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.
A former colleague of mine's father was/is a bigwig in the ISI. It's never entirely clear if indeed he was THE bigwig, the M of the whole thing, or A bigwig. But the stories I've been told were quite eye opening, including about the months leading up to the Western withdrawal from Kabul.
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?
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.
"most useless cowardly dishonest bunch of wankers out there." - it fits them to the T....
The Independent Schools Inspectorate are still worse.
In a school of my acquaintance they were warned that the Principal had been accused of a major safeguarding breach. With details.
They asked him if it was true.
He said 'no.' (Can't think why.)
They then said, without further investigation, they were happy that safeguarding procedures were robust.
If I tell you that should the Principal ever be proved guilty in a court of what he was accused of, the judge will unhesitatingly give him fourteen years, you will see why everyone was unimpressed at their superficiality.
(Not that the police took much interest either after they found on investigation that there was no evidence, so who knows? Maybe they got it right. The non-disclosure agreements he had signed with multiple staff still should have warned them something was wrong though.)
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.
"Not sure the NI situation could descend to a farce when it already was one. What's below a farce?"
Conservative and (Dis)Unionist government policy, as "developed" by Boris Johnson and Lord (Brain)Frost.
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.
I actually think it was a bit harsh. The Leeds player wasn't retreating 10 yards. He hadn't been beyond 10 yards long before the ref booked Xhaka.
No chance that I would have sent a child of mine to Eton.
Too great a risk that they would come back as the sort of twat who has been to Eton.
I was going to say that on the other hand you cannot buy the invincible self confidence they would obtain there, but of course that's exactly what is happening. I wonder if you can get your money back if your child turns out to be one of the flip side of Old Etonians who seem to have a massive chip on their shoulder about their time 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.
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.
"most useless cowardly dishonest bunch of wankers out there." - it fits them to the T....
The Independent Schools Inspectorate are still worse.
In a school of my acquaintance they were warned that the Principal had been accused of a major safeguarding breach. With details.
They asked him if it was true.
He said 'no.' (Can't think why.)
They then said, without further investigation, they were happy that safeguarding procedures were robust.
If I tell you that should the Principal ever be proved guilty in a court of what he was accused of, the judge will unhesitatingly give him fourteen years, you will see why everyone was unimpressed at their superficiality.
(Not that Staffordshire Police took much interest either after they found on investigation that there was no evidence, so who knows? Maybe they got it right. The non-disclosure agreements he had signed with multiple staff still should have warned them something was wrong though.)
Isn't there a general principle often used of assuming other authorities are correct and their analysis can be relied upon? So many times it is discovered very obvious things are wrong in many places - councils, the police, schools - yet people who supposedly were checking just took things at their word, until they got too big to ignore.
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.
I actually think it was a bit harsh. The Leeds player wasn't retreating 10 yards. He hadn't been beyond 10 yards long before the ref booked Xhaka.
Ha, that rule has not been enforced for a decade or so if they are not actively blocking it being taken, and was sparsely enforced before. It would not have made any difference anyway imo....
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.
Short-term success, but long(er)-term?
The Czarist police were being played like a fiddle by the revolutionary groups.
The PIRA is out of business and the Shiners are pretending to be the SDLP.
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.
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.
Bookies don't like losing shock. Not heard any more about the allegations against Granit Xhaka.
Reckon classic "point shaving" is pretty hard to do in Ass. Football. Considering general dearth of points=goals.
Plus betting on a handicap line in football is pretty much non-existent.
Translation? Have zero clue what you mean by "handicap line" unless it's comprised of punters in wheelchairs?
Point shaving can happen in basketball becuase punters are generally not betting on a team to win, they're betting on a handicap for a team to either win by more than a specified amount, or to lose by less than the said amount (or win by anything).
Whereas most betting in football is just win/lose/draw.
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.
Who knows? But can testify, that it IS hard to tell when you are being serious or (intentionally) humorous.
Of course, that is par for the course for just about all email, txt, etc., etc. "communication" via the web.
For example, my lame attempt at irony appears NOT to have tickled your sensitive funny bone. Mea culpa.
BREAKING NEWS: Around 100,000 civil servants are to strike on 1 February in a worsening dispute over jobs, pay and conditions, according to the Public and Commercial Services Union.
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.
"most useless cowardly dishonest bunch of wankers out there." - it fits them to the T....
The Independent Schools Inspectorate are still worse.
In a school of my acquaintance they were warned that the Principal had been accused of a major safeguarding breach. With details.
They asked him if it was true.
He said 'no.' (Can't think why.)
They then said, without further investigation, they were happy that safeguarding procedures were robust.
If I tell you that should the Principal ever be proved guilty in a court of what he was accused of, the judge will unhesitatingly give him fourteen years, you will see why everyone was unimpressed at their superficiality.
(Not that Staffordshire Police took much interest either after they found on investigation that there was no evidence, so who knows? Maybe they got it right. The non-disclosure agreements he had signed with multiple staff still should have warned them something was wrong though.)
Isn't there a general principle often used of assuming other authorities are correct and their analysis can be relied upon? So many times it is discovered very obvious things are wrong in many places - councils, the police, schools - yet people who supposedly were checking just took things at their word, until they got too big to ignore.
The step ladder story.
When NASA were running the space shuttle, one thing was very important. Well lots of things were, but this was a big one.
The fuel tanks needed to be absolutely clean and empty
So they had dozens of people signing off that the cleaning was complete, and the tanks were perfectly empty.
Then, after closeout one day, someone remember something. Yup, he had left a step ladder inside the LOX tank. Despite dozens of signatures saying it was all good.....
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?
Bit of an odd argument: 'people who are unlikely to go to Uni don't protest against VAT-free university fees because... they are likely to go to Uni'?
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.
Short-term success, but long(er)-term?
The Czarist police were being played like a fiddle by the revolutionary groups.
The PIRA is out of business and the Shiners are pretending to be the SDLP.
As for your first para, it was a two-way street. Collapse of Czarism under its own weight - not revolutionary activity - somewhat influences our post-1916 perception.
As for second para, pretty much spot on. Though think that maybe SF has actually experienced a sea change.
Much as MANY other movements and parties, from various centuries and many lands.
Widespread & growing belief that SF has indeed been house broken, so to speak, is surely at the roots of it's recent electoral success with Irish voters, both North and South (ditto East and West).
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?
Bit of an odd argument: 'people who are unlikely to go to Uni don't protest against VAT-free university fees because... they are likely to go to Uni'?
I was saying its odd that those that complain about private school fee vat exemptions don't also complain about vat exemption on uni fee's as both are the same argument. A taxpayer subsidy for the better off
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.
A similarly vacuous argument is sometimes wheeled out by those opposed to action to mitigate anthropogenic climate change: Because we don't know exactly how the climate functions, there's no point doing anything to lessen human impacts on the climate.
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?
Bit of an odd argument: 'people who are unlikely to go to Uni don't protest against VAT-free university fees because... they are likely to go to Uni'?
Its a valid question imo. Why should people who don't go university subsidise those who do go?
However with our tax system and demographics I think the reality is that the tax to cover the subsidy would mostly come from those who have already been to university and never had to pay for it.
I think a fair compromise is something like 500 days free adult education for all, to be taken at any age when they want it, which could include university, evening classes, fitness etc.
As for your first para, it was a two-way street. Collapse of Czarism under its own weight - not revolutionary activity - somewhat influences our post-1916 perception.
As for second para, pretty much spot on. Though think that maybe SF has actually experienced a sea change.
Much as MANY other movements and parties, from various centuries and many lands.
Widespread & growing belief that SF has indeed been house broken, so to speak, is surely at the roots of it's recent electoral success with Irish voters, both North and South (ditto East and West).
I think that's right. Generational change is a factor in these things - I remember a Filipino guerrila leader saying "Frankly we're all getting older and we're tired." - and the younger generation don't want to spend their lives fruitlessly pursuing the same thing.
It has to work, though - if a popular insurrectionary movement shifts to democratic change, it needs to be given a fair shot at actual influence, as SF is now achieving. It was to the credit of British Governments (Tory and Labour) that they were willing to give McGuinness and Adams a proper hearing and a chance to change.
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?
Bit of an odd argument: 'people who are unlikely to go to Uni don't protest against VAT-free university fees because... they are likely to go to Uni'?
I was saying its odd that those that complain about private school fee vat exemptions don't also complain about vat exemption on uni fee's as both are the same argument. A taxpayer subsidy for the better off
Difference being, anyone can get a government loan to pay for Uni fees. If VAT were added on, the loan would cover that too. Since the loan need only be paid back by those earning over a certain amount, it's more akin to a tax.
Anyway, here's a thought on university fees. Give a discount depending on the grade achieved: 2.2 10% off, 2.1 25% off, 1st 50% off.
As for your first para, it was a two-way street. Collapse of Czarism under its own weight - not revolutionary activity - somewhat influences our post-1916 perception.
As for second para, pretty much spot on. Though think that maybe SF has actually experienced a sea change.
Much as MANY other movements and parties, from various centuries and many lands.
Widespread & growing belief that SF has indeed been house broken, so to speak, is surely at the roots of it's recent electoral success with Irish voters, both North and South (ditto East and West).
I think that's right. Generational change is a factor in these things - I remember a Filipino guerrila leader saying "Frankly we're all getting older and we're tired." - and the younger generation don't want to spend their lives fruitlessly pursuing the same thing.
It has to work, though - if a popular insurrectionary movement shifts to democratic change, it needs to be given a fair shot at actual influence, as SF is now achieving. It was to the credit of British Governments (Tory and Labour) that they were willing to give McGuinness and Adams a proper hearing and a chance to change.
And certain amount of torture-murder of those less interested in change….
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?
Weird, I must have imagined all the guys I worked with in private banking over my career who were French, Swiss, Spanish and German who didn’t go to British public schools but were all scions of European transgenerational elites, members of old banking families like the Hottingers who were spread through French society and top jobs and positions, sons and daughters of European nobility and grandchildren of European industrialists. People my age whose surnames were mysteriously the same as the banks I walked last and the European politicians of the past.
I’m sure having gone to ordinary European state schools their positions were purely down to their drive and enormous intellects.
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.....).
Very stupid re him and the idiots advising him, just proves they are crap. Any sensible person would have registered with a GP and then they could easily say they had normal GP but would go private if necessary to meet my busy PM schedule etc. It just shows both him and his advisers are not very smart , may be clever but not smart and have no clue about normal people's lives.
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.
Bookies don't like losing shock. Not heard any more about the allegations against Granit Xhaka.
Reckon classic "point shaving" is pretty hard to do in Ass. Football. Considering general dearth of points=goals.
Plus betting on a handicap line in football is pretty much non-existent.
Translation? Have zero clue what you mean by "handicap line" unless it's comprised of punters in wheelchairs?
Point shaving can happen in basketball becuase punters are generally not betting on a team to win, they're betting on a handicap for a team to either win by more than a specified amount, or to lose by less than the said amount (or win by anything).
Whereas most betting in football is just win/lose/draw.
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
Honestly inherited IQ is far more complicated than that. Everything is so simple in your life isn't it? See @rcs1000 post which is more representative of what actually happens. From personal perspective my father is rather dim, as was one of his brothers, the other was very bright mathematically. By most people's standard I have a pretty high IQ as does my wife. My son is off the scale clever (he is in a completely different league to both of us), yet his sister has an average IQ. Just the luck of the draw.
Do you not think that the start you get in life may have as much or more in how you get on.
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?
Bit of an odd argument: 'people who are unlikely to go to Uni don't protest against VAT-free university fees because... they are likely to go to Uni'?
I was saying its odd that those that complain about private school fee vat exemptions don't also complain about vat exemption on uni fee's as both are the same argument. A taxpayer subsidy for the better off
Difference being, anyone can get a government loan to pay for Uni fees. If VAT were added on, the loan would cover that too. Since the loan need only be paid back by those earning over a certain amount, it's more akin to a tax.
Anyway, here's a thought on university fees. Give a discount depending on the grade achieved: 2.2 10% off, 2.1 25% off, 1st 50% off.
BREAKING NEWS: Around 100,000 civil servants are to strike on 1 February in a worsening dispute over jobs, pay and conditions, according to the Public and Commercial Services Union.
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?
Weird, I must have imagined all the guys I worked with in private banking over my career who were French, Swiss, Spanish and German who didn’t go to British public schools but were all scions of European transgenerational elites, members of old banking families like the Hottingers who were spread through French society and top jobs and positions, sons and daughters of European nobility and grandchildren of European industrialists. People my age whose surnames were mysteriously the same as the banks I walked last and the European politicians of the past.
I’m sure having gone to ordinary European state schools their positions were purely down to their drive and enormous intellects.
Irony fail. False is the answer I was looking for.
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.
Short-term success, but long(er)-term?
The Czarist police were being played like a fiddle by the revolutionary groups.
The PIRA is out of business and the Shiners are pretending to be the SDLP.
As for your first para, it was a two-way street. Collapse of Czarism under its own weight - not revolutionary activity - somewhat influences our post-1916 perception.
As for second para, pretty much spot on. Though think that maybe SF has actually experienced a sea change.
Much as MANY other movements and parties, from various centuries and many lands.
Widespread & growing belief that SF has indeed been house broken, so to speak, is surely at the roots of it's recent electoral success with Irish voters, both North and South (ditto East and West).
Reckon Mary-Lou has convinced enough people that we'll soon find out. Personally I'm still concerned that SF members are more likely to be forced out for disagreeing with the wrong person than for celebrating IRA terrorism.
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?
Bit of an odd argument: 'people who are unlikely to go to Uni don't protest against VAT-free university fees because... they are likely to go to Uni'?
I was saying its odd that those that complain about private school fee vat exemptions don't also complain about vat exemption on uni fee's as both are the same argument. A taxpayer subsidy for the better off
Difference being, anyone can get a government loan to pay for Uni fees. If VAT were added on, the loan would cover that too. Since the loan need only be paid back by those earning over a certain amount, it's more akin to a tax.
Anyway, here's a thought on university fees. Give a discount depending on the grade achieved: 2.2 10% off, 2.1 25% off, 1st 50% off.
Fail or 3rd - pay the full wack.
The loan not having to be paid back is yet another subsidy from the poor to the better off I just didn't wish to muddy the waters. While I agree the interest rate on money borrowed is usorious I absolutely think the loan should be required to be paid till either gone or death.
University is attended in greater percentiles the better off your parents are. This is why I say the same argument applies.
Either do both or neither but frankly anyone who argues for one and not the other is a hypocrite.
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?
Weird, I must have imagined all the guys I worked with in private banking over my career who were French, Swiss, Spanish and German who didn’t go to British public schools but were all scions of European transgenerational elites, members of old banking families like the Hottingers who were spread through French society and top jobs and positions, sons and daughters of European nobility and grandchildren of European industrialists. People my age whose surnames were mysteriously the same as the banks I walked last and the European politicians of the past.
I’m sure having gone to ordinary European state schools their positions were purely down to their drive and enormous intellects.
Plus France has private schools anyway, especially religious ones and plenty of elite lycees
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
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
For a start you haven't told me what proportion of people come from "working class backgrounds". Is it 5%? 20% 50%?
Secondly, your doctor number is going to be skewed by the number of foreign doctors we import.
About 50% on the social scale used.
There may be some foreign middle class doctors imported but not 96% of doctors and nor does that explain the 87% of solicitors with middle class backgrounds
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.
I think not being able to write well and not being able to judge whether someone else has written well is probably a bigger criticism than just the former.
It's entertaining to see people who've taken an anti-Royal stance here performatively devouring Harry's oevre with such overdone relish. It's like watching a parent pretend to enjoy spinach in-front of the kids. A fool and his money etc.
Fun fact, assuming a 2024 election, Keir Starmer would likely become PM after 9 years in Parliament, so depending on when in the year it took place he would be second or third on the list of shortest time in Parliament before becoming PM, after Rishi's 7 years, and Cameron's 9, at least in the 20th century. Politicians in such a rush now, but at least he had a pretty full career first.
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
For a start you haven't told me what proportion of people come from "working class backgrounds". Is it 5%? 20% 50%?
Secondly, your doctor number is going to be skewed by the number of foreign doctors we import.
Around 40% of British doctors qualified abroad, but conceivably some could also be working class.
I think I have only worked with one truly Working Class doctor. He left school at 16 and went to work in a factory in the Midlands, after a few years he decided to do some A levels at night school, and when he did really well at these he went on to Medical School. I worked with him as a House Officer, and he was a great doctor with real rapport with patients. I learned a lot from him.
Fun fact, assuming a 2024 election, Keir Starmer would likely become PM after 9 years in Parliament, so depending on when in the year it took place he would be second or third on the list of shortest time in Parliament before becoming PM, after Rishi's 7 years, and Cameron's 9, at least in the 20th century. Politicians in such a rush now, but at least he had a pretty full career first.
Pedantic Betting: If he's the third shortest time in Parliament before becoming PM in the 20th 21st century, then he'd also surely be fourth longest time in Parliament in the 21st century before becoming PM after Theresa May (19), Gordon Brown (14) and Boris Johnson (7+3 = 10).
So third one way, fourth the other, puts him fairly middle of the pack.
Comments
They don't need to frighten the horses.
Too great a risk that they would come back as the sort of twat who has been to Eton.
In a school of my acquaintance they were warned that the Principal had been accused of a major safeguarding breach. With details.
They asked him if it was true.
He said 'no.' (Can't think why.)
They then said, without further investigation, they were happy that safeguarding procedures were robust.
If I tell you that should the Principal ever be proved guilty in a court of what he was accused of, the judge will unhesitatingly give him fourteen years, you will see why everyone was unimpressed at their superficiality.
(Not that the police took much interest either after they found on investigation that there was no evidence, so who knows? Maybe they got it right. The non-disclosure agreements he had signed with multiple staff still should have warned them something was wrong though.)
Conservative and (Dis)Unionist government policy, as "developed" by Boris Johnson and Lord (Brain)Frost.
The PIRA is out of business and the Shiners are pretending to be the SDLP.
Whereas most betting in football is just win/lose/draw.
Of course, that is par for the course for just about all email, txt, etc., etc. "communication" via the web.
For example, my lame attempt at irony appears NOT to have tickled your sensitive funny bone. Mea culpa.
Latest: https://trib.al/bW6dFuq
📺 Sky 501, Virgin 602, Freeview 233 and YouTube https://twitter.com/SkyNews/status/1613222751426252820/video/1
When NASA were running the space shuttle, one thing was very important. Well lots of things were, but this was a big one.
The fuel tanks needed to be absolutely clean and empty
So they had dozens of people signing off that the cleaning was complete, and the tanks were perfectly empty.
Then, after closeout one day, someone remember something. Yup, he had left a step ladder inside the LOX tank. Despite dozens of signatures saying it was all good.....
Art gallery owner who hosed down homeless woman in SF finds it 'hard to apologize'
San Francisco art gallery owner Collier Gwin spoke with ABC7 after a video of him spraying a homeless woman with water went viral.
https://abc7news.com/san-francisco-homeless-woman-water-hose-sprayed-by-art-galley-owner-collier-gwin/12685928/
To the bakery owner who shot the footage, one thing to say to you fella, snitches get stitches.
As for second para, pretty much spot on. Though think that maybe SF has actually experienced a sea change.
Much as MANY other movements and parties, from various centuries and many lands.
Widespread & growing belief that SF has indeed been house broken, so to speak, is surely at the roots of it's recent electoral success with Irish voters, both North and South (ditto East and West).
Among their leading lights and standard bearers (in more ways than one) is former US Rep. Peter King (R-West Belfast) long a favorite with PBers.
IF Nassau Co GOP thinks you're conduct is unbecoming, THEN you're in serious moral as well as political jeopardy.
However with our tax system and demographics I think the reality is that the tax to cover the subsidy would mostly come from those who have already been to university and never had to pay for it.
I think a fair compromise is something like 500 days free adult education for all, to be taken at any age when they want it, which could include university, evening classes, fitness etc.
It has to work, though - if a popular insurrectionary movement shifts to democratic change, it needs to be given a fair shot at actual influence, as SF is now achieving. It was to the credit of British Governments (Tory and Labour) that they were willing to give McGuinness and Adams a proper hearing and a chance to change.
Anyway, here's a thought on university fees. Give a discount depending on the grade achieved: 2.2 10% off, 2.1 25% off, 1st 50% off.
Fail or 3rd - pay the full wack.
I’m sure having gone to ordinary European state schools their positions were purely down to their drive and enormous intellects.
It just shows both him and his advisers are not very smart , may be clever but not smart and have no clue about normal people's lives.
Do you not think that the start you get in life may have as much or more in how you get on.
This thread has become a Spare!
University is attended in greater percentiles the better off your parents are. This is why I say the same argument applies.
Either do both or neither but frankly anyone who argues for one and not the other is a hypocrite.
For a start you haven't told me what proportion of people come from "working class backgrounds". Is it 5%? 20% 50%?
Secondly, your doctor number is going to be skewed by the number of foreign doctors we import.
There may be some foreign middle class doctors imported but not 96% of doctors and nor does that explain the 87% of solicitors with middle class backgrounds
It's entertaining to see people who've taken an anti-Royal stance here performatively devouring Harry's oevre with such overdone relish. It's like watching a parent pretend to enjoy spinach in-front of the kids. A fool and his money etc.
I think I have only worked with one truly Working Class doctor. He left school at 16 and went to work in a factory in the Midlands, after a few years he decided to do some A levels at night school, and when he did really well at these he went on to Medical School. I worked with him as a House Officer, and he was a great doctor with real rapport with patients. I learned a lot from him.
So third one way, fourth the other, puts him fairly middle of the pack.
Thank you.