Is there anything wrong with having a private GP? If so, why?
You would have to ask Rishi that, since he is the one who seems ashamed of it.
He had three routes with integrity. One was to use the NHS while he was a high profile politician. One was to come up with a solid explanation, as OGH has done above. The third was to not enter politics. Not choosing any of those does make him look like a worse person.
And if he had to go down this path, he should have said "personal matter" not "private matter".
I disagree - it's a trap and there is no answer that won't draw bile from those who want to be bilious.
(a) Yes, I go private - Oh, NHS not good enough for you? How the hell can you be in charge of something you don't even trust to use?
(b) Lie - get found out (as has been shown) - Why did you lie?
What's wrong with Stuartinromford's first option, not going private whilst a prominent politician? It's not as if the PM's going to struggle to get an NHS appointment if he needed one.
Because its performative nonsense, thats why. Should a politician only sit in rubbish seats at football (come on Keir, get out of that box)? Of only drive rubbish cars? And as for schooling - no more private schools for the kids. That would upset quite a few labour folk.
I don't have a problem with rich people having nicer stuff. I'm richer than most people, I live in a nice big house, drive a decent sized car, had a nice long haul holiday over Christmas etc. I'm very grateful and I pay my taxes and I don't feel bad about it. But for me things like education and health are in a different class, because these are rights and everyone should have the best quality service that the country can afford. I don't think it's right that rich people can jump the queue to get operations before other people, and I don't think that rich people's kids should get better schools than other children. And I don't trust politicians who tell us they are going to deliver the best service possible and fund it appropriately, but refuse to use it themselves. To me the two just seem contradictory and I can't trust a politician like that. Of course other people feel differently about these things, as is their right.
Pretty much my view too. With money comes all sorts of pleasures and privileges - which is fine - but what money shouldn't be able to buy is educational advantage or better essential healthcare
For me the schools point is the bigger one since the more that parental bank balance features there, the greater is the violation of the ideal of equal opportunities. So I feel more strongly about private schools than I do about private health.
The thing is Education is a public good. The better-educated the population is the better it is for society as a whole. So you'd think it would be good if people were using their own resources to increase the total amount of Education in the country. Why is it better in your eyes for someone to buy a new sports car every other year instead of pay Eton school fees?
The reason, I think, is that you've bought into the ideology of meritocracy. This means that you see private education as someone cheating in the great meritocratic struggle. The problem here isn't private education. The problem is that meritocracy is a con used to justify inequality.
It's a futile struggle to try and create a level playing field for meritocracy. Will never happen. Instead I think we should concentrate on people's right to dignity even if they don't become doctors or lawyers, and a fair share of the proceeds generated for society by Eton's education of the wealthy.
You have me wrong here, LP. I don't fetishize meritocracy. That it ends in "ocracy" is a tell. It's an oppressive notion by itself. Eg, if outcomes are grossly unequal but everyone has a meritocratic fair shot at hitting the jackpot, this isn't the End of History imo. It makes no sense to view equal opportunity in isolation from outcomes. Both are important. Plus they impact each other in either direction.
The goal for me is everyone realizes their potential, wealth of background minimized as a factor, with the material outcomes achieved to be far more closely bunched than they are today. It's an unachievable goal of course so the direction of travel is what counts in practice.
Eton v sports car? Serial fast car purchase doesn't hardcode inequality into society, propagate it down through the generations. This is the essential difference to me.
Yes it does.
If you ask the average working class man whether he could have a new sports car or send his children to learn Latin and Maths to 18 at Eton he would take the new sports car every time!
But it doesn't cascade inequality down the generations, a Porsche 911, does it? Ditto most areas of discretionary private spend. Eg I bet I'd disapprove of some of your jumpers - find them morally wrong even - but I'll be relaxed about it because there's no violation of equal opportunities or propagating of societal inequality in your sartorial choices. Unless I'm missing something.
It does if inherited.
You are assuming that because everyone can't go to Eton nobody can. Except forgetting that even if private education was banned, grammar schools were banned, academies and free schools and faith schools were banned and everyone had to send their children to the local comprehensive there would still be inequality.
For parents living in wealthier areas with more expensive houses would have better local schools than those living in poorer areas. So you would have to ban private sale of housing too and ensure everyone lived in social housing.
Yet even then would still be inequality because those of high iq would tend to marry others of high iq and those of low iq those of low iq. So the children of the former would still be much more likely to become doctors, lawyers, ceos etc. So you would have to ban marriage amongst those of the same but not average iq and force the high iq to marry the low iq to ensure genetic shift towards average iq
People don't usually inherit jumpers.
And to say that inequality is multi-sourced and inevitable isn't a strong argument in favour of something that actively increases it.
Thing is, H, this is an unbridgeable-by-debate difference in values and worldview. I'm egalitarian, meaning I have reducing inequality as a very high priority. Heart and head both tell me this. Head because I think it's illogical how resources are so unequally distributed. Heart because it upsets me that they are.
You, otoh, are a traditional tory - with all that this entails.
No you are not egalitarian, if you were you would be Communist or hardcore Socialist and support equality of outcome. If that was the case then fair enough, I might have some respect for your position even if I believed it misguided and likely to lead to more poverty overall.
Instead you are just a liberal meritocrat. Fine with capitalism as long as there is perfect equality of opportunity, except as I have shown you and was pointed out earlier that is impossible to achieve and just reduces choice and excellence in education in reality in my view too
Astonishing you are allowed to get away with:
"If you ask the average working class man whether he could have a new sports car or send his children to learn Latin and Maths to 18 at Eton he would take the new sports car every time!" Have you met anyone working class?
Plenty and I stand by my comment in terms of most of them
And presumably they would all slap er indoors about a bit if she dared to advance her own opinion.
No but if you really want to believe the average working class male in this country would turn down a new sports car in favour of sending their child to learn Latin at Eton that is up to you
Would the average middle class male?
The average graduate upper middle class male would likely choose Eton over a new sports car, it is just reality
I don't think they would. I think the average graduate upper middle class male would choose to have their kids in their family home, than in a boarding school.
I think the latter is a very niche preference.
Also, five years at Eton costs £225k which is a lot more the cost of a sports car.
You said sports car, not super car. Most sports car cost nothing like that. You may remember I am looking to buy a Panther Kallista. I'm looking to spend about £15,000.
Is goal-post shifting an Olympic sport?
IF so, then think we can nominate a super-qualified PBer for the next UK Olympic squad?
Is there anything wrong with having a private GP? If so, why?
You would have to ask Rishi that, since he is the one who seems ashamed of it.
He had three routes with integrity. One was to use the NHS while he was a high profile politician. One was to come up with a solid explanation, as OGH has done above. The third was to not enter politics. Not choosing any of those does make him look like a worse person.
And if he had to go down this path, he should have said "personal matter" not "private matter".
I disagree - it's a trap and there is no answer that won't draw bile from those who want to be bilious.
(a) Yes, I go private - Oh, NHS not good enough for you? How the hell can you be in charge of something you don't even trust to use?
(b) Lie - get found out (as has been shown) - Why did you lie?
What's wrong with Stuartinromford's first option, not going private whilst a prominent politician? It's not as if the PM's going to struggle to get an NHS appointment if he needed one.
Because its performative nonsense, thats why. Should a politician only sit in rubbish seats at football (come on Keir, get out of that box)? Of only drive rubbish cars? And as for schooling - no more private schools for the kids. That would upset quite a few labour folk.
I don't have a problem with rich people having nicer stuff. I'm richer than most people, I live in a nice big house, drive a decent sized car, had a nice long haul holiday over Christmas etc. I'm very grateful and I pay my taxes and I don't feel bad about it. But for me things like education and health are in a different class, because these are rights and everyone should have the best quality service that the country can afford. I don't think it's right that rich people can jump the queue to get operations before other people, and I don't think that rich people's kids should get better schools than other children. And I don't trust politicians who tell us they are going to deliver the best service possible and fund it appropriately, but refuse to use it themselves. To me the two just seem contradictory and I can't trust a politician like that. Of course other people feel differently about these things, as is their right.
Pretty much my view too. With money comes all sorts of pleasures and privileges - which is fine - but what money shouldn't be able to buy is educational advantage or better essential healthcare
For me the schools point is the bigger one since the more that parental bank balance features there, the greater is the violation of the ideal of equal opportunities. So I feel more strongly about private schools than I do about private health.
The thing is Education is a public good. The better-educated the population is the better it is for society as a whole. So you'd think it would be good if people were using their own resources to increase the total amount of Education in the country. Why is it better in your eyes for someone to buy a new sports car every other year instead of pay Eton school fees?
The reason, I think, is that you've bought into the ideology of meritocracy. This means that you see private education as someone cheating in the great meritocratic struggle. The problem here isn't private education. The problem is that meritocracy is a con used to justify inequality.
It's a futile struggle to try and create a level playing field for meritocracy. Will never happen. Instead I think we should concentrate on people's right to dignity even if they don't become doctors or lawyers, and a fair share of the proceeds generated for society by Eton's education of the wealthy.
You have me wrong here, LP. I don't fetishize meritocracy. That it ends in "ocracy" is a tell. It's an oppressive notion by itself. Eg, if outcomes are grossly unequal but everyone has a meritocratic fair shot at hitting the jackpot, this isn't the End of History imo. It makes no sense to view equal opportunity in isolation from outcomes. Both are important. Plus they impact each other in either direction.
The goal for me is everyone realizes their potential, wealth of background minimized as a factor, with the material outcomes achieved to be far more closely bunched than they are today. It's an unachievable goal of course so the direction of travel is what counts in practice.
Eton v sports car? Serial fast car purchase doesn't hardcode inequality into society, propagate it down through the generations. This is the essential difference to me.
Yes it does.
If you ask the average working class man whether he could have a new sports car or send his children to learn Latin and Maths to 18 at Eton he would take the new sports car every time!
But it doesn't cascade inequality down the generations, a Porsche 911, does it? Ditto most areas of discretionary private spend. Eg I bet I'd disapprove of some of your jumpers - find them morally wrong even - but I'll be relaxed about it because there's no violation of equal opportunities or propagating of societal inequality in your sartorial choices. Unless I'm missing something.
It does if inherited.
You are assuming that because everyone can't go to Eton nobody can. Except forgetting that even if private education was banned, grammar schools were banned, academies and free schools and faith schools were banned and everyone had to send their children to the local comprehensive there would still be inequality.
For parents living in wealthier areas with more expensive houses would have better local schools than those living in poorer areas. So you would have to ban private sale of housing too and ensure everyone lived in social housing.
Yet even then would still be inequality because those of high iq would tend to marry others of high iq and those of low iq those of low iq. So the children of the former would still be much more likely to become doctors, lawyers, ceos etc. So you would have to ban marriage amongst those of the same but not average iq and force the high iq to marry the low iq to ensure genetic shift towards average iq
People don't usually inherit jumpers.
And to say that inequality is multi-sourced and inevitable isn't a strong argument in favour of something that actively increases it.
Thing is, H, this is an unbridgeable-by-debate difference in values and worldview. I'm egalitarian, meaning I have reducing inequality as a very high priority. Heart and head both tell me this. Head because I think it's illogical how resources are so unequally distributed. Heart because it upsets me that they are.
You, otoh, are a traditional tory - with all that this entails.
No you are not egalitarian, if you were you would be Communist or hardcore Socialist and support equality of outcome. If that was the case then fair enough, I might have some respect for your position even if I believed it misguided and likely to lead to more poverty overall.
Instead you are just a liberal meritocrat. Fine with capitalism as long as there is perfect equality of opportunity, except as I have shown you and was pointed out earlier that is impossible to achieve and just reduces choice and excellence in education in reality in my view too
Astonishing you are allowed to get away with:
"If you ask the average working class man whether he could have a new sports car or send his children to learn Latin and Maths to 18 at Eton he would take the new sports car every time!" Have you met anyone working class?
Plenty and I stand by my comment in terms of most of them
And presumably they would all slap er indoors about a bit if she dared to advance her own opinion.
No but if you really want to believe the average working class male in this country would turn down a new sports car in favour of sending their child to learn Latin at Eton that is up to you
Would the average middle class male?
Good point. There may be evidence out there to the contrary but I assume that regardless of class what you do or don't do for your sprogs is limited mainly by your financial circumstances. I suppose there might be some more unwanted kids in working class families who come lower down the pegging order than a new sports car, but it is not a very nice view hyufd has of the plebs (gets pay packet on Friday and goes straight down the bookies and the pub)
I take the other viewpoint, that my kids come higher up the pecking order than sending them to a boarding school where they won't live with the family.
Forced choice for my kids I would choose: Sports car (because why not), then no car at all, then Eton at the bottom of the list. Not because I don't rate my kids, but because I do, and I want them at home with me not shipped away to a boarding school unnecessarily.
My comment was really about @hyufd looking down on the working class.
I stopped reading when he started relying on the pseudoscientific garbage that is "IQ".
If anyone is in need of a celebrity to enlighten them, Nassim Taleb, author of "The Black Swan", may do the job:
As for boarding school and sports cars, most people who didn't go to boarding school have little clue what it's like. Men who went there and who then send their sons there are filth. It's not like a sports car which you can imagine driving with some reasonable degree of realism even if you've never driven one.
Well if you believe the child of 2 Oxbridge science or law graduates will have the same IQ as the child of 2 parents who failed their GCSEs, fine
There are plenty of idiot children of brilliant parents, and plenty of brilliant children of idiots.
You are simply more likely to be smart if your parents are smart, and vice versa.
So, it's open market in body parts with Bart, sports cars vs private schools with Hyufd, or gender transition - hmmm, ok it has to be trans.
I support the self-id reform. I don't see why it would lead to predatory behaviour - compared to the current system - and this is not the experience of the several countries in all parts of the world who have adopted it. IMO it will make the lives of trans people easier without damaging anybody else.
Then the interaction with the Equalities Act. At present you can have single sex spaces where it's a "proportionate means to achieve a legitimate end". I think this is important and necessary. The default should be trans inclusion but not for everything. Sports, prisons are most cited and for good reason. This point of law is being worked through in Scotland, I believe. Eg arguments around the Haldane judgement.
Is there anything wrong with having a private GP? If so, why?
You would have to ask Rishi that, since he is the one who seems ashamed of it.
He had three routes with integrity. One was to use the NHS while he was a high profile politician. One was to come up with a solid explanation, as OGH has done above. The third was to not enter politics. Not choosing any of those does make him look like a worse person.
And if he had to go down this path, he should have said "personal matter" not "private matter".
I disagree - it's a trap and there is no answer that won't draw bile from those who want to be bilious.
(a) Yes, I go private - Oh, NHS not good enough for you? How the hell can you be in charge of something you don't even trust to use?
(b) Lie - get found out (as has been shown) - Why did you lie?
What's wrong with Stuartinromford's first option, not going private whilst a prominent politician? It's not as if the PM's going to struggle to get an NHS appointment if he needed one.
Because its performative nonsense, thats why. Should a politician only sit in rubbish seats at football (come on Keir, get out of that box)? Of only drive rubbish cars? And as for schooling - no more private schools for the kids. That would upset quite a few labour folk.
I don't have a problem with rich people having nicer stuff. I'm richer than most people, I live in a nice big house, drive a decent sized car, had a nice long haul holiday over Christmas etc. I'm very grateful and I pay my taxes and I don't feel bad about it. But for me things like education and health are in a different class, because these are rights and everyone should have the best quality service that the country can afford. I don't think it's right that rich people can jump the queue to get operations before other people, and I don't think that rich people's kids should get better schools than other children. And I don't trust politicians who tell us they are going to deliver the best service possible and fund it appropriately, but refuse to use it themselves. To me the two just seem contradictory and I can't trust a politician like that. Of course other people feel differently about these things, as is their right.
Pretty much my view too. With money comes all sorts of pleasures and privileges - which is fine - but what money shouldn't be able to buy is educational advantage or better essential healthcare
For me the schools point is the bigger one since the more that parental bank balance features there, the greater is the violation of the ideal of equal opportunities. So I feel more strongly about private schools than I do about private health.
The thing is Education is a public good. The better-educated the population is the better it is for society as a whole. So you'd think it would be good if people were using their own resources to increase the total amount of Education in the country. Why is it better in your eyes for someone to buy a new sports car every other year instead of pay Eton school fees?
The reason, I think, is that you've bought into the ideology of meritocracy. This means that you see private education as someone cheating in the great meritocratic struggle. The problem here isn't private education. The problem is that meritocracy is a con used to justify inequality.
It's a futile struggle to try and create a level playing field for meritocracy. Will never happen. Instead I think we should concentrate on people's right to dignity even if they don't become doctors or lawyers, and a fair share of the proceeds generated for society by Eton's education of the wealthy.
You have me wrong here, LP. I don't fetishize meritocracy. That it ends in "ocracy" is a tell. It's an oppressive notion by itself. Eg, if outcomes are grossly unequal but everyone has a meritocratic fair shot at hitting the jackpot, this isn't the End of History imo. It makes no sense to view equal opportunity in isolation from outcomes. Both are important. Plus they impact each other in either direction.
The goal for me is everyone realizes their potential, wealth of background minimized as a factor, with the material outcomes achieved to be far more closely bunched than they are today. It's an unachievable goal of course so the direction of travel is what counts in practice.
Eton v sports car? Serial fast car purchase doesn't hardcode inequality into society, propagate it down through the generations. This is the essential difference to me.
Yes it does.
If you ask the average working class man whether he could have a new sports car or send his children to learn Latin and Maths to 18 at Eton he would take the new sports car every time!
But it doesn't cascade inequality down the generations, a Porsche 911, does it? Ditto most areas of discretionary private spend. Eg I bet I'd disapprove of some of your jumpers - find them morally wrong even - but I'll be relaxed about it because there's no violation of equal opportunities or propagating of societal inequality in your sartorial choices. Unless I'm missing something.
It does if inherited.
You are assuming that because everyone can't go to Eton nobody can. Except forgetting that even if private education was banned, grammar schools were banned, academies and free schools and faith schools were banned and everyone had to send their children to the local comprehensive there would still be inequality.
For parents living in wealthier areas with more expensive houses would have better local schools than those living in poorer areas. So you would have to ban private sale of housing too and ensure everyone lived in social housing.
Yet even then would still be inequality because those of high iq would tend to marry others of high iq and those of low iq those of low iq. So the children of the former would still be much more likely to become doctors, lawyers, ceos etc. So you would have to ban marriage amongst those of the same but not average iq and force the high iq to marry the low iq to ensure genetic shift towards average iq
People don't usually inherit jumpers.
And to say that inequality is multi-sourced and inevitable isn't a strong argument in favour of something that actively increases it.
Thing is, H, this is an unbridgeable-by-debate difference in values and worldview. I'm egalitarian, meaning I have reducing inequality as a very high priority. Heart and head both tell me this. Head because I think it's illogical how resources are so unequally distributed. Heart because it upsets me that they are.
You, otoh, are a traditional tory - with all that this entails.
No you are not egalitarian, if you were you would be Communist or hardcore Socialist and support equality of outcome. If that was the case then fair enough, I might have some respect for your position even if I believed it misguided and likely to lead to more poverty overall.
Instead you are just a liberal meritocrat. Fine with capitalism as long as there is perfect equality of opportunity, except as I have shown you and was pointed out earlier that is impossible to achieve and just reduces choice and excellence in education in reality in my view too
Astonishing you are allowed to get away with:
"If you ask the average working class man whether he could have a new sports car or send his children to learn Latin and Maths to 18 at Eton he would take the new sports car every time!" Have you met anyone working class?
Plenty and I stand by my comment in terms of most of them
And presumably they would all slap er indoors about a bit if she dared to advance her own opinion.
No but if you really want to believe the average working class male in this country would turn down a new sports car in favour of sending their child to learn Latin at Eton that is up to you
Would the average middle class male?
The average graduate upper middle class male would likely choose Eton over a new sports car, it is just reality
I suspect the "upper middle class" can afford both. Perhaps forego the £140,000 BMW M8 for a more modest sub-£100,000 M4.
I guess you are alluding to someone foregoing a nearly new BMW 320D for a ten year old Fiesta. I imagine these days being dropped off in an "old banger" gets the **** kicked out of your child for being "poor". Thus the experience is somewhat mitigated. 10A*s plus a facial tic from the emotional scarring isn't optimal.
No they can't afford both, only the top 1% or more likely the top 0.5% by income or wealth can afford both not the top 25%.
The premise was they were offered a choice of either free
Tell you what HY. As a man with political ambitions, why not make it your USP as the Conservative Politician who rather than promoting elitism for the few, promises every child an elite top quality education whatever their background. I'd vote for you if you delivered that.
I have, more grammar schools
No you don't, because 90% of your voters will have children in sink Secondary Moderns.
You are an unashamed educational elitist, and to hell with the rest.
Is there anything wrong with having a private GP? If so, why?
You would have to ask Rishi that, since he is the one who seems ashamed of it.
He had three routes with integrity. One was to use the NHS while he was a high profile politician. One was to come up with a solid explanation, as OGH has done above. The third was to not enter politics. Not choosing any of those does make him look like a worse person.
And if he had to go down this path, he should have said "personal matter" not "private matter".
I disagree - it's a trap and there is no answer that won't draw bile from those who want to be bilious.
(a) Yes, I go private - Oh, NHS not good enough for you? How the hell can you be in charge of something you don't even trust to use?
(b) Lie - get found out (as has been shown) - Why did you lie?
What's wrong with Stuartinromford's first option, not going private whilst a prominent politician? It's not as if the PM's going to struggle to get an NHS appointment if he needed one.
Because its performative nonsense, thats why. Should a politician only sit in rubbish seats at football (come on Keir, get out of that box)? Of only drive rubbish cars? And as for schooling - no more private schools for the kids. That would upset quite a few labour folk.
I don't have a problem with rich people having nicer stuff. I'm richer than most people, I live in a nice big house, drive a decent sized car, had a nice long haul holiday over Christmas etc. I'm very grateful and I pay my taxes and I don't feel bad about it. But for me things like education and health are in a different class, because these are rights and everyone should have the best quality service that the country can afford. I don't think it's right that rich people can jump the queue to get operations before other people, and I don't think that rich people's kids should get better schools than other children. And I don't trust politicians who tell us they are going to deliver the best service possible and fund it appropriately, but refuse to use it themselves. To me the two just seem contradictory and I can't trust a politician like that. Of course other people feel differently about these things, as is their right.
Pretty much my view too. With money comes all sorts of pleasures and privileges - which is fine - but what money shouldn't be able to buy is educational advantage or better essential healthcare
For me the schools point is the bigger one since the more that parental bank balance features there, the greater is the violation of the ideal of equal opportunities. So I feel more strongly about private schools than I do about private health.
The thing is Education is a public good. The better-educated the population is the better it is for society as a whole. So you'd think it would be good if people were using their own resources to increase the total amount of Education in the country. Why is it better in your eyes for someone to buy a new sports car every other year instead of pay Eton school fees?
The reason, I think, is that you've bought into the ideology of meritocracy. This means that you see private education as someone cheating in the great meritocratic struggle. The problem here isn't private education. The problem is that meritocracy is a con used to justify inequality.
It's a futile struggle to try and create a level playing field for meritocracy. Will never happen. Instead I think we should concentrate on people's right to dignity even if they don't become doctors or lawyers, and a fair share of the proceeds generated for society by Eton's education of the wealthy.
You have me wrong here, LP. I don't fetishize meritocracy. That it ends in "ocracy" is a tell. It's an oppressive notion by itself. Eg, if outcomes are grossly unequal but everyone has a meritocratic fair shot at hitting the jackpot, this isn't the End of History imo. It makes no sense to view equal opportunity in isolation from outcomes. Both are important. Plus they impact each other in either direction.
The goal for me is everyone realizes their potential, wealth of background minimized as a factor, with the material outcomes achieved to be far more closely bunched than they are today. It's an unachievable goal of course so the direction of travel is what counts in practice.
Eton v sports car? Serial fast car purchase doesn't hardcode inequality into society, propagate it down through the generations. This is the essential difference to me.
Yes it does.
If you ask the average working class man whether he could have a new sports car or send his children to learn Latin and Maths to 18 at Eton he would take the new sports car every time!
But it doesn't cascade inequality down the generations, a Porsche 911, does it? Ditto most areas of discretionary private spend. Eg I bet I'd disapprove of some of your jumpers - find them morally wrong even - but I'll be relaxed about it because there's no violation of equal opportunities or propagating of societal inequality in your sartorial choices. Unless I'm missing something.
It does if inherited.
You are assuming that because everyone can't go to Eton nobody can. Except forgetting that even if private education was banned, grammar schools were banned, academies and free schools and faith schools were banned and everyone had to send their children to the local comprehensive there would still be inequality.
For parents living in wealthier areas with more expensive houses would have better local schools than those living in poorer areas. So you would have to ban private sale of housing too and ensure everyone lived in social housing.
Yet even then would still be inequality because those of high iq would tend to marry others of high iq and those of low iq those of low iq. So the children of the former would still be much more likely to become doctors, lawyers, ceos etc. So you would have to ban marriage amongst those of the same but not average iq and force the high iq to marry the low iq to ensure genetic shift towards average iq
People don't usually inherit jumpers.
And to say that inequality is multi-sourced and inevitable isn't a strong argument in favour of something that actively increases it.
Thing is, H, this is an unbridgeable-by-debate difference in values and worldview. I'm egalitarian, meaning I have reducing inequality as a very high priority. Heart and head both tell me this. Head because I think it's illogical how resources are so unequally distributed. Heart because it upsets me that they are.
You, otoh, are a traditional tory - with all that this entails.
No you are not egalitarian, if you were you would be Communist or hardcore Socialist and support equality of outcome. If that was the case then fair enough, I might have some respect for your position even if I believed it misguided and likely to lead to more poverty overall.
Instead you are just a liberal meritocrat. Fine with capitalism as long as there is perfect equality of opportunity, except as I have shown you and was pointed out earlier that is impossible to achieve and just reduces choice and excellence in education in reality in my view too
Astonishing you are allowed to get away with:
"If you ask the average working class man whether he could have a new sports car or send his children to learn Latin and Maths to 18 at Eton he would take the new sports car every time!" Have you met anyone working class?
Plenty and I stand by my comment in terms of most of them
And presumably they would all slap er indoors about a bit if she dared to advance her own opinion.
No but if you really want to believe the average working class male in this country would turn down a new sports car in favour of sending their child to learn Latin at Eton that is up to you
Would the average middle class male?
Good point. There may be evidence out there to the contrary but I assume that regardless of class what you do or don't do for your sprogs is limited mainly by your financial circumstances. I suppose there might be some more unwanted kids in working class families who come lower down the pegging order than a new sports car, but it is not a very nice view hyufd has of the plebs (gets pay packet on Friday and goes straight down the bookies and the pub)
I take the other viewpoint, that my kids come higher up the pecking order than sending them to a boarding school where they won't live with the family.
Forced choice for my kids I would choose: Sports car (because why not), then no car at all, then Eton at the bottom of the list. Not because I don't rate my kids, but because I do, and I want them at home with me not shipped away to a boarding school unnecessarily.
My comment was really about @hyufd looking down on the working class.
I stopped reading when he started relying on the pseudoscientific garbage that is "IQ".
If anyone is in need of a celebrity to enlighten them, Nassim Taleb, author of "The Black Swan", may do the job:
As for boarding school and sports cars, most people who didn't go to boarding school have little clue what it's like. Men who went there and who then send their sons there are filth. It's not like a sports car which you can imagine driving with some reasonable degree of realism even if you've never driven one.
Well if you believe the child of 2 Oxbridge science or law graduates will have the same IQ as the child of 2 parents who failed their GCSEs, fine
There are plenty of idiot children of brilliant parents, and plenty of brilliant children of idiots.
You are simply more likely to be smart if your parents are smart, and vice versa.
And - by the way - this is exactly the same mistake that people who correlate intelligence with race make. Sure, it might be more likely that that Chinese person is smarter than you... But that don't make it so. There is far, far more variability inside races than between them.
Is there anything wrong with having a private GP? If so, why?
You would have to ask Rishi that, since he is the one who seems ashamed of it.
He had three routes with integrity. One was to use the NHS while he was a high profile politician. One was to come up with a solid explanation, as OGH has done above. The third was to not enter politics. Not choosing any of those does make him look like a worse person.
And if he had to go down this path, he should have said "personal matter" not "private matter".
I disagree - it's a trap and there is no answer that won't draw bile from those who want to be bilious.
(a) Yes, I go private - Oh, NHS not good enough for you? How the hell can you be in charge of something you don't even trust to use?
(b) Lie - get found out (as has been shown) - Why did you lie?
What's wrong with Stuartinromford's first option, not going private whilst a prominent politician? It's not as if the PM's going to struggle to get an NHS appointment if he needed one.
Because its performative nonsense, thats why. Should a politician only sit in rubbish seats at football (come on Keir, get out of that box)? Of only drive rubbish cars? And as for schooling - no more private schools for the kids. That would upset quite a few labour folk.
I don't have a problem with rich people having nicer stuff. I'm richer than most people, I live in a nice big house, drive a decent sized car, had a nice long haul holiday over Christmas etc. I'm very grateful and I pay my taxes and I don't feel bad about it. But for me things like education and health are in a different class, because these are rights and everyone should have the best quality service that the country can afford. I don't think it's right that rich people can jump the queue to get operations before other people, and I don't think that rich people's kids should get better schools than other children. And I don't trust politicians who tell us they are going to deliver the best service possible and fund it appropriately, but refuse to use it themselves. To me the two just seem contradictory and I can't trust a politician like that. Of course other people feel differently about these things, as is their right.
Pretty much my view too. With money comes all sorts of pleasures and privileges - which is fine - but what money shouldn't be able to buy is educational advantage or better essential healthcare
For me the schools point is the bigger one since the more that parental bank balance features there, the greater is the violation of the ideal of equal opportunities. So I feel more strongly about private schools than I do about private health.
The thing is Education is a public good. The better-educated the population is the better it is for society as a whole. So you'd think it would be good if people were using their own resources to increase the total amount of Education in the country. Why is it better in your eyes for someone to buy a new sports car every other year instead of pay Eton school fees?
The reason, I think, is that you've bought into the ideology of meritocracy. This means that you see private education as someone cheating in the great meritocratic struggle. The problem here isn't private education. The problem is that meritocracy is a con used to justify inequality.
It's a futile struggle to try and create a level playing field for meritocracy. Will never happen. Instead I think we should concentrate on people's right to dignity even if they don't become doctors or lawyers, and a fair share of the proceeds generated for society by Eton's education of the wealthy.
You have me wrong here, LP. I don't fetishize meritocracy. That it ends in "ocracy" is a tell. It's an oppressive notion by itself. Eg, if outcomes are grossly unequal but everyone has a meritocratic fair shot at hitting the jackpot, this isn't the End of History imo. It makes no sense to view equal opportunity in isolation from outcomes. Both are important. Plus they impact each other in either direction.
The goal for me is everyone realizes their potential, wealth of background minimized as a factor, with the material outcomes achieved to be far more closely bunched than they are today. It's an unachievable goal of course so the direction of travel is what counts in practice.
Eton v sports car? Serial fast car purchase doesn't hardcode inequality into society, propagate it down through the generations. This is the essential difference to me.
Yes it does.
If you ask the average working class man whether he could have a new sports car or send his children to learn Latin and Maths to 18 at Eton he would take the new sports car every time!
But it doesn't cascade inequality down the generations, a Porsche 911, does it? Ditto most areas of discretionary private spend. Eg I bet I'd disapprove of some of your jumpers - find them morally wrong even - but I'll be relaxed about it because there's no violation of equal opportunities or propagating of societal inequality in your sartorial choices. Unless I'm missing something.
It does if inherited.
You are assuming that because everyone can't go to Eton nobody can. Except forgetting that even if private education was banned, grammar schools were banned, academies and free schools and faith schools were banned and everyone had to send their children to the local comprehensive there would still be inequality.
For parents living in wealthier areas with more expensive houses would have better local schools than those living in poorer areas. So you would have to ban private sale of housing too and ensure everyone lived in social housing.
Yet even then would still be inequality because those of high iq would tend to marry others of high iq and those of low iq those of low iq. So the children of the former would still be much more likely to become doctors, lawyers, ceos etc. So you would have to ban marriage amongst those of the same but not average iq and force the high iq to marry the low iq to ensure genetic shift towards average iq
People don't usually inherit jumpers.
And to say that inequality is multi-sourced and inevitable isn't a strong argument in favour of something that actively increases it.
Thing is, H, this is an unbridgeable-by-debate difference in values and worldview. I'm egalitarian, meaning I have reducing inequality as a very high priority. Heart and head both tell me this. Head because I think it's illogical how resources are so unequally distributed. Heart because it upsets me that they are.
You, otoh, are a traditional tory - with all that this entails.
No you are not egalitarian, if you were you would be Communist or hardcore Socialist and support equality of outcome. If that was the case then fair enough, I might have some respect for your position even if I believed it misguided and likely to lead to more poverty overall.
Instead you are just a liberal meritocrat. Fine with capitalism as long as there is perfect equality of opportunity, except as I have shown you and was pointed out earlier that is impossible to achieve and just reduces choice and excellence in education in reality in my view too
Astonishing you are allowed to get away with:
"If you ask the average working class man whether he could have a new sports car or send his children to learn Latin and Maths to 18 at Eton he would take the new sports car every time!" Have you met anyone working class?
Plenty and I stand by my comment in terms of most of them
And presumably they would all slap er indoors about a bit if she dared to advance her own opinion.
No but if you really want to believe the average working class male in this country would turn down a new sports car in favour of sending their child to learn Latin at Eton that is up to you
Would the average middle class male?
The average graduate upper middle class male would likely choose Eton over a new sports car, it is just reality
I suspect the "upper middle class" can afford both. Perhaps forego the £140,000 BMW M8 for a more modest sub-£100,000 M4.
I guess you are alluding to someone foregoing a nearly new BMW 320D for a ten year old Fiesta. I imagine these days being dropped off in an "old banger" gets the **** kicked out of your child for being "poor". Thus the experience is somewhat mitigated. 10A*s plus a facial tic from the emotional scarring isn't optimal.
No they can't afford both, only the top 1% or more likely the top 0.5% by income or wealth can afford both not the top 25%.
The premise was they were offered a choice of either free
Tell you what HY. As a man with political ambitions, why not make it your USP as the Conservative Politician who rather than promoting elitism for the few, promises every child an elite top quality education whatever their background. I'd vote for you if you delivered that.
I have, more grammar schools
No you don't, because 90% of your voters will have children in sink Secondary Moderns.
You are an unashamed educational elitist, and to hell with the rest.
Not necessarily some had top 25% and you wanted elite state secondary schools for all determined by intelligence not income, I gave them to you
Is there anything wrong with having a private GP? If so, why?
You would have to ask Rishi that, since he is the one who seems ashamed of it.
He had three routes with integrity. One was to use the NHS while he was a high profile politician. One was to come up with a solid explanation, as OGH has done above. The third was to not enter politics. Not choosing any of those does make him look like a worse person.
And if he had to go down this path, he should have said "personal matter" not "private matter".
I disagree - it's a trap and there is no answer that won't draw bile from those who want to be bilious.
(a) Yes, I go private - Oh, NHS not good enough for you? How the hell can you be in charge of something you don't even trust to use?
(b) Lie - get found out (as has been shown) - Why did you lie?
What's wrong with Stuartinromford's first option, not going private whilst a prominent politician? It's not as if the PM's going to struggle to get an NHS appointment if he needed one.
Because its performative nonsense, thats why. Should a politician only sit in rubbish seats at football (come on Keir, get out of that box)? Of only drive rubbish cars? And as for schooling - no more private schools for the kids. That would upset quite a few labour folk.
I don't have a problem with rich people having nicer stuff. I'm richer than most people, I live in a nice big house, drive a decent sized car, had a nice long haul holiday over Christmas etc. I'm very grateful and I pay my taxes and I don't feel bad about it. But for me things like education and health are in a different class, because these are rights and everyone should have the best quality service that the country can afford. I don't think it's right that rich people can jump the queue to get operations before other people, and I don't think that rich people's kids should get better schools than other children. And I don't trust politicians who tell us they are going to deliver the best service possible and fund it appropriately, but refuse to use it themselves. To me the two just seem contradictory and I can't trust a politician like that. Of course other people feel differently about these things, as is their right.
Pretty much my view too. With money comes all sorts of pleasures and privileges - which is fine - but what money shouldn't be able to buy is educational advantage or better essential healthcare
For me the schools point is the bigger one since the more that parental bank balance features there, the greater is the violation of the ideal of equal opportunities. So I feel more strongly about private schools than I do about private health.
The thing is Education is a public good. The better-educated the population is the better it is for society as a whole. So you'd think it would be good if people were using their own resources to increase the total amount of Education in the country. Why is it better in your eyes for someone to buy a new sports car every other year instead of pay Eton school fees?
The reason, I think, is that you've bought into the ideology of meritocracy. This means that you see private education as someone cheating in the great meritocratic struggle. The problem here isn't private education. The problem is that meritocracy is a con used to justify inequality.
It's a futile struggle to try and create a level playing field for meritocracy. Will never happen. Instead I think we should concentrate on people's right to dignity even if they don't become doctors or lawyers, and a fair share of the proceeds generated for society by Eton's education of the wealthy.
You have me wrong here, LP. I don't fetishize meritocracy. That it ends in "ocracy" is a tell. It's an oppressive notion by itself. Eg, if outcomes are grossly unequal but everyone has a meritocratic fair shot at hitting the jackpot, this isn't the End of History imo. It makes no sense to view equal opportunity in isolation from outcomes. Both are important. Plus they impact each other in either direction.
The goal for me is everyone realizes their potential, wealth of background minimized as a factor, with the material outcomes achieved to be far more closely bunched than they are today. It's an unachievable goal of course so the direction of travel is what counts in practice.
Eton v sports car? Serial fast car purchase doesn't hardcode inequality into society, propagate it down through the generations. This is the essential difference to me.
Yes it does.
If you ask the average working class man whether he could have a new sports car or send his children to learn Latin and Maths to 18 at Eton he would take the new sports car every time!
But it doesn't cascade inequality down the generations, a Porsche 911, does it? Ditto most areas of discretionary private spend. Eg I bet I'd disapprove of some of your jumpers - find them morally wrong even - but I'll be relaxed about it because there's no violation of equal opportunities or propagating of societal inequality in your sartorial choices. Unless I'm missing something.
It does if inherited.
You are assuming that because everyone can't go to Eton nobody can. Except forgetting that even if private education was banned, grammar schools were banned, academies and free schools and faith schools were banned and everyone had to send their children to the local comprehensive there would still be inequality.
For parents living in wealthier areas with more expensive houses would have better local schools than those living in poorer areas. So you would have to ban private sale of housing too and ensure everyone lived in social housing.
Yet even then would still be inequality because those of high iq would tend to marry others of high iq and those of low iq those of low iq. So the children of the former would still be much more likely to become doctors, lawyers, ceos etc. So you would have to ban marriage amongst those of the same but not average iq and force the high iq to marry the low iq to ensure genetic shift towards average iq
People don't usually inherit jumpers.
And to say that inequality is multi-sourced and inevitable isn't a strong argument in favour of something that actively increases it.
Thing is, H, this is an unbridgeable-by-debate difference in values and worldview. I'm egalitarian, meaning I have reducing inequality as a very high priority. Heart and head both tell me this. Head because I think it's illogical how resources are so unequally distributed. Heart because it upsets me that they are.
You, otoh, are a traditional tory - with all that this entails.
No you are not egalitarian, if you were you would be Communist or hardcore Socialist and support equality of outcome. If that was the case then fair enough, I might have some respect for your position even if I believed it misguided and likely to lead to more poverty overall.
Instead you are just a liberal meritocrat. Fine with capitalism as long as there is perfect equality of opportunity, except as I have shown you and was pointed out earlier that is impossible to achieve and just reduces choice and excellence in education in reality in my view too
Astonishing you are allowed to get away with:
"If you ask the average working class man whether he could have a new sports car or send his children to learn Latin and Maths to 18 at Eton he would take the new sports car every time!" Have you met anyone working class?
Plenty and I stand by my comment in terms of most of them
And presumably they would all slap er indoors about a bit if she dared to advance her own opinion.
No but if you really want to believe the average working class male in this country would turn down a new sports car in favour of sending their child to learn Latin at Eton that is up to you
Would the average middle class male?
Good point. There may be evidence out there to the contrary but I assume that regardless of class what you do or don't do for your sprogs is limited mainly by your financial circumstances. I suppose there might be some more unwanted kids in working class families who come lower down the pegging order than a new sports car, but it is not a very nice view hyufd has of the plebs (gets pay packet on Friday and goes straight down the bookies and the pub)
I take the other viewpoint, that my kids come higher up the pecking order than sending them to a boarding school where they won't live with the family.
Forced choice for my kids I would choose: Sports car (because why not), then no car at all, then Eton at the bottom of the list. Not because I don't rate my kids, but because I do, and I want them at home with me not shipped away to a boarding school unnecessarily.
My comment was really about @hyufd looking down on the working class.
I stopped reading when he started relying on the pseudoscientific garbage that is "IQ".
If anyone is in need of a celebrity to enlighten them, Nassim Taleb, author of "The Black Swan", may do the job:
As for boarding school and sports cars, most people who didn't go to boarding school have little clue what it's like. Men who went there and who then send their sons there are filth. It's not like a sports car which you can imagine driving with some reasonable degree of realism even if you've never driven one.
Well if you believe the child of 2 Oxbridge science or law graduates will have the same IQ as the child of 2 parents who failed their GCSEs, fine
We had a kid at comprehensive school who my father taught Maths to, who became a Maths Professor at Oxford or Cambridge (I can't remember which). His mum and dad sold ice cream to me off the back of a Mr Whippy van, so your statement is utter and absolute nonsense.
So what, just because they sold ice cream doesn't mean they failed their O Levels does it?
Forgive my naivety but I suspect they didn't take any, which is why they were doing the very worthy jobs they were doing. But you are right I don't know for sure.
Is there anything wrong with having a private GP? If so, why?
You would have to ask Rishi that, since he is the one who seems ashamed of it.
He had three routes with integrity. One was to use the NHS while he was a high profile politician. One was to come up with a solid explanation, as OGH has done above. The third was to not enter politics. Not choosing any of those does make him look like a worse person.
And if he had to go down this path, he should have said "personal matter" not "private matter".
I disagree - it's a trap and there is no answer that won't draw bile from those who want to be bilious.
(a) Yes, I go private - Oh, NHS not good enough for you? How the hell can you be in charge of something you don't even trust to use?
(b) Lie - get found out (as has been shown) - Why did you lie?
What's wrong with Stuartinromford's first option, not going private whilst a prominent politician? It's not as if the PM's going to struggle to get an NHS appointment if he needed one.
Because its performative nonsense, thats why. Should a politician only sit in rubbish seats at football (come on Keir, get out of that box)? Of only drive rubbish cars? And as for schooling - no more private schools for the kids. That would upset quite a few labour folk.
I don't have a problem with rich people having nicer stuff. I'm richer than most people, I live in a nice big house, drive a decent sized car, had a nice long haul holiday over Christmas etc. I'm very grateful and I pay my taxes and I don't feel bad about it. But for me things like education and health are in a different class, because these are rights and everyone should have the best quality service that the country can afford. I don't think it's right that rich people can jump the queue to get operations before other people, and I don't think that rich people's kids should get better schools than other children. And I don't trust politicians who tell us they are going to deliver the best service possible and fund it appropriately, but refuse to use it themselves. To me the two just seem contradictory and I can't trust a politician like that. Of course other people feel differently about these things, as is their right.
Pretty much my view too. With money comes all sorts of pleasures and privileges - which is fine - but what money shouldn't be able to buy is educational advantage or better essential healthcare
For me the schools point is the bigger one since the more that parental bank balance features there, the greater is the violation of the ideal of equal opportunities. So I feel more strongly about private schools than I do about private health.
The thing is Education is a public good. The better-educated the population is the better it is for society as a whole. So you'd think it would be good if people were using their own resources to increase the total amount of Education in the country. Why is it better in your eyes for someone to buy a new sports car every other year instead of pay Eton school fees?
The reason, I think, is that you've bought into the ideology of meritocracy. This means that you see private education as someone cheating in the great meritocratic struggle. The problem here isn't private education. The problem is that meritocracy is a con used to justify inequality.
It's a futile struggle to try and create a level playing field for meritocracy. Will never happen. Instead I think we should concentrate on people's right to dignity even if they don't become doctors or lawyers, and a fair share of the proceeds generated for society by Eton's education of the wealthy.
You have me wrong here, LP. I don't fetishize meritocracy. That it ends in "ocracy" is a tell. It's an oppressive notion by itself. Eg, if outcomes are grossly unequal but everyone has a meritocratic fair shot at hitting the jackpot, this isn't the End of History imo. It makes no sense to view equal opportunity in isolation from outcomes. Both are important. Plus they impact each other in either direction.
The goal for me is everyone realizes their potential, wealth of background minimized as a factor, with the material outcomes achieved to be far more closely bunched than they are today. It's an unachievable goal of course so the direction of travel is what counts in practice.
Eton v sports car? Serial fast car purchase doesn't hardcode inequality into society, propagate it down through the generations. This is the essential difference to me.
Yes it does.
If you ask the average working class man whether he could have a new sports car or send his children to learn Latin and Maths to 18 at Eton he would take the new sports car every time!
But it doesn't cascade inequality down the generations, a Porsche 911, does it? Ditto most areas of discretionary private spend. Eg I bet I'd disapprove of some of your jumpers - find them morally wrong even - but I'll be relaxed about it because there's no violation of equal opportunities or propagating of societal inequality in your sartorial choices. Unless I'm missing something.
It does if inherited.
You are assuming that because everyone can't go to Eton nobody can. Except forgetting that even if private education was banned, grammar schools were banned, academies and free schools and faith schools were banned and everyone had to send their children to the local comprehensive there would still be inequality.
For parents living in wealthier areas with more expensive houses would have better local schools than those living in poorer areas. So you would have to ban private sale of housing too and ensure everyone lived in social housing.
Yet even then would still be inequality because those of high iq would tend to marry others of high iq and those of low iq those of low iq. So the children of the former would still be much more likely to become doctors, lawyers, ceos etc. So you would have to ban marriage amongst those of the same but not average iq and force the high iq to marry the low iq to ensure genetic shift towards average iq
People don't usually inherit jumpers.
And to say that inequality is multi-sourced and inevitable isn't a strong argument in favour of something that actively increases it.
Thing is, H, this is an unbridgeable-by-debate difference in values and worldview. I'm egalitarian, meaning I have reducing inequality as a very high priority. Heart and head both tell me this. Head because I think it's illogical how resources are so unequally distributed. Heart because it upsets me that they are.
You, otoh, are a traditional tory - with all that this entails.
No you are not egalitarian, if you were you would be Communist or hardcore Socialist and support equality of outcome. If that was the case then fair enough, I might have some respect for your position even if I believed it misguided and likely to lead to more poverty overall.
Instead you are just a liberal meritocrat. Fine with capitalism as long as there is perfect equality of opportunity, except as I have shown you and was pointed out earlier that is impossible to achieve and just reduces choice and excellence in education in reality in my view too
Astonishing you are allowed to get away with:
"If you ask the average working class man whether he could have a new sports car or send his children to learn Latin and Maths to 18 at Eton he would take the new sports car every time!" Have you met anyone working class?
Plenty and I stand by my comment in terms of most of them
And presumably they would all slap er indoors about a bit if she dared to advance her own opinion.
No but if you really want to believe the average working class male in this country would turn down a new sports car in favour of sending their child to learn Latin at Eton that is up to you
Would the average middle class male?
Good point. There may be evidence out there to the contrary but I assume that regardless of class what you do or don't do for your sprogs is limited mainly by your financial circumstances. I suppose there might be some more unwanted kids in working class families who come lower down the pegging order than a new sports car, but it is not a very nice view hyufd has of the plebs (gets pay packet on Friday and goes straight down the bookies and the pub)
I take the other viewpoint, that my kids come higher up the pecking order than sending them to a boarding school where they won't live with the family.
Forced choice for my kids I would choose: Sports car (because why not), then no car at all, then Eton at the bottom of the list. Not because I don't rate my kids, but because I do, and I want them at home with me not shipped away to a boarding school unnecessarily.
My comment was really about @hyufd looking down on the working class.
I stopped reading when he started relying on the pseudoscientific garbage that is "IQ".
If anyone is in need of a celebrity to enlighten them, Nassim Taleb, author of "The Black Swan", may do the job:
As for boarding school and sports cars, most people who didn't go to boarding school have little clue what it's like. Men who went there and who then send their sons there are filth. It's not like a sports car which you can imagine driving with some reasonable degree of realism even if you've never driven one.
Well if you believe the child of 2 Oxbridge science or law graduates will have the same IQ as the child of 2 parents who failed their GCSEs, fine
There are plenty of idiot children of brilliant parents, and plenty of brilliant children of idiots.
You are simply more likely to be smart if your parents are smart, and vice versa.
Is there anything wrong with having a private GP? If so, why?
You would have to ask Rishi that, since he is the one who seems ashamed of it.
He had three routes with integrity. One was to use the NHS while he was a high profile politician. One was to come up with a solid explanation, as OGH has done above. The third was to not enter politics. Not choosing any of those does make him look like a worse person.
And if he had to go down this path, he should have said "personal matter" not "private matter".
I disagree - it's a trap and there is no answer that won't draw bile from those who want to be bilious.
(a) Yes, I go private - Oh, NHS not good enough for you? How the hell can you be in charge of something you don't even trust to use?
(b) Lie - get found out (as has been shown) - Why did you lie?
What's wrong with Stuartinromford's first option, not going private whilst a prominent politician? It's not as if the PM's going to struggle to get an NHS appointment if he needed one.
Because its performative nonsense, thats why. Should a politician only sit in rubbish seats at football (come on Keir, get out of that box)? Of only drive rubbish cars? And as for schooling - no more private schools for the kids. That would upset quite a few labour folk.
I don't have a problem with rich people having nicer stuff. I'm richer than most people, I live in a nice big house, drive a decent sized car, had a nice long haul holiday over Christmas etc. I'm very grateful and I pay my taxes and I don't feel bad about it. But for me things like education and health are in a different class, because these are rights and everyone should have the best quality service that the country can afford. I don't think it's right that rich people can jump the queue to get operations before other people, and I don't think that rich people's kids should get better schools than other children. And I don't trust politicians who tell us they are going to deliver the best service possible and fund it appropriately, but refuse to use it themselves. To me the two just seem contradictory and I can't trust a politician like that. Of course other people feel differently about these things, as is their right.
Pretty much my view too. With money comes all sorts of pleasures and privileges - which is fine - but what money shouldn't be able to buy is educational advantage or better essential healthcare
For me the schools point is the bigger one since the more that parental bank balance features there, the greater is the violation of the ideal of equal opportunities. So I feel more strongly about private schools than I do about private health.
The thing is Education is a public good. The better-educated the population is the better it is for society as a whole. So you'd think it would be good if people were using their own resources to increase the total amount of Education in the country. Why is it better in your eyes for someone to buy a new sports car every other year instead of pay Eton school fees?
The reason, I think, is that you've bought into the ideology of meritocracy. This means that you see private education as someone cheating in the great meritocratic struggle. The problem here isn't private education. The problem is that meritocracy is a con used to justify inequality.
It's a futile struggle to try and create a level playing field for meritocracy. Will never happen. Instead I think we should concentrate on people's right to dignity even if they don't become doctors or lawyers, and a fair share of the proceeds generated for society by Eton's education of the wealthy.
You have me wrong here, LP. I don't fetishize meritocracy. That it ends in "ocracy" is a tell. It's an oppressive notion by itself. Eg, if outcomes are grossly unequal but everyone has a meritocratic fair shot at hitting the jackpot, this isn't the End of History imo. It makes no sense to view equal opportunity in isolation from outcomes. Both are important. Plus they impact each other in either direction.
The goal for me is everyone realizes their potential, wealth of background minimized as a factor, with the material outcomes achieved to be far more closely bunched than they are today. It's an unachievable goal of course so the direction of travel is what counts in practice.
Eton v sports car? Serial fast car purchase doesn't hardcode inequality into society, propagate it down through the generations. This is the essential difference to me.
Yes it does.
If you ask the average working class man whether he could have a new sports car or send his children to learn Latin and Maths to 18 at Eton he would take the new sports car every time!
But it doesn't cascade inequality down the generations, a Porsche 911, does it? Ditto most areas of discretionary private spend. Eg I bet I'd disapprove of some of your jumpers - find them morally wrong even - but I'll be relaxed about it because there's no violation of equal opportunities or propagating of societal inequality in your sartorial choices. Unless I'm missing something.
It does if inherited.
You are assuming that because everyone can't go to Eton nobody can. Except forgetting that even if private education was banned, grammar schools were banned, academies and free schools and faith schools were banned and everyone had to send their children to the local comprehensive there would still be inequality.
For parents living in wealthier areas with more expensive houses would have better local schools than those living in poorer areas. So you would have to ban private sale of housing too and ensure everyone lived in social housing.
Yet even then would still be inequality because those of high iq would tend to marry others of high iq and those of low iq those of low iq. So the children of the former would still be much more likely to become doctors, lawyers, ceos etc. So you would have to ban marriage amongst those of the same but not average iq and force the high iq to marry the low iq to ensure genetic shift towards average iq
People don't usually inherit jumpers.
And to say that inequality is multi-sourced and inevitable isn't a strong argument in favour of something that actively increases it.
Thing is, H, this is an unbridgeable-by-debate difference in values and worldview. I'm egalitarian, meaning I have reducing inequality as a very high priority. Heart and head both tell me this. Head because I think it's illogical how resources are so unequally distributed. Heart because it upsets me that they are.
You, otoh, are a traditional tory - with all that this entails.
No you are not egalitarian, if you were you would be Communist or hardcore Socialist and support equality of outcome. If that was the case then fair enough, I might have some respect for your position even if I believed it misguided and likely to lead to more poverty overall.
Instead you are just a liberal meritocrat. Fine with capitalism as long as there is perfect equality of opportunity, except as I have shown you and was pointed out earlier that is impossible to achieve and just reduces choice and excellence in education in reality in my view too
Astonishing you are allowed to get away with:
"If you ask the average working class man whether he could have a new sports car or send his children to learn Latin and Maths to 18 at Eton he would take the new sports car every time!" Have you met anyone working class?
Plenty and I stand by my comment in terms of most of them
And presumably they would all slap er indoors about a bit if she dared to advance her own opinion.
No but if you really want to believe the average working class male in this country would turn down a new sports car in favour of sending their child to learn Latin at Eton that is up to you
Would the average middle class male?
Good point. There may be evidence out there to the contrary but I assume that regardless of class what you do or don't do for your sprogs is limited mainly by your financial circumstances. I suppose there might be some more unwanted kids in working class families who come lower down the pegging order than a new sports car, but it is not a very nice view hyufd has of the plebs (gets pay packet on Friday and goes straight down the bookies and the pub)
I take the other viewpoint, that my kids come higher up the pecking order than sending them to a boarding school where they won't live with the family.
Forced choice for my kids I would choose: Sports car (because why not), then no car at all, then Eton at the bottom of the list. Not because I don't rate my kids, but because I do, and I want them at home with me not shipped away to a boarding school unnecessarily.
My comment was really about @hyufd looking down on the working class.
I stopped reading when he started relying on the pseudoscientific garbage that is "IQ".
If anyone is in need of a celebrity to enlighten them, Nassim Taleb, author of "The Black Swan", may do the job:
As for boarding school and sports cars, most people who didn't go to boarding school have little clue what it's like. Men who went there and who then send their sons there are filth. It's not like a sports car which you can imagine driving with some reasonable degree of realism even if you've never driven one.
Well if you believe the child of 2 Oxbridge science or law graduates will have the same IQ as the child of 2 parents who failed their GCSEs, fine
There are plenty of idiot children of brilliant parents, and plenty of brilliant children of idiots.
You are simply more likely to be smart if your parents are smart, and vice versa.
Rare exceptions rather than plenty I suspect.
Two parents with IQs of 80, will be more likely than not to have a child with an IQ above 80.
And two with IQs of 120, will be more likely than not to have one with an IQ below 120.
So, it's open market in body parts with Bart, sports cars vs private schools with Hyufd, or gender transition - hmmm, ok it has to be trans.
I support the self-id reform. I don't see why it would lead to predatory behaviour - compared to the current system - and this is not the experience of the several countries in all parts of the world who have adopted it. IMO it will make the lives of trans people easier without damaging anybody else.
Then the interaction with the Equalities Act. At present you can have single sex spaces where it's a "proportionate means to achieve a legitimate end". I think this is important and necessary. The default should be trans inclusion but not for everything. Sports, prisons are most cited and for good reason. This point of law is being worked through in Scotland, I believe. Eg arguments around the Haldane judgement.
Would the open market in body parts help with people looking to transition between genders? Perhaps those organising such an enterprise might make enough to send their kids to private school in a Ferrari.
Is there anything wrong with having a private GP? If so, why?
You would have to ask Rishi that, since he is the one who seems ashamed of it.
He had three routes with integrity. One was to use the NHS while he was a high profile politician. One was to come up with a solid explanation, as OGH has done above. The third was to not enter politics. Not choosing any of those does make him look like a worse person.
And if he had to go down this path, he should have said "personal matter" not "private matter".
I disagree - it's a trap and there is no answer that won't draw bile from those who want to be bilious.
(a) Yes, I go private - Oh, NHS not good enough for you? How the hell can you be in charge of something you don't even trust to use?
(b) Lie - get found out (as has been shown) - Why did you lie?
What's wrong with Stuartinromford's first option, not going private whilst a prominent politician? It's not as if the PM's going to struggle to get an NHS appointment if he needed one.
Because its performative nonsense, thats why. Should a politician only sit in rubbish seats at football (come on Keir, get out of that box)? Of only drive rubbish cars? And as for schooling - no more private schools for the kids. That would upset quite a few labour folk.
I don't have a problem with rich people having nicer stuff. I'm richer than most people, I live in a nice big house, drive a decent sized car, had a nice long haul holiday over Christmas etc. I'm very grateful and I pay my taxes and I don't feel bad about it. But for me things like education and health are in a different class, because these are rights and everyone should have the best quality service that the country can afford. I don't think it's right that rich people can jump the queue to get operations before other people, and I don't think that rich people's kids should get better schools than other children. And I don't trust politicians who tell us they are going to deliver the best service possible and fund it appropriately, but refuse to use it themselves. To me the two just seem contradictory and I can't trust a politician like that. Of course other people feel differently about these things, as is their right.
Pretty much my view too. With money comes all sorts of pleasures and privileges - which is fine - but what money shouldn't be able to buy is educational advantage or better essential healthcare
For me the schools point is the bigger one since the more that parental bank balance features there, the greater is the violation of the ideal of equal opportunities. So I feel more strongly about private schools than I do about private health.
The thing is Education is a public good. The better-educated the population is the better it is for society as a whole. So you'd think it would be good if people were using their own resources to increase the total amount of Education in the country. Why is it better in your eyes for someone to buy a new sports car every other year instead of pay Eton school fees?
The reason, I think, is that you've bought into the ideology of meritocracy. This means that you see private education as someone cheating in the great meritocratic struggle. The problem here isn't private education. The problem is that meritocracy is a con used to justify inequality.
It's a futile struggle to try and create a level playing field for meritocracy. Will never happen. Instead I think we should concentrate on people's right to dignity even if they don't become doctors or lawyers, and a fair share of the proceeds generated for society by Eton's education of the wealthy.
You have me wrong here, LP. I don't fetishize meritocracy. That it ends in "ocracy" is a tell. It's an oppressive notion by itself. Eg, if outcomes are grossly unequal but everyone has a meritocratic fair shot at hitting the jackpot, this isn't the End of History imo. It makes no sense to view equal opportunity in isolation from outcomes. Both are important. Plus they impact each other in either direction.
The goal for me is everyone realizes their potential, wealth of background minimized as a factor, with the material outcomes achieved to be far more closely bunched than they are today. It's an unachievable goal of course so the direction of travel is what counts in practice.
Eton v sports car? Serial fast car purchase doesn't hardcode inequality into society, propagate it down through the generations. This is the essential difference to me.
Yes it does.
If you ask the average working class man whether he could have a new sports car or send his children to learn Latin and Maths to 18 at Eton he would take the new sports car every time!
But it doesn't cascade inequality down the generations, a Porsche 911, does it? Ditto most areas of discretionary private spend. Eg I bet I'd disapprove of some of your jumpers - find them morally wrong even - but I'll be relaxed about it because there's no violation of equal opportunities or propagating of societal inequality in your sartorial choices. Unless I'm missing something.
It does if inherited.
You are assuming that because everyone can't go to Eton nobody can. Except forgetting that even if private education was banned, grammar schools were banned, academies and free schools and faith schools were banned and everyone had to send their children to the local comprehensive there would still be inequality.
For parents living in wealthier areas with more expensive houses would have better local schools than those living in poorer areas. So you would have to ban private sale of housing too and ensure everyone lived in social housing.
Yet even then would still be inequality because those of high iq would tend to marry others of high iq and those of low iq those of low iq. So the children of the former would still be much more likely to become doctors, lawyers, ceos etc. So you would have to ban marriage amongst those of the same but not average iq and force the high iq to marry the low iq to ensure genetic shift towards average iq
People don't usually inherit jumpers.
And to say that inequality is multi-sourced and inevitable isn't a strong argument in favour of something that actively increases it.
Thing is, H, this is an unbridgeable-by-debate difference in values and worldview. I'm egalitarian, meaning I have reducing inequality as a very high priority. Heart and head both tell me this. Head because I think it's illogical how resources are so unequally distributed. Heart because it upsets me that they are.
You, otoh, are a traditional tory - with all that this entails.
No you are not egalitarian, if you were you would be Communist or hardcore Socialist and support equality of outcome. If that was the case then fair enough, I might have some respect for your position even if I believed it misguided and likely to lead to more poverty overall.
Instead you are just a liberal meritocrat. Fine with capitalism as long as there is perfect equality of opportunity, except as I have shown you and was pointed out earlier that is impossible to achieve and just reduces choice and excellence in education in reality in my view too
Astonishing you are allowed to get away with:
"If you ask the average working class man whether he could have a new sports car or send his children to learn Latin and Maths to 18 at Eton he would take the new sports car every time!" Have you met anyone working class?
Plenty and I stand by my comment in terms of most of them
And presumably they would all slap er indoors about a bit if she dared to advance her own opinion.
No but if you really want to believe the average working class male in this country would turn down a new sports car in favour of sending their child to learn Latin at Eton that is up to you
Would the average middle class male?
Good point. There may be evidence out there to the contrary but I assume that regardless of class what you do or don't do for your sprogs is limited mainly by your financial circumstances. I suppose there might be some more unwanted kids in working class families who come lower down the pegging order than a new sports car, but it is not a very nice view hyufd has of the plebs (gets pay packet on Friday and goes straight down the bookies and the pub)
I take the other viewpoint, that my kids come higher up the pecking order than sending them to a boarding school where they won't live with the family.
Forced choice for my kids I would choose: Sports car (because why not), then no car at all, then Eton at the bottom of the list. Not because I don't rate my kids, but because I do, and I want them at home with me not shipped away to a boarding school unnecessarily.
My comment was really about @hyufd looking down on the working class.
I stopped reading when he started relying on the pseudoscientific garbage that is "IQ".
If anyone is in need of a celebrity to enlighten them, Nassim Taleb, author of "The Black Swan", may do the job:
As for boarding school and sports cars, most people who didn't go to boarding school have little clue what it's like. Men who went there and who then send their sons there are filth. It's not like a sports car which you can imagine driving with some reasonable degree of realism even if you've never driven one.
Well if you believe the child of 2 Oxbridge science or law graduates will have the same IQ as the child of 2 parents who failed their GCSEs, fine
There are plenty of idiot children of brilliant parents, and plenty of brilliant children of idiots.
You are simply more likely to be smart if your parents are smart, and vice versa.
And - by the way - this is exactly the same mistake that people who correlate intelligence with race make. Sure, it might be more likely that that Chinese person is smarter than you... But that don't make it so. There is far, far more variability inside races than between them.
If you have clever parents, it is likely on quite a few levels that you will also be clever, not just for genetic reasons but for epigenetic reasons - the lifestyles and habits that enabled your parents to achieve a higher than average academic standard are also likely to be present in your upbringing.
Is there anything wrong with having a private GP? If so, why?
You would have to ask Rishi that, since he is the one who seems ashamed of it.
He had three routes with integrity. One was to use the NHS while he was a high profile politician. One was to come up with a solid explanation, as OGH has done above. The third was to not enter politics. Not choosing any of those does make him look like a worse person.
And if he had to go down this path, he should have said "personal matter" not "private matter".
I disagree - it's a trap and there is no answer that won't draw bile from those who want to be bilious.
(a) Yes, I go private - Oh, NHS not good enough for you? How the hell can you be in charge of something you don't even trust to use?
(b) Lie - get found out (as has been shown) - Why did you lie?
What's wrong with Stuartinromford's first option, not going private whilst a prominent politician? It's not as if the PM's going to struggle to get an NHS appointment if he needed one.
Because its performative nonsense, thats why. Should a politician only sit in rubbish seats at football (come on Keir, get out of that box)? Of only drive rubbish cars? And as for schooling - no more private schools for the kids. That would upset quite a few labour folk.
I don't have a problem with rich people having nicer stuff. I'm richer than most people, I live in a nice big house, drive a decent sized car, had a nice long haul holiday over Christmas etc. I'm very grateful and I pay my taxes and I don't feel bad about it. But for me things like education and health are in a different class, because these are rights and everyone should have the best quality service that the country can afford. I don't think it's right that rich people can jump the queue to get operations before other people, and I don't think that rich people's kids should get better schools than other children. And I don't trust politicians who tell us they are going to deliver the best service possible and fund it appropriately, but refuse to use it themselves. To me the two just seem contradictory and I can't trust a politician like that. Of course other people feel differently about these things, as is their right.
Pretty much my view too. With money comes all sorts of pleasures and privileges - which is fine - but what money shouldn't be able to buy is educational advantage or better essential healthcare
For me the schools point is the bigger one since the more that parental bank balance features there, the greater is the violation of the ideal of equal opportunities. So I feel more strongly about private schools than I do about private health.
The thing is Education is a public good. The better-educated the population is the better it is for society as a whole. So you'd think it would be good if people were using their own resources to increase the total amount of Education in the country. Why is it better in your eyes for someone to buy a new sports car every other year instead of pay Eton school fees?
The reason, I think, is that you've bought into the ideology of meritocracy. This means that you see private education as someone cheating in the great meritocratic struggle. The problem here isn't private education. The problem is that meritocracy is a con used to justify inequality.
It's a futile struggle to try and create a level playing field for meritocracy. Will never happen. Instead I think we should concentrate on people's right to dignity even if they don't become doctors or lawyers, and a fair share of the proceeds generated for society by Eton's education of the wealthy.
You have me wrong here, LP. I don't fetishize meritocracy. That it ends in "ocracy" is a tell. It's an oppressive notion by itself. Eg, if outcomes are grossly unequal but everyone has a meritocratic fair shot at hitting the jackpot, this isn't the End of History imo. It makes no sense to view equal opportunity in isolation from outcomes. Both are important. Plus they impact each other in either direction.
The goal for me is everyone realizes their potential, wealth of background minimized as a factor, with the material outcomes achieved to be far more closely bunched than they are today. It's an unachievable goal of course so the direction of travel is what counts in practice.
Eton v sports car? Serial fast car purchase doesn't hardcode inequality into society, propagate it down through the generations. This is the essential difference to me.
Yes it does.
If you ask the average working class man whether he could have a new sports car or send his children to learn Latin and Maths to 18 at Eton he would take the new sports car every time!
But it doesn't cascade inequality down the generations, a Porsche 911, does it? Ditto most areas of discretionary private spend. Eg I bet I'd disapprove of some of your jumpers - find them morally wrong even - but I'll be relaxed about it because there's no violation of equal opportunities or propagating of societal inequality in your sartorial choices. Unless I'm missing something.
It does if inherited.
You are assuming that because everyone can't go to Eton nobody can. Except forgetting that even if private education was banned, grammar schools were banned, academies and free schools and faith schools were banned and everyone had to send their children to the local comprehensive there would still be inequality.
For parents living in wealthier areas with more expensive houses would have better local schools than those living in poorer areas. So you would have to ban private sale of housing too and ensure everyone lived in social housing.
Yet even then would still be inequality because those of high iq would tend to marry others of high iq and those of low iq those of low iq. So the children of the former would still be much more likely to become doctors, lawyers, ceos etc. So you would have to ban marriage amongst those of the same but not average iq and force the high iq to marry the low iq to ensure genetic shift towards average iq
People don't usually inherit jumpers.
And to say that inequality is multi-sourced and inevitable isn't a strong argument in favour of something that actively increases it.
Thing is, H, this is an unbridgeable-by-debate difference in values and worldview. I'm egalitarian, meaning I have reducing inequality as a very high priority. Heart and head both tell me this. Head because I think it's illogical how resources are so unequally distributed. Heart because it upsets me that they are.
You, otoh, are a traditional tory - with all that this entails.
No you are not egalitarian, if you were you would be Communist or hardcore Socialist and support equality of outcome. If that was the case then fair enough, I might have some respect for your position even if I believed it misguided and likely to lead to more poverty overall.
Instead you are just a liberal meritocrat. Fine with capitalism as long as there is perfect equality of opportunity, except as I have shown you and was pointed out earlier that is impossible to achieve and just reduces choice and excellence in education in reality in my view too
Astonishing you are allowed to get away with:
"If you ask the average working class man whether he could have a new sports car or send his children to learn Latin and Maths to 18 at Eton he would take the new sports car every time!" Have you met anyone working class?
Plenty and I stand by my comment in terms of most of them
And presumably they would all slap er indoors about a bit if she dared to advance her own opinion.
No but if you really want to believe the average working class male in this country would turn down a new sports car in favour of sending their child to learn Latin at Eton that is up to you
Would the average middle class male?
Good point. There may be evidence out there to the contrary but I assume that regardless of class what you do or don't do for your sprogs is limited mainly by your financial circumstances. I suppose there might be some more unwanted kids in working class families who come lower down the pegging order than a new sports car, but it is not a very nice view hyufd has of the plebs (gets pay packet on Friday and goes straight down the bookies and the pub)
I take the other viewpoint, that my kids come higher up the pecking order than sending them to a boarding school where they won't live with the family.
Forced choice for my kids I would choose: Sports car (because why not), then no car at all, then Eton at the bottom of the list. Not because I don't rate my kids, but because I do, and I want them at home with me not shipped away to a boarding school unnecessarily.
My comment was really about @hyufd looking down on the working class.
I stopped reading when he started relying on the pseudoscientific garbage that is "IQ".
If anyone is in need of a celebrity to enlighten them, Nassim Taleb, author of "The Black Swan", may do the job:
As for boarding school and sports cars, most people who didn't go to boarding school have little clue what it's like. Men who went there and who then send their sons there are filth. It's not like a sports car which you can imagine driving with some reasonable degree of realism even if you've never driven one.
Well if you believe the child of 2 Oxbridge science or law graduates will have the same IQ as the child of 2 parents who failed their GCSEs, fine
There are plenty of idiot children of brilliant parents, and plenty of brilliant children of idiots.
You are simply more likely to be smart if your parents are smart, and vice versa.
And - by the way - this is exactly the same mistake that people who correlate intelligence with race make. Sure, it might be more likely that that Chinese person is smarter than you... But that don't make it so. There is far, far more variability inside races than between them.
If you have clever parents, it is likely on quite a few levels that you will also be clever, not just for genetic reasons but for epigenetic reasons - the lifestyles and habits that enabled your parents to achieve a higher than average academic standard are also likely to be present in your upbringing.
On private schools - I suspect probably most students would be better off if their parents saved the cash and distributed it later for 'relatively sensible' purchases.
If the average day private school is £15k per year, you could easily pay your child's university fees and give them a deposit on a house for the same money.
Yep, most of the kids would probably do fine in a state school, so abolishing the privates would be like a stonking great free gratis tax cut for the wealthy. I've often thought of selling it that way instead of banging on about 'engines of inequality'. Pitch to self-interest and the wallet.
If Rishi, or his political awareness adviser, had spotted this private healthcare issue in advance some preventative measures could have been put in place to provide some easy answers.
Rishi could have arranged to see his NHS GP during the parliamentary break (health check up?) so that he had a ready answer to the private healthcare answer (Yes I have seen my NHS GP recently, I booked online.....).
Is there anything wrong with having a private GP? If so, why?
You would have to ask Rishi that, since he is the one who seems ashamed of it.
He had three routes with integrity. One was to use the NHS while he was a high profile politician. One was to come up with a solid explanation, as OGH has done above. The third was to not enter politics. Not choosing any of those does make him look like a worse person.
And if he had to go down this path, he should have said "personal matter" not "private matter".
I disagree - it's a trap and there is no answer that won't draw bile from those who want to be bilious.
(a) Yes, I go private - Oh, NHS not good enough for you? How the hell can you be in charge of something you don't even trust to use?
(b) Lie - get found out (as has been shown) - Why did you lie?
What's wrong with Stuartinromford's first option, not going private whilst a prominent politician? It's not as if the PM's going to struggle to get an NHS appointment if he needed one.
Because its performative nonsense, thats why. Should a politician only sit in rubbish seats at football (come on Keir, get out of that box)? Of only drive rubbish cars? And as for schooling - no more private schools for the kids. That would upset quite a few labour folk.
I don't have a problem with rich people having nicer stuff. I'm richer than most people, I live in a nice big house, drive a decent sized car, had a nice long haul holiday over Christmas etc. I'm very grateful and I pay my taxes and I don't feel bad about it. But for me things like education and health are in a different class, because these are rights and everyone should have the best quality service that the country can afford. I don't think it's right that rich people can jump the queue to get operations before other people, and I don't think that rich people's kids should get better schools than other children. And I don't trust politicians who tell us they are going to deliver the best service possible and fund it appropriately, but refuse to use it themselves. To me the two just seem contradictory and I can't trust a politician like that. Of course other people feel differently about these things, as is their right.
Pretty much my view too. With money comes all sorts of pleasures and privileges - which is fine - but what money shouldn't be able to buy is educational advantage or better essential healthcare
For me the schools point is the bigger one since the more that parental bank balance features there, the greater is the violation of the ideal of equal opportunities. So I feel more strongly about private schools than I do about private health.
The thing is Education is a public good. The better-educated the population is the better it is for society as a whole. So you'd think it would be good if people were using their own resources to increase the total amount of Education in the country. Why is it better in your eyes for someone to buy a new sports car every other year instead of pay Eton school fees?
The reason, I think, is that you've bought into the ideology of meritocracy. This means that you see private education as someone cheating in the great meritocratic struggle. The problem here isn't private education. The problem is that meritocracy is a con used to justify inequality.
It's a futile struggle to try and create a level playing field for meritocracy. Will never happen. Instead I think we should concentrate on people's right to dignity even if they don't become doctors or lawyers, and a fair share of the proceeds generated for society by Eton's education of the wealthy.
You have me wrong here, LP. I don't fetishize meritocracy. That it ends in "ocracy" is a tell. It's an oppressive notion by itself. Eg, if outcomes are grossly unequal but everyone has a meritocratic fair shot at hitting the jackpot, this isn't the End of History imo. It makes no sense to view equal opportunity in isolation from outcomes. Both are important. Plus they impact each other in either direction.
The goal for me is everyone realizes their potential, wealth of background minimized as a factor, with the material outcomes achieved to be far more closely bunched than they are today. It's an unachievable goal of course so the direction of travel is what counts in practice.
Eton v sports car? Serial fast car purchase doesn't hardcode inequality into society, propagate it down through the generations. This is the essential difference to me.
Yes it does.
If you ask the average working class man whether he could have a new sports car or send his children to learn Latin and Maths to 18 at Eton he would take the new sports car every time!
But it doesn't cascade inequality down the generations, a Porsche 911, does it? Ditto most areas of discretionary private spend. Eg I bet I'd disapprove of some of your jumpers - find them morally wrong even - but I'll be relaxed about it because there's no violation of equal opportunities or propagating of societal inequality in your sartorial choices. Unless I'm missing something.
It does if inherited.
You are assuming that because everyone can't go to Eton nobody can. Except forgetting that even if private education was banned, grammar schools were banned, academies and free schools and faith schools were banned and everyone had to send their children to the local comprehensive there would still be inequality.
For parents living in wealthier areas with more expensive houses would have better local schools than those living in poorer areas. So you would have to ban private sale of housing too and ensure everyone lived in social housing.
Yet even then would still be inequality because those of high iq would tend to marry others of high iq and those of low iq those of low iq. So the children of the former would still be much more likely to become doctors, lawyers, ceos etc. So you would have to ban marriage amongst those of the same but not average iq and force the high iq to marry the low iq to ensure genetic shift towards average iq
People don't usually inherit jumpers.
And to say that inequality is multi-sourced and inevitable isn't a strong argument in favour of something that actively increases it.
Thing is, H, this is an unbridgeable-by-debate difference in values and worldview. I'm egalitarian, meaning I have reducing inequality as a very high priority. Heart and head both tell me this. Head because I think it's illogical how resources are so unequally distributed. Heart because it upsets me that they are.
You, otoh, are a traditional tory - with all that this entails.
No you are not egalitarian, if you were you would be Communist or hardcore Socialist and support equality of outcome. If that was the case then fair enough, I might have some respect for your position even if I believed it misguided and likely to lead to more poverty overall.
Instead you are just a liberal meritocrat. Fine with capitalism as long as there is perfect equality of opportunity, except as I have shown you and was pointed out earlier that is impossible to achieve and just reduces choice and excellence in education in reality in my view too
Astonishing you are allowed to get away with:
"If you ask the average working class man whether he could have a new sports car or send his children to learn Latin and Maths to 18 at Eton he would take the new sports car every time!" Have you met anyone working class?
Plenty and I stand by my comment in terms of most of them
And presumably they would all slap er indoors about a bit if she dared to advance her own opinion.
No but if you really want to believe the average working class male in this country would turn down a new sports car in favour of sending their child to learn Latin at Eton that is up to you
Would the average middle class male?
Good point. There may be evidence out there to the contrary but I assume that regardless of class what you do or don't do for your sprogs is limited mainly by your financial circumstances. I suppose there might be some more unwanted kids in working class families who come lower down the pegging order than a new sports car, but it is not a very nice view hyufd has of the plebs (gets pay packet on Friday and goes straight down the bookies and the pub)
I take the other viewpoint, that my kids come higher up the pecking order than sending them to a boarding school where they won't live with the family.
Forced choice for my kids I would choose: Sports car (because why not), then no car at all, then Eton at the bottom of the list. Not because I don't rate my kids, but because I do, and I want them at home with me not shipped away to a boarding school unnecessarily.
My comment was really about @hyufd looking down on the working class.
I stopped reading when he started relying on the pseudoscientific garbage that is "IQ".
If anyone is in need of a celebrity to enlighten them, Nassim Taleb, author of "The Black Swan", may do the job:
As for boarding school and sports cars, most people who didn't go to boarding school have little clue what it's like. Men who went there and who then send their sons there are filth. It's not like a sports car which you can imagine driving with some reasonable degree of realism even if you've never driven one.
Well if you believe the child of 2 Oxbridge science or law graduates will have the same IQ as the child of 2 parents who failed their GCSEs, fine
There are plenty of idiot children of brilliant parents, and plenty of brilliant children of idiots.
You are simply more likely to be smart if your parents are smart, and vice versa.
Rare exceptions rather than plenty I suspect.
Two parents with IQs of 80, will be more likely than not to have a child with an IQ above 80.
And two with IQs of 120, will be more likely than not to have one with an IQ below 120.
Yet still just 4% of doctors in the UK come from working class backgrounds and 13% of solicitors
Arsenal should be kicked out of the FA Cup just to be sure.
FA investigators are looking into suspicious betting patterns surrounding the booking of the Oxford United defender Ciaron Brown during Arsenal’s FA Cup win on Monday.
The spot-fixing probe centres on the 59th-minute booking of Brown by the referee David Coote for fouling the Arsenal striker Eddie Nketiah before pushing the midfielder Fábio Vieira during the third-round win away to Oxford. Brown, 24, is a London-born centre back who is also a Northern Ireland international.
It is understood that FA investigators are looking at evidence suggesting that heavy betting took place on the player being cautioned...
..According to the Daily Mail, who first reported the investigation, the odds on Brown being booked were 8-1 before the start of play and one bookmaker reported a bet of about £200.
Is there anything wrong with having a private GP? If so, why?
You would have to ask Rishi that, since he is the one who seems ashamed of it.
He had three routes with integrity. One was to use the NHS while he was a high profile politician. One was to come up with a solid explanation, as OGH has done above. The third was to not enter politics. Not choosing any of those does make him look like a worse person.
And if he had to go down this path, he should have said "personal matter" not "private matter".
I disagree - it's a trap and there is no answer that won't draw bile from those who want to be bilious.
(a) Yes, I go private - Oh, NHS not good enough for you? How the hell can you be in charge of something you don't even trust to use?
(b) Lie - get found out (as has been shown) - Why did you lie?
What's wrong with Stuartinromford's first option, not going private whilst a prominent politician? It's not as if the PM's going to struggle to get an NHS appointment if he needed one.
Because its performative nonsense, thats why. Should a politician only sit in rubbish seats at football (come on Keir, get out of that box)? Of only drive rubbish cars? And as for schooling - no more private schools for the kids. That would upset quite a few labour folk.
I don't have a problem with rich people having nicer stuff. I'm richer than most people, I live in a nice big house, drive a decent sized car, had a nice long haul holiday over Christmas etc. I'm very grateful and I pay my taxes and I don't feel bad about it. But for me things like education and health are in a different class, because these are rights and everyone should have the best quality service that the country can afford. I don't think it's right that rich people can jump the queue to get operations before other people, and I don't think that rich people's kids should get better schools than other children. And I don't trust politicians who tell us they are going to deliver the best service possible and fund it appropriately, but refuse to use it themselves. To me the two just seem contradictory and I can't trust a politician like that. Of course other people feel differently about these things, as is their right.
Pretty much my view too. With money comes all sorts of pleasures and privileges - which is fine - but what money shouldn't be able to buy is educational advantage or better essential healthcare
For me the schools point is the bigger one since the more that parental bank balance features there, the greater is the violation of the ideal of equal opportunities. So I feel more strongly about private schools than I do about private health.
The thing is Education is a public good. The better-educated the population is the better it is for society as a whole. So you'd think it would be good if people were using their own resources to increase the total amount of Education in the country. Why is it better in your eyes for someone to buy a new sports car every other year instead of pay Eton school fees?
The reason, I think, is that you've bought into the ideology of meritocracy. This means that you see private education as someone cheating in the great meritocratic struggle. The problem here isn't private education. The problem is that meritocracy is a con used to justify inequality.
It's a futile struggle to try and create a level playing field for meritocracy. Will never happen. Instead I think we should concentrate on people's right to dignity even if they don't become doctors or lawyers, and a fair share of the proceeds generated for society by Eton's education of the wealthy.
You have me wrong here, LP. I don't fetishize meritocracy. That it ends in "ocracy" is a tell. It's an oppressive notion by itself. Eg, if outcomes are grossly unequal but everyone has a meritocratic fair shot at hitting the jackpot, this isn't the End of History imo. It makes no sense to view equal opportunity in isolation from outcomes. Both are important. Plus they impact each other in either direction.
The goal for me is everyone realizes their potential, wealth of background minimized as a factor, with the material outcomes achieved to be far more closely bunched than they are today. It's an unachievable goal of course so the direction of travel is what counts in practice.
Eton v sports car? Serial fast car purchase doesn't hardcode inequality into society, propagate it down through the generations. This is the essential difference to me.
Yes it does.
If you ask the average working class man whether he could have a new sports car or send his children to learn Latin and Maths to 18 at Eton he would take the new sports car every time!
But it doesn't cascade inequality down the generations, a Porsche 911, does it? Ditto most areas of discretionary private spend. Eg I bet I'd disapprove of some of your jumpers - find them morally wrong even - but I'll be relaxed about it because there's no violation of equal opportunities or propagating of societal inequality in your sartorial choices. Unless I'm missing something.
It does if inherited.
You are assuming that because everyone can't go to Eton nobody can. Except forgetting that even if private education was banned, grammar schools were banned, academies and free schools and faith schools were banned and everyone had to send their children to the local comprehensive there would still be inequality.
For parents living in wealthier areas with more expensive houses would have better local schools than those living in poorer areas. So you would have to ban private sale of housing too and ensure everyone lived in social housing.
Yet even then would still be inequality because those of high iq would tend to marry others of high iq and those of low iq those of low iq. So the children of the former would still be much more likely to become doctors, lawyers, ceos etc. So you would have to ban marriage amongst those of the same but not average iq and force the high iq to marry the low iq to ensure genetic shift towards average iq
People don't usually inherit jumpers.
And to say that inequality is multi-sourced and inevitable isn't a strong argument in favour of something that actively increases it.
Thing is, H, this is an unbridgeable-by-debate difference in values and worldview. I'm egalitarian, meaning I have reducing inequality as a very high priority. Heart and head both tell me this. Head because I think it's illogical how resources are so unequally distributed. Heart because it upsets me that they are.
You, otoh, are a traditional tory - with all that this entails.
No you are not egalitarian, if you were you would be Communist or hardcore Socialist and support equality of outcome. If that was the case then fair enough, I might have some respect for your position even if I believed it misguided and likely to lead to more poverty overall.
Instead you are just a liberal meritocrat. Fine with capitalism as long as there is perfect equality of opportunity, except as I have shown you and was pointed out earlier that is impossible to achieve and just reduces choice and excellence in education in reality in my view too
Astonishing you are allowed to get away with:
"If you ask the average working class man whether he could have a new sports car or send his children to learn Latin and Maths to 18 at Eton he would take the new sports car every time!" Have you met anyone working class?
Plenty and I stand by my comment in terms of most of them
And presumably they would all slap er indoors about a bit if she dared to advance her own opinion.
No but if you really want to believe the average working class male in this country would turn down a new sports car in favour of sending their child to learn Latin at Eton that is up to you
Would the average middle class male?
Good point. There may be evidence out there to the contrary but I assume that regardless of class what you do or don't do for your sprogs is limited mainly by your financial circumstances. I suppose there might be some more unwanted kids in working class families who come lower down the pegging order than a new sports car, but it is not a very nice view hyufd has of the plebs (gets pay packet on Friday and goes straight down the bookies and the pub)
I take the other viewpoint, that my kids come higher up the pecking order than sending them to a boarding school where they won't live with the family.
Forced choice for my kids I would choose: Sports car (because why not), then no car at all, then Eton at the bottom of the list. Not because I don't rate my kids, but because I do, and I want them at home with me not shipped away to a boarding school unnecessarily.
My comment was really about @hyufd looking down on the working class.
I stopped reading when he started relying on the pseudoscientific garbage that is "IQ".
If anyone is in need of a celebrity to enlighten them, Nassim Taleb, author of "The Black Swan", may do the job:
As for boarding school and sports cars, most people who didn't go to boarding school have little clue what it's like. Men who went there and who then send their sons there are filth. It's not like a sports car which you can imagine driving with some reasonable degree of realism even if you've never driven one.
Well if you believe the child of 2 Oxbridge science or law graduates will have the same IQ as the child of 2 parents who failed their GCSEs, fine
There are plenty of idiot children of brilliant parents, and plenty of brilliant children of idiots.
You are simply more likely to be smart if your parents are smart, and vice versa.
Rare exceptions rather than plenty I suspect.
I am too scared to ask how intelligent you believe your own parents to be.
Is there anything wrong with having a private GP? If so, why?
You would have to ask Rishi that, since he is the one who seems ashamed of it.
He had three routes with integrity. One was to use the NHS while he was a high profile politician. One was to come up with a solid explanation, as OGH has done above. The third was to not enter politics. Not choosing any of those does make him look like a worse person.
And if he had to go down this path, he should have said "personal matter" not "private matter".
I disagree - it's a trap and there is no answer that won't draw bile from those who want to be bilious.
(a) Yes, I go private - Oh, NHS not good enough for you? How the hell can you be in charge of something you don't even trust to use?
(b) Lie - get found out (as has been shown) - Why did you lie?
What's wrong with Stuartinromford's first option, not going private whilst a prominent politician? It's not as if the PM's going to struggle to get an NHS appointment if he needed one.
Because its performative nonsense, thats why. Should a politician only sit in rubbish seats at football (come on Keir, get out of that box)? Of only drive rubbish cars? And as for schooling - no more private schools for the kids. That would upset quite a few labour folk.
I don't have a problem with rich people having nicer stuff. I'm richer than most people, I live in a nice big house, drive a decent sized car, had a nice long haul holiday over Christmas etc. I'm very grateful and I pay my taxes and I don't feel bad about it. But for me things like education and health are in a different class, because these are rights and everyone should have the best quality service that the country can afford. I don't think it's right that rich people can jump the queue to get operations before other people, and I don't think that rich people's kids should get better schools than other children. And I don't trust politicians who tell us they are going to deliver the best service possible and fund it appropriately, but refuse to use it themselves. To me the two just seem contradictory and I can't trust a politician like that. Of course other people feel differently about these things, as is their right.
Pretty much my view too. With money comes all sorts of pleasures and privileges - which is fine - but what money shouldn't be able to buy is educational advantage or better essential healthcare
For me the schools point is the bigger one since the more that parental bank balance features there, the greater is the violation of the ideal of equal opportunities. So I feel more strongly about private schools than I do about private health.
The thing is Education is a public good. The better-educated the population is the better it is for society as a whole. So you'd think it would be good if people were using their own resources to increase the total amount of Education in the country. Why is it better in your eyes for someone to buy a new sports car every other year instead of pay Eton school fees?
The reason, I think, is that you've bought into the ideology of meritocracy. This means that you see private education as someone cheating in the great meritocratic struggle. The problem here isn't private education. The problem is that meritocracy is a con used to justify inequality.
It's a futile struggle to try and create a level playing field for meritocracy. Will never happen. Instead I think we should concentrate on people's right to dignity even if they don't become doctors or lawyers, and a fair share of the proceeds generated for society by Eton's education of the wealthy.
You have me wrong here, LP. I don't fetishize meritocracy. That it ends in "ocracy" is a tell. It's an oppressive notion by itself. Eg, if outcomes are grossly unequal but everyone has a meritocratic fair shot at hitting the jackpot, this isn't the End of History imo. It makes no sense to view equal opportunity in isolation from outcomes. Both are important. Plus they impact each other in either direction.
The goal for me is everyone realizes their potential, wealth of background minimized as a factor, with the material outcomes achieved to be far more closely bunched than they are today. It's an unachievable goal of course so the direction of travel is what counts in practice.
Eton v sports car? Serial fast car purchase doesn't hardcode inequality into society, propagate it down through the generations. This is the essential difference to me.
Yes it does.
If you ask the average working class man whether he could have a new sports car or send his children to learn Latin and Maths to 18 at Eton he would take the new sports car every time!
But it doesn't cascade inequality down the generations, a Porsche 911, does it? Ditto most areas of discretionary private spend. Eg I bet I'd disapprove of some of your jumpers - find them morally wrong even - but I'll be relaxed about it because there's no violation of equal opportunities or propagating of societal inequality in your sartorial choices. Unless I'm missing something.
It does if inherited.
You are assuming that because everyone can't go to Eton nobody can. Except forgetting that even if private education was banned, grammar schools were banned, academies and free schools and faith schools were banned and everyone had to send their children to the local comprehensive there would still be inequality.
For parents living in wealthier areas with more expensive houses would have better local schools than those living in poorer areas. So you would have to ban private sale of housing too and ensure everyone lived in social housing.
Yet even then would still be inequality because those of high iq would tend to marry others of high iq and those of low iq those of low iq. So the children of the former would still be much more likely to become doctors, lawyers, ceos etc. So you would have to ban marriage amongst those of the same but not average iq and force the high iq to marry the low iq to ensure genetic shift towards average iq
People don't usually inherit jumpers.
And to say that inequality is multi-sourced and inevitable isn't a strong argument in favour of something that actively increases it.
Thing is, H, this is an unbridgeable-by-debate difference in values and worldview. I'm egalitarian, meaning I have reducing inequality as a very high priority. Heart and head both tell me this. Head because I think it's illogical how resources are so unequally distributed. Heart because it upsets me that they are.
You, otoh, are a traditional tory - with all that this entails.
No you are not egalitarian, if you were you would be Communist or hardcore Socialist and support equality of outcome. If that was the case then fair enough, I might have some respect for your position even if I believed it misguided and likely to lead to more poverty overall.
Instead you are just a liberal meritocrat. Fine with capitalism as long as there is perfect equality of opportunity, except as I have shown you and was pointed out earlier that is impossible to achieve and just reduces choice and excellence in education in reality in my view too
Astonishing you are allowed to get away with:
"If you ask the average working class man whether he could have a new sports car or send his children to learn Latin and Maths to 18 at Eton he would take the new sports car every time!" Have you met anyone working class?
Plenty and I stand by my comment in terms of most of them
And presumably they would all slap er indoors about a bit if she dared to advance her own opinion.
No but if you really want to believe the average working class male in this country would turn down a new sports car in favour of sending their child to learn Latin at Eton that is up to you
Would the average middle class male?
The average graduate upper middle class male would likely choose Eton over a new sports car, it is just reality
I suspect the "upper middle class" can afford both. Perhaps forego the £140,000 BMW M8 for a more modest sub-£100,000 M4.
I guess you are alluding to someone foregoing a nearly new BMW 320D for a ten year old Fiesta. I imagine these days being dropped off in an "old banger" gets the **** kicked out of your child for being "poor". Thus the experience is somewhat mitigated. 10A*s plus a facial tic from the emotional scarring isn't optimal.
No they can't afford both, only the top 1% or more likely the top 0.5% by income or wealth can afford both not the top 25%.
The premise was they were offered a choice of either free
Tell you what HY. As a man with political ambitions, why not make it your USP as the Conservative Politician who rather than promoting elitism for the few, promises every child an elite top quality education whatever their background. I'd vote for you if you delivered that.
I have, more grammar schools
No you don't, because 90% of your voters will have children in sink Secondary Moderns.
You are an unashamed educational elitist, and to hell with the rest.
Not necessarily some had top 25% and you wanted elite state secondary schools for all determined by intelligence not income, I gave them to you
At Ledbury Grammar School (and I suspect most back in the day) at aged 14 the classes were split into the smart ( O levels) A stream, and the stupid (CSEs) B stream. And don't forget they all passed their 11 plus. So much for elite selection at 11.
This point of law is being worked through in Scotland, I believe. Eg arguments around the Haldane judgement.
No.
They passed the law without working it through.
They explicitly rejected amendments that would have stopped men charged with rape from getting a GRC. They did not explain how it would interact with the Equality Act (a UK wide matter), and claimed one thing in Holyrood (administrative change) and another thing in court (for all intents and purposes changes sex). This is another badly thought through piece of legislation - like the Hate Crime act:
Arsenal should be kicked out of the FA Cup just to be sure.
FA investigators are looking into suspicious betting patterns surrounding the booking of the Oxford United defender Ciaron Brown during Arsenal’s FA Cup win on Monday.
The spot-fixing probe centres on the 59th-minute booking of Brown by the referee David Coote for fouling the Arsenal striker Eddie Nketiah before pushing the midfielder Fábio Vieira during the third-round win away to Oxford. Brown, 24, is a London-born centre back who is also a Northern Ireland international.
It is understood that FA investigators are looking at evidence suggesting that heavy betting took place on the player being cautioned...
..According to the Daily Mail, who first reported the investigation, the odds on Brown being booked were 8-1 before the start of play and one bookmaker reported a bet of about £200.
Is there anything wrong with having a private GP? If so, why?
You would have to ask Rishi that, since he is the one who seems ashamed of it.
He had three routes with integrity. One was to use the NHS while he was a high profile politician. One was to come up with a solid explanation, as OGH has done above. The third was to not enter politics. Not choosing any of those does make him look like a worse person.
And if he had to go down this path, he should have said "personal matter" not "private matter".
I disagree - it's a trap and there is no answer that won't draw bile from those who want to be bilious.
(a) Yes, I go private - Oh, NHS not good enough for you? How the hell can you be in charge of something you don't even trust to use?
(b) Lie - get found out (as has been shown) - Why did you lie?
What's wrong with Stuartinromford's first option, not going private whilst a prominent politician? It's not as if the PM's going to struggle to get an NHS appointment if he needed one.
Because its performative nonsense, thats why. Should a politician only sit in rubbish seats at football (come on Keir, get out of that box)? Of only drive rubbish cars? And as for schooling - no more private schools for the kids. That would upset quite a few labour folk.
I don't have a problem with rich people having nicer stuff. I'm richer than most people, I live in a nice big house, drive a decent sized car, had a nice long haul holiday over Christmas etc. I'm very grateful and I pay my taxes and I don't feel bad about it. But for me things like education and health are in a different class, because these are rights and everyone should have the best quality service that the country can afford. I don't think it's right that rich people can jump the queue to get operations before other people, and I don't think that rich people's kids should get better schools than other children. And I don't trust politicians who tell us they are going to deliver the best service possible and fund it appropriately, but refuse to use it themselves. To me the two just seem contradictory and I can't trust a politician like that. Of course other people feel differently about these things, as is their right.
Pretty much my view too. With money comes all sorts of pleasures and privileges - which is fine - but what money shouldn't be able to buy is educational advantage or better essential healthcare
For me the schools point is the bigger one since the more that parental bank balance features there, the greater is the violation of the ideal of equal opportunities. So I feel more strongly about private schools than I do about private health.
The thing is Education is a public good. The better-educated the population is the better it is for society as a whole. So you'd think it would be good if people were using their own resources to increase the total amount of Education in the country. Why is it better in your eyes for someone to buy a new sports car every other year instead of pay Eton school fees?
The reason, I think, is that you've bought into the ideology of meritocracy. This means that you see private education as someone cheating in the great meritocratic struggle. The problem here isn't private education. The problem is that meritocracy is a con used to justify inequality.
It's a futile struggle to try and create a level playing field for meritocracy. Will never happen. Instead I think we should concentrate on people's right to dignity even if they don't become doctors or lawyers, and a fair share of the proceeds generated for society by Eton's education of the wealthy.
You have me wrong here, LP. I don't fetishize meritocracy. That it ends in "ocracy" is a tell. It's an oppressive notion by itself. Eg, if outcomes are grossly unequal but everyone has a meritocratic fair shot at hitting the jackpot, this isn't the End of History imo. It makes no sense to view equal opportunity in isolation from outcomes. Both are important. Plus they impact each other in either direction.
The goal for me is everyone realizes their potential, wealth of background minimized as a factor, with the material outcomes achieved to be far more closely bunched than they are today. It's an unachievable goal of course so the direction of travel is what counts in practice.
Eton v sports car? Serial fast car purchase doesn't hardcode inequality into society, propagate it down through the generations. This is the essential difference to me.
Yes it does.
If you ask the average working class man whether he could have a new sports car or send his children to learn Latin and Maths to 18 at Eton he would take the new sports car every time!
But it doesn't cascade inequality down the generations, a Porsche 911, does it? Ditto most areas of discretionary private spend. Eg I bet I'd disapprove of some of your jumpers - find them morally wrong even - but I'll be relaxed about it because there's no violation of equal opportunities or propagating of societal inequality in your sartorial choices. Unless I'm missing something.
It does if inherited.
You are assuming that because everyone can't go to Eton nobody can. Except forgetting that even if private education was banned, grammar schools were banned, academies and free schools and faith schools were banned and everyone had to send their children to the local comprehensive there would still be inequality.
For parents living in wealthier areas with more expensive houses would have better local schools than those living in poorer areas. So you would have to ban private sale of housing too and ensure everyone lived in social housing.
Yet even then would still be inequality because those of high iq would tend to marry others of high iq and those of low iq those of low iq. So the children of the former would still be much more likely to become doctors, lawyers, ceos etc. So you would have to ban marriage amongst those of the same but not average iq and force the high iq to marry the low iq to ensure genetic shift towards average iq
People don't usually inherit jumpers.
And to say that inequality is multi-sourced and inevitable isn't a strong argument in favour of something that actively increases it.
Thing is, H, this is an unbridgeable-by-debate difference in values and worldview. I'm egalitarian, meaning I have reducing inequality as a very high priority. Heart and head both tell me this. Head because I think it's illogical how resources are so unequally distributed. Heart because it upsets me that they are.
You, otoh, are a traditional tory - with all that this entails.
No you are not egalitarian, if you were you would be Communist or hardcore Socialist and support equality of outcome. If that was the case then fair enough, I might have some respect for your position even if I believed it misguided and likely to lead to more poverty overall.
Instead you are just a liberal meritocrat. Fine with capitalism as long as there is perfect equality of opportunity, except as I have shown you and was pointed out earlier that is impossible to achieve and just reduces choice and excellence in education in reality in my view too
Astonishing you are allowed to get away with:
"If you ask the average working class man whether he could have a new sports car or send his children to learn Latin and Maths to 18 at Eton he would take the new sports car every time!" Have you met anyone working class?
Plenty and I stand by my comment in terms of most of them
And presumably they would all slap er indoors about a bit if she dared to advance her own opinion.
No but if you really want to believe the average working class male in this country would turn down a new sports car in favour of sending their child to learn Latin at Eton that is up to you
Would the average middle class male?
Good point. There may be evidence out there to the contrary but I assume that regardless of class what you do or don't do for your sprogs is limited mainly by your financial circumstances. I suppose there might be some more unwanted kids in working class families who come lower down the pegging order than a new sports car, but it is not a very nice view hyufd has of the plebs (gets pay packet on Friday and goes straight down the bookies and the pub)
I take the other viewpoint, that my kids come higher up the pecking order than sending them to a boarding school where they won't live with the family.
Forced choice for my kids I would choose: Sports car (because why not), then no car at all, then Eton at the bottom of the list. Not because I don't rate my kids, but because I do, and I want them at home with me not shipped away to a boarding school unnecessarily.
My comment was really about @hyufd looking down on the working class.
I stopped reading when he started relying on the pseudoscientific garbage that is "IQ".
If anyone is in need of a celebrity to enlighten them, Nassim Taleb, author of "The Black Swan", may do the job:
As for boarding school and sports cars, most people who didn't go to boarding school have little clue what it's like. Men who went there and who then send their sons there are filth. It's not like a sports car which you can imagine driving with some reasonable degree of realism even if you've never driven one.
Well if you believe the child of 2 Oxbridge science or law graduates will have the same IQ as the child of 2 parents who failed their GCSEs, fine
There are plenty of idiot children of brilliant parents, and plenty of brilliant children of idiots.
You are simply more likely to be smart if your parents are smart, and vice versa.
Rare exceptions rather than plenty I suspect.
I am too scared to ask how intelligent you believe your own parents to be.
My mother has O levels, my father A levels. Neither went to university unlike me (albeit my father's father went to LSE nightschool and got a degree)
Is there anything wrong with having a private GP? If so, why?
You would have to ask Rishi that, since he is the one who seems ashamed of it.
He had three routes with integrity. One was to use the NHS while he was a high profile politician. One was to come up with a solid explanation, as OGH has done above. The third was to not enter politics. Not choosing any of those does make him look like a worse person.
And if he had to go down this path, he should have said "personal matter" not "private matter".
I disagree - it's a trap and there is no answer that won't draw bile from those who want to be bilious.
(a) Yes, I go private - Oh, NHS not good enough for you? How the hell can you be in charge of something you don't even trust to use?
(b) Lie - get found out (as has been shown) - Why did you lie?
What's wrong with Stuartinromford's first option, not going private whilst a prominent politician? It's not as if the PM's going to struggle to get an NHS appointment if he needed one.
Because its performative nonsense, thats why. Should a politician only sit in rubbish seats at football (come on Keir, get out of that box)? Of only drive rubbish cars? And as for schooling - no more private schools for the kids. That would upset quite a few labour folk.
I don't have a problem with rich people having nicer stuff. I'm richer than most people, I live in a nice big house, drive a decent sized car, had a nice long haul holiday over Christmas etc. I'm very grateful and I pay my taxes and I don't feel bad about it. But for me things like education and health are in a different class, because these are rights and everyone should have the best quality service that the country can afford. I don't think it's right that rich people can jump the queue to get operations before other people, and I don't think that rich people's kids should get better schools than other children. And I don't trust politicians who tell us they are going to deliver the best service possible and fund it appropriately, but refuse to use it themselves. To me the two just seem contradictory and I can't trust a politician like that. Of course other people feel differently about these things, as is their right.
Pretty much my view too. With money comes all sorts of pleasures and privileges - which is fine - but what money shouldn't be able to buy is educational advantage or better essential healthcare
For me the schools point is the bigger one since the more that parental bank balance features there, the greater is the violation of the ideal of equal opportunities. So I feel more strongly about private schools than I do about private health.
The thing is Education is a public good. The better-educated the population is the better it is for society as a whole. So you'd think it would be good if people were using their own resources to increase the total amount of Education in the country. Why is it better in your eyes for someone to buy a new sports car every other year instead of pay Eton school fees?
The reason, I think, is that you've bought into the ideology of meritocracy. This means that you see private education as someone cheating in the great meritocratic struggle. The problem here isn't private education. The problem is that meritocracy is a con used to justify inequality.
It's a futile struggle to try and create a level playing field for meritocracy. Will never happen. Instead I think we should concentrate on people's right to dignity even if they don't become doctors or lawyers, and a fair share of the proceeds generated for society by Eton's education of the wealthy.
You have me wrong here, LP. I don't fetishize meritocracy. That it ends in "ocracy" is a tell. It's an oppressive notion by itself. Eg, if outcomes are grossly unequal but everyone has a meritocratic fair shot at hitting the jackpot, this isn't the End of History imo. It makes no sense to view equal opportunity in isolation from outcomes. Both are important. Plus they impact each other in either direction.
The goal for me is everyone realizes their potential, wealth of background minimized as a factor, with the material outcomes achieved to be far more closely bunched than they are today. It's an unachievable goal of course so the direction of travel is what counts in practice.
Eton v sports car? Serial fast car purchase doesn't hardcode inequality into society, propagate it down through the generations. This is the essential difference to me.
Yes it does.
If you ask the average working class man whether he could have a new sports car or send his children to learn Latin and Maths to 18 at Eton he would take the new sports car every time!
But it doesn't cascade inequality down the generations, a Porsche 911, does it? Ditto most areas of discretionary private spend. Eg I bet I'd disapprove of some of your jumpers - find them morally wrong even - but I'll be relaxed about it because there's no violation of equal opportunities or propagating of societal inequality in your sartorial choices. Unless I'm missing something.
It does if inherited.
You are assuming that because everyone can't go to Eton nobody can. Except forgetting that even if private education was banned, grammar schools were banned, academies and free schools and faith schools were banned and everyone had to send their children to the local comprehensive there would still be inequality.
For parents living in wealthier areas with more expensive houses would have better local schools than those living in poorer areas. So you would have to ban private sale of housing too and ensure everyone lived in social housing.
Yet even then would still be inequality because those of high iq would tend to marry others of high iq and those of low iq those of low iq. So the children of the former would still be much more likely to become doctors, lawyers, ceos etc. So you would have to ban marriage amongst those of the same but not average iq and force the high iq to marry the low iq to ensure genetic shift towards average iq
People don't usually inherit jumpers.
And to say that inequality is multi-sourced and inevitable isn't a strong argument in favour of something that actively increases it.
Thing is, H, this is an unbridgeable-by-debate difference in values and worldview. I'm egalitarian, meaning I have reducing inequality as a very high priority. Heart and head both tell me this. Head because I think it's illogical how resources are so unequally distributed. Heart because it upsets me that they are.
You, otoh, are a traditional tory - with all that this entails.
No you are not egalitarian, if you were you would be Communist or hardcore Socialist and support equality of outcome. If that was the case then fair enough, I might have some respect for your position even if I believed it misguided and likely to lead to more poverty overall.
Instead you are just a liberal meritocrat. Fine with capitalism as long as there is perfect equality of opportunity, except as I have shown you and was pointed out earlier that is impossible to achieve and just reduces choice and excellence in education in reality in my view too
Astonishing you are allowed to get away with:
"If you ask the average working class man whether he could have a new sports car or send his children to learn Latin and Maths to 18 at Eton he would take the new sports car every time!" Have you met anyone working class?
Plenty and I stand by my comment in terms of most of them
And presumably they would all slap er indoors about a bit if she dared to advance her own opinion.
No but if you really want to believe the average working class male in this country would turn down a new sports car in favour of sending their child to learn Latin at Eton that is up to you
Would the average middle class male?
Good point. There may be evidence out there to the contrary but I assume that regardless of class what you do or don't do for your sprogs is limited mainly by your financial circumstances. I suppose there might be some more unwanted kids in working class families who come lower down the pegging order than a new sports car, but it is not a very nice view hyufd has of the plebs (gets pay packet on Friday and goes straight down the bookies and the pub)
I take the other viewpoint, that my kids come higher up the pecking order than sending them to a boarding school where they won't live with the family.
Forced choice for my kids I would choose: Sports car (because why not), then no car at all, then Eton at the bottom of the list. Not because I don't rate my kids, but because I do, and I want them at home with me not shipped away to a boarding school unnecessarily.
My comment was really about @hyufd looking down on the working class.
I stopped reading when he started relying on the pseudoscientific garbage that is "IQ".
If anyone is in need of a celebrity to enlighten them, Nassim Taleb, author of "The Black Swan", may do the job:
As for boarding school and sports cars, most people who didn't go to boarding school have little clue what it's like. Men who went there and who then send their sons there are filth. It's not like a sports car which you can imagine driving with some reasonable degree of realism even if you've never driven one.
Well if you believe the child of 2 Oxbridge science or law graduates will have the same IQ as the child of 2 parents who failed their GCSEs, fine
There are plenty of idiot children of brilliant parents, and plenty of brilliant children of idiots.
You are simply more likely to be smart if your parents are smart, and vice versa.
Rare exceptions rather than plenty I suspect.
Two parents with IQs of 80, will be more likely than not to have a child with an IQ above 80.
And two with IQs of 120, will be more likely than not to have one with an IQ below 120.
Yet still just 4% of doctors in the UK come from working class backgrounds and 13% of solicitors
Very good as always. Two questions of Mr Meeks. It is clear from his article who has behaved badly. But which factions/groups/interests does he think have behaved well?
Secondly, it remains obvious to the middling sort who can think and don't have vested interests that the majority of the UK would accept the EU economic/trade agenda but would reject the EU political integration agenda.
This is why the vote was so close, and most normal people were torn in their opinions (especially so as both campaigns were abominations).
How does Mr Meeks resolve this?
For me it is and always has been EFTA/EEA as the only possible, though imperfect, solution.
Two issues related to Mr Meeks' article, both linked.
First, he assumes the answer is already determined (I get why - it suits his view). Second, he is viewing Brexit from 3 years out (not 2016, when we left). That's too short a timeframe.
Take Irish independence - 3 year view (or 7 years if want to take a 1918 / 2016 time comparison) absolute disaster - Civil War, trading war with your main economic partner, far poorer country and major economic / social disruption including persecution of a minority population.
30 years out - so so, country at peace and stable but obviously poorer than what it would have been if it stayed in the U.K. and suffering large scale migration.
70 years out - big success, going ahead of the U.K. in terms of growth, wealth and independence seen as a success.
My points are not Brexit will take 70 years to be a success, it's that (a) it takes time tor things to settle and (b) it depends on the timeframe you pick.
As far as I know, Irish independence was never in danger of being reversed. Brexit most certainly is in spirit if not actually in technicality also because it is increasingly unpopular.
If Rishi, or his political awareness adviser, had spotted this private healthcare issue in advance some preventative measures could have been put in place to provide some easy answers.
Rishi could have arranged to see his NHS GP during the parliamentary break (health check up?) so that he had a ready answer to the private healthcare answer (Yes I have seen my NHS GP recently, I booked online.....).
Whilst exceptions might be made for PMs (although that's unattractive in itself) you'd be pretty unlikely to get the GP doing a check up on a healthy chap. Nurse would do it.
In reality, men aged 20 to 60 don't see their GP. As one GP said to me, "...but then we see them all the f***ing time" so something to look forward to there.
Is there anything wrong with having a private GP? If so, why?
You would have to ask Rishi that, since he is the one who seems ashamed of it.
He had three routes with integrity. One was to use the NHS while he was a high profile politician. One was to come up with a solid explanation, as OGH has done above. The third was to not enter politics. Not choosing any of those does make him look like a worse person.
And if he had to go down this path, he should have said "personal matter" not "private matter".
I disagree - it's a trap and there is no answer that won't draw bile from those who want to be bilious.
(a) Yes, I go private - Oh, NHS not good enough for you? How the hell can you be in charge of something you don't even trust to use?
(b) Lie - get found out (as has been shown) - Why did you lie?
What's wrong with Stuartinromford's first option, not going private whilst a prominent politician? It's not as if the PM's going to struggle to get an NHS appointment if he needed one.
Because its performative nonsense, thats why. Should a politician only sit in rubbish seats at football (come on Keir, get out of that box)? Of only drive rubbish cars? And as for schooling - no more private schools for the kids. That would upset quite a few labour folk.
I don't have a problem with rich people having nicer stuff. I'm richer than most people, I live in a nice big house, drive a decent sized car, had a nice long haul holiday over Christmas etc. I'm very grateful and I pay my taxes and I don't feel bad about it. But for me things like education and health are in a different class, because these are rights and everyone should have the best quality service that the country can afford. I don't think it's right that rich people can jump the queue to get operations before other people, and I don't think that rich people's kids should get better schools than other children. And I don't trust politicians who tell us they are going to deliver the best service possible and fund it appropriately, but refuse to use it themselves. To me the two just seem contradictory and I can't trust a politician like that. Of course other people feel differently about these things, as is their right.
Pretty much my view too. With money comes all sorts of pleasures and privileges - which is fine - but what money shouldn't be able to buy is educational advantage or better essential healthcare
For me the schools point is the bigger one since the more that parental bank balance features there, the greater is the violation of the ideal of equal opportunities. So I feel more strongly about private schools than I do about private health.
The thing is Education is a public good. The better-educated the population is the better it is for society as a whole. So you'd think it would be good if people were using their own resources to increase the total amount of Education in the country. Why is it better in your eyes for someone to buy a new sports car every other year instead of pay Eton school fees?
The reason, I think, is that you've bought into the ideology of meritocracy. This means that you see private education as someone cheating in the great meritocratic struggle. The problem here isn't private education. The problem is that meritocracy is a con used to justify inequality.
It's a futile struggle to try and create a level playing field for meritocracy. Will never happen. Instead I think we should concentrate on people's right to dignity even if they don't become doctors or lawyers, and a fair share of the proceeds generated for society by Eton's education of the wealthy.
You have me wrong here, LP. I don't fetishize meritocracy. That it ends in "ocracy" is a tell. It's an oppressive notion by itself. Eg, if outcomes are grossly unequal but everyone has a meritocratic fair shot at hitting the jackpot, this isn't the End of History imo. It makes no sense to view equal opportunity in isolation from outcomes. Both are important. Plus they impact each other in either direction.
The goal for me is everyone realizes their potential, wealth of background minimized as a factor, with the material outcomes achieved to be far more closely bunched than they are today. It's an unachievable goal of course so the direction of travel is what counts in practice.
Eton v sports car? Serial fast car purchase doesn't hardcode inequality into society, propagate it down through the generations. This is the essential difference to me.
Yes it does.
If you ask the average working class man whether he could have a new sports car or send his children to learn Latin and Maths to 18 at Eton he would take the new sports car every time!
But it doesn't cascade inequality down the generations, a Porsche 911, does it? Ditto most areas of discretionary private spend. Eg I bet I'd disapprove of some of your jumpers - find them morally wrong even - but I'll be relaxed about it because there's no violation of equal opportunities or propagating of societal inequality in your sartorial choices. Unless I'm missing something.
It does if inherited.
You are assuming that because everyone can't go to Eton nobody can. Except forgetting that even if private education was banned, grammar schools were banned, academies and free schools and faith schools were banned and everyone had to send their children to the local comprehensive there would still be inequality.
For parents living in wealthier areas with more expensive houses would have better local schools than those living in poorer areas. So you would have to ban private sale of housing too and ensure everyone lived in social housing.
Yet even then would still be inequality because those of high iq would tend to marry others of high iq and those of low iq those of low iq. So the children of the former would still be much more likely to become doctors, lawyers, ceos etc. So you would have to ban marriage amongst those of the same but not average iq and force the high iq to marry the low iq to ensure genetic shift towards average iq
People don't usually inherit jumpers.
And to say that inequality is multi-sourced and inevitable isn't a strong argument in favour of something that actively increases it.
Thing is, H, this is an unbridgeable-by-debate difference in values and worldview. I'm egalitarian, meaning I have reducing inequality as a very high priority. Heart and head both tell me this. Head because I think it's illogical how resources are so unequally distributed. Heart because it upsets me that they are.
You, otoh, are a traditional tory - with all that this entails.
No you are not egalitarian, if you were you would be Communist or hardcore Socialist and support equality of outcome. If that was the case then fair enough, I might have some respect for your position even if I believed it misguided and likely to lead to more poverty overall.
Instead you are just a liberal meritocrat. Fine with capitalism as long as there is perfect equality of opportunity, except as I have shown you and was pointed out earlier that is impossible to achieve and just reduces choice and excellence in education in reality in my view too
Let's breakdown part of of one of your sentences: You were stating that '[@kinabalu was] Fine with capitialism as long as there is perfect equality of opportunity, except as I have shown you and pointed out earlier that is impossible to achieve....' and therefore you were disagreeing with him.
So breaking this down, presumably if you think it is impossible to achieve (and I would agree with you it never is, except in an ideal world) then by implication you are not in favour of the bit before which is 'capitalism as long as there is perfect equality of opportunity'.
This part has two conditions to be met 'capitalism' and 'perfect equality of opportunity'.
'capitalism' I assume you approve of because you are Tory, although frankly you do make a number of posts that I would consider quite authoritarian and you are much less of financial or social liberal than someone like me, but let's take it as read you are a capitalist.
So that leaves 'perfect equality of opportunity'. Logically this can be broken down into 2 parts also. 'perfect' I agree is impossible, but that does not mean we should not aim for something even if we never achieve it. 'equality of opportunity' I would have thought was a moral objective. It certainly is for many Tories, including Margaret Thatcher who made attempts to achieve this with share ownership, council house sales, etc. Why should some have a greater opportunity than others to achieve? Only the toff not the plebs. I agree it will never be perfect, but so what, give it a go.
Just as a general point it's got to be ok to believe in a goal that's unattainable so it becomes all about direction of travel.
Eg Peace on Earth. Never happening. Does this mean it's not worth working towards? That a bit more peace isn't better than a bit less? Surely not.
This is very sad. One of the very talented people who made Politico into an excellent online publication.
Suicide and depression remain among life’s deepest mysteries. Blake Hounshell was mentoring, inspiring, fathering, tweeting, and opining right up until he took his own life, leaving a sudden gaping hole in the lives of others. May his memory be a blessing. https://twitter.com/tribelaw/status/1613197844810268674
It's quite extraordinary that - at 330pm in the depths of winter - the UK's coal and had power stations are barely needed.
Perhaps all new homes should be fitted with mini wind turbines. They'd be a lot more use than solar panels in this weather.
Just put the solar panels on an axle through their middle, so when it's sunny it can function as a solar panel, when it's gusty it can revolve like a watermill.
Is there anything wrong with having a private GP? If so, why?
You would have to ask Rishi that, since he is the one who seems ashamed of it.
He had three routes with integrity. One was to use the NHS while he was a high profile politician. One was to come up with a solid explanation, as OGH has done above. The third was to not enter politics. Not choosing any of those does make him look like a worse person.
And if he had to go down this path, he should have said "personal matter" not "private matter".
I disagree - it's a trap and there is no answer that won't draw bile from those who want to be bilious.
(a) Yes, I go private - Oh, NHS not good enough for you? How the hell can you be in charge of something you don't even trust to use?
(b) Lie - get found out (as has been shown) - Why did you lie?
What's wrong with Stuartinromford's first option, not going private whilst a prominent politician? It's not as if the PM's going to struggle to get an NHS appointment if he needed one.
Because its performative nonsense, thats why. Should a politician only sit in rubbish seats at football (come on Keir, get out of that box)? Of only drive rubbish cars? And as for schooling - no more private schools for the kids. That would upset quite a few labour folk.
I don't have a problem with rich people having nicer stuff. I'm richer than most people, I live in a nice big house, drive a decent sized car, had a nice long haul holiday over Christmas etc. I'm very grateful and I pay my taxes and I don't feel bad about it. But for me things like education and health are in a different class, because these are rights and everyone should have the best quality service that the country can afford. I don't think it's right that rich people can jump the queue to get operations before other people, and I don't think that rich people's kids should get better schools than other children. And I don't trust politicians who tell us they are going to deliver the best service possible and fund it appropriately, but refuse to use it themselves. To me the two just seem contradictory and I can't trust a politician like that. Of course other people feel differently about these things, as is their right.
Pretty much my view too. With money comes all sorts of pleasures and privileges - which is fine - but what money shouldn't be able to buy is educational advantage or better essential healthcare
For me the schools point is the bigger one since the more that parental bank balance features there, the greater is the violation of the ideal of equal opportunities. So I feel more strongly about private schools than I do about private health.
The thing is Education is a public good. The better-educated the population is the better it is for society as a whole. So you'd think it would be good if people were using their own resources to increase the total amount of Education in the country. Why is it better in your eyes for someone to buy a new sports car every other year instead of pay Eton school fees?
The reason, I think, is that you've bought into the ideology of meritocracy. This means that you see private education as someone cheating in the great meritocratic struggle. The problem here isn't private education. The problem is that meritocracy is a con used to justify inequality.
It's a futile struggle to try and create a level playing field for meritocracy. Will never happen. Instead I think we should concentrate on people's right to dignity even if they don't become doctors or lawyers, and a fair share of the proceeds generated for society by Eton's education of the wealthy.
You have me wrong here, LP. I don't fetishize meritocracy. That it ends in "ocracy" is a tell. It's an oppressive notion by itself. Eg, if outcomes are grossly unequal but everyone has a meritocratic fair shot at hitting the jackpot, this isn't the End of History imo. It makes no sense to view equal opportunity in isolation from outcomes. Both are important. Plus they impact each other in either direction.
The goal for me is everyone realizes their potential, wealth of background minimized as a factor, with the material outcomes achieved to be far more closely bunched than they are today. It's an unachievable goal of course so the direction of travel is what counts in practice.
Eton v sports car? Serial fast car purchase doesn't hardcode inequality into society, propagate it down through the generations. This is the essential difference to me.
Yes it does.
If you ask the average working class man whether he could have a new sports car or send his children to learn Latin and Maths to 18 at Eton he would take the new sports car every time!
But it doesn't cascade inequality down the generations, a Porsche 911, does it? Ditto most areas of discretionary private spend. Eg I bet I'd disapprove of some of your jumpers - find them morally wrong even - but I'll be relaxed about it because there's no violation of equal opportunities or propagating of societal inequality in your sartorial choices. Unless I'm missing something.
It does if inherited.
You are assuming that because everyone can't go to Eton nobody can. Except forgetting that even if private education was banned, grammar schools were banned, academies and free schools and faith schools were banned and everyone had to send their children to the local comprehensive there would still be inequality.
For parents living in wealthier areas with more expensive houses would have better local schools than those living in poorer areas. So you would have to ban private sale of housing too and ensure everyone lived in social housing.
Yet even then would still be inequality because those of high iq would tend to marry others of high iq and those of low iq those of low iq. So the children of the former would still be much more likely to become doctors, lawyers, ceos etc. So you would have to ban marriage amongst those of the same but not average iq and force the high iq to marry the low iq to ensure genetic shift towards average iq
People don't usually inherit jumpers.
And to say that inequality is multi-sourced and inevitable isn't a strong argument in favour of something that actively increases it.
Thing is, H, this is an unbridgeable-by-debate difference in values and worldview. I'm egalitarian, meaning I have reducing inequality as a very high priority. Heart and head both tell me this. Head because I think it's illogical how resources are so unequally distributed. Heart because it upsets me that they are.
You, otoh, are a traditional tory - with all that this entails.
No you are not egalitarian, if you were you would be Communist or hardcore Socialist and support equality of outcome. If that was the case then fair enough, I might have some respect for your position even if I believed it misguided and likely to lead to more poverty overall.
Instead you are just a liberal meritocrat. Fine with capitalism as long as there is perfect equality of opportunity, except as I have shown you and was pointed out earlier that is impossible to achieve and just reduces choice and excellence in education in reality in my view too
Astonishing you are allowed to get away with:
"If you ask the average working class man whether he could have a new sports car or send his children to learn Latin and Maths to 18 at Eton he would take the new sports car every time!" Have you met anyone working class?
Plenty and I stand by my comment in terms of most of them
And presumably they would all slap er indoors about a bit if she dared to advance her own opinion.
No but if you really want to believe the average working class male in this country would turn down a new sports car in favour of sending their child to learn Latin at Eton that is up to you
Would the average middle class male?
Good point. There may be evidence out there to the contrary but I assume that regardless of class what you do or don't do for your sprogs is limited mainly by your financial circumstances. I suppose there might be some more unwanted kids in working class families who come lower down the pegging order than a new sports car, but it is not a very nice view hyufd has of the plebs (gets pay packet on Friday and goes straight down the bookies and the pub)
I take the other viewpoint, that my kids come higher up the pecking order than sending them to a boarding school where they won't live with the family.
Forced choice for my kids I would choose: Sports car (because why not), then no car at all, then Eton at the bottom of the list. Not because I don't rate my kids, but because I do, and I want them at home with me not shipped away to a boarding school unnecessarily.
My comment was really about @hyufd looking down on the working class.
I stopped reading when he started relying on the pseudoscientific garbage that is "IQ".
If anyone is in need of a celebrity to enlighten them, Nassim Taleb, author of "The Black Swan", may do the job:
As for boarding school and sports cars, most people who didn't go to boarding school have little clue what it's like. Men who went there and who then send their sons there are filth. It's not like a sports car which you can imagine driving with some reasonable degree of realism even if you've never driven one.
Well if you believe the child of 2 Oxbridge science or law graduates will have the same IQ as the child of 2 parents who failed their GCSEs, fine
There are plenty of idiot children of brilliant parents, and plenty of brilliant children of idiots.
You are simply more likely to be smart if your parents are smart, and vice versa.
Rare exceptions rather than plenty I suspect.
Two parents with IQs of 80, will be more likely than not to have a child with an IQ above 80.
And two with IQs of 120, will be more likely than not to have one with an IQ below 120.
Yet still just 4% of doctors in the UK come from working class backgrounds and 13% of solicitors
It's quite extraordinary that - at 330pm in the depths of winter - the UK's coal and had power stations are barely needed.
Perhaps all new homes should be fitted with mini wind turbines. They'd be a lot more use than solar panels in this weather.
Unfortunately mini-wind turbines are worse than useless, given the damage they can do to your roof, and urban areas are poorly stored for wind turbines because the buildings disrupt the airflow.
Solar panels with batteries are the best option for most domestic installations.
It's quite extraordinary that - at 330pm in the depths of winter - the UK's coal and had power stations are barely needed.
Perhaps all new homes should be fitted with mini wind turbines. They'd be a lot more use than solar panels in this weather.
Just put the solar panels on an axle through their middle, so when it's sunny it can function as a solar panel, when it's gusty it can revolve like a watermill.
...plus they can be rotated to follow the sun when it's sunny-not-windy!
Should transgender people be able to change the sex recorded on their birth certificate?
In 2016, a majority of each age group supported this; in 2021 (with a slight change in question wording) a minority did. The sharpest fall in support was from older people.
And the drumbeat of anti-trans pieces in the Times, the Telegraph, the Mail and elsewhere have absolutely nothing to do with this then?
You manage to tell us about a new article in the press on a practically daily basis CV. I note a singular lack of articles written by actual trans people, whether they’re the “trans activists” you’re so keen to decry or the silent majority of trans people you think hold a less activist position.
Why do they not to print articles in the mainstream press every other day?
Debbie Hayton, a trans person (male to female) regularly writes in the mainstream press. Robin White, a male to female barrister, was on Politics Live yesterday morning. Rowan Moore, father of a trans child, wrote a long and interesting article in Prospect a few months back. There are others - including some who have transitioned and then detransitioned or the wives of men who have transitioned. There was one such couple who had a big piece in the Sunday Times recently, for instance.
There is plenty more on other more technical aspects eg some of the medical research and how other countries approach the issue which is worth seeking out if you are interested.
All of these have differing views on differing aspects of this issue and all are worth hearing, even if - perhaps especially if - you do not necessarily agree.
So the idea that there is not plenty of material from differing perspectives is wrong. It is not, in my view, a "drumbeat of anti-trans" pieces more that as the issue has gained a certain salience the "no debate" approach has received push back and a number of people, some from the world of medicine, others who have had actual experience of the issues and others affected have - rightly - started asking some questions about the issues involved, the consequences and the unchallenged assumptions. Challenging assumptions and claims is a good - not a bad - thing.
My point was not that there is a complete absence of articles from trans people in the press - these do exist as you rightly point out - but that CV never ever posts them. They seem to be singularly obsessed with this particular issue.
Even if that's the case, CV wouldn't be the only poster here who is singularly obsessed with a particular issue.
I believe CV posts on many topics and obviously being female is affected by all these changes and very entitled to give her opinion as a "woman" who may not want men in women's safe places. Getting rid of the rights of 50% of thepopulation to suit the fads of 0.04% of the population is criminal.
Removing rights from 0.04% of the population because they are only a tiny part of the population is highly immoral.
Which rights are there proposals to remove?
(Snip)
Advancing the rights of 0.04% of the population (which is what is being proposed) potentially at the expense of 50%+ of the population is highly immoral. But there is to be "no debate". I wonder why?
Anyone who tries to restrict trans people from using toilets will enhance two existing sins: *) Many trans people will no longer feel safe to use public toilets - which is already an issue for some. *) Women who do not fit the idealised views of women - say black women, women who have had mastectomies, or women who look boyish etc - will be accused of being men and hassled. As already happens to an extent (1)
So yes, they are removing the 'rights' to go and use public toilets. Which I see as a fairly fundamental right.
As for the '0.04% of the population' argument - what ever minorities are you willing to see restrictions placed on for the greater good?
(1) "My entire life, it has been made very clear to me that I am doing 'woman' wrong. As a dark-skinned Black, fat, masculine-presenting dyke with a shaved head who tends to lean towards clothing gendered as men's, I have always had issues in single-sex spaces like bathrooms and changing rooms." https://www.refinery29.com/en-gb/bathroom-transphobia-butch-women
Royal Mail export disruption following some sort of cyber incident at Royal Mail. Odd that this happens on the same day as US planes are grounded due to a cyber issue.
Is there anything wrong with having a private GP? If so, why?
You would have to ask Rishi that, since he is the one who seems ashamed of it.
He had three routes with integrity. One was to use the NHS while he was a high profile politician. One was to come up with a solid explanation, as OGH has done above. The third was to not enter politics. Not choosing any of those does make him look like a worse person.
And if he had to go down this path, he should have said "personal matter" not "private matter".
I disagree - it's a trap and there is no answer that won't draw bile from those who want to be bilious.
(a) Yes, I go private - Oh, NHS not good enough for you? How the hell can you be in charge of something you don't even trust to use?
(b) Lie - get found out (as has been shown) - Why did you lie?
What's wrong with Stuartinromford's first option, not going private whilst a prominent politician? It's not as if the PM's going to struggle to get an NHS appointment if he needed one.
Because its performative nonsense, thats why. Should a politician only sit in rubbish seats at football (come on Keir, get out of that box)? Of only drive rubbish cars? And as for schooling - no more private schools for the kids. That would upset quite a few labour folk.
I don't have a problem with rich people having nicer stuff. I'm richer than most people, I live in a nice big house, drive a decent sized car, had a nice long haul holiday over Christmas etc. I'm very grateful and I pay my taxes and I don't feel bad about it. But for me things like education and health are in a different class, because these are rights and everyone should have the best quality service that the country can afford. I don't think it's right that rich people can jump the queue to get operations before other people, and I don't think that rich people's kids should get better schools than other children. And I don't trust politicians who tell us they are going to deliver the best service possible and fund it appropriately, but refuse to use it themselves. To me the two just seem contradictory and I can't trust a politician like that. Of course other people feel differently about these things, as is their right.
Pretty much my view too. With money comes all sorts of pleasures and privileges - which is fine - but what money shouldn't be able to buy is educational advantage or better essential healthcare
For me the schools point is the bigger one since the more that parental bank balance features there, the greater is the violation of the ideal of equal opportunities. So I feel more strongly about private schools than I do about private health.
The thing is Education is a public good. The better-educated the population is the better it is for society as a whole. So you'd think it would be good if people were using their own resources to increase the total amount of Education in the country. Why is it better in your eyes for someone to buy a new sports car every other year instead of pay Eton school fees?
The reason, I think, is that you've bought into the ideology of meritocracy. This means that you see private education as someone cheating in the great meritocratic struggle. The problem here isn't private education. The problem is that meritocracy is a con used to justify inequality.
It's a futile struggle to try and create a level playing field for meritocracy. Will never happen. Instead I think we should concentrate on people's right to dignity even if they don't become doctors or lawyers, and a fair share of the proceeds generated for society by Eton's education of the wealthy.
You have me wrong here, LP. I don't fetishize meritocracy. That it ends in "ocracy" is a tell. It's an oppressive notion by itself. Eg, if outcomes are grossly unequal but everyone has a meritocratic fair shot at hitting the jackpot, this isn't the End of History imo. It makes no sense to view equal opportunity in isolation from outcomes. Both are important. Plus they impact each other in either direction.
The goal for me is everyone realizes their potential, wealth of background minimized as a factor, with the material outcomes achieved to be far more closely bunched than they are today. It's an unachievable goal of course so the direction of travel is what counts in practice.
Eton v sports car? Serial fast car purchase doesn't hardcode inequality into society, propagate it down through the generations. This is the essential difference to me.
Yes it does.
If you ask the average working class man whether he could have a new sports car or send his children to learn Latin and Maths to 18 at Eton he would take the new sports car every time!
But it doesn't cascade inequality down the generations, a Porsche 911, does it? Ditto most areas of discretionary private spend. Eg I bet I'd disapprove of some of your jumpers - find them morally wrong even - but I'll be relaxed about it because there's no violation of equal opportunities or propagating of societal inequality in your sartorial choices. Unless I'm missing something.
It does if inherited.
You are assuming that because everyone can't go to Eton nobody can. Except forgetting that even if private education was banned, grammar schools were banned, academies and free schools and faith schools were banned and everyone had to send their children to the local comprehensive there would still be inequality.
For parents living in wealthier areas with more expensive houses would have better local schools than those living in poorer areas. So you would have to ban private sale of housing too and ensure everyone lived in social housing.
Yet even then would still be inequality because those of high iq would tend to marry others of high iq and those of low iq those of low iq. So the children of the former would still be much more likely to become doctors, lawyers, ceos etc. So you would have to ban marriage amongst those of the same but not average iq and force the high iq to marry the low iq to ensure genetic shift towards average iq
People don't usually inherit jumpers.
And to say that inequality is multi-sourced and inevitable isn't a strong argument in favour of something that actively increases it.
Thing is, H, this is an unbridgeable-by-debate difference in values and worldview. I'm egalitarian, meaning I have reducing inequality as a very high priority. Heart and head both tell me this. Head because I think it's illogical how resources are so unequally distributed. Heart because it upsets me that they are.
You, otoh, are a traditional tory - with all that this entails.
No you are not egalitarian, if you were you would be Communist or hardcore Socialist and support equality of outcome. If that was the case then fair enough, I might have some respect for your position even if I believed it misguided and likely to lead to more poverty overall.
Instead you are just a liberal meritocrat. Fine with capitalism as long as there is perfect equality of opportunity, except as I have shown you and was pointed out earlier that is impossible to achieve and just reduces choice and excellence in education in reality in my view too
Let's breakdown part of of one of your sentences: You were stating that '[@kinabalu was] Fine with capitialism as long as there is perfect equality of opportunity, except as I have shown you and pointed out earlier that is impossible to achieve....' and therefore you were disagreeing with him.
So breaking this down, presumably if you think it is impossible to achieve (and I would agree with you it never is, except in an ideal world) then by implication you are not in favour of the bit before which is 'capitalism as long as there is perfect equality of opportunity'.
This part has two conditions to be met 'capitalism' and 'perfect equality of opportunity'.
'capitalism' I assume you approve of because you are Tory, although frankly you do make a number of posts that I would consider quite authoritarian and you are much less of financial or social liberal than someone like me, but let's take it as read you are a capitalist.
So that leaves 'perfect equality of opportunity'. Logically this can be broken down into 2 parts also. 'perfect' I agree is impossible, but that does not mean we should not aim for something even if we never achieve it. 'equality of opportunity' I would have thought was a moral objective. It certainly is for many Tories, including Margaret Thatcher who made attempts to achieve this with share ownership, council house sales, etc. Why should some have a greater opportunity than others to achieve? Only the toff not the plebs. I agree it will never be perfect, but so what, give it a go.
Just as a general point it's got to be ok to believe in a goal that's unattainable so it becomes all about direction of travel.
Eg Peace on Earth. Never happening. Does this mean it's not worth working towards? That a bit more peace isn't better than a bit less? Surely not.
I once had a discussion with someone, who genuinely dismissed me being a vegetarian because everyone occasionally steps on an ant or swallows a fly.
I get that there are arguments about not being vegetarian, but the idea that we shouldn't do something on the basis we can't be perfect is just ludicrous.
Is there anything wrong with having a private GP? If so, why?
You would have to ask Rishi that, since he is the one who seems ashamed of it.
He had three routes with integrity. One was to use the NHS while he was a high profile politician. One was to come up with a solid explanation, as OGH has done above. The third was to not enter politics. Not choosing any of those does make him look like a worse person.
And if he had to go down this path, he should have said "personal matter" not "private matter".
I disagree - it's a trap and there is no answer that won't draw bile from those who want to be bilious.
(a) Yes, I go private - Oh, NHS not good enough for you? How the hell can you be in charge of something you don't even trust to use?
(b) Lie - get found out (as has been shown) - Why did you lie?
What's wrong with Stuartinromford's first option, not going private whilst a prominent politician? It's not as if the PM's going to struggle to get an NHS appointment if he needed one.
Because its performative nonsense, thats why. Should a politician only sit in rubbish seats at football (come on Keir, get out of that box)? Of only drive rubbish cars? And as for schooling - no more private schools for the kids. That would upset quite a few labour folk.
I don't have a problem with rich people having nicer stuff. I'm richer than most people, I live in a nice big house, drive a decent sized car, had a nice long haul holiday over Christmas etc. I'm very grateful and I pay my taxes and I don't feel bad about it. But for me things like education and health are in a different class, because these are rights and everyone should have the best quality service that the country can afford. I don't think it's right that rich people can jump the queue to get operations before other people, and I don't think that rich people's kids should get better schools than other children. And I don't trust politicians who tell us they are going to deliver the best service possible and fund it appropriately, but refuse to use it themselves. To me the two just seem contradictory and I can't trust a politician like that. Of course other people feel differently about these things, as is their right.
Pretty much my view too. With money comes all sorts of pleasures and privileges - which is fine - but what money shouldn't be able to buy is educational advantage or better essential healthcare
For me the schools point is the bigger one since the more that parental bank balance features there, the greater is the violation of the ideal of equal opportunities. So I feel more strongly about private schools than I do about private health.
The thing is Education is a public good. The better-educated the population is the better it is for society as a whole. So you'd think it would be good if people were using their own resources to increase the total amount of Education in the country. Why is it better in your eyes for someone to buy a new sports car every other year instead of pay Eton school fees?
The reason, I think, is that you've bought into the ideology of meritocracy. This means that you see private education as someone cheating in the great meritocratic struggle. The problem here isn't private education. The problem is that meritocracy is a con used to justify inequality.
It's a futile struggle to try and create a level playing field for meritocracy. Will never happen. Instead I think we should concentrate on people's right to dignity even if they don't become doctors or lawyers, and a fair share of the proceeds generated for society by Eton's education of the wealthy.
You have me wrong here, LP. I don't fetishize meritocracy. That it ends in "ocracy" is a tell. It's an oppressive notion by itself. Eg, if outcomes are grossly unequal but everyone has a meritocratic fair shot at hitting the jackpot, this isn't the End of History imo. It makes no sense to view equal opportunity in isolation from outcomes. Both are important. Plus they impact each other in either direction.
The goal for me is everyone realizes their potential, wealth of background minimized as a factor, with the material outcomes achieved to be far more closely bunched than they are today. It's an unachievable goal of course so the direction of travel is what counts in practice.
Eton v sports car? Serial fast car purchase doesn't hardcode inequality into society, propagate it down through the generations. This is the essential difference to me.
Yes it does.
If you ask the average working class man whether he could have a new sports car or send his children to learn Latin and Maths to 18 at Eton he would take the new sports car every time!
But it doesn't cascade inequality down the generations, a Porsche 911, does it? Ditto most areas of discretionary private spend. Eg I bet I'd disapprove of some of your jumpers - find them morally wrong even - but I'll be relaxed about it because there's no violation of equal opportunities or propagating of societal inequality in your sartorial choices. Unless I'm missing something.
It does if inherited.
You are assuming that because everyone can't go to Eton nobody can. Except forgetting that even if private education was banned, grammar schools were banned, academies and free schools and faith schools were banned and everyone had to send their children to the local comprehensive there would still be inequality.
For parents living in wealthier areas with more expensive houses would have better local schools than those living in poorer areas. So you would have to ban private sale of housing too and ensure everyone lived in social housing.
Yet even then would still be inequality because those of high iq would tend to marry others of high iq and those of low iq those of low iq. So the children of the former would still be much more likely to become doctors, lawyers, ceos etc. So you would have to ban marriage amongst those of the same but not average iq and force the high iq to marry the low iq to ensure genetic shift towards average iq
People don't usually inherit jumpers.
And to say that inequality is multi-sourced and inevitable isn't a strong argument in favour of something that actively increases it.
Thing is, H, this is an unbridgeable-by-debate difference in values and worldview. I'm egalitarian, meaning I have reducing inequality as a very high priority. Heart and head both tell me this. Head because I think it's illogical how resources are so unequally distributed. Heart because it upsets me that they are.
You, otoh, are a traditional tory - with all that this entails.
No you are not egalitarian, if you were you would be Communist or hardcore Socialist and support equality of outcome. If that was the case then fair enough, I might have some respect for your position even if I believed it misguided and likely to lead to more poverty overall.
Instead you are just a liberal meritocrat. Fine with capitalism as long as there is perfect equality of opportunity, except as I have shown you and was pointed out earlier that is impossible to achieve and just reduces choice and excellence in education in reality in my view too
Astonishing you are allowed to get away with:
"If you ask the average working class man whether he could have a new sports car or send his children to learn Latin and Maths to 18 at Eton he would take the new sports car every time!" Have you met anyone working class?
Plenty and I stand by my comment in terms of most of them
And presumably they would all slap er indoors about a bit if she dared to advance her own opinion.
No but if you really want to believe the average working class male in this country would turn down a new sports car in favour of sending their child to learn Latin at Eton that is up to you
Would the average middle class male?
Good point. There may be evidence out there to the contrary but I assume that regardless of class what you do or don't do for your sprogs is limited mainly by your financial circumstances. I suppose there might be some more unwanted kids in working class families who come lower down the pegging order than a new sports car, but it is not a very nice view hyufd has of the plebs (gets pay packet on Friday and goes straight down the bookies and the pub)
I take the other viewpoint, that my kids come higher up the pecking order than sending them to a boarding school where they won't live with the family.
Forced choice for my kids I would choose: Sports car (because why not), then no car at all, then Eton at the bottom of the list. Not because I don't rate my kids, but because I do, and I want them at home with me not shipped away to a boarding school unnecessarily.
My comment was really about @hyufd looking down on the working class.
I stopped reading when he started relying on the pseudoscientific garbage that is "IQ".
If anyone is in need of a celebrity to enlighten them, Nassim Taleb, author of "The Black Swan", may do the job:
As for boarding school and sports cars, most people who didn't go to boarding school have little clue what it's like. Men who went there and who then send their sons there are filth. It's not like a sports car which you can imagine driving with some reasonable degree of realism even if you've never driven one.
Well if you believe the child of 2 Oxbridge science or law graduates will have the same IQ as the child of 2 parents who failed their GCSEs, fine
We had a kid at comprehensive school who my father taught Maths to, who became a Maths Professor at Oxford or Cambridge (I can't remember which). His mum and dad sold ice cream to me off the back of a Mr Whippy van, so your statement is utter and absolute nonsense.
So what, just because they sold ice cream doesn't mean they failed their O Levels does it?
Forgive my naivety but I suspect they didn't take any, which is why they were doing the very worthy jobs they were doing. But you are right I don't know for sure.
Anecdata: My middle daughter and her classmates have recently done the 11+. In general, you can guess the children who will pass (or at least get close - for passing is very difficult, and if we are to take the premise that intelligence is largely hereditary, well, 75%+ of parents here have degrees, whereas only about 25% of kids pass) by knowing the parents. But there are delicious counter-examples: at least two who have passed are from slightly chaotic families where, solely from knowing the parents, you'd instinctively put the kids in the 'won't pass' category, including one who scored higher (AFAIU) than anyone else in the class.
Also anecdata: without blowing my own trumpet, I'm fairly high up the percentiles academically and my wife, I'd say, even higher (particularly if you don't ask her to do maths). My oldest daughter will, I suspect, outshine us both. My middle daughter is bright but dyslexic - she passed the 11+ but, well, I think her career will be more practical than academic. And my youngest has ADHD and while I want to give her the same opportunities as her sisters, I'm not convinced a grammar school education is her future. (I'm laughing at myself middle-classly slapping labels on any of my kids who fall short of intellectual high-achievement - but the point remains: people's brains work differently. Heredity can only do so much. Though interestingly, both ADHD and dyslexia are usually heritable - which puts an entirely different spin on certain grandparents successful but unstraightforward paths through life.)
Is there anything wrong with having a private GP? If so, why?
You would have to ask Rishi that, since he is the one who seems ashamed of it.
He had three routes with integrity. One was to use the NHS while he was a high profile politician. One was to come up with a solid explanation, as OGH has done above. The third was to not enter politics. Not choosing any of those does make him look like a worse person.
And if he had to go down this path, he should have said "personal matter" not "private matter".
I disagree - it's a trap and there is no answer that won't draw bile from those who want to be bilious.
(a) Yes, I go private - Oh, NHS not good enough for you? How the hell can you be in charge of something you don't even trust to use?
(b) Lie - get found out (as has been shown) - Why did you lie?
What's wrong with Stuartinromford's first option, not going private whilst a prominent politician? It's not as if the PM's going to struggle to get an NHS appointment if he needed one.
Because its performative nonsense, thats why. Should a politician only sit in rubbish seats at football (come on Keir, get out of that box)? Of only drive rubbish cars? And as for schooling - no more private schools for the kids. That would upset quite a few labour folk.
I don't have a problem with rich people having nicer stuff. I'm richer than most people, I live in a nice big house, drive a decent sized car, had a nice long haul holiday over Christmas etc. I'm very grateful and I pay my taxes and I don't feel bad about it. But for me things like education and health are in a different class, because these are rights and everyone should have the best quality service that the country can afford. I don't think it's right that rich people can jump the queue to get operations before other people, and I don't think that rich people's kids should get better schools than other children. And I don't trust politicians who tell us they are going to deliver the best service possible and fund it appropriately, but refuse to use it themselves. To me the two just seem contradictory and I can't trust a politician like that. Of course other people feel differently about these things, as is their right.
Pretty much my view too. With money comes all sorts of pleasures and privileges - which is fine - but what money shouldn't be able to buy is educational advantage or better essential healthcare
For me the schools point is the bigger one since the more that parental bank balance features there, the greater is the violation of the ideal of equal opportunities. So I feel more strongly about private schools than I do about private health.
The thing is Education is a public good. The better-educated the population is the better it is for society as a whole. So you'd think it would be good if people were using their own resources to increase the total amount of Education in the country. Why is it better in your eyes for someone to buy a new sports car every other year instead of pay Eton school fees?
The reason, I think, is that you've bought into the ideology of meritocracy. This means that you see private education as someone cheating in the great meritocratic struggle. The problem here isn't private education. The problem is that meritocracy is a con used to justify inequality.
It's a futile struggle to try and create a level playing field for meritocracy. Will never happen. Instead I think we should concentrate on people's right to dignity even if they don't become doctors or lawyers, and a fair share of the proceeds generated for society by Eton's education of the wealthy.
You have me wrong here, LP. I don't fetishize meritocracy. That it ends in "ocracy" is a tell. It's an oppressive notion by itself. Eg, if outcomes are grossly unequal but everyone has a meritocratic fair shot at hitting the jackpot, this isn't the End of History imo. It makes no sense to view equal opportunity in isolation from outcomes. Both are important. Plus they impact each other in either direction.
The goal for me is everyone realizes their potential, wealth of background minimized as a factor, with the material outcomes achieved to be far more closely bunched than they are today. It's an unachievable goal of course so the direction of travel is what counts in practice.
Eton v sports car? Serial fast car purchase doesn't hardcode inequality into society, propagate it down through the generations. This is the essential difference to me.
Yes it does.
If you ask the average working class man whether he could have a new sports car or send his children to learn Latin and Maths to 18 at Eton he would take the new sports car every time!
But it doesn't cascade inequality down the generations, a Porsche 911, does it? Ditto most areas of discretionary private spend. Eg I bet I'd disapprove of some of your jumpers - find them morally wrong even - but I'll be relaxed about it because there's no violation of equal opportunities or propagating of societal inequality in your sartorial choices. Unless I'm missing something.
It does if inherited.
You are assuming that because everyone can't go to Eton nobody can. Except forgetting that even if private education was banned, grammar schools were banned, academies and free schools and faith schools were banned and everyone had to send their children to the local comprehensive there would still be inequality.
For parents living in wealthier areas with more expensive houses would have better local schools than those living in poorer areas. So you would have to ban private sale of housing too and ensure everyone lived in social housing.
Yet even then would still be inequality because those of high iq would tend to marry others of high iq and those of low iq those of low iq. So the children of the former would still be much more likely to become doctors, lawyers, ceos etc. So you would have to ban marriage amongst those of the same but not average iq and force the high iq to marry the low iq to ensure genetic shift towards average iq
People don't usually inherit jumpers.
And to say that inequality is multi-sourced and inevitable isn't a strong argument in favour of something that actively increases it.
Thing is, H, this is an unbridgeable-by-debate difference in values and worldview. I'm egalitarian, meaning I have reducing inequality as a very high priority. Heart and head both tell me this. Head because I think it's illogical how resources are so unequally distributed. Heart because it upsets me that they are.
You, otoh, are a traditional tory - with all that this entails.
No you are not egalitarian, if you were you would be Communist or hardcore Socialist and support equality of outcome. If that was the case then fair enough, I might have some respect for your position even if I believed it misguided and likely to lead to more poverty overall.
Instead you are just a liberal meritocrat. Fine with capitalism as long as there is perfect equality of opportunity, except as I have shown you and was pointed out earlier that is impossible to achieve and just reduces choice and excellence in education in reality in my view too
Let's breakdown part of of one of your sentences: You were stating that '[@kinabalu was] Fine with capitialism as long as there is perfect equality of opportunity, except as I have shown you and pointed out earlier that is impossible to achieve....' and therefore you were disagreeing with him.
So breaking this down, presumably if you think it is impossible to achieve (and I would agree with you it never is, except in an ideal world) then by implication you are not in favour of the bit before which is 'capitalism as long as there is perfect equality of opportunity'.
This part has two conditions to be met 'capitalism' and 'perfect equality of opportunity'.
'capitalism' I assume you approve of because you are Tory, although frankly you do make a number of posts that I would consider quite authoritarian and you are much less of financial or social liberal than someone like me, but let's take it as read you are a capitalist.
So that leaves 'perfect equality of opportunity'. Logically this can be broken down into 2 parts also. 'perfect' I agree is impossible, but that does not mean we should not aim for something even if we never achieve it. 'equality of opportunity' I would have thought was a moral objective. It certainly is for many Tories, including Margaret Thatcher who made attempts to achieve this with share ownership, council house sales, etc. Why should some have a greater opportunity than others to achieve? Only the toff not the plebs. I agree it will never be perfect, but so what, give it a go.
Just as a general point it's got to be ok to believe in a goal that's unattainable so it becomes all about direction of travel.
Eg Peace on Earth. Never happening. Does this mean it's not worth working towards? That a bit more peace isn't better than a bit less? Surely not.
I once had a discussion with someone, who genuinely dismissed me being a vegetarian because everyone occasionally steps on an ant or swallows a fly.
I get that there are arguments about not being vegetarian, but the idea that we shouldn't do something on the basis we can't be perfect is just ludicrous.
Or the recent study which identified scores of different insects' DNA in a packet of tea...
Arsenal should be kicked out of the FA Cup just to be sure.
FA investigators are looking into suspicious betting patterns surrounding the booking of the Oxford United defender Ciaron Brown during Arsenal’s FA Cup win on Monday.
The spot-fixing probe centres on the 59th-minute booking of Brown by the referee David Coote for fouling the Arsenal striker Eddie Nketiah before pushing the midfielder Fábio Vieira during the third-round win away to Oxford. Brown, 24, is a London-born centre back who is also a Northern Ireland international.
It is understood that FA investigators are looking at evidence suggesting that heavy betting took place on the player being cautioned...
..According to the Daily Mail, who first reported the investigation, the odds on Brown being booked were 8-1 before the start of play and one bookmaker reported a bet of about £200.
Politico.com - Bannon on Brazil riots: ‘I’m not backing off 1 inch’ The similarities to Jan. 6 were apparent. And one of the voices in the U.S. pushing it all said he’s not backing off.
The storming of the presidential palace and trashing of government buildings in the Brazilian capital by thousands of supporters of former President Jair Bolsonaro sent shockwaves across the hemisphere.
But on Monday morning, one of the main U.S. voices encouraging Bolsonaro supporters to question the results of the country’s presidential election last year declined to tap the brakes.
“I’m not backing off one inch on this thing,” said former Trump adviser Steve Bannon in an interview. Earlier in the day, he repeated his claims of election fraud in Brazil and called on the current president, Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, who beat Bolsonaro, to open up an investigation.
“Look at the report, the code, the tabulator, the machines and open them up … be transparent, let the citizens of Brazil see,” Bannon said on his “War Room” podcast.
Bannon’s support of the protesters, whom he called “freedom fighters,” has prompted renewed criticism of both him and the larger MAGA movement that has spread election denialism at home and abroad. . . .
SSI - You heard it from Dr. Samuel Johnson first . . .
German Chancellor @OlafScholz said earlier that he remained convinced of the need to coordinate weapons deliveries to Ukraine with allies, yet, a German govt spox said today that it was not aware of any requests from its allies to send Leopards to Ukraine, Reuters reported. https://twitter.com/EuromaidanPress/status/1613206172357595136
Polish President Andrzej Duda announced that Poland had decided to hand over a company of Leopard tanks to Ukraine, but as "part of an international coalition," Polska Agencja Prasowa (PAP) reports. https://twitter.com/EuromaidanPress/status/1613205292937875463
Arsenal should be kicked out of the FA Cup just to be sure.
FA investigators are looking into suspicious betting patterns surrounding the booking of the Oxford United defender Ciaron Brown during Arsenal’s FA Cup win on Monday.
The spot-fixing probe centres on the 59th-minute booking of Brown by the referee David Coote for fouling the Arsenal striker Eddie Nketiah before pushing the midfielder Fábio Vieira during the third-round win away to Oxford. Brown, 24, is a London-born centre back who is also a Northern Ireland international.
It is understood that FA investigators are looking at evidence suggesting that heavy betting took place on the player being cautioned...
..According to the Daily Mail, who first reported the investigation, the odds on Brown being booked were 8-1 before the start of play and one bookmaker reported a bet of about £200.
Royal Mail export disruption following some sort of cyber incident at Royal Mail. Odd that this happens on the same day as US planes are grounded due to a cyber issue.
This point of law is being worked through in Scotland, I believe. Eg arguments around the Haldane judgement.
No.
They passed the law without working it through.
They explicitly rejected amendments that would have stopped men charged with rape from getting a GRC. They did not explain how it would interact with the Equality Act (a UK wide matter), and claimed one thing in Holyrood (administrative change) and another thing in court (for all intents and purposes changes sex). This is another badly thought through piece of legislation - like the Hate Crime act:
I didn't say the interaction with the EA had been worked through. I said it's being worked through. It's pretty complicated, I think. General v specifics. Statute v case. All of that. Eg that amendment was no silver bullet. But to be clear, I'm not saying they've gone about the reform in exactly the right way. I don't know enough about the legal side to opine with confidence on that. I've seen different takes on it and it's not obvious to me that any particular one is correct. We'll have to see how it plays out. My strong hunch is it will settle down and be viewed with hindsight as a solid reform. But maybe not - there are agendas in play and not all of them (both sides btw) are driven by evidence and reason.
Royal Mail export disruption following some sort of cyber incident at Royal Mail. Odd that this happens on the same day as US planes are grounded due to a cyber issue.
So, it's open market in body parts with Bart, sports cars vs private schools with Hyufd, or gender transition - hmmm, ok it has to be trans.
I support the self-id reform. I don't see why it would lead to predatory behaviour - compared to the current system - and this is not the experience of the several countries in all parts of the world who have adopted it. IMO it will make the lives of trans people easier without damaging anybody else.
Then the interaction with the Equalities Act. At present you can have single sex spaces where it's a "proportionate means to achieve a legitimate end". I think this is important and necessary. The default should be trans inclusion but not for everything. Sports, prisons are most cited and for good reason. This point of law is being worked through in Scotland, I believe. Eg arguments around the Haldane judgement.
Would the open market in body parts help with people looking to transition between genders? Perhaps those organising such an enterprise might make enough to send their kids to private school in a Ferrari.
German Chancellor @OlafScholz said earlier that he remained convinced of the need to coordinate weapons deliveries to Ukraine with allies, yet, a German govt spox said today that it was not aware of any requests from its allies to send Leopards to Ukraine, Reuters reported. https://twitter.com/EuromaidanPress/status/1613206172357595136
Polish President Andrzej Duda announced that Poland had decided to hand over a company of Leopard tanks to Ukraine, but as "part of an international coalition," Polska Agencja Prasowa (PAP) reports. https://twitter.com/EuromaidanPress/status/1613205292937875463
It is quite remarkable what a man can manage not to hear, when he doesn't want to.
I want to send the Ukrainians nuclear weapons. Not those WokeTransGayNATO tactical devices. Big Weapons. Unlike Putins weapons
Is there anything wrong with having a private GP? If so, why?
You would have to ask Rishi that, since he is the one who seems ashamed of it.
He had three routes with integrity. One was to use the NHS while he was a high profile politician. One was to come up with a solid explanation, as OGH has done above. The third was to not enter politics. Not choosing any of those does make him look like a worse person.
And if he had to go down this path, he should have said "personal matter" not "private matter".
I disagree - it's a trap and there is no answer that won't draw bile from those who want to be bilious.
(a) Yes, I go private - Oh, NHS not good enough for you? How the hell can you be in charge of something you don't even trust to use?
(b) Lie - get found out (as has been shown) - Why did you lie?
What's wrong with Stuartinromford's first option, not going private whilst a prominent politician? It's not as if the PM's going to struggle to get an NHS appointment if he needed one.
Because its performative nonsense, thats why. Should a politician only sit in rubbish seats at football (come on Keir, get out of that box)? Of only drive rubbish cars? And as for schooling - no more private schools for the kids. That would upset quite a few labour folk.
I don't have a problem with rich people having nicer stuff. I'm richer than most people, I live in a nice big house, drive a decent sized car, had a nice long haul holiday over Christmas etc. I'm very grateful and I pay my taxes and I don't feel bad about it. But for me things like education and health are in a different class, because these are rights and everyone should have the best quality service that the country can afford. I don't think it's right that rich people can jump the queue to get operations before other people, and I don't think that rich people's kids should get better schools than other children. And I don't trust politicians who tell us they are going to deliver the best service possible and fund it appropriately, but refuse to use it themselves. To me the two just seem contradictory and I can't trust a politician like that. Of course other people feel differently about these things, as is their right.
Pretty much my view too. With money comes all sorts of pleasures and privileges - which is fine - but what money shouldn't be able to buy is educational advantage or better essential healthcare
For me the schools point is the bigger one since the more that parental bank balance features there, the greater is the violation of the ideal of equal opportunities. So I feel more strongly about private schools than I do about private health.
The thing is Education is a public good. The better-educated the population is the better it is for society as a whole. So you'd think it would be good if people were using their own resources to increase the total amount of Education in the country. Why is it better in your eyes for someone to buy a new sports car every other year instead of pay Eton school fees?
The reason, I think, is that you've bought into the ideology of meritocracy. This means that you see private education as someone cheating in the great meritocratic struggle. The problem here isn't private education. The problem is that meritocracy is a con used to justify inequality.
It's a futile struggle to try and create a level playing field for meritocracy. Will never happen. Instead I think we should concentrate on people's right to dignity even if they don't become doctors or lawyers, and a fair share of the proceeds generated for society by Eton's education of the wealthy.
You have me wrong here, LP. I don't fetishize meritocracy. That it ends in "ocracy" is a tell. It's an oppressive notion by itself. Eg, if outcomes are grossly unequal but everyone has a meritocratic fair shot at hitting the jackpot, this isn't the End of History imo. It makes no sense to view equal opportunity in isolation from outcomes. Both are important. Plus they impact each other in either direction.
The goal for me is everyone realizes their potential, wealth of background minimized as a factor, with the material outcomes achieved to be far more closely bunched than they are today. It's an unachievable goal of course so the direction of travel is what counts in practice.
Eton v sports car? Serial fast car purchase doesn't hardcode inequality into society, propagate it down through the generations. This is the essential difference to me.
Yes it does.
If you ask the average working class man whether he could have a new sports car or send his children to learn Latin and Maths to 18 at Eton he would take the new sports car every time!
But it doesn't cascade inequality down the generations, a Porsche 911, does it? Ditto most areas of discretionary private spend. Eg I bet I'd disapprove of some of your jumpers - find them morally wrong even - but I'll be relaxed about it because there's no violation of equal opportunities or propagating of societal inequality in your sartorial choices. Unless I'm missing something.
It does if inherited.
You are assuming that because everyone can't go to Eton nobody can. Except forgetting that even if private education was banned, grammar schools were banned, academies and free schools and faith schools were banned and everyone had to send their children to the local comprehensive there would still be inequality.
For parents living in wealthier areas with more expensive houses would have better local schools than those living in poorer areas. So you would have to ban private sale of housing too and ensure everyone lived in social housing.
Yet even then would still be inequality because those of high iq would tend to marry others of high iq and those of low iq those of low iq. So the children of the former would still be much more likely to become doctors, lawyers, ceos etc. So you would have to ban marriage amongst those of the same but not average iq and force the high iq to marry the low iq to ensure genetic shift towards average iq
People don't usually inherit jumpers.
And to say that inequality is multi-sourced and inevitable isn't a strong argument in favour of something that actively increases it.
Thing is, H, this is an unbridgeable-by-debate difference in values and worldview. I'm egalitarian, meaning I have reducing inequality as a very high priority. Heart and head both tell me this. Head because I think it's illogical how resources are so unequally distributed. Heart because it upsets me that they are.
You, otoh, are a traditional tory - with all that this entails.
No you are not egalitarian, if you were you would be Communist or hardcore Socialist and support equality of outcome. If that was the case then fair enough, I might have some respect for your position even if I believed it misguided and likely to lead to more poverty overall.
Instead you are just a liberal meritocrat. Fine with capitalism as long as there is perfect equality of opportunity, except as I have shown you and was pointed out earlier that is impossible to achieve and just reduces choice and excellence in education in reality in my view too
Astonishing you are allowed to get away with:
"If you ask the average working class man whether he could have a new sports car or send his children to learn Latin and Maths to 18 at Eton he would take the new sports car every time!" Have you met anyone working class?
Plenty and I stand by my comment in terms of most of them
And presumably they would all slap er indoors about a bit if she dared to advance her own opinion.
No but if you really want to believe the average working class male in this country would turn down a new sports car in favour of sending their child to learn Latin at Eton that is up to you
Would the average middle class male?
Good point. There may be evidence out there to the contrary but I assume that regardless of class what you do or don't do for your sprogs is limited mainly by your financial circumstances. I suppose there might be some more unwanted kids in working class families who come lower down the pegging order than a new sports car, but it is not a very nice view hyufd has of the plebs (gets pay packet on Friday and goes straight down the bookies and the pub)
I take the other viewpoint, that my kids come higher up the pecking order than sending them to a boarding school where they won't live with the family.
Forced choice for my kids I would choose: Sports car (because why not), then no car at all, then Eton at the bottom of the list. Not because I don't rate my kids, but because I do, and I want them at home with me not shipped away to a boarding school unnecessarily.
My comment was really about @hyufd looking down on the working class.
I stopped reading when he started relying on the pseudoscientific garbage that is "IQ".
If anyone is in need of a celebrity to enlighten them, Nassim Taleb, author of "The Black Swan", may do the job:
As for boarding school and sports cars, most people who didn't go to boarding school have little clue what it's like. Men who went there and who then send their sons there are filth. It's not like a sports car which you can imagine driving with some reasonable degree of realism even if you've never driven one.
Well if you believe the child of 2 Oxbridge science or law graduates will have the same IQ as the child of 2 parents who failed their GCSEs, fine
There are plenty of idiot children of brilliant parents, and plenty of brilliant children of idiots.
You are simply more likely to be smart if your parents are smart, and vice versa.
Rare exceptions rather than plenty I suspect.
Two parents with IQs of 80, will be more likely than not to have a child with an IQ above 80.
And two with IQs of 120, will be more likely than not to have one with an IQ below 120.
Yet still just 4% of doctors in the UK come from working class backgrounds and 13% of solicitors
That is down to a 7 year qualification period for doctors, not intelligence and especially not IQ. But hey ho, no one on this site is clever enough to convince you IQ is not as magical as you think.
So, it's open market in body parts with Bart, sports cars vs private schools with Hyufd, or gender transition - hmmm, ok it has to be trans.
I support the self-id reform. I don't see why it would lead to predatory behaviour - compared to the current system - and this is not the experience of the several countries in all parts of the world who have adopted it. IMO it will make the lives of trans people easier without damaging anybody else.
Then the interaction with the Equalities Act. At present you can have single sex spaces where it's a "proportionate means to achieve a legitimate end". I think this is important and necessary. The default should be trans inclusion but not for everything. Sports, prisons are most cited and for good reason. This point of law is being worked through in Scotland, I believe. Eg arguments around the Haldane judgement.
Would the open market in body parts help with people looking to transition between genders? Perhaps those organising such an enterprise might make enough to send their kids to private school in a Ferrari.
Hats off!
{Trafigura has entered the chat and sold it in a complex swap trade involving uranium, toxic waste and West Africa}
Politico.com - Bannon on Brazil riots: ‘I’m not backing off 1 inch’ The similarities to Jan. 6 were apparent. And one of the voices in the U.S. pushing it all said he’s not backing off.
The storming of the presidential palace and trashing of government buildings in the Brazilian capital by thousands of supporters of former President Jair Bolsonaro sent shockwaves across the hemisphere.
But on Monday morning, one of the main U.S. voices encouraging Bolsonaro supporters to question the results of the country’s presidential election last year declined to tap the brakes.
“I’m not backing off one inch on this thing,” said former Trump adviser Steve Bannon in an interview. Earlier in the day, he repeated his claims of election fraud in Brazil and called on the current president, Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, who beat Bolsonaro, to open up an investigation.
“Look at the report, the code, the tabulator, the machines and open them up … be transparent, let the citizens of Brazil see,” Bannon said on his “War Room” podcast.
Bannon’s support of the protesters, whom he called “freedom fighters,” has prompted renewed criticism of both him and the larger MAGA movement that has spread election denialism at home and abroad. . . .
SSI - You heard it from Dr. Samuel Johnson first . . .
You have to be a pretty damned incompetent President of a country to allow the Opposition to fix the election. They ought to be ineligible on this basis alone.
If Rishi, or his political awareness adviser, had spotted this private healthcare issue in advance some preventative measures could have been put in place to provide some easy answers.
Rishi could have arranged to see his NHS GP during the parliamentary break (health check up?) so that he had a ready answer to the private healthcare answer (Yes I have seen my NHS GP recently, I booked online.....).
Whilst exceptions might be made for PMs (although that's unattractive in itself) you'd be pretty unlikely to get the GP doing a check up on a healthy chap. Nurse would do it.
In reality, men aged 20 to 60 don't see their GP. As one GP said to me, "...but then we see them all the f***ing time" so something to look forward to there.
Got my 'annual' next week which I'm not looking forward to. I've seen the future and it's statins.
Royal Mail export disruption following some sort of cyber incident at Royal Mail. Odd that this happens on the same day as US planes are grounded due to a cyber issue.
This sounds like the work of the Russians.
Shirley you MUST mean the CIA? Obvious culprits!
In general, the more competently it was done, the more likely it was to have been the CIA rather than the Russians.
Arsenal should be kicked out of the FA Cup just to be sure.
FA investigators are looking into suspicious betting patterns surrounding the booking of the Oxford United defender Ciaron Brown during Arsenal’s FA Cup win on Monday.
The spot-fixing probe centres on the 59th-minute booking of Brown by the referee David Coote for fouling the Arsenal striker Eddie Nketiah before pushing the midfielder Fábio Vieira during the third-round win away to Oxford. Brown, 24, is a London-born centre back who is also a Northern Ireland international.
It is understood that FA investigators are looking at evidence suggesting that heavy betting took place on the player being cautioned...
..According to the Daily Mail, who first reported the investigation, the odds on Brown being booked were 8-1 before the start of play and one bookmaker reported a bet of about £200.
Politico.com - Bannon on Brazil riots: ‘I’m not backing off 1 inch’ The similarities to Jan. 6 were apparent. And one of the voices in the U.S. pushing it all said he’s not backing off.
The storming of the presidential palace and trashing of government buildings in the Brazilian capital by thousands of supporters of former President Jair Bolsonaro sent shockwaves across the hemisphere.
But on Monday morning, one of the main U.S. voices encouraging Bolsonaro supporters to question the results of the country’s presidential election last year declined to tap the brakes.
“I’m not backing off one inch on this thing,” said former Trump adviser Steve Bannon in an interview. Earlier in the day, he repeated his claims of election fraud in Brazil and called on the current president, Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, who beat Bolsonaro, to open up an investigation.
“Look at the report, the code, the tabulator, the machines and open them up … be transparent, let the citizens of Brazil see,” Bannon said on his “War Room” podcast.
Bannon’s support of the protesters, whom he called “freedom fighters,” has prompted renewed criticism of both him and the larger MAGA movement that has spread election denialism at home and abroad. . . .
SSI - You heard it from Dr. Samuel Johnson first . . .
You have to be a pretty damned incompetent President of a country to allow the Opposition to fix the election. They ought to be ineligible on this basis alone.
I once had a conversation with a Irish Republican who believed that everything that the *PIRA* did was controlled by "British Securocrats".
He was somewhat non-plussed when I suggested that if they were that good (a) there's no point in opposing them and (b) why not join such a team of brilliant winners?
Is there anything wrong with having a private GP? If so, why?
You would have to ask Rishi that, since he is the one who seems ashamed of it.
He had three routes with integrity. One was to use the NHS while he was a high profile politician. One was to come up with a solid explanation, as OGH has done above. The third was to not enter politics. Not choosing any of those does make him look like a worse person.
And if he had to go down this path, he should have said "personal matter" not "private matter".
I disagree - it's a trap and there is no answer that won't draw bile from those who want to be bilious.
(a) Yes, I go private - Oh, NHS not good enough for you? How the hell can you be in charge of something you don't even trust to use?
(b) Lie - get found out (as has been shown) - Why did you lie?
What's wrong with Stuartinromford's first option, not going private whilst a prominent politician? It's not as if the PM's going to struggle to get an NHS appointment if he needed one.
Because its performative nonsense, thats why. Should a politician only sit in rubbish seats at football (come on Keir, get out of that box)? Of only drive rubbish cars? And as for schooling - no more private schools for the kids. That would upset quite a few labour folk.
I don't have a problem with rich people having nicer stuff. I'm richer than most people, I live in a nice big house, drive a decent sized car, had a nice long haul holiday over Christmas etc. I'm very grateful and I pay my taxes and I don't feel bad about it. But for me things like education and health are in a different class, because these are rights and everyone should have the best quality service that the country can afford. I don't think it's right that rich people can jump the queue to get operations before other people, and I don't think that rich people's kids should get better schools than other children. And I don't trust politicians who tell us they are going to deliver the best service possible and fund it appropriately, but refuse to use it themselves. To me the two just seem contradictory and I can't trust a politician like that. Of course other people feel differently about these things, as is their right.
Pretty much my view too. With money comes all sorts of pleasures and privileges - which is fine - but what money shouldn't be able to buy is educational advantage or better essential healthcare
For me the schools point is the bigger one since the more that parental bank balance features there, the greater is the violation of the ideal of equal opportunities. So I feel more strongly about private schools than I do about private health.
The thing is Education is a public good. The better-educated the population is the better it is for society as a whole. So you'd think it would be good if people were using their own resources to increase the total amount of Education in the country. Why is it better in your eyes for someone to buy a new sports car every other year instead of pay Eton school fees?
The reason, I think, is that you've bought into the ideology of meritocracy. This means that you see private education as someone cheating in the great meritocratic struggle. The problem here isn't private education. The problem is that meritocracy is a con used to justify inequality.
It's a futile struggle to try and create a level playing field for meritocracy. Will never happen. Instead I think we should concentrate on people's right to dignity even if they don't become doctors or lawyers, and a fair share of the proceeds generated for society by Eton's education of the wealthy.
You have me wrong here, LP. I don't fetishize meritocracy. That it ends in "ocracy" is a tell. It's an oppressive notion by itself. Eg, if outcomes are grossly unequal but everyone has a meritocratic fair shot at hitting the jackpot, this isn't the End of History imo. It makes no sense to view equal opportunity in isolation from outcomes. Both are important. Plus they impact each other in either direction.
The goal for me is everyone realizes their potential, wealth of background minimized as a factor, with the material outcomes achieved to be far more closely bunched than they are today. It's an unachievable goal of course so the direction of travel is what counts in practice.
Eton v sports car? Serial fast car purchase doesn't hardcode inequality into society, propagate it down through the generations. This is the essential difference to me.
Yes it does.
If you ask the average working class man whether he could have a new sports car or send his children to learn Latin and Maths to 18 at Eton he would take the new sports car every time!
But it doesn't cascade inequality down the generations, a Porsche 911, does it? Ditto most areas of discretionary private spend. Eg I bet I'd disapprove of some of your jumpers - find them morally wrong even - but I'll be relaxed about it because there's no violation of equal opportunities or propagating of societal inequality in your sartorial choices. Unless I'm missing something.
It does if inherited.
You are assuming that because everyone can't go to Eton nobody can. Except forgetting that even if private education was banned, grammar schools were banned, academies and free schools and faith schools were banned and everyone had to send their children to the local comprehensive there would still be inequality.
For parents living in wealthier areas with more expensive houses would have better local schools than those living in poorer areas. So you would have to ban private sale of housing too and ensure everyone lived in social housing.
Yet even then would still be inequality because those of high iq would tend to marry others of high iq and those of low iq those of low iq. So the children of the former would still be much more likely to become doctors, lawyers, ceos etc. So you would have to ban marriage amongst those of the same but not average iq and force the high iq to marry the low iq to ensure genetic shift towards average iq
People don't usually inherit jumpers.
And to say that inequality is multi-sourced and inevitable isn't a strong argument in favour of something that actively increases it.
Thing is, H, this is an unbridgeable-by-debate difference in values and worldview. I'm egalitarian, meaning I have reducing inequality as a very high priority. Heart and head both tell me this. Head because I think it's illogical how resources are so unequally distributed. Heart because it upsets me that they are.
You, otoh, are a traditional tory - with all that this entails.
No you are not egalitarian, if you were you would be Communist or hardcore Socialist and support equality of outcome. If that was the case then fair enough, I might have some respect for your position even if I believed it misguided and likely to lead to more poverty overall.
Instead you are just a liberal meritocrat. Fine with capitalism as long as there is perfect equality of opportunity, except as I have shown you and was pointed out earlier that is impossible to achieve and just reduces choice and excellence in education in reality in my view too
Astonishing you are allowed to get away with:
"If you ask the average working class man whether he could have a new sports car or send his children to learn Latin and Maths to 18 at Eton he would take the new sports car every time!" Have you met anyone working class?
Plenty and I stand by my comment in terms of most of them
And presumably they would all slap er indoors about a bit if she dared to advance her own opinion.
No but if you really want to believe the average working class male in this country would turn down a new sports car in favour of sending their child to learn Latin at Eton that is up to you
Would the average middle class male?
Good point. There may be evidence out there to the contrary but I assume that regardless of class what you do or don't do for your sprogs is limited mainly by your financial circumstances. I suppose there might be some more unwanted kids in working class families who come lower down the pegging order than a new sports car, but it is not a very nice view hyufd has of the plebs (gets pay packet on Friday and goes straight down the bookies and the pub)
I take the other viewpoint, that my kids come higher up the pecking order than sending them to a boarding school where they won't live with the family.
Forced choice for my kids I would choose: Sports car (because why not), then no car at all, then Eton at the bottom of the list. Not because I don't rate my kids, but because I do, and I want them at home with me not shipped away to a boarding school unnecessarily.
My comment was really about @hyufd looking down on the working class.
I stopped reading when he started relying on the pseudoscientific garbage that is "IQ".
If anyone is in need of a celebrity to enlighten them, Nassim Taleb, author of "The Black Swan", may do the job:
As for boarding school and sports cars, most people who didn't go to boarding school have little clue what it's like. Men who went there and who then send their sons there are filth. It's not like a sports car which you can imagine driving with some reasonable degree of realism even if you've never driven one.
Well if you believe the child of 2 Oxbridge science or law graduates will have the same IQ as the child of 2 parents who failed their GCSEs, fine
There are plenty of idiot children of brilliant parents, and plenty of brilliant children of idiots.
You are simply more likely to be smart if your parents are smart, and vice versa.
Rare exceptions rather than plenty I suspect.
Two parents with IQs of 80, will be more likely than not to have a child with an IQ above 80.
And two with IQs of 120, will be more likely than not to have one with an IQ below 120.
Yet still just 4% of doctors in the UK come from working class backgrounds and 13% of solicitors
That is down to a 7 year qualification period for doctors, not intelligence and especially not IQ. But hey ho, no one on this site is clever enough to convince you IQ is not as magical as you think.
Oh yes of course, it is entirely down to a 7 year qualification period that 96% of doctors come from the 50-55% of the population that is middle class.
87% of solicitors also have middle class parents yet if you did a 3 year law degree you will be a trainee in a law firm a year after graduating post completion of the LPC
Royal Mail export disruption following some sort of cyber incident at Royal Mail. Odd that this happens on the same day as US planes are grounded due to a cyber issue.
This sounds like the work of the Russians.
Shirley you MUST mean the CIA? Obvious culprits!
In general, the more competently it was done, the more likely it was to have been the CIA rather than the Russians.
Arsenal should be kicked out of the FA Cup just to be sure.
FA investigators are looking into suspicious betting patterns surrounding the booking of the Oxford United defender Ciaron Brown during Arsenal’s FA Cup win on Monday.
The spot-fixing probe centres on the 59th-minute booking of Brown by the referee David Coote for fouling the Arsenal striker Eddie Nketiah before pushing the midfielder Fábio Vieira during the third-round win away to Oxford. Brown, 24, is a London-born centre back who is also a Northern Ireland international.
It is understood that FA investigators are looking at evidence suggesting that heavy betting took place on the player being cautioned...
..According to the Daily Mail, who first reported the investigation, the odds on Brown being booked were 8-1 before the start of play and one bookmaker reported a bet of about £200.
If the £52k traded on Betfair is accurate it would typically be sub £1k traded, with maybe up to £5k on a player occassionally. The amount traded is extraordinary as is the booking itself.
Politico.com - Bannon on Brazil riots: ‘I’m not backing off 1 inch’ The similarities to Jan. 6 were apparent. And one of the voices in the U.S. pushing it all said he’s not backing off.
The storming of the presidential palace and trashing of government buildings in the Brazilian capital by thousands of supporters of former President Jair Bolsonaro sent shockwaves across the hemisphere.
But on Monday morning, one of the main U.S. voices encouraging Bolsonaro supporters to question the results of the country’s presidential election last year declined to tap the brakes.
“I’m not backing off one inch on this thing,” said former Trump adviser Steve Bannon in an interview. Earlier in the day, he repeated his claims of election fraud in Brazil and called on the current president, Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, who beat Bolsonaro, to open up an investigation.
“Look at the report, the code, the tabulator, the machines and open them up … be transparent, let the citizens of Brazil see,” Bannon said on his “War Room” podcast.
Bannon’s support of the protesters, whom he called “freedom fighters,” has prompted renewed criticism of both him and the larger MAGA movement that has spread election denialism at home and abroad. . . .
SSI - You heard it from Dr. Samuel Johnson first . . .
You have to be a pretty damned incompetent President of a country to allow the Opposition to fix the election. They ought to be ineligible on this basis alone.
I once had a conversation with a Irish Republican who believed that everything that the *PIRA* did was controlled by "British Securocrats".
He was somewhat non-plussed when I suggested that if they were that good (a) there's no point in opposing them and (b) why not join such a team of brilliant winners?
Freddie Scappaticci and Denis Donaldson tend to prove your friend's supposition.
Arsenal should be kicked out of the FA Cup just to be sure.
FA investigators are looking into suspicious betting patterns surrounding the booking of the Oxford United defender Ciaron Brown during Arsenal’s FA Cup win on Monday.
The spot-fixing probe centres on the 59th-minute booking of Brown by the referee David Coote for fouling the Arsenal striker Eddie Nketiah before pushing the midfielder Fábio Vieira during the third-round win away to Oxford. Brown, 24, is a London-born centre back who is also a Northern Ireland international.
It is understood that FA investigators are looking at evidence suggesting that heavy betting took place on the player being cautioned...
..According to the Daily Mail, who first reported the investigation, the odds on Brown being booked were 8-1 before the start of play and one bookmaker reported a bet of about £200.
If the £52k traded on Betfair is accurate it would typically be sub £1k traded, with maybe up to £5k on a player occassionally. The amount traded is extraordinary as is the booking itself.
Were any of these Albanians moonlighting as taxi drivers?
Arsenal should be kicked out of the FA Cup just to be sure.
FA investigators are looking into suspicious betting patterns surrounding the booking of the Oxford United defender Ciaron Brown during Arsenal’s FA Cup win on Monday.
The spot-fixing probe centres on the 59th-minute booking of Brown by the referee David Coote for fouling the Arsenal striker Eddie Nketiah before pushing the midfielder Fábio Vieira during the third-round win away to Oxford. Brown, 24, is a London-born centre back who is also a Northern Ireland international.
It is understood that FA investigators are looking at evidence suggesting that heavy betting took place on the player being cautioned...
..According to the Daily Mail, who first reported the investigation, the odds on Brown being booked were 8-1 before the start of play and one bookmaker reported a bet of about £200.
If the £52k traded on Betfair is accurate it would typically be sub £1k traded, with maybe up to £5k on a player occassionally. The amount traded is extraordinary as is the booking itself.
Were any of these Albanians moonlighting as taxi drivers?
Getting smaller bets on in cash across a load of different shops through taxi drivers would have been a good strategy back in the day.....
Politico.com - Bannon on Brazil riots: ‘I’m not backing off 1 inch’ The similarities to Jan. 6 were apparent. And one of the voices in the U.S. pushing it all said he’s not backing off.
The storming of the presidential palace and trashing of government buildings in the Brazilian capital by thousands of supporters of former President Jair Bolsonaro sent shockwaves across the hemisphere.
But on Monday morning, one of the main U.S. voices encouraging Bolsonaro supporters to question the results of the country’s presidential election last year declined to tap the brakes.
“I’m not backing off one inch on this thing,” said former Trump adviser Steve Bannon in an interview. Earlier in the day, he repeated his claims of election fraud in Brazil and called on the current president, Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, who beat Bolsonaro, to open up an investigation.
“Look at the report, the code, the tabulator, the machines and open them up … be transparent, let the citizens of Brazil see,” Bannon said on his “War Room” podcast.
Bannon’s support of the protesters, whom he called “freedom fighters,” has prompted renewed criticism of both him and the larger MAGA movement that has spread election denialism at home and abroad. . . .
SSI - You heard it from Dr. Samuel Johnson first . . .
You have to be a pretty damned incompetent President of a country to allow the Opposition to fix the election. They ought to be ineligible on this basis alone.
He's definitely drawing on the classic 'just asking questions' playbook of general deniers, where even though no amount of investigation or proof will ever be enough (just see the US example), they will continue, on mere allegation alone, demand that full exhaustive or even impossible action X must happen, and pretend that is about being transparent and assuring people.
Politico.com - Bannon on Brazil riots: ‘I’m not backing off 1 inch’ The similarities to Jan. 6 were apparent. And one of the voices in the U.S. pushing it all said he’s not backing off.
The storming of the presidential palace and trashing of government buildings in the Brazilian capital by thousands of supporters of former President Jair Bolsonaro sent shockwaves across the hemisphere.
But on Monday morning, one of the main U.S. voices encouraging Bolsonaro supporters to question the results of the country’s presidential election last year declined to tap the brakes.
“I’m not backing off one inch on this thing,” said former Trump adviser Steve Bannon in an interview. Earlier in the day, he repeated his claims of election fraud in Brazil and called on the current president, Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, who beat Bolsonaro, to open up an investigation.
“Look at the report, the code, the tabulator, the machines and open them up … be transparent, let the citizens of Brazil see,” Bannon said on his “War Room” podcast.
Bannon’s support of the protesters, whom he called “freedom fighters,” has prompted renewed criticism of both him and the larger MAGA movement that has spread election denialism at home and abroad. . . .
SSI - You heard it from Dr. Samuel Johnson first . . .
You have to be a pretty damned incompetent President of a country to allow the Opposition to fix the election. They ought to be ineligible on this basis alone.
I once had a conversation with a Irish Republican who believed that everything that the *PIRA* did was controlled by "British Securocrats".
He was somewhat non-plussed when I suggested that if they were that good (a) there's no point in opposing them and (b) why not join such a team of brilliant winners?
Freddie Scappaticci and Denis Donaldson tend to prove your friend's supposition.
That British Intelligence had got inside the PIRA via the "Nutting Squad" isn't up for debate. The idea that they were controlling the whole organisation is a little bit OTT. Though I reckon they used the "Nutting Squad" to kill anti-agreement PIRA members, by framing them as traitors to the PIRA.
Arsenal should be kicked out of the FA Cup just to be sure.
FA investigators are looking into suspicious betting patterns surrounding the booking of the Oxford United defender Ciaron Brown during Arsenal’s FA Cup win on Monday.
The spot-fixing probe centres on the 59th-minute booking of Brown by the referee David Coote for fouling the Arsenal striker Eddie Nketiah before pushing the midfielder Fábio Vieira during the third-round win away to Oxford. Brown, 24, is a London-born centre back who is also a Northern Ireland international.
It is understood that FA investigators are looking at evidence suggesting that heavy betting took place on the player being cautioned...
..According to the Daily Mail, who first reported the investigation, the odds on Brown being booked were 8-1 before the start of play and one bookmaker reported a bet of about £200.
If the £52k traded on Betfair is accurate it would typically be sub £1k traded, with maybe up to £5k on a player occassionally. The amount traded is extraordinary as is the booking itself.
Were any of these Albanians moonlighting as taxi drivers?
Politico.com - Bannon on Brazil riots: ‘I’m not backing off 1 inch’ The similarities to Jan. 6 were apparent. And one of the voices in the U.S. pushing it all said he’s not backing off.
The storming of the presidential palace and trashing of government buildings in the Brazilian capital by thousands of supporters of former President Jair Bolsonaro sent shockwaves across the hemisphere.
But on Monday morning, one of the main U.S. voices encouraging Bolsonaro supporters to question the results of the country’s presidential election last year declined to tap the brakes.
“I’m not backing off one inch on this thing,” said former Trump adviser Steve Bannon in an interview. Earlier in the day, he repeated his claims of election fraud in Brazil and called on the current president, Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, who beat Bolsonaro, to open up an investigation.
“Look at the report, the code, the tabulator, the machines and open them up … be transparent, let the citizens of Brazil see,” Bannon said on his “War Room” podcast.
Bannon’s support of the protesters, whom he called “freedom fighters,” has prompted renewed criticism of both him and the larger MAGA movement that has spread election denialism at home and abroad. . . .
SSI - You heard it from Dr. Samuel Johnson first . . .
You have to be a pretty damned incompetent President of a country to allow the Opposition to fix the election. They ought to be ineligible on this basis alone.
I once had a conversation with a Irish Republican who believed that everything that the *PIRA* did was controlled by "British Securocrats".
He was somewhat non-plussed when I suggested that if they were that good (a) there's no point in opposing them and (b) why not join such a team of brilliant winners?
In the excellent animated show Inside Job, where all conspiracies are true and the main characters are part of the shadowy underworld which really controls the world, there is a character who explains how they always believed there was some secret group of geniuses running the world, and so wanted to be part of that (like you say, if people can pull off such a thing, they must be very effective), only to discover even the Illuminati, Reptoids and the rest are just as big idiots as everyone else.
Harry has mentioned his father's teddy bear. Watch this one. It's difficult for his father's team to respond to. We won't be reading that "Buckingham Palace has today denied that HM the King carried his teddy bear around with him until he was 60 and, on one occasion when no valet was available to play at trimming his teddy's toenails, flew into a massive tantrum and bit a hole in the carpet on which Henry VIII used to entertain Ann Boleyn."
Harry also calls pupils at boarding prep schools (where some begin boarding as young as 7) "abandoned children". I hope the press spend more time on this than they have done writing about his willy.
The writing style may not be great, but Harry has critical skills for sure. It's much better to read an author who has something to say than somebody who's all style and no substance.
Back in 1997 his mother criticised the medical fraternity's use of psychiatric drugs to subdue women experiencing mental health difficulties.
Would that there were a market on whether the current king will still be king at the end of 2023.
PS Talking of willies, the US market may be fascinated by what he says about Roundheads and Cavaliers.
Politico.com - Bannon on Brazil riots: ‘I’m not backing off 1 inch’ The similarities to Jan. 6 were apparent. And one of the voices in the U.S. pushing it all said he’s not backing off.
The storming of the presidential palace and trashing of government buildings in the Brazilian capital by thousands of supporters of former President Jair Bolsonaro sent shockwaves across the hemisphere.
But on Monday morning, one of the main U.S. voices encouraging Bolsonaro supporters to question the results of the country’s presidential election last year declined to tap the brakes.
“I’m not backing off one inch on this thing,” said former Trump adviser Steve Bannon in an interview. Earlier in the day, he repeated his claims of election fraud in Brazil and called on the current president, Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, who beat Bolsonaro, to open up an investigation.
“Look at the report, the code, the tabulator, the machines and open them up … be transparent, let the citizens of Brazil see,” Bannon said on his “War Room” podcast.
Bannon’s support of the protesters, whom he called “freedom fighters,” has prompted renewed criticism of both him and the larger MAGA movement that has spread election denialism at home and abroad. . . .
SSI - You heard it from Dr. Samuel Johnson first . . .
You have to be a pretty damned incompetent President of a country to allow the Opposition to fix the election. They ought to be ineligible on this basis alone.
I once had a conversation with a Irish Republican who believed that everything that the *PIRA* did was controlled by "British Securocrats".
He was somewhat non-plussed when I suggested that if they were that good (a) there's no point in opposing them and (b) why not join such a team of brilliant winners?
Freddie Scappaticci and Denis Donaldson tend to prove your friend's supposition.
Politico.com - Bannon on Brazil riots: ‘I’m not backing off 1 inch’ The similarities to Jan. 6 were apparent. And one of the voices in the U.S. pushing it all said he’s not backing off.
The storming of the presidential palace and trashing of government buildings in the Brazilian capital by thousands of supporters of former President Jair Bolsonaro sent shockwaves across the hemisphere.
But on Monday morning, one of the main U.S. voices encouraging Bolsonaro supporters to question the results of the country’s presidential election last year declined to tap the brakes.
“I’m not backing off one inch on this thing,” said former Trump adviser Steve Bannon in an interview. Earlier in the day, he repeated his claims of election fraud in Brazil and called on the current president, Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, who beat Bolsonaro, to open up an investigation.
“Look at the report, the code, the tabulator, the machines and open them up … be transparent, let the citizens of Brazil see,” Bannon said on his “War Room” podcast.
Bannon’s support of the protesters, whom he called “freedom fighters,” has prompted renewed criticism of both him and the larger MAGA movement that has spread election denialism at home and abroad. . . .
SSI - You heard it from Dr. Samuel Johnson first . . .
You have to be a pretty damned incompetent President of a country to allow the Opposition to fix the election. They ought to be ineligible on this basis alone.
I once had a conversation with a Irish Republican who believed that everything that the *PIRA* did was controlled by "British Securocrats".
He was somewhat non-plussed when I suggested that if they were that good (a) there's no point in opposing them and (b) why not join such a team of brilliant winners?
Freddie Scappaticci and Denis Donaldson tend to prove your friend's supposition.
That British Intelligence had got inside the PIRA via the "Nutting Squad" isn't up for debate. The idea that they were controlling the whole organisation is a little bit OTT. Though I reckon they used the "Nutting Squad" to kill anti-agreement PIRA members, by framing them as traitors to the PIRA.
That was my logic.
I read that the Nutting Squad justice process made Drumhead trials look like the epitome of fair justice.
Harry has mentioned his father's teddy bear. Watch this one. It's difficult for his father's team to respond to. We won't be reading that "Buckingham Palace has today denied that HM the King carried his teddy bear around with him until he was 60 and on one occasion when no valet was available to play at trimming his teddy's toenails, he flew into a massive tantrum and bit a hole in a carpet on which Henry VIII once entertained Ann Boleyn."
Harry also calls pupils at boarding prep schools (where some begin boarding as young as 7) "abandoned children". I hope the press spend more time on this than they have done writing about his willy.
The writing style may not be great, but Harry has critical skills for sure. It's much better to read an author who has something to say than somebody who's all style and no substance.
Back in 1997 his mother criticised the medical fraternity's use of psychiatric drugs to subdue women.
Would that there were a market on whether the current king will still be king at the end of 2023.
It was ghostwritten (though clearly the details are authentically his), so the writing style not being great is presumably not a knock against him one way or another.
Politico.com - Bannon on Brazil riots: ‘I’m not backing off 1 inch’ The similarities to Jan. 6 were apparent. And one of the voices in the U.S. pushing it all said he’s not backing off.
The storming of the presidential palace and trashing of government buildings in the Brazilian capital by thousands of supporters of former President Jair Bolsonaro sent shockwaves across the hemisphere.
But on Monday morning, one of the main U.S. voices encouraging Bolsonaro supporters to question the results of the country’s presidential election last year declined to tap the brakes.
“I’m not backing off one inch on this thing,” said former Trump adviser Steve Bannon in an interview. Earlier in the day, he repeated his claims of election fraud in Brazil and called on the current president, Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, who beat Bolsonaro, to open up an investigation.
“Look at the report, the code, the tabulator, the machines and open them up … be transparent, let the citizens of Brazil see,” Bannon said on his “War Room” podcast.
Bannon’s support of the protesters, whom he called “freedom fighters,” has prompted renewed criticism of both him and the larger MAGA movement that has spread election denialism at home and abroad. . . .
SSI - You heard it from Dr. Samuel Johnson first . . .
You have to be a pretty damned incompetent President of a country to allow the Opposition to fix the election. They ought to be ineligible on this basis alone.
I once had a conversation with a Irish Republican who believed that everything that the *PIRA* did was controlled by "British Securocrats".
He was somewhat non-plussed when I suggested that if they were that good (a) there's no point in opposing them and (b) why not join such a team of brilliant winners?
Freddie Scappaticci and Denis Donaldson tend to prove your friend's supposition.
That British Intelligence had got inside the PIRA via the "Nutting Squad" isn't up for debate. The idea that they were controlling the whole organisation is a little bit OTT. Though I reckon they used the "Nutting Squad" to kill anti-agreement PIRA members, by framing them as traitors to the PIRA.
That was my logic.
I read that the Nutting Squad justice process made Drumhead trials look like the epitome of fair justice.
Politico.com - Bannon on Brazil riots: ‘I’m not backing off 1 inch’ The similarities to Jan. 6 were apparent. And one of the voices in the U.S. pushing it all said he’s not backing off.
The storming of the presidential palace and trashing of government buildings in the Brazilian capital by thousands of supporters of former President Jair Bolsonaro sent shockwaves across the hemisphere.
But on Monday morning, one of the main U.S. voices encouraging Bolsonaro supporters to question the results of the country’s presidential election last year declined to tap the brakes.
“I’m not backing off one inch on this thing,” said former Trump adviser Steve Bannon in an interview. Earlier in the day, he repeated his claims of election fraud in Brazil and called on the current president, Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, who beat Bolsonaro, to open up an investigation.
“Look at the report, the code, the tabulator, the machines and open them up … be transparent, let the citizens of Brazil see,” Bannon said on his “War Room” podcast.
Bannon’s support of the protesters, whom he called “freedom fighters,” has prompted renewed criticism of both him and the larger MAGA movement that has spread election denialism at home and abroad. . . .
SSI - You heard it from Dr. Samuel Johnson first . . .
You have to be a pretty damned incompetent President of a country to allow the Opposition to fix the election. They ought to be ineligible on this basis alone.
I once had a conversation with a Irish Republican who believed that everything that the *PIRA* did was controlled by "British Securocrats".
He was somewhat non-plussed when I suggested that if they were that good (a) there's no point in opposing them and (b) why not join such a team of brilliant winners?
Freddie Scappaticci and Denis Donaldson tend to prove your friend's supposition.
That British Intelligence had got inside the PIRA via the "Nutting Squad" isn't up for debate. The idea that they were controlling the whole organisation is a little bit OTT. Though I reckon they used the "Nutting Squad" to kill anti-agreement PIRA members, by framing them as traitors to the PIRA.
That was my logic.
I read that the Nutting Squad justice process made Drumhead trials look like the epitome of fair justice.
Only exceeded by ISIS and OFSTED inspections....
Do you mean ISI?
Because I have to say, having seen their work at first hand, I would argue the ISI are the most useless cowardly dishonest bunch of wankers out there.
Should transgender people be able to change the sex recorded on their birth certificate?
In 2016, a majority of each age group supported this; in 2021 (with a slight change in question wording) a minority did. The sharpest fall in support was from older people.
And the drumbeat of anti-trans pieces in the Times, the Telegraph, the Mail and elsewhere have absolutely nothing to do with this then?
You manage to tell us about a new article in the press on a practically daily basis CV. I note a singular lack of articles written by actual trans people, whether they’re the “trans activists” you’re so keen to decry or the silent majority of trans people you think hold a less activist position.
Why do they not to print articles in the mainstream press every other day?
Debbie Hayton, a trans person (male to female) regularly writes in the mainstream press. Robin White, a male to female barrister, was on Politics Live yesterday morning. Rowan Moore, father of a trans child, wrote a long and interesting article in Prospect a few months back. There are others - including some who have transitioned and then detransitioned or the wives of men who have transitioned. There was one such couple who had a big piece in the Sunday Times recently, for instance.
There is plenty more on other more technical aspects eg some of the medical research and how other countries approach the issue which is worth seeking out if you are interested.
All of these have differing views on differing aspects of this issue and all are worth hearing, even if - perhaps especially if - you do not necessarily agree.
So the idea that there is not plenty of material from differing perspectives is wrong. It is not, in my view, a "drumbeat of anti-trans" pieces more that as the issue has gained a certain salience the "no debate" approach has received push back and a number of people, some from the world of medicine, others who have had actual experience of the issues and others affected have - rightly - started asking some questions about the issues involved, the consequences and the unchallenged assumptions. Challenging assumptions and claims is a good - not a bad - thing.
My point was not that there is a complete absence of articles from trans people in the press - these do exist as you rightly point out - but that CV never ever posts them. They seem to be singularly obsessed with this particular issue.
Even if that's the case, CV wouldn't be the only poster here who is singularly obsessed with a particular issue.
I believe CV posts on many topics and obviously being female is affected by all these changes and very entitled to give her opinion as a "woman" who may not want men in women's safe places. Getting rid of the rights of 50% of thepopulation to suit the fads of 0.04% of the population is criminal.
Removing rights from 0.04% of the population because they are only a tiny part of the population is highly immoral.
Which rights are there proposals to remove?
If anything the Scottish government is proposing a substantial increase in the rights of people who are trans and purport to be trans
Advancing the rights of 0.04% of the population (which is what is being proposed) potentially at the expense of 50%+ of the population is highly immoral. But there is to be "no debate". I wonder why?
Exactly lots of blatant lying about needing rights etc when they hav esame rights as anyone else , no-one can come up with any justification for trashing rights of 50% of teh population just because 0.04% imagine they need more rights than anyone else.
Harry has mentioned his father's teddy bear. Watch this one. It's difficult for his father's team to respond to. We won't be reading that "Buckingham Palace has today denied that HM the King carried his teddy bear around with him until he was 60 and on one occasion when no valet was available to play at trimming his teddy's toenails, he flew into a massive tantrum and bit a hole in a carpet on which Henry VIII once entertained Ann Boleyn."
Harry also calls pupils at boarding prep schools (where some begin boarding as young as 7) "abandoned children". I hope the press spend more time on this than they have done writing about his willy. (But talking of willies, the US market may be fascinated by what he says about Roundheads and Cavaliers.)
The writing style may not be great, but Harry has critical skills for sure. It's much better to read an author who has something to say than somebody who's all style and no substance.
Back in 1997 his mother criticised the medical fraternity's use of psychiatric drugs to subdue women.
Would that there were a market on whether the current king will still be king at the end of 2023.
Bloody right about prep schools, they are living proof of the Milgram experiment.
Why do you have sausage fingers down for an early exit? I'd risk a bit at evens on a major stroke this year, but unless he is a secret fan of Zeke Emmanuel, they'll prop him up for a good decade regardless. I don't think enraged Harreeistas will topple him.
On private schools - I suspect probably most students would be better off if their parents saved the cash and distributed it later for 'relatively sensible' purchases.
If the average day private school is £15k per year, you could easily pay your child's university fees and give them a deposit on a house for the same money.
Yep, most of the kids would probably do fine in a state school, so abolishing the privates would be like a stonking great free gratis tax cut for the wealthy. I've often thought of selling it that way instead of banging on about 'engines of inequality'. Pitch to self-interest and the wallet.
If private school is a big waste of money for most pupils -> then they could even be inequality *reducing* relative to their non-existence, particularly if you make them pay VAT and redistribute that money into better state education.
Anyone who manages to get into Eton and can afford the fees is going to be part of a wealthy elite regardless of whether Eton actually exists or not.
Should transgender people be able to change the sex recorded on their birth certificate?
In 2016, a majority of each age group supported this; in 2021 (with a slight change in question wording) a minority did. The sharpest fall in support was from older people.
And the drumbeat of anti-trans pieces in the Times, the Telegraph, the Mail and elsewhere have absolutely nothing to do with this then?
You manage to tell us about a new article in the press on a practically daily basis CV. I note a singular lack of articles written by actual trans people, whether they’re the “trans activists” you’re so keen to decry or the silent majority of trans people you think hold a less activist position.
Why do they not to print articles in the mainstream press every other day?
Debbie Hayton, a trans person (male to female) regularly writes in the mainstream press. Robin White, a male to female barrister, was on Politics Live yesterday morning. Rowan Moore, father of a trans child, wrote a long and interesting article in Prospect a few months back. There are others - including some who have transitioned and then detransitioned or the wives of men who have transitioned. There was one such couple who had a big piece in the Sunday Times recently, for instance.
There is plenty more on other more technical aspects eg some of the medical research and how other countries approach the issue which is worth seeking out if you are interested.
All of these have differing views on differing aspects of this issue and all are worth hearing, even if - perhaps especially if - you do not necessarily agree.
So the idea that there is not plenty of material from differing perspectives is wrong. It is not, in my view, a "drumbeat of anti-trans" pieces more that as the issue has gained a certain salience the "no debate" approach has received push back and a number of people, some from the world of medicine, others who have had actual experience of the issues and others affected have - rightly - started asking some questions about the issues involved, the consequences and the unchallenged assumptions. Challenging assumptions and claims is a good - not a bad - thing.
My point was not that there is a complete absence of articles from trans people in the press - these do exist as you rightly point out - but that CV never ever posts them. They seem to be singularly obsessed with this particular issue.
Even if that's the case, CV wouldn't be the only poster here who is singularly obsessed with a particular issue.
I believe CV posts on many topics and obviously being female is affected by all these changes and very entitled to give her opinion as a "woman" who may not want men in women's safe places. Getting rid of the rights of 50% of thepopulation to suit the fads of 0.04% of the population is criminal.
Removing rights from 0.04% of the population because they are only a tiny part of the population is highly immoral.
Which rights are there proposals to remove?
If anything the Scottish government is proposing a substantial increase in the rights of people who are trans and purport to be trans
Advancing the rights of 0.04% of the population (which is what is being proposed) potentially at the expense of 50%+ of the population is highly immoral. But there is to be "no debate". I wonder why?
People may disagree with the precise characterisation, but the balancing of impacts is reasonable to raise.
On private schools - I suspect probably most students would be better off if their parents saved the cash and distributed it later for 'relatively sensible' purchases.
If the average day private school is £15k per year, you could easily pay your child's university fees and give them a deposit on a house for the same money.
Yep, most of the kids would probably do fine in a state school, so abolishing the privates would be like a stonking great free gratis tax cut for the wealthy. I've often thought of selling it that way instead of banging on about 'engines of inequality'. Pitch to self-interest and the wallet.
If private school is a big waste of money for most pupils -> then they could even be inequality *reducing* relative to their non-existence, particularly if you make them pay VAT and redistribute that money into better state education.
Anyone who manages to get into Eton and can afford the fees is going to be part of a wealthy elite regardless of whether Eton actually exists or not.
And there's the point. No other country has public schools like ours, which is why no other country has entrenched transgenerational elites: true or false?
Politico.com - Bannon on Brazil riots: ‘I’m not backing off 1 inch’ The similarities to Jan. 6 were apparent. And one of the voices in the U.S. pushing it all said he’s not backing off.
The storming of the presidential palace and trashing of government buildings in the Brazilian capital by thousands of supporters of former President Jair Bolsonaro sent shockwaves across the hemisphere.
But on Monday morning, one of the main U.S. voices encouraging Bolsonaro supporters to question the results of the country’s presidential election last year declined to tap the brakes.
“I’m not backing off one inch on this thing,” said former Trump adviser Steve Bannon in an interview. Earlier in the day, he repeated his claims of election fraud in Brazil and called on the current president, Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, who beat Bolsonaro, to open up an investigation.
“Look at the report, the code, the tabulator, the machines and open them up … be transparent, let the citizens of Brazil see,” Bannon said on his “War Room” podcast.
Bannon’s support of the protesters, whom he called “freedom fighters,” has prompted renewed criticism of both him and the larger MAGA movement that has spread election denialism at home and abroad. . . .
SSI - You heard it from Dr. Samuel Johnson first . . .
You have to be a pretty damned incompetent President of a country to allow the Opposition to fix the election. They ought to be ineligible on this basis alone.
I once had a conversation with a Irish Republican who believed that everything that the *PIRA* did was controlled by "British Securocrats".
He was somewhat non-plussed when I suggested that if they were that good (a) there's no point in opposing them and (b) why not join such a team of brilliant winners?
Freddie Scappaticci and Denis Donaldson tend to prove your friend's supposition.
That British Intelligence had got inside the PIRA via the "Nutting Squad" isn't up for debate. The idea that they were controlling the whole organisation is a little bit OTT. Though I reckon they used the "Nutting Squad" to kill anti-agreement PIRA members, by framing them as traitors to the PIRA.
That was my logic.
I read that the Nutting Squad justice process made Drumhead trials look like the epitome of fair justice.
Only exceeded by ISIS and OFSTED inspections....
Do you mean ISI?
Because I have to say, having seen their work at first hand, I would argue the ISI are the most useless cowardly dishonest bunch of wankers out there.
@nypost: Prince Harry says he was bred to offer spare organs to heir William
If that is a genuine quote then he is, perhaps, starting to get a bit silly, and not in the healthier mental place I thought was now in (even though his family relationships are strained).
Royal Mail export disruption following some sort of cyber incident at Royal Mail. Odd that this happens on the same day as US planes are grounded due to a cyber issue.
This sounds like the work of the Russians.
Shirley you MUST mean the CIA? Obvious culprits!
In general, the more competently it was done, the more likely it was to have been the CIA rather than the Russians.
So you think the CIA is to blame for cyber attack on Royal Mail?
On private schools - I suspect probably most students would be better off if their parents saved the cash and distributed it later for 'relatively sensible' purchases.
If the average day private school is £15k per year, you could easily pay your child's university fees and give them a deposit on a house for the same money.
Yep, most of the kids would probably do fine in a state school, so abolishing the privates would be like a stonking great free gratis tax cut for the wealthy. I've often thought of selling it that way instead of banging on about 'engines of inequality'. Pitch to self-interest and the wallet.
If private school is a big waste of money for most pupils -> then they could even be inequality *reducing* relative to their non-existence, particularly if you make them pay VAT and redistribute that money into better state education.
Anyone who manages to get into Eton and can afford the fees is going to be part of a wealthy elite regardless of whether Eton actually exists or not.
I wonder why those in favour of removing tax exemptions for private schools because they are a subsidy for the middle class don't also advocate removing not only the tax exemptions from other educational things that benefit the middle class more than the poor...specifically university fees. After all studies have shown that the richer your parents the more likely you are to goto university with the bottom quintile 30% less likely to attend than the top quintile.
Couldn't be because either they benefitted from the tax exemption or expect family members to could it?
Arsenal should be kicked out of the FA Cup just to be sure.
FA investigators are looking into suspicious betting patterns surrounding the booking of the Oxford United defender Ciaron Brown during Arsenal’s FA Cup win on Monday.
The spot-fixing probe centres on the 59th-minute booking of Brown by the referee David Coote for fouling the Arsenal striker Eddie Nketiah before pushing the midfielder Fábio Vieira during the third-round win away to Oxford. Brown, 24, is a London-born centre back who is also a Northern Ireland international.
It is understood that FA investigators are looking at evidence suggesting that heavy betting took place on the player being cautioned...
..According to the Daily Mail, who first reported the investigation, the odds on Brown being booked were 8-1 before the start of play and one bookmaker reported a bet of about £200.
This was the other thing that fascinated me about the Denis Donaldson story.
MURDERED Sinn Fein official Denis Donaldson was outed by the British government as a spy to send a message to Provisional republicans that it had a more valuable informant within its leadership ranks.
The startling claim was made by former Justice Minister Michael McDowell, according to a secret dispatch sent to Washington by US embassy officials in Dublin.
Donaldson -- the former head of administration for Sinn Fein at Stormont -- hit the international headlines in December 2005 when he admitted he had worked as an informer within the Provisional movement for many years. He was shot four times -- in the chest, face, arm and hand -- at his remote cottage at Cloghercor, near Doochary, Co Donegal, on April 4, 2006.
Politico.com - Bannon on Brazil riots: ‘I’m not backing off 1 inch’ The similarities to Jan. 6 were apparent. And one of the voices in the U.S. pushing it all said he’s not backing off.
The storming of the presidential palace and trashing of government buildings in the Brazilian capital by thousands of supporters of former President Jair Bolsonaro sent shockwaves across the hemisphere.
But on Monday morning, one of the main U.S. voices encouraging Bolsonaro supporters to question the results of the country’s presidential election last year declined to tap the brakes.
“I’m not backing off one inch on this thing,” said former Trump adviser Steve Bannon in an interview. Earlier in the day, he repeated his claims of election fraud in Brazil and called on the current president, Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, who beat Bolsonaro, to open up an investigation.
“Look at the report, the code, the tabulator, the machines and open them up … be transparent, let the citizens of Brazil see,” Bannon said on his “War Room” podcast.
Bannon’s support of the protesters, whom he called “freedom fighters,” has prompted renewed criticism of both him and the larger MAGA movement that has spread election denialism at home and abroad. . . .
SSI - You heard it from Dr. Samuel Johnson first . . .
You have to be a pretty damned incompetent President of a country to allow the Opposition to fix the election. They ought to be ineligible on this basis alone.
I once had a conversation with a Irish Republican who believed that everything that the *PIRA* did was controlled by "British Securocrats".
He was somewhat non-plussed when I suggested that if they were that good (a) there's no point in opposing them and (b) why not join such a team of brilliant winners?
Freddie Scappaticci and Denis Donaldson tend to prove your friend's supposition.
That British Intelligence had got inside the PIRA via the "Nutting Squad" isn't up for debate. The idea that they were controlling the whole organisation is a little bit OTT. Though I reckon they used the "Nutting Squad" to kill anti-agreement PIRA members, by framing them as traitors to the PIRA.
That was my logic.
I read that the Nutting Squad justice process made Drumhead trials look like the epitome of fair justice.
Only exceeded by ISIS and OFSTED inspections....
Do you mean ISI?
Because I have to say, having seen their work at first hand, I would argue the ISI are the most useless cowardly dishonest bunch of wankers out there.
Not sure the NI situation could descend to a farce when it already was one. What's below a farce?
Worth noting all the sides play stupid games like this sometimes. Like one historic event purportedly storming out of a meeting due to ap ortrait of Cromwell being on the wall, when no matter one's view of his conquest, it was a bloody long time ago and you could easily carry on and just demand an apology for offence caused or something, unless you were looking for an excuse.
But actually SF generally seem to be more grown up in recent times than the other sides, weirdly.
Politico.com - Bannon on Brazil riots: ‘I’m not backing off 1 inch’ The similarities to Jan. 6 were apparent. And one of the voices in the U.S. pushing it all said he’s not backing off.
The storming of the presidential palace and trashing of government buildings in the Brazilian capital by thousands of supporters of former President Jair Bolsonaro sent shockwaves across the hemisphere.
But on Monday morning, one of the main U.S. voices encouraging Bolsonaro supporters to question the results of the country’s presidential election last year declined to tap the brakes.
“I’m not backing off one inch on this thing,” said former Trump adviser Steve Bannon in an interview. Earlier in the day, he repeated his claims of election fraud in Brazil and called on the current president, Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, who beat Bolsonaro, to open up an investigation.
“Look at the report, the code, the tabulator, the machines and open them up … be transparent, let the citizens of Brazil see,” Bannon said on his “War Room” podcast.
Bannon’s support of the protesters, whom he called “freedom fighters,” has prompted renewed criticism of both him and the larger MAGA movement that has spread election denialism at home and abroad. . . .
SSI - You heard it from Dr. Samuel Johnson first . . .
You have to be a pretty damned incompetent President of a country to allow the Opposition to fix the election. They ought to be ineligible on this basis alone.
I once had a conversation with a Irish Republican who believed that everything that the *PIRA* did was controlled by "British Securocrats".
He was somewhat non-plussed when I suggested that if they were that good (a) there's no point in opposing them and (b) why not join such a team of brilliant winners?
Freddie Scappaticci and Denis Donaldson tend to prove your friend's supposition.
That British Intelligence had got inside the PIRA via the "Nutting Squad" isn't up for debate. The idea that they were controlling the whole organisation is a little bit OTT. Though I reckon they used the "Nutting Squad" to kill anti-agreement PIRA members, by framing them as traitors to the PIRA.
That was my logic.
I read that the Nutting Squad justice process made Drumhead trials look like the epitome of fair justice.
Only exceeded by ISIS and OFSTED inspections....
Do you mean ISI?
Because I have to say, having seen their work at first hand, I would argue the ISI are the most useless cowardly dishonest bunch of wankers out there.
Politico.com - Bannon on Brazil riots: ‘I’m not backing off 1 inch’ The similarities to Jan. 6 were apparent. And one of the voices in the U.S. pushing it all said he’s not backing off.
The storming of the presidential palace and trashing of government buildings in the Brazilian capital by thousands of supporters of former President Jair Bolsonaro sent shockwaves across the hemisphere.
But on Monday morning, one of the main U.S. voices encouraging Bolsonaro supporters to question the results of the country’s presidential election last year declined to tap the brakes.
“I’m not backing off one inch on this thing,” said former Trump adviser Steve Bannon in an interview. Earlier in the day, he repeated his claims of election fraud in Brazil and called on the current president, Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, who beat Bolsonaro, to open up an investigation.
“Look at the report, the code, the tabulator, the machines and open them up … be transparent, let the citizens of Brazil see,” Bannon said on his “War Room” podcast.
Bannon’s support of the protesters, whom he called “freedom fighters,” has prompted renewed criticism of both him and the larger MAGA movement that has spread election denialism at home and abroad. . . .
SSI - You heard it from Dr. Samuel Johnson first . . .
You have to be a pretty damned incompetent President of a country to allow the Opposition to fix the election. They ought to be ineligible on this basis alone.
I once had a conversation with a Irish Republican who believed that everything that the *PIRA* did was controlled by "British Securocrats".
He was somewhat non-plussed when I suggested that if they were that good (a) there's no point in opposing them and (b) why not join such a team of brilliant winners?
Freddie Scappaticci and Denis Donaldson tend to prove your friend's supposition.
That British Intelligence had got inside the PIRA via the "Nutting Squad" isn't up for debate. The idea that they were controlling the whole organisation is a little bit OTT. Though I reckon they used the "Nutting Squad" to kill anti-agreement PIRA members, by framing them as traitors to the PIRA.
Czarist secret police had heavily infiltrated the Russian revolutionary movement prior to 1917, from top to bottom.
Royal Mail export disruption following some sort of cyber incident at Royal Mail. Odd that this happens on the same day as US planes are grounded due to a cyber issue.
This sounds like the work of the Russians.
Shirley you MUST mean the CIA? Obvious culprits!
In general, the more competently it was done, the more likely it was to have been the CIA rather than the Russians.
So you think the CIA is to blame for cyber attack on Royal Mail?
I wonder if there's a correlation between lacking a sense of humour and seeing Putinists under the bed.
Comments
IF so, then think we can nominate a super-qualified PBer for the next UK Olympic squad?
You are simply more likely to be smart if your parents are smart, and vice versa.
I support the self-id reform. I don't see why it would lead to predatory behaviour - compared to the current system - and this is not the experience of the several countries in all parts of the world who have adopted it. IMO it will make the lives of trans people easier without damaging anybody else.
Then the interaction with the Equalities Act. At present you can have single sex spaces where it's a "proportionate means to achieve a legitimate end". I think this is important and necessary. The default should be trans inclusion but not for everything. Sports, prisons are most cited and for good reason. This point of law is being worked through in Scotland, I believe. Eg arguments around the Haldane judgement.
You are an unashamed educational elitist, and to hell with the rest.
And two with IQs of 120, will be more likely than not to have one with an IQ below 120.
Rishi could have arranged to see his NHS GP during the parliamentary break (health check up?) so that he had a ready answer to the private healthcare answer (Yes I have seen my NHS GP recently, I booked online.....).
https://www.kingsfund.org.uk/blog/2020/02/diversity-medical-workforce-progress
https://www.legalcheek.com/2017/01/posh-solicitors-pocket-almost-7000-more-than-working-class-colleagues/
FA investigators are looking into suspicious betting patterns surrounding the booking of the Oxford United defender Ciaron Brown during Arsenal’s FA Cup win on Monday.
The spot-fixing probe centres on the 59th-minute booking of Brown by the referee David Coote for fouling the Arsenal striker Eddie Nketiah before pushing the midfielder Fábio Vieira during the third-round win away to Oxford. Brown, 24, is a London-born centre back who is also a Northern Ireland international.
It is understood that FA investigators are looking at evidence suggesting that heavy betting took place on the player being cautioned...
..According to the Daily Mail, who first reported the investigation, the odds on Brown being booked were 8-1 before the start of play and one bookmaker reported a bet of about £200.
https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/spot-fixing-investigation-after-oxford-booking-in-arsenal-fa-cup-tie-3lsjzb55m
They passed the law without working it through.
They explicitly rejected amendments that would have stopped men charged with rape from getting a GRC. They did not explain how it would interact with the Equality Act (a UK wide matter), and claimed one thing in Holyrood (administrative change) and another thing in court (for all intents and purposes changes sex). This is another badly thought through piece of legislation - like the Hate Crime act:
https://www.economist.com/the-world-ahead/2021/11/08/scotlands-new-hate-crime-act-will-have-a-chilling-effect-on-free-speech
Oxford commas seem appropriate here.
Brexit most certainly is in spirit if not actually in technicality also because it is increasingly unpopular.
In reality, men aged 20 to 60 don't see their GP. As one GP said to me, "...but then we see them all the f***ing time" so something to look forward to there.
Eg Peace on Earth. Never happening. Does this mean it's not worth working towards? That a bit more peace isn't better than a bit less? Surely not.
One of the very talented people who made Politico into an excellent online publication.
Suicide and depression remain among life’s deepest mysteries. Blake Hounshell was mentoring, inspiring, fathering, tweeting, and opining right up until he took his own life, leaving a sudden gaping hole in the lives of others. May his memory be a blessing.
https://twitter.com/tribelaw/status/1613197844810268674
63% of solicitors went to state schools as did 69% of GP trainees and 56% of trainee surgeons, just most of them still had middle class parents
https://www.sra.org.uk/sra/equality-diversity/diversity-profession/diverse-legal-profession/
https://www.gponline.com/uk-gp-trainees-likely-state-education-specialties/article/1376133
Solar panels with batteries are the best option for most domestic installations.
*) Many trans people will no longer feel safe to use public toilets - which is already an issue for some.
*) Women who do not fit the idealised views of women - say black women, women who have had mastectomies, or women who look boyish etc - will be accused of being men and hassled. As already happens to an extent (1)
So yes, they are removing the 'rights' to go and use public toilets. Which I see as a fairly fundamental right.
As for the '0.04% of the population' argument - what ever minorities are you willing to see restrictions placed on for the greater good?
(1) "My entire life, it has been made very clear to me that I am doing 'woman' wrong. As a dark-skinned Black, fat, masculine-presenting dyke with a shaved head who tends to lean towards clothing gendered as men's, I have always had issues in single-sex spaces like bathrooms and changing rooms."
https://www.refinery29.com/en-gb/bathroom-transphobia-butch-women
Royal Mail export disruption following some sort of cyber incident at Royal Mail. Odd that this happens on the same day as US planes are grounded due to a cyber issue.
I get that there are arguments about not being vegetarian, but the idea that we shouldn't do something on the basis we can't be perfect is just ludicrous.
Also anecdata: without blowing my own trumpet, I'm fairly high up the percentiles academically and my wife, I'd say, even higher (particularly if you don't ask her to do maths). My oldest daughter will, I suspect, outshine us both. My middle daughter is bright but dyslexic - she passed the 11+ but, well, I think her career will be more practical than academic. And my youngest has ADHD and while I want to give her the same opportunities as her sisters, I'm not convinced a grammar school education is her future.
(I'm laughing at myself middle-classly slapping labels on any of my kids who fall short of intellectual high-achievement - but the point remains: people's brains work differently. Heredity can only do so much. Though interestingly, both ADHD and dyslexia are usually heritable - which puts an entirely different spin on certain grandparents successful but unstraightforward paths through life.)
Politico.com - Bannon on Brazil riots: ‘I’m not backing off 1 inch’
The similarities to Jan. 6 were apparent. And one of the voices in the U.S. pushing it all said he’s not backing off.
The storming of the presidential palace and trashing of government buildings in the Brazilian capital by thousands of supporters of former President Jair Bolsonaro sent shockwaves across the hemisphere.
But on Monday morning, one of the main U.S. voices encouraging Bolsonaro supporters to question the results of the country’s presidential election last year declined to tap the brakes.
“I’m not backing off one inch on this thing,” said former Trump adviser Steve Bannon in an interview. Earlier in the day, he repeated his claims of election fraud in Brazil and called on the current president, Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, who beat Bolsonaro, to open up an investigation.
“Look at the report, the code, the tabulator, the machines and open them up … be transparent, let the citizens of Brazil see,” Bannon said on his “War Room” podcast.
Bannon’s support of the protesters, whom he called “freedom fighters,” has prompted renewed criticism of both him and the larger MAGA movement that has spread election denialism at home and abroad. . . .
SSI - You heard it from Dr. Samuel Johnson first . . .
https://twitter.com/EuromaidanPress/status/1613206172357595136
Polish President Andrzej Duda announced that Poland had decided to hand over a company of Leopard tanks to Ukraine, but as "part of an international coalition," Polska Agencja Prasowa (PAP) reports.
https://twitter.com/EuromaidanPress/status/1613205292937875463
Plus I repaid my parents for the deposit.
I want to send the Ukrainians nuclear weapons. Not those WokeTransGayNATO tactical devices. Big Weapons. Unlike Putins weapons
They ought to be ineligible on this basis alone.
He was somewhat non-plussed when I suggested that if they were that good (a) there's no point in opposing them and (b) why not join such a team of brilliant winners?
87% of solicitors also have middle class parents yet if you did a 3 year law degree you will be a trainee in a law firm a year after graduating post completion of the LPC
https://www.reddit.com/r/Gunners/comments/s7ucbd/higher_quality_video_xhaka_yellow_card_vs_leeds/
If the £52k traded on Betfair is accurate it would typically be sub £1k traded, with maybe up to £5k on a player occassionally. The amount traded is extraordinary as is the booking itself.
Harry also calls pupils at boarding prep schools (where some begin boarding as young as 7) "abandoned children". I hope the press spend more time on this than they have done writing about his willy.
The writing style may not be great, but Harry has critical skills for sure. It's much better to read an author who has something to say than somebody who's all style and no substance.
Back in 1997 his mother criticised the medical fraternity's use of psychiatric drugs to subdue women experiencing mental health difficulties.
Would that there were a market on whether the current king will still be king at the end of 2023.
PS Talking of willies, the US market may be fascinated by what he says about Roundheads and Cavaliers.
I read that the Nutting Squad justice process made Drumhead trials look like the epitome of fair justice.
Because I have to say, having seen their work at first hand, I would argue the ISI are the most useless cowardly dishonest bunch of wankers out there.
They are actually worse than OFSTED and the DfE.
Why do you have sausage fingers down for an early exit? I'd risk a bit at evens on a major stroke this year, but unless he is a secret fan of Zeke Emmanuel, they'll prop him up for a good decade regardless. I don't think enraged Harreeistas will topple him.
Anyone who manages to get into Eton and can afford the fees is going to be part of a wealthy elite regardless of whether Eton actually exists or not.
https://twitter.com/nypost/status/1612881632075055106
@nypost: Prince Harry says he was bred to offer spare organs to heir William
*https://getyarn.io/yarn-clip/7fbbaca9-7779-4860-a094-898ee2cc5266
“Kidney, perhaps. Blood transfusion. Speck of bone marrow,” he added in morose detail."
LOL.
This book has actually changed my mind, a once in a decade occurrence. This nonsense needs abolished, now.
Couldn't be because either they benefitted from the tax exemption or expect family members to could it?
MURDERED Sinn Fein official Denis Donaldson was outed by the British government as a spy to send a message to Provisional republicans that it had a more valuable informant within its leadership ranks.
The startling claim was made by former Justice Minister Michael McDowell, according to a secret dispatch sent to Washington by US embassy officials in Dublin.
Donaldson -- the former head of administration for Sinn Fein at Stormont -- hit the international headlines in December 2005 when he admitted he had worked as an informer within the Provisional movement for many years. He was shot four times -- in the chest, face, arm and hand -- at his remote cottage at Cloghercor, near Doochary, Co Donegal, on April 4, 2006.
https://www.independent.ie/irish-news/britain-exposed-ira-mole-donaldson-to-taunt-provos-26739397.html
Worth noting all the sides play stupid games like this sometimes. Like one historic event purportedly storming out of a meeting due to ap ortrait of Cromwell being on the wall, when no matter one's view of his conquest, it was a bloody long time ago and you could easily carry on and just demand an apology for offence caused or something, unless you were looking for an excuse.
But actually SF generally seem to be more grown up in recent times than the other sides, weirdly.
Short-term success, but long(er)-term?