The Tories have made this country so unbalanced that a working class bloke from the South who lives in London is now posh! A man who goes to football matches and occasionally goes for a drink at the pub.
But not Boris Johnson, oh no he's "one of the people". Liz Truss is from what I can tell more authentically of the people and working class but still the media and people here will call Starmer posh.
Reality check, being a Londoner doesn't make you out of touch or posh, London has working class people who need help just like the Red Wall. This country is ruined.
IMO 'poshness' is an attitude, and not a direct sign of privilege or upbringing. Starmer goes to football matches on free tickets worth ?>£1000? (and then fails to declare them in time). He is always smartly dressed. He gives the impression of being able to afford, and like, the finer things in life.
I have zero problem with any of that. But it does not connect him with the red wall. And whilst London has poor people, many of the people in the red wall see 'London' very differently. AS I know from personal experience.
This is where Rayner could help. Perhaps.
Dressing smartly is something that you will find unites a lot of people with working class roots who have gone up in the world. On the left it is something that really distinguishes the middle-class trots from those who had more humble beginnings. The latter are almost always far better turned out than the former.
I have a photo, taken apparently in the 20s, of my coal-miner grandfather and his four coal-miner brothers dressed in their Sunday best. All very smart, with suit and waistcoat!
All the old fellas in the pub when I was starting out would turn up in a suit.
The gardener I sacked for voting Leave (local celebrity:"Inbred Ted") used to mow my lawn in a tie and zip cardigan.
Disgraceful! Gardens blighted by weeds are an appalling eyesore. It's your civic duty to have a man on your staff at all times to maintain your land. What next? Sacking the cook and preparing your meals yourself with a microwave?
I watched a couple of games on BT SPORT recently (courtesy of freebies from Virgin). On both occasions, the underdogs went a goal up and shut up shop. Wasting time by falling over at the merest touch and playing dead. Embarrassing. If they were on the London underground, they'd never get off the floor.
Why can't the referees send them off. Newcastle were one of the worst culprits and complained when the referee added eight minutes extra time. He could have added an hour, and left them with two players.
No idea why football does not just stop the clock when ball goes out of play or for a player needing treament etc - no incentive to time waste then. Play 60 minutes of actual play and have a "hooter" system like rugby league.
Also make a penalty kick less decisive by increasing the yardage to say a point where only 30% are scored - combine this with penalty goals where a goal is awarded upon a foul or handball which woudl mor eor less certianly have resulted in a goal without it and you then get the right compensation for a foul in the box and stop diving
@francis_scarr Speaking at the Eastern Economic Forum in Vladivostok, Vladimir Putin insists his country "has lost nothing and will lose nothing" by invading Ukraine
He claims that the "polarisation" now taking place in the world will be "solely of benefit"
Quite shockingly insensitive to his own lost troops and their families if that's verbatim.
Does rather show that polarisation, a new cold war, may have been his principle aim. Insulates the regime by making the 'they're out to get us' stuff true.
Seem to be quite a few positive stories of Ukrainian advances across the country.
The account is saying Russia is deploying reserves to Shevchenkove to stop the advance. They say Ukrainian forces may have bypassed Volokhiv Yar and Semenivka in order to keep advancing to Shevchenkove (which is how you rapidly exploit success). 2//i> https://twitter.com/RALee85/status/1567452147364646914
I do wonder if at some point the Russians may just have a complete collapse.
During the leadership campaign, Truss promised to have a Cabinet-level Minister for the North, a promise which seems to have been broken. Perhaps Starmer could ask her why at PMQ's today.
Jake Berry?
Chair of the Tory party and Minister without portfolio. So no.
But, but isn't he the new self- appointed King of the North?
This advance in Kharkiv oblast seems to be visually confirmed, and if the UKR can hold it, significantly exposes the Russian forces around Izium to encirclement. A key cross roads.
Yep I would not have predicted that at a similar time to the advance in Kherson. Zelensky's spokesman Arestovych is starting to sound remarkably bullish. I hope he's right. Scholz is stalling on sending a hundred German tanks though. Can't think why.
So how does SKS handle PMQs. Clearly the Tories will be noisy and excited. I would imagine some choice quotes from the campaign, intertwined with some points of detail that the PM might struggle with might be the best route to dent the party. What’s her Achilles heal?
According to the polls, the public's three priorities are the energy crisis, the economy and climate change.
Liz Truss' three priorities according to her speech yesterday are the economy, the energy crisis and the NHS. And she's put Rees-Mogg in charge of climate change policy.
Attack her on climate change, and it's link to the energy crisis. Also on the general decay in the public realm, such as delays to criminal trials, created by twelve years of Tory cuts. The key thing is to tie Truss to the accumulated defects and mistakes of twelve years of Tory government, rather than allow her to present herself as [another] fresh start, not responsible for the problems inherited from the Cameron, May and Johnson governments.
The problem with the bit in bold is that delays to criminal trials are easily explained by lockdown, which Sir Keir not only supported, but wanted to be deeper and for longer.
You clearly don’t work in the law. Or read the news. The pandemic backlog is peanuts. Delays to criminal trials are caused by the Tory closure of courts, an IT system that does not work, a legal aid system that makes it more profitable for a graduate to become a Costa Coffee barista than a criminal barrister (or, indeed, solicitor)…I could go on but, hey, what would I know…I’m only a solicitor.
Criminal barristers median pay is over £80 000 after a few decades practice. They can earn over £40,000 after expenses once they are 3 years into practice.
“ Ministers say a typical criminal barrister would earn £7,000 more a year under the offer, adding that before expenses, median earnings for criminal barristers in 2019-20 were £79,800, although it admits junior barristers often earn a fraction of this.“ (my emphasis)
Median earnings for all barristers are skewed by the mega bucks earned by those at the top end not doing legal aid work. For your average joe who needs legal aid, say a postmaster falsely accused of theft by an incompetent IT system, the truth is a little less glam -
Barrister set to strike ‘earned £7,000 more per year as coffee shop barista’
Median earnings will not be skewed by megabucks earned by a few.
Mean earnings would be.
Median earnings rise over time as overall numbers of practitioners decline. But you can only get on the train if you have the resources to sustain you through the lean - and getting a lot leaner - early years.
FWIW, I agree that the criminal justice system is underfunded, and that incomes for junior criminal barristers are an absolute disgrace. When you include expenses and fees to Chambers, pretty much all junior members of the criminal bar are earning less than the minimum wage. Worse: the money can take a year or two to arrive. So your cash earnings for your first few years are likely to be way, way below what you would earn from flipping burgers.
Only when you have been a barrister for a decade, and built a private practice, will you be earning a reasonable sum. But to get there, realistically, requires financial support from somewhere - usually a reasonably well off family.
Surely that is the whole point of the policy? It is working well and keeping the oiks out?
Can someone enlighten me as to what has gone wrong with the criminal justice system?
I have done two spells of jury service, about twenty and six years ago respectively. I sat on four cases: they involved a punch-up outside a night club, a domestic argument in which someone received a small knife wound, the theft of an expensive child's push-buggy, and - the most interesting one - the handling of £51,000 in counterfeit money twenty pound notes. None of these cases appeared to have been sitting around for years waiting for a Court or anything much else before they could proceed.
Now I hear that an alleged child rapist does not have his case heard for over three years because the system is that far behind and in difficulties.
Truss did not come from some poor background. She's middle class.
As for the members of her Cabinet who are either women or from an ethnic minority, let's see how diverse they really are: -
1. Chancellor - Kwarteng - privately educated at one of the most expensive London schools, then Eton and Cambridge. Became a financial analyst in the City. Parents: barrister & economist. 2. Home Secretary - Braverman: parents: nurse & civil servant, uncle was the Mauritian High Commissioner to Britain, educated at a fee-paying school, Cambridge and the Sorbonne, a barrister. 3. FS - Cleverley: privately educated, army, then a degree in hospitality management at a polytechnic. Set up a publishing company. 4. Health - Coffey: independent Catholic school, Oxford, chemistry degree. 5. Cop26 - Sharma: independent school for his education, a physics and electronics degree from Salford. 6. International Trade - Badenoch: largely educated abroad, well connected middle class parents (a GP and Professor), studied engineering, then went into IT and banking. 7. DEFRA - Jayawardena: comprehensive education, then banking. 8. Transport - Trevelyan: private education, then accountancy and PwC 9. Culture - Donelan: state educated, politics & history degree from York then marketing. 10. Work & Pensions - Chloe Smith: state educated, English degree from York then management consultancy.
It is not really as diverse as all that. Cleverley has probably the most diverse background of those in the top 4 positions.
It is very representative of a certain slice of the English middle class. Of the wider nation - England, let alone, Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland - much less so.
Surely some mistake on Badenoch? I'd been led to believe that she'd spent most of her life flipping burgers.
I watched a couple of games on BT SPORT recently (courtesy of freebies from Virgin). On both occasions, the underdogs went a goal up and shut up shop. Wasting time by falling over at the merest touch and playing dead. Embarrassing. If they were on the London underground, they'd never get off the floor.
Why can't the referees send them off. Newcastle were one of the worst culprits and complained when the referee added eight minutes extra time. He could have added an hour, and left them with two players.
They can. (Technically they would have to caution them once for 'ungentlemanly conduct' and then again for a repeat offence, but the Laws do give them the authority to so act.) The reality is that there would be an outcry and the FA would not support any maverick ref who went against the crowd. Anyone who has ever been a ref knows this, and the principle applies to other aspects of the game too where the Laws are flouted regularly and the refs turn a blind eye - dissent and foul language spring to mind, as does all the pushing and shoving at corner-kicks which regularly escapes attention and punishment.
The root of the problem is that FA is an pawn in the hands of the Clubs, and an incompetent one at that. Twas ever thus, and I don't see it changing soon.
I watched a couple of games on BT SPORT recently (courtesy of freebies from Virgin). On both occasions, the underdogs went a goal up and shut up shop. Wasting time by falling over at the merest touch and playing dead. Embarrassing. If they were on the London underground, they'd never get off the floor.
Why can't the referees send them off. Newcastle were one of the worst culprits and complained when the referee added eight minutes extra time. He could have added an hour, and left them with two players.
No idea why football does not just stop the clock when ball goes out of play or for a player needing treament etc - no incentive to time waste then. Play 60 minutes of actual play and have a "hooter" system like rugby league.
Also make a penalty kick less decisive by increasing the yardage to say a point where only 30% are scored - combine this with penalty goals where a goal is awarded upon a foul or handball which woudl mor eor less certianly have resulted in a goal without it and you then get the right compensation for a foul in the box and stop diving
You could have a clock on throw ins too. 20 seconds to get it done or the other side gets to take it. Extended throw in palaver is a pet hate.
The Tories have made this country so unbalanced that a working class bloke from the South who lives in London is now posh! A man who goes to football matches and occasionally goes for a drink at the pub.
But not Boris Johnson, oh no he's "one of the people". Liz Truss is from what I can tell more authentically of the people and working class but still the media and people here will call Starmer posh.
Reality check, being a Londoner doesn't make you out of touch or posh, London has working class people who need help just like the Red Wall. This country is ruined.
IMO 'poshness' is an attitude, and not a direct sign of privilege or upbringing. Starmer goes to football matches on free tickets worth ?>£1000? (and then fails to declare them in time). He is always smartly dressed. He gives the impression of being able to afford, and like, the finer things in life.
I have zero problem with any of that. But it does not connect him with the red wall. And whilst London has poor people, many of the people in the red wall see 'London' very differently. AS I know from personal experience.
This is where Rayner could help. Perhaps.
Labour is currently 17 points ahead in the Red Wall.
I dont think people care whether someone is posh or not, even considering many non posh are called posh.
If they like or do not dislike someone they'll excuse poshness, if they dont like them theyll do the opposite.
This advance in Kharkiv oblast seems to be visually confirmed, and if the UKR can hold it, significantly exposes the Russian forces around Izium to encirclement. A key cross roads.
Yep I would not have predicted that at a similar time to the advance in Kherson. Zelensky's spokesman Arestovych is starting to sound remarkably bullish. I hope he's right. Scholz is stalling on sending a hundred German tanks though. Can't think why.
Given the messaging on the Russian Telegram channels, there has to be an increasing question over if (when?) we start to see mass mutiny in the Russian forces.
We need more discussion about reducing usage. I saw somewhere that Germany had cut energy (gas?) usage by 15%.
At £2,500 usage will drop significantly. The idea people will only stop using energy if we let the average bill reach £6,000 is one of the weirder bits of pb consensus wisdom.
I haven't looked in full detail at how the cap works. Is it £2500 maximum for all residential properties? If so what incentive does someone already near the cap have to reduce usage?
@francis_scarr Speaking at the Eastern Economic Forum in Vladivostok, Vladimir Putin insists his country "has lost nothing and will lose nothing" by invading Ukraine
He claims that the "polarisation" now taking place in the world will be "solely of benefit"
Quite shockingly insensitive to his own lost troops and their families if that's verbatim.
Does rather show that polarisation, a new cold war, may have been his principle aim. Insulates the regime by making the 'they're out to get us' stuff true.
Increasing signs that Erdogan is taking a leaf out of his book in the East Mediterranean, and worrying. He's been upping the threats again in the last few days, with apparently the same kind of rhetoric - the West is causing polarisation.
Did Liz Truss get into Merton College, Oxford, with only two A Levels?
Applications per place for PPE in 2021-22: 8.3.
I expect there was a third one that wasn't in the reporting?
However back in the day the system was that Oxford would do their own admissions testing 9 months before the public exams and if you passed that, you'd only have to get two Es (E being the lowest possible pass) to get your place. I think this was done to show Oxford's contempt for the public system.
Being insufferably nerdy the kids who got into Oxford nearly always got high grades like AAA or the occasional AAB. But there were always rumours of some DGIF gigachad who got the place and then put in so little effort that they only got two E grades. If Truss decided she couldn't be arsed to show up for one of the exams that would indicate very large ladyballs and Mr Putin should be careful not to offend her any more than he already has.
We also get Truss’ own A level results (presumably having been recently exhumed in Gavin Williamson’s Mum’s attic?) – she achieved an A in English, and A in Maths, a B in German and a C in Further Maths. Under her own plans, she would not have got a guaranteed interview (much less three!) and would most likely have not attended Oxford.
AAB in 1996 from a girl from a Comprehensive school -- almost every Oxbridge College would have been absolutely delighted to receive such an excellent application.
A* at A Level only started in 2010, and most folks do 3 A levels (so it seems fair to discount her worst one).
Liz Truss, whatever her politics, has done well to get where she is.
It does seem worth celebrating the *first* Comprehensive educated PM.
And for Labour, it just keeps happening. Why do these 'firsts' never happen to them?
To answer your last question, blame the voters not Labour! We put up a comprehensive-educated Oxford PPE PM candidate in 2015 and he lost to an Etonian who threatened "chaos" if we won... Judge for yourself whether the voters made the right call on that one.
A Labour win in 2015 would have looked rather like the 2017-19 parliament, so...
Truss did not come from some poor background. She's middle class.
As for the members of her Cabinet who are either women or from an ethnic minority, let's see how diverse they really are: -
1. Chancellor - Kwarteng - privately educated at one of the most expensive London schools, then Eton and Cambridge. Became a financial analyst in the City. Parents: barrister & economist. 2. Home Secretary - Braverman: parents: nurse & civil servant, uncle was the Mauritian High Commissioner to Britain, educated at a fee-paying school, Cambridge and the Sorbonne, a barrister. 3. FS - Cleverley: privately educated, army, then a degree in hospitality management at a polytechnic. Set up a publishing company. 4. Health - Coffey: independent Catholic school, Oxford, chemistry degree. 5. Cop26 - Sharma: independent school for his education, a physics and electronics degree from Salford. 6. International Trade - Badenoch: largely educated abroad, well connected middle class parents (a GP and Professor), studied engineering, then went into IT and banking. 7. DEFRA - Jayawardena: comprehensive education, then banking. 8. Transport - Trevelyan: private education, then accountancy and PwC 9. Culture - Donelan: state educated, politics & history degree from York then marketing. 10. Work & Pensions - Chloe Smith: state educated, English degree from York then management consultancy.
It is not really as diverse as all that. Cleverley has probably the most diverse background of those in the top 4 positions.
It is very representative of a certain slice of the English middle class. Of the wider nation - England, let alone, Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland - much less so.
Surely some mistake on Badenoch? I'd been led to believe that she'd spent most of her life flipping burgers.
Felt longer than it was perhaps.
Though my brother who works for McDonalds say they dont flip burgers there, the machine presses them. They theoretically can flip if it's not working though, but he's never been trusted to do so.
I watched a couple of games on BT SPORT recently (courtesy of freebies from Virgin). On both occasions, the underdogs went a goal up and shut up shop. Wasting time by falling over at the merest touch and playing dead. Embarrassing. If they were on the London underground, they'd never get off the floor.
Why can't the referees send them off. Newcastle were one of the worst culprits and complained when the referee added eight minutes extra time. He could have added an hour, and left them with two players.
They can. (Technically they would have to caution them once for 'ungentlemanly conduct' and then again for a repeat offence, but the Laws do give them the authority to so act.) The reality is that there would be an outcry and the FA would not support any maverick ref who went against the crowd. Anyone who has ever been a ref knows this, and the principle applies to other aspects of the game too where the Laws are flouted regularly and the refs turn a blind eye - dissent and foul language spring to mind, as does all the pushing and shoving at corner-kicks which regularly escapes attention and punishment.
The root of the problem is that FA is an pawn in the hands of the Clubs, and an incompetent one at that. Twas ever thus, and I don't see it changing soon.
There's also an unspoken category of fouls which draw a free kick out of the area but don't get called in the area.
We need more discussion about reducing usage. I saw somewhere that Germany had cut energy (gas?) usage by 15%.
At £2,500 usage will drop significantly. The idea people will only stop using energy if we let the average bill reach £6,000 is one of the weirder bits of pb consensus wisdom.
I haven't looked in full detail at how the cap works. Is it £2500 maximum for all residential properties? If so what incentive does someone already near the cap have to reduce usage?
The cap is for the average usage. More usage, higher bills, less usage, lower bills
During the leadership campaign, Truss promised to have a Cabinet-level Minister for the North, a promise which seems to have been broken. Perhaps Starmer could ask her why at PMQ's today.
Jake Berry?
Chair of the Tory party and Minister without portfolio. So no.
But, but isn't he the new self- appointed King of the North?
He mostly lives in North Wales I believe at one of his second homes. When not in London.
Is a couple of weeks a good timeframe to judge any poll bounce?
I want go get my Tory poll lead bet in early
I'd say two years is a good timeframe.
Swing back normally happens in election year, not before. See 2010-2015.
That's not a honeymoon bounce though is it? We want a bounce, and we want it now (over the next two months at any rate). If we don't get it, good luck with your swing back.
We need more discussion about reducing usage. I saw somewhere that Germany had cut energy (gas?) usage by 15%.
At £2,500 usage will drop significantly. The idea people will only stop using energy if we let the average bill reach £6,000 is one of the weirder bits of pb consensus wisdom.
I haven't looked in full detail at how the cap works. Is it £2500 maximum for all residential properties? If so what incentive does someone already near the cap have to reduce usage?
No, its based on average usage. So if you use double your bill will be approaching £5k (not quite that much as a mix of fixed standing charge and unit rates). There is no actual cap for a particular household.
This advance in Kharkiv oblast seems to be visually confirmed, and if the UKR can hold it, significantly exposes the Russian forces around Izium to encirclement. A key cross roads.
Yep I would not have predicted that at a similar time to the advance in Kherson. Zelensky's spokesman Arestovych is starting to sound remarkably bullish. I hope he's right. Scholz is stalling on sending a hundred German tanks though. Can't think why.
Igor Strelkov/Girkin said yesterday that the war will end in total defeat for Russia and it's only a question of when.
Seem to be quite a few positive stories of Ukrainian advances across the country.
The account is saying Russia is deploying reserves to Shevchenkove to stop the advance. They say Ukrainian forces may have bypassed Volokhiv Yar and Semenivka in order to keep advancing to Shevchenkove (which is how you rapidly exploit success). 2//i> https://twitter.com/RALee85/status/1567452147364646914
I do wonder if at some point the Russians may just have a complete collapse.
Hopefully no over extension occurs. Thus far the Ukrainians seen pretty capable, and presumably constantly plugged in to western intel.
I watched a couple of games on BT SPORT recently (courtesy of freebies from Virgin). On both occasions, the underdogs went a goal up and shut up shop. Wasting time by falling over at the merest touch and playing dead. Embarrassing. If they were on the London underground, they'd never get off the floor.
Why can't the referees send them off. Newcastle were one of the worst culprits and complained when the referee added eight minutes extra time. He could have added an hour, and left them with two players.
No idea why football does not just stop the clock when ball goes out of play or for a player needing treament etc - no incentive to time waste then. Play 60 minutes of actual play and have a "hooter" system like rugby league.
Also make a penalty kick less decisive by increasing the yardage to say a point where only 30% are scored - combine this with penalty goals where a goal is awarded upon a foul or handball which woudl mor eor less certianly have resulted in a goal without it and you then get the right compensation for a foul in the box and stop diving
You could have a clock on throw ins too. 20 seconds to get it done or the other side gets to take it. Extended throw in palaver is a pet hate.
Fairy nuff, but you gonna hand that sort of procedure to a bunch of wallies that can't even use VAR effectively?
Truss did not come from some poor background. She's middle class.
As for the members of her Cabinet who are either women or from an ethnic minority, let's see how diverse they really are: -
1. Chancellor - Kwarteng - privately educated at one of the most expensive London schools, then Eton and Cambridge. Became a financial analyst in the City. Parents: barrister & economist. 2. Home Secretary - Braverman: parents: nurse & civil servant, uncle was the Mauritian High Commissioner to Britain, educated at a fee-paying school, Cambridge and the Sorbonne, a barrister. 3. FS - Cleverley: privately educated, army, then a degree in hospitality management at a polytechnic. Set up a publishing company. 4. Health - Coffey: independent Catholic school, Oxford, chemistry degree. 5. Cop26 - Sharma: independent school for his education, a physics and electronics degree from Salford. 6. International Trade - Badenoch: largely educated abroad, well connected middle class parents (a GP and Professor), studied engineering, then went into IT and banking. 7. DEFRA - Jayawardena: comprehensive education, then banking. 8. Transport - Trevelyan: private education, then accountancy and PwC 9. Culture - Donelan: state educated, politics & history degree from York then marketing. 10. Work & Pensions - Chloe Smith: state educated, English degree from York then management consultancy.
It is not really as diverse as all that. Cleverley has probably the most diverse background of those in the top 4 positions.
It is very representative of a certain slice of the English middle class. Of the wider nation - England, let alone, Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland - much less so.
It is probably more reflective of the fact that non-white people have been able to assimilate successfully into the English middle class. Something worth celebrating but it helps reinforce an idea that social mobility/the glass ceiling is not really about race.
Class is IMO far more determinative of your chances in Britain than pretty much anything else. But it's the one that gets talked about least in diversity training courses, certainly the ones I've been on, and is a much tougher nut to crack, even if the will were there, which I often doubt.
Spot on, as any self-respecting Marxist would tell you. Race is just a distraction from class. Look at education. Who fails? White working class without cultural capital.
I watched a couple of games on BT SPORT recently (courtesy of freebies from Virgin). On both occasions, the underdogs went a goal up and shut up shop. Wasting time by falling over at the merest touch and playing dead. Embarrassing. If they were on the London underground, they'd never get off the floor.
Why can't the referees send them off. Newcastle were one of the worst culprits and complained when the referee added eight minutes extra time. He could have added an hour, and left them with two players.
No idea why football does not just stop the clock when ball goes out of play or for a player needing treament etc - no incentive to time waste then. Play 60 minutes of actual play and have a "hooter" system like rugby league.
Also make a penalty kick less decisive by increasing the yardage to say a point where only 30% are scored - combine this with penalty goals where a goal is awarded upon a foul or handball which woudl mor eor less certianly have resulted in a goal without it and you then get the right compensation for a foul in the box and stop diving
You could have a clock on throw ins too. 20 seconds to get it done or the other side gets to take it. Extended throw in palaver is a pet hate.
Surely tradition demands that this is 5 seconds if you are an underdog beating a big six team, and the 20 seconds only applies if you are a big six team already in the lead?
Truss did not come from some poor background. She's middle class.
As for the members of her Cabinet who are either women or from an ethnic minority, let's see how diverse they really are: -
1. Chancellor - Kwarteng - privately educated at one of the most expensive London schools, then Eton and Cambridge. Became a financial analyst in the City. Parents: barrister & economist. 2. Home Secretary - Braverman: parents: nurse & civil servant, uncle was the Mauritian High Commissioner to Britain, educated at a fee-paying school, Cambridge and the Sorbonne, a barrister. 3. FS - Cleverley: privately educated, army, then a degree in hospitality management at a polytechnic. Set up a publishing company. 4. Health - Coffey: independent Catholic school, Oxford, chemistry degree. 5. Cop26 - Sharma: independent school for his education, a physics and electronics degree from Salford. 6. International Trade - Badenoch: largely educated abroad, well connected middle class parents (a GP and Professor), studied engineering, then went into IT and banking. 7. DEFRA - Jayawardena: comprehensive education, then banking. 8. Transport - Trevelyan: private education, then accountancy and PwC 9. Culture - Donelan: state educated, politics & history degree from York then marketing. 10. Work & Pensions - Chloe Smith: state educated, English degree from York then management consultancy.
It is not really as diverse as all that. Cleverley has probably the most diverse background of those in the top 4 positions.
It is very representative of a certain slice of the English middle class. Of the wider nation - England, let alone, Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland - much less so.
As the old saw goes, in the USA race trumps class, in the UK class trumps race.
Truss did not come from some poor background. She's middle class.
As for the members of her Cabinet who are either women or from an ethnic minority, let's see how diverse they really are: -
1. Chancellor - Kwarteng - privately educated at one of the most expensive London schools, then Eton and Cambridge. Became a financial analyst in the City. Parents: barrister & economist. 2. Home Secretary - Braverman: parents: nurse & civil servant, uncle was the Mauritian High Commissioner to Britain, educated at a fee-paying school, Cambridge and the Sorbonne, a barrister. 3. FS - Cleverley: privately educated, army, then a degree in hospitality management at a polytechnic. Set up a publishing company. 4. Health - Coffey: independent Catholic school, Oxford, chemistry degree. 5. Cop26 - Sharma: independent school for his education, a physics and electronics degree from Salford. 6. International Trade - Badenoch: largely educated abroad, well connected middle class parents (a GP and Professor), studied engineering, then went into IT and banking. 7. DEFRA - Jayawardena: comprehensive education, then banking. 8. Transport - Trevelyan: private education, then accountancy and PwC 9. Culture - Donelan: state educated, politics & history degree from York then marketing. 10. Work & Pensions - Chloe Smith: state educated, English degree from York then management consultancy.
It is not really as diverse as all that. Cleverley has probably the most diverse background of those in the top 4 positions.
It is very representative of a certain slice of the English middle class. Of the wider nation - England, let alone, Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland - much less so.
It is probably more reflective of the fact that non-white people have been able to assimilate successfully into the English middle class. Something worth celebrating but it helps reinforce an idea that social mobility/the glass ceiling is not really about race.
Class is IMO far more determinative of your chances in Britain than pretty much anything else. But it's the one that gets talked about least in diversity training courses, certainly the ones I've been on, and is a much tougher nut to crack, even if the will were there, which I often doubt.
The whole course would be spent with people arguing over what class everyone is......
We need more discussion about reducing usage. I saw somewhere that Germany had cut energy (gas?) usage by 15%.
I think what he is missing is that the level at which price is capped is already one which has old ladies travelling on Johnson's night buses to keep warm. So doesn't do away with price discipline.
Adding the latest YouGov poll to the EMA (Exponential Moving Average) gives Labour a 11% lead and an overall majority of 30 with the proposed 2023 boundaries.
Truss did not come from some poor background. She's middle class.
As for the members of her Cabinet who are either women or from an ethnic minority, let's see how diverse they really are: -
1. Chancellor - Kwarteng - privately educated at one of the most expensive London schools, then Eton and Cambridge. Became a financial analyst in the City. Parents: barrister & economist. 2. Home Secretary - Braverman: parents: nurse & civil servant, uncle was the Mauritian High Commissioner to Britain, educated at a fee-paying school, Cambridge and the Sorbonne, a barrister. 3. FS - Cleverley: privately educated, army, then a degree in hospitality management at a polytechnic. Set up a publishing company. 4. Health - Coffey: independent Catholic school, Oxford, chemistry degree. 5. Cop26 - Sharma: independent school for his education, a physics and electronics degree from Salford. 6. International Trade - Badenoch: largely educated abroad, well connected middle class parents (a GP and Professor), studied engineering, then went into IT and banking. 7. DEFRA - Jayawardena: comprehensive education, then banking. 8. Transport - Trevelyan: private education, then accountancy and PwC 9. Culture - Donelan: state educated, politics & history degree from York then marketing. 10. Work & Pensions - Chloe Smith: state educated, English degree from York then management consultancy.
It is not really as diverse as all that. Cleverley has probably the most diverse background of those in the top 4 positions.
It is very representative of a certain slice of the English middle class. Of the wider nation - England, let alone, Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland - much less so.
It is probably more reflective of the fact that non-white people have been able to assimilate successfully into the English middle class. Something worth celebrating but it helps reinforce an idea that social mobility/the glass ceiling is not really about race.
Class is IMO far more determinative of your chances in Britain than pretty much anything else. But it's the one that gets talked about least in diversity training courses, certainly the ones I've been on, and is a much tougher nut to crack, even if the will were there, which I often doubt.
Spot on, as any self-respecting Marxist would tell you. Race is just a distraction from class. Look at education. Who fails? White working class without cultural capital.
Sometimes they have a nugget of a point, if by accident.
Tory lead of 20 points nailed on, super majority for Truss
I don't know why you are so riled up at the moment. Your party is well ahead in the polls and the Tories have put in place as PM some-one widely derided on PB. Some on here are suggesting give it time to see how she does. Thats not unreasonable. Its also not unreasonable to draw a distinction between borrowing money now, at a time of crisis over energy and what Corbyn tried to suggest in 2019. Thats not to say that borrowing to invest in infrastructure is bad - it certainly can be good, and that is what we are hoping the energy companies are doing with their vast profits. They know that fossil fuel is not the future, so that too too need to diversify.
You sometimes come across on PB as the chap on Monty Python looking for an argument.
Did Liz Truss get into Merton College, Oxford, with only two A Levels?
Applications per place for PPE in 2021-22: 8.3.
I expect there was a third one that wasn't in the reporting?
However back in the day the system was that Oxford would do their own admissions testing 9 months before the public exams and if you passed that, you'd only have to get two Es (E being the lowest possible pass) to get your place. I think this was done to show Oxford's contempt for the public system.
Being insufferably nerdy the kids who got into Oxford nearly always got high grades like AAA or the occasional AAB. But there were always rumours of some DGIF gigachad who got the place and then put in so little effort that they only got two E grades. If Truss decided she couldn't be arsed to show up for one of the exams that would indicate very large ladyballs and Mr Putin should be careful not to offend her any more than he already has.
We also get Truss’ own A level results (presumably having been recently exhumed in Gavin Williamson’s Mum’s attic?) – she achieved an A in English, and A in Maths, a B in German and a C in Further Maths. Under her own plans, she would not have got a guaranteed interview (much less three!) and would most likely have not attended Oxford.
AAB in 1996 from a girl from a Comprehensive school -- almost every Oxbridge College would have been absolutely delighted to receive such an excellent application.
A* at A Level only started in 2010, and most folks do 3 A levels (so it seems fair to discount her worst one).
Liz Truss, whatever her politics, has done well to get where she is.
It does seem worth celebrating the *first* Comprehensive educated PM.
And for Labour, it just keeps happening. Why do these 'firsts' never happen to them?
To answer your last question, blame the voters not Labour! We put up a comprehensive-educated Oxford PPE PM candidate in 2015 and he lost to an Etonian who threatened "chaos" if we won... Judge for yourself whether the voters made the right call on that one.
A Labour win in 2015 would have looked rather like the 2017-19 parliament, so...
...but without the issue of Brexit to trouble them.
I watched a couple of games on BT SPORT recently (courtesy of freebies from Virgin). On both occasions, the underdogs went a goal up and shut up shop. Wasting time by falling over at the merest touch and playing dead. Embarrassing. If they were on the London underground, they'd never get off the floor.
Why can't the referees send them off. Newcastle were one of the worst culprits and complained when the referee added eight minutes extra time. He could have added an hour, and left them with two players.
They can. (Technically they would have to caution them once for 'ungentlemanly conduct' and then again for a repeat offence, but the Laws do give them the authority to so act.) The reality is that there would be an outcry and the FA would not support any maverick ref who went against the crowd. Anyone who has ever been a ref knows this, and the principle applies to other aspects of the game too where the Laws are flouted regularly and the refs turn a blind eye - dissent and foul language spring to mind, as does all the pushing and shoving at corner-kicks which regularly escapes attention and punishment.
The root of the problem is that FA is an pawn in the hands of the Clubs, and an incompetent one at that. Twas ever thus, and I don't see it changing soon.
A couple of rules that I would change in other sports
Golf - no more practice swings (except maybe on the first tee ) - this applies from pro to club golf - I never take a practice swing and get irritated by my co-players doing so - FGS i think you are going to have 90 shots or more this round so dont take another 90 as practice. Golf is very slow as it is and this what puts a lot of people off playing. If you ban practice swings somebody will still win so everyone is still on a level playing field . oh an ban bloody rangefinders as well - as is for the normal weekend hacker knowing a distance is 175 yards as opposed to thinking its 180 yards is goign to make any difference but it uses up time and lessens an important skill of jusgement
Athletics - they really do need to look at the reaction times for false starts as its clear some legitimate starts have been called false and with the draconian penalty of no second chance they can ruin their own major events with this (not to mention ruin a dream of an athlete)
Truss did not come from some poor background. She's middle class.
As for the members of her Cabinet who are either women or from an ethnic minority, let's see how diverse they really are: -
1. Chancellor - Kwarteng - privately educated at one of the most expensive London schools, then Eton and Cambridge. Became a financial analyst in the City. Parents: barrister & economist. 2. Home Secretary - Braverman: parents: nurse & civil servant, uncle was the Mauritian High Commissioner to Britain, educated at a fee-paying school, Cambridge and the Sorbonne, a barrister. 3. FS - Cleverley: privately educated, army, then a degree in hospitality management at a polytechnic. Set up a publishing company. 4. Health - Coffey: independent Catholic school, Oxford, chemistry degree. 5. Cop26 - Sharma: independent school for his education, a physics and electronics degree from Salford. 6. International Trade - Badenoch: largely educated abroad, well connected middle class parents (a GP and Professor), studied engineering, then went into IT and banking. 7. DEFRA - Jayawardena: comprehensive education, then banking. 8. Transport - Trevelyan: private education, then accountancy and PwC 9. Culture - Donelan: state educated, politics & history degree from York then marketing. 10. Work & Pensions - Chloe Smith: state educated, English degree from York then management consultancy.
It is not really as diverse as all that. Cleverley has probably the most diverse background of those in the top 4 positions.
It is very representative of a certain slice of the English middle class. Of the wider nation - England, let alone, Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland - much less so.
It is probably more reflective of the fact that non-white people have been able to assimilate successfully into the English middle class. Something worth celebrating but it helps reinforce an idea that social mobility/the glass ceiling is not really about race.
Class is IMO far more determinative of your chances in Britain than pretty much anything else. But it's the one that gets talked about least in diversity training courses, certainly the ones I've been on, and is a much tougher nut to crack, even if the will were there, which I often doubt.
Spot on, as any self-respecting Marxist would tell you. Race is just a distraction from class. Look at education. Who fails? White working class without cultural capital.
I suspect it's a bit more complicated than that, but nonetheless:
New data - % of school pupils reaching expected standard in reading, writing, maths. British Indians replace Chinese at top while Black Africans, Asian Bangladeshis, Pakistanis, mixed race Asian all outperforming white British
I watched a couple of games on BT SPORT recently (courtesy of freebies from Virgin). On both occasions, the underdogs went a goal up and shut up shop. Wasting time by falling over at the merest touch and playing dead. Embarrassing. If they were on the London underground, they'd never get off the floor.
Why can't the referees send them off. Newcastle were one of the worst culprits and complained when the referee added eight minutes extra time. He could have added an hour, and left them with two players.
They can. (Technically they would have to caution them once for 'ungentlemanly conduct' and then again for a repeat offence, but the Laws do give them the authority to so act.) The reality is that there would be an outcry and the FA would not support any maverick ref who went against the crowd. Anyone who has ever been a ref knows this, and the principle applies to other aspects of the game too where the Laws are flouted regularly and the refs turn a blind eye - dissent and foul language spring to mind, as does all the pushing and shoving at corner-kicks which regularly escapes attention and punishment.
The root of the problem is that FA is an pawn in the hands of the Clubs, and an incompetent one at that. Twas ever thus, and I don't see it changing soon.
There's also an unspoken category of fouls which draw a free kick out of the area but don't get called in the area.
Any ref that gave them all would be giving ten pens a game.
In fact if they all applied the Laws properly the initial mayhem would soon be replaced by a fresh understanding of what is acceptable and things would revert to normal, but the authorities are never going to authorise or support such a revolutionary approach.
Truss did not come from some poor background. She's middle class.
As for the members of her Cabinet who are either women or from an ethnic minority, let's see how diverse they really are: -
1. Chancellor - Kwarteng - privately educated at one of the most expensive London schools, then Eton and Cambridge. Became a financial analyst in the City. Parents: barrister & economist. 2. Home Secretary - Braverman: parents: nurse & civil servant, uncle was the Mauritian High Commissioner to Britain, educated at a fee-paying school, Cambridge and the Sorbonne, a barrister. 3. FS - Cleverley: privately educated, army, then a degree in hospitality management at a polytechnic. Set up a publishing company. 4. Health - Coffey: independent Catholic school, Oxford, chemistry degree. 5. Cop26 - Sharma: independent school for his education, a physics and electronics degree from Salford. 6. International Trade - Badenoch: largely educated abroad, well connected middle class parents (a GP and Professor), studied engineering, then went into IT and banking. 7. DEFRA - Jayawardena: comprehensive education, then banking. 8. Transport - Trevelyan: private education, then accountancy and PwC 9. Culture - Donelan: state educated, politics & history degree from York then marketing. 10. Work & Pensions - Chloe Smith: state educated, English degree from York then management consultancy.
It is not really as diverse as all that. Cleverley has probably the most diverse background of those in the top 4 positions.
It is very representative of a certain slice of the English middle class. Of the wider nation - England, let alone, Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland - much less so.
It is probably more reflective of the fact that non-white people have been able to assimilate successfully into the English middle class. Something worth celebrating but it helps reinforce an idea that social mobility/the glass ceiling is not really about race.
Class is IMO far more determinative of your chances in Britain than pretty much anything else. But it's the one that gets talked about least in diversity training courses, certainly the ones I've been on, and is a much tougher nut to crack, even if the will were there, which I often doubt.
Spot on, as any self-respecting Marxist would tell you. Race is just a distraction from class. Look at education. Who fails? White working class without cultural capital.
Sometimes they have a nugget of a point, if by accident.
It's hardly accidental. Class relations are at the heart of all Marxist analysis, so it's central rather than accidental.
Tory lead of 20 points nailed on, super majority for Truss
I don't know why you are so riled up at the moment. Your party is well ahead in the polls and the Tories have put in place as PM some-one widely derided on PB. Some on here are suggesting give it time to see how she does. Thats not unreasonable. Its also not unreasonable to draw a distinction between borrowing money now, at a time of crisis over energy and what Corbyn tried to suggest in 2019. Thats not to say that borrowing to invest in infrastructure is bad - it certainly can be good, and that is what we are hoping the energy companies are doing with their vast profits. They know that fossil fuel is not the future, so that too too need to diversify.
You sometimes come across on PB as the chap on Monty Python looking for an argument.
No I am deadly serious, PM Truss is going to win a super majority!
We need more discussion about reducing usage. I saw somewhere that Germany had cut energy (gas?) usage by 15%.
At £2,500 usage will drop significantly. The idea people will only stop using energy if we let the average bill reach £6,000 is one of the weirder bits of pb consensus wisdom.
I haven't looked in full detail at how the cap works. Is it £2500 maximum for all residential properties? If so what incentive does someone already near the cap have to reduce usage?
No - the unit price is capped and the 2500 is what an average household would pay (3 bed semi, small family). So you can pay less than that or a lot more, but it does depend on your use too.
Adding the latest YouGov poll to the EMA (Exponential Moving Average) gives Labour a 11% lead and an overall majority of 30 with the proposed 2023 boundaries.
Yet LP still (marginally) the outsider in the Most Seats markets. I topped up at 2.02 this morning.
Adding the latest YouGov poll to the EMA (Exponential Moving Average) gives Labour a 11% lead and an overall majority of 30 with the proposed 2023 boundaries.
That is a p*** poor return on an 11% lead.
Starmer please explain!
(Although, if we were to see an 11% Labour lead I suspect the majority would be more substantial. The trouble is there won't be anything like an 11% Labour lead.)
Is a couple of weeks a good timeframe to judge any poll bounce?
I want go get my Tory poll lead bet in early
I'd say two years is a good timeframe.
Swing back normally happens in election year, not before. See 2010-2015.
That's not a honeymoon bounce though is it? We want a bounce, and we want it now (over the next two months at any rate). If we don't get it, good luck with your swing back.
Peak bounce sets in at about 3 months if we look at May/Boris. Boris went for an election, May just rode the bounce out and let idiocy deflate it in a farcically long election campaign. Swingback in 2010 and 2015 occured around 5 to 9 months out from election day and inwards. There was no real swingback in 2005.
This advance in Kharkiv oblast seems to be visually confirmed, and if the UKR can hold it, significantly exposes the Russian forces around Izium to encirclement. A key cross roads.
Yep I would not have predicted that at a similar time to the advance in Kherson. Zelensky's spokesman Arestovych is starting to sound remarkably bullish. I hope he's right. Scholz is stalling on sending a hundred German tanks though. Can't think why.
Igor Strelkov/Girkin said yesterday that the war will end in total defeat for Russia and it's only a question of when.
Which would be utterly remarkable when thinking back to conventional wisdom six months ago. Russia. Militarily weak. But with the economic clout to cause chaos. How come we were so wrong?
Truss did not come from some poor background. She's middle class.
As for the members of her Cabinet who are either women or from an ethnic minority, let's see how diverse they really are: -
1. Chancellor - Kwarteng - privately educated at one of the most expensive London schools, then Eton and Cambridge. Became a financial analyst in the City. Parents: barrister & economist. 2. Home Secretary - Braverman: parents: nurse & civil servant, uncle was the Mauritian High Commissioner to Britain, educated at a fee-paying school, Cambridge and the Sorbonne, a barrister. 3. FS - Cleverley: privately educated, army, then a degree in hospitality management at a polytechnic. Set up a publishing company. 4. Health - Coffey: independent Catholic school, Oxford, chemistry degree. 5. Cop26 - Sharma: independent school for his education, a physics and electronics degree from Salford. 6. International Trade - Badenoch: largely educated abroad, well connected middle class parents (a GP and Professor), studied engineering, then went into IT and banking. 7. DEFRA - Jayawardena: comprehensive education, then banking. 8. Transport - Trevelyan: private education, then accountancy and PwC 9. Culture - Donelan: state educated, politics & history degree from York then marketing. 10. Work & Pensions - Chloe Smith: state educated, English degree from York then management consultancy.
It is not really as diverse as all that. Cleverley has probably the most diverse background of those in the top 4 positions.
It is very representative of a certain slice of the English middle class. Of the wider nation - England, let alone, Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland - much less so.
It is probably more reflective of the fact that non-white people have been able to assimilate successfully into the English middle class. Something worth celebrating but it helps reinforce an idea that social mobility/the glass ceiling is not really about race.
Class is IMO far more determinative of your chances in Britain than pretty much anything else. But it's the one that gets talked about least in diversity training courses, certainly the ones I've been on, and is a much tougher nut to crack, even if the will were there, which I often doubt.
Get real. There is *zero* will to crack it. It is how the people in charge obtain and perpetuate their privileges. They aren't going to surrender that advantage willingly.
I watched a couple of games on BT SPORT recently (courtesy of freebies from Virgin). On both occasions, the underdogs went a goal up and shut up shop. Wasting time by falling over at the merest touch and playing dead. Embarrassing. If they were on the London underground, they'd never get off the floor.
Why can't the referees send them off. Newcastle were one of the worst culprits and complained when the referee added eight minutes extra time. He could have added an hour, and left them with two players.
They can. (Technically they would have to caution them once for 'ungentlemanly conduct' and then again for a repeat offence, but the Laws do give them the authority to so act.) The reality is that there would be an outcry and the FA would not support any maverick ref who went against the crowd. Anyone who has ever been a ref knows this, and the principle applies to other aspects of the game too where the Laws are flouted regularly and the refs turn a blind eye - dissent and foul language spring to mind, as does all the pushing and shoving at corner-kicks which regularly escapes attention and punishment.
The root of the problem is that FA is an pawn in the hands of the Clubs, and an incompetent one at that. Twas ever thus, and I don't see it changing soon.
A couple of rules that I would change in other sports
Golf - no more practice swings (except maybe on the first tee ) - this applies from pro to club golf - I never take a practice swing and get irritated by my co-players doing so - FGS i think you are going to have 90 shots or more this round so dont take another 90 as practice. Golf is very slow as it is and this what puts a lot of people off playing. If you ban practice swings somebody will still win so everyone is still on a level playing field .
Athletics - they really do need to look at the reaction times for false starts as its clear some legitimate starts have been called false and with the draconian penalty of no second chance they can ruin their own major events with this (not to mention ruin a dream of an athlete)
Tennis - remove the second serve and allow net cords on serve (if its in, its in).
Tory lead of 20 points nailed on, super majority for Truss
I don't know why you are so riled up at the moment. Your party is well ahead in the polls and the Tories have put in place as PM some-one widely derided on PB. Some on here are suggesting give it time to see how she does. Thats not unreasonable. Its also not unreasonable to draw a distinction between borrowing money now, at a time of crisis over energy and what Corbyn tried to suggest in 2019. Thats not to say that borrowing to invest in infrastructure is bad - it certainly can be good, and that is what we are hoping the energy companies are doing with their vast profits. They know that fossil fuel is not the future, so that too too need to diversify.
You sometimes come across on PB as the chap on Monty Python looking for an argument.
No I am deadly serious, PM Truss is going to win a super majority!
3 to 1 against a Tory majority on Betfair. So here's your chance.
Adding the latest YouGov poll to the EMA (Exponential Moving Average) gives Labour a 11% lead and an overall majority of 30 with the proposed 2023 boundaries.
That is a p*** poor return on an 11% lead.
Starmer please explain!
(Although, if we were to see an 11% Labour lead I suspect the majority would be more substantial. The trouble is there won't be anything like an 11% Labour lead.)
Greens at double their 2019 levels is presumably a key factor. Doubt they can achieve that.
Truss did not come from some poor background. She's middle class.
As for the members of her Cabinet who are either women or from an ethnic minority, let's see how diverse they really are: -
1. Chancellor - Kwarteng - privately educated at one of the most expensive London schools, then Eton and Cambridge. Became a financial analyst in the City. Parents: barrister & economist. 2. Home Secretary - Braverman: parents: nurse & civil servant, uncle was the Mauritian High Commissioner to Britain, educated at a fee-paying school, Cambridge and the Sorbonne, a barrister. 3. FS - Cleverley: privately educated, army, then a degree in hospitality management at a polytechnic. Set up a publishing company. 4. Health - Coffey: independent Catholic school, Oxford, chemistry degree. 5. Cop26 - Sharma: independent school for his education, a physics and electronics degree from Salford. 6. International Trade - Badenoch: largely educated abroad, well connected middle class parents (a GP and Professor), studied engineering, then went into IT and banking. 7. DEFRA - Jayawardena: comprehensive education, then banking. 8. Transport - Trevelyan: private education, then accountancy and PwC 9. Culture - Donelan: state educated, politics & history degree from York then marketing. 10. Work & Pensions - Chloe Smith: state educated, English degree from York then management consultancy.
It is not really as diverse as all that. Cleverley has probably the most diverse background of those in the top 4 positions.
It is very representative of a certain slice of the English middle class. Of the wider nation - England, let alone, Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland - much less so.
It is probably more reflective of the fact that non-white people have been able to assimilate successfully into the English middle class. Something worth celebrating but it helps reinforce an idea that social mobility/the glass ceiling is not really about race.
Class is IMO far more determinative of your chances in Britain than pretty much anything else. But it's the one that gets talked about least in diversity training courses, certainly the ones I've been on, and is a much tougher nut to crack, even if the will were there, which I often doubt.
This is true. We may have a long wait for a male, white, benefits class, single parent mother, drug addict father background who left school at 16 and comes from Millom, Whitehaven, Workington, Maryport or Barrow to reach PM, CoE, Foreign or Home Sec positions.
But there is one other point. After decades of universal free education and the massive class mobility of a lot of the 20th century much has changed.
The undiscussable point is this: innate ability, cognitive aptitude etc varies, and varies a lot. It's not all nurture. Some of it is nature. The 20th century rise of the ordinary bloke expanding the middle/lower middle class, + assortative mating may well have left a significant group of people behind in ways which can't be resolved easily.
This can be invisible to movers and shakers. But it may be there. And 'class' may be a term which is proxy for deeper things.
Tory lead of 20 points nailed on, super majority for Truss
I don't know why you are so riled up at the moment. Your party is well ahead in the polls and the Tories have put in place as PM some-one widely derided on PB. Some on here are suggesting give it time to see how she does. Thats not unreasonable. Its also not unreasonable to draw a distinction between borrowing money now, at a time of crisis over energy and what Corbyn tried to suggest in 2019. Thats not to say that borrowing to invest in infrastructure is bad - it certainly can be good, and that is what we are hoping the energy companies are doing with their vast profits. They know that fossil fuel is not the future, so that too too need to diversify.
You sometimes come across on PB as the chap on Monty Python looking for an argument.
No I am deadly serious, PM Truss is going to win a super majority!
Then you Hugo Boss Joe Lycett and I claim my 10 pounds.
Adding the latest YouGov poll to the EMA (Exponential Moving Average) gives Labour a 11% lead and an overall majority of 30 with the proposed 2023 boundaries.
That is a p*** poor return on an 11% lead.
Starmer please explain!
(Although, if we were to see an 11% Labour lead I suspect the majority would be more substantial. The trouble is there won't be anything like an 11% Labour lead.)
Greens at double their 2019 levels is presumably a key factor. Doubt they can achieve that.
As a rule of thumb add half the green total to the Labour one. This proved to be a good guide at the last couple of elections
Adding the latest YouGov poll to the EMA (Exponential Moving Average) gives Labour a 11% lead and an overall majority of 30 with the proposed 2023 boundaries.
That is a p*** poor return on an 11% lead.
Starmer please explain!
(Although, if we were to see an 11% Labour lead I suspect the majority would be more substantial. The trouble is there won't be anything like an 11% Labour lead.)
If half the Green vote goes to Labour so the Greens are on 2.8% like last time, then Labour get an 84 overall majority. Is that a good enough return?
So how does SKS handle PMQs. Clearly the Tories will be noisy and excited. I would imagine some choice quotes from the campaign, intertwined with some points of detail that the PM might struggle with might be the best route to dent the party. What’s her Achilles heal?
According to the polls, the public's three priorities are the energy crisis, the economy and climate change.
Liz Truss' three priorities according to her speech yesterday are the economy, the energy crisis and the NHS. And she's put Rees-Mogg in charge of climate change policy.
Attack her on climate change, and it's link to the energy crisis. Also on the general decay in the public realm, such as delays to criminal trials, created by twelve years of Tory cuts. The key thing is to tie Truss to the accumulated defects and mistakes of twelve years of Tory government, rather than allow her to present herself as [another] fresh start, not responsible for the problems inherited from the Cameron, May and Johnson governments.
The problem with the bit in bold is that delays to criminal trials are easily explained by lockdown, which Sir Keir not only supported, but wanted to be deeper and for longer.
You clearly don’t work in the law. Or read the news. The pandemic backlog is peanuts. Delays to criminal trials are caused by the Tory closure of courts, an IT system that does not work, a legal aid system that makes it more profitable for a graduate to become a Costa Coffee barista than a criminal barrister (or, indeed, solicitor)…I could go on but, hey, what would I know…I’m only a solicitor.
Criminal barristers median pay is over £80 000 after a few decades practice. They can earn over £40,000 after expenses once they are 3 years into practice.
“ Ministers say a typical criminal barrister would earn £7,000 more a year under the offer, adding that before expenses, median earnings for criminal barristers in 2019-20 were £79,800, although it admits junior barristers often earn a fraction of this.“ (my emphasis)
Median earnings for all barristers are skewed by the mega bucks earned by those at the top end not doing legal aid work. For your average joe who needs legal aid, say a postmaster falsely accused of theft by an incompetent IT system, the truth is a little less glam -
Barrister set to strike ‘earned £7,000 more per year as coffee shop barista’
Median earnings will not be skewed by megabucks earned by a few.
Mean earnings would be.
Median earnings rise over time as overall numbers of practitioners decline. But you can only get on the train if you have the resources to sustain you through the lean - and getting a lot leaner - early years.
FWIW, I agree that the criminal justice system is underfunded, and that incomes for junior criminal barristers are an absolute disgrace. When you include expenses and fees to Chambers, pretty much all junior members of the criminal bar are earning less than the minimum wage. Worse: the money can take a year or two to arrive. So your cash earnings for your first few years are likely to be way, way below what you would earn from flipping burgers.
Only when you have been a barrister for a decade, and built a private practice, will you be earning a reasonable sum. But to get there, realistically, requires financial support from somewhere - usually a reasonably well off family.
Surely that is the whole point of the policy? It is working well and keeping the oiks out?
Can someone enlighten me as to what has gone wrong with the criminal justice system?
I have done two spells of jury service, about twenty and six years ago respectively. I sat on four cases: they involved a punch-up outside a night club, a domestic argument in which someone received a small knife wound, the theft of an expensive child's push-buggy, and - the most interesting one - the handling of £51,000 in counterfeit money twenty pound notes. None of these cases appeared to have been sitting around for years waiting for a Court or anything much else before they could proceed.
Now I hear that an alleged child rapist does not have his case heard for over three years because the system is that far behind and in difficulties.
The Tories have made this country so unbalanced that a working class bloke from the South who lives in London is now posh! A man who goes to football matches and occasionally goes for a drink at the pub.
But not Boris Johnson, oh no he's "one of the people". Liz Truss is from what I can tell more authentically of the people and working class but still the media and people here will call Starmer posh.
Reality check, being a Londoner doesn't make you out of touch or posh, London has working class people who need help just like the Red Wall. This country is ruined.
IMO 'poshness' is an attitude, and not a direct sign of privilege or upbringing. Starmer goes to football matches on free tickets worth ?>£1000? (and then fails to declare them in time). He is always smartly dressed. He gives the impression of being able to afford, and like, the finer things in life.
I have zero problem with any of that. But it does not connect him with the red wall. And whilst London has poor people, many of the people in the red wall see 'London' very differently. AS I know from personal experience.
This is where Rayner could help. Perhaps.
Dressing smartly is something that you will find unites a lot of people with working class roots who have gone up in the world. On the left it is something that really distinguishes the middle-class trots from those who had more humble beginnings. The latter are almost always far better turned out than the former.
I have a photo, taken apparently in the 20s, of my coal-miner grandfather and his four coal-miner brothers dressed in their Sunday best. All very smart, with suit and waistcoat!
All the old fellas in the pub when I was starting out would turn up in a suit.
The gardener I sacked for voting Leave (local celebrity:"Inbred Ted") used to mow my lawn in a tie and zip cardigan.
Disgraceful! Gardens blighted by weeds are an appalling eyesore. It's your civic duty to have a man on your staff at all times to maintain your land. What next? Sacking the cook and preparing your meals yourself with a microwave?
Do most PBers expect a Tory lead by the end of the month? I'd probably say the chances are yes by 55% to 45%.
Maybe Opinium and possibly YouGov.
I am having trouble seeing past the economic chaos for the decent Conservative lead and growing over the months, that you were suggesting a few days ago.
Truss did not come from some poor background. She's middle class.
As for the members of her Cabinet who are either women or from an ethnic minority, let's see how diverse they really are: -
1. Chancellor - Kwarteng - privately educated at one of the most expensive London schools, then Eton and Cambridge. Became a financial analyst in the City. Parents: barrister & economist. 2. Home Secretary - Braverman: parents: nurse & civil servant, uncle was the Mauritian High Commissioner to Britain, educated at a fee-paying school, Cambridge and the Sorbonne, a barrister. 3. FS - Cleverley: privately educated, army, then a degree in hospitality management at a polytechnic. Set up a publishing company. 4. Health - Coffey: independent Catholic school, Oxford, chemistry degree. 5. Cop26 - Sharma: independent school for his education, a physics and electronics degree from Salford. 6. International Trade - Badenoch: largely educated abroad, well connected middle class parents (a GP and Professor), studied engineering, then went into IT and banking. 7. DEFRA - Jayawardena: comprehensive education, then banking. 8. Transport - Trevelyan: private education, then accountancy and PwC 9. Culture - Donelan: state educated, politics & history degree from York then marketing. 10. Work & Pensions - Chloe Smith: state educated, English degree from York then management consultancy.
It is not really as diverse as all that. Cleverley has probably the most diverse background of those in the top 4 positions.
It is very representative of a certain slice of the English middle class. Of the wider nation - England, let alone, Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland - much less so.
It is probably more reflective of the fact that non-white people have been able to assimilate successfully into the English middle class. Something worth celebrating but it helps reinforce an idea that social mobility/the glass ceiling is not really about race.
Class is IMO far more determinative of your chances in Britain than pretty much anything else. But it's the one that gets talked about least in diversity training courses, certainly the ones I've been on, and is a much tougher nut to crack, even if the will were there, which I often doubt.
Spot on, as any self-respecting Marxist would tell you. Race is just a distraction from class. Look at education. Who fails? White working class without cultural capital.
Sometimes they have a nugget of a point, if by accident.
It's hardly accidental. Class relations are at the heart of all Marxist analysis, so it's central rather than accidental.
Its accidental in the sense their obsession has a reasonable point even if their solutions to it are certifiable.
Do most PBers expect a Tory lead by the end of the month? I'd probably say the chances are yes by 55% to 45%.
If she reengages the Tory 2019 vote strikers she will probably get a lead in some polling, but maybs not within September. If not shes entirely reliant on fear of Labour hardening the vote into 2024 to avert disaster
Truss did not come from some poor background. She's middle class.
As for the members of her Cabinet who are either women or from an ethnic minority, let's see how diverse they really are: -
1. Chancellor - Kwarteng - privately educated at one of the most expensive London schools, then Eton and Cambridge. Became a financial analyst in the City. Parents: barrister & economist. 2. Home Secretary - Braverman: parents: nurse & civil servant, uncle was the Mauritian High Commissioner to Britain, educated at a fee-paying school, Cambridge and the Sorbonne, a barrister. 3. FS - Cleverley: privately educated, army, then a degree in hospitality management at a polytechnic. Set up a publishing company. 4. Health - Coffey: independent Catholic school, Oxford, chemistry degree. 5. Cop26 - Sharma: independent school for his education, a physics and electronics degree from Salford. 6. International Trade - Badenoch: largely educated abroad, well connected middle class parents (a GP and Professor), studied engineering, then went into IT and banking. 7. DEFRA - Jayawardena: comprehensive education, then banking. 8. Transport - Trevelyan: private education, then accountancy and PwC 9. Culture - Donelan: state educated, politics & history degree from York then marketing. 10. Work & Pensions - Chloe Smith: state educated, English degree from York then management consultancy.
It is not really as diverse as all that. Cleverley has probably the most diverse background of those in the top 4 positions.
It is very representative of a certain slice of the English middle class. Of the wider nation - England, let alone, Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland - much less so.
It is probably more reflective of the fact that non-white people have been able to assimilate successfully into the English middle class. Something worth celebrating but it helps reinforce an idea that social mobility/the glass ceiling is not really about race.
Class is IMO far more determinative of your chances in Britain than pretty much anything else. But it's the one that gets talked about least in diversity training courses, certainly the ones I've been on, and is a much tougher nut to crack, even if the will were there, which I often doubt.
This is true. We may have a long wait for a male, white, benefits class, single parent mother, drug addict father background who left school at 16 and comes from Millom, Whitehaven, Workington, Maryport or Barrow to reach PM, CoE, Foreign or Home Sec positions.
But there is one other point. After decades of universal free education and the massive class mobility of a lot of the 20th century much has changed.
The undiscussable point is this: innate ability, cognitive aptitude etc varies, and varies a lot. It's not all nurture. Some of it is nature. The 20th century rise of the ordinary bloke expanding the middle/lower middle class, + assortative mating may well have left a significant group of people behind in ways which can't be resolved easily.
This can be invisible to movers and shakers. But it may be there. And 'class' may be a term which is proxy for deeper things.
I've always believed that one of the reasons we don't get we don't get trade union leaders of the status of Ernest Bevin nowadays is that today they would've been educated rather than having to leave school at 13. Alan Johnson, I think, rather underlines the idea!
Adding the latest YouGov poll to the EMA (Exponential Moving Average) gives Labour a 11% lead and an overall majority of 30 with the proposed 2023 boundaries.
That is a p*** poor return on an 11% lead.
Starmer please explain!
(Although, if we were to see an 11% Labour lead I suspect the majority would be more substantial. The trouble is there won't be anything like an 11% Labour lead.)
If half the Green vote goes to Labour so the Greens are on 2.8% like last time, then Labour get an 84 overall majority. Is that a good enough return?
The reason Labour needs bigger poll leads than the Tories has nothing to do with Starmer. The reason is that a disproportionate part of the Labour vote is in areas where there it has such a heavy majorities. The Tory vote is spread more evenly and is therefore more efficient in securing seats
Adding the latest YouGov poll to the EMA (Exponential Moving Average) gives Labour a 11% lead and an overall majority of 30 with the proposed 2023 boundaries.
That is a p*** poor return on an 11% lead.
Starmer please explain!
(Although, if we were to see an 11% Labour lead I suspect the majority would be more substantial. The trouble is there won't be anything like an 11% Labour lead.)
If half the Green vote goes to Labour so the Greens are on 2.8% like last time, then Labour get an 84 overall majority. Is that a good enough return?
Yes, but on UNS...
Just as a matter of interest what is the "other "? Reform, Independent or what?
I happened to read the NYT today. Liz Truss’s gurning visage was on the cover and she was the top story, with a double page treatment also on Page 11.
I couldn’t really fault it. Maybe it’s the editorials that are problematic.
Since the Coalition, the NYT does seem to have a “thing” about the U.K… it appears in the opinion/in depth pieces. My American relatives noticed the difference between the reporting and what they see when they actually visit the U.K. - they are xth generation New York Democrats….
The list comic bits are when the NYT quoted “people in the street” in the U.K.
This advance in Kharkiv oblast seems to be visually confirmed, and if the UKR can hold it, significantly exposes the Russian forces around Izium to encirclement. A key cross roads.
Yep I would not have predicted that at a similar time to the advance in Kherson. Zelensky's spokesman Arestovych is starting to sound remarkably bullish. I hope he's right. Scholz is stalling on sending a hundred German tanks though. Can't think why.
Igor Strelkov/Girkin said yesterday that the war will end in total defeat for Russia and it's only a question of when.
Which would be utterly remarkable when thinking back to conventional wisdom six months ago. Russia. Militarily weak. But with the economic clout to cause chaos. How come we were so wrong?
Invading places is hard.
I like the classical historical approach was to just withdraw, scour the area of supplies, and the invader would then have to retreat.
I think the Scots outwitted the English that way many times.
I often thought a radical rule in snooker (or maybe a tournament adopting it as a difference to normal snooker) woudl be to reverse the value of the colours so that black is 2 and yellow 7 - It is a lot harder to maintain a break using a yellow than a black so should be rewarded not penalised!
I watched a couple of games on BT SPORT recently (courtesy of freebies from Virgin). On both occasions, the underdogs went a goal up and shut up shop. Wasting time by falling over at the merest touch and playing dead. Embarrassing. If they were on the London underground, they'd never get off the floor.
Why can't the referees send them off. Newcastle were one of the worst culprits and complained when the referee added eight minutes extra time. He could have added an hour, and left them with two players.
They can. (Technically they would have to caution them once for 'ungentlemanly conduct' and then again for a repeat offence, but the Laws do give them the authority to so act.) The reality is that there would be an outcry and the FA would not support any maverick ref who went against the crowd. Anyone who has ever been a ref knows this, and the principle applies to other aspects of the game too where the Laws are flouted regularly and the refs turn a blind eye - dissent and foul language spring to mind, as does all the pushing and shoving at corner-kicks which regularly escapes attention and punishment.
The root of the problem is that FA is an pawn in the hands of the Clubs, and an incompetent one at that. Twas ever thus, and I don't see it changing soon.
A couple of rules that I would change in other sports
Golf - no more practice swings (except maybe on the first tee ) - this applies from pro to club golf - I never take a practice swing and get irritated by my co-players doing so - FGS i think you are going to have 90 shots or more this round so dont take another 90 as practice. Golf is very slow as it is and this what puts a lot of people off playing. If you ban practice swings somebody will still win so everyone is still on a level playing field .
Athletics - they really do need to look at the reaction times for false starts as its clear some legitimate starts have been called false and with the draconian penalty of no second chance they can ruin their own major events with this (not to mention ruin a dream of an athlete)
Tennis - remove the second serve and allow net cords on serve (if its in, its in).
I only play a couple of times a year and my double fault % is ridiculously high already. Make it one serve only, I am never serving overarm again!
I often thought a radical rule in snooker (or maybe a tournament adopting it as a difference to normal snooker) woudl be to reverse the value of the colours so that black is 2 and yellow 7 - It is a lot harder to maintain a break using a yellow than a black so should be rewarded not penalised!
Pot the ball at a certain speed threshold and you get double.....
Cleverley has probably the most diverse background of those in the top 4 positions.
Are you using 'diverse' as a synonym for working class?
No.
Class is certainly one aspect - an important one in my view.
But I simply looked at their school and post-school education and jobs before going into politics.
Cleverly went to a polytechnic, studied something very different to many of his colleagues and set up a company. So his choices and his experiences are different to those of his colleagues in Cabinet. Whether those affect his views - and how - is another matter.
I just think that looking at whether someone is from an ethnic minority alone is a lazy way of assessing diversity. That is one factor but if such a person has very similar experiences and education as a white person then it easily becomes a comforting lie to say that an organisation is diverse when in fact the perspectives and outlook and experiences of those in it are very similar.
The reason Labour needs bigger poll leads than the Tories has nothing to do with Starmer. The reason is that a disproportionate part of the Labour vote is in areas where there it has such a heavy majorities. The Tory vote is spread more evenly and is therefore more efficient in securing seats
"Efficient" isn't necessarily the word I would choose after the anomaly has been increased by the Conservative driven boundary changes.
Did Liz Truss get into Merton College, Oxford, with only two A Levels?
Applications per place for PPE in 2021-22: 8.3.
However back in the day the system was that Oxford would do their own admissions testing 9 months before the public exams and if you passed that, you'd only have to get two Es (E being the lowest possible pass) to get your place. I think this was done to show Oxford's contempt for the public system.
No, 2 Es was to qualify for the Local Authority Grant - nothing to do with attitude to the public system. As you observe most got As.
Back in 1966 my Oxford college took more notice of my 7th term Oxford exams to offer me a place. They already knew my Maths , Physics, Chemistry A levels results: E, B, C. Whilst there I was President of Oxford University Liberal Club. I have not yet been asked to form a government.
B, C and E ?
Are you a member of the Royal Family ?
My son got the equivalent of 4A*s in the Scottish equivalent to A levels and I suspect he was not that unusual in his cohort. IIRC his offer was A*AA. This is what the great inflation has done.
Grade inflation so that everyone now gets As is mainly a consequence of adding better teaching to a simplified syllabus. Modern teaching is better informed by psychology. The syllabus in some subjects has been pared down so much that degree courses in those subjects need to run for an extra year to compensate. Whether grade inflation matters depends what exams are for, and no-one can agree on that.
Why is it not possible to give out a fixed percentage of As, Bs? Get rid of A*
A neighbouring son failed to get into Imperial. He got 3 As and an A*….
If we are using A level grades to determine university places, they should actually differentiate.
So how does SKS handle PMQs. Clearly the Tories will be noisy and excited. I would imagine some choice quotes from the campaign, intertwined with some points of detail that the PM might struggle with might be the best route to dent the party. What’s her Achilles heal?
According to the polls, the public's three priorities are the energy crisis, the economy and climate change.
Liz Truss' three priorities according to her speech yesterday are the economy, the energy crisis and the NHS. And she's put Rees-Mogg in charge of climate change policy.
Attack her on climate change, and it's link to the energy crisis. Also on the general decay in the public realm, such as delays to criminal trials, created by twelve years of Tory cuts. The key thing is to tie Truss to the accumulated defects and mistakes of twelve years of Tory government, rather than allow her to present herself as [another] fresh start, not responsible for the problems inherited from the Cameron, May and Johnson governments.
The problem with the bit in bold is that delays to criminal trials are easily explained by lockdown, which Sir Keir not only supported, but wanted to be deeper and for longer.
You clearly don’t work in the law. Or read the news. The pandemic backlog is peanuts. Delays to criminal trials are caused by the Tory closure of courts, an IT system that does not work, a legal aid system that makes it more profitable for a graduate to become a Costa Coffee barista than a criminal barrister (or, indeed, solicitor)…I could go on but, hey, what would I know…I’m only a solicitor.
Criminal barristers median pay is over £80 000 after a few decades practice. They can earn over £40,000 after expenses once they are 3 years into practice.
“ Ministers say a typical criminal barrister would earn £7,000 more a year under the offer, adding that before expenses, median earnings for criminal barristers in 2019-20 were £79,800, although it admits junior barristers often earn a fraction of this.“ (my emphasis)
Median earnings for all barristers are skewed by the mega bucks earned by those at the top end not doing legal aid work. For your average joe who needs legal aid, say a postmaster falsely accused of theft by an incompetent IT system, the truth is a little less glam -
Barrister set to strike ‘earned £7,000 more per year as coffee shop barista’
Median earnings will not be skewed by megabucks earned by a few.
Mean earnings would be.
Median earnings rise over time as overall numbers of practitioners decline. But you can only get on the train if you have the resources to sustain you through the lean - and getting a lot leaner - early years.
FWIW, I agree that the criminal justice system is underfunded, and that incomes for junior criminal barristers are an absolute disgrace. When you include expenses and fees to Chambers, pretty much all junior members of the criminal bar are earning less than the minimum wage. Worse: the money can take a year or two to arrive. So your cash earnings for your first few years are likely to be way, way below what you would earn from flipping burgers.
Only when you have been a barrister for a decade, and built a private practice, will you be earning a reasonable sum. But to get there, realistically, requires financial support from somewhere - usually a reasonably well off family.
Surely that is the whole point of the policy? It is working well and keeping the oiks out?
Can someone enlighten me as to what has gone wrong with the criminal justice system?
I have done two spells of jury service, about twenty and six years ago respectively. I sat on four cases: they involved a punch-up outside a night club, a domestic argument in which someone received a small knife wound, the theft of an expensive child's push-buggy, and - the most interesting one - the handling of £51,000 in counterfeit money twenty pound notes. None of these cases appeared to have been sitting around for years waiting for a Court or anything much else before they could proceed.
Now I hear that an alleged child rapist does not have his case heard for over three years because the system is that far behind and in difficulties.
"If “deep reading” produced democracy as its governing political form, what can we expect to see associated with its networked digital successor? As Garfinkle sees it, this would probably be toward “a less abstract, re-personalized form of social and political authority concentrated in a ‘great’ authoritarian leader”.
We may already be seeing this borne out. On this side of the pond, research by the think tank UK Onward revealed support for democratic norms falling with every generation, but then plunging sharply among those under 44. Notably, Onward’s data also show that after an authoritarian spike across the board, that coincided with Covid, every demographic has returned to more or less their previous dislike of strongman leadership — again, except those under 44.
And these trends are not just observable in Britain. Most young Western people are more authoritarian than their elders. Nor is this purely a case of young Right-wingers agitating for less immigration; young Left-wingers are also willing to steamroller democracy.
UK Onward identified always-online culture as a key factor in the longing for strongman politics. This would account for the inflection point around my generation (early 40s). I was 18 when my household went online; every generation younger than me has grown up in an increasingly digital culture. And if post-literacy is the technological and cultural water we all swim in now, this accounts for a number of emerging cultural and political phenomena."
This advance in Kharkiv oblast seems to be visually confirmed, and if the UKR can hold it, significantly exposes the Russian forces around Izium to encirclement. A key cross roads.
Yep I would not have predicted that at a similar time to the advance in Kherson. Zelensky's spokesman Arestovych is starting to sound remarkably bullish. I hope he's right. Scholz is stalling on sending a hundred German tanks though. Can't think why.
Igor Strelkov/Girkin said yesterday that the war will end in total defeat for Russia and it's only a question of when.
Which would be utterly remarkable when thinking back to conventional wisdom six months ago. Russia. Militarily weak. But with the economic clout to cause chaos. How come we were so wrong?
Invading places is hard.
I like the classical historical approach was to just withdraw, scour the area of supplies, and the invader would then have to retreat.
I think the Scots outwitted the English that way many times.
That’s because historically armies relied on foraging in order to feed themselves. So if you scoured an area of supplies, you were making that region impassable to an army of any significant size. Occasionally an army crossing central Europe would over-forage, starve out the local peasantry entirely & find themselves in the unenviable position of having no food source for their return at the end of the season.
In the modern era armies are supplied by train or by road; the way to destory an army without fighting is to cut off its transport links.
Adding the latest YouGov poll to the EMA (Exponential Moving Average) gives Labour a 11% lead and an overall majority of 30 with the proposed 2023 boundaries.
That is a p*** poor return on an 11% lead.
Starmer please explain!
(Although, if we were to see an 11% Labour lead I suspect the majority would be more substantial. The trouble is there won't be anything like an 11% Labour lead.)
Greens at double their 2019 levels is presumably a key factor. Doubt they can achieve that.
As a rule of thumb add half the green total to the Labour one. This proved to be a good guide at the last couple of elections
The most worrying thing for the Tories is that they don't seem to have as much of a potential vote to squeeze as Labour. They did with UKIP in 2015.
So how does SKS handle PMQs. Clearly the Tories will be noisy and excited. I would imagine some choice quotes from the campaign, intertwined with some points of detail that the PM might struggle with might be the best route to dent the party. What’s her Achilles heal?
According to the polls, the public's three priorities are the energy crisis, the economy and climate change.
Liz Truss' three priorities according to her speech yesterday are the economy, the energy crisis and the NHS. And she's put Rees-Mogg in charge of climate change policy.
Attack her on climate change, and it's link to the energy crisis. Also on the general decay in the public realm, such as delays to criminal trials, created by twelve years of Tory cuts. The key thing is to tie Truss to the accumulated defects and mistakes of twelve years of Tory government, rather than allow her to present herself as [another] fresh start, not responsible for the problems inherited from the Cameron, May and Johnson governments.
The problem with the bit in bold is that delays to criminal trials are easily explained by lockdown, which Sir Keir not only supported, but wanted to be deeper and for longer.
You clearly don’t work in the law. Or read the news. The pandemic backlog is peanuts. Delays to criminal trials are caused by the Tory closure of courts, an IT system that does not work, a legal aid system that makes it more profitable for a graduate to become a Costa Coffee barista than a criminal barrister (or, indeed, solicitor)…I could go on but, hey, what would I know…I’m only a solicitor.
Criminal barristers median pay is over £80 000 after a few decades practice. They can earn over £40,000 after expenses once they are 3 years into practice.
“ Ministers say a typical criminal barrister would earn £7,000 more a year under the offer, adding that before expenses, median earnings for criminal barristers in 2019-20 were £79,800, although it admits junior barristers often earn a fraction of this.“ (my emphasis)
Median earnings for all barristers are skewed by the mega bucks earned by those at the top end not doing legal aid work. For your average joe who needs legal aid, say a postmaster falsely accused of theft by an incompetent IT system, the truth is a little less glam -
Barrister set to strike ‘earned £7,000 more per year as coffee shop barista’
Median earnings will not be skewed by megabucks earned by a few.
Mean earnings would be.
Median earnings rise over time as overall numbers of practitioners decline. But you can only get on the train if you have the resources to sustain you through the lean - and getting a lot leaner - early years.
I think you'll find there's a lot of people up and down the country who would be happy with even a junior barristers wage, and don't have a lot of resources.
You might only be able to afford a humble lifestyle in those years, but that's what a lot of people live.
I am not sure that a lot of people up and down the country would be happy with an income of £12,000 or so a year. They could perhaps scrape a living on it, but that is somewhat different.
A lot of people up and down the country do indeed go to work precisely in order to earn that.
And anyone on UC earning more than that is taxed at 70% of their marginal income above that threshold.
If your argument is that isn't liveable it should be addressed for all working for that income, not just barristers.
Your contention was that people earning £12,000 a year are happy to do so. I agree that many people do have to live on it. But most of them are not happy to do so and do not have law degrees and the ability to earn a lot more if they choose to go into other areas of practice. We need barristers to work on criminal cases otherwise the system collapses.
Yes and I meant it. People up and down the country will have applied for those jobs with those wages. Some people will have been happy to have received a job with that wage.
Let's not take people or success or employment for granted.
If the number of barristers falls to the point that vacancies can't be filled then the wages offered to fill the vacancies should rise. Supply and demand.
Cleverley has probably the most diverse background of those in the top 4 positions.
Are you using 'diverse' as a synonym for working class?
No.
Class is certainly one aspect - an important one in my view.
But I simply looked at their school and post-school education and jobs before going into politics.
Cleverly went to a polytechnic, studied something very different to many of his colleagues and set up a company. So his choices and his experiences are different to those of his colleagues in Cabinet. Whether those affect his views - and how - is another matter.
I just think that looking at whether someone is from an ethnic minority alone is a lazy way of assessing diversity. That is one factor but if such a person has very similar experiences and education as a white person then it easily becomes a comforting lie to say that an organisation is diverse when in fact the perspectives and outlook and experiences of those in it are very similar.
Or the other way round. One criticism of the local Free School is that it has less children on free school meals. This apparently makes it less diverse.
This is because it has been so successful that middle class parents are choosing to send their children there, rather than to the private schools. One of which is literally next door.
The comic bit about “diversity”, is that because it is in West London, nearly no parents locally are both White British. What’s not diverse about the half Polish guy married to a Korean lady?
Truss did not come from some poor background. She's middle class.
As for the members of her Cabinet who are either women or from an ethnic minority, let's see how diverse they really are: -
1. Chancellor - Kwarteng - privately educated at one of the most expensive London schools, then Eton and Cambridge. Became a financial analyst in the City. Parents: barrister & economist. 2. Home Secretary - Braverman: parents: nurse & civil servant, uncle was the Mauritian High Commissioner to Britain, educated at a fee-paying school, Cambridge and the Sorbonne, a barrister. 3. FS - Cleverley: privately educated, army, then a degree in hospitality management at a polytechnic. Set up a publishing company. 4. Health - Coffey: independent Catholic school, Oxford, chemistry degree. 5. Cop26 - Sharma: independent school for his education, a physics and electronics degree from Salford. 6. International Trade - Badenoch: largely educated abroad, well connected middle class parents (a GP and Professor), studied engineering, then went into IT and banking. 7. DEFRA - Jayawardena: comprehensive education, then banking. 8. Transport - Trevelyan: private education, then accountancy and PwC 9. Culture - Donelan: state educated, politics & history degree from York then marketing. 10. Work & Pensions - Chloe Smith: state educated, English degree from York then management consultancy.
It is not really as diverse as all that. Cleverley has probably the most diverse background of those in the top 4 positions.
It is very representative of a certain slice of the English middle class. Of the wider nation - England, let alone, Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland - much less so.
It is probably more reflective of the fact that non-white people have been able to assimilate successfully into the English middle class. Something worth celebrating but it helps reinforce an idea that social mobility/the glass ceiling is not really about race.
Class is IMO far more determinative of your chances in Britain than pretty much anything else. But it's the one that gets talked about least in diversity training courses, certainly the ones I've been on, and is a much tougher nut to crack, even if the will were there, which I often doubt.
This is true. We may have a long wait for a male, white, benefits class, single parent mother, drug addict father background who left school at 16 and comes from Millom, Whitehaven, Workington, Maryport or Barrow to reach PM, CoE, Foreign or Home Sec positions.
But there is one other point. After decades of universal free education and the massive class mobility of a lot of the 20th century much has changed.
The undiscussable point is this: innate ability, cognitive aptitude etc varies, and varies a lot. It's not all nurture. Some of it is nature. The 20th century rise of the ordinary bloke expanding the middle/lower middle class, + assortative mating may well have left a significant group of people behind in ways which can't be resolved easily.
This can be invisible to movers and shakers. But it may be there. And 'class' may be a term which is proxy for deeper things.
I've always believed that one of the reasons we don't get we don't get trade union leaders of the status of Ernest Bevin nowadays is that today they would've been educated rather than having to leave school at 13. Alan Johnson, I think, rather underlines the idea!
That, and we overvalue grades and certain types of education and subject.
I watched a couple of games on BT SPORT recently (courtesy of freebies from Virgin). On both occasions, the underdogs went a goal up and shut up shop. Wasting time by falling over at the merest touch and playing dead. Embarrassing. If they were on the London underground, they'd never get off the floor.
Why can't the referees send them off. Newcastle were one of the worst culprits and complained when the referee added eight minutes extra time. He could have added an hour, and left them with two players.
No idea why football does not just stop the clock when ball goes out of play or for a player needing treament etc - no incentive to time waste then. Play 60 minutes of actual play and have a "hooter" system like rugby league.
Also make a penalty kick less decisive by increasing the yardage to say a point where only 30% are scored - combine this with penalty goals where a goal is awarded upon a foul or handball which woudl mor eor less certianly have resulted in a goal without it and you then get the right compensation for a foul in the box and stop diving
60 minutes with a stop-clock keeps getting mooted but AIUI, IFAB resists it because it's not easily implementable at all levels of the sport. Despite it being an obviously good idea at the professional level.
The reason Labour needs bigger poll leads than the Tories has nothing to do with Starmer. The reason is that a disproportionate part of the Labour vote is in areas where there it has such a heavy majorities. The Tory vote is spread more evenly and is therefore more efficient in securing seats
"Efficient" isn't necessarily the word I would choose after the anomaly has been increased by the Conservative driven boundary changes.
The boundary changes are neutral. Nearly everyone agrees with this apart from a few people on the fringes.
The reason Labour needs bigger poll leads than the Tories has nothing to do with Starmer. The reason is that a disproportionate part of the Labour vote is in areas where there it has such a heavy majorities. The Tory vote is spread more evenly and is therefore more efficient in securing seats
Is this not the reverse of what was seen in during the last Labour governments? What was the 2005 result - 35.2% for Blair and 32.4% for Howard (with a hefty 22% for the drunkard). Very efficient Labour votes plus damage to the Tories in the south from the Lib Dems giving a 66 seat majority.
Truss did not come from some poor background. She's middle class.
As for the members of her Cabinet who are either women or from an ethnic minority, let's see how diverse they really are: -
1. Chancellor - Kwarteng - privately educated at one of the most expensive London schools, then Eton and Cambridge. Became a financial analyst in the City. Parents: barrister & economist. 2. Home Secretary - Braverman: parents: nurse & civil servant, uncle was the Mauritian High Commissioner to Britain, educated at a fee-paying school, Cambridge and the Sorbonne, a barrister. 3. FS - Cleverley: privately educated, army, then a degree in hospitality management at a polytechnic. Set up a publishing company. 4. Health - Coffey: independent Catholic school, Oxford, chemistry degree. 5. Cop26 - Sharma: independent school for his education, a physics and electronics degree from Salford. 6. International Trade - Badenoch: largely educated abroad, well connected middle class parents (a GP and Professor), studied engineering, then went into IT and banking. 7. DEFRA - Jayawardena: comprehensive education, then banking. 8. Transport - Trevelyan: private education, then accountancy and PwC 9. Culture - Donelan: state educated, politics & history degree from York then marketing. 10. Work & Pensions - Chloe Smith: state educated, English degree from York then management consultancy.
It is not really as diverse as all that. Cleverley has probably the most diverse background of those in the top 4 positions.
It is very representative of a certain slice of the English middle class. Of the wider nation - England, let alone, Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland - much less so.
It is probably more reflective of the fact that non-white people have been able to assimilate successfully into the English middle class. Something worth celebrating but it helps reinforce an idea that social mobility/the glass ceiling is not really about race.
Class is IMO far more determinative of your chances in Britain than pretty much anything else. But it's the one that gets talked about least in diversity training courses, certainly the ones I've been on, and is a much tougher nut to crack, even if the will were there, which I often doubt.
This is true. We may have a long wait for a male, white, benefits class, single parent mother, drug addict father background who left school at 16 and comes from Millom, Whitehaven, Workington, Maryport or Barrow to reach PM, CoE, Foreign or Home Sec positions.
But there is one other point. After decades of universal free education and the massive class mobility of a lot of the 20th century much has changed.
The undiscussable point is this: innate ability, cognitive aptitude etc varies, and varies a lot. It's not all nurture. Some of it is nature. The 20th century rise of the ordinary bloke expanding the middle/lower middle class, + assortative mating may well have left a significant group of people behind in ways which can't be resolved easily.
This can be invisible to movers and shakers. But it may be there. And 'class' may be a term which is proxy for deeper things.
It may well be that some groups are left behind. But it is also possible that our society doesn't seek to understand or value what such groups do, who they are, how they live their lives and the contribution they make.
I think this may be as much of an issue as the assumption that somehow anyone who does not "get on" in an approved middle class way is somehow a "problem" to be solved.
I watched a couple of games on BT SPORT recently (courtesy of freebies from Virgin). On both occasions, the underdogs went a goal up and shut up shop. Wasting time by falling over at the merest touch and playing dead. Embarrassing. If they were on the London underground, they'd never get off the floor.
Why can't the referees send them off. Newcastle were one of the worst culprits and complained when the referee added eight minutes extra time. He could have added an hour, and left them with two players.
They can. (Technically they would have to caution them once for 'ungentlemanly conduct' and then again for a repeat offence, but the Laws do give them the authority to so act.) The reality is that there would be an outcry and the FA would not support any maverick ref who went against the crowd. Anyone who has ever been a ref knows this, and the principle applies to other aspects of the game too where the Laws are flouted regularly and the refs turn a blind eye - dissent and foul language spring to mind, as does all the pushing and shoving at corner-kicks which regularly escapes attention and punishment.
The root of the problem is that FA is an pawn in the hands of the Clubs, and an incompetent one at that. Twas ever thus, and I don't see it changing soon.
A couple of rules that I would change in other sports
Golf - no more practice swings (except maybe on the first tee ) - this applies from pro to club golf - I never take a practice swing and get irritated by my co-players doing so - FGS i think you are going to have 90 shots or more this round so dont take another 90 as practice. Golf is very slow as it is and this what puts a lot of people off playing. If you ban practice swings somebody will still win so everyone is still on a level playing field .
Athletics - they really do need to look at the reaction times for false starts as its clear some legitimate starts have been called false and with the draconian penalty of no second chance they can ruin their own major events with this (not to mention ruin a dream of an athlete)
Tennis - remove the second serve and allow net cords on serve (if its in, its in).
This advance in Kharkiv oblast seems to be visually confirmed, and if the UKR can hold it, significantly exposes the Russian forces around Izium to encirclement. A key cross roads.
Yep I would not have predicted that at a similar time to the advance in Kherson. Zelensky's spokesman Arestovych is starting to sound remarkably bullish. I hope he's right. Scholz is stalling on sending a hundred German tanks though. Can't think why.
Igor Strelkov/Girkin said yesterday that the war will end in total defeat for Russia and it's only a question of when.
Which would be utterly remarkable when thinking back to conventional wisdom six months ago. Russia. Militarily weak. But with the economic clout to cause chaos. How come we were so wrong?
Invading places is hard.
I like the classical historical approach was to just withdraw, scour the area of supplies, and the invader would then have to retreat.
I think the Scots outwitted the English that way many times.
The USSR approach in 1941 and 1942. Very effective if your country is huge. Less viable for say Poland in 1939 and France in 1940.
I watched a couple of games on BT SPORT recently (courtesy of freebies from Virgin). On both occasions, the underdogs went a goal up and shut up shop. Wasting time by falling over at the merest touch and playing dead. Embarrassing. If they were on the London underground, they'd never get off the floor.
Why can't the referees send them off. Newcastle were one of the worst culprits and complained when the referee added eight minutes extra time. He could have added an hour, and left them with two players.
They can. (Technically they would have to caution them once for 'ungentlemanly conduct' and then again for a repeat offence, but the Laws do give them the authority to so act.) The reality is that there would be an outcry and the FA would not support any maverick ref who went against the crowd. Anyone who has ever been a ref knows this, and the principle applies to other aspects of the game too where the Laws are flouted regularly and the refs turn a blind eye - dissent and foul language spring to mind, as does all the pushing and shoving at corner-kicks which regularly escapes attention and punishment.
The root of the problem is that FA is an pawn in the hands of the Clubs, and an incompetent one at that. Twas ever thus, and I don't see it changing soon.
A couple of rules that I would change in other sports
Golf - no more practice swings (except maybe on the first tee ) - this applies from pro to club golf - I never take a practice swing and get irritated by my co-players doing so - FGS i think you are going to have 90 shots or more this round so dont take another 90 as practice. Golf is very slow as it is and this what puts a lot of people off playing. If you ban practice swings somebody will still win so everyone is still on a level playing field .
Athletics - they really do need to look at the reaction times for false starts as its clear some legitimate starts have been called false and with the draconian penalty of no second chance they can ruin their own major events with this (not to mention ruin a dream of an athlete)
Tennis - remove the second serve and allow net cords on serve (if its in, its in).
Chess - change the stalemate rule so that the player with the greater material wins.
Is a couple of weeks a good timeframe to judge any poll bounce?
I want go get my Tory poll lead bet in early
I'd say two years is a good timeframe.
Swing back normally happens in election year, not before. See 2010-2015.
That's not a honeymoon bounce though is it? We want a bounce, and we want it now (over the next two months at any rate). If we don't get it, good luck with your swing back.
I couldn't care less if there's a honeymoon bounce now or not.
Truss has an opportunity, a responsibility and duty to "deliver". If she does over the next two years she might get respect, even begrudging respect, and win the election. If she doesn't, she doesn't deserve to.
The next two weeks polling is an absolutely irrelevant frippery.
Did Liz Truss get into Merton College, Oxford, with only two A Levels?
Applications per place for PPE in 2021-22: 8.3.
However back in the day the system was that Oxford would do their own admissions testing 9 months before the public exams and if you passed that, you'd only have to get two Es (E being the lowest possible pass) to get your place. I think this was done to show Oxford's contempt for the public system.
No, 2 Es was to qualify for the Local Authority Grant - nothing to do with attitude to the public system. As you observe most got As.
Back in 1966 my Oxford college took more notice of my 7th term Oxford exams to offer me a place. They already knew my Maths , Physics, Chemistry A levels results: E, B, C. Whilst there I was President of Oxford University Liberal Club. I have not yet been asked to form a government.
B, C and E ?
Are you a member of the Royal Family ?
My son got the equivalent of 4A*s in the Scottish equivalent to A levels and I suspect he was not that unusual in his cohort. IIRC his offer was A*AA. This is what the great inflation has done.
Grade inflation so that everyone now gets As is mainly a consequence of adding better teaching to a simplified syllabus. Modern teaching is better informed by psychology. The syllabus in some subjects has been pared down so much that degree courses in those subjects need to run for an extra year to compensate. Whether grade inflation matters depends what exams are for, and no-one can agree on that.
Why is it not possible to give out a fixed percentage of As, Bs? Get rid of A*
A neighbouring son failed to get into Imperial. He got 3 As and an A*….
If we are using A level grades to determine university places, they should actually differentiate.
I thought they used to.
Didn't grades move up and down a correlation coefficient line? So an E grade or above A level pass would always be attributed to say 90% of candidates and as such the pass mark would fluctuate between say 38% to 42% based on the difficulty of that year's paper.
"If “deep reading” produced democracy as its governing political form, what can we expect to see associated with its networked digital successor? As Garfinkle sees it, this would probably be toward “a less abstract, re-personalized form of social and political authority concentrated in a ‘great’ authoritarian leader”.
We may already be seeing this borne out. On this side of the pond, research by the think tank UK Onward revealed support for democratic norms falling with every generation, but then plunging sharply among those under 44. Notably, Onward’s data also show that after an authoritarian spike across the board, that coincided with Covid, every demographic has returned to more or less their previous dislike of strongman leadership — again, except those under 44.
And these trends are not just observable in Britain. Most young Western people are more authoritarian than their elders. Nor is this purely a case of young Right-wingers agitating for less immigration; young Left-wingers are also willing to steamroller democracy.
UK Onward identified always-online culture as a key factor in the longing for strongman politics. This would account for the inflection point around my generation (early 40s). I was 18 when my household went online; every generation younger than me has grown up in an increasingly digital culture. And if post-literacy is the technological and cultural water we all swim in now, this accounts for a number of emerging cultural and political phenomena."
If the current system of government is perceived to be failing your group, it is entirely unsurprising that you start to view other options more positively. If the old continue to insist on feathering their own nests at the expense of the young, then they should be unsurprised if the young regard the structures of government that allow them to do that with due skepticism.
I watched a couple of games on BT SPORT recently (courtesy of freebies from Virgin). On both occasions, the underdogs went a goal up and shut up shop. Wasting time by falling over at the merest touch and playing dead. Embarrassing. If they were on the London underground, they'd never get off the floor.
Why can't the referees send them off. Newcastle were one of the worst culprits and complained when the referee added eight minutes extra time. He could have added an hour, and left them with two players.
They can. (Technically they would have to caution them once for 'ungentlemanly conduct' and then again for a repeat offence, but the Laws do give them the authority to so act.) The reality is that there would be an outcry and the FA would not support any maverick ref who went against the crowd. Anyone who has ever been a ref knows this, and the principle applies to other aspects of the game too where the Laws are flouted regularly and the refs turn a blind eye - dissent and foul language spring to mind, as does all the pushing and shoving at corner-kicks which regularly escapes attention and punishment.
The root of the problem is that FA is an pawn in the hands of the Clubs, and an incompetent one at that. Twas ever thus, and I don't see it changing soon.
A couple of rules that I would change in other sports
Golf - no more practice swings (except maybe on the first tee ) - this applies from pro to club golf - I never take a practice swing and get irritated by my co-players doing so - FGS i think you are going to have 90 shots or more this round so dont take another 90 as practice. Golf is very slow as it is and this what puts a lot of people off playing. If you ban practice swings somebody will still win so everyone is still on a level playing field .
Athletics - they really do need to look at the reaction times for false starts as its clear some legitimate starts have been called false and with the draconian penalty of no second chance they can ruin their own major events with this (not to mention ruin a dream of an athlete)
Tennis - remove the second serve and allow net cords on serve (if its in, its in).
I only play a couple of times a year and my double fault % is ridiculously high already. Make it one serve only, I am never serving overarm again!
You would have to adapt. The game would change. I'd love to see a tournament trial of this to see how the big servers adapt. Would they continue to go for broke? Or would they have to tone down by 10%?
On net cords I don't understand why if it happens on serve its discounted (assuming its a valid serve) but during a ralley its allowed to stand. Very odd.
I watched a couple of games on BT SPORT recently (courtesy of freebies from Virgin). On both occasions, the underdogs went a goal up and shut up shop. Wasting time by falling over at the merest touch and playing dead. Embarrassing. If they were on the London underground, they'd never get off the floor.
Why can't the referees send them off. Newcastle were one of the worst culprits and complained when the referee added eight minutes extra time. He could have added an hour, and left them with two players.
They can. (Technically they would have to caution them once for 'ungentlemanly conduct' and then again for a repeat offence, but the Laws do give them the authority to so act.) The reality is that there would be an outcry and the FA would not support any maverick ref who went against the crowd. Anyone who has ever been a ref knows this, and the principle applies to other aspects of the game too where the Laws are flouted regularly and the refs turn a blind eye - dissent and foul language spring to mind, as does all the pushing and shoving at corner-kicks which regularly escapes attention and punishment.
The root of the problem is that FA is an pawn in the hands of the Clubs, and an incompetent one at that. Twas ever thus, and I don't see it changing soon.
A couple of rules that I would change in other sports
Golf - no more practice swings (except maybe on the first tee ) - this applies from pro to club golf - I never take a practice swing and get irritated by my co-players doing so - FGS i think you are going to have 90 shots or more this round so dont take another 90 as practice. Golf is very slow as it is and this what puts a lot of people off playing. If you ban practice swings somebody will still win so everyone is still on a level playing field .
Athletics - they really do need to look at the reaction times for false starts as its clear some legitimate starts have been called false and with the draconian penalty of no second chance they can ruin their own major events with this (not to mention ruin a dream of an athlete)
Tennis - remove the second serve and allow net cords on serve (if its in, its in).
Cricket: if you hit the ball you have to run
Archery: competitors fire at each other.
[For the benefit of some of our readers I should make it clear that this is a JOKE.]
Did Liz Truss get into Merton College, Oxford, with only two A Levels?
Applications per place for PPE in 2021-22: 8.3.
However back in the day the system was that Oxford would do their own admissions testing 9 months before the public exams and if you passed that, you'd only have to get two Es (E being the lowest possible pass) to get your place. I think this was done to show Oxford's contempt for the public system.
No, 2 Es was to qualify for the Local Authority Grant - nothing to do with attitude to the public system. As you observe most got As.
Back in 1966 my Oxford college took more notice of my 7th term Oxford exams to offer me a place. They already knew my Maths , Physics, Chemistry A levels results: E, B, C. Whilst there I was President of Oxford University Liberal Club. I have not yet been asked to form a government.
B, C and E ?
Are you a member of the Royal Family ?
My son got the equivalent of 4A*s in the Scottish equivalent to A levels and I suspect he was not that unusual in his cohort. IIRC his offer was A*AA. This is what the great inflation has done.
Grade inflation so that everyone now gets As is mainly a consequence of adding better teaching to a simplified syllabus. Modern teaching is better informed by psychology. The syllabus in some subjects has been pared down so much that degree courses in those subjects need to run for an extra year to compensate. Whether grade inflation matters depends what exams are for, and no-one can agree on that.
Why is it not possible to give out a fixed percentage of As, Bs? Get rid of A*
A neighbouring son failed to get into Imperial. He got 3 As and an A*….
If we are using A level grades to determine university places, they should actually differentiate.
Out of the box thinking…
A much better system would grade every 11-18 year old on 100+ metrics. On a percentage, relative to other 18year olds. Rolling assessment over time. Cover the whole gamut of education from PE to maths to public speaking to coding to basic plumbing to music.
The idea should be that all kids can show their strengths in various metrics and everybody would have weaknesses. It would be far more useful to employers/unis than the current system which is so obviously gamed by the wealthy.
I watched a couple of games on BT SPORT recently (courtesy of freebies from Virgin). On both occasions, the underdogs went a goal up and shut up shop. Wasting time by falling over at the merest touch and playing dead. Embarrassing. If they were on the London underground, they'd never get off the floor.
Why can't the referees send them off. Newcastle were one of the worst culprits and complained when the referee added eight minutes extra time. He could have added an hour, and left them with two players.
They can. (Technically they would have to caution them once for 'ungentlemanly conduct' and then again for a repeat offence, but the Laws do give them the authority to so act.) The reality is that there would be an outcry and the FA would not support any maverick ref who went against the crowd. Anyone who has ever been a ref knows this, and the principle applies to other aspects of the game too where the Laws are flouted regularly and the refs turn a blind eye - dissent and foul language spring to mind, as does all the pushing and shoving at corner-kicks which regularly escapes attention and punishment.
The root of the problem is that FA is an pawn in the hands of the Clubs, and an incompetent one at that. Twas ever thus, and I don't see it changing soon.
A couple of rules that I would change in other sports
Golf - no more practice swings (except maybe on the first tee ) - this applies from pro to club golf - I never take a practice swing and get irritated by my co-players doing so - FGS i think you are going to have 90 shots or more this round so dont take another 90 as practice. Golf is very slow as it is and this what puts a lot of people off playing. If you ban practice swings somebody will still win so everyone is still on a level playing field .
Athletics - they really do need to look at the reaction times for false starts as its clear some legitimate starts have been called false and with the draconian penalty of no second chance they can ruin their own major events with this (not to mention ruin a dream of an athlete)
Tennis - remove the second serve and allow net cords on serve (if its in, its in).
You mean "remove the first serve", of course. If there were only one serve allowed per point, the players would treat it like the current second serve not the current first serve.
Agreed on net cords but only if it's returnable. You shouldn't be able to get an ace from a net cord that lands six inches past the net.
Comments
Also make a penalty kick less decisive by increasing the yardage to say a point where only 30% are scored - combine this with penalty goals where a goal is awarded upon a foul or handball which woudl mor eor less certianly have resulted in a goal without it and you then get the right compensation for a foul in the box and stop diving
The account is saying Russia is deploying reserves to Shevchenkove to stop the advance. They say Ukrainian forces may have bypassed Volokhiv Yar and Semenivka in order to keep advancing to Shevchenkove (which is how you rapidly exploit success). 2//i>
https://twitter.com/RALee85/status/1567452147364646914
I do wonder if at some point the Russians may just have a complete collapse.
The root of the problem is that FA is an pawn in the hands of the Clubs, and an incompetent one at that. Twas ever thus, and I don't see it changing soon.
Extended throw in palaver is a pet hate.
Though my brother who works for McDonalds say they dont flip burgers there, the machine presses them. They theoretically can flip if it's not working though, but he's never been trusted to do so.
https://www.moneysavingexpert.com/utilities/what-is-the-energy-price-cap/
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M1TOXSACsuA
You sometimes come across on PB as the chap on Monty Python looking for an argument.
Golf - no more practice swings (except maybe on the first tee ) - this applies from pro to club golf - I never take a practice swing and get irritated by my co-players doing so - FGS i think you are going to have 90 shots or more this round so dont take another 90 as practice. Golf is very slow as it is and this what puts a lot of people off playing. If you ban practice swings somebody will still win so everyone is still on a level playing field . oh an ban bloody rangefinders as well - as is for the normal weekend hacker knowing a distance is 175 yards as opposed to thinking its 180 yards is goign to make any difference but it uses up time and lessens an important skill of jusgement
Athletics - they really do need to look at the reaction times for false starts as its clear some legitimate starts have been called false and with the draconian penalty of no second chance they can ruin their own major events with this (not to mention ruin a dream of an athlete)
New data - % of school pupils reaching expected standard in reading, writing, maths. British Indians replace Chinese at top while Black Africans, Asian Bangladeshis, Pakistanis, mixed race Asian all outperforming white British
https://twitter.com/GoodwinMJ/status/1567269108445597696
In fact if they all applied the Laws properly the initial mayhem would soon be replaced by a fresh understanding of what is acceptable and things would revert to normal, but the authorities are never going to authorise or support such a revolutionary approach.
Starmer please explain!
(Although, if we were to see an 11% Labour lead I suspect the majority would be more substantial. The trouble is there won't be anything like an 11% Labour lead.)
Swingback in 2010 and 2015 occured around 5 to 9 months out from election day and inwards. There was no real swingback in 2005.
Russia.
Militarily weak. But with the economic clout to cause chaos.
How come we were so wrong?
But there is one other point. After decades of universal free education and the massive class mobility of a lot of the 20th century much has changed.
The undiscussable point is this: innate ability, cognitive aptitude etc varies, and varies a lot. It's not all nurture. Some of it is nature. The 20th century rise of the ordinary bloke expanding the middle/lower middle class, + assortative mating may well have left a significant group of people behind in ways which can't be resolved easily.
This can be invisible to movers and shakers. But it may be there. And 'class' may be a term which is proxy for deeper things.
Hugo BossJoe Lycett and I claim my 10 pounds.https://twitter.com/GirkinGirkin/status/1567410161353883649
I am having trouble seeing past the economic chaos for the decent Conservative lead and growing over the months, that you were suggesting a few days ago.
Of course you may be right.
This matters. If he turns it means he is gonna mess her about.
The list comic bits are when the NYT quoted “people in the street” in the U.K.
Who just happens to speak in American idiom…
I like the classical historical approach was to just withdraw, scour the area of supplies, and the invader would then have to retreat.
I think the Scots outwitted the English that way many times.
Laurence H Tribe and Dennis Aftergut
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2022/sep/07/the-trump-special-master-ruling-violates-the-principle-that-no-one-is-above-the-law
Class is certainly one aspect - an important one in my view.
But I simply looked at their school and post-school education and jobs before going into politics.
Cleverly went to a polytechnic, studied something very different to many of his colleagues and set up a company. So his choices and his experiences are different to those of his colleagues in Cabinet. Whether those affect his views - and how - is another matter.
I just think that looking at whether someone is from an ethnic minority alone is a lazy way of assessing diversity. That is one factor but if such a person has very similar experiences and education as a white person then it easily becomes a comforting lie to say that an organisation is diverse when in fact the perspectives and outlook and experiences of those in it are very similar.
A neighbouring son failed to get into Imperial. He got 3 As and an A*….
If we are using A level grades to determine university places, they should actually differentiate.
See here - https://www2.politicalbetting.com/index.php/archives/2022/08/22/our-best-days-are-still-to-come/
https://unherd.com/2022/09/am-i-really-a-threat-to-democracy/
"If “deep reading” produced democracy as its governing political form, what can we expect to see associated with its networked digital successor? As Garfinkle sees it, this would probably be toward “a less abstract, re-personalized form of social and political authority concentrated in a ‘great’ authoritarian leader”.
We may already be seeing this borne out. On this side of the pond, research by the think tank UK Onward revealed support for democratic norms falling with every generation, but then plunging sharply among those under 44. Notably, Onward’s data also show that after an authoritarian spike across the board, that coincided with Covid, every demographic has returned to more or less their previous dislike of strongman leadership — again, except those under 44.
And these trends are not just observable in Britain. Most young Western people are more authoritarian than their elders. Nor is this purely a case of young Right-wingers agitating for less immigration; young Left-wingers are also willing to steamroller democracy.
UK Onward identified always-online culture as a key factor in the longing for strongman politics. This would account for the inflection point around my generation (early 40s). I was 18 when my household went online; every generation younger than me has grown up in an increasingly digital culture. And if post-literacy is the technological and cultural water we all swim in now, this accounts for a number of emerging cultural and political phenomena."
In the modern era armies are supplied by train or by road; the way to destory an army without fighting is to cut off its transport links.
Let's not take people or success or employment for granted.
If the number of barristers falls to the point that vacancies can't be filled then the wages offered to fill the vacancies should rise. Supply and demand.
This is because it has been so successful that middle class parents are choosing to send their children there, rather than to the private schools. One of which is literally next door.
The comic bit about “diversity”, is that because it is in West London, nearly no parents locally are both White British. What’s not diverse about the half Polish guy married to a Korean lady?
I think this may be as much of an issue as the assumption that somehow anyone who does not "get on" in an approved middle class way is somehow a "problem" to be solved.
Truss has an opportunity, a responsibility and duty to "deliver". If she does over the next two years she might get respect, even begrudging respect, and win the election. If she doesn't, she doesn't deserve to.
The next two weeks polling is an absolutely irrelevant frippery.
Didn't grades move up and down a correlation coefficient line? So an E grade or above A level pass would always be attributed to say 90% of candidates and as such the pass mark would fluctuate between say 38% to 42% based on the difficulty of that year's paper.
On net cords I don't understand why if it happens on serve its discounted (assuming its a valid serve) but during a ralley its allowed to stand. Very odd.
https://www.amazon.co.uk/New-Snobbery-David-Skelton/dp/1785906577
And commentary:
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-58186519
[For the benefit of some of our readers I should make it clear that this is a JOKE.]
A much better system would grade every 11-18 year old on 100+ metrics. On a percentage, relative to other 18year olds. Rolling assessment over time. Cover the whole gamut of education from PE to maths to public speaking to coding to basic plumbing to music.
The idea should be that all kids can show their strengths in various metrics and everybody would have weaknesses. It would be far more useful to employers/unis than the current system which is so obviously gamed by the wealthy.
Agreed on net cords but only if it's returnable. You shouldn't be able to get an ace from a net cord that lands six inches past the net.