My advice for the Conservatives (other than ditching Boris. I don't share loathing that some here have for the man, but he is plainly corrupt) is:-
1. Encourage lots of house-building. My own view is that owner occupation is absolutely key to future Conservative voting. If that pisses off the NIMBY's, tough.
2. Rebalance tax away from income towards capital. I'm arguing against my own interests, here, as I'll likely inherit a lot of money in the next decade, but my need is less than the needs of my own step-children, and my nephews and nieces. Work has to pay, and it doesn't when people are facing high marginal rates of income tax.
3. Put a few hundred million pounds into fixing the criminal justice system. That does not mean more police. It means providing sufficient resources to enable justice to be delivered swiftly, which is fair to both victims and defendants. This is an area that has been shamefully neglected since 2010.
None of these things guarantee victory, but they are worth doing in themselves, and 1 and 2 will yield dividends for the Conservatives in the future.
Interesting. Current Labour Party policy is pretty close to your list - certainly closer than current Tory policy. Welcome to the dark side.
Is it? Bridgette Phillipson said yesterday that the Tories had scrapped the triple lock, implying that she thought that the triple lock was a good thing.
To be fair, I don't know what Labour's views are on planning reform and spending on the justice system, though it would be nice to think that a former DPP would think it worthwhile spending more on it.
- “Douglas Ross under threat as Tory colleagues plot to dump him as Scottish Conservatives leader”
Record
Good move if they do. He's made one notable contribution which earned him plaudits throughout the land. He said Johnson was unfit to be Prime Minister and he had to go.
Two weeks and one visit from Johnson later he took it back and has looked like an idiot ever since.
🟨 SNP 25.9% (19 seats, 30.2% of seats) 🟧 Lib Dem 20.5% (12 seats, 19%) 🟥 Labour 19.1% (13 seats, 20.6%) 🟦 Conservative 17.5% (9 seats, 14.3%) 🟩 Green 14.2% (10 seats, 19%) ⬛ Other 1.9% (0 seats) ⬜ Independents 0.9% (0)
I believe this is a partial glimpse into the transfers. Don't read too much into the overrepresentation of the SNP, that can come about from being the largest party. Look instead down the list at the Conservatives and Greens. I have a strong suspicion that we're seeing transfers across the union/indy divide more than previously, and unionist tactical voting reduced. Simply: Labour and Lib Dems favouring Greens more and Conservative less than last time.
Caveat: still just a hunch; I haven't dug into the data properly and this is just one council.
There is no question that the Tories were a lot less transfer friendly this time than in the last several elections. Anger at Boris, the fading memory of Ruth, the inconsistencies of Ross and a budget that in the face of a cost of living crisis did not seem to give a damn about the least well off all sickened people. The Tory brand has been retoxified and the price for that in Scotland with its STV and other proportional systems is going to be particularly high.
Are you sure? I'd arsgue that the Scottish setup is actually quite Tory-friendly; the Tories have clung on in ways which would be impossible in full FPTP systems, even to the extent of having senior MSPs totally dependent on the list system for being there in Holyrood at all. Just look at Ms-as-was Davidson and Prof Tomkins - only some of the time did she, at least, have a FPTP seat.
Quite agree, devolution, Holyrood and various associated voting systems have been the making of SCons, more so than the Ruth effect or whatever. Their negativity towards all or some of these things strikes me as most ungrateful.
Without STV this lad wouldn't have been elected in the first place to one of the poorest wards in Glasgow, let alone reelected when his colleagues were being flushed down the toilet all over Scotland.
He doesn't look like someone with a burning desire to improve the lot of the working class. Not to me he doesn't anyway.
My advice for the Conservatives (other than ditching Boris. I don't share loathing that some here have for the man, but he is plainly corrupt) is:-
1. Encourage lots of house-building. My own view is that owner occupation is absolutely key to future Conservative voting. If that pisses off the NIMBY's, tough.
2. Rebalance tax away from income towards capital. I'm arguing against my own interests, here, as I'll likely inherit a lot of money in the next decade, but my need is less than the needs of my own step-children, and my nephews and nieces. Work has to pay, and it doesn't when people are facing high marginal rates of income tax.
3. Put a few hundred million pounds into fixing the criminal justice system. That does not mean more police. It means providing sufficient resources to enable justice to be delivered swiftly, which is fair to both victims and defendants. This is an area that has been shamefully neglected since 2010.
None of these things guarantee victory, but they are worth doing in themselves, and 1 and 2 will yield dividends for the Conservatives in the future.
The Tory core vote of pensioners is still voting Tory because greenbelt land is not over developed and their capital is not too heavily taxed, see how badly the dementia tax went down.
Start building on greenbelt land as well as brown belt and taxing wealth and inheritance and property more and they will go LD, Independent or RefUK or even Labour and assuming the young still vote Labour and they cannot win back the middle aged they have lost since 2019 the Tories would be left with nobody and facing 1997 style wipeout.
I agree with you on 3 though
I think one problem with reforming planning law is the poor quality and unimaginative/unconstrained nature of large scale developments here, which often look awful and take years and years to complete.
People fear it will mean a free for all, with lots of disruption and bespoilment of their locality.
I'd like to see far more developments of 15-20 homes in the vernacular that complete in 12 months rather than 5 year megaplan Barratt and Persimmon monsters.
And more plots of land sold to individual builders. UK seems to be one of very few places in the world, where people don’t routinely build their own house.
We looked at doing it once, with one of the kit houses. The bureaucracy was too difficult and inflexible.
SF 18 nc DUP 17 -1 All 11 +4 UUP 5 -1 SDLP 3 -1 oth 2 nc
So Unionist parties 23 seats (including DUP and UUP and 1 for TUV) and Nationalist parties 21 seats combining SF and SDLP.
Almost neck and neck after transfers for largest party now too
Alliance are Progressive, so 32 including SF, SDLP, and Alliance.
I'd accept SDLP as Progressive; SF not really.
They are most certainly left of centre.
Sorta like great-granny's hankies: one for show and one for blow.
SDLP is more genuinely progressive, while SF as it's aimed for mainstream and gone big-time, has become increasingly pragmatic when it comes to ideology and motivation. Whereas it's rhetoric and style has been, and remains, more populist, confrontational, anti-establishment than that of SDLP.
At least how it comes across to me. Personal sympathies being with SDLP from 1970s onward and today.
Where are we now with the local results? This time yesterday the narrative was 'bad for the Tories but not the total catastrophe predicted'. Is the narrative now 'it's the total catastrophe predicted'?
No.
Labour = crap Conservatives = crapper Lib Dems = used to be crap
As ever John Harris adds something to the conversation that is worth sitting up and listening to. No one in political journalism does more thinking and scratching around beneath the headlines than this guy imho.
Thread of the evening.
John Harris @johnharris1969 · 4h You won't hear much political sociology in reporting of these election results. But a lot of them tell you about how a large chunk of the English middle class no longer meets old-fashioned stereotypes. (1)
John Harris @johnharris1969 · 4h Replying to @johnharris1969 It's increasingly liberal & worldly, thanks partly to the expansion of Higher Education, but also to how far cities' cultures now stretch well into suburbia and the commuter belt (2)
John Harris @johnharris1969 P.s Blair's expansion of Higher Education May yet prove to be as transformative as Thatcher's sale of council houses
Its a combination of the expansion of graduates with degrees of little use and the massive expansion of debt they're stuck with to get those degrees of little use.
The result is a huge number of new graduates each year who having been to university think they're entitled to a middle class lifestyle but don't have the skillset to achieve it.
Which inevitably leads them to blaming the government, the economic system, society as a whole.
And produces a class of people who require the creation of public sector middle class non-jobs for them to achieve the middle class lifestyle they think they're entitled to.
They can certainly still be middle class even if not necessarily upper middle class or rich enough to be in the top 10% of earners. That would largely have required them to go to Russell Group universities only to study law, medicine, economics or a STEM subject.
What is clear too is the expansion if graduates from about 10% of 25 year olds 40 years ago to about 40% now has also turned Labour from the party of the working class to the party of university graduates.
The Tories can still win graduates with a Cameron like leader but not a Boris type leader, although Boris has far more appeal and still does to the skilled working class voters in particular who have left Labour
That depends upon how you define middle class.
For me if you cannot afford to buy the average home in your area then you're not middle class.
That's a problem the Conservatives will have to deal with in southern England.
And promises about possible future inheritances aren't going to help.
Reading @another_richard and @HYUFD private dialogue is like dipping back into the 1950s and watching a smoke filled talking heads debate on a black and white TV
"Class depends on where one was educated, or what sort of a home one can afford". What a load of old nonsense.
Educate as many as one can to a high standard it drags up society, a nation of fewer hooligans and reprobates. Who cares if all the Baristas have a Sociology degree from the University of Worcester? Good on them.
That's fine as long as you make clear to those getting Sociology degrees from the University of Worcester that all their degree is good for is a life as a Barista. Stop coning people into thinking a degree is a gateway to a better job and a better life whilst at the same time so completely trashing the value of those degrees that in effect you are lying to them and that all you are really giving them is a lifetime of debt and low pay.
No, we must encourage employers to treat all graduates equally. It will be good for both sides and the country. Unless there really is something about an Oxford humanities degree that qualifies one to run a hedge fund or a country.
That is utter rubbish. Why should an employer put any value on a qualification which has no intrinsic value in itself and which does not in any way reflect the abilities of the candidate as a potential employee.
There are plenty of degrees that do have real world value in the specific areas they relate to but the idea that as an employer i should look favourably on someone simply because they have been through the degree factory and stayed out of gainful employment for an extra 3 years is idiotic.
Or put it the other way. Why should I look less favourably on someone who left school at 18 and went out and got a job so that by 21 they have 3 years experience of real employment compared with a graduate? That is what you are actually asking employers to do.
Or why should someone with 2 E grade A levels and straight Cs at GCSE at a new university be put on an equal plane for a job as a lawyer or doctor with someone with straight A*s at A level and GCSE with a degree from Oxbridge or another Russell Group university
Not posh enough for some people, I see.
OK if you would like to be operated on or defended in court or have a big commercial deal negotiated by someone with 2 E grades at A level, C grade gcses and a 2.2 from a new university, be my guest
Actually given ages you probably are today. At A levels 1979/80 I had lots of friends who applied to do architecture and got places with Ds and Es they will have built some bg buildings by now. I cant see why lawyers will be much different.
Yes but we did not have new universities back then and just 10% were graduates not 40% like now and an E grade at A level then would likely be a C grade now and a C grade then would probably be an A now and an A then would now be an A* thanks to grade inflation
We had Polytechs which were places where people actually had to do work. I did a language degree and got my classes down to 8 hours a week. The occasional essay and translation disturbed an otherwise tranquil week.
Polytechnics did vocational practical courses, now most of them are universities doing academic degrees not what they were created for
Of course. So would you rather have been served by someone trained in their vocation or a social science grad who is picking it up as they go along ?
A social science graduate with top grade GCSES and A levels who did a Russell Group degree and the law conversion course where they did well in I would certainly prefer over someone with a 2.2 from a new university as my lawyer.
Polytechnics did practical courses for trades rather than academic degrees and that is what they were good at
degrees are no guarantee of ability - see D Cameron. I've met lots of people from good universities and a university is no guarantee of anything. After about 10 years in the workforce degrees are largely irrelevant and ability is all.
A university degree from a top university generally indicates you at least have the ability to do a job which requires a high level of intelligence and IQ. For example be a doctor or lawyer or academic or engineer.
For other jobs practical experience is more important and in politics probably judgement too eg Churchill and Truman were not university graduates but were effective as PM and President. Although even in politics having a degree helps with understanding complex legislation and policy
As someone who is married to a Doctor I think she would say memory is a key factor and to be a surgeon dexterity is important. Now I consider myself to be reasonably bright, but only a fool would let me near any sharp instruments.
Dexterity can be taught fairly easily. I agree on memory, but ultimately doctors need to be analytic, reflective and flexible of thought more than anything else.
Yes I know. I'm just being playful. Re dexterity, you haven't obviously tried teaching me anything requiring dexterity.
SF 18 nc DUP 17 -1 All 11 +4 UUP 5 -1 SDLP 3 -1 oth 2 nc
So Unionist parties 23 seats (including DUP and UUP and 1 for TUV) and Nationalist parties 21 seats combining SF and SDLP.
Almost neck and neck after transfers for largest party now too between SF and DUP
I think the DUP will lose three in the end, one to Alliance, and two to indpendent Unionists, and the UUP will lose one. But, it's just possible they could lose a seat to Alliance in North Antrim.
Sinn Fein may gain from SDLP in Upper Bann and Fermanagh South Tyrone.
The general trend then is almost no change between the Unionist and Nationalist seat totals.
The main shift is DUP to TUV and DUP and UUP to Alliance and SDLP to SF and Alliance
Alliance have just squeezed home in North Antrim, so I guess the Unionists and Nationalists will each be down 3 seats.
As ever John Harris adds something to the conversation that is worth sitting up and listening to. No one in political journalism does more thinking and scratching around beneath the headlines than this guy imho.
Thread of the evening.
John Harris @johnharris1969 · 4h You won't hear much political sociology in reporting of these election results. But a lot of them tell you about how a large chunk of the English middle class no longer meets old-fashioned stereotypes. (1)
John Harris @johnharris1969 · 4h Replying to @johnharris1969 It's increasingly liberal & worldly, thanks partly to the expansion of Higher Education, but also to how far cities' cultures now stretch well into suburbia and the commuter belt (2)
John Harris @johnharris1969 P.s Blair's expansion of Higher Education May yet prove to be as transformative as Thatcher's sale of council houses
Its a combination of the expansion of graduates with degrees of little use and the massive expansion of debt they're stuck with to get those degrees of little use.
The result is a huge number of new graduates each year who having been to university think they're entitled to a middle class lifestyle but don't have the skillset to achieve it.
Which inevitably leads them to blaming the government, the economic system, society as a whole.
And produces a class of people who require the creation of public sector middle class non-jobs for them to achieve the middle class lifestyle they think they're entitled to.
They can certainly still be middle class even if not necessarily upper middle class or rich enough to be in the top 10% of earners. That would largely have required them to go to Russell Group universities only to study law, medicine, economics or a STEM subject.
What is clear too is the expansion if graduates from about 10% of 25 year olds 40 years ago to about 40% now has also turned Labour from the party of the working class to the party of university graduates.
The Tories can still win graduates with a Cameron like leader but not a Boris type leader, although Boris has far more appeal and still does to the skilled working class voters in particular who have left Labour
That depends upon how you define middle class.
For me if you cannot afford to buy the average home in your area then you're not middle class.
That's a problem the Conservatives will have to deal with in southern England.
And promises about possible future inheritances aren't going to help.
Reading @another_richard and @HYUFD private dialogue is like dipping back into the 1950s and watching a smoke filled talking heads debate on a black and white TV
"Class depends on where one was educated, or what sort of a home one can afford". What a load of old nonsense.
Educate as many as one can to a high standard it drags up society, a nation of fewer hooligans and reprobates. Who cares if all the Baristas have a Sociology degree from the University of Worcester? Good on them.
That's fine as long as you make clear to those getting Sociology degrees from the University of Worcester that all their degree is good for is a life as a Barista. Stop coning people into thinking a degree is a gateway to a better job and a better life whilst at the same time so completely trashing the value of those degrees that in effect you are lying to them and that all you are really giving them is a lifetime of debt and low pay.
No, we must encourage employers to treat all graduates equally. It will be good for both sides and the country. Unless there really is something about an Oxford humanities degree that qualifies one to run a hedge fund or a country.
That is utter rubbish. Why should an employer put any value on a qualification which has no intrinsic value in itself and which does not in any way reflect the abilities of the candidate as a potential employee.
There are plenty of degrees that do have real world value in the specific areas they relate to but the idea that as an employer i should look favourably on someone simply because they have been through the degree factory and stayed out of gainful employment for an extra 3 years is idiotic.
Or put it the other way. Why should I look less favourably on someone who left school at 18 and went out and got a job so that by 21 they have 3 years experience of real employment compared with a graduate? That is what you are actually asking employers to do.
Or why should someone with 2 E grade A levels and straight Cs at GCSE at a new university be put on an equal plane for a job as a lawyer or doctor with someone with straight A*s at A level and GCSE with a degree from Oxbridge or another Russell Group university
In case you hadn't noticed, there are no Cs at GCSE any more.
Also I didn't know anyone with an A* when I was there, let alone straight A*s.
I did know lots of people with 2 E offers.
I had one friend who went to Warwick with a 2 Es offer after failing to get a place at Cambridge. None from my school got the offer of 2 Es for Oxbridge. I'm guessing they had prowess in sport or music?
It was back in the days of fourth-term entrance; you did three entrance exams set by Oxford and if they still liked you after the interview(s) then you got an "unconditional" (in practice 2 E) offer.
It made for an unstressed Y13 after Christmas...
And 2/3 of Oxbridge students got straight A*s anyway
Nope: none of those with a 2 E offer did.
Actually I know someone with an E grade offer who did indeed still get straight A*s.
And the 2 E offer is rarely given to more than a small minority of those given Oxbridge offers. The standard offer is normally at least 2 or 3 A* grades
The entrance exam was phased out in 1997; the A* was introduced in 2010.
E grade offers are still given in a few cases even without the entrance exam. Plus the most popular courses like law now have their own entry tests too as has been mentioned
My son's offer from Cambridge was lower than any other offer he received, but then he had won an international prize from Cambridge in the lower 6th for a paper he had written on game theory and did reach the final stage (all done at Cambridge) on 3 different subjects (Physics, Chemistry, Informatics) to try and get into the British Olympiad team for each of those subjects, so they did sort of know him.
My advice for the Conservatives (other than ditching Boris. I don't share loathing that some here have for the man, but he is plainly corrupt) is:-
1. Encourage lots of house-building. My own view is that owner occupation is absolutely key to future Conservative voting. If that pisses off the NIMBY's, tough.
2. Rebalance tax away from income towards capital. I'm arguing against my own interests, here, as I'll likely inherit a lot of money in the next decade, but my need is less than the needs of my own step-children, and my nephews and nieces. Work has to pay, and it doesn't when people are facing high marginal rates of income tax.
3. Put a few hundred million pounds into fixing the criminal justice system. That does not mean more police. It means providing sufficient resources to enable justice to be delivered swiftly, which is fair to both victims and defendants. This is an area that has been shamefully neglected since 2010.
None of these things guarantee victory, but they are worth doing in themselves, and 1 and 2 will yield dividends for the Conservatives in the future.
The Tory core vote of pensioners is still voting Tory because greenbelt land is not over developed and their capital is not too heavily taxed, see how badly the dementia tax went down.
Start building on greenbelt land as well as brown belt and taxing wealth and inheritance and property more and they will go LD, Independent or RefUK or even Labour and assuming the young still vote Labour and they cannot win back the middle aged they have lost since 2019 the Tories would be left with nobody and facing 1997 style wipeout.
I agree with you on 3 though
I think one problem with reforming planning law is the poor quality and unimaginative/unconstrained nature of large scale developments here, which often look awful and take years and years to complete.
People fear it will mean a free for all, with lots of disruption and bespoilment of their locality.
I'd like to see far more developments of 15-20 homes in the vernacular that complete in 12 months rather than 5 year megaplan Barratt and Persimmon monsters.
And more plots of land sold to individual builders. UK seems to be one of very few places in the world, where people don’t routinely build their own house.
We looked at doing it once, with one of the kit houses. The bureaucracy was too difficult and inflexible.
Per my previous comment.
Development is so risky and therefore so capital intensive in the UK that the market tends towards oligopoly, which in turn focuses on uniformly designed monstrosities to reduce cost.
SF 18 nc DUP 17 -1 All 11 +4 UUP 5 -1 SDLP 3 -1 oth 2 nc
So Unionist parties 23 seats (including DUP and UUP and 1 for TUV) and Nationalist parties 21 seats combining SF and SDLP.
Almost neck and neck after transfers for largest party now too
Alliance are Progressive, so 32 including SF, SDLP, and Alliance.
If the DUP and UUP entered a formal alliance would they get the right to nominate 1st Minister (assuming that made them larger than SF of course)? I cannot see the Unionist community there giving that up easily.
The wording in the legislation is:
the size of a political party is to be determined by reference to the number of seats in the Assembly which were held by members of the party on the day on which the Assembly first met following its election;
So I think that a "formal alliance" would have to be to the extent of formally dissolving the separate parties and having a common membership. And that completed before the Assembly meets.
I think this also means that the status of the "largest party" for the purposes of nominating the First Minister, isn't changed by subsequent splits or defections that occur after the day on which the Assembly first meets following its election (but I haven't checked that).
My advice for the Conservatives (other than ditching Boris. I don't share loathing that some here have for the man, but he is plainly corrupt) is:-
1. Encourage lots of house-building. My own view is that owner occupation is absolutely key to future Conservative voting. If that pisses off the NIMBY's, tough.
2. Rebalance tax away from income towards capital. I'm arguing against my own interests, here, as I'll likely inherit a lot of money in the next decade, but my need is less than the needs of my own step-children, and my nephews and nieces. Work has to pay, and it doesn't when people are facing high marginal rates of income tax.
3. Put a few hundred million pounds into fixing the criminal justice system. That does not mean more police. It means providing sufficient resources to enable justice to be delivered swiftly, which is fair to both victims and defendants. This is an area that has been shamefully neglected since 2010.
None of these things guarantee victory, but they are worth doing in themselves, and 1 and 2 will yield dividends for the Conservatives in the future.
The Tory core vote of pensioners is still voting Tory because greenbelt land is not over developed and their capital is not too heavily taxed, see how badly the dementia tax went down.
Start building on greenbelt land as well as brown belt and taxing wealth and inheritance and property more and they will go LD, Independent or RefUK or even Labour and assuming the young still vote Labour and they cannot win back the middle aged they have lost since 2019 the Tories would be left with nobody and facing 1997 style wipeout.
I agree with you on 3 though
That doesn’t make sense. Why would they switch their votes to parties that want to do more of that sort of thing?
The LDs are often NIMBY and firmly anti more houses in the greenbelt, see Chesham and Amersham. RefUK want to scrap inheritance tax altogether.
The Tories are also still winning over 55s, remember however in 1997 Blair won every age group, even over 55s and pensioners.
So your strategy for the Tories to win the next election is to propose reducing house building, and reducing tax on the most well off?
Madness.
The Tories are unlikely to win the next general election, the choice is more between narrow defeat by keeping the over 55 vote or landslide defeat by losing the over 55 vote.
I am not anti house building but it should be focused on brownbelt land in London and the Home counties where it is most needed.
The well off home owners are the Tory core vote, as well as now committed pro hard Brexit working class voters
BiB - excellent news. I've always thought you a chap with sound judgement and good predictive powers.
Talking of Housebuilding it was reported in the times up to 100,000 new build homes are on hold due to the intervention of an unelected body chaired by a former eco campaigner, Natural England.
My advice for the Conservatives (other than ditching Boris. I don't share loathing that some here have for the man, but he is plainly corrupt) is:-
1. Encourage lots of house-building. My own view is that owner occupation is absolutely key to future Conservative voting. If that pisses off the NIMBY's, tough.
2. Rebalance tax away from income towards capital. I'm arguing against my own interests, here, as I'll likely inherit a lot of money in the next decade, but my need is less than the needs of my own step-children, and my nephews and nieces. Work has to pay, and it doesn't when people are facing high marginal rates of income tax.
3. Put a few hundred million pounds into fixing the criminal justice system. That does not mean more police. It means providing sufficient resources to enable justice to be delivered swiftly, which is fair to both victims and defendants. This is an area that has been shamefully neglected since 2010.
None of these things guarantee victory, but they are worth doing in themselves, and 1 and 2 will yield dividends for the Conservatives in the future.
Interesting. Current Labour Party policy is pretty close to your list - certainly closer than current Tory policy. Welcome to the dark side.
Is it? Bridgette Phillipson said yesterday that the Tories had scrapped the triple lock, implying that she thought that the triple lock was a good thing.
To be fair, I don't know what Labour's views are on planning reform and spending on the justice system, though it would be nice to think that a former DPP would think it worthwhile spending more on it.
Yes. I was referring to the list I responded to, which didn't mention the triple lock. Labour is in favour of a) large-scale house-building programme, b) rebalancing tax from income to capital, and c) a properly funded criminal justice system.
My advice for the Conservatives (other than ditching Boris. I don't share loathing that some here have for the man, but he is plainly corrupt) is:-
1. Encourage lots of house-building. My own view is that owner occupation is absolutely key to future Conservative voting. If that pisses off the NIMBY's, tough.
2. Rebalance tax away from income towards capital. I'm arguing against my own interests, here, as I'll likely inherit a lot of money in the next decade, but my need is less than the needs of my own step-children, and my nephews and nieces. Work has to pay, and it doesn't when people are facing high marginal rates of income tax.
3. Put a few hundred million pounds into fixing the criminal justice system. That does not mean more police. It means providing sufficient resources to enable justice to be delivered swiftly, which is fair to both victims and defendants. This is an area that has been shamefully neglected since 2010.
None of these things guarantee victory, but they are worth doing in themselves, and 1 and 2 will yield dividends for the Conservatives in the future.
The Tory core vote of pensioners is still voting Tory because greenbelt land is not over developed and their capital is not too heavily taxed, see how badly the dementia tax went down.
Start building on greenbelt land as well as brown belt and taxing wealth and inheritance and property more and they will go LD, Independent or RefUK or even Labour and assuming the young still vote Labour and they cannot win back the middle aged they have lost since 2019 the Tories would be left with nobody and facing 1997 style wipeout.
I agree with you on 3 though
The Conservatives won't have a future if they base their electoral strategy on appealing to current pensioners. From the 1920's to the 1980's, the Conservatives understood very well that if they wished to grow their vote, housebuilding was key.
Agreed. Honing their offering to pensioners is a guaranteed slow death for the party. Quite literally.
No it isn't, they are our core vote.
Lose them and we face 1997 style annihilation or 2022 style Les Republicains annihilation as occurred when Major and Pecresse lost the pensioner vote to Blair and Macron as well as every other age group
If you love something, let it go.
You Tories are absolute fools. You relentlessly appeal to your core vote. Core vote is never going to get you very far. You need to reach beyond your comfort zone.
Ed Milibands core vote strategy in 2015 was not a resounding success.
- Tories losing 43% of their seats in Wales without a single gain and losing their only council. - Plaid gaining 3 Councils (albeit with small nett seat loss) - First seats for Gwlad & Propel
My faith in the Welsh electorate has been restored.
It does seem to be a particularly poor performance from the Tories in Wales, albeit the base for Wales was a good round of local elections for them in 2017, rather than a mediocre round in 2018.
Worth noting that there are 14 Tory MPs in Wales, half with a majority under 3,000. So it's not decisive for the next elections but it's a good clutch of marginals they can ill-afford to lose.
As ever John Harris adds something to the conversation that is worth sitting up and listening to. No one in political journalism does more thinking and scratching around beneath the headlines than this guy imho.
Thread of the evening.
John Harris @johnharris1969 · 4h You won't hear much political sociology in reporting of these election results. But a lot of them tell you about how a large chunk of the English middle class no longer meets old-fashioned stereotypes. (1)
John Harris @johnharris1969 · 4h Replying to @johnharris1969 It's increasingly liberal & worldly, thanks partly to the expansion of Higher Education, but also to how far cities' cultures now stretch well into suburbia and the commuter belt (2)
John Harris @johnharris1969 P.s Blair's expansion of Higher Education May yet prove to be as transformative as Thatcher's sale of council houses
Its a combination of the expansion of graduates with degrees of little use and the massive expansion of debt they're stuck with to get those degrees of little use.
The result is a huge number of new graduates each year who having been to university think they're entitled to a middle class lifestyle but don't have the skillset to achieve it.
Which inevitably leads them to blaming the government, the economic system, society as a whole.
And produces a class of people who require the creation of public sector middle class non-jobs for them to achieve the middle class lifestyle they think they're entitled to.
They can certainly still be middle class even if not necessarily upper middle class or rich enough to be in the top 10% of earners. That would largely have required them to go to Russell Group universities only to study law, medicine, economics or a STEM subject.
What is clear too is the expansion if graduates from about 10% of 25 year olds 40 years ago to about 40% now has also turned Labour from the party of the working class to the party of university graduates.
The Tories can still win graduates with a Cameron like leader but not a Boris type leader, although Boris has far more appeal and still does to the skilled working class voters in particular who have left Labour
That depends upon how you define middle class.
For me if you cannot afford to buy the average home in your area then you're not middle class.
That's a problem the Conservatives will have to deal with in southern England.
And promises about possible future inheritances aren't going to help.
Reading @another_richard and @HYUFD private dialogue is like dipping back into the 1950s and watching a smoke filled talking heads debate on a black and white TV
"Class depends on where one was educated, or what sort of a home one can afford". What a load of old nonsense.
Educate as many as one can to a high standard it drags up society, a nation of fewer hooligans and reprobates. Who cares if all the Baristas have a Sociology degree from the University of Worcester? Good on them.
That's fine as long as you make clear to those getting Sociology degrees from the University of Worcester that all their degree is good for is a life as a Barista. Stop coning people into thinking a degree is a gateway to a better job and a better life whilst at the same time so completely trashing the value of those degrees that in effect you are lying to them and that all you are really giving them is a lifetime of debt and low pay.
No, we must encourage employers to treat all graduates equally. It will be good for both sides and the country. Unless there really is something about an Oxford humanities degree that qualifies one to run a hedge fund or a country.
That is utter rubbish. Why should an employer put any value on a qualification which has no intrinsic value in itself and which does not in any way reflect the abilities of the candidate as a potential employee.
There are plenty of degrees that do have real world value in the specific areas they relate to but the idea that as an employer i should look favourably on someone simply because they have been through the degree factory and stayed out of gainful employment for an extra 3 years is idiotic.
Or put it the other way. Why should I look less favourably on someone who left school at 18 and went out and got a job so that by 21 they have 3 years experience of real employment compared with a graduate? That is what you are actually asking employers to do.
Or why should someone with 2 E grade A levels and straight Cs at GCSE at a new university be put on an equal plane for a job as a lawyer or doctor with someone with straight A*s at A level and GCSE with a degree from Oxbridge or another Russell Group university
In case you hadn't noticed, there are no Cs at GCSE any more.
Also I didn't know anyone with an A* when I was there, let alone straight A*s.
I did know lots of people with 2 E offers.
I had one friend who went to Warwick with a 2 Es offer after failing to get a place at Cambridge. None from my school got the offer of 2 Es for Oxbridge. I'm guessing they had prowess in sport or music?
It was back in the days of fourth-term entrance; you did three entrance exams set by Oxford and if they still liked you after the interview(s) then you got an "unconditional" (in practice 2 E) offer.
It made for an unstressed Y13 after Christmas...
And 2/3 of Oxbridge students got straight A*s anyway
Nope: none of those with a 2 E offer did.
Actually I know someone with an E grade offer who did indeed still get straight A*s.
And the 2 E offer is rarely given to more than a small minority of those given Oxbridge offers. The standard offer is normally at least 2 or 3 A* grades
The entrance exam was phased out in 1997; the A* was introduced in 2010.
E grade offers are still given in a few cases even without the entrance exam. Plus the most popular courses like law now have their own entry tests too as has been mentioned
My son's offer from Cambridge was lower than any other offer he received, but then he had won an international prize from Cambridge in the lower 6th for a paper he had written on game theory and did reach the final stage (all done at Cambridge) on 3 different subjects (Physics, Chemistry, Informatics) to try and get into the British Olympiad team for each of those subjects, so they did sort of know him.
Chip off ...
Sadly not. I haven't a clue what he is talking about most of the time. At least I have a maths background, my wife is even more baffled. All pure maths which loses me after the topic title. Very proud though. Has received lots of scholarships in his time, was in his College University Challenge team, etc, etc. My daughter is of normal intelligence and having someone who achieves so much is a challenge for her, but handled.
My advice for the Conservatives (other than ditching Boris. I don't share loathing that some here have for the man, but he is plainly corrupt) is:-
1. Encourage lots of house-building. My own view is that owner occupation is absolutely key to future Conservative voting. If that pisses off the NIMBY's, tough.
2. Rebalance tax away from income towards capital. I'm arguing against my own interests, here, as I'll likely inherit a lot of money in the next decade, but my need is less than the needs of my own step-children, and my nephews and nieces. Work has to pay, and it doesn't when people are facing high marginal rates of income tax.
3. Put a few hundred million pounds into fixing the criminal justice system. That does not mean more police. It means providing sufficient resources to enable justice to be delivered swiftly, which is fair to both victims and defendants. This is an area that has been shamefully neglected since 2010.
None of these things guarantee victory, but they are worth doing in themselves, and 1 and 2 will yield dividends for the Conservatives in the future.
The Tory core vote of pensioners is still voting Tory because greenbelt land is not over developed and their capital is not too heavily taxed, see how badly the dementia tax went down.
Start building on greenbelt land as well as brown belt and taxing wealth and inheritance and property more and they will go LD, Independent or RefUK or even Labour and assuming the young still vote Labour and they cannot win back the middle aged they have lost since 2019 the Tories would be left with nobody and facing 1997 style wipeout.
I agree with you on 3 though
I think one problem with reforming planning law is the poor quality and unimaginative/unconstrained nature of large scale developments here, which often look awful and take years and years to complete.
People fear it will mean a free for all, with lots of disruption and bespoilment of their locality.
I'd like to see far more developments of 15-20 homes in the vernacular that complete in 12 months rather than 5 year megaplan Barratt and Persimmon monsters.
The latter is a direct result of the planning laws, which currently incentivise the Barratt monsters.
Perhaps but the Cummings reforms looked like a free for all.
My advice for the Conservatives (other than ditching Boris. I don't share loathing that some here have for the man, but he is plainly corrupt) is:-
1. Encourage lots of house-building. My own view is that owner occupation is absolutely key to future Conservative voting. If that pisses off the NIMBY's, tough.
2. Rebalance tax away from income towards capital. I'm arguing against my own interests, here, as I'll likely inherit a lot of money in the next decade, but my need is less than the needs of my own step-children, and my nephews and nieces. Work has to pay, and it doesn't when people are facing high marginal rates of income tax.
3. Put a few hundred million pounds into fixing the criminal justice system. That does not mean more police. It means providing sufficient resources to enable justice to be delivered swiftly, which is fair to both victims and defendants. This is an area that has been shamefully neglected since 2010.
None of these things guarantee victory, but they are worth doing in themselves, and 1 and 2 will yield dividends for the Conservatives in the future.
The Tory core vote of pensioners is still voting Tory because greenbelt land is not over developed and their capital is not too heavily taxed, see how badly the dementia tax went down.
Start building on greenbelt land as well as brown belt and taxing wealth and inheritance and property more and they will go LD, Independent or RefUK or even Labour and assuming the young still vote Labour and they cannot win back the middle aged they have lost since 2019 the Tories would be left with nobody and facing 1997 style wipeout.
I agree with you on 3 though
I think one problem with reforming planning law is the poor quality and unimaginative/unconstrained nature of large scale developments here, which often look awful and take years and years to complete.
People fear it will mean a free for all, with lots of disruption and bespoilment of their locality.
I'd like to see far more developments of 15-20 homes in the vernacular that complete in 12 months rather than 5 year megaplan Barratt and Persimmon monsters.
And more plots of land sold to individual builders. UK seems to be one of very few places in the world, where people don’t routinely build their own house.
We looked at doing it once, with one of the kit houses. The bureaucracy was too difficult and inflexible.
Per my previous comment.
Development is so risky and therefore so capital intensive in the UK that the market tends towards oligopoly, which in turn focuses on uniformly designed monstrosities to reduce cost.
I rather agree with Sean F, obviously without the political motive. The shortage of affordable places to live anywhere near the main workplaces is staring us all in the face as a national scandal. And here we want efficiency. "monstrosity" is in the eye of the beholder, but if lots of customised self-built houses means slower development, I'm against it. People desperate for somewhere comfortable that they can afford to live in barely give a toss about architectural beauty.
But as a consolation, if the primary need was better addressed, there would be more interest in moving beyond it to self-build.
Incidentally, I'm not aware of lots of self-build in any of the cities I've lived in (Copenhagen, Vienna, Basel), and find it hard to imagine. Out in the countryside, sure, why not.
All you F1 fans out there, very excited because this morning (in USA) the Marty & McGee show on ESPN radio (and SEC TV) is broadcasting from Miami.
They just interviewed a British racer (didn't catch his name) and are going to have Mario Andretti on the show shortly.
Talking about a) new burst of US enthusiasm and interest in F1 in addition to NASCAR; and b) some Euro types disgruntled about having F1 in America in the first place.
The Miami event is totally bonkers, even by F1 standards. It’s like they’re hosting the Super Bowl this weekend, there’s an estimated half a million ticketless fans turning up in the city, to watch the race in parks and bars.
Miami Herald - The inaugural F1 Miami Grand Prix will be a quintessentially South Florida spectacle
SSI - Marty & McGee were talking about Euro F1 fans reacting (rather sarcastically) to sight of a yacht moored on a fake sea of concrete. Get with the program, dudes!
The fake harbour would have been okay if it were actually a lake of water, as opposed to a scaffolding structure with a blue carpet around the boats. People are paying several thousand dollars a head, to be on those boats this weekend!
So let the Euro Trash rough it.
Don't work, Miami-Dade tourist board will cheer the jaded throng, by giving each a bottle of Rebel Yell, then hauling them waaaaay out in the 'Glades somewhere, in big airboats to see Crazy Leon's Snake Farm, Ayahuasca Relaxation Spa and Hog-Rendering Facility. After the sun goes down . . .
My advice for the Conservatives (other than ditching Boris. I don't share loathing that some here have for the man, but he is plainly corrupt) is:-
1. Encourage lots of house-building. My own view is that owner occupation is absolutely key to future Conservative voting. If that pisses off the NIMBY's, tough.
2. Rebalance tax away from income towards capital. I'm arguing against my own interests, here, as I'll likely inherit a lot of money in the next decade, but my need is less than the needs of my own step-children, and my nephews and nieces. Work has to pay, and it doesn't when people are facing high marginal rates of income tax.
3. Put a few hundred million pounds into fixing the criminal justice system. That does not mean more police. It means providing sufficient resources to enable justice to be delivered swiftly, which is fair to both victims and defendants. This is an area that has been shamefully neglected since 2010.
None of these things guarantee victory, but they are worth doing in themselves, and 1 and 2 will yield dividends for the Conservatives in the future.
Interesting. Current Labour Party policy is pretty close to your list - certainly closer than current Tory policy. Welcome to the dark side.
Is it? Bridgette Phillipson said yesterday that the Tories had scrapped the triple lock, implying that she thought that the triple lock was a good thing.
To be fair, I don't know what Labour's views are on planning reform and spending on the justice system, though it would be nice to think that a former DPP would think it worthwhile spending more on it.
Yes. I was referring to the list I responded to, which didn't mention the triple lock. Labour is in favour of a) large-scale house-building programme, b) rebalancing tax from income to capital, and c) a properly funded criminal justice system.
Hmmm, a lot of motherhood and apple pie in a) and c).
Have they set out any specific policies on b)? I find tax rather confusing, but the proposals on here always look far more radical than anything politicians tend to do, simply because change means some people lose out.
And the triple lock is relevant because scrapping it is something most on here agree with.
My advice for the Conservatives (other than ditching Boris. I don't share loathing that some here have for the man, but he is plainly corrupt) is:-
1. Encourage lots of house-building. My own view is that owner occupation is absolutely key to future Conservative voting. If that pisses off the NIMBY's, tough.
2. Rebalance tax away from income towards capital. I'm arguing against my own interests, here, as I'll likely inherit a lot of money in the next decade, but my need is less than the needs of my own step-children, and my nephews and nieces. Work has to pay, and it doesn't when people are facing high marginal rates of income tax.
3. Put a few hundred million pounds into fixing the criminal justice system. That does not mean more police. It means providing sufficient resources to enable justice to be delivered swiftly, which is fair to both victims and defendants. This is an area that has been shamefully neglected since 2010.
None of these things guarantee victory, but they are worth doing in themselves, and 1 and 2 will yield dividends for the Conservatives in the future.
The Tory core vote of pensioners is still voting Tory because greenbelt land is not over developed and their capital is not too heavily taxed, see how badly the dementia tax went down.
Start building on greenbelt land as well as brown belt and taxing wealth and inheritance and property more and they will go LD, Independent or RefUK or even Labour and assuming the young still vote Labour and they cannot win back the middle aged they have lost since 2019 the Tories would be left with nobody and facing 1997 style wipeout.
I agree with you on 3 though
The Conservatives won't have a future if they base their electoral strategy on appealing to current pensioners. From the 1920's to the 1980's, the Conservatives understood very well that if they wished to grow their vote, housebuilding was key.
Agreed. Honing their offering to pensioners is a guaranteed slow death for the party. Quite literally.
No it isn't, they are our core vote.
Lose them and we face 1997 style annihilation or 2022 style Les Republicains annihilation as occurred when Major and Pecresse lost the pensioner vote to Blair and Macron as well as every other age group
If you love something, let it go.
You Tories are absolute fools. You relentlessly appeal to your core vote. Core vote is never going to get you very far. You need to reach beyond your comfort zone.
Ed Milibands core vote strategy in 2015 was not a resounding success.
Where are we now with the local results? This time yesterday the narrative was 'bad for the Tories but not the total catastrophe predicted'. Is the narrative now 'it's the total catastrophe predicted'?
Folr the Tories, yes, more or less - one quarter of all councillors up for re-election were defeated. The few bright spots like Harrow stand out for their rarity. Labour did pretty well, also with exceptions. LibDems and Greens both happy.
The main issue is simply whether this is usual mid-term stuff or something more.
My advice for the Conservatives (other than ditching Boris. I don't share loathing that some here have for the man, but he is plainly corrupt) is:-
1. Encourage lots of house-building. My own view is that owner occupation is absolutely key to future Conservative voting. If that pisses off the NIMBY's, tough.
2. Rebalance tax away from income towards capital. I'm arguing against my own interests, here, as I'll likely inherit a lot of money in the next decade, but my need is less than the needs of my own step-children, and my nephews and nieces. Work has to pay, and it doesn't when people are facing high marginal rates of income tax.
3. Put a few hundred million pounds into fixing the criminal justice system. That does not mean more police. It means providing sufficient resources to enable justice to be delivered swiftly, which is fair to both victims and defendants. This is an area that has been shamefully neglected since 2010.
None of these things guarantee victory, but they are worth doing in themselves, and 1 and 2 will yield dividends for the Conservatives in the future.
The Tory core vote of pensioners is still voting Tory because greenbelt land is not over developed and their capital is not too heavily taxed, see how badly the dementia tax went down.
Start building on greenbelt land as well as brown belt and taxing wealth and inheritance and property more and they will go LD, Independent or RefUK or even Labour and assuming the young still vote Labour and they cannot win back the middle aged they have lost since 2019 the Tories would be left with nobody and facing 1997 style wipeout.
I agree with you on 3 though
The Conservatives won't have a future if they base their electoral strategy on appealing to current pensioners. From the 1920's to the 1980's, the Conservatives understood very well that if they wished to grow their vote, housebuilding was key.
Agreed. Honing their offering to pensioners is a guaranteed slow death for the party. Quite literally.
No it isn't, they are our core vote.
Lose them and we face 1997 style annihilation or 2022 style Les Republicains annihilation as occurred when Major and Pecresse lost the pensioner vote to Blair and Macron as well as every other age group
If you love something, let it go.
You Tories are absolute fools. You relentlessly appeal to your core vote. Core vote is never going to get you very far. You need to reach beyond your comfort zone.
We already have, we have won 4 consecutive general elections and are on our 12th year in power.
However after 10 years in power you rarely win again, so if you don't keep your core vote you face 1997 style annihilation rather than just narrow defeat
🟨 SNP 25.9% (19 seats, 30.2% of seats) 🟧 Lib Dem 20.5% (12 seats, 19%) 🟥 Labour 19.1% (13 seats, 20.6%) 🟦 Conservative 17.5% (9 seats, 14.3%) 🟩 Green 14.2% (10 seats, 19%) ⬛ Other 1.9% (0 seats) ⬜ Independents 0.9% (0)
I believe this is a partial glimpse into the transfers. Don't read too much into the overrepresentation of the SNP, that can come about from being the largest party. Look instead down the list at the Conservatives and Greens. I have a strong suspicion that we're seeing transfers across the union/indy divide more than previously, and unionist tactical voting reduced. Simply: Labour and Lib Dems favouring Greens more and Conservative less than last time.
Caveat: still just a hunch; I haven't dug into the data properly and this is just one council.
There is no question that the Tories were a lot less transfer friendly this time than in the last several elections. Anger at Boris, the fading memory of Ruth, the inconsistencies of Ross and a budget that in the face of a cost of living crisis did not seem to give a damn about the least well off all sickened people. The Tory brand has been retoxified and the price for that in Scotland with its STV and other proportional systems is going to be particularly high.
Are you sure? I'd arsgue that the Scottish setup is actually quite Tory-friendly; the Tories have clung on in ways which would be impossible in full FPTP systems, even to the extent of having senior MSPs totally dependent on the list system for being there in Holyrood at all. Just look at Ms-as-was Davidson and Prof Tomkins - only some of the time did she, at least, have a FPTP seat.
Quite agree, devolution, Holyrood and various associated voting systems have been the making of SCons, more so than the Ruth effect or whatever. Their negativity towards all or some of these things strikes me as most ungrateful.
Without STV this lad wouldn't have been elected in the first place to one of the poorest wards in Glasgow, let alone reelected when his colleagues were being flushed down the toilet all over Scotland.
He doesn't look like someone with a burning desire to improve the lot of the working class. Not to me he doesn't anyway.
Screw the working class! Wish I looked that good in a suit!! AND had that much hair to muck about with!!!
Perhaps he should inquire the name of Rishi Sunak's tailor next time they bump into one another?
Yep, it's a fair criticism (of my definition) that 'class = money' means the word isn't bringing anything to the table that isn't already there with 'rich' vs 'poor'. But this is also the point and the beauty of it.
I would say that the word *is* bringing more to the table (inevitably, because your definition is not the common one), and therefore your insistence on using it works against you by making you spend time pushing the extra stuff back off the table again.
"Imperial College announces that at least 80% of their intake this year will be drawn from kids whose parents don't have a cafetiere."
I don't think so.
...and it's exactly the ridiculousness of a policy of that sort that should be cueing you in to the idea that "working class" is not in fact the term you want to be using for policy-making and political-focus purposes.
SF 18 nc DUP 17 -1 All 11 +4 UUP 5 -1 SDLP 3 -1 oth 2 nc
So Unionist parties 23 seats (including DUP and UUP and 1 for TUV) and Nationalist parties 21 seats combining SF and SDLP.
Almost neck and neck after transfers for largest party now too
Alliance are Progressive, so 32 including SF, SDLP, and Alliance.
I'd accept SDLP as Progressive; SF not really.
They are most certainly left of centre.
Sorta like great-granny's hankies: one for show and one for blow.
SDLP is more genuinely progressive, while SF as it's aimed for mainstream and gone big-time, has become increasingly pragmatic when it comes to ideology and motivation. Whereas it's rhetoric and style has been, and remains, more populist, confrontational, anti-establishment than that of SDLP.
At least how it comes across to me. Personal sympathies being with SDLP from 1970s onward and today.
According to Wiki, ideology of the "Big Six" NI parties:
As ever John Harris adds something to the conversation that is worth sitting up and listening to. No one in political journalism does more thinking and scratching around beneath the headlines than this guy imho.
Thread of the evening.
John Harris @johnharris1969 · 4h You won't hear much political sociology in reporting of these election results. But a lot of them tell you about how a large chunk of the English middle class no longer meets old-fashioned stereotypes. (1)
John Harris @johnharris1969 · 4h Replying to @johnharris1969 It's increasingly liberal & worldly, thanks partly to the expansion of Higher Education, but also to how far cities' cultures now stretch well into suburbia and the commuter belt (2)
John Harris @johnharris1969 P.s Blair's expansion of Higher Education May yet prove to be as transformative as Thatcher's sale of council houses
Its a combination of the expansion of graduates with degrees of little use and the massive expansion of debt they're stuck with to get those degrees of little use.
The result is a huge number of new graduates each year who having been to university think they're entitled to a middle class lifestyle but don't have the skillset to achieve it.
Which inevitably leads them to blaming the government, the economic system, society as a whole.
And produces a class of people who require the creation of public sector middle class non-jobs for them to achieve the middle class lifestyle they think they're entitled to.
They can certainly still be middle class even if not necessarily upper middle class or rich enough to be in the top 10% of earners. That would largely have required them to go to Russell Group universities only to study law, medicine, economics or a STEM subject.
What is clear too is the expansion if graduates from about 10% of 25 year olds 40 years ago to about 40% now has also turned Labour from the party of the working class to the party of university graduates.
The Tories can still win graduates with a Cameron like leader but not a Boris type leader, although Boris has far more appeal and still does to the skilled working class voters in particular who have left Labour
That depends upon how you define middle class.
For me if you cannot afford to buy the average home in your area then you're not middle class.
That's a problem the Conservatives will have to deal with in southern England.
And promises about possible future inheritances aren't going to help.
Reading @another_richard and @HYUFD private dialogue is like dipping back into the 1950s and watching a smoke filled talking heads debate on a black and white TV
"Class depends on where one was educated, or what sort of a home one can afford". What a load of old nonsense.
Educate as many as one can to a high standard it drags up society, a nation of fewer hooligans and reprobates. Who cares if all the Baristas have a Sociology degree from the University of Worcester? Good on them.
That's fine as long as you make clear to those getting Sociology degrees from the University of Worcester that all their degree is good for is a life as a Barista. Stop coning people into thinking a degree is a gateway to a better job and a better life whilst at the same time so completely trashing the value of those degrees that in effect you are lying to them and that all you are really giving them is a lifetime of debt and low pay.
No, we must encourage employers to treat all graduates equally. It will be good for both sides and the country. Unless there really is something about an Oxford humanities degree that qualifies one to run a hedge fund or a country.
That is utter rubbish. Why should an employer put any value on a qualification which has no intrinsic value in itself and which does not in any way reflect the abilities of the candidate as a potential employee.
There are plenty of degrees that do have real world value in the specific areas they relate to but the idea that as an employer i should look favourably on someone simply because they have been through the degree factory and stayed out of gainful employment for an extra 3 years is idiotic.
Or put it the other way. Why should I look less favourably on someone who left school at 18 and went out and got a job so that by 21 they have 3 years experience of real employment compared with a graduate? That is what you are actually asking employers to do.
Or why should someone with 2 E grade A levels and straight Cs at GCSE at a new university be put on an equal plane for a job as a lawyer or doctor with someone with straight A*s at A level and GCSE with a degree from Oxbridge or another Russell Group university
Not posh enough for some people, I see.
OK if you would like to be operated on or defended in court or have a big commercial deal negotiated by someone with 2 E grades at A level, C grade gcses and a 2.2 from a new university, be my guest
OH, s\o you would rather be dealt with by a posh incompetent than someone who knew the job?!
Clearly you would rather be dealt with by an incompetent full stop, posh or not
You're misreading. I want a competent. I don't give a shite if they are cringing Royalists with a MBE that went to Christchurch at Oxford*.
*Friend of mine did. But, despite that, he's highly competent at his profession.
You just said you would be perfectly happy to be operated on by a surgeon who had got no better than C grade GCSEs, 2 E grade A levels and a 2.2 from a new university.
I didn't. I said "someone who knew the job". THat's my criterion. Not how posh this person is.
My advice for the Conservatives (other than ditching Boris. I don't share loathing that some here have for the man, but he is plainly corrupt) is:-
1. Encourage lots of house-building. My own view is that owner occupation is absolutely key to future Conservative voting. If that pisses off the NIMBY's, tough.
2. Rebalance tax away from income towards capital. I'm arguing against my own interests, here, as I'll likely inherit a lot of money in the next decade, but my need is less than the needs of my own step-children, and my nephews and nieces. Work has to pay, and it doesn't when people are facing high marginal rates of income tax.
3. Put a few hundred million pounds into fixing the criminal justice system. That does not mean more police. It means providing sufficient resources to enable justice to be delivered swiftly, which is fair to both victims and defendants. This is an area that has been shamefully neglected since 2010.
None of these things guarantee victory, but they are worth doing in themselves, and 1 and 2 will yield dividends for the Conservatives in the future.
The Tory core vote of pensioners is still voting Tory because greenbelt land is not over developed and their capital is not too heavily taxed, see how badly the dementia tax went down.
Start building on greenbelt land as well as brown belt and taxing wealth and inheritance and property more and they will go LD, Independent or RefUK or even Labour and assuming the young still vote Labour and they cannot win back the middle aged they have lost since 2019 the Tories would be left with nobody and facing 1997 style wipeout.
I agree with you on 3 though
The Conservatives won't have a future if they base their electoral strategy on appealing to current pensioners. From the 1920's to the 1980's, the Conservatives understood very well that if they wished to grow their vote, housebuilding was key.
Agreed. Honing their offering to pensioners is a guaranteed slow death for the party. Quite literally.
No it isn't, they are our core vote.
Lose them and we face 1997 style annihilation or 2022 style Les Republicains annihilation as occurred when Major and Pecresse lost the pensioner vote to Blair and Macron as well as every other age group
If you love something, let it go.
You Tories are absolute fools. You relentlessly appeal to your core vote. Core vote is never going to get you very far. You need to reach beyond your comfort zone.
Ed Milibands core vote strategy in 2015 was not a resounding success.
It avoided 1997 or 2019 style wipeout
That was hardly on the cards for labour in 2015 though.
My advice for the Conservatives (other than ditching Boris. I don't share loathing that some here have for the man, but he is plainly corrupt) is:-
1. Encourage lots of house-building. My own view is that owner occupation is absolutely key to future Conservative voting. If that pisses off the NIMBY's, tough.
2. Rebalance tax away from income towards capital. I'm arguing against my own interests, here, as I'll likely inherit a lot of money in the next decade, but my need is less than the needs of my own step-children, and my nephews and nieces. Work has to pay, and it doesn't when people are facing high marginal rates of income tax.
3. Put a few hundred million pounds into fixing the criminal justice system. That does not mean more police. It means providing sufficient resources to enable justice to be delivered swiftly, which is fair to both victims and defendants. This is an area that has been shamefully neglected since 2010.
None of these things guarantee victory, but they are worth doing in themselves, and 1 and 2 will yield dividends for the Conservatives in the future.
The Tory core vote of pensioners is still voting Tory because greenbelt land is not over developed and their capital is not too heavily taxed, see how badly the dementia tax went down.
Start building on greenbelt land as well as brown belt and taxing wealth and inheritance and property more and they will go LD, Independent or RefUK or even Labour and assuming the young still vote Labour and they cannot win back the middle aged they have lost since 2019 the Tories would be left with nobody and facing 1997 style wipeout.
I agree with you on 3 though
The Conservatives won't have a future if they base their electoral strategy on appealing to current pensioners. From the 1920's to the 1980's, the Conservatives understood very well that if they wished to grow their vote, housebuilding was key.
Agreed. Honing their offering to pensioners is a guaranteed slow death for the party. Quite literally.
No it isn't, they are our core vote.
Lose them and we face 1997 style annihilation or 2022 style Les Republicains annihilation as occurred when Major and Pecresse lost the pensioner vote to Blair and Macron as well as every other age group
If you love something, let it go.
You Tories are absolute fools. You relentlessly appeal to your core vote. Core vote is never going to get you very far. You need to reach beyond your comfort zone.
We already have, we have won 4 consecutive general elections and are on our 12th year in power.
However after 10 years in power you rarely win again, so if you don't keep your core vote you face 1997 style annihilation rather than just narrow defeat
My advice for the Conservatives (other than ditching Boris. I don't share loathing that some here have for the man, but he is plainly corrupt) is:-
1. Encourage lots of house-building. My own view is that owner occupation is absolutely key to future Conservative voting. If that pisses off the NIMBY's, tough.
2. Rebalance tax away from income towards capital. I'm arguing against my own interests, here, as I'll likely inherit a lot of money in the next decade, but my need is less than the needs of my own step-children, and my nephews and nieces. Work has to pay, and it doesn't when people are facing high marginal rates of income tax.
3. Put a few hundred million pounds into fixing the criminal justice system. That does not mean more police. It means providing sufficient resources to enable justice to be delivered swiftly, which is fair to both victims and defendants. This is an area that has been shamefully neglected since 2010.
None of these things guarantee victory, but they are worth doing in themselves, and 1 and 2 will yield dividends for the Conservatives in the future.
The Tory core vote of pensioners is still voting Tory because greenbelt land is not over developed and their capital is not too heavily taxed, see how badly the dementia tax went down.
Start building on greenbelt land as well as brown belt and taxing wealth and inheritance and property more and they will go LD, Independent or RefUK or even Labour and assuming the young still vote Labour and they cannot win back the middle aged they have lost since 2019 the Tories would be left with nobody and facing 1997 style wipeout.
I agree with you on 3 though
The Conservatives won't have a future if they base their electoral strategy on appealing to current pensioners. From the 1920's to the 1980's, the Conservatives understood very well that if they wished to grow their vote, housebuilding was key.
Agreed. Honing their offering to pensioners is a guaranteed slow death for the party. Quite literally.
No it isn't, they are our core vote.
Lose them and we face 1997 style annihilation or 2022 style Les Republicains annihilation as occurred when Major and Pecresse lost the pensioner vote to Blair and Macron as well as every other age group
If you love something, let it go.
You Tories are absolute fools. You relentlessly appeal to your core vote. Core vote is never going to get you very far. You need to reach beyond your comfort zone.
Ed Milibands core vote strategy in 2015 was not a resounding success.
It avoided 1997 or 2019 style wipeout
That was hardly on the cards for labour in 2015 though.
It might well have been English and Welsh Labour that was wiped out in 2015 not just Scottish Labour had Miliband abandoned his core vote.
Don't forget Miliband actually gained seats in England and increased the Labour voteshare slightly in 2015 compared to what Brown got in 2010
On the thread header - of course the PM will survive.
I wonder whether political events moving so fast since 2016 has blinded many to things behaving normally. We might be in…. precedented times. Being hammered in these elections is just normal. Labour could force a Hung Parliament next time but swing back and a narrow Tory win is more likely.
- “Douglas Ross under threat as Tory colleagues plot to dump him as Scottish Conservatives leader”
Record
Good move if they do. He's made one notable contribution which earned him plaudits throughout the land. He said Johnson was unfit to be Prime Minister and he had to go.
Two weeks and one visit from Johnson later he took it back and has looked like an idiot ever since.
"Ever since"? He was an idiot for taking the job on when Mr J was PM.
SF 18 nc DUP 17 -1 All 11 +4 UUP 5 -1 SDLP 3 -1 oth 2 nc
So Unionist parties 23 seats (including DUP and UUP and 1 for TUV) and Nationalist parties 21 seats combining SF and SDLP.
Almost neck and neck after transfers for largest party now too between SF and DUP
I think the DUP will lose three in the end, one to Alliance, and two to indpendent Unionists, and the UUP will lose one. But, it's just possible they could lose a seat to Alliance in North Antrim.
Sinn Fein may gain from SDLP in Upper Bann and Fermanagh South Tyrone.
The general trend then is almost no change between the Unionist and Nationalist seat totals.
The main shift is DUP to TUV and DUP and UUP to Alliance and SDLP to SF and Alliance
Alliance have just squeezed home in North Antrim, so I guess the Unionists and Nationalists will each be down 3 seats.
I mentioned this on a previous thread but Aston Villa's 5 remaining premier league games include Liverpool, Manchester City and Burnley twice. So Steven Gerrard could try and do his old club a favour on the last day of the season as well as helping Everton to stay up.
Very little evidence to suggest Johnson is in trouble I'd say. Still no leadership challenge - and the fact that Starmer is under investigation helps defuse some of the partygate criticism.
I actually think it's more likely Starmer might go... because I think if he was found guilty he would probably resign.
My advice for the Conservatives (other than ditching Boris. I don't share loathing that some here have for the man, but he is plainly corrupt) is:-
1. Encourage lots of house-building. My own view is that owner occupation is absolutely key to future Conservative voting. If that pisses off the NIMBY's, tough.
2. Rebalance tax away from income towards capital. I'm arguing against my own interests, here, as I'll likely inherit a lot of money in the next decade, but my need is less than the needs of my own step-children, and my nephews and nieces. Work has to pay, and it doesn't when people are facing high marginal rates of income tax.
3. Put a few hundred million pounds into fixing the criminal justice system. That does not mean more police. It means providing sufficient resources to enable justice to be delivered swiftly, which is fair to both victims and defendants. This is an area that has been shamefully neglected since 2010.
None of these things guarantee victory, but they are worth doing in themselves, and 1 and 2 will yield dividends for the Conservatives in the future.
The Tory core vote of pensioners is still voting Tory because greenbelt land is not over developed and their capital is not too heavily taxed, see how badly the dementia tax went down.
Start building on greenbelt land as well as brown belt and taxing wealth and inheritance and property more and they will go LD, Independent or RefUK or even Labour and assuming the young still vote Labour and they cannot win back the middle aged they have lost since 2019 the Tories would be left with nobody and facing 1997 style wipeout.
I agree with you on 3 though
The Conservatives won't have a future if they base their electoral strategy on appealing to current pensioners. From the 1920's to the 1980's, the Conservatives understood very well that if they wished to grow their vote, housebuilding was key.
Agreed. Honing their offering to pensioners is a guaranteed slow death for the party. Quite literally.
No it isn't, they are our core vote.
Lose them and we face 1997 style annihilation or 2022 style Les Republicains annihilation as occurred when Major and Pecresse lost the pensioner vote to Blair and Macron as well as every other age group
If you love something, let it go.
You Tories are absolute fools. You relentlessly appeal to your core vote. Core vote is never going to get you very far. You need to reach beyond your comfort zone.
We already have, we have won 4 consecutive general elections and are on our 12th year in power.
However after 10 years in power you rarely win again, so if you don't keep your core vote you face 1997 style annihilation rather than just narrow defeat
1997 was the core-vote! (30%)
No worse than that as Major even lost pensioners to Blair in 1997
- Tories losing 43% of their seats in Wales without a single gain and losing their only council. - Plaid gaining 3 Councils (albeit with small nett seat loss) - First seats for Gwlad & Propel
My faith in the Welsh electorate has been restored.
It does seem to be a particularly poor performance from the Tories in Wales, albeit the base for Wales was a good round of local elections for them in 2017, rather than a mediocre round in 2018.
Worth noting that there are 14 Tory MPs in Wales, half with a majority under 3,000. So it's not decisive for the next elections but it's a good clutch of marginals they can ill-afford to lose.
You need to factor in Wales drops from 40 to 32 seats.
At least 2-3 of the 32 seats will still be Plaid Cymru. There are some seats out of reach for Labour -- they won't take all the West Walian or mid-Walian seats.
Labour now hold ~ 28 out of 40 in Wales , but their ceiling in GE 2024 is probably ~ 28 or 29 out of 32, even if they demolish every Tory.
SF 18 nc DUP 17 -1 All 11 +4 UUP 5 -1 SDLP 3 -1 oth 2 nc
So Unionist parties 23 seats (including DUP and UUP and 1 for TUV) and Nationalist parties 21 seats combining SF and SDLP.
Almost neck and neck after transfers for largest party now too between SF and DUP
I think the DUP will lose three in the end, one to Alliance, and two to indpendent Unionists, and the UUP will lose one. But, it's just possible they could lose a seat to Alliance in North Antrim.
Sinn Fein may gain from SDLP in Upper Bann and Fermanagh South Tyrone.
The general trend then is almost no change between the Unionist and Nationalist seat totals.
The main shift is DUP to TUV and DUP and UUP to Alliance and SDLP to SF and Alliance
Alliance have just squeezed home in North Antrim, so I guess the Unionists and Nationalists will each be down 3 seats.
My advice for the Conservatives (other than ditching Boris. I don't share loathing that some here have for the man, but he is plainly corrupt) is:-
1. Encourage lots of house-building. My own view is that owner occupation is absolutely key to future Conservative voting. If that pisses off the NIMBY's, tough.
2. Rebalance tax away from income towards capital. I'm arguing against my own interests, here, as I'll likely inherit a lot of money in the next decade, but my need is less than the needs of my own step-children, and my nephews and nieces. Work has to pay, and it doesn't when people are facing high marginal rates of income tax.
3. Put a few hundred million pounds into fixing the criminal justice system. That does not mean more police. It means providing sufficient resources to enable justice to be delivered swiftly, which is fair to both victims and defendants. This is an area that has been shamefully neglected since 2010.
None of these things guarantee victory, but they are worth doing in themselves, and 1 and 2 will yield dividends for the Conservatives in the future.
The Tory core vote of pensioners is still voting Tory because greenbelt land is not over developed and their capital is not too heavily taxed, see how badly the dementia tax went down.
Start building on greenbelt land as well as brown belt and taxing wealth and inheritance and property more and they will go LD, Independent or RefUK or even Labour and assuming the young still vote Labour and they cannot win back the middle aged they have lost since 2019 the Tories would be left with nobody and facing 1997 style wipeout.
I agree with you on 3 though
The Conservatives won't have a future if they base their electoral strategy on appealing to current pensioners. From the 1920's to the 1980's, the Conservatives understood very well that if they wished to grow their vote, housebuilding was key.
Agreed. Honing their offering to pensioners is a guaranteed slow death for the party. Quite literally.
We have an ageing population -> focusing your appeal on the elderly is probably a smart strategy.
As ever John Harris adds something to the conversation that is worth sitting up and listening to. No one in political journalism does more thinking and scratching around beneath the headlines than this guy imho.
Thread of the evening.
John Harris @johnharris1969 · 4h You won't hear much political sociology in reporting of these election results. But a lot of them tell you about how a large chunk of the English middle class no longer meets old-fashioned stereotypes. (1)
John Harris @johnharris1969 · 4h Replying to @johnharris1969 It's increasingly liberal & worldly, thanks partly to the expansion of Higher Education, but also to how far cities' cultures now stretch well into suburbia and the commuter belt (2)
John Harris @johnharris1969 P.s Blair's expansion of Higher Education May yet prove to be as transformative as Thatcher's sale of council houses
Its a combination of the expansion of graduates with degrees of little use and the massive expansion of debt they're stuck with to get those degrees of little use.
The result is a huge number of new graduates each year who having been to university think they're entitled to a middle class lifestyle but don't have the skillset to achieve it.
Which inevitably leads them to blaming the government, the economic system, society as a whole.
And produces a class of people who require the creation of public sector middle class non-jobs for them to achieve the middle class lifestyle they think they're entitled to.
They can certainly still be middle class even if not necessarily upper middle class or rich enough to be in the top 10% of earners. That would largely have required them to go to Russell Group universities only to study law, medicine, economics or a STEM subject.
What is clear too is the expansion if graduates from about 10% of 25 year olds 40 years ago to about 40% now has also turned Labour from the party of the working class to the party of university graduates.
The Tories can still win graduates with a Cameron like leader but not a Boris type leader, although Boris has far more appeal and still does to the skilled working class voters in particular who have left Labour
That depends upon how you define middle class.
For me if you cannot afford to buy the average home in your area then you're not middle class.
That's a problem the Conservatives will have to deal with in southern England.
And promises about possible future inheritances aren't going to help.
Reading @another_richard and @HYUFD private dialogue is like dipping back into the 1950s and watching a smoke filled talking heads debate on a black and white TV
"Class depends on where one was educated, or what sort of a home one can afford". What a load of old nonsense.
Educate as many as one can to a high standard it drags up society, a nation of fewer hooligans and reprobates. Who cares if all the Baristas have a Sociology degree from the University of Worcester? Good on them.
That's fine as long as you make clear to those getting Sociology degrees from the University of Worcester that all their degree is good for is a life as a Barista. Stop coning people into thinking a degree is a gateway to a better job and a better life whilst at the same time so completely trashing the value of those degrees that in effect you are lying to them and that all you are really giving them is a lifetime of debt and low pay.
No, we must encourage employers to treat all graduates equally. It will be good for both sides and the country. Unless there really is something about an Oxford humanities degree that qualifies one to run a hedge fund or a country.
That is utter rubbish. Why should an employer put any value on a qualification which has no intrinsic value in itself and which does not in any way reflect the abilities of the candidate as a potential employee.
There are plenty of degrees that do have real world value in the specific areas they relate to but the idea that as an employer i should look favourably on someone simply because they have been through the degree factory and stayed out of gainful employment for an extra 3 years is idiotic.
Or put it the other way. Why should I look less favourably on someone who left school at 18 and went out and got a job so that by 21 they have 3 years experience of real employment compared with a graduate? That is what you are actually asking employers to do.
Or why should someone with 2 E grade A levels and straight Cs at GCSE at a new university be put on an equal plane for a job as a lawyer or doctor with someone with straight A*s at A level and GCSE with a degree from Oxbridge or another Russell Group university
Not posh enough for some people, I see.
OK if you would like to be operated on or defended in court or have a big commercial deal negotiated by someone with 2 E grades at A level, C grade gcses and a 2.2 from a new university, be my guest
OH, s\o you would rather be dealt with by a posh incompetent than someone who knew the job?!
Clearly you would rather be dealt with by an incompetent full stop, posh or not
You're misreading. I want a competent. I don't give a shite if they are cringing Royalists with a MBE that went to Christchurch at Oxford*.
*Friend of mine did. But, despite that, he's highly competent at his profession.
You just said you would be perfectly happy to be operated on by a surgeon who had got no better than C grade GCSEs, 2 E grade A levels and a 2.2 from a new university.
I didn't. I said "someone who knew the job". THat's my criterion. Not how posh this person is.
Christ, is he really arguing with you that someone’s GCSEs, A-Levels, or degree are relevant to how good they are in their profession if they rise through to a key role?
As ever John Harris adds something to the conversation that is worth sitting up and listening to. No one in political journalism does more thinking and scratching around beneath the headlines than this guy imho.
Thread of the evening.
John Harris @johnharris1969 · 4h You won't hear much political sociology in reporting of these election results. But a lot of them tell you about how a large chunk of the English middle class no longer meets old-fashioned stereotypes. (1)
John Harris @johnharris1969 · 4h Replying to @johnharris1969 It's increasingly liberal & worldly, thanks partly to the expansion of Higher Education, but also to how far cities' cultures now stretch well into suburbia and the commuter belt (2)
John Harris @johnharris1969 P.s Blair's expansion of Higher Education May yet prove to be as transformative as Thatcher's sale of council houses
Its a combination of the expansion of graduates with degrees of little use and the massive expansion of debt they're stuck with to get those degrees of little use.
The result is a huge number of new graduates each year who having been to university think they're entitled to a middle class lifestyle but don't have the skillset to achieve it.
Which inevitably leads them to blaming the government, the economic system, society as a whole.
And produces a class of people who require the creation of public sector middle class non-jobs for them to achieve the middle class lifestyle they think they're entitled to.
They can certainly still be middle class even if not necessarily upper middle class or rich enough to be in the top 10% of earners. That would largely have required them to go to Russell Group universities only to study law, medicine, economics or a STEM subject.
What is clear too is the expansion if graduates from about 10% of 25 year olds 40 years ago to about 40% now has also turned Labour from the party of the working class to the party of university graduates.
The Tories can still win graduates with a Cameron like leader but not a Boris type leader, although Boris has far more appeal and still does to the skilled working class voters in particular who have left Labour
That depends upon how you define middle class.
For me if you cannot afford to buy the average home in your area then you're not middle class.
That's a problem the Conservatives will have to deal with in southern England.
And promises about possible future inheritances aren't going to help.
Reading @another_richard and @HYUFD private dialogue is like dipping back into the 1950s and watching a smoke filled talking heads debate on a black and white TV
"Class depends on where one was educated, or what sort of a home one can afford". What a load of old nonsense.
Educate as many as one can to a high standard it drags up society, a nation of fewer hooligans and reprobates. Who cares if all the Baristas have a Sociology degree from the University of Worcester? Good on them.
That's fine as long as you make clear to those getting Sociology degrees from the University of Worcester that all their degree is good for is a life as a Barista. Stop coning people into thinking a degree is a gateway to a better job and a better life whilst at the same time so completely trashing the value of those degrees that in effect you are lying to them and that all you are really giving them is a lifetime of debt and low pay.
No, we must encourage employers to treat all graduates equally. It will be good for both sides and the country. Unless there really is something about an Oxford humanities degree that qualifies one to run a hedge fund or a country.
That is utter rubbish. Why should an employer put any value on a qualification which has no intrinsic value in itself and which does not in any way reflect the abilities of the candidate as a potential employee.
There are plenty of degrees that do have real world value in the specific areas they relate to but the idea that as an employer i should look favourably on someone simply because they have been through the degree factory and stayed out of gainful employment for an extra 3 years is idiotic.
Or put it the other way. Why should I look less favourably on someone who left school at 18 and went out and got a job so that by 21 they have 3 years experience of real employment compared with a graduate? That is what you are actually asking employers to do.
Or why should someone with 2 E grade A levels and straight Cs at GCSE at a new university be put on an equal plane for a job as a lawyer or doctor with someone with straight A*s at A level and GCSE with a degree from Oxbridge or another Russell Group university
Not posh enough for some people, I see.
OK if you would like to be operated on or defended in court or have a big commercial deal negotiated by someone with 2 E grades at A level, C grade gcses and a 2.2 from a new university, be my guest
OH, s\o you would rather be dealt with by a posh incompetent than someone who knew the job?!
Clearly you would rather be dealt with by an incompetent full stop, posh or not
You're misreading. I want a competent. I don't give a shite if they are cringing Royalists with a MBE that went to Christchurch at Oxford*.
*Friend of mine did. But, despite that, he's highly competent at his profession.
You just said you would be perfectly happy to be operated on by a surgeon who had got no better than C grade GCSEs, 2 E grade A levels and a 2.2 from a new university.
I didn't. I said "someone who knew the job". THat's my criterion. Not how posh this person is.
You said by your response you believed someone with 2 E grades and a 2.2 from a new university could be a surgeon
SF 18 nc DUP 17 -1 All 11 +4 UUP 5 -1 SDLP 3 -1 oth 2 nc
So Unionist parties 23 seats (including DUP and UUP and 1 for TUV) and Nationalist parties 21 seats combining SF and SDLP.
Almost neck and neck after transfers for largest party now too
Alliance are Progressive, so 32 including SF, SDLP, and Alliance.
I'd accept SDLP as Progressive; SF not really.
They are most certainly left of centre.
Sorta like great-granny's hankies: one for show and one for blow.
SDLP is more genuinely progressive, while SF as it's aimed for mainstream and gone big-time, has become increasingly pragmatic when it comes to ideology and motivation. Whereas it's rhetoric and style has been, and remains, more populist, confrontational, anti-establishment than that of SDLP.
At least how it comes across to me. Personal sympathies being with SDLP from 1970s onward and today.
According to Wiki, ideology of the "Big Six" NI parties:
SF is the new FF. Which was and in some vague sense still is "left" for strategic & tactical reasons but at heart is focused on pragmatism as both means AND goal for power. Ditto SF.
The Russians really aren’t getting value for money, are they?
What have we done now? I thought their main outlets, such as Russia Today, were blocked some time ago.
As I understand it, we're restricting the right of Russian journalists to report from Britain, having previously restricted the right of British residents to access Russian media. The assumption is that the former will be biased and the latter will be lies.
Which may be true, but it sits oddly with freedom of the press and access to information. I expect Putin feels that the BBC is biased to Ukraine, but we object when he blocks British journalists. Shouldn't we be better than that? The Russian propaganda machine in Europe is so ludicrously bad that we can't be scared that they'll win millions of converts.
As ever John Harris adds something to the conversation that is worth sitting up and listening to. No one in political journalism does more thinking and scratching around beneath the headlines than this guy imho.
Thread of the evening.
John Harris @johnharris1969 · 4h You won't hear much political sociology in reporting of these election results. But a lot of them tell you about how a large chunk of the English middle class no longer meets old-fashioned stereotypes. (1)
John Harris @johnharris1969 · 4h Replying to @johnharris1969 It's increasingly liberal & worldly, thanks partly to the expansion of Higher Education, but also to how far cities' cultures now stretch well into suburbia and the commuter belt (2)
John Harris @johnharris1969 P.s Blair's expansion of Higher Education May yet prove to be as transformative as Thatcher's sale of council houses
Its a combination of the expansion of graduates with degrees of little use and the massive expansion of debt they're stuck with to get those degrees of little use.
The result is a huge number of new graduates each year who having been to university think they're entitled to a middle class lifestyle but don't have the skillset to achieve it.
Which inevitably leads them to blaming the government, the economic system, society as a whole.
And produces a class of people who require the creation of public sector middle class non-jobs for them to achieve the middle class lifestyle they think they're entitled to.
They can certainly still be middle class even if not necessarily upper middle class or rich enough to be in the top 10% of earners. That would largely have required them to go to Russell Group universities only to study law, medicine, economics or a STEM subject.
What is clear too is the expansion if graduates from about 10% of 25 year olds 40 years ago to about 40% now has also turned Labour from the party of the working class to the party of university graduates.
The Tories can still win graduates with a Cameron like leader but not a Boris type leader, although Boris has far more appeal and still does to the skilled working class voters in particular who have left Labour
That depends upon how you define middle class.
For me if you cannot afford to buy the average home in your area then you're not middle class.
That's a problem the Conservatives will have to deal with in southern England.
And promises about possible future inheritances aren't going to help.
Reading @another_richard and @HYUFD private dialogue is like dipping back into the 1950s and watching a smoke filled talking heads debate on a black and white TV
"Class depends on where one was educated, or what sort of a home one can afford". What a load of old nonsense.
Educate as many as one can to a high standard it drags up society, a nation of fewer hooligans and reprobates. Who cares if all the Baristas have a Sociology degree from the University of Worcester? Good on them.
That's fine as long as you make clear to those getting Sociology degrees from the University of Worcester that all their degree is good for is a life as a Barista. Stop coning people into thinking a degree is a gateway to a better job and a better life whilst at the same time so completely trashing the value of those degrees that in effect you are lying to them and that all you are really giving them is a lifetime of debt and low pay.
No, we must encourage employers to treat all graduates equally. It will be good for both sides and the country. Unless there really is something about an Oxford humanities degree that qualifies one to run a hedge fund or a country.
That is utter rubbish. Why should an employer put any value on a qualification which has no intrinsic value in itself and which does not in any way reflect the abilities of the candidate as a potential employee.
There are plenty of degrees that do have real world value in the specific areas they relate to but the idea that as an employer i should look favourably on someone simply because they have been through the degree factory and stayed out of gainful employment for an extra 3 years is idiotic.
Or put it the other way. Why should I look less favourably on someone who left school at 18 and went out and got a job so that by 21 they have 3 years experience of real employment compared with a graduate? That is what you are actually asking employers to do.
Or why should someone with 2 E grade A levels and straight Cs at GCSE at a new university be put on an equal plane for a job as a lawyer or doctor with someone with straight A*s at A level and GCSE with a degree from Oxbridge or another Russell Group university
Not posh enough for some people, I see.
OK if you would like to be operated on or defended in court or have a big commercial deal negotiated by someone with 2 E grades at A level, C grade gcses and a 2.2 from a new university, be my guest
OH, s\o you would rather be dealt with by a posh incompetent than someone who knew the job?!
Clearly you would rather be dealt with by an incompetent full stop, posh or not
You're misreading. I want a competent. I don't give a shite if they are cringing Royalists with a MBE that went to Christchurch at Oxford*.
*Friend of mine did. But, despite that, he's highly competent at his profession.
You just said you would be perfectly happy to be operated on by a surgeon who had got no better than C grade GCSEs, 2 E grade A levels and a 2.2 from a new university.
I didn't. I said "someone who knew the job". THat's my criterion. Not how posh this person is.
Christ, is he really arguing with you that someone’s GCSEs, A-Levels, or degree are relevant to how good they are in their profession if they rise through to a key role?
Of course they are, you don't normally get into Medical School without good GCSEs and A levels for starters and you rarely get top surgeons or lawyers without good degrees from top universities
My advice for the Conservatives (other than ditching Boris. I don't share loathing that some here have for the man, but he is plainly corrupt) is:-
1. Encourage lots of house-building. My own view is that owner occupation is absolutely key to future Conservative voting. If that pisses off the NIMBY's, tough.
2. Rebalance tax away from income towards capital. I'm arguing against my own interests, here, as I'll likely inherit a lot of money in the next decade, but my need is less than the needs of my own step-children, and my nephews and nieces. Work has to pay, and it doesn't when people are facing high marginal rates of income tax.
3. Put a few hundred million pounds into fixing the criminal justice system. That does not mean more police. It means providing sufficient resources to enable justice to be delivered swiftly, which is fair to both victims and defendants. This is an area that has been shamefully neglected since 2010.
None of these things guarantee victory, but they are worth doing in themselves, and 1 and 2 will yield dividends for the Conservatives in the future.
Interesting. Current Labour Party policy is pretty close to your list - certainly closer than current Tory policy. Welcome to the dark side.
Is it? Bridgette Phillipson said yesterday that the Tories had scrapped the triple lock, implying that she thought that the triple lock was a good thing.
To be fair, I don't know what Labour's views are on planning reform and spending on the justice system, though it would be nice to think that a former DPP would think it worthwhile spending more on it.
Yes. I was referring to the list I responded to, which didn't mention the triple lock. Labour is in favour of a) large-scale house-building programme, b) rebalancing tax from income to capital, and c) a properly funded criminal justice system.
Hmmm, a lot of motherhood and apple pie in a) and c).
Have they set out any specific policies on b)? I find tax rather confusing, but the proposals on here always look far more radical than anything politicians tend to do, simply because change means some people lose out.
And the triple lock is relevant because scrapping it is something most on here agree with.
That's a good point about winners and losers. Policies with all winners either don't exist or are so obvious they've been done already or aren't disputed by anybody (thus have no political value). Hence any serious distinctive policy on anything serious will have losers. In fact that's an acid test of a serious policy. Does it have losers? If no, it isn't a serious policy.
Therefore, the art of modern politics being what it is, the avoidance of hard choices, politicians either shy away from policies like this or, if they have one, they pretend there *aren't* any losers.
Also, Boris Johnson being what he is, utterly incapable of developing serious policy, it's crucial that Labour don't unveil anything good on the policy front until the GE. Because if they do it'll be nicked.
I mentioned this on a previous thread but Aston Villa's 5 remaining premier league games include Liverpool, Manchester City and Burnley twice. So Steven Gerrard could try and do his old club a favour on the last day of the season as well as helping Everton to stay up.
I thought you were going to say that they’re not safe. Defeat this afternoon and they might get a bit anxious.
Talking of Housebuilding it was reported in the times up to 100,000 new build homes are on hold due to the intervention of an unelected body chaired by a former eco campaigner, Natural England.
Such a laugh to see the House Building Federation complain about imaginary delays to 60,000 homes when they are already sitting on half a million plots with full planning permission but refuse to utilise them.
SF 18 nc DUP 17 -1 All 11 +4 UUP 5 -1 SDLP 3 -1 oth 2 nc
So Unionist parties 23 seats (including DUP and UUP and 1 for TUV) and Nationalist parties 21 seats combining SF and SDLP.
Almost neck and neck after transfers for largest party now too between SF and DUP
I think the DUP will lose three in the end, one to Alliance, and two to indpendent Unionists, and the UUP will lose one. But, it's just possible they could lose a seat to Alliance in North Antrim.
Sinn Fein may gain from SDLP in Upper Bann and Fermanagh South Tyrone.
The general trend then is almost no change between the Unionist and Nationalist seat totals.
The main shift is DUP to TUV and DUP and UUP to Alliance and SDLP to SF and Alliance
Alliance have just squeezed home in North Antrim, so I guess the Unionists and Nationalists will each be down 3 seats.
I mentioned this on a previous thread but Aston Villa's 5 remaining premier league games include Liverpool, Manchester City and Burnley twice. So Steven Gerrard could try and do his old club a favour on the last day of the season as well as helping Everton to stay up.
Surely it's in his power to do Liverpool a favour when the teams play each other, but I'm assuming he's trying his hardest to win most games - would be odd to think he's saving his best for the last day of the season.
SF 18 nc DUP 17 -1 All 11 +4 UUP 5 -1 SDLP 3 -1 oth 2 nc
So Unionist parties 23 seats (including DUP and UUP and 1 for TUV) and Nationalist parties 21 seats combining SF and SDLP.
Almost neck and neck after transfers for largest party now too
Alliance are Progressive, so 32 including SF, SDLP, and Alliance.
I'd accept SDLP as Progressive; SF not really.
They are most certainly left of centre.
Sorta like great-granny's hankies: one for show and one for blow.
SDLP is more genuinely progressive, while SF as it's aimed for mainstream and gone big-time, has become increasingly pragmatic when it comes to ideology and motivation. Whereas it's rhetoric and style has been, and remains, more populist, confrontational, anti-establishment than that of SDLP.
At least how it comes across to me. Personal sympathies being with SDLP from 1970s onward and today.
According to Wiki, ideology of the "Big Six" NI parties:
SF is the new FF. Which was and in some vague sense still is "left" for strategic & tactical reasons but at heart is focused on pragmatism as both means AND goal for power. Ditto SF.
No, FF is described on Wiki as "conservative", "Christian-democratic" and "centre-right"! It would be a cold day in Hell when SF go for Christian Democracy!
Have you heard of Aontu? They seem to be an SF off-shoot who are anti-abortion, and so may earn some HYUFD points!
SF 18 nc DUP 17 -1 All 11 +4 UUP 5 -1 SDLP 3 -1 oth 2 nc
So Unionist parties 23 seats (including DUP and UUP and 1 for TUV) and Nationalist parties 21 seats combining SF and SDLP.
Almost neck and neck after transfers for largest party now too between SF and DUP
I think the DUP will lose three in the end, one to Alliance, and two to indpendent Unionists, and the UUP will lose one. But, it's just possible they could lose a seat to Alliance in North Antrim.
Sinn Fein may gain from SDLP in Upper Bann and Fermanagh South Tyrone.
The general trend then is almost no change between the Unionist and Nationalist seat totals.
The main shift is DUP to TUV and DUP and UUP to Alliance and SDLP to SF and Alliance
Alliance have just squeezed home in North Antrim, so I guess the Unionists and Nationalists will each be down 3 seats.
Problematic from standpoint of Unilateralist Unionist Redoubt of North Antrim?
A not inconsiderable number of UUP voters transferred to Alliance in preference to DUP. There were four Unionist quotas in first preference votes.
At the moment the combined Unionist parties (DUP, UUP and TUV) are on 26 seats to 25 for the combined Nationalist parties (SF and SDLP).
In 2017 the combined Unionist and Nationalist parties were each on 39 seats. So if anything there has been a tiny swing from Nationalists to Unionists at present
As ever John Harris adds something to the conversation that is worth sitting up and listening to. No one in political journalism does more thinking and scratching around beneath the headlines than this guy imho.
Thread of the evening.
John Harris @johnharris1969 · 4h You won't hear much political sociology in reporting of these election results. But a lot of them tell you about how a large chunk of the English middle class no longer meets old-fashioned stereotypes. (1)
John Harris @johnharris1969 · 4h Replying to @johnharris1969 It's increasingly liberal & worldly, thanks partly to the expansion of Higher Education, but also to how far cities' cultures now stretch well into suburbia and the commuter belt (2)
John Harris @johnharris1969 P.s Blair's expansion of Higher Education May yet prove to be as transformative as Thatcher's sale of council houses
Its a combination of the expansion of graduates with degrees of little use and the massive expansion of debt they're stuck with to get those degrees of little use.
The result is a huge number of new graduates each year who having been to university think they're entitled to a middle class lifestyle but don't have the skillset to achieve it.
Which inevitably leads them to blaming the government, the economic system, society as a whole.
And produces a class of people who require the creation of public sector middle class non-jobs for them to achieve the middle class lifestyle they think they're entitled to.
They can certainly still be middle class even if not necessarily upper middle class or rich enough to be in the top 10% of earners. That would largely have required them to go to Russell Group universities only to study law, medicine, economics or a STEM subject.
What is clear too is the expansion if graduates from about 10% of 25 year olds 40 years ago to about 40% now has also turned Labour from the party of the working class to the party of university graduates.
The Tories can still win graduates with a Cameron like leader but not a Boris type leader, although Boris has far more appeal and still does to the skilled working class voters in particular who have left Labour
That depends upon how you define middle class.
For me if you cannot afford to buy the average home in your area then you're not middle class.
That's a problem the Conservatives will have to deal with in southern England.
And promises about possible future inheritances aren't going to help.
Reading @another_richard and @HYUFD private dialogue is like dipping back into the 1950s and watching a smoke filled talking heads debate on a black and white TV
"Class depends on where one was educated, or what sort of a home one can afford". What a load of old nonsense.
Educate as many as one can to a high standard it drags up society, a nation of fewer hooligans and reprobates. Who cares if all the Baristas have a Sociology degree from the University of Worcester? Good on them.
That's fine as long as you make clear to those getting Sociology degrees from the University of Worcester that all their degree is good for is a life as a Barista. Stop coning people into thinking a degree is a gateway to a better job and a better life whilst at the same time so completely trashing the value of those degrees that in effect you are lying to them and that all you are really giving them is a lifetime of debt and low pay.
No, we must encourage employers to treat all graduates equally. It will be good for both sides and the country. Unless there really is something about an Oxford humanities degree that qualifies one to run a hedge fund or a country.
That is utter rubbish. Why should an employer put any value on a qualification which has no intrinsic value in itself and which does not in any way reflect the abilities of the candidate as a potential employee.
There are plenty of degrees that do have real world value in the specific areas they relate to but the idea that as an employer i should look favourably on someone simply because they have been through the degree factory and stayed out of gainful employment for an extra 3 years is idiotic.
Or put it the other way. Why should I look less favourably on someone who left school at 18 and went out and got a job so that by 21 they have 3 years experience of real employment compared with a graduate? That is what you are actually asking employers to do.
Or why should someone with 2 E grade A levels and straight Cs at GCSE at a new university be put on an equal plane for a job as a lawyer or doctor with someone with straight A*s at A level and GCSE with a degree from Oxbridge or another Russell Group university
Not posh enough for some people, I see.
OK if you would like to be operated on or defended in court or have a big commercial deal negotiated by someone with 2 E grades at A level, C grade gcses and a 2.2 from a new university, be my guest
OH, s\o you would rather be dealt with by a posh incompetent than someone who knew the job?!
Clearly you would rather be dealt with by an incompetent full stop, posh or not
You're misreading. I want a competent. I don't give a shite if they are cringing Royalists with a MBE that went to Christchurch at Oxford*.
*Friend of mine did. But, despite that, he's highly competent at his profession.
You just said you would be perfectly happy to be operated on by a surgeon who had got no better than C grade GCSEs, 2 E grade A levels and a 2.2 from a new university.
I didn't. I said "someone who knew the job". THat's my criterion. Not how posh this person is.
You said by your response you believed someone with 2 E grades and a 2.2 from a new university could be a surgeon
My impression is that, as medicine goes, surgery is one of the less intellectual persuits. You cut someone open, look for something funny, chop it off and sew the loose bits back together. Not trivial, but a steady hand and calm temperament are way more important.
The actual doctors I sat with on medical school interviews seemed to think the same.
As ever John Harris adds something to the conversation that is worth sitting up and listening to. No one in political journalism does more thinking and scratching around beneath the headlines than this guy imho.
Thread of the evening.
John Harris @johnharris1969 · 4h You won't hear much political sociology in reporting of these election results. But a lot of them tell you about how a large chunk of the English middle class no longer meets old-fashioned stereotypes. (1)
John Harris @johnharris1969 · 4h Replying to @johnharris1969 It's increasingly liberal & worldly, thanks partly to the expansion of Higher Education, but also to how far cities' cultures now stretch well into suburbia and the commuter belt (2)
John Harris @johnharris1969 P.s Blair's expansion of Higher Education May yet prove to be as transformative as Thatcher's sale of council houses
Its a combination of the expansion of graduates with degrees of little use and the massive expansion of debt they're stuck with to get those degrees of little use.
The result is a huge number of new graduates each year who having been to university think they're entitled to a middle class lifestyle but don't have the skillset to achieve it.
Which inevitably leads them to blaming the government, the economic system, society as a whole.
And produces a class of people who require the creation of public sector middle class non-jobs for them to achieve the middle class lifestyle they think they're entitled to.
They can certainly still be middle class even if not necessarily upper middle class or rich enough to be in the top 10% of earners. That would largely have required them to go to Russell Group universities only to study law, medicine, economics or a STEM subject.
What is clear too is the expansion if graduates from about 10% of 25 year olds 40 years ago to about 40% now has also turned Labour from the party of the working class to the party of university graduates.
The Tories can still win graduates with a Cameron like leader but not a Boris type leader, although Boris has far more appeal and still does to the skilled working class voters in particular who have left Labour
That depends upon how you define middle class.
For me if you cannot afford to buy the average home in your area then you're not middle class.
That's a problem the Conservatives will have to deal with in southern England.
And promises about possible future inheritances aren't going to help.
Reading @another_richard and @HYUFD private dialogue is like dipping back into the 1950s and watching a smoke filled talking heads debate on a black and white TV
"Class depends on where one was educated, or what sort of a home one can afford". What a load of old nonsense.
Educate as many as one can to a high standard it drags up society, a nation of fewer hooligans and reprobates. Who cares if all the Baristas have a Sociology degree from the University of Worcester? Good on them.
That's fine as long as you make clear to those getting Sociology degrees from the University of Worcester that all their degree is good for is a life as a Barista. Stop coning people into thinking a degree is a gateway to a better job and a better life whilst at the same time so completely trashing the value of those degrees that in effect you are lying to them and that all you are really giving them is a lifetime of debt and low pay.
No, we must encourage employers to treat all graduates equally. It will be good for both sides and the country. Unless there really is something about an Oxford humanities degree that qualifies one to run a hedge fund or a country.
That is utter rubbish. Why should an employer put any value on a qualification which has no intrinsic value in itself and which does not in any way reflect the abilities of the candidate as a potential employee.
There are plenty of degrees that do have real world value in the specific areas they relate to but the idea that as an employer i should look favourably on someone simply because they have been through the degree factory and stayed out of gainful employment for an extra 3 years is idiotic.
Or put it the other way. Why should I look less favourably on someone who left school at 18 and went out and got a job so that by 21 they have 3 years experience of real employment compared with a graduate? That is what you are actually asking employers to do.
Or why should someone with 2 E grade A levels and straight Cs at GCSE at a new university be put on an equal plane for a job as a lawyer or doctor with someone with straight A*s at A level and GCSE with a degree from Oxbridge or another Russell Group university
Not posh enough for some people, I see.
OK if you would like to be operated on or defended in court or have a big commercial deal negotiated by someone with 2 E grades at A level, C grade gcses and a 2.2 from a new university, be my guest
OH, s\o you would rather be dealt with by a posh incompetent than someone who knew the job?!
Clearly you would rather be dealt with by an incompetent full stop, posh or not
You're misreading. I want a competent. I don't give a shite if they are cringing Royalists with a MBE that went to Christchurch at Oxford*.
*Friend of mine did. But, despite that, he's highly competent at his profession.
You just said you would be perfectly happy to be operated on by a surgeon who had got no better than C grade GCSEs, 2 E grade A levels and a 2.2 from a new university.
I didn't. I said "someone who knew the job". THat's my criterion. Not how posh this person is.
Christ, is he really arguing with you that someone’s GCSEs, A-Levels, or degree are relevant to how good they are in their profession if they rise through to a key role?
Of course they are, you don't normally get into Medical School without good GCSEs and A levels for starters and you rarely get top surgeons or lawyers without good degrees from top universities
Sorry to break it to you, but in the real world no one cares. Many of us who enjoyed our lives from 18-21 underperformed at A-Level and in our degrees. It takes a bit longer, but you can be a surgeon or a barrister despite that if are good enough. Law is easiest because of conversation courses, but you can persist and become a doctor too.
As ever John Harris adds something to the conversation that is worth sitting up and listening to. No one in political journalism does more thinking and scratching around beneath the headlines than this guy imho.
Thread of the evening.
John Harris @johnharris1969 · 4h You won't hear much political sociology in reporting of these election results. But a lot of them tell you about how a large chunk of the English middle class no longer meets old-fashioned stereotypes. (1)
John Harris @johnharris1969 · 4h Replying to @johnharris1969 It's increasingly liberal & worldly, thanks partly to the expansion of Higher Education, but also to how far cities' cultures now stretch well into suburbia and the commuter belt (2)
John Harris @johnharris1969 P.s Blair's expansion of Higher Education May yet prove to be as transformative as Thatcher's sale of council houses
Its a combination of the expansion of graduates with degrees of little use and the massive expansion of debt they're stuck with to get those degrees of little use.
The result is a huge number of new graduates each year who having been to university think they're entitled to a middle class lifestyle but don't have the skillset to achieve it.
Which inevitably leads them to blaming the government, the economic system, society as a whole.
And produces a class of people who require the creation of public sector middle class non-jobs for them to achieve the middle class lifestyle they think they're entitled to.
They can certainly still be middle class even if not necessarily upper middle class or rich enough to be in the top 10% of earners. That would largely have required them to go to Russell Group universities only to study law, medicine, economics or a STEM subject.
What is clear too is the expansion if graduates from about 10% of 25 year olds 40 years ago to about 40% now has also turned Labour from the party of the working class to the party of university graduates.
The Tories can still win graduates with a Cameron like leader but not a Boris type leader, although Boris has far more appeal and still does to the skilled working class voters in particular who have left Labour
That depends upon how you define middle class.
For me if you cannot afford to buy the average home in your area then you're not middle class.
That's a problem the Conservatives will have to deal with in southern England.
And promises about possible future inheritances aren't going to help.
Reading @another_richard and @HYUFD private dialogue is like dipping back into the 1950s and watching a smoke filled talking heads debate on a black and white TV
"Class depends on where one was educated, or what sort of a home one can afford". What a load of old nonsense.
Educate as many as one can to a high standard it drags up society, a nation of fewer hooligans and reprobates. Who cares if all the Baristas have a Sociology degree from the University of Worcester? Good on them.
That's fine as long as you make clear to those getting Sociology degrees from the University of Worcester that all their degree is good for is a life as a Barista. Stop coning people into thinking a degree is a gateway to a better job and a better life whilst at the same time so completely trashing the value of those degrees that in effect you are lying to them and that all you are really giving them is a lifetime of debt and low pay.
No, we must encourage employers to treat all graduates equally. It will be good for both sides and the country. Unless there really is something about an Oxford humanities degree that qualifies one to run a hedge fund or a country.
That is utter rubbish. Why should an employer put any value on a qualification which has no intrinsic value in itself and which does not in any way reflect the abilities of the candidate as a potential employee.
There are plenty of degrees that do have real world value in the specific areas they relate to but the idea that as an employer i should look favourably on someone simply because they have been through the degree factory and stayed out of gainful employment for an extra 3 years is idiotic.
Or put it the other way. Why should I look less favourably on someone who left school at 18 and went out and got a job so that by 21 they have 3 years experience of real employment compared with a graduate? That is what you are actually asking employers to do.
Or why should someone with 2 E grade A levels and straight Cs at GCSE at a new university be put on an equal plane for a job as a lawyer or doctor with someone with straight A*s at A level and GCSE with a degree from Oxbridge or another Russell Group university
Not posh enough for some people, I see.
OK if you would like to be operated on or defended in court or have a big commercial deal negotiated by someone with 2 E grades at A level, C grade gcses and a 2.2 from a new university, be my guest
OH, s\o you would rather be dealt with by a posh incompetent than someone who knew the job?!
Clearly you would rather be dealt with by an incompetent full stop, posh or not
You're misreading. I want a competent. I don't give a shite if they are cringing Royalists with a MBE that went to Christchurch at Oxford*.
*Friend of mine did. But, despite that, he's highly competent at his profession.
You just said you would be perfectly happy to be operated on by a surgeon who had got no better than C grade GCSEs, 2 E grade A levels and a 2.2 from a new university.
I didn't. I said "someone who knew the job". THat's my criterion. Not how posh this person is.
You said by your response you believed someone with 2 E grades and a 2.2 from a new university could be a surgeon
My impression is that, as medicine goes, surgery is one of the less intellectual persuits. You cut someone open, look for something funny, chop it off and sew the loose bits back together. Not trivial, but a steady hand and calm temperament are way more important.
The actual doctors I sat with on medical school interviews seemed to think the same.
Yup. Most of them don’t even offer haircuts anymore so it’s even easier.
As ever John Harris adds something to the conversation that is worth sitting up and listening to. No one in political journalism does more thinking and scratching around beneath the headlines than this guy imho.
Thread of the evening.
John Harris @johnharris1969 · 4h You won't hear much political sociology in reporting of these election results. But a lot of them tell you about how a large chunk of the English middle class no longer meets old-fashioned stereotypes. (1)
John Harris @johnharris1969 · 4h Replying to @johnharris1969 It's increasingly liberal & worldly, thanks partly to the expansion of Higher Education, but also to how far cities' cultures now stretch well into suburbia and the commuter belt (2)
John Harris @johnharris1969 P.s Blair's expansion of Higher Education May yet prove to be as transformative as Thatcher's sale of council houses
Its a combination of the expansion of graduates with degrees of little use and the massive expansion of debt they're stuck with to get those degrees of little use.
The result is a huge number of new graduates each year who having been to university think they're entitled to a middle class lifestyle but don't have the skillset to achieve it.
Which inevitably leads them to blaming the government, the economic system, society as a whole.
And produces a class of people who require the creation of public sector middle class non-jobs for them to achieve the middle class lifestyle they think they're entitled to.
They can certainly still be middle class even if not necessarily upper middle class or rich enough to be in the top 10% of earners. That would largely have required them to go to Russell Group universities only to study law, medicine, economics or a STEM subject.
What is clear too is the expansion if graduates from about 10% of 25 year olds 40 years ago to about 40% now has also turned Labour from the party of the working class to the party of university graduates.
The Tories can still win graduates with a Cameron like leader but not a Boris type leader, although Boris has far more appeal and still does to the skilled working class voters in particular who have left Labour
That depends upon how you define middle class.
For me if you cannot afford to buy the average home in your area then you're not middle class.
That's a problem the Conservatives will have to deal with in southern England.
And promises about possible future inheritances aren't going to help.
Reading @another_richard and @HYUFD private dialogue is like dipping back into the 1950s and watching a smoke filled talking heads debate on a black and white TV
"Class depends on where one was educated, or what sort of a home one can afford". What a load of old nonsense.
Educate as many as one can to a high standard it drags up society, a nation of fewer hooligans and reprobates. Who cares if all the Baristas have a Sociology degree from the University of Worcester? Good on them.
That's fine as long as you make clear to those getting Sociology degrees from the University of Worcester that all their degree is good for is a life as a Barista. Stop coning people into thinking a degree is a gateway to a better job and a better life whilst at the same time so completely trashing the value of those degrees that in effect you are lying to them and that all you are really giving them is a lifetime of debt and low pay.
No, we must encourage employers to treat all graduates equally. It will be good for both sides and the country. Unless there really is something about an Oxford humanities degree that qualifies one to run a hedge fund or a country.
That is utter rubbish. Why should an employer put any value on a qualification which has no intrinsic value in itself and which does not in any way reflect the abilities of the candidate as a potential employee.
There are plenty of degrees that do have real world value in the specific areas they relate to but the idea that as an employer i should look favourably on someone simply because they have been through the degree factory and stayed out of gainful employment for an extra 3 years is idiotic.
Or put it the other way. Why should I look less favourably on someone who left school at 18 and went out and got a job so that by 21 they have 3 years experience of real employment compared with a graduate? That is what you are actually asking employers to do.
Or why should someone with 2 E grade A levels and straight Cs at GCSE at a new university be put on an equal plane for a job as a lawyer or doctor with someone with straight A*s at A level and GCSE with a degree from Oxbridge or another Russell Group university
In case you hadn't noticed, there are no Cs at GCSE any more.
Also I didn't know anyone with an A* when I was there, let alone straight A*s.
I did know lots of people with 2 E offers.
I had one friend who went to Warwick with a 2 Es offer after failing to get a place at Cambridge. None from my school got the offer of 2 Es for Oxbridge. I'm guessing they had prowess in sport or music?
It was back in the days of fourth-term entrance; you did three entrance exams set by Oxford and if they still liked you after the interview(s) then you got an "unconditional" (in practice 2 E) offer.
It made for an unstressed Y13 after Christmas...
And 2/3 of Oxbridge students got straight A*s anyway
Nope: none of those with a 2 E offer did.
Actually I know someone with an E grade offer who did indeed still get straight A*s.
And the 2 E offer is rarely given to more than a small minority of those given Oxbridge offers. The standard offer is normally at least 2 or 3 A* grades
The entrance exam was phased out in 1997; the A* was introduced in 2010.
E grade offers are still given in a few cases even without the entrance exam. Plus the most popular courses like law now have their own entry tests too as has been mentioned
My son's offer from Cambridge was lower than any other offer he received, but then he had won an international prize from Cambridge in the lower 6th for a paper he had written on game theory and did reach the final stage (all done at Cambridge) on 3 different subjects (Physics, Chemistry, Informatics) to try and get into the British Olympiad team for each of those subjects, so they did sort of know him.
Chip off ...
Sadly not. I haven't a clue what he is talking about most of the time. At least I have a maths background, my wife is even more baffled. All pure maths which loses me after the topic title. Very proud though. Has received lots of scholarships in his time, was in his College University Challenge team, etc, etc. My daughter is of normal intelligence and having someone who achieves so much is a challenge for her, but handled.
It's great so long as it's accompanied by happiness and balance. In my family it's my youngest brother. He's genius level maths. Top 1st at Imperial with hardly any work, then PHD and very young Prof and a specialism in something so outre in the field of topology that he can only talk about it with about a dozen people in the world. But, same time, marriage, hobbies, kids, normal life. And a plain nice guy. He used to look UP to me, can you believe, when I was 25 and he was 15.
SF 18 nc DUP 17 -1 All 11 +4 UUP 5 -1 SDLP 3 -1 oth 2 nc
So Unionist parties 23 seats (including DUP and UUP and 1 for TUV) and Nationalist parties 21 seats combining SF and SDLP.
Almost neck and neck after transfers for largest party now too
Alliance are Progressive, so 32 including SF, SDLP, and Alliance.
I'd accept SDLP as Progressive; SF not really.
They are most certainly left of centre.
Sorta like great-granny's hankies: one for show and one for blow.
SDLP is more genuinely progressive, while SF as it's aimed for mainstream and gone big-time, has become increasingly pragmatic when it comes to ideology and motivation. Whereas it's rhetoric and style has been, and remains, more populist, confrontational, anti-establishment than that of SDLP.
At least how it comes across to me. Personal sympathies being with SDLP from 1970s onward and today.
According to Wiki, ideology of the "Big Six" NI parties:
SF is the new FF. Which was and in some vague sense still is "left" for strategic & tactical reasons but at heart is focused on pragmatism as both means AND goal for power. Ditto SF.
No, FF is described on Wiki as "conservative", "Christian-democratic" and "centre-right"! It would be a cold day in Hell when SF go for Christian Democracy!
Have you heard of Aontu? They seem to be an SF off-shoot who are anti-abortion, and so may earn some HYUFD points!
Wiki is very useful, but hardly definitive when it comes to anything, let alone ins & outs of Irish politics since 1916. Cookie cutter does NOT always cut it, and FF's core ideology is pragmatism writ large and small.
EDIT - Aontú. Your omission of acute accent is sign of your Anglo-Saxon brainwashing!
As ever John Harris adds something to the conversation that is worth sitting up and listening to. No one in political journalism does more thinking and scratching around beneath the headlines than this guy imho.
Thread of the evening.
John Harris @johnharris1969 · 4h You won't hear much political sociology in reporting of these election results. But a lot of them tell you about how a large chunk of the English middle class no longer meets old-fashioned stereotypes. (1)
John Harris @johnharris1969 · 4h Replying to @johnharris1969 It's increasingly liberal & worldly, thanks partly to the expansion of Higher Education, but also to how far cities' cultures now stretch well into suburbia and the commuter belt (2)
John Harris @johnharris1969 P.s Blair's expansion of Higher Education May yet prove to be as transformative as Thatcher's sale of council houses
Its a combination of the expansion of graduates with degrees of little use and the massive expansion of debt they're stuck with to get those degrees of little use.
The result is a huge number of new graduates each year who having been to university think they're entitled to a middle class lifestyle but don't have the skillset to achieve it.
Which inevitably leads them to blaming the government, the economic system, society as a whole.
And produces a class of people who require the creation of public sector middle class non-jobs for them to achieve the middle class lifestyle they think they're entitled to.
They can certainly still be middle class even if not necessarily upper middle class or rich enough to be in the top 10% of earners. That would largely have required them to go to Russell Group universities only to study law, medicine, economics or a STEM subject.
What is clear too is the expansion if graduates from about 10% of 25 year olds 40 years ago to about 40% now has also turned Labour from the party of the working class to the party of university graduates.
The Tories can still win graduates with a Cameron like leader but not a Boris type leader, although Boris has far more appeal and still does to the skilled working class voters in particular who have left Labour
That depends upon how you define middle class.
For me if you cannot afford to buy the average home in your area then you're not middle class.
That's a problem the Conservatives will have to deal with in southern England.
And promises about possible future inheritances aren't going to help.
Reading @another_richard and @HYUFD private dialogue is like dipping back into the 1950s and watching a smoke filled talking heads debate on a black and white TV
"Class depends on where one was educated, or what sort of a home one can afford". What a load of old nonsense.
Educate as many as one can to a high standard it drags up society, a nation of fewer hooligans and reprobates. Who cares if all the Baristas have a Sociology degree from the University of Worcester? Good on them.
That's fine as long as you make clear to those getting Sociology degrees from the University of Worcester that all their degree is good for is a life as a Barista. Stop coning people into thinking a degree is a gateway to a better job and a better life whilst at the same time so completely trashing the value of those degrees that in effect you are lying to them and that all you are really giving them is a lifetime of debt and low pay.
No, we must encourage employers to treat all graduates equally. It will be good for both sides and the country. Unless there really is something about an Oxford humanities degree that qualifies one to run a hedge fund or a country.
That is utter rubbish. Why should an employer put any value on a qualification which has no intrinsic value in itself and which does not in any way reflect the abilities of the candidate as a potential employee.
There are plenty of degrees that do have real world value in the specific areas they relate to but the idea that as an employer i should look favourably on someone simply because they have been through the degree factory and stayed out of gainful employment for an extra 3 years is idiotic.
Or put it the other way. Why should I look less favourably on someone who left school at 18 and went out and got a job so that by 21 they have 3 years experience of real employment compared with a graduate? That is what you are actually asking employers to do.
Or why should someone with 2 E grade A levels and straight Cs at GCSE at a new university be put on an equal plane for a job as a lawyer or doctor with someone with straight A*s at A level and GCSE with a degree from Oxbridge or another Russell Group university
Not posh enough for some people, I see.
OK if you would like to be operated on or defended in court or have a big commercial deal negotiated by someone with 2 E grades at A level, C grade gcses and a 2.2 from a new university, be my guest
OH, s\o you would rather be dealt with by a posh incompetent than someone who knew the job?!
Clearly you would rather be dealt with by an incompetent full stop, posh or not
You're misreading. I want a competent. I don't give a shite if they are cringing Royalists with a MBE that went to Christchurch at Oxford*.
*Friend of mine did. But, despite that, he's highly competent at his profession.
You just said you would be perfectly happy to be operated on by a surgeon who had got no better than C grade GCSEs, 2 E grade A levels and a 2.2 from a new university.
I didn't. I said "someone who knew the job". THat's my criterion. Not how posh this person is.
Christ, is he really arguing with you that someone’s GCSEs, A-Levels, or degree are relevant to how good they are in their profession if they rise through to a key role?
Of course they are, you don't normally get into Medical School without good GCSEs and A levels for starters and you rarely get top surgeons or lawyers without good degrees from top universities
Sorry to break it to you, but in the real world no one cares. Many of us who enjoyed our lives from 18-21 underperformed at A-Level and in our degrees. It takes a bit longer, but you be a surgeon or a barrister despite that if are good enough. Law is easiest because of conversation courses, but you can persist and become a doctor too.
Exactly. At some point fairly quickly GCSEs and A-levels stop being defining factors in the success, knowledge or ability of an individual. There's a fairly narrow window where they are of any special importance.
You're waiting on two experienced surgeons to operate on you and you have the choice, noone's going "alright, top trumps on your GCSEs for the gig".
As ever John Harris adds something to the conversation that is worth sitting up and listening to. No one in political journalism does more thinking and scratching around beneath the headlines than this guy imho.
Thread of the evening.
John Harris @johnharris1969 · 4h You won't hear much political sociology in reporting of these election results. But a lot of them tell you about how a large chunk of the English middle class no longer meets old-fashioned stereotypes. (1)
John Harris @johnharris1969 · 4h Replying to @johnharris1969 It's increasingly liberal & worldly, thanks partly to the expansion of Higher Education, but also to how far cities' cultures now stretch well into suburbia and the commuter belt (2)
John Harris @johnharris1969 P.s Blair's expansion of Higher Education May yet prove to be as transformative as Thatcher's sale of council houses
Its a combination of the expansion of graduates with degrees of little use and the massive expansion of debt they're stuck with to get those degrees of little use.
The result is a huge number of new graduates each year who having been to university think they're entitled to a middle class lifestyle but don't have the skillset to achieve it.
Which inevitably leads them to blaming the government, the economic system, society as a whole.
And produces a class of people who require the creation of public sector middle class non-jobs for them to achieve the middle class lifestyle they think they're entitled to.
They can certainly still be middle class even if not necessarily upper middle class or rich enough to be in the top 10% of earners. That would largely have required them to go to Russell Group universities only to study law, medicine, economics or a STEM subject.
What is clear too is the expansion if graduates from about 10% of 25 year olds 40 years ago to about 40% now has also turned Labour from the party of the working class to the party of university graduates.
The Tories can still win graduates with a Cameron like leader but not a Boris type leader, although Boris has far more appeal and still does to the skilled working class voters in particular who have left Labour
That depends upon how you define middle class.
For me if you cannot afford to buy the average home in your area then you're not middle class.
That's a problem the Conservatives will have to deal with in southern England.
And promises about possible future inheritances aren't going to help.
Reading @another_richard and @HYUFD private dialogue is like dipping back into the 1950s and watching a smoke filled talking heads debate on a black and white TV
"Class depends on where one was educated, or what sort of a home one can afford". What a load of old nonsense.
Educate as many as one can to a high standard it drags up society, a nation of fewer hooligans and reprobates. Who cares if all the Baristas have a Sociology degree from the University of Worcester? Good on them.
That's fine as long as you make clear to those getting Sociology degrees from the University of Worcester that all their degree is good for is a life as a Barista. Stop coning people into thinking a degree is a gateway to a better job and a better life whilst at the same time so completely trashing the value of those degrees that in effect you are lying to them and that all you are really giving them is a lifetime of debt and low pay.
No, we must encourage employers to treat all graduates equally. It will be good for both sides and the country. Unless there really is something about an Oxford humanities degree that qualifies one to run a hedge fund or a country.
That is utter rubbish. Why should an employer put any value on a qualification which has no intrinsic value in itself and which does not in any way reflect the abilities of the candidate as a potential employee.
There are plenty of degrees that do have real world value in the specific areas they relate to but the idea that as an employer i should look favourably on someone simply because they have been through the degree factory and stayed out of gainful employment for an extra 3 years is idiotic.
Or put it the other way. Why should I look less favourably on someone who left school at 18 and went out and got a job so that by 21 they have 3 years experience of real employment compared with a graduate? That is what you are actually asking employers to do.
Or why should someone with 2 E grade A levels and straight Cs at GCSE at a new university be put on an equal plane for a job as a lawyer or doctor with someone with straight A*s at A level and GCSE with a degree from Oxbridge or another Russell Group university
Not posh enough for some people, I see.
OK if you would like to be operated on or defended in court or have a big commercial deal negotiated by someone with 2 E grades at A level, C grade gcses and a 2.2 from a new university, be my guest
OH, s\o you would rather be dealt with by a posh incompetent than someone who knew the job?!
Clearly you would rather be dealt with by an incompetent full stop, posh or not
You're misreading. I want a competent. I don't give a shite if they are cringing Royalists with a MBE that went to Christchurch at Oxford*.
*Friend of mine did. But, despite that, he's highly competent at his profession.
You just said you would be perfectly happy to be operated on by a surgeon who had got no better than C grade GCSEs, 2 E grade A levels and a 2.2 from a new university.
I didn't. I said "someone who knew the job". THat's my criterion. Not how posh this person is.
Christ, is he really arguing with you that someone’s GCSEs, A-Levels, or degree are relevant to how good they are in their profession if they rise through to a key role?
Of course they are, you don't normally get into Medical School without good GCSEs and A levels for starters and you rarely get top surgeons or lawyers without good degrees from top universities
Sorry to break it to you, but in the real world no one cares. Many of us who enjoyed our lives from 18-21 underperformed at A-Level and in our degrees. It takes a bit longer, but you can be a surgeon or a barrister despite that if are good enough. Law is easiest because of conversation courses, but you can persist and become a doctor too.
You will rarely find any top surgeons or QCs who did not go to Oxbridge or a Russell Group university and did not do well at A level and degree level.
You might occasionally find the odd criminal or family QC who went to Oxford or Exeter and got a 2.2 or 3rd but that is it and they still went to a top university
SF 18 nc DUP 17 -1 All 11 +4 UUP 5 -1 SDLP 3 -1 oth 2 nc
So Unionist parties 23 seats (including DUP and UUP and 1 for TUV) and Nationalist parties 21 seats combining SF and SDLP.
Almost neck and neck after transfers for largest party now too
Alliance are Progressive, so 32 including SF, SDLP, and Alliance.
I'd accept SDLP as Progressive; SF not really.
They are most certainly left of centre.
Sorta like great-granny's hankies: one for show and one for blow.
SDLP is more genuinely progressive, while SF as it's aimed for mainstream and gone big-time, has become increasingly pragmatic when it comes to ideology and motivation. Whereas it's rhetoric and style has been, and remains, more populist, confrontational, anti-establishment than that of SDLP.
At least how it comes across to me. Personal sympathies being with SDLP from 1970s onward and today.
According to Wiki, ideology of the "Big Six" NI parties:
SF is the new FF. Which was and in some vague sense still is "left" for strategic & tactical reasons but at heart is focused on pragmatism as both means AND goal for power. Ditto SF.
No, FF is described on Wiki as "conservative", "Christian-democratic" and "centre-right"! It would be a cold day in Hell when SF go for Christian Democracy!
Have you heard of Aontu? They seem to be an SF off-shoot who are anti-abortion, and so may earn some HYUFD points!
Wiki is very useful, but hardly definitive when it comes to anything, let alone ins & outs of Irish politics since 1916. Cookie cutter does NOT always cut it, and FF's core ideology is pragmatism writ large and small.
FF probably have the distinction of being Western Europe's most corrupt political party.
I mentioned this on a previous thread but Aston Villa's 5 remaining premier league games include Liverpool, Manchester City and Burnley twice. So Steven Gerrard could try and do his old club a favour on the last day of the season as well as helping Everton to stay up.
Surely it's in his power to do Liverpool a favour when the teams play each other, but I'm assuming he's trying his hardest to win most games - would be odd to think he's saving his best for the last day of the season.
Yes, but that sort of reasonable logic doesn't fit the footballing narrative, does it!
As ever John Harris adds something to the conversation that is worth sitting up and listening to. No one in political journalism does more thinking and scratching around beneath the headlines than this guy imho.
Thread of the evening.
John Harris @johnharris1969 · 4h You won't hear much political sociology in reporting of these election results. But a lot of them tell you about how a large chunk of the English middle class no longer meets old-fashioned stereotypes. (1)
John Harris @johnharris1969 · 4h Replying to @johnharris1969 It's increasingly liberal & worldly, thanks partly to the expansion of Higher Education, but also to how far cities' cultures now stretch well into suburbia and the commuter belt (2)
John Harris @johnharris1969 P.s Blair's expansion of Higher Education May yet prove to be as transformative as Thatcher's sale of council houses
Its a combination of the expansion of graduates with degrees of little use and the massive expansion of debt they're stuck with to get those degrees of little use.
The result is a huge number of new graduates each year who having been to university think they're entitled to a middle class lifestyle but don't have the skillset to achieve it.
Which inevitably leads them to blaming the government, the economic system, society as a whole.
And produces a class of people who require the creation of public sector middle class non-jobs for them to achieve the middle class lifestyle they think they're entitled to.
They can certainly still be middle class even if not necessarily upper middle class or rich enough to be in the top 10% of earners. That would largely have required them to go to Russell Group universities only to study law, medicine, economics or a STEM subject.
What is clear too is the expansion if graduates from about 10% of 25 year olds 40 years ago to about 40% now has also turned Labour from the party of the working class to the party of university graduates.
The Tories can still win graduates with a Cameron like leader but not a Boris type leader, although Boris has far more appeal and still does to the skilled working class voters in particular who have left Labour
That depends upon how you define middle class.
For me if you cannot afford to buy the average home in your area then you're not middle class.
That's a problem the Conservatives will have to deal with in southern England.
And promises about possible future inheritances aren't going to help.
Reading @another_richard and @HYUFD private dialogue is like dipping back into the 1950s and watching a smoke filled talking heads debate on a black and white TV
"Class depends on where one was educated, or what sort of a home one can afford". What a load of old nonsense.
Educate as many as one can to a high standard it drags up society, a nation of fewer hooligans and reprobates. Who cares if all the Baristas have a Sociology degree from the University of Worcester? Good on them.
That's fine as long as you make clear to those getting Sociology degrees from the University of Worcester that all their degree is good for is a life as a Barista. Stop coning people into thinking a degree is a gateway to a better job and a better life whilst at the same time so completely trashing the value of those degrees that in effect you are lying to them and that all you are really giving them is a lifetime of debt and low pay.
No, we must encourage employers to treat all graduates equally. It will be good for both sides and the country. Unless there really is something about an Oxford humanities degree that qualifies one to run a hedge fund or a country.
That is utter rubbish. Why should an employer put any value on a qualification which has no intrinsic value in itself and which does not in any way reflect the abilities of the candidate as a potential employee.
There are plenty of degrees that do have real world value in the specific areas they relate to but the idea that as an employer i should look favourably on someone simply because they have been through the degree factory and stayed out of gainful employment for an extra 3 years is idiotic.
Or put it the other way. Why should I look less favourably on someone who left school at 18 and went out and got a job so that by 21 they have 3 years experience of real employment compared with a graduate? That is what you are actually asking employers to do.
Or why should someone with 2 E grade A levels and straight Cs at GCSE at a new university be put on an equal plane for a job as a lawyer or doctor with someone with straight A*s at A level and GCSE with a degree from Oxbridge or another Russell Group university
Not posh enough for some people, I see.
OK if you would like to be operated on or defended in court or have a big commercial deal negotiated by someone with 2 E grades at A level, C grade gcses and a 2.2 from a new university, be my guest
OH, s\o you would rather be dealt with by a posh incompetent than someone who knew the job?!
Clearly you would rather be dealt with by an incompetent full stop, posh or not
You're misreading. I want a competent. I don't give a shite if they are cringing Royalists with a MBE that went to Christchurch at Oxford*.
*Friend of mine did. But, despite that, he's highly competent at his profession.
You just said you would be perfectly happy to be operated on by a surgeon who had got no better than C grade GCSEs, 2 E grade A levels and a 2.2 from a new university.
I didn't. I said "someone who knew the job". THat's my criterion. Not how posh this person is.
Christ, is he really arguing with you that someone’s GCSEs, A-Levels, or degree are relevant to how good they are in their profession if they rise through to a key role?
Of course they are, you don't normally get into Medical School without good GCSEs and A levels for starters and you rarely get top surgeons or lawyers without good degrees from top universities
Sorry to break it to you, but in the real world no one cares. Many of us who enjoyed our lives from 18-21 underperformed at A-Level and in our degrees. It takes a bit longer, but you can be a surgeon or a barrister despite that if are good enough. Law is easiest because of conversation courses, but you can persist and become a doctor too.
You will rarely find any top surgeons or QCs who went to a new university or did not do well at A level and degree level.
As ever John Harris adds something to the conversation that is worth sitting up and listening to. No one in political journalism does more thinking and scratching around beneath the headlines than this guy imho.
Thread of the evening.
John Harris @johnharris1969 · 4h You won't hear much political sociology in reporting of these election results. But a lot of them tell you about how a large chunk of the English middle class no longer meets old-fashioned stereotypes. (1)
John Harris @johnharris1969 · 4h Replying to @johnharris1969 It's increasingly liberal & worldly, thanks partly to the expansion of Higher Education, but also to how far cities' cultures now stretch well into suburbia and the commuter belt (2)
John Harris @johnharris1969 P.s Blair's expansion of Higher Education May yet prove to be as transformative as Thatcher's sale of council houses
Its a combination of the expansion of graduates with degrees of little use and the massive expansion of debt they're stuck with to get those degrees of little use.
The result is a huge number of new graduates each year who having been to university think they're entitled to a middle class lifestyle but don't have the skillset to achieve it.
Which inevitably leads them to blaming the government, the economic system, society as a whole.
And produces a class of people who require the creation of public sector middle class non-jobs for them to achieve the middle class lifestyle they think they're entitled to.
They can certainly still be middle class even if not necessarily upper middle class or rich enough to be in the top 10% of earners. That would largely have required them to go to Russell Group universities only to study law, medicine, economics or a STEM subject.
What is clear too is the expansion if graduates from about 10% of 25 year olds 40 years ago to about 40% now has also turned Labour from the party of the working class to the party of university graduates.
The Tories can still win graduates with a Cameron like leader but not a Boris type leader, although Boris has far more appeal and still does to the skilled working class voters in particular who have left Labour
That depends upon how you define middle class.
For me if you cannot afford to buy the average home in your area then you're not middle class.
That's a problem the Conservatives will have to deal with in southern England.
And promises about possible future inheritances aren't going to help.
Reading @another_richard and @HYUFD private dialogue is like dipping back into the 1950s and watching a smoke filled talking heads debate on a black and white TV
"Class depends on where one was educated, or what sort of a home one can afford". What a load of old nonsense.
Educate as many as one can to a high standard it drags up society, a nation of fewer hooligans and reprobates. Who cares if all the Baristas have a Sociology degree from the University of Worcester? Good on them.
That's fine as long as you make clear to those getting Sociology degrees from the University of Worcester that all their degree is good for is a life as a Barista. Stop coning people into thinking a degree is a gateway to a better job and a better life whilst at the same time so completely trashing the value of those degrees that in effect you are lying to them and that all you are really giving them is a lifetime of debt and low pay.
No, we must encourage employers to treat all graduates equally. It will be good for both sides and the country. Unless there really is something about an Oxford humanities degree that qualifies one to run a hedge fund or a country.
That is utter rubbish. Why should an employer put any value on a qualification which has no intrinsic value in itself and which does not in any way reflect the abilities of the candidate as a potential employee.
There are plenty of degrees that do have real world value in the specific areas they relate to but the idea that as an employer i should look favourably on someone simply because they have been through the degree factory and stayed out of gainful employment for an extra 3 years is idiotic.
Or put it the other way. Why should I look less favourably on someone who left school at 18 and went out and got a job so that by 21 they have 3 years experience of real employment compared with a graduate? That is what you are actually asking employers to do.
Or why should someone with 2 E grade A levels and straight Cs at GCSE at a new university be put on an equal plane for a job as a lawyer or doctor with someone with straight A*s at A level and GCSE with a degree from Oxbridge or another Russell Group university
Not posh enough for some people, I see.
OK if you would like to be operated on or defended in court or have a big commercial deal negotiated by someone with 2 E grades at A level, C grade gcses and a 2.2 from a new university, be my guest
OH, s\o you would rather be dealt with by a posh incompetent than someone who knew the job?!
Clearly you would rather be dealt with by an incompetent full stop, posh or not
You're misreading. I want a competent. I don't give a shite if they are cringing Royalists with a MBE that went to Christchurch at Oxford*.
*Friend of mine did. But, despite that, he's highly competent at his profession.
You just said you would be perfectly happy to be operated on by a surgeon who had got no better than C grade GCSEs, 2 E grade A levels and a 2.2 from a new university.
I didn't. I said "someone who knew the job". THat's my criterion. Not how posh this person is.
Christ, is he really arguing with you that someone’s GCSEs, A-Levels, or degree are relevant to how good they are in their profession if they rise through to a key role?
Not just that as that they have to be from an upmarket uni (and school from his past assertions).
I'm actually agreeing with Alanbrooke, too ...
The obvious exception is a specialist academic position, in which my doctorate (and some of my undergraduate work) was and remains highly relevant, but that is fairly unusual.
As ever John Harris adds something to the conversation that is worth sitting up and listening to. No one in political journalism does more thinking and scratching around beneath the headlines than this guy imho.
Thread of the evening.
John Harris @johnharris1969 · 4h You won't hear much political sociology in reporting of these election results. But a lot of them tell you about how a large chunk of the English middle class no longer meets old-fashioned stereotypes. (1)
John Harris @johnharris1969 · 4h Replying to @johnharris1969 It's increasingly liberal & worldly, thanks partly to the expansion of Higher Education, but also to how far cities' cultures now stretch well into suburbia and the commuter belt (2)
John Harris @johnharris1969 P.s Blair's expansion of Higher Education May yet prove to be as transformative as Thatcher's sale of council houses
Its a combination of the expansion of graduates with degrees of little use and the massive expansion of debt they're stuck with to get those degrees of little use.
The result is a huge number of new graduates each year who having been to university think they're entitled to a middle class lifestyle but don't have the skillset to achieve it.
Which inevitably leads them to blaming the government, the economic system, society as a whole.
And produces a class of people who require the creation of public sector middle class non-jobs for them to achieve the middle class lifestyle they think they're entitled to.
They can certainly still be middle class even if not necessarily upper middle class or rich enough to be in the top 10% of earners. That would largely have required them to go to Russell Group universities only to study law, medicine, economics or a STEM subject.
What is clear too is the expansion if graduates from about 10% of 25 year olds 40 years ago to about 40% now has also turned Labour from the party of the working class to the party of university graduates.
The Tories can still win graduates with a Cameron like leader but not a Boris type leader, although Boris has far more appeal and still does to the skilled working class voters in particular who have left Labour
That depends upon how you define middle class.
For me if you cannot afford to buy the average home in your area then you're not middle class.
That's a problem the Conservatives will have to deal with in southern England.
And promises about possible future inheritances aren't going to help.
Reading @another_richard and @HYUFD private dialogue is like dipping back into the 1950s and watching a smoke filled talking heads debate on a black and white TV
"Class depends on where one was educated, or what sort of a home one can afford". What a load of old nonsense.
Educate as many as one can to a high standard it drags up society, a nation of fewer hooligans and reprobates. Who cares if all the Baristas have a Sociology degree from the University of Worcester? Good on them.
That's fine as long as you make clear to those getting Sociology degrees from the University of Worcester that all their degree is good for is a life as a Barista. Stop coning people into thinking a degree is a gateway to a better job and a better life whilst at the same time so completely trashing the value of those degrees that in effect you are lying to them and that all you are really giving them is a lifetime of debt and low pay.
No, we must encourage employers to treat all graduates equally. It will be good for both sides and the country. Unless there really is something about an Oxford humanities degree that qualifies one to run a hedge fund or a country.
That is utter rubbish. Why should an employer put any value on a qualification which has no intrinsic value in itself and which does not in any way reflect the abilities of the candidate as a potential employee.
There are plenty of degrees that do have real world value in the specific areas they relate to but the idea that as an employer i should look favourably on someone simply because they have been through the degree factory and stayed out of gainful employment for an extra 3 years is idiotic.
Or put it the other way. Why should I look less favourably on someone who left school at 18 and went out and got a job so that by 21 they have 3 years experience of real employment compared with a graduate? That is what you are actually asking employers to do.
Or why should someone with 2 E grade A levels and straight Cs at GCSE at a new university be put on an equal plane for a job as a lawyer or doctor with someone with straight A*s at A level and GCSE with a degree from Oxbridge or another Russell Group university
Not posh enough for some people, I see.
OK if you would like to be operated on or defended in court or have a big commercial deal negotiated by someone with 2 E grades at A level, C grade gcses and a 2.2 from a new university, be my guest
OH, s\o you would rather be dealt with by a posh incompetent than someone who knew the job?!
Clearly you would rather be dealt with by an incompetent full stop, posh or not
You're misreading. I want a competent. I don't give a shite if they are cringing Royalists with a MBE that went to Christchurch at Oxford*.
*Friend of mine did. But, despite that, he's highly competent at his profession.
You just said you would be perfectly happy to be operated on by a surgeon who had got no better than C grade GCSEs, 2 E grade A levels and a 2.2 from a new university.
I didn't. I said "someone who knew the job". THat's my criterion. Not how posh this person is.
Christ, is he really arguing with you that someone’s GCSEs, A-Levels, or degree are relevant to how good they are in their profession if they rise through to a key role?
Of course they are, you don't normally get into Medical School without good GCSEs and A levels for starters and you rarely get top surgeons or lawyers without good degrees from top universities
Sorry to break it to you, but in the real world no one cares. Many of us who enjoyed our lives from 18-21 underperformed at A-Level and in our degrees. It takes a bit longer, but you be a surgeon or a barrister despite that if are good enough. Law is easiest because of conversation courses, but you can persist and become a doctor too.
Exactly. At some point fairly quickly GCSEs and A-levels stop being defining factors in the success, knowledge or ability of an individual. There's a fairly narrow window where they are of any special importance.
You're waiting on two experienced surgeons to operate on you and you have the choice, noone's going "alright, top trumps on your GCSEs for the gig".
“Dodged a bullet there - I nearly let him operate on me but then I found out he only got a C in GCSE German and once passed the port the wrong way”.
As ever John Harris adds something to the conversation that is worth sitting up and listening to. No one in political journalism does more thinking and scratching around beneath the headlines than this guy imho.
Thread of the evening.
John Harris @johnharris1969 · 4h You won't hear much political sociology in reporting of these election results. But a lot of them tell you about how a large chunk of the English middle class no longer meets old-fashioned stereotypes. (1)
John Harris @johnharris1969 · 4h Replying to @johnharris1969 It's increasingly liberal & worldly, thanks partly to the expansion of Higher Education, but also to how far cities' cultures now stretch well into suburbia and the commuter belt (2)
John Harris @johnharris1969 P.s Blair's expansion of Higher Education May yet prove to be as transformative as Thatcher's sale of council houses
Its a combination of the expansion of graduates with degrees of little use and the massive expansion of debt they're stuck with to get those degrees of little use.
The result is a huge number of new graduates each year who having been to university think they're entitled to a middle class lifestyle but don't have the skillset to achieve it.
Which inevitably leads them to blaming the government, the economic system, society as a whole.
And produces a class of people who require the creation of public sector middle class non-jobs for them to achieve the middle class lifestyle they think they're entitled to.
They can certainly still be middle class even if not necessarily upper middle class or rich enough to be in the top 10% of earners. That would largely have required them to go to Russell Group universities only to study law, medicine, economics or a STEM subject.
What is clear too is the expansion if graduates from about 10% of 25 year olds 40 years ago to about 40% now has also turned Labour from the party of the working class to the party of university graduates.
The Tories can still win graduates with a Cameron like leader but not a Boris type leader, although Boris has far more appeal and still does to the skilled working class voters in particular who have left Labour
That depends upon how you define middle class.
For me if you cannot afford to buy the average home in your area then you're not middle class.
That's a problem the Conservatives will have to deal with in southern England.
And promises about possible future inheritances aren't going to help.
Reading @another_richard and @HYUFD private dialogue is like dipping back into the 1950s and watching a smoke filled talking heads debate on a black and white TV
"Class depends on where one was educated, or what sort of a home one can afford". What a load of old nonsense.
Educate as many as one can to a high standard it drags up society, a nation of fewer hooligans and reprobates. Who cares if all the Baristas have a Sociology degree from the University of Worcester? Good on them.
That's fine as long as you make clear to those getting Sociology degrees from the University of Worcester that all their degree is good for is a life as a Barista. Stop coning people into thinking a degree is a gateway to a better job and a better life whilst at the same time so completely trashing the value of those degrees that in effect you are lying to them and that all you are really giving them is a lifetime of debt and low pay.
No, we must encourage employers to treat all graduates equally. It will be good for both sides and the country. Unless there really is something about an Oxford humanities degree that qualifies one to run a hedge fund or a country.
That is utter rubbish. Why should an employer put any value on a qualification which has no intrinsic value in itself and which does not in any way reflect the abilities of the candidate as a potential employee.
There are plenty of degrees that do have real world value in the specific areas they relate to but the idea that as an employer i should look favourably on someone simply because they have been through the degree factory and stayed out of gainful employment for an extra 3 years is idiotic.
Or put it the other way. Why should I look less favourably on someone who left school at 18 and went out and got a job so that by 21 they have 3 years experience of real employment compared with a graduate? That is what you are actually asking employers to do.
Or why should someone with 2 E grade A levels and straight Cs at GCSE at a new university be put on an equal plane for a job as a lawyer or doctor with someone with straight A*s at A level and GCSE with a degree from Oxbridge or another Russell Group university
Not posh enough for some people, I see.
OK if you would like to be operated on or defended in court or have a big commercial deal negotiated by someone with 2 E grades at A level, C grade gcses and a 2.2 from a new university, be my guest
OH, s\o you would rather be dealt with by a posh incompetent than someone who knew the job?!
Clearly you would rather be dealt with by an incompetent full stop, posh or not
You're misreading. I want a competent. I don't give a shite if they are cringing Royalists with a MBE that went to Christchurch at Oxford*.
*Friend of mine did. But, despite that, he's highly competent at his profession.
You just said you would be perfectly happy to be operated on by a surgeon who had got no better than C grade GCSEs, 2 E grade A levels and a 2.2 from a new university.
I didn't. I said "someone who knew the job". THat's my criterion. Not how posh this person is.
Christ, is he really arguing with you that someone’s GCSEs, A-Levels, or degree are relevant to how good they are in their profession if they rise through to a key role?
Of course they are, you don't normally get into Medical School without good GCSEs and A levels for starters and you rarely get top surgeons or lawyers without good degrees from top universities
Sorry to break it to you, but in the real world no one cares. Many of us who enjoyed our lives from 18-21 underperformed at A-Level and in our degrees. It takes a bit longer, but you can be a surgeon or a barrister despite that if are good enough. Law is easiest because of conversation courses, but you can persist and become a doctor too.
You will rarely find any top surgeons or QCs who went to a new university or did not do well at A level and degree level.
That's because people like you keep the oiks out. Save the top jobs for posh people.
As ever John Harris adds something to the conversation that is worth sitting up and listening to. No one in political journalism does more thinking and scratching around beneath the headlines than this guy imho.
Thread of the evening.
John Harris @johnharris1969 · 4h You won't hear much political sociology in reporting of these election results. But a lot of them tell you about how a large chunk of the English middle class no longer meets old-fashioned stereotypes. (1)
John Harris @johnharris1969 · 4h Replying to @johnharris1969 It's increasingly liberal & worldly, thanks partly to the expansion of Higher Education, but also to how far cities' cultures now stretch well into suburbia and the commuter belt (2)
John Harris @johnharris1969 P.s Blair's expansion of Higher Education May yet prove to be as transformative as Thatcher's sale of council houses
Its a combination of the expansion of graduates with degrees of little use and the massive expansion of debt they're stuck with to get those degrees of little use.
The result is a huge number of new graduates each year who having been to university think they're entitled to a middle class lifestyle but don't have the skillset to achieve it.
Which inevitably leads them to blaming the government, the economic system, society as a whole.
And produces a class of people who require the creation of public sector middle class non-jobs for them to achieve the middle class lifestyle they think they're entitled to.
They can certainly still be middle class even if not necessarily upper middle class or rich enough to be in the top 10% of earners. That would largely have required them to go to Russell Group universities only to study law, medicine, economics or a STEM subject.
What is clear too is the expansion if graduates from about 10% of 25 year olds 40 years ago to about 40% now has also turned Labour from the party of the working class to the party of university graduates.
The Tories can still win graduates with a Cameron like leader but not a Boris type leader, although Boris has far more appeal and still does to the skilled working class voters in particular who have left Labour
That depends upon how you define middle class.
For me if you cannot afford to buy the average home in your area then you're not middle class.
That's a problem the Conservatives will have to deal with in southern England.
And promises about possible future inheritances aren't going to help.
Reading @another_richard and @HYUFD private dialogue is like dipping back into the 1950s and watching a smoke filled talking heads debate on a black and white TV
"Class depends on where one was educated, or what sort of a home one can afford". What a load of old nonsense.
Educate as many as one can to a high standard it drags up society, a nation of fewer hooligans and reprobates. Who cares if all the Baristas have a Sociology degree from the University of Worcester? Good on them.
That's fine as long as you make clear to those getting Sociology degrees from the University of Worcester that all their degree is good for is a life as a Barista. Stop coning people into thinking a degree is a gateway to a better job and a better life whilst at the same time so completely trashing the value of those degrees that in effect you are lying to them and that all you are really giving them is a lifetime of debt and low pay.
No, we must encourage employers to treat all graduates equally. It will be good for both sides and the country. Unless there really is something about an Oxford humanities degree that qualifies one to run a hedge fund or a country.
That is utter rubbish. Why should an employer put any value on a qualification which has no intrinsic value in itself and which does not in any way reflect the abilities of the candidate as a potential employee.
There are plenty of degrees that do have real world value in the specific areas they relate to but the idea that as an employer i should look favourably on someone simply because they have been through the degree factory and stayed out of gainful employment for an extra 3 years is idiotic.
Or put it the other way. Why should I look less favourably on someone who left school at 18 and went out and got a job so that by 21 they have 3 years experience of real employment compared with a graduate? That is what you are actually asking employers to do.
Or why should someone with 2 E grade A levels and straight Cs at GCSE at a new university be put on an equal plane for a job as a lawyer or doctor with someone with straight A*s at A level and GCSE with a degree from Oxbridge or another Russell Group university
Not posh enough for some people, I see.
OK if you would like to be operated on or defended in court or have a big commercial deal negotiated by someone with 2 E grades at A level, C grade gcses and a 2.2 from a new university, be my guest
OH, s\o you would rather be dealt with by a posh incompetent than someone who knew the job?!
Clearly you would rather be dealt with by an incompetent full stop, posh or not
You're misreading. I want a competent. I don't give a shite if they are cringing Royalists with a MBE that went to Christchurch at Oxford*.
*Friend of mine did. But, despite that, he's highly competent at his profession.
You just said you would be perfectly happy to be operated on by a surgeon who had got no better than C grade GCSEs, 2 E grade A levels and a 2.2 from a new university.
I didn't. I said "someone who knew the job". THat's my criterion. Not how posh this person is.
Christ, is he really arguing with you that someone’s GCSEs, A-Levels, or degree are relevant to how good they are in their profession if they rise through to a key role?
Not just that as that they have to be from an upmarket uni (and school from his past assertions).
I'm actually agreeing with Alanbrooke, too ...
The obvious exception is a specialist academic position, in which my doctorate (and some of my undergraduate work) was and remains highly relevant, but that is fairly unusual.
Yes I accept that the Lucasian Chair of Mathematics is unlikely to welcome my application.
As ever John Harris adds something to the conversation that is worth sitting up and listening to. No one in political journalism does more thinking and scratching around beneath the headlines than this guy imho.
Thread of the evening.
John Harris @johnharris1969 · 4h You won't hear much political sociology in reporting of these election results. But a lot of them tell you about how a large chunk of the English middle class no longer meets old-fashioned stereotypes. (1)
John Harris @johnharris1969 · 4h Replying to @johnharris1969 It's increasingly liberal & worldly, thanks partly to the expansion of Higher Education, but also to how far cities' cultures now stretch well into suburbia and the commuter belt (2)
John Harris @johnharris1969 P.s Blair's expansion of Higher Education May yet prove to be as transformative as Thatcher's sale of council houses
Its a combination of the expansion of graduates with degrees of little use and the massive expansion of debt they're stuck with to get those degrees of little use.
The result is a huge number of new graduates each year who having been to university think they're entitled to a middle class lifestyle but don't have the skillset to achieve it.
Which inevitably leads them to blaming the government, the economic system, society as a whole.
And produces a class of people who require the creation of public sector middle class non-jobs for them to achieve the middle class lifestyle they think they're entitled to.
They can certainly still be middle class even if not necessarily upper middle class or rich enough to be in the top 10% of earners. That would largely have required them to go to Russell Group universities only to study law, medicine, economics or a STEM subject.
What is clear too is the expansion if graduates from about 10% of 25 year olds 40 years ago to about 40% now has also turned Labour from the party of the working class to the party of university graduates.
The Tories can still win graduates with a Cameron like leader but not a Boris type leader, although Boris has far more appeal and still does to the skilled working class voters in particular who have left Labour
That depends upon how you define middle class.
For me if you cannot afford to buy the average home in your area then you're not middle class.
That's a problem the Conservatives will have to deal with in southern England.
And promises about possible future inheritances aren't going to help.
Reading @another_richard and @HYUFD private dialogue is like dipping back into the 1950s and watching a smoke filled talking heads debate on a black and white TV
"Class depends on where one was educated, or what sort of a home one can afford". What a load of old nonsense.
Educate as many as one can to a high standard it drags up society, a nation of fewer hooligans and reprobates. Who cares if all the Baristas have a Sociology degree from the University of Worcester? Good on them.
That's fine as long as you make clear to those getting Sociology degrees from the University of Worcester that all their degree is good for is a life as a Barista. Stop coning people into thinking a degree is a gateway to a better job and a better life whilst at the same time so completely trashing the value of those degrees that in effect you are lying to them and that all you are really giving them is a lifetime of debt and low pay.
No, we must encourage employers to treat all graduates equally. It will be good for both sides and the country. Unless there really is something about an Oxford humanities degree that qualifies one to run a hedge fund or a country.
That is utter rubbish. Why should an employer put any value on a qualification which has no intrinsic value in itself and which does not in any way reflect the abilities of the candidate as a potential employee.
There are plenty of degrees that do have real world value in the specific areas they relate to but the idea that as an employer i should look favourably on someone simply because they have been through the degree factory and stayed out of gainful employment for an extra 3 years is idiotic.
Or put it the other way. Why should I look less favourably on someone who left school at 18 and went out and got a job so that by 21 they have 3 years experience of real employment compared with a graduate? That is what you are actually asking employers to do.
Or why should someone with 2 E grade A levels and straight Cs at GCSE at a new university be put on an equal plane for a job as a lawyer or doctor with someone with straight A*s at A level and GCSE with a degree from Oxbridge or another Russell Group university
Not posh enough for some people, I see.
OK if you would like to be operated on or defended in court or have a big commercial deal negotiated by someone with 2 E grades at A level, C grade gcses and a 2.2 from a new university, be my guest
OH, s\o you would rather be dealt with by a posh incompetent than someone who knew the job?!
Clearly you would rather be dealt with by an incompetent full stop, posh or not
You're misreading. I want a competent. I don't give a shite if they are cringing Royalists with a MBE that went to Christchurch at Oxford*.
*Friend of mine did. But, despite that, he's highly competent at his profession.
You just said you would be perfectly happy to be operated on by a surgeon who had got no better than C grade GCSEs, 2 E grade A levels and a 2.2 from a new university.
I didn't. I said "someone who knew the job". THat's my criterion. Not how posh this person is.
You said by your response you believed someone with 2 E grades and a 2.2 from a new university could be a surgeon
My impression is that, as medicine goes, surgery is one of the less intellectual persuits. You cut someone open, look for something funny, chop it off and sew the loose bits back together. Not trivial, but a steady hand and calm temperament are way more important.
The actual doctors I sat with on medical school interviews seemed to think the same.
Very old friend of mine became a top eye surgeon. I remember one thing he said once - that he was just a glorified mechanic, his wife was the real doctor. She was a GP.
My advice for the Conservatives (other than ditching Boris. I don't share loathing that some here have for the man, but he is plainly corrupt) is:-
1. Encourage lots of house-building. My own view is that owner occupation is absolutely key to future Conservative voting. If that pisses off the NIMBY's, tough.
2. Rebalance tax away from income towards capital. I'm arguing against my own interests, here, as I'll likely inherit a lot of money in the next decade, but my need is less than the needs of my own step-children, and my nephews and nieces. Work has to pay, and it doesn't when people are facing high marginal rates of income tax.
3. Put a few hundred million pounds into fixing the criminal justice system. That does not mean more police. It means providing sufficient resources to enable justice to be delivered swiftly, which is fair to both victims and defendants. This is an area that has been shamefully neglected since 2010.
None of these things guarantee victory, but they are worth doing in themselves, and 1 and 2 will yield dividends for the Conservatives in the future.
Interesting. Current Labour Party policy is pretty close to your list - certainly closer than current Tory policy. Welcome to the dark side.
Is it? Bridgette Phillipson said yesterday that the Tories had scrapped the triple lock, implying that she thought that the triple lock was a good thing.
To be fair, I don't know what Labour's views are on planning reform and spending on the justice system, though it would be nice to think that a former DPP would think it worthwhile spending more on it.
Yes. I was referring to the list I responded to, which didn't mention the triple lock. Labour is in favour of a) large-scale house-building programme, b) rebalancing tax from income to capital, and c) a properly funded criminal justice system.
Hmmm, a lot of motherhood and apple pie in a) and c).
Have they set out any specific policies on b)? I find tax rather confusing, but the proposals on here always look far more radical than anything politicians tend to do, simply because change means some people lose out.
And the triple lock is relevant because scrapping it is something most on here agree with.
That's a good point about winners and losers. Policies with all winners either don't exist or are so obvious they've been done already or aren't disputed by anybody (thus have no political value). Hence any serious distinctive policy on anything serious will have losers. In fact that's an acid test of a serious policy. Does it have losers? If no, it isn't a serious policy.
Therefore, the art of modern politics being what it is, the avoidance of hard choices, politicians either shy away from policies like this or, if they have one, they pretend there *aren't* any losers.
Also, Boris Johnson being what he is, utterly incapable of developing serious policy, it's crucial that Labour don't unveil anything good on the policy front until the GE. Because if they do it'll be nicked.
Labour’s proposed windfall tax is a good example of a policy without any perceived losers. Even if there might be a case for one - I don’t think there is - Labour look immature proposing it.
As ever John Harris adds something to the conversation that is worth sitting up and listening to. No one in political journalism does more thinking and scratching around beneath the headlines than this guy imho.
Thread of the evening.
John Harris @johnharris1969 · 4h You won't hear much political sociology in reporting of these election results. But a lot of them tell you about how a large chunk of the English middle class no longer meets old-fashioned stereotypes. (1)
John Harris @johnharris1969 · 4h Replying to @johnharris1969 It's increasingly liberal & worldly, thanks partly to the expansion of Higher Education, but also to how far cities' cultures now stretch well into suburbia and the commuter belt (2)
John Harris @johnharris1969 P.s Blair's expansion of Higher Education May yet prove to be as transformative as Thatcher's sale of council houses
Its a combination of the expansion of graduates with degrees of little use and the massive expansion of debt they're stuck with to get those degrees of little use.
The result is a huge number of new graduates each year who having been to university think they're entitled to a middle class lifestyle but don't have the skillset to achieve it.
Which inevitably leads them to blaming the government, the economic system, society as a whole.
And produces a class of people who require the creation of public sector middle class non-jobs for them to achieve the middle class lifestyle they think they're entitled to.
They can certainly still be middle class even if not necessarily upper middle class or rich enough to be in the top 10% of earners. That would largely have required them to go to Russell Group universities only to study law, medicine, economics or a STEM subject.
What is clear too is the expansion if graduates from about 10% of 25 year olds 40 years ago to about 40% now has also turned Labour from the party of the working class to the party of university graduates.
The Tories can still win graduates with a Cameron like leader but not a Boris type leader, although Boris has far more appeal and still does to the skilled working class voters in particular who have left Labour
That depends upon how you define middle class.
For me if you cannot afford to buy the average home in your area then you're not middle class.
That's a problem the Conservatives will have to deal with in southern England.
And promises about possible future inheritances aren't going to help.
Reading @another_richard and @HYUFD private dialogue is like dipping back into the 1950s and watching a smoke filled talking heads debate on a black and white TV
"Class depends on where one was educated, or what sort of a home one can afford". What a load of old nonsense.
Educate as many as one can to a high standard it drags up society, a nation of fewer hooligans and reprobates. Who cares if all the Baristas have a Sociology degree from the University of Worcester? Good on them.
That's fine as long as you make clear to those getting Sociology degrees from the University of Worcester that all their degree is good for is a life as a Barista. Stop coning people into thinking a degree is a gateway to a better job and a better life whilst at the same time so completely trashing the value of those degrees that in effect you are lying to them and that all you are really giving them is a lifetime of debt and low pay.
No, we must encourage employers to treat all graduates equally. It will be good for both sides and the country. Unless there really is something about an Oxford humanities degree that qualifies one to run a hedge fund or a country.
That is utter rubbish. Why should an employer put any value on a qualification which has no intrinsic value in itself and which does not in any way reflect the abilities of the candidate as a potential employee.
There are plenty of degrees that do have real world value in the specific areas they relate to but the idea that as an employer i should look favourably on someone simply because they have been through the degree factory and stayed out of gainful employment for an extra 3 years is idiotic.
Or put it the other way. Why should I look less favourably on someone who left school at 18 and went out and got a job so that by 21 they have 3 years experience of real employment compared with a graduate? That is what you are actually asking employers to do.
Or why should someone with 2 E grade A levels and straight Cs at GCSE at a new university be put on an equal plane for a job as a lawyer or doctor with someone with straight A*s at A level and GCSE with a degree from Oxbridge or another Russell Group university
Not posh enough for some people, I see.
OK if you would like to be operated on or defended in court or have a big commercial deal negotiated by someone with 2 E grades at A level, C grade gcses and a 2.2 from a new university, be my guest
OH, s\o you would rather be dealt with by a posh incompetent than someone who knew the job?!
Clearly you would rather be dealt with by an incompetent full stop, posh or not
You're misreading. I want a competent. I don't give a shite if they are cringing Royalists with a MBE that went to Christchurch at Oxford*.
*Friend of mine did. But, despite that, he's highly competent at his profession.
You just said you would be perfectly happy to be operated on by a surgeon who had got no better than C grade GCSEs, 2 E grade A levels and a 2.2 from a new university.
I didn't. I said "someone who knew the job". THat's my criterion. Not how posh this person is.
Christ, is he really arguing with you that someone’s GCSEs, A-Levels, or degree are relevant to how good they are in their profession if they rise through to a key role?
Of course they are, you don't normally get into Medical School without good GCSEs and A levels for starters and you rarely get top surgeons or lawyers without good degrees from top universities
Sorry to break it to you, but in the real world no one cares. Many of us who enjoyed our lives from 18-21 underperformed at A-Level and in our degrees. It takes a bit longer, but you be a surgeon or a barrister despite that if are good enough. Law is easiest because of conversation courses, but you can persist and become a doctor too.
Exactly. At some point fairly quickly GCSEs and A-levels stop being defining factors in the success, knowledge or ability of an individual. There's a fairly narrow window where they are of any special importance.
You're waiting on two experienced surgeons to operate on you and you have the choice, noone's going "alright, top trumps on your GCSEs for the gig".
“Dodged a bullet there - I nearly let him operate ok me but then I found out he only got a C in GCSE German”.
As ever John Harris adds something to the conversation that is worth sitting up and listening to. No one in political journalism does more thinking and scratching around beneath the headlines than this guy imho.
Thread of the evening.
John Harris @johnharris1969 · 4h You won't hear much political sociology in reporting of these election results. But a lot of them tell you about how a large chunk of the English middle class no longer meets old-fashioned stereotypes. (1)
John Harris @johnharris1969 · 4h Replying to @johnharris1969 It's increasingly liberal & worldly, thanks partly to the expansion of Higher Education, but also to how far cities' cultures now stretch well into suburbia and the commuter belt (2)
John Harris @johnharris1969 P.s Blair's expansion of Higher Education May yet prove to be as transformative as Thatcher's sale of council houses
Its a combination of the expansion of graduates with degrees of little use and the massive expansion of debt they're stuck with to get those degrees of little use.
The result is a huge number of new graduates each year who having been to university think they're entitled to a middle class lifestyle but don't have the skillset to achieve it.
Which inevitably leads them to blaming the government, the economic system, society as a whole.
And produces a class of people who require the creation of public sector middle class non-jobs for them to achieve the middle class lifestyle they think they're entitled to.
They can certainly still be middle class even if not necessarily upper middle class or rich enough to be in the top 10% of earners. That would largely have required them to go to Russell Group universities only to study law, medicine, economics or a STEM subject.
What is clear too is the expansion if graduates from about 10% of 25 year olds 40 years ago to about 40% now has also turned Labour from the party of the working class to the party of university graduates.
The Tories can still win graduates with a Cameron like leader but not a Boris type leader, although Boris has far more appeal and still does to the skilled working class voters in particular who have left Labour
That depends upon how you define middle class.
For me if you cannot afford to buy the average home in your area then you're not middle class.
That's a problem the Conservatives will have to deal with in southern England.
And promises about possible future inheritances aren't going to help.
Reading @another_richard and @HYUFD private dialogue is like dipping back into the 1950s and watching a smoke filled talking heads debate on a black and white TV
"Class depends on where one was educated, or what sort of a home one can afford". What a load of old nonsense.
Educate as many as one can to a high standard it drags up society, a nation of fewer hooligans and reprobates. Who cares if all the Baristas have a Sociology degree from the University of Worcester? Good on them.
That's fine as long as you make clear to those getting Sociology degrees from the University of Worcester that all their degree is good for is a life as a Barista. Stop coning people into thinking a degree is a gateway to a better job and a better life whilst at the same time so completely trashing the value of those degrees that in effect you are lying to them and that all you are really giving them is a lifetime of debt and low pay.
No, we must encourage employers to treat all graduates equally. It will be good for both sides and the country. Unless there really is something about an Oxford humanities degree that qualifies one to run a hedge fund or a country.
That is utter rubbish. Why should an employer put any value on a qualification which has no intrinsic value in itself and which does not in any way reflect the abilities of the candidate as a potential employee.
There are plenty of degrees that do have real world value in the specific areas they relate to but the idea that as an employer i should look favourably on someone simply because they have been through the degree factory and stayed out of gainful employment for an extra 3 years is idiotic.
Or put it the other way. Why should I look less favourably on someone who left school at 18 and went out and got a job so that by 21 they have 3 years experience of real employment compared with a graduate? That is what you are actually asking employers to do.
Or why should someone with 2 E grade A levels and straight Cs at GCSE at a new university be put on an equal plane for a job as a lawyer or doctor with someone with straight A*s at A level and GCSE with a degree from Oxbridge or another Russell Group university
Not posh enough for some people, I see.
OK if you would like to be operated on or defended in court or have a big commercial deal negotiated by someone with 2 E grades at A level, C grade gcses and a 2.2 from a new university, be my guest
OH, s\o you would rather be dealt with by a posh incompetent than someone who knew the job?!
Clearly you would rather be dealt with by an incompetent full stop, posh or not
You're misreading. I want a competent. I don't give a shite if they are cringing Royalists with a MBE that went to Christchurch at Oxford*.
*Friend of mine did. But, despite that, he's highly competent at his profession.
You just said you would be perfectly happy to be operated on by a surgeon who had got no better than C grade GCSEs, 2 E grade A levels and a 2.2 from a new university.
I didn't. I said "someone who knew the job". THat's my criterion. Not how posh this person is.
Christ, is he really arguing with you that someone’s GCSEs, A-Levels, or degree are relevant to how good they are in their profession if they rise through to a key role?
Of course they are, you don't normally get into Medical School without good GCSEs and A levels for starters and you rarely get top surgeons or lawyers without good degrees from top universities
Sorry to break it to you, but in the real world no one cares. Many of us who enjoyed our lives from 18-21 underperformed at A-Level and in our degrees. It takes a bit longer, but you can be a surgeon or a barrister despite that if are good enough. Law is easiest because of conversation courses, but you can persist and become a doctor too.
You will rarely find any top surgeons or QCs who went to a new university or did not do well at A level and degree level.
That's because people like you keep the oiks out. Save the top jobs for posh people.
As ever John Harris adds something to the conversation that is worth sitting up and listening to. No one in political journalism does more thinking and scratching around beneath the headlines than this guy imho.
Thread of the evening.
John Harris @johnharris1969 · 4h You won't hear much political sociology in reporting of these election results. But a lot of them tell you about how a large chunk of the English middle class no longer meets old-fashioned stereotypes. (1)
John Harris @johnharris1969 · 4h Replying to @johnharris1969 It's increasingly liberal & worldly, thanks partly to the expansion of Higher Education, but also to how far cities' cultures now stretch well into suburbia and the commuter belt (2)
John Harris @johnharris1969 P.s Blair's expansion of Higher Education May yet prove to be as transformative as Thatcher's sale of council houses
Its a combination of the expansion of graduates with degrees of little use and the massive expansion of debt they're stuck with to get those degrees of little use.
The result is a huge number of new graduates each year who having been to university think they're entitled to a middle class lifestyle but don't have the skillset to achieve it.
Which inevitably leads them to blaming the government, the economic system, society as a whole.
And produces a class of people who require the creation of public sector middle class non-jobs for them to achieve the middle class lifestyle they think they're entitled to.
They can certainly still be middle class even if not necessarily upper middle class or rich enough to be in the top 10% of earners. That would largely have required them to go to Russell Group universities only to study law, medicine, economics or a STEM subject.
What is clear too is the expansion if graduates from about 10% of 25 year olds 40 years ago to about 40% now has also turned Labour from the party of the working class to the party of university graduates.
The Tories can still win graduates with a Cameron like leader but not a Boris type leader, although Boris has far more appeal and still does to the skilled working class voters in particular who have left Labour
That depends upon how you define middle class.
For me if you cannot afford to buy the average home in your area then you're not middle class.
That's a problem the Conservatives will have to deal with in southern England.
And promises about possible future inheritances aren't going to help.
Reading @another_richard and @HYUFD private dialogue is like dipping back into the 1950s and watching a smoke filled talking heads debate on a black and white TV
"Class depends on where one was educated, or what sort of a home one can afford". What a load of old nonsense.
Educate as many as one can to a high standard it drags up society, a nation of fewer hooligans and reprobates. Who cares if all the Baristas have a Sociology degree from the University of Worcester? Good on them.
That's fine as long as you make clear to those getting Sociology degrees from the University of Worcester that all their degree is good for is a life as a Barista. Stop coning people into thinking a degree is a gateway to a better job and a better life whilst at the same time so completely trashing the value of those degrees that in effect you are lying to them and that all you are really giving them is a lifetime of debt and low pay.
No, we must encourage employers to treat all graduates equally. It will be good for both sides and the country. Unless there really is something about an Oxford humanities degree that qualifies one to run a hedge fund or a country.
That is utter rubbish. Why should an employer put any value on a qualification which has no intrinsic value in itself and which does not in any way reflect the abilities of the candidate as a potential employee.
There are plenty of degrees that do have real world value in the specific areas they relate to but the idea that as an employer i should look favourably on someone simply because they have been through the degree factory and stayed out of gainful employment for an extra 3 years is idiotic.
Or put it the other way. Why should I look less favourably on someone who left school at 18 and went out and got a job so that by 21 they have 3 years experience of real employment compared with a graduate? That is what you are actually asking employers to do.
Or why should someone with 2 E grade A levels and straight Cs at GCSE at a new university be put on an equal plane for a job as a lawyer or doctor with someone with straight A*s at A level and GCSE with a degree from Oxbridge or another Russell Group university
Not posh enough for some people, I see.
OK if you would like to be operated on or defended in court or have a big commercial deal negotiated by someone with 2 E grades at A level, C grade gcses and a 2.2 from a new university, be my guest
OH, s\o you would rather be dealt with by a posh incompetent than someone who knew the job?!
Clearly you would rather be dealt with by an incompetent full stop, posh or not
You're misreading. I want a competent. I don't give a shite if they are cringing Royalists with a MBE that went to Christchurch at Oxford*.
*Friend of mine did. But, despite that, he's highly competent at his profession.
You just said you would be perfectly happy to be operated on by a surgeon who had got no better than C grade GCSEs, 2 E grade A levels and a 2.2 from a new university.
I didn't. I said "someone who knew the job". THat's my criterion. Not how posh this person is.
Christ, is he really arguing with you that someone’s GCSEs, A-Levels, or degree are relevant to how good they are in their profession if they rise through to a key role?
Of course they are, you don't normally get into Medical School without good GCSEs and A levels for starters and you rarely get top surgeons or lawyers without good degrees from top universities
Sorry to break it to you, but in the real world no one cares. Many of us who enjoyed our lives from 18-21 underperformed at A-Level and in our degrees. It takes a bit longer, but you be a surgeon or a barrister despite that if are good enough. Law is easiest because of conversation courses, but you can persist and become a doctor too.
Exactly. At some point fairly quickly GCSEs and A-levels stop being defining factors in the success, knowledge or ability of an individual. There's a fairly narrow window where they are of any special importance.
You're waiting on two experienced surgeons to operate on you and you have the choice, noone's going "alright, top trumps on your GCSEs for the gig".
“Dodged a bullet there - I nearly let him operate ok me but then I found out he only got a C in GCSE German”.
My advice for the Conservatives (other than ditching Boris. I don't share loathing that some here have for the man, but he is plainly corrupt) is:-
1. Encourage lots of house-building. My own view is that owner occupation is absolutely key to future Conservative voting. If that pisses off the NIMBY's, tough.
2. Rebalance tax away from income towards capital. I'm arguing against my own interests, here, as I'll likely inherit a lot of money in the next decade, but my need is less than the needs of my own step-children, and my nephews and nieces. Work has to pay, and it doesn't when people are facing high marginal rates of income tax.
3. Put a few hundred million pounds into fixing the criminal justice system. That does not mean more police. It means providing sufficient resources to enable justice to be delivered swiftly, which is fair to both victims and defendants. This is an area that has been shamefully neglected since 2010.
None of these things guarantee victory, but they are worth doing in themselves, and 1 and 2 will yield dividends for the Conservatives in the future.
The Tory core vote of pensioners is still voting Tory because greenbelt land is not over developed and their capital is not too heavily taxed, see how badly the dementia tax went down.
Start building on greenbelt land as well as brown belt and taxing wealth and inheritance and property more and they will go LD, Independent or RefUK or even Labour and assuming the young still vote Labour and they cannot win back the middle aged they have lost since 2019 the Tories would be left with nobody and facing 1997 style wipeout.
I agree with you on 3 though
The Conservatives won't have a future if they base their electoral strategy on appealing to current pensioners. From the 1920's to the 1980's, the Conservatives understood very well that if they wished to grow their vote, housebuilding was key.
Agreed. Honing their offering to pensioners is a guaranteed slow death for the party. Quite literally.
We have an ageing population -> focusing your appeal on the elderly is probably a smart strategy.
SF 18 nc DUP 17 -1 All 11 +4 UUP 5 -1 SDLP 3 -1 oth 2 nc
So Unionist parties 23 seats (including DUP and UUP and 1 for TUV) and Nationalist parties 21 seats combining SF and SDLP.
Almost neck and neck after transfers for largest party now too
Alliance are Progressive, so 32 including SF, SDLP, and Alliance.
I'd accept SDLP as Progressive; SF not really.
They are most certainly left of centre.
Sorta like great-granny's hankies: one for show and one for blow.
SDLP is more genuinely progressive, while SF as it's aimed for mainstream and gone big-time, has become increasingly pragmatic when it comes to ideology and motivation. Whereas it's rhetoric and style has been, and remains, more populist, confrontational, anti-establishment than that of SDLP.
At least how it comes across to me. Personal sympathies being with SDLP from 1970s onward and today.
As ever John Harris adds something to the conversation that is worth sitting up and listening to. No one in political journalism does more thinking and scratching around beneath the headlines than this guy imho.
Thread of the evening.
John Harris @johnharris1969 · 4h You won't hear much political sociology in reporting of these election results. But a lot of them tell you about how a large chunk of the English middle class no longer meets old-fashioned stereotypes. (1)
John Harris @johnharris1969 · 4h Replying to @johnharris1969 It's increasingly liberal & worldly, thanks partly to the expansion of Higher Education, but also to how far cities' cultures now stretch well into suburbia and the commuter belt (2)
John Harris @johnharris1969 P.s Blair's expansion of Higher Education May yet prove to be as transformative as Thatcher's sale of council houses
Its a combination of the expansion of graduates with degrees of little use and the massive expansion of debt they're stuck with to get those degrees of little use.
The result is a huge number of new graduates each year who having been to university think they're entitled to a middle class lifestyle but don't have the skillset to achieve it.
Which inevitably leads them to blaming the government, the economic system, society as a whole.
And produces a class of people who require the creation of public sector middle class non-jobs for them to achieve the middle class lifestyle they think they're entitled to.
They can certainly still be middle class even if not necessarily upper middle class or rich enough to be in the top 10% of earners. That would largely have required them to go to Russell Group universities only to study law, medicine, economics or a STEM subject.
What is clear too is the expansion if graduates from about 10% of 25 year olds 40 years ago to about 40% now has also turned Labour from the party of the working class to the party of university graduates.
The Tories can still win graduates with a Cameron like leader but not a Boris type leader, although Boris has far more appeal and still does to the skilled working class voters in particular who have left Labour
That depends upon how you define middle class.
For me if you cannot afford to buy the average home in your area then you're not middle class.
That's a problem the Conservatives will have to deal with in southern England.
And promises about possible future inheritances aren't going to help.
Reading @another_richard and @HYUFD private dialogue is like dipping back into the 1950s and watching a smoke filled talking heads debate on a black and white TV
"Class depends on where one was educated, or what sort of a home one can afford". What a load of old nonsense.
Educate as many as one can to a high standard it drags up society, a nation of fewer hooligans and reprobates. Who cares if all the Baristas have a Sociology degree from the University of Worcester? Good on them.
That's fine as long as you make clear to those getting Sociology degrees from the University of Worcester that all their degree is good for is a life as a Barista. Stop coning people into thinking a degree is a gateway to a better job and a better life whilst at the same time so completely trashing the value of those degrees that in effect you are lying to them and that all you are really giving them is a lifetime of debt and low pay.
No, we must encourage employers to treat all graduates equally. It will be good for both sides and the country. Unless there really is something about an Oxford humanities degree that qualifies one to run a hedge fund or a country.
That is utter rubbish. Why should an employer put any value on a qualification which has no intrinsic value in itself and which does not in any way reflect the abilities of the candidate as a potential employee.
There are plenty of degrees that do have real world value in the specific areas they relate to but the idea that as an employer i should look favourably on someone simply because they have been through the degree factory and stayed out of gainful employment for an extra 3 years is idiotic.
Or put it the other way. Why should I look less favourably on someone who left school at 18 and went out and got a job so that by 21 they have 3 years experience of real employment compared with a graduate? That is what you are actually asking employers to do.
Or why should someone with 2 E grade A levels and straight Cs at GCSE at a new university be put on an equal plane for a job as a lawyer or doctor with someone with straight A*s at A level and GCSE with a degree from Oxbridge or another Russell Group university
Not posh enough for some people, I see.
OK if you would like to be operated on or defended in court or have a big commercial deal negotiated by someone with 2 E grades at A level, C grade gcses and a 2.2 from a new university, be my guest
OH, s\o you would rather be dealt with by a posh incompetent than someone who knew the job?!
Clearly you would rather be dealt with by an incompetent full stop, posh or not
You're misreading. I want a competent. I don't give a shite if they are cringing Royalists with a MBE that went to Christchurch at Oxford*.
*Friend of mine did. But, despite that, he's highly competent at his profession.
You just said you would be perfectly happy to be operated on by a surgeon who had got no better than C grade GCSEs, 2 E grade A levels and a 2.2 from a new university.
I didn't. I said "someone who knew the job". THat's my criterion. Not how posh this person is.
Christ, is he really arguing with you that someone’s GCSEs, A-Levels, or degree are relevant to how good they are in their profession if they rise through to a key role?
Of course they are, you don't normally get into Medical School without good GCSEs and A levels for starters and you rarely get top surgeons or lawyers without good degrees from top universities
Sorry to break it to you, but in the real world no one cares. Many of us who enjoyed our lives from 18-21 underperformed at A-Level and in our degrees. It takes a bit longer, but you be a surgeon or a barrister despite that if are good enough. Law is easiest because of conversation courses, but you can persist and become a doctor too.
Exactly. At some point fairly quickly GCSEs and A-levels stop being defining factors in the success, knowledge or ability of an individual. There's a fairly narrow window where they are of any special importance.
You're waiting on two experienced surgeons to operate on you and you have the choice, noone's going "alright, top trumps on your GCSEs for the gig".
“Dodged a bullet there - I nearly let him operate on me but then I found out he only got a C in GCSE German and once passed the port the wrong way”.
If he did poorly in his medical exams you would certainly not have wanted him operating on you or advising you on your health.
To get into Medical School in the first place he would generally have needed good A levels in the sciences
As ever John Harris adds something to the conversation that is worth sitting up and listening to. No one in political journalism does more thinking and scratching around beneath the headlines than this guy imho.
Thread of the evening.
John Harris @johnharris1969 · 4h You won't hear much political sociology in reporting of these election results. But a lot of them tell you about how a large chunk of the English middle class no longer meets old-fashioned stereotypes. (1)
John Harris @johnharris1969 · 4h Replying to @johnharris1969 It's increasingly liberal & worldly, thanks partly to the expansion of Higher Education, but also to how far cities' cultures now stretch well into suburbia and the commuter belt (2)
John Harris @johnharris1969 P.s Blair's expansion of Higher Education May yet prove to be as transformative as Thatcher's sale of council houses
Its a combination of the expansion of graduates with degrees of little use and the massive expansion of debt they're stuck with to get those degrees of little use.
The result is a huge number of new graduates each year who having been to university think they're entitled to a middle class lifestyle but don't have the skillset to achieve it.
Which inevitably leads them to blaming the government, the economic system, society as a whole.
And produces a class of people who require the creation of public sector middle class non-jobs for them to achieve the middle class lifestyle they think they're entitled to.
They can certainly still be middle class even if not necessarily upper middle class or rich enough to be in the top 10% of earners. That would largely have required them to go to Russell Group universities only to study law, medicine, economics or a STEM subject.
What is clear too is the expansion if graduates from about 10% of 25 year olds 40 years ago to about 40% now has also turned Labour from the party of the working class to the party of university graduates.
The Tories can still win graduates with a Cameron like leader but not a Boris type leader, although Boris has far more appeal and still does to the skilled working class voters in particular who have left Labour
That depends upon how you define middle class.
For me if you cannot afford to buy the average home in your area then you're not middle class.
That's a problem the Conservatives will have to deal with in southern England.
And promises about possible future inheritances aren't going to help.
Reading @another_richard and @HYUFD private dialogue is like dipping back into the 1950s and watching a smoke filled talking heads debate on a black and white TV
"Class depends on where one was educated, or what sort of a home one can afford". What a load of old nonsense.
Educate as many as one can to a high standard it drags up society, a nation of fewer hooligans and reprobates. Who cares if all the Baristas have a Sociology degree from the University of Worcester? Good on them.
That's fine as long as you make clear to those getting Sociology degrees from the University of Worcester that all their degree is good for is a life as a Barista. Stop coning people into thinking a degree is a gateway to a better job and a better life whilst at the same time so completely trashing the value of those degrees that in effect you are lying to them and that all you are really giving them is a lifetime of debt and low pay.
No, we must encourage employers to treat all graduates equally. It will be good for both sides and the country. Unless there really is something about an Oxford humanities degree that qualifies one to run a hedge fund or a country.
That is utter rubbish. Why should an employer put any value on a qualification which has no intrinsic value in itself and which does not in any way reflect the abilities of the candidate as a potential employee.
There are plenty of degrees that do have real world value in the specific areas they relate to but the idea that as an employer i should look favourably on someone simply because they have been through the degree factory and stayed out of gainful employment for an extra 3 years is idiotic.
Or put it the other way. Why should I look less favourably on someone who left school at 18 and went out and got a job so that by 21 they have 3 years experience of real employment compared with a graduate? That is what you are actually asking employers to do.
Or why should someone with 2 E grade A levels and straight Cs at GCSE at a new university be put on an equal plane for a job as a lawyer or doctor with someone with straight A*s at A level and GCSE with a degree from Oxbridge or another Russell Group university
Not posh enough for some people, I see.
OK if you would like to be operated on or defended in court or have a big commercial deal negotiated by someone with 2 E grades at A level, C grade gcses and a 2.2 from a new university, be my guest
OH, s\o you would rather be dealt with by a posh incompetent than someone who knew the job?!
Clearly you would rather be dealt with by an incompetent full stop, posh or not
You're misreading. I want a competent. I don't give a shite if they are cringing Royalists with a MBE that went to Christchurch at Oxford*.
*Friend of mine did. But, despite that, he's highly competent at his profession.
You just said you would be perfectly happy to be operated on by a surgeon who had got no better than C grade GCSEs, 2 E grade A levels and a 2.2 from a new university.
I didn't. I said "someone who knew the job". THat's my criterion. Not how posh this person is.
You said by your response you believed someone with 2 E grades and a 2.2 from a new university could be a surgeon
Who cares? SHe/he knows the job.
You, on the other hand, might want to be operated on by someone who went to Eton or Marlborough. Much more useful criterion, I don't think.
As ever John Harris adds something to the conversation that is worth sitting up and listening to. No one in political journalism does more thinking and scratching around beneath the headlines than this guy imho.
Thread of the evening.
John Harris @johnharris1969 · 4h You won't hear much political sociology in reporting of these election results. But a lot of them tell you about how a large chunk of the English middle class no longer meets old-fashioned stereotypes. (1)
John Harris @johnharris1969 · 4h Replying to @johnharris1969 It's increasingly liberal & worldly, thanks partly to the expansion of Higher Education, but also to how far cities' cultures now stretch well into suburbia and the commuter belt (2)
John Harris @johnharris1969 P.s Blair's expansion of Higher Education May yet prove to be as transformative as Thatcher's sale of council houses
Its a combination of the expansion of graduates with degrees of little use and the massive expansion of debt they're stuck with to get those degrees of little use.
The result is a huge number of new graduates each year who having been to university think they're entitled to a middle class lifestyle but don't have the skillset to achieve it.
Which inevitably leads them to blaming the government, the economic system, society as a whole.
And produces a class of people who require the creation of public sector middle class non-jobs for them to achieve the middle class lifestyle they think they're entitled to.
They can certainly still be middle class even if not necessarily upper middle class or rich enough to be in the top 10% of earners. That would largely have required them to go to Russell Group universities only to study law, medicine, economics or a STEM subject.
What is clear too is the expansion if graduates from about 10% of 25 year olds 40 years ago to about 40% now has also turned Labour from the party of the working class to the party of university graduates.
The Tories can still win graduates with a Cameron like leader but not a Boris type leader, although Boris has far more appeal and still does to the skilled working class voters in particular who have left Labour
That depends upon how you define middle class.
For me if you cannot afford to buy the average home in your area then you're not middle class.
That's a problem the Conservatives will have to deal with in southern England.
And promises about possible future inheritances aren't going to help.
Reading @another_richard and @HYUFD private dialogue is like dipping back into the 1950s and watching a smoke filled talking heads debate on a black and white TV
"Class depends on where one was educated, or what sort of a home one can afford". What a load of old nonsense.
Educate as many as one can to a high standard it drags up society, a nation of fewer hooligans and reprobates. Who cares if all the Baristas have a Sociology degree from the University of Worcester? Good on them.
That's fine as long as you make clear to those getting Sociology degrees from the University of Worcester that all their degree is good for is a life as a Barista. Stop coning people into thinking a degree is a gateway to a better job and a better life whilst at the same time so completely trashing the value of those degrees that in effect you are lying to them and that all you are really giving them is a lifetime of debt and low pay.
No, we must encourage employers to treat all graduates equally. It will be good for both sides and the country. Unless there really is something about an Oxford humanities degree that qualifies one to run a hedge fund or a country.
That is utter rubbish. Why should an employer put any value on a qualification which has no intrinsic value in itself and which does not in any way reflect the abilities of the candidate as a potential employee.
There are plenty of degrees that do have real world value in the specific areas they relate to but the idea that as an employer i should look favourably on someone simply because they have been through the degree factory and stayed out of gainful employment for an extra 3 years is idiotic.
Or put it the other way. Why should I look less favourably on someone who left school at 18 and went out and got a job so that by 21 they have 3 years experience of real employment compared with a graduate? That is what you are actually asking employers to do.
Or why should someone with 2 E grade A levels and straight Cs at GCSE at a new university be put on an equal plane for a job as a lawyer or doctor with someone with straight A*s at A level and GCSE with a degree from Oxbridge or another Russell Group university
Not posh enough for some people, I see.
OK if you would like to be operated on or defended in court or have a big commercial deal negotiated by someone with 2 E grades at A level, C grade gcses and a 2.2 from a new university, be my guest
OH, s\o you would rather be dealt with by a posh incompetent than someone who knew the job?!
Clearly you would rather be dealt with by an incompetent full stop, posh or not
You're misreading. I want a competent. I don't give a shite if they are cringing Royalists with a MBE that went to Christchurch at Oxford*.
*Friend of mine did. But, despite that, he's highly competent at his profession.
You just said you would be perfectly happy to be operated on by a surgeon who had got no better than C grade GCSEs, 2 E grade A levels and a 2.2 from a new university.
I didn't. I said "someone who knew the job". THat's my criterion. Not how posh this person is.
You said by your response you believed someone with 2 E grades and a 2.2 from a new university could be a surgeon
My impression is that, as medicine goes, surgery is one of the less intellectual persuits. You cut someone open, look for something funny, chop it off and sew the loose bits back together. Not trivial, but a steady hand and calm temperament are way more important.
The actual doctors I sat with on medical school interviews seemed to think the same.
Historically surgery has always been the dark, unwholesome branch of medicine - all blood-soaked aprons and meat cleavers, Jack the Ripper and body snatchers.
As ever John Harris adds something to the conversation that is worth sitting up and listening to. No one in political journalism does more thinking and scratching around beneath the headlines than this guy imho.
Thread of the evening.
John Harris @johnharris1969 · 4h You won't hear much political sociology in reporting of these election results. But a lot of them tell you about how a large chunk of the English middle class no longer meets old-fashioned stereotypes. (1)
John Harris @johnharris1969 · 4h Replying to @johnharris1969 It's increasingly liberal & worldly, thanks partly to the expansion of Higher Education, but also to how far cities' cultures now stretch well into suburbia and the commuter belt (2)
John Harris @johnharris1969 P.s Blair's expansion of Higher Education May yet prove to be as transformative as Thatcher's sale of council houses
Its a combination of the expansion of graduates with degrees of little use and the massive expansion of debt they're stuck with to get those degrees of little use.
The result is a huge number of new graduates each year who having been to university think they're entitled to a middle class lifestyle but don't have the skillset to achieve it.
Which inevitably leads them to blaming the government, the economic system, society as a whole.
And produces a class of people who require the creation of public sector middle class non-jobs for them to achieve the middle class lifestyle they think they're entitled to.
They can certainly still be middle class even if not necessarily upper middle class or rich enough to be in the top 10% of earners. That would largely have required them to go to Russell Group universities only to study law, medicine, economics or a STEM subject.
What is clear too is the expansion if graduates from about 10% of 25 year olds 40 years ago to about 40% now has also turned Labour from the party of the working class to the party of university graduates.
The Tories can still win graduates with a Cameron like leader but not a Boris type leader, although Boris has far more appeal and still does to the skilled working class voters in particular who have left Labour
That depends upon how you define middle class.
For me if you cannot afford to buy the average home in your area then you're not middle class.
That's a problem the Conservatives will have to deal with in southern England.
And promises about possible future inheritances aren't going to help.
Reading @another_richard and @HYUFD private dialogue is like dipping back into the 1950s and watching a smoke filled talking heads debate on a black and white TV
"Class depends on where one was educated, or what sort of a home one can afford". What a load of old nonsense.
Educate as many as one can to a high standard it drags up society, a nation of fewer hooligans and reprobates. Who cares if all the Baristas have a Sociology degree from the University of Worcester? Good on them.
That's fine as long as you make clear to those getting Sociology degrees from the University of Worcester that all their degree is good for is a life as a Barista. Stop coning people into thinking a degree is a gateway to a better job and a better life whilst at the same time so completely trashing the value of those degrees that in effect you are lying to them and that all you are really giving them is a lifetime of debt and low pay.
No, we must encourage employers to treat all graduates equally. It will be good for both sides and the country. Unless there really is something about an Oxford humanities degree that qualifies one to run a hedge fund or a country.
That is utter rubbish. Why should an employer put any value on a qualification which has no intrinsic value in itself and which does not in any way reflect the abilities of the candidate as a potential employee.
There are plenty of degrees that do have real world value in the specific areas they relate to but the idea that as an employer i should look favourably on someone simply because they have been through the degree factory and stayed out of gainful employment for an extra 3 years is idiotic.
Or put it the other way. Why should I look less favourably on someone who left school at 18 and went out and got a job so that by 21 they have 3 years experience of real employment compared with a graduate? That is what you are actually asking employers to do.
Or why should someone with 2 E grade A levels and straight Cs at GCSE at a new university be put on an equal plane for a job as a lawyer or doctor with someone with straight A*s at A level and GCSE with a degree from Oxbridge or another Russell Group university
Not posh enough for some people, I see.
OK if you would like to be operated on or defended in court or have a big commercial deal negotiated by someone with 2 E grades at A level, C grade gcses and a 2.2 from a new university, be my guest
OH, s\o you would rather be dealt with by a posh incompetent than someone who knew the job?!
Clearly you would rather be dealt with by an incompetent full stop, posh or not
You're misreading. I want a competent. I don't give a shite if they are cringing Royalists with a MBE that went to Christchurch at Oxford*.
*Friend of mine did. But, despite that, he's highly competent at his profession.
You just said you would be perfectly happy to be operated on by a surgeon who had got no better than C grade GCSEs, 2 E grade A levels and a 2.2 from a new university.
I didn't. I said "someone who knew the job". THat's my criterion. Not how posh this person is.
Christ, is he really arguing with you that someone’s GCSEs, A-Levels, or degree are relevant to how good they are in their profession if they rise through to a key role?
Of course they are, you don't normally get into Medical School without good GCSEs and A levels for starters and you rarely get top surgeons or lawyers without good degrees from top universities
Sorry to break it to you, but in the real world no one cares. Many of us who enjoyed our lives from 18-21 underperformed at A-Level and in our degrees. It takes a bit longer, but you can be a surgeon or a barrister despite that if are good enough. Law is easiest because of conversation courses, but you can persist and become a doctor too.
You will rarely find any top surgeons or QCs who went to a new university or did not do well at A level and degree level.
That's because people like you keep the oiks out. Save the top jobs for posh people.
No save the top jobs for the bright people
It’s a real shame the Tory Party ever let that uneducated buffoon Churchill into the Cabinet, isn’t it? The world would have been much better with proper leadership under a well educated man like Lord Halifax.
WRT law, one can encounter a lot of very good solicitors and barristers, who went to unversities like Newcastle, Hertfordshire, Nottingham, Southampton, Reading, Leeds, Manchester, Liverpool, which all have good law departments.
That said, I think a degree in law is completely unnecessary to be a lawyer. A history degree would have been just as much use to me, and more fun.
As ever John Harris adds something to the conversation that is worth sitting up and listening to. No one in political journalism does more thinking and scratching around beneath the headlines than this guy imho.
Thread of the evening.
John Harris @johnharris1969 · 4h You won't hear much political sociology in reporting of these election results. But a lot of them tell you about how a large chunk of the English middle class no longer meets old-fashioned stereotypes. (1)
John Harris @johnharris1969 · 4h Replying to @johnharris1969 It's increasingly liberal & worldly, thanks partly to the expansion of Higher Education, but also to how far cities' cultures now stretch well into suburbia and the commuter belt (2)
John Harris @johnharris1969 P.s Blair's expansion of Higher Education May yet prove to be as transformative as Thatcher's sale of council houses
Its a combination of the expansion of graduates with degrees of little use and the massive expansion of debt they're stuck with to get those degrees of little use.
The result is a huge number of new graduates each year who having been to university think they're entitled to a middle class lifestyle but don't have the skillset to achieve it.
Which inevitably leads them to blaming the government, the economic system, society as a whole.
And produces a class of people who require the creation of public sector middle class non-jobs for them to achieve the middle class lifestyle they think they're entitled to.
They can certainly still be middle class even if not necessarily upper middle class or rich enough to be in the top 10% of earners. That would largely have required them to go to Russell Group universities only to study law, medicine, economics or a STEM subject.
What is clear too is the expansion if graduates from about 10% of 25 year olds 40 years ago to about 40% now has also turned Labour from the party of the working class to the party of university graduates.
The Tories can still win graduates with a Cameron like leader but not a Boris type leader, although Boris has far more appeal and still does to the skilled working class voters in particular who have left Labour
That depends upon how you define middle class.
For me if you cannot afford to buy the average home in your area then you're not middle class.
That's a problem the Conservatives will have to deal with in southern England.
And promises about possible future inheritances aren't going to help.
Reading @another_richard and @HYUFD private dialogue is like dipping back into the 1950s and watching a smoke filled talking heads debate on a black and white TV
"Class depends on where one was educated, or what sort of a home one can afford". What a load of old nonsense.
Educate as many as one can to a high standard it drags up society, a nation of fewer hooligans and reprobates. Who cares if all the Baristas have a Sociology degree from the University of Worcester? Good on them.
That's fine as long as you make clear to those getting Sociology degrees from the University of Worcester that all their degree is good for is a life as a Barista. Stop coning people into thinking a degree is a gateway to a better job and a better life whilst at the same time so completely trashing the value of those degrees that in effect you are lying to them and that all you are really giving them is a lifetime of debt and low pay.
No, we must encourage employers to treat all graduates equally. It will be good for both sides and the country. Unless there really is something about an Oxford humanities degree that qualifies one to run a hedge fund or a country.
That is utter rubbish. Why should an employer put any value on a qualification which has no intrinsic value in itself and which does not in any way reflect the abilities of the candidate as a potential employee.
There are plenty of degrees that do have real world value in the specific areas they relate to but the idea that as an employer i should look favourably on someone simply because they have been through the degree factory and stayed out of gainful employment for an extra 3 years is idiotic.
Or put it the other way. Why should I look less favourably on someone who left school at 18 and went out and got a job so that by 21 they have 3 years experience of real employment compared with a graduate? That is what you are actually asking employers to do.
Or why should someone with 2 E grade A levels and straight Cs at GCSE at a new university be put on an equal plane for a job as a lawyer or doctor with someone with straight A*s at A level and GCSE with a degree from Oxbridge or another Russell Group university
Not posh enough for some people, I see.
OK if you would like to be operated on or defended in court or have a big commercial deal negotiated by someone with 2 E grades at A level, C grade gcses and a 2.2 from a new university, be my guest
OH, s\o you would rather be dealt with by a posh incompetent than someone who knew the job?!
Clearly you would rather be dealt with by an incompetent full stop, posh or not
You're misreading. I want a competent. I don't give a shite if they are cringing Royalists with a MBE that went to Christchurch at Oxford*.
*Friend of mine did. But, despite that, he's highly competent at his profession.
You just said you would be perfectly happy to be operated on by a surgeon who had got no better than C grade GCSEs, 2 E grade A levels and a 2.2 from a new university.
I didn't. I said "someone who knew the job". THat's my criterion. Not how posh this person is.
You said by your response you believed someone with 2 E grades and a 2.2 from a new university could be a surgeon
Who cares? SHe/he knows the job.
You, on the other hand, might want to be operated on by someone who went to Eton or Marlborough. Much more useful criterion, I don't think.
No I wouldn't, not unless they had top grade A levels and a good degree from Medical School.
I would be happy to have a less academically bright Etonian or old Marlborough pupil be a Savills estate agent or an army officer but I would not want them to be my GP or surgeon
As ever John Harris adds something to the conversation that is worth sitting up and listening to. No one in political journalism does more thinking and scratching around beneath the headlines than this guy imho.
Thread of the evening.
John Harris @johnharris1969 · 4h You won't hear much political sociology in reporting of these election results. But a lot of them tell you about how a large chunk of the English middle class no longer meets old-fashioned stereotypes. (1)
John Harris @johnharris1969 · 4h Replying to @johnharris1969 It's increasingly liberal & worldly, thanks partly to the expansion of Higher Education, but also to how far cities' cultures now stretch well into suburbia and the commuter belt (2)
John Harris @johnharris1969 P.s Blair's expansion of Higher Education May yet prove to be as transformative as Thatcher's sale of council houses
Its a combination of the expansion of graduates with degrees of little use and the massive expansion of debt they're stuck with to get those degrees of little use.
The result is a huge number of new graduates each year who having been to university think they're entitled to a middle class lifestyle but don't have the skillset to achieve it.
Which inevitably leads them to blaming the government, the economic system, society as a whole.
And produces a class of people who require the creation of public sector middle class non-jobs for them to achieve the middle class lifestyle they think they're entitled to.
They can certainly still be middle class even if not necessarily upper middle class or rich enough to be in the top 10% of earners. That would largely have required them to go to Russell Group universities only to study law, medicine, economics or a STEM subject.
What is clear too is the expansion if graduates from about 10% of 25 year olds 40 years ago to about 40% now has also turned Labour from the party of the working class to the party of university graduates.
The Tories can still win graduates with a Cameron like leader but not a Boris type leader, although Boris has far more appeal and still does to the skilled working class voters in particular who have left Labour
That depends upon how you define middle class.
For me if you cannot afford to buy the average home in your area then you're not middle class.
That's a problem the Conservatives will have to deal with in southern England.
And promises about possible future inheritances aren't going to help.
Reading @another_richard and @HYUFD private dialogue is like dipping back into the 1950s and watching a smoke filled talking heads debate on a black and white TV
"Class depends on where one was educated, or what sort of a home one can afford". What a load of old nonsense.
Educate as many as one can to a high standard it drags up society, a nation of fewer hooligans and reprobates. Who cares if all the Baristas have a Sociology degree from the University of Worcester? Good on them.
That's fine as long as you make clear to those getting Sociology degrees from the University of Worcester that all their degree is good for is a life as a Barista. Stop coning people into thinking a degree is a gateway to a better job and a better life whilst at the same time so completely trashing the value of those degrees that in effect you are lying to them and that all you are really giving them is a lifetime of debt and low pay.
No, we must encourage employers to treat all graduates equally. It will be good for both sides and the country. Unless there really is something about an Oxford humanities degree that qualifies one to run a hedge fund or a country.
That is utter rubbish. Why should an employer put any value on a qualification which has no intrinsic value in itself and which does not in any way reflect the abilities of the candidate as a potential employee.
There are plenty of degrees that do have real world value in the specific areas they relate to but the idea that as an employer i should look favourably on someone simply because they have been through the degree factory and stayed out of gainful employment for an extra 3 years is idiotic.
Or put it the other way. Why should I look less favourably on someone who left school at 18 and went out and got a job so that by 21 they have 3 years experience of real employment compared with a graduate? That is what you are actually asking employers to do.
Or why should someone with 2 E grade A levels and straight Cs at GCSE at a new university be put on an equal plane for a job as a lawyer or doctor with someone with straight A*s at A level and GCSE with a degree from Oxbridge or another Russell Group university
In case you hadn't noticed, there are no Cs at GCSE any more.
Also I didn't know anyone with an A* when I was there, let alone straight A*s.
I did know lots of people with 2 E offers.
I had one friend who went to Warwick with a 2 Es offer after failing to get a place at Cambridge. None from my school got the offer of 2 Es for Oxbridge. I'm guessing they had prowess in sport or music?
It was back in the days of fourth-term entrance; you did three entrance exams set by Oxford and if they still liked you after the interview(s) then you got an "unconditional" (in practice 2 E) offer.
It made for an unstressed Y13 after Christmas...
And 2/3 of Oxbridge students got straight A*s anyway
Nope: none of those with a 2 E offer did.
Actually I know someone with an E grade offer who did indeed still get straight A*s.
And the 2 E offer is rarely given to more than a small minority of those given Oxbridge offers. The standard offer is normally at least 2 or 3 A* grades
The entrance exam was phased out in 1997; the A* was introduced in 2010.
E grade offers are still given in a few cases even without the entrance exam. Plus the most popular courses like law now have their own entry tests too as has been mentioned
My son's offer from Cambridge was lower than any other offer he received, but then he had won an international prize from Cambridge in the lower 6th for a paper he had written on game theory and did reach the final stage (all done at Cambridge) on 3 different subjects (Physics, Chemistry, Informatics) to try and get into the British Olympiad team for each of those subjects, so they did sort of know him.
Chip off ...
Sadly not. I haven't a clue what he is talking about most of the time. At least I have a maths background, my wife is even more baffled. All pure maths which loses me after the topic title. Very proud though. Has received lots of scholarships in his time, was in his College University Challenge team, etc, etc. My daughter is of normal intelligence and having someone who achieves so much is a challenge for her, but handled.
It's great so long as it's accompanied by happiness and balance. In my family it's my youngest brother. He's genius level maths. Top 1st at Imperial with hardly any work, then PHD and very young Prof and a specialism in something so outre in the field of topology that he can only talk about it with about a dozen people in the world. But, same time, marriage, hobbies, kids, normal life. And a plain nice guy. He used to look UP to me, can you believe, when I was 25 and he was 15.
As ever John Harris adds something to the conversation that is worth sitting up and listening to. No one in political journalism does more thinking and scratching around beneath the headlines than this guy imho.
Thread of the evening.
John Harris @johnharris1969 · 4h You won't hear much political sociology in reporting of these election results. But a lot of them tell you about how a large chunk of the English middle class no longer meets old-fashioned stereotypes. (1)
John Harris @johnharris1969 · 4h Replying to @johnharris1969 It's increasingly liberal & worldly, thanks partly to the expansion of Higher Education, but also to how far cities' cultures now stretch well into suburbia and the commuter belt (2)
John Harris @johnharris1969 P.s Blair's expansion of Higher Education May yet prove to be as transformative as Thatcher's sale of council houses
Its a combination of the expansion of graduates with degrees of little use and the massive expansion of debt they're stuck with to get those degrees of little use.
The result is a huge number of new graduates each year who having been to university think they're entitled to a middle class lifestyle but don't have the skillset to achieve it.
Which inevitably leads them to blaming the government, the economic system, society as a whole.
And produces a class of people who require the creation of public sector middle class non-jobs for them to achieve the middle class lifestyle they think they're entitled to.
They can certainly still be middle class even if not necessarily upper middle class or rich enough to be in the top 10% of earners. That would largely have required them to go to Russell Group universities only to study law, medicine, economics or a STEM subject.
What is clear too is the expansion if graduates from about 10% of 25 year olds 40 years ago to about 40% now has also turned Labour from the party of the working class to the party of university graduates.
The Tories can still win graduates with a Cameron like leader but not a Boris type leader, although Boris has far more appeal and still does to the skilled working class voters in particular who have left Labour
That depends upon how you define middle class.
For me if you cannot afford to buy the average home in your area then you're not middle class.
That's a problem the Conservatives will have to deal with in southern England.
And promises about possible future inheritances aren't going to help.
Reading @another_richard and @HYUFD private dialogue is like dipping back into the 1950s and watching a smoke filled talking heads debate on a black and white TV
"Class depends on where one was educated, or what sort of a home one can afford". What a load of old nonsense.
Educate as many as one can to a high standard it drags up society, a nation of fewer hooligans and reprobates. Who cares if all the Baristas have a Sociology degree from the University of Worcester? Good on them.
That's fine as long as you make clear to those getting Sociology degrees from the University of Worcester that all their degree is good for is a life as a Barista. Stop coning people into thinking a degree is a gateway to a better job and a better life whilst at the same time so completely trashing the value of those degrees that in effect you are lying to them and that all you are really giving them is a lifetime of debt and low pay.
No, we must encourage employers to treat all graduates equally. It will be good for both sides and the country. Unless there really is something about an Oxford humanities degree that qualifies one to run a hedge fund or a country.
That is utter rubbish. Why should an employer put any value on a qualification which has no intrinsic value in itself and which does not in any way reflect the abilities of the candidate as a potential employee.
There are plenty of degrees that do have real world value in the specific areas they relate to but the idea that as an employer i should look favourably on someone simply because they have been through the degree factory and stayed out of gainful employment for an extra 3 years is idiotic.
Or put it the other way. Why should I look less favourably on someone who left school at 18 and went out and got a job so that by 21 they have 3 years experience of real employment compared with a graduate? That is what you are actually asking employers to do.
Or why should someone with 2 E grade A levels and straight Cs at GCSE at a new university be put on an equal plane for a job as a lawyer or doctor with someone with straight A*s at A level and GCSE with a degree from Oxbridge or another Russell Group university
Not posh enough for some people, I see.
OK if you would like to be operated on or defended in court or have a big commercial deal negotiated by someone with 2 E grades at A level, C grade gcses and a 2.2 from a new university, be my guest
OH, s\o you would rather be dealt with by a posh incompetent than someone who knew the job?!
Clearly you would rather be dealt with by an incompetent full stop, posh or not
You're misreading. I want a competent. I don't give a shite if they are cringing Royalists with a MBE that went to Christchurch at Oxford*.
*Friend of mine did. But, despite that, he's highly competent at his profession.
You just said you would be perfectly happy to be operated on by a surgeon who had got no better than C grade GCSEs, 2 E grade A levels and a 2.2 from a new university.
I didn't. I said "someone who knew the job". THat's my criterion. Not how posh this person is.
Christ, is he really arguing with you that someone’s GCSEs, A-Levels, or degree are relevant to how good they are in their profession if they rise through to a key role?
Of course they are, you don't normally get into Medical School without good GCSEs and A levels for starters and you rarely get top surgeons or lawyers without good degrees from top universities
But surely most "top surgeons and lawyers" are actually all posh boys, and so they inevitably went to posh schools and Oxford and Cambridge. Is this not a matter of chicken and egg, young HY?
As ever John Harris adds something to the conversation that is worth sitting up and listening to. No one in political journalism does more thinking and scratching around beneath the headlines than this guy imho.
Thread of the evening.
John Harris @johnharris1969 · 4h You won't hear much political sociology in reporting of these election results. But a lot of them tell you about how a large chunk of the English middle class no longer meets old-fashioned stereotypes. (1)
John Harris @johnharris1969 · 4h Replying to @johnharris1969 It's increasingly liberal & worldly, thanks partly to the expansion of Higher Education, but also to how far cities' cultures now stretch well into suburbia and the commuter belt (2)
John Harris @johnharris1969 P.s Blair's expansion of Higher Education May yet prove to be as transformative as Thatcher's sale of council houses
Its a combination of the expansion of graduates with degrees of little use and the massive expansion of debt they're stuck with to get those degrees of little use.
The result is a huge number of new graduates each year who having been to university think they're entitled to a middle class lifestyle but don't have the skillset to achieve it.
Which inevitably leads them to blaming the government, the economic system, society as a whole.
And produces a class of people who require the creation of public sector middle class non-jobs for them to achieve the middle class lifestyle they think they're entitled to.
They can certainly still be middle class even if not necessarily upper middle class or rich enough to be in the top 10% of earners. That would largely have required them to go to Russell Group universities only to study law, medicine, economics or a STEM subject.
What is clear too is the expansion if graduates from about 10% of 25 year olds 40 years ago to about 40% now has also turned Labour from the party of the working class to the party of university graduates.
The Tories can still win graduates with a Cameron like leader but not a Boris type leader, although Boris has far more appeal and still does to the skilled working class voters in particular who have left Labour
That depends upon how you define middle class.
For me if you cannot afford to buy the average home in your area then you're not middle class.
That's a problem the Conservatives will have to deal with in southern England.
And promises about possible future inheritances aren't going to help.
Reading @another_richard and @HYUFD private dialogue is like dipping back into the 1950s and watching a smoke filled talking heads debate on a black and white TV
"Class depends on where one was educated, or what sort of a home one can afford". What a load of old nonsense.
Educate as many as one can to a high standard it drags up society, a nation of fewer hooligans and reprobates. Who cares if all the Baristas have a Sociology degree from the University of Worcester? Good on them.
That's fine as long as you make clear to those getting Sociology degrees from the University of Worcester that all their degree is good for is a life as a Barista. Stop coning people into thinking a degree is a gateway to a better job and a better life whilst at the same time so completely trashing the value of those degrees that in effect you are lying to them and that all you are really giving them is a lifetime of debt and low pay.
No, we must encourage employers to treat all graduates equally. It will be good for both sides and the country. Unless there really is something about an Oxford humanities degree that qualifies one to run a hedge fund or a country.
That is utter rubbish. Why should an employer put any value on a qualification which has no intrinsic value in itself and which does not in any way reflect the abilities of the candidate as a potential employee.
There are plenty of degrees that do have real world value in the specific areas they relate to but the idea that as an employer i should look favourably on someone simply because they have been through the degree factory and stayed out of gainful employment for an extra 3 years is idiotic.
Or put it the other way. Why should I look less favourably on someone who left school at 18 and went out and got a job so that by 21 they have 3 years experience of real employment compared with a graduate? That is what you are actually asking employers to do.
Or why should someone with 2 E grade A levels and straight Cs at GCSE at a new university be put on an equal plane for a job as a lawyer or doctor with someone with straight A*s at A level and GCSE with a degree from Oxbridge or another Russell Group university
Not posh enough for some people, I see.
OK if you would like to be operated on or defended in court or have a big commercial deal negotiated by someone with 2 E grades at A level, C grade gcses and a 2.2 from a new university, be my guest
OH, s\o you would rather be dealt with by a posh incompetent than someone who knew the job?!
Clearly you would rather be dealt with by an incompetent full stop, posh or not
You're misreading. I want a competent. I don't give a shite if they are cringing Royalists with a MBE that went to Christchurch at Oxford*.
*Friend of mine did. But, despite that, he's highly competent at his profession.
You just said you would be perfectly happy to be operated on by a surgeon who had got no better than C grade GCSEs, 2 E grade A levels and a 2.2 from a new university.
I didn't. I said "someone who knew the job". THat's my criterion. Not how posh this person is.
Christ, is he really arguing with you that someone’s GCSEs, A-Levels, or degree are relevant to how good they are in their profession if they rise through to a key role?
Of course they are, you don't normally get into Medical School without good GCSEs and A levels for starters and you rarely get top surgeons or lawyers without good degrees from top universities
Sorry to break it to you, but in the real world no one cares. Many of us who enjoyed our lives from 18-21 underperformed at A-Level and in our degrees. It takes a bit longer, but you be a surgeon or a barrister despite that if are good enough. Law is easiest because of conversation courses, but you can persist and become a doctor too.
Exactly. At some point fairly quickly GCSEs and A-levels stop being defining factors in the success, knowledge or ability of an individual. There's a fairly narrow window where they are of any special importance.
You're waiting on two experienced surgeons to operate on you and you have the choice, noone's going "alright, top trumps on your GCSEs for the gig".
“Dodged a bullet there - I nearly let him operate ok me but then I found out he only got a C in GCSE German”.
I mentioned this on a previous thread but Aston Villa's 5 remaining premier league games include Liverpool, Manchester City and Burnley twice. So Steven Gerrard could try and do his old club a favour on the last day of the season as well as helping Everton to stay up.
I remember Blackburn visiting Anfield on the last day of a season with a Blackburn win giving former Liverpool legend Dalgliesh the title. Everyone on the planet expected Liverpool to roll over to stop Man U winning the title but instead they beat Blackburn 2-1.
These gifts to former friends don't tend to happen.
WRT law, one can encounter a lot of very good solicitors and barristers, who went to unversities like Newcastle, Hertfordshire, Nottingham, Southampton, Reading, Leeds, Manchester, Liverpool, which all have good law departments.
That said, I think a degree in law is completely unnecessary to be a lawyer. A history degree would have been just as much use to me, and more fun.
Yes but most of those except Hertfordshire are Russell Group and I doubt you would find many QCs or partners in Magic circle law firms went to Hertfordshire
SF 18 nc DUP 17 -1 All 11 +4 UUP 5 -1 SDLP 3 -1 oth 2 nc
So Unionist parties 23 seats (including DUP and UUP and 1 for TUV) and Nationalist parties 21 seats combining SF and SDLP.
Almost neck and neck after transfers for largest party now too
Alliance are Progressive, so 32 including SF, SDLP, and Alliance.
I'd accept SDLP as Progressive; SF not really.
They are most certainly left of centre.
Sorta like great-granny's hankies: one for show and one for blow.
SDLP is more genuinely progressive, while SF as it's aimed for mainstream and gone big-time, has become increasingly pragmatic when it comes to ideology and motivation. Whereas it's rhetoric and style has been, and remains, more populist, confrontational, anti-establishment than that of SDLP.
At least how it comes across to me. Personal sympathies being with SDLP from 1970s onward and today.
According to Wiki, ideology of the "Big Six" NI parties:
SF is the new FF. Which was and in some vague sense still is "left" for strategic & tactical reasons but at heart is focused on pragmatism as both means AND goal for power. Ditto SF.
No, FF is described on Wiki as "conservative", "Christian-democratic" and "centre-right"! It would be a cold day in Hell when SF go for Christian Democracy!
Have you heard of Aontu? They seem to be an SF off-shoot who are anti-abortion, and so may earn some HYUFD points!
Wiki is very useful, but hardly definitive when it comes to anything, let alone ins & outs of Irish politics since 1916. Cookie cutter does NOT always cut it, and FF's core ideology is pragmatism writ large and small.
FF probably have the distinction of being Western Europe's most corrupt political party.
Charles Haughey - "I did the State some service(ing)"
Give you the Charvet shirt of his back . . . while lifting your granddad's gold watch from the coffin at his wake . . .
As ever John Harris adds something to the conversation that is worth sitting up and listening to. No one in political journalism does more thinking and scratching around beneath the headlines than this guy imho.
Thread of the evening.
John Harris @johnharris1969 · 4h You won't hear much political sociology in reporting of these election results. But a lot of them tell you about how a large chunk of the English middle class no longer meets old-fashioned stereotypes. (1)
John Harris @johnharris1969 · 4h Replying to @johnharris1969 It's increasingly liberal & worldly, thanks partly to the expansion of Higher Education, but also to how far cities' cultures now stretch well into suburbia and the commuter belt (2)
John Harris @johnharris1969 P.s Blair's expansion of Higher Education May yet prove to be as transformative as Thatcher's sale of council houses
Its a combination of the expansion of graduates with degrees of little use and the massive expansion of debt they're stuck with to get those degrees of little use.
The result is a huge number of new graduates each year who having been to university think they're entitled to a middle class lifestyle but don't have the skillset to achieve it.
Which inevitably leads them to blaming the government, the economic system, society as a whole.
And produces a class of people who require the creation of public sector middle class non-jobs for them to achieve the middle class lifestyle they think they're entitled to.
They can certainly still be middle class even if not necessarily upper middle class or rich enough to be in the top 10% of earners. That would largely have required them to go to Russell Group universities only to study law, medicine, economics or a STEM subject.
What is clear too is the expansion if graduates from about 10% of 25 year olds 40 years ago to about 40% now has also turned Labour from the party of the working class to the party of university graduates.
The Tories can still win graduates with a Cameron like leader but not a Boris type leader, although Boris has far more appeal and still does to the skilled working class voters in particular who have left Labour
That depends upon how you define middle class.
For me if you cannot afford to buy the average home in your area then you're not middle class.
That's a problem the Conservatives will have to deal with in southern England.
And promises about possible future inheritances aren't going to help.
Reading @another_richard and @HYUFD private dialogue is like dipping back into the 1950s and watching a smoke filled talking heads debate on a black and white TV
"Class depends on where one was educated, or what sort of a home one can afford". What a load of old nonsense.
Educate as many as one can to a high standard it drags up society, a nation of fewer hooligans and reprobates. Who cares if all the Baristas have a Sociology degree from the University of Worcester? Good on them.
That's fine as long as you make clear to those getting Sociology degrees from the University of Worcester that all their degree is good for is a life as a Barista. Stop coning people into thinking a degree is a gateway to a better job and a better life whilst at the same time so completely trashing the value of those degrees that in effect you are lying to them and that all you are really giving them is a lifetime of debt and low pay.
No, we must encourage employers to treat all graduates equally. It will be good for both sides and the country. Unless there really is something about an Oxford humanities degree that qualifies one to run a hedge fund or a country.
That is utter rubbish. Why should an employer put any value on a qualification which has no intrinsic value in itself and which does not in any way reflect the abilities of the candidate as a potential employee.
There are plenty of degrees that do have real world value in the specific areas they relate to but the idea that as an employer i should look favourably on someone simply because they have been through the degree factory and stayed out of gainful employment for an extra 3 years is idiotic.
Or put it the other way. Why should I look less favourably on someone who left school at 18 and went out and got a job so that by 21 they have 3 years experience of real employment compared with a graduate? That is what you are actually asking employers to do.
Or why should someone with 2 E grade A levels and straight Cs at GCSE at a new university be put on an equal plane for a job as a lawyer or doctor with someone with straight A*s at A level and GCSE with a degree from Oxbridge or another Russell Group university
Not posh enough for some people, I see.
OK if you would like to be operated on or defended in court or have a big commercial deal negotiated by someone with 2 E grades at A level, C grade gcses and a 2.2 from a new university, be my guest
OH, s\o you would rather be dealt with by a posh incompetent than someone who knew the job?!
Clearly you would rather be dealt with by an incompetent full stop, posh or not
You're misreading. I want a competent. I don't give a shite if they are cringing Royalists with a MBE that went to Christchurch at Oxford*.
*Friend of mine did. But, despite that, he's highly competent at his profession.
You just said you would be perfectly happy to be operated on by a surgeon who had got no better than C grade GCSEs, 2 E grade A levels and a 2.2 from a new university.
I didn't. I said "someone who knew the job". THat's my criterion. Not how posh this person is.
You said by your response you believed someone with 2 E grades and a 2.2 from a new university could be a surgeon
Who cares? SHe/he knows the job.
You, on the other hand, might want to be operated on by someone who went to Eton or Marlborough. Much more useful criterion, I don't think.
No I wouldn't, not unless they had top grade A levels and a good degree from Medical School.
I would be happy to have a less academically bright Etonian or old Marlborough pupil be a Savills estate agent or an army officer but I would not want them to be my GP or surgeon
I bet you kick off when told you will be seeing the Practice Nurse, don’t you?
WRT law, one can encounter a lot of very good solicitors and barristers, who went to unversities like Newcastle, Hertfordshire, Nottingham, Southampton, Reading, Leeds, Manchester, Liverpool, which all have good law departments.
That said, I think a degree in law is completely unnecessary to be a lawyer. A history degree would have been just as much use to me, and more fun.
Yes but most of those except Hertfordshire are Russell Group and I doubt you would find many QCs or partners in Magic circle law firms we t to Hertfordshire
I fear for anyone applying for a job when you are on the selection panel. And for your firm's financial safety, as a lawsuit will come sooner or later if your fiorm doesn't have a decent HR person keeping an eye on proceedings.
LOVE this line of defence: "The voters wanted to give the gov't a kicking. They've done that. Now they'll move on." 🤣
Moylan then calls Labour "the party of Mayfair". That's Mayfair, represented by Tories until quite literally 10 hours ago, for *checks notes* 58 years. ~AA
Brilliant stuff. "The party of Mayfair". I wonder how much of a monopoly Labour now has in London. Goodbye Piccadilly, farewell Leicester Square? I guess the Conservatives won't wake up til they've lose Whitehall and Boris Johnson goes directly to jail. If they decide to keep him, they're taking a chance.
WRT law, one can encounter a lot of very good solicitors and barristers, who went to unversities like Newcastle, Hertfordshire, Nottingham, Southampton, Reading, Leeds, Manchester, Liverpool, which all have good law departments.
That said, I think a degree in law is completely unnecessary to be a lawyer. A history degree would have been just as much use to me, and more fun.
Yes but most of those except Hertfordshire are Russell Group and I doubt you would find many QCs or partners in Magic circle law firms we t to Hertfordshire
I fear for anyone applying for a job when you are on the selection panel. And for your firm's financial safety, as a lawsuit will come sooner or later if your fiorm doesn't have a decent HR person keeping an eye on proceedings.
It is perfectly reasonable to recruit on the basis of degrees/a levels and even which universities .Not saying its the best way always but certainly a legitimate one
My advice for the Conservatives (other than ditching Boris. I don't share loathing that some here have for the man, but he is plainly corrupt) is:-
1. Encourage lots of house-building. My own view is that owner occupation is absolutely key to future Conservative voting. If that pisses off the NIMBY's, tough.
2. Rebalance tax away from income towards capital. I'm arguing against my own interests, here, as I'll likely inherit a lot of money in the next decade, but my need is less than the needs of my own step-children, and my nephews and nieces. Work has to pay, and it doesn't when people are facing high marginal rates of income tax.
3. Put a few hundred million pounds into fixing the criminal justice system. That does not mean more police. It means providing sufficient resources to enable justice to be delivered swiftly, which is fair to both victims and defendants. This is an area that has been shamefully neglected since 2010.
None of these things guarantee victory, but they are worth doing in themselves, and 1 and 2 will yield dividends for the Conservatives in the future.
The Tory core vote of pensioners is still voting Tory because greenbelt land is not over developed and their capital is not too heavily taxed, see how badly the dementia tax went down.
Start building on greenbelt land as well as brown belt and taxing wealth and inheritance and property more and they will go LD, Independent or RefUK or even Labour and assuming the young still vote Labour and they cannot win back the middle aged they have lost since 2019 the Tories would be left with nobody and facing 1997 style wipeout.
I agree with you on 3 though
The Conservatives won't have a future if they base their electoral strategy on appealing to current pensioners. From the 1920's to the 1980's, the Conservatives understood very well that if they wished to grow their vote, housebuilding was key.
Agreed. Honing their offering to pensioners is a guaranteed slow death for the party. Quite literally.
We have an ageing population -> focusing your appeal on the elderly is probably a smart strategy.
Not if you want to counter an ageing population
Why would the Tories want to counter an ageing population?
They're quite happy that their dominant demographic continues to increase I would think.
As ever John Harris adds something to the conversation that is worth sitting up and listening to. No one in political journalism does more thinking and scratching around beneath the headlines than this guy imho.
Thread of the evening.
John Harris @johnharris1969 · 4h You won't hear much political sociology in reporting of these election results. But a lot of them tell you about how a large chunk of the English middle class no longer meets old-fashioned stereotypes. (1)
John Harris @johnharris1969 · 4h Replying to @johnharris1969 It's increasingly liberal & worldly, thanks partly to the expansion of Higher Education, but also to how far cities' cultures now stretch well into suburbia and the commuter belt (2)
John Harris @johnharris1969 P.s Blair's expansion of Higher Education May yet prove to be as transformative as Thatcher's sale of council houses
Its a combination of the expansion of graduates with degrees of little use and the massive expansion of debt they're stuck with to get those degrees of little use.
The result is a huge number of new graduates each year who having been to university think they're entitled to a middle class lifestyle but don't have the skillset to achieve it.
Which inevitably leads them to blaming the government, the economic system, society as a whole.
And produces a class of people who require the creation of public sector middle class non-jobs for them to achieve the middle class lifestyle they think they're entitled to.
They can certainly still be middle class even if not necessarily upper middle class or rich enough to be in the top 10% of earners. That would largely have required them to go to Russell Group universities only to study law, medicine, economics or a STEM subject.
What is clear too is the expansion if graduates from about 10% of 25 year olds 40 years ago to about 40% now has also turned Labour from the party of the working class to the party of university graduates.
The Tories can still win graduates with a Cameron like leader but not a Boris type leader, although Boris has far more appeal and still does to the skilled working class voters in particular who have left Labour
That depends upon how you define middle class.
For me if you cannot afford to buy the average home in your area then you're not middle class.
That's a problem the Conservatives will have to deal with in southern England.
And promises about possible future inheritances aren't going to help.
Reading @another_richard and @HYUFD private dialogue is like dipping back into the 1950s and watching a smoke filled talking heads debate on a black and white TV
"Class depends on where one was educated, or what sort of a home one can afford". What a load of old nonsense.
Educate as many as one can to a high standard it drags up society, a nation of fewer hooligans and reprobates. Who cares if all the Baristas have a Sociology degree from the University of Worcester? Good on them.
That's fine as long as you make clear to those getting Sociology degrees from the University of Worcester that all their degree is good for is a life as a Barista. Stop coning people into thinking a degree is a gateway to a better job and a better life whilst at the same time so completely trashing the value of those degrees that in effect you are lying to them and that all you are really giving them is a lifetime of debt and low pay.
No, we must encourage employers to treat all graduates equally. It will be good for both sides and the country. Unless there really is something about an Oxford humanities degree that qualifies one to run a hedge fund or a country.
That is utter rubbish. Why should an employer put any value on a qualification which has no intrinsic value in itself and which does not in any way reflect the abilities of the candidate as a potential employee.
There are plenty of degrees that do have real world value in the specific areas they relate to but the idea that as an employer i should look favourably on someone simply because they have been through the degree factory and stayed out of gainful employment for an extra 3 years is idiotic.
Or put it the other way. Why should I look less favourably on someone who left school at 18 and went out and got a job so that by 21 they have 3 years experience of real employment compared with a graduate? That is what you are actually asking employers to do.
Or why should someone with 2 E grade A levels and straight Cs at GCSE at a new university be put on an equal plane for a job as a lawyer or doctor with someone with straight A*s at A level and GCSE with a degree from Oxbridge or another Russell Group university
Not posh enough for some people, I see.
OK if you would like to be operated on or defended in court or have a big commercial deal negotiated by someone with 2 E grades at A level, C grade gcses and a 2.2 from a new university, be my guest
OH, s\o you would rather be dealt with by a posh incompetent than someone who knew the job?!
Clearly you would rather be dealt with by an incompetent full stop, posh or not
You're misreading. I want a competent. I don't give a shite if they are cringing Royalists with a MBE that went to Christchurch at Oxford*.
*Friend of mine did. But, despite that, he's highly competent at his profession.
You just said you would be perfectly happy to be operated on by a surgeon who had got no better than C grade GCSEs, 2 E grade A levels and a 2.2 from a new university.
I didn't. I said "someone who knew the job". THat's my criterion. Not how posh this person is.
Christ, is he really arguing with you that someone’s GCSEs, A-Levels, or degree are relevant to how good they are in their profession if they rise through to a key role?
Of course they are, you don't normally get into Medical School without good GCSEs and A levels for starters and you rarely get top surgeons or lawyers without good degrees from top universities
Sorry to break it to you, but in the real world no one cares. Many of us who enjoyed our lives from 18-21 underperformed at A-Level and in our degrees. It takes a bit longer, but you be a surgeon or a barrister despite that if are good enough. Law is easiest because of conversation courses, but you can persist and become a doctor too.
Exactly. At some point fairly quickly GCSEs and A-levels stop being defining factors in the success, knowledge or ability of an individual. There's a fairly narrow window where they are of any special importance.
You're waiting on two experienced surgeons to operate on you and you have the choice, noone's going "alright, top trumps on your GCSEs for the gig".
“Dodged a bullet there - I nearly let him operate ok me but then I found out he only got a C in GCSE German”.
Latin, old boy, Latin.
Latin is for oiks. It's Greek that matters.
I think that my Standard Grade in Ancient Greek is probably my least useful qualification - the only upside came in later life when I needed a parameter for an economic model I never ran out of letters. I found the Greeks quite annoying to be honest, with their constant philosophising. The Romans might have been thugs but at least they got on with things.
LOVE this line of defence: "The voters wanted to give the gov't a kicking. They've done that. Now they'll move on." 🤣
Moylan then calls Labour "the party of Mayfair". That's Mayfair, represented by Tories until quite literally 10 hours ago, for *checks notes* 58 years. ~AA
As ever John Harris adds something to the conversation that is worth sitting up and listening to. No one in political journalism does more thinking and scratching around beneath the headlines than this guy imho.
Thread of the evening.
John Harris @johnharris1969 · 4h You won't hear much political sociology in reporting of these election results. But a lot of them tell you about how a large chunk of the English middle class no longer meets old-fashioned stereotypes. (1)
John Harris @johnharris1969 · 4h Replying to @johnharris1969 It's increasingly liberal & worldly, thanks partly to the expansion of Higher Education, but also to how far cities' cultures now stretch well into suburbia and the commuter belt (2)
John Harris @johnharris1969 P.s Blair's expansion of Higher Education May yet prove to be as transformative as Thatcher's sale of council houses
Its a combination of the expansion of graduates with degrees of little use and the massive expansion of debt they're stuck with to get those degrees of little use.
The result is a huge number of new graduates each year who having been to university think they're entitled to a middle class lifestyle but don't have the skillset to achieve it.
Which inevitably leads them to blaming the government, the economic system, society as a whole.
And produces a class of people who require the creation of public sector middle class non-jobs for them to achieve the middle class lifestyle they think they're entitled to.
They can certainly still be middle class even if not necessarily upper middle class or rich enough to be in the top 10% of earners. That would largely have required them to go to Russell Group universities only to study law, medicine, economics or a STEM subject.
What is clear too is the expansion if graduates from about 10% of 25 year olds 40 years ago to about 40% now has also turned Labour from the party of the working class to the party of university graduates.
The Tories can still win graduates with a Cameron like leader but not a Boris type leader, although Boris has far more appeal and still does to the skilled working class voters in particular who have left Labour
That depends upon how you define middle class.
For me if you cannot afford to buy the average home in your area then you're not middle class.
That's a problem the Conservatives will have to deal with in southern England.
And promises about possible future inheritances aren't going to help.
Reading @another_richard and @HYUFD private dialogue is like dipping back into the 1950s and watching a smoke filled talking heads debate on a black and white TV
"Class depends on where one was educated, or what sort of a home one can afford". What a load of old nonsense.
Educate as many as one can to a high standard it drags up society, a nation of fewer hooligans and reprobates. Who cares if all the Baristas have a Sociology degree from the University of Worcester? Good on them.
That's fine as long as you make clear to those getting Sociology degrees from the University of Worcester that all their degree is good for is a life as a Barista. Stop coning people into thinking a degree is a gateway to a better job and a better life whilst at the same time so completely trashing the value of those degrees that in effect you are lying to them and that all you are really giving them is a lifetime of debt and low pay.
No, we must encourage employers to treat all graduates equally. It will be good for both sides and the country. Unless there really is something about an Oxford humanities degree that qualifies one to run a hedge fund or a country.
That is utter rubbish. Why should an employer put any value on a qualification which has no intrinsic value in itself and which does not in any way reflect the abilities of the candidate as a potential employee.
There are plenty of degrees that do have real world value in the specific areas they relate to but the idea that as an employer i should look favourably on someone simply because they have been through the degree factory and stayed out of gainful employment for an extra 3 years is idiotic.
Or put it the other way. Why should I look less favourably on someone who left school at 18 and went out and got a job so that by 21 they have 3 years experience of real employment compared with a graduate? That is what you are actually asking employers to do.
Or why should someone with 2 E grade A levels and straight Cs at GCSE at a new university be put on an equal plane for a job as a lawyer or doctor with someone with straight A*s at A level and GCSE with a degree from Oxbridge or another Russell Group university
Not posh enough for some people, I see.
OK if you would like to be operated on or defended in court or have a big commercial deal negotiated by someone with 2 E grades at A level, C grade gcses and a 2.2 from a new university, be my guest
OH, s\o you would rather be dealt with by a posh incompetent than someone who knew the job?!
Clearly you would rather be dealt with by an incompetent full stop, posh or not
You're misreading. I want a competent. I don't give a shite if they are cringing Royalists with a MBE that went to Christchurch at Oxford*.
*Friend of mine did. But, despite that, he's highly competent at his profession.
You just said you would be perfectly happy to be operated on by a surgeon who had got no better than C grade GCSEs, 2 E grade A levels and a 2.2 from a new university.
I didn't. I said "someone who knew the job". THat's my criterion. Not how posh this person is.
getting good school and university grades is not an indicator of "poshness" they are an achievement the young person should be proud of
Comments
I think both the Greens and the SNP are delighted with how their partnership is being endorsed by voters.
To be fair, I don't know what Labour's views are on planning reform and spending on the justice system, though it would be nice to think that a former DPP would think it worthwhile spending more on it.
Two weeks and one visit from Johnson later he took it back and has looked like an idiot ever since.
SDLP is more genuinely progressive, while SF as it's aimed for mainstream and gone big-time, has become increasingly pragmatic when it comes to ideology and motivation. Whereas it's rhetoric and style has been, and remains, more populist, confrontational, anti-establishment than that of SDLP.
At least how it comes across to me. Personal sympathies being with SDLP from 1970s onward and today.
Labour = crap
Conservatives = crapper
Lib Dems = used to be crap
International law is international law. Do Tories really want to get the reputation of systematic law-breakers?
Development is so risky and therefore so capital intensive in the UK that the market tends towards oligopoly, which in turn focuses on uniformly designed monstrosities to reduce cost.
the size of a political party is to be determined by reference to the number of seats in the Assembly which were held by members of the party on the day on which the Assembly first met following its election;
So I think that a "formal alliance" would have to be to the extent of formally dissolving the separate parties and having a common membership. And that completed before the Assembly meets.
I think this also means that the status of the "largest party" for the purposes of nominating the First Minister, isn't changed by subsequent splits or defections that occur after the day on which the Assembly first meets following its election (but I haven't checked that).
Here’s an earlier piece from Housing Today.
https://www.housingtoday.co.uk/news/huge-extension-to-nutrient-neutrality-rules-threatens-thousands-of-new-homes/5116567.article
Worth noting that there are 14 Tory MPs in Wales, half with a majority under 3,000. So it's not decisive for the next elections but it's a good clutch of marginals they can ill-afford to lose.
But as a consolation, if the primary need was better addressed, there would be more interest in moving beyond it to self-build.
Incidentally, I'm not aware of lots of self-build in any of the cities I've lived in (Copenhagen, Vienna, Basel), and find it hard to imagine. Out in the countryside, sure, why not.
Don't work, Miami-Dade tourist board will cheer the jaded throng, by giving each a bottle of Rebel Yell, then hauling them waaaaay out in the 'Glades somewhere, in big airboats to see Crazy Leon's Snake Farm, Ayahuasca Relaxation Spa and Hog-Rendering Facility. After the sun goes down . . .
Have they set out any specific policies on b)? I find tax rather confusing, but the proposals on here always look far more radical than anything politicians tend to do, simply because change means some people lose out.
And the triple lock is relevant because scrapping it is something most on here agree with.
The main issue is simply whether this is usual mid-term stuff or something more.
However after 10 years in power you rarely win again, so if you don't keep your core vote you face 1997 style annihilation rather than just narrow defeat
Perhaps he should inquire the name of Rishi Sunak's tailor next time they bump into one another?
SDLP = Social-democracy, Irish Nationalism (also "Centre-left")
SF = Democratic Socialism, Left-wing Nationalism, Irish Republicanism (also "Centre-left to left-wing")
APNI = Liberalism, Pro-European, Nonsectarian (also "centre-left to centrist")
UUP = British Unionism, Conservatism (also "centre-right")
DUP = Unionism, Conservatism, Populism, Eurosceptic (also "Right-wing")
TUV = Unionism, Loyalism, Conservatism, Anti-GFA, Eurosceptic (also "Right-wing")
Don't forget Miliband actually gained seats in England and increased the Labour voteshare slightly in 2015 compared to what Brown got in 2010
I wonder whether political events moving so fast since 2016 has blinded many to things behaving normally. We might be in…. precedented times. Being hammered in these elections is just normal. Labour could force a Hung Parliament next time but swing back and a narrow Tory win is more likely.
Problematic from standpoint of Unilateralist Unionist Redoubt of North Antrim?
I actually think it's more likely Starmer might go... because I think if he was found guilty he would probably resign.
At least 2-3 of the 32 seats will still be Plaid Cymru. There are some seats out of reach for Labour -- they won't take all the West Walian or mid-Walian seats.
Labour now hold ~ 28 out of 40 in Wales , but their ceiling in GE 2024 is probably ~ 28 or 29 out of 32, even if they demolish every Tory.
So, Labour have to run to stand still in Wales.
Which may be true, but it sits oddly with freedom of the press and access to information. I expect Putin feels that the BBC is biased to Ukraine, but we object when he blocks British journalists. Shouldn't we be better than that? The Russian propaganda machine in Europe is so ludicrously bad that we can't be scared that they'll win millions of converts.
Therefore, the art of modern politics being what it is, the avoidance of hard choices, politicians either shy away from policies like this or, if they have one, they pretend there *aren't* any losers.
Also, Boris Johnson being what he is, utterly incapable of developing serious policy, it's crucial that Labour don't unveil anything good on the policy front until the GE. Because if they do it'll be nicked.
SDLP = Social-democracy, Irish Nationalism (also "Centre-left")
SF = Democratic Socialism, Left-wing Nationalism, Irish Republicanism (also "Centre-left to left-wing")
APNI = Liberalism, Pro-European, Nonsectarian (also "centre-left to centrist")
UUP = British Unionism, Conservatism (also "centre-right")
DUP = Unionism, Conservatism, Populism, Eurosceptic (also "Right-wing")
TUV = Unionism, Loyalism, Conservatism, Anti-GFA, Eurosceptic (also "Right-wing")
Have you heard of Aontu? They seem to be an SF off-shoot who are anti-abortion, and so may earn some HYUFD points!
In 2017 the combined Unionist and Nationalist parties were each on 39 seats. So if anything there has been a tiny swing from Nationalists to Unionists at present
The actual doctors I sat with on medical school interviews seemed to think the same.
EDIT - Aontú. Your omission of acute accent is sign of your Anglo-Saxon brainwashing!
You're waiting on two experienced surgeons to operate on you and you have the choice, noone's going "alright, top trumps on your GCSEs for the gig".
You might occasionally find the odd criminal or family QC who went to Oxford or Exeter and got a 2.2 or 3rd but that is it and they still went to a top university
I'm actually agreeing with Alanbrooke, too ...
The obvious exception is a specialist academic position, in which my doctorate (and some of my undergraduate work) was and remains highly relevant, but that is fairly unusual.
To get into Medical School in the first place he would generally have needed good A levels in the sciences
You, on the other hand, might want to be operated on by someone who went to Eton or Marlborough. Much more useful criterion, I don't think.
That said, I think a degree in law is completely unnecessary to be a lawyer. A history degree would have been just as much use to me, and more fun.
I would be happy to have a less academically bright Etonian or old Marlborough pupil be a Savills estate agent or an army officer but I would not want them to be my GP or surgeon
These gifts to former friends don't tend to happen.
Give you the Charvet shirt of his back . . . while lifting your granddad's gold watch from the coffin at his wake . . .
Moylan then calls Labour "the party of Mayfair". That's Mayfair, represented by Tories until quite literally 10 hours ago, for *checks notes* 58 years. ~AA
https://twitter.com/BestForBritain/status/1522607472615247879
Brilliant stuff. "The party of Mayfair". I wonder how much of a monopoly Labour now has in London. Goodbye Piccadilly, farewell Leicester Square? I guess the Conservatives won't wake up til they've lose Whitehall and Boris Johnson goes directly to jail. If they decide to keep him, they're taking a chance.
They're quite happy that their dominant demographic continues to increase I would think.