Thursday's Express: "It's only fair! Rishi defends £1,000 boost to pensions"
Aha, we locked down to save them and our student loans get jacked up 11%, fuck off you twat
Pay the money you borrowed and stop whining. You either benefitted with a good job of you leave the poor to pick up your tab for years pissing it up at uni wasting pensioners hard earned pittance. Stop blaming other people for your uselessness
In my view, there's too much emphasis on the level and type of education and training, rather than on its quality. It's quality that counts. Some degrees are high quality; some are poor. Some apprenticeships are brilliant; others are terrible. We need to focus on the quality more than the subject. It doesn't actually matter too much if you're doing on-the-job training in carpentry, a basic numeracy course, or a degree in 15th C violin making.
What matters is whether the quality of what you're studying is sufficiently high to lead to rapid improvements in your ability to think, understand or do whatever it is. And that isn't focused on enough, as quality of the curriculum, teaching etc. is far too variable at all levels of education and training.
One thing which would help would be a level playing field in qualifications. No-one believes that a 2:1 in Stuff Studies from Dumpville University actually equates in worth and difficulty with a 2:1 in engineering from Imperial. So people use guesswork.
This.
I recall one politician being led down the road by an interviewer to the point of being asked if she really thought a Maths degree from Cambridge was equal to one from Southbank… Hilariously the politician tried to stick to the “all degrees are equal” bullshit.
Incidentally, the subject of the degree is not so important. With a bit of thought and will, you could make any subject intellectually challenging and rigorous. A degree on surfing could be made into a degree including literature, multiple cultures round the world, materials engineering, ecology, oceanic engineering, wave physics, sports science, human biomechanics etc etc
Not this. A maths degree from Southbank should be the same as one from Cambridge. That is why we have external examiners. If it isn't, for non-maths reasons, that is because Cambridge's higher reputation and network effects. Take Boris. He got his first job through family connections and after he was sacked, got a better one through connections made at Oxford. Does that mean an Oxford Classics degree is better than a Southbank Classics degree or might there be something else going on?
Universities don't have external examiners.
They often have external moderators though.
And until we reach some future paradise where all universities are equal, we should stop lying about it.
I recall the screaming when John Major announced that various stats on hospitals would be published - it was The End Of The NHS Part XXXXCVII. All the surgeons were going to resign, for example….
How many of the scandals uncovered since would have been successfully hidden without that?
The first step to doing something is recognising there is a difference and quantifying it.
In my view, there's too much emphasis on the level and type of education and training, rather than on its quality. It's quality that counts. Some degrees are high quality; some are poor. Some apprenticeships are brilliant; others are terrible. We need to focus on the quality more than the subject. It doesn't actually matter too much if you're doing on-the-job training in carpentry, a basic numeracy course, or a degree in 15th C violin making.
What matters is whether the quality of what you're studying is sufficiently high to lead to rapid improvements in your ability to think, understand or do whatever it is. And that isn't focused on enough, as quality of the curriculum, teaching etc. is far too variable at all levels of education and training.
One thing which would help would be a level playing field in qualifications. No-one believes that a 2:1 in Stuff Studies from Dumpville University actually equates in worth and difficulty with a 2:1 in engineering from Imperial. So people use guesswork.
This.
I recall one politician being led down the road by an interviewer to the point of being asked if she really thought a Maths degree from Cambridge was equal to one from Southbank… Hilariously the politician tried to stick to the “all degrees are equal” bullshit.
Incidentally, the subject of the degree is not so important. With a bit of thought and will, you could make any subject intellectually challenging and rigorous. A degree on surfing could be made into a degree including literature, multiple cultures round the world, materials engineering, ecology, oceanic engineering, wave physics, sports science, human biomechanics etc etc
Not this. A maths degree from Southbank should be the same as one from Cambridge. That is why we have external examiners. If it isn't, for non-maths reasons, that is because Cambridge's higher reputation and network effects. Take Boris. He got his first job through family connections and after he was sacked, got a better one through connections made at Oxford. Does that mean an Oxford Classics degree is better than a Southbank Classics degree or might there be something else going on?
Universities don't have external examiners.
They do.
My wife is an academic. They have to get an external in to make sure their finals are up to snuff. If you do a PhD one of your viva examiners will be external.
Sluggish in the poorer parts of both im sure, just to hammer home the 'disinterested scum' message. The well to do though, always brisk and full of change and hope Morning by-people
Biden is now the most unpopular US president since approval started being measured (Truman onward) at this point (day 519) in his presidency.
Well, i suppose, looking for the bright side, continuing at these levels will make it easier for the wider party to "persuade" him he is too old to run in 2024.
Ministers are becoming increasingly concerned about the danger of looking like a government that promises the world but doesn’t deliver. ‘It’s a critique we need to be very careful about,’ admits one of them https://www.spectator.co.uk/article/british-politics-is-stuck
It's more his oratorical style - or lack of it - than the content.
I once had a really interesting chat with Steve Davis at a funk gig in Camden.
Thank you for your kind words yesterday. I hope you are keeping well.
I'm well thanks. I'll be better when I've found myself a job.. I have to head off on one of my fun bus journeys to the Job Centre today, and it's not even nice weather for the hour and a half I have to wait in Avebury. I'm getting rather excited about going to see Diana Ross tomorrow, and the AmEx VIP lounge at the O2 - rather a contrast to the Devizes Job Centre!
Thursday's Express: "It's only fair! Rishi defends £1,000 boost to pensions"
Aha, we locked down to save them and our student loans get jacked up 11%, fuck off you twat
Pay the money you borrowed and stop whining. You either benefitted with a good job of you leave the poor to pick up your tab for years pissing it up at uni wasting pensioners hard earned pittance. Stop blaming other people for your uselessness
Are the student loans running at 11%?.... thats horrendous.
What is quite amazing how completely and utterly useless young people are at asserting themselves politically. They don't seem to even realise that they are being screwed over. The NI increase went through without a murmur of dissent. Whack up taxes, change the terms of student loans, keep giving bungs to pensioners so they vote tory.... Zero opposition (or even interest) from young people. It is astonishing.
That is because most are useless. They spend a few years at uni and think they are big shots when in fact they mainly struggle to wipe their own arses. They then whine incessantly about only earning 50k while complaining that all all those nasty pensioners who worked and paid taxes for 50 years are living high on the hog on their 9k pensions.
Yep, they shouldn't go to uni. Better off with a secure job and good income, such as working on the railways.
I think I shall bid you all good day.
The forum is more than normally populated by grumpy old, white, men this morning. I shall leave you all to dribble with anger into your cornflakes.
xx
I was being tongue in cheek, echoing the PB perennial of too many of other people's children going to university, with the notion that they would be better getting proper jobs.
Do you not think there's a point to be made there? Why is 50% of people going to university the magic number? Why not 90%? 20%?
My nephew got the grades to go to uni, but chose instead to go into the Wonderful World of Work. He's now on a significantly higher salary than his friends who went to uni, and has a house (with mortgage).
One of the great education sins of the last 30 yeas has been this idea that kids must go to uni, and that kids who do not are somehow inferior.
Surely the point is that people have the choice. Get the grades, go if you want. Personally I would encourage people to get an education and see the world before locking themselves into he tedious world of work, nappies and mortgages. You’ll spend decades doing that.
We have enough freeloaders thank you.
Aye. The boomers that went to university all expenses paid and chose to break the earnings link for pensioners when they were working, so they didn't have to pay much to pensioners when they were working . . . then whinge about how poor pensions are when they're the ones claiming it and shaft the young.
Truly the most selfish generation that shafted their own parents and their own grandchildren, but keep repeating the bollocks about how much tax you paid.
You do realise 90% of boomers never went to university? Now about 40% of 18 year olds graduate from university.
They also paid into NI just as their parents did as well as private pension schemes for some. It was the government that broke the earnings link
So frigging what? For either of those points.
Many of those going to university today are doing so to go to jobs that didn't need degrees in the past, but do now. So yes, the student loan is just an age-discriminatory income tax that prior generations never had to pay.
And they never paid NI at the rate we do now, that's a lie. Since boomers have started facing retirement they've ended up voting so that tax goes from income tax to NI.
Besides if the logic that more people going to university means we can't afford to pay for university anymore, perhaps we should use that logic with pensions? Lets put the education budget and the pension budget back to what it was when today's pensioners were studying and working?
The education budget has gone down as a percentage of GDP, not up, from the past.
In 1975 education represented 7.5% of GDP and pensions were 4%
Today education is 3.9% and pensions are 6%.
What a remarkable role reversal, hey? I wonder why that's happened? 🤔
Well they could do apprenticeships instead of going to university like their parents and grandparents did and then they wouldn't need a student loan. They probably would also earn more over their lifetime than doing a degree unless at a Russell Group university.
All those earning under £35k have got an NI cut. Life expectancy is higher than decades ago is the reason a higher percentage of the state budget goes on pensions
Oh do STOP!
Off Topic
Morning Pete
I watched the PMQ again yesterday and I am now clear in my mind that you are a cchq troll. Johnson blustered and prevaricated the whole time, waiting for Starmer's last question so that he could spend 2 or 3 minutes spouting a Party political broadcast on behalf of the "going nowhere very fast" Party. What a twat he is.
You've got me. I share a desk with BJO.
I had been sympathetic to Starmer, but he doesn't have the dynamism needed to overcome the Conservatives. I listened to PMQs as it happened and Starmer doesn't have an answer for Johnson's bluster, it is as though Starmer can't think on his feet when Johnson goes off.at a tangent. Johnson makes stuff up and Starmer is naïve enough not to realise he is lying. Starmer appears bewildered. He is a dud.
Labour need an attack dog to call Johnson out, I am not sure who that is. Like Blair I rated Philips, but I suspect her time has passed.
If Johnson goes it changes the dynamic - but if both leaders stay till the election I think Labour wins by 5 or six points, forms stable government with libdems.
I think the die is already cast on that one, not much chance of this Johnson government getting swingback against a centrist Labour Party. As HY says, Starmer has led on best PM like no labour LOTO since Blair.
Can they get rid of Johnson? Do enough of them even want to - a huge mistake is thinking it only needs a few switchers on top the 148, truth is the 148 can go down more likely than up the more we enter general election territory. Do candidates like Mourdant want to own the fag end of 14 years in power and a likely defeat?
If I actually thought you genuine poster Pete, trying to help PB come to right conclusions I would say relax, it’s going okay for change of government - but I don’t think you are genuine I think you have an agenda.
How horrible is the UAE at this time of year? Can you even go out during the day? Is it possible to swim or simply too hot?
TA!
Apologies for not being Sandpit, but we went to Fujairah in June a few years ago. V hot but not so much that it stopped us from doing anything. I can remember scuttling to and from swimming pool to sea because the pavement and sand was unbelievably hot. Decent snorkelling. We didn't think much of Dubai itself, but that's just us.
Thursday's Express: "It's only fair! Rishi defends £1,000 boost to pensions"
Aha, we locked down to save them and our student loans get jacked up 11%, fuck off you twat
Pay the money you borrowed and stop whining. You either benefitted with a good job of you leave the poor to pick up your tab for years pissing it up at uni wasting pensioners hard earned pittance. Stop blaming other people for your uselessness
Are the student loans running at 11%?.... thats horrendous.
What is quite amazing how completely and utterly useless young people are at asserting themselves politically. They don't seem to even realise that they are being screwed over. The NI increase went through without a murmur of dissent. Whack up taxes, change the terms of student loans, keep giving bungs to pensioners so they vote tory.... Zero opposition (or even interest) from young people. It is astonishing.
That is because most are useless. They spend a few years at uni and think they are big shots when in fact they mainly struggle to wipe their own arses. They then whine incessantly about only earning 50k while complaining that all all those nasty pensioners who worked and paid taxes for 50 years are living high on the hog on their 9k pensions.
Yep, they shouldn't go to uni. Better off with a secure job and good income, such as working on the railways.
I think I shall bid you all good day.
The forum is more than normally populated by grumpy old, white, men this morning. I shall leave you all to dribble with anger into your cornflakes.
xx
I was being tongue in cheek, echoing the PB perennial of too many of other people's children going to university, with the notion that they would be better getting proper jobs.
Do you not think there's a point to be made there? Why is 50% of people going to university the magic number? Why not 90%? 20%?
My nephew got the grades to go to uni, but chose instead to go into the Wonderful World of Work. He's now on a significantly higher salary than his friends who went to uni, and has a house (with mortgage).
One of the great education sins of the last 30 yeas has been this idea that kids must go to uni, and that kids who do not are somehow inferior.
Surely the point is that people have the choice. Get the grades, go if you want. Personally I would encourage people to get an education and see the world before locking themselves into he tedious world of work, nappies and mortgages. You’ll spend decades doing that.
We have enough freeloaders thank you.
Aye. The boomers that went to university all expenses paid and chose to break the earnings link for pensioners when they were working, so they didn't have to pay much to pensioners when they were working . . . then whinge about how poor pensions are when they're the ones claiming it and shaft the young.
Truly the most selfish generation that shafted their own parents and their own grandchildren, but keep repeating the bollocks about how much tax you paid.
@BartholomewRoberts I don't often agree with your posts (though often find them informative), but this is enjoyably succint and accurate (as far as I'm aware - I didn't know that it was the baby boomer generation that broke the earnings link). Thank you.
He had to guess as he had run out of fingers and toes. He would not know a boomer if he fell over one. A whining whinging Tory snake.
You really are the most miserable poster on this site Malc. I can only assume your life is so shite you have to lash out at everyone else who might actually be enjoying theirs.
On which basis, I hope things improve for you and you learn to hate your fellow human beings a little less.
F Off Loser,I have a great life.Listening to pish from the likes of you would make anyone disappear. Stick to something you know anything about , like being a loser, rather than trying to guess. You could bore for UK at the Olympics and likely get gold.
Nobody else will bore for the UK while Andy Murray lives.
He hasn't won a tournament for a while so I think you'll find he currently bores for Scotland.
Disclaimer: I usually find what he says QI, maybe Anglos are addicted to 'entertainers' like BJ.
It's more his oratorical style - or lack of it - than the content.
I once had a really interesting chat with Steve Davis at a funk gig in Camden.
Do you mean the tone of his voice? Agree it has a touch of the Starmers, but unlike poor old Keir, Andy is usually good value for content.
Touch of Clint Eastwood there imo but with more fragrant politics. I've never had much difficulty imagining Andy with a poncho and a week of stubble, walking slowly out of town, passing the undertaker and going, "my mistake - FOUR coffins."
Whereas Tim was just the perfect embodiment of Middle England. A comforting figure.
The upping of the state pension and the removal of limits on rich bankers' pay seems utterly tone deaf from the Government.
Are they trying to lose?
Pensioners and bankers are the Tory core vote. No real surprise
Then the Tories deserve to lose.
The more you speak for the Tories, the more I think maybe I should actually just vote Labour, if you represent the Tories. And I despise Labour, but not as much as what you want to stand for.
Really? You even voted for Labour in 2001 when I voted Tory
Yes, because I'm a sentient human who has principles and thinks about why I should vote. Those principles generally align with the Tories more, but if they don't, then the Tories don't deserve my vote.
I don't just vote for a monkey with a blue rosette, and I don't put party before country.
Oh, and don't forget, you lost in 2001. 😕
Still proves you wrong when you said 'I despise Labour' given you even voted for Labour at the 2001 general election
Thursday's Express: "It's only fair! Rishi defends £1,000 boost to pensions"
Aha, we locked down to save them and our student loans get jacked up 11%, fuck off you twat
Pay the money you borrowed and stop whining. You either benefitted with a good job of you leave the poor to pick up your tab for years pissing it up at uni wasting pensioners hard earned pittance. Stop blaming other people for your uselessness
Are the student loans running at 11%?.... thats horrendous.
What is quite amazing how completely and utterly useless young people are at asserting themselves politically. They don't seem to even realise that they are being screwed over. The NI increase went through without a murmur of dissent. Whack up taxes, change the terms of student loans, keep giving bungs to pensioners so they vote tory.... Zero opposition (or even interest) from young people. It is astonishing.
That is because most are useless. They spend a few years at uni and think they are big shots when in fact they mainly struggle to wipe their own arses. They then whine incessantly about only earning 50k while complaining that all all those nasty pensioners who worked and paid taxes for 50 years are living high on the hog on their 9k pensions.
Yep, they shouldn't go to uni. Better off with a secure job and good income, such as working on the railways.
I think I shall bid you all good day.
The forum is more than normally populated by grumpy old, white, men this morning. I shall leave you all to dribble with anger into your cornflakes.
xx
I was being tongue in cheek, echoing the PB perennial of too many of other people's children going to university, with the notion that they would be better getting proper jobs.
Do you not think there's a point to be made there? Why is 50% of people going to university the magic number? Why not 90%? 20%?
My nephew got the grades to go to uni, but chose instead to go into the Wonderful World of Work. He's now on a significantly higher salary than his friends who went to uni, and has a house (with mortgage).
One of the great education sins of the last 30 yeas has been this idea that kids must go to uni, and that kids who do not are somehow inferior.
Surely the point is that people have the choice. Get the grades, go if you want. Personally I would encourage people to get an education and see the world before locking themselves into he tedious world of work, nappies and mortgages. You’ll spend decades doing that.
We have enough freeloaders thank you.
Aye. The boomers that went to university all expenses paid and chose to break the earnings link for pensioners when they were working, so they didn't have to pay much to pensioners when they were working . . . then whinge about how poor pensions are when they're the ones claiming it and shaft the young.
Truly the most selfish generation that shafted their own parents and their own grandchildren, but keep repeating the bollocks about how much tax you paid.
You do realise 90% of boomers never went to university? Now about 40% of 18 year olds graduate from university.
They also paid into NI just as their parents did as well as private pension schemes for some. It was the government that broke the earnings link
So frigging what? For either of those points.
Many of those going to university today are doing so to go to jobs that didn't need degrees in the past, but do now. So yes, the student loan is just an age-discriminatory income tax that prior generations never had to pay.
And they never paid NI at the rate we do now, that's a lie. Since boomers have started facing retirement they've ended up voting so that tax goes from income tax to NI.
Besides if the logic that more people going to university means we can't afford to pay for university anymore, perhaps we should use that logic with pensions? Lets put the education budget and the pension budget back to what it was when today's pensioners were studying and working?
The education budget has gone down as a percentage of GDP, not up, from the past.
In 1975 education represented 7.5% of GDP and pensions were 4%
Today education is 3.9% and pensions are 6%.
What a remarkable role reversal, hey? I wonder why that's happened? 🤔
Well they could do apprenticeships instead of going to university like their parents and grandparents did and then they wouldn't need a student loan. They probably would also earn more over their lifetime than doing a degree unless at a Russell Group university.
All those earning under £35k have got an NI cut. Life expectancy is higher than decades ago is the reason a higher percentage of the state budget goes on pensions
Oh do STOP!
Off Topic
Morning Pete
I watched the PMQ again yesterday and I am now clear in my mind that you are a cchq troll. Johnson blustered and prevaricated the whole time, waiting for Starmer's last question so that he could spend 2 or 3 minutes spouting a Party political broadcast on behalf of the "going nowhere very fast" Party. What a twat he is.
You've got me. I share a desk with BJO.
I had been sympathetic to Starmer, but he doesn't have the dynamism needed to overcome the Conservatives. I listened to PMQs as it happened and Starmer doesn't have an answer for Johnson's bluster, it is as though Starmer can't think on his feet when Johnson goes off at a tangent. Johnson makes stuff up and Starmer is naïve enough not to realise he is lying. Starmer appears bewildered. He is a dud.
Labour need an attack dog to call Johnson out, I am not sure who that is. Like Blair I rated Philips, but I suspect her time has passed.
It’s Rayner. She confuses Boris. Not just with her Basic Instinct shtick
A white British working class single mum with a tough background. She’s Mick Lynch with a growler. She is exactly what Labour needs to seize the Red Wall and discombobulate the Tories, as any attacks on her will appear misogynist/classist
Yes OK she will lose a few snobbish petit bourgeois voters in Remainia, Labour will probably lose them anyway
Thursday's Express: "It's only fair! Rishi defends £1,000 boost to pensions"
Aha, we locked down to save them and our student loans get jacked up 11%, fuck off you twat
Pay the money you borrowed and stop whining. You either benefitted with a good job of you leave the poor to pick up your tab for years pissing it up at uni wasting pensioners hard earned pittance. Stop blaming other people for your uselessness
Are the student loans running at 11%?.... thats horrendous.
What is quite amazing how completely and utterly useless young people are at asserting themselves politically. They don't seem to even realise that they are being screwed over. The NI increase went through without a murmur of dissent. Whack up taxes, change the terms of student loans, keep giving bungs to pensioners so they vote tory.... Zero opposition (or even interest) from young people. It is astonishing.
That is because most are useless. They spend a few years at uni and think they are big shots when in fact they mainly struggle to wipe their own arses. They then whine incessantly about only earning 50k while complaining that all all those nasty pensioners who worked and paid taxes for 50 years are living high on the hog on their 9k pensions.
Yep, they shouldn't go to uni. Better off with a secure job and good income, such as working on the railways.
I think I shall bid you all good day.
The forum is more than normally populated by grumpy old, white, men this morning. I shall leave you all to dribble with anger into your cornflakes.
xx
I was being tongue in cheek, echoing the PB perennial of too many of other people's children going to university, with the notion that they would be better getting proper jobs.
Do you not think there's a point to be made there? Why is 50% of people going to university the magic number? Why not 90%? 20%?
My nephew got the grades to go to uni, but chose instead to go into the Wonderful World of Work. He's now on a significantly higher salary than his friends who went to uni, and has a house (with mortgage).
One of the great education sins of the last 30 yeas has been this idea that kids must go to uni, and that kids who do not are somehow inferior.
Surely the point is that people have the choice. Get the grades, go if you want. Personally I would encourage people to get an education and see the world before locking themselves into he tedious world of work, nappies and mortgages. You’ll spend decades doing that.
We have enough freeloaders thank you.
Aye. The boomers that went to university all expenses paid and chose to break the earnings link for pensioners when they were working, so they didn't have to pay much to pensioners when they were working . . . then whinge about how poor pensions are when they're the ones claiming it and shaft the young.
Truly the most selfish generation that shafted their own parents and their own grandchildren, but keep repeating the bollocks about how much tax you paid.
You do realise 90% of boomers never went to university? Now about 40% of 18 year olds graduate from university.
They also paid into NI just as their parents did as well as private pension schemes for some. It was the government that broke the earnings link
So frigging what? For either of those points.
Many of those going to university today are doing so to go to jobs that didn't need degrees in the past, but do now. So yes, the student loan is just an age-discriminatory income tax that prior generations never had to pay.
And they never paid NI at the rate we do now, that's a lie. Since boomers have started facing retirement they've ended up voting so that tax goes from income tax to NI.
Besides if the logic that more people going to university means we can't afford to pay for university anymore, perhaps we should use that logic with pensions? Lets put the education budget and the pension budget back to what it was when today's pensioners were studying and working?
The education budget has gone down as a percentage of GDP, not up, from the past.
In 1975 education represented 7.5% of GDP and pensions were 4%
Today education is 3.9% and pensions are 6%.
What a remarkable role reversal, hey? I wonder why that's happened? 🤔
Well they could do apprenticeships instead of going to university like their parents and grandparents did and then they wouldn't need a student loan. They probably would also earn more over their lifetime than doing a degree unless at a Russell Group university.
All those earning under £35k have got an NI cut. Life expectancy is higher than decades ago is the reason a higher percentage of the state budget goes on pensions
Oh do STOP!
Off Topic
Morning Pete
I watched the PMQ again yesterday and I am now clear in my mind that you are a cchq troll. Johnson blustered and prevaricated the whole time, waiting for Starmer's last question so that he could spend 2 or 3 minutes spouting a Party political broadcast on behalf of the "going nowhere very fast" Party. What a twat he is.
You've got me. I share a desk with BJO.
I had been sympathetic to Starmer, but he doesn't have the dynamism needed to overcome the Conservatives. I listened to PMQs as it happened and Starmer doesn't have an answer for Johnson's bluster, it is as though Starmer can't think on his feet when Johnson goes off at a tangent. Johnson makes stuff up and Starmer is naïve enough not to realise he is lying. Starmer appears bewildered. He is a dud.
Labour need an attack dog to call Johnson out, I am not sure who that is. Like Blair I rated Philips, but I suspect her time has passed.
It’s Rayner. She confuses Boris. Not just with her Basic Instinct shtick
A white British working class single mum with a tough background. She’s Mick Lynch with a growler. She is exactly what Labour needs to seize the Red Wall and discombobulate the Tories, as any attacks on her will appear misogynist/classist
Yes OK she will lose a few snobbish petit bourgeois voters in Remainia, Labour will probably lose them anyway
How horrible is the UAE at this time of year? Can you even go out during the day? Is it possible to swim or simply too hot?
TA!
It’s horrible!
Currrently 45ºC or thereabouts, and so humid that your sunglasses steam up as you move from the air conditioning to outside.
It’s banned for people to work outside between 12:30 and 4pm.
My wife will get up at 5am to go swimming in the sea at first light, you don’t want to leave it much later.
You don’t really want to be any further south than you were in Armenia, at this time of year.
Ah, shit. At least I know now. Thanks! That was my impression - just too damn hot to do anything. And I like heat (but I don’t like 45C heat)
Have to replan. I need to get to a proper international travel hub within striking distance of Tbilisi (where I am now) to do some essential housekeeping: send luggage home, buy some kit, etc
In my view, there's too much emphasis on the level and type of education and training, rather than on its quality. It's quality that counts. Some degrees are high quality; some are poor. Some apprenticeships are brilliant; others are terrible. We need to focus on the quality more than the subject. It doesn't actually matter too much if you're doing on-the-job training in carpentry, a basic numeracy course, or a degree in 15th C violin making.
What matters is whether the quality of what you're studying is sufficiently high to lead to rapid improvements in your ability to think, understand or do whatever it is. And that isn't focused on enough, as quality of the curriculum, teaching etc. is far too variable at all levels of education and training.
One thing which would help would be a level playing field in qualifications. No-one believes that a 2:1 in Stuff Studies from Dumpville University actually equates in worth and difficulty with a 2:1 in engineering from Imperial. So people use guesswork.
This.
I recall one politician being led down the road by an interviewer to the point of being asked if she really thought a Maths degree from Cambridge was equal to one from Southbank… Hilariously the politician tried to stick to the “all degrees are equal” bullshit.
Incidentally, the subject of the degree is not so important. With a bit of thought and will, you could make any subject intellectually challenging and rigorous. A degree on surfing could be made into a degree including literature, multiple cultures round the world, materials engineering, ecology, oceanic engineering, wave physics, sports science, human biomechanics etc etc
Not this. A maths degree from Southbank should be the same as one from Cambridge. That is why we have external examiners. If it isn't, for non-maths reasons, that is because Cambridge's higher reputation and network effects. Take Boris. He got his first job through family connections and after he was sacked, got a better one through connections made at Oxford. Does that mean an Oxford Classics degree is better than a Southbank Classics degree or might there be something else going on?
Southbank doesn't do Maths, closest course it does is accountancy and finance
23rd June anyway. That date. The exact same one on which this great country of ours took a wrong turn that will probably see us lost in the weeds for the best part of 50 years. There's nothing you can do to stop it coming around every year - thankfully just the once - so you just have to crack on. Bad memories though.
He is very impressive. Articulate, calm, with a touch of humour.
I don't want to be as sweeping as to say he's captured the mood of the nation, but he's certainly captured the mood of a fair swathe of it.
People fed up of their standard of living being continually chipped away at, being told they're selfish for wanting a pay rise, decent conditions at work, or even a decent standard of living.
A government completely out of touch with the reality of soaring food prices, double digit percentage rises at the pump monthly, taxes up again.
And so on, and so forth. People are fed up of it. Whatever the mood of the nation is, Mick Lynch is a lot closer to it than anyone in the Conservative party, or, apparently, the national media.
Thursday's Express: "It's only fair! Rishi defends £1,000 boost to pensions"
Aha, we locked down to save them and our student loans get jacked up 11%, fuck off you twat
Pay the money you borrowed and stop whining. You either benefitted with a good job of you leave the poor to pick up your tab for years pissing it up at uni wasting pensioners hard earned pittance. Stop blaming other people for your uselessness
Are the student loans running at 11%?.... thats horrendous.
What is quite amazing how completely and utterly useless young people are at asserting themselves politically. They don't seem to even realise that they are being screwed over. The NI increase went through without a murmur of dissent. Whack up taxes, change the terms of student loans, keep giving bungs to pensioners so they vote tory.... Zero opposition (or even interest) from young people. It is astonishing.
That is because most are useless. They spend a few years at uni and think they are big shots when in fact they mainly struggle to wipe their own arses. They then whine incessantly about only earning 50k while complaining that all all those nasty pensioners who worked and paid taxes for 50 years are living high on the hog on their 9k pensions.
Yep, they shouldn't go to uni. Better off with a secure job and good income, such as working on the railways.
I think I shall bid you all good day.
The forum is more than normally populated by grumpy old, white, men this morning. I shall leave you all to dribble with anger into your cornflakes.
xx
I was being tongue in cheek, echoing the PB perennial of too many of other people's children going to university, with the notion that they would be better getting proper jobs.
Do you not think there's a point to be made there? Why is 50% of people going to university the magic number? Why not 90%? 20%?
My nephew got the grades to go to uni, but chose instead to go into the Wonderful World of Work. He's now on a significantly higher salary than his friends who went to uni, and has a house (with mortgage).
One of the great education sins of the last 30 yeas has been this idea that kids must go to uni, and that kids who do not are somehow inferior.
Surely the point is that people have the choice. Get the grades, go if you want. Personally I would encourage people to get an education and see the world before locking themselves into he tedious world of work, nappies and mortgages. You’ll spend decades doing that.
We have enough freeloaders thank you.
Aye. The boomers that went to university all expenses paid and chose to break the earnings link for pensioners when they were working, so they didn't have to pay much to pensioners when they were working . . . then whinge about how poor pensions are when they're the ones claiming it and shaft the young.
Truly the most selfish generation that shafted their own parents and their own grandchildren, but keep repeating the bollocks about how much tax you paid.
You do realise 90% of boomers never went to university? Now about 40% of 18 year olds graduate from university.
They also paid into NI just as their parents did as well as private pension schemes for some. It was the government that broke the earnings link
So frigging what? For either of those points.
Many of those going to university today are doing so to go to jobs that didn't need degrees in the past, but do now. So yes, the student loan is just an age-discriminatory income tax that prior generations never had to pay.
And they never paid NI at the rate we do now, that's a lie. Since boomers have started facing retirement they've ended up voting so that tax goes from income tax to NI.
Besides if the logic that more people going to university means we can't afford to pay for university anymore, perhaps we should use that logic with pensions? Lets put the education budget and the pension budget back to what it was when today's pensioners were studying and working?
The education budget has gone down as a percentage of GDP, not up, from the past.
In 1975 education represented 7.5% of GDP and pensions were 4%
Today education is 3.9% and pensions are 6%.
What a remarkable role reversal, hey? I wonder why that's happened? 🤔
Well they could do apprenticeships instead of going to university like their parents and grandparents did and then they wouldn't need a student loan. They probably would also earn more over their lifetime than doing a degree unless at a Russell Group university.
All those earning under £35k have got an NI cut. Life expectancy is higher than decades ago is the reason a higher percentage of the state budget goes on pensions
Oh do STOP!
Off Topic
Morning Pete
I watched the PMQ again yesterday and I am now clear in my mind that you are a cchq troll. Johnson blustered and prevaricated the whole time, waiting for Starmer's last question so that he could spend 2 or 3 minutes spouting a Party political broadcast on behalf of the "going nowhere very fast" Party. What a twat he is.
You've got me. I share a desk with BJO.
I had been sympathetic to Starmer, but he doesn't have the dynamism needed to overcome the Conservatives. I listened to PMQs as it happened and Starmer doesn't have an answer for Johnson's bluster, it is as though Starmer can't think on his feet when Johnson goes off at a tangent. Johnson makes stuff up and Starmer is naïve enough not to realise he is lying. Starmer appears bewildered. He is a dud.
Labour need an attack dog to call Johnson out, I am not sure who that is. Like Blair I rated Philips, but I suspect her time has passed.
It’s Rayner. She confuses Boris. Not just with her Basic Instinct shtick
A white British working class single mum with a tough background. She’s Mick Lynch with a growler. She is exactly what Labour needs to seize the Red Wall and discombobulate the Tories, as any attacks on her will appear misogynist/classist
Yes OK she will lose a few snobbish petit bourgeois voters in Remainia, Labour will probably lose them anyway
Rayner is just Corbyn in a skirt but a bit more patriotic.
Streeting would be far better but as Starmer leads on preferred PM anyway he is going nowhere unless he is fined (but then so would Rayner be)
Thursday's Express: "It's only fair! Rishi defends £1,000 boost to pensions"
Aha, we locked down to save them and our student loans get jacked up 11%, fuck off you twat
Pay the money you borrowed and stop whining. You either benefitted with a good job of you leave the poor to pick up your tab for years pissing it up at uni wasting pensioners hard earned pittance. Stop blaming other people for your uselessness
Are the student loans running at 11%?.... thats horrendous.
What is quite amazing how completely and utterly useless young people are at asserting themselves politically. They don't seem to even realise that they are being screwed over. The NI increase went through without a murmur of dissent. Whack up taxes, change the terms of student loans, keep giving bungs to pensioners so they vote tory.... Zero opposition (or even interest) from young people. It is astonishing.
That is because most are useless. They spend a few years at uni and think they are big shots when in fact they mainly struggle to wipe their own arses. They then whine incessantly about only earning 50k while complaining that all all those nasty pensioners who worked and paid taxes for 50 years are living high on the hog on their 9k pensions.
Yep, they shouldn't go to uni. Better off with a secure job and good income, such as working on the railways.
I think I shall bid you all good day.
The forum is more than normally populated by grumpy old, white, men this morning. I shall leave you all to dribble with anger into your cornflakes.
xx
I was being tongue in cheek, echoing the PB perennial of too many of other people's children going to university, with the notion that they would be better getting proper jobs.
Do you not think there's a point to be made there? Why is 50% of people going to university the magic number? Why not 90%? 20%?
My nephew got the grades to go to uni, but chose instead to go into the Wonderful World of Work. He's now on a significantly higher salary than his friends who went to uni, and has a house (with mortgage).
One of the great education sins of the last 30 yeas has been this idea that kids must go to uni, and that kids who do not are somehow inferior.
Surely the point is that people have the choice. Get the grades, go if you want. Personally I would encourage people to get an education and see the world before locking themselves into he tedious world of work, nappies and mortgages. You’ll spend decades doing that.
We have enough freeloaders thank you.
Aye. The boomers that went to university all expenses paid and chose to break the earnings link for pensioners when they were working, so they didn't have to pay much to pensioners when they were working . . . then whinge about how poor pensions are when they're the ones claiming it and shaft the young.
Truly the most selfish generation that shafted their own parents and their own grandchildren, but keep repeating the bollocks about how much tax you paid.
You do realise 90% of boomers never went to university? Now about 40% of 18 year olds graduate from university.
They also paid into NI just as their parents did as well as private pension schemes for some. It was the government that broke the earnings link
So frigging what? For either of those points.
Many of those going to university today are doing so to go to jobs that didn't need degrees in the past, but do now. So yes, the student loan is just an age-discriminatory income tax that prior generations never had to pay.
And they never paid NI at the rate we do now, that's a lie. Since boomers have started facing retirement they've ended up voting so that tax goes from income tax to NI.
Besides if the logic that more people going to university means we can't afford to pay for university anymore, perhaps we should use that logic with pensions? Lets put the education budget and the pension budget back to what it was when today's pensioners were studying and working?
The education budget has gone down as a percentage of GDP, not up, from the past.
In 1975 education represented 7.5% of GDP and pensions were 4%
Today education is 3.9% and pensions are 6%.
What a remarkable role reversal, hey? I wonder why that's happened? 🤔
Well they could do apprenticeships instead of going to university like their parents and grandparents did and then they wouldn't need a student loan. They probably would also earn more over their lifetime than doing a degree unless at a Russell Group university.
All those earning under £35k have got an NI cut. Life expectancy is higher than decades ago is the reason a higher percentage of the state budget goes on pensions
Oh do STOP!
Off Topic
Morning Pete
I watched the PMQ again yesterday and I am now clear in my mind that you are a cchq troll. Johnson blustered and prevaricated the whole time, waiting for Starmer's last question so that he could spend 2 or 3 minutes spouting a Party political broadcast on behalf of the "going nowhere very fast" Party. What a twat he is.
You've got me. I share a desk with BJO.
I had been sympathetic to Starmer, but he doesn't have the dynamism needed to overcome the Conservatives. I listened to PMQs as it happened and Starmer doesn't have an answer for Johnson's bluster, it is as though Starmer can't think on his feet when Johnson goes off at a tangent. Johnson makes stuff up and Starmer is naïve enough not to realise he is lying. Starmer appears bewildered. He is a dud.
Labour need an attack dog to call Johnson out, I am not sure who that is. Like Blair I rated Philips, but I suspect her time has passed.
It’s Rayner. She confuses Boris. Not just with her Basic Instinct shtick
A white British working class single mum with a tough background. She’s Mick Lynch with a growler. She is exactly what Labour needs to seize the Red Wall and discombobulate the Tories, as any attacks on her will appear misogynist/classist
Yes OK she will lose a few snobbish petit bourgeois voters in Remainia, Labour will probably lose them anyway
I agree. Perhaps not so much the colourful Lynch comparison, maybe more Prescott with a brain. I can see senior Tories tying themselves in all sorts of knots as their prejudices leak out.
No doubt that Boris would no-show the election debates if she was in post though
How horrible is the UAE at this time of year? Can you even go out during the day? Is it possible to swim or simply too hot?
TA!
It’s horrible!
Currrently 45ºC or thereabouts, and so humid that your sunglasses steam up as you move from the air conditioning to outside.
It’s banned for people to work outside between 12:30 and 4pm.
My wife will get up at 5am to go swimming in the sea at first light, you don’t want to leave it much later.
You don’t really want to be any further south than you were in Armenia, at this time of year.
Ah, shit. At least I know now. Thanks! That was my impression - just too damn hot to do anything. And I like heat (but I don’t like 45C heat)
Have to replan. I need to get to a proper international travel hub within striking distance of Tbilisi (where I am now) to do some essential housekeeping: send luggage home, buy some kit, etc
How horrible is the UAE at this time of year? Can you even go out during the day? Is it possible to swim or simply too hot?
TA!
It’s horrible!
Currrently 45ºC or thereabouts, and so humid that your sunglasses steam up as you move from the air conditioning to outside.
It’s banned for people to work outside between 12:30 and 4pm.
My wife will get up at 5am to go swimming in the sea at first light, you don’t want to leave it much later.
You don’t really want to be any further south than you were in Armenia, at this time of year.
Ah, shit. At least I know now. Thanks! That was my impression - just too damn hot to do anything. And I like heat (but I don’t like 45C heat)
Have to replan. I need to get to a proper international travel hub within striking distance of Tbilisi (where I am now) to do some essential housekeeping: send luggage home, buy some kit, etc
Perhaps Istanbul or Tel Aviv…
It’s pretty horrible unless you just want to lie on the beach in the morning. Every year a bunch of British tourists turn up in the summer, becuase the 5* resort hotel was £100 a night instead of £500, and have a terrible time of it.
There’s lots of indoor things to do, huge malls with theme parks and ski slopes, but everyone is trying to stay out of the sun in the summer.
Outside of the big cities the weather can be a little better, less humid, but there’s nothing to do.
That said, it’s a big city and you can get pretty much anything done here in terms of admin tasks and buying stuff - we get all the cheap Chinese tat, as well as the international brands. Getting around is easy and everysone speaks English.
Istanbul is nice, people from here are going there on holiday at the moment.
Interesting to note that four out of five of those were followed by Conservatives losing the next election (it might be five out of five with N Shropshire but we don't know yet...)
In my view, there's too much emphasis on the level and type of education and training, rather than on its quality. It's quality that counts. Some degrees are high quality; some are poor. Some apprenticeships are brilliant; others are terrible. We need to focus on the quality more than the subject. It doesn't actually matter too much if you're doing on-the-job training in carpentry, a basic numeracy course, or a degree in 15th C violin making.
What matters is whether the quality of what you're studying is sufficiently high to lead to rapid improvements in your ability to think, understand or do whatever it is. And that isn't focused on enough, as quality of the curriculum, teaching etc. is far too variable at all levels of education and training.
One thing which would help would be a level playing field in qualifications. No-one believes that a 2:1 in Stuff Studies from Dumpville University actually equates in worth and difficulty with a 2:1 in engineering from Imperial. So people use guesswork.
This.
I recall one politician being led down the road by an interviewer to the point of being asked if she really thought a Maths degree from Cambridge was equal to one from Southbank… Hilariously the politician tried to stick to the “all degrees are equal” bullshit.
Incidentally, the subject of the degree is not so important. With a bit of thought and will, you could make any subject intellectually challenging and rigorous. A degree on surfing could be made into a degree including literature, multiple cultures round the world, materials engineering, ecology, oceanic engineering, wave physics, sports science, human biomechanics etc etc
Not this. A maths degree from Southbank should be the same as one from Cambridge. That is why we have external examiners. If it isn't, for non-maths reasons, that is because Cambridge's higher reputation and network effects. Take Boris. He got his first job through family connections and after he was sacked, got a better one through connections made at Oxford. Does that mean an Oxford Classics degree is better than a Southbank Classics degree or might there be something else going on?
Southbank doesn't do Maths, closest course it does is accountancy and finance
Accountancy and Finance is as close to maths as history or art. In my degree the only actual real numbers encountered were '0' and '1'. You come across a lot of numbers in Accountancy and Finance.
Maths is not arithmetic and yes I know you can have some more complex stuff in accountancy, but they aren't the same.
Thursday's Express: "It's only fair! Rishi defends £1,000 boost to pensions"
Aha, we locked down to save them and our student loans get jacked up 11%, fuck off you twat
Pay the money you borrowed and stop whining. You either benefitted with a good job of you leave the poor to pick up your tab for years pissing it up at uni wasting pensioners hard earned pittance. Stop blaming other people for your uselessness
Are the student loans running at 11%?.... thats horrendous.
What is quite amazing how completely and utterly useless young people are at asserting themselves politically. They don't seem to even realise that they are being screwed over. The NI increase went through without a murmur of dissent. Whack up taxes, change the terms of student loans, keep giving bungs to pensioners so they vote tory.... Zero opposition (or even interest) from young people. It is astonishing.
That is because most are useless. They spend a few years at uni and think they are big shots when in fact they mainly struggle to wipe their own arses. They then whine incessantly about only earning 50k while complaining that all all those nasty pensioners who worked and paid taxes for 50 years are living high on the hog on their 9k pensions.
Yep, they shouldn't go to uni. Better off with a secure job and good income, such as working on the railways.
I think I shall bid you all good day.
The forum is more than normally populated by grumpy old, white, men this morning. I shall leave you all to dribble with anger into your cornflakes.
xx
I was being tongue in cheek, echoing the PB perennial of too many of other people's children going to university, with the notion that they would be better getting proper jobs.
Do you not think there's a point to be made there? Why is 50% of people going to university the magic number? Why not 90%? 20%?
My nephew got the grades to go to uni, but chose instead to go into the Wonderful World of Work. He's now on a significantly higher salary than his friends who went to uni, and has a house (with mortgage).
One of the great education sins of the last 30 yeas has been this idea that kids must go to uni, and that kids who do not are somehow inferior.
Surely the point is that people have the choice. Get the grades, go if you want. Personally I would encourage people to get an education and see the world before locking themselves into he tedious world of work, nappies and mortgages. You’ll spend decades doing that.
We have enough freeloaders thank you.
Aye. The boomers that went to university all expenses paid and chose to break the earnings link for pensioners when they were working, so they didn't have to pay much to pensioners when they were working . . . then whinge about how poor pensions are when they're the ones claiming it and shaft the young.
Truly the most selfish generation that shafted their own parents and their own grandchildren, but keep repeating the bollocks about how much tax you paid.
You do realise 90% of boomers never went to university? Now about 40% of 18 year olds graduate from university.
They also paid into NI just as their parents did as well as private pension schemes for some. It was the government that broke the earnings link
So frigging what? For either of those points.
Many of those going to university today are doing so to go to jobs that didn't need degrees in the past, but do now. So yes, the student loan is just an age-discriminatory income tax that prior generations never had to pay.
And they never paid NI at the rate we do now, that's a lie. Since boomers have started facing retirement they've ended up voting so that tax goes from income tax to NI.
Besides if the logic that more people going to university means we can't afford to pay for university anymore, perhaps we should use that logic with pensions? Lets put the education budget and the pension budget back to what it was when today's pensioners were studying and working?
The education budget has gone down as a percentage of GDP, not up, from the past.
In 1975 education represented 7.5% of GDP and pensions were 4%
Today education is 3.9% and pensions are 6%.
What a remarkable role reversal, hey? I wonder why that's happened? 🤔
Well they could do apprenticeships instead of going to university like their parents and grandparents did and then they wouldn't need a student loan. They probably would also earn more over their lifetime than doing a degree unless at a Russell Group university.
All those earning under £35k have got an NI cut. Life expectancy is higher than decades ago is the reason a higher percentage of the state budget goes on pensions
Oh do STOP!
Off Topic
Morning Pete
I watched the PMQ again yesterday and I am now clear in my mind that you are a cchq troll. Johnson blustered and prevaricated the whole time, waiting for Starmer's last question so that he could spend 2 or 3 minutes spouting a Party political broadcast on behalf of the "going nowhere very fast" Party. What a twat he is.
You've got me. I share a desk with BJO.
I had been sympathetic to Starmer, but he doesn't have the dynamism needed to overcome the Conservatives. I listened to PMQs as it happened and Starmer doesn't have an answer for Johnson's bluster, it is as though Starmer can't think on his feet when Johnson goes off at a tangent. Johnson makes stuff up and Starmer is naïve enough not to realise he is lying. Starmer appears bewildered. He is a dud.
Labour need an attack dog to call Johnson out, I am not sure who that is. Like Blair I rated Philips, but I suspect her time has passed.
It’s Rayner. She confuses Boris. Not just with her Basic Instinct shtick
A white British working class single mum with a tough background. She’s Mick Lynch with a growler. She is exactly what Labour needs to seize the Red Wall and discombobulate the Tories, as any attacks on her will appear misogynist/classist
Yes OK she will lose a few snobbish petit bourgeois voters in Remainia, Labour will probably lose them anyway
Rayner is just Corbyn in a skirt but a bit more patriotic.
Streeting would be far better but as Starmer leads on preferred PM anyway he is going nowhere unless he is fined (but then so would Rayner be)
The country rather liked Jeremy Corbyn, he nearly won in 2017. By 2019 the UK had worked out that Corbyn is a Marxist traitor, so he was less popular
Rayner is not a Marxist traitor. And meanwhile the Tories have adopted most of Corbyn’s economic polices, but just made the policies even more left wing
It’s time we had a proper working class woman as PM. What a refreshing change it would be after all these posh/dull men
In my view, there's too much emphasis on the level and type of education and training, rather than on its quality. It's quality that counts. Some degrees are high quality; some are poor. Some apprenticeships are brilliant; others are terrible. We need to focus on the quality more than the subject. It doesn't actually matter too much if you're doing on-the-job training in carpentry, a basic numeracy course, or a degree in 15th C violin making.
What matters is whether the quality of what you're studying is sufficiently high to lead to rapid improvements in your ability to think, understand or do whatever it is. And that isn't focused on enough, as quality of the curriculum, teaching etc. is far too variable at all levels of education and training.
One thing which would help would be a level playing field in qualifications. No-one believes that a 2:1 in Stuff Studies from Dumpville University actually equates in worth and difficulty with a 2:1 in engineering from Imperial. So people use guesswork.
This.
I recall one politician being led down the road by an interviewer to the point of being asked if she really thought a Maths degree from Cambridge was equal to one from Southbank… Hilariously the politician tried to stick to the “all degrees are equal” bullshit.
Incidentally, the subject of the degree is not so important. With a bit of thought and will, you could make any subject intellectually challenging and rigorous. A degree on surfing could be made into a degree including literature, multiple cultures round the world, materials engineering, ecology, oceanic engineering, wave physics, sports science, human biomechanics etc etc
Not this. A maths degree from Southbank should be the same as one from Cambridge. That is why we have external examiners. If it isn't, for non-maths reasons, that is because Cambridge's higher reputation and network effects. Take Boris. He got his first job through family connections and after he was sacked, got a better one through connections made at Oxford. Does that mean an Oxford Classics degree is better than a Southbank Classics degree or might there be something else going on?
Southbank doesn't do Maths, closest course it does is accountancy and finance
Accountancy and Finance is as close to maths as history or art. In my degree the only actual real numbers encountered were '0' and '1'. You come across a lot of numbers in Accountancy and Finance.
Maths is not arithmetic.
The imaginary numbers are much more fun than the real numbers.
In my view, there's too much emphasis on the level and type of education and training, rather than on its quality. It's quality that counts. Some degrees are high quality; some are poor. Some apprenticeships are brilliant; others are terrible. We need to focus on the quality more than the subject. It doesn't actually matter too much if you're doing on-the-job training in carpentry, a basic numeracy course, or a degree in 15th C violin making.
What matters is whether the quality of what you're studying is sufficiently high to lead to rapid improvements in your ability to think, understand or do whatever it is. And that isn't focused on enough, as quality of the curriculum, teaching etc. is far too variable at all levels of education and training.
One thing which would help would be a level playing field in qualifications. No-one believes that a 2:1 in Stuff Studies from Dumpville University actually equates in worth and difficulty with a 2:1 in engineering from Imperial. So people use guesswork.
This.
I recall one politician being led down the road by an interviewer to the point of being asked if she really thought a Maths degree from Cambridge was equal to one from Southbank… Hilariously the politician tried to stick to the “all degrees are equal” bullshit.
Incidentally, the subject of the degree is not so important. With a bit of thought and will, you could make any subject intellectually challenging and rigorous. A degree on surfing could be made into a degree including literature, multiple cultures round the world, materials engineering, ecology, oceanic engineering, wave physics, sports science, human biomechanics etc etc
Not this. A maths degree from Southbank should be the same as one from Cambridge. That is why we have external examiners. If it isn't, for non-maths reasons, that is because Cambridge's higher reputation and network effects. Take Boris. He got his first job through family connections and after he was sacked, got a better one through connections made at Oxford. Does that mean an Oxford Classics degree is better than a Southbank Classics degree or might there be something else going on?
Southbank doesn't do Maths, closest course it does is accountancy and finance
Accountancy and Finance is as close to maths as history or art. In my degree the only actual real numbers encountered were '0' and '1'. You come across a lot of numbers in Accountancy and Finance.
In my view, there's too much emphasis on the level and type of education and training, rather than on its quality. It's quality that counts. Some degrees are high quality; some are poor. Some apprenticeships are brilliant; others are terrible. We need to focus on the quality more than the subject. It doesn't actually matter too much if you're doing on-the-job training in carpentry, a basic numeracy course, or a degree in 15th C violin making.
What matters is whether the quality of what you're studying is sufficiently high to lead to rapid improvements in your ability to think, understand or do whatever it is. And that isn't focused on enough, as quality of the curriculum, teaching etc. is far too variable at all levels of education and training.
One thing which would help would be a level playing field in qualifications. No-one believes that a 2:1 in Stuff Studies from Dumpville University actually equates in worth and difficulty with a 2:1 in engineering from Imperial. So people use guesswork.
This.
I recall one politician being led down the road by an interviewer to the point of being asked if she really thought a Maths degree from Cambridge was equal to one from Southbank… Hilariously the politician tried to stick to the “all degrees are equal” bullshit.
Incidentally, the subject of the degree is not so important. With a bit of thought and will, you could make any subject intellectually challenging and rigorous. A degree on surfing could be made into a degree including literature, multiple cultures round the world, materials engineering, ecology, oceanic engineering, wave physics, sports science, human biomechanics etc etc
Not this. A maths degree from Southbank should be the same as one from Cambridge. That is why we have external examiners. If it isn't, for non-maths reasons, that is because Cambridge's higher reputation and network effects. Take Boris. He got his first job through family connections and after he was sacked, got a better one through connections made at Oxford. Does that mean an Oxford Classics degree is better than a Southbank Classics degree or might there be something else going on?
Universities don't have external examiners.
When did that change? Again back in the 80s when I did Geology there was external assessment of all first and upper second degrees including compulsory vivas by another university.
Thursday's Express: "It's only fair! Rishi defends £1,000 boost to pensions"
Aha, we locked down to save them and our student loans get jacked up 11%, fuck off you twat
Pay the money you borrowed and stop whining. You either benefitted with a good job of you leave the poor to pick up your tab for years pissing it up at uni wasting pensioners hard earned pittance. Stop blaming other people for your uselessness
Are the student loans running at 11%?.... thats horrendous.
What is quite amazing how completely and utterly useless young people are at asserting themselves politically. They don't seem to even realise that they are being screwed over. The NI increase went through without a murmur of dissent. Whack up taxes, change the terms of student loans, keep giving bungs to pensioners so they vote tory.... Zero opposition (or even interest) from young people. It is astonishing.
That is because most are useless. They spend a few years at uni and think they are big shots when in fact they mainly struggle to wipe their own arses. They then whine incessantly about only earning 50k while complaining that all all those nasty pensioners who worked and paid taxes for 50 years are living high on the hog on their 9k pensions.
Yep, they shouldn't go to uni. Better off with a secure job and good income, such as working on the railways.
I think I shall bid you all good day.
The forum is more than normally populated by grumpy old, white, men this morning. I shall leave you all to dribble with anger into your cornflakes.
xx
I was being tongue in cheek, echoing the PB perennial of too many of other people's children going to university, with the notion that they would be better getting proper jobs.
Do you not think there's a point to be made there? Why is 50% of people going to university the magic number? Why not 90%? 20%?
My nephew got the grades to go to uni, but chose instead to go into the Wonderful World of Work. He's now on a significantly higher salary than his friends who went to uni, and has a house (with mortgage).
One of the great education sins of the last 30 yeas has been this idea that kids must go to uni, and that kids who do not are somehow inferior.
Surely the point is that people have the choice. Get the grades, go if you want. Personally I would encourage people to get an education and see the world before locking themselves into he tedious world of work, nappies and mortgages. You’ll spend decades doing that.
We have enough freeloaders thank you.
Aye. The boomers that went to university all expenses paid and chose to break the earnings link for pensioners when they were working, so they didn't have to pay much to pensioners when they were working . . . then whinge about how poor pensions are when they're the ones claiming it and shaft the young.
Truly the most selfish generation that shafted their own parents and their own grandchildren, but keep repeating the bollocks about how much tax you paid.
You do realise 90% of boomers never went to university? Now about 40% of 18 year olds graduate from university.
They also paid into NI just as their parents did as well as private pension schemes for some. It was the government that broke the earnings link
So frigging what? For either of those points.
Many of those going to university today are doing so to go to jobs that didn't need degrees in the past, but do now. So yes, the student loan is just an age-discriminatory income tax that prior generations never had to pay.
And they never paid NI at the rate we do now, that's a lie. Since boomers have started facing retirement they've ended up voting so that tax goes from income tax to NI.
Besides if the logic that more people going to university means we can't afford to pay for university anymore, perhaps we should use that logic with pensions? Lets put the education budget and the pension budget back to what it was when today's pensioners were studying and working?
The education budget has gone down as a percentage of GDP, not up, from the past.
In 1975 education represented 7.5% of GDP and pensions were 4%
Today education is 3.9% and pensions are 6%.
What a remarkable role reversal, hey? I wonder why that's happened? 🤔
Well they could do apprenticeships instead of going to university like their parents and grandparents did and then they wouldn't need a student loan. They probably would also earn more over their lifetime than doing a degree unless at a Russell Group university.
All those earning under £35k have got an NI cut. Life expectancy is higher than decades ago is the reason a higher percentage of the state budget goes on pensions
Oh do STOP!
Off Topic
Morning Pete
I watched the PMQ again yesterday and I am now clear in my mind that you are a cchq troll. Johnson blustered and prevaricated the whole time, waiting for Starmer's last question so that he could spend 2 or 3 minutes spouting a Party political broadcast on behalf of the "going nowhere very fast" Party. What a twat he is.
You've got me. I share a desk with BJO.
I had been sympathetic to Starmer, but he doesn't have the dynamism needed to overcome the Conservatives. I listened to PMQs as it happened and Starmer doesn't have an answer for Johnson's bluster, it is as though Starmer can't think on his feet when Johnson goes off at a tangent. Johnson makes stuff up and Starmer is naïve enough not to realise he is lying. Starmer appears bewildered. He is a dud.
Labour need an attack dog to call Johnson out, I am not sure who that is. Like Blair I rated Philips, but I suspect her time has passed.
It’s Rayner. She confuses Boris. Not just with her Basic Instinct shtick
A white British working class single mum with a tough background. She’s Mick Lynch with a growler. She is exactly what Labour needs to seize the Red Wall and discombobulate the Tories, as any attacks on her will appear misogynist/classist
Yes OK she will lose a few snobbish petit bourgeois voters in Remainia, Labour will probably lose them anyway
Rayner is just Corbyn in a skirt but a bit more patriotic.
Streeting would be far better but as Starmer leads on preferred PM anyway he is going nowhere unless he is fined (but then so would Rayner be)
The country rather liked Jeremy Corbyn, he nearly won in 2017. By 2019 the UK had worked out that Corbyn is a Marxist traitor, so he was less popular
Rayner is not a Marxist traitor. And meanwhile the Tories have adopted most of Corbyn’s economic polices, but just made the policies even more left wing
It’s time we had a proper working class woman as PM. What a refreshing change it would be after all these posh/dull men
I'd quite like to see a Rayner ministry. It certainly wouldn't be dull...
Thursday's Express: "It's only fair! Rishi defends £1,000 boost to pensions"
Aha, we locked down to save them and our student loans get jacked up 11%, fuck off you twat
Pay the money you borrowed and stop whining. You either benefitted with a good job of you leave the poor to pick up your tab for years pissing it up at uni wasting pensioners hard earned pittance. Stop blaming other people for your uselessness
Are the student loans running at 11%?.... thats horrendous.
What is quite amazing how completely and utterly useless young people are at asserting themselves politically. They don't seem to even realise that they are being screwed over. The NI increase went through without a murmur of dissent. Whack up taxes, change the terms of student loans, keep giving bungs to pensioners so they vote tory.... Zero opposition (or even interest) from young people. It is astonishing.
That is because most are useless. They spend a few years at uni and think they are big shots when in fact they mainly struggle to wipe their own arses. They then whine incessantly about only earning 50k while complaining that all all those nasty pensioners who worked and paid taxes for 50 years are living high on the hog on their 9k pensions.
Yep, they shouldn't go to uni. Better off with a secure job and good income, such as working on the railways.
I think I shall bid you all good day.
The forum is more than normally populated by grumpy old, white, men this morning. I shall leave you all to dribble with anger into your cornflakes.
xx
I was being tongue in cheek, echoing the PB perennial of too many of other people's children going to university, with the notion that they would be better getting proper jobs.
Do you not think there's a point to be made there? Why is 50% of people going to university the magic number? Why not 90%? 20%?
My nephew got the grades to go to uni, but chose instead to go into the Wonderful World of Work. He's now on a significantly higher salary than his friends who went to uni, and has a house (with mortgage).
One of the great education sins of the last 30 yeas has been this idea that kids must go to uni, and that kids who do not are somehow inferior.
Surely the point is that people have the choice. Get the grades, go if you want. Personally I would encourage people to get an education and see the world before locking themselves into he tedious world of work, nappies and mortgages. You’ll spend decades doing that.
We have enough freeloaders thank you.
Aye. The boomers that went to university all expenses paid and chose to break the earnings link for pensioners when they were working, so they didn't have to pay much to pensioners when they were working . . . then whinge about how poor pensions are when they're the ones claiming it and shaft the young.
Truly the most selfish generation that shafted their own parents and their own grandchildren, but keep repeating the bollocks about how much tax you paid.
You do realise 90% of boomers never went to university? Now about 40% of 18 year olds graduate from university.
They also paid into NI just as their parents did as well as private pension schemes for some. It was the government that broke the earnings link
So frigging what? For either of those points.
Many of those going to university today are doing so to go to jobs that didn't need degrees in the past, but do now. So yes, the student loan is just an age-discriminatory income tax that prior generations never had to pay.
And they never paid NI at the rate we do now, that's a lie. Since boomers have started facing retirement they've ended up voting so that tax goes from income tax to NI.
Besides if the logic that more people going to university means we can't afford to pay for university anymore, perhaps we should use that logic with pensions? Lets put the education budget and the pension budget back to what it was when today's pensioners were studying and working?
The education budget has gone down as a percentage of GDP, not up, from the past.
In 1975 education represented 7.5% of GDP and pensions were 4%
Today education is 3.9% and pensions are 6%.
What a remarkable role reversal, hey? I wonder why that's happened? 🤔
Well they could do apprenticeships instead of going to university like their parents and grandparents did and then they wouldn't need a student loan. They probably would also earn more over their lifetime than doing a degree unless at a Russell Group university.
All those earning under £35k have got an NI cut. Life expectancy is higher than decades ago is the reason a higher percentage of the state budget goes on pensions
Oh do STOP!
Off Topic
Morning Pete
I watched the PMQ again yesterday and I am now clear in my mind that you are a cchq troll. Johnson blustered and prevaricated the whole time, waiting for Starmer's last question so that he could spend 2 or 3 minutes spouting a Party political broadcast on behalf of the "going nowhere very fast" Party. What a twat he is.
You've got me. I share a desk with BJO.
I had been sympathetic to Starmer, but he doesn't have the dynamism needed to overcome the Conservatives. I listened to PMQs as it happened and Starmer doesn't have an answer for Johnson's bluster, it is as though Starmer can't think on his feet when Johnson goes off at a tangent. Johnson makes stuff up and Starmer is naïve enough not to realise he is lying. Starmer appears bewildered. He is a dud.
Labour need an attack dog to call Johnson out, I am not sure who that is. Like Blair I rated Philips, but I suspect her time has passed.
It’s Rayner. She confuses Boris. Not just with her Basic Instinct shtick
A white British working class single mum with a tough background. She’s Mick Lynch with a growler. She is exactly what Labour needs to seize the Red Wall and discombobulate the Tories, as any attacks on her will appear misogynist/classist
Yes OK she will lose a few snobbish petit bourgeois voters in Remainia, Labour will probably lose them anyway
Rayner is just Corbyn in a skirt but a bit more patriotic.
Streeting would be far better but as Starmer leads on preferred PM anyway he is going nowhere unless he is fined (but then so would Rayner be)
If Rayner is Corbyn in a skirt that might at least explain the story about Johnson getting so distracted every time she uncrossed her legs...
How horrible is the UAE at this time of year? Can you even go out during the day? Is it possible to swim or simply too hot?
TA!
It’s horrible!
Currrently 45ºC or thereabouts, and so humid that your sunglasses steam up as you move from the air conditioning to outside.
It’s banned for people to work outside between 12:30 and 4pm.
My wife will get up at 5am to go swimming in the sea at first light, you don’t want to leave it much later.
You don’t really want to be any further south than you were in Armenia, at this time of year.
Ah, shit. At least I know now. Thanks! That was my impression - just too damn hot to do anything. And I like heat (but I don’t like 45C heat)
Have to replan. I need to get to a proper international travel hub within striking distance of Tbilisi (where I am now) to do some essential housekeeping: send luggage home, buy some kit, etc
Perhaps Istanbul or Tel Aviv…
Tehran. Unless that's too edgy for you.
I’d be there in a shot, despite lack of booze, but I need somewhere affordable connected to the world via couriers etc
In my view, there's too much emphasis on the level and type of education and training, rather than on its quality. It's quality that counts. Some degrees are high quality; some are poor. Some apprenticeships are brilliant; others are terrible. We need to focus on the quality more than the subject. It doesn't actually matter too much if you're doing on-the-job training in carpentry, a basic numeracy course, or a degree in 15th C violin making.
What matters is whether the quality of what you're studying is sufficiently high to lead to rapid improvements in your ability to think, understand or do whatever it is. And that isn't focused on enough, as quality of the curriculum, teaching etc. is far too variable at all levels of education and training.
One thing which would help would be a level playing field in qualifications. No-one believes that a 2:1 in Stuff Studies from Dumpville University actually equates in worth and difficulty with a 2:1 in engineering from Imperial. So people use guesswork.
This.
I recall one politician being led down the road by an interviewer to the point of being asked if she really thought a Maths degree from Cambridge was equal to one from Southbank… Hilariously the politician tried to stick to the “all degrees are equal” bullshit.
Incidentally, the subject of the degree is not so important. With a bit of thought and will, you could make any subject intellectually challenging and rigorous. A degree on surfing could be made into a degree including literature, multiple cultures round the world, materials engineering, ecology, oceanic engineering, wave physics, sports science, human biomechanics etc etc
Not this. A maths degree from Southbank should be the same as one from Cambridge. That is why we have external examiners. If it isn't, for non-maths reasons, that is because Cambridge's higher reputation and network effects. Take Boris. He got his first job through family connections and after he was sacked, got a better one through connections made at Oxford. Does that mean an Oxford Classics degree is better than a Southbank Classics degree or might there be something else going on?
Southbank doesn't do Maths, closest course it does is accountancy and finance
Accountancy and Finance is as close to maths as history or art. In my degree the only actual real numbers encountered were '0' and '1'. You come across a lot of numbers in Accountancy and Finance.
Maths is not arithmetic.
The imaginary numbers are much more fun than the real numbers.
Thursday's Express: "It's only fair! Rishi defends £1,000 boost to pensions"
Aha, we locked down to save them and our student loans get jacked up 11%, fuck off you twat
Pay the money you borrowed and stop whining. You either benefitted with a good job of you leave the poor to pick up your tab for years pissing it up at uni wasting pensioners hard earned pittance. Stop blaming other people for your uselessness
Are the student loans running at 11%?.... thats horrendous.
What is quite amazing how completely and utterly useless young people are at asserting themselves politically. They don't seem to even realise that they are being screwed over. The NI increase went through without a murmur of dissent. Whack up taxes, change the terms of student loans, keep giving bungs to pensioners so they vote tory.... Zero opposition (or even interest) from young people. It is astonishing.
That is because most are useless. They spend a few years at uni and think they are big shots when in fact they mainly struggle to wipe their own arses. They then whine incessantly about only earning 50k while complaining that all all those nasty pensioners who worked and paid taxes for 50 years are living high on the hog on their 9k pensions.
Yep, they shouldn't go to uni. Better off with a secure job and good income, such as working on the railways.
I think I shall bid you all good day.
The forum is more than normally populated by grumpy old, white, men this morning. I shall leave you all to dribble with anger into your cornflakes.
xx
I was being tongue in cheek, echoing the PB perennial of too many of other people's children going to university, with the notion that they would be better getting proper jobs.
Do you not think there's a point to be made there? Why is 50% of people going to university the magic number? Why not 90%? 20%?
My nephew got the grades to go to uni, but chose instead to go into the Wonderful World of Work. He's now on a significantly higher salary than his friends who went to uni, and has a house (with mortgage).
One of the great education sins of the last 30 yeas has been this idea that kids must go to uni, and that kids who do not are somehow inferior.
Surely the point is that people have the choice. Get the grades, go if you want. Personally I would encourage people to get an education and see the world before locking themselves into he tedious world of work, nappies and mortgages. You’ll spend decades doing that.
We have enough freeloaders thank you.
Aye. The boomers that went to university all expenses paid and chose to break the earnings link for pensioners when they were working, so they didn't have to pay much to pensioners when they were working . . . then whinge about how poor pensions are when they're the ones claiming it and shaft the young.
Truly the most selfish generation that shafted their own parents and their own grandchildren, but keep repeating the bollocks about how much tax you paid.
You do realise 90% of boomers never went to university? Now about 40% of 18 year olds graduate from university.
They also paid into NI just as their parents did as well as private pension schemes for some. It was the government that broke the earnings link
So frigging what? For either of those points.
Many of those going to university today are doing so to go to jobs that didn't need degrees in the past, but do now. So yes, the student loan is just an age-discriminatory income tax that prior generations never had to pay.
And they never paid NI at the rate we do now, that's a lie. Since boomers have started facing retirement they've ended up voting so that tax goes from income tax to NI.
Besides if the logic that more people going to university means we can't afford to pay for university anymore, perhaps we should use that logic with pensions? Lets put the education budget and the pension budget back to what it was when today's pensioners were studying and working?
The education budget has gone down as a percentage of GDP, not up, from the past.
In 1975 education represented 7.5% of GDP and pensions were 4%
Today education is 3.9% and pensions are 6%.
What a remarkable role reversal, hey? I wonder why that's happened? 🤔
Well they could do apprenticeships instead of going to university like their parents and grandparents did and then they wouldn't need a student loan. They probably would also earn more over their lifetime than doing a degree unless at a Russell Group university.
All those earning under £35k have got an NI cut. Life expectancy is higher than decades ago is the reason a higher percentage of the state budget goes on pensions
Oh do STOP!
Off Topic
Morning Pete
I watched the PMQ again yesterday and I am now clear in my mind that you are a cchq troll. Johnson blustered and prevaricated the whole time, waiting for Starmer's last question so that he could spend 2 or 3 minutes spouting a Party political broadcast on behalf of the "going nowhere very fast" Party. What a twat he is.
You've got me. I share a desk with BJO.
I had been sympathetic to Starmer, but he doesn't have the dynamism needed to overcome the Conservatives. I listened to PMQs as it happened and Starmer doesn't have an answer for Johnson's bluster, it is as though Starmer can't think on his feet when Johnson goes off at a tangent. Johnson makes stuff up and Starmer is naïve enough not to realise he is lying. Starmer appears bewildered. He is a dud.
Labour need an attack dog to call Johnson out, I am not sure who that is. Like Blair I rated Philips, but I suspect her time has passed.
It’s Rayner. She confuses Boris. Not just with her Basic Instinct shtick
A white British working class single mum with a tough background. She’s Mick Lynch with a growler. She is exactly what Labour needs to seize the Red Wall and discombobulate the Tories, as any attacks on her will appear misogynist/classist
Yes OK she will lose a few snobbish petit bourgeois voters in Remainia, Labour will probably lose them anyway
Rayner is just Corbyn in a skirt but a bit more patriotic.
Streeting would be far better but as Starmer leads on preferred PM anyway he is going nowhere unless he is fined (but then so would Rayner be)
Rayner is a lot more than Corbyn in a skirt. Corbyn is petit bourgeois who made his way sideways! Rayner is an able person who pulled herself up by her own efforts after a dreadful start.
In my view, there's too much emphasis on the level and type of education and training, rather than on its quality. It's quality that counts. Some degrees are high quality; some are poor. Some apprenticeships are brilliant; others are terrible. We need to focus on the quality more than the subject. It doesn't actually matter too much if you're doing on-the-job training in carpentry, a basic numeracy course, or a degree in 15th C violin making.
What matters is whether the quality of what you're studying is sufficiently high to lead to rapid improvements in your ability to think, understand or do whatever it is. And that isn't focused on enough, as quality of the curriculum, teaching etc. is far too variable at all levels of education and training.
One thing which would help would be a level playing field in qualifications. No-one believes that a 2:1 in Stuff Studies from Dumpville University actually equates in worth and difficulty with a 2:1 in engineering from Imperial. So people use guesswork.
This.
I recall one politician being led down the road by an interviewer to the point of being asked if she really thought a Maths degree from Cambridge was equal to one from Southbank… Hilariously the politician tried to stick to the “all degrees are equal” bullshit.
Incidentally, the subject of the degree is not so important. With a bit of thought and will, you could make any subject intellectually challenging and rigorous. A degree on surfing could be made into a degree including literature, multiple cultures round the world, materials engineering, ecology, oceanic engineering, wave physics, sports science, human biomechanics etc etc
Not this. A maths degree from Southbank should be the same as one from Cambridge. That is why we have external examiners. If it isn't, for non-maths reasons, that is because Cambridge's higher reputation and network effects. Take Boris. He got his first job through family connections and after he was sacked, got a better one through connections made at Oxford. Does that mean an Oxford Classics degree is better than a Southbank Classics degree or might there be something else going on?
Southbank doesn't do Maths, closest course it does is accountancy and finance
Cambridge doesn't do Accountancy and Finance. Swings and roundabouts.
Thursday's Express: "It's only fair! Rishi defends £1,000 boost to pensions"
Aha, we locked down to save them and our student loans get jacked up 11%, fuck off you twat
Pay the money you borrowed and stop whining. You either benefitted with a good job of you leave the poor to pick up your tab for years pissing it up at uni wasting pensioners hard earned pittance. Stop blaming other people for your uselessness
Are the student loans running at 11%?.... thats horrendous.
What is quite amazing how completely and utterly useless young people are at asserting themselves politically. They don't seem to even realise that they are being screwed over. The NI increase went through without a murmur of dissent. Whack up taxes, change the terms of student loans, keep giving bungs to pensioners so they vote tory.... Zero opposition (or even interest) from young people. It is astonishing.
That is because most are useless. They spend a few years at uni and think they are big shots when in fact they mainly struggle to wipe their own arses. They then whine incessantly about only earning 50k while complaining that all all those nasty pensioners who worked and paid taxes for 50 years are living high on the hog on their 9k pensions.
Yep, they shouldn't go to uni. Better off with a secure job and good income, such as working on the railways.
I think I shall bid you all good day.
The forum is more than normally populated by grumpy old, white, men this morning. I shall leave you all to dribble with anger into your cornflakes.
xx
I was being tongue in cheek, echoing the PB perennial of too many of other people's children going to university, with the notion that they would be better getting proper jobs.
Do you not think there's a point to be made there? Why is 50% of people going to university the magic number? Why not 90%? 20%?
My nephew got the grades to go to uni, but chose instead to go into the Wonderful World of Work. He's now on a significantly higher salary than his friends who went to uni, and has a house (with mortgage).
One of the great education sins of the last 30 yeas has been this idea that kids must go to uni, and that kids who do not are somehow inferior.
Surely the point is that people have the choice. Get the grades, go if you want. Personally I would encourage people to get an education and see the world before locking themselves into he tedious world of work, nappies and mortgages. You’ll spend decades doing that.
We have enough freeloaders thank you.
Aye. The boomers that went to university all expenses paid and chose to break the earnings link for pensioners when they were working, so they didn't have to pay much to pensioners when they were working . . . then whinge about how poor pensions are when they're the ones claiming it and shaft the young.
Truly the most selfish generation that shafted their own parents and their own grandchildren, but keep repeating the bollocks about how much tax you paid.
You do realise 90% of boomers never went to university? Now about 40% of 18 year olds graduate from university.
They also paid into NI just as their parents did as well as private pension schemes for some. It was the government that broke the earnings link
So frigging what? For either of those points.
Many of those going to university today are doing so to go to jobs that didn't need degrees in the past, but do now. So yes, the student loan is just an age-discriminatory income tax that prior generations never had to pay.
And they never paid NI at the rate we do now, that's a lie. Since boomers have started facing retirement they've ended up voting so that tax goes from income tax to NI.
Besides if the logic that more people going to university means we can't afford to pay for university anymore, perhaps we should use that logic with pensions? Lets put the education budget and the pension budget back to what it was when today's pensioners were studying and working?
The education budget has gone down as a percentage of GDP, not up, from the past.
In 1975 education represented 7.5% of GDP and pensions were 4%
Today education is 3.9% and pensions are 6%.
What a remarkable role reversal, hey? I wonder why that's happened? 🤔
Well they could do apprenticeships instead of going to university like their parents and grandparents did and then they wouldn't need a student loan. They probably would also earn more over their lifetime than doing a degree unless at a Russell Group university.
All those earning under £35k have got an NI cut. Life expectancy is higher than decades ago is the reason a higher percentage of the state budget goes on pensions
Oh do STOP!
Off Topic
Morning Pete
I watched the PMQ again yesterday and I am now clear in my mind that you are a cchq troll. Johnson blustered and prevaricated the whole time, waiting for Starmer's last question so that he could spend 2 or 3 minutes spouting a Party political broadcast on behalf of the "going nowhere very fast" Party. What a twat he is.
You've got me. I share a desk with BJO.
I had been sympathetic to Starmer, but he doesn't have the dynamism needed to overcome the Conservatives. I listened to PMQs as it happened and Starmer doesn't have an answer for Johnson's bluster, it is as though Starmer can't think on his feet when Johnson goes off at a tangent. Johnson makes stuff up and Starmer is naïve enough not to realise he is lying. Starmer appears bewildered. He is a dud.
Labour need an attack dog to call Johnson out, I am not sure who that is. Like Blair I rated Philips, but I suspect her time has passed.
It’s Rayner. She confuses Boris. Not just with her Basic Instinct shtick
A white British working class single mum with a tough background. She’s Mick Lynch with a growler. She is exactly what Labour needs to seize the Red Wall and discombobulate the Tories, as any attacks on her will appear misogynist/classist
Yes OK she will lose a few snobbish petit bourgeois voters in Remainia, Labour will probably lose them anyway
Rayner is just Corbyn in a skirt but a bit more patriotic.
Streeting would be far better but as Starmer leads on preferred PM anyway he is going nowhere unless he is fined (but then so would Rayner be)
The country rather liked Jeremy Corbyn, he nearly won in 2017. By 2019 the UK had worked out that Corbyn is a Marxist traitor, so he was less popular
Rayner is not a Marxist traitor. And meanwhile the Tories have adopted most of Corbyn’s economic polices, but just made the policies even more left wing
It’s time we had a proper working class woman as PM. What a refreshing change it would be after all these posh/dull men
They haven't introduced a wealth tax, a 50% top income tax rate and renationalised the public utilities and trains as Corbyn would have. Nor have they scrapped tuition fees.
Rayner might win back a few redwall seats but she would lose seats in London, including to the LDs. In any case on current polls Labour is heading for most seats in a hung parliament under Starmer and thus winning back most of the redwall.
It is seats Cameron gained from Labour in 2010 and seats in Scotland Labour need for a majority and Rayner would have less appeal there than say Streeting. The LDs would also be more reluctant to work with her than Starmer and Streeting in a hung parliament
Now sadly removed if it was ever indeed in wiki. Where's your sense of fun Wikipedia?
Never fuck with a man named Mick Lynch. We know this in Ireland. The Mick Lynchs this world are born without fucks to give. They have no fuck glands. Do not approach a Mick Lynch without caution. Keep your head low and let the Mick Lynch know you mean no harm. https://twitter.com/NiecyOKeeffe/status/1539335139905486849
And don't buy software companies off them, either.
Just stuck my first bet of this cycle on the Tories
Tories + 10,000 @ 2-9 vs Lab in Wakefield.
I'm on the Lib Dems in Tiverton. One amusing possibility is that the LD margin of victory is greater than the Labour margin in Wakefield.
Chesham LD Maj 8,028 North Shropshire LD Maj 5,925 Erdington Lab Maj 3,266 Batley & Spen Lab Maj 326 Old Bexley Lab Maj -4,478 Hartlepool Lab Maj -6,940
Labour's by-election performances have been mediocre this parliament, the Lib Dems stunning.
In my view, there's too much emphasis on the level and type of education and training, rather than on its quality. It's quality that counts. Some degrees are high quality; some are poor. Some apprenticeships are brilliant; others are terrible. We need to focus on the quality more than the subject. It doesn't actually matter too much if you're doing on-the-job training in carpentry, a basic numeracy course, or a degree in 15th C violin making.
What matters is whether the quality of what you're studying is sufficiently high to lead to rapid improvements in your ability to think, understand or do whatever it is. And that isn't focused on enough, as quality of the curriculum, teaching etc. is far too variable at all levels of education and training.
One thing which would help would be a level playing field in qualifications. No-one believes that a 2:1 in Stuff Studies from Dumpville University actually equates in worth and difficulty with a 2:1 in engineering from Imperial. So people use guesswork.
This.
I recall one politician being led down the road by an interviewer to the point of being asked if she really thought a Maths degree from Cambridge was equal to one from Southbank… Hilariously the politician tried to stick to the “all degrees are equal” bullshit.
Incidentally, the subject of the degree is not so important. With a bit of thought and will, you could make any subject intellectually challenging and rigorous. A degree on surfing could be made into a degree including literature, multiple cultures round the world, materials engineering, ecology, oceanic engineering, wave physics, sports science, human biomechanics etc etc
Not this. A maths degree from Southbank should be the same as one from Cambridge. That is why we have external examiners. If it isn't, for non-maths reasons, that is because Cambridge's higher reputation and network effects. Take Boris. He got his first job through family connections and after he was sacked, got a better one through connections made at Oxford. Does that mean an Oxford Classics degree is better than a Southbank Classics degree or might there be something else going on?
Southbank doesn't do Maths, closest course it does is accountancy and finance
Accountancy and Finance is as close to maths as history or art. In my degree the only actual real numbers encountered were '0' and '1'. You come across a lot of numbers in Accountancy and Finance.
Maths is not arithmetic and yes I know you can have some more complex stuff in accountancy, but they aren't the same.
The upping of the state pension and the removal of limits on rich bankers' pay seems utterly tone deaf from the Government.
Are they trying to lose?
Pensioners and bankers are the Tory core vote. No real surprise
Then the Tories deserve to lose.
The more you speak for the Tories, the more I think maybe I should actually just vote Labour, if you represent the Tories. And I despise Labour, but not as much as what you want to stand for.
Really? You even voted for Labour in 2001 when I voted Tory
Yes, because I'm a sentient human who has principles and thinks about why I should vote. Those principles generally align with the Tories more, but if they don't, then the Tories don't deserve my vote.
I don't just vote for a monkey with a blue rosette, and I don't put party before country.
Oh, and don't forget, you lost in 2001. 😕
Still proves you wrong when you said 'I despise Labour' given you even voted for Labour at the 2001 general election
No, it doesn't, since I'm not the same person I was in 2001, Labour isn't the same as it was in 2001, Starmer is not Blair etc
Time's change, and when they do, you need to change with them. Oh, and its possible to despise something, but think the alternative is even worse.
In my view, there's too much emphasis on the level and type of education and training, rather than on its quality. It's quality that counts. Some degrees are high quality; some are poor. Some apprenticeships are brilliant; others are terrible. We need to focus on the quality more than the subject. It doesn't actually matter too much if you're doing on-the-job training in carpentry, a basic numeracy course, or a degree in 15th C violin making.
What matters is whether the quality of what you're studying is sufficiently high to lead to rapid improvements in your ability to think, understand or do whatever it is. And that isn't focused on enough, as quality of the curriculum, teaching etc. is far too variable at all levels of education and training.
One thing which would help would be a level playing field in qualifications. No-one believes that a 2:1 in Stuff Studies from Dumpville University actually equates in worth and difficulty with a 2:1 in engineering from Imperial. So people use guesswork.
This. Couldn't get their head around it I recall one politician being led down the road by an interviewer to the point of being asked if she really thought a Maths degree from Cambridge was equal to one from Southbank… Hilariously the politician tried to stick to the “all degrees are equal” bullshit.
Incidentally, the subject of the degree is not so important. With a bit of thought and will, you could make any subject intellectually challenging and rigorous. A degree on surfing could be made into a degree including literature, multiple cultures round the world, materials engineering, ecology, oceanic engineering, wave physics, sports science, human biomechanics etc etc
Not this. A maths degree from Southbank should be the same as one from Cambridge. That is why we have external examiners. If it isn't, for non-maths reasons, that is because Cambridge's higher reputation and network effects. Take Boris. He got his first job through family connections and after he was sacked, got a better one through connections made at Oxford. Does that mean an Oxford Classics degree is better than a Southbank Classics degree or might there be something else going on?
Southbank doesn't do Maths, closest course it does is accountancy and finance
Accountancy and Finance is as close to maths as history or art. In my degree the only actual real numbers encountered were '0' and '1'. You come across a lot of numbers in Accountancy and Finance.
Maths is not arithmetic.
The imaginary numbers are much more fun than the real numbers.
Agree, but didn't do much with them either to be honest after A level. Tried to explain to someone who had no concept of numbers outside of the real numbers the idea of imaginary numbers. They were just gobsmacked. Couldn't get their head around it. Taught my son quadratic equations which lead to imaginary numbers when he was at junior school, but then he has become an awesome mathematician. I look at pages of logic equations he produces and I haven't a clue.
In my view, there's too much emphasis on the level and type of education and training, rather than on its quality. It's quality that counts. Some degrees are high quality; some are poor. Some apprenticeships are brilliant; others are terrible. We need to focus on the quality more than the subject. It doesn't actually matter too much if you're doing on-the-job training in carpentry, a basic numeracy course, or a degree in 15th C violin making.
What matters is whether the quality of what you're studying is sufficiently high to lead to rapid improvements in your ability to think, understand or do whatever it is. And that isn't focused on enough, as quality of the curriculum, teaching etc. is far too variable at all levels of education and training.
One thing which would help would be a level playing field in qualifications. No-one believes that a 2:1 in Stuff Studies from Dumpville University actually equates in worth and difficulty with a 2:1 in engineering from Imperial. So people use guesswork.
This.
I recall one politician being led down the road by an interviewer to the point of being asked if she really thought a Maths degree from Cambridge was equal to one from Southbank… Hilariously the politician tried to stick to the “all degrees are equal” bullshit.
Incidentally, the subject of the degree is not so important. With a bit of thought and will, you could make any subject intellectually challenging and rigorous. A degree on surfing could be made into a degree including literature, multiple cultures round the world, materials engineering, ecology, oceanic engineering, wave physics, sports science, human biomechanics etc etc
Not this. A maths degree from Southbank should be the same as one from Cambridge. That is why we have external examiners. If it isn't, for non-maths reasons, that is because Cambridge's higher reputation and network effects. Take Boris. He got his first job through family connections and after he was sacked, got a better one through connections made at Oxford. Does that mean an Oxford Classics degree is better than a Southbank Classics degree or might there be something else going on?
Southbank doesn't do Maths, closest course it does is accountancy and finance
Cambridge doesn't do Accountancy and Finance. Swings and roundabouts.
It does now. You can do a Master of Accountancy and a Master of Finance course at Cambridge University business school
Thursday's Express: "It's only fair! Rishi defends £1,000 boost to pensions"
Aha, we locked down to save them and our student loans get jacked up 11%, fuck off you twat
Pay the money you borrowed and stop whining. You either benefitted with a good job of you leave the poor to pick up your tab for years pissing it up at uni wasting pensioners hard earned pittance. Stop blaming other people for your uselessness
Are the student loans running at 11%?.... thats horrendous.
What is quite amazing how completely and utterly useless young people are at asserting themselves politically. They don't seem to even realise that they are being screwed over. The NI increase went through without a murmur of dissent. Whack up taxes, change the terms of student loans, keep giving bungs to pensioners so they vote tory.... Zero opposition (or even interest) from young people. It is astonishing.
That is because most are useless. They spend a few years at uni and think they are big shots when in fact they mainly struggle to wipe their own arses. They then whine incessantly about only earning 50k while complaining that all all those nasty pensioners who worked and paid taxes for 50 years are living high on the hog on their 9k pensions.
Yep, they shouldn't go to uni. Better off with a secure job and good income, such as working on the railways.
I think I shall bid you all good day.
The forum is more than normally populated by grumpy old, white, men this morning. I shall leave you all to dribble with anger into your cornflakes.
xx
I was being tongue in cheek, echoing the PB perennial of too many of other people's children going to university, with the notion that they would be better getting proper jobs.
Do you not think there's a point to be made there? Why is 50% of people going to university the magic number? Why not 90%? 20%?
My nephew got the grades to go to uni, but chose instead to go into the Wonderful World of Work. He's now on a significantly higher salary than his friends who went to uni, and has a house (with mortgage).
One of the great education sins of the last 30 yeas has been this idea that kids must go to uni, and that kids who do not are somehow inferior.
Surely the point is that people have the choice. Get the grades, go if you want. Personally I would encourage people to get an education and see the world before locking themselves into he tedious world of work, nappies and mortgages. You’ll spend decades doing that.
We have enough freeloaders thank you.
Aye. The boomers that went to university all expenses paid and chose to break the earnings link for pensioners when they were working, so they didn't have to pay much to pensioners when they were working . . . then whinge about how poor pensions are when they're the ones claiming it and shaft the young.
Truly the most selfish generation that shafted their own parents and their own grandchildren, but keep repeating the bollocks about how much tax you paid.
You do realise 90% of boomers never went to university? Now about 40% of 18 year olds graduate from university.
They also paid into NI just as their parents did as well as private pension schemes for some. It was the government that broke the earnings link
So frigging what? For either of those points.
Many of those going to university today are doing so to go to jobs that didn't need degrees in the past, but do now. So yes, the student loan is just an age-discriminatory income tax that prior generations never had to pay.
And they never paid NI at the rate we do now, that's a lie. Since boomers have started facing retirement they've ended up voting so that tax goes from income tax to NI.
Besides if the logic that more people going to university means we can't afford to pay for university anymore, perhaps we should use that logic with pensions? Lets put the education budget and the pension budget back to what it was when today's pensioners were studying and working?
The education budget has gone down as a percentage of GDP, not up, from the past.
In 1975 education represented 7.5% of GDP and pensions were 4%
Today education is 3.9% and pensions are 6%.
What a remarkable role reversal, hey? I wonder why that's happened? 🤔
Well they could do apprenticeships instead of going to university like their parents and grandparents did and then they wouldn't need a student loan. They probably would also earn more over their lifetime than doing a degree unless at a Russell Group university.
All those earning under £35k have got an NI cut. Life expectancy is higher than decades ago is the reason a higher percentage of the state budget goes on pensions
Oh do STOP!
Off Topic
Morning Pete
I watched the PMQ again yesterday and I am now clear in my mind that you are a cchq troll. Johnson blustered and prevaricated the whole time, waiting for Starmer's last question so that he could spend 2 or 3 minutes spouting a Party political broadcast on behalf of the "going nowhere very fast" Party. What a twat he is.
You've got me. I share a desk with BJO.
I had been sympathetic to Starmer, but he doesn't have the dynamism needed to overcome the Conservatives. I listened to PMQs as it happened and Starmer doesn't have an answer for Johnson's bluster, it is as though Starmer can't think on his feet when Johnson goes off at a tangent. Johnson makes stuff up and Starmer is naïve enough not to realise he is lying. Starmer appears bewildered. He is a dud.
Labour need an attack dog to call Johnson out, I am not sure who that is. Like Blair I rated Philips, but I suspect her time has passed.
It’s Rayner. She confuses Boris. Not just with her Basic Instinct shtick
A white British working class single mum with a tough background. She’s Mick Lynch with a growler. She is exactly what Labour needs to seize the Red Wall and discombobulate the Tories, as any attacks on her will appear misogynist/classist
Yes OK she will lose a few snobbish petit bourgeois voters in Remainia, Labour will probably lose them anyway
Rayner is just Corbyn in a skirt but a bit more patriotic.
Streeting would be far better but as Starmer leads on preferred PM anyway he is going nowhere unless he is fined (but then so would Rayner be)
The country rather liked Jeremy Corbyn, he nearly won in 2017. By 2019 the UK had worked out that Corbyn is a Marxist traitor, so he was less popular
Rayner is not a Marxist traitor. And meanwhile the Tories have adopted most of Corbyn’s economic polices, but just made the policies even more left wing
It’s time we had a proper working class woman as PM. What a refreshing change it would be after all these posh/dull men
They haven't introduced a wealth tax, a 50% top income tax rate and renationalised the public utilities and trains as Corbyn would have. Nor have they scrapped tuition fees.
Rayner might win back a few redwall seats but she would lose seats in London, including to the LDs. In any case on current polls Labour is heading for most seats in a hung parliament under Starmer and thus winning back most of the redwall.
It is seats Cameron gained from Labour in 2010 and seats in Scotland Labour need for a majority and Rayner would have less appeal there than say Streeting. The LDs would also be more reluctant to work with her than Starmer and Streeting in a hung parliament
Why your last sentence? Rayner was a TU negotiator used to finding points of agreement. I would've thought she was ideally placed to work with other parties. Although I could understand the Lib Dems being reluctant to cooperate too closely with anybody given their dreadful experience with Cameron!
OT. I keep hearing that costs in the UK are only increasing at the same rate as all other countries in Europe. So for an experiment I compared my costs in the UK and in France over the last six months and the difference is significant. French costs have barely moved. In the UK in some instances (for example electricity) they've almost doubled.
So anyone working from home who wants lower bills a better lifestyle a view of the Mediterranian and no Boris Johnson you know what to do.
In my view, there's too much emphasis on the level and type of education and training, rather than on its quality. It's quality that counts. Some degrees are high quality; some are poor. Some apprenticeships are brilliant; others are terrible. We need to focus on the quality more than the subject. It doesn't actually matter too much if you're doing on-the-job training in carpentry, a basic numeracy course, or a degree in 15th C violin making.
What matters is whether the quality of what you're studying is sufficiently high to lead to rapid improvements in your ability to think, understand or do whatever it is. And that isn't focused on enough, as quality of the curriculum, teaching etc. is far too variable at all levels of education and training.
One thing which would help would be a level playing field in qualifications. No-one believes that a 2:1 in Stuff Studies from Dumpville University actually equates in worth and difficulty with a 2:1 in engineering from Imperial. So people use guesswork.
This.
I recall one politician being led down the road by an interviewer to the point of being asked if she really thought a Maths degree from Cambridge was equal to one from Southbank… Hilariously the politician tried to stick to the “all degrees are equal” bullshit.
Incidentally, the subject of the degree is not so important. With a bit of thought and will, you could make any subject intellectually challenging and rigorous. A degree on surfing could be made into a degree including literature, multiple cultures round the world, materials engineering, ecology, oceanic engineering, wave physics, sports science, human biomechanics etc etc
Not this. A maths degree from Southbank should be the same as one from Cambridge. That is why we have external examiners. If it isn't, for non-maths reasons, that is because Cambridge's higher reputation and network effects. Take Boris. He got his first job through family connections and after he was sacked, got a better one through connections made at Oxford. Does that mean an Oxford Classics degree is better than a Southbank Classics degree or might there be something else going on?
Southbank doesn't do Maths, closest course it does is accountancy and finance
Accountancy and Finance is as close to maths as history or art. In my degree the only actual real numbers encountered were '0' and '1'. You come across a lot of numbers in Accountancy and Finance.
Maths is not arithmetic and yes I know you can have some more complex stuff in accountancy, but they aren't the same.
In my view, there's too much emphasis on the level and type of education and training, rather than on its quality. It's quality that counts. Some degrees are high quality; some are poor. Some apprenticeships are brilliant; others are terrible. We need to focus on the quality more than the subject. It doesn't actually matter too much if you're doing on-the-job training in carpentry, a basic numeracy course, or a degree in 15th C violin making.
What matters is whether the quality of what you're studying is sufficiently high to lead to rapid improvements in your ability to think, understand or do whatever it is. And that isn't focused on enough, as quality of the curriculum, teaching etc. is far too variable at all levels of education and training.
One thing which would help would be a level playing field in qualifications. No-one believes that a 2:1 in Stuff Studies from Dumpville University actually equates in worth and difficulty with a 2:1 in engineering from Imperial. So people use guesswork.
This.
I recall one politician being led down the road by an interviewer to the point of being asked if she really thought a Maths degree from Cambridge was equal to one from Southbank… Hilariously the politician tried to stick to the “all degrees are equal” bullshit.
Incidentally, the subject of the degree is not so important. With a bit of thought and will, you could make any subject intellectually challenging and rigorous. A degree on surfing could be made into a degree including literature, multiple cultures round the world, materials engineering, ecology, oceanic engineering, wave physics, sports science, human biomechanics etc etc
Not this. A maths degree from Southbank should be the same as one from Cambridge. That is why we have external examiners. If it isn't, for non-maths reasons, that is because Cambridge's higher reputation and network effects. Take Boris. He got his first job through family connections and after he was sacked, got a better one through connections made at Oxford. Does that mean an Oxford Classics degree is better than a Southbank Classics degree or might there be something else going on?
Southbank doesn't do Maths, closest course it does is accountancy and finance
Accountancy and Finance is as close to maths as history or art. In my degree the only actual real numbers encountered were '0' and '1'. You come across a lot of numbers in Accountancy and Finance.
Maths is not arithmetic and yes I know you can have some more complex stuff in accountancy, but they aren't the same.
The upping of the state pension and the removal of limits on rich bankers' pay seems utterly tone deaf from the Government.
Are they trying to lose?
Pensioners and bankers are the Tory core vote. No real surprise
Then the Tories deserve to lose.
The more you speak for the Tories, the more I think maybe I should actually just vote Labour, if you represent the Tories. And I despise Labour, but not as much as what you want to stand for.
Really? You even voted for Labour in 2001 when I voted Tory
Yes, because I'm a sentient human who has principles and thinks about why I should vote. Those principles generally align with the Tories more, but if they don't, then the Tories don't deserve my vote.
I don't just vote for a monkey with a blue rosette, and I don't put party before country.
Oh, and don't forget, you lost in 2001. 😕
Still proves you wrong when you said 'I despise Labour' given you even voted for Labour at the 2001 general election
No, it doesn't, since I'm not the same person I was in 2001, Labour isn't the same as it was in 2001, Starmer is not Blair etc
Time's change, and when they do, you need to change with them. Oh, and its possible to despise something, but think the alternative is even worse.
Nonetheless 31% of the electorate voted Tory in 2001 ie almost a third and are thus more anti Labour than you
The upping of the state pension and the removal of limits on rich bankers' pay seems utterly tone deaf from the Government.
Are they trying to lose?
Pensioners and bankers are the Tory core vote. No real surprise
Then the Tories deserve to lose.
The more you speak for the Tories, the more I think maybe I should actually just vote Labour, if you represent the Tories. And I despise Labour, but not as much as what you want to stand for.
Really? You even voted for Labour in 2001 when I voted Tory
Yes, because I'm a sentient human who has principles and thinks about why I should vote. Those principles generally align with the Tories more, but if they don't, then the Tories don't deserve my vote.
I don't just vote for a monkey with a blue rosette, and I don't put party before country.
Oh, and don't forget, you lost in 2001. 😕
Still proves you wrong when you said 'I despise Labour' given you even voted for Labour at the 2001 general election
No, it doesn't, since I'm not the same person I was in 2001, Labour isn't the same as it was in 2001, Starmer is not Blair etc
Time's change, and when they do, you need to change with them. Oh, and its possible to despise something, but think the alternative is even worse.
I voted Lab in 97 but in 2001 I could see the warning signs that all the power was turning Tone's head so I sat on my hands.
In 2005 I went for the Lib-Dems (Iraq) and have voted Con in 2010, 2015, 2017 and 2019 elections (as well as NO to AV and LEAVE)
Think I have a pretty good record of picking the winning side there lol!
But it's true. I think increasingly people will change their voting patterns from election to election depending on the circumstances of the day. Someone like @HYUFD who will vote for "the party" come what may is increasingly the exception to the norm... As the old left/right divide has broken down post 1989 people are much more expendable with their votes.
OT. I keep hearing that costs in the UK are only doing the same as all other countries in Europe. So for an experimet I compared my costs in the UK and in France over the last six months and the difference is significant. French costs have barely moved. In the UK in some instances (for example electricity) they've almost doubled.
So anyone working from home who wants lower bills a better lifestyle a view of the Mediterranian and no Boris Johnson you know what to do.
France is the anomaly in Europe, relying as they do on nuclear power for most of their domestic electricity needs. Petrol is still €2 a litre though.
Biden is now the most unpopular US president since approval started being measured (Truman onward) at this point (day 519) in his presidency.
Gas prices, I suppose. $5 a gallon shock horror. I'm increasingly fond of my betting position that WH24 will feature neither Biden nor Trump.
His figures have been going south since Afghanistan. He's Carter without the peanuts. Hopeless imbecile.
Bit strong imo. He was right to exit Afghanistan - although it was bungled - and he's handling Ukraine pretty well. As for the economy, it's a myth to think whoever is President has much influence on it. Its long term health is mainly to do with macro forces above and beyond.
In my view, there's too much emphasis on the level and type of education and training, rather than on its quality. It's quality that counts. Some degrees are high quality; some are poor. Some apprenticeships are brilliant; others are terrible. We need to focus on the quality more than the subject. It doesn't actually matter too much if you're doing on-the-job training in carpentry, a basic numeracy course, or a degree in 15th C violin making.
What matters is whether the quality of what you're studying is sufficiently high to lead to rapid improvements in your ability to think, understand or do whatever it is. And that isn't focused on enough, as quality of the curriculum, teaching etc. is far too variable at all levels of education and training.
One thing which would help would be a level playing field in qualifications. No-one believes that a 2:1 in Stuff Studies from Dumpville University actually equates in worth and difficulty with a 2:1 in engineering from Imperial. So people use guesswork.
This.
I recall one politician being led down the road by an interviewer to the point of being asked if she really thought a Maths degree from Cambridge was equal to one from Southbank… Hilariously the politician tried to stick to the “all degrees are equal” bullshit.
Incidentally, the subject of the degree is not so important. With a bit of thought and will, you could make any subject intellectually challenging and rigorous. A degree on surfing could be made into a degree including literature, multiple cultures round the world, materials engineering, ecology, oceanic engineering, wave physics, sports science, human biomechanics etc etc
Not this. A maths degree from Southbank should be the same as one from Cambridge. That is why we have external examiners. If it isn't, for non-maths reasons, that is because Cambridge's higher reputation and network effects. Take Boris. He got his first job through family connections and after he was sacked, got a better one through connections made at Oxford. Does that mean an Oxford Classics degree is better than a Southbank Classics degree or might there be something else going on?
Southbank doesn't do Maths, closest course it does is accountancy and finance
Accountancy and Finance is as close to maths as history or art. In my degree the only actual real numbers encountered were '0' and '1'. You come across a lot of numbers in Accountancy and Finance.
Maths is not arithmetic and yes I know you can have some more complex stuff in accountancy, but they aren't the same.
All numbers are 0s and 1s
There are 10 types of people - those who understand binary, and those who don’t.
Thursday's Express: "It's only fair! Rishi defends £1,000 boost to pensions"
Aha, we locked down to save them and our student loans get jacked up 11%, fuck off you twat
Pay the money you borrowed and stop whining. You either benefitted with a good job of you leave the poor to pick up your tab for years pissing it up at uni wasting pensioners hard earned pittance. Stop blaming other people for your uselessness
Are the student loans running at 11%?.... thats horrendous.
Most never pay a penny though
You over-stated your case to create board strife. Unsurprisingly.
The current pay back is 23% and expected to rise in 2023/4 to more than 50%.
Expected you dummy, bollox in other words. Bit like me expecting you to post sensible stuff in 2023, never going to happen.
What on Earth is wrong with you today? Why are you always so unspeakably rude? At his most frosty, even Leon doesn’t post in such a disgraceful manner. You’re behaving like a drunken pub boor. It is eminently reasonable for working age people to contest that an inflation indexed pensions rise (which will add significantly to national expenditure) is acceptable while they themselves are not receiving anything like that, and may be paying significant student loan repayments (the terms of which can change at a whim). If you disagree, make your arguments rather than ranting away at those who disagree.
Is there any wonder that the PB memetic pool is narrowing if this is the standard of ad-hominem argumentation which is tolerated? Do you want an echo chamber of elderly, overmonied men who just want to complain about whatever the yoof are up to now? Then there are alternatives. I started posting again because, occasionally, PB produces genuinely insightful debate in a way that only old fashioned forums do and I actually value that, even if you don’t.
Or, to TLDR all of that, I got knocked off my bike on Tuesday and it was less painful than reading your pish. Bloody well behave.
Sympathies. I'm not sure why Malcolm isn't banned, except that he's so consistently rude to almost everyone (to be fair I've not suffered myself) that people don't take it personally - it's like being abused by a drunken stranger, peculiar but not really worth worrying about.
I am surprised you are not banned for being a nasty piece of work. As you say I have never said a bad thing about you yet you want me banned. Pompous hypocritical and plain nasty.
nippy through the string vest this morning? 🙂
Good morning , started well till I encountered the fools and comic singers on here, hopefully mor eof eth intelligent posters will be around later. Convinces me to look in later on in the day when the dross and flotsam have disappeared. There are a few exceptions of course.
Irony alert. Almost certainly the least intelligent poster on PB complains about the intelligence of others. I completely agree with @NickPalmer, this bullying unpleasant and abusive little man should be hit with the ban hammer.
Gammon boy gets puffed up and makes an appearance. Go spend some of your job seekers allowance on sweeties shit for brains
In my view, there's too much emphasis on the level and type of education and training, rather than on its quality. It's quality that counts. Some degrees are high quality; some are poor. Some apprenticeships are brilliant; others are terrible. We need to focus on the quality more than the subject. It doesn't actually matter too much if you're doing on-the-job training in carpentry, a basic numeracy course, or a degree in 15th C violin making.
What matters is whether the quality of what you're studying is sufficiently high to lead to rapid improvements in your ability to think, understand or do whatever it is. And that isn't focused on enough, as quality of the curriculum, teaching etc. is far too variable at all levels of education and training.
One thing which would help would be a level playing field in qualifications. No-one believes that a 2:1 in Stuff Studies from Dumpville University actually equates in worth and difficulty with a 2:1 in engineering from Imperial. So people use guesswork.
This.
I recall one politician being led down the road by an interviewer to the point of being asked if she really thought a Maths degree from Cambridge was equal to one from Southbank… Hilariously the politician tried to stick to the “all degrees are equal” bullshit.
Incidentally, the subject of the degree is not so important. With a bit of thought and will, you could make any subject intellectually challenging and rigorous. A degree on surfing could be made into a degree including literature, multiple cultures round the world, materials engineering, ecology, oceanic engineering, wave physics, sports science, human biomechanics etc etc
Not this. A maths degree from Southbank should be the same as one from Cambridge. That is why we have external examiners. If it isn't, for non-maths reasons, that is because Cambridge's higher reputation and network effects. Take Boris. He got his first job through family connections and after he was sacked, got a better one through connections made at Oxford. Does that mean an Oxford Classics degree is better than a Southbank Classics degree or might there be something else going on?
Southbank doesn't do Maths, closest course it does is accountancy and finance
Accountancy and Finance is as close to maths as history or art. In my degree the only actual real numbers encountered were '0' and '1'. You come across a lot of numbers in Accountancy and Finance.
Maths is not arithmetic and yes I know you can have some more complex stuff in accountancy, but they aren't the same.
All numbers are 0s and 1s
??
There are two sorts of people; those who understand binary notation and……
Apologies. Someone has posted this earlier and better!
OT. I keep hearing that costs in the UK are only increasing at the same rate as all other countries in Europe. So for an experiment I compared my costs in the UK and in France over the last six months and the difference is significant. French costs have barely moved. In the UK in some instances (for example electricity) they've almost doubled.
So anyone working from home who wants lower bills a better lifestyle a view of the Mediterranian and no Boris Johnson you know what to do.
Are you offering to put us all up in your 157 bedroom mansion overlooking the Cote d'Azur Rog?
In my view, there's too much emphasis on the level and type of education and training, rather than on its quality. It's quality that counts. Some degrees are high quality; some are poor. Some apprenticeships are brilliant; others are terrible. We need to focus on the quality more than the subject. It doesn't actually matter too much if you're doing on-the-job training in carpentry, a basic numeracy course, or a degree in 15th C violin making.
What matters is whether the quality of what you're studying is sufficiently high to lead to rapid improvements in your ability to think, understand or do whatever it is. And that isn't focused on enough, as quality of the curriculum, teaching etc. is far too variable at all levels of education and training.
One thing which would help would be a level playing field in qualifications. No-one believes that a 2:1 in Stuff Studies from Dumpville University actually equates in worth and difficulty with a 2:1 in engineering from Imperial. So people use guesswork.
This.
I recall one politician being led down the road by an interviewer to the point of being asked if she really thought a Maths degree from Cambridge was equal to one from Southbank… Hilariously the politician tried to stick to the “all degrees are equal” bullshit.
Incidentally, the subject of the degree is not so important. With a bit of thought and will, you could make any subject intellectually challenging and rigorous. A degree on surfing could be made into a degree including literature, multiple cultures round the world, materials engineering, ecology, oceanic engineering, wave physics, sports science, human biomechanics etc etc
Not this. A maths degree from Southbank should be the same as one from Cambridge. That is why we have external examiners. If it isn't, for non-maths reasons, that is because Cambridge's higher reputation and network effects. Take Boris. He got his first job through family connections and after he was sacked, got a better one through connections made at Oxford. Does that mean an Oxford Classics degree is better than a Southbank Classics degree or might there be something else going on?
Universities don't have external examiners.
They do.
My wife is an academic. They have to get an external in to make sure their finals are up to snuff. If you do a PhD one of your viva examiners will be external.
Good, glad you explained that. Otherwise I'd be wondering what this very eminent prof from another uni was doing in my doctoral examination at all, let alone asking all sorts of annoying questions and putting his finger unerringly on what I had feared was the one weak spot in my quantitative analysis. Or why I wasted chunks of my life reading other students' more or less coherent lucubrations and then travelling across the rail network to meet them.
In my view, there's too much emphasis on the level and type of education and training, rather than on its quality. It's quality that counts. Some degrees are high quality; some are poor. Some apprenticeships are brilliant; others are terrible. We need to focus on the quality more than the subject. It doesn't actually matter too much if you're doing on-the-job training in carpentry, a basic numeracy course, or a degree in 15th C violin making.
What matters is whether the quality of what you're studying is sufficiently high to lead to rapid improvements in your ability to think, understand or do whatever it is. And that isn't focused on enough, as quality of the curriculum, teaching etc. is far too variable at all levels of education and training.
One thing which would help would be a level playing field in qualifications. No-one believes that a 2:1 in Stuff Studies from Dumpville University actually equates in worth and difficulty with a 2:1 in engineering from Imperial. So people use guesswork.
This.
I recall one politician being led down the road by an interviewer to the point of being asked if she really thought a Maths degree from Cambridge was equal to one from Southbank… Hilariously the politician tried to stick to the “all degrees are equal” bullshit.
Incidentally, the subject of the degree is not so important. With a bit of thought and will, you could make any subject intellectually challenging and rigorous. A degree on surfing could be made into a degree including literature, multiple cultures round the world, materials engineering, ecology, oceanic engineering, wave physics, sports science, human biomechanics etc etc
Not this. A maths degree from Southbank should be the same as one from Cambridge. That is why we have external examiners. If it isn't, for non-maths reasons, that is because Cambridge's higher reputation and network effects. Take Boris. He got his first job through family connections and after he was sacked, got a better one through connections made at Oxford. Does that mean an Oxford Classics degree is better than a Southbank Classics degree or might there be something else going on?
Southbank doesn't do Maths, closest course it does is accountancy and finance
Accountancy and Finance is as close to maths as history or art. In my degree the only actual real numbers encountered were '0' and '1'. You come across a lot of numbers in Accountancy and Finance.
Maths is not arithmetic and yes I know you can have some more complex stuff in accountancy, but they aren't the same.
In my view, there's too much emphasis on the level and type of education and training, rather than on its quality. It's quality that counts. Some degrees are high quality; some are poor. Some apprenticeships are brilliant; others are terrible. We need to focus on the quality more than the subject. It doesn't actually matter too much if you're doing on-the-job training in carpentry, a basic numeracy course, or a degree in 15th C violin making.
What matters is whether the quality of what you're studying is sufficiently high to lead to rapid improvements in your ability to think, understand or do whatever it is. And that isn't focused on enough, as quality of the curriculum, teaching etc. is far too variable at all levels of education and training.
One thing which would help would be a level playing field in qualifications. No-one believes that a 2:1 in Stuff Studies from Dumpville University actually equates in worth and difficulty with a 2:1 in engineering from Imperial. So people use guesswork.
This.
I recall one politician being led down the road by an interviewer to the point of being asked if she really thought a Maths degree from Cambridge was equal to one from Southbank… Hilariously the politician tried to stick to the “all degrees are equal” bullshit.
Incidentally, the subject of the degree is not so important. With a bit of thought and will, you could make any subject intellectually challenging and rigorous. A degree on surfing could be made into a degree including literature, multiple cultures round the world, materials engineering, ecology, oceanic engineering, wave physics, sports science, human biomechanics etc etc
Not this. A maths degree from Southbank should be the same as one from Cambridge. That is why we have external examiners. If it isn't, for non-maths reasons, that is because Cambridge's higher reputation and network effects. Take Boris. He got his first job through family connections and after he was sacked, got a better one through connections made at Oxford. Does that mean an Oxford Classics degree is better than a Southbank Classics degree or might there be something else going on?
Southbank doesn't do Maths, closest course it does is accountancy and finance
Accountancy and Finance is as close to maths as history or art. In my degree the only actual real numbers encountered were '0' and '1'. You come across a lot of numbers in Accountancy and Finance.
Maths is not arithmetic and yes I know you can have some more complex stuff in accountancy, but they aren't the same.
In my view, there's too much emphasis on the level and type of education and training, rather than on its quality. It's quality that counts. Some degrees are high quality; some are poor. Some apprenticeships are brilliant; others are terrible. We need to focus on the quality more than the subject. It doesn't actually matter too much if you're doing on-the-job training in carpentry, a basic numeracy course, or a degree in 15th C violin making.
What matters is whether the quality of what you're studying is sufficiently high to lead to rapid improvements in your ability to think, understand or do whatever it is. And that isn't focused on enough, as quality of the curriculum, teaching etc. is far too variable at all levels of education and training.
One thing which would help would be a level playing field in qualifications. No-one believes that a 2:1 in Stuff Studies from Dumpville University actually equates in worth and difficulty with a 2:1 in engineering from Imperial. So people use guesswork.
This.
I recall one politician being led down the road by an interviewer to the point of being asked if she really thought a Maths degree from Cambridge was equal to one from Southbank… Hilariously the politician tried to stick to the “all degrees are equal” bullshit.
Incidentally, the subject of the degree is not so important. With a bit of thought and will, you could make any subject intellectually challenging and rigorous. A degree on surfing could be made into a degree including literature, multiple cultures round the world, materials engineering, ecology, oceanic engineering, wave physics, sports science, human biomechanics etc etc
Not this. A maths degree from Southbank should be the same as one from Cambridge. That is why we have external examiners. If it isn't, for non-maths reasons, that is because Cambridge's higher reputation and network effects. Take Boris. He got his first job through family connections and after he was sacked, got a better one through connections made at Oxford. Does that mean an Oxford Classics degree is better than a Southbank Classics degree or might there be something else going on?
Universities don't have external examiners.
They do.
My wife is an academic. They have to get an external in to make sure their finals are up to snuff. If you do a PhD one of your viva examiners will be external.
Good, glad you explained that. Otherwise I'd be wondering what this very eminent prof from another uni was doing in my doctoral examination at all, let alone asking all sorts of annoying questions and putting his finger unerringly on what I had feared was the one weak spot in my quantitative analysis. Or why I wasted chunks of my life reading other students' more or less coherent lucubrations and then travelling across the rail network to meet them.
OK Looks like they do - but seems all written undergrad exams are internal which is very different to A-levels.
Thursday's Express: "It's only fair! Rishi defends £1,000 boost to pensions"
Aha, we locked down to save them and our student loans get jacked up 11%, fuck off you twat
Pay the money you borrowed and stop whining. You either benefitted with a good job of you leave the poor to pick up your tab for years pissing it up at uni wasting pensioners hard earned pittance. Stop blaming other people for your uselessness
Are the student loans running at 11%?.... thats horrendous.
What is quite amazing how completely and utterly useless young people are at asserting themselves politically. They don't seem to even realise that they are being screwed over. The NI increase went through without a murmur of dissent. Whack up taxes, change the terms of student loans, keep giving bungs to pensioners so they vote tory.... Zero opposition (or even interest) from young people. It is astonishing.
That is because most are useless. They spend a few years at uni and think they are big shots when in fact they mainly struggle to wipe their own arses. They then whine incessantly about only earning 50k while complaining that all all those nasty pensioners who worked and paid taxes for 50 years are living high on the hog on their 9k pensions.
Yep, they shouldn't go to uni. Better off with a secure job and good income, such as working on the railways.
I think I shall bid you all good day.
The forum is more than normally populated by grumpy old, white, men this morning. I shall leave you all to dribble with anger into your cornflakes.
xx
I was being tongue in cheek, echoing the PB perennial of too many of other people's children going to university, with the notion that they would be better getting proper jobs.
Do you not think there's a point to be made there? Why is 50% of people going to university the magic number? Why not 90%? 20%?
My nephew got the grades to go to uni, but chose instead to go into the Wonderful World of Work. He's now on a significantly higher salary than his friends who went to uni, and has a house (with mortgage).
One of the great education sins of the last 30 yeas has been this idea that kids must go to uni, and that kids who do not are somehow inferior.
Surely the point is that people have the choice. Get the grades, go if you want. Personally I would encourage people to get an education and see the world before locking themselves into he tedious world of work, nappies and mortgages. You’ll spend decades doing that.
We have enough freeloaders thank you.
Aye. The boomers that went to university all expenses paid and chose to break the earnings link for pensioners when they were working, so they didn't have to pay much to pensioners when they were working . . . then whinge about how poor pensions are when they're the ones claiming it and shaft the young.
Truly the most selfish generation that shafted their own parents and their own grandchildren, but keep repeating the bollocks about how much tax you paid.
You do realise 90% of boomers never went to university? Now about 40% of 18 year olds graduate from university.
They also paid into NI just as their parents did as well as private pension schemes for some. It was the government that broke the earnings link
So frigging what? For either of those points.
Many of those going to university today are doing so to go to jobs that didn't need degrees in the past, but do now. So yes, the student loan is just an age-discriminatory income tax that prior generations never had to pay.
And they never paid NI at the rate we do now, that's a lie. Since boomers have started facing retirement they've ended up voting so that tax goes from income tax to NI.
Besides if the logic that more people going to university means we can't afford to pay for university anymore, perhaps we should use that logic with pensions? Lets put the education budget and the pension budget back to what it was when today's pensioners were studying and working?
The education budget has gone down as a percentage of GDP, not up, from the past.
In 1975 education represented 7.5% of GDP and pensions were 4%
Today education is 3.9% and pensions are 6%.
What a remarkable role reversal, hey? I wonder why that's happened? 🤔
Well they could do apprenticeships instead of going to university like their parents and grandparents did and then they wouldn't need a student loan. They probably would also earn more over their lifetime than doing a degree unless at a Russell Group university.
All those earning under £35k have got an NI cut. Life expectancy is higher than decades ago is the reason a higher percentage of the state budget goes on pensions
Oh do STOP!
Off Topic
Morning Pete
I watched the PMQ again yesterday and I am now clear in my mind that you are a cchq troll. Johnson blustered and prevaricated the whole time, waiting for Starmer's last question so that he could spend 2 or 3 minutes spouting a Party political broadcast on behalf of the "going nowhere very fast" Party. What a twat he is.
You've got me. I share a desk with BJO.
I had been sympathetic to Starmer, but he doesn't have the dynamism needed to overcome the Conservatives. I listened to PMQs as it happened and Starmer doesn't have an answer for Johnson's bluster, it is as though Starmer can't think on his feet when Johnson goes off.at a tangent. Johnson makes stuff up and Starmer is naïve enough not to realise he is lying. Starmer appears bewildered. He is a dud.
Labour need an attack dog to call Johnson out, I am not sure who that is. Like Blair I rated Philips, but I suspect her time has passed.
If Johnson goes it changes the dynamic - but if both leaders stay till the election I think Labour wins by 5 or six points, forms stable government with libdems.
I think the die is already cast on that one, not much chance of this Johnson government getting swingback against a centrist Labour Party. As HY says, Starmer has led on best PM like no labour LOTO since Blair.
Can they get rid of Johnson? Do enough of them even want to - a huge mistake is thinking it only needs a few switchers on top the 148, truth is the 148 can go down more likely than up the more we enter general election territory. Do candidates like Mourdant want to own the fag end of 14 years in power and a likely defeat?
If I actually thought you genuine poster Pete, trying to help PB come to right conclusions I would say relax, it’s going okay for change of government - but I don’t think you are genuine I think you have an agenda.
Please yourself.
Your agenda's the same as mine, I think. Johnson out, Tories held to account for inflicting him upon us.
As for Starmer, I'm still onboard but I do want him to unbutton his shirt and preferably his flies too. I fear he is conflating "win from the centre" with "must not on any account say something interesting."
I think this explains some of the lovefest for Mick Lynch.
The upping of the state pension and the removal of limits on rich bankers' pay seems utterly tone deaf from the Government.
Are they trying to lose?
Pensioners and bankers are the Tory core vote. No real surprise
Then the Tories deserve to lose.
The more you speak for the Tories, the more I think maybe I should actually just vote Labour, if you represent the Tories. And I despise Labour, but not as much as what you want to stand for.
Really? You even voted for Labour in 2001 when I voted Tory
Yes, because I'm a sentient human who has principles and thinks about why I should vote. Those principles generally align with the Tories more, but if they don't, then the Tories don't deserve my vote.
I don't just vote for a monkey with a blue rosette, and I don't put party before country.
Oh, and don't forget, you lost in 2001. 😕
Still proves you wrong when you said 'I despise Labour' given you even voted for Labour at the 2001 general election
No, it doesn't, since I'm not the same person I was in 2001, Labour isn't the same as it was in 2001, Starmer is not Blair etc
Time's change, and when they do, you need to change with them. Oh, and its possible to despise something, but think the alternative is even worse.
Nonetheless 31% of the electorate voted Tory in 2001 ie almost a third and are thus more anti Labour than you
Wrong figure to use, 31% of 18 year olds didn't vote Tory in 2001.
Some people might be more partisan, I don't dispute that.
The upping of the state pension and the removal of limits on rich bankers' pay seems utterly tone deaf from the Government.
Are they trying to lose?
Pensioners and bankers are the Tory core vote. No real surprise
Then the Tories deserve to lose.
The more you speak for the Tories, the more I think maybe I should actually just vote Labour, if you represent the Tories. And I despise Labour, but not as much as what you want to stand for.
Really? You even voted for Labour in 2001 when I voted Tory
Yes, because I'm a sentient human who has principles and thinks about why I should vote. Those principles generally align with the Tories more, but if they don't, then the Tories don't deserve my vote.
I don't just vote for a monkey with a blue rosette, and I don't put party before country.
Oh, and don't forget, you lost in 2001. 😕
Still proves you wrong when you said 'I despise Labour' given you even voted for Labour at the 2001 general election
No, it doesn't, since I'm not the same person I was in 2001, Labour isn't the same as it was in 2001, Starmer is not Blair etc
Time's change, and when they do, you need to change with them. Oh, and its possible to despise something, but think the alternative is even worse.
Nonetheless 31% of the electorate voted Tory in 2001 ie almost a third and are thus more anti Labour than you
What if some of those individuals voted Labour in 2005, are they more or less Tory than Bart?
Thursday's Express: "It's only fair! Rishi defends £1,000 boost to pensions"
Aha, we locked down to save them and our student loans get jacked up 11%, fuck off you twat
Pay the money you borrowed and stop whining. You either benefitted with a good job of you leave the poor to pick up your tab for years pissing it up at uni wasting pensioners hard earned pittance. Stop blaming other people for your uselessness
Are the student loans running at 11%?.... thats horrendous.
Most never pay a penny though
You over-stated your case to create board strife. Unsurprisingly.
The current pay back is 23% and expected to rise in 2023/4 to more than 50%.
Expected you dummy, bollox in other words. Bit like me expecting you to post sensible stuff in 2023, never going to happen.
What on Earth is wrong with you today? Why are you always so unspeakably rude? At his most frosty, even Leon doesn’t post in such a disgraceful manner. You’re behaving like a drunken pub boor. It is eminently reasonable for working age people to contest that an inflation indexed pensions rise (which will add significantly to national expenditure) is acceptable while they themselves are not receiving anything like that, and may be paying significant student loan repayments (the terms of which can change at a whim). If you disagree, make your arguments rather than ranting away at those who disagree.
Is there any wonder that the PB memetic pool is narrowing if this is the standard of ad-hominem argumentation which is tolerated? Do you want an echo chamber of elderly, overmonied men who just want to complain about whatever the yoof are up to now? Then there are alternatives. I started posting again because, occasionally, PB produces genuinely insightful debate in a way that only old fashioned forums do and I actually value that, even if you don’t.
Or, to TLDR all of that, I got knocked off my bike on Tuesday and it was less painful than reading your pish. Bloody well behave.
Sympathies. I'm not sure why Malcolm isn't banned, except that he's so consistently rude to almost everyone (to be fair I've not suffered myself) that people don't take it personally - it's like being abused by a drunken stranger, peculiar but not really worth worrying about.
I am surprised you are not banned for being a nasty piece of work. As you say I have never said a bad thing about you yet you want me banned. Pompous hypocritical and plain nasty.
nippy through the string vest this morning? 🙂
There are a few exceptions of course.
Don't give an inch, Malc.
I have to give credit where due Topping , I can have a perfectly sensible and intelligent conversation with the likes of yourself and some other like people. However we seem to have lots of spotty riffraff and nasty Tory hasbeens around nowadays where it is pointless trying to talk intelligently. I will continue to dole out oppribrium to the riffraff and nasties.
Thursday's Express: "It's only fair! Rishi defends £1,000 boost to pensions"
Aha, we locked down to save them and our student loans get jacked up 11%, fuck off you twat
Pay the money you borrowed and stop whining. You either benefitted with a good job of you leave the poor to pick up your tab for years pissing it up at uni wasting pensioners hard earned pittance. Stop blaming other people for your uselessness
Are the student loans running at 11%?.... thats horrendous.
What is quite amazing how completely and utterly useless young people are at asserting themselves politically. They don't seem to even realise that they are being screwed over. The NI increase went through without a murmur of dissent. Whack up taxes, change the terms of student loans, keep giving bungs to pensioners so they vote tory.... Zero opposition (or even interest) from young people. It is astonishing.
That is because most are useless. They spend a few years at uni and think they are big shots when in fact they mainly struggle to wipe their own arses. They then whine incessantly about only earning 50k while complaining that all all those nasty pensioners who worked and paid taxes for 50 years are living high on the hog on their 9k pensions.
Yep, they shouldn't go to uni. Better off with a secure job and good income, such as working on the railways.
I think I shall bid you all good day.
The forum is more than normally populated by grumpy old, white, men this morning. I shall leave you all to dribble with anger into your cornflakes.
xx
I was being tongue in cheek, echoing the PB perennial of too many of other people's children going to university, with the notion that they would be better getting proper jobs.
Do you not think there's a point to be made there? Why is 50% of people going to university the magic number? Why not 90%? 20%?
My nephew got the grades to go to uni, but chose instead to go into the Wonderful World of Work. He's now on a significantly higher salary than his friends who went to uni, and has a house (with mortgage).
One of the great education sins of the last 30 yeas has been this idea that kids must go to uni, and that kids who do not are somehow inferior.
Surely the point is that people have the choice. Get the grades, go if you want. Personally I would encourage people to get an education and see the world before locking themselves into he tedious world of work, nappies and mortgages. You’ll spend decades doing that.
We have enough freeloaders thank you.
Aye. The boomers that went to university all expenses paid and chose to break the earnings link for pensioners when they were working, so they didn't have to pay much to pensioners when they were working . . . then whinge about how poor pensions are when they're the ones claiming it and shaft the young.
Truly the most selfish generation that shafted their own parents and their own grandchildren, but keep repeating the bollocks about how much tax you paid.
You do realise 90% of boomers never went to university? Now about 40% of 18 year olds graduate from university.
They also paid into NI just as their parents did as well as private pension schemes for some. It was the government that broke the earnings link
So frigging what? For either of those points.
Many of those going to university today are doing so to go to jobs that didn't need degrees in the past, but do now. So yes, the student loan is just an age-discriminatory income tax that prior generations never had to pay.
And they never paid NI at the rate we do now, that's a lie. Since boomers have started facing retirement they've ended up voting so that tax goes from income tax to NI.
Besides if the logic that more people going to university means we can't afford to pay for university anymore, perhaps we should use that logic with pensions? Lets put the education budget and the pension budget back to what it was when today's pensioners were studying and working?
The education budget has gone down as a percentage of GDP, not up, from the past.
In 1975 education represented 7.5% of GDP and pensions were 4%
Today education is 3.9% and pensions are 6%.
What a remarkable role reversal, hey? I wonder why that's happened? 🤔
Well they could do apprenticeships instead of going to university like their parents and grandparents did and then they wouldn't need a student loan. They probably would also earn more over their lifetime than doing a degree unless at a Russell Group university.
All those earning under £35k have got an NI cut. Life expectancy is higher than decades ago is the reason a higher percentage of the state budget goes on pensions
Oh do STOP!
Off Topic
Morning Pete
I watched the PMQ again yesterday and I am now clear in my mind that you are a cchq troll. Johnson blustered and prevaricated the whole time, waiting for Starmer's last question so that he could spend 2 or 3 minutes spouting a Party political broadcast on behalf of the "going nowhere very fast" Party. What a twat he is.
You've got me. I share a desk with BJO.
I had been sympathetic to Starmer, but he doesn't have the dynamism needed to overcome the Conservatives. I listened to PMQs as it happened and Starmer doesn't have an answer for Johnson's bluster, it is as though Starmer can't think on his feet when Johnson goes off at a tangent. Johnson makes stuff up and Starmer is naïve enough not to realise he is lying. Starmer appears bewildered. He is a dud.
Labour need an attack dog to call Johnson out, I am not sure who that is. Like Blair I rated Philips, but I suspect her time has passed.
It’s Rayner. She confuses Boris. Not just with her Basic Instinct shtick
A white British working class single mum with a tough background. She’s Mick Lynch with a growler. She is exactly what Labour needs to seize the Red Wall and discombobulate the Tories, as any attacks on her will appear misogynist/classist
Yes OK she will lose a few snobbish petit bourgeois voters in Remainia, Labour will probably lose them anyway
Rayner is just Corbyn in a skirt but a bit more patriotic.
Streeting would be far better but as Starmer leads on preferred PM anyway he is going nowhere unless he is fined (but then so would Rayner be)
The country rather liked Jeremy Corbyn, he nearly won in 2017. By 2019 the UK had worked out that Corbyn is a Marxist traitor, so he was less popular
Rayner is not a Marxist traitor. And meanwhile the Tories have adopted most of Corbyn’s economic polices, but just made the policies even more left wing
It’s time we had a proper working class woman as PM. What a refreshing change it would be after all these posh/dull men
Rayner would do fine if she were leader, I think. Though the Lynch comparison is a bit off - she's smarter than many give her credit, but nowhere near as quick in arguments as he is.
The upping of the state pension and the removal of limits on rich bankers' pay seems utterly tone deaf from the Government.
Are they trying to lose?
Pensioners and bankers are the Tory core vote. No real surprise
Then the Tories deserve to lose.
The more you speak for the Tories, the more I think maybe I should actually just vote Labour, if you represent the Tories. And I despise Labour, but not as much as what you want to stand for.
Really? You even voted for Labour in 2001 when I voted Tory
Yes, because I'm a sentient human who has principles and thinks about why I should vote. Those principles generally align with the Tories more, but if they don't, then the Tories don't deserve my vote.
I don't just vote for a monkey with a blue rosette, and I don't put party before country.
Oh, and don't forget, you lost in 2001. 😕
Barty, I can’t stand your ideology, but I do admire your principles.
How horrible is the UAE at this time of year? Can you even go out during the day? Is it possible to swim or simply too hot?
TA!
It’s horrible!
Currrently 45ºC or thereabouts, and so humid that your sunglasses steam up as you move from the air conditioning to outside.
It’s banned for people to work outside between 12:30 and 4pm.
My wife will get up at 5am to go swimming in the sea at first light, you don’t want to leave it much later.
You don’t really want to be any further south than you were in Armenia, at this time of year.
Ah, shit. At least I know now. Thanks! That was my impression - just too damn hot to do anything. And I like heat (but I don’t like 45C heat)
Have to replan. I need to get to a proper international travel hub within striking distance of Tbilisi (where I am now) to do some essential housekeeping: send luggage home, buy some kit, etc
Perhaps Istanbul or Tel Aviv…
Tehran. Unless that's too edgy for you.
I’d be there in a shot, despite lack of booze, but I need somewhere affordable connected to the world via couriers etc
Tehran is not that
DHL works in Iran. I know because my mate has a Zamyad Z24 (lucky bastard) and we had to get some bits for it to fix it after an accident.
If you get the full Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe treatment and get locked up then Fizzy Lizzy will get you out (probably) and you can write an eBay version of Man is Wolf to Man.
Thursday's Express: "It's only fair! Rishi defends £1,000 boost to pensions"
Aha, we locked down to save them and our student loans get jacked up 11%, fuck off you twat
Pay the money you borrowed and stop whining. You either benefitted with a good job of you leave the poor to pick up your tab for years pissing it up at uni wasting pensioners hard earned pittance. Stop blaming other people for your uselessness
Are the student loans running at 11%?.... thats horrendous.
Most never pay a penny though
You over-stated your case to create board strife. Unsurprisingly.
The current pay back is 23% and expected to rise in 2023/4 to more than 50%.
Expected you dummy, bollox in other words. Bit like me expecting you to post sensible stuff in 2023, never going to happen.
What on Earth is wrong with you today? Why are you always so unspeakably rude? At his most frosty, even Leon doesn’t post in such a disgraceful manner. You’re behaving like a drunken pub boor. It is eminently reasonable for working age people to contest that an inflation indexed pensions rise (which will add significantly to national expenditure) is acceptable while they themselves are not receiving anything like that, and may be paying significant student loan repayments (the terms of which can change at a whim). If you disagree, make your arguments rather than ranting away at those who disagree.
Is there any wonder that the PB memetic pool is narrowing if this is the standard of ad-hominem argumentation which is tolerated? Do you want an echo chamber of elderly, overmonied men who just want to complain about whatever the yoof are up to now? Then there are alternatives. I started posting again because, occasionally, PB produces genuinely insightful debate in a way that only old fashioned forums do and I actually value that, even if you don’t.
Or, to TLDR all of that, I got knocked off my bike on Tuesday and it was less painful than reading your pish. Bloody well behave.
Sympathies. I'm not sure why Malcolm isn't banned, except that he's so consistently rude to almost everyone (to be fair I've not suffered myself) that people don't take it personally - it's like being abused by a drunken stranger, peculiar but not really worth worrying about.
I am surprised you are not banned for being a nasty piece of work. As you say I have never said a bad thing about you yet you want me banned. Pompous hypocritical and plain nasty.
nippy through the string vest this morning? 🙂
There are a few exceptions of course.
Don't give an inch, Malc.
we seem to have lots of spotty riffraff and nasty Tory hasbeens around nowadays...
Now sadly removed if it was ever indeed in wiki. Where's your sense of fun Wikipedia?
Never fuck with a man named Mick Lynch. We know this in Ireland. The Mick Lynchs this world are born without fucks to give. They have no fuck glands. Do not approach a Mick Lynch without caution. Keep your head low and let the Mick Lynch know you mean no harm. https://twitter.com/NiecyOKeeffe/status/1539335139905486849
Few people got Lynched the last few days, it seems...
Hadn't seen Lynch in action, so did a quick Google, which got me to this: https://twitter.com/KayBurley/status/1539166310227116034 posted from Kay Burley's official account Agency rail workers will be stopped at picket lines and asked not to cross. RMT union's General Secretary Mick Lynch got a little flustered explaining why...
I'd have to say, to my viewing he's cool as a cucumber and if anyone is getting flustered it's Burley.
Robert Peston @Peston · 2h Political expediency and economic reality are about to collide in the most painful way for Boris Johnson and his government. It is not hyperbole to say this feels like an emergency.
How horrible is the UAE at this time of year? Can you even go out during the day? Is it possible to swim or simply too hot?
TA!
It’s horrible!
Currrently 45ºC or thereabouts, and so humid that your sunglasses steam up as you move from the air conditioning to outside.
It’s banned for people to work outside between 12:30 and 4pm.
My wife will get up at 5am to go swimming in the sea at first light, you don’t want to leave it much later.
You don’t really want to be any further south than you were in Armenia, at this time of year.
Ah, shit. At least I know now. Thanks! That was my impression - just too damn hot to do anything. And I like heat (but I don’t like 45C heat)
Have to replan. I need to get to a proper international travel hub within striking distance of Tbilisi (where I am now) to do some essential housekeeping: send luggage home, buy some kit, etc
Perhaps Istanbul or Tel Aviv…
Tehran. Unless that's too edgy for you.
I’d be there in a shot, despite lack of booze, but I need somewhere affordable connected to the world via couriers etc
Tehran is not that
DHL works in Iran. I know because my mate has a Zamyad Z24 (lucky bastard) and we had to get some bits for it to fix it after an accident.
If you get the full Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe treatment and get locked up then Fizzy Lizzy will get you out (probably) and you can write an eBay version of Man is Wolf to Man.
I really would not be visiting Teheran as someone with a British passport who writes for British newspapers, even ones as innocent as The Flint Knapper's Gazette, even if it does have DHL there.
Robert Peston @Peston · 2h Political expediency and economic reality are about to collide in the most painful way for Boris Johnson and his government. It is not hyperbole to say this feels like an emergency.
Robert Peston @Peston · 2h Political expediency and economic reality are about to collide in the most painful way for Boris Johnson and his government. It is not hyperbole to say this feels like an emergency.
‘Look, I’ll go to Rwanda but there will be absolutely no Ugandan discussions.’
Irrespective of discussions of any type, unlesws perhaps the old style "discussion" of a meal and drink one gets in old writers, did anyone suggest Rwanda as a holiday spot for Leon? It'd be interesting to see what he makes of it.
The last Kantor was a bit of an outlier giving Labour a massive 6 lead. But on the other hand the other pollsters had bigger gaps too at that time, pre vonc.
They are certainly the pollster most favourable to Tories, yet still doesn’t help them get above 34 here.
Robert Peston @Peston · 2h Political expediency and economic reality are about to collide in the most painful way for Boris Johnson and his government. It is not hyperbole to say this feels like an emergency.
69-1 for the Tories in Wakefield isn't the worst long odds bet out there I think. In for £3 on that one.
I think: a) Labour will win Wakefield, b) It will be a very disappointing result for them, with a small majority and a modest swing. c) Hope I'm wrong.
How horrible is the UAE at this time of year? Can you even go out during the day? Is it possible to swim or simply too hot?
TA!
It’s horrible!
Currrently 45ºC or thereabouts, and so humid that your sunglasses steam up as you move from the air conditioning to outside.
It’s banned for people to work outside between 12:30 and 4pm.
My wife will get up at 5am to go swimming in the sea at first light, you don’t want to leave it much later.
You don’t really want to be any further south than you were in Armenia, at this time of year.
Ah, shit. At least I know now. Thanks! That was my impression - just too damn hot to do anything. And I like heat (but I don’t like 45C heat)
Have to replan. I need to get to a proper international travel hub within striking distance of Tbilisi (where I am now) to do some essential housekeeping: send luggage home, buy some kit, etc
Perhaps Istanbul or Tel Aviv…
Tehran. Unless that's too edgy for you.
I’d be there in a shot, despite lack of booze, but I need somewhere affordable connected to the world via couriers etc
Tehran is not that
DHL works in Iran. I know because my mate has a Zamyad Z24 (lucky bastard) and we had to get some bits for it to fix it after an accident.
If you get the full Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe treatment and get locked up then Fizzy Lizzy will get you out (probably) and you can write an eBay version of Man is Wolf to Man.
I really would not be visiting Teheran as someone with a British passport who writes for British newspapers, even ones as innocent as The Flint Knapper's Gazette, even if it does have DHL there.
You're not Our Guy though. He's like a non-CIA version of Bourdain.
In my view, there's too much emphasis on the level and type of education and training, rather than on its quality. It's quality that counts. Some degrees are high quality; some are poor. Some apprenticeships are brilliant; others are terrible. We need to focus on the quality more than the subject. It doesn't actually matter too much if you're doing on-the-job training in carpentry, a basic numeracy course, or a degree in 15th C violin making.
What matters is whether the quality of what you're studying is sufficiently high to lead to rapid improvements in your ability to think, understand or do whatever it is. And that isn't focused on enough, as quality of the curriculum, teaching etc. is far too variable at all levels of education and training.
One thing which would help would be a level playing field in qualifications. No-one believes that a 2:1 in Stuff Studies from Dumpville University actually equates in worth and difficulty with a 2:1 in engineering from Imperial. So people use guesswork.
This.
I recall one politician being led down the road by an interviewer to the point of being asked if she really thought a Maths degree from Cambridge was equal to one from Southbank… Hilariously the politician tried to stick to the “all degrees are equal” bullshit.
Incidentally, the subject of the degree is not so important. With a bit of thought and will, you could make any subject intellectually challenging and rigorous. A degree on surfing could be made into a degree including literature, multiple cultures round the world, materials engineering, ecology, oceanic engineering, wave physics, sports science, human biomechanics etc etc
Not this. A maths degree from Southbank should be the same as one from Cambridge. That is why we have external examiners. If it isn't, for non-maths reasons, that is because Cambridge's higher reputation and network effects. Take Boris. He got his first job through family connections and after he was sacked, got a better one through connections made at Oxford. Does that mean an Oxford Classics degree is better than a Southbank Classics degree or might there be something else going on?
Universities don't have external examiners.
They do.
My wife is an academic. They have to get an external in to make sure their finals are up to snuff. If you do a PhD one of your viva examiners will be external.
Good, glad you explained that. Otherwise I'd be wondering what this very eminent prof from another uni was doing in my doctoral examination at all, let alone asking all sorts of annoying questions and putting his finger unerringly on what I had feared was the one weak spot in my quantitative analysis. Or why I wasted chunks of my life reading other students' more or less coherent lucubrations and then travelling across the rail network to meet them.
OK Looks like they do - but seems all written undergrad exams are internal which is very different to A-levels.
External examiners do exist even for inc ourse work - validating syllabi and marking levels - as well as finals exams. This taken at random:
Thursday's Express: "It's only fair! Rishi defends £1,000 boost to pensions"
Aha, we locked down to save them and our student loans get jacked up 11%, fuck off you twat
Pay the money you borrowed and stop whining. You either benefitted with a good job of you leave the poor to pick up your tab for years pissing it up at uni wasting pensioners hard earned pittance. Stop blaming other people for your uselessness
Are the student loans running at 11%?.... thats horrendous.
Most never pay a penny though
You over-stated your case to create board strife. Unsurprisingly.
The current pay back is 23% and expected to rise in 2023/4 to more than 50%.
Expected you dummy, bollox in other words. Bit like me expecting you to post sensible stuff in 2023, never going to happen.
What on Earth is wrong with you today? Why are you always so unspeakably rude? At his most frosty, even Leon doesn’t post in such a disgraceful manner. You’re behaving like a drunken pub boor. It is eminently reasonable for working age people to contest that an inflation indexed pensions rise (which will add significantly to national expenditure) is acceptable while they themselves are not receiving anything like that, and may be paying significant student loan repayments (the terms of which can change at a whim). If you disagree, make your arguments rather than ranting away at those who disagree.
Is there any wonder that the PB memetic pool is narrowing if this is the standard of ad-hominem argumentation which is tolerated? Do you want an echo chamber of elderly, overmonied men who just want to complain about whatever the yoof are up to now? Then there are alternatives. I started posting again because, occasionally, PB produces genuinely insightful debate in a way that only old fashioned forums do and I actually value that, even if you don’t.
Or, to TLDR all of that, I got knocked off my bike on Tuesday and it was less painful than reading your pish. Bloody well behave.
Sympathies. I'm not sure why Malcolm isn't banned, except that he's so consistently rude to almost everyone (to be fair I've not suffered myself) that people don't take it personally - it's like being abused by a drunken stranger, peculiar but not really worth worrying about.
I am surprised you are not banned for being a nasty piece of work. As you say I have never said a bad thing about you yet you want me banned. Pompous hypocritical and plain nasty.
nippy through the string vest this morning? 🙂
Good morning , started well till I encountered the fools and comic singers on here, hopefully mor eof eth intelligent posters will be around later. Convinces me to look in later on in the day when the dross and flotsam have disappeared. There are a few exceptions of course.
Irony alert. Almost certainly the least intelligent poster on PB complains about the intelligence of others. I completely agree with @NickPalmer, this bullying unpleasant and abusive little man should be hit with the ban hammer.
Malcolm is indeed a deliberately nasty persona on here: out to antagonise everyone with a bullying and abusive demeanour which some mistake for humour.
Of course he should put in the sin bin for a couple of weeks but I'm not holding my breath.
The last Kantor was a bit of an outlier giving Labour a massive 6 lead. But on the other hand the other pollsters had bigger gaps too at that time, pre vonc.
6-7% was about the average poll lead for Labour in May?
69-1 for the Tories in Wakefield isn't the worst long odds bet out there I think. In for £3 on that one.
I think: a) Labour will win Wakefield, b) It will be a very disappointing result for them, with a small majority and a modest swing. c) Hope I'm wrong.
My feeling is that Mr Herdson will keep his deposit, and take enough Tory votes to let Labour win, but that the Lab share itself won’t be much higher than the 40% they got in the GE.
Now sadly removed if it was ever indeed in wiki. Where's your sense of fun Wikipedia?
Never fuck with a man named Mick Lynch. We know this in Ireland. The Mick Lynchs this world are born without fucks to give. They have no fuck glands. Do not approach a Mick Lynch without caution. Keep your head low and let the Mick Lynch know you mean no harm. https://twitter.com/NiecyOKeeffe/status/1539335139905486849
Few people got Lynched the last few days, it seems...
Hadn't seen Lynch in action, so did a quick Google, which got me to this: https://twitter.com/KayBurley/status/1539166310227116034 posted from Kay Burley's official account Agency rail workers will be stopped at picket lines and asked not to cross. RMT union's General Secretary Mick Lynch got a little flustered explaining why...
I'd have to say, to my viewing he's cool as a cucumber and if anyone is getting flustered it's Burley.
I'd missed it all, too, before the above links.
He's a natural performer in front of a camera. Touch of the young Michael Caine/Bob Hoskins (far more than just the accent).
Comments
I recall the screaming when John Major announced that various stats on hospitals would be published - it was The End Of The NHS Part XXXXCVII. All the surgeons were going to resign, for example….
How many of the scandals uncovered since would have been successfully hidden without that?
The first step to doing something is recognising there is a difference and quantifying it.
My wife is an academic. They have to get an external in to make sure their finals are up to snuff. If you do a PhD one of your viva examiners will be external.
Polling is "brisk" I'm sure...
I could cash out now and win a stunning 87p, but I am in for the prize of a curry.
Morning by-people
Ministers are becoming increasingly concerned about the danger of looking like a government that promises the world but doesn’t deliver. ‘It’s a critique we need to be very careful about,’ admits one of them https://www.spectator.co.uk/article/british-politics-is-stuck
Travel question, maybe for @Sandpit
How horrible is the UAE at this time of year? Can you even go out during the day? Is it possible to swim or simply too hot?
TA!
Wakefield (Lab gain)
Lab 47%
Con 31%
Green 7%
Yorks 4%
LD 4%
Others 7%
T&H (Con hold)
Con 46%
LD 45%
Lab 4%
RefUk 2%
Others 3%
T&H could either way I guess, but I think there's been value in the Tories holding throughout, not that I bet any more.
Whereas Tim was just the perfect embodiment of Middle England. A comforting figure.
Big fan of both.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VVYA3oTG8fg
Currrently 45ºC or thereabouts, and so humid that your sunglasses steam up as you move from the air conditioning to outside.
It’s banned for people to work outside between 12:30 and 4pm.
My wife will get up at 5am to go swimming in the sea at first light, you don’t want to leave it much later.
You don’t really want to be any further south than you were in Armenia, at this time of year.
A white British working class single mum with a tough background. She’s Mick Lynch with a growler. She is exactly what Labour needs to seize the Red Wall and discombobulate the Tories, as any attacks on her will appear misogynist/classist
Yes OK she will lose a few snobbish petit bourgeois voters in Remainia, Labour will probably lose them anyway
Have to replan. I need to get to a proper international travel hub within striking distance of Tbilisi (where I am now) to do some essential housekeeping: send luggage home, buy some kit, etc
Perhaps Istanbul or Tel Aviv…
People fed up of their standard of living being continually chipped away at, being told they're selfish for wanting a pay rise, decent conditions at work, or even a decent standard of living.
A government completely out of touch with the reality of soaring food prices, double digit percentage rises at the pump monthly, taxes up again.
And so on, and so forth. People are fed up of it. Whatever the mood of the nation is, Mick Lynch is a lot closer to it than anyone in the Conservative party, or, apparently, the national media.
Streeting would be far better but as Starmer leads on preferred PM anyway he is going nowhere unless he is fined (but then so would Rayner be)
No doubt that Boris would no-show the election debates if she was in post though
There’s lots of indoor things to do, huge malls with theme parks and ski slopes, but everyone is trying to stay out of the sun in the summer.
Outside of the big cities the weather can be a little better, less humid, but there’s nothing to do.
That said, it’s a big city and you can get pretty much anything done here in terms of admin tasks and buying stuff - we get all the cheap Chinese tat, as well as the international brands. Getting around is easy and everysone speaks English.
Istanbul is nice, people from here are going there on holiday at the moment.
Maths is not arithmetic and yes I know you can have some more complex stuff in accountancy, but they aren't the same.
Rayner is not a Marxist traitor. And meanwhile the Tories have adopted most of Corbyn’s economic polices, but just made the policies even more left wing
It’s time we had a proper working class woman as PM. What a refreshing change it would be after all these posh/dull men
Tehran is not that
Rayner might win back a few redwall seats but she would lose seats in London, including to the LDs. In any case on current polls Labour is heading for most seats in a hung parliament under Starmer and thus winning back most of the redwall.
It is seats Cameron gained from Labour in 2010 and seats in Scotland Labour need for a majority and Rayner would have less appeal there than say Streeting. The LDs would also be more reluctant to work with her than Starmer and Streeting in a hung parliament
Tories + 10,000 @ 2-9 vs Lab in Wakefield.
I'm on the Lib Dems in Tiverton. One amusing possibility is that the LD margin of victory is greater than the Labour margin in Wakefield.
Chesham LD Maj 8,028
North Shropshire LD Maj 5,925
Erdington Lab Maj 3,266
Batley & Spen Lab Maj 326
Old Bexley Lab Maj -4,478
Hartlepool Lab Maj -6,940
Labour's by-election performances have been mediocre this parliament, the Lib Dems stunning.
Time's change, and when they do, you need to change with them. Oh, and its possible to despise something, but think the alternative is even worse.
https://www.jbs.cam.ac.uk/programmes/macc/
https://www.jbs.cam.ac.uk/programmes/master-of-finance/
Although I could understand the Lib Dems being reluctant to cooperate too closely with anybody given their dreadful experience with Cameron!
So anyone working from home who wants lower bills a better lifestyle a view of the Mediterranian and no Boris Johnson you know what to do.
In 2005 I went for the Lib-Dems (Iraq) and have voted Con in 2010, 2015, 2017 and 2019 elections (as well as NO to AV and LEAVE)
Think I have a pretty good record of picking the winning side there lol!
But it's true. I think increasingly people will change their voting patterns from election to election depending on the circumstances of the day. Someone like @HYUFD who will vote for "the party" come what may is increasingly the exception to the norm... As the old left/right divide has broken down post 1989 people are much more expendable with their votes.
Apologies. Someone has posted this earlier and better!
2 points ahead.
https://twitter.com/electionmapsuk/status/1539920064924770304?s=21&t=wSlrW4o0iJe8SVhnoC6Ksw
https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/world/revealed-tories-spending-c2-a335-million-on-controversial-voter-id-cards/ar-AAYHzp7
or any other irrational number...
As for Starmer, I'm still onboard but I do want him to unbutton his shirt and preferably his flies too. I fear he is conflating "win from the centre" with "must not on any account say something interesting."
I think this explains some of the lovefest for Mick Lynch.
Some people might be more partisan, I don't dispute that.
However we seem to have lots of spotty riffraff and nasty Tory hasbeens around nowadays where it is pointless trying to talk intelligently.
I will continue to dole out oppribrium to the riffraff and nasties.
Though the Lynch comparison is a bit off - she's smarter than many give her credit, but nowhere near as quick in arguments as he is.
If you get the full Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe treatment and get locked up then Fizzy Lizzy will get you out (probably) and you can write an eBay version of Man is Wolf to Man.
Hadn't seen Lynch in action, so did a quick Google, which got me to this:
https://twitter.com/KayBurley/status/1539166310227116034 posted from Kay Burley's official account
Agency rail workers will be stopped at picket lines and asked not to cross.
RMT union's General Secretary Mick Lynch got a little flustered explaining why...
I'd have to say, to my viewing he's cool as a cucumber and if anyone is getting flustered it's Burley.
@Peston
·
2h
Political expediency and economic reality are about to collide in the most painful way for Boris Johnson and his government. It is not hyperbole to say this feels like an emergency.
https://twitter.com/Peston/status/1539879128937234433
Is that code for "I miss being able to generate a faux emergency by allegation, as I used to do"?
They are certainly the pollster most favourable to Tories, yet still doesn’t help them get above 34 here.
a) Labour will win Wakefield,
b) It will be a very disappointing result for them, with a small majority and a modest swing.
c) Hope I'm wrong.
https://www.dmu.ac.uk/about-dmu/quality-management-and-policy/academic-quality/external-examining/external-examining-homepage.aspx
https://www.dmu.ac.uk/documents/about-dmu-documents/quality-management-and-policy/academic-quality/external-examiners/guide-external-examining-dmu.pdf
Of course he should put in the sin bin for a couple of weeks but I'm not holding my breath.
https://www.electoralcalculus.co.uk/prediction_main.html
This latest poll, giving Labour a 2% lead looks the outlier...
He's a natural performer in front of a camera. Touch of the young Michael Caine/Bob Hoskins (far more than just the accent).