I've wittered on for years about spending more to help the children who are being left behind - the 15-20% who end up functionally illiterate or innumerate. But I also see some schools who restrain the bright - who insist that the kids who have genuine aptitude at a subject should go at the same speed as those who are less skilled at that subject.
In education, one size does not fit all. Setting or streaming is an absolute must IMO. And a kid who is bright at (say) maths might be a total dunce at history or languages, and vice verse.
Is Steve Barclay a part time chief of staff because this Government’s only a part time Government.
Or is Steve looking at George “10 jobs” Osbourne and seeing how far he can push things.
He's an MP so any other job he takes on has to be part time. We accept part time cabinet ministers as the norm, as they all try to hold down MP jobs as well.
But he is also staying a minister as well
Fair enough. When people bang on about MPs not being allowed to have second jobs, I think they should ban Government jobs as well. Especially as there is an obvious conflict of interest - how can you hold the Government to account if you are a member of it?
No 10 Chief of Staff should be a part time role anyway. We would be much better off if Boris was a puppet being controlled by a faction within the Conservative party. Time to abandon the Fuehrerprinzip.
Self-Denying Ordinance 1645
"The Self-denying Ordinance was passed by the English Parliament on 3 April 1645.[a] All members of the House of Commons or Lords who were also officers in the Parliamentary army or navy were required to resign one or the other, within 40 days from 3 April 1645.
It was part of a set of reforms designed to ensure victory, another being the establishment of a professional, centrally-controlled New Model Army, which replaced the existing system of regional armies. It was also linked to an internal political struggle between a Peace Party, who wanted a negotiated settlement with Charles, and a War Party which wanted to dictate terms.
First introduced in December 1644, the bill passed at the second attempt. As members of the Lords could not resign their titles, it effectively removed aristocratic commanders like the Earls of Manchester and Essex. Under the amended version, they were still required to resign their commissions, but could be re-appointed."
I've wittered on for years about spending more to help the children who are being left behind - the 15-20% who end up functionally illiterate or innumerate. But I also see some schools who restrain the bright - who insist that the kids who have genuine aptitude at a subject should go at the same speed as those who are less skilled at that subject.
In education, one size does not fit all. Setting or streaming is an absolute must IMO. And a kid who is bright at (say) maths might be a total dunce at history or languages, and vice verse.
yes quite agree , you would not have Tiger Woods or Jessica Ennis Hill and myself on the same coaching session for a golf lesson or doing a 100 m sprint (Although personally i would not object)
I suppose the question about Rishi Sunak is whether it's to be a known or an unknown quantity. John Major, for all he had been FS and was CoE, was a largely unknown figure in the autumn of 1990. Admittedly, when he started t get some media attention, the public liked what they saw and that prevented Michael Heseltine from winning the leadership election.
Sunak is a far more "known" quantity whether you think of him as "Dishy Rishi" or not. I'm to be convinced he can empathise with the majority of people and especially those finding it hard going economically and it remains to be seen how comfortable he will be in situations where he's not dealing with a room full of loyal Conservatives.
From where I sit, he comes over as someone who has not known failure - he seems to have been successful in everything he has done so far - and I just think the experience of failure or disappointment develops you as a person and an individual. That's just my observation.
@HYUFD offers a policy programme for him which has few surprises from a Conservative perspective. As others will say, he'll need to be seen to be running a Government and an economic policy that isn't wholly subservient to the Laffer Curve or to the financial sector. We are seeing, I think, the consequences of allowing the post-pandemic demand surge to overheat the economy.
We can't go on with what I would term the economics of Mercury - " we want it all and we want it now".
The other thing is that I think his government CV has been Local Government (telling councils they can't have money to spend), Chief Sec (telling everyone they can't have money to spend) and now Chancellor. I don't think he's ever had a role where he's been on the other side of the table- arguing for a bit of government spending because it's needed.
That would be a problem for any potential PM, but for one with (let's face it) as guilded a career as Rishi it's doubly so. For all his charm, he isn't new, improved John Major.
And financially, the next 2 years are set to be rubbish for a lot of people.
Sunak is responsible for the hike in national insurance - Half of it could have been avoided just by curbing the massive fraud that has gone on with furlough /CBILS loans etc . I think he has therefore failed in his job and not fit to be PM . Even if you argue that tax rises cannot be avoided in already a very high tax country then NI should have been the last tax to put it on . NI more than parties will cause the loss of red wall seats to the tories .Sunak has no experience of red wall seats . The eat out to help out scheme was also frankly pathetic causing more fraud , paperwork at both ends and for no effect
"If Old Labour had bulldozed Eton in the Seventies then almost everyone's life would be better today." Discuss.
"If Old Labour had not bulldozed most of the Grammar schools in the Sixties and Seventies then almost everyone's life would be better today." Discuss
Apart from the people who didn't get into the grammar schools I presume
No, everyone. The presence of those from the working class in positions of power helps everyone.
Apart from the people who didn't get into the grammar schools
The idea is that more policies (and I guess commercial decisions) benefitting 'the many not the few' would come from the presence of grammar school alumni in elite positions. You may disagree that that has been the practical outcome, but as a concept it's not too difficult to understand why it would benefit a wider group than those who actually went to grammar schools.
"Sorry you didn't get into a grammar and have to rot in a secondary modern but hey, George next door may become a banker so chin up."
The visual image with grammar schools is that of 'ladder'. There it is and it allows a few working class kids to 'escape' their limited prospects and 'ascend' to greater things. That image is accurate - this is the essence of grammars - and I hate it. We don't want a ladder we want a raising of the whole floor so there is nothing to escape from.
Descending from the important questions in the Header to the nakedly partisan - apols - I wonder how a Sunak/Starmer match-up would play to the country? I haven't quite worked myself out a take on this yet. I do probably need to since he looks nailed on if and when 'it' finally happens.
Starmer's only real appeal is that he is the boring-but-competent one against the charismatic but flawed partygate buffoonery of Boris (being generous to Boris there).
Sunak would essentially occupy the same boring-but-competent territory. Which is bad for Starmer.
Except that one has a modicum of working class background and a trusted profession.
The other is the richest person in Parliament and was a banker. Replace the first letter & you have how most people view them.
lawyer who are almost as unloved as bankers.
Utterly untrue as Mike Smithson demonstrated the other day.
IPSOS MORI (One of your two permitted pollsters):
Other professions trusted by more than half of the public include museum curators, the police, lawyers, civil servants, the ordinary man/woman on the street and clergy/priests. Professions with negative net trust ratings include bankers, local councillors, business leaders, professional footballers, estate agents and journalists.
"If Old Labour had bulldozed Eton in the Seventies then almost everyone's life would be better today." Discuss.
"If Old Labour had not bulldozed most of the Grammar schools in the Sixties and Seventies then almost everyone's life would be better today." Discuss
Apart from the people who didn't get into the grammar schools I presume
No, everyone. The presence of those from the working class in positions of power helps everyone.
Apart from the people who didn't get into the grammar schools
Yep appalling institutions
So appalling they produced the highest number of non privately educated people products in our top professions, yes even judges and lawyers had plenty of grammar school alumni. More so than the number who now come from comprehensives
If you got rid of private schools and grammar schools then 100% of our PMs, people in top professions and judges and lawyers would be from comprehensives. Explain that one.
If you got rid of Waitrose, Marks and Spencer and Sainsburys all their customers would have to shop at Tesco, Aldi or Lidl. Explain that one.
I believe in choice for parents as much as consumers
Let me break it down for you.
1. I don't believe we should abolish existing grammar schools.
2. I don't believe we should abolish private schools.
3. However, if we did, then 100% of our 'elite' would be from comprehensives.
I ask again, explain that one?
He doesn't understand what you are saying. It is pointless.
Rish's postives are that he is smart, articulate, rich, ethnic and empathic. His negatives is that he is rich, ex Goldman Sachs, despite a vivid imagination struggles to understand what the average joe is struggling with, a bit wooden and in some respects he has not been tested as a Chancellor who was allowed to let rip in an extraordinary situation.
What I think he would bring to the government is a sense of professionalism, less blunders, less charisma and some calmness. We need that. It's time.
Andrew Marr in Newstatesman this weekend says Hunt is the one to watch. Could come through in the end as the calm, experienced, doesn't actively piss any other MP off, nothing-to-do-with-any-of-this candidate.
Rish's postives are that he is smart, articulate, rich, ethnic and empathic. His negatives is that he is rich, ex Goldman Sachs, despite a vivid imagination struggles to understand what the average joe is struggling with, a bit wooden and in some respects he has not been tested as a Chancellor who was allowed to let rip in an extraordinary situation.
What I think he would bring to the government is a sense of professionalism, less blunders, less charisma and some calmness. We need that. It's time.
Andrew Marr in Newstatesman this weekend says Hunt is the one to watch. Could come through in the end as the calm, experienced, doesn't actively piss any other MP off, nothing-to-do-with-any-of-this candidate.
Hunt as PM would still have had us in lockdown or at least masked up . He was wrong on covid more so than Johnson
In May 2013, Boris Johnson announced a flagship £1.7bn scheme for Chinese investors to transform east London docks into the capital’s third financial district. It was the biggest commercial property deal he had announced during his time as London mayor and he pledged it would be a “beacon for eastern investors”.
While Johnson’s proposals for a new island airport in the Thames estuary and a new bridge linking Scotland and Northern Ireland never got off the ground, he hoped the Royal Albert Dock project would boost his mayoral legacy.
Despite the grand ambitions, residents say there has been no significant work at the 35-acre industrial site for more than two years and the scheme now appears on the brink of collapse. The Greater London Authority (GLA) confirmed last week a “final termination notice” had been served on the developer because of delays. The authority also said receivers have been appointed over six companies within the group structure of the developer.
I still don't think the British public will stomach a multi-millionare banker, hedge fund manager especially in the dark financial days ahead.
The tory party? That's a different story.
Sunak has a net worth of £200 million and is son in law of a billionaire. He would be the richest PM in the modern era and also while not as posh as Home or Cameron, being Winchester and Oxford educated still pretty posh himself
I don’t care how rich someone is. I do care about overall competence and image
On the other hand, he will be able to pay for his own refurbishing of Downing Street without the helping hand of a donor.....
It will cost him a fortune though undoing the mess.
"....He would bring to the government is a sense of professionalism, less blunders, less charisma and some calmness. We need that. It's time. "
For a moment David I thought you were referring to Starmer!
Starmer is growing into his role as LOTO. He has done what he can to improve his shadow cabinet but it still makes the cabinet look good and that is no mean achievement.
"If Old Labour had bulldozed Eton in the Seventies then almost everyone's life would be better today." Discuss.
"If Old Labour had not bulldozed most of the Grammar schools in the Sixties and Seventies then almost everyone's life would be better today." Discuss
Apart from the people who didn't get into the grammar schools I presume
No, everyone. The presence of those from the working class in positions of power helps everyone.
Apart from the people who didn't get into the grammar schools
The idea is that more policies (and I guess commercial decisions) benefitting 'the many not the few' would come from the presence of grammar school alumni in elite positions. You may disagree that that has been the practical outcome, but as a concept it's not too difficult to understand why it would benefit a wider group than those who actually went to grammar schools.
"Sorry you didn't get into a grammar and have to rot in a secondary modern but hey, George next door may become a banker so chin up."
The visual image with grammar schools is that of 'ladder'. There it is and it allows a few working class kids to 'escape' their limited prospects and 'ascend' to greater things. That image is accurate - this is the essence of grammars - and I hate it. We don't want a ladder we want a raising of the whole floor so there is nothing to escape from.
We need both. How to achieve that, I don’t know. Can you have grammar schools without secondary moderns?
My (incomplete) opinion is that grammar schools are ok as long as the alternative is well funded, can strive to be better than grammar schools despite the selection, and there’s a general culture or self improvement and education throughout life not just in the early years so that late bloomers or career changes out of necessity are not thrown on the shit heap.
“ This study has the rigor of lower grade marshmallow left out in the torching tropical sun.”
It does have one use. It’s a handy metric as to the credibility of any media outlet or commentator citing it as evidence of anything.
Because it’s so blatantly terrible, incoherent, desperately biased, and inconsistent that you don’t even need any specialist knowledge to rip it apart. Or to be aware that the single study they amplify actually concluded the opposite of what they claim.
It is getting to the point that I’m going to assume anyone citing it has read it and agrees with it. And therefore believes that:
- Sweden entered lockdown on 11th March 2010 and is still in lockdown - The lockdowns and border closures in Australia and New Zealand did nothing - Mask mandates make a massive reduction in deaths - Closure of pubs, restaurants, cafes, non-essential stores, and schools are all useful for NPIs (whilst simultaneously believing that no NPIs work. Somehow).
Rish's postives are that he is smart, articulate, rich, ethnic and empathic. His negatives is that he is rich, ex Goldman Sachs, despite a vivid imagination struggles to understand what the average joe is struggling with, a bit wooden and in some respects he has not been tested as a Chancellor who was allowed to let rip in an extraordinary situation.
What I think he would bring to the government is a sense of professionalism, less blunders, less charisma and some calmness. We need that. It's time.
Andrew Marr in Newstatesman this weekend says Hunt is the one to watch. Could come through in the end as the calm, experienced, doesn't actively piss any other MP off, nothing-to-do-with-any-of-this candidate.
Hunt as PM would still have had us in lockdown or at least masked up . He was wrong on covid more so than Johnson
Pretty much everyone has been wrong on covid and pretty much everyone has been right on covid. I don’t think its a disqualification.
England need a clatter of wickets and they need them now. The Indian attack probably deserves to win. They have bowled out every team they have played against in the tournament. That is some achievement in a format that favours the batters.
I suppose the question about Rishi Sunak is whether it's to be a known or an unknown quantity. John Major, for all he had been FS and was CoE, was a largely unknown figure in the autumn of 1990. Admittedly, when he started t get some media attention, the public liked what they saw and that prevented Michael Heseltine from winning the leadership election.
Sunak is a far more "known" quantity whether you think of him as "Dishy Rishi" or not. I'm to be convinced he can empathise with the majority of people and especially those finding it hard going economically and it remains to be seen how comfortable he will be in situations where he's not dealing with a room full of loyal Conservatives.
From where I sit, he comes over as someone who has not known failure - he seems to have been successful in everything he has done so far - and I just think the experience of failure or disappointment develops you as a person and an individual. That's just my observation.
@HYUFD offers a policy programme for him which has few surprises from a Conservative perspective. As others will say, he'll need to be seen to be running a Government and an economic policy that isn't wholly subservient to the Laffer Curve or to the financial sector. We are seeing, I think, the consequences of allowing the post-pandemic demand surge to overheat the economy.
We can't go on with what I would term the economics of Mercury - " we want it all and we want it now".
The other thing is that I think his government CV has been Local Government (telling councils they can't have money to spend), Chief Sec (telling everyone they can't have money to spend) and now Chancellor. I don't think he's ever had a role where he's been on the other side of the table- arguing for a bit of government spending because it's needed.
That would be a problem for any potential PM, but for one with (let's face it) as guilded a career as Rishi it's doubly so. For all his charm, he isn't new, improved John Major.
And financially, the next 2 years are set to be rubbish for a lot of people.
Sunak is responsible for the hike in national insurance - Half of it could have been avoided just by curbing the massive fraud that has gone on with furlough /CBILS loans etc . I think he has therefore failed in his job and not fit to be PM . Even if you argue that tax rises cannot be avoided in already a very high tax country then NI should have been the last tax to put it on . NI more than parties will cause the loss of red wall seats to the tories .Sunak has no experience of red wall seats . The eat out to help out scheme was also frankly pathetic causing more fraud , paperwork at both ends and for no effect
I suppose the question about Rishi Sunak is whether it's to be a known or an unknown quantity. John Major, for all he had been FS and was CoE, was a largely unknown figure in the autumn of 1990. Admittedly, when he started t get some media attention, the public liked what they saw and that prevented Michael Heseltine from winning the leadership election.
Sunak is a far more "known" quantity whether you think of him as "Dishy Rishi" or not. I'm to be convinced he can empathise with the majority of people and especially those finding it hard going economically and it remains to be seen how comfortable he will be in situations where he's not dealing with a room full of loyal Conservatives.
From where I sit, he comes over as someone who has not known failure - he seems to have been successful in everything he has done so far - and I just think the experience of failure or disappointment develops you as a person and an individual. That's just my observation.
@HYUFD offers a policy programme for him which has few surprises from a Conservative perspective. As others will say, he'll need to be seen to be running a Government and an economic policy that isn't wholly subservient to the Laffer Curve or to the financial sector. We are seeing, I think, the consequences of allowing the post-pandemic demand surge to overheat the economy.
We can't go on with what I would term the economics of Mercury - " we want it all and we want it now".
The other thing is that I think his government CV has been Local Government (telling councils they can't have money to spend), Chief Sec (telling everyone they can't have money to spend) and now Chancellor. I don't think he's ever had a role where he's been on the other side of the table- arguing for a bit of government spending because it's needed.
That would be a problem for any potential PM, but for one with (let's face it) as guilded a career as Rishi it's doubly so. For all his charm, he isn't new, improved John Major.
And financially, the next 2 years are set to be rubbish for a lot of people.
Sunak is responsible for the hike in national insurance - Half of it could have been avoided just by curbing the massive fraud that has gone on with furlough /CBILS loans etc . I think he has therefore failed in his job and not fit to be PM . Even if you argue that tax rises cannot be avoided in already a very high tax country then NI should have been the last tax to put it on . NI more than parties will cause the loss of red wall seats to the tories .Sunak has no experience of red wall seats . The eat out to help out scheme was also frankly pathetic causing more fraud , paperwork at both ends and for no effect
Rish's postives are that he is smart, articulate, rich, ethnic and empathic. His negatives is that he is rich, ex Goldman Sachs, despite a vivid imagination struggles to understand what the average joe is struggling with, a bit wooden and in some respects he has not been tested as a Chancellor who was allowed to let rip in an extraordinary situation.
What I think he would bring to the government is a sense of professionalism, less blunders, less charisma and some calmness. We need that. It's time.
Andrew Marr in Newstatesman this weekend says Hunt is the one to watch. Could come through in the end as the calm, experienced, doesn't actively piss any other MP off, nothing-to-do-with-any-of-this candidate.
Hunt as PM would still have had us in lockdown or at least masked up . He was wrong on covid more so than Johnson
Pretty much everyone has been wrong on covid and pretty much everyone has been right on covid. I don’t think its a disqualification.
I'm pretty sure where the candidates stand on lockdowns will not be a massive part of the next tory leadership race, but hey I am sometimes wrong.
I suppose the question about Rishi Sunak is whether it's to be a known or an unknown quantity. John Major, for all he had been FS and was CoE, was a largely unknown figure in the autumn of 1990. Admittedly, when he started t get some media attention, the public liked what they saw and that prevented Michael Heseltine from winning the leadership election.
Sunak is a far more "known" quantity whether you think of him as "Dishy Rishi" or not. I'm to be convinced he can empathise with the majority of people and especially those finding it hard going economically and it remains to be seen how comfortable he will be in situations where he's not dealing with a room full of loyal Conservatives.
From where I sit, he comes over as someone who has not known failure - he seems to have been successful in everything he has done so far - and I just think the experience of failure or disappointment develops you as a person and an individual. That's just my observation.
@HYUFD offers a policy programme for him which has few surprises from a Conservative perspective. As others will say, he'll need to be seen to be running a Government and an economic policy that isn't wholly subservient to the Laffer Curve or to the financial sector. We are seeing, I think, the consequences of allowing the post-pandemic demand surge to overheat the economy.
We can't go on with what I would term the economics of Mercury - " we want it all and we want it now".
The other thing is that I think his government CV has been Local Government (telling councils they can't have money to spend), Chief Sec (telling everyone they can't have money to spend) and now Chancellor. I don't think he's ever had a role where he's been on the other side of the table- arguing for a bit of government spending because it's needed.
That would be a problem for any potential PM, but for one with (let's face it) as guilded a career as Rishi it's doubly so. For all his charm, he isn't new, improved John Major.
And financially, the next 2 years are set to be rubbish for a lot of people.
Sunak is responsible for the hike in national insurance - Half of it could have been avoided just by curbing the massive fraud that has gone on with furlough /CBILS loans etc . I think he has therefore failed in his job and not fit to be PM . Even if you argue that tax rises cannot be avoided in already a very high tax country then NI should have been the last tax to put it on . NI more than parties will cause the loss of red wall seats to the tories .Sunak has no experience of red wall seats . The eat out to help out scheme was also frankly pathetic causing more fraud , paperwork at both ends and for no effect
Rish's postives are that he is smart, articulate, rich, ethnic and empathic. His negatives is that he is rich, ex Goldman Sachs, despite a vivid imagination struggles to understand what the average joe is struggling with, a bit wooden and in some respects he has not been tested as a Chancellor who was allowed to let rip in an extraordinary situation.
What I think he would bring to the government is a sense of professionalism, less blunders, less charisma and some calmness. We need that. It's time.
Andrew Marr in Newstatesman this weekend says Hunt is the one to watch. Could come through in the end as the calm, experienced, doesn't actively piss any other MP off, nothing-to-do-with-any-of-this candidate.
I would very much hope that he would form a part of the new government and that his talent would no longer be wasted but he will not lead it. If its not Rishi I think it will be Ben Wallace.
Descending from the important questions in the Header to the nakedly partisan - apols - I wonder how a Sunak/Starmer match-up would play to the country? I haven't quite worked myself out a take on this yet. I do probably need to since he looks nailed on if and when 'it' finally happens.
Starmer's only real appeal is that he is the boring-but-competent one against the charismatic but flawed partygate buffoonery of Boris (being generous to Boris there).
Sunak would essentially occupy the same boring-but-competent territory. Which is bad for Starmer.
Except that one has a modicum of working class background and a trusted profession.
The other is the richest person in Parliament and was a banker. Replace the first letter & you have how most people view them.
lawyer who are almost as unloved as bankers.
Utterly untrue as Mike Smithson demonstrated the other day.
IPSOS MORI (One of your two permitted pollsters):
Other professions trusted by more than half of the public include museum curators, the police, lawyers, civil servants, the ordinary man/woman on the street and clergy/priests. Professions with negative net trust ratings include bankers, local councillors, business leaders, professional footballers, estate agents and journalists.
"If Old Labour had bulldozed Eton in the Seventies then almost everyone's life would be better today." Discuss.
"If Old Labour had not bulldozed most of the Grammar schools in the Sixties and Seventies then almost everyone's life would be better today." Discuss
Apart from the people who didn't get into the grammar schools I presume
No, everyone. The presence of those from the working class in positions of power helps everyone.
Apart from the people who didn't get into the grammar schools
Yep appalling institutions
So appalling they produced the highest number of non privately educated people products in our top professions, yes even judges and lawyers had plenty of grammar school alumni. More so than the number who now come from comprehensives
If you got rid of private schools and grammar schools then 100% of our PMs, people in top professions and judges and lawyers would be from comprehensives. Explain that one.
If you got rid of Waitrose, Marks and Spencer and Sainsburys all their customers would have to shop at Tesco, Aldi or Lidl. Explain that one.
I believe in choice for parents as much as consumers
Let me break it down for you.
1. I don't believe we should abolish existing grammar schools.
2. I don't believe we should abolish private schools.
3. However, if we did, then 100% of our 'elite' would be from comprehensives.
I ask again, explain that one?
He doesn't understand what you are saying. It is pointless.
@Hyufd@Gallowgate is pointing out the irrationality of your argument by giving you the analogy that if there were only Comprehensives then 100% of the top people would come from them which according to your maths would prove they were best. Now that is nonsense. Much as I prefer Comprehensive schools it proves no such thing. Your use of statistics is mathematically wrong.
I suppose the question about Rishi Sunak is whether it's to be a known or an unknown quantity. John Major, for all he had been FS and was CoE, was a largely unknown figure in the autumn of 1990. Admittedly, when he started t get some media attention, the public liked what they saw and that prevented Michael Heseltine from winning the leadership election.
Sunak is a far more "known" quantity whether you think of him as "Dishy Rishi" or not. I'm to be convinced he can empathise with the majority of people and especially those finding it hard going economically and it remains to be seen how comfortable he will be in situations where he's not dealing with a room full of loyal Conservatives.
From where I sit, he comes over as someone who has not known failure - he seems to have been successful in everything he has done so far - and I just think the experience of failure or disappointment develops you as a person and an individual. That's just my observation.
@HYUFD offers a policy programme for him which has few surprises from a Conservative perspective. As others will say, he'll need to be seen to be running a Government and an economic policy that isn't wholly subservient to the Laffer Curve or to the financial sector. We are seeing, I think, the consequences of allowing the post-pandemic demand surge to overheat the economy.
We can't go on with what I would term the economics of Mercury - " we want it all and we want it now".
The other thing is that I think his government CV has been Local Government (telling councils they can't have money to spend), Chief Sec (telling everyone they can't have money to spend) and now Chancellor. I don't think he's ever had a role where he's been on the other side of the table- arguing for a bit of government spending because it's needed.
That would be a problem for any potential PM, but for one with (let's face it) as guilded a career as Rishi it's doubly so. For all his charm, he isn't new, improved John Major.
And financially, the next 2 years are set to be rubbish for a lot of people.
Sunak is responsible for the hike in national insurance - Half of it could have been avoided just by curbing the massive fraud that has gone on with furlough /CBILS loans etc . I think he has therefore failed in his job and not fit to be PM . Even if you argue that tax rises cannot be avoided in already a very high tax country then NI should have been the last tax to put it on . NI more than parties will cause the loss of red wall seats to the tories .Sunak has no experience of red wall seats . The eat out to help out scheme was also frankly pathetic causing more fraud , paperwork at both ends and for no effect
If he's really committed to sound money, not solving every problem with more borrowing and plugging the holes in the public finances, then there would seem to be four main ways to go about it: tax profits, tax personal assets, cut spending, tax earnings.
He's already hiked corporation tax significantly and daren't ramp that much further for fear of making the UK uncompetitive and depressing business activity. He can't tax assets because it would involve going after capital gains and property, which would cause the key Conservative demographics (the rich donors who fund the party, and elderly homeowners and their heirs) to scream in agony and desert. He can't cut spending either, again because the elderly demand an ever-increasing share of the cake to cover their free healthcare and index-linked state pensions, and he's running out of other things to cut (raising school class sizes to 50, abolishing the armed forces and reducing non-pensioner benefits to the point at which large numbers of claimants starve to death all being difficult sells.)
Therefore, the shortfall has to be found by heavier and heavier taxes on the working age population, whether directly through income tax and NI, or indirectly through VAT applied to most expenditure, so that the spending power of workers is effectively reduced in any case. A lot of that will come from stealth taxation - the freezing of personal allowances for years on end, and the reduction or abolition of certain reliefs - but we should also anticipate regular rises in this invidious new "Health and Social Care Levy." It won't stay at 1.25% for very long. It'll creep up by 0.25-0.50% every couple of years, the excuse of course being that Our Beloved NHS needs more and more money, and this is definitely the only way it can be raised, and if you oppose it being raised again then you must hate Our Beloved NHS and wish to see it burn.
Complaints that better ways to fund the NHS can be found (or, for that matter, that the tax is actually going up so that existing health funding can be switched to plugging other leaks,) will be studiously ignored - especially given that the Health and Social Care Levy has one key advantage. The large majority of people of pensionable age won't pay a penny. Again, the young are vampirized by the old.
Rish's postives are that he is smart, articulate, rich, ethnic and empathic. His negatives is that he is rich, ex Goldman Sachs, despite a vivid imagination struggles to understand what the average joe is struggling with, a bit wooden and in some respects he has not been tested as a Chancellor who was allowed to let rip in an extraordinary situation.
What I think he would bring to the government is a sense of professionalism, less blunders, less charisma and some calmness. We need that. It's time.
Andrew Marr in Newstatesman this weekend says Hunt is the one to watch. Could come through in the end as the calm, experienced, doesn't actively piss any other MP off, nothing-to-do-with-any-of-this candidate.
I would suggest Marr mentioning Hunt is more his remain side talking than realism
I have detected genuine fear among the real Brexiteers that Rishi is not hard enough on Northern Ireland, to the point they are losing the wider implications of leaving Boris in place which may will see a labour administration anyway
I suppose the question about Rishi Sunak is whether it's to be a known or an unknown quantity. John Major, for all he had been FS and was CoE, was a largely unknown figure in the autumn of 1990. Admittedly, when he started t get some media attention, the public liked what they saw and that prevented Michael Heseltine from winning the leadership election.
Sunak is a far more "known" quantity whether you think of him as "Dishy Rishi" or not. I'm to be convinced he can empathise with the majority of people and especially those finding it hard going economically and it remains to be seen how comfortable he will be in situations where he's not dealing with a room full of loyal Conservatives.
From where I sit, he comes over as someone who has not known failure - he seems to have been successful in everything he has done so far - and I just think the experience of failure or disappointment develops you as a person and an individual. That's just my observation.
@HYUFD offers a policy programme for him which has few surprises from a Conservative perspective. As others will say, he'll need to be seen to be running a Government and an economic policy that isn't wholly subservient to the Laffer Curve or to the financial sector. We are seeing, I think, the consequences of allowing the post-pandemic demand surge to overheat the economy.
We can't go on with what I would term the economics of Mercury - " we want it all and we want it now".
The other thing is that I think his government CV has been Local Government (telling councils they can't have money to spend), Chief Sec (telling everyone they can't have money to spend) and now Chancellor. I don't think he's ever had a role where he's been on the other side of the table- arguing for a bit of government spending because it's needed.
That would be a problem for any potential PM, but for one with (let's face it) as guilded a career as Rishi it's doubly so. For all his charm, he isn't new, improved John Major.
And financially, the next 2 years are set to be rubbish for a lot of people.
Sunak is responsible for the hike in national insurance - Half of it could have been avoided just by curbing the massive fraud that has gone on with furlough /CBILS loans etc . I think he has therefore failed in his job and not fit to be PM . Even if you argue that tax rises cannot be avoided in already a very high tax country then NI should have been the last tax to put it on . NI more than parties will cause the loss of red wall seats to the tories .Sunak has no experience of red wall seats . The eat out to help out scheme was also frankly pathetic causing more fraud , paperwork at both ends and for no effect
well yes especially when a sort of poll about future preference. In any of those type of polls who is best known comes out of top because frankly nobody cares that much about it but still has to pick an option so they pick somebody they have heard of. When they actually get in its a different matter.In any case when did we get to this pathetic situation when everything is deciided by focus groups or voodoo polls? Cannot anyone think for themselves or have opinions beyond the polling of others?
Descending from the important questions in the Header to the nakedly partisan - apols - I wonder how a Sunak/Starmer match-up would play to the country? I haven't quite worked myself out a take on this yet. I do probably need to since he looks nailed on if and when 'it' finally happens.
Starmer's only real appeal is that he is the boring-but-competent one against the charismatic but flawed partygate buffoonery of Boris (being generous to Boris there).
Sunak would essentially occupy the same boring-but-competent territory. Which is bad for Starmer.
Except that one has a modicum of working class background and a trusted profession.
The other is the richest person in Parliament and was a banker. Replace the first letter & you have how most people view them.
lawyer who are almost as unloved as bankers.
Utterly untrue as Mike Smithson demonstrated the other day.
IPSOS MORI (One of your two permitted pollsters):
Other professions trusted by more than half of the public include museum curators, the police, lawyers, civil servants, the ordinary man/woman on the street and clergy/priests. Professions with negative net trust ratings include bankers, local councillors, business leaders, professional footballers, estate agents and journalists.
"If Old Labour had bulldozed Eton in the Seventies then almost everyone's life would be better today." Discuss.
"If Old Labour had not bulldozed most of the Grammar schools in the Sixties and Seventies then almost everyone's life would be better today." Discuss
Apart from the people who didn't get into the grammar schools I presume
No, everyone. The presence of those from the working class in positions of power helps everyone.
Apart from the people who didn't get into the grammar schools
Yep appalling institutions
So appalling they produced the highest number of non privately educated people products in our top professions, yes even judges and lawyers had plenty of grammar school alumni. More so than the number who now come from comprehensives
If you got rid of private schools and grammar schools then 100% of our PMs, people in top professions and judges and lawyers would be from comprehensives. Explain that one.
If you got rid of Waitrose, Marks and Spencer and Sainsburys all their customers would have to shop at Tesco, Aldi or Lidl. Explain that one.
I believe in choice for parents as much as consumers
Let me break it down for you.
1. I don't believe we should abolish existing grammar schools.
2. I don't believe we should abolish private schools.
3. However, if we did, then 100% of our 'elite' would be from comprehensives.
I ask again, explain that one?
If you ban private schools, then the ‘elites’ will send their kids to school abroad - just as the elites of many other countries currently aspire to be able to send their kids to school in the UK.
Only a small minority.
My point is that HY quotes statistics without any appreciation of the other factors at play.
We know that comprehensives are better in rich areas and we know that wealth players a big part in children's prospects, regardless of whether you go to a comprehensive or a grammar school.
Therefore simply saying "ah but X% of our 'elite' went to a grammar school" tells us absolutely nothing about the benefit of grammar schools.
It's just bollocks, as usual.
Your point is you are an ideological leftwing socialist who would deny parents the choice of where to send their children and would nationalise much of industry too given the chance.
Yes indeed comprehensives are better in wealthy areas and the left destroyed the best tools of tackling that for a bright child by abolishing the grammar schools that used to exist in inner cities or ex industrial areas or poor seaside towns. So the only ones left are generally in more prosperous areas with Tory councils where comprehensive schools and academies tend to be better anyway so they are less needed.
So we still have selection in state education, just by house price and vicar's reference, not by IQ
Rish's postives are that he is smart, articulate, rich, ethnic and empathic. His negatives is that he is rich, ex Goldman Sachs, despite a vivid imagination struggles to understand what the average joe is struggling with, a bit wooden and in some respects he has not been tested as a Chancellor who was allowed to let rip in an extraordinary situation.
What I think he would bring to the government is a sense of professionalism, less blunders, less charisma and some calmness. We need that. It's time.
Andrew Marr in Newstatesman this weekend says Hunt is the one to watch. Could come through in the end as the calm, experienced, doesn't actively piss any other MP off, nothing-to-do-with-any-of-this candidate.
Hunt as PM would still have had us in lockdown or at least masked up . He was wrong on covid more so than Johnson
Lots of good points from Cyclefree, though goodness knows what quality of politician will be needed to meet all Cyclefree's demands, reasonable though they are.
Sunak's big problem is that he was and remains at the heart of a government that is discredited. The idea that there won't be anyone with a plausible dossier of anecdotes, and pictures seems unlikely. It's a risk, and the Tories can't afford another leader ending as badly as all the others.
This time they need to look outside government. For Sunak to be plausible he needed to resign after the Savile nonsense at the latest.
"If Old Labour had bulldozed Eton in the Seventies then almost everyone's life would be better today." Discuss.
"If Old Labour had not bulldozed most of the Grammar schools in the Sixties and Seventies then almost everyone's life would be better today." Discuss
Apart from the people who didn't get into the grammar schools I presume
No, everyone. The presence of those from the working class in positions of power helps everyone.
Apart from the people who didn't get into the grammar schools
The idea is that more policies (and I guess commercial decisions) benefitting 'the many not the few' would come from the presence of grammar school alumni in elite positions. You may disagree that that has been the practical outcome, but as a concept it's not too difficult to understand why it would benefit a wider group than those who actually went to grammar schools.
"Sorry you didn't get into a grammar and have to rot in a secondary modern but hey, George next door may become a banker so chin up."
The visual image with grammar schools is that of 'ladder'. There it is and it allows a few working class kids to 'escape' their limited prospects and 'ascend' to greater things. That image is accurate - this is the essence of grammars - and I hate it. We don't want a ladder we want a raising of the whole floor so there is nothing to escape from.
We need both. How to achieve that, I don’t know. Can you have grammar schools without secondary moderns?
My (incomplete) opinion is that grammar schools are ok as long as the alternative is well funded, can strive to be better than grammar schools despite the selection, and there’s a general culture or self improvement and education throughout life not just in the early years so that late bloomers or career changes out of necessity are not thrown on the shit heap.
You could have a couple of years of comprehensive middle school before dividing off into Grammars leading to traditional university degrees, and business/technical colleges which could lead either to work or to business schools.
Descending from the important questions in the Header to the nakedly partisan - apols - I wonder how a Sunak/Starmer match-up would play to the country? I haven't quite worked myself out a take on this yet. I do probably need to since he looks nailed on if and when 'it' finally happens.
Starmer's only real appeal is that he is the boring-but-competent one against the charismatic but flawed partygate buffoonery of Boris (being generous to Boris there).
Sunak would essentially occupy the same boring-but-competent territory. Which is bad for Starmer.
Except that one has a modicum of working class background and a trusted profession.
The other is the richest person in Parliament and was a banker. Replace the first letter & you have how most people view them.
lawyer who are almost as unloved as bankers.
Utterly untrue as Mike Smithson demonstrated the other day.
IPSOS MORI (One of your two permitted pollsters):
Other professions trusted by more than half of the public include museum curators, the police, lawyers, civil servants, the ordinary man/woman on the street and clergy/priests. Professions with negative net trust ratings include bankers, local councillors, business leaders, professional footballers, estate agents and journalists.
"If Old Labour had bulldozed Eton in the Seventies then almost everyone's life would be better today." Discuss.
"If Old Labour had not bulldozed most of the Grammar schools in the Sixties and Seventies then almost everyone's life would be better today." Discuss
Apart from the people who didn't get into the grammar schools I presume
No, everyone. The presence of those from the working class in positions of power helps everyone.
Apart from the people who didn't get into the grammar schools
Yep appalling institutions
So appalling they produced the highest number of non privately educated people products in our top professions, yes even judges and lawyers had plenty of grammar school alumni. More so than the number who now come from comprehensives
If you got rid of private schools and grammar schools then 100% of our PMs, people in top professions and judges and lawyers would be from comprehensives. Explain that one.
If you got rid of Waitrose, Marks and Spencer and Sainsburys all their customers would have to shop at Tesco, Aldi or Lidl. Explain that one.
I believe in choice for parents as much as consumers
Let me break it down for you.
1. I don't believe we should abolish existing grammar schools.
2. I don't believe we should abolish private schools.
3. However, if we did, then 100% of our 'elite' would be from comprehensives.
I ask again, explain that one?
If you ban private schools, then the ‘elites’ will send their kids to school abroad - just as the elites of many other countries currently aspire to be able to send their kids to school in the UK.
Only a small minority.
My point is that HY quotes statistics without any appreciation of the other factors at play.
We know that comprehensives are better in rich areas and we know that wealth players a big part in children's prospects, regardless of whether you go to a comprehensive or a grammar school.
Therefore simply saying "ah but X% of our 'elite' went to a grammar school" tells us absolutely nothing about the benefit of grammar schools.
It's just bollocks, as usual.
Your point is you are an ideological leftwing socialist who would deny parents the choice of where to send their children and would nationalise much of industry too given the chance.
Yes indeed comprehensives are better in wealthy areas and the left destroyed the best tools of tackling that for a bright child by abolishing the grammar schools that used to exist in inner cities or ex industrial areas or poor seaside towns. So the only ones left are generally in more prosperous areas where the comprehensive schools and academies tend to be better anyway so they are less needed.
Eh? I literally said that i didn’t support the abolishment of grammar or private schools.
Clearly your private school did not teach comprehension skills very well.
I still don't think the British public will stomach a multi-millionare banker, hedge fund manager especially in the dark financial days ahead.
The tory party? That's a different story.
Sunak has a net worth of £200 million and is son in law of a billionaire. He would be the richest PM in the modern era and also while not as posh as Home or Cameron, being Winchester and Oxford educated still pretty posh himself
I don’t care how rich someone is. I do care about overall competence and image
On the other hand, he will be able to pay for his own refurbishing of Downing Street without the helping hand of a donor.....
It will cost him a fortune though undoing the mess.
Very good quality emulsions are available to apply over graffiti !!!
Cyclefree is certainly right that the big appeal of Sunak to many is that he's not johnson in any way, shape or form. He's a classic Conservative and will return us to the pre-Johnson norm of austerity delivered with a pleasant, mild manner.
The difficulty that the Conservatives will have with that is that people are tired of that norm, and after 14 years in office will probably opt for a change, if Labour looks a reasonably sensible option. That's why they chose Johnson - a charismatic mould-breaker of few fixed opinions, he can't really be called a classic anything, and he therefore gave the opportunity to vote Tory and nonetheless get something different. From the Labour perspective, I'm still not really sure if we're better off facing a standard Tory or a chaotic showman.
Descending from the important questions in the Header to the nakedly partisan - apols - I wonder how a Sunak/Starmer match-up would play to the country? I haven't quite worked myself out a take on this yet. I do probably need to since he looks nailed on if and when 'it' finally happens.
Starmer's only real appeal is that he is the boring-but-competent one against the charismatic but flawed partygate buffoonery of Boris (being generous to Boris there).
Sunak would essentially occupy the same boring-but-competent territory. Which is bad for Starmer.
Except that one has a modicum of working class background and a trusted profession.
The other is the richest person in Parliament and was a banker. Replace the first letter & you have how most people view them.
lawyer who are almost as unloved as bankers.
Utterly untrue as Mike Smithson demonstrated the other day.
IPSOS MORI (One of your two permitted pollsters):
Other professions trusted by more than half of the public include museum curators, the police, lawyers, civil servants, the ordinary man/woman on the street and clergy/priests. Professions with negative net trust ratings include bankers, local councillors, business leaders, professional footballers, estate agents and journalists.
"If Old Labour had bulldozed Eton in the Seventies then almost everyone's life would be better today." Discuss.
"If Old Labour had not bulldozed most of the Grammar schools in the Sixties and Seventies then almost everyone's life would be better today." Discuss
Apart from the people who didn't get into the grammar schools I presume
No, everyone. The presence of those from the working class in positions of power helps everyone.
Apart from the people who didn't get into the grammar schools
Yep appalling institutions
So appalling they produced the highest number of non privately educated people products in our top professions, yes even judges and lawyers had plenty of grammar school alumni. More so than the number who now come from comprehensives
If you got rid of private schools and grammar schools then 100% of our PMs, people in top professions and judges and lawyers would be from comprehensives. Explain that one.
If you got rid of Waitrose, Marks and Spencer and Sainsburys all their customers would have to shop at Tesco, Aldi or Lidl. Explain that one.
I believe in choice for parents as much as consumers
Let me break it down for you.
1. I don't believe we should abolish existing grammar schools.
2. I don't believe we should abolish private schools.
3. However, if we did, then 100% of our 'elite' would be from comprehensives.
I ask again, explain that one?
He doesn't understand what you are saying. It is pointless.
@Hyufd@Gallowgate is pointing out the irrationality of your argument by giving you the analogy that if there were only Comprehensives then 100% of the top people would come from them which according to your maths would prove they were best. Now that is nonsense. Much as I prefer Comprehensive schools it proves no such thing. Your use of statistics is mathematically wrong.
Thank you. Yes, that’s all I was saying.
@HYUFD’s argument may be persuasive for the argument that grammar schools are better for the pupils themselves, because why wouldn’t they be? Smaller classes, surrounded by likeminded peers, better focus
Grammar schools may be objectively better, at least on a micro level, but the fact that so many of the ‘elite’ were former students does not prove that.
Grammar schools do not have smaller class sizes. That's private schools.
Edit - although the best way to address many problems in the state sector would be to dramatically reduce class sizes.
Descending from the important questions in the Header to the nakedly partisan - apols - I wonder how a Sunak/Starmer match-up would play to the country? I haven't quite worked myself out a take on this yet. I do probably need to since he looks nailed on if and when 'it' finally happens.
Starmer's only real appeal is that he is the boring-but-competent one against the charismatic but flawed partygate buffoonery of Boris (being generous to Boris there).
Sunak would essentially occupy the same boring-but-competent territory. Which is bad for Starmer.
Except that one has a modicum of working class background and a trusted profession.
The other is the richest person in Parliament and was a banker. Replace the first letter & you have how most people view them.
lawyer who are almost as unloved as bankers.
Utterly untrue as Mike Smithson demonstrated the other day.
IPSOS MORI (One of your two permitted pollsters):
Other professions trusted by more than half of the public include museum curators, the police, lawyers, civil servants, the ordinary man/woman on the street and clergy/priests. Professions with negative net trust ratings include bankers, local councillors, business leaders, professional footballers, estate agents and journalists.
"If Old Labour had bulldozed Eton in the Seventies then almost everyone's life would be better today." Discuss.
"If Old Labour had not bulldozed most of the Grammar schools in the Sixties and Seventies then almost everyone's life would be better today." Discuss
Apart from the people who didn't get into the grammar schools I presume
No, everyone. The presence of those from the working class in positions of power helps everyone.
Apart from the people who didn't get into the grammar schools
Yep appalling institutions
So appalling they produced the highest number of non privately educated people products in our top professions, yes even judges and lawyers had plenty of grammar school alumni. More so than the number who now come from comprehensives
If you got rid of private schools and grammar schools then 100% of our PMs, people in top professions and judges and lawyers would be from comprehensives. Explain that one.
If you got rid of Waitrose, Marks and Spencer and Sainsburys all their customers would have to shop at Tesco, Aldi or Lidl. Explain that one.
I believe in choice for parents as much as consumers
Let me break it down for you.
1. I don't believe we should abolish existing grammar schools.
2. I don't believe we should abolish private schools.
3. However, if we did, then 100% of our 'elite' would be from comprehensives.
I ask again, explain that one?
He doesn't understand what you are saying. It is pointless.
@Hyufd@Gallowgate is pointing out the irrationality of your argument by giving you the analogy that if there were only Comprehensives then 100% of the top people would come from them which according to your maths would prove they were best. Now that is nonsense. Much as I prefer Comprehensive schools it proves no such thing. Your use of statistics is mathematically wrong.
Thank you. Yes, that’s all I was saying.
@HYUFD’s argument may be persuasive for the argument that grammar schools are better for the pupils themselves, because why wouldn’t they be? Smaller classes, surrounded by likeminded peers, better focus
Grammar schools may be objectively better, at least on a micro level, but the fact that so many of the ‘elite’ were former students does not prove that.
Grammar schools do not have smaller class sizes. That's private schools.
Descending from the important questions in the Header to the nakedly partisan - apols - I wonder how a Sunak/Starmer match-up would play to the country? I haven't quite worked myself out a take on this yet. I do probably need to since he looks nailed on if and when 'it' finally happens.
Starmer's only real appeal is that he is the boring-but-competent one against the charismatic but flawed partygate buffoonery of Boris (being generous to Boris there).
Sunak would essentially occupy the same boring-but-competent territory. Which is bad for Starmer.
Except that one has a modicum of working class background and a trusted profession.
The other is the richest person in Parliament and was a banker. Replace the first letter & you have how most people view them.
lawyer who are almost as unloved as bankers.
Utterly untrue as Mike Smithson demonstrated the other day.
IPSOS MORI (One of your two permitted pollsters):
Other professions trusted by more than half of the public include museum curators, the police, lawyers, civil servants, the ordinary man/woman on the street and clergy/priests. Professions with negative net trust ratings include bankers, local councillors, business leaders, professional footballers, estate agents and journalists.
"If Old Labour had bulldozed Eton in the Seventies then almost everyone's life would be better today." Discuss.
"If Old Labour had not bulldozed most of the Grammar schools in the Sixties and Seventies then almost everyone's life would be better today." Discuss
Apart from the people who didn't get into the grammar schools I presume
No, everyone. The presence of those from the working class in positions of power helps everyone.
Apart from the people who didn't get into the grammar schools
Yep appalling institutions
So appalling they produced the highest number of non privately educated people products in our top professions, yes even judges and lawyers had plenty of grammar school alumni. More so than the number who now come from comprehensives
If you got rid of private schools and grammar schools then 100% of our PMs, people in top professions and judges and lawyers would be from comprehensives. Explain that one.
If you got rid of Waitrose, Marks and Spencer and Sainsburys all their customers would have to shop at Tesco, Aldi or Lidl. Explain that one.
I believe in choice for parents as much as consumers
Let me break it down for you.
1. I don't believe we should abolish existing grammar schools.
2. I don't believe we should abolish private schools.
3. However, if we did, then 100% of our 'elite' would be from comprehensives.
I ask again, explain that one?
If you ban private schools, then the ‘elites’ will send their kids to school abroad - just as the elites of many other countries currently aspire to be able to send their kids to school in the UK.
Only a small minority.
My point is that HY quotes statistics without any appreciation of the other factors at play.
We know that comprehensives are better in rich areas and we know that wealth players a big part in children's prospects, regardless of whether you go to a comprehensive or a grammar school.
Therefore simply saying "ah but X% of our 'elite' went to a grammar school" tells us absolutely nothing about the benefit of grammar schools.
It's just bollocks, as usual.
Your point is you are an ideological leftwing socialist who would deny parents the choice of where to send their children and would nationalise much of industry too given the chance.
Yes indeed comprehensives are better in wealthy areas and the left destroyed the best tools of tackling that for a bright child by abolishing the grammar schools that used to exist in inner cities or ex industrial areas or poor seaside towns. So the only ones left are generally in more prosperous areas with Tory councils where comprehensive schools and academies tend to be better anyway so they are less needed.
So we still have selection in state education, just by house price and vicar's reference, not by IQ
Also, grammar schools do not select by IQ. They select by wealth. Only a fool would try to pretend that wealth does not increase your chances of passing entrance exams by better access to learning materials and private tutors.
Descending from the important questions in the Header to the nakedly partisan - apols - I wonder how a Sunak/Starmer match-up would play to the country? I haven't quite worked myself out a take on this yet. I do probably need to since he looks nailed on if and when 'it' finally happens.
Starmer's only real appeal is that he is the boring-but-competent one against the charismatic but flawed partygate buffoonery of Boris (being generous to Boris there).
Sunak would essentially occupy the same boring-but-competent territory. Which is bad for Starmer.
Except that one has a modicum of working class background and a trusted profession.
The other is the richest person in Parliament and was a banker. Replace the first letter & you have how most people view them.
lawyer who are almost as unloved as bankers.
Utterly untrue as Mike Smithson demonstrated the other day.
IPSOS MORI (One of your two permitted pollsters):
Other professions trusted by more than half of the public include museum curators, the police, lawyers, civil servants, the ordinary man/woman on the street and clergy/priests. Professions with negative net trust ratings include bankers, local councillors, business leaders, professional footballers, estate agents and journalists.
"If Old Labour had bulldozed Eton in the Seventies then almost everyone's life would be better today." Discuss.
"If Old Labour had not bulldozed most of the Grammar schools in the Sixties and Seventies then almost everyone's life would be better today." Discuss
Apart from the people who didn't get into the grammar schools I presume
No, everyone. The presence of those from the working class in positions of power helps everyone.
Apart from the people who didn't get into the grammar schools
Yep appalling institutions
So appalling they produced the highest number of non privately educated people products in our top professions, yes even judges and lawyers had plenty of grammar school alumni. More so than the number who now come from comprehensives
If you got rid of private schools and grammar schools then 100% of our PMs, people in top professions and judges and lawyers would be from comprehensives. Explain that one.
If you got rid of Waitrose, Marks and Spencer and Sainsburys all their customers would have to shop at Tesco, Aldi or Lidl. Explain that one.
I believe in choice for parents as much as consumers
Let me break it down for you.
1. I don't believe we should abolish existing grammar schools.
2. I don't believe we should abolish private schools.
3. However, if we did, then 100% of our 'elite' would be from comprehensives.
I ask again, explain that one?
If you ban private schools, then the ‘elites’ will send their kids to school abroad - just as the elites of many other countries currently aspire to be able to send their kids to school in the UK.
Only a small minority.
My point is that HY quotes statistics without any appreciation of the other factors at play.
We know that comprehensives are better in rich areas and we know that wealth players a big part in children's prospects, regardless of whether you go to a comprehensive or a grammar school.
Therefore simply saying "ah but X% of our 'elite' went to a grammar school" tells us absolutely nothing about the benefit of grammar schools.
It's just bollocks, as usual.
Your point is you are an ideological leftwing socialist who would deny parents the choice of where to send their children and would nationalise much of industry too given the chance.
Yes indeed comprehensives are better in wealthy areas and the left destroyed the best tools of tackling that for a bright child by abolishing the grammar schools that used to exist in inner cities or ex industrial areas or poor seaside towns. So the only ones left are generally in more prosperous areas where the comprehensive schools and academies tend to be better anyway so they are less needed.
Eh? I literally said that i didn’t support the abolishment of grammar or private schools.
Clearly your private school did not teach comprehension skills very well.
"If Old Labour had bulldozed Eton in the Seventies then almost everyone's life would be better today." Discuss.
"If Old Labour had not bulldozed most of the Grammar schools in the Sixties and Seventies then almost everyone's life would be better today." Discuss
Apart from the people who didn't get into the grammar schools I presume
No, everyone. The presence of those from the working class in positions of power helps everyone.
Apart from the people who didn't get into the grammar schools
The idea is that more policies (and I guess commercial decisions) benefitting 'the many not the few' would come from the presence of grammar school alumni in elite positions. You may disagree that that has been the practical outcome, but as a concept it's not too difficult to understand why it would benefit a wider group than those who actually went to grammar schools.
"Sorry you didn't get into a grammar and have to rot in a secondary modern but hey, George next door may become a banker so chin up."
The visual image with grammar schools is that of 'ladder'. There it is and it allows a few working class kids to 'escape' their limited prospects and 'ascend' to greater things. That image is accurate - this is the essence of grammars - and I hate it. We don't want a ladder we want a raising of the whole floor so there is nothing to escape from.
So you are arguing for communism then, tax everyone 100% over the average income so nobody has any incentive to get on.
in the real world there is selection everywhere, for universities, for higher paid jobs, for sports teams etc, ending grammar schools did not end the selection that continues throughout life.
The better alternative was to reform the secondary moderns to allow more effective vocational schemes in sixth form level and linked apprenticeships, which many high schools in selective area already do
Naked bribery from those effete continentals. Not like our Blitz spirit, make do and mend, heat or eat good old British pluck.
Is there an election in France or something?
Can we have an election this year so I can have some goodies please?
Oooh, yes please. And screw the goodies. The chance to get rid of Johnson given those spineless cretins of the PCP appear unable to do it for us is reward enough.
So is Cyclefree simultaneously asking for financial help re energy costs to be concentrated on the poorest while also asking for the VAT reduction which would also benefit the richest ?
I am pointing out the incoherence of his position - whether as a Chancellor concerned with fairness or a Brexiteer seeking to take advantage of its freedoms.
"If Old Labour had bulldozed Eton in the Seventies then almost everyone's life would be better today." Discuss.
"If Old Labour had not bulldozed most of the Grammar schools in the Sixties and Seventies then almost everyone's life would be better today." Discuss
Apart from the people who didn't get into the grammar schools I presume
No, everyone. The presence of those from the working class in positions of power helps everyone.
Apart from the people who didn't get into the grammar schools
The idea is that more policies (and I guess commercial decisions) benefitting 'the many not the few' would come from the presence of grammar school alumni in elite positions. You may disagree that that has been the practical outcome, but as a concept it's not too difficult to understand why it would benefit a wider group than those who actually went to grammar schools.
"Sorry you didn't get into a grammar and have to rot in a secondary modern but hey, George next door may become a banker so chin up."
The visual image with grammar schools is that of 'ladder'. There it is and it allows a few working class kids to 'escape' their limited prospects and 'ascend' to greater things. That image is accurate - this is the essence of grammars - and I hate it. We don't want a ladder we want a raising of the whole floor so there is nothing to escape from.
So you are arguing for communism then, tax everyone 100% over the average income so nobody has any incentive to get on.
in the real world there is selection everywhere, for universities, for higher paid jobs, for sports teams etc, ending grammar schools did not end the selection that continues throughout life.
The better alternative was to reform the secondary moderns to allow more effective vocational schemes in sixth form level and linked apprenticeships, which many high schools in selective area already do
My issue with grammar schools is that they do not allow people to ‘get on’. They allow parents to allow their kids to get on. That’s a fundamental difference. Why should the clever child who was just unlucky to have been born to parents who are just less interested in their child get on be locked out of the non-vocational system at an early age?
That’s why the system must cater for this scenario - grammar schools or no grammar schools. Otherwise you just have a secondary modern underclass where the poor kids of poor parents remain poor.
Sunak could be one of 3 Tory leadership hopefuls. At best he would be the next John Major, who narrowly wins another term for the Tories after ten years in power. Alternatively he could be the next Douglas Home, who narrowly lost a general election after ten years in power but made it closer than expected so Wilson only got a majority of 4. At worst he would be the next David Miliband or Michael Portillo and fail to even become leader, let alone win a general election.
If Sunak wants to be the first, like Major he needs to connect with the average voter. That means focusing on low taxes but also a commitment to public services and while opposed to socialism not getting too close to the laissez faire wing of the City and large corporations and the libertarian wing of the Tory right.
Now Brexit has got done austerity and deregulation will not keep the redwall. While any form of wealth tax would be as disastrous as May's dementia tax proved with Tory leaning swing voters.
I also disagree all alternatives to Boris would be better. Other than maybe Sunak most would probably poll worse than Boris with the public in the end
A new John Major is the best you now have to hope for, pal.
Fair enough but when have Labour ever won a fourth or fifth consecutive general election? Never. The best they managed was 3 consecutive general election wins under Blair
If the great HY is now falling back on consoling himself with past glories, we truly are approaching the end of days…
How long do you think your lot will be in opposition?
His idea of the conservative party, hopefully permanently
I rather imagine than when the party finally emerges from its next molecular readjustment, he’ll still be there in love with its new image…
I have voted and campaigned for Hague, IDS, Howard, Cameron, May and Boris.
Unlike BigG, who voted for New Labour twice, I am loyal to the party regardless
So is Cyclefree simultaneously asking for financial help re energy costs to be concentrated on the poorest while also asking for the VAT reduction which would also benefit the richest ?
I am pointing out the incoherence of his position - whether as a Chancellor concerned with fairness or a Brexiteer seeking to take advantage of its freedoms.
What about a Chancellor torn between recognising that a lot of things are going to shit but that the money is running out and there are limits to what he can do?
Sunak could be one of 3 Tory leadership hopefuls. At best he would be the next John Major, who narrowly wins another term for the Tories after ten years in power. Alternatively he could be the next Douglas Home, who narrowly lost a general election after ten years in power but made it closer than expected so Wilson only got a majority of 4. At worst he would be the next David Miliband or Michael Portillo and fail to even become leader, let alone win a general election.
If Sunak wants to be the first, like Major he needs to connect with the average voter. That means focusing on low taxes but also a commitment to public services and while opposed to socialism not getting too close to the laissez faire wing of the City and large corporations and the libertarian wing of the Tory right.
Now Brexit has got done austerity and deregulation will not keep the redwall. While any form of wealth tax would be as disastrous as May's dementia tax proved with Tory leaning swing voters.
I also disagree all alternatives to Boris would be better. Other than maybe Sunak most would probably poll worse than Boris with the public in the end
A new John Major is the best you now have to hope for, pal.
Fair enough but when have Labour ever won a fourth or fifth consecutive general election? Never. The best they managed was 3 consecutive general election wins under Blair
If the great HY is now falling back on consoling himself with past glories, we truly are approaching the end of days…
How long do you think your lot will be in opposition?
His idea of the conservative party, hopefully permanently
I rather imagine than when the party finally emerges from its next molecular readjustment, he’ll still be there in love with its new image…
I have voted and campaigned for Hague, IDS, Howard, Cameron, May and Boris.
Unlike BigG, who voted for New Labour twice, I am loyal to the party regardless
Loyalty to a party isn’t the virtue you think it is.
Naked bribery from those effete continentals. Not like our Blitz spirit, make do and mend, heat or eat good old British pluck.
Is there an election in France or something?
Can we have an election this year so I can have some goodies please?
Oooh, yes please. And screw the goodies. The chance to get rid of Johnson given those spineless cretins of the PCP appear unable to do it for us is reward enough.
Unfortunately it's far from a done deal that the bugger would actually lose.
Lots of good points from Cyclefree, though goodness knows what quality of politician will be needed to meet all Cyclefree's demands, reasonable though they are.
Sunak's big problem is that he was and remains at the heart of a government that is discredited. The idea that there won't be anyone with a plausible dossier of anecdotes, and pictures seems unlikely. It's a risk, and the Tories can't afford another leader ending as badly as all the others.
This time they need to look outside government. For Sunak to be plausible he needed to resign after the Savile nonsense at the latest.
I think you overplay that issue. Starmer doesn't get much grief for having stuck with Corbyn now. As Major was seen to be a clear break from Thatcher despite having served as both Foreign Secretary and Chancellor under her and literally being her choice as successor. Even Brown was at least briefly seen as a break from the Blair era although I admit that didn't last.
Bottom line is a new leader can simply say they did what they had to do to keep the show on the road. Now, they will do what they *wanted* to do but *couldn't* do until they got rid of the leader.
For the avoidance of doubt, the planned integration of the cabinet office and the proposed “new office of the prime minister” with Steve Barclay as enforcer - announced just now - would strengthen the PM and further weaken the cabinet. Is this really what concerned Tory MPs think is the solution? It is Johnson as Il Présidente
Sunak could be one of 3 Tory leadership hopefuls. At best he would be the next John Major, who narrowly wins another term for the Tories after ten years in power. Alternatively he could be the next Douglas Home, who narrowly lost a general election after ten years in power but made it closer than expected so Wilson only got a majority of 4. At worst he would be the next David Miliband or Michael Portillo and fail to even become leader, let alone win a general election.
If Sunak wants to be the first, like Major he needs to connect with the average voter. That means focusing on low taxes but also a commitment to public services and while opposed to socialism not getting too close to the laissez faire wing of the City and large corporations and the libertarian wing of the Tory right.
Now Brexit has got done austerity and deregulation will not keep the redwall. While any form of wealth tax would be as disastrous as May's dementia tax proved with Tory leaning swing voters.
I also disagree all alternatives to Boris would be better. Other than maybe Sunak most would probably poll worse than Boris with the public in the end
A new John Major is the best you now have to hope for, pal.
Fair enough but when have Labour ever won a fourth or fifth consecutive general election? Never. The best they managed was 3 consecutive general election wins under Blair
If the great HY is now falling back on consoling himself with past glories, we truly are approaching the end of days…
How long do you think your lot will be in opposition?
His idea of the conservative party, hopefully permanently
I rather imagine than when the party finally emerges from its next molecular readjustment, he’ll still be there in love with its new image…
I have voted and campaigned for Hague, IDS, Howard, Cameron, May and Boris.
Unlike BigG, who voted for New Labour twice, I am loyal to the party regardless
Loyalty to a party isn’t the virtue you think it is.
"I am always loyal to the party" comes from the same strand of thinking as "I was just following orders"
So is Cyclefree simultaneously asking for financial help re energy costs to be concentrated on the poorest while also asking for the VAT reduction which would also benefit the richest ?
I am pointing out the incoherence of his position - whether as a Chancellor concerned with fairness or a Brexiteer seeking to take advantage of its freedoms.
What about a Chancellor torn between recognising that a lot of things are going to shit but that the money is running out and there are limits to what he can do?
If the money is running out why only increase NI and not other taxes?
Rish's postives are that he is smart, articulate, rich, ethnic and empathic. His negatives is that he is rich, ex Goldman Sachs, despite a vivid imagination struggles to understand what the average joe is struggling with, a bit wooden and in some respects he has not been tested as a Chancellor who was allowed to let rip in an extraordinary situation.
What I think he would bring to the government is a sense of professionalism, less blunders, less charisma and some calmness. We need that. It's time.
Andrew Marr in Newstatesman this weekend says Hunt is the one to watch. Could come through in the end as the calm, experienced, doesn't actively piss any other MP off, nothing-to-do-with-any-of-this candidate.
I would suggest Marr mentioning Hunt is more his remain side talking than realism
I have detected genuine fear among the real Brexiteers that Rishi is not hard enough on Northern Ireland, to the point they are losing the wider implications of leaving Boris in place which may will see a labour administration anyway
Sunak would need to invoke Article 16 certainly if he fails to won a majority and the DUP hold the balance of power to win them over as May did in 2017
Not grammar schools again, please. The only place I ever come across nostalgia for grammar schools is on PB. They are the past, not the future. Even the Tory Party has shut up about them (apart from in Epping).
UKIP wanted a "grammar school in every town". No other party is interested. Tells you all you need to know. And why? Because the evidence (educational and social mobility) that they do more harm than good is incontrovertible. Trust me.
Lots of good points from Cyclefree, though goodness knows what quality of politician will be needed to meet all Cyclefree's demands, reasonable though they are.
Sunak's big problem is that he was and remains at the heart of a government that is discredited. The idea that there won't be anyone with a plausible dossier of anecdotes, and pictures seems unlikely. It's a risk, and the Tories can't afford another leader ending as badly as all the others.
This time they need to look outside government. For Sunak to be plausible he needed to resign after the Savile nonsense at the latest.
I think you overplay that issue. Starmer doesn't get much grief for having stuck with Corbyn now. As Major was seen to be a clear break from Thatcher despite having served as both Foreign Secretary and Chancellor under her and literally being her choice as successor. Even Brown was at least briefly seen as a break from the Blair era although I admit that didn't last.
Bottom line is a new leader can simply say they did what they had to do to keep the show on the road. Now, they will do what they *wanted* to do but *couldn't* do until they got rid of the leader.
Descending from the important questions in the Header to the nakedly partisan - apols - I wonder how a Sunak/Starmer match-up would play to the country? I haven't quite worked myself out a take on this yet. I do probably need to since he looks nailed on if and when 'it' finally happens.
Starmer's only real appeal is that he is the boring-but-competent one against the charismatic but flawed partygate buffoonery of Boris (being generous to Boris there).
Sunak would essentially occupy the same boring-but-competent territory. Which is bad for Starmer.
Except that one has a modicum of working class background and a trusted profession.
The other is the richest person in Parliament and was a banker. Replace the first letter & you have how most people view them.
lawyer who are almost as unloved as bankers.
Utterly untrue as Mike Smithson demonstrated the other day.
IPSOS MORI (One of your two permitted pollsters):
Other professions trusted by more than half of the public include museum curators, the police, lawyers, civil servants, the ordinary man/woman on the street and clergy/priests. Professions with negative net trust ratings include bankers, local councillors, business leaders, professional footballers, estate agents and journalists.
"If Old Labour had bulldozed Eton in the Seventies then almost everyone's life would be better today." Discuss.
"If Old Labour had not bulldozed most of the Grammar schools in the Sixties and Seventies then almost everyone's life would be better today." Discuss
Apart from the people who didn't get into the grammar schools I presume
No, everyone. The presence of those from the working class in positions of power helps everyone.
Apart from the people who didn't get into the grammar schools
Yep appalling institutions
So appalling they produced the highest number of non privately educated people products in our top professions, yes even judges and lawyers had plenty of grammar school alumni. More so than the number who now come from comprehensives
If you got rid of private schools and grammar schools then 100% of our PMs, people in top professions and judges and lawyers would be from comprehensives. Explain that one.
If you got rid of Waitrose, Marks and Spencer and Sainsburys all their customers would have to shop at Tesco, Aldi or Lidl. Explain that one.
I believe in choice for parents as much as consumers
Let me break it down for you.
1. I don't believe we should abolish existing grammar schools.
2. I don't believe we should abolish private schools.
3. However, if we did, then 100% of our 'elite' would be from comprehensives.
I ask again, explain that one?
If you ban private schools, then the ‘elites’ will send their kids to school abroad - just as the elites of many other countries currently aspire to be able to send their kids to school in the UK.
Only a small minority.
My point is that HY quotes statistics without any appreciation of the other factors at play.
We know that comprehensives are better in rich areas and we know that wealth players a big part in children's prospects, regardless of whether you go to a comprehensive or a grammar school.
Therefore simply saying "ah but X% of our 'elite' went to a grammar school" tells us absolutely nothing about the benefit of grammar schools.
It's just bollocks, as usual.
Your point is you are an ideological leftwing socialist who would deny parents the choice of where to send their children and would nationalise much of industry too given the chance.
Yes indeed comprehensives are better in wealthy areas and the left destroyed the best tools of tackling that for a bright child by abolishing the grammar schools that used to exist in inner cities or ex industrial areas or poor seaside towns. So the only ones left are generally in more prosperous areas where the comprehensive schools and academies tend to be better anyway so they are less needed.
Eh? I literally said that i didn’t support the abolishment of grammar or private schools.
Clearly your private school did not teach comprehension skills very well.
Well you at least don't want any more grammar schools, which is the standard position of Labour and the LDs (albeit the left of Labour wants to abolish the remaining grammars too).
The Tories under Major or Howard or May for example have often stood on a platform of more grammar schools
Sunak could be one of 3 Tory leadership hopefuls. At best he would be the next John Major, who narrowly wins another term for the Tories after ten years in power. Alternatively he could be the next Douglas Home, who narrowly lost a general election after ten years in power but made it closer than expected so Wilson only got a majority of 4. At worst he would be the next David Miliband or Michael Portillo and fail to even become leader, let alone win a general election.
If Sunak wants to be the first, like Major he needs to connect with the average voter. That means focusing on low taxes but also a commitment to public services and while opposed to socialism not getting too close to the laissez faire wing of the City and large corporations and the libertarian wing of the Tory right.
Now Brexit has got done austerity and deregulation will not keep the redwall. While any form of wealth tax would be as disastrous as May's dementia tax proved with Tory leaning swing voters.
I also disagree all alternatives to Boris would be better. Other than maybe Sunak most would probably poll worse than Boris with the public in the end
A new John Major is the best you now have to hope for, pal.
Fair enough but when have Labour ever won a fourth or fifth consecutive general election? Never. The best they managed was 3 consecutive general election wins under Blair
If the great HY is now falling back on consoling himself with past glories, we truly are approaching the end of days…
How long do you think your lot will be in opposition?
His idea of the conservative party, hopefully permanently
I rather imagine than when the party finally emerges from its next molecular readjustment, he’ll still be there in love with its new image…
I have voted and campaigned for Hague, IDS, Howard, Cameron, May and Boris.
Unlike BigG, who voted for New Labour twice, I am loyal to the party regardless
That's why I was super curious about your remark the other day about a theoretical breakaway scenario, and how the members would split in that scenario. Because by your logic you would side with whoever kept the name, regardless of who was involved or what other members did.
What about a Chancellor torn between recognising that a lot of things are going to shit but that the money is running out and there are limits to what he can do?
If the money is running out why only increase NI and not other taxes?
I think we all know the answer to that. There are plenty of better ideas for raising the extra revenue, but they would hurt the "wrong" people.
So is Cyclefree simultaneously asking for financial help re energy costs to be concentrated on the poorest while also asking for the VAT reduction which would also benefit the richest ?
I am pointing out the incoherence of his position - whether as a Chancellor concerned with fairness or a Brexiteer seeking to take advantage of its freedoms.
What about a Chancellor torn between recognising that a lot of things are going to shit but that the money is running out and there are limits to what he can do?
If the money is running out why only increase NI and not other taxes?
Because you can't kill demand by more taxes right now when demand is looking dodgy, the supply side is even worse and we are on a knife edge. Personally, I am glad someone way smarter than me is making the calls on this.
Not grammar schools again, please. The only place I ever come across nostalgia for grammar schools is on PB. They are the past, not the future. Even the Tory Party has shut up about them (apart from in Epping).
UKIP wanted a "grammar school in every town". No other party is interested. Tells you all you need to know. And why? Because the evidence (educational and social mobility) that they do more harm than good is incontrovertible. Trust me.
It isn't at all, especially in the poorer areas where they offer the best chance for the intelligent but poor child
This alone is why Boris Johnson needs to go, he is turning into Britain Trump.
The mood has turned further against Johnson in recent days after he criticised Sir Keir Starmer in the Commons on Monday for failing to prosecute the child abuser Jimmy Savile during his time as director of public prosecutions. The baseless attack on the opposition leader led to the resignation on Thursday of Johnson’s longtime aide and head of policy at No 10, Munira Mirza, who had demanded that Johnson apologise, which he failed to do.
Investigations by the Observer show that the unfounded claims about Starmer were being promoted, before Johnson aired them, by far-right groups including the UK branch of Proud Boys, a violent white nationalist organisation labelled a terrorist entity.
After Johnson made the comments in the Commons, other notorious far-right groups, including football hooligans linked to the anti-Muslim English Defence League as well as the nationalist organisation the Traditional Britain Group, lauded him.
The allegation appears to have roots in the far right’s obsession with the unfounded suggestion that the establishment is protecting paedophiles.
Sunak could be one of 3 Tory leadership hopefuls. At best he would be the next John Major, who narrowly wins another term for the Tories after ten years in power. Alternatively he could be the next Douglas Home, who narrowly lost a general election after ten years in power but made it closer than expected so Wilson only got a majority of 4. At worst he would be the next David Miliband or Michael Portillo and fail to even become leader, let alone win a general election.
If Sunak wants to be the first, like Major he needs to connect with the average voter. That means focusing on low taxes but also a commitment to public services and while opposed to socialism not getting too close to the laissez faire wing of the City and large corporations and the libertarian wing of the Tory right.
Now Brexit has got done austerity and deregulation will not keep the redwall. While any form of wealth tax would be as disastrous as May's dementia tax proved with Tory leaning swing voters.
I also disagree all alternatives to Boris would be better. Other than maybe Sunak most would probably poll worse than Boris with the public in the end
A new John Major is the best you now have to hope for, pal.
Fair enough but when have Labour ever won a fourth or fifth consecutive general election? Never. The best they managed was 3 consecutive general election wins under Blair
If the great HY is now falling back on consoling himself with past glories, we truly are approaching the end of days…
How long do you think your lot will be in opposition?
Not grammar schools again, please. The only place I ever come across nostalgia for grammar schools is on PB. They are the past, not the future. Even the Tory Party has shut up about them (apart from in Epping).
UKIP wanted a "grammar school in every town". No other party is interested. Tells you all you need to know. And why? Because the evidence (educational and social mobility) that they do more harm than good is incontrovertible. Trust me.
It isn't at all, especially in the poorer areas where they offer the best chance for the intelligent but poor child
It may have been in the 60s, but we now have comps who send kids to university now.
What about a Chancellor torn between recognising that a lot of things are going to shit but that the money is running out and there are limits to what he can do?
If the money is running out why only increase NI and not other taxes?
I think we all know the answer to that. There are plenty of better ideas for raising the extra revenue, but they would hurt the "wrong" people.
I'm not sure that is the completely the right answer. I think they thought that Brown managed to make the NI % increase for NHS work back in the day, so why can't we? They had not factored in that this would happen post-covid in the middle of a massive cost of living crisis.
Descending from the important questions in the Header to the nakedly partisan - apols - I wonder how a Sunak/Starmer match-up would play to the country? I haven't quite worked myself out a take on this yet. I do probably need to since he looks nailed on if and when 'it' finally happens.
Starmer's only real appeal is that he is the boring-but-competent one against the charismatic but flawed partygate buffoonery of Boris (being generous to Boris there).
Sunak would essentially occupy the same boring-but-competent territory. Which is bad for Starmer.
Except that one has a modicum of working class background and a trusted profession.
The other is the richest person in Parliament and was a banker. Replace the first letter & you have how most people view them.
lawyer who are almost as unloved as bankers.
Utterly untrue as Mike Smithson demonstrated the other day.
IPSOS MORI (One of your two permitted pollsters):
Other professions trusted by more than half of the public include museum curators, the police, lawyers, civil servants, the ordinary man/woman on the street and clergy/priests. Professions with negative net trust ratings include bankers, local councillors, business leaders, professional footballers, estate agents and journalists.
"If Old Labour had bulldozed Eton in the Seventies then almost everyone's life would be better today." Discuss.
"If Old Labour had not bulldozed most of the Grammar schools in the Sixties and Seventies then almost everyone's life would be better today." Discuss
Apart from the people who didn't get into the grammar schools I presume
No, everyone. The presence of those from the working class in positions of power helps everyone.
Apart from the people who didn't get into the grammar schools
Yep appalling institutions
So appalling they produced the highest number of non privately educated people products in our top professions, yes even judges and lawyers had plenty of grammar school alumni. More so than the number who now come from comprehensives
If you got rid of private schools and grammar schools then 100% of our PMs, people in top professions and judges and lawyers would be from comprehensives. Explain that one.
If you got rid of Waitrose, Marks and Spencer and Sainsburys all their customers would have to shop at Tesco, Aldi or Lidl. Explain that one.
I believe in choice for parents as much as consumers
Let me break it down for you.
1. I don't believe we should abolish existing grammar schools.
2. I don't believe we should abolish private schools.
3. However, if we did, then 100% of our 'elite' would be from comprehensives.
I ask again, explain that one?
If you ban private schools, then the ‘elites’ will send their kids to school abroad - just as the elites of many other countries currently aspire to be able to send their kids to school in the UK.
Only a small minority.
My point is that HY quotes statistics without any appreciation of the other factors at play.
We know that comprehensives are better in rich areas and we know that wealth players a big part in children's prospects, regardless of whether you go to a comprehensive or a grammar school.
Therefore simply saying "ah but X% of our 'elite' went to a grammar school" tells us absolutely nothing about the benefit of grammar schools.
It's just bollocks, as usual.
Your point is you are an ideological leftwing socialist who would deny parents the choice of where to send their children and would nationalise much of industry too given the chance.
Yes indeed comprehensives are better in wealthy areas and the left destroyed the best tools of tackling that for a bright child by abolishing the grammar schools that used to exist in inner cities or ex industrial areas or poor seaside towns. So the only ones left are generally in more prosperous areas where the comprehensive schools and academies tend to be better anyway so they are less needed.
Eh? I literally said that i didn’t support the abolishment of grammar or private schools.
Clearly your private school did not teach comprehension skills very well.
My pleasure. I have been in this argument before.
That is weird. I replied to your post saying 'thank you' not this post. I assumed I had cocked up by replying to the wrong post, but your post saying thank you has disappeared. And it isn't me going mad imagining this because I can still see it in a reply that @ydoethur made to it?
This alone is why Boris Johnson needs to go, he is turning into Britain Trump.
The mood has turned further against Johnson in recent days after he criticised Sir Keir Starmer in the Commons on Monday for failing to prosecute the child abuser Jimmy Savile during his time as director of public prosecutions. The baseless attack on the opposition leader led to the resignation on Thursday of Johnson’s longtime aide and head of policy at No 10, Munira Mirza, who had demanded that Johnson apologise, which he failed to do.
Investigations by the Observer show that the unfounded claims about Starmer were being promoted, before Johnson aired them, by far-right groups including the UK branch of Proud Boys, a violent white nationalist organisation labelled a terrorist entity.
After Johnson made the comments in the Commons, other notorious far-right groups, including football hooligans linked to the anti-Muslim English Defence League as well as the nationalist organisation the Traditional Britain Group, lauded him.
The allegation appears to have roots in the far right’s obsession with the unfounded suggestion that the establishment is protecting paedophiles.
Descending from the important questions in the Header to the nakedly partisan - apols - I wonder how a Sunak/Starmer match-up would play to the country? I haven't quite worked myself out a take on this yet. I do probably need to since he looks nailed on if and when 'it' finally happens.
Starmer's only real appeal is that he is the boring-but-competent one against the charismatic but flawed partygate buffoonery of Boris (being generous to Boris there).
Sunak would essentially occupy the same boring-but-competent territory. Which is bad for Starmer.
Except that one has a modicum of working class background and a trusted profession.
The other is the richest person in Parliament and was a banker. Replace the first letter & you have how most people view them.
lawyer who are almost as unloved as bankers.
Utterly untrue as Mike Smithson demonstrated the other day.
IPSOS MORI (One of your two permitted pollsters):
Other professions trusted by more than half of the public include museum curators, the police, lawyers, civil servants, the ordinary man/woman on the street and clergy/priests. Professions with negative net trust ratings include bankers, local councillors, business leaders, professional footballers, estate agents and journalists.
"If Old Labour had bulldozed Eton in the Seventies then almost everyone's life would be better today." Discuss.
"If Old Labour had not bulldozed most of the Grammar schools in the Sixties and Seventies then almost everyone's life would be better today." Discuss
Apart from the people who didn't get into the grammar schools I presume
No, everyone. The presence of those from the working class in positions of power helps everyone.
Apart from the people who didn't get into the grammar schools
Yep appalling institutions
So appalling they produced the highest number of non privately educated people products in our top professions, yes even judges and lawyers had plenty of grammar school alumni. More so than the number who now come from comprehensives
If you got rid of private schools and grammar schools then 100% of our PMs, people in top professions and judges and lawyers would be from comprehensives. Explain that one.
If you got rid of Waitrose, Marks and Spencer and Sainsburys all their customers would have to shop at Tesco, Aldi or Lidl. Explain that one.
I believe in choice for parents as much as consumers
Let me break it down for you.
1. I don't believe we should abolish existing grammar schools.
2. I don't believe we should abolish private schools.
3. However, if we did, then 100% of our 'elite' would be from comprehensives.
I ask again, explain that one?
If you ban private schools, then the ‘elites’ will send their kids to school abroad - just as the elites of many other countries currently aspire to be able to send their kids to school in the UK.
Only a small minority.
My point is that HY quotes statistics without any appreciation of the other factors at play.
We know that comprehensives are better in rich areas and we know that wealth players a big part in children's prospects, regardless of whether you go to a comprehensive or a grammar school.
Therefore simply saying "ah but X% of our 'elite' went to a grammar school" tells us absolutely nothing about the benefit of grammar schools.
It's just bollocks, as usual.
Your point is you are an ideological leftwing socialist who would deny parents the choice of where to send their children and would nationalise much of industry too given the chance.
Yes indeed comprehensives are better in wealthy areas and the left destroyed the best tools of tackling that for a bright child by abolishing the grammar schools that used to exist in inner cities or ex industrial areas or poor seaside towns. So the only ones left are generally in more prosperous areas with Tory councils where comprehensive schools and academies tend to be better anyway so they are less needed.
So we still have selection in state education, just by house price and vicar's reference, not by IQ
Also, grammar schools do not select by IQ. They select by wealth. Only a fool would try to pretend that wealth does not increase your chances of passing entrance exams by better access to learning materials and private tutors.
No, private schools and the best comprehensive schools select by parental wealth or house price (or church attendance).
Grammar schools select by IQ. If you have a low IQ tutoring will not get you through a grammar school entrance exam, if you have a high IQ you will pass a grammar school entrance exam regardless of tutoring
Sunak could be one of 3 Tory leadership hopefuls. At best he would be the next John Major, who narrowly wins another term for the Tories after ten years in power. Alternatively he could be the next Douglas Home, who narrowly lost a general election after ten years in power but made it closer than expected so Wilson only got a majority of 4. At worst he would be the next David Miliband or Michael Portillo and fail to even become leader, let alone win a general election.
If Sunak wants to be the first, like Major he needs to connect with the average voter. That means focusing on low taxes but also a commitment to public services and while opposed to socialism not getting too close to the laissez faire wing of the City and large corporations and the libertarian wing of the Tory right.
Now Brexit has got done austerity and deregulation will not keep the redwall. While any form of wealth tax would be as disastrous as May's dementia tax proved with Tory leaning swing voters.
I also disagree all alternatives to Boris would be better. Other than maybe Sunak most would probably poll worse than Boris with the public in the end
A new John Major is the best you now have to hope for, pal.
Fair enough but when have Labour ever won a fourth or fifth consecutive general election? Never. The best they managed was 3 consecutive general election wins under Blair
If the great HY is now falling back on consoling himself with past glories, we truly are approaching the end of days…
How long do you think your lot will be in opposition?
His idea of the conservative party, hopefully permanently
I rather imagine than when the party finally emerges from its next molecular readjustment, he’ll still be there in love with its new image…
I have voted and campaigned for Hague, IDS, Howard, Cameron, May and Boris.
Unlike BigG, who voted for New Labour twice, I am loyal to the party regardless
Time to grow up
I also recognise when the conservative party is toxic under it's leader and do not slavishly follow those who cannot see right for wrong
Not grammar schools again, please. The only place I ever come across nostalgia for grammar schools is on PB. They are the past, not the future. Even the Tory Party has shut up about them (apart from in Epping).
UKIP wanted a "grammar school in every town". No other party is interested. Tells you all you need to know. And why? Because the evidence (educational and social mobility) that they do more harm than good is incontrovertible. Trust me.
Not sure why you'd expect anyone to 'trust you', and this post is a collection of sloppy empty clichés, of which 'they are the past not the future' is the emptiest.
Not grammar schools again, please. The only place I ever come across nostalgia for grammar schools is on PB. They are the past, not the future. Even the Tory Party has shut up about them (apart from in Epping).
UKIP wanted a "grammar school in every town". No other party is interested. Tells you all you need to know. And why? Because the evidence (educational and social mobility) that they do more harm than good is incontrovertible. Trust me.
It isn't at all, especially in the poorer areas where they offer the best chance for the intelligent but poor child
It may have been in the 60s, but we now have comps who send kids to university now.
Mainly comps in wealthy suburbs or rural areas, not many students from comps in ex industrial areas or poor seaside towns or the poorest parts of inner cities go to university
Descending from the important questions in the Header to the nakedly partisan - apols - I wonder how a Sunak/Starmer match-up would play to the country? I haven't quite worked myself out a take on this yet. I do probably need to since he looks nailed on if and when 'it' finally happens.
Starmer's only real appeal is that he is the boring-but-competent one against the charismatic but flawed partygate buffoonery of Boris (being generous to Boris there).
Sunak would essentially occupy the same boring-but-competent territory. Which is bad for Starmer.
Except that one has a modicum of working class background and a trusted profession.
The other is the richest person in Parliament and was a banker. Replace the first letter & you have how most people view them.
lawyer who are almost as unloved as bankers.
Utterly untrue as Mike Smithson demonstrated the other day.
IPSOS MORI (One of your two permitted pollsters):
Other professions trusted by more than half of the public include museum curators, the police, lawyers, civil servants, the ordinary man/woman on the street and clergy/priests. Professions with negative net trust ratings include bankers, local councillors, business leaders, professional footballers, estate agents and journalists.
"If Old Labour had bulldozed Eton in the Seventies then almost everyone's life would be better today." Discuss.
"If Old Labour had not bulldozed most of the Grammar schools in the Sixties and Seventies then almost everyone's life would be better today." Discuss
Apart from the people who didn't get into the grammar schools I presume
No, everyone. The presence of those from the working class in positions of power helps everyone.
Apart from the people who didn't get into the grammar schools
Yep appalling institutions
So appalling they produced the highest number of non privately educated people products in our top professions, yes even judges and lawyers had plenty of grammar school alumni. More so than the number who now come from comprehensives
If you got rid of private schools and grammar schools then 100% of our PMs, people in top professions and judges and lawyers would be from comprehensives. Explain that one.
If you got rid of Waitrose, Marks and Spencer and Sainsburys all their customers would have to shop at Tesco, Aldi or Lidl. Explain that one.
I believe in choice for parents as much as consumers
Let me break it down for you.
1. I don't believe we should abolish existing grammar schools.
2. I don't believe we should abolish private schools.
3. However, if we did, then 100% of our 'elite' would be from comprehensives.
I ask again, explain that one?
If you ban private schools, then the ‘elites’ will send their kids to school abroad - just as the elites of many other countries currently aspire to be able to send their kids to school in the UK.
Only a small minority.
My point is that HY quotes statistics without any appreciation of the other factors at play.
We know that comprehensives are better in rich areas and we know that wealth players a big part in children's prospects, regardless of whether you go to a comprehensive or a grammar school.
Therefore simply saying "ah but X% of our 'elite' went to a grammar school" tells us absolutely nothing about the benefit of grammar schools.
It's just bollocks, as usual.
Your point is you are an ideological leftwing socialist who would deny parents the choice of where to send their children and would nationalise much of industry too given the chance.
Yes indeed comprehensives are better in wealthy areas and the left destroyed the best tools of tackling that for a bright child by abolishing the grammar schools that used to exist in inner cities or ex industrial areas or poor seaside towns. So the only ones left are generally in more prosperous areas with Tory councils where comprehensive schools and academies tend to be better anyway so they are less needed.
So we still have selection in state education, just by house price and vicar's reference, not by IQ
Also, grammar schools do not select by IQ. They select by wealth. Only a fool would try to pretend that wealth does not increase your chances of passing entrance exams by better access to learning materials and private tutors.
No, private schools and the best comprehensive schools select by parental wealth or house price (or church attendance).
Grammar schools select by IQ. If you have a low IQ tutoring will not get you through a grammar school entrance exam, if you have a high IQ you will pass a grammar school entrance exam regardless of tutoring
So you're saying all private schools have no entrance exams?
What the fuck did I sit 30 years ago then?
I know Harrow's a dump, but not all private schools are like Harrow.
Rish's postives are that he is smart, articulate, rich, ethnic and empathic. His negatives is that he is rich, ex Goldman Sachs, despite a vivid imagination struggles to understand what the average joe is struggling with, a bit wooden and in some respects he has not been tested as a Chancellor who was allowed to let rip in an extraordinary situation.
What I think he would bring to the government is a sense of professionalism, less blunders, less charisma and some calmness. We need that. It's time.
Andrew Marr in Newstatesman this weekend says Hunt is the one to watch. Could come through in the end as the calm, experienced, doesn't actively piss any other MP off, nothing-to-do-with-any-of-this candidate.
I would suggest Marr mentioning Hunt is more his remain side talking than realism
I have detected genuine fear among the real Brexiteers that Rishi is not hard enough on Northern Ireland, to the point they are losing the wider implications of leaving Boris in place which may will see a labour administration anyway
Sunak would need to invoke Article 16 certainly if he fails to won a majority and the DUP hold the balance of power to win them over as May did in 2017
Sunak would not need to do anything he did not want to
Sunak could be one of 3 Tory leadership hopefuls. At best he would be the next John Major, who narrowly wins another term for the Tories after ten years in power. Alternatively he could be the next Douglas Home, who narrowly lost a general election after ten years in power but made it closer than expected so Wilson only got a majority of 4. At worst he would be the next David Miliband or Michael Portillo and fail to even become leader, let alone win a general election.
If Sunak wants to be the first, like Major he needs to connect with the average voter. That means focusing on low taxes but also a commitment to public services and while opposed to socialism not getting too close to the laissez faire wing of the City and large corporations and the libertarian wing of the Tory right.
Now Brexit has got done austerity and deregulation will not keep the redwall. While any form of wealth tax would be as disastrous as May's dementia tax proved with Tory leaning swing voters.
I also disagree all alternatives to Boris would be better. Other than maybe Sunak most would probably poll worse than Boris with the public in the end
A new John Major is the best you now have to hope for, pal.
Fair enough but when have Labour ever won a fourth or fifth consecutive general election? Never. The best they managed was 3 consecutive general election wins under Blair
If the great HY is now falling back on consoling himself with past glories, we truly are approaching the end of days…
How long do you think your lot will be in opposition?
His idea of the conservative party, hopefully permanently
I rather imagine than when the party finally emerges from its next molecular readjustment, he’ll still be there in love with its new image…
I have voted and campaigned for Hague, IDS, Howard, Cameron, May and Boris.
Unlike BigG, who voted for New Labour twice, I am loyal to the party regardless
That's why I was super curious about your remark the other day about a theoretical breakaway scenario, and how the members would split in that scenario. Because by your logic you would side with whoever kept the name, regardless of who was involved or what other members did.
Even in that scenario they would likely merge again anyway unless we got PR, as the Canadian Tories merged with the Reform Party after about 10 years to create today's Conservative Party of Canada
Rish's postives are that he is smart, articulate, rich, ethnic and empathic. His negatives is that he is rich, ex Goldman Sachs, despite a vivid imagination struggles to understand what the average joe is struggling with, a bit wooden and in some respects he has not been tested as a Chancellor who was allowed to let rip in an extraordinary situation.
What I think he would bring to the government is a sense of professionalism, less blunders, less charisma and some calmness. We need that. It's time.
Andrew Marr in Newstatesman this weekend says Hunt is the one to watch. Could come through in the end as the calm, experienced, doesn't actively piss any other MP off, nothing-to-do-with-any-of-this candidate.
I would suggest Marr mentioning Hunt is more his remain side talking than realism
I have detected genuine fear among the real Brexiteers that Rishi is not hard enough on Northern Ireland, to the point they are losing the wider implications of leaving Boris in place which may will see a labour administration anyway
Sunak would need to invoke Article 16 certainly if he fails to won a majority and the DUP hold the balance of power to win them over as May did in 2017
Sunak would not need to do anything he did not want to
He would if he wanted to become PM and had failed to get a majority and the DUP held the balance of power, otherwise they would abstain and Starmer would become PM if Labour and the SNP and LDs were more than the Tories alone
Question re: the oh-so-generous home energy loan scheme. Four students share a flat at uni and get £200 removed from their energy bill. They then graduate and move into their own homes. Each students then has to pay back the £200 individually, in £40 instalments over five years.
So, in that case each student received £50 under the Chancellor's scheme, and pays back £200, i.e. they're getting a forced loan with a 300% rate of interest over a five year repayment term. The profits from the forced loan are then pocketed by the energy sector.
Meanwhile...
Oil giants BP and Shell are on course to make a combined profit of almost £40bn this year from the rocketing price of petrol and gas, fuelling calls for a windfall tax on energy firms to ease the cost of living crisis.
Before BP’s annual results this week, anti-poverty campaigners described the profits of oil producers as “obscene” and demanded the government take action to tax their surplus cash to support poorer families hit by rising energy bills.
MPs and unions said a large proportion of the industry’s profits were an unjustified windfall and the government should move quickly to impose a tax before the companies distribute them to shareholders.
Descending from the important questions in the Header to the nakedly partisan - apols - I wonder how a Sunak/Starmer match-up would play to the country? I haven't quite worked myself out a take on this yet. I do probably need to since he looks nailed on if and when 'it' finally happens.
Starmer's only real appeal is that he is the boring-but-competent one against the charismatic but flawed partygate buffoonery of Boris (being generous to Boris there).
Sunak would essentially occupy the same boring-but-competent territory. Which is bad for Starmer.
Except that one has a modicum of working class background and a trusted profession.
The other is the richest person in Parliament and was a banker. Replace the first letter & you have how most people view them.
lawyer who are almost as unloved as bankers.
Utterly untrue as Mike Smithson demonstrated the other day.
IPSOS MORI (One of your two permitted pollsters):
Other professions trusted by more than half of the public include museum curators, the police, lawyers, civil servants, the ordinary man/woman on the street and clergy/priests. Professions with negative net trust ratings include bankers, local councillors, business leaders, professional footballers, estate agents and journalists.
"If Old Labour had bulldozed Eton in the Seventies then almost everyone's life would be better today." Discuss.
"If Old Labour had not bulldozed most of the Grammar schools in the Sixties and Seventies then almost everyone's life would be better today." Discuss
Apart from the people who didn't get into the grammar schools I presume
No, everyone. The presence of those from the working class in positions of power helps everyone.
Apart from the people who didn't get into the grammar schools
Yep appalling institutions
So appalling they produced the highest number of non privately educated people products in our top professions, yes even judges and lawyers had plenty of grammar school alumni. More so than the number who now come from comprehensives
If you got rid of private schools and grammar schools then 100% of our PMs, people in top professions and judges and lawyers would be from comprehensives. Explain that one.
If you got rid of Waitrose, Marks and Spencer and Sainsburys all their customers would have to shop at Tesco, Aldi or Lidl. Explain that one.
I believe in choice for parents as much as consumers
Let me break it down for you.
1. I don't believe we should abolish existing grammar schools.
2. I don't believe we should abolish private schools.
3. However, if we did, then 100% of our 'elite' would be from comprehensives.
I ask again, explain that one?
If you ban private schools, then the ‘elites’ will send their kids to school abroad - just as the elites of many other countries currently aspire to be able to send their kids to school in the UK.
Only a small minority.
My point is that HY quotes statistics without any appreciation of the other factors at play.
We know that comprehensives are better in rich areas and we know that wealth players a big part in children's prospects, regardless of whether you go to a comprehensive or a grammar school.
Therefore simply saying "ah but X% of our 'elite' went to a grammar school" tells us absolutely nothing about the benefit of grammar schools.
It's just bollocks, as usual.
Your point is you are an ideological leftwing socialist who would deny parents the choice of where to send their children and would nationalise much of industry too given the chance.
Yes indeed comprehensives are better in wealthy areas and the left destroyed the best tools of tackling that for a bright child by abolishing the grammar schools that used to exist in inner cities or ex industrial areas or poor seaside towns. So the only ones left are generally in more prosperous areas with Tory councils where comprehensive schools and academies tend to be better anyway so they are less needed.
So we still have selection in state education, just by house price and vicar's reference, not by IQ
Also, grammar schools do not select by IQ. They select by wealth. Only a fool would try to pretend that wealth does not increase your chances of passing entrance exams by better access to learning materials and private tutors.
No, private schools and the best comprehensive schools select by parental wealth or house price (or church attendance).
Grammar schools select by IQ. If you have a low IQ tutoring will not get you through a grammar school entrance exam, if you have a high IQ you will pass a grammar school entrance exam regardless of tutoring
Descending from the important questions in the Header to the nakedly partisan - apols - I wonder how a Sunak/Starmer match-up would play to the country? I haven't quite worked myself out a take on this yet. I do probably need to since he looks nailed on if and when 'it' finally happens.
Starmer's only real appeal is that he is the boring-but-competent one against the charismatic but flawed partygate buffoonery of Boris (being generous to Boris there).
Sunak would essentially occupy the same boring-but-competent territory. Which is bad for Starmer.
Except that one has a modicum of working class background and a trusted profession.
The other is the richest person in Parliament and was a banker. Replace the first letter & you have how most people view them.
lawyer who are almost as unloved as bankers.
Utterly untrue as Mike Smithson demonstrated the other day.
IPSOS MORI (One of your two permitted pollsters):
Other professions trusted by more than half of the public include museum curators, the police, lawyers, civil servants, the ordinary man/woman on the street and clergy/priests. Professions with negative net trust ratings include bankers, local councillors, business leaders, professional footballers, estate agents and journalists.
"If Old Labour had bulldozed Eton in the Seventies then almost everyone's life would be better today." Discuss.
"If Old Labour had not bulldozed most of the Grammar schools in the Sixties and Seventies then almost everyone's life would be better today." Discuss
Apart from the people who didn't get into the grammar schools I presume
No, everyone. The presence of those from the working class in positions of power helps everyone.
Apart from the people who didn't get into the grammar schools
Yep appalling institutions
So appalling they produced the highest number of non privately educated people products in our top professions, yes even judges and lawyers had plenty of grammar school alumni. More so than the number who now come from comprehensives
If you got rid of private schools and grammar schools then 100% of our PMs, people in top professions and judges and lawyers would be from comprehensives. Explain that one.
If you got rid of Waitrose, Marks and Spencer and Sainsburys all their customers would have to shop at Tesco, Aldi or Lidl. Explain that one.
I believe in choice for parents as much as consumers
Let me break it down for you.
1. I don't believe we should abolish existing grammar schools.
2. I don't believe we should abolish private schools.
3. However, if we did, then 100% of our 'elite' would be from comprehensives.
I ask again, explain that one?
If you ban private schools, then the ‘elites’ will send their kids to school abroad - just as the elites of many other countries currently aspire to be able to send their kids to school in the UK.
Only a small minority.
My point is that HY quotes statistics without any appreciation of the other factors at play.
We know that comprehensives are better in rich areas and we know that wealth players a big part in children's prospects, regardless of whether you go to a comprehensive or a grammar school.
Therefore simply saying "ah but X% of our 'elite' went to a grammar school" tells us absolutely nothing about the benefit of grammar schools.
It's just bollocks, as usual.
Your point is you are an ideological leftwing socialist who would deny parents the choice of where to send their children and would nationalise much of industry too given the chance.
Yes indeed comprehensives are better in wealthy areas and the left destroyed the best tools of tackling that for a bright child by abolishing the grammar schools that used to exist in inner cities or ex industrial areas or poor seaside towns. So the only ones left are generally in more prosperous areas with Tory councils where comprehensive schools and academies tend to be better anyway so they are less needed.
So we still have selection in state education, just by house price and vicar's reference, not by IQ
Also, grammar schools do not select by IQ. They select by wealth. Only a fool would try to pretend that wealth does not increase your chances of passing entrance exams by better access to learning materials and private tutors.
No, private schools and the best comprehensive schools select by parental wealth or house price (or church attendance).
Grammar schools select by IQ. If you have a low IQ tutoring will not get you through a grammar school entrance exam, if you have a high IQ you will pass a grammar school entrance exam regardless of tutoring
We have been here before also. Yes it will. You can train for IQ tests unless you are particularly dim. I gave you some examples of stuff you could do last time we had this argument. I could easily raise someone's IQ result with training and I had to administer such test for potential employees for one the large computer companies I used to work for. I guessed I could add 10 - 20 points to someone's test, but later in that discussion @rcs1000 posted a link showing the improvement could be as much as 30 points.
Here is just one of those techniques: If given a sequence of numbers and you have to find the next number and can't see it simply subtract each number from the next number in the sequence and create a new sequence. Repeat until a pattern appears. This can be done in seconds so doesn't waste time and works nearly all the time for sequences in IQ tests.
Sunak could be one of 3 Tory leadership hopefuls. At best he would be the next John Major, who narrowly wins another term for the Tories after ten years in power. Alternatively he could be the next Douglas Home, who narrowly lost a general election after ten years in power but made it closer than expected so Wilson only got a majority of 4. At worst he would be the next David Miliband or Michael Portillo and fail to even become leader, let alone win a general election.
If Sunak wants to be the first, like Major he needs to connect with the average voter. That means focusing on low taxes but also a commitment to public services and while opposed to socialism not getting too close to the laissez faire wing of the City and large corporations and the libertarian wing of the Tory right.
Now Brexit has got done austerity and deregulation will not keep the redwall. While any form of wealth tax would be as disastrous as May's dementia tax proved with Tory leaning swing voters.
I also disagree all alternatives to Boris would be better. Other than maybe Sunak most would probably poll worse than Boris with the public in the end
A new John Major is the best you now have to hope for, pal.
Fair enough but when have Labour ever won a fourth or fifth consecutive general election? Never. The best they managed was 3 consecutive general election wins under Blair
If the great HY is now falling back on consoling himself with past glories, we truly are approaching the end of days…
How long do you think your lot will be in opposition?
Descending from the important questions in the Header to the nakedly partisan - apols - I wonder how a Sunak/Starmer match-up would play to the country? I haven't quite worked myself out a take on this yet. I do probably need to since he looks nailed on if and when 'it' finally happens.
Starmer's only real appeal is that he is the boring-but-competent one against the charismatic but flawed partygate buffoonery of Boris (being generous to Boris there).
Sunak would essentially occupy the same boring-but-competent territory. Which is bad for Starmer.
Except that one has a modicum of working class background and a trusted profession.
The other is the richest person in Parliament and was a banker. Replace the first letter & you have how most people view them.
lawyer who are almost as unloved as bankers.
Utterly untrue as Mike Smithson demonstrated the other day.
IPSOS MORI (One of your two permitted pollsters):
Other professions trusted by more than half of the public include museum curators, the police, lawyers, civil servants, the ordinary man/woman on the street and clergy/priests. Professions with negative net trust ratings include bankers, local councillors, business leaders, professional footballers, estate agents and journalists.
"If Old Labour had bulldozed Eton in the Seventies then almost everyone's life would be better today." Discuss.
"If Old Labour had not bulldozed most of the Grammar schools in the Sixties and Seventies then almost everyone's life would be better today." Discuss
Apart from the people who didn't get into the grammar schools I presume
No, everyone. The presence of those from the working class in positions of power helps everyone.
Apart from the people who didn't get into the grammar schools
Yep appalling institutions
So appalling they produced the highest number of non privately educated people products in our top professions, yes even judges and lawyers had plenty of grammar school alumni. More so than the number who now come from comprehensives
If you got rid of private schools and grammar schools then 100% of our PMs, people in top professions and judges and lawyers would be from comprehensives. Explain that one.
If you got rid of Waitrose, Marks and Spencer and Sainsburys all their customers would have to shop at Tesco, Aldi or Lidl. Explain that one.
I believe in choice for parents as much as consumers
Let me break it down for you.
1. I don't believe we should abolish existing grammar schools.
2. I don't believe we should abolish private schools.
3. However, if we did, then 100% of our 'elite' would be from comprehensives.
I ask again, explain that one?
If you ban private schools, then the ‘elites’ will send their kids to school abroad - just as the elites of many other countries currently aspire to be able to send their kids to school in the UK.
Only a small minority.
My point is that HY quotes statistics without any appreciation of the other factors at play.
We know that comprehensives are better in rich areas and we know that wealth players a big part in children's prospects, regardless of whether you go to a comprehensive or a grammar school.
Therefore simply saying "ah but X% of our 'elite' went to a grammar school" tells us absolutely nothing about the benefit of grammar schools.
It's just bollocks, as usual.
Your point is you are an ideological leftwing socialist who would deny parents the choice of where to send their children and would nationalise much of industry too given the chance.
Yes indeed comprehensives are better in wealthy areas and the left destroyed the best tools of tackling that for a bright child by abolishing the grammar schools that used to exist in inner cities or ex industrial areas or poor seaside towns. So the only ones left are generally in more prosperous areas with Tory councils where comprehensive schools and academies tend to be better anyway so they are less needed.
So we still have selection in state education, just by house price and vicar's reference, not by IQ
Also, grammar schools do not select by IQ. They select by wealth. Only a fool would try to pretend that wealth does not increase your chances of passing entrance exams by better access to learning materials and private tutors.
No, private schools and the best comprehensive schools select by parental wealth or house price (or church attendance).
Grammar schools select by IQ. If you have a low IQ tutoring will not get you through a grammar school entrance exam, if you have a high IQ you will pass a grammar school entrance exam regardless of tutoring
So you're saying all private schools have no entrance exams?
What the fuck did I sit 30 years ago then?
I know Harrow's a dump, but not all private schools are like Harrow.
Some do but not all. Some will take any pupils as long as their parents pay the fees.
This alone is why Boris Johnson needs to go, he is turning into Britain Trump.
The mood has turned further against Johnson in recent days after he criticised Sir Keir Starmer in the Commons on Monday for failing to prosecute the child abuser Jimmy Savile during his time as director of public prosecutions. The baseless attack on the opposition leader led to the resignation on Thursday of Johnson’s longtime aide and head of policy at No 10, Munira Mirza, who had demanded that Johnson apologise, which he failed to do.
Investigations by the Observer show that the unfounded claims about Starmer were being promoted, before Johnson aired them, by far-right groups including the UK branch of Proud Boys, a violent white nationalist organisation labelled a terrorist entity.
After Johnson made the comments in the Commons, other notorious far-right groups, including football hooligans linked to the anti-Muslim English Defence League as well as the nationalist organisation the Traditional Britain Group, lauded him.
The allegation appears to have roots in the far right’s obsession with the unfounded suggestion that the establishment is protecting paedophiles.
What did the Guardian have to say about Nick Griffin, and his comments from a decade ago about certain Northern towns being a hotbed of racially-motivated sexual abuse of young women? Did they think that was conspiracy theory nonsense too?
Rish's postives are that he is smart, articulate, rich, ethnic and empathic. His negatives is that he is rich, ex Goldman Sachs, despite a vivid imagination struggles to understand what the average joe is struggling with, a bit wooden and in some respects he has not been tested as a Chancellor who was allowed to let rip in an extraordinary situation.
What I think he would bring to the government is a sense of professionalism, less blunders, less charisma and some calmness. We need that. It's time.
Andrew Marr in Newstatesman this weekend says Hunt is the one to watch. Could come through in the end as the calm, experienced, doesn't actively piss any other MP off, nothing-to-do-with-any-of-this candidate.
I would suggest Marr mentioning Hunt is more his remain side talking than realism
I have detected genuine fear among the real Brexiteers that Rishi is not hard enough on Northern Ireland, to the point they are losing the wider implications of leaving Boris in place which may will see a labour administration anyway
Sunak would need to invoke Article 16 certainly if he fails to won a majority and the DUP hold the balance of power to win them over as May did in 2017
Sunak would not need to do anything he did not want to
He would if he wanted to become PM and had failed to get a majority and the DUP held the balance of power, otherwise they would abstain and Starmer would become PM if Labour and the SNP and LDs were more than the Tories alone
I have no idea why you keep regurgitating this utter rubbish
Comments
In education, one size does not fit all. Setting or streaming is an absolute must IMO. And a kid who is bright at (say) maths might be a total dunce at history or languages, and vice verse.
"The Self-denying Ordinance was passed by the English Parliament on 3 April 1645.[a] All members of the House of Commons or Lords who were also officers in the Parliamentary army or navy were required to resign one or the other, within 40 days from 3 April 1645.
It was part of a set of reforms designed to ensure victory, another being the establishment of a professional, centrally-controlled New Model Army, which replaced the existing system of regional armies. It was also linked to an internal political struggle between a Peace Party, who wanted a negotiated settlement with Charles, and a War Party which wanted to dictate terms.
First introduced in December 1644, the bill passed at the second attempt. As members of the Lords could not resign their titles, it effectively removed aristocratic commanders like the Earls of Manchester and Essex. Under the amended version, they were still required to resign their commissions, but could be re-appointed."
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Self-denying_Ordinance#:~:text=The Self-denying Ordinance was,days from 3 April 1645.
'How does Sunak expect us to live?' Pensioner close to tears as triple lock 'scrapped'
https://twitter.com/Daily_Express/status/1490039773364318208?s=20&t=mL0PgnV9ysKoXKxbzw-Lww
I feel no compulsion to vote for either, but at least Labour are not the bl**dy Conservatives
"....He would bring to the government is a sense of professionalism, less blunders, less charisma and some calmness. We need that. It's time. "
For a moment David I thought you were referring to Starmer!
PLATELL'S PEOPLE: I've bet the cost of a designer bag that the Prime Minister will survive
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/debate/article-10478663/PLATELLS-PEOPLE-Ive-bet-cost-designer-bag-Prime-Minister-survive.html
As #45 is currently fighting with his Governor, over who is the most whacked-out, makes sense to be seen & heard kicking Mitch in the ass right now.
Don't think MMcC takes stuff like this personally. Just more grist for the political mill . . .
https://twitter.com/MonsieurBloop/status/1489660408642379780?s=20&t=07cvwhP4-kEMJL4KhQ5DFg
In May 2013, Boris Johnson announced a flagship £1.7bn scheme for Chinese investors to transform east London docks into the capital’s third financial district. It was the biggest commercial property deal he had announced during his time as London mayor and he pledged it would be a “beacon for eastern investors”.
While Johnson’s proposals for a new island airport in the Thames estuary and a new bridge linking Scotland and Northern Ireland never got off the ground, he hoped the Royal Albert Dock project would boost his mayoral legacy.
Despite the grand ambitions, residents say there has been no significant work at the 35-acre industrial site for more than two years and the scheme now appears on the brink of collapse. The Greater London Authority (GLA) confirmed last week a “final termination notice” had been served on the developer because of delays. The authority also said receivers have been appointed over six companies within the group structure of the developer.
My (incomplete) opinion is that grammar schools are ok as long as the alternative is well funded, can strive to be better than grammar schools despite the selection, and there’s a general culture or self improvement and education throughout life not just in the early years so that late bloomers or career changes out of necessity are not thrown on the shit heap.
(((Dan Hodges)))
@DPJHodges
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42m
Although to be honest, none of these moves actually matter that much. We're beyond that now.
https://twitter.com/DPJHodges/status/1490033633855430663
https://mobile.twitter.com/nntaleb/status/1489150361390702592
“ This study has the rigor of lower grade marshmallow left out in the torching tropical sun.”
It does have one use. It’s a handy metric as to the credibility of any media outlet or commentator citing it as evidence of anything.
Because it’s so blatantly terrible, incoherent, desperately biased, and inconsistent that you don’t even need any specialist knowledge to rip it apart. Or to be aware that the single study they amplify actually concluded the opposite of what they claim.
It is getting to the point that I’m going to assume anyone citing it has read it and agrees with it. And therefore believes that:
- Sweden entered lockdown on 11th March 2010 and is still in lockdown
- The lockdowns and border closures in Australia and New Zealand did nothing
- Mask mandates make a massive reduction in deaths
- Closure of pubs, restaurants, cafes, non-essential stores, and schools are all useful for NPIs (whilst simultaneously believing that no NPIs work. Somehow).
Boring ...
Later peeps!
He's already hiked corporation tax significantly and daren't ramp that much further for fear of making the UK uncompetitive and depressing business activity. He can't tax assets because it would involve going after capital gains and property, which would cause the key Conservative demographics (the rich donors who fund the party, and elderly homeowners and their heirs) to scream in agony and desert. He can't cut spending either, again because the elderly demand an ever-increasing share of the cake to cover their free healthcare and index-linked state pensions, and he's running out of other things to cut (raising school class sizes to 50, abolishing the armed forces and reducing non-pensioner benefits to the point at which large numbers of claimants starve to death all being difficult sells.)
Therefore, the shortfall has to be found by heavier and heavier taxes on the working age population, whether directly through income tax and NI, or indirectly through VAT applied to most expenditure, so that the spending power of workers is effectively reduced in any case. A lot of that will come from stealth taxation - the freezing of personal allowances for years on end, and the reduction or abolition of certain reliefs - but we should also anticipate regular rises in this invidious new "Health and Social Care Levy." It won't stay at 1.25% for very long. It'll creep up by 0.25-0.50% every couple of years, the excuse of course being that Our Beloved NHS needs more and more money, and this is definitely the only way it can be raised, and if you oppose it being raised again then you must hate Our Beloved NHS and wish to see it burn.
Complaints that better ways to fund the NHS can be found (or, for that matter, that the tax is actually going up so that existing health funding can be switched to plugging other leaks,) will be studiously ignored - especially given that the Health and Social Care Levy has one key advantage. The large majority of people of pensionable age won't pay a penny. Again, the young are vampirized by the old.
I have detected genuine fear among the real Brexiteers that Rishi is not hard enough on Northern Ireland, to the point they are losing the wider implications of leaving Boris in place which may will see a labour administration anyway
Yes indeed comprehensives are better in wealthy areas and the left destroyed the best tools of tackling that for a bright child by abolishing the grammar schools that used to exist in inner cities or ex industrial areas or poor seaside towns. So the only ones left are generally in more prosperous areas with Tory councils where comprehensive schools and academies tend to be better anyway so they are less needed.
So we still have selection in state education, just by house price and vicar's reference, not by IQ
Sunak's big problem is that he was and remains at the heart of a government that is discredited. The idea that there won't be anyone with a plausible dossier of anecdotes, and pictures seems unlikely. It's a risk, and the Tories can't afford another leader ending as badly as all the others.
This time they need to look outside government. For Sunak to be plausible he needed to resign after the Savile nonsense at the latest.
Clearly your private school did not teach comprehension skills very well.
The difficulty that the Conservatives will have with that is that people are tired of that norm, and after 14 years in office will probably opt for a change, if Labour looks a reasonably sensible option. That's why they chose Johnson - a charismatic mould-breaker of few fixed opinions, he can't really be called a classic anything, and he therefore gave the opportunity to vote Tory and nonetheless get something different. From the Labour perspective, I'm still not really sure if we're better off facing a standard Tory or a chaotic showman.
Edit - although the best way to address many problems in the state sector would be to dramatically reduce class sizes.
in the real world there is selection everywhere, for universities, for higher paid jobs, for sports teams etc, ending grammar schools did not end the selection that continues throughout life.
The better alternative was to reform the secondary moderns to allow more effective vocational schemes in sixth form level and linked apprenticeships, which many high schools in selective area already do
That’s why the system must cater for this scenario - grammar schools or no grammar schools. Otherwise you just have a secondary modern underclass where the poor kids of poor parents remain poor.
Unlike BigG, who voted for New Labour twice, I am loyal to the party regardless
Bottom line is a new leader can simply say they did what they had to do to keep the show on the road. Now, they will do what they *wanted* to do but *couldn't* do until they got rid of the leader.
For the avoidance of doubt, the planned integration of the cabinet office and the proposed “new office of the prime minister” with Steve Barclay as enforcer - announced just now - would strengthen the PM and further weaken the cabinet. Is this really what concerned Tory MPs think is the solution? It is Johnson as Il Présidente
UKIP wanted a "grammar school in every town". No other party is interested. Tells you all you need to know. And why? Because the evidence (educational and social mobility) that they do more harm than good is incontrovertible. Trust me.
I just wanted to ask a few questions about him.
The Tories under Major or Howard or May for example have often stood on a platform of more grammar schools
Seems like some sort of joke these days.
The mood has turned further against Johnson in recent days after he criticised Sir Keir Starmer in the Commons on Monday for failing to prosecute the child abuser Jimmy Savile during his time as director of public prosecutions. The baseless attack on the opposition leader led to the resignation on Thursday of Johnson’s longtime aide and head of policy at No 10, Munira Mirza, who had demanded that Johnson apologise, which he failed to do.
Investigations by the Observer show that the unfounded claims about Starmer were being promoted, before Johnson aired them, by far-right groups including the UK branch of Proud Boys, a violent white nationalist organisation labelled a terrorist entity.
After Johnson made the comments in the Commons, other notorious far-right groups, including football hooligans linked to the anti-Muslim English Defence League as well as the nationalist organisation the Traditional Britain Group, lauded him.
The allegation appears to have roots in the far right’s obsession with the unfounded suggestion that the establishment is protecting paedophiles.
https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2022/feb/05/partygate-johnsons-removal-is-now-inevitable-warns-loyalist
"Utd should have appointed Bruce as manager. Not only was Fiona Bruce available but she understands antiques"
Grammar schools select by IQ. If you have a low IQ tutoring will not get you through a grammar school entrance exam, if you have a high IQ you will pass a grammar school entrance exam regardless of tutoring
I also recognise when the conservative party is toxic under it's leader and do not slavishly follow those who cannot see right for wrong
What the fuck did I sit 30 years ago then?
I know Harrow's a dump, but not all private schools are like Harrow.
PB Bottle Bus 2022!
So, in that case each student received £50 under the Chancellor's scheme, and pays back £200, i.e. they're getting a forced loan with a 300% rate of interest over a five year repayment term. The profits from the forced loan are then pocketed by the energy sector.
Meanwhile...
Oil giants BP and Shell are on course to make a combined profit of almost £40bn this year from the rocketing price of petrol and gas, fuelling calls for a windfall tax on energy firms to ease the cost of living crisis.
Before BP’s annual results this week, anti-poverty campaigners described the profits of oil producers as “obscene” and demanded the government take action to tax their surplus cash to support poorer families hit by rising energy bills.
MPs and unions said a large proportion of the industry’s profits were an unjustified windfall and the government should move quickly to impose a tax before the companies distribute them to shareholders.
https://www.theguardian.com/business/2022/feb/05/40bn-profits-for-bp-and-shell-fuel-calls-for-windfall-tax-on-energy-firms?CMP=Share_iOSApp_Other
His mps need to 'just do it'
"Smith, though, operates entirely in the shadows, to the extent that ‘it’s almost a myth that he even exists’, according to one backbench MP. "
"Only one photograph of him exists online."
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/politics/0/munira-mirza-dougie-smith-powerful-couple-downing-street/
Here is just one of those techniques: If given a sequence of numbers and you have to find the next number and can't see it simply subtract each number from the next number in the sequence and create a new sequence. Repeat until a pattern appears. This can be done in seconds so doesn't waste time and works nearly all the time for sequences in IQ tests.
It's all becoming very Shakespearean.
Harrow School also has an entrance exam
To be honest it impresses nobody