There is a cognitive dissonance in the government’s thinking about refugees. An eagerness to celebrate immigrant success stories, like that of Mr Zahawi, is accompanied by a system of managing asylum seekers designed to place huge and often treacherous obstacles in the path of anyone hoping to replicate his story. The result is a regime that neither displays compassion towards those seeking refuge nor gives voters confidence that the government has migration under control.
Viewed from Greece or Italy, which have seen much greater flows of migration, what Britain calls a “crisis” is a relatively modest challenge. It is not so much the numbers of those trying to cross the Channel as the visibility of them that has turned this into a political crisis.
The prime minister is...angrily exasperated by what he sees as Priti Patel’s failure to “grip” the issue. The home secretary, in turn, has spent her time blaming the French. They shouldn’t take it personally, because she also blames her own officials and legal advisers. Her efforts to shift culpability elsewhere are no longer working with her party.
One senior Tory remarks: “The trouble is all the political pressure on Boris is coming from hopelessly unrealistic headbangers on the right of my party saying, ‘Just send them back’. This is leading Boris and Priti in exactly the wrong direction because it will only increase French intransigence and make it even more difficult to solve.”
France is the country Britain most needs to be talking to. Neither the plight of the refugees nor public confidence in the management of migration will be improved without cooperation. Unfortunately, it is one of the least well-kept secrets in diplomacy that Anglo-French relations are dreadful.
Which points to a glaring and tragic irony. A Brexit sold with the slogan “take back control” has left the UK with a border that is now harder to control. Our country is even more dependent on collaboration with European neighbours who have much less incentive to be cooperative. There will be an empty chair where Britain should be sitting. Puerile point-scoring and phoney posturing have to stop before more people perish in the icy waters of the Channel.
He’s right. Macron should behave like a grown up
Let's keep this discussion realistic, please.
Takes two to tango and our PM is leaden-footed.
You'll get no argument from me on that. I just think Macron is useless as well.
King Cole, I'm not persuaded by that, to be honest.
Great Britain slid back enormously when the Romans left, but they* idea swathes of good farmland was just given up freely to migrants (Saxons) is not something that feels in accord with human nature of** history. I cannot believe the Celts thought it was fine to just hand over power over the majority of the island to a load of incomers.
Edited extra bit: *the, and **or
Current thinking, AIUI, is that large swathes of land had been depopulated by plagues and the consequence of poor harvest. Further, that much of South and East 'England" was populated by a mixture of Celts, Angles and Saxons from pre-Roman times. There are odd references to the language spoken being similar;aer to that in what we now call the Low Countries. The lack of 'Celtic' names in that area is an indication.
I would love to be able wind back the clock and see what was going on. I’ve got an old Roman road buried under my garden that heads up the hill to a Norman church. Interesting to think what was there at the time the road was built. Perhaps a fortification looking towards the south coast. Or a pre Christian religious site. And what was going on there between 400AD and the Church being built 700 years later?
Did you ever watch Time Team? I’m sure it made proper historians cringe, but for those of us with an amateur interest it gave a fascinating insight into exactly that sort of thing.
Popular science and history communicators are hugely important of course. They may not be experts themselves, or they may have just had to simplify matters a great deal, but if it inspires people to look into the subject more, and a small percentage of those then go on to that field it is well worth it.
Not really the case judging by the rate at which archaeological departments are closing:
That might be because time team is not popular anymore, or indeed stopped for many years?
In any case it didnt counter the point, since that was that they are very important, not that every single example of them will sucessfully inspire. The ones that do so, or where teh zeitgeist makes their subjects more interesting, are worth it.
With the exception of Sheffield, I suspect it has more to do with a lack of numbers doing A-Level archaeology (or Classics/Ancient History) and the uncapped Russell Group unis hoovering up what there is.
Similar problem with university History departments.
Given how low the cost of teaching an extra humanities student is, it's a no-brainer for a university that is being entrepreneurial.
Science students, even if you can find them, are expensive to teach.
Whether the students themselves get decent value for money given the restrictions on the time of faculty staff, leading too many to be fobbed off with being taught by untrained and unprepared PhD students, is a very different question.
If they were getting value for money there wouldn’t be a low cost of teaching.
Might be a blessing if everyone could just hurry up and get it. We haven't had it despite one child at Uni, one at school and me not being particularly careful.
A friend living with a husband and two children, all down with it simultaneously, probably wouldn't agree. Another says that the situation at her (sick) daughter's school is insane, with staff and pupils both going down like ninepins - little serious education is taking place because of lack of continuity.
so its not really the illness bu the over reaction to it that disrupts the education.
We should've desisted from bothering to test children at all before the new school year started in September (by which point all adults, including logically all school staff, had been offered vaccination.) The kids themselves are all but invulnerable to serious illness; almost all children will suffer more from yet more cycles of hokey-cokey self-isolation than they will from catching Covid.
No child should be sent home from school for having Covid unless actually poorly with it. Contacts of those children shouldn't be sent home full stop.
They aren't being. That came to an end in July. As it happens, what was defined as a 'contact' even before that was subject to such wide interpretation as to be more or less meaningless, although it did cause a huge amount of disruption.
As for LFTs, they aren't very good at picking up illness anyway.
AIUI, whilst the class and year group bubbles have been scrapped, an awful lot of children are still being pulled from classes because of Covid. Forgive my lack of persistence in not bothering to look for really recent numbers, but this is what was reported as going on last month:
The number of children out of school with a confirmed case of COVID-19 topped 100,000 in England last week, according to government figures.
The Department for Education (DfE) found the number of pupils out of school for coronavirus-related reasons increased by two thirds in a fortnight.
More than 204,000 - 2.5% of all pupils - were not in class for reasons connected to COVID-19 on Thursday last week.
This is up from 122,300 children, or 1.5% of all pupils on 16 September - a 67% rise from two weeks ago.
The figures come as heads reported "a high level of disruption", with a school leaders' union warning that self-isolation rules are "actively contributing" to the spread of the virus in schools.
100k kids off with Covid, plus about another 100k off "for reasons connected to Covid". I'd be very surprised if all of the first category were too ill to go to school, and the second category sounds suspiciously like contact self-isolation. Besides which, isn't there also a big brouhaha going on at the moment about a new Government edict that they want the entire school population tested when they get back after Christmas?
The corrosive effect of Covid rules on education would appear to be ongoing.
Yes, to your last question, but it isn't going to happen as they've not provided the money to do it.
As for contacts, that's not happening any more. What is happening quite a lot in my admittedly anecdotal experience is that older siblings are having to take time off to help care for younger siblings because their parents have Covid.
Another problem - and it is a big problem - is that it is a nightmare finding supply staff when teachers are ill. There just aren't enough to go round. One primary school in Tamworth has had to send year groups home because they literally can't staff them, even after they pressed the lunchtime supervisors into service.
Have they vaccinated the pupils at your school yet? Most of ours were done back in October with the last couple of year groups just after half term.
We've just finished Year 9, still waiting on Year 8.
They did remember the vaccines on the second occasion...
The numbers missing from my lesson seem to be much lower; I’m even getting fairly regular full houses. Unless there is a test due that day, for some reason…
I have the same problem.
Funny, that.
I solved the problem last week with one of my Y13 classes by not telling them there was a test before the lesson. They seemed to think that was not in the spirit of the game.
They want you to revise your strategy going forward?
Three years to go. Boris is too busy sorting out COVID. He is not bothered by polls.
He has been found out. In hindsight it was inevitable. As a Prime Minister you have nowhere to hide and for someone who has employed this tactic since he first became an MP he's finding it impossible to cope. Put your house on him not being PM a day after the next election. The sigh of relief will only be matched by 1997 when Blair rid us of the detritus of the Thatcher/Major years
I now look back with fondness at the Thatcher/Major years.
After just two years of a Johnson Government culminating in Peppa Pig day, I wistfully recall Mrs Thatcher's callous but competent authoritarianism.
Maybe PM Priti in her jackboots and General's uniform, after reintroducin' hangin' and floggin' may change my mind. I may then look at Johnson's hilarious but troubling antics in a more positive light.
This is the moment for a forensic attack on Patel. The sort that Robin Cook used to excel at. She has got to be the most hated emblem of this ugly incarnation of Torydom. Her treatment of the refugees is the ideal cause to bring the Labour left back on board and for SKS to show his backbone. He's got to go in with all guns blazing and simply trample on the racists and bigots on the right....
And say what he would do instead, is the tricky bit.
Watching a bunch of metropolitan liberals talking to their own 5% demographic but out loud, about how wonderful it would be to pick up all the refugees from Calais and give them asylum, would be hilarious in an election campaign.
There is a cognitive dissonance in the government’s thinking about refugees. An eagerness to celebrate immigrant success stories, like that of Mr Zahawi, is accompanied by a system of managing asylum seekers designed to place huge and often treacherous obstacles in the path of anyone hoping to replicate his story. The result is a regime that neither displays compassion towards those seeking refuge nor gives voters confidence that the government has migration under control.
Viewed from Greece or Italy, which have seen much greater flows of migration, what Britain calls a “crisis” is a relatively modest challenge. It is not so much the numbers of those trying to cross the Channel as the visibility of them that has turned this into a political crisis.
The prime minister is...angrily exasperated by what he sees as Priti Patel’s failure to “grip” the issue. The home secretary, in turn, has spent her time blaming the French. They shouldn’t take it personally, because she also blames her own officials and legal advisers. Her efforts to shift culpability elsewhere are no longer working with her party.
One senior Tory remarks: “The trouble is all the political pressure on Boris is coming from hopelessly unrealistic headbangers on the right of my party saying, ‘Just send them back’. This is leading Boris and Priti in exactly the wrong direction because it will only increase French intransigence and make it even more difficult to solve.”
France is the country Britain most needs to be talking to. Neither the plight of the refugees nor public confidence in the management of migration will be improved without cooperation. Unfortunately, it is one of the least well-kept secrets in diplomacy that Anglo-French relations are dreadful.
Which points to a glaring and tragic irony. A Brexit sold with the slogan “take back control” has left the UK with a border that is now harder to control. Our country is even more dependent on collaboration with European neighbours who have much less incentive to be cooperative. There will be an empty chair where Britain should be sitting. Puerile point-scoring and phoney posturing have to stop before more people perish in the icy waters of the Channel.
He’s right. Macron should behave like a grown up
No. he's completely wrong. The fantasy that we have less control of our borders since Brexit is exactly that. In the EU we had no control over our borders or the flow of people from the EU. We didn't even attempt to monitor it and were astonished to find that EU immigrants amounted to nearly 10% of the population. This is both in absolute and percentage terms the largest inflow of population into this country in recorded history. And we didn't even know.
The other thing in this unprecedented flow of people was that people who had been given asylum in Greece or Italy were then entitled to freedom of movement across the EU including here. So, these front line countries may well have processed many more asylum seekers than we did but they did not necessarily stay there.
The flow of people in small boats will not be even 1% of the previous flows into this country. It is highly visible and politically sensitive but even with this seepage we have far more control of our borders than we have had for decades.
King Cole, I'm not persuaded by that, to be honest.
Great Britain slid back enormously when the Romans left, but they* idea swathes of good farmland was just given up freely to migrants (Saxons) is not something that feels in accord with human nature of** history. I cannot believe the Celts thought it was fine to just hand over power over the majority of the island to a load of incomers.
Edited extra bit: *the, and **or
Current thinking, AIUI, is that large swathes of land had been depopulated by plagues and the consequence of poor harvest. Further, that much of South and East 'England" was populated by a mixture of Celts, Angles and Saxons from pre-Roman times. There are odd references to the language spoken being similar;aer to that in what we now call the Low Countries. The lack of 'Celtic' names in that area is an indication.
I would love to be able wind back the clock and see what was going on. I’ve got an old Roman road buried under my garden that heads up the hill to a Norman church. Interesting to think what was there at the time the road was built. Perhaps a fortification looking towards the south coast. Or a pre Christian religious site. And what was going on there between 400AD and the Church being built 700 years later?
Did you ever watch Time Team? I’m sure it made proper historians cringe, but for those of us with an amateur interest it gave a fascinating insight into exactly that sort of thing.
Popular science and history communicators are hugely important of course. They may not be experts themselves, or they may have just had to simplify matters a great deal, but if it inspires people to look into the subject more, and a small percentage of those then go on to that field it is well worth it.
Not really the case judging by the rate at which archaeological departments are closing:
That might be because time team is not popular anymore, or indeed stopped for many years?
In any case it didnt counter the point, since that was that they are very important, not that every single example of them will sucessfully inspire. The ones that do so, or where teh zeitgeist makes their subjects more interesting, are worth it.
With the exception of Sheffield, I suspect it has more to do with a lack of numbers doing A-Level archaeology (or Classics/Ancient History) and the uncapped Russell Group unis hoovering up what there is.
Similar problem with university History departments.
Looking back it might have been fun to have done some geophysics. Archaeology is certainly a subject where art and science meet.
How marvellous it would be if we could develop geophysics to the accuracy and precision of say CT or MRI scans.
Think of all the artefacts that are there under the ground but that will never be found with current technology.
You can use those, if only on the bits you dig up.
Ground penetrating radar is probably the best bet for that. I would like to see the effect of using multiple wavelengths on the same bit of ground.
Do they use multiple transmitters to provide triangulation?
Also, why not have them on a GPS controlled drone (or drones) to remove the inaccuracies of someone marching a cross a field?
Might be a blessing if everyone could just hurry up and get it. We haven't had it despite one child at Uni, one at school and me not being particularly careful.
A friend living with a husband and two children, all down with it simultaneously, probably wouldn't agree. Another says that the situation at her (sick) daughter's school is insane, with staff and pupils both going down like ninepins - little serious education is taking place because of lack of continuity.
so its not really the illness bu the over reaction to it that disrupts the education.
We should've desisted from bothering to test children at all before the new school year started in September (by which point all adults, including logically all school staff, had been offered vaccination.) The kids themselves are all but invulnerable to serious illness; almost all children will suffer more from yet more cycles of hokey-cokey self-isolation than they will from catching Covid.
No child should be sent home from school for having Covid unless actually poorly with it. Contacts of those children shouldn't be sent home full stop.
They aren't being. That came to an end in July. As it happens, what was defined as a 'contact' even before that was subject to such wide interpretation as to be more or less meaningless, although it did cause a huge amount of disruption.
As for LFTs, they aren't very good at picking up illness anyway.
AIUI, whilst the class and year group bubbles have been scrapped, an awful lot of children are still being pulled from classes because of Covid. Forgive my lack of persistence in not bothering to look for really recent numbers, but this is what was reported as going on last month:
The number of children out of school with a confirmed case of COVID-19 topped 100,000 in England last week, according to government figures.
The Department for Education (DfE) found the number of pupils out of school for coronavirus-related reasons increased by two thirds in a fortnight.
More than 204,000 - 2.5% of all pupils - were not in class for reasons connected to COVID-19 on Thursday last week.
This is up from 122,300 children, or 1.5% of all pupils on 16 September - a 67% rise from two weeks ago.
The figures come as heads reported "a high level of disruption", with a school leaders' union warning that self-isolation rules are "actively contributing" to the spread of the virus in schools.
100k kids off with Covid, plus about another 100k off "for reasons connected to Covid". I'd be very surprised if all of the first category were too ill to go to school, and the second category sounds suspiciously like contact self-isolation. Besides which, isn't there also a big brouhaha going on at the moment about a new Government edict that they want the entire school population tested when they get back after Christmas?
The corrosive effect of Covid rules on education would appear to be ongoing.
Yes, to your last question, but it isn't going to happen as they've not provided the money to do it.
As for contacts, that's not happening any more. What is happening quite a lot in my admittedly anecdotal experience is that older siblings are having to take time off to help care for younger siblings because their parents have Covid.
Another problem - and it is a big problem - is that it is a nightmare finding supply staff when teachers are ill. There just aren't enough to go round. One primary school in Tamworth has had to send year groups home because they literally can't staff them, even after they pressed the lunchtime supervisors into service.
Have they vaccinated the pupils at your school yet? Most of ours were done back in October with the last couple of year groups just after half term.
We've just finished Year 9, still waiting on Year 8.
They did remember the vaccines on the second occasion...
The numbers missing from my lesson seem to be much lower; I’m even getting fairly regular full houses. Unless there is a test due that day, for some reason…
I have the same problem.
Funny, that.
I solved the problem last week with one of my Y13 classes by not telling them there was a test before the lesson. They seemed to think that was not in the spirit of the game.
They want you to revise your strategy going forward?
I want them to have a strategy of revision…
Isn’t revision more of a tactic than a strategy?
Not if you are doing it properly. Many on here are old enough and bright enough that they probably got though school and even university without really revising. That doesn’t work anymore. “Grade inflation” is largely down to pupils being much better prepared for their exams than they used to be (I’ll leave discussions of how much more they actually know and can use to another time) and that includes thinking about how to revise right at the start of each course.
If you have an age, health or disability reason for not wearing a face covering you do not need to show:
any written evidence of this an exemption card This means that you do not need to seek advice or request a letter from a medical professional about your reason for not wearing a face covering.
However, some people may feel more comfortable if they are able to show something that explains why they’re not wearing a face covering. This could be in the form of an exemption card, badge or even a home-made sign.
Carrying an exemption card or badge is a personal choice and is not required by law.
So unless they decide to change this - which I doubt if they can in practice given GP services are in effect moribund - they can pass what laws they like, nobody will have to wear a mask.
As a vulnerable disabled person I challenge people on public transport who aren't wearing masks. I do it politely at first (they might be exempt) but if they're just been obdurate or freedom loving (i.e. self-centred) I give them a piece of my mind.
Lots of you won't like it that I do but I'm afraid I'm not a self-centred tory. I think about other people. If you don't have a bloody good reason for not wearing a mask you should bloody well wear one until we've got this thing beat. Which we haven't yet.
And, yes, despite being disabled and vulnerable I DO wear a mask.
How do you manage to travel carrying such a burden of self-righteousness?
It can't be any heavier than your burden of self-important pomposity @Charles.
There is a cognitive dissonance in the government’s thinking about refugees. An eagerness to celebrate immigrant success stories, like that of Mr Zahawi, is accompanied by a system of managing asylum seekers designed to place huge and often treacherous obstacles in the path of anyone hoping to replicate his story. The result is a regime that neither displays compassion towards those seeking refuge nor gives voters confidence that the government has migration under control.
Viewed from Greece or Italy, which have seen much greater flows of migration, what Britain calls a “crisis” is a relatively modest challenge. It is not so much the numbers of those trying to cross the Channel as the visibility of them that has turned this into a political crisis.
The prime minister is...angrily exasperated by what he sees as Priti Patel’s failure to “grip” the issue. The home secretary, in turn, has spent her time blaming the French. They shouldn’t take it personally, because she also blames her own officials and legal advisers. Her efforts to shift culpability elsewhere are no longer working with her party.
One senior Tory remarks: “The trouble is all the political pressure on Boris is coming from hopelessly unrealistic headbangers on the right of my party saying, ‘Just send them back’. This is leading Boris and Priti in exactly the wrong direction because it will only increase French intransigence and make it even more difficult to solve.”
France is the country Britain most needs to be talking to. Neither the plight of the refugees nor public confidence in the management of migration will be improved without cooperation. Unfortunately, it is one of the least well-kept secrets in diplomacy that Anglo-French relations are dreadful.
Which points to a glaring and tragic irony. A Brexit sold with the slogan “take back control” has left the UK with a border that is now harder to control. Our country is even more dependent on collaboration with European neighbours who have much less incentive to be cooperative. There will be an empty chair where Britain should be sitting. Puerile point-scoring and phoney posturing have to stop before more people perish in the icy waters of the Channel.
He’s right. Macron should behave like a grown up
No. he's completely wrong. The fantasy that we have less control of our borders since Brexit is exactly that. In the EU we had no control over our borders or the flow of people from the EU. We didn't even attempt to monitor it and were astonished to find that EU immigrants amounted to nearly 10% of the population. This is both in absolute and percentage terms the largest inflow of population into this country in recorded history. And we didn't even know.
The other thing in this unprecedented flow of people was that people who had been given asylum in Greece or Italy were then entitled to freedom of movement across the EU including here. So, these front line countries may well have processed many more asylum seekers than we did but they did not necessarily stay there.
The flow of people in small boats will not be even 1% of the previous flows into this country. It is highly visible and politically sensitive but even with this seepage we have far more control of our borders than we have had for decades.
How does that work in Northern Ireland where we have now got zero input into EU wide initiatives but share a common land frontier with an EU member state with absolutely no controls whatsover?
King Cole, I'm not persuaded by that, to be honest.
Great Britain slid back enormously when the Romans left, but they* idea swathes of good farmland was just given up freely to migrants (Saxons) is not something that feels in accord with human nature of** history. I cannot believe the Celts thought it was fine to just hand over power over the majority of the island to a load of incomers.
Edited extra bit: *the, and **or
Current thinking, AIUI, is that large swathes of land had been depopulated by plagues and the consequence of poor harvest. Further, that much of South and East 'England" was populated by a mixture of Celts, Angles and Saxons from pre-Roman times. There are odd references to the language spoken being similar;aer to that in what we now call the Low Countries. The lack of 'Celtic' names in that area is an indication.
I would love to be able wind back the clock and see what was going on. I’ve got an old Roman road buried under my garden that heads up the hill to a Norman church. Interesting to think what was there at the time the road was built. Perhaps a fortification looking towards the south coast. Or a pre Christian religious site. And what was going on there between 400AD and the Church being built 700 years later?
Did you ever watch Time Team? I’m sure it made proper historians cringe, but for those of us with an amateur interest it gave a fascinating insight into exactly that sort of thing.
Popular science and history communicators are hugely important of course. They may not be experts themselves, or they may have just had to simplify matters a great deal, but if it inspires people to look into the subject more, and a small percentage of those then go on to that field it is well worth it.
Not really the case judging by the rate at which archaeological departments are closing:
That might be because time team is not popular anymore, or indeed stopped for many years?
In any case it didnt counter the point, since that was that they are very important, not that every single example of them will sucessfully inspire. The ones that do so, or where teh zeitgeist makes their subjects more interesting, are worth it.
With the exception of Sheffield, I suspect it has more to do with a lack of numbers doing A-Level archaeology (or Classics/Ancient History) and the uncapped Russell Group unis hoovering up what there is.
Similar problem with university History departments.
Looking back it might have been fun to have done some geophysics. Archaeology is certainly a subject where art and science meet.
How marvellous it would be if we could develop geophysics to the accuracy and precision of say CT or MRI scans.
Think of all the artefacts that are there under the ground but that will never be found with current technology.
You can use those, if only on the bits you dig up.
Ground penetrating radar is probably the best bet for that. I would like to see the effect of using multiple wavelengths on the same bit of ground.
Do they use multiple transmitters to provide triangulation?
Also, why not have them on a GPS controlled drone (or drones) to remove the inaccuracies of someone marching a cross a field?
Even back in the days of Time Team they were using GPS; Henry(?) and his long pole device.
There is a cognitive dissonance in the government’s thinking about refugees. An eagerness to celebrate immigrant success stories, like that of Mr Zahawi, is accompanied by a system of managing asylum seekers designed to place huge and often treacherous obstacles in the path of anyone hoping to replicate his story. The result is a regime that neither displays compassion towards those seeking refuge nor gives voters confidence that the government has migration under control.
Viewed from Greece or Italy, which have seen much greater flows of migration, what Britain calls a “crisis” is a relatively modest challenge. It is not so much the numbers of those trying to cross the Channel as the visibility of them that has turned this into a political crisis.
The prime minister is...angrily exasperated by what he sees as Priti Patel’s failure to “grip” the issue. The home secretary, in turn, has spent her time blaming the French. They shouldn’t take it personally, because she also blames her own officials and legal advisers. Her efforts to shift culpability elsewhere are no longer working with her party.
One senior Tory remarks: “The trouble is all the political pressure on Boris is coming from hopelessly unrealistic headbangers on the right of my party saying, ‘Just send them back’. This is leading Boris and Priti in exactly the wrong direction because it will only increase French intransigence and make it even more difficult to solve.”
France is the country Britain most needs to be talking to. Neither the plight of the refugees nor public confidence in the management of migration will be improved without cooperation. Unfortunately, it is one of the least well-kept secrets in diplomacy that Anglo-French relations are dreadful.
Which points to a glaring and tragic irony. A Brexit sold with the slogan “take back control” has left the UK with a border that is now harder to control. Our country is even more dependent on collaboration with European neighbours who have much less incentive to be cooperative. There will be an empty chair where Britain should be sitting. Puerile point-scoring and phoney posturing have to stop before more people perish in the icy waters of the Channel.
He’s right. Macron should behave like a grown up
No. he's completely wrong. The fantasy that we have less control of our borders since Brexit is exactly that. In the EU we had no control over our borders or the flow of people from the EU. We didn't even attempt to monitor it and were astonished to find that EU immigrants amounted to nearly 10% of the population. This is both in absolute and percentage terms the largest inflow of population into this country in recorded history. And we didn't even know.
The other thing in this unprecedented flow of people was that people who had been given asylum in Greece or Italy were then entitled to freedom of movement across the EU including here. So, these front line countries may well have processed many more asylum seekers than we did but they did not necessarily stay there.
The flow of people in small boats will not be even 1% of the previous flows into this country. It is highly visible and politically sensitive but even with this seepage we have far more control of our borders than we have had for decades.
He appears to start every week with the premise that whatever the government has been up to is wrong and evil, and works backwards from there. He’s making the usual pundit mistake, of thinking that sarcastic slogans are an acceptable substitute for actual reasoned analysis.
Perhaps he's starting from the premise the only articles less likely to be read than those criticising the Government are those praising it.
As an aside, other European countries face the same migrant problem - Spain for example has a huge problem with boats crossing to the Canaries from the African coast. It may be time to order a couple of large portions of humble pie, put away the jingoist rhetoric and look at some co-ordinated responses.
Priti Patel's problem is all Conservative Home Secretaries have to be uncompromising and "tough". Her chances in any future leadership election will be much improved if she can rely on the support of the "headbangers" (to use that awful term). Any "softening" of approach weakens her politically and leaves her without a core of support.
The other side of the coin is the mixed emotions pictures of migrant/refugee people evoke. Sympathy and anger seem to exist in fairly substantial measures. As with so many issues, immigration defies simple or simplistic responses.
Interesting article from Matthew Parris yesterday arguing the 1951 Convention is outdated and needs to be scrapped. He’s very much on the centrist wing of the Tory Party.
The original 1951 convention on refugees only applied to European refugees, and also was time limited to post war displacements. It was the 1967 revision that removed geographic and time constraints.
There is a cognitive dissonance in the government’s thinking about refugees. An eagerness to celebrate immigrant success stories, like that of Mr Zahawi, is accompanied by a system of managing asylum seekers designed to place huge and often treacherous obstacles in the path of anyone hoping to replicate his story. The result is a regime that neither displays compassion towards those seeking refuge nor gives voters confidence that the government has migration under control.
Viewed from Greece or Italy, which have seen much greater flows of migration, what Britain calls a “crisis” is a relatively modest challenge. It is not so much the numbers of those trying to cross the Channel as the visibility of them that has turned this into a political crisis.
The prime minister is...angrily exasperated by what he sees as Priti Patel’s failure to “grip” the issue. The home secretary, in turn, has spent her time blaming the French. They shouldn’t take it personally, because she also blames her own officials and legal advisers. Her efforts to shift culpability elsewhere are no longer working with her party.
One senior Tory remarks: “The trouble is all the political pressure on Boris is coming from hopelessly unrealistic headbangers on the right of my party saying, ‘Just send them back’. This is leading Boris and Priti in exactly the wrong direction because it will only increase French intransigence and make it even more difficult to solve.”
France is the country Britain most needs to be talking to. Neither the plight of the refugees nor public confidence in the management of migration will be improved without cooperation. Unfortunately, it is one of the least well-kept secrets in diplomacy that Anglo-French relations are dreadful.
Which points to a glaring and tragic irony. A Brexit sold with the slogan “take back control” has left the UK with a border that is now harder to control. Our country is even more dependent on collaboration with European neighbours who have much less incentive to be cooperative. There will be an empty chair where Britain should be sitting. Puerile point-scoring and phoney posturing have to stop before more people perish in the icy waters of the Channel.
He’s right. Macron should behave like a grown up
No. he's completely wrong. The fantasy that we have less control of our borders since Brexit is exactly that. In the EU we had no control over our borders or the flow of people from the EU. We didn't even attempt to monitor it and were astonished to find that EU immigrants amounted to nearly 10% of the population. This is both in absolute and percentage terms the largest inflow of population into this country in recorded history. And we didn't even know.
The other thing in this unprecedented flow of people was that people who had been given asylum in Greece or Italy were then entitled to freedom of movement across the EU including here. So, these front line countries may well have processed many more asylum seekers than we did but they did not necessarily stay there.
The flow of people in small boats will not be even 1% of the previous flows into this country. It is highly visible and politically sensitive but even with this seepage we have far more control of our borders than we have had for decades.
How does that work in Northern Ireland where we have now got zero input into EU wide initiatives but share a common land frontier with an EU member state with absolutely no controls whatsover?
It doesn't, which is why the Northern Ireland protocol is flawed. Thankfully, so far, very few people seem to have found this unlocked back door. It seems a hell of a lot safer than a wee boat in the Channel.
There is a cognitive dissonance in the government’s thinking about refugees. An eagerness to celebrate immigrant success stories, like that of Mr Zahawi, is accompanied by a system of managing asylum seekers designed to place huge and often treacherous obstacles in the path of anyone hoping to replicate his story. The result is a regime that neither displays compassion towards those seeking refuge nor gives voters confidence that the government has migration under control.
Viewed from Greece or Italy, which have seen much greater flows of migration, what Britain calls a “crisis” is a relatively modest challenge. It is not so much the numbers of those trying to cross the Channel as the visibility of them that has turned this into a political crisis.
The prime minister is...angrily exasperated by what he sees as Priti Patel’s failure to “grip” the issue. The home secretary, in turn, has spent her time blaming the French. They shouldn’t take it personally, because she also blames her own officials and legal advisers. Her efforts to shift culpability elsewhere are no longer working with her party.
One senior Tory remarks: “The trouble is all the political pressure on Boris is coming from hopelessly unrealistic headbangers on the right of my party saying, ‘Just send them back’. This is leading Boris and Priti in exactly the wrong direction because it will only increase French intransigence and make it even more difficult to solve.”
France is the country Britain most needs to be talking to. Neither the plight of the refugees nor public confidence in the management of migration will be improved without cooperation. Unfortunately, it is one of the least well-kept secrets in diplomacy that Anglo-French relations are dreadful.
Which points to a glaring and tragic irony. A Brexit sold with the slogan “take back control” has left the UK with a border that is now harder to control. Our country is even more dependent on collaboration with European neighbours who have much less incentive to be cooperative. There will be an empty chair where Britain should be sitting. Puerile point-scoring and phoney posturing have to stop before more people perish in the icy waters of the Channel.
He’s right. Macron should behave like a grown up
No. he's completely wrong. The fantasy that we have less control of our borders since Brexit is exactly that. In the EU we had no control over our borders or the flow of people from the EU. We didn't even attempt to monitor it and were astonished to find that EU immigrants amounted to nearly 10% of the population. This is both in absolute and percentage terms the largest inflow of population into this country in recorded history. And we didn't even know.
The other thing in this unprecedented flow of people was that people who had been given asylum in Greece or Italy were then entitled to freedom of movement across the EU including here. So, these front line countries may well have processed many more asylum seekers than we did but they did not necessarily stay there.
The flow of people in small boats will not be even 1% of the previous flows into this country. It is highly visible and politically sensitive but even with this seepage we have far more control of our borders than we have had for decades.
How does that work in Northern Ireland where we have now got zero input into EU wide initiatives but share a common land frontier with an EU member state with absolutely no controls whatsover?
It doesn't, which is why the Northern Ireland protocol is flawed. Thankfully, so far, very few people seem to have found this unlocked back door. It seems a hell of a lot safer than a wee boat in the Channel.
I assume getting on a boat to Ireland would require some form of ID?
Might be a blessing if everyone could just hurry up and get it. We haven't had it despite one child at Uni, one at school and me not being particularly careful.
A friend living with a husband and two children, all down with it simultaneously, probably wouldn't agree. Another says that the situation at her (sick) daughter's school is insane, with staff and pupils both going down like ninepins - little serious education is taking place because of lack of continuity.
so its not really the illness bu the over reaction to it that disrupts the education.
We should've desisted from bothering to test children at all before the new school year started in September (by which point all adults, including logically all school staff, had been offered vaccination.) The kids themselves are all but invulnerable to serious illness; almost all children will suffer more from yet more cycles of hokey-cokey self-isolation than they will from catching Covid.
No child should be sent home from school for having Covid unless actually poorly with it. Contacts of those children shouldn't be sent home full stop.
They aren't being. That came to an end in July. As it happens, what was defined as a 'contact' even before that was subject to such wide interpretation as to be more or less meaningless, although it did cause a huge amount of disruption.
As for LFTs, they aren't very good at picking up illness anyway.
AIUI, whilst the class and year group bubbles have been scrapped, an awful lot of children are still being pulled from classes because of Covid. Forgive my lack of persistence in not bothering to look for really recent numbers, but this is what was reported as going on last month:
The number of children out of school with a confirmed case of COVID-19 topped 100,000 in England last week, according to government figures.
The Department for Education (DfE) found the number of pupils out of school for coronavirus-related reasons increased by two thirds in a fortnight.
More than 204,000 - 2.5% of all pupils - were not in class for reasons connected to COVID-19 on Thursday last week.
This is up from 122,300 children, or 1.5% of all pupils on 16 September - a 67% rise from two weeks ago.
The figures come as heads reported "a high level of disruption", with a school leaders' union warning that self-isolation rules are "actively contributing" to the spread of the virus in schools.
100k kids off with Covid, plus about another 100k off "for reasons connected to Covid". I'd be very surprised if all of the first category were too ill to go to school, and the second category sounds suspiciously like contact self-isolation. Besides which, isn't there also a big brouhaha going on at the moment about a new Government edict that they want the entire school population tested when they get back after Christmas?
The corrosive effect of Covid rules on education would appear to be ongoing.
Yes, to your last question, but it isn't going to happen as they've not provided the money to do it.
As for contacts, that's not happening any more. What is happening quite a lot in my admittedly anecdotal experience is that older siblings are having to take time off to help care for younger siblings because their parents have Covid.
Another problem - and it is a big problem - is that it is a nightmare finding supply staff when teachers are ill. There just aren't enough to go round. One primary school in Tamworth has had to send year groups home because they literally can't staff them, even after they pressed the lunchtime supervisors into service.
Have they vaccinated the pupils at your school yet? Most of ours were done back in October with the last couple of year groups just after half term.
We've just finished Year 9, still waiting on Year 8.
They did remember the vaccines on the second occasion...
The numbers missing from my lesson seem to be much lower; I’m even getting fairly regular full houses. Unless there is a test due that day, for some reason…
I have the same problem.
Funny, that.
I solved the problem last week with one of my Y13 classes by not telling them there was a test before the lesson. They seemed to think that was not in the spirit of the game.
They want you to revise your strategy going forward?
I want them to have a strategy of revision…
Isn’t revision more of a tactic than a strategy?
Not if you are doing it properly. Many on here are old enough and bright enough that they probably got though school and even university without really revising. That doesn’t work anymore. “Grade inflation” is largely down to pupils being much better prepared for their exams than they used to be (I’ll leave discussions of how much more they actually know and can use to another time) and that includes thinking about how to revise right at the start of each course.
I remember @Dura_Ace once commented that the best way to get top grades in an exam is to practice past papers morning noon and night for three months in advance.
Kills off any love of the subject but it gets top grades.
Might be a blessing if everyone could just hurry up and get it. We haven't had it despite one child at Uni, one at school and me not being particularly careful.
A friend living with a husband and two children, all down with it simultaneously, probably wouldn't agree. Another says that the situation at her (sick) daughter's school is insane, with staff and pupils both going down like ninepins - little serious education is taking place because of lack of continuity.
so its not really the illness bu the over reaction to it that disrupts the education.
We should've desisted from bothering to test children at all before the new school year started in September (by which point all adults, including logically all school staff, had been offered vaccination.) The kids themselves are all but invulnerable to serious illness; almost all children will suffer more from yet more cycles of hokey-cokey self-isolation than they will from catching Covid.
No child should be sent home from school for having Covid unless actually poorly with it. Contacts of those children shouldn't be sent home full stop.
They aren't being. That came to an end in July. As it happens, what was defined as a 'contact' even before that was subject to such wide interpretation as to be more or less meaningless, although it did cause a huge amount of disruption.
As for LFTs, they aren't very good at picking up illness anyway.
AIUI, whilst the class and year group bubbles have been scrapped, an awful lot of children are still being pulled from classes because of Covid. Forgive my lack of persistence in not bothering to look for really recent numbers, but this is what was reported as going on last month:
The number of children out of school with a confirmed case of COVID-19 topped 100,000 in England last week, according to government figures.
The Department for Education (DfE) found the number of pupils out of school for coronavirus-related reasons increased by two thirds in a fortnight.
More than 204,000 - 2.5% of all pupils - were not in class for reasons connected to COVID-19 on Thursday last week.
This is up from 122,300 children, or 1.5% of all pupils on 16 September - a 67% rise from two weeks ago.
The figures come as heads reported "a high level of disruption", with a school leaders' union warning that self-isolation rules are "actively contributing" to the spread of the virus in schools.
100k kids off with Covid, plus about another 100k off "for reasons connected to Covid". I'd be very surprised if all of the first category were too ill to go to school, and the second category sounds suspiciously like contact self-isolation. Besides which, isn't there also a big brouhaha going on at the moment about a new Government edict that they want the entire school population tested when they get back after Christmas?
The corrosive effect of Covid rules on education would appear to be ongoing.
Yes, to your last question, but it isn't going to happen as they've not provided the money to do it.
As for contacts, that's not happening any more. What is happening quite a lot in my admittedly anecdotal experience is that older siblings are having to take time off to help care for younger siblings because their parents have Covid.
Another problem - and it is a big problem - is that it is a nightmare finding supply staff when teachers are ill. There just aren't enough to go round. One primary school in Tamworth has had to send year groups home because they literally can't staff them, even after they pressed the lunchtime supervisors into service.
Have they vaccinated the pupils at your school yet? Most of ours were done back in October with the last couple of year groups just after half term.
We've just finished Year 9, still waiting on Year 8.
They did remember the vaccines on the second occasion...
The numbers missing from my lesson seem to be much lower; I’m even getting fairly regular full houses. Unless there is a test due that day, for some reason…
I have the same problem.
Funny, that.
I solved the problem last week with one of my Y13 classes by not telling them there was a test before the lesson. They seemed to think that was not in the spirit of the game.
They want you to revise your strategy going forward?
I want them to have a strategy of revision…
Isn’t revision more of a tactic than a strategy?
Not if you are doing it properly. Many on here are old enough and bright enough that they probably got though school and even university without really revising. That doesn’t work anymore. “Grade inflation” is largely down to pupils being much better prepared for their exams than they used to be (I’ll leave discussions of how much more they actually know and can use to another time) and that includes thinking about how to revise right at the start of each course.
I remember @Dura_Ace once commented that the best way to get top grades in an exam is to practice past papers morning noon and night for three months in advance.
Kills off any love of the subject but it gets top grades.
There is a cognitive dissonance in the government’s thinking about refugees. An eagerness to celebrate immigrant success stories, like that of Mr Zahawi, is accompanied by a system of managing asylum seekers designed to place huge and often treacherous obstacles in the path of anyone hoping to replicate his story. The result is a regime that neither displays compassion towards those seeking refuge nor gives voters confidence that the government has migration under control.
Viewed from Greece or Italy, which have seen much greater flows of migration, what Britain calls a “crisis” is a relatively modest challenge. It is not so much the numbers of those trying to cross the Channel as the visibility of them that has turned this into a political crisis.
The prime minister is...angrily exasperated by what he sees as Priti Patel’s failure to “grip” the issue. The home secretary, in turn, has spent her time blaming the French. They shouldn’t take it personally, because she also blames her own officials and legal advisers. Her efforts to shift culpability elsewhere are no longer working with her party.
One senior Tory remarks: “The trouble is all the political pressure on Boris is coming from hopelessly unrealistic headbangers on the right of my party saying, ‘Just send them back’. This is leading Boris and Priti in exactly the wrong direction because it will only increase French intransigence and make it even more difficult to solve.”
France is the country Britain most needs to be talking to. Neither the plight of the refugees nor public confidence in the management of migration will be improved without cooperation. Unfortunately, it is one of the least well-kept secrets in diplomacy that Anglo-French relations are dreadful.
Which points to a glaring and tragic irony. A Brexit sold with the slogan “take back control” has left the UK with a border that is now harder to control. Our country is even more dependent on collaboration with European neighbours who have much less incentive to be cooperative. There will be an empty chair where Britain should be sitting. Puerile point-scoring and phoney posturing have to stop before more people perish in the icy waters of the Channel.
He’s right. Macron should behave like a grown up
No. he's completely wrong. The fantasy that we have less control of our borders since Brexit is exactly that. In the EU we had no control over our borders or the flow of people from the EU. We didn't even attempt to monitor it and were astonished to find that EU immigrants amounted to nearly 10% of the population. This is both in absolute and percentage terms the largest inflow of population into this country in recorded history. And we didn't even know.
The other thing in this unprecedented flow of people was that people who had been given asylum in Greece or Italy were then entitled to freedom of movement across the EU including here. So, these front line countries may well have processed many more asylum seekers than we did but they did not necessarily stay there.
The flow of people in small boats will not be even 1% of the previous flows into this country. It is highly visible and politically sensitive but even with this seepage we have far more control of our borders than we have had for decades.
How does that work in Northern Ireland where we have now got zero input into EU wide initiatives but share a common land frontier with an EU member state with absolutely no controls whatsover?
It doesn't, which is why the Northern Ireland protocol is flawed. Thankfully, so far, very few people seem to have found this unlocked back door. It seems a hell of a lot safer than a wee boat in the Channel.
I assume getting on a boat to Ireland would require some form of ID?
Yes, but if they get granted asylum in any EU country they have such ID. Not sure if other countries have the lesser status of leave to remain that we use. Maybe they do.
King Cole, I'm not persuaded by that, to be honest.
Great Britain slid back enormously when the Romans left, but they* idea swathes of good farmland was just given up freely to migrants (Saxons) is not something that feels in accord with human nature of** history. I cannot believe the Celts thought it was fine to just hand over power over the majority of the island to a load of incomers.
Edited extra bit: *the, and **or
Current thinking, AIUI, is that large swathes of land had been depopulated by plagues and the consequence of poor harvest. Further, that much of South and East 'England" was populated by a mixture of Celts, Angles and Saxons from pre-Roman times. There are odd references to the language spoken being similar;aer to that in what we now call the Low Countries. The lack of 'Celtic' names in that area is an indication.
I would love to be able wind back the clock and see what was going on. I’ve got an old Roman road buried under my garden that heads up the hill to a Norman church. Interesting to think what was there at the time the road was built. Perhaps a fortification looking towards the south coast. Or a pre Christian religious site. And what was going on there between 400AD and the Church being built 700 years later?
Did you ever watch Time Team? I’m sure it made proper historians cringe, but for those of us with an amateur interest it gave a fascinating insight into exactly that sort of thing.
Popular science and history communicators are hugely important of course. They may not be experts themselves, or they may have just had to simplify matters a great deal, but if it inspires people to look into the subject more, and a small percentage of those then go on to that field it is well worth it.
Not really the case judging by the rate at which archaeological departments are closing:
That might be because time team is not popular anymore, or indeed stopped for many years?
In any case it didnt counter the point, since that was that they are very important, not that every single example of them will sucessfully inspire. The ones that do so, or where teh zeitgeist makes their subjects more interesting, are worth it.
With the exception of Sheffield, I suspect it has more to do with a lack of numbers doing A-Level archaeology (or Classics/Ancient History) and the uncapped Russell Group unis hoovering up what there is.
Similar problem with university History departments.
Looking back it might have been fun to have done some geophysics. Archaeology is certainly a subject where art and science meet.
How marvellous it would be if we could develop geophysics to the accuracy and precision of say CT or MRI scans.
Think of all the artefacts that are there under the ground but that will never be found with current technology.
You can use those, if only on the bits you dig up.
Ground penetrating radar is probably the best bet for that. I would like to see the effect of using multiple wavelengths on the same bit of ground.
Do they use multiple transmitters to provide triangulation?
Also, why not have them on a GPS controlled drone (or drones) to remove the inaccuracies of someone marching a cross a field?
Even back in the days of Time Team they were using GPS; Henry(?) and his long pole device.
Earlier this year I invested £9,500 in a GISS system - exactly what you are talking about. Looks like a big yellow lollypop. I use it for surveying for various archaeological companies. If I have the right suite of satellites then it is accurate to 3mm horizontally and 6mm vertically. Lovely piece of kit.
There is a cognitive dissonance in the government’s thinking about refugees. An eagerness to celebrate immigrant success stories, like that of Mr Zahawi, is accompanied by a system of managing asylum seekers designed to place huge and often treacherous obstacles in the path of anyone hoping to replicate his story. The result is a regime that neither displays compassion towards those seeking refuge nor gives voters confidence that the government has migration under control.
Viewed from Greece or Italy, which have seen much greater flows of migration, what Britain calls a “crisis” is a relatively modest challenge. It is not so much the numbers of those trying to cross the Channel as the visibility of them that has turned this into a political crisis.
The prime minister is...angrily exasperated by what he sees as Priti Patel’s failure to “grip” the issue. The home secretary, in turn, has spent her time blaming the French. They shouldn’t take it personally, because she also blames her own officials and legal advisers. Her efforts to shift culpability elsewhere are no longer working with her party.
One senior Tory remarks: “The trouble is all the political pressure on Boris is coming from hopelessly unrealistic headbangers on the right of my party saying, ‘Just send them back’. This is leading Boris and Priti in exactly the wrong direction because it will only increase French intransigence and make it even more difficult to solve.”
France is the country Britain most needs to be talking to. Neither the plight of the refugees nor public confidence in the management of migration will be improved without cooperation. Unfortunately, it is one of the least well-kept secrets in diplomacy that Anglo-French relations are dreadful.
Which points to a glaring and tragic irony. A Brexit sold with the slogan “take back control” has left the UK with a border that is now harder to control. Our country is even more dependent on collaboration with European neighbours who have much less incentive to be cooperative. There will be an empty chair where Britain should be sitting. Puerile point-scoring and phoney posturing have to stop before more people perish in the icy waters of the Channel.
He’s right. Macron should behave like a grown up
No. he's completely wrong. The fantasy that we have less control of our borders since Brexit is exactly that. In the EU we had no control over our borders or the flow of people from the EU. We didn't even attempt to monitor it and were astonished to find that EU immigrants amounted to nearly 10% of the population. This is both in absolute and percentage terms the largest inflow of population into this country in recorded history. And we didn't even know.
The other thing in this unprecedented flow of people was that people who had been given asylum in Greece or Italy were then entitled to freedom of movement across the EU including here. So, these front line countries may well have processed many more asylum seekers than we did but they did not necessarily stay there.
The flow of people in small boats will not be even 1% of the previous flows into this country. It is highly visible and politically sensitive but even with this seepage we have far more control of our borders than we have had for decades.
How does that work in Northern Ireland where we have now got zero input into EU wide initiatives but share a common land frontier with an EU member state with absolutely no controls whatsover?
It doesn't, which is why the Northern Ireland protocol is flawed. Thankfully, so far, very few people seem to have found this unlocked back door. It seems a hell of a lot safer than a wee boat in the Channel.
I assume getting on a boat to Ireland would require some form of ID?
Yes, ROI is in the CTA, not Shengen, so much the same as legitimately catching a ferry here.
Three years to go. Boris is too busy sorting out COVID. He is not bothered by polls.
He has been found out. In hindsight it was inevitable. As a Prime Minister you have nowhere to hide and for someone who has employed this tactic since he first became an MP he's finding it impossible to cope. Put your house on him not being PM a day after the next election. The sigh of relief will only be matched by 1997 when Blair rid us of the detritus of the Thatcher/Major years
I now look back with fondness at the Thatcher/Major years.
After just two years of a Johnson Government culminating in Peppa Pig day, I wistfully recall Mrs Thatcher's callous but competent authoritarianism.
Maybe PM Priti in her jackboots and General's uniform, after reintroducin' hangin' and floggin' may change my mind. I may then look at Johnson's hilarious but troubling antics in a more positive light.
This is the moment for a forensic attack on Patel. The sort that Robin Cook used to excel at. She has got to be the most hated emblem of this ugly incarnation of Torydom. Her treatment of the refugees is the ideal cause to bring the Labour left back on board and for SKS to show his backbone. He's got to go in with all guns blazing and simply trample on the racists and bigots on the right....
And say what he would do instead, is the tricky bit.
It's the job of the opposition to expose the government's venality and lies and on this subject they are outrageous. Listen to the link posted by Nick P from the House of Lords. It points up her misuse of figures and it shows why her policies and distortions have cost lives.
But this should be a Labour cause. Not a moment to get Jackie Weaver involved.
There is a cognitive dissonance in the government’s thinking about refugees. An eagerness to celebrate immigrant success stories, like that of Mr Zahawi, is accompanied by a system of managing asylum seekers designed to place huge and often treacherous obstacles in the path of anyone hoping to replicate his story. The result is a regime that neither displays compassion towards those seeking refuge nor gives voters confidence that the government has migration under control.
Viewed from Greece or Italy, which have seen much greater flows of migration, what Britain calls a “crisis” is a relatively modest challenge. It is not so much the numbers of those trying to cross the Channel as the visibility of them that has turned this into a political crisis.
The prime minister is...angrily exasperated by what he sees as Priti Patel’s failure to “grip” the issue. The home secretary, in turn, has spent her time blaming the French. They shouldn’t take it personally, because she also blames her own officials and legal advisers. Her efforts to shift culpability elsewhere are no longer working with her party.
One senior Tory remarks: “The trouble is all the political pressure on Boris is coming from hopelessly unrealistic headbangers on the right of my party saying, ‘Just send them back’. This is leading Boris and Priti in exactly the wrong direction because it will only increase French intransigence and make it even more difficult to solve.”
France is the country Britain most needs to be talking to. Neither the plight of the refugees nor public confidence in the management of migration will be improved without cooperation. Unfortunately, it is one of the least well-kept secrets in diplomacy that Anglo-French relations are dreadful.
Which points to a glaring and tragic irony. A Brexit sold with the slogan “take back control” has left the UK with a border that is now harder to control. Our country is even more dependent on collaboration with European neighbours who have much less incentive to be cooperative. There will be an empty chair where Britain should be sitting. Puerile point-scoring and phoney posturing have to stop before more people perish in the icy waters of the Channel.
He’s right. Macron should behave like a grown up
No. he's completely wrong. The fantasy that we have less control of our borders since Brexit is exactly that. In the EU we had no control over our borders or the flow of people from the EU. We didn't even attempt to monitor it and were astonished to find that EU immigrants amounted to nearly 10% of the population. This is both in absolute and percentage terms the largest inflow of population into this country in recorded history. And we didn't even know.
The other thing in this unprecedented flow of people was that people who had been given asylum in Greece or Italy were then entitled to freedom of movement across the EU including here. So, these front line countries may well have processed many more asylum seekers than we did but they did not necessarily stay there.
The flow of people in small boats will not be even 1% of the previous flows into this country. It is highly visible and politically sensitive but even with this seepage we have far more control of our borders than we have had for decades.
How does that work in Northern Ireland where we have now got zero input into EU wide initiatives but share a common land frontier with an EU member state with absolutely no controls whatsover?
It doesn't, which is why the Northern Ireland protocol is flawed. Thankfully, so far, very few people seem to have found this unlocked back door. It seems a hell of a lot safer than a wee boat in the Channel.
I assume getting on a boat to Ireland would require some form of ID?
Yes, but if they get granted asylum in any EU country they have such ID. Not sure if other countries have the lesser status of leave to remain that we use. Maybe they do.
Only when they have gained EU citizenship. 3rd country nationals with residence rights didn't have FoM.
Amusing to see the media illustrating stories of the new public transport mask wearing rules with pictures of the London Underground where... mask wearing is currently "required"!
King Cole, I'm not persuaded by that, to be honest.
Great Britain slid back enormously when the Romans left, but they* idea swathes of good farmland was just given up freely to migrants (Saxons) is not something that feels in accord with human nature of** history. I cannot believe the Celts thought it was fine to just hand over power over the majority of the island to a load of incomers.
Edited extra bit: *the, and **or
Current thinking, AIUI, is that large swathes of land had been depopulated by plagues and the consequence of poor harvest. Further, that much of South and East 'England" was populated by a mixture of Celts, Angles and Saxons from pre-Roman times. There are odd references to the language spoken being similar;aer to that in what we now call the Low Countries. The lack of 'Celtic' names in that area is an indication.
I would love to be able wind back the clock and see what was going on. I’ve got an old Roman road buried under my garden that heads up the hill to a Norman church. Interesting to think what was there at the time the road was built. Perhaps a fortification looking towards the south coast. Or a pre Christian religious site. And what was going on there between 400AD and the Church being built 700 years later?
Did you ever watch Time Team? I’m sure it made proper historians cringe, but for those of us with an amateur interest it gave a fascinating insight into exactly that sort of thing.
Popular science and history communicators are hugely important of course. They may not be experts themselves, or they may have just had to simplify matters a great deal, but if it inspires people to look into the subject more, and a small percentage of those then go on to that field it is well worth it.
Not really the case judging by the rate at which archaeological departments are closing:
That might be because time team is not popular anymore, or indeed stopped for many years?
In any case it didnt counter the point, since that was that they are very important, not that every single example of them will sucessfully inspire. The ones that do so, or where teh zeitgeist makes their subjects more interesting, are worth it.
With the exception of Sheffield, I suspect it has more to do with a lack of numbers doing A-Level archaeology (or Classics/Ancient History) and the uncapped Russell Group unis hoovering up what there is.
Similar problem with university History departments.
Looking back it might have been fun to have done some geophysics. Archaeology is certainly a subject where art and science meet.
How marvellous it would be if we could develop geophysics to the accuracy and precision of say CT or MRI scans.
Think of all the artefacts that are there under the ground but that will never be found with current technology.
You can use those, if only on the bits you dig up.
Ground penetrating radar is probably the best bet for that. I would like to see the effect of using multiple wavelengths on the same bit of ground.
Do they use multiple transmitters to provide triangulation?
Also, why not have them on a GPS controlled drone (or drones) to remove the inaccuracies of someone marching a cross a field?
When I watched Time Team back in the day, I reckoned the next improvement for geophys would be multiple sensors in one package. In those days, you had to do a site with radar, magnetometer, resistance etc, meaning multiple toils across the land. *If* they could put all those techniques into one device, it would speed things up considerably - and allow some clever analysis of the data. A potential problem being the devices themselves interfering with each other.
Another thing that really impressed me were the handheld spectrometer they used on a show with lots of ironworking: they would get a bit of slag, fire the spectrometer at it, and they could tell about what part of the ironworking process it came from. It was like something out of Star Trek. AIUI a similar idea is used on the various Mars rovers.
(For those who don't know, they're making more Time Team online.)
King Cole, I'm not persuaded by that, to be honest.
Great Britain slid back enormously when the Romans left, but they* idea swathes of good farmland was just given up freely to migrants (Saxons) is not something that feels in accord with human nature of** history. I cannot believe the Celts thought it was fine to just hand over power over the majority of the island to a load of incomers.
Edited extra bit: *the, and **or
Current thinking, AIUI, is that large swathes of land had been depopulated by plagues and the consequence of poor harvest. Further, that much of South and East 'England" was populated by a mixture of Celts, Angles and Saxons from pre-Roman times. There are odd references to the language spoken being similar;aer to that in what we now call the Low Countries. The lack of 'Celtic' names in that area is an indication.
I would love to be able wind back the clock and see what was going on. I’ve got an old Roman road buried under my garden that heads up the hill to a Norman church. Interesting to think what was there at the time the road was built. Perhaps a fortification looking towards the south coast. Or a pre Christian religious site. And what was going on there between 400AD and the Church being built 700 years later?
Did you ever watch Time Team? I’m sure it made proper historians cringe, but for those of us with an amateur interest it gave a fascinating insight into exactly that sort of thing.
Popular science and history communicators are hugely important of course. They may not be experts themselves, or they may have just had to simplify matters a great deal, but if it inspires people to look into the subject more, and a small percentage of those then go on to that field it is well worth it.
Not really the case judging by the rate at which archaeological departments are closing:
That might be because time team is not popular anymore, or indeed stopped for many years?
In any case it didnt counter the point, since that was that they are very important, not that every single example of them will sucessfully inspire. The ones that do so, or where teh zeitgeist makes their subjects more interesting, are worth it.
With the exception of Sheffield, I suspect it has more to do with a lack of numbers doing A-Level archaeology (or Classics/Ancient History) and the uncapped Russell Group unis hoovering up what there is.
Similar problem with university History departments.
Looking back it might have been fun to have done some geophysics. Archaeology is certainly a subject where art and science meet.
How marvellous it would be if we could develop geophysics to the accuracy and precision of say CT or MRI scans.
Think of all the artefacts that are there under the ground but that will never be found with current technology.
You can use those, if only on the bits you dig up.
Ground penetrating radar is probably the best bet for that. I would like to see the effect of using multiple wavelengths on the same bit of ground.
Do they use multiple transmitters to provide triangulation?
Also, why not have them on a GPS controlled drone (or drones) to remove the inaccuracies of someone marching a cross a field?
When I watched Time Team back in the day, I reckoned the next improvement for geophys would be multiple sensors in one package. In those days, you had to do a site with radar, magnetometer, resistance etc, meaning multiple toils across the land. *If* they could put all those techniques into one device, it would speed things up considerably - and allow some clever analysis of the data. A potential problem being the devices themselves interfering with each other.
Another thing that really impressed me were the handheld spectrometer they used on a show with lots of ironworking: they would get a bit of slag, fire the spectrometer at it, and they could tell about what part of the ironworking process it came from. It was like something out of Star Trek. AIUI a similar idea is used on the various Mars rovers.
(For those who don't know, they're making more Time Team online.)
Training more agnotologists?
@GBNEWS Neil Oliver: 'We can only presume that too many of us were seen to be awakening from the toxic trance into which we had been put by propaganda from the nudge unit... With fear on the wane it was plainly time to cast another spell.'
There is a cognitive dissonance in the government’s thinking about refugees. An eagerness to celebrate immigrant success stories, like that of Mr Zahawi, is accompanied by a system of managing asylum seekers designed to place huge and often treacherous obstacles in the path of anyone hoping to replicate his story. The result is a regime that neither displays compassion towards those seeking refuge nor gives voters confidence that the government has migration under control.
Viewed from Greece or Italy, which have seen much greater flows of migration, what Britain calls a “crisis” is a relatively modest challenge. It is not so much the numbers of those trying to cross the Channel as the visibility of them that has turned this into a political crisis.
The prime minister is...angrily exasperated by what he sees as Priti Patel’s failure to “grip” the issue. The home secretary, in turn, has spent her time blaming the French. They shouldn’t take it personally, because she also blames her own officials and legal advisers. Her efforts to shift culpability elsewhere are no longer working with her party.
One senior Tory remarks: “The trouble is all the political pressure on Boris is coming from hopelessly unrealistic headbangers on the right of my party saying, ‘Just send them back’. This is leading Boris and Priti in exactly the wrong direction because it will only increase French intransigence and make it even more difficult to solve.”
France is the country Britain most needs to be talking to. Neither the plight of the refugees nor public confidence in the management of migration will be improved without cooperation. Unfortunately, it is one of the least well-kept secrets in diplomacy that Anglo-French relations are dreadful.
Which points to a glaring and tragic irony. A Brexit sold with the slogan “take back control” has left the UK with a border that is now harder to control. Our country is even more dependent on collaboration with European neighbours who have much less incentive to be cooperative. There will be an empty chair where Britain should be sitting. Puerile point-scoring and phoney posturing have to stop before more people perish in the icy waters of the Channel.
He’s right. Macron should behave like a grown up
No. he's completely wrong. The fantasy that we have less control of our borders since Brexit is exactly that. In the EU we had no control over our borders or the flow of people from the EU. We didn't even attempt to monitor it and were astonished to find that EU immigrants amounted to nearly 10% of the population. This is both in absolute and percentage terms the largest inflow of population into this country in recorded history. And we didn't even know.
The other thing in this unprecedented flow of people was that people who had been given asylum in Greece or Italy were then entitled to freedom of movement across the EU including here. So, these front line countries may well have processed many more asylum seekers than we did but they did not necessarily stay there.
The flow of people in small boats will not be even 1% of the previous flows into this country. It is highly visible and politically sensitive but even with this seepage we have far more control of our borders than we have had for decades.
How does that work in Northern Ireland where we have now got zero input into EU wide initiatives but share a common land frontier with an EU member state with absolutely no controls whatsover?
It doesn't, which is why the Northern Ireland protocol is flawed. Thankfully, so far, very few people seem to have found this unlocked back door. It seems a hell of a lot safer than a wee boat in the Channel.
I assume getting on a boat to Ireland would require some form of ID?
Yes, but if they get granted asylum in any EU country they have such ID. Not sure if other countries have the lesser status of leave to remain that we use. Maybe they do.
Only when they have gained EU citizenship. 3rd country nationals with residence rights didn't have FoM.
That is what I am talking about. We gave a lot of applicants leave to remain rather than asylum or indeed citizenship. That did not give them the right to traipse around Europe, indeed if they left the UK they lost their rights. They could also be subject to time limits. But those granted full asylum did have freedom of movement. within the EU That was the quid pro quo of the Dublin agreement.
There is a cognitive dissonance in the government’s thinking about refugees. An eagerness to celebrate immigrant success stories, like that of Mr Zahawi, is accompanied by a system of managing asylum seekers designed to place huge and often treacherous obstacles in the path of anyone hoping to replicate his story. The result is a regime that neither displays compassion towards those seeking refuge nor gives voters confidence that the government has migration under control.
Viewed from Greece or Italy, which have seen much greater flows of migration, what Britain calls a “crisis” is a relatively modest challenge. It is not so much the numbers of those trying to cross the Channel as the visibility of them that has turned this into a political crisis.
The prime minister is...angrily exasperated by what he sees as Priti Patel’s failure to “grip” the issue. The home secretary, in turn, has spent her time blaming the French. They shouldn’t take it personally, because she also blames her own officials and legal advisers. Her efforts to shift culpability elsewhere are no longer working with her party.
One senior Tory remarks: “The trouble is all the political pressure on Boris is coming from hopelessly unrealistic headbangers on the right of my party saying, ‘Just send them back’. This is leading Boris and Priti in exactly the wrong direction because it will only increase French intransigence and make it even more difficult to solve.”
France is the country Britain most needs to be talking to. Neither the plight of the refugees nor public confidence in the management of migration will be improved without cooperation. Unfortunately, it is one of the least well-kept secrets in diplomacy that Anglo-French relations are dreadful.
Which points to a glaring and tragic irony. A Brexit sold with the slogan “take back control” has left the UK with a border that is now harder to control. Our country is even more dependent on collaboration with European neighbours who have much less incentive to be cooperative. There will be an empty chair where Britain should be sitting. Puerile point-scoring and phoney posturing have to stop before more people perish in the icy waters of the Channel.
He’s right. Macron should behave like a grown up
No. he's completely wrong. The fantasy that we have less control of our borders since Brexit is exactly that. In the EU we had no control over our borders or the flow of people from the EU. We didn't even attempt to monitor it and were astonished to find that EU immigrants amounted to nearly 10% of the population. This is both in absolute and percentage terms the largest inflow of population into this country in recorded history. And we didn't even know.
The other thing in this unprecedented flow of people was that people who had been given asylum in Greece or Italy were then entitled to freedom of movement across the EU including here. So, these front line countries may well have processed many more asylum seekers than we did but they did not necessarily stay there.
The flow of people in small boats will not be even 1% of the previous flows into this country. It is highly visible and politically sensitive but even with this seepage we have far more control of our borders than we have had for decades.
How does that work in Northern Ireland where we have now got zero input into EU wide initiatives but share a common land frontier with an EU member state with absolutely no controls whatsover?
It doesn't, which is why the Northern Ireland protocol is flawed. Thankfully, so far, very few people seem to have found this unlocked back door. It seems a hell of a lot safer than a wee boat in the Channel.
I assume getting on a boat to Ireland would require some form of ID?
In theory, you're supposed to have some sort of photo id. In practice if you turn up for the 23:30 Belfast to Cairnyan crossing enforcement may be... selective. I did the crossing three times earlier this year when I was sorting out my late mother's estate. I got asked for id 2 times out of 3.
Might be a blessing if everyone could just hurry up and get it. We haven't had it despite one child at Uni, one at school and me not being particularly careful.
A friend living with a husband and two children, all down with it simultaneously, probably wouldn't agree. Another says that the situation at her (sick) daughter's school is insane, with staff and pupils both going down like ninepins - little serious education is taking place because of lack of continuity.
so its not really the illness bu the over reaction to it that disrupts the education.
We should've desisted from bothering to test children at all before the new school year started in September (by which point all adults, including logically all school staff, had been offered vaccination.) The kids themselves are all but invulnerable to serious illness; almost all children will suffer more from yet more cycles of hokey-cokey self-isolation than they will from catching Covid.
No child should be sent home from school for having Covid unless actually poorly with it. Contacts of those children shouldn't be sent home full stop.
They aren't being. That came to an end in July. As it happens, what was defined as a 'contact' even before that was subject to such wide interpretation as to be more or less meaningless, although it did cause a huge amount of disruption.
As for LFTs, they aren't very good at picking up illness anyway.
AIUI, whilst the class and year group bubbles have been scrapped, an awful lot of children are still being pulled from classes because of Covid. Forgive my lack of persistence in not bothering to look for really recent numbers, but this is what was reported as going on last month:
The number of children out of school with a confirmed case of COVID-19 topped 100,000 in England last week, according to government figures.
The Department for Education (DfE) found the number of pupils out of school for coronavirus-related reasons increased by two thirds in a fortnight.
More than 204,000 - 2.5% of all pupils - were not in class for reasons connected to COVID-19 on Thursday last week.
This is up from 122,300 children, or 1.5% of all pupils on 16 September - a 67% rise from two weeks ago.
The figures come as heads reported "a high level of disruption", with a school leaders' union warning that self-isolation rules are "actively contributing" to the spread of the virus in schools.
100k kids off with Covid, plus about another 100k off "for reasons connected to Covid". I'd be very surprised if all of the first category were too ill to go to school, and the second category sounds suspiciously like contact self-isolation. Besides which, isn't there also a big brouhaha going on at the moment about a new Government edict that they want the entire school population tested when they get back after Christmas?
The corrosive effect of Covid rules on education would appear to be ongoing.
Yes, to your last question, but it isn't going to happen as they've not provided the money to do it.
As for contacts, that's not happening any more. What is happening quite a lot in my admittedly anecdotal experience is that older siblings are having to take time off to help care for younger siblings because their parents have Covid.
Another problem - and it is a big problem - is that it is a nightmare finding supply staff when teachers are ill. There just aren't enough to go round. One primary school in Tamworth has had to send year groups home because they literally can't staff them, even after they pressed the lunchtime supervisors into service.
Have they vaccinated the pupils at your school yet? Most of ours were done back in October with the last couple of year groups just after half term.
We've just finished Year 9, still waiting on Year 8.
They did remember the vaccines on the second occasion...
The numbers missing from my lesson seem to be much lower; I’m even getting fairly regular full houses. Unless there is a test due that day, for some reason…
I have the same problem.
Funny, that.
I solved the problem last week with one of my Y13 classes by not telling them there was a test before the lesson. They seemed to think that was not in the spirit of the game.
They want you to revise your strategy going forward?
I want them to have a strategy of revision…
Isn’t revision more of a tactic than a strategy?
Not if you are doing it properly. Many on here are old enough and bright enough that they probably got though school and even university without really revising. That doesn’t work anymore. “Grade inflation” is largely down to pupils being much better prepared for their exams than they used to be (I’ll leave discussions of how much more they actually know and can use to another time) and that includes thinking about how to revise right at the start of each course.
I read Thackeray and others for my first 2 years and then redid my entire degree starting in January of my final year. Missed a first by 1 grade, which taught me a really important lesson
Might be a blessing if everyone could just hurry up and get it. We haven't had it despite one child at Uni, one at school and me not being particularly careful.
A friend living with a husband and two children, all down with it simultaneously, probably wouldn't agree. Another says that the situation at her (sick) daughter's school is insane, with staff and pupils both going down like ninepins - little serious education is taking place because of lack of continuity.
so its not really the illness bu the over reaction to it that disrupts the education.
We should've desisted from bothering to test children at all before the new school year started in September (by which point all adults, including logically all school staff, had been offered vaccination.) The kids themselves are all but invulnerable to serious illness; almost all children will suffer more from yet more cycles of hokey-cokey self-isolation than they will from catching Covid.
No child should be sent home from school for having Covid unless actually poorly with it. Contacts of those children shouldn't be sent home full stop.
They aren't being. That came to an end in July. As it happens, what was defined as a 'contact' even before that was subject to such wide interpretation as to be more or less meaningless, although it did cause a huge amount of disruption.
As for LFTs, they aren't very good at picking up illness anyway.
AIUI, whilst the class and year group bubbles have been scrapped, an awful lot of children are still being pulled from classes because of Covid. Forgive my lack of persistence in not bothering to look for really recent numbers, but this is what was reported as going on last month:
The number of children out of school with a confirmed case of COVID-19 topped 100,000 in England last week, according to government figures.
The Department for Education (DfE) found the number of pupils out of school for coronavirus-related reasons increased by two thirds in a fortnight.
More than 204,000 - 2.5% of all pupils - were not in class for reasons connected to COVID-19 on Thursday last week.
This is up from 122,300 children, or 1.5% of all pupils on 16 September - a 67% rise from two weeks ago.
The figures come as heads reported "a high level of disruption", with a school leaders' union warning that self-isolation rules are "actively contributing" to the spread of the virus in schools.
100k kids off with Covid, plus about another 100k off "for reasons connected to Covid". I'd be very surprised if all of the first category were too ill to go to school, and the second category sounds suspiciously like contact self-isolation. Besides which, isn't there also a big brouhaha going on at the moment about a new Government edict that they want the entire school population tested when they get back after Christmas?
The corrosive effect of Covid rules on education would appear to be ongoing.
Yes, to your last question, but it isn't going to happen as they've not provided the money to do it.
As for contacts, that's not happening any more. What is happening quite a lot in my admittedly anecdotal experience is that older siblings are having to take time off to help care for younger siblings because their parents have Covid.
Another problem - and it is a big problem - is that it is a nightmare finding supply staff when teachers are ill. There just aren't enough to go round. One primary school in Tamworth has had to send year groups home because they literally can't staff them, even after they pressed the lunchtime supervisors into service.
Have they vaccinated the pupils at your school yet? Most of ours were done back in October with the last couple of year groups just after half term.
We've just finished Year 9, still waiting on Year 8.
They did remember the vaccines on the second occasion...
The numbers missing from my lesson seem to be much lower; I’m even getting fairly regular full houses. Unless there is a test due that day, for some reason…
I have the same problem.
Funny, that.
I solved the problem last week with one of my Y13 classes by not telling them there was a test before the lesson. They seemed to think that was not in the spirit of the game.
They want you to revise your strategy going forward?
I want them to have a strategy of revision…
Isn’t revision more of a tactic than a strategy?
Not if you are doing it properly. Many on here are old enough and bright enough that they probably got though school and even university without really revising. That doesn’t work anymore. “Grade inflation” is largely down to pupils being much better prepared for their exams than they used to be (I’ll leave discussions of how much more they actually know and can use to another time) and that includes thinking about how to revise right at the start of each course.
I read Thackeray and others for my first 2 years and then redid my entire degree starting in January of my final year. Missed a first by 1 grade, which taught me a really important lesson
Granddaughter 2, approaching GCSE's has what her father describes as an impressive revising system. Whole series of post-it notes, colour coded. Seems to work, given her 'mock' results. Haven't seen it, but if/when she come over for Christmas I'll try and get her to tell Granddaughter 3, same educational stage, who appears to be having problems.
Comment on the next thread since we can't post there yet...
Interesting comments, thanks, Fishing. My only comment at this stage is that in any other sphere we would see the total number of elections since 1945 as an incredibly small sample (about 20), with countless intervening factors, so we should beware of extrapolating what happened in 1997, 1992, 1983, 1945 etc.
Phil the Greek, Olivia de Havilland and the Notorious RBG have already died but not of covid so hard luck Union Divvie, Foss and Max. That's the risk you take with goal hanging.
I can't remember if I failed to submit a name for this because I thought it was in poor taste or if I was just disorganised. Anyway, I suppose I'm glad that nobody has won yet.
Well indeed my entry was a joke (I think along the lines of they've had it three times already by that point).
Though there's a part of me that wonders how history would be different if Benpointer had "won" it while his nominee was hospitalised. No January 6 then, but also Trump would likely have become a martyr to Q types.
King Cole, I'm not persuaded by that, to be honest.
Great Britain slid back enormously when the Romans left, but they* idea swathes of good farmland was just given up freely to migrants (Saxons) is not something that feels in accord with human nature of** history. I cannot believe the Celts thought it was fine to just hand over power over the majority of the island to a load of incomers.
Edited extra bit: *the, and **or
Current thinking, AIUI, is that large swathes of land had been depopulated by plagues and the consequence of poor harvest. Further, that much of South and East 'England" was populated by a mixture of Celts, Angles and Saxons from pre-Roman times. There are odd references to the language spoken being similar;aer to that in what we now call the Low Countries. The lack of 'Celtic' names in that area is an indication.
I would love to be able wind back the clock and see what was going on. I’ve got an old Roman road buried under my garden that heads up the hill to a Norman church. Interesting to think what was there at the time the road was built. Perhaps a fortification looking towards the south coast. Or a pre Christian religious site. And what was going on there between 400AD and the Church being built 700 years later?
Did you ever watch Time Team? I’m sure it made proper historians cringe, but for those of us with an amateur interest it gave a fascinating insight into exactly that sort of thing.
Popular science and history communicators are hugely important of course. They may not be experts themselves, or they may have just had to simplify matters a great deal, but if it inspires people to look into the subject more, and a small percentage of those then go on to that field it is well worth it.
Not really the case judging by the rate at which archaeological departments are closing:
That might be because time team is not popular anymore, or indeed stopped for many years?
In any case it didnt counter the point, since that was that they are very important, not that every single example of them will sucessfully inspire. The ones that do so, or where teh zeitgeist makes their subjects more interesting, are worth it.
With the exception of Sheffield, I suspect it has more to do with a lack of numbers doing A-Level archaeology (or Classics/Ancient History) and the uncapped Russell Group unis hoovering up what there is.
Similar problem with university History departments.
Looking back it might have been fun to have done some geophysics. Archaeology is certainly a subject where art and science meet.
How marvellous it would be if we could develop geophysics to the accuracy and precision of say CT or MRI scans.
Think of all the artefacts that are there under the ground but that will never be found with current technology.
You can use those, if only on the bits you dig up.
Ground penetrating radar is probably the best bet for that. I would like to see the effect of using multiple wavelengths on the same bit of ground.
Do they use multiple transmitters to provide triangulation?
Also, why not have them on a GPS controlled drone (or drones) to remove the inaccuracies of someone marching a cross a field?
When I watched Time Team back in the day, I reckoned the next improvement for geophys would be multiple sensors in one package. In those days, you had to do a site with radar, magnetometer, resistance etc, meaning multiple toils across the land. *If* they could put all those techniques into one device, it would speed things up considerably - and allow some clever analysis of the data. A potential problem being the devices themselves interfering with each other.
Another thing that really impressed me were the handheld spectrometer they used on a show with lots of ironworking: they would get a bit of slag, fire the spectrometer at it, and they could tell about what part of the ironworking process it came from. It was like something out of Star Trek. AIUI a similar idea is used on the various Mars rovers.
(For those who don't know, they're making more Time Team online.)
The problem with resistivity - whether it is in a field in Lincolnshire or 3 miles under the north sea in an exploration well - is that it relies on contact with the material it is measuring. Not something than can be done remotely. Magnetometry has a separate problem in that it cannot be used anywhere around metal or anything generating an electrical current. Otherwise that overwhelms any readings you are getting from the ground. That is why if you are using a magnetometer like a fluxgate gradiometer you need to make sure you have no metal on you at all. Steel toecaps in boots is a common error.
There are still advances going on but nothing really replaces actually digging. Geophys techniques would probably have had a lot of trouble finding the Sutton Hoo boat because in reality it wasn't there. 1300 years in the sand had dissolved all the wood so that all that was left was the imprint of the boat in stained sand and the metal that held it together. It was truly one of the most remarkable bits of archaeological excavation in history.
Phil the Greek, Olivia de Havilland and the Notorious RBG have already died but not of covid so hard luck Union Divvie, Foss and Max. That's the risk you take with goal hanging.
I can't remember if I failed to submit a name for this because I thought it was in poor taste or if I was just disorganised. Anyway, I suppose I'm glad that nobody has won yet.
Phil the Greek, Olivia de Havilland and the Notorious RBG have already died but not of covid so hard luck Union Divvie, Foss and Max. That's the risk you take with goal hanging.
I can't remember if I failed to submit a name for this because I thought it was in poor taste or if I was just disorganised. Anyway, I suppose I'm glad that nobody has won yet.
Well indeed my entry was a joke (I think along the lines of they've had it three times already by that point).
Though there's a part of me that wonders how history would be different if Benpointer had "won" it while his nominee was hospitalised. No January 6 then, but also Trump would likely have become a martyr to Q types.
I worry that Smithson junior's entry might mean he is less cautious than he might otherwise be. I mean you know how competitive he is.
Comment on the next thread since we can't post there yet...
Interesting comments, thanks, Fishing. My only comment at this stage is that in any other sphere we would see the total number of elections since 1945 as an incredibly small sample (about 20), with countless intervening factors, so we should beware of extrapolating what happened in 1997, 1992, 1983, 1945 etc.
I have doubts about posting on a thread that we can't see!
Comment on the next thread since we can't post there yet...
Interesting comments, thanks, Fishing. My only comment at this stage is that in any other sphere we would see the total number of elections since 1945 as an incredibly small sample (about 20), with countless intervening factors, so we should beware of extrapolating what happened in 1997, 1992, 1983, 1945 etc.
For me, I think mood is quite an important factor. Isn't there a quote from Callaghan about him sensing a change before he lost? Similarly, the mood had definitely changed by 1997. The last change of government in 2010 was a bit different because of the strength of the Lib Dems.
In 2015 I remember thinking that Cameron was going to be PM after the election simply because the mood hadn't changed. Will things be different next time? I don't know.
No one votes for a hung parliament, and they obviously can still happen. But I do think that the SNP is a big benefit for the Tories. I think of it as a bit like first time incumbency. We noticed it working for them in 2015 as it was new. But I think as long as the SNP are dominant in Scotland, the Tories will be difficult to remove from Westminster.
Comment on the next thread since we can't post there yet...
Interesting comments, thanks, Fishing. My only comment at this stage is that in any other sphere we would see the total number of elections since 1945 as an incredibly small sample (about 20), with countless intervening factors, so we should beware of extrapolating what happened in 1997, 1992, 1983, 1945 etc.
For me, I think mood is quite an important factor. Isn't there a quote from Callaghan about him sensing a change before he lost? Similarly, the mood had definitely changed by 1997. The last change of government in 2010 was a bit different because of the strength of the Lib Dems.
In 2015 I remember thinking that Cameron was going to be PM after the election simply because the mood hadn't changed. Will things be different next time? I don't know.
No one votes for a hung parliament, and they obviously can still happen. But I do think that the SNP is a big benefit for the Tories. I think of it as a bit like first time incumbency. We noticed it working for them in 2015 as it was new. But I think as long as the SNP are dominant in Scotland, the Tories will be difficult to remove from Westminster.
People on TV have started to make jokes which put the PM in a bad light. Always a sign that something is happening.
Comment on the next thread since we can't post there yet...
Interesting comments, thanks, Fishing. My only comment at this stage is that in any other sphere we would see the total number of elections since 1945 as an incredibly small sample (about 20), with countless intervening factors, so we should beware of extrapolating what happened in 1997, 1992, 1983, 1945 etc.
For me, I think mood is quite an important factor. Isn't there a quote from Callaghan about him sensing a change before he lost? Similarly, the mood had definitely changed by 1997. The last change of government in 2010 was a bit different because of the strength of the Lib Dems.
In 2015 I remember thinking that Cameron was going to be PM after the election simply because the mood hadn't changed. Will things be different next time? I don't know.
No one votes for a hung parliament, and they obviously can still happen. But I do think that the SNP is a big benefit for the Tories. I think of it as a bit like first time incumbency. We noticed it working for them in 2015 as it was new. But I think as long as the SNP are dominant in Scotland, the Tories will be difficult to remove from Westminster.
People on TV have started to make jokes which put the PM in a bad light. Always a sign that something is happening.
I made no comment on who would lead the Tories at the next election...
Comment on the next thread since we can't post there yet...
Interesting comments, thanks, Fishing. My only comment at this stage is that in any other sphere we would see the total number of elections since 1945 as an incredibly small sample (about 20), with countless intervening factors, so we should beware of extrapolating what happened in 1997, 1992, 1983, 1945 etc.
For me, I think mood is quite an important factor. Isn't there a quote from Callaghan about him sensing a change before he lost? Similarly, the mood had definitely changed by 1997. The last change of government in 2010 was a bit different because of the strength of the Lib Dems.
In 2015 I remember thinking that Cameron was going to be PM after the election simply because the mood hadn't changed. Will things be different next time? I don't know.
No one votes for a hung parliament, and they obviously can still happen. But I do think that the SNP is a big benefit for the Tories. I think of it as a bit like first time incumbency. We noticed it working for them in 2015 as it was new. But I think as long as the SNP are dominant in Scotland, the Tories will be difficult to remove from Westminster.
I agree about the SNP. It's a similar dynamic to tactical voting. Many people will fear that they have to vote Tory to keep the SNP out.
That's really hard for Labour to challenge at a UK GE, because it's not Labour that voters would be doubting, except insofar as they'd make compromises with the SNP to get in to office.
Labour has to rout the SNP to dispel these fears, and they are struggling to do that while the SNP and Tories collude to make the constitutional question of paramount importance.
King Cole, I'm not persuaded by that, to be honest.
Great Britain slid back enormously when the Romans left, but they* idea swathes of good farmland was just given up freely to migrants (Saxons) is not something that feels in accord with human nature of** history. I cannot believe the Celts thought it was fine to just hand over power over the majority of the island to a load of incomers.
Edited extra bit: *the, and **or
Current thinking, AIUI, is that large swathes of land had been depopulated by plagues and the consequence of poor harvest. Further, that much of South and East 'England" was populated by a mixture of Celts, Angles and Saxons from pre-Roman times. There are odd references to the language spoken being similar;aer to that in what we now call the Low Countries. The lack of 'Celtic' names in that area is an indication.
I would love to be able wind back the clock and see what was going on. I’ve got an old Roman road buried under my garden that heads up the hill to a Norman church. Interesting to think what was there at the time the road was built. Perhaps a fortification looking towards the south coast. Or a pre Christian religious site. And what was going on there between 400AD and the Church being built 700 years later?
Did you ever watch Time Team? I’m sure it made proper historians cringe, but for those of us with an amateur interest it gave a fascinating insight into exactly that sort of thing.
Popular science and history communicators are hugely important of course. They may not be experts themselves, or they may have just had to simplify matters a great deal, but if it inspires people to look into the subject more, and a small percentage of those then go on to that field it is well worth it.
Not really the case judging by the rate at which archaeological departments are closing:
That might be because time team is not popular anymore, or indeed stopped for many years?
In any case it didnt counter the point, since that was that they are very important, not that every single example of them will sucessfully inspire. The ones that do so, or where teh zeitgeist makes their subjects more interesting, are worth it.
With the exception of Sheffield, I suspect it has more to do with a lack of numbers doing A-Level archaeology (or Classics/Ancient History) and the uncapped Russell Group unis hoovering up what there is.
Similar problem with university History departments.
Looking back it might have been fun to have done some geophysics. Archaeology is certainly a subject where art and science meet.
How marvellous it would be if we could develop geophysics to the accuracy and precision of say CT or MRI scans.
Think of all the artefacts that are there under the ground but that will never be found with current technology.
You can use those, if only on the bits you dig up.
Ground penetrating radar is probably the best bet for that. I would like to see the effect of using multiple wavelengths on the same bit of ground.
Do they use multiple transmitters to provide triangulation?
Also, why not have them on a GPS controlled drone (or drones) to remove the inaccuracies of someone marching a cross a field?
When I watched Time Team back in the day, I reckoned the next improvement for geophys would be multiple sensors in one package. In those days, you had to do a site with radar, magnetometer, resistance etc, meaning multiple toils across the land. *If* they could put all those techniques into one device, it would speed things up considerably - and allow some clever analysis of the data. A potential problem being the devices themselves interfering with each other.
Another thing that really impressed me were the handheld spectrometer they used on a show with lots of ironworking: they would get a bit of slag, fire the spectrometer at it, and they could tell about what part of the ironworking process it came from. It was like something out of Star Trek. AIUI a similar idea is used on the various Mars rovers.
(For those who don't know, they're making more Time Team online.)
Training more agnotologists?
@GBNEWS Neil Oliver: 'We can only presume that too many of us were seen to be awakening from the toxic trance into which we had been put by propaganda from the nudge unit... With fear on the wane it was plainly time to cast another spell.'
Always thought Oliver was a tit from his interminable Coast to Coast trudges. My instinct was clearly right.
Phil the Greek, Olivia de Havilland and the Notorious RBG have already died but not of covid so hard luck Union Divvie, Foss and Max. That's the risk you take with goal hanging.
I can't remember if I failed to submit a name for this because I thought it was in poor taste or if I was just disorganised. Anyway, I suppose I'm glad that nobody has won yet.
Well indeed my entry was a joke (I think along the lines of they've had it three times already by that point).
Though there's a part of me that wonders how history would be different if Benpointer had "won" it while his nominee was hospitalised. No January 6 then, but also Trump would likely have become a martyr to Q types.
Comment on the next thread since we can't post there yet...
Interesting comments, thanks, Fishing. My only comment at this stage is that in any other sphere we would see the total number of elections since 1945 as an incredibly small sample (about 20), with countless intervening factors, so we should beware of extrapolating what happened in 1997, 1992, 1983, 1945 etc.
Imo 20 is getting towards a robust sample for this kind of unvariate correlation. You'll see in the second part of the thread why this is so - basically I'm arguing that it approximates to a normal distribution. It was a shame to have to split it up (though I understand why as the full thing was 1,300 words).
People on TV have started to make jokes which put the PM in a bad light. Always a sign that something is happening.
I remember the exact moment I knew the game was up for Corbyn's Corduroy Revolution. I was watching the darts and noticed that somebody in the audience was holding up a sign that said DIANE ABBOTT FOR SCOREKEEPER.
The live audience at a darts match aren't so much low information voters as zero information voters; thick as fuck leavers who eat gravy on toast for dinner and have spiders tattooed on their necks. Once even those people are laughing at you it's over.
King Cole, I'm not persuaded by that, to be honest.
Great Britain slid back enormously when the Romans left, but they* idea swathes of good farmland was just given up freely to migrants (Saxons) is not something that feels in accord with human nature of** history. I cannot believe the Celts thought it was fine to just hand over power over the majority of the island to a load of incomers.
Edited extra bit: *the, and **or
Current thinking, AIUI, is that large swathes of land had been depopulated by plagues and the consequence of poor harvest. Further, that much of South and East 'England" was populated by a mixture of Celts, Angles and Saxons from pre-Roman times. There are odd references to the language spoken being similar;aer to that in what we now call the Low Countries. The lack of 'Celtic' names in that area is an indication.
I would love to be able wind back the clock and see what was going on. I’ve got an old Roman road buried under my garden that heads up the hill to a Norman church. Interesting to think what was there at the time the road was built. Perhaps a fortification looking towards the south coast. Or a pre Christian religious site. And what was going on there between 400AD and the Church being built 700 years later?
Did you ever watch Time Team? I’m sure it made proper historians cringe, but for those of us with an amateur interest it gave a fascinating insight into exactly that sort of thing.
Popular science and history communicators are hugely important of course. They may not be experts themselves, or they may have just had to simplify matters a great deal, but if it inspires people to look into the subject more, and a small percentage of those then go on to that field it is well worth it.
Not really the case judging by the rate at which archaeological departments are closing:
That might be because time team is not popular anymore, or indeed stopped for many years?
In any case it didnt counter the point, since that was that they are very important, not that every single example of them will sucessfully inspire. The ones that do so, or where teh zeitgeist makes their subjects more interesting, are worth it.
With the exception of Sheffield, I suspect it has more to do with a lack of numbers doing A-Level archaeology (or Classics/Ancient History) and the uncapped Russell Group unis hoovering up what there is.
Similar problem with university History departments.
Looking back it might have been fun to have done some geophysics. Archaeology is certainly a subject where art and science meet.
How marvellous it would be if we could develop geophysics to the accuracy and precision of say CT or MRI scans.
Think of all the artefacts that are there under the ground but that will never be found with current technology.
You can use those, if only on the bits you dig up.
Ground penetrating radar is probably the best bet for that. I would like to see the effect of using multiple wavelengths on the same bit of ground.
Do they use multiple transmitters to provide triangulation?
Also, why not have them on a GPS controlled drone (or drones) to remove the inaccuracies of someone marching a cross a field?
When I watched Time Team back in the day, I reckoned the next improvement for geophys would be multiple sensors in one package. In those days, you had to do a site with radar, magnetometer, resistance etc, meaning multiple toils across the land. *If* they could put all those techniques into one device, it would speed things up considerably - and allow some clever analysis of the data. A potential problem being the devices themselves interfering with each other.
Another thing that really impressed me were the handheld spectrometer they used on a show with lots of ironworking: they would get a bit of slag, fire the spectrometer at it, and they could tell about what part of the ironworking process it came from. It was like something out of Star Trek. AIUI a similar idea is used on the various Mars rovers.
(For those who don't know, they're making more Time Team online.)
Training more agnotologists?
@GBNEWS Neil Oliver: 'We can only presume that too many of us were seen to be awakening from the toxic trance into which we had been put by propaganda from the nudge unit... With fear on the wane it was plainly time to cast another spell.'
Always thought Oliver was a tit from his interminable Coast to Coast trudges. My instinct was clearly right.
It really wasn't. One of the nicest and most down to earth people you will ever meet. Always happy to sit and chat or share a pint and made a point of thanking all the archaeologists and diggers who worked with him on the Two Men in a Trench' series by giving them a credit in the book. The contrast with Tony Robinson who is an arrogant prick is quite astounding.
Good morning everyone. Slightly unnerved by the government’s lurch towards new restrictions. The domestic restrictions are in and of themselves fairly minor - masks in shops and on trains. But, my concern is that they will simply have the effect of enlivening those who seek full lockdowns, the people who will now be given wall to wall coverage demanding more.
Good morning everyone. Slightly unnerved by the government’s lurch towards new restrictions. The domestic restrictions are in and of themselves fairly minor - masks in shops and on trains. But, my concern is that they will simply have the effect of enlivening those who seek full lockdowns, the people who will now be given wall to wall coverage demanding more.
More concerned about the need for (expensive) PCR tests for my family arriving next month from a currently safe country. Why are they £100+ at an airport when they can be given free 'out in the country'?
King Cole, I'm not persuaded by that, to be honest.
Great Britain slid back enormously when the Romans left, but they* idea swathes of good farmland was just given up freely to migrants (Saxons) is not something that feels in accord with human nature of** history. I cannot believe the Celts thought it was fine to just hand over power over the majority of the island to a load of incomers.
Edited extra bit: *the, and **or
Current thinking, AIUI, is that large swathes of land had been depopulated by plagues and the consequence of poor harvest. Further, that much of South and East 'England" was populated by a mixture of Celts, Angles and Saxons from pre-Roman times. There are odd references to the language spoken being similar;aer to that in what we now call the Low Countries. The lack of 'Celtic' names in that area is an indication.
I would love to be able wind back the clock and see what was going on. I’ve got an old Roman road buried under my garden that heads up the hill to a Norman church. Interesting to think what was there at the time the road was built. Perhaps a fortification looking towards the south coast. Or a pre Christian religious site. And what was going on there between 400AD and the Church being built 700 years later?
Did you ever watch Time Team? I’m sure it made proper historians cringe, but for those of us with an amateur interest it gave a fascinating insight into exactly that sort of thing.
Popular science and history communicators are hugely important of course. They may not be experts themselves, or they may have just had to simplify matters a great deal, but if it inspires people to look into the subject more, and a small percentage of those then go on to that field it is well worth it.
Not really the case judging by the rate at which archaeological departments are closing:
That might be because time team is not popular anymore, or indeed stopped for many years?
In any case it didnt counter the point, since that was that they are very important, not that every single example of them will sucessfully inspire. The ones that do so, or where teh zeitgeist makes their subjects more interesting, are worth it.
With the exception of Sheffield, I suspect it has more to do with a lack of numbers doing A-Level archaeology (or Classics/Ancient History) and the uncapped Russell Group unis hoovering up what there is.
Similar problem with university History departments.
Looking back it might have been fun to have done some geophysics. Archaeology is certainly a subject where art and science meet.
How marvellous it would be if we could develop geophysics to the accuracy and precision of say CT or MRI scans.
Think of all the artefacts that are there under the ground but that will never be found with current technology.
You can use those, if only on the bits you dig up.
Ground penetrating radar is probably the best bet for that. I would like to see the effect of using multiple wavelengths on the same bit of ground.
Do they use multiple transmitters to provide triangulation?
Also, why not have them on a GPS controlled drone (or drones) to remove the inaccuracies of someone marching a cross a field?
When I watched Time Team back in the day, I reckoned the next improvement for geophys would be multiple sensors in one package. In those days, you had to do a site with radar, magnetometer, resistance etc, meaning multiple toils across the land. *If* they could put all those techniques into one device, it would speed things up considerably - and allow some clever analysis of the data. A potential problem being the devices themselves interfering with each other.
Another thing that really impressed me were the handheld spectrometer they used on a show with lots of ironworking: they would get a bit of slag, fire the spectrometer at it, and they could tell about what part of the ironworking process it came from. It was like something out of Star Trek. AIUI a similar idea is used on the various Mars rovers.
(For those who don't know, they're making more Time Team online.)
Training more agnotologists?
@GBNEWS Neil Oliver: 'We can only presume that too many of us were seen to be awakening from the toxic trance into which we had been put by propaganda from the nudge unit... With fear on the wane it was plainly time to cast another spell.'
Always thought Oliver was a tit from his interminable Coast to Coast trudges. My instinct was clearly right.
It really wasn't. One of the nicest and most down to earth people you will ever meet. Always happy to sit and chat or share a pint and made a point of thanking all the archaeologists and diggers who worked with him on the Two Men in a Trench' series by giving them a credit in the book. The contrast with Tony Robinson who is an arrogant prick is quite astounding.
Perhaps the trauma of the pandemic has caused him to succumb to erstwhile latent softhead tendencies. He wouldn't be the only one - it's just he has a high media profile.
Difficult to disagree with several of the top voted suggestions.
Not a great start, at least in so far as Scotland is concerned, in that the definition of rape in s1 of the Sexual Offences (S) Act 2009 is gender neutral. Penetration with a penis of the vagina, anus or mouth without consent or reasonable belief of consent, are all rape, regardless of the sex of the complainer.
Phil the Greek, Olivia de Havilland and the Notorious RBG have already died but not of covid so hard luck Union Divvie, Foss and Max. That's the risk you take with goal hanging.
I can't remember if I failed to submit a name for this because I thought it was in poor taste or if I was just disorganised. Anyway, I suppose I'm glad that nobody has won yet.
Certainly it's poor taste, and I thought the last time it was discussed - during the worst of the crisis - many PB'ers thought it should be put aside.
Terrible taste. I'm devastated to have missed out.
Good morning everyone. Slightly unnerved by the government’s lurch towards new restrictions. The domestic restrictions are in and of themselves fairly minor - masks in shops and on trains. But, my concern is that they will simply have the effect of enlivening those who seek full lockdowns, the people who will now be given wall to wall coverage demanding more.
More concerned about the need for (expensive) PCR tests for my family arriving next month from a currently safe country. Why are they £100+ at an airport when they can be given free 'out in the country'?
I ordered a postal one for £26 I think but may have deleted the link. Was on the doormat when I got home. Of course, there was no requirement then to self-isolate until I got the result.
Good morning everyone. Slightly unnerved by the government’s lurch towards new restrictions. The domestic restrictions are in and of themselves fairly minor - masks in shops and on trains. But, my concern is that they will simply have the effect of enlivening those who seek full lockdowns, the people who will now be given wall to wall coverage demanding more.
More concerned about the need for (expensive) PCR tests for my family arriving next month from a currently safe country. Why are they £100+ at an airport when they can be given free 'out in the country'?
I ordered a postal one for £26 I think but may have deleted the link. Was on the doormat when I got home. Of course, there was no requirement then to self-isolate until I got the result.
Good morning everyone. Slightly unnerved by the government’s lurch towards new restrictions. The domestic restrictions are in and of themselves fairly minor - masks in shops and on trains. But, my concern is that they will simply have the effect of enlivening those who seek full lockdowns, the people who will now be given wall to wall coverage demanding more.
More concerned about the need for (expensive) PCR tests for my family arriving next month from a currently safe country. Why are they £100+ at an airport when they can be given free 'out in the country'?
I think they can do them on Day 2 for around £60 a pop, but as you say they really ought to be free. The PCR regime is a bit of a scam cf Owen Paterson.
Notably this would have happened without Brexit as it applies to all non Schengen arrivals.
Boxing Day at my mother in law's cancelled. Oh no. What a shame. I'm so sad. Really.
When are you planning to move to Switzerland Max?
Next year, probably around this time.
Twitter is saying this new Swiss restriction will be in place for a year, coincidentally. Could be total bollocks. I see no proof
I do think, however, that foreign travel is banjaxed for 6-12 months. Or more
Is Switzerland the only country that has blacklisted brits? Have friends in Oz and Singapore that desperately hoping the borders stay open a few weeks longer.
It may imply that warnings about vaccines leading to new variants, in particular in populations with a mix of immunity from vaccines and infections, were right, except that vaccination, even at lowish rates, could have contributed to the evolution of a milder variant.
It may further imply that the inability of current vaccines to induce strong humoral immunity may have in effect been - epidemiological speaking - a strength rather than a weakness.
Fingers crossed we get the lucky scenarios he sets out.
King Cole, I'm not persuaded by that, to be honest.
Great Britain slid back enormously when the Romans left, but they* idea swathes of good farmland was just given up freely to migrants (Saxons) is not something that feels in accord with human nature of** history. I cannot believe the Celts thought it was fine to just hand over power over the majority of the island to a load of incomers.
Edited extra bit: *the, and **or
Current thinking, AIUI, is that large swathes of land had been depopulated by plagues and the consequence of poor harvest. Further, that much of South and East 'England" was populated by a mixture of Celts, Angles and Saxons from pre-Roman times. There are odd references to the language spoken being similar;aer to that in what we now call the Low Countries. The lack of 'Celtic' names in that area is an indication.
I would love to be able wind back the clock and see what was going on. I’ve got an old Roman road buried under my garden that heads up the hill to a Norman church. Interesting to think what was there at the time the road was built. Perhaps a fortification looking towards the south coast. Or a pre Christian religious site. And what was going on there between 400AD and the Church being built 700 years later?
Did you ever watch Time Team? I’m sure it made proper historians cringe, but for those of us with an amateur interest it gave a fascinating insight into exactly that sort of thing.
Popular science and history communicators are hugely important of course. They may not be experts themselves, or they may have just had to simplify matters a great deal, but if it inspires people to look into the subject more, and a small percentage of those then go on to that field it is well worth it.
Not really the case judging by the rate at which archaeological departments are closing:
That might be because time team is not popular anymore, or indeed stopped for many years?
In any case it didnt counter the point, since that was that they are very important, not that every single example of them will sucessfully inspire. The ones that do so, or where teh zeitgeist makes their subjects more interesting, are worth it.
With the exception of Sheffield, I suspect it has more to do with a lack of numbers doing A-Level archaeology (or Classics/Ancient History) and the uncapped Russell Group unis hoovering up what there is.
Similar problem with university History departments.
Looking back it might have been fun to have done some geophysics. Archaeology is certainly a subject where art and science meet.
How marvellous it would be if we could develop geophysics to the accuracy and precision of say CT or MRI scans.
Think of all the artefacts that are there under the ground but that will never be found with current technology.
You can use those, if only on the bits you dig up.
Ground penetrating radar is probably the best bet for that. I would like to see the effect of using multiple wavelengths on the same bit of ground.
Do they use multiple transmitters to provide triangulation?
Also, why not have them on a GPS controlled drone (or drones) to remove the inaccuracies of someone marching a cross a field?
When I watched Time Team back in the day, I reckoned the next improvement for geophys would be multiple sensors in one package. In those days, you had to do a site with radar, magnetometer, resistance etc, meaning multiple toils across the land. *If* they could put all those techniques into one device, it would speed things up considerably - and allow some clever analysis of the data. A potential problem being the devices themselves interfering with each other.
Another thing that really impressed me were the handheld spectrometer they used on a show with lots of ironworking: they would get a bit of slag, fire the spectrometer at it, and they could tell about what part of the ironworking process it came from. It was like something out of Star Trek. AIUI a similar idea is used on the various Mars rovers.
(For those who don't know, they're making more Time Team online.)
Training more agnotologists?
@GBNEWS Neil Oliver: 'We can only presume that too many of us were seen to be awakening from the toxic trance into which we had been put by propaganda from the nudge unit... With fear on the wane it was plainly time to cast another spell.'
Always thought Oliver was a tit from his interminable Coast to Coast trudges. My instinct was clearly right.
It really wasn't. One of the nicest and most down to earth people you will ever meet. Always happy to sit and chat or share a pint and made a point of thanking all the archaeologists and diggers who worked with him on the Two Men in a Trench' series by giving them a credit in the book. The contrast with Tony Robinson who is an arrogant prick is quite astounding.
Perhaps the trauma of the pandemic has caused him to succumb to erstwhile latent softhead tendencies. He wouldn't be the only one - it's just he has a high media profile.
One can see on here how folk have been radicalised into softheaded hysteria, poring over every twitter random and amateur epidemiologist.
It must be awful for the remaining Corbyn fans, to see Labour doing so well
Not so much Labour, Starmer is still polling lower than the 39% Corbyn got in 2017.
More Starmer would benefit from a Remain alliance with the SNP (who are doing better than 2017) and LDs (who now Corbyn has gone as potential Labour PM are safe for Remain Tories to vote for in the South, see Chesham and Amersham) which would make him PM if he deprives the Tories of their majority at the next general election. Even if the Tories still win most seats
Snow here overnight. Only light. Glad I brought my Orange and clementine trees in yesterday.
Tall ceilings, or small trees ?
No orangery. Not yet anyway. The next project.
They're in large terracotta pots. About 1.2 metres high. They're in the snug extension to the living room downstairs where they got a lot of light.
There are some much taller lime and lemon trees outside which I have heavily mulched. I will put fleece round them. They are in a sheltered spot and on pot feet so the frost does not get them.
Snow is now quite heavy and looks like sticking. I may not be able to drive over the fells to London . It is very beautiful though.
Quite glad to have survived the winds. The whole of the house front is glass and we had to pay a small fortune to make sure that it was suitably reinforced to withstand heavy winds as we are on a hill. And it did. Phew! A few trees in the area came down and Daughter's marquee did not survive but fortunately it is not needed at the moment.
It may imply that warnings about vaccines leading to new variants, in particular in populations with a mix of immunity from vaccines and infections, were right, except that vaccination, even at lowish rates, could have contributed to the evolution of a milder variant.
It may further imply that the inability of current vaccines to induce strong humoral immunity may have in effect been - epidemiological speaking - a strength rather than a weakness.
Fingers crossed we get the lucky scenarios he sets out.
His comments about it becoming an upper respiratory tract infection seem spot on. My main symptom (apart from malaise and fever) was a sore throat, I had the odd cough and sneeze from about day 4 but it never seemed like going onto my chest.
Breaking: The Dutch #RIVM has confirmed 13 #Omicron cases out of the 61 positives. #coronavirus #Corona
That’s 13 cases of OMICRON THE MIGHTY on just one flight to Europe. How many flights have come from Southern Africa to Europe, N America, Asia, in the last week or so? There must be a few thousand cases seeded worldwide
King Cole, I'm not persuaded by that, to be honest.
Great Britain slid back enormously when the Romans left, but they* idea swathes of good farmland was just given up freely to migrants (Saxons) is not something that feels in accord with human nature of** history. I cannot believe the Celts thought it was fine to just hand over power over the majority of the island to a load of incomers.
Edited extra bit: *the, and **or
Current thinking, AIUI, is that large swathes of land had been depopulated by plagues and the consequence of poor harvest. Further, that much of South and East 'England" was populated by a mixture of Celts, Angles and Saxons from pre-Roman times. There are odd references to the language spoken being similar;aer to that in what we now call the Low Countries. The lack of 'Celtic' names in that area is an indication.
I would love to be able wind back the clock and see what was going on. I’ve got an old Roman road buried under my garden that heads up the hill to a Norman church. Interesting to think what was there at the time the road was built. Perhaps a fortification looking towards the south coast. Or a pre Christian religious site. And what was going on there between 400AD and the Church being built 700 years later?
Did you ever watch Time Team? I’m sure it made proper historians cringe, but for those of us with an amateur interest it gave a fascinating insight into exactly that sort of thing.
Popular science and history communicators are hugely important of course. They may not be experts themselves, or they may have just had to simplify matters a great deal, but if it inspires people to look into the subject more, and a small percentage of those then go on to that field it is well worth it.
Not really the case judging by the rate at which archaeological departments are closing:
That might be because time team is not popular anymore, or indeed stopped for many years?
In any case it didnt counter the point, since that was that they are very important, not that every single example of them will sucessfully inspire. The ones that do so, or where teh zeitgeist makes their subjects more interesting, are worth it.
With the exception of Sheffield, I suspect it has more to do with a lack of numbers doing A-Level archaeology (or Classics/Ancient History) and the uncapped Russell Group unis hoovering up what there is.
Similar problem with university History departments.
Looking back it might have been fun to have done some geophysics. Archaeology is certainly a subject where art and science meet.
How marvellous it would be if we could develop geophysics to the accuracy and precision of say CT or MRI scans.
Think of all the artefacts that are there under the ground but that will never be found with current technology.
You can use those, if only on the bits you dig up.
Ground penetrating radar is probably the best bet for that. I would like to see the effect of using multiple wavelengths on the same bit of ground.
Do they use multiple transmitters to provide triangulation?
Also, why not have them on a GPS controlled drone (or drones) to remove the inaccuracies of someone marching a cross a field?
When I watched Time Team back in the day, I reckoned the next improvement for geophys would be multiple sensors in one package. In those days, you had to do a site with radar, magnetometer, resistance etc, meaning multiple toils across the land. *If* they could put all those techniques into one device, it would speed things up considerably - and allow some clever analysis of the data. A potential problem being the devices themselves interfering with each other.
Another thing that really impressed me were the handheld spectrometer they used on a show with lots of ironworking: they would get a bit of slag, fire the spectrometer at it, and they could tell about what part of the ironworking process it came from. It was like something out of Star Trek. AIUI a similar idea is used on the various Mars rovers.
(For those who don't know, they're making more Time Team online.)
Training more agnotologists?
@GBNEWS Neil Oliver: 'We can only presume that too many of us were seen to be awakening from the toxic trance into which we had been put by propaganda from the nudge unit... With fear on the wane it was plainly time to cast another spell.'
Always thought Oliver was a tit from his interminable Coast to Coast trudges. My instinct was clearly right.
It really wasn't. One of the nicest and most down to earth people you will ever meet. Always happy to sit and chat or share a pint and made a point of thanking all the archaeologists and diggers who worked with him on the Two Men in a Trench' series by giving them a credit in the book. The contrast with Tony Robinson who is an arrogant prick is quite astounding.
Perhaps the trauma of the pandemic has caused him to succumb to erstwhile latent softhead tendencies. He wouldn't be the only one - it's just he has a high media profile.
One can see on here how folk have been radicalised into softheaded hysteria, poring over every twitter random and amateur epidemiologist.
Not very latent in some of them mind.
It's a pressure cooker, truly.
Oliver, I can't say I saw any of this nonsense fermenting previously. My main TV memory of him is quite a positive one. A few years ago, when I was in a bit of a gloomy mode, run up to Christmas, I sunk into a series of his on (I think) dinosaurs and it passed the time nicely. Now he seems to have become one!
Good morning everyone. Slightly unnerved by the government’s lurch towards new restrictions. The domestic restrictions are in and of themselves fairly minor - masks in shops and on trains. But, my concern is that they will simply have the effect of enlivening those who seek full lockdowns, the people who will now be given wall to wall coverage demanding more.
More concerned about the need for (expensive) PCR tests for my family arriving next month from a currently safe country. Why are they £100+ at an airport when they can be given free 'out in the country'?
I think they can do them on Day 2 for around £60 a pop, but as you say they really ought to be free. The PCR regime is a bit of a scam cf Owen Paterson.
I'm not sure why holidays should be subsidised by the taxpayer.
People on TV have started to make jokes which put the PM in a bad light. Always a sign that something is happening.
I remember the exact moment I knew the game was up for Corbyn's Corduroy Revolution. I was watching the darts and noticed that somebody in the audience was holding up a sign that said DIANE ABBOTT FOR SCOREKEEPER.
The live audience at a darts match aren't so much low information voters as zero information voters; thick as fuck leavers who eat gravy on toast for dinner and have spiders tattooed on their necks. Once even those people are laughing at you it's over.
Memes seem to reach almost everyone. Enough WhatsApp groups and you can see the same ideas sloshing through roughly the same time.
Makes me wonder who makes the things as I only know the consumers.
Notably this would have happened without Brexit as it applies to all non Schengen arrivals.
Boxing Day at my mother in law's cancelled. Oh no. What a shame. I'm so sad. Really.
When are you planning to move to Switzerland Max?
Next year, probably around this time.
Twitter is saying this new Swiss restriction will be in place for a year, coincidentally. Could be total bollocks. I see no proof
I do think, however, that foreign travel is banjaxed for 6-12 months. Or more
Is Switzerland the only country that has blacklisted brits? Have friends in Oz and Singapore that desperately hoping the borders stay open a few weeks longer.
They haven't "blacklisted Brits" they've blacklisted a range of countries where not-XI has shown up - and if you're on that list and not resident in Schengen you can't get in:
People on TV have started to make jokes which put the PM in a bad light. Always a sign that something is happening.
I remember the exact moment I knew the game was up for Corbyn's Corduroy Revolution. I was watching the darts and noticed that somebody in the audience was holding up a sign that said DIANE ABBOTT FOR SCOREKEEPER.
The live audience at a darts match aren't so much low information voters as zero information voters; thick as fuck leavers who eat gravy on toast for dinner and have spiders tattooed on their necks. Once even those people are laughing at you it's over.
I used to submit gags to "The News Huddlines" and I remember Roy Hudd saying that after the Falklands War, Mrs Thatcher was so popular that they had to edit out any gags about her because they didn't get a laugh. Later on after the "We are a Grandmother" business there was a feeling that she was becoming too regal and so they started to put jokes about her back in. They got such a laugh that they put more and more jokes in. In the end a member of the cast only had to say "Mrs Thatcher" and the audience rolled about laughing. She fell from power soon after.
A politician can survive hatred more than they can survive ridicule.
It must be awful for the remaining Corbyn fans, to see Labour doing so well
Not me. I still like JC, and I don't blame him for GE19, but I really want a Labour govt under SKS.
Read Left Out and then tell me you like JC. He's evidently an idiot
I don't mean as a leader. He was not a good choice. Not bright enough for one reason. Just shows how hacked off we were in 15 that he got the gig. He was as surprised as anyone, I think. But I liked the shift to the left under him, or some aspects of it, and I don't want to see that wing of the party driven out.
I shall continue to challenge anyone not wearing a mask on public transport or in shops.
Just buy yourself a proper mask and leave everyone else alone
My husband and I tested positive for COVID last night after nearly 2 years of following the rules and doing the right thing. That same day we took my very vulnerable mother out for a drive in the car. This morning I'm beginning to find anti mask rhetoric just a bit annoying.
I'm so sorry - hope your mother is OK and you both recover as quickly as possible.
In a similar vein, a sober report on my local NextDoor this morning:
"My wife collapsed at about 11.30 Saturday morning. She has early onset Alzheimer’s. 999 operative was very apologetic as no ambulance would be available for up to 6 hours. I drove my wife to hospital and was told by a nurse that they were being swamped by COVID patients nearly all unvaccinated. We are both triple jabbed and suggest that if you aren’t jabbed yet, maybe it’s time to consider getting done, if not for yourself then perhaps for your neighbour."
6 hours!!
And how many was 'swamped' ?
Your local hospital trust currently has 14 covid patients and admitted a grand total of 9 new covid patients in the last week:
People on TV have started to make jokes which put the PM in a bad light. Always a sign that something is happening.
I remember the exact moment I knew the game was up for Corbyn's Corduroy Revolution. I was watching the darts and noticed that somebody in the audience was holding up a sign that said DIANE ABBOTT FOR SCOREKEEPER.
The live audience at a darts match aren't so much low information voters as zero information voters; thick as fuck leavers who eat gravy on toast for dinner and have spiders tattooed on their necks. Once even those people are laughing at you it's over.
I used to submit gags to "The News Huddlines" and I remember Roy Hudd saying that after the Falklands War, Mrs Thatcher was so popular that they had to edit out any gags about her because they didn't get a laugh. Later on after the "We are a Grandmother" business there was a feeling that she was becoming too regal and so they started to put jokes about her back in. They got such a laugh that they put more and more jokes in. In the end a member of the cast only had to say "Mrs Thatcher" and the audience rolled about laughing. She fell from power soon after.
A politician can survive hatred more than they can survive ridicule.
Unfortunate then to have a PM so acutely designed to deserve it.
Comments
The other thing in this unprecedented flow of people was that people who had been given asylum in Greece or Italy were then entitled to freedom of movement across the EU including here. So, these front line countries may well have processed many more asylum seekers than we did but they did not necessarily stay there.
The flow of people in small boats will not be even 1% of the previous flows into this country. It is highly visible and politically sensitive but even with this seepage we have far more control of our borders than we have had for decades.
Also, why not have them on a GPS controlled drone (or drones) to remove the inaccuracies of someone marching a cross a field?
Kills off any love of the subject but it gets top grades.
https://twitter.com/AlexInAir/status/1464888537229189129?s=20
Notably this would have happened without Brexit as it applies to all non Schengen arrivals.
But this should be a Labour cause. Not a moment to get Jackie Weaver involved.
Another thing that really impressed me were the handheld spectrometer they used on a show with lots of ironworking: they would get a bit of slag, fire the spectrometer at it, and they could tell about what part of the ironworking process it came from. It was like something out of Star Trek. AIUI a similar idea is used on the various Mars rovers.
(For those who don't know, they're making more Time Team online.)
@GBNEWS
Neil Oliver: 'We can only presume that too many of us were seen to be awakening from the toxic trance into which we had been put by propaganda from the nudge unit... With fear on the wane it was plainly time to cast another spell.'
Seems to work, given her 'mock' results.
Haven't seen it, but if/when she come over for Christmas I'll try and get her to tell Granddaughter 3, same educational stage, who appears to be having problems.
Interesting comments, thanks, Fishing. My only comment at this stage is that in any other sphere we would see the total number of elections since 1945 as an incredibly small sample (about 20), with countless intervening factors, so we should beware of extrapolating what happened in 1997, 1992, 1983, 1945 etc.
Though there's a part of me that wonders how history would be different if Benpointer had "won" it while his nominee was hospitalised. No January 6 then, but also Trump would likely have become a martyr to Q types.
There are still advances going on but nothing really replaces actually digging. Geophys techniques would probably have had a lot of trouble finding the Sutton Hoo boat because in reality it wasn't there. 1300 years in the sand had dissolved all the wood so that all that was left was the imprint of the boat in stained sand and the metal that held it together. It was truly one of the most remarkable bits of archaeological excavation in history.
No Xi Jinping, that would be funniest thing ever
In 2015 I remember thinking that Cameron was going to be PM after the election simply because the mood hadn't changed. Will things be different next time? I don't know.
No one votes for a hung parliament, and they obviously can still happen. But I do think that the SNP is a big benefit for the Tories. I think of it as a bit like first time incumbency. We noticed it working for them in 2015 as it was new. But I think as long as the SNP are dominant in Scotland, the Tories will be difficult to remove from Westminster.
That's really hard for Labour to challenge at a UK GE, because it's not Labour that voters would be doubting, except insofar as they'd make compromises with the SNP to get in to office.
Labour has to rout the SNP to dispel these fears, and they are struggling to do that while the SNP and Tories collude to make the constitutional question of paramount importance.
The live audience at a darts match aren't so much low information voters as zero information voters; thick as fuck leavers who eat gravy on toast for dinner and have spiders tattooed on their necks. Once even those people are laughing at you it's over.
https://www.reddit.com/r/AskUK/comments/r3yrr7/what_uk_laws_are_in_serious_need_of_change/
Difficult to disagree with several of the top voted suggestions.
The mask law doesn't take effect until Tuesday so I won't wear one until then.
Why are they £100+ at an airport when they can be given free 'out in the country'?
Is England not the same?
I'm devastated to have missed out.
https://twitter.com/BallouxFrancois/status/1464913368201015297?s=20
I do think, however, that foreign travel is banjaxed for 6-12 months. Or more
https://twitter.com/BallouxFrancois/status/1464923140128223246
It may imply that warnings about vaccines leading to new variants, in particular in populations with a mix of immunity from vaccines and infections, were right, except that vaccination, even at lowish rates, could have contributed to the evolution of a milder variant.
https://twitter.com/BallouxFrancois/status/1464923142263033857
It may further imply that the inability of current vaccines to induce strong humoral immunity may have in effect been - epidemiological speaking - a strength rather than a weakness.
Fingers crossed we get the lucky scenarios he sets out.
Not very latent in some of them mind.
More Starmer would benefit from a Remain alliance with the SNP (who are doing better than 2017) and LDs (who now Corbyn has gone as potential Labour PM are safe for Remain Tories to vote for in the South, see Chesham and Amersham) which would make him PM if he deprives the Tories of their majority at the next general election. Even if the Tories still win most seats
They're in large terracotta pots. About 1.2 metres high. They're in the snug extension to the living room downstairs where they got a lot of light.
There are some much taller lime and lemon trees outside which I have heavily mulched. I will put fleece round them. They are in a sheltered spot and on pot feet so the frost does not get them.
Snow is now quite heavy and looks like sticking. I may not be able to drive over the fells to London . It is very beautiful though.
Quite glad to have survived the winds. The whole of the house front is glass and we had to pay a small fortune to make sure that it was suitably reinforced to withstand heavy winds as we are on a hill. And it did. Phew! A few trees in the area came down and Daughter's marquee did not survive but fortunately it is not needed at the moment.
@OmicronNews
Breaking: The Dutch #RIVM has confirmed 13 #Omicron cases out of the 61 positives. #coronavirus #Corona
That’s 13 cases of OMICRON THE MIGHTY on just one flight to Europe. How many flights have come from Southern Africa to Europe, N America, Asia, in the last week or so? There must be a few thousand cases seeded worldwide
Oliver, I can't say I saw any of this nonsense fermenting previously. My main TV memory of him is quite a positive one. A few years ago, when I was in a bit of a gloomy mode, run up to Christmas, I sunk into a series of his on (I think) dinosaurs and it passed the time nicely. Now he seems to have become one!
Makes me wonder who makes the things as I only know the consumers.
https://www.bag.admin.ch/bag/en/home/krankheiten/ausbrueche-epidemien-pandemien/aktuelle-ausbrueche-epidemien/novel-cov/empfehlungen-fuer-reisende/liste.html
Basically they are blacklisting countries with competent genomic sequencing....
A politician can survive hatred more than they can survive ridicule.
Your local hospital trust currently has 14 covid patients and admitted a grand total of 9 new covid patients in the last week:
https://coronavirus.data.gov.uk/details/healthcare?areaType=nhsTrust&areaName=Royal Surrey County Hospital NHS Foundation Trust