So we have record waiting numbers for NHS appointments and SKS thinks its a good idea to allow people who feel a bit ill to self refer.
How can policies like this even make it past first base FFS.
Laughing stock
So the only way a nationalised system can function is with gatekeepers to limit demand?
It's more about efficient allocation of resources. I have paid the Nuffield for psychiatry and for new hips, and in both cases they quite rightly won't initially talk to me, even at £250 an hour, without a GP referral.
Somewhere else might have talked to you, possibly. Some private places will see you without what in many cases is the pure formality and resource-waste of a GP referral, although in my experience this is if you are self-paying and I think if you are claiming off insurance the insurer often does want a GP referral.
If you can find a specialist willing to chat honestly, they will heartily agree that GPs tend not to like ill people.
Think of the demand for a GP referral as similar to a bank's demand that its own surveyor comes to inspect a house before the bank signs off on a loan to the purchaser. "Surveyor" is not a protected term, and often the surveyor is a young boy who probably doesn't know a joist from a damp proof course, but the bank insists he comes anyway. Why? The purchaser may well already have sent a proper surveyor, and perhaps the bank is only lending half the value of the house anyway. But the bank's surveyor will still come and wiggle his ruler about. What has happened is that a wave of "We've got a shmuck here with his pockets open - dip in, everyone!" has rippled through the ranks of the professionals.
It's like that when somebody's ill - not so much when they are self-paying privately (when often you can walk out of the door and go somewhere else), but certainly the NHS is full of needless meetings etc., and years of c*ck-and-bullsh*t waiting and monitoring, and any time an insurer is involved you can also expect a degree of pickpocketing all justified with serious faces.
Given what the system actually is, often just slipping some money to a private GP for a referral is the sensible choice. If you're lucky, there will be one in the same building as the specialist you want to see. Sadly if you try to save every penny, you won't get decent specialist healthcare in this country.
I was going to say something about filtering out the nutters, but for psychiatric referrals that seems not to apply.
It's not just about filtering out, the GP referral is there to provide essential information on past medical history, medication prescribed previously, results of previous tests etc.
Isn't it strange how so much of the rest of Europe (the ones with better health outcomes than the UK) seem to manage without the GP gatekeepers.
This is the problem. People like you oppose sensible reforms that will improve health outcomes even when they, quite rightly, will make no difference to free at the point of use.
I am not opposing it, just explaining another role for it.
Indeed my header on the 70th anniversary of the NHS was considerably more radical.
Yes. They’ve discovered the secret to new world use of old world varieties: find an obscure grape that suits your terroir and make of your own. Tannât isn’t even the main grape of Gascony, that’s Malbec.
England hadn’t yet woken up to the fact our superstar grape is Pinot Meunier, but it’ll come.
EDIT: in case any of you think I’m being twatty putting accents on the grape varieties, that’s just iPhone autocomplete.
Not questioning your knowledge, but surely England as a whole cannot have a single terroir? Surely different climate, soil types, height etc must play a part?
Been away doing washing ups and baths but back now.
The areas of England with suitable climate for viticulture with traditional old world varieties are very limited: Kent, East and West Sussex, Eastern Thames Valley, Essex, bits of Suffolk, part of Hampshire and Dorset, favoured slopes in Herefordshire and Monmouthshire and at a push Devon.
Vast majority of that is either chalk, clay, or Wealden sand formations. Chalk is more common to the West in Hants but the climate is marginal.
Generally Chardonnay does well on chalk, Pinot Noir is good on clay or gravel, and Meunier is good on clay, quaternary deposits and marl. Of which we have much. But the most important thing is that Britain is cold and cloudy enough for Meunier. It’s an ultra marginal cool climate grape, and it’s also underrated by the French - just like Tannât, Malbec and Chenin Blanc.
The other unloved and underrated grape with a hopefully bright niche future is Melon de Bourgogne (aka muscadet), which I am growing and the first in England to do so. If if ripens - and that’s a big if - I reckon it’ll be a revelation.
You forgot Gloucestershire, which was the centre of the UK wine industry for decades until around ten years ago.
Yes, around Newent and the Severn Valley. I kind of see it as greater Herefordshire. The rest of Gloucs is the Cotswolds which are too high and cold.
Yo Tim.
I have a vinicultural question. Just how and why is “19 Crimes” wine so good?!
Here in Thailand all wine is horrifically taxed. So to get a halfway good bottle you normally need to spend £20. Ugh
You can buy 19 Crimes for £12. And I do. Every day. Because it is just as good as the £20 bottles.
It is nothing exceptional. But it is highly drinkable and I bet 99% of us - including me - might fail to distinguish it in a blind tasting from bottles thrice the price - in the UK or Thailand or anywhere
It feels to me like the Aussies have produced another Jacobs Creek. A world beater. What are they doing?!
They went through the viticultural transition. Like Beaujolais, muscadet, Mosel Riesling and Vouvray.
In the 1990s Aussie wines became hugely popular in Britain and later in other export markets. As a result they planted everywhere, on shitty too hot too flat land where the vines did what the French call “pissing wine”. They ended up with overproduction, quickly lost brand value and prices and viability plummeted.
So then we had a period of creative destruction in the 2000s. Most of the crap vineyards were grubbed up. What was left was decent terroir and good quality, but artificially low prices. Just like Beaujolais after the nouveau boom or Muscadet after the 1980s over-planting. Buy a Georges Duboeuf cru Beaujolais and you’re getting something way cheaper than it should be.
I was at a tasting of Aussie wines a while back with Will Lyons. One he served was incredible. He revealed after we’d all tasted that it was Jacob’s Creek. 19 crimes isn’t fine wine but it’s pretty solid and borne of the same history,
A truly progressive (and, by progressive, I mean the UK making progress as a country overall; nothing more) education policy would involve extending the school day so it covered 8am-6pm each day. This would allow:
(1) One or both parents to work full-time, raising their family income & mildly boosting the economy overall (2) Improve gender equality, as at the moment it's largely women who are forced to take part-time work to pick up their kids at 3pm, thus lowering their salaries and creating the perception of a structural gender gap (3) Allow breakfast, lunch and (afternoon/ high) tea to be provided to all children (4) Allow structured non-academic education activity to take place as part of the core curriculum, including design & technology, outdoor pursuits, arts, music, debating, and drama.
However, to do this would probably involve increasing the state education budget by c.30% and taking on the teaching unions (as @DavidL says) to adjust working patterns to shift.
I have regularly advocated for less spending on pensions and the NHS and more investment in education instead.
This is where I would spend it, and I'd introduce vouchers on top - so ordinary parents could exercise choice.
8-6 would be a doubling of the school day. You would therefore need, at a minimum, to double the education budget. Nothing to do with the unions.
My school day was 8:45am to 4:15pm, 8am to 6pm wouldn't require doubling the school day, it also wouldn't require teachers for the first and last parts of the day, more likely child carers/minders. If the government took up the cause of combating childhood obesity and added an hour of physical exercise to every school day for every child you only need to make up an hour and a half per day, not doubling it.
Errr...you've just proposed an increase that you're not counting as an increase?
An hour if extra physical exercise per day per child is a cheap way to use up an hour. Just get them on the football pitch or running track with whatever geography is available and wants the OT.
So who do you propose staffs it?
You are aware that non-specialist staff are not supposed to supervise PE lessons, I trust?
Get rid of that rule, it's pointless, getting kids to run around on a football pitch for an hour doesn't require specialist staff, just someone who can ref the match and knows the offside rule.
Well, tell the Health and Safety Executive that then. And school insurers. They're the ones who insist on it.
It must be a recent change because I'm pretty sure our head of biology would double up at PE when the PE teacher was unavailable. Once again it's one of those boxes that's been created and I'm sure an army of box ticker positions have been created to ensure compliance. A complete waste of resources.
Yes. Although creating the space to do all this is trickier. I suppose they could run round
A truly progressive (and, by progressive, I mean the UK making progress as a country overall; nothing more) education policy would involve extending the school day so it covered 8am-6pm each day. This would allow:
(1) One or both parents to work full-time, raising their family income & mildly boosting the economy overall (2) Improve gender equality, as at the moment it's largely women who are forced to take part-time work to pick up their kids at 3pm, thus lowering their salaries and creating the perception of a structural gender gap (3) Allow breakfast, lunch and (afternoon/ high) tea to be provided to all children (4) Allow structured non-academic education activity to take place as part of the core curriculum, including design & technology, outdoor pursuits, arts, music, debating, and drama.
However, to do this would probably involve increasing the state education budget by c.30% and taking on the teaching unions (as @DavidL says) to adjust working patterns to shift.
I have regularly advocated for less spending on pensions and the NHS and more investment in education instead.
This is where I would spend it, and I'd introduce vouchers on top - so ordinary parents could exercise choice.
8-6 would be a doubling of the school day. You would therefore need, at a minimum, to double the education budget. Nothing to do with the unions.
My school day was 8:45am to 4:15pm, 8am to 6pm wouldn't require doubling the school day, it also wouldn't require teachers for the first and last parts of the day, more likely child carers/minders. If the government took up the cause of combating childhood obesity and added an hour of physical exercise to every school day for every child you only need to make up an hour and a half per day, not doubling it.
At the local, outstanding, primary, one of the mothers started an after school club. Basically childcare until 6pm, using a building just off the playground.
Seemed very popular among those parents who were struggling with affording child minding until they got back from work.
Yes but. That's childminding. Not education. That's a parent not a teacher. That isn't having to evidence learning objectives in line with the national curriculum. That's voluntary not funded. That's pretty common. But it isn't education policy.
A truly progressive (and, by progressive, I mean the UK making progress as a country overall; nothing more) education policy would involve extending the school day so it covered 8am-6pm each day. This would allow:
(1) One or both parents to work full-time, raising their family income & mildly boosting the economy overall (2) Improve gender equality, as at the moment it's largely women who are forced to take part-time work to pick up their kids at 3pm, thus lowering their salaries and creating the perception of a structural gender gap (3) Allow breakfast, lunch and (afternoon/ high) tea to be provided to all children (4) Allow structured non-academic education activity to take place as part of the core curriculum, including design & technology, outdoor pursuits, arts, music, debating, and drama.
However, to do this would probably involve increasing the state education budget by c.30% and taking on the teaching unions (as @DavidL says) to adjust working patterns to shift.
I have regularly advocated for less spending on pensions and the NHS and more investment in education instead.
This is where I would spend it, and I'd introduce vouchers on top - so ordinary parents could exercise choice.
8-6 would be a doubling of the school day. You would therefore need, at a minimum, to double the education budget. Nothing to do with the unions.
My school day was 8:45am to 4:15pm, 8am to 6pm wouldn't require doubling the school day, it also wouldn't require teachers for the first and last parts of the day, more likely child carers/minders. If the government took up the cause of combating childhood obesity and added an hour of physical exercise to every school day for every child you only need to make up an hour and a half per day, not doubling it.
Errr...you've just proposed an increase that you're not counting as an increase?
An hour if extra physical exercise per day per child is a cheap way to use up an hour. Just get them on the football pitch or running track with whatever geography is available and wants the OT.
So who do you propose staffs it?
You are aware that non-specialist staff are not supposed to supervise PE lessons, I trust?
At the root of all, as ever, is money.
I like these suggestions for educating children for longer days, to invlude more physical activity, better nutrition, etc.
But the posters suggesting them are the same people who usually want to pay lower taxes and cut public services, so I think we can take the suggestions with a pinch of salt.
Actually I think you'll find I've said I'd be happy to pay for it by cutting pensions and healthcare. Education and childcare provision is much more important to the nation than either of those. It should be our only priority as a country, to get our kids educated and healthy and for parents to be able to go back to work and afford to have one more child.
Put NI on pensions and other unearned income. Cut the triple lock, put CGT on non primary residential property up to income tax rates. Raise director dividend tax rates up to match income tax rates and raise corporate tax up to 28% again.
Freeze the NHS budget in real terms and force through reforms, any manager who proposes front line services cuts should immediately be sacked themselves, sack 50% of admin staff and management overnight, get rid of all the bureaucratic nonsense that plagues healthcare.
Sorry disagree on the childcare aspect. If you cant afford to have kids , and a radical idea I know, dont fucking have them.
How do you maintain a working population, then?
There are 12 billion too many people on the planet and I have said many times the whole world needs to work out how to work with a declining population because the simple fact is as populations become more educated their reproduction rate falls below replacement rates. This is why I am adamant that immigration is a ponzi scheme because sooner or later even africa is going to fall below replacement rates, Countries that work out how to cope with it early on will do better
Education is a good thing and people should be encouraged to spend money on it. Money spent on private schools means savings for local authorities. The most extreme I know is Edinburgh where nearly 1/3rd of secondary pupils go to private schools. If several of those schools close I am not sure that the local authority could cope.
But this is all about the politics of envy. And there is never a rational answer to that.
I can't speak for the rest of the left wing wokerati but my motivation is not the politics of envy. I could afford to pay for private education for my children but I chose not to on a point of principle. I believe selective education either by money or by 11 plus exam deprives the majority of resource, either by money shovelled into Grammar Schools to the detriment of the rest, or by an exemption on VAT. I don't want my taxes to benefit a grammar school elite at the expense of everyone else, and while I don't want to deprive you of the liberty to spend your money on a private education for your children, pay the VAT on it.
Make universal education fantastic for all, and measure it on added value, not just on GCSE A* passes.
Not sure where grammar schools come into this. They are state run and, like all state schools, therefore VAT exempt.
Private schools do not cost the state money, they save it.
Between £5k and £7k per pupil. This is significantly more than the waived VAT would be, roughly twice as much. Labour claiming that this policy will produce more money for state schools shows a basic innumeracy.
I accept that there are social costs in that we end up with a relatively small and privileged elite who get a proper education in circumstances conducive to learning which gives them an unfair advantage in life. I agree that the ideal would be that state schools were so good than no one was willing to pay . But they aren't and there is absolutely no focus on making them so. To do that you would need to take on the teachers unions and no one is brave enough to do that.
Two responses to that post:
1. Labour claiming that this policy will produce more money for state schools does not show 'a basic innumeracy'... unless, and this is important, you assume that more than 30% of private pupils will no longer attend private school but will switch to state schools. Now you may think that's the case, Labour clearly don't (nor do I). But in any event there is no innumeracy on Labour's part.
2. I'm interested in your view that it is the teachers unions, not average spend per pupil (£6.5k state, £15k private), that prevents state schools being as good as private ones. Do you have any evidence for that?
When comparing the spend per pupil, it is worth remembering that in the purely academic spend, the difference is a lot lower.
Fair enough but just to be clear, what do you consider as non-academic* spend?
(*That'll be non-academic spend currently benefiting from the education VAT exemption presumably.)
Boarding costs, better sports facilities, extra curricula activities etc
Classifying some stuff would get into an existential debate over the nature of education. But….
At one daughters school, the bottom of the swimming pool can be raised and lowered. I think we can all agree that is not academically vital.
Yet still VAT exempt
It depends, in a different life I used to work in disability children's care and the pool we used to take the kids to had this functionality and it was at a local private school that had a facility sharing deal with the council. Without being able to raise the floor of the pool and make it the same shallow depth for the whole pool those kids would have had nowhere to swim as the other pools in the area were standard with variable depth.
To my mind the private school spending money on it was worthwhile as it allowed disabled kids the chance to swim safely and it should absolutely be VAT exempt.
Yes, yes, of course. But equipment for disability is VAT exempt anyway so the school should never have needed to pay VAT on it regardless.
I mean we're arguing around the edges here. My initial point of contention with DavidL was that his assumption that removing the VAT exemption on school fees would cost the Exchequer is flawed. I stand by that.
But my point is that the private school may not have bothered with the extra expense of building that in without the overall VAT exemption they get and the need to engage with the local community and prove their ongoing charitable value. Actually it's almost a certainty that they wouldn't have bothered and that they wouldn't offer their pool to the council for free for disabled kids to use.
Everything has a downside, you are glossing over them and pretending there aren't. It might make you feel righteous and morally superior to people to send their kids to private schools yet damaging them will create a lot of other losers, but I guess who cares if the disabled kids don't have a pool to swim in during the summer.
I may be a bit of a dreamer, but kids swimming lessons shouldn't be reliant on the largesse of a convenient nearby private school.
But there's loads of stuff that charities do in this country, should cancer patients be reliant on a charity to fund research?
Who is to say they wouldn't be doing this socially beneficial stuff anyway? We live in a world in which big banks and law firms do a bunch of showy charitable stuff for good PR, despite not getting a VAT break for doing so. Presumably they might so a bit more if a VAT break was dangled. The same probably applies to every organization. Does that mean VAT and corporation tax shouldn't exist?
They get a tax deduction. Most private schools are non profits
A truly progressive (and, by progressive, I mean the UK making progress as a country overall; nothing more) education policy would involve extending the school day so it covered 8am-6pm each day. This would allow:
(1) One or both parents to work full-time, raising their family income & mildly boosting the economy overall (2) Improve gender equality, as at the moment it's largely women who are forced to take part-time work to pick up their kids at 3pm, thus lowering their salaries and creating the perception of a structural gender gap (3) Allow breakfast, lunch and (afternoon/ high) tea to be provided to all children (4) Allow structured non-academic education activity to take place as part of the core curriculum, including design & technology, outdoor pursuits, arts, music, debating, and drama.
However, to do this would probably involve increasing the state education budget by c.30% and taking on the teaching unions (as @DavidL says) to adjust working patterns to shift.
I have regularly advocated for less spending on pensions and the NHS and more investment in education instead.
This is where I would spend it, and I'd introduce vouchers on top - so ordinary parents could exercise choice.
8-6 would be a doubling of the school day. You would therefore need, at a minimum, to double the education budget. Nothing to do with the unions.
My school day was 8:45am to 4:15pm, 8am to 6pm wouldn't require doubling the school day, it also wouldn't require teachers for the first and last parts of the day, more likely child carers/minders. If the government took up the cause of combating childhood obesity and added an hour of physical exercise to every school day for every child you only need to make up an hour and a half per day, not doubling it.
Errr...you've just proposed an increase that you're not counting as an increase?
An hour if extra physical exercise per day per child is a cheap way to use up an hour. Just get them on the football pitch or running track with whatever geography is available and wants the OT.
So who do you propose staffs it?
You are aware that non-specialist staff are not supposed to supervise PE lessons, I trust?
At the root of all, as ever, is money.
I like these suggestions for educating children for longer days, to invlude more physical activity, better nutrition, etc.
But the posters suggesting them are the same people who usually want to pay lower taxes and cut public services, so I think we can take the suggestions with a pinch of salt.
Actually I think you'll find I've said I'd be happy to pay for it by cutting pensions and healthcare. Education and childcare provision is much more important to the nation than either of those. It should be our only priority as a country, to get our kids educated and healthy and for parents to be able to go back to work and afford to have one more child.
Put NI on pensions and other unearned income. Cut the triple lock, put CGT on non primary residential property up to income tax rates. Raise director dividend tax rates up to match income tax rates and raise corporate tax up to 28% again.
Freeze the NHS budget in real terms and force through reforms, any manager who proposes front line services cuts should immediately be sacked themselves, sack 50% of admin staff and management overnight, get rid of all the bureaucratic nonsense that plagues healthcare.
Sorry disagree on the childcare aspect. If you cant afford to have kids , and a radical idea I know, dont fucking have them.
How do you maintain a working population, then?
There are 12 billion too many people on the planet and I have said many times the whole world needs to work out how to work with a declining population because the simple fact is as populations become more educated their reproduction rate falls below replacement rates. This is why I am adamant that immigration is a ponzi scheme because sooner or later even africa is going to fall below replacement rates, Countries that work out how to cope with it early on will do better
There are only 8 billion people so 12bn over seems a little harsh.
I do think overpopulation will sort itself out, but the urban areas of the world may not notice. Look at greater Tokyo: keeps getting bigger even while Japan as a whole shrinks.
A truly progressive (and, by progressive, I mean the UK making progress as a country overall; nothing more) education policy would involve extending the school day so it covered 8am-6pm each day. This would allow:
(1) One or both parents to work full-time, raising their family income & mildly boosting the economy overall (2) Improve gender equality, as at the moment it's largely women who are forced to take part-time work to pick up their kids at 3pm, thus lowering their salaries and creating the perception of a structural gender gap (3) Allow breakfast, lunch and (afternoon/ high) tea to be provided to all children (4) Allow structured non-academic education activity to take place as part of the core curriculum, including design & technology, outdoor pursuits, arts, music, debating, and drama.
However, to do this would probably involve increasing the state education budget by c.30% and taking on the teaching unions (as @DavidL says) to adjust working patterns to shift.
I have regularly advocated for less spending on pensions and the NHS and more investment in education instead.
This is where I would spend it, and I'd introduce vouchers on top - so ordinary parents could exercise choice.
8-6 would be a doubling of the school day. You would therefore need, at a minimum, to double the education budget. Nothing to do with the unions.
My school day was 8:45am to 4:15pm, 8am to 6pm wouldn't require doubling the school day, it also wouldn't require teachers for the first and last parts of the day, more likely child carers/minders. If the government took up the cause of combating childhood obesity and added an hour of physical exercise to every school day for every child you only need to make up an hour and a half per day, not doubling it.
Errr...you've just proposed an increase that you're not counting as an increase?
An hour if extra physical exercise per day per child is a cheap way to use up an hour. Just get them on the football pitch or running track with whatever geography is available and wants the OT.
So who do you propose staffs it?
You are aware that non-specialist staff are not supposed to supervise PE lessons, I trust?
At the root of all, as ever, is money.
I like these suggestions for educating children for longer days, to invlude more physical activity, better nutrition, etc.
But the posters suggesting them are the same people who usually want to pay lower taxes and cut public services, so I think we can take the suggestions with a pinch of salt.
Actually I think you'll find I've said I'd be happy to pay for it by cutting pensions and healthcare. Education and childcare provision is much more important to the nation than either of those. It should be our only priority as a country, to get our kids educated and healthy and for parents to be able to go back to work and afford to have one more child.
Put NI on pensions and other unearned income. Cut the triple lock, put CGT on non primary residential property up to income tax rates. Raise director dividend tax rates up to match income tax rates and raise corporate tax up to 28% again.
Freeze the NHS budget in real terms and force through reforms, any manager who proposes front line services cuts should immediately be sacked themselves, sack 50% of admin staff and management overnight, get rid of all the bureaucratic nonsense that plagues healthcare.
Sorry disagree on the childcare aspect. If you cant afford to have kids , and a radical idea I know, dont fucking have them.
How do you maintain a working population, then?
There are 12 billion too many people on the planet and I have said many times the whole world needs to work out how to work with a declining population because the simple fact is as populations become more educated their reproduction rate falls below replacement rates. This is why I am adamant that immigration is a ponzi scheme because sooner or later even africa is going to fall below replacement rates, Countries that work out how to cope with it early on will do better
There are only 8 billion people so 12bn over seems a little harsh.
I do think overpopulation will sort itself out, but the urban areas of the world may not notice. Look at greater Tokyo: keeps getting bigger even while Japan as a whole shrinks.
A truly progressive (and, by progressive, I mean the UK making progress as a country overall; nothing more) education policy would involve extending the school day so it covered 8am-6pm each day. This would allow:
(1) One or both parents to work full-time, raising their family income & mildly boosting the economy overall (2) Improve gender equality, as at the moment it's largely women who are forced to take part-time work to pick up their kids at 3pm, thus lowering their salaries and creating the perception of a structural gender gap (3) Allow breakfast, lunch and (afternoon/ high) tea to be provided to all children (4) Allow structured non-academic education activity to take place as part of the core curriculum, including design & technology, outdoor pursuits, arts, music, debating, and drama.
However, to do this would probably involve increasing the state education budget by c.30% and taking on the teaching unions (as @DavidL says) to adjust working patterns to shift.
I have regularly advocated for less spending on pensions and the NHS and more investment in education instead.
This is where I would spend it, and I'd introduce vouchers on top - so ordinary parents could exercise choice.
8-6 would be a doubling of the school day. You would therefore need, at a minimum, to double the education budget. Nothing to do with the unions.
My school day was 8:45am to 4:15pm, 8am to 6pm wouldn't require doubling the school day, it also wouldn't require teachers for the first and last parts of the day, more likely child carers/minders. If the government took up the cause of combating childhood obesity and added an hour of physical exercise to every school day for every child you only need to make up an hour and a half per day, not doubling it.
Errr...you've just proposed an increase that you're not counting as an increase?
An hour if extra physical exercise per day per child is a cheap way to use up an hour. Just get them on the football pitch or running track with whatever geography is available and wants the OT.
So who do you propose staffs it?
You are aware that non-specialist staff are not supposed to supervise PE lessons, I trust?
At the root of all, as ever, is money.
I like these suggestions for educating children for longer days, to invlude more physical activity, better nutrition, etc.
But the posters suggesting them are the same people who usually want to pay lower taxes and cut public services, so I think we can take the suggestions with a pinch of salt.
Actually I think you'll find I've said I'd be happy to pay for it by cutting pensions and healthcare. Education and childcare provision is much more important to the nation than either of those. It should be our only priority as a country, to get our kids educated and healthy and for parents to be able to go back to work and afford to have one more child.
Put NI on pensions and other unearned income. Cut the triple lock, put CGT on non primary residential property up to income tax rates. Raise director dividend tax rates up to match income tax rates and raise corporate tax up to 28% again.
Freeze the NHS budget in real terms and force through reforms, any manager who proposes front line services cuts should immediately be sacked themselves, sack 50% of admin staff and management overnight, get rid of all the bureaucratic nonsense that plagues healthcare.
Sorry disagree on the childcare aspect. If you cant afford to have kids , and a radical idea I know, dont fucking have them.
How do you maintain a working population, then?
There are 12 billion too many people on the planet and I have said many times the whole world needs to work out how to work with a declining population because the simple fact is as populations become more educated their reproduction rate falls below replacement rates. This is why I am adamant that immigration is a ponzi scheme because sooner or later even africa is going to fall below replacement rates, Countries that work out how to cope with it early on will do better
There are only 8 billion people so 12bn over seems a little harsh.
I do think overpopulation will sort itself out, but the urban areas of the world may not notice. Look at greater Tokyo: keeps getting bigger even while Japan as a whole shrinks.
19 Crimes is a little sweet for my tastes. But there are plenty of decent supermarket wines under £6. I am mostly drinking Cono Sur Bicicleta from Chile. It's OK. A pay rise in line with inflation would help.
A truly progressive (and, by progressive, I mean the UK making progress as a country overall; nothing more) education policy would involve extending the school day so it covered 8am-6pm each day. This would allow:
(1) One or both parents to work full-time, raising their family income & mildly boosting the economy overall (2) Improve gender equality, as at the moment it's largely women who are forced to take part-time work to pick up their kids at 3pm, thus lowering their salaries and creating the perception of a structural gender gap (3) Allow breakfast, lunch and (afternoon/ high) tea to be provided to all children (4) Allow structured non-academic education activity to take place as part of the core curriculum, including design & technology, outdoor pursuits, arts, music, debating, and drama.
However, to do this would probably involve increasing the state education budget by c.30% and taking on the teaching unions (as @DavidL says) to adjust working patterns to shift.
I have regularly advocated for less spending on pensions and the NHS and more investment in education instead.
This is where I would spend it, and I'd introduce vouchers on top - so ordinary parents could exercise choice.
8-6 would be a doubling of the school day. You would therefore need, at a minimum, to double the education budget. Nothing to do with the unions.
Eh? Current 9-3 years s 6 hours plus (guess) a couple for out of hours stuff for an 8 hour day.
Start an hour earlier / end 3 later adds 4 hours so 50%.
Plus you won’t need to pay extra for facilities so although staff budget would increase by 50% the total budget wouldn’t
A truly progressive (and, by progressive, I mean the UK making progress as a country overall; nothing more) education policy would involve extending the school day so it covered 8am-6pm each day. This would allow:
(1) One or both parents to work full-time, raising their family income & mildly boosting the economy overall (2) Improve gender equality, as at the moment it's largely women who are forced to take part-time work to pick up their kids at 3pm, thus lowering their salaries and creating the perception of a structural gender gap (3) Allow breakfast, lunch and (afternoon/ high) tea to be provided to all children (4) Allow structured non-academic education activity to take place as part of the core curriculum, including design & technology, outdoor pursuits, arts, music, debating, and drama.
However, to do this would probably involve increasing the state education budget by c.30% and taking on the teaching unions (as @DavidL says) to adjust working patterns to shift.
I have regularly advocated for less spending on pensions and the NHS and more investment in education instead.
This is where I would spend it, and I'd introduce vouchers on top - so ordinary parents could exercise choice.
8-6 would be a doubling of the school day. You would therefore need, at a minimum, to double the education budget. Nothing to do with the unions.
My school day was 8:45am to 4:15pm, 8am to 6pm wouldn't require doubling the school day, it also wouldn't require teachers for the first and last parts of the day, more likely child carers/minders. If the government took up the cause of combating childhood obesity and added an hour of physical exercise to every school day for every child you only need to make up an hour and a half per day, not doubling it.
Errr...you've just proposed an increase that you're not counting as an increase?
An hour if extra physical exercise per day per child is a cheap way to use up an hour. Just get them on the football pitch or running track with whatever geography is available and wants the OT.
So who do you propose staffs it?
You are aware that non-specialist staff are not supposed to supervise PE lessons, I trust?
At the root of all, as ever, is money.
I like these suggestions for educating children for longer days, to invlude more physical activity, better nutrition, etc.
But the posters suggesting them are the same people who usually want to pay lower taxes and cut public services, so I think we can take the suggestions with a pinch of salt.
Actually I think you'll find I've said I'd be happy to pay for it by cutting pensions and healthcare. Education and childcare provision is much more important to the nation than either of those. It should be our only priority as a country, to get our kids educated and healthy and for parents to be able to go back to work and afford to have one more child.
Put NI on pensions and other unearned income. Cut the triple lock, put CGT on non primary residential property up to income tax rates. Raise director dividend tax rates up to match income tax rates and raise corporate tax up to 28% again.
Freeze the NHS budget in real terms and force through reforms, any manager who proposes front line services cuts should immediately be sacked themselves, sack 50% of admin staff and management overnight, get rid of all the bureaucratic nonsense that plagues healthcare.
Sorry disagree on the childcare aspect. If you cant afford to have kids , and a radical idea I know, dont fucking have them.
How do you maintain a working population, then?
There are 12 billion too many people on the planet and I have said many times the whole world needs to work out how to work with a declining population because the simple fact is as populations become more educated their reproduction rate falls below replacement rates. This is why I am adamant that immigration is a ponzi scheme because sooner or later even africa is going to fall below replacement rates, Countries that work out how to cope with it early on will do better
There are only 8 billion people so 12bn over seems a little harsh.
I do think overpopulation will sort itself out, but the urban areas of the world may not notice. Look at greater Tokyo: keeps getting bigger even while Japan as a whole shrinks.
He was counting all SeanTs as separate people.
I would say I am unfortunately espousing a left wing policy as stopping the poor from reproducing would inevitably lead to less inequality
A truly progressive (and, by progressive, I mean the UK making progress as a country overall; nothing more) education policy would involve extending the school day so it covered 8am-6pm each day. This would allow:
(1) One or both parents to work full-time, raising their family income & mildly boosting the economy overall (2) Improve gender equality, as at the moment it's largely women who are forced to take part-time work to pick up their kids at 3pm, thus lowering their salaries and creating the perception of a structural gender gap (3) Allow breakfast, lunch and (afternoon/ high) tea to be provided to all children (4) Allow structured non-academic education activity to take place as part of the core curriculum, including design & technology, outdoor pursuits, arts, music, debating, and drama.
However, to do this would probably involve increasing the state education budget by c.30% and taking on the teaching unions (as @DavidL says) to adjust working patterns to shift.
I have regularly advocated for less spending on pensions and the NHS and more investment in education instead.
This is where I would spend it, and I'd introduce vouchers on top - so ordinary parents could exercise choice.
8-6 would be a doubling of the school day. You would therefore need, at a minimum, to double the education budget. Nothing to do with the unions.
Eh? Current 9-3 years s 6 hours plus (guess) a couple for out of hours stuff for an 8 hour day.
Start an hour earlier / end 3 later adds 4 hours so 50%.
Plus you won’t need to pay extra for facilities so although staff budget would increase by 50% the total budget wouldn’t
You would need to pay extra for heating and lighting and given the state of our school stock that's not negligible.
You are also making 'a couple for out of hours stuff' do a lot of heavy lifting. That's not routine.
I will concede it's two-thirds not a doubling. But no way would it merely require a 30% increase in budget.
Yes. They’ve discovered the secret to new world use of old world varieties: find an obscure grape that suits your terroir and make of your own. Tannât isn’t even the main grape of Gascony, that’s Malbec.
England hadn’t yet woken up to the fact our superstar grape is Pinot Meunier, but it’ll come.
EDIT: in case any of you think I’m being twatty putting accents on the grape varieties, that’s just iPhone autocomplete.
Not questioning your knowledge, but surely England as a whole cannot have a single terroir? Surely different climate, soil types, height etc must play a part?
Been away doing washing ups and baths but back now.
The areas of England with suitable climate for viticulture with traditional old world varieties are very limited: Kent, East and West Sussex, Eastern Thames Valley, Essex, bits of Suffolk, part of Hampshire and Dorset, favoured slopes in Herefordshire and Monmouthshire and at a push Devon.
Vast majority of that is either chalk, clay, or Wealden sand formations. Chalk is more common to the West in Hants but the climate is marginal.
Generally Chardonnay does well on chalk, Pinot Noir is good on clay or gravel, and Meunier is good on clay, quaternary deposits and marl. Of which we have much. But the most important thing is that Britain is cold and cloudy enough for Meunier. It’s an ultra marginal cool climate grape, and it’s also underrated by the French - just like Tannât, Malbec and Chenin Blanc.
The other unloved and underrated grape with a hopefully bright niche future is Melon de Bourgogne (aka muscadet), which I am growing and the first in England to do so. If if ripens - and that’s a big if - I reckon it’ll be a revelation.
You forgot Gloucestershire, which was the centre of the UK wine industry for decades until around ten years ago.
Yes, around Newent and the Severn Valley. I kind of see it as greater Herefordshire. The rest of Gloucs is the Cotswolds which are too high and cold.
To be honest, you're right, but don't put it that way to anyone round those parts other than @Mexicanpete and me. Just for your own safety. I mean, imagine telling Leon that Newent is part of his home county...then double it.
Mum’s the word.
(by the way. You also forgot the Forest of Dean. DO NOT tell a Forester that Glos consists solely of Newent, the Severn Valley and the Cotswolds as you value your life)
The Forest of Dean was where the dealers used to live. One was apparently in EMF. I didn’t partake myself, I was scared off by the whole just say no campaign, but for others it seemed to be the mother lode for illegal substances.
Particularly my friend Will, whose father Charles was a travel writer and probable flint knapper who seemed to spend his early adulthood in Colombia.
Yes. They’ve discovered the secret to new world use of old world varieties: find an obscure grape that suits your terroir and make of your own. Tannât isn’t even the main grape of Gascony, that’s Malbec.
England hadn’t yet woken up to the fact our superstar grape is Pinot Meunier, but it’ll come.
EDIT: in case any of you think I’m being twatty putting accents on the grape varieties, that’s just iPhone autocomplete.
Not questioning your knowledge, but surely England as a whole cannot have a single terroir? Surely different climate, soil types, height etc must play a part?
Been away doing washing ups and baths but back now.
The areas of England with suitable climate for viticulture with traditional old world varieties are very limited: Kent, East and West Sussex, Eastern Thames Valley, Essex, bits of Suffolk, part of Hampshire and Dorset, favoured slopes in Herefordshire and Monmouthshire and at a push Devon.
Vast majority of that is either chalk, clay, or Wealden sand formations. Chalk is more common to the West in Hants but the climate is marginal.
Generally Chardonnay does well on chalk, Pinot Noir is good on clay or gravel, and Meunier is good on clay, quaternary deposits and marl. Of which we have much. But the most important thing is that Britain is cold and cloudy enough for Meunier. It’s an ultra marginal cool climate grape, and it’s also underrated by the French - just like Tannât, Malbec and Chenin Blanc.
The other unloved and underrated grape with a hopefully bright niche future is Melon de Bourgogne (aka muscadet), which I am growing and the first in England to do so. If if ripens - and that’s a big if - I reckon it’ll be a revelation.
You forgot Gloucestershire, which was the centre of the UK wine industry for decades until around ten years ago.
Yes, around Newent and the Severn Valley. I kind of see it as greater Herefordshire. The rest of Gloucs is the Cotswolds which are too high and cold.
Yo Tim.
I have a vinicultural question. Just how and why is “19 Crimes” wine so good?!
Here in Thailand all wine is horrifically taxed. So to get a halfway good bottle you normally need to spend £20. Ugh
You can buy 19 Crimes for £12. And I do. Every day. Because it is just as good as the £20 bottles.
It is nothing exceptional. But it is highly drinkable and I bet 99% of us - including me - might fail to distinguish it in a blind tasting from bottles thrice the price - in the UK or Thailand or anywhere
It feels to me like the Aussies have produced another Jacobs Creek. A world beater. What are they doing?!
They went through the viticultural transition. Like Beaujolais, muscadet, Mosel Riesling and Vouvray.
In the 1990s Aussie wines became hugely popular in Britain and later in other export markets. As a result they planted everywhere, on shitty too hot too flat land where the vines did what the French call “pissing wine”. They ended up with overproduction, quickly lost brand value and prices and viability plummeted.
So then we had a period of creative destruction in the 2000s. Most of the crap vineyards were grubbed up. What was left was decent terroir and good quality, but artificially low prices. Just like Beaujolais after the nouveau boom or Muscadet after the 1980s over-planting. Buy a Georges Duboeuf cru Beaujolais and you’re getting something way cheaper than it should be.
I was at a tasting of Aussie wines a while back with Will Lyons. One he served was incredible. He revealed after we’d all tasted that it was Jacob’s Creek. 19 crimes isn’t fine wine but it’s pretty solid and borne of the same history,
The answer I hoped for. Ta. Fascinating
A few years ago I had dinner with the guy who devised the marketing for Jacob’s Creek. He chuckled darkly and said “Yeah, we call it the longest Creek in the world”
19 Crimes is destroying the opposition here in Thailand. It now has whole shelves to itself. Because it is reliably good and enjoyable and half the price of the equivalents. The Aussies really know how to make and sell good mass market wine. Chapeau to them
A truly progressive (and, by progressive, I mean the UK making progress as a country overall; nothing more) education policy would involve extending the school day so it covered 8am-6pm each day. This would allow:
(1) One or both parents to work full-time, raising their family income & mildly boosting the economy overall (2) Improve gender equality, as at the moment it's largely women who are forced to take part-time work to pick up their kids at 3pm, thus lowering their salaries and creating the perception of a structural gender gap (3) Allow breakfast, lunch and (afternoon/ high) tea to be provided to all children (4) Allow structured non-academic education activity to take place as part of the core curriculum, including design & technology, outdoor pursuits, arts, music, debating, and drama.
However, to do this would probably involve increasing the state education budget by c.30% and taking on the teaching unions (as @DavidL says) to adjust working patterns to shift.
I have regularly advocated for less spending on pensions and the NHS and more investment in education instead.
This is where I would spend it, and I'd introduce vouchers on top - so ordinary parents could exercise choice.
8-6 would be a doubling of the school day. You would therefore need, at a minimum, to double the education budget. Nothing to do with the unions.
Eh? Current 9-3 years s 6 hours plus (guess) a couple for out of hours stuff for an 8 hour day.
Start an hour earlier / end 3 later adds 4 hours so 50%.
Plus you won’t need to pay extra for facilities so although staff budget would increase by 50% the total budget wouldn’t
Do you really think the average teacher does 9-3 plus an extra couple of hours?
A truly progressive (and, by progressive, I mean the UK making progress as a country overall; nothing more) education policy would involve extending the school day so it covered 8am-6pm each day. This would allow:
(1) One or both parents to work full-time, raising their family income & mildly boosting the economy overall (2) Improve gender equality, as at the moment it's largely women who are forced to take part-time work to pick up their kids at 3pm, thus lowering their salaries and creating the perception of a structural gender gap (3) Allow breakfast, lunch and (afternoon/ high) tea to be provided to all children (4) Allow structured non-academic education activity to take place as part of the core curriculum, including design & technology, outdoor pursuits, arts, music, debating, and drama.
However, to do this would probably involve increasing the state education budget by c.30% and taking on the teaching unions (as @DavidL says) to adjust working patterns to shift.
I have regularly advocated for less spending on pensions and the NHS and more investment in education instead.
This is where I would spend it, and I'd introduce vouchers on top - so ordinary parents could exercise choice.
8-6 would be a doubling of the school day. You would therefore need, at a minimum, to double the education budget. Nothing to do with the unions.
Eh? Current 9-3 years s 6 hours plus (guess) a couple for out of hours stuff for an 8 hour day.
Start an hour earlier / end 3 later adds 4 hours so 50%.
Plus you won’t need to pay extra for facilities so although staff budget would increase by 50% the total budget wouldn’t
Do you really think the average teacher does 9-3 plus an extra couple of hours?
The whole problem with debates on education is the average person has no clue whatsoever what goes on in education. So even if they are bright and mean well, they usually don't say anything useful.
A truly progressive (and, by progressive, I mean the UK making progress as a country overall; nothing more) education policy would involve extending the school day so it covered 8am-6pm each day. This would allow:
(1) One or both parents to work full-time, raising their family income & mildly boosting the economy overall (2) Improve gender equality, as at the moment it's largely women who are forced to take part-time work to pick up their kids at 3pm, thus lowering their salaries and creating the perception of a structural gender gap (3) Allow breakfast, lunch and (afternoon/ high) tea to be provided to all children (4) Allow structured non-academic education activity to take place as part of the core curriculum, including design & technology, outdoor pursuits, arts, music, debating, and drama.
However, to do this would probably involve increasing the state education budget by c.30% and taking on the teaching unions (as @DavidL says) to adjust working patterns to shift.
I have regularly advocated for less spending on pensions and the NHS and more investment in education instead.
This is where I would spend it, and I'd introduce vouchers on top - so ordinary parents could exercise choice.
8-6 would be a doubling of the school day. You would therefore need, at a minimum, to double the education budget. Nothing to do with the unions.
Eh? Current 9-3 years s 6 hours plus (guess) a couple for out of hours stuff for an 8 hour day.
Start an hour earlier / end 3 later adds 4 hours so 50%.
Plus you won’t need to pay extra for facilities so although staff budget would increase by 50% the total budget wouldn’t
Do you really think the average teacher does 9-3 plus an extra couple of hours?
My mother was a geography teacher. Worked till 10 or 11 every night preparing lessons of marking.
A truly progressive (and, by progressive, I mean the UK making progress as a country overall; nothing more) education policy would involve extending the school day so it covered 8am-6pm each day. This would allow:
(1) One or both parents to work full-time, raising their family income & mildly boosting the economy overall (2) Improve gender equality, as at the moment it's largely women who are forced to take part-time work to pick up their kids at 3pm, thus lowering their salaries and creating the perception of a structural gender gap (3) Allow breakfast, lunch and (afternoon/ high) tea to be provided to all children (4) Allow structured non-academic education activity to take place as part of the core curriculum, including design & technology, outdoor pursuits, arts, music, debating, and drama.
However, to do this would probably involve increasing the state education budget by c.30% and taking on the teaching unions (as @DavidL says) to adjust working patterns to shift.
I have regularly advocated for less spending on pensions and the NHS and more investment in education instead.
This is where I would spend it, and I'd introduce vouchers on top - so ordinary parents could exercise choice.
8-6 would be a doubling of the school day. You would therefore need, at a minimum, to double the education budget. Nothing to do with the unions.
Eh? Current 9-3 years s 6 hours plus (guess) a couple for out of hours stuff for an 8 hour day.
Start an hour earlier / end 3 later adds 4 hours so 50%.
Plus you won’t need to pay extra for facilities so although staff budget would increase by 50% the total budget wouldn’t
Do you really think the average teacher does 9-3 plus an extra couple of hours?
My mother was a geography teacher. Worked till 10 or 11 every night preparing lessons of marking.
I think he meant contact hours. I assume he did, anyway.
I mean, I know there are bad teachers out there who never bothered to work outside the classroom, but even most people aren't that ignorant of teachers' workloads. If only because we keep telling them...
Yes. They’ve discovered the secret to new world use of old world varieties: find an obscure grape that suits your terroir and make of your own. Tannât isn’t even the main grape of Gascony, that’s Malbec.
England hadn’t yet woken up to the fact our superstar grape is Pinot Meunier, but it’ll come.
EDIT: in case any of you think I’m being twatty putting accents on the grape varieties, that’s just iPhone autocomplete.
Not questioning your knowledge, but surely England as a whole cannot have a single terroir? Surely different climate, soil types, height etc must play a part?
Been away doing washing ups and baths but back now.
The areas of England with suitable climate for viticulture with traditional old world varieties are very limited: Kent, East and West Sussex, Eastern Thames Valley, Essex, bits of Suffolk, part of Hampshire and Dorset, favoured slopes in Herefordshire and Monmouthshire and at a push Devon.
Vast majority of that is either chalk, clay, or Wealden sand formations. Chalk is more common to the West in Hants but the climate is marginal.
Generally Chardonnay does well on chalk, Pinot Noir is good on clay or gravel, and Meunier is good on clay, quaternary deposits and marl. Of which we have much. But the most important thing is that Britain is cold and cloudy enough for Meunier. It’s an ultra marginal cool climate grape, and it’s also underrated by the French - just like Tannât, Malbec and Chenin Blanc.
The other unloved and underrated grape with a hopefully bright niche future is Melon de Bourgogne (aka muscadet), which I am growing and the first in England to do so. If if ripens - and that’s a big if - I reckon it’ll be a revelation.
You forgot Gloucestershire, which was the centre of the UK wine industry for decades until around ten years ago.
Yes, around Newent and the Severn Valley. I kind of see it as greater Herefordshire. The rest of Gloucs is the Cotswolds which are too high and cold.
Yo Tim.
I have a vinicultural question. Just how and why is “19 Crimes” wine so good?!
Here in Thailand all wine is horrifically taxed. So to get a halfway good bottle you normally need to spend £20. Ugh
You can buy 19 Crimes for £12. And I do. Every day. Because it is just as good as the £20 bottles.
It is nothing exceptional. But it is highly drinkable and I bet 99% of us - including me - might fail to distinguish it in a blind tasting from bottles thrice the price - in the UK or Thailand or anywhere
It feels to me like the Aussies have produced another Jacobs Creek. A world beater. What are they doing?!
A truly progressive (and, by progressive, I mean the UK making progress as a country overall; nothing more) education policy would involve extending the school day so it covered 8am-6pm each day. This would allow:
(1) One or both parents to work full-time, raising their family income & mildly boosting the economy overall (2) Improve gender equality, as at the moment it's largely women who are forced to take part-time work to pick up their kids at 3pm, thus lowering their salaries and creating the perception of a structural gender gap (3) Allow breakfast, lunch and (afternoon/ high) tea to be provided to all children (4) Allow structured non-academic education activity to take place as part of the core curriculum, including design & technology, outdoor pursuits, arts, music, debating, and drama.
However, to do this would probably involve increasing the state education budget by c.30% and taking on the teaching unions (as @DavidL says) to adjust working patterns to shift.
I have regularly advocated for less spending on pensions and the NHS and more investment in education instead.
This is where I would spend it, and I'd introduce vouchers on top - so ordinary parents could exercise choice.
8-6 would be a doubling of the school day. You would therefore need, at a minimum, to double the education budget. Nothing to do with the unions.
My school day was 8:45am to 4:15pm, 8am to 6pm wouldn't require doubling the school day, it also wouldn't require teachers for the first and last parts of the day, more likely child carers/minders. If the government took up the cause of combating childhood obesity and added an hour of physical exercise to every school day for every child you only need to make up an hour and a half per day, not doubling it.
Errr...you've just proposed an increase that you're not counting as an increase?
An hour if extra physical exercise per day per child is a cheap way to use up an hour. Just get them on the football pitch or running track with whatever geography is available and wants the OT.
So who do you propose staffs it?
You are aware that non-specialist staff are not supposed to supervise PE lessons, I trust?
At the root of all, as ever, is money.
I like these suggestions for educating children for longer days, to invlude more physical activity, better nutrition, etc.
But the posters suggesting them are the same people who usually want to pay lower taxes and cut public services, so I think we can take the suggestions with a pinch of salt.
Actually I think you'll find I've said I'd be happy to pay for it by cutting pensions and healthcare. Education and childcare provision is much more important to the nation than either of those. It should be our only priority as a country, to get our kids educated and healthy and for parents to be able to go back to work and afford to have one more child.
Put NI on pensions and other unearned income. Cut the triple lock, put CGT on non primary residential property up to income tax rates. Raise director dividend tax rates up to match income tax rates and raise corporate tax up to 28% again.
Freeze the NHS budget in real terms and force through reforms, any manager who proposes front line services cuts should immediately be sacked themselves, sack 50% of admin staff and management overnight, get rid of all the bureaucratic nonsense that plagues healthcare.
Remarkable how none of these increases taxes will impact you, while you will benefit from the spending proposals
A few elderly Challenger IIs will not be enough to stem the tide.
10% of what was needed several months later than would have been most useful has been the dominant theme of British weapons to Ukraine from NLAW onward.
France 24 did a very good piece that showed what it's really like on the front line of the SMO in Bakhlepool.
TLDW: It's Berlin 1945 fucked. The local community is split, even across family lines, among those who are pro Russia/Ukraine (It's their version of Brexit, but less bitter). Lot of fat lads in the AFU, rations must be good.
Unless Russia can develop a northern front through Belarus (no idea how feasible or likely this is) I think the front lines are pretty much stagnant at this point.
Yes. They’ve discovered the secret to new world use of old world varieties: find an obscure grape that suits your terroir and make of your own. Tannât isn’t even the main grape of Gascony, that’s Malbec.
England hadn’t yet woken up to the fact our superstar grape is Pinot Meunier, but it’ll come.
EDIT: in case any of you think I’m being twatty putting accents on the grape varieties, that’s just iPhone autocomplete.
Not questioning your knowledge, but surely England as a whole cannot have a single terroir? Surely different climate, soil types, height etc must play a part?
Been away doing washing ups and baths but back now.
The areas of England with suitable climate for viticulture with traditional old world varieties are very limited: Kent, East and West Sussex, Eastern Thames Valley, Essex, bits of Suffolk, part of Hampshire and Dorset, favoured slopes in Herefordshire and Monmouthshire and at a push Devon.
Vast majority of that is either chalk, clay, or Wealden sand formations. Chalk is more common to the West in Hants but the climate is marginal.
Generally Chardonnay does well on chalk, Pinot Noir is good on clay or gravel, and Meunier is good on clay, quaternary deposits and marl. Of which we have much. But the most important thing is that Britain is cold and cloudy enough for Meunier. It’s an ultra marginal cool climate grape, and it’s also underrated by the French - just like Tannât, Malbec and Chenin Blanc.
The other unloved and underrated grape with a hopefully bright niche future is Melon de Bourgogne (aka muscadet), which I am growing and the first in England to do so. If if ripens - and that’s a big if - I reckon it’ll be a revelation.
You forgot Gloucestershire, which was the centre of the UK wine industry for decades until around ten years ago.
Yes, around Newent and the Severn Valley. I kind of see it as greater Herefordshire. The rest of Gloucs is the Cotswolds which are too high and cold.
To be honest, you're right, but don't put it that way to anyone round those parts other than @Mexicanpete and me. Just for your own safety. I mean, imagine telling Leon that Newent is part of his home county...then double it.
Mum’s the word.
(by the way. You also forgot the Forest of Dean. DO NOT tell a Forester that Glos consists solely of Newent, the Severn Valley and the Cotswolds as you value your life)
The Forest of Dean was where the dealers used to live. One was apparently in EMF. I didn’t partake myself, I was scared off by the whole just say no campaign, but for others it seemed to be the mother lode for illegal substances.
Particularly my friend Will, whose father Charles was a travel writer and probable flint knapper who seemed to spend his early adulthood in Colombia.
Wasn’t it his second son, Harry, who was the expert on Colombian produce? Will was a pretty straightforward, slightly dull, guy with a pretty wife and three lovely kids
A truly progressive (and, by progressive, I mean the UK making progress as a country overall; nothing more) education policy would involve extending the school day so it covered 8am-6pm each day. This would allow:
(1) One or both parents to work full-time, raising their family income & mildly boosting the economy overall (2) Improve gender equality, as at the moment it's largely women who are forced to take part-time work to pick up their kids at 3pm, thus lowering their salaries and creating the perception of a structural gender gap (3) Allow breakfast, lunch and (afternoon/ high) tea to be provided to all children (4) Allow structured non-academic education activity to take place as part of the core curriculum, including design & technology, outdoor pursuits, arts, music, debating, and drama.
However, to do this would probably involve increasing the state education budget by c.30% and taking on the teaching unions (as @DavidL says) to adjust working patterns to shift.
I have regularly advocated for less spending on pensions and the NHS and more investment in education instead.
This is where I would spend it, and I'd introduce vouchers on top - so ordinary parents could exercise choice.
8-6 would be a doubling of the school day. You would therefore need, at a minimum, to double the education budget. Nothing to do with the unions.
Eh? Current 9-3 years s 6 hours plus (guess) a couple for out of hours stuff for an 8 hour day.
Start an hour earlier / end 3 later adds 4 hours so 50%.
Plus you won’t need to pay extra for facilities so although staff budget would increase by 50% the total budget wouldn’t
Do you really think the average teacher does 9-3 plus an extra couple of hours?
No - that’s how long the buildings are open
You’ll need to add extra staff which is where most of the cost will be. But isn’t not doubling the cost
A truly progressive (and, by progressive, I mean the UK making progress as a country overall; nothing more) education policy would involve extending the school day so it covered 8am-6pm each day. This would allow:
(1) One or both parents to work full-time, raising their family income & mildly boosting the economy overall (2) Improve gender equality, as at the moment it's largely women who are forced to take part-time work to pick up their kids at 3pm, thus lowering their salaries and creating the perception of a structural gender gap (3) Allow breakfast, lunch and (afternoon/ high) tea to be provided to all children (4) Allow structured non-academic education activity to take place as part of the core curriculum, including design & technology, outdoor pursuits, arts, music, debating, and drama.
However, to do this would probably involve increasing the state education budget by c.30% and taking on the teaching unions (as @DavidL says) to adjust working patterns to shift.
I have regularly advocated for less spending on pensions and the NHS and more investment in education instead.
This is where I would spend it, and I'd introduce vouchers on top - so ordinary parents could exercise choice.
8-6 would be a doubling of the school day. You would therefore need, at a minimum, to double the education budget. Nothing to do with the unions.
Eh? Current 9-3 years s 6 hours plus (guess) a couple for out of hours stuff for an 8 hour day.
Start an hour earlier / end 3 later adds 4 hours so 50%.
Plus you won’t need to pay extra for facilities so although staff budget would increase by 50% the total budget wouldn’t
Do you really think the average teacher does 9-3 plus an extra couple of hours?
No - that’s how long the buildings are open
You’ll need to add extra staff which is where most of the cost will be. But isn’t not doubling the cost
Education is a good thing and people should be encouraged to spend money on it. Money spent on private schools means savings for local authorities. The most extreme I know is Edinburgh where nearly 1/3rd of secondary pupils go to private schools. If several of those schools close I am not sure that the local authority could cope.
But this is all about the politics of envy. And there is never a rational answer to that.
I can't speak for the rest of the left wing wokerati but my motivation is not the politics of envy. I could afford to pay for private education for my children but I chose not to on a point of principle. I believe selective education either by money or by 11 plus exam deprives the majority of resource, either by money shovelled into Grammar Schools to the detriment of the rest, or by an exemption on VAT. I don't want my taxes to benefit a grammar school elite at the expense of everyone else, and while I don't want to deprive you of the liberty to spend your money on a private education for your children, pay the VAT on it.
Make universal education fantastic for all, and measure it on added value, not just on GCSE A* passes.
Not sure where grammar schools come into this. They are state run and, like all state schools, therefore VAT exempt.
Private schools do not cost the state money, they save it.
Between £5k and £7k per pupil. This is significantly more than the waived VAT would be, roughly twice as much. Labour claiming that this policy will produce more money for state schools shows a basic innumeracy.
I accept that there are social costs in that we end up with a relatively small and privileged elite who get a proper education in circumstances conducive to learning which gives them an unfair advantage in life. I agree that the ideal would be that state schools were so good than no one was willing to pay . But they aren't and there is absolutely no focus on making them so. To do that you would need to take on the teachers unions and no one is brave enough to do that.
Two responses to that post:
1. Labour claiming that this policy will produce more money for state schools does not show 'a basic innumeracy'... unless, and this is important, you assume that more than 30% of private pupils will no longer attend private school but will switch to state schools. Now you may think that's the case, Labour clearly don't (nor do I). But in any event there is no innumeracy on Labour's part.
2. I'm interested in your view that it is the teachers unions, not average spend per pupil (£6.5k state, £15k private), that prevents state schools being as good as private ones. Do you have any evidence for that?
When comparing the spend per pupil, it is worth remembering that in the purely academic spend, the difference is a lot lower.
Fair enough but just to be clear, what do you consider as non-academic* spend?
(*That'll be non-academic spend currently benefiting from the education VAT exemption presumably.)
Boarding costs, better sports facilities, extra curricula activities etc
Classifying some stuff would get into an existential debate over the nature of education. But….
At one daughters school, the bottom of the swimming pool can be raised and lowered. I think we can all agree that is not academically vital.
Yet still VAT exempt
It depends, in a different life I used to work in disability children's care and the pool we used to take the kids to had this functionality and it was at a local private school that had a facility sharing deal with the council. Without being able to raise the floor of the pool and make it the same shallow depth for the whole pool those kids would have had nowhere to swim as the other pools in the area were standard with variable depth.
To my mind the private school spending money on it was worthwhile as it allowed disabled kids the chance to swim safely and it should absolutely be VAT exempt.
Yes, yes, of course. But equipment for disability is VAT exempt anyway so the school should never have needed to pay VAT on it regardless.
I mean we're arguing around the edges here. My initial point of contention with DavidL was that his assumption that removing the VAT exemption on school fees would cost the Exchequer is flawed. I stand by that.
But my point is that the private school may not have bothered with the extra expense of building that in without the overall VAT exemption they get and the need to engage with the local community and prove their ongoing charitable value. Actually it's almost a certainty that they wouldn't have bothered and that they wouldn't offer their pool to the council for free for disabled kids to use.
Everything has a downside, you are glossing over them and pretending there aren't. It might make you feel righteous and morally superior to people to send their kids to private schools yet damaging them will create a lot of other losers, but I guess who cares if the disabled kids don't have a pool to swim in during the summer.
I may be a bit of a dreamer, but kids swimming lessons shouldn't be reliant on the largesse of a convenient nearby private school.
It’s long been a thing that planning permission for sports facilities for private schools has been contingent on free usage for local state schools. IIRC the usage of the pool at my daughters school was a condition for 1 of the schools they do it for - the other 2 were added later.
The local private tennis courts/5-a-side football operation has a similar same thing in the permission for their facilities.
So in effect the council can get facilities for state schools for free by doing this.
Well if these planning conditions are formalised then the schools won’t be able to withdraw them due to VAT on fees.
Comments
Indeed my header on the 70th anniversary of the NHS was considerably more radical.
'You have to be good to play at this level.'
No. Shit. Sherlock.
In the 1990s Aussie wines became hugely popular in Britain and later in other export markets. As a result they planted everywhere, on shitty too hot too flat land where the vines did what the French call “pissing wine”. They ended up with overproduction, quickly lost brand value and prices and viability
plummeted.
So then we had a period of creative destruction in the 2000s. Most of the crap vineyards were grubbed up. What was left was decent terroir and good quality, but artificially low prices. Just like Beaujolais after the nouveau boom or Muscadet after the 1980s over-planting. Buy a Georges Duboeuf cru Beaujolais and you’re getting something way cheaper than it should be.
I was at a tasting of Aussie wines a while back with Will Lyons. One he served was incredible. He revealed after we’d all tasted that it was Jacob’s Creek. 19 crimes isn’t fine wine but it’s pretty solid and borne of the same history,
Rotten tomatoes would be perfectly adequate.
Although creating the space to do all this is trickier.
I suppose they could run round Yes but.
That's childminding. Not education.
That's a parent not a teacher.
That isn't having to evidence learning objectives in line with the national curriculum.
That's voluntary not funded.
That's pretty common.
But it isn't education policy.
I do think overpopulation will sort itself out, but the urban areas of the world may not notice. Look at greater Tokyo: keeps getting bigger even while Japan as a whole shrinks.
I am mostly drinking Cono Sur Bicicleta from Chile.
It's OK. A pay rise in line with inflation would help.
Start an hour earlier / end 3 later adds 4 hours so 50%.
Plus you won’t need to pay extra for facilities so although staff budget would increase by 50% the total budget wouldn’t
You are also making 'a couple for out of hours stuff' do a lot of heavy lifting. That's not routine.
I will concede it's two-thirds not a doubling. But no way would it merely require a 30% increase in budget.
Particularly my friend Will, whose father Charles was a travel writer and probable flint knapper who seemed to spend his early adulthood in Colombia.
A few years ago I had dinner with the guy who devised the marketing for Jacob’s Creek. He chuckled darkly and said “Yeah, we call it the longest Creek in the world”
19 Crimes is destroying the opposition here in Thailand. It now has whole shelves to itself. Because it is reliably good and enjoyable and half the price of the equivalents. The Aussies really know how to make and sell good mass market wine. Chapeau to them
been streamed instead of setted
I mean, I know there are bad teachers out there who never bothered to work outside the classroom, but even most people aren't that ignorant of teachers' workloads. If only because we keep telling them...
France 24 did a very good piece that showed what it's really like on the front line of the SMO in Bakhlepool.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jO94rW4tHNs
TLDW: It's Berlin 1945 fucked. The local community is split, even across family lines, among those who are pro Russia/Ukraine (It's their version of Brexit, but less bitter). Lot of fat lads in the AFU, rations must be good.
Unless Russia can develop a northern front through Belarus (no idea how feasible or likely this is) I think the front lines are pretty much stagnant at this point.
You’ll need to add extra staff which is where most of the cost will be. But isn’t not doubling the cost