linking with that, that's driving that to happen.
Has anyone else had anything like this happen? I'm not sure if its happening with just Chrome or Firefox too.
Hmmm...
We have no control over the vf. site. Do you see the same issue on the regular site?
I only ever use the regular site (unless it's down for whatever reason) and have had no problems there at all.
Checking the vf site with Google Dev tools (F12) doesn't reveal anything amiss. There's a couple of minor problems as you would expect but nothing to suggest CPU usage would go to 100%.
I don't think you have much to worry about from a website POV. Is more than likely a Chrome issue and/or Windows update issue.
I can simply no longer use the pb site, the only way I can comment here is on the vf site.
I had a similar issue a few months ago and never went back. Am a vf convert. And having comments going downwards is far more logical too!
Interesting that the woman's daughter says she was sexually taunted by a group of construction workers. Is that still a thing? My understanding was that the industry takes a seriously dim view of it these days, and you could well be thrown off site if you're caught doing it.
In stock here for October delivery and you get the free headphones.
How on earth do you cope with a phone with only 128GB storage space?
I got the 256GB, but I could probably do just fine with 128GB. My whole life is streamed. I have little to no locally stored music or videos. Only my own phone camera pics are on the phone and even those I have backed up to the cloud at full res with Google. I see no point in local storage for media and anything, err, sensitive I'd store offline and not on my phone anyway.
I have about 50 GB worth of apps alone.
It was a no brainer for me to get the 1TB iPhone.
My A41 only has 64gb of storage. Have you not got a delete button on your phone.
Looks like tonight is "let's find some dirt on Starmer" night, dredging up stuff from his past, long before he was LOTO, including where his parents sent him to school. Smacks of desperation to me. Still, he'll know what attack lines to expect from the tabloids when the next GE gets under way. Though I thought PB may do better.
Starmer is clearly an anti-semitic, hypocritical private-school educated, serial DPP prosecutor who hates his country. Or something like that.
And I bet there were some unsolved crimes during his time as DPP.
Not for want of press conferences, anyway.
I love those classic "DPP on his last day before retiring" crime movies.
Yes, the highly politicized "DA" is a faithful trope in US drama. They can be noble, though, can't they, prosecutors, it's another trope that it's always the defense lawyer who's a Gregory Peck type. I remember the OJ prosecutors. I liked them a lot cf that "dream team" defence. Pity they lost.
March 16th. Half the cases of Covid-19 in this country have been since March 16th. All that stuff last Christmas, that wasn't even half way to where we are today. Pretty unexpected.
Cases is a bad metric to use given how little testing was done at the start of the pandemic.
Deaths is a good metric to use for the kind of point you are making.
I'm not making a point, other than I was surprised at how many cases there have been recently. Deaths, of course, are now partially decoupled from cases thanks to vaccines, so that's great news.
But there are a lot of cases. I don't think I was alone in thinking some time ago that infections had nowhere to go, because most people had been ill, vaccinated, or both. That was misguided, and I was wrong.
You can be vaccinated and then infected.
In fact that's the point of being vaccinated - to minimise the effects of a future infection.
March 16th. Half the cases of Covid-19 in this country have been since March 16th. All that stuff last Christmas, that wasn't even half way to where we are today. Pretty unexpected.
Cases is a bad metric to use given how little testing was done at the start of the pandemic.
Deaths is a good metric to use for the kind of point you are making.
I'm not making a point, other than I was surprised at how many cases there have been recently. Deaths, of course, are now partially decoupled from cases thanks to vaccines, so that's great news.
But there are a lot of cases. I don't think I was alone in thinking some time ago that infections had nowhere to go, because most people had been ill, vaccinated, or both. That was misguided, and I was wrong.
I think that there were and still are a lot who had not been vaccinated or ill, and that is the kids, where the vast majority of cases are right now. We are also seeing more breakthrough infections in the fully vaccinated than was hoped, partly down to the sheer infectivity of delta. The original Covid would have been crushed by now. I’m hopeful that the cases in schools will eventually run out. And probably quite soon.
If the only options were Grammar or Secondary Modern, what was he supposed to do? I don't oppose Grammar Schools. I am fiercely anti-Secondary Moderns.
Maybe this stuff was going on when I was at uni and I was just oblivious. It's absolutely horrific. I think social media has given these subhuman scumbags a place to organise and plan their attacks. It's sickening and once again Facebook and other social media websites are asking us to trust them.
The society we're allowing to be built is just wrong and I don't know how to reverse the malign effects of social media on under 25s.
Corbyn really did bequeath Starmer a toxic legacy.
The problem is that Starmer isn't up to the job either.
Nonsense. I am not a Labour supporter, but Starmer has a great deal more credibility than the Clown that currently occupies No10. It is a long time before the next election. The big problem that Starmer has is not his own ability or credibility, it is that there is still a large part of the Labour Party that is even more ludicrous than many of those of the current government benches. History will judge how he does the long haul.
He reminds me a lot of Cameron: Massively underestimated by those in his own party that would rather have someone else, and derided by his opponents because they are simply too tribal or plain stupid to realise that he might just make it.
I agree with some of that: but Cameron always had a vision - even if you disagreed with it. Starmer seems unable to project any vision he may have without writing a WORN (*) magnum opus. Events haven't helped him, as the country and media are concentrating on bigger events.
Blair was a salesman. Cameron was also a salesman, to a lesser extent. Starmer doesn't appear to be one - and he needs to sell his vision for the country, to both the country and his own party.
(*) Write Once, Read Never. A common form of computer documentation.
"Blair was a salesman. Cameron was also a salesman, to a lesser extent. Starmer doesn't appear to be one - and he needs to sell his vision for the country, to both the country and his own party." - pretty much the whole reason I think Sir Keir won't be PM - plus the fact he is up against a very charismatic salesman
In a way, they appear polar opposites. Starmer may have a vision (I've no idea given he seems incapable of saying it); Boris doesn't have a vision beyond the end of his nose, but can sell the snot that dribbles out by the barrel-load.
We need a hideous scientific experiment where the two are merged together. Starson or Johnmer.
(I actually quite like Starson. Very sci-fi)
I saw a clip of Blair as LotO at PMQs the other day, and he seemed like he was bossing it vs Major (the famous one "I lead my party, he follows his", seems so horribly smug watching it now), and to an extent Cameron did with Brown, from what I can recall.
Miliband and Sir Keir always seem like they are earnestly whining about it being so unfair to me; maybe it's just the lack of gravitas in their voices. They seem like kids complaining about their parents, in comparison to the last couple of LotOs who became PM
No, he doesn't come over as whining to his parents about it being so unfair. The "wooden" critique is fair enough but you're just indulging yourself with this. Surprised you haven't as yet found fault with his eyebrows btw. Or have I missed that?
Comes over to me as whining to his parents about it being so unfair. He has a whiny voice, like Ed Miliband has, and coupled with his whole schtik being how nasty the govt and Boris are, it seems a bit "poor me"
Don't know about his eyebrows - he looks like a Teddy Boy who likes a beer to me, but Boris is no pin up either, so it doesn't really affect things
A deathly dull teddy boy with a whiny voice who likes a beer. It's pouring out now.
No point opposing such naked prejudice with reason, I've learnt this, but just on the voice - it's not whiny, it's a touch flat & nasal, which is completely different.
And what about your man "Boris". How does HE come over to you? Eg when he stands up and says he's going to "get social care done". Does this sort of thing come across as dynamic and determined, or like he has no clue what he's talking about and operates on pure bullshit?
Ooh, prejudice!!!
I used to absolute despise Boris, based almost solely on a combination of class hatred and inability to see how anyone could fall for his bluster - I wouldn't say he was my man now, I voted for him with a heavy heart and a lot of sadness at finally going over to the dark side. But he was the only one offering to honour the referendum result. As I have got older I can appreciate that a bit of charisma and optimism goes a long way, and dreary righteousness is unappealing
Ok, you're being your best self with that answer, so I'll take it without disbelief or rancour. At least for now.
Let me fill you in on what a contemptible prick starmer is:
Starmer as DPP was effectively in charge of prosecutions before juries. He was the country's leading authority on Not Prejudicing Trials. Against that background, he held a press conference to announce that the admittedly appalling Chris Huhne would be prosecuted for lying his head off. Now, what is the likely effect of that press conference on a potential juror? They are going to think, if they pay any attention at all, There wouldn't have been a press conference about this on national TV if there was nothing in it. And what's the benefit of holding the press conference? It's to raise Kier's fucking political profile.
An unprincipled twat.
So despite all evidence to the contrary, he is actually a politician?
Yeah killer point. But if he can't behave honourably as a lawyer, what can we expect from him as a politician?
We already know that.
He stayed in Corbyn's Shadow Cabinet and said he'd serve in a real Cabinet and support Corbyn as PM even after all the antisemitism came up.
He is the worst sort of self-serving careerist.
He also talks of wanting to give people from the same background as him the chances he got - He went to a Grammar School, which he wont reintroduce as far as I know, which turned into a private, fee paying school whilst he was there. So either his parents paid, in which case poor kids wont get that chance or, as some claim, the state paid for him to go private, in which case, is his government going to pay for bright poor kids to go to private school?
Surely, in the GE campaign, a journalist will ask him outright "Who paid for you to go to Private School?"
I'm not sure the state covering costs of students who passed the 11 plus would be that big a story to be honest.
That he did pass the 11 plus is more interesting. Presumably he wishes he could have gone to a bog standard comp, but again, I'm not sure it's that big an issue. The Tories don't want to bring them back where they were abolished, so it's not like he will have to give an opinion on this.
He says he wants kids from ‘umble backgrounds like his to get the same chances he did - he’s not going to let them go to grammar school & he’s not going to pay for them to go private like he did. So what’s the plan? ‘Make every comprehensive brilliant’?
You keep perpetuating this myth. Starmer didn't go to a private school. And yes, make every comprehensive brilliant is what we want.
Indeed, the truth is much worse. He went to a grammar. In all seriousness, I'd like to hear his thoughts on grammars. Does he think his school was incidental to his own personal success in life? If not, what aspects of his education does he think we should bring in for comprehensives?
I went to a grammar school. It's what folk who passed the 11+ did back in those days. But I'm totally opposed to them. Contrary to popular myth, they were a brake on social mobility, not a conduit to it. The vast majority of people didn't go to grammar school; the middle classes, and boys, were over-represented. Any good educationalist (as I am/was) knows that the grammar school system constrained social mobility by consigning vast swathes of the age group to secondary modern schools, where expectations and attainment were low.
Today's equivalent of grammar school kids thrive in the comprehensive system, as all the educational data indicates.
FWIW, I went to a comp and feel that I've underachieved because of bad choices I made when I was 16. I blame my comp for that 100%.
FWIW, I went to a Comp, as did both my sibs, and we have all done very well in our chosen professions. I credit that to the drive and ambition that we got from our schools. A top Economist via LSE, myself, and one with a PhD from Cambridge in engineering.
Maybe this stuff was going on when I was at uni and I was just oblivious. It's absolutely horrific. I think social media has given these subhuman scumbags a place to organise and plan their attacks. It's sickening and once again Facebook and other social media websites are asking us to trust them.
The society we're allowing to be built is just wrong and I don't know how to reverse the malign effects of social media on under 25s.
It happened 25 years ago.
I used to go out on regular girls nights out and as the sole non alcohol drinker it was my job to keep an eye on the drinks.
"Blair was a salesman. Cameron was also a salesman, to a lesser extent. Starmer doesn't appear to be one - and he needs to sell his vision for the country, to both the country and his own party." - pretty much the whole reason I think Sir Keir won't be PM - plus the fact he is up against a very charismatic salesman
In a way, they appear polar opposites. Starmer may have a vision (I've no idea given he seems incapable of saying it); Boris doesn't have a vision beyond the end of his nose, but can sell the snot that dribbles out by the barrel-load.
We need a hideous scientific experiment where the two are merged together. Starson or Johnmer.
(I actually quite like Starson. Very sci-fi)
I saw a clip of Blair as LotO at PMQs the other day, and he seemed like he was bossing it vs Major (the famous one "I lead my party, he follows his", seems so horribly smug watching it now), and to an extent Cameron did with Brown, from what I can recall.
Miliband and Sir Keir always seem like they are earnestly whining about it being so unfair to me; maybe it's just the lack of gravitas in their voices. They seem like kids complaining about their parents, in comparison to the last couple of LotOs who became PM
No, he doesn't come over as whining to his parents about it being so unfair. The "wooden" critique is fair enough but you're just indulging yourself with this. Surprised you haven't as yet found fault with his eyebrows btw. Or have I missed that?
Comes over to me as whining to his parents about it being so unfair. He has a whiny voice, like Ed Miliband has, and coupled with his whole schtik being how nasty the govt and Boris are, it seems a bit "poor me"
Don't know about his eyebrows - he looks like a Teddy Boy who likes a beer to me, but Boris is no pin up either, so it doesn't really affect things
A deathly dull teddy boy with a whiny voice who likes a beer. It's pouring out now.
No point opposing such naked prejudice with reason, I've learnt this, but just on the voice - it's not whiny, it's a touch flat & nasal, which is completely different.
And what about your man "Boris". How does HE come over to you? Eg when he stands up and says he's going to "get social care done". Does this sort of thing come across as dynamic and determined, or like he has no clue what he's talking about and operates on pure bullshit?
Ooh, prejudice!!!
I used to absolute despise Boris, based almost solely on a combination of class hatred and inability to see how anyone could fall for his bluster - I wouldn't say he was my man now, I voted for him with a heavy heart and a lot of sadness at finally going over to the dark side. But he was the only one offering to honour the referendum result. As I have got older I can appreciate that a bit of charisma and optimism goes a long way, and dreary righteousness is unappealing
Ok, you're being your best self with that answer, so I'll take it without disbelief or rancour. At least for now.
Let me fill you in on what a contemptible prick starmer is:
Starmer as DPP was effectively in charge of prosecutions before juries. He was the country's leading authority on Not Prejudicing Trials. Against that background, he held a press conference to announce that the admittedly appalling Chris Huhne would be prosecuted for lying his head off. Now, what is the likely effect of that press conference on a potential juror? They are going to think, if they pay any attention at all, There wouldn't have been a press conference about this on national TV if there was nothing in it. And what's the benefit of holding the press conference? It's to raise Kier's fucking political profile.
An unprincipled twat.
Not my field at all. Was that a very unusual thing to do then? A prosecutor announcing a prosecution?
How many press conferences on upcoming prosecutions have you heard Max Hill QC give in the last 3 years?
So it was unusual, was it. Ok. I'm not au fait with DPP normal practice or with SKS's record in the role. He did it for 5 years so I imagine he trod on some toes. If the charge is he was corrupt and/or incompetent, that's a new one on me. I hope he wasn't, given he's likely our next PM. I hope it's generally felt by those in the know that he was effective in the job. Not the best DPP ever, maybe, but by no means the worst. This would be my hope.
Judging from the things @Cyclefree says, he was probably the best DPP the country ever had.
In the same way that Khrushchev was much the best leader of the Soviet Union, and for the same reason.
That's too cryptic for me. How do you mean cf Khrushchev?
Corbyn really did bequeath Starmer a toxic legacy.
The problem is that Starmer isn't up to the job either.
Nonsense. I am not a Labour supporter, but Starmer has a great deal more credibility than the Clown that currently occupies No10. It is a long time before the next election. The big problem that Starmer has is not his own ability or credibility, it is that there is still a large part of the Labour Party that is even more ludicrous than many of those of the current government benches. History will judge how he does the long haul.
He reminds me a lot of Cameron: Massively underestimated by those in his own party that would rather have someone else, and derided by his opponents because they are simply too tribal or plain stupid to realise that he might just make it.
I agree with some of that: but Cameron always had a vision - even if you disagreed with it. Starmer seems unable to project any vision he may have without writing a WORN (*) magnum opus. Events haven't helped him, as the country and media are concentrating on bigger events.
Blair was a salesman. Cameron was also a salesman, to a lesser extent. Starmer doesn't appear to be one - and he needs to sell his vision for the country, to both the country and his own party.
(*) Write Once, Read Never. A common form of computer documentation.
"Blair was a salesman. Cameron was also a salesman, to a lesser extent. Starmer doesn't appear to be one - and he needs to sell his vision for the country, to both the country and his own party." - pretty much the whole reason I think Sir Keir won't be PM - plus the fact he is up against a very charismatic salesman
In a way, they appear polar opposites. Starmer may have a vision (I've no idea given he seems incapable of saying it); Boris doesn't have a vision beyond the end of his nose, but can sell the snot that dribbles out by the barrel-load.
We need a hideous scientific experiment where the two are merged together. Starson or Johnmer.
(I actually quite like Starson. Very sci-fi)
I saw a clip of Blair as LotO at PMQs the other day, and he seemed like he was bossing it vs Major (the famous one "I lead my party, he follows his", seems so horribly smug watching it now), and to an extent Cameron did with Brown, from what I can recall.
Miliband and Sir Keir always seem like they are earnestly whining about it being so unfair to me; maybe it's just the lack of gravitas in their voices. They seem like kids complaining about their parents, in comparison to the last couple of LotOs who became PM
No, he doesn't come over as whining to his parents about it being so unfair. The "wooden" critique is fair enough but you're just indulging yourself with this. Surprised you haven't as yet found fault with his eyebrows btw. Or have I missed that?
Comes over to me as whining to his parents about it being so unfair. He has a whiny voice, like Ed Miliband has, and coupled with his whole schtik being how nasty the govt and Boris are, it seems a bit "poor me"
Don't know about his eyebrows - he looks like a Teddy Boy who likes a beer to me, but Boris is no pin up either, so it doesn't really affect things
A deathly dull teddy boy with a whiny voice who likes a beer. It's pouring out now.
No point opposing such naked prejudice with reason, I've learnt this, but just on the voice - it's not whiny, it's a touch flat & nasal, which is completely different.
And what about your man "Boris". How does HE come over to you? Eg when he stands up and says he's going to "get social care done". Does this sort of thing come across as dynamic and determined, or like he has no clue what he's talking about and operates on pure bullshit?
Ooh, prejudice!!!
I used to absolute despise Boris, based almost solely on a combination of class hatred and inability to see how anyone could fall for his bluster - I wouldn't say he was my man now, I voted for him with a heavy heart and a lot of sadness at finally going over to the dark side. But he was the only one offering to honour the referendum result. As I have got older I can appreciate that a bit of charisma and optimism goes a long way, and dreary righteousness is unappealing
Ok, you're being your best self with that answer, so I'll take it without disbelief or rancour. At least for now.
Let me fill you in on what a contemptible prick starmer is:
Starmer as DPP was effectively in charge of prosecutions before juries. He was the country's leading authority on Not Prejudicing Trials. Against that background, he held a press conference to announce that the admittedly appalling Chris Huhne would be prosecuted for lying his head off. Now, what is the likely effect of that press conference on a potential juror? They are going to think, if they pay any attention at all, There wouldn't have been a press conference about this on national TV if there was nothing in it. And what's the benefit of holding the press conference? It's to raise Kier's fucking political profile.
An unprincipled twat.
So despite all evidence to the contrary, he is actually a politician?
Yeah killer point. But if he can't behave honourably as a lawyer, what can we expect from him as a politician?
We already know that.
He stayed in Corbyn's Shadow Cabinet and said he'd serve in a real Cabinet and support Corbyn as PM even after all the antisemitism came up.
He is the worst sort of self-serving careerist.
He also talks of wanting to give people from the same background as him the chances he got - He went to a Grammar School, which he wont reintroduce as far as I know, which turned into a private, fee paying school whilst he was there. So either his parents paid, in which case poor kids wont get that chance or, as some claim, the state paid for him to go private, in which case, is his government going to pay for bright poor kids to go to private school?
Surely, in the GE campaign, a journalist will ask him outright "Who paid for you to go to Private School?"
I'm not sure the state covering costs of students who passed the 11 plus would be that big a story to be honest.
That he did pass the 11 plus is more interesting. Presumably he wishes he could have gone to a bog standard comp, but again, I'm not sure it's that big an issue. The Tories don't want to bring them back where they were abolished, so it's not like he will have to give an opinion on this.
He says he wants kids from ‘umble backgrounds like his to get the same chances he did - he’s not going to let them go to grammar school & he’s not going to pay for them to go private like he did. So what’s the plan? ‘Make every comprehensive brilliant’?
You keep perpetuating this myth. Starmer didn't go to a private school. And yes, make every comprehensive brilliant is what we want.
Indeed, the truth is much worse. He went to a grammar. In all seriousness, I'd like to hear his thoughts on grammars. Does he think his school was incidental to his own personal success in life? If not, what aspects of his education does he think we should bring in for comprehensives?
I went to a grammar school. It's what folk who passed the 11+ did back in those days. But I'm totally opposed to them. Contrary to popular myth, they were a brake on social mobility, not a conduit to it. The vast majority of people didn't go to grammar school; the middle classes, and boys, were over-represented. Any good educationalist (as I am/was) knows that the grammar school system constrained social mobility by consigning vast swathes of the age group to secondary modern schools, where expectations and attainment were low.
Today's equivalent of grammar school kids thrive in the comprehensive system, as all the educational data indicates.
FWIW, I went to a comp and feel that I've underachieved because of bad choices I made when I was 16. I blame my comp for that 100%.
FWIW, I went to a Comp, as did both my sibs, and we have all done very well in our chosen professions. I credit that to the drive and ambition that we got from our schools. A top Economist via LSE, myself, and one with a PhD from Cambridge in engineering.
You've probably said this before, so apologies, but what did your parents do out of interest?
Maybe this stuff was going on when I was at uni and I was just oblivious. It's absolutely horrific. I think social media has given these subhuman scumbags a place to organise and plan their attacks. It's sickening and once again Facebook and other social media websites are asking us to trust them.
The society we're allowing to be built is just wrong and I don't know how to reverse the malign effects of social media on under 25s.
It happened 25 years ago.
I used to go out on regular girls nights out and as the sole non alcohol drinker it was my job to keep an eye on the drinks.
I was a student in 1980s, and to the best of my memory this was never ever mentioned as a 'thing' or a problem.
Maybe the drugs involved weren't around then?
These men are sick. What the fecks wrong with them and how did we raise/educate such people?
Maybe this stuff was going on when I was at uni and I was just oblivious. It's absolutely horrific. I think social media has given these subhuman scumbags a place to organise and plan their attacks. It's sickening and once again Facebook and other social media websites are asking us to trust them.
The society we're allowing to be built is just wrong and I don't know how to reverse the malign effects of social media on under 25s.
It happened 25 years ago.
I used to go out on regular girls nights out and as the sole non alcohol drinker it was my job to keep an eye on the drinks.
I think it has probably always gone on. No reason to tolerate it now though.
Corbyn really did bequeath Starmer a toxic legacy.
The problem is that Starmer isn't up to the job either.
Nonsense. I am not a Labour supporter, but Starmer has a great deal more credibility than the Clown that currently occupies No10. It is a long time before the next election. The big problem that Starmer has is not his own ability or credibility, it is that there is still a large part of the Labour Party that is even more ludicrous than many of those of the current government benches. History will judge how he does the long haul.
He reminds me a lot of Cameron: Massively underestimated by those in his own party that would rather have someone else, and derided by his opponents because they are simply too tribal or plain stupid to realise that he might just make it.
I agree with some of that: but Cameron always had a vision - even if you disagreed with it. Starmer seems unable to project any vision he may have without writing a WORN (*) magnum opus. Events haven't helped him, as the country and media are concentrating on bigger events.
Blair was a salesman. Cameron was also a salesman, to a lesser extent. Starmer doesn't appear to be one - and he needs to sell his vision for the country, to both the country and his own party.
(*) Write Once, Read Never. A common form of computer documentation.
"Blair was a salesman. Cameron was also a salesman, to a lesser extent. Starmer doesn't appear to be one - and he needs to sell his vision for the country, to both the country and his own party." - pretty much the whole reason I think Sir Keir won't be PM - plus the fact he is up against a very charismatic salesman
In a way, they appear polar opposites. Starmer may have a vision (I've no idea given he seems incapable of saying it); Boris doesn't have a vision beyond the end of his nose, but can sell the snot that dribbles out by the barrel-load.
We need a hideous scientific experiment where the two are merged together. Starson or Johnmer.
(I actually quite like Starson. Very sci-fi)
I saw a clip of Blair as LotO at PMQs the other day, and he seemed like he was bossing it vs Major (the famous one "I lead my party, he follows his", seems so horribly smug watching it now), and to an extent Cameron did with Brown, from what I can recall.
Miliband and Sir Keir always seem like they are earnestly whining about it being so unfair to me; maybe it's just the lack of gravitas in their voices. They seem like kids complaining about their parents, in comparison to the last couple of LotOs who became PM
No, he doesn't come over as whining to his parents about it being so unfair. The "wooden" critique is fair enough but you're just indulging yourself with this. Surprised you haven't as yet found fault with his eyebrows btw. Or have I missed that?
Comes over to me as whining to his parents about it being so unfair. He has a whiny voice, like Ed Miliband has, and coupled with his whole schtik being how nasty the govt and Boris are, it seems a bit "poor me"
Don't know about his eyebrows - he looks like a Teddy Boy who likes a beer to me, but Boris is no pin up either, so it doesn't really affect things
A deathly dull teddy boy with a whiny voice who likes a beer. It's pouring out now.
No point opposing such naked prejudice with reason, I've learnt this, but just on the voice - it's not whiny, it's a touch flat & nasal, which is completely different.
And what about your man "Boris". How does HE come over to you? Eg when he stands up and says he's going to "get social care done". Does this sort of thing come across as dynamic and determined, or like he has no clue what he's talking about and operates on pure bullshit?
Ooh, prejudice!!!
I used to absolute despise Boris, based almost solely on a combination of class hatred and inability to see how anyone could fall for his bluster - I wouldn't say he was my man now, I voted for him with a heavy heart and a lot of sadness at finally going over to the dark side. But he was the only one offering to honour the referendum result. As I have got older I can appreciate that a bit of charisma and optimism goes a long way, and dreary righteousness is unappealing
Ok, you're being your best self with that answer, so I'll take it without disbelief or rancour. At least for now.
Let me fill you in on what a contemptible prick starmer is:
Starmer as DPP was effectively in charge of prosecutions before juries. He was the country's leading authority on Not Prejudicing Trials. Against that background, he held a press conference to announce that the admittedly appalling Chris Huhne would be prosecuted for lying his head off. Now, what is the likely effect of that press conference on a potential juror? They are going to think, if they pay any attention at all, There wouldn't have been a press conference about this on national TV if there was nothing in it. And what's the benefit of holding the press conference? It's to raise Kier's fucking political profile.
An unprincipled twat.
So despite all evidence to the contrary, he is actually a politician?
Yeah killer point. But if he can't behave honourably as a lawyer, what can we expect from him as a politician?
We already know that.
He stayed in Corbyn's Shadow Cabinet and said he'd serve in a real Cabinet and support Corbyn as PM even after all the antisemitism came up.
He is the worst sort of self-serving careerist.
He also talks of wanting to give people from the same background as him the chances he got - He went to a Grammar School, which he wont reintroduce as far as I know, which turned into a private, fee paying school whilst he was there. So either his parents paid, in which case poor kids wont get that chance or, as some claim, the state paid for him to go private, in which case, is his government going to pay for bright poor kids to go to private school?
Surely, in the GE campaign, a journalist will ask him outright "Who paid for you to go to Private School?"
I'm not sure the state covering costs of students who passed the 11 plus would be that big a story to be honest.
That he did pass the 11 plus is more interesting. Presumably he wishes he could have gone to a bog standard comp, but again, I'm not sure it's that big an issue. The Tories don't want to bring them back where they were abolished, so it's not like he will have to give an opinion on this.
He says he wants kids from ‘umble backgrounds like his to get the same chances he did - he’s not going to let them go to grammar school & he’s not going to pay for them to go private like he did. So what’s the plan? ‘Make every comprehensive brilliant’?
You keep perpetuating this myth. Starmer didn't go to a private school. And yes, make every comprehensive brilliant is what we want.
Indeed, the truth is much worse. He went to a grammar. In all seriousness, I'd like to hear his thoughts on grammars. Does he think his school was incidental to his own personal success in life? If not, what aspects of his education does he think we should bring in for comprehensives?
I went to a grammar school. It's what folk who passed the 11+ did back in those days. But I'm totally opposed to them. Contrary to popular myth, they were a brake on social mobility, not a conduit to it. The vast majority of people didn't go to grammar school; the middle classes, and boys, were over-represented. Any good educationalist (as I am/was) knows that the grammar school system constrained social mobility by consigning vast swathes of the age group to secondary modern schools, where expectations and attainment were low.
Today's equivalent of grammar school kids thrive in the comprehensive system, as all the educational data indicates.
FWIW, I went to a comp and feel that I've underachieved because of bad choices I made when I was 16. I blame my comp for that 100%.
FWIW, I went to a Comp, as did both my sibs, and we have all done very well in our chosen professions. I credit that to the drive and ambition that we got from our schools. A top Economist via LSE, myself, and one with a PhD from Cambridge in engineering.
You've probably said this before, so apologies, but what did your parents do out of interest?
My mother was a secretary, and my father a salesman for IBM. Both very good at their jobs.
Incidentally my older sib failed the 11+, but was saved by Comprehensivisation. This was the early Seventies with Mrs T as Education Secretary. I don't think he would have got to LSE doing economics if it hadn't happened.
That'll go down well with the workers having to pay more tax (including so-called National Insurance). Really, really well. Outstandingly well. Especially when the Tories continue to pamper the pensioners.
Corbyn really did bequeath Starmer a toxic legacy.
The problem is that Starmer isn't up to the job either.
Nonsense. I am not a Labour supporter, but Starmer has a great deal more credibility than the Clown that currently occupies No10. It is a long time before the next election. The big problem that Starmer has is not his own ability or credibility, it is that there is still a large part of the Labour Party that is even more ludicrous than many of those of the current government benches. History will judge how he does the long haul.
He reminds me a lot of Cameron: Massively underestimated by those in his own party that would rather have someone else, and derided by his opponents because they are simply too tribal or plain stupid to realise that he might just make it.
I agree with some of that: but Cameron always had a vision - even if you disagreed with it. Starmer seems unable to project any vision he may have without writing a WORN (*) magnum opus. Events haven't helped him, as the country and media are concentrating on bigger events.
Blair was a salesman. Cameron was also a salesman, to a lesser extent. Starmer doesn't appear to be one - and he needs to sell his vision for the country, to both the country and his own party.
(*) Write Once, Read Never. A common form of computer documentation.
"Blair was a salesman. Cameron was also a salesman, to a lesser extent. Starmer doesn't appear to be one - and he needs to sell his vision for the country, to both the country and his own party." - pretty much the whole reason I think Sir Keir won't be PM - plus the fact he is up against a very charismatic salesman
In a way, they appear polar opposites. Starmer may have a vision (I've no idea given he seems incapable of saying it); Boris doesn't have a vision beyond the end of his nose, but can sell the snot that dribbles out by the barrel-load.
We need a hideous scientific experiment where the two are merged together. Starson or Johnmer.
(I actually quite like Starson. Very sci-fi)
I saw a clip of Blair as LotO at PMQs the other day, and he seemed like he was bossing it vs Major (the famous one "I lead my party, he follows his", seems so horribly smug watching it now), and to an extent Cameron did with Brown, from what I can recall.
Miliband and Sir Keir always seem like they are earnestly whining about it being so unfair to me; maybe it's just the lack of gravitas in their voices. They seem like kids complaining about their parents, in comparison to the last couple of LotOs who became PM
No, he doesn't come over as whining to his parents about it being so unfair. The "wooden" critique is fair enough but you're just indulging yourself with this. Surprised you haven't as yet found fault with his eyebrows btw. Or have I missed that?
Comes over to me as whining to his parents about it being so unfair. He has a whiny voice, like Ed Miliband has, and coupled with his whole schtik being how nasty the govt and Boris are, it seems a bit "poor me"
Don't know about his eyebrows - he looks like a Teddy Boy who likes a beer to me, but Boris is no pin up either, so it doesn't really affect things
A deathly dull teddy boy with a whiny voice who likes a beer. It's pouring out now.
No point opposing such naked prejudice with reason, I've learnt this, but just on the voice - it's not whiny, it's a touch flat & nasal, which is completely different.
And what about your man "Boris". How does HE come over to you? Eg when he stands up and says he's going to "get social care done". Does this sort of thing come across as dynamic and determined, or like he has no clue what he's talking about and operates on pure bullshit?
Ooh, prejudice!!!
I used to absolute despise Boris, based almost solely on a combination of class hatred and inability to see how anyone could fall for his bluster - I wouldn't say he was my man now, I voted for him with a heavy heart and a lot of sadness at finally going over to the dark side. But he was the only one offering to honour the referendum result. As I have got older I can appreciate that a bit of charisma and optimism goes a long way, and dreary righteousness is unappealing
Ok, you're being your best self with that answer, so I'll take it without disbelief or rancour. At least for now.
Let me fill you in on what a contemptible prick starmer is:
Starmer as DPP was effectively in charge of prosecutions before juries. He was the country's leading authority on Not Prejudicing Trials. Against that background, he held a press conference to announce that the admittedly appalling Chris Huhne would be prosecuted for lying his head off. Now, what is the likely effect of that press conference on a potential juror? They are going to think, if they pay any attention at all, There wouldn't have been a press conference about this on national TV if there was nothing in it. And what's the benefit of holding the press conference? It's to raise Kier's fucking political profile.
An unprincipled twat.
So despite all evidence to the contrary, he is actually a politician?
Yeah killer point. But if he can't behave honourably as a lawyer, what can we expect from him as a politician?
We already know that.
He stayed in Corbyn's Shadow Cabinet and said he'd serve in a real Cabinet and support Corbyn as PM even after all the antisemitism came up.
He is the worst sort of self-serving careerist.
He also talks of wanting to give people from the same background as him the chances he got - He went to a Grammar School, which he wont reintroduce as far as I know, which turned into a private, fee paying school whilst he was there. So either his parents paid, in which case poor kids wont get that chance or, as some claim, the state paid for him to go private, in which case, is his government going to pay for bright poor kids to go to private school?
Surely, in the GE campaign, a journalist will ask him outright "Who paid for you to go to Private School?"
I'm not sure the state covering costs of students who passed the 11 plus would be that big a story to be honest.
That he did pass the 11 plus is more interesting. Presumably he wishes he could have gone to a bog standard comp, but again, I'm not sure it's that big an issue. The Tories don't want to bring them back where they were abolished, so it's not like he will have to give an opinion on this.
He says he wants kids from ‘umble backgrounds like his to get the same chances he did - he’s not going to let them go to grammar school & he’s not going to pay for them to go private like he did. So what’s the plan? ‘Make every comprehensive brilliant’?
You keep perpetuating this myth. Starmer didn't go to a private school. And yes, make every comprehensive brilliant is what we want.
By definition only selective grammars or selective private schools can be academically brilliant.
Comprehensives can be better than average in terms of results, for example if in leafy catchment areas but as they take all abilities they never match the top grammars or private schools academically
That's why Value Added is a key performance metric.
But I guess that doesn't matter if the kids from the rough estate still don't make it to Oxbridge.
I've been roofied twice. Both times in Asia in the 90's. Once they took a lot of cash. And once I awoke bleeding from the head. No cash on me that time. Neither very pleasant. Particularly when you reflect what could have happened.
Edit. Am suspicious about a third. I came to under arrest with my prescription anti-depressants seized. Dunno how I got there, but remember leaving the bar.
Maybe this stuff was going on when I was at uni and I was just oblivious. It's absolutely horrific. I think social media has given these subhuman scumbags a place to organise and plan their attacks. It's sickening and once again Facebook and other social media websites are asking us to trust them.
The society we're allowing to be built is just wrong and I don't know how to reverse the malign effects of social media on under 25s.
It happened 25 years ago.
I used to go out on regular girls nights out and as the sole non alcohol drinker it was my job to keep an eye on the drinks.
I think it has probably always gone on. No reason to tolerate it now though.
Misogyny seems to be quite out of control again.
have to say my suspicion is that once again social media is at the root of all this. Not sure how, but...
Corbyn really did bequeath Starmer a toxic legacy.
The problem is that Starmer isn't up to the job either.
Nonsense. I am not a Labour supporter, but Starmer has a great deal more credibility than the Clown that currently occupies No10. It is a long time before the next election. The big problem that Starmer has is not his own ability or credibility, it is that there is still a large part of the Labour Party that is even more ludicrous than many of those of the current government benches. History will judge how he does the long haul.
He reminds me a lot of Cameron: Massively underestimated by those in his own party that would rather have someone else, and derided by his opponents because they are simply too tribal or plain stupid to realise that he might just make it.
I agree with some of that: but Cameron always had a vision - even if you disagreed with it. Starmer seems unable to project any vision he may have without writing a WORN (*) magnum opus. Events haven't helped him, as the country and media are concentrating on bigger events.
Blair was a salesman. Cameron was also a salesman, to a lesser extent. Starmer doesn't appear to be one - and he needs to sell his vision for the country, to both the country and his own party.
(*) Write Once, Read Never. A common form of computer documentation.
"Blair was a salesman. Cameron was also a salesman, to a lesser extent. Starmer doesn't appear to be one - and he needs to sell his vision for the country, to both the country and his own party." - pretty much the whole reason I think Sir Keir won't be PM - plus the fact he is up against a very charismatic salesman
In a way, they appear polar opposites. Starmer may have a vision (I've no idea given he seems incapable of saying it); Boris doesn't have a vision beyond the end of his nose, but can sell the snot that dribbles out by the barrel-load.
We need a hideous scientific experiment where the two are merged together. Starson or Johnmer.
(I actually quite like Starson. Very sci-fi)
I saw a clip of Blair as LotO at PMQs the other day, and he seemed like he was bossing it vs Major (the famous one "I lead my party, he follows his", seems so horribly smug watching it now), and to an extent Cameron did with Brown, from what I can recall.
Miliband and Sir Keir always seem like they are earnestly whining about it being so unfair to me; maybe it's just the lack of gravitas in their voices. They seem like kids complaining about their parents, in comparison to the last couple of LotOs who became PM
No, he doesn't come over as whining to his parents about it being so unfair. The "wooden" critique is fair enough but you're just indulging yourself with this. Surprised you haven't as yet found fault with his eyebrows btw. Or have I missed that?
Comes over to me as whining to his parents about it being so unfair. He has a whiny voice, like Ed Miliband has, and coupled with his whole schtik being how nasty the govt and Boris are, it seems a bit "poor me"
Don't know about his eyebrows - he looks like a Teddy Boy who likes a beer to me, but Boris is no pin up either, so it doesn't really affect things
A deathly dull teddy boy with a whiny voice who likes a beer. It's pouring out now.
No point opposing such naked prejudice with reason, I've learnt this, but just on the voice - it's not whiny, it's a touch flat & nasal, which is completely different.
And what about your man "Boris". How does HE come over to you? Eg when he stands up and says he's going to "get social care done". Does this sort of thing come across as dynamic and determined, or like he has no clue what he's talking about and operates on pure bullshit?
Ooh, prejudice!!!
I used to absolute despise Boris, based almost solely on a combination of class hatred and inability to see how anyone could fall for his bluster - I wouldn't say he was my man now, I voted for him with a heavy heart and a lot of sadness at finally going over to the dark side. But he was the only one offering to honour the referendum result. As I have got older I can appreciate that a bit of charisma and optimism goes a long way, and dreary righteousness is unappealing
Ok, you're being your best self with that answer, so I'll take it without disbelief or rancour. At least for now.
Let me fill you in on what a contemptible prick starmer is:
Starmer as DPP was effectively in charge of prosecutions before juries. He was the country's leading authority on Not Prejudicing Trials. Against that background, he held a press conference to announce that the admittedly appalling Chris Huhne would be prosecuted for lying his head off. Now, what is the likely effect of that press conference on a potential juror? They are going to think, if they pay any attention at all, There wouldn't have been a press conference about this on national TV if there was nothing in it. And what's the benefit of holding the press conference? It's to raise Kier's fucking political profile.
An unprincipled twat.
So despite all evidence to the contrary, he is actually a politician?
Yeah killer point. But if he can't behave honourably as a lawyer, what can we expect from him as a politician?
We already know that.
He stayed in Corbyn's Shadow Cabinet and said he'd serve in a real Cabinet and support Corbyn as PM even after all the antisemitism came up.
He is the worst sort of self-serving careerist.
He also talks of wanting to give people from the same background as him the chances he got - He went to a Grammar School, which he wont reintroduce as far as I know, which turned into a private, fee paying school whilst he was there. So either his parents paid, in which case poor kids wont get that chance or, as some claim, the state paid for him to go private, in which case, is his government going to pay for bright poor kids to go to private school?
Surely, in the GE campaign, a journalist will ask him outright "Who paid for you to go to Private School?"
I'm not sure the state covering costs of students who passed the 11 plus would be that big a story to be honest.
That he did pass the 11 plus is more interesting. Presumably he wishes he could have gone to a bog standard comp, but again, I'm not sure it's that big an issue. The Tories don't want to bring them back where they were abolished, so it's not like he will have to give an opinion on this.
He says he wants kids from ‘umble backgrounds like his to get the same chances he did - he’s not going to let them go to grammar school & he’s not going to pay for them to go private like he did. So what’s the plan? ‘Make every comprehensive brilliant’?
Maybe it's better for our PMs to be proper posh like your Boris. Simpler then. Just be themselves. None of these tortuous questions or hoops to jump through.
"Ministers must urgently implement sweeping “plan B” winter measures or derail efforts to tackle the backlog of 5 million patients, the head of the NHS Confederation warned as the UK recorded its highest daily Covid death toll since March.
Infections have been rising sharply since the start of October but the government is resisting introducing the extra restrictions set out in its winter plan such as masks, vaccine passports and advice to work from home."
Corbyn really did bequeath Starmer a toxic legacy.
The problem is that Starmer isn't up to the job either.
Nonsense. I am not a Labour supporter, but Starmer has a great deal more credibility than the Clown that currently occupies No10. It is a long time before the next election. The big problem that Starmer has is not his own ability or credibility, it is that there is still a large part of the Labour Party that is even more ludicrous than many of those of the current government benches. History will judge how he does the long haul.
He reminds me a lot of Cameron: Massively underestimated by those in his own party that would rather have someone else, and derided by his opponents because they are simply too tribal or plain stupid to realise that he might just make it.
I agree with some of that: but Cameron always had a vision - even if you disagreed with it. Starmer seems unable to project any vision he may have without writing a WORN (*) magnum opus. Events haven't helped him, as the country and media are concentrating on bigger events.
Blair was a salesman. Cameron was also a salesman, to a lesser extent. Starmer doesn't appear to be one - and he needs to sell his vision for the country, to both the country and his own party.
(*) Write Once, Read Never. A common form of computer documentation.
"Blair was a salesman. Cameron was also a salesman, to a lesser extent. Starmer doesn't appear to be one - and he needs to sell his vision for the country, to both the country and his own party." - pretty much the whole reason I think Sir Keir won't be PM - plus the fact he is up against a very charismatic salesman
In a way, they appear polar opposites. Starmer may have a vision (I've no idea given he seems incapable of saying it); Boris doesn't have a vision beyond the end of his nose, but can sell the snot that dribbles out by the barrel-load.
We need a hideous scientific experiment where the two are merged together. Starson or Johnmer.
(I actually quite like Starson. Very sci-fi)
I saw a clip of Blair as LotO at PMQs the other day, and he seemed like he was bossing it vs Major (the famous one "I lead my party, he follows his", seems so horribly smug watching it now), and to an extent Cameron did with Brown, from what I can recall.
Miliband and Sir Keir always seem like they are earnestly whining about it being so unfair to me; maybe it's just the lack of gravitas in their voices. They seem like kids complaining about their parents, in comparison to the last couple of LotOs who became PM
No, he doesn't come over as whining to his parents about it being so unfair. The "wooden" critique is fair enough but you're just indulging yourself with this. Surprised you haven't as yet found fault with his eyebrows btw. Or have I missed that?
Comes over to me as whining to his parents about it being so unfair. He has a whiny voice, like Ed Miliband has, and coupled with his whole schtik being how nasty the govt and Boris are, it seems a bit "poor me"
Don't know about his eyebrows - he looks like a Teddy Boy who likes a beer to me, but Boris is no pin up either, so it doesn't really affect things
A deathly dull teddy boy with a whiny voice who likes a beer. It's pouring out now.
No point opposing such naked prejudice with reason, I've learnt this, but just on the voice - it's not whiny, it's a touch flat & nasal, which is completely different.
And what about your man "Boris". How does HE come over to you? Eg when he stands up and says he's going to "get social care done". Does this sort of thing come across as dynamic and determined, or like he has no clue what he's talking about and operates on pure bullshit?
Ooh, prejudice!!!
I used to absolute despise Boris, based almost solely on a combination of class hatred and inability to see how anyone could fall for his bluster - I wouldn't say he was my man now, I voted for him with a heavy heart and a lot of sadness at finally going over to the dark side. But he was the only one offering to honour the referendum result. As I have got older I can appreciate that a bit of charisma and optimism goes a long way, and dreary righteousness is unappealing
Ok, you're being your best self with that answer, so I'll take it without disbelief or rancour. At least for now.
Let me fill you in on what a contemptible prick starmer is:
Starmer as DPP was effectively in charge of prosecutions before juries. He was the country's leading authority on Not Prejudicing Trials. Against that background, he held a press conference to announce that the admittedly appalling Chris Huhne would be prosecuted for lying his head off. Now, what is the likely effect of that press conference on a potential juror? They are going to think, if they pay any attention at all, There wouldn't have been a press conference about this on national TV if there was nothing in it. And what's the benefit of holding the press conference? It's to raise Kier's fucking political profile.
An unprincipled twat.
So despite all evidence to the contrary, he is actually a politician?
Yeah killer point. But if he can't behave honourably as a lawyer, what can we expect from him as a politician?
We already know that.
He stayed in Corbyn's Shadow Cabinet and said he'd serve in a real Cabinet and support Corbyn as PM even after all the antisemitism came up.
He is the worst sort of self-serving careerist.
He also talks of wanting to give people from the same background as him the chances he got - He went to a Grammar School, which he wont reintroduce as far as I know, which turned into a private, fee paying school whilst he was there. So either his parents paid, in which case poor kids wont get that chance or, as some claim, the state paid for him to go private, in which case, is his government going to pay for bright poor kids to go to private school?
Surely, in the GE campaign, a journalist will ask him outright "Who paid for you to go to Private School?"
I'm not sure the state covering costs of students who passed the 11 plus would be that big a story to be honest.
That he did pass the 11 plus is more interesting. Presumably he wishes he could have gone to a bog standard comp, but again, I'm not sure it's that big an issue. The Tories don't want to bring them back where they were abolished, so it's not like he will have to give an opinion on this.
He says he wants kids from ‘umble backgrounds like his to get the same chances he did - he’s not going to let them go to grammar school & he’s not going to pay for them to go private like he did. So what’s the plan? ‘Make every comprehensive brilliant’?
You keep perpetuating this myth. Starmer didn't go to a private school. And yes, make every comprehensive brilliant is what we want.
Indeed, the truth is much worse. He went to a grammar. In all seriousness, I'd like to hear his thoughts on grammars. Does he think his school was incidental to his own personal success in life? If not, what aspects of his education does he think we should bring in for comprehensives?
I went to a grammar school. It's what folk who passed the 11+ did back in those days. But I'm totally opposed to them. Contrary to popular myth, they were a brake on social mobility, not a conduit to it. The vast majority of people didn't go to grammar school; the middle classes, and boys, were over-represented. Any good educationalist (as I am/was) knows that the grammar school system constrained social mobility by consigning vast swathes of the age group to secondary modern schools, where expectations and attainment were low.
Today's equivalent of grammar school kids thrive in the comprehensive system, as all the educational data indicates.
FWIW, I went to a comp and feel that I've underachieved because of bad choices I made when I was 16. I blame my comp for that 100%.
FWIW, I went to a Comp, as did both my sibs, and we have all done very well in our chosen professions. I credit that to the drive and ambition that we got from our schools. A top Economist via LSE, myself, and one with a PhD from Cambridge in engineering.
You've probably said this before, so apologies, but what did your parents do out of interest?
My mother was a secretary, and my father a salesman for IBM. Both very good at their jobs.
I think parents matter a lot. For me it was a former nurse and a mechanic. And neither were great for me in terms of guidance. If I'd wanted to be a doctor then I'd have been fine (assuming I'd got in... just because you get straight As doesn't necessarily mean you will). But I didn't. If I could tell my younger self what to do it would be so easy. Sadly my comp didn't seem to care so I was left to make the mistakes that I can't undo.
But at least I went to uni pre-3,000 a year fees, so that's something.
Corbyn really did bequeath Starmer a toxic legacy.
The problem is that Starmer isn't up to the job either.
Nonsense. I am not a Labour supporter, but Starmer has a great deal more credibility than the Clown that currently occupies No10. It is a long time before the next election. The big problem that Starmer has is not his own ability or credibility, it is that there is still a large part of the Labour Party that is even more ludicrous than many of those of the current government benches. History will judge how he does the long haul.
He reminds me a lot of Cameron: Massively underestimated by those in his own party that would rather have someone else, and derided by his opponents because they are simply too tribal or plain stupid to realise that he might just make it.
I agree with some of that: but Cameron always had a vision - even if you disagreed with it. Starmer seems unable to project any vision he may have without writing a WORN (*) magnum opus. Events haven't helped him, as the country and media are concentrating on bigger events.
Blair was a salesman. Cameron was also a salesman, to a lesser extent. Starmer doesn't appear to be one - and he needs to sell his vision for the country, to both the country and his own party.
(*) Write Once, Read Never. A common form of computer documentation.
"Blair was a salesman. Cameron was also a salesman, to a lesser extent. Starmer doesn't appear to be one - and he needs to sell his vision for the country, to both the country and his own party." - pretty much the whole reason I think Sir Keir won't be PM - plus the fact he is up against a very charismatic salesman
In a way, they appear polar opposites. Starmer may have a vision (I've no idea given he seems incapable of saying it); Boris doesn't have a vision beyond the end of his nose, but can sell the snot that dribbles out by the barrel-load.
We need a hideous scientific experiment where the two are merged together. Starson or Johnmer.
(I actually quite like Starson. Very sci-fi)
I saw a clip of Blair as LotO at PMQs the other day, and he seemed like he was bossing it vs Major (the famous one "I lead my party, he follows his", seems so horribly smug watching it now), and to an extent Cameron did with Brown, from what I can recall.
Miliband and Sir Keir always seem like they are earnestly whining about it being so unfair to me; maybe it's just the lack of gravitas in their voices. They seem like kids complaining about their parents, in comparison to the last couple of LotOs who became PM
No, he doesn't come over as whining to his parents about it being so unfair. The "wooden" critique is fair enough but you're just indulging yourself with this. Surprised you haven't as yet found fault with his eyebrows btw. Or have I missed that?
Comes over to me as whining to his parents about it being so unfair. He has a whiny voice, like Ed Miliband has, and coupled with his whole schtik being how nasty the govt and Boris are, it seems a bit "poor me"
Don't know about his eyebrows - he looks like a Teddy Boy who likes a beer to me, but Boris is no pin up either, so it doesn't really affect things
A deathly dull teddy boy with a whiny voice who likes a beer. It's pouring out now.
No point opposing such naked prejudice with reason, I've learnt this, but just on the voice - it's not whiny, it's a touch flat & nasal, which is completely different.
And what about your man "Boris". How does HE come over to you? Eg when he stands up and says he's going to "get social care done". Does this sort of thing come across as dynamic and determined, or like he has no clue what he's talking about and operates on pure bullshit?
Ooh, prejudice!!!
I used to absolute despise Boris, based almost solely on a combination of class hatred and inability to see how anyone could fall for his bluster - I wouldn't say he was my man now, I voted for him with a heavy heart and a lot of sadness at finally going over to the dark side. But he was the only one offering to honour the referendum result. As I have got older I can appreciate that a bit of charisma and optimism goes a long way, and dreary righteousness is unappealing
Ok, you're being your best self with that answer, so I'll take it without disbelief or rancour. At least for now.
Let me fill you in on what a contemptible prick starmer is:
Starmer as DPP was effectively in charge of prosecutions before juries. He was the country's leading authority on Not Prejudicing Trials. Against that background, he held a press conference to announce that the admittedly appalling Chris Huhne would be prosecuted for lying his head off. Now, what is the likely effect of that press conference on a potential juror? They are going to think, if they pay any attention at all, There wouldn't have been a press conference about this on national TV if there was nothing in it. And what's the benefit of holding the press conference? It's to raise Kier's fucking political profile.
An unprincipled twat.
So despite all evidence to the contrary, he is actually a politician?
Yeah killer point. But if he can't behave honourably as a lawyer, what can we expect from him as a politician?
We already know that.
He stayed in Corbyn's Shadow Cabinet and said he'd serve in a real Cabinet and support Corbyn as PM even after all the antisemitism came up.
He is the worst sort of self-serving careerist.
He also talks of wanting to give people from the same background as him the chances he got - He went to a Grammar School, which he wont reintroduce as far as I know, which turned into a private, fee paying school whilst he was there. So either his parents paid, in which case poor kids wont get that chance or, as some claim, the state paid for him to go private, in which case, is his government going to pay for bright poor kids to go to private school?
Surely, in the GE campaign, a journalist will ask him outright "Who paid for you to go to Private School?"
I'm not sure the state covering costs of students who passed the 11 plus would be that big a story to be honest.
That he did pass the 11 plus is more interesting. Presumably he wishes he could have gone to a bog standard comp, but again, I'm not sure it's that big an issue. The Tories don't want to bring them back where they were abolished, so it's not like he will have to give an opinion on this.
He says he wants kids from ‘umble backgrounds like his to get the same chances he did - he’s not going to let them go to grammar school & he’s not going to pay for them to go private like he did. So what’s the plan? ‘Make every comprehensive brilliant’?
You keep perpetuating this myth. Starmer didn't go to a private school. And yes, make every comprehensive brilliant is what we want.
By definition only selective grammars or selective private schools can be academically brilliant.
Comprehensives can be better than average in terms of results, for example if in leafy catchment areas but as they take all abilities they never match the top grammars or private schools academically
That's why Value Added is a key performance metric.
But I guess that doesn't matter if the kids from the rough estate still don't make it to Oxbridge.
In terms of getting into the elite value added only matters in terms of percentage of school pupils getting into Oxbridge and the Russell Group and top professional or managerial jobs yes.
Selective areas like Trafford and Bucks get above average overall GCSE results anyway
Corbyn really did bequeath Starmer a toxic legacy.
The problem is that Starmer isn't up to the job either.
Nonsense. I am not a Labour supporter, but Starmer has a great deal more credibility than the Clown that currently occupies No10. It is a long time before the next election. The big problem that Starmer has is not his own ability or credibility, it is that there is still a large part of the Labour Party that is even more ludicrous than many of those of the current government benches. History will judge how he does the long haul.
He reminds me a lot of Cameron: Massively underestimated by those in his own party that would rather have someone else, and derided by his opponents because they are simply too tribal or plain stupid to realise that he might just make it.
I agree with some of that: but Cameron always had a vision - even if you disagreed with it. Starmer seems unable to project any vision he may have without writing a WORN (*) magnum opus. Events haven't helped him, as the country and media are concentrating on bigger events.
Blair was a salesman. Cameron was also a salesman, to a lesser extent. Starmer doesn't appear to be one - and he needs to sell his vision for the country, to both the country and his own party.
(*) Write Once, Read Never. A common form of computer documentation.
"Blair was a salesman. Cameron was also a salesman, to a lesser extent. Starmer doesn't appear to be one - and he needs to sell his vision for the country, to both the country and his own party." - pretty much the whole reason I think Sir Keir won't be PM - plus the fact he is up against a very charismatic salesman
In a way, they appear polar opposites. Starmer may have a vision (I've no idea given he seems incapable of saying it); Boris doesn't have a vision beyond the end of his nose, but can sell the snot that dribbles out by the barrel-load.
We need a hideous scientific experiment where the two are merged together. Starson or Johnmer.
(I actually quite like Starson. Very sci-fi)
I saw a clip of Blair as LotO at PMQs the other day, and he seemed like he was bossing it vs Major (the famous one "I lead my party, he follows his", seems so horribly smug watching it now), and to an extent Cameron did with Brown, from what I can recall.
Miliband and Sir Keir always seem like they are earnestly whining about it being so unfair to me; maybe it's just the lack of gravitas in their voices. They seem like kids complaining about their parents, in comparison to the last couple of LotOs who became PM
No, he doesn't come over as whining to his parents about it being so unfair. The "wooden" critique is fair enough but you're just indulging yourself with this. Surprised you haven't as yet found fault with his eyebrows btw. Or have I missed that?
Comes over to me as whining to his parents about it being so unfair. He has a whiny voice, like Ed Miliband has, and coupled with his whole schtik being how nasty the govt and Boris are, it seems a bit "poor me"
Don't know about his eyebrows - he looks like a Teddy Boy who likes a beer to me, but Boris is no pin up either, so it doesn't really affect things
A deathly dull teddy boy with a whiny voice who likes a beer. It's pouring out now.
No point opposing such naked prejudice with reason, I've learnt this, but just on the voice - it's not whiny, it's a touch flat & nasal, which is completely different.
And what about your man "Boris". How does HE come over to you? Eg when he stands up and says he's going to "get social care done". Does this sort of thing come across as dynamic and determined, or like he has no clue what he's talking about and operates on pure bullshit?
Ooh, prejudice!!!
I used to absolute despise Boris, based almost solely on a combination of class hatred and inability to see how anyone could fall for his bluster - I wouldn't say he was my man now, I voted for him with a heavy heart and a lot of sadness at finally going over to the dark side. But he was the only one offering to honour the referendum result. As I have got older I can appreciate that a bit of charisma and optimism goes a long way, and dreary righteousness is unappealing
Ok, you're being your best self with that answer, so I'll take it without disbelief or rancour. At least for now.
Let me fill you in on what a contemptible prick starmer is:
Starmer as DPP was effectively in charge of prosecutions before juries. He was the country's leading authority on Not Prejudicing Trials. Against that background, he held a press conference to announce that the admittedly appalling Chris Huhne would be prosecuted for lying his head off. Now, what is the likely effect of that press conference on a potential juror? They are going to think, if they pay any attention at all, There wouldn't have been a press conference about this on national TV if there was nothing in it. And what's the benefit of holding the press conference? It's to raise Kier's fucking political profile.
An unprincipled twat.
So despite all evidence to the contrary, he is actually a politician?
Yeah killer point. But if he can't behave honourably as a lawyer, what can we expect from him as a politician?
We already know that.
He stayed in Corbyn's Shadow Cabinet and said he'd serve in a real Cabinet and support Corbyn as PM even after all the antisemitism came up.
He is the worst sort of self-serving careerist.
He also talks of wanting to give people from the same background as him the chances he got - He went to a Grammar School, which he wont reintroduce as far as I know, which turned into a private, fee paying school whilst he was there. So either his parents paid, in which case poor kids wont get that chance or, as some claim, the state paid for him to go private, in which case, is his government going to pay for bright poor kids to go to private school?
Surely, in the GE campaign, a journalist will ask him outright "Who paid for you to go to Private School?"
I'm not sure the state covering costs of students who passed the 11 plus would be that big a story to be honest.
That he did pass the 11 plus is more interesting. Presumably he wishes he could have gone to a bog standard comp, but again, I'm not sure it's that big an issue. The Tories don't want to bring them back where they were abolished, so it's not like he will have to give an opinion on this.
He says he wants kids from ‘umble backgrounds like his to get the same chances he did - he’s not going to let them go to grammar school & he’s not going to pay for them to go private like he did. So what’s the plan? ‘Make every comprehensive brilliant’?
You keep perpetuating this myth. Starmer didn't go to a private school. And yes, make every comprehensive brilliant is what we want.
Indeed, the truth is much worse. He went to a grammar. In all seriousness, I'd like to hear his thoughts on grammars. Does he think his school was incidental to his own personal success in life? If not, what aspects of his education does he think we should bring in for comprehensives?
I went to a grammar school. It's what folk who passed the 11+ did back in those days. But I'm totally opposed to them. Contrary to popular myth, they were a brake on social mobility, not a conduit to it. The vast majority of people didn't go to grammar school; the middle classes, and boys, were over-represented. Any good educationalist (as I am/was) knows that the grammar school system constrained social mobility by consigning vast swathes of the age group to secondary modern schools, where expectations and attainment were low.
Today's equivalent of grammar school kids thrive in the comprehensive system, as all the educational data indicates.
Which is why we have so many comprehensive educated surgeons, QCs, partners in city firms, CEOs, top journalists and actors and PMs and top civil servants compared to when we had more grammar schools of course and comprehensive educated pupils dominate our elite with private school pupils nowhere to be seen. Oh wait.....
I don't know why you find this so difficult. If you select out, say, the top 10% to go to private/grammar schools, it's hardly surprising that this top 10% would be disproportionately represented in the elite jobs.
Let me try another tack. Imagine a world with no private schools, and no grammar schools - just comprehensives. By your logic, do you think we would then be unable to find surgeons, QCs, CEOs, top civil servants etc. etc? Of course we wouldn't. The talent would still rise to the top, though from a level playing field rather than a rigged system.
"Ministers must urgently implement sweeping “plan B” winter measures or derail efforts to tackle the backlog of 5 million patients, the head of the NHS Confederation warned as the UK recorded its highest daily Covid death toll since March.
Infections have been rising sharply since the start of October but the government is resisting introducing the extra restrictions set out in its winter plan such as masks, vaccine passports and advice to work from home."
Judging by their previous predictions, I think that means cases will start falling again by Friday.
Corbyn really did bequeath Starmer a toxic legacy.
The problem is that Starmer isn't up to the job either.
Nonsense. I am not a Labour supporter, but Starmer has a great deal more credibility than the Clown that currently occupies No10. It is a long time before the next election. The big problem that Starmer has is not his own ability or credibility, it is that there is still a large part of the Labour Party that is even more ludicrous than many of those of the current government benches. History will judge how he does the long haul.
He reminds me a lot of Cameron: Massively underestimated by those in his own party that would rather have someone else, and derided by his opponents because they are simply too tribal or plain stupid to realise that he might just make it.
I agree with some of that: but Cameron always had a vision - even if you disagreed with it. Starmer seems unable to project any vision he may have without writing a WORN (*) magnum opus. Events haven't helped him, as the country and media are concentrating on bigger events.
Blair was a salesman. Cameron was also a salesman, to a lesser extent. Starmer doesn't appear to be one - and he needs to sell his vision for the country, to both the country and his own party.
(*) Write Once, Read Never. A common form of computer documentation.
"Blair was a salesman. Cameron was also a salesman, to a lesser extent. Starmer doesn't appear to be one - and he needs to sell his vision for the country, to both the country and his own party." - pretty much the whole reason I think Sir Keir won't be PM - plus the fact he is up against a very charismatic salesman
In a way, they appear polar opposites. Starmer may have a vision (I've no idea given he seems incapable of saying it); Boris doesn't have a vision beyond the end of his nose, but can sell the snot that dribbles out by the barrel-load.
We need a hideous scientific experiment where the two are merged together. Starson or Johnmer.
(I actually quite like Starson. Very sci-fi)
I saw a clip of Blair as LotO at PMQs the other day, and he seemed like he was bossing it vs Major (the famous one "I lead my party, he follows his", seems so horribly smug watching it now), and to an extent Cameron did with Brown, from what I can recall.
Miliband and Sir Keir always seem like they are earnestly whining about it being so unfair to me; maybe it's just the lack of gravitas in their voices. They seem like kids complaining about their parents, in comparison to the last couple of LotOs who became PM
No, he doesn't come over as whining to his parents about it being so unfair. The "wooden" critique is fair enough but you're just indulging yourself with this. Surprised you haven't as yet found fault with his eyebrows btw. Or have I missed that?
Comes over to me as whining to his parents about it being so unfair. He has a whiny voice, like Ed Miliband has, and coupled with his whole schtik being how nasty the govt and Boris are, it seems a bit "poor me"
Don't know about his eyebrows - he looks like a Teddy Boy who likes a beer to me, but Boris is no pin up either, so it doesn't really affect things
A deathly dull teddy boy with a whiny voice who likes a beer. It's pouring out now.
No point opposing such naked prejudice with reason, I've learnt this, but just on the voice - it's not whiny, it's a touch flat & nasal, which is completely different.
And what about your man "Boris". How does HE come over to you? Eg when he stands up and says he's going to "get social care done". Does this sort of thing come across as dynamic and determined, or like he has no clue what he's talking about and operates on pure bullshit?
Ooh, prejudice!!!
I used to absolute despise Boris, based almost solely on a combination of class hatred and inability to see how anyone could fall for his bluster - I wouldn't say he was my man now, I voted for him with a heavy heart and a lot of sadness at finally going over to the dark side. But he was the only one offering to honour the referendum result. As I have got older I can appreciate that a bit of charisma and optimism goes a long way, and dreary righteousness is unappealing
Ok, you're being your best self with that answer, so I'll take it without disbelief or rancour. At least for now.
Let me fill you in on what a contemptible prick starmer is:
Starmer as DPP was effectively in charge of prosecutions before juries. He was the country's leading authority on Not Prejudicing Trials. Against that background, he held a press conference to announce that the admittedly appalling Chris Huhne would be prosecuted for lying his head off. Now, what is the likely effect of that press conference on a potential juror? They are going to think, if they pay any attention at all, There wouldn't have been a press conference about this on national TV if there was nothing in it. And what's the benefit of holding the press conference? It's to raise Kier's fucking political profile.
An unprincipled twat.
So despite all evidence to the contrary, he is actually a politician?
Yeah killer point. But if he can't behave honourably as a lawyer, what can we expect from him as a politician?
We already know that.
He stayed in Corbyn's Shadow Cabinet and said he'd serve in a real Cabinet and support Corbyn as PM even after all the antisemitism came up.
He is the worst sort of self-serving careerist.
He also talks of wanting to give people from the same background as him the chances he got - He went to a Grammar School, which he wont reintroduce as far as I know, which turned into a private, fee paying school whilst he was there. So either his parents paid, in which case poor kids wont get that chance or, as some claim, the state paid for him to go private, in which case, is his government going to pay for bright poor kids to go to private school?
Surely, in the GE campaign, a journalist will ask him outright "Who paid for you to go to Private School?"
I'm not sure the state covering costs of students who passed the 11 plus would be that big a story to be honest.
That he did pass the 11 plus is more interesting. Presumably he wishes he could have gone to a bog standard comp, but again, I'm not sure it's that big an issue. The Tories don't want to bring them back where they were abolished, so it's not like he will have to give an opinion on this.
He says he wants kids from ‘umble backgrounds like his to get the same chances he did - he’s not going to let them go to grammar school & he’s not going to pay for them to go private like he did. So what’s the plan? ‘Make every comprehensive brilliant’?
Maybe it's better for our PMs to be proper posh like your Boris. Simpler then. Just be themselves. None of these tortuous questions or hoops to jump through.
the other thing that puzzles me is how it's possible to have a comprehensive as well as a grammar school, even ignoring "selective" private schools in which it's the parental bank balance as much as the academic record that counts.
If you've skimmed off, however crudely, the top children to a grammar school, how can the remainign school be a 'comprehensive'? We used to call them Secondary Moderns or similar.
Corbyn really did bequeath Starmer a toxic legacy.
The problem is that Starmer isn't up to the job either.
Nonsense. I am not a Labour supporter, but Starmer has a great deal more credibility than the Clown that currently occupies No10. It is a long time before the next election. The big problem that Starmer has is not his own ability or credibility, it is that there is still a large part of the Labour Party that is even more ludicrous than many of those of the current government benches. History will judge how he does the long haul.
He reminds me a lot of Cameron: Massively underestimated by those in his own party that would rather have someone else, and derided by his opponents because they are simply too tribal or plain stupid to realise that he might just make it.
I agree with some of that: but Cameron always had a vision - even if you disagreed with it. Starmer seems unable to project any vision he may have without writing a WORN (*) magnum opus. Events haven't helped him, as the country and media are concentrating on bigger events.
Blair was a salesman. Cameron was also a salesman, to a lesser extent. Starmer doesn't appear to be one - and he needs to sell his vision for the country, to both the country and his own party.
(*) Write Once, Read Never. A common form of computer documentation.
"Blair was a salesman. Cameron was also a salesman, to a lesser extent. Starmer doesn't appear to be one - and he needs to sell his vision for the country, to both the country and his own party." - pretty much the whole reason I think Sir Keir won't be PM - plus the fact he is up against a very charismatic salesman
In a way, they appear polar opposites. Starmer may have a vision (I've no idea given he seems incapable of saying it); Boris doesn't have a vision beyond the end of his nose, but can sell the snot that dribbles out by the barrel-load.
We need a hideous scientific experiment where the two are merged together. Starson or Johnmer.
(I actually quite like Starson. Very sci-fi)
I saw a clip of Blair as LotO at PMQs the other day, and he seemed like he was bossing it vs Major (the famous one "I lead my party, he follows his", seems so horribly smug watching it now), and to an extent Cameron did with Brown, from what I can recall.
Miliband and Sir Keir always seem like they are earnestly whining about it being so unfair to me; maybe it's just the lack of gravitas in their voices. They seem like kids complaining about their parents, in comparison to the last couple of LotOs who became PM
No, he doesn't come over as whining to his parents about it being so unfair. The "wooden" critique is fair enough but you're just indulging yourself with this. Surprised you haven't as yet found fault with his eyebrows btw. Or have I missed that?
Comes over to me as whining to his parents about it being so unfair. He has a whiny voice, like Ed Miliband has, and coupled with his whole schtik being how nasty the govt and Boris are, it seems a bit "poor me"
Don't know about his eyebrows - he looks like a Teddy Boy who likes a beer to me, but Boris is no pin up either, so it doesn't really affect things
A deathly dull teddy boy with a whiny voice who likes a beer. It's pouring out now.
No point opposing such naked prejudice with reason, I've learnt this, but just on the voice - it's not whiny, it's a touch flat & nasal, which is completely different.
And what about your man "Boris". How does HE come over to you? Eg when he stands up and says he's going to "get social care done". Does this sort of thing come across as dynamic and determined, or like he has no clue what he's talking about and operates on pure bullshit?
Ooh, prejudice!!!
I used to absolute despise Boris, based almost solely on a combination of class hatred and inability to see how anyone could fall for his bluster - I wouldn't say he was my man now, I voted for him with a heavy heart and a lot of sadness at finally going over to the dark side. But he was the only one offering to honour the referendum result. As I have got older I can appreciate that a bit of charisma and optimism goes a long way, and dreary righteousness is unappealing
Ok, you're being your best self with that answer, so I'll take it without disbelief or rancour. At least for now.
Let me fill you in on what a contemptible prick starmer is:
Starmer as DPP was effectively in charge of prosecutions before juries. He was the country's leading authority on Not Prejudicing Trials. Against that background, he held a press conference to announce that the admittedly appalling Chris Huhne would be prosecuted for lying his head off. Now, what is the likely effect of that press conference on a potential juror? They are going to think, if they pay any attention at all, There wouldn't have been a press conference about this on national TV if there was nothing in it. And what's the benefit of holding the press conference? It's to raise Kier's fucking political profile.
An unprincipled twat.
So despite all evidence to the contrary, he is actually a politician?
Yeah killer point. But if he can't behave honourably as a lawyer, what can we expect from him as a politician?
We already know that.
He stayed in Corbyn's Shadow Cabinet and said he'd serve in a real Cabinet and support Corbyn as PM even after all the antisemitism came up.
He is the worst sort of self-serving careerist.
He also talks of wanting to give people from the same background as him the chances he got - He went to a Grammar School, which he wont reintroduce as far as I know, which turned into a private, fee paying school whilst he was there. So either his parents paid, in which case poor kids wont get that chance or, as some claim, the state paid for him to go private, in which case, is his government going to pay for bright poor kids to go to private school?
Surely, in the GE campaign, a journalist will ask him outright "Who paid for you to go to Private School?"
I'm not sure the state covering costs of students who passed the 11 plus would be that big a story to be honest.
That he did pass the 11 plus is more interesting. Presumably he wishes he could have gone to a bog standard comp, but again, I'm not sure it's that big an issue. The Tories don't want to bring them back where they were abolished, so it's not like he will have to give an opinion on this.
He says he wants kids from ‘umble backgrounds like his to get the same chances he did - he’s not going to let them go to grammar school & he’s not going to pay for them to go private like he did. So what’s the plan? ‘Make every comprehensive brilliant’?
You keep perpetuating this myth. Starmer didn't go to a private school. And yes, make every comprehensive brilliant is what we want.
By definition only selective grammars or selective private schools can be academically brilliant.
Comprehensives can be better than average in terms of results, for example if in leafy catchment areas but as they take all abilities they never match the top grammars or private schools academically
That's why Value Added is a key performance metric.
But I guess that doesn't matter if the kids from the rough estate still don't make it to Oxbridge.
In terms of getting into the elite value added only matters in terms of percentage of school pupils getting into Oxbridge and the Russell Group and top professional or managerial jobs yes.
Selective areas like Trafford and Bucks get above average overall GCSE results anyway
Any other metrics Bucks and Trafford are above average on? Anyone?
Corbyn really did bequeath Starmer a toxic legacy.
The problem is that Starmer isn't up to the job either.
Nonsense. I am not a Labour supporter, but Starmer has a great deal more credibility than the Clown that currently occupies No10. It is a long time before the next election. The big problem that Starmer has is not his own ability or credibility, it is that there is still a large part of the Labour Party that is even more ludicrous than many of those of the current government benches. History will judge how he does the long haul.
He reminds me a lot of Cameron: Massively underestimated by those in his own party that would rather have someone else, and derided by his opponents because they are simply too tribal or plain stupid to realise that he might just make it.
I agree with some of that: but Cameron always had a vision - even if you disagreed with it. Starmer seems unable to project any vision he may have without writing a WORN (*) magnum opus. Events haven't helped him, as the country and media are concentrating on bigger events.
Blair was a salesman. Cameron was also a salesman, to a lesser extent. Starmer doesn't appear to be one - and he needs to sell his vision for the country, to both the country and his own party.
(*) Write Once, Read Never. A common form of computer documentation.
"Blair was a salesman. Cameron was also a salesman, to a lesser extent. Starmer doesn't appear to be one - and he needs to sell his vision for the country, to both the country and his own party." - pretty much the whole reason I think Sir Keir won't be PM - plus the fact he is up against a very charismatic salesman
In a way, they appear polar opposites. Starmer may have a vision (I've no idea given he seems incapable of saying it); Boris doesn't have a vision beyond the end of his nose, but can sell the snot that dribbles out by the barrel-load.
We need a hideous scientific experiment where the two are merged together. Starson or Johnmer.
(I actually quite like Starson. Very sci-fi)
I saw a clip of Blair as LotO at PMQs the other day, and he seemed like he was bossing it vs Major (the famous one "I lead my party, he follows his", seems so horribly smug watching it now), and to an extent Cameron did with Brown, from what I can recall.
Miliband and Sir Keir always seem like they are earnestly whining about it being so unfair to me; maybe it's just the lack of gravitas in their voices. They seem like kids complaining about their parents, in comparison to the last couple of LotOs who became PM
No, he doesn't come over as whining to his parents about it being so unfair. The "wooden" critique is fair enough but you're just indulging yourself with this. Surprised you haven't as yet found fault with his eyebrows btw. Or have I missed that?
Comes over to me as whining to his parents about it being so unfair. He has a whiny voice, like Ed Miliband has, and coupled with his whole schtik being how nasty the govt and Boris are, it seems a bit "poor me"
Don't know about his eyebrows - he looks like a Teddy Boy who likes a beer to me, but Boris is no pin up either, so it doesn't really affect things
A deathly dull teddy boy with a whiny voice who likes a beer. It's pouring out now.
No point opposing such naked prejudice with reason, I've learnt this, but just on the voice - it's not whiny, it's a touch flat & nasal, which is completely different.
And what about your man "Boris". How does HE come over to you? Eg when he stands up and says he's going to "get social care done". Does this sort of thing come across as dynamic and determined, or like he has no clue what he's talking about and operates on pure bullshit?
Ooh, prejudice!!!
I used to absolute despise Boris, based almost solely on a combination of class hatred and inability to see how anyone could fall for his bluster - I wouldn't say he was my man now, I voted for him with a heavy heart and a lot of sadness at finally going over to the dark side. But he was the only one offering to honour the referendum result. As I have got older I can appreciate that a bit of charisma and optimism goes a long way, and dreary righteousness is unappealing
Ok, you're being your best self with that answer, so I'll take it without disbelief or rancour. At least for now.
Let me fill you in on what a contemptible prick starmer is:
Starmer as DPP was effectively in charge of prosecutions before juries. He was the country's leading authority on Not Prejudicing Trials. Against that background, he held a press conference to announce that the admittedly appalling Chris Huhne would be prosecuted for lying his head off. Now, what is the likely effect of that press conference on a potential juror? They are going to think, if they pay any attention at all, There wouldn't have been a press conference about this on national TV if there was nothing in it. And what's the benefit of holding the press conference? It's to raise Kier's fucking political profile.
An unprincipled twat.
So despite all evidence to the contrary, he is actually a politician?
Yeah killer point. But if he can't behave honourably as a lawyer, what can we expect from him as a politician?
We already know that.
He stayed in Corbyn's Shadow Cabinet and said he'd serve in a real Cabinet and support Corbyn as PM even after all the antisemitism came up.
He is the worst sort of self-serving careerist.
He also talks of wanting to give people from the same background as him the chances he got - He went to a Grammar School, which he wont reintroduce as far as I know, which turned into a private, fee paying school whilst he was there. So either his parents paid, in which case poor kids wont get that chance or, as some claim, the state paid for him to go private, in which case, is his government going to pay for bright poor kids to go to private school?
Surely, in the GE campaign, a journalist will ask him outright "Who paid for you to go to Private School?"
I'm not sure the state covering costs of students who passed the 11 plus would be that big a story to be honest.
That he did pass the 11 plus is more interesting. Presumably he wishes he could have gone to a bog standard comp, but again, I'm not sure it's that big an issue. The Tories don't want to bring them back where they were abolished, so it's not like he will have to give an opinion on this.
He says he wants kids from ‘umble backgrounds like his to get the same chances he did - he’s not going to let them go to grammar school & he’s not going to pay for them to go private like he did. So what’s the plan? ‘Make every comprehensive brilliant’?
You keep perpetuating this myth. Starmer didn't go to a private school. And yes, make every comprehensive brilliant is what we want.
By definition only selective grammars or selective private schools can be academically brilliant.
Comprehensives can be better than average in terms of results, for example if in leafy catchment areas but as they take all abilities they never match the top grammars or private schools academically
That's why Value Added is a key performance metric.
But I guess that doesn't matter if the kids from the rough estate still don't make it to Oxbridge.
In terms of getting into the elite value added only matters in terms of percentage of school pupils getting into Oxbridge and the Russell Group and top professional or managerial jobs yes.
Selective areas like Trafford and Bucks get above average overall GCSE results anyway
Any other metrics Bucks and Trafford are above average on? Anyone?
The number of noughts at the end of Daddy and Mummy's bank balance?
Preferential funding by certain political parties?
There is a still an axiomatic obsession with positive tests (aka ‘cases’). The have been lots of positive tests in my son’s school, yet few of the children are ill, to the point where their symptoms were either so mild they wouldn’t ordinarily be kept off school, or that they would be none the wiser had they not had a compulsory weekly test.
Moreover, similar applies to many of their parents who have been ‘infected’. Many report just mild or very mild symptoms, to the point where the recent circulating common cold strain is considerably worse.
How long will this obsession with covid ‘case’ numbers continue? And, if it continues, what are we expected to do about it? We have 80% of our 12+ population vaxxed. We have the most open society in the western world. People are living and loving their lives again. London is absolutely buzzing.
Boost. Vax. Boost. That is all we can and should do. The vaccines work incredibly well. Celebrate that. And move forward.
I think parents matter a lot. For me it was a former nurse and a mechanic. And neither were great for me in terms of guidance. If I'd wanted to be a doctor then I'd have been fine (assuming I'd got in... just because you get straight As doesn't necessarily mean you will). But I didn't. If I could tell my younger self what to do it would be so easy. Sadly my comp didn't seem to care so I was left to make the mistakes that I can't undo.
But at least I went to uni pre-3,000 a year fees, so that's something.
They do. My parents drilled into me from a very early age that the harder I worked at school and later university then I would be able to do what I want, and have all the money in the world to have what I wanted.
Everytime I did well at school I got rewarded.
Up to the age of 14 I thought I'd become a doctor but I realised I was way too squeamish and way to much of a germaphobe to be a doctor.
Corbyn really did bequeath Starmer a toxic legacy.
The problem is that Starmer isn't up to the job either.
Nonsense. I am not a Labour supporter, but Starmer has a great deal more credibility than the Clown that currently occupies No10. It is a long time before the next election. The big problem that Starmer has is not his own ability or credibility, it is that there is still a large part of the Labour Party that is even more ludicrous than many of those of the current government benches. History will judge how he does the long haul.
He reminds me a lot of Cameron: Massively underestimated by those in his own party that would rather have someone else, and derided by his opponents because they are simply too tribal or plain stupid to realise that he might just make it.
I agree with some of that: but Cameron always had a vision - even if you disagreed with it. Starmer seems unable to project any vision he may have without writing a WORN (*) magnum opus. Events haven't helped him, as the country and media are concentrating on bigger events.
Blair was a salesman. Cameron was also a salesman, to a lesser extent. Starmer doesn't appear to be one - and he needs to sell his vision for the country, to both the country and his own party.
(*) Write Once, Read Never. A common form of computer documentation.
"Blair was a salesman. Cameron was also a salesman, to a lesser extent. Starmer doesn't appear to be one - and he needs to sell his vision for the country, to both the country and his own party." - pretty much the whole reason I think Sir Keir won't be PM - plus the fact he is up against a very charismatic salesman
In a way, they appear polar opposites. Starmer may have a vision (I've no idea given he seems incapable of saying it); Boris doesn't have a vision beyond the end of his nose, but can sell the snot that dribbles out by the barrel-load.
We need a hideous scientific experiment where the two are merged together. Starson or Johnmer.
(I actually quite like Starson. Very sci-fi)
I saw a clip of Blair as LotO at PMQs the other day, and he seemed like he was bossing it vs Major (the famous one "I lead my party, he follows his", seems so horribly smug watching it now), and to an extent Cameron did with Brown, from what I can recall.
Miliband and Sir Keir always seem like they are earnestly whining about it being so unfair to me; maybe it's just the lack of gravitas in their voices. They seem like kids complaining about their parents, in comparison to the last couple of LotOs who became PM
No, he doesn't come over as whining to his parents about it being so unfair. The "wooden" critique is fair enough but you're just indulging yourself with this. Surprised you haven't as yet found fault with his eyebrows btw. Or have I missed that?
Comes over to me as whining to his parents about it being so unfair. He has a whiny voice, like Ed Miliband has, and coupled with his whole schtik being how nasty the govt and Boris are, it seems a bit "poor me"
Don't know about his eyebrows - he looks like a Teddy Boy who likes a beer to me, but Boris is no pin up either, so it doesn't really affect things
A deathly dull teddy boy with a whiny voice who likes a beer. It's pouring out now.
No point opposing such naked prejudice with reason, I've learnt this, but just on the voice - it's not whiny, it's a touch flat & nasal, which is completely different.
And what about your man "Boris". How does HE come over to you? Eg when he stands up and says he's going to "get social care done". Does this sort of thing come across as dynamic and determined, or like he has no clue what he's talking about and operates on pure bullshit?
Ooh, prejudice!!!
I used to absolute despise Boris, based almost solely on a combination of class hatred and inability to see how anyone could fall for his bluster - I wouldn't say he was my man now, I voted for him with a heavy heart and a lot of sadness at finally going over to the dark side. But he was the only one offering to honour the referendum result. As I have got older I can appreciate that a bit of charisma and optimism goes a long way, and dreary righteousness is unappealing
Ok, you're being your best self with that answer, so I'll take it without disbelief or rancour. At least for now.
Let me fill you in on what a contemptible prick starmer is:
Starmer as DPP was effectively in charge of prosecutions before juries. He was the country's leading authority on Not Prejudicing Trials. Against that background, he held a press conference to announce that the admittedly appalling Chris Huhne would be prosecuted for lying his head off. Now, what is the likely effect of that press conference on a potential juror? They are going to think, if they pay any attention at all, There wouldn't have been a press conference about this on national TV if there was nothing in it. And what's the benefit of holding the press conference? It's to raise Kier's fucking political profile.
An unprincipled twat.
So despite all evidence to the contrary, he is actually a politician?
Yeah killer point. But if he can't behave honourably as a lawyer, what can we expect from him as a politician?
We already know that.
He stayed in Corbyn's Shadow Cabinet and said he'd serve in a real Cabinet and support Corbyn as PM even after all the antisemitism came up.
He is the worst sort of self-serving careerist.
He also talks of wanting to give people from the same background as him the chances he got - He went to a Grammar School, which he wont reintroduce as far as I know, which turned into a private, fee paying school whilst he was there. So either his parents paid, in which case poor kids wont get that chance or, as some claim, the state paid for him to go private, in which case, is his government going to pay for bright poor kids to go to private school?
Surely, in the GE campaign, a journalist will ask him outright "Who paid for you to go to Private School?"
I'm not sure the state covering costs of students who passed the 11 plus would be that big a story to be honest.
That he did pass the 11 plus is more interesting. Presumably he wishes he could have gone to a bog standard comp, but again, I'm not sure it's that big an issue. The Tories don't want to bring them back where they were abolished, so it's not like he will have to give an opinion on this.
He says he wants kids from ‘umble backgrounds like his to get the same chances he did - he’s not going to let them go to grammar school & he’s not going to pay for them to go private like he did. So what’s the plan? ‘Make every comprehensive brilliant’?
You keep perpetuating this myth. Starmer didn't go to a private school. And yes, make every comprehensive brilliant is what we want.
By definition only selective grammars or selective private schools can be academically brilliant.
Comprehensives can be better than average in terms of results, for example if in leafy catchment areas but as they take all abilities they never match the top grammars or private schools academically
That's why Value Added is a key performance metric.
But I guess that doesn't matter if the kids from the rough estate still don't make it to Oxbridge.
In terms of getting into the elite value added only matters in terms of percentage of school pupils getting into Oxbridge and the Russell Group and top professional or managerial jobs yes.
Selective areas like Trafford and Bucks get above average overall GCSE results anyway
If they didn't have any grammar schools, Trafford and Bucks would still get above average overall GCSE results. Why? Because they are prosperous areas, and the link between socio-economic status and achievement at GCSE is powerful.
If you introduced grammar schools in, say, Hull, Hull would still get below average GCSE results overall; the grammar schools would do better, but the secondary moderns worse, with no overall impact.
There is a still an axiomatic obsession with positive tests (aka ‘cases’). The have been lots of positive tests in my son’s school, yet few of the children are ill, to the point where their symptoms were either so mild they wouldn’t ordinarily be kept off school, or that they would be none the wiser had they not had a compulsory weekly test.
Moreover, similar applies to many of their parents who have been ‘infected’. Many report just mild or very mild symptoms, to the point where the recent circulating common cold strain is considerably worse.
How long will this obsession with covid ‘case’ numbers continue? And, if it continues, what are we expected to do about it? We have 80% of our 12+ population vaxxed. We have the most open society in the western world. People are living and loving their lives again. London is absolutely buzzing.
Boost. Vax. Boost. That is all we can and should do. The vaccines work incredibly well. Celebrate that. And move forward.
Hospitalisations are the problem, and hospitalisations in 2-3 weeks' time will continue to be a positive function of case numbers right now. And case numbers are going up.
Comments
Think I'll leave it another 12 months before upgrading, checking and there's still no 5G in my area and still no sign of it coming any time soon. Without 5G there just doesn't seem to be much point changing.
But will bear in mind the Pixel 7 probably when I do get around to upgrading instead of just going for another Samsung automatically.
Hancock was hard work!
BTW. Is Facebook down again. I was trying to check out the story she posted to my timeline to get the number again. But it won't load.
Bananas without 'B' is is pineapple.
I wonder if @TheScreamingEagles is keen on that one?
In the same way that Khrushchev was much the best leader of the Soviet Union, and for the same reason.
Doesn't it simply mean that he wants other children to progress academically and go on to university then a highly successful career?
Ananas from Tupi (South American)
Our World in Data has them per 100 people but without the UK - probably because for some reason the government dashboard does give them.
But by my calculation the UK is way ahead of any western country.
And yes, make every comprehensive brilliant is what we want.
Everything has run fine for me for ages (since it was reformatted and went responsive) It's always super fast etc
https://www.huffingtonpost.co.uk/entry/covid-infection-rates-uk-high-west-europe_uk_616ec82be4b079111a4f3d71?utm_source=Sailthru&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=UK Politics October 19&utm_term=uk-politics
I love those classic "DPP on his last day before retiring" crime movies.
Deaths is a good metric to use for the kind of point you are making.
Comprehensives can be better than average in terms of results, for example if in leafy catchment areas but as they take all abilities they never match the top grammars or private schools academically
Today's equivalent of grammar school kids thrive in the comprehensive system, as all the educational data indicates.
https://www.standard.co.uk/hp/front/boris-johnson-attacks-waste-of-time-investigation-into-his-souvenir-cigar-case-stolen-from-former-iraqi-deputy-pm-6623983.html
Current Tory policy though yes is little different from Labour policy ie keep them where they are but don't expand them (though Labour when they were last in government also enabled balloting to close them)
https://twitter.com/lucymirandaward/status/1450495088082227204
I've lost track on the number and type of mistakes on this issue.
Am a vf convert.
And having comments going downwards is far more logical too!
Always have.
In fact that's the point of being vaccinated - to minimise the effects of a future infection.
Hard to know whether this is new, or just the same as it (sadly) ever was.
I’m bound to say it was surely not like this in the 90s? Or was it, am I was just naive?
I don't oppose Grammar Schools.
I am fiercely anti-Secondary Moderns.
The society we're allowing to be built is just wrong and I don't know how to reverse the malign effects of social media on under 25s.
Illegally, of course, those giving COVID/flu jabs we'll let off.
I used to go out on regular girls nights out and as the sole non alcohol drinker it was my job to keep an eye on the drinks.
Maybe the drugs involved weren't around then?
These men are sick. What the fecks wrong with them and how did we raise/educate such people?
Misogyny seems to be quite out of control again.
https://twitter.com/PoliticsForAlI/status/1450565765262938114?s=20
https://twitter.com/fifisyms/status/1450565699336904718?s=20
Incidentally my older sib failed the 11+, but was saved by Comprehensivisation. This was the early Seventies with Mrs T as Education Secretary. I don't think he would have got to LSE doing economics if it hadn't happened.
But I guess that doesn't matter if the kids from the rough estate still don't make it to Oxbridge.
Once they took a lot of cash. And once I awoke bleeding from the head. No cash on me that time.
Neither very pleasant. Particularly when you reflect what could have happened.
Edit. Am suspicious about a third. I came to under arrest with my prescription anti-depressants seized. Dunno how I got there, but remember leaving the bar.
e.g.
https://www.instagram.com/p/CVLD0R-ILAd/?utm_medium=copy_link
101 deaths in last week (equivalent of ca. 3500 in UK).
https://twitter.com/PoliticsForAlI/status/1450418679729074177?s=20
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2021/oct/19/implement-plan-b-winter-measures-now-or-risk-nhs-crisis-johnson-warned
"Ministers must urgently implement sweeping “plan B” winter measures or derail efforts to tackle the backlog of 5 million patients, the head of the NHS Confederation warned as the UK recorded its highest daily Covid death toll since March.
Infections have been rising sharply since the start of October but the government is resisting introducing the extra restrictions set out in its winter plan such as masks, vaccine passports and advice to work from home."
But at least I went to uni pre-3,000 a year fees, so that's something.
700k cases a day by December maybe?
Selective areas like Trafford and Bucks get above average overall GCSE results anyway
Let me try another tack. Imagine a world with no private schools, and no grammar schools - just comprehensives. By your logic, do you think we would then be unable to find surgeons, QCs, CEOs, top civil servants etc. etc? Of course we wouldn't. The talent would still rise to the top, though from a level playing field rather than a rigged system.
If you've skimmed off, however crudely, the top children to a grammar school, how can the remainign school be a 'comprehensive'? We used to call them Secondary Moderns or similar.
Anyone?
Preferential funding by certain political parties?
Lack of deprivation (relatively)?
I'd want to know.
Moreover, similar applies to many of their parents who have been ‘infected’. Many report just mild or very mild symptoms, to the point where the recent circulating common cold strain is considerably worse.
How long will this obsession with covid ‘case’ numbers continue? And, if it continues, what are we expected to do about it? We have 80% of our 12+ population vaxxed. We have the most open society in the western world. People are living and loving their lives again. London is absolutely buzzing.
Boost. Vax. Boost. That is all we can and should do. The vaccines work incredibly well. Celebrate that. And move forward.
Everytime I did well at school I got rewarded.
Up to the age of 14 I thought I'd become a doctor but I realised I was way too squeamish and way to much of a germaphobe to be a doctor.
Ran down the tunnel so he wouldn't have to shake Klopp's hand.
If you introduced grammar schools in, say, Hull, Hull would still get below average GCSE results overall; the grammar schools would do better, but the secondary moderns worse, with no overall impact.