On Topic: Interestingly, in the data tables for that question, amongst those who voted Con in 2019, but aren't Con in the current VI, a plurality hold the Govt responsible for the strikes. That would indicate to me that OGH's opinion that former Cons who are now Don't Knows will swing back to Con, may be misplaced, or at the very least, the Govt are giving them reasons not to swing back.
It's really interesting. Me and @ydoethur aren't exactly political soulmates. But it seems like he's the only one who isn't just gonna make a completely ludicrous suggestion about education.
The problem is of course that outsiders assume education must be somehow easy to understand. Bright ones are actually the worst because they found it easy to receive.
See my edit. That's very fair. It's a bit fucking annoying to be told that I'll get up at 6:40 tomorrow and ought to be in a half an hour earlier, and that at home time I'll just make them run around a non-existent playing field for an hour or two.
Yes.
Just as it was a bit annoying to be told teachers need extra training to spot and monitor children with SEND, because apparently they're not doing it. Nothing to do with the government taking away all the support because they don't want to pay for it.
From a parents point of view teachers are not capable of diagnosin SEND children. My sons school I had a 6 month fight with because they wanted to do so when it wasnt needed. He just need correctional surgery. I also had a 6 month fight with the NHS to get him that surgery.
Upshot is we managed to keep him out of a "special school" got the surgery done and he was one of only 2kids in his year to pass the 11 plus. So frankly no dont trust teachers to decide or diagnose
It's not our fucking job.
It's not our job to diagnose it. We tend to be the first ones to spot it.
Frankly, I've had more trouble in the past persuading parents their child needs testing than the other way around.
Absolutely. Get grief for even suggesting it. Then. After all other options are exhausted nae thanks or apologies. A couple of extra hours a day would whip us into shape.
This is why @DavidL and I pointed out education reform would have such a problem with the teaching unions.
You need to understand the reason behind that.
Reform => new syllabus => new teaching plans => extra (unpaid) work outside school
Would you willingly do x00 hours work for free because management decided you are now a road engineer rather than railways
I don't think I ever said reforms shouldn't be properly staffed.
However, since it's only ever the (somewhat exaggerated) problems that are pointed out over such reforms, rather than solutions, I think we can safely conclude that reform isn't their priority.
It's really interesting. Me and @ydoethur aren't exactly political soulmates. But it seems like he's the only one who isn't just gonna make a completely ludicrous suggestion about education.
The problem is of course that outsiders assume education must be somehow easy to understand. Bright ones are actually the worst because they found it easy to receive.
See my edit. That's very fair. It's a bit fucking annoying to be told that I'll get up at 6:40 tomorrow and ought to be in a half an hour earlier, and that at home time I'll just make them run around a non-existent playing field for an hour or two.
Yes.
Just as it was a bit annoying to be told teachers need extra training to spot and monitor children with SEND, because apparently they're not doing it. Nothing to do with the government taking away all the support because they don't want to pay for it.
From a parents point of view teachers are not capable of diagnosin SEND children. My sons school I had a 6 month fight with because they wanted to do so when it wasnt needed. He just need correctional surgery. I also had a 6 month fight with the NHS to get him that surgery.
Upshot is we managed to keep him out of a "special school" got the surgery done and he was one of only 2kids in his year to pass the 11 plus. So frankly no dont trust teachers to decide or diagnose
It's not our fucking job.
It's not our job to diagnose it. We tend to be the first ones to spot it.
Frankly, I've had more trouble in the past persuading parents their child needs testing than the other way around.
Absolutely. Get grief for even suggesting it. Then. After all other options are exhausted nae thanks or apologies. A couple of extra hours a day would whip us into shape.
This is why @DavidL and I pointed out education reform would have such a problem with the teaching unions.
You need to understand the reason behind that.
Reform => new syllabus => new teaching plans => extra (unpaid) work outside school
Would you willingly do x00 hours work for free because management decided you are now a road engineer rather than railways
As a one-off, to improve things, it would be OK.
The snags are (1) it’s never a one-off as the politicians and civil servants keep meddling and (2) it never improves things because they don’t understand the problems well enough to formulate solutions.
Edit - in any case, I think CR was just talking about opening schools ten hours a day instead of six, which will definitely mean longer hours anyway unless staffing is about doubled.
Yes, I was arguing for schools being open from 8am to 6pm. It needn't mean longer hours for academic staff; it would require different types of staffing to cover the 3-6pm period.
I think doubling of staffing levels is an exaggeration - and that certainly isn't how schools are organised in my area. Also, plenty of people help run after-schools clubs for an hour or two for 1-2 days a week willingly at cost and charge parents very modest amounts for it.
Anyway, work beckons, so I must dash. Speak later.
Maybe I'm an idiot, and I know lots of people think this was an incredible clever and insightful comment... But what exactly is he talking about?
I've zero idea. My assumption is that the BBC has published something, or is about to publish something, that has annoyed the world's richest man-child.
It published a Musk lost $200bn in wealth story on Friday I think
Given that Tesla's stock is down 65-70% from its peaks, and that Twitter has not exactly been a runaway success, that seems fairly uncontroversial.
That said... SpaceX is currently knocking it out of the park.
One part of SpaceX is - the Falcon 9 / Falcon Heavy part.
We've no idea about Starlink's profitability: optimists say it's already wildly profitable; pessimists that it is losing a fortune.
But then there's the (literal) big one: Starship. They're spending billions on this down in Texas, and they haven't got it into orbit yet. Given the rate at which they're frying Raptors, I have my doubts about this first upcoming launch.
Doesn't Starlink's profitability depend to a fair extent on the success of Starship ? Which would greatly reduce the cost of regularly launching large numbers if small sats.
Even with an expendable upper stage, the cost per ton of Starship/Superheavy is below that of F9.
F9 basically wiped out everyone else in the launch market - Bezos has kinda of given a rerprieve to the traditional launch companies all over the West by buying up every launch that isn’t SpaceX for Kuiper.
The interesting thing is that these traditional outfits didn’t take this as a sign to move to cheaper and better systems. Instead they sent out congratulations to themselves.
The near term competition to SpaceX will be if any of 2-3 of the start ups get a working reusable upper stage. Blue Origin are now looking at 2024 for their first orbital launch.
It's really interesting. Me and @ydoethur aren't exactly political soulmates. But it seems like he's the only one who isn't just gonna make a completely ludicrous suggestion about education.
The problem is of course that outsiders assume education must be somehow easy to understand. Bright ones are actually the worst because they found it easy to receive.
See my edit. That's very fair. It's a bit fucking annoying to be told that I'll get up at 6:40 tomorrow and ought to be in a half an hour earlier, and that at home time I'll just make them run around a non-existent playing field for an hour or two.
Yes.
Just as it was a bit annoying to be told teachers need extra training to spot and monitor children with SEND, because apparently they're not doing it. Nothing to do with the government taking away all the support because they don't want to pay for it.
From a parents point of view teachers are not capable of diagnosin SEND children. My sons school I had a 6 month fight with because they wanted to do so when it wasnt needed. He just need correctional surgery. I also had a 6 month fight with the NHS to get him that surgery.
Upshot is we managed to keep him out of a "special school" got the surgery done and he was one of only 2kids in his year to pass the 11 plus. So frankly no dont trust teachers to decide or diagnose
It's not our fucking job.
It's not our job to diagnose it. We tend to be the first ones to spot it.
Frankly, I've had more trouble in the past persuading parents their child needs testing than the other way around.
Absolutely. Get grief for even suggesting it. Then. After all other options are exhausted nae thanks or apologies. A couple of extra hours a day would whip us into shape.
This is why @DavidL and I pointed out education reform would have such a problem with the teaching unions.
You need to understand the reason behind that.
Reform => new syllabus => new teaching plans => extra (unpaid) work outside school
Would you willingly do x00 hours work for free because management decided you are now a road engineer rather than railways
As a one-off, to improve things, it would be OK.
The snags are (1) it’s never a one-off as the politicians and civil servants keep meddling and (2) it never improves things because they don’t understand the problems well enough to formulate solutions.
Edit - in any case, I think CR was just talking about opening schools ten hours a day instead of six, which will definitely mean longer hours anyway unless staffing is about doubled.
Yes, I was arguing for schools being open from 8am to 6pm. It needn't mean longer hours for academic staff; it would require different types of staffing to cover the 3-6pm period.
I think doubling of staffing levels is an exaggeration - and that certainly isn't how schools are organised in my area. Also, plenty of people help run after-schools clubs for an hour or two for 1-2 days a week willingly at cost and charge parents very modest amounts for it.
Anyway, work beckons, so I must dash. Speak later.
Well, you think wrong, and I’m not convinced schools in your area are organised in quite the way you believe.
Edit - also, how do you know the problems are exaggerated? You believe they are, which isn’t the same thing. It’s the equivalent of me saying ‘I’m sure the problems with electrical heat source pumps aren’t as bad as you say, else the government wouldn’t back them.’
Maybe I'm an idiot, and I know lots of people think this was an incredible clever and insightful comment... But what exactly is he talking about?
I've zero idea. My assumption is that the BBC has published something, or is about to publish something, that has annoyed the world's richest man-child.
It published a Musk lost $200bn in wealth story on Friday I think
Given that Tesla's stock is down 65-70% from its peaks, and that Twitter has not exactly been a runaway success, that seems fairly uncontroversial.
That said... SpaceX is currently knocking it out of the park.
One part of SpaceX is - the Falcon 9 / Falcon Heavy part.
We've no idea about Starlink's profitability: optimists say it's already wildly profitable; pessimists that it is losing a fortune.
But then there's the (literal) big one: Starship. They're spending billions on this down in Texas, and they haven't got it into orbit yet. Given the rate at which they're frying Raptors, I have my doubts about this first upcoming launch.
SpaceX could be enormously profitable if it just did Falcon 9.
Starlink is, I suspect, unprofitable and likely to remain so for some time. But, there is a reasonable chance it can be profitable in the long run.
Starship. Well, we'll see. But if it works, it could revolutionize space travel.
The problem with SpaceX relying on Falcon 9 for 'enormous' profitability is that you're relying on the 'truck' for profit. Whilst there are very wealthy shipping companies out there, the thing that really makes money is the stuff being transported on the ship - the cargo. And that's why Starlink is important to them. It is a payload, not a truck.
If I was starting a space company, I would avoid rockets. rockets are sexy, and get loads of publicity, but the thing that really makes money is the payload - and payloads are a lot less risky, especially nowadays.
Maybe I'm an idiot, and I know lots of people think this was an incredible clever and insightful comment... But what exactly is he talking about?
I've zero idea. My assumption is that the BBC has published something, or is about to publish something, that has annoyed the world's richest man-child.
It published a Musk lost $200bn in wealth story on Friday I think
Given that Tesla's stock is down 65-70% from its peaks, and that Twitter has not exactly been a runaway success, that seems fairly uncontroversial.
That said... SpaceX is currently knocking it out of the park.
One part of SpaceX is - the Falcon 9 / Falcon Heavy part.
We've no idea about Starlink's profitability: optimists say it's already wildly profitable; pessimists that it is losing a fortune.
But then there's the (literal) big one: Starship. They're spending billions on this down in Texas, and they haven't got it into orbit yet. Given the rate at which they're frying Raptors, I have my doubts about this first upcoming launch.
Doesn't Starlink's profitability depend to a fair extent on the success of Starship ? Which would greatly reduce the cost of regularly launching large numbers if small sats.
Even with an expendable upper stage, the cost per ton of Starship/Superheavy is below that of F9.
F9 basically wiped out everyone else in the launch market - Bezos has kinda of given a rerprieve to the traditional launch companies all over the West by buying up every launch that isn’t SpaceX for Kuiper.
The interesting thing is that these traditional outfits didn’t take this as a sign to move to cheaper and better systems. Instead they sent out congratulations to themselves.
The near term competition to SpaceX will be if any of 2-3 of the start ups get a working reusable upper stage. Blue Origin are now looking at 2024 for their first orbital launch.
A load of assumptions there; it'll be interesting to see if it pans out as you think.
BTW, they had another Raptor RUD the other day. I *really* doubt they're doing so much purposeful test-to-destruction...
(Note: I want SH/SS to succeed. I also want at least one other ultra-heavy launcher in the market. But I'm a little more bearish about SH/SS than you are, and a little less sniffy about their competitors)
Maybe I'm an idiot, and I know lots of people think this was an incredible clever and insightful comment... But what exactly is he talking about?
I've zero idea. My assumption is that the BBC has published something, or is about to publish something, that has annoyed the world's richest man-child.
It published a Musk lost $200bn in wealth story on Friday I think
Given that Tesla's stock is down 65-70% from its peaks, and that Twitter has not exactly been a runaway success, that seems fairly uncontroversial.
That said... SpaceX is currently knocking it out of the park.
One part of SpaceX is - the Falcon 9 / Falcon Heavy part.
We've no idea about Starlink's profitability: optimists say it's already wildly profitable; pessimists that it is losing a fortune.
But then there's the (literal) big one: Starship. They're spending billions on this down in Texas, and they haven't got it into orbit yet. Given the rate at which they're frying Raptors, I have my doubts about this first upcoming launch.
SpaceX could be enormously profitable if it just did Falcon 9.
Starlink is, I suspect, unprofitable and likely to remain so for some time. But, there is a reasonable chance it can be profitable in the long run.
Starship. Well, we'll see. But if it works, it could revolutionize space travel.
The problem with SpaceX relying on Falcon 9 for 'enormous' profitability is that you're relying on the 'truck' for profit. Whilst there are very wealthy shipping companies out there, the thing that really makes money is the stuff being transported on the ship - the cargo. And that's why Starlink is important to them. It is a payload, not a truck.
If I was starting a space company, I would avoid rockets. rockets are sexy, and get loads of publicity, but the thing that really makes money is the payload - and payloads are a lot less risky, especially nowadays.
The reason that payloads have dropped in price, is a function of cheaper, more available launch.
Good morning. Snowing pretty heavily here and has been since 6 at least. Wasn't forecasted as of yesterday.
An ice warning was put in place yesterday for overnight across the North based on wintry showers (though were expected as rain at valley level), followed by freezing of those showers.
Looks like they updated at 4am to extend into Southern Scotland on the basis of the current snow band.
So. I think the exact detail was a little out rather than a wholesale forecast miss.
Morning all from a snow and clear skies Buchan. On topic you have to wonder how high Sunak's political IQ is. Yes I know that Thatcherites think unions are commies, and the blessed Margaret picked a fight and won.
But these are nurses. The same ones Sunak's government compelled the public to elevate to sainthood and applaud in public every Thursday for months. They haven't had a payrise since the Danelaw so HY's one off grudging payment won't cut it. They literally kept his then boss alive and so many others, for no pay and now they are told they are agents of Putin.
I assume the idea was brand the strikers as Commie / Putinite (same thing obvs) and best pals with Labour. The public turn on Starmer, congratulate the Tories for standing up for British Values, and onwards to victory. It hasn't gone well, because when they give a chunky pay rise to the nurses they won't be able to spin themselves out of the hole.
Maybe I'm an idiot, and I know lots of people think this was an incredible clever and insightful comment... But what exactly is he talking about?
I've zero idea. My assumption is that the BBC has published something, or is about to publish something, that has annoyed the world's richest man-child.
It published a Musk lost $200bn in wealth story on Friday I think
Given that Tesla's stock is down 65-70% from its peaks, and that Twitter has not exactly been a runaway success, that seems fairly uncontroversial.
That said... SpaceX is currently knocking it out of the park.
One part of SpaceX is - the Falcon 9 / Falcon Heavy part.
We've no idea about Starlink's profitability: optimists say it's already wildly profitable; pessimists that it is losing a fortune.
But then there's the (literal) big one: Starship. They're spending billions on this down in Texas, and they haven't got it into orbit yet. Given the rate at which they're frying Raptors, I have my doubts about this first upcoming launch.
SpaceX could be enormously profitable if it just did Falcon 9.
Starlink is, I suspect, unprofitable and likely to remain so for some time. But, there is a reasonable chance it can be profitable in the long run.
Starship. Well, we'll see. But if it works, it could revolutionize space travel.
The problem with SpaceX relying on Falcon 9 for 'enormous' profitability is that you're relying on the 'truck' for profit. Whilst there are very wealthy shipping companies out there, the thing that really makes money is the stuff being transported on the ship - the cargo. And that's why Starlink is important to them. It is a payload, not a truck.
If I was starting a space company, I would avoid rockets. rockets are sexy, and get loads of publicity, but the thing that really makes money is the payload - and payloads are a lot less risky, especially nowadays.
The reason that payloads have dropped in price, is a function of cheaper, more available launch.
Reduced launch costs are *a* reason. Cubesats were a thing before SpaceX got the price down. Better computing power for design and improved technology on the satellites have also been massive drivers towards satellite price decreases.
It's really interesting. Me and @ydoethur aren't exactly political soulmates. But it seems like he's the only one who isn't just gonna make a completely ludicrous suggestion about education.
The problem is of course that outsiders assume education must be somehow easy to understand. Bright ones are actually the worst because they found it easy to receive.
See my edit. That's very fair. It's a bit fucking annoying to be told that I'll get up at 6:40 tomorrow and ought to be in a half an hour earlier, and that at home time I'll just make them run around a non-existent playing field for an hour or two.
Yes.
Just as it was a bit annoying to be told teachers need extra training to spot and monitor children with SEND, because apparently they're not doing it. Nothing to do with the government taking away all the support because they don't want to pay for it.
From a parents point of view teachers are not capable of diagnosin SEND children. My sons school I had a 6 month fight with because they wanted to do so when it wasnt needed. He just need correctional surgery. I also had a 6 month fight with the NHS to get him that surgery.
Upshot is we managed to keep him out of a "special school" got the surgery done and he was one of only 2kids in his year to pass the 11 plus. So frankly no dont trust teachers to decide or diagnose
It's not our fucking job.
It's not our job to diagnose it. We tend to be the first ones to spot it.
Frankly, I've had more trouble in the past persuading parents their child needs testing than the other way around.
Absolutely. Get grief for even suggesting it. Then. After all other options are exhausted nae thanks or apologies. A couple of extra hours a day would whip us into shape.
This is why @DavidL and I pointed out education reform would have such a problem with the teaching unions.
You need to understand the reason behind that.
Reform => new syllabus => new teaching plans => extra (unpaid) work outside school
Would you willingly do x00 hours work for free because management decided you are now a road engineer rather than railways
As a one-off, to improve things, it would be OK.
The snags are (1) it’s never a one-off as the politicians and civil servants keep meddling and (2) it never improves things because they don’t understand the problems well enough to formulate solutions.
Edit - in any case, I think CR was just talking about opening schools ten hours a day instead of six, which will definitely mean longer hours anyway unless staffing is about doubled.
Yes, I was arguing for schools being open from 8am to 6pm. It needn't mean longer hours for academic staff; it would require different types of staffing to cover the 3-6pm period.
I think doubling of staffing levels is an exaggeration - and that certainly isn't how schools are organised in my area. Also, plenty of people help run after-schools clubs for an hour or two for 1-2 days a week willingly at cost and charge parents very modest amounts for it.
Anyway, work beckons, so I must dash. Speak later.
Which raises the question why aren't cheap after-schools clubs already covering the demand for 3-6pm every day?
I'm all in favour of the facilities being used outside of teaching hours. But one problem with providing supervision until 6pm every day is that there's going to be a lot of children and families who don't use it, so if a school spends any significant amount of its budget on it then the (probably) minority who want children at school for 10 hours get subsidised by those who don't.
Good morning. Snowing pretty heavily here and has been since 6 at least. Wasn't forecasted as of yesterday.
An ice warning was put in place yesterday for overnight across the North based on wintry showers (though were expected as rain at valley level), followed by freezing of those showers.
Looks like they updated at 4am to extend into Southern Scotland on the basis of the current snow band.
So. I think the exact detail was a little out rather than a wholesale forecast miss.
Not quite that cold here, although it's forecast to be bad tonight.
Today and tomorrow also look suboptimal for wind power although it should then pick up.
Trans Pennine Express totally failing to provide a service today.
08:00 from Leeds to Liverpool is announced, rolls in, and is then promptly cancelled. 08:07 was already cancelled and so is the 08:30. Thankfully Northern can get me to Manchester.
Coming back is going to be just as bad - three TPE services in a row in the evening peak already cancelled.
Maybe I'm an idiot, and I know lots of people think this was an incredible clever and insightful comment... But what exactly is he talking about?
I've zero idea. My assumption is that the BBC has published something, or is about to publish something, that has annoyed the world's richest man-child.
It published a Musk lost $200bn in wealth story on Friday I think
Given that Tesla's stock is down 65-70% from its peaks, and that Twitter has not exactly been a runaway success, that seems fairly uncontroversial.
That said... SpaceX is currently knocking it out of the park.
One part of SpaceX is - the Falcon 9 / Falcon Heavy part.
We've no idea about Starlink's profitability: optimists say it's already wildly profitable; pessimists that it is losing a fortune.
But then there's the (literal) big one: Starship. They're spending billions on this down in Texas, and they haven't got it into orbit yet. Given the rate at which they're frying Raptors, I have my doubts about this first upcoming launch.
Doesn't Starlink's profitability depend to a fair extent on the success of Starship ? Which would greatly reduce the cost of regularly launching large numbers if small sats.
Even with an expendable upper stage, the cost per ton of Starship/Superheavy is below that of F9.
F9 basically wiped out everyone else in the launch market - Bezos has kinda of given a rerprieve to the traditional launch companies all over the West by buying up every launch that isn’t SpaceX for Kuiper.
The interesting thing is that these traditional outfits didn’t take this as a sign to move to cheaper and better systems. Instead they sent out congratulations to themselves.
The near term competition to SpaceX will be if any of 2-3 of the start ups get a working reusable upper stage. Blue Origin are now looking at 2024 for their first orbital launch.
A load of assumptions there; it'll be interesting to see if it pans out as you think.
BTW, they had another Raptor RUD the other day. I *really* doubt they're doing so much purposeful test-to-destruction...
(Note: I want SH/SS to succeed. I also want at least one other ultra-heavy launcher in the market. But I'm a little more bearish about SH/SS than you are, and a little less sniffy about their competitors)
Blue Origin is trying to build a competitor for the Falcon Heavy market. They have a severe management problem - *ULA* had to explain to them that their attempts to build a rocket engine as perfection from first fire on the stand couldn’t work.
ULA themselves are heading to the exit. The parent companies won’t let them develop a truly innovative launcher - because they believe that would undercut some sweet cost plus “development” money. The plan is to be the “other” launcher for national security, until someone else in the US under cuts them as well.
ESA is powerpointing an F9 look alike for 2030+ and complaining about Eropean governments giving money to programs to do something quicker.
India is going the conventional, old style, route.
Japan is gently spinning their wheels.
As to Raptor reliability - short of posting half of L2, we will just have to see.
FPT because I don’t want ydoethur thinking I am not familiar with Gloucs geography:
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.
That’s the chap. Terrific book. Lived in a lovely old house in orchards a few miles outside Hereford, and Will had a hammock. I remember sleeping in it after a disco as a young teen with the music to Tom’s diner going through my head.
A brilliant book. You can tell Charles, or his son, or whoever cares and survives, that it was pressed upon me, as her “all time favourite book” by my then girlfriend Mariella Frostrup. A lovely lady who - at the time - looked like THIS
*sobs, quietly and agedly, into his 19 Crimes Red Blend*
What a sad individual you are. Posting a photo of a woman and claiming she was your girlfriend. Genuinely, are you 12?
Bit of green cheese there methinks, how dare you impugn the site Casanova.
Morning all. On topic, why is it that the UK, is the only developed country where ‘the nurses’ can get directly into a row with the government (to be accurate, this includes the devolved administrations) over pay?
You still find people who claim that the French men at arms couldn’t really have got *that* stuck at Agincourt. Probably they’ve never encountered deep, thick, clay mud…
Trans Pennine Express totally failing to provide a service today.
08:00 from Leeds to Liverpool is announced, rolls in, and is then promptly cancelled. 08:07 was already cancelled and so is the 08:30. Thankfully Northern can get me to Manchester.
Coming back is going to be just as bad - three TPE services in a row in the evening peak already cancelled.
Yebbut we need that Mick Lynch to answer the nice Tory MP's question at the select committee about whether he feels the unreliability of the strikes are causing people to stop travelling. Because everything works brilliantly when not on strike, as you have seen. Nobody travels anymore post Covid, so no trains are needed between backwater places like Dirty Leeds and Manchester.
You still find people who claim that the French men at arms couldn’t really have got *that* stuck at Agincourt. Probably they’ve never encountered deep, thick, clay mud…
ISTR that one of Wellington's commanders at Waterloo was killed when his horse got stuck in the mud and he couldn't escape a cavalry charge.
Edit - Sir William Ponsonby, that was the one. A major general in the Dragoons commanding the Union Brigade.
Morning all. On topic, why is it that the UK, is the only developed country where ‘the nurses’ can get directly into a row with the government (to be accurate, this includes the devolved administrations) over pay?
Because in the UK the administrators don't actually have the authority to administer. Indeed, the Secretary of State for Health doesn't have the authority to negotiate (he's having to go cap in hand to Hunt and Sunak for permission even to talk to them).
Its brilliant. The Tories claim to be the party of small government, yet are the party of MASSIVE government. Same with the railways. None of the employers are legally allowed to negotiate pay with their employees. The DfT has reserved that right. Same as its right to fuck up negotiations to specify then procure rolling stock, have detail level control over which Transpennine Express depots can roster theor crews which which part of @SandyRentool 's failed trip etc etc etc.
Maybe I'm an idiot, and I know lots of people think this was an incredible clever and insightful comment... But what exactly is he talking about?
I've zero idea. My assumption is that the BBC has published something, or is about to publish something, that has annoyed the world's richest man-child.
It published a Musk lost $200bn in wealth story on Friday I think
Given that Tesla's stock is down 65-70% from its peaks, and that Twitter has not exactly been a runaway success, that seems fairly uncontroversial.
That said... SpaceX is currently knocking it out of the park.
One part of SpaceX is - the Falcon 9 / Falcon Heavy part.
We've no idea about Starlink's profitability: optimists say it's already wildly profitable; pessimists that it is losing a fortune.
But then there's the (literal) big one: Starship. They're spending billions on this down in Texas, and they haven't got it into orbit yet. Given the rate at which they're frying Raptors, I have my doubts about this first upcoming launch.
Doesn't Starlink's profitability depend to a fair extent on the success of Starship ? Which would greatly reduce the cost of regularly launching large numbers if small sats.
Even with an expendable upper stage, the cost per ton of Starship/Superheavy is below that of F9.
F9 basically wiped out everyone else in the launch market - Bezos has kinda of given a rerprieve to the traditional launch companies all over the West by buying up every launch that isn’t SpaceX for Kuiper.
The interesting thing is that these traditional outfits didn’t take this as a sign to move to cheaper and better systems. Instead they sent out congratulations to themselves.
The near term competition to SpaceX will be if any of 2-3 of the start ups get a working reusable upper stage. Blue Origin are now looking at 2024 for their first orbital launch.
A load of assumptions there; it'll be interesting to see if it pans out as you think.
BTW, they had another Raptor RUD the other day. I *really* doubt they're doing so much purposeful test-to-destruction...
(Note: I want SH/SS to succeed. I also want at least one other ultra-heavy launcher in the market. But I'm a little more bearish about SH/SS than you are, and a little less sniffy about their competitors)
Blue Origin is trying to build a competitor for the Falcon Heavy market. They have a severe management problem - *ULA* had to explain to them that their attempts to build a rocket engine as perfection from first fire on the stand couldn’t work.
ULA themselves are heading to the exit. The parent companies won’t let them develop a truly innovative launcher - because they believe that would undercut some sweet cost plus “development” money. The plan is to be the “other” launcher for national security, until someone else in the US under cuts them as well.
ESA is powerpointing an F9 look alike for 2030+ and complaining about Eropean governments giving money to programs to do something quicker.
India is going the conventional, old style, route.
Japan is gently spinning their wheels.
As to Raptor reliability - short of posting half of L2, we will just have to see.
I disagree with much of that, but we will have to wait and see.
And as for 'severe management problems': SpaceX has Musk as CEO. Shotwell does a brilliant job as COO, but Musk is potentially only one misjudged tweet away from losing SpaceX its security clearance. So SpaceX are very lucky that Musk doesn't have a track record of misjudged tweets...
I want SH/SS to succeed. But for reliable and cheap access to space, we need more than one ultraheavy launcher.
You still find people who claim that the French men at arms couldn’t really have got *that* stuck at Agincourt. Probably they’ve never encountered deep, thick, clay mud…
Forget battle. I've been like that when walking through a gateway where the ground had been churned up by cattle. Moors are infamous for having bits where you'll go up to your waist, but there's something much worse about wet, claggy mud.
Maybe I'm an idiot, and I know lots of people think this was an incredible clever and insightful comment... But what exactly is he talking about?
I've zero idea. My assumption is that the BBC has published something, or is about to publish something, that has annoyed the world's richest man-child.
It published a Musk lost $200bn in wealth story on Friday I think
Given that Tesla's stock is down 65-70% from its peaks, and that Twitter has not exactly been a runaway success, that seems fairly uncontroversial.
That said... SpaceX is currently knocking it out of the park.
One part of SpaceX is - the Falcon 9 / Falcon Heavy part.
We've no idea about Starlink's profitability: optimists say it's already wildly profitable; pessimists that it is losing a fortune.
But then there's the (literal) big one: Starship. They're spending billions on this down in Texas, and they haven't got it into orbit yet. Given the rate at which they're frying Raptors, I have my doubts about this first upcoming launch.
Doesn't Starlink's profitability depend to a fair extent on the success of Starship ? Which would greatly reduce the cost of regularly launching large numbers if small sats.
Even with an expendable upper stage, the cost per ton of Starship/Superheavy is below that of F9.
F9 basically wiped out everyone else in the launch market - Bezos has kinda of given a rerprieve to the traditional launch companies all over the West by buying up every launch that isn’t SpaceX for Kuiper.
The interesting thing is that these traditional outfits didn’t take this as a sign to move to cheaper and better systems. Instead they sent out congratulations to themselves.
The near term competition to SpaceX will be if any of 2-3 of the start ups get a working reusable upper stage. Blue Origin are now looking at 2024 for their first orbital launch.
A load of assumptions there; it'll be interesting to see if it pans out as you think.
BTW, they had another Raptor RUD the other day. I *really* doubt they're doing so much purposeful test-to-destruction...
(Note: I want SH/SS to succeed. I also want at least one other ultra-heavy launcher in the market. But I'm a little more bearish about SH/SS than you are, and a little less sniffy about their competitors)
Blue Origin is trying to build a competitor for the Falcon Heavy market. They have a severe management problem - *ULA* had to explain to them that their attempts to build a rocket engine as perfection from first fire on the stand couldn’t work.
ULA themselves are heading to the exit. The parent companies won’t let them develop a truly innovative launcher - because they believe that would undercut some sweet cost plus “development” money. The plan is to be the “other” launcher for national security, until someone else in the US under cuts them as well.
ESA is powerpointing an F9 look alike for 2030+ and complaining about Eropean governments giving money to programs to do something quicker.
India is going the conventional, old style, route.
Japan is gently spinning their wheels.
As to Raptor reliability - short of posting half of L2, we will just have to see.
Trans Pennine Express totally failing to provide a service today.
08:00 from Leeds to Liverpool is announced, rolls in, and is then promptly cancelled. 08:07 was already cancelled and so is the 08:30. Thankfully Northern can get me to Manchester.
Coming back is going to be just as bad - three TPE services in a row in the evening peak already cancelled.
Yebbut we need that Mick Lynch to answer the nice Tory MP's question at the select committee about whether he feels the unreliability of the strikes are causing people to stop travelling. Because everything works brilliantly when not on strike, as you have seen. Nobody travels anymore post Covid, so no trains are needed between backwater places like Dirty Leeds and Manchester.
I think the union retort to the Government demand for minimum service levels on strike days is brilliant - "We'll consder it, if the Government imposes an equally binding promise of equal service levels on non-strike days."
Morning all. On topic, why is it that the UK, is the only developed country where ‘the nurses’ can get directly into a row with the government (to be accurate, this includes the devolved administrations) over pay?
Presumably because the UK is the only developed nation where nurses are directly employed by the government?
But be careful what you wish for. By being the overwhelmingly dominant employer, HMG is able to hold wages down pretty effectively. If you have multiple employers competing for staff when there aren't enough to go round, it's likely that their pay will go up.
That may be desirable in itself, and there may be other benefits of healthcare provision being split into smaller units. But it's likely to cost more.
Trans Pennine Express totally failing to provide a service today.
08:00 from Leeds to Liverpool is announced, rolls in, and is then promptly cancelled. 08:07 was already cancelled and so is the 08:30. Thankfully Northern can get me to Manchester.
Coming back is going to be just as bad - three TPE services in a row in the evening peak already cancelled.
Yebbut we need that Mick Lynch to answer the nice Tory MP's question at the select committee about whether he feels the unreliability of the strikes are causing people to stop travelling. Because everything works brilliantly when not on strike, as you have seen. Nobody travels anymore post Covid, so no trains are needed between backwater places like Dirty Leeds and Manchester.
What would you say are the contributing factors to the fact that the railways have problems on non-strike days?
Germany’s beleaguered defence minister is expected to stand down in the coming days as Berlin comes under renewed pressure to approve the delivery of Leopard battle tanks to Ukraine.
Maybe I'm an idiot, and I know lots of people think this was an incredible clever and insightful comment... But what exactly is he talking about?
I've zero idea. My assumption is that the BBC has published something, or is about to publish something, that has annoyed the world's richest man-child.
It published a Musk lost $200bn in wealth story on Friday I think
Given that Tesla's stock is down 65-70% from its peaks, and that Twitter has not exactly been a runaway success, that seems fairly uncontroversial.
That said... SpaceX is currently knocking it out of the park.
One part of SpaceX is - the Falcon 9 / Falcon Heavy part.
We've no idea about Starlink's profitability: optimists say it's already wildly profitable; pessimists that it is losing a fortune.
But then there's the (literal) big one: Starship. They're spending billions on this down in Texas, and they haven't got it into orbit yet. Given the rate at which they're frying Raptors, I have my doubts about this first upcoming launch.
Doesn't Starlink's profitability depend to a fair extent on the success of Starship ? Which would greatly reduce the cost of regularly launching large numbers if small sats.
Even with an expendable upper stage, the cost per ton of Starship/Superheavy is below that of F9.
F9 basically wiped out everyone else in the launch market - Bezos has kinda of given a rerprieve to the traditional launch companies all over the West by buying up every launch that isn’t SpaceX for Kuiper.
The interesting thing is that these traditional outfits didn’t take this as a sign to move to cheaper and better systems. Instead they sent out congratulations to themselves.
The near term competition to SpaceX will be if any of 2-3 of the start ups get a working reusable upper stage. Blue Origin are now looking at 2024 for their first orbital launch.
A load of assumptions there; it'll be interesting to see if it pans out as you think.
BTW, they had another Raptor RUD the other day. I *really* doubt they're doing so much purposeful test-to-destruction...
(Note: I want SH/SS to succeed. I also want at least one other ultra-heavy launcher in the market. But I'm a little more bearish about SH/SS than you are, and a little less sniffy about their competitors)
Blue Origin is trying to build a competitor for the Falcon Heavy market. They have a severe management problem - *ULA* had to explain to them that their attempts to build a rocket engine as perfection from first fire on the stand couldn’t work.
ULA themselves are heading to the exit. The parent companies won’t let them develop a truly innovative launcher - because they believe that would undercut some sweet cost plus “development” money. The plan is to be the “other” launcher for national security, until someone else in the US under cuts them as well.
ESA is powerpointing an F9 look alike for 2030+ and complaining about Eropean governments giving money to programs to do something quicker.
India is going the conventional, old style, route.
Japan is gently spinning their wheels.
As to Raptor reliability - short of posting half of L2, we will just have to see.
Morning all! Just short of 3deg C here this morning and a heavy grey sky.
On the news, can’t see this government lasting much longer. Making too many mistakes.
It probably is getting to the point that it will be in the best interests of the eternal Conservative movement to bail out sooner rather than later. Buggering on in the hope of something turning up just annoys the public after a while, and this lot aren't even that good at it. Worse than the last throes of Major or Brown, and those were painful enough.
And yet... What's the mechanism? Short of the entire government just collapsing due to existential angst?
Trans Pennine Express totally failing to provide a service today.
08:00 from Leeds to Liverpool is announced, rolls in, and is then promptly cancelled. 08:07 was already cancelled and so is the 08:30. Thankfully Northern can get me to Manchester.
Coming back is going to be just as bad - three TPE services in a row in the evening peak already cancelled.
Yebbut we need that Mick Lynch to answer the nice Tory MP's question at the select committee about whether he feels the unreliability of the strikes are causing people to stop travelling. Because everything works brilliantly when not on strike, as you have seen. Nobody travels anymore post Covid, so no trains are needed between backwater places like Dirty Leeds and Manchester.
What would you say are the contributing factors to the fact that the railways have problems on non-strike days?
In my experience despite everything, the trains in the UK are actually a lot better than similar countries in northern Europe, IE Germany, Holland, Denmark.. Newer trains, more punctual, far better information, you actually get refunds when they are late etc. There are still problems but the trains seem to work a lot better overall.
Regarding the strikes, I support them, but I would support the idea that there has to be some statutory minimum service on strike days. Then they can strike as much as they want, as long as there is some way of getting where you need to go in an emergency. It isn't reasonable that a set of workers can hold the country to ransom over the operation of national infrastructure.
Morning all! Just short of 3deg C here this morning and a heavy grey sky.
On the news, can’t see this government lasting much longer. Making too many mistakes.
It probably is getting to the point that it will be in the best interests of the eternal Conservative movement to bail out sooner rather than later. Buggering on in the hope of something turning up just annoys the public after a while, and this lot aren't even that good at it. Worse than the last throes of Major or Brown, and those were painful enough.
And yet... What's the mechanism? Short of the entire government just collapsing due to existential angst?
About 50 angry enough Tory MPs to threaten a walk-out (which they'll never do seeing as their wives and family members are all `working' in the office and benefitting from the various allowances and perks)
Trans Pennine Express totally failing to provide a service today.
08:00 from Leeds to Liverpool is announced, rolls in, and is then promptly cancelled. 08:07 was already cancelled and so is the 08:30. Thankfully Northern can get me to Manchester.
Coming back is going to be just as bad - three TPE services in a row in the evening peak already cancelled.
Yebbut we need that Mick Lynch to answer the nice Tory MP's question at the select committee about whether he feels the unreliability of the strikes are causing people to stop travelling. Because everything works brilliantly when not on strike, as you have seen. Nobody travels anymore post Covid, so no trains are needed between backwater places like Dirty Leeds and Manchester.
What would you say are the contributing factors to the fact that the railways have problems on non-strike days?
In my experience despite everything, the trains in the UK are actually a lot better than similar countries in northern Europe, IE Germany, Holland, Denmark.. Newer trains, more punctual, far better information, you actually get refunds when they are late etc. There are still problems but the trains seem to work a lot better overall.
Regarding the strikes, I support them, but I would support the idea that there has to be some statutory minimum service on strike days. Then they can strike as much as they want, as long as there is some way of getting where you need to go in an emergency. It isn't reasonable that a set of workers can hold the country to ransom over the operation of national infrastructure.
I have to disagree. Certainly as far as the Netherlands or Germany are concerned. I think both are miles ahead of the vast majority of UK train services I have experienced. The East Coast line is very good in the UK but cross country services are a joke - and not just the Trans-Pennine stuff.
Trans Pennine Express totally failing to provide a service today.
08:00 from Leeds to Liverpool is announced, rolls in, and is then promptly cancelled. 08:07 was already cancelled and so is the 08:30. Thankfully Northern can get me to Manchester.
Coming back is going to be just as bad - three TPE services in a row in the evening peak already cancelled.
Yebbut we need that Mick Lynch to answer the nice Tory MP's question at the select committee about whether he feels the unreliability of the strikes are causing people to stop travelling. Because everything works brilliantly when not on strike, as you have seen. Nobody travels anymore post Covid, so no trains are needed between backwater places like Dirty Leeds and Manchester.
What would you say are the contributing factors to the fact that the railways have problems on non-strike days?
The Department for Transport. Extensive reportage about its instructions to various operators to save money. This has led to stupidity like the Transpennine Express driver route cards fiasco (they no longer sign more than a section of the route so that trains need 2 or 3 drivers), the complete collapse in staff morale at Avanti etc etc.
Whilst the unions of course play a role, there are plenty of non-fiddled with operators who don't have the permanent problems that have broken other operators.
Whether you agree or disagree, surely Rishi deciding to change Scottish Laws is beyond the pale
You think the article which allows him to do it shouldn't exist, or just that this is a bad case?
I'm not sure which side I sit on re the article existing but I do think it sets an extremely bad precedent to use it to change/replace/stop a landmark Scottish bill, whatever you think about it. It will surely only lead to enabling the independence cause, I cannot see any good coming out of it.
It's really interesting. Me and @ydoethur aren't exactly political soulmates. But it seems like he's the only one who isn't just gonna make a completely ludicrous suggestion about education.
The problem is of course that outsiders assume education must be somehow easy to understand. Bright ones are actually the worst because they found it easy to receive.
See my edit. That's very fair. It's a bit fucking annoying to be told that I'll get up at 6:40 tomorrow and ought to be in a half an hour earlier, and that at home time I'll just make them run around a non-existent playing field for an hour or two.
Yes.
Just as it was a bit annoying to be told teachers need extra training to spot and monitor children with SEND, because apparently they're not doing it. Nothing to do with the government taking away all the support because they don't want to pay for it.
From a parents point of view teachers are not capable of diagnosin SEND children. My sons school I had a 6 month fight with because they wanted to do so when it wasnt needed. He just need correctional surgery. I also had a 6 month fight with the NHS to get him that surgery.
Upshot is we managed to keep him out of a "special school" got the surgery done and he was one of only 2kids in his year to pass the 11 plus. So frankly no dont trust teachers to decide or diagnose
It's not our fucking job.
It's not our job to diagnose it. We tend to be the first ones to spot it.
Frankly, I've had more trouble in the past persuading parents their child needs testing than the other way around.
Absolutely. Get grief for even suggesting it. Then. After all other options are exhausted nae thanks or apologies. A couple of extra hours a day would whip us into shape.
This is why @DavidL and I pointed out education reform would have such a problem with the teaching unions.
You need to understand the reason behind that.
Reform => new syllabus => new teaching plans => extra (unpaid) work outside school
Would you willingly do x00 hours work for free because management decided you are now a road engineer rather than railways
As a one-off, to improve things, it would be OK.
The snags are (1) it’s never a one-off as the politicians and civil servants keep meddling and (2) it never improves things because they don’t understand the problems well enough to formulate solutions.
Edit - in any case, I think CR was just talking about opening schools ten hours a day instead of six, which will definitely mean longer hours anyway unless staffing is about doubled.
Yes, I was arguing for schools being open from 8am to 6pm. It needn't mean longer hours for academic staff; it would require different types of staffing to cover the 3-6pm period.
I think doubling of staffing levels is an exaggeration - and that certainly isn't how schools are organised in my area. Also, plenty of people help run after-schools clubs for an hour or two for 1-2 days a week willingly at cost and charge parents very modest amounts for it.
Anyway, work beckons, so I must dash. Speak later.
Which raises the question why aren't cheap after-schools clubs already covering the demand for 3-6pm every day?
I'm all in favour of the facilities being used outside of teaching hours. But one problem with providing supervision until 6pm every day is that there's going to be a lot of children and families who don't use it, so if a school spends any significant amount of its budget on it then the (probably) minority who want children at school for 10 hours get subsidised by those who don't.
I think the demand would be there and the costs certainly don't need to be as high as is being suggested as they would not need to be staffed by teachers. There are much more reasonably costed alternatives. In fact at many schools such facilities already exist and have done so for many years. The school I used to teach at was normally open for students until at least 5.30. The biggest problem in my experience faced by all schools was the rather stultifying straitjacket impoposed by LEA rules and regulatiions. I'm sure that has gotten worse over the past few years.
Whether you agree or disagree, surely Rishi deciding to change Scottish Laws is beyond the pale
You think the article which allows him to do it shouldn't exist, or just that this is a bad case?
I'm not sure which side I sit on re the article existing but I do think it sets an extremely bad precedent to use it to change/replace/stop a landmark Scottish bill, whatever you think about it. It will surely only lead to enabling the independence cause, I cannot see any good coming out of it.
He shouldn't but nor should the SNP have mucked about with England's Sunday trading laws a while back.
Germany’s beleaguered defence minister is expected to stand down in the coming days as Berlin comes under renewed pressure to approve the delivery of Leopard battle tanks to Ukraine.
Whether you agree or disagree, surely Rishi deciding to change Scottish Laws is beyond the pale
You think the article which allows him to do it shouldn't exist, or just that this is a bad case?
I'm not sure which side I sit on re the article existing but I do think it sets an extremely bad precedent to use it to change/replace/stop a landmark Scottish bill, whatever you think about it. It will surely only lead to enabling the independence cause, I cannot see any good coming out of it.
He shouldn't but nor should the SNP have mucked about with England's Sunday trading laws a while back.
It's really interesting. Me and @ydoethur aren't exactly political soulmates. But it seems like he's the only one who isn't just gonna make a completely ludicrous suggestion about education.
The problem is of course that outsiders assume education must be somehow easy to understand. Bright ones are actually the worst because they found it easy to receive.
See my edit. That's very fair. It's a bit fucking annoying to be told that I'll get up at 6:40 tomorrow and ought to be in a half an hour earlier, and that at home time I'll just make them run around a non-existent playing field for an hour or two.
Yes.
Just as it was a bit annoying to be told teachers need extra training to spot and monitor children with SEND, because apparently they're not doing it. Nothing to do with the government taking away all the support because they don't want to pay for it.
From a parents point of view teachers are not capable of diagnosin SEND children. My sons school I had a 6 month fight with because they wanted to do so when it wasnt needed. He just need correctional surgery. I also had a 6 month fight with the NHS to get him that surgery.
Upshot is we managed to keep him out of a "special school" got the surgery done and he was one of only 2kids in his year to pass the 11 plus. So frankly no dont trust teachers to decide or diagnose
It's not our fucking job.
It's not our job to diagnose it. We tend to be the first ones to spot it.
Frankly, I've had more trouble in the past persuading parents their child needs testing than the other way around.
Absolutely. Get grief for even suggesting it. Then. After all other options are exhausted nae thanks or apologies. A couple of extra hours a day would whip us into shape.
This is why @DavidL and I pointed out education reform would have such a problem with the teaching unions.
You need to understand the reason behind that.
Reform => new syllabus => new teaching plans => extra (unpaid) work outside school
Would you willingly do x00 hours work for free because management decided you are now a road engineer rather than railways
The attack on the unions is just a distraction technique by people who can't admit that the real problem facing education is underfunding. My son's school is running out of teachers, it's got fuck all to do with the unions and everything to do with funding. Meanwhile, most of the people telling us that state schools don't need more money send their kids private where the funding is double. The hypocrisy is sickening.
I think everyone recognises that education is underfunded, CR yesterday called for an overnight increase of 30% in education funding. I'd like to see a full doubling of the budget and a reduction in uni fees back to the £1k per year we paid. I'd also have fully funded childcare from age 1-4 as well as the school day running from 8am to 6pm.
I'd fund it by cutting spending on pensions, freezing healthcare spending in real terms and raising taxes on wealth (similar to how beneficial trusts are taxed), pension incomes, tapering the state pension for higher rate taxpayers in retirement and higher tax on other unearned incomes. I'd also look to eliminate all in working benefits, all housing benefits and have a review of how we pay long term sick and unemployment benefits as it's clear the system is broken and being abused by "won't works" rather than being used as a last resort for "can't works".
It's really interesting. Me and @ydoethur aren't exactly political soulmates. But it seems like he's the only one who isn't just gonna make a completely ludicrous suggestion about education.
The problem is of course that outsiders assume education must be somehow easy to understand. Bright ones are actually the worst because they found it easy to receive.
See my edit. That's very fair. It's a bit fucking annoying to be told that I'll get up at 6:40 tomorrow and ought to be in a half an hour earlier, and that at home time I'll just make them run around a non-existent playing field for an hour or two.
Yes.
Just as it was a bit annoying to be told teachers need extra training to spot and monitor children with SEND, because apparently they're not doing it. Nothing to do with the government taking away all the support because they don't want to pay for it.
From a parents point of view teachers are not capable of diagnosin SEND children. My sons school I had a 6 month fight with because they wanted to do so when it wasnt needed. He just need correctional surgery. I also had a 6 month fight with the NHS to get him that surgery.
Upshot is we managed to keep him out of a "special school" got the surgery done and he was one of only 2kids in his year to pass the 11 plus. So frankly no dont trust teachers to decide or diagnose
It's not our fucking job.
It's not our job to diagnose it. We tend to be the first ones to spot it.
Frankly, I've had more trouble in the past persuading parents their child needs testing than the other way around.
Absolutely. Get grief for even suggesting it. Then. After all other options are exhausted nae thanks or apologies. A couple of extra hours a day would whip us into shape.
This is why @DavidL and I pointed out education reform would have such a problem with the teaching unions.
You need to understand the reason behind that.
Reform => new syllabus => new teaching plans => extra (unpaid) work outside school
Would you willingly do x00 hours work for free because management decided you are now a road engineer rather than railways
As a one-off, to improve things, it would be OK.
The snags are (1) it’s never a one-off as the politicians and civil servants keep meddling and (2) it never improves things because they don’t understand the problems well enough to formulate solutions.
Edit - in any case, I think CR was just talking about opening schools ten hours a day instead of six, which will definitely mean longer hours anyway unless staffing is about doubled.
Yes, I was arguing for schools being open from 8am to 6pm. It needn't mean longer hours for academic staff; it would require different types of staffing to cover the 3-6pm period.
I think doubling of staffing levels is an exaggeration - and that certainly isn't how schools are organised in my area. Also, plenty of people help run after-schools clubs for an hour or two for 1-2 days a week willingly at cost and charge parents very modest amounts for it.
Anyway, work beckons, so I must dash. Speak later.
Which raises the question why aren't cheap after-schools clubs already covering the demand for 3-6pm every day?
I'm all in favour of the facilities being used outside of teaching hours. But one problem with providing supervision until 6pm every day is that there's going to be a lot of children and families who don't use it, so if a school spends any significant amount of its budget on it then the (probably) minority who want children at school for 10 hours get subsidised by those who don't.
I think the demand would be there and the costs certainly don't need to be as high as is being suggested as they would not need to be staffed by teachers. There are much more reasonably costed alternatives. In fact at many schools such facilities already exist and have done so for many years. The school I used to teach at was normally open for students until at least 5.30. The biggest problem in my experience faced by all schools was the rather stultifying straitjacket impoposed by LEA rules and regulatiions. I'm sure that has gotten worse over the past few years.
At my old school (a boarding one), lesson times was 09.00 to 15.30, Mondays to Saturdays. We had chapel between 08.30 and 09.00, and between 15.30 and 17.30 we had sports / other activities, every day except Wednesdays and Saturdays (and often then).
Day pupils could therefore leave at 15.30 on Wednesdays and Saturdays, and 17.30 on the other days. My parents much preferred the 17.30 one (we could also stay longer if parents were delayed - mine often picked me up at 18.00).
So perhaps have non-academic staff doing things like sport activities until 17.30? Still costly, but would free up time currently taken up by 'sports' during the day for academic topics.
But everything will have a cost, either for parents or the school.
Germany’s beleaguered defence minister is expected to stand down in the coming days as Berlin comes under renewed pressure to approve the delivery of Leopard battle tanks to Ukraine.
This isn't really anything to do with die Leoparden but a sustained sequence of Truss level performance.
I reckon the CR2 donation was because #globalbritain wanted to be first with an MBT donation and were worried a Leopard deal was imminent.
Or perhaps, just perhaps, we did it because it is the right thing to do? As was the case when we spent years training the Ukrainian army from 2014, or gave them kit before the war started.
Trans Pennine Express totally failing to provide a service today.
08:00 from Leeds to Liverpool is announced, rolls in, and is then promptly cancelled. 08:07 was already cancelled and so is the 08:30. Thankfully Northern can get me to Manchester.
Coming back is going to be just as bad - three TPE services in a row in the evening peak already cancelled.
Yebbut we need that Mick Lynch to answer the nice Tory MP's question at the select committee about whether he feels the unreliability of the strikes are causing people to stop travelling. Because everything works brilliantly when not on strike, as you have seen. Nobody travels anymore post Covid, so no trains are needed between backwater places like Dirty Leeds and Manchester.
What would you say are the contributing factors to the fact that the railways have problems on non-strike days?
In my experience despite everything, the trains in the UK are actually a lot better than similar countries in northern Europe, IE Germany, Holland, Denmark.. Newer trains, more punctual, far better information, you actually get refunds when they are late etc. There are still problems but the trains seem to work a lot better overall.
Regarding the strikes, I support them, but I would support the idea that there has to be some statutory minimum service on strike days. Then they can strike as much as they want, as long as there is some way of getting where you need to go in an emergency. It isn't reasonable that a set of workers can hold the country to ransom over the operation of national infrastructure.
I have to disagree. Certainly as far as the Netherlands or Germany are concerned. I think both are miles ahead of the vast majority of UK train services I have experienced. The East Coast line is very good in the UK but cross country services are a joke - and not just the Trans-Pennine stuff.
I don't think German trains are any better these days than British trains (in terms of punctuality or cancellations). Dutch trains in my limited experience are very reliable. Italian trains are worse.
But it depends what you value: you can get a reasonably priced ticket at the station for the next train in Italy. And the coffee at the station bar is always good and cheap.
Trans Pennine Express totally failing to provide a service today.
08:00 from Leeds to Liverpool is announced, rolls in, and is then promptly cancelled. 08:07 was already cancelled and so is the 08:30. Thankfully Northern can get me to Manchester.
Coming back is going to be just as bad - three TPE services in a row in the evening peak already cancelled.
Yebbut we need that Mick Lynch to answer the nice Tory MP's question at the select committee about whether he feels the unreliability of the strikes are causing people to stop travelling. Because everything works brilliantly when not on strike, as you have seen. Nobody travels anymore post Covid, so no trains are needed between backwater places like Dirty Leeds and Manchester.
What would you say are the contributing factors to the fact that the railways have problems on non-strike days?
In my experience despite everything, the trains in the UK are actually a lot better than similar countries in northern Europe, IE Germany, Holland, Denmark.. Newer trains, more punctual, far better information, you actually get refunds when they are late etc. There are still problems but the trains seem to work a lot better overall.
Regarding the strikes, I support them, but I would support the idea that there has to be some statutory minimum service on strike days. Then they can strike as much as they want, as long as there is some way of getting where you need to go in an emergency. It isn't reasonable that a set of workers can hold the country to ransom over the operation of national infrastructure.
I have to disagree. Certainly as far as the Netherlands or Germany are concerned. I think both are miles ahead of the vast majority of UK train services I have experienced. The East Coast line is very good in the UK but cross country services are a joke - and not just the Trans-Pennine stuff.
I don't think German trains are any better these days than British trains (in terms of punctuality or cancellations). Dutch trains in my limited experience are very reliable. Italian trains are worse.
But it depends what you value: you can get a reasonably priced ticket at the station for the next train in Italy. And the coffee at the station bar is always good and cheap.
They are much cheaper, though. At least whenever I've been from Zurich to Munich the price was always pretty reasonable compared to what I'd pay for an equivalent journey in the UK. It used to be about £40 each way, London to Cardiff is an hour shorter and is about £90 each way. Also the DB trains are so much nicer than what we have here.
Germany’s beleaguered defence minister is expected to stand down in the coming days as Berlin comes under renewed pressure to approve the delivery of Leopard battle tanks to Ukraine.
This isn't really anything to do with die Leoparden but a sustained sequence of Truss level performance.
I reckon the CR2 donation was because #globalbritain wanted to be first with an MBT donation and were worried a Leopard deal was imminent.
I really don't think so. Given the prior extreme reluctance to supply MBTs (and Germany's to permit the supply of Leopards by third countries), it's not unreasonable to think that it's just as much about building pressure to change that ahead if this week's Ramstein meeting.
Trans Pennine Express totally failing to provide a service today.
08:00 from Leeds to Liverpool is announced, rolls in, and is then promptly cancelled. 08:07 was already cancelled and so is the 08:30. Thankfully Northern can get me to Manchester.
Coming back is going to be just as bad - three TPE services in a row in the evening peak already cancelled.
Yebbut we need that Mick Lynch to answer the nice Tory MP's question at the select committee about whether he feels the unreliability of the strikes are causing people to stop travelling. Because everything works brilliantly when not on strike, as you have seen. Nobody travels anymore post Covid, so no trains are needed between backwater places like Dirty Leeds and Manchester.
What would you say are the contributing factors to the fact that the railways have problems on non-strike days?
In my experience despite everything, the trains in the UK are actually a lot better than similar countries in northern Europe, IE Germany, Holland, Denmark.. Newer trains, more punctual, far better information, you actually get refunds when they are late etc. There are still problems but the trains seem to work a lot better overall.
Regarding the strikes, I support them, but I would support the idea that there has to be some statutory minimum service on strike days. Then they can strike as much as they want, as long as there is some way of getting where you need to go in an emergency. It isn't reasonable that a set of workers can hold the country to ransom over the operation of national infrastructure.
I have to disagree. Certainly as far as the Netherlands or Germany are concerned. I think both are miles ahead of the vast majority of UK train services I have experienced. The East Coast line is very good in the UK but cross country services are a joke - and not just the Trans-Pennine stuff.
I don't think German trains are any better these days than British trains (in terms of punctuality or cancellations). Dutch trains in my limited experience are very reliable. Italian trains are worse.
But it depends what you value: you can get a reasonably priced ticket at the station for the next train in Italy. And the coffee at the station bar is always good and cheap.
They are much cheaper, though. At least whenever I've been from Zurich to Munich the price was always pretty reasonable compared to what I'd pay for an equivalent journey in the UK. It used to be about £40 each way, London to Cardiff is an hour shorter and is about £90 each way. Also the DB trains are so much nicer than what we have here.
Whether you agree or disagree, surely Rishi deciding to change Scottish Laws is beyond the pale
Not if the UK parliament does it. There are problems with the law as is - it can have effects on non-Scottish citizens.
This is just the reverse of the argument where Scottish MP's don't vote on England only laws, just its hard to define England only. For example if shops in England can open 24 hours on sundays that affects shops over the border.
And besides, Sturgeon absolutely WANTS Sunak to do this - yet another grievance.
It's really interesting. Me and @ydoethur aren't exactly political soulmates. But it seems like he's the only one who isn't just gonna make a completely ludicrous suggestion about education.
The problem is of course that outsiders assume education must be somehow easy to understand. Bright ones are actually the worst because they found it easy to receive.
See my edit. That's very fair. It's a bit fucking annoying to be told that I'll get up at 6:40 tomorrow and ought to be in a half an hour earlier, and that at home time I'll just make them run around a non-existent playing field for an hour or two.
Yes.
Just as it was a bit annoying to be told teachers need extra training to spot and monitor children with SEND, because apparently they're not doing it. Nothing to do with the government taking away all the support because they don't want to pay for it.
From a parents point of view teachers are not capable of diagnosin SEND children. My sons school I had a 6 month fight with because they wanted to do so when it wasnt needed. He just need correctional surgery. I also had a 6 month fight with the NHS to get him that surgery.
Upshot is we managed to keep him out of a "special school" got the surgery done and he was one of only 2kids in his year to pass the 11 plus. So frankly no dont trust teachers to decide or diagnose
It's not our fucking job.
It's not our job to diagnose it. We tend to be the first ones to spot it.
Frankly, I've had more trouble in the past persuading parents their child needs testing than the other way around.
Absolutely. Get grief for even suggesting it. Then. After all other options are exhausted nae thanks or apologies. A couple of extra hours a day would whip us into shape.
This is why @DavidL and I pointed out education reform would have such a problem with the teaching unions.
You need to understand the reason behind that.
Reform => new syllabus => new teaching plans => extra (unpaid) work outside school
Would you willingly do x00 hours work for free because management decided you are now a road engineer rather than railways
As a one-off, to improve things, it would be OK.
The snags are (1) it’s never a one-off as the politicians and civil servants keep meddling and (2) it never improves things because they don’t understand the problems well enough to formulate solutions.
Edit - in any case, I think CR was just talking about opening schools ten hours a day instead of six, which will definitely mean longer hours anyway unless staffing is about doubled.
Yes, I was arguing for schools being open from 8am to 6pm. It needn't mean longer hours for academic staff; it would require different types of staffing to cover the 3-6pm period.
I think doubling of staffing levels is an exaggeration - and that certainly isn't how schools are organised in my area. Also, plenty of people help run after-schools clubs for an hour or two for 1-2 days a week willingly at cost and charge parents very modest amounts for it.
Anyway, work beckons, so I must dash. Speak later.
Which raises the question why aren't cheap after-schools clubs already covering the demand for 3-6pm every day?
I'm all in favour of the facilities being used outside of teaching hours. But one problem with providing supervision until 6pm every day is that there's going to be a lot of children and families who don't use it, so if a school spends any significant amount of its budget on it then the (probably) minority who want children at school for 10 hours get subsidised by those who don't.
I think the demand would be there and the costs certainly don't need to be as high as is being suggested as they would not need to be staffed by teachers. There are much more reasonably costed alternatives. In fact at many schools such facilities already exist and have done so for many years. The school I used to teach at was normally open for students until at least 5.30. The biggest problem in my experience faced by all schools was the rather stultifying straitjacket impoposed by LEA rules and regulatiions. I'm sure that has gotten worse over the past few years.
Looks like this is the current government guidance;
In primary and lower secondary, there's already strong encouragement to have childcare available at cost to cover 8 am to 6 pm if there's a viable level of demand. I suspect that most primary schools have some sort of arrangement, but I've not seen secondaries do this.
The "at cost" is the tricky bit. Baseline funding for primary pupils in England is £4362 per year. Over 195 days, that's £22 per pupil per day. The going rate for breakfast+after school clubs at local schools looks like it's around £17 a day. I'm sure it's cheaper in other parts of the country. Not quite doubling, but not far off.
It's really interesting. Me and @ydoethur aren't exactly political soulmates. But it seems like he's the only one who isn't just gonna make a completely ludicrous suggestion about education.
The problem is of course that outsiders assume education must be somehow easy to understand. Bright ones are actually the worst because they found it easy to receive.
See my edit. That's very fair. It's a bit fucking annoying to be told that I'll get up at 6:40 tomorrow and ought to be in a half an hour earlier, and that at home time I'll just make them run around a non-existent playing field for an hour or two.
Yes.
Just as it was a bit annoying to be told teachers need extra training to spot and monitor children with SEND, because apparently they're not doing it. Nothing to do with the government taking away all the support because they don't want to pay for it.
From a parents point of view teachers are not capable of diagnosin SEND children. My sons school I had a 6 month fight with because they wanted to do so when it wasnt needed. He just need correctional surgery. I also had a 6 month fight with the NHS to get him that surgery.
Upshot is we managed to keep him out of a "special school" got the surgery done and he was one of only 2kids in his year to pass the 11 plus. So frankly no dont trust teachers to decide or diagnose
It's not our fucking job.
It's not our job to diagnose it. We tend to be the first ones to spot it.
Frankly, I've had more trouble in the past persuading parents their child needs testing than the other way around.
Absolutely. Get grief for even suggesting it. Then. After all other options are exhausted nae thanks or apologies. A couple of extra hours a day would whip us into shape.
This is why @DavidL and I pointed out education reform would have such a problem with the teaching unions.
You need to understand the reason behind that.
Reform => new syllabus => new teaching plans => extra (unpaid) work outside school
Would you willingly do x00 hours work for free because management decided you are now a road engineer rather than railways
As a one-off, to improve things, it would be OK.
The snags are (1) it’s never a one-off as the politicians and civil servants keep meddling and (2) it never improves things because they don’t understand the problems well enough to formulate solutions.
Edit - in any case, I think CR was just talking about opening schools ten hours a day instead of six, which will definitely mean longer hours anyway unless staffing is about doubled.
Yes, I was arguing for schools being open from 8am to 6pm. It needn't mean longer hours for academic staff; it would require different types of staffing to cover the 3-6pm period.
I think doubling of staffing levels is an exaggeration - and that certainly isn't how schools are organised in my area. Also, plenty of people help run after-schools clubs for an hour or two for 1-2 days a week willingly at cost and charge parents very modest amounts for it.
Anyway, work beckons, so I must dash. Speak later.
Which raises the question why aren't cheap after-schools clubs already covering the demand for 3-6pm every day?
I'm all in favour of the facilities being used outside of teaching hours. But one problem with providing supervision until 6pm every day is that there's going to be a lot of children and families who don't use it, so if a school spends any significant amount of its budget on it then the (probably) minority who want children at school for 10 hours get subsidised by those who don't.
I think the demand would be there and the costs certainly don't need to be as high as is being suggested as they would not need to be staffed by teachers. There are much more reasonably costed alternatives. In fact at many schools such facilities already exist and have done so for many years. The school I used to teach at was normally open for students until at least 5.30. The biggest problem in my experience faced by all schools was the rather stultifying straitjacket impoposed by LEA rules and regulatiions. I'm sure that has gotten worse over the past few years.
At my old school (a boarding one), lesson times was 09.00 to 15.30, Mondays to Saturdays. We had chapel between 08.30 and 09.00, and between 15.30 and 17.30 we had sports / other activities, every day except Wednesdays and Saturdays (and often then).
Day pupils could therefore leave at 15.30 on Wednesdays and Saturdays, and 17.30 on the other days. My parents much preferred the 17.30 one (we could also stay longer if parents were delayed - mine often picked me up at 18.00).
So perhaps have non-academic staff doing things like sport activities until 17.30? Still costly, but would free up time currently taken up by 'sports' during the day for academic topics.
But everything will have a cost, either for parents or the school.
It’s a lot easier at boarding schools though as you can pile on hours without it affecting parents working life and home lives.
We had chapel 8.45 until 9 every morning then Monday to Saturday lessons from 9 to 1, lunch until 2 then on Mondays Wednesdays and Fridays lessons from 4 to 6 (Tuesdays and Thursdays nothing after lunch) and then on all days including Saturdays compulsory study in your rooms from 7 to 9pm. You couldn’t do this at day schools and also the evening study period was policed by house prefects so no need for staff to cover which again wouldn’t likely be possible at day schools.
During the afternoons you had sports or cultural exercise so could go to art school or do CDT or whatever clubs or societies were doing things. This didn’t actually require a lot of staff as the art school etc would be manned by the art staff anyway, some sports senior boys trained juniors alongside sports staff which released pressure. All a lot easier again when you have a captive set of pupils but also pretty strict hierarchies where junior pupils have to obey senior ones and live cheek by jowl 24/7.
Germany’s beleaguered defence minister is expected to stand down in the coming days as Berlin comes under renewed pressure to approve the delivery of Leopard battle tanks to Ukraine.
This isn't really anything to do with die Leoparden but a sustained sequence of Truss level performance.
I reckon the CR2 donation was because #globalbritain wanted to be first with an MBT donation and were worried a Leopard deal was imminent.
Or perhaps, just perhaps, we did it because it is the right thing to do? As was the case when we spent years training the Ukrainian army from 2014, or gave them kit before the war started.
Maybe there is disagreement in the US government about whether it's a good idea for Ukraine to get tanks, and someone in the US govt who is in favour is encouraging the UK government to get the ball rolling.
Or it's a NATO coordinated good cop bad cop routine.
Trans Pennine Express totally failing to provide a service today.
08:00 from Leeds to Liverpool is announced, rolls in, and is then promptly cancelled. 08:07 was already cancelled and so is the 08:30. Thankfully Northern can get me to Manchester.
Coming back is going to be just as bad - three TPE services in a row in the evening peak already cancelled.
Yebbut we need that Mick Lynch to answer the nice Tory MP's question at the select committee about whether he feels the unreliability of the strikes are causing people to stop travelling. Because everything works brilliantly when not on strike, as you have seen. Nobody travels anymore post Covid, so no trains are needed between backwater places like Dirty Leeds and Manchester.
What would you say are the contributing factors to the fact that the railways have problems on non-strike days?
In my experience despite everything, the trains in the UK are actually a lot better than similar countries in northern Europe, IE Germany, Holland, Denmark.. Newer trains, more punctual, far better information, you actually get refunds when they are late etc. There are still problems but the trains seem to work a lot better overall.
Regarding the strikes, I support them, but I would support the idea that there has to be some statutory minimum service on strike days. Then they can strike as much as they want, as long as there is some way of getting where you need to go in an emergency. It isn't reasonable that a set of workers can hold the country to ransom over the operation of national infrastructure.
I have to disagree. Certainly as far as the Netherlands or Germany are concerned. I think both are miles ahead of the vast majority of UK train services I have experienced. The East Coast line is very good in the UK but cross country services are a joke - and not just the Trans-Pennine stuff.
I don't think German trains are any better these days than British trains (in terms of punctuality or cancellations). Dutch trains in my limited experience are very reliable. Italian trains are worse.
But it depends what you value: you can get a reasonably priced ticket at the station for the next train in Italy. And the coffee at the station bar is always good and cheap.
They are much cheaper, though. At least whenever I've been from Zurich to Munich the price was always pretty reasonable compared to what I'd pay for an equivalent journey in the UK. It used to be about £40 each way, London to Cardiff is an hour shorter and is about £90 each way. Also the DB trains are so much nicer than what we have here.
£50 rtn London-Cardiff if I wanted to go next Thursday for the day specifying trains.
It's really interesting. Me and @ydoethur aren't exactly political soulmates. But it seems like he's the only one who isn't just gonna make a completely ludicrous suggestion about education.
The problem is of course that outsiders assume education must be somehow easy to understand. Bright ones are actually the worst because they found it easy to receive.
See my edit. That's very fair. It's a bit fucking annoying to be told that I'll get up at 6:40 tomorrow and ought to be in a half an hour earlier, and that at home time I'll just make them run around a non-existent playing field for an hour or two.
Yes.
Just as it was a bit annoying to be told teachers need extra training to spot and monitor children with SEND, because apparently they're not doing it. Nothing to do with the government taking away all the support because they don't want to pay for it.
From a parents point of view teachers are not capable of diagnosin SEND children. My sons school I had a 6 month fight with because they wanted to do so when it wasnt needed. He just need correctional surgery. I also had a 6 month fight with the NHS to get him that surgery.
Upshot is we managed to keep him out of a "special school" got the surgery done and he was one of only 2kids in his year to pass the 11 plus. So frankly no dont trust teachers to decide or diagnose
It's not our fucking job.
It's not our job to diagnose it. We tend to be the first ones to spot it.
Frankly, I've had more trouble in the past persuading parents their child needs testing than the other way around.
Absolutely. Get grief for even suggesting it. Then. After all other options are exhausted nae thanks or apologies. A couple of extra hours a day would whip us into shape.
This is why @DavidL and I pointed out education reform would have such a problem with the teaching unions.
You need to understand the reason behind that.
Reform => new syllabus => new teaching plans => extra (unpaid) work outside school
Would you willingly do x00 hours work for free because management decided you are now a road engineer rather than railways
As a one-off, to improve things, it would be OK.
The snags are (1) it’s never a one-off as the politicians and civil servants keep meddling and (2) it never improves things because they don’t understand the problems well enough to formulate solutions.
Edit - in any case, I think CR was just talking about opening schools ten hours a day instead of six, which will definitely mean longer hours anyway unless staffing is about doubled.
Yes, I was arguing for schools being open from 8am to 6pm. It needn't mean longer hours for academic staff; it would require different types of staffing to cover the 3-6pm period.
I think doubling of staffing levels is an exaggeration - and that certainly isn't how schools are organised in my area. Also, plenty of people help run after-schools clubs for an hour or two for 1-2 days a week willingly at cost and charge parents very modest amounts for it.
Anyway, work beckons, so I must dash. Speak later.
Which raises the question why aren't cheap after-schools clubs already covering the demand for 3-6pm every day?
I'm all in favour of the facilities being used outside of teaching hours. But one problem with providing supervision until 6pm every day is that there's going to be a lot of children and families who don't use it, so if a school spends any significant amount of its budget on it then the (probably) minority who want children at school for 10 hours get subsidised by those who don't.
I think the demand would be there and the costs certainly don't need to be as high as is being suggested as they would not need to be staffed by teachers. There are much more reasonably costed alternatives. In fact at many schools such facilities already exist and have done so for many years. The school I used to teach at was normally open for students until at least 5.30. The biggest problem in my experience faced by all schools was the rather stultifying straitjacket impoposed by LEA rules and regulatiions. I'm sure that has gotten worse over the past few years.
At my old school (a boarding one), lesson times was 09.00 to 15.30, Mondays to Saturdays. We had chapel between 08.30 and 09.00, and between 15.30 and 17.30 we had sports / other activities, every day except Wednesdays and Saturdays (and often then).
Day pupils could therefore leave at 15.30 on Wednesdays and Saturdays, and 17.30 on the other days. My parents much preferred the 17.30 one (we could also stay longer if parents were delayed - mine often picked me up at 18.00).
So perhaps have non-academic staff doing things like sport activities until 17.30? Still costly, but would free up time currently taken up by 'sports' during the day for academic topics.
But everything will have a cost, either for parents or the school.
It’s a lot easier at boarding schools though as you can pile on hours without it affecting parents working life and home lives.
We had chapel 8.45 until 9 every morning then Monday to Saturday lessons from 9 to 1, lunch until 2 then on Mondays Wednesdays and Fridays lessons from 4 to 6 (Tuesdays and Thursdays nothing after lunch) and then on all days including Saturdays compulsory study in your rooms from 7 to 9pm. You couldn’t do this at day schools and also the evening study period was policed by house prefects so no need for staff to cover which again wouldn’t likely be possible at day schools.
During the afternoons you had sports or cultural exercise so could go to art school or do CDT or whatever clubs or societies were doing things. This didn’t actually require a lot of staff as the art school etc would be manned by the art staff anyway, some sports senior boys trained juniors alongside sports staff which released pressure. All a lot easier again when you have a captive set of pupils but also pretty strict hierarchies where junior pupils have to obey senior ones and live cheek by jowl 24/7.
Research shows that privately educated individuals are 3 times as likely as state educated people to post regularly on PB.com.
Morning all. On topic, why is it that the UK, is the only developed country where ‘the nurses’ can get directly into a row with the government (to be accurate, this includes the devolved administrations) over pay?
In many other countries, nurses pay is decentralised. It’s local to regions and sub organisations.
In addition, the management vs workforce social structure of the NHS is quite 1950s in style. Management (Government down) thinks in terms of “getting one over” in the unions in terms of pay. Strangely, this attitude is the reciprocated by the unions.
The response to discussion of productivity as meaning “people working harder” is straight out of 19th cent thinking. Productivity is never about how hard people work. It is about mechanising portions of work and/or changing processes and types of staffing to do more for the same (or even less) effort.
In short, a centralised system, using the industrial relations/management of the 1950s results in the outcome if the 1950s - management vs Union hostility and strikes.
Trans Pennine Express totally failing to provide a service today.
08:00 from Leeds to Liverpool is announced, rolls in, and is then promptly cancelled. 08:07 was already cancelled and so is the 08:30. Thankfully Northern can get me to Manchester.
Coming back is going to be just as bad - three TPE services in a row in the evening peak already cancelled.
Yebbut we need that Mick Lynch to answer the nice Tory MP's question at the select committee about whether he feels the unreliability of the strikes are causing people to stop travelling. Because everything works brilliantly when not on strike, as you have seen. Nobody travels anymore post Covid, so no trains are needed between backwater places like Dirty Leeds and Manchester.
What would you say are the contributing factors to the fact that the railways have problems on non-strike days?
In my experience despite everything, the trains in the UK are actually a lot better than similar countries in northern Europe, IE Germany, Holland, Denmark.. Newer trains, more punctual, far better information, you actually get refunds when they are late etc. There are still problems but the trains seem to work a lot better overall.
Regarding the strikes, I support them, but I would support the idea that there has to be some statutory minimum service on strike days. Then they can strike as much as they want, as long as there is some way of getting where you need to go in an emergency. It isn't reasonable that a set of workers can hold the country to ransom over the operation of national infrastructure.
I have to disagree. Certainly as far as the Netherlands or Germany are concerned. I think both are miles ahead of the vast majority of UK train services I have experienced. The East Coast line is very good in the UK but cross country services are a joke - and not just the Trans-Pennine stuff.
The East Coast line is an interesting one - something for people of every political persuasion: - Public sector (LNER) success story - Testament to privatisation and competition (four rivals for some services - LNER, Hull, Lumo, Grand Central?)
I'm fairly agnostic on who owns the rail companies, but it is great to have a choice of providers. I can generally choose between LNER, Hull and Grand Central on any given day I need to go to London, although that's partly a happy circumstance of location - York or Selby are viable stations for me, which broadens choice. Privatisation that leaves the consumer with no choice doesn't seem to offer obvious advantages over public ownership.
ETA: Actually I'm not sure anyone has four choices - Lumo don't stop south of Newcastle and Hull don't go past Hull/Selby? But three, for some people, at least, and two for many. E2TA: fixed GNER to LNER, I can't keep up with the saga!
Morning all! Just short of 3deg C here this morning and a heavy grey sky.
On the news, can’t see this government lasting much longer. Making too many mistakes.
It probably is getting to the point that it will be in the best interests of the eternal Conservative movement to bail out sooner rather than later. Buggering on in the hope of something turning up just annoys the public after a while, and this lot aren't even that good at it. Worse than the last throes of Major or Brown, and those were painful enough.
And yet... What's the mechanism? Short of the entire government just collapsing due to existential angst?
What happens is that the government does something it thinks is necessary and unavoidable from the point of view of good government or popular politics, but that offends enough backbenchers to destroy the majority.
Suppose there's a deal on the Northern Ireland protocol which involves an element of compromise on the side of the British government, and it passes the Commons only because Labour abstain, or vote with the government.
If the issue is important enough to enough backbenchers then they might split from the party and precipitate an election in an attempt to block the deal. I think this is unlikely because generally Tory backbenchers play a longer game aimed at becoming Tory frontbenchers, but it's the only thing I can see.
A more whimsical suggestion would be that Labour-friendly figures in industry start making lucrative job offers to Tory MPs who are doomed to lose their seats, on the condition that they start their new jobs immediately and resign their Commons seats. 35-40 well-paid jobs in the private sector later...
It's really interesting. Me and @ydoethur aren't exactly political soulmates. But it seems like he's the only one who isn't just gonna make a completely ludicrous suggestion about education.
The problem is of course that outsiders assume education must be somehow easy to understand. Bright ones are actually the worst because they found it easy to receive.
See my edit. That's very fair. It's a bit fucking annoying to be told that I'll get up at 6:40 tomorrow and ought to be in a half an hour earlier, and that at home time I'll just make them run around a non-existent playing field for an hour or two.
Yes.
Just as it was a bit annoying to be told teachers need extra training to spot and monitor children with SEND, because apparently they're not doing it. Nothing to do with the government taking away all the support because they don't want to pay for it.
From a parents point of view teachers are not capable of diagnosin SEND children. My sons school I had a 6 month fight with because they wanted to do so when it wasnt needed. He just need correctional surgery. I also had a 6 month fight with the NHS to get him that surgery.
Upshot is we managed to keep him out of a "special school" got the surgery done and he was one of only 2kids in his year to pass the 11 plus. So frankly no dont trust teachers to decide or diagnose
It's not our fucking job.
It's not our job to diagnose it. We tend to be the first ones to spot it.
Frankly, I've had more trouble in the past persuading parents their child needs testing than the other way around.
Absolutely. Get grief for even suggesting it. Then. After all other options are exhausted nae thanks or apologies. A couple of extra hours a day would whip us into shape.
This is why @DavidL and I pointed out education reform would have such a problem with the teaching unions.
You need to understand the reason behind that.
Reform => new syllabus => new teaching plans => extra (unpaid) work outside school
Would you willingly do x00 hours work for free because management decided you are now a road engineer rather than railways
As a one-off, to improve things, it would be OK.
The snags are (1) it’s never a one-off as the politicians and civil servants keep meddling and (2) it never improves things because they don’t understand the problems well enough to formulate solutions.
Edit - in any case, I think CR was just talking about opening schools ten hours a day instead of six, which will definitely mean longer hours anyway unless staffing is about doubled.
Yes, I was arguing for schools being open from 8am to 6pm. It needn't mean longer hours for academic staff; it would require different types of staffing to cover the 3-6pm period.
I think doubling of staffing levels is an exaggeration - and that certainly isn't how schools are organised in my area. Also, plenty of people help run after-schools clubs for an hour or two for 1-2 days a week willingly at cost and charge parents very modest amounts for it.
Anyway, work beckons, so I must dash. Speak later.
Which raises the question why aren't cheap after-schools clubs already covering the demand for 3-6pm every day?
I'm all in favour of the facilities being used outside of teaching hours. But one problem with providing supervision until 6pm every day is that there's going to be a lot of children and families who don't use it, so if a school spends any significant amount of its budget on it then the (probably) minority who want children at school for 10 hours get subsidised by those who don't.
I think the demand would be there and the costs certainly don't need to be as high as is being suggested as they would not need to be staffed by teachers. There are much more reasonably costed alternatives. In fact at many schools such facilities already exist and have done so for many years. The school I used to teach at was normally open for students until at least 5.30. The biggest problem in my experience faced by all schools was the rather stultifying straitjacket impoposed by LEA rules and regulatiions. I'm sure that has gotten worse over the past few years.
Looks like this is the current government guidance;
In primary and lower secondary, there's already strong encouragement to have childcare available at cost to cover 8 am to 6 pm if there's a viable level of demand. I suspect that most primary schools have some sort of arrangement, but I've not seen secondaries do this.
The "at cost" is the tricky bit. Baseline funding for primary pupils in England is £4362 per year. Over 195 days, that's £22 per pupil per day. The going rate for breakfast+after school clubs at local schools looks like it's around £17 a day. I'm sure it's cheaper in other parts of the country. Not quite doubling, but not far off.
The need to provide wrap-around care at cost reflects the fact that maintained schools, in England at least, must not use fees for services to bring about de facto selection based on parental wealth.
Edit to add a further point: this also explained the recent crack down on expensive uniforms.
It's really interesting. Me and @ydoethur aren't exactly political soulmates. But it seems like he's the only one who isn't just gonna make a completely ludicrous suggestion about education.
The problem is of course that outsiders assume education must be somehow easy to understand. Bright ones are actually the worst because they found it easy to receive.
See my edit. That's very fair. It's a bit fucking annoying to be told that I'll get up at 6:40 tomorrow and ought to be in a half an hour earlier, and that at home time I'll just make them run around a non-existent playing field for an hour or two.
Yes.
Just as it was a bit annoying to be told teachers need extra training to spot and monitor children with SEND, because apparently they're not doing it. Nothing to do with the government taking away all the support because they don't want to pay for it.
From a parents point of view teachers are not capable of diagnosin SEND children. My sons school I had a 6 month fight with because they wanted to do so when it wasnt needed. He just need correctional surgery. I also had a 6 month fight with the NHS to get him that surgery.
Upshot is we managed to keep him out of a "special school" got the surgery done and he was one of only 2kids in his year to pass the 11 plus. So frankly no dont trust teachers to decide or diagnose
It's not our fucking job.
It's not our job to diagnose it. We tend to be the first ones to spot it.
Frankly, I've had more trouble in the past persuading parents their child needs testing than the other way around.
Absolutely. Get grief for even suggesting it. Then. After all other options are exhausted nae thanks or apologies. A couple of extra hours a day would whip us into shape.
This is why @DavidL and I pointed out education reform would have such a problem with the teaching unions.
You need to understand the reason behind that.
Reform => new syllabus => new teaching plans => extra (unpaid) work outside school
Would you willingly do x00 hours work for free because management decided you are now a road engineer rather than railways
As a one-off, to improve things, it would be OK.
The snags are (1) it’s never a one-off as the politicians and civil servants keep meddling and (2) it never improves things because they don’t understand the problems well enough to formulate solutions.
Edit - in any case, I think CR was just talking about opening schools ten hours a day instead of six, which will definitely mean longer hours anyway unless staffing is about doubled.
Yes, I was arguing for schools being open from 8am to 6pm. It needn't mean longer hours for academic staff; it would require different types of staffing to cover the 3-6pm period.
I think doubling of staffing levels is an exaggeration - and that certainly isn't how schools are organised in my area. Also, plenty of people help run after-schools clubs for an hour or two for 1-2 days a week willingly at cost and charge parents very modest amounts for it.
Anyway, work beckons, so I must dash. Speak later.
Which raises the question why aren't cheap after-schools clubs already covering the demand for 3-6pm every day?
I'm all in favour of the facilities being used outside of teaching hours. But one problem with providing supervision until 6pm every day is that there's going to be a lot of children and families who don't use it, so if a school spends any significant amount of its budget on it then the (probably) minority who want children at school for 10 hours get subsidised by those who don't.
I think the demand would be there and the costs certainly don't need to be as high as is being suggested as they would not need to be staffed by teachers. There are much more reasonably costed alternatives. In fact at many schools such facilities already exist and have done so for many years. The school I used to teach at was normally open for students until at least 5.30. The biggest problem in my experience faced by all schools was the rather stultifying straitjacket impoposed by LEA rules and regulatiions. I'm sure that has gotten worse over the past few years.
At my old school (a boarding one), lesson times was 09.00 to 15.30, Mondays to Saturdays. We had chapel between 08.30 and 09.00, and between 15.30 and 17.30 we had sports / other activities, every day except Wednesdays and Saturdays (and often then).
Day pupils could therefore leave at 15.30 on Wednesdays and Saturdays, and 17.30 on the other days. My parents much preferred the 17.30 one (we could also stay longer if parents were delayed - mine often picked me up at 18.00).
So perhaps have non-academic staff doing things like sport activities until 17.30? Still costly, but would free up time currently taken up by 'sports' during the day for academic topics.
But everything will have a cost, either for parents or the school.
It’s a lot easier at boarding schools though as you can pile on hours without it affecting parents working life and home lives.
We had chapel 8.45 until 9 every morning then Monday to Saturday lessons from 9 to 1, lunch until 2 then on Mondays Wednesdays and Fridays lessons from 4 to 6 (Tuesdays and Thursdays nothing after lunch) and then on all days including Saturdays compulsory study in your rooms from 7 to 9pm. You couldn’t do this at day schools and also the evening study period was policed by house prefects so no need for staff to cover which again wouldn’t likely be possible at day schools.
During the afternoons you had sports or cultural exercise so could go to art school or do CDT or whatever clubs or societies were doing things. This didn’t actually require a lot of staff as the art school etc would be manned by the art staff anyway, some sports senior boys trained juniors alongside sports staff which released pressure. All a lot easier again when you have a captive set of pupils but also pretty strict hierarchies where junior pupils have to obey senior ones and live cheek by jowl 24/7.
I think I mentioned before the after school club set up at the primary one of my daughters attended.
The background was interesting - the mother came from a poorer background than most of the middle/upper class parents. In her world both parents had to work - and not have the flexibility of employment to pick up the kids. Or send the nanny to do it. Or afford one-to-one childcare.
So she set this up - for a few pounds, the kids were supervised until 6pm. Done on the school site.
The children seemed happy with it - my daughter said that it was better than being on her own with a child minder, since she was with friends.
It's really interesting. Me and @ydoethur aren't exactly political soulmates. But it seems like he's the only one who isn't just gonna make a completely ludicrous suggestion about education.
The problem is of course that outsiders assume education must be somehow easy to understand. Bright ones are actually the worst because they found it easy to receive.
See my edit. That's very fair. It's a bit fucking annoying to be told that I'll get up at 6:40 tomorrow and ought to be in a half an hour earlier, and that at home time I'll just make them run around a non-existent playing field for an hour or two.
Yes.
Just as it was a bit annoying to be told teachers need extra training to spot and monitor children with SEND, because apparently they're not doing it. Nothing to do with the government taking away all the support because they don't want to pay for it.
From a parents point of view teachers are not capable of diagnosin SEND children. My sons school I had a 6 month fight with because they wanted to do so when it wasnt needed. He just need correctional surgery. I also had a 6 month fight with the NHS to get him that surgery.
Upshot is we managed to keep him out of a "special school" got the surgery done and he was one of only 2kids in his year to pass the 11 plus. So frankly no dont trust teachers to decide or diagnose
It's not our fucking job.
It's not our job to diagnose it. We tend to be the first ones to spot it.
Frankly, I've had more trouble in the past persuading parents their child needs testing than the other way around.
Absolutely. Get grief for even suggesting it. Then. After all other options are exhausted nae thanks or apologies. A couple of extra hours a day would whip us into shape.
This is why @DavidL and I pointed out education reform would have such a problem with the teaching unions.
You need to understand the reason behind that.
Reform => new syllabus => new teaching plans => extra (unpaid) work outside school
Would you willingly do x00 hours work for free because management decided you are now a road engineer rather than railways
As a one-off, to improve things, it would be OK.
The snags are (1) it’s never a one-off as the politicians and civil servants keep meddling and (2) it never improves things because they don’t understand the problems well enough to formulate solutions.
Edit - in any case, I think CR was just talking about opening schools ten hours a day instead of six, which will definitely mean longer hours anyway unless staffing is about doubled.
Yes, I was arguing for schools being open from 8am to 6pm. It needn't mean longer hours for academic staff; it would require different types of staffing to cover the 3-6pm period.
I think doubling of staffing levels is an exaggeration - and that certainly isn't how schools are organised in my area. Also, plenty of people help run after-schools clubs for an hour or two for 1-2 days a week willingly at cost and charge parents very modest amounts for it.
Anyway, work beckons, so I must dash. Speak later.
Which raises the question why aren't cheap after-schools clubs already covering the demand for 3-6pm every day?
I'm all in favour of the facilities being used outside of teaching hours. But one problem with providing supervision until 6pm every day is that there's going to be a lot of children and families who don't use it, so if a school spends any significant amount of its budget on it then the (probably) minority who want children at school for 10 hours get subsidised by those who don't.
I think the demand would be there and the costs certainly don't need to be as high as is being suggested as they would not need to be staffed by teachers. There are much more reasonably costed alternatives. In fact at many schools such facilities already exist and have done so for many years. The school I used to teach at was normally open for students until at least 5.30. The biggest problem in my experience faced by all schools was the rather stultifying straitjacket impoposed by LEA rules and regulatiions. I'm sure that has gotten worse over the past few years.
At my old school (a boarding one), lesson times was 09.00 to 15.30, Mondays to Saturdays. We had chapel between 08.30 and 09.00, and between 15.30 and 17.30 we had sports / other activities, every day except Wednesdays and Saturdays (and often then).
Day pupils could therefore leave at 15.30 on Wednesdays and Saturdays, and 17.30 on the other days. My parents much preferred the 17.30 one (we could also stay longer if parents were delayed - mine often picked me up at 18.00).
So perhaps have non-academic staff doing things like sport activities until 17.30? Still costly, but would free up time currently taken up by 'sports' during the day for academic topics.
But everything will have a cost, either for parents or the school.
It’s a lot easier at boarding schools though as you can pile on hours without it affecting parents working life and home lives.
We had chapel 8.45 until 9 every morning then Monday to Saturday lessons from 9 to 1, lunch until 2 then on Mondays Wednesdays and Fridays lessons from 4 to 6 (Tuesdays and Thursdays nothing after lunch) and then on all days including Saturdays compulsory study in your rooms from 7 to 9pm. You couldn’t do this at day schools and also the evening study period was policed by house prefects so no need for staff to cover which again wouldn’t likely be possible at day schools.
During the afternoons you had sports or cultural exercise so could go to art school or do CDT or whatever clubs or societies were doing things. This didn’t actually require a lot of staff as the art school etc would be manned by the art staff anyway, some sports senior boys trained juniors alongside sports staff which released pressure. All a lot easier again when you have a captive set of pupils but also pretty strict hierarchies where junior pupils have to obey senior ones and live cheek by jowl 24/7.
Research shows that privately educated individuals are 3 times as likely as state educated people to post regularly on PB.com.
Just saying.
And yet you have posted 13 times more than I have in four fewer years.
It's really interesting. Me and @ydoethur aren't exactly political soulmates. But it seems like he's the only one who isn't just gonna make a completely ludicrous suggestion about education.
The problem is of course that outsiders assume education must be somehow easy to understand. Bright ones are actually the worst because they found it easy to receive.
See my edit. That's very fair. It's a bit fucking annoying to be told that I'll get up at 6:40 tomorrow and ought to be in a half an hour earlier, and that at home time I'll just make them run around a non-existent playing field for an hour or two.
Yes.
Just as it was a bit annoying to be told teachers need extra training to spot and monitor children with SEND, because apparently they're not doing it. Nothing to do with the government taking away all the support because they don't want to pay for it.
From a parents point of view teachers are not capable of diagnosin SEND children. My sons school I had a 6 month fight with because they wanted to do so when it wasnt needed. He just need correctional surgery. I also had a 6 month fight with the NHS to get him that surgery.
Upshot is we managed to keep him out of a "special school" got the surgery done and he was one of only 2kids in his year to pass the 11 plus. So frankly no dont trust teachers to decide or diagnose
It's not our fucking job.
It's not our job to diagnose it. We tend to be the first ones to spot it.
Frankly, I've had more trouble in the past persuading parents their child needs testing than the other way around.
Absolutely. Get grief for even suggesting it. Then. After all other options are exhausted nae thanks or apologies. A couple of extra hours a day would whip us into shape.
This is why @DavidL and I pointed out education reform would have such a problem with the teaching unions.
You need to understand the reason behind that.
Reform => new syllabus => new teaching plans => extra (unpaid) work outside school
Would you willingly do x00 hours work for free because management decided you are now a road engineer rather than railways
As a one-off, to improve things, it would be OK.
The snags are (1) it’s never a one-off as the politicians and civil servants keep meddling and (2) it never improves things because they don’t understand the problems well enough to formulate solutions.
Edit - in any case, I think CR was just talking about opening schools ten hours a day instead of six, which will definitely mean longer hours anyway unless staffing is about doubled.
Yes, I was arguing for schools being open from 8am to 6pm. It needn't mean longer hours for academic staff; it would require different types of staffing to cover the 3-6pm period.
I think doubling of staffing levels is an exaggeration - and that certainly isn't how schools are organised in my area. Also, plenty of people help run after-schools clubs for an hour or two for 1-2 days a week willingly at cost and charge parents very modest amounts for it.
Anyway, work beckons, so I must dash. Speak later.
Which raises the question why aren't cheap after-schools clubs already covering the demand for 3-6pm every day?
I'm all in favour of the facilities being used outside of teaching hours. But one problem with providing supervision until 6pm every day is that there's going to be a lot of children and families who don't use it, so if a school spends any significant amount of its budget on it then the (probably) minority who want children at school for 10 hours get subsidised by those who don't.
I think the demand would be there and the costs certainly don't need to be as high as is being suggested as they would not need to be staffed by teachers. There are much more reasonably costed alternatives. In fact at many schools such facilities already exist and have done so for many years. The school I used to teach at was normally open for students until at least 5.30. The biggest problem in my experience faced by all schools was the rather stultifying straitjacket impoposed by LEA rules and regulatiions. I'm sure that has gotten worse over the past few years.
At my old school (a boarding one), lesson times was 09.00 to 15.30, Mondays to Saturdays. We had chapel between 08.30 and 09.00, and between 15.30 and 17.30 we had sports / other activities, every day except Wednesdays and Saturdays (and often then).
Day pupils could therefore leave at 15.30 on Wednesdays and Saturdays, and 17.30 on the other days. My parents much preferred the 17.30 one (we could also stay longer if parents were delayed - mine often picked me up at 18.00).
So perhaps have non-academic staff doing things like sport activities until 17.30? Still costly, but would free up time currently taken up by 'sports' during the day for academic topics.
But everything will have a cost, either for parents or the school.
It’s a lot easier at boarding schools though as you can pile on hours without it affecting parents working life and home lives.
We had chapel 8.45 until 9 every morning then Monday to Saturday lessons from 9 to 1, lunch until 2 then on Mondays Wednesdays and Fridays lessons from 4 to 6 (Tuesdays and Thursdays nothing after lunch) and then on all days including Saturdays compulsory study in your rooms from 7 to 9pm. You couldn’t do this at day schools and also the evening study period was policed by house prefects so no need for staff to cover which again wouldn’t likely be possible at day schools.
During the afternoons you had sports or cultural exercise so could go to art school or do CDT or whatever clubs or societies were doing things. This didn’t actually require a lot of staff as the art school etc would be manned by the art staff anyway, some sports senior boys trained juniors alongside sports staff which released pressure. All a lot easier again when you have a captive set of pupils but also pretty strict hierarchies where junior pupils have to obey senior ones and live cheek by jowl 24/7.
Just reflecting - three cancelled TPE services but still spare seats on the Northern train.
A lot of people must just have given up on trying to get from Leeds to Manchester by train.
For my sins, I am making this journey every day this week.
Have had a look and its gruesome. This morning's Transpennine Express service from Dirty Leeds. So far this morning there have been 46 booked arrivals / departures, and 25 were cancelled...
Whether you agree or disagree, surely Rishi deciding to change Scottish Laws is beyond the pale
You think the article which allows him to do it shouldn't exist, or just that this is a bad case?
I'm not sure which side I sit on re the article existing but I do think it sets an extremely bad precedent to use it to change/replace/stop a landmark Scottish bill, whatever you think about it. It will surely only lead to enabling the independence cause, I cannot see any good coming out of it.
Whenever you have a federal or quasi-federal system, as the UK does with the devolved administrations, there has to be some division of power between the different levels of government. For example, Holyrood is in charge of the police, but not the army. Consequently, if Holyrood were to start passing laws related to establishing an army, etc, then that would be beyond their competence, and the higher level of government for the UK would have to put a stop to it.
So the question is entirely whether this piece of legislation related to a matter that is devolved to Holyrood or reserved to Westminster. Obviously this will boost the independence cause if the SNP can make a good case that it *should* be decided at Holyrood, but if supporters of the Union can't make the contrary case then the argument for the Union is lost regardless.
Germany’s beleaguered defence minister is expected to stand down in the coming days as Berlin comes under renewed pressure to approve the delivery of Leopard battle tanks to Ukraine.
This isn't really anything to do with die Leoparden but a sustained sequence of Truss level performance.
I reckon the CR2 donation was because #globalbritain wanted to be first with an MBT donation and were worried a Leopard deal was imminent.
I really don't think so. Given the prior extreme reluctance to supply MBTs (and Germany's to permit the supply of Leopards by third countries), it's not unreasonable to think that it's just as much about building pressure to change that ahead if this week's Ramstein meeting.
Trans Pennine Express totally failing to provide a service today.
08:00 from Leeds to Liverpool is announced, rolls in, and is then promptly cancelled. 08:07 was already cancelled and so is the 08:30. Thankfully Northern can get me to Manchester.
Coming back is going to be just as bad - three TPE services in a row in the evening peak already cancelled.
Yebbut we need that Mick Lynch to answer the nice Tory MP's question at the select committee about whether he feels the unreliability of the strikes are causing people to stop travelling. Because everything works brilliantly when not on strike, as you have seen. Nobody travels anymore post Covid, so no trains are needed between backwater places like Dirty Leeds and Manchester.
What would you say are the contributing factors to the fact that the railways have problems on non-strike days?
In my experience despite everything, the trains in the UK are actually a lot better than similar countries in northern Europe, IE Germany, Holland, Denmark.. Newer trains, more punctual, far better information, you actually get refunds when they are late etc. There are still problems but the trains seem to work a lot better overall.
Regarding the strikes, I support them, but I would support the idea that there has to be some statutory minimum service on strike days. Then they can strike as much as they want, as long as there is some way of getting where you need to go in an emergency. It isn't reasonable that a set of workers can hold the country to ransom over the operation of national infrastructure.
I have to disagree. Certainly as far as the Netherlands or Germany are concerned. I think both are miles ahead of the vast majority of UK train services I have experienced. The East Coast line is very good in the UK but cross country services are a joke - and not just the Trans-Pennine stuff.
I don't think German trains are any better these days than British trains (in terms of punctuality or cancellations). Dutch trains in my limited experience are very reliable. Italian trains are worse.
But it depends what you value: you can get a reasonably priced ticket at the station for the next train in Italy. And the coffee at the station bar is always good and cheap.
They are much cheaper, though. At least whenever I've been from Zurich to Munich the price was always pretty reasonable compared to what I'd pay for an equivalent journey in the UK. It used to be about £40 each way, London to Cardiff is an hour shorter and is about £90 each way. Also the DB trains are so much nicer than what we have here.
£50 rtn London-Cardiff if I wanted to go next Thursday for the day specifying trains.
Specifying trains though, get the much better flexible ticket and it's very expensive and the service is pants. I wish there was a flight to Cardiff/Bristol from London.
Just reflecting - three cancelled TPE services but still spare seats on the Northern train.
A lot of people must just have given up on trying to get from Leeds to Manchester by train.
For my sins, I am making this journey every day this week.
Have had a look and its gruesome. This morning's Transpennine Express service from Dirty Leeds. So far this morning there have been 46 booked arrivals / departures, and 25 were cancelled...
Remember this is a non-strike day...
I can see why people are not keen on specifying exact trains for their ticket! Heck, best not to specify a destination either.
Trans Pennine Express totally failing to provide a service today.
08:00 from Leeds to Liverpool is announced, rolls in, and is then promptly cancelled. 08:07 was already cancelled and so is the 08:30. Thankfully Northern can get me to Manchester.
Coming back is going to be just as bad - three TPE services in a row in the evening peak already cancelled.
Yebbut we need that Mick Lynch to answer the nice Tory MP's question at the select committee about whether he feels the unreliability of the strikes are causing people to stop travelling. Because everything works brilliantly when not on strike, as you have seen. Nobody travels anymore post Covid, so no trains are needed between backwater places like Dirty Leeds and Manchester.
What would you say are the contributing factors to the fact that the railways have problems on non-strike days?
In my experience despite everything, the trains in the UK are actually a lot better than similar countries in northern Europe, IE Germany, Holland, Denmark.. Newer trains, more punctual, far better information, you actually get refunds when they are late etc. There are still problems but the trains seem to work a lot better overall.
Regarding the strikes, I support them, but I would support the idea that there has to be some statutory minimum service on strike days. Then they can strike as much as they want, as long as there is some way of getting where you need to go in an emergency. It isn't reasonable that a set of workers can hold the country to ransom over the operation of national infrastructure.
I have to disagree. Certainly as far as the Netherlands or Germany are concerned. I think both are miles ahead of the vast majority of UK train services I have experienced. The East Coast line is very good in the UK but cross country services are a joke - and not just the Trans-Pennine stuff.
I don't think German trains are any better these days than British trains (in terms of punctuality or cancellations). Dutch trains in my limited experience are very reliable. Italian trains are worse.
But it depends what you value: you can get a reasonably priced ticket at the station for the next train in Italy. And the coffee at the station bar is always good and cheap.
They are much cheaper, though. At least whenever I've been from Zurich to Munich the price was always pretty reasonable compared to what I'd pay for an equivalent journey in the UK. It used to be about £40 each way, London to Cardiff is an hour shorter and is about £90 each way. Also the DB trains are so much nicer than what we have here.
£50 rtn London-Cardiff if I wanted to go next Thursday for the day specifying trains.
Specifying trains though, get the much better flexible ticket and it's very expensive and the service is pants. I wish there was a flight to Cardiff/Bristol from London.
Throw me a bone here. You are right about having to specify trains is a bit of a pain but most people most of the time know when they will be travelling and having to say oh I'll get the XX.XX train but have to leave my drinks party/work/out of the theatre at (XX.XX minus journey to the station) is no great hardship.
Germany’s beleaguered defence minister is expected to stand down in the coming days as Berlin comes under renewed pressure to approve the delivery of Leopard battle tanks to Ukraine.
This isn't really anything to do with die Leoparden but a sustained sequence of Truss level performance.
I reckon the CR2 donation was because #globalbritain wanted to be first with an MBT donation and were worried a Leopard deal was imminent.
I really don't think so. Given the prior extreme reluctance to supply MBTs (and Germany's to permit the supply of Leopards by third countries), it's not unreasonable to think that it's just as much about building pressure to change that ahead if this week's Ramstein meeting.
The German defence ministry was where idiots were sent, for years. Ursula von der Leyen was the *successful* one.
Interesting to hear how the goalposts are moving. The new line is that no tanks can be ready before 2024.
No German tanks (according to Rheinmetal, who have their own Russia issues...), but there are plenty of other NATO members with Leopard who are willing and able to supply them much sooner. Poland, immediately.
And Lambrecht had previously said the same about Marders. Which proved not to be entirely true.
Finally, given Germany is claiming to be about to nearly double its defence budget, the ministerial post is set to become a job for the ambitious.
Whether you agree or disagree, surely Rishi deciding to change Scottish Laws is beyond the pale
You think the article which allows him to do it shouldn't exist, or just that this is a bad case?
I'm not sure which side I sit on re the article existing but I do think it sets an extremely bad precedent to use it to change/replace/stop a landmark Scottish bill, whatever you think about it. It will surely only lead to enabling the independence cause, I cannot see any good coming out of it.
Having caught up now...
I thought it was clear cut. Anything which impacts on reserved UK legislation cannot be unilaterally enacted by the Scottish government. The SNP have long used the mirror argument to vote on Westminster legislation, claiming its impact on Scotland.
This is one of the great failings of devolution. And I agree it is therefore advancing the philosophical/theoretical argument for independence (on both sides) even if it has little impact on the ground in terms of public opinion. To my mind that makes it a good thing.
Just reflecting - three cancelled TPE services but still spare seats on the Northern train.
A lot of people must just have given up on trying to get from Leeds to Manchester by train.
For my sins, I am making this journey every day this week.
So you'd seen the 08:00 and 08:07 TPE services cancelled. Before that the 07:45 was cancelled as well, after that the 08:45 was cancelled. The 09:00 ran! First train across in 90 minutes and it was a 3 car train for added fun.
His chapter on an authoritarian Tory Home Secretary of the 1920s includes:
“The Home Office could have been invented for Jix and he for it. His nature and its function closed with each other in inseparable embrace. Here was the seat of awe, if not of majesty. Here were the brakes, the cold douches, the wet blankets, the Great Book of Don’t, the little cane and the big stick, the king’s ear, the dear old codes all laid out in lavender, the Union Jacks and the succulent rubber stamps, all of them, though dusty from disgraceful neglect, in splendid working order. Jix entered upon his heritage with undisguised joy.”
— The Age of Illusion: England in the Twenties and Thirties, 1919-1940 by Dr Ronald Blythe
Germany’s beleaguered defence minister is expected to stand down in the coming days as Berlin comes under renewed pressure to approve the delivery of Leopard battle tanks to Ukraine.
This isn't really anything to do with die Leoparden but a sustained sequence of Truss level performance.
I reckon the CR2 donation was because #globalbritain wanted to be first with an MBT donation and were worried a Leopard deal was imminent.
I really don't think so. Given the prior extreme reluctance to supply MBTs (and Germany's to permit the supply of Leopards by third countries), it's not unreasonable to think that it's just as much about building pressure to change that ahead if this week's Ramstein meeting.
The German defence ministry was where idiots were sent, for years. Ursula von der Leyen was the *successful* one.
Interesting to hear how the goalposts are moving. The new line is that no tanks can be ready before 2024.
No German tanks (according to Rheinmetal, who have their own Russia issues...), but there are plenty of other NATO members with Leopard who are willing and able to supply them much sooner. Poland, immediately.
And Lambrecht had previously said the same about Marders. Which proved not to be entirely true.
Yup. There is an interesting social structure in this. Large chunks of the German government are fine with military aid, as is much of the population. But when it comes to implementation, there is a curious stop-start-it’s-impossible thing going on. Systemic resistance?
Mishal Hussein put it very well this morning on Today when she wondered (to Lady Chakrabati of Coverup) whether the Scottish law unamended would mean that anyone Scottish sent to prison in England could identify as a woman.
Just reflecting - three cancelled TPE services but still spare seats on the Northern train.
A lot of people must just have given up on trying to get from Leeds to Manchester by train.
For my sins, I am making this journey every day this week.
So you'd seen the 08:00 and 08:07 TPE services cancelled. Before that the 07:45 was cancelled as well, after that the 08:45 was cancelled. The 09:00 ran! First train across in 90 minutes and it was a 3 car train for added fun.
Sigh. In a way I'm glad return to office fizzled out (because whenever I went in no other bugger was there - I don't think it was personal against me )
Still the TPX Hud-Lds and Hud-Man stoppers are moderately reliable (only cancelled a bit).
The Vice Chair of Blackrock, interviewed on Bloomberg a few minutes ago, reckoned that the household savings accumulated worldwide during covid will run out about middle of this year, so reality may merely have been delayed...
Germany’s beleaguered defence minister is expected to stand down in the coming days as Berlin comes under renewed pressure to approve the delivery of Leopard battle tanks to Ukraine.
This isn't really anything to do with die Leoparden but a sustained sequence of Truss level performance.
I reckon the CR2 donation was because #globalbritain wanted to be first with an MBT donation and were worried a Leopard deal was imminent.
I really don't think so. Given the prior extreme reluctance to supply MBTs (and Germany's to permit the supply of Leopards by third countries), it's not unreasonable to think that it's just as much about building pressure to change that ahead if this week's Ramstein meeting.
The German defence ministry was where idiots were sent, for years. Ursula von der Leyen was the *successful* one.
Interesting to hear how the goalposts are moving. The new line is that no tanks can be ready before 2024.
No German tanks (according to Rheinmetal, who have their own Russia issues...), but there are plenty of other NATO members with Leopard who are willing and able to supply them much sooner. Poland, immediately.
And Lambrecht had previously said the same about Marders. Which proved not to be entirely true.
Yup. There is an interesting social structure in this. Large chunks of the German government are fine with military aid, as is much of the population. But when it comes to implementation, there is a curious stop-start-it’s-impossible thing going on. Systemic resistance?
More likely, I think, that Germany is just not used to (and has indeed been prevented from) taking a leading role in global military operations, for obvious historical reasons. The reorientation (both practical and cultural) towards doing so isn't easy. Especially so when the target of those operations is the country that probably suffered the most from Germany's past military adventures.
The Vice Chair of Blackrock, interviewed on Bloomberg a few minutes ago, reckoned that the household savings accumulated worldwide during covid will run out about middle of this year, so reality may merely have been delayed...
While I am sure that is the case, it sounds a little patronising - are people really just going to keep spending savings and then go -oh, ran out...
The Vice Chair of Blackrock, interviewed on Bloomberg a few minutes ago, reckoned that the household savings accumulated worldwide during covid will run out about middle of this year, so reality may merely have been delayed...
While I am sure that is the case, it sounds a little patronising - are people really just going to keep spending savings and then go -oh, ran out...
If they are spending them because they have no choice then yes. They will spend them until there is nothing left.
The Vice Chair of Blackrock, interviewed on Bloomberg a few minutes ago, reckoned that the household savings accumulated worldwide during covid will run out about middle of this year, so reality may merely have been delayed...
While I am sure that is the case, it sounds a little patronising - are people really just going to keep spending savings and then go -oh, ran out...
I may be smearing him! He said something like "tail off" or "run off" but I can't remember what exactly..
Germany’s beleaguered defence minister is expected to stand down in the coming days as Berlin comes under renewed pressure to approve the delivery of Leopard battle tanks to Ukraine.
This isn't really anything to do with die Leoparden but a sustained sequence of Truss level performance.
I reckon the CR2 donation was because #globalbritain wanted to be first with an MBT donation and were worried a Leopard deal was imminent.
I really don't think so. Given the prior extreme reluctance to supply MBTs (and Germany's to permit the supply of Leopards by third countries), it's not unreasonable to think that it's just as much about building pressure to change that ahead if this week's Ramstein meeting.
The German defence ministry was where idiots were sent, for years. Ursula von der Leyen was the *successful* one.
Interesting to hear how the goalposts are moving. The new line is that no tanks can be ready before 2024.
No German tanks (according to Rheinmetal, who have their own Russia issues...), but there are plenty of other NATO members with Leopard who are willing and able to supply them much sooner. Poland, immediately.
And Lambrecht had previously said the same about Marders. Which proved not to be entirely true.
Yup. There is an interesting social structure in this. Large chunks of the German government are fine with military aid, as is much of the population. But when it comes to implementation, there is a curious stop-start-it’s-impossible thing going on. Systemic resistance?
More likely, I think, that Germany is just not used to (and has indeed been prevented from) taking a leading role in global military operations, for obvious historical reasons. The reorientation (both practical and cultural) towards doing so isn't easy.
That's true. But there also seems to be lack of leadership, as well as division within government. On the other hand, regarding tanks to Ukraine, you could probably say the same about the US, and I guess Germany would follow the US lead (if it comes) on tanks.
As I understand it, Rheinmetall are only talking about the spares in their inventory. Presumably the German army does have some tanks in service that are battle-ready, though it may be embarrassing if they have to admit it's not many...
Germany’s beleaguered defence minister is expected to stand down in the coming days as Berlin comes under renewed pressure to approve the delivery of Leopard battle tanks to Ukraine.
This isn't really anything to do with die Leoparden but a sustained sequence of Truss level performance.
I reckon the CR2 donation was because #globalbritain wanted to be first with an MBT donation and were worried a Leopard deal was imminent.
I really don't think so. Given the prior extreme reluctance to supply MBTs (and Germany's to permit the supply of Leopards by third countries), it's not unreasonable to think that it's just as much about building pressure to change that ahead if this week's Ramstein meeting.
The German defence ministry was where idiots were sent, for years. Ursula von der Leyen was the *successful* one.
Interesting to hear how the goalposts are moving. The new line is that no tanks can be ready before 2024.
No German tanks (according to Rheinmetal, who have their own Russia issues...), but there are plenty of other NATO members with Leopard who are willing and able to supply them much sooner. Poland, immediately.
And Lambrecht had previously said the same about Marders. Which proved not to be entirely true.
Yup. There is an interesting social structure in this. Large chunks of the German government are fine with military aid, as is much of the population. But when it comes to implementation, there is a curious stop-start-it’s-impossible thing going on. Systemic resistance?
More likely, I think, that Germany is just not used to (and has indeed been prevented from) taking a leading role in global military operations, for obvious historical reasons. The reorientation (both practical and cultural) towards doing so isn't easy. Especially so when the target of those operations is the country that probably suffered the most from Germany's past military adventures.
There's likely an element of truth in that. But Poland was a victim of both Germany and Russia, as were several other European countries seeking German permission to send Leopards to Ukraine.
Comments
https://mobile.twitter.com/nathanbenaich/status/1614873722971885569
Companies born in our universities need more than government spin...
In the @thetimes, I argue that rewriting the playbook for creating companies from uni inventions is critical to tech sovereignty.
Britain won't be a Science Superpower w/out spinouts.
However, since it's only ever the (somewhat exaggerated) problems that are pointed out over such reforms, rather than solutions, I think we can safely conclude that reform isn't their priority.
Snowing pretty heavily here and has been since 6 at least.
Wasn't forecasted as of yesterday.
I think doubling of staffing levels is an exaggeration - and that certainly isn't how schools are organised in my area. Also, plenty of people help run after-schools clubs for an hour or two for 1-2 days a week willingly at cost and charge parents very modest amounts for it.
Anyway, work beckons, so I must dash. Speak later.
F9 basically wiped out everyone else in the launch market - Bezos has kinda of given a rerprieve to the traditional launch companies all over the West by buying up every launch that isn’t SpaceX for Kuiper.
The interesting thing is that these traditional outfits didn’t take this as a sign to move to cheaper and better systems. Instead they sent out congratulations to themselves.
The near term competition to SpaceX will be if any of 2-3 of the start ups get a working reusable upper stage. Blue Origin are now looking at 2024 for their first orbital launch.
Edit - also, how do you know the problems are exaggerated? You believe they are, which isn’t the same thing. It’s the equivalent of me saying ‘I’m sure the problems with electrical heat source pumps aren’t as bad as you say, else the government wouldn’t back them.’
If I was starting a space company, I would avoid rockets. rockets are sexy, and get loads of publicity, but the thing that really makes money is the payload - and payloads are a lot less risky, especially nowadays.
https://twitter.com/_maxgranger/status/1614450397359538176
BTW, they had another Raptor RUD the other day. I *really* doubt they're doing so much purposeful test-to-destruction...
(Note: I want SH/SS to succeed. I also want at least one other ultra-heavy launcher in the market. But I'm a little more bearish about SH/SS than you are, and a little less sniffy about their competitors)
Looks like they updated at 4am to extend into Southern Scotland on the basis of the current snow band.
So. I think the exact detail was a little out rather than a wholesale forecast miss.
But these are nurses. The same ones Sunak's government compelled the public to elevate to sainthood and applaud in public every Thursday for months. They haven't had a payrise since the Danelaw so HY's one off grudging payment won't cut it. They literally kept his then boss alive and so many others, for no pay and now they are told they are agents of Putin.
I assume the idea was brand the strikers as Commie / Putinite (same thing obvs) and best pals with Labour. The public turn on Starmer, congratulate the Tories for standing up for British Values, and onwards to victory. It hasn't gone well, because when they give a chunky pay rise to the nurses they won't be able to spin themselves out of the hole.
I'm all in favour of the facilities being used outside of teaching hours. But one problem with providing supervision until 6pm every day is that there's going to be a lot of children and families who don't use it, so if a school spends any significant amount of its budget on it then the (probably) minority who want children at school for 10 hours get subsidised by those who don't.
Today and tomorrow also look suboptimal for wind power although it should then pick up.
08:00 from Leeds to Liverpool is announced, rolls in, and is then promptly cancelled. 08:07 was already cancelled and so is the 08:30. Thankfully Northern can get me to Manchester.
Coming back is going to be just as bad - three TPE services in a row in the evening peak already cancelled.
ULA themselves are heading to the exit. The parent companies won’t let them develop a truly innovative launcher - because they believe that would undercut some sweet cost plus “development” money. The plan is to be the “other” launcher for national security, until someone else in the US under cuts them as well.
ESA is powerpointing an F9 look alike for 2030+ and complaining about Eropean governments giving money to programs to do something quicker.
India is going the conventional, old style, route.
Japan is gently spinning their wheels.
As to Raptor reliability - short of posting half of L2, we will just have to see.
Edit - Sir William Ponsonby, that was the one. A major general in the Dragoons commanding the Union Brigade.
On the news, can’t see this government lasting much longer. Making too many mistakes.
Its brilliant. The Tories claim to be the party of small government, yet are the party of MASSIVE government. Same with the railways. None of the employers are legally allowed to negotiate pay with their employees. The DfT has reserved that right. Same as its right to fuck up negotiations to specify then procure rolling stock, have detail level control over which Transpennine Express depots can roster theor crews which which part of @SandyRentool 's failed trip etc etc etc.
And as for 'severe management problems': SpaceX has Musk as CEO. Shotwell does a brilliant job as COO, but Musk is potentially only one misjudged tweet away from losing SpaceX its security clearance. So SpaceX are very lucky that Musk doesn't have a track record of misjudged tweets...
I want SH/SS to succeed. But for reliable and cheap access to space, we need more than one ultraheavy launcher.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nuri_(rocket)
But be careful what you wish for. By being the overwhelmingly dominant employer, HMG is able to hold wages down pretty effectively. If you have multiple employers competing for staff when there aren't enough to go round, it's likely that their pay will go up.
That may be desirable in itself, and there may be other benefits of healthcare provision being split into smaller units. But it's likely to cost more.
https://archive.ph/4e8lj
And yet... What's the mechanism? Short of the entire government just collapsing due to existential angst?
Regarding the strikes, I support them, but I would support the idea that there has to be some statutory minimum service on strike days. Then they can strike as much as they want, as long as there is some way of getting where you need to go in an emergency. It isn't reasonable that a set of workers can hold the country to ransom over the operation of national infrastructure.
Whilst the unions of course play a role, there are plenty of non-fiddled with operators who don't have the permanent problems that have broken other operators.
I reckon the CR2 donation was because #globalbritain wanted to be first with an MBT donation and were worried a Leopard deal was imminent.
I'd fund it by cutting spending on pensions, freezing healthcare spending in real terms and raising taxes on wealth (similar to how beneficial trusts are taxed), pension incomes, tapering the state pension for higher rate taxpayers in retirement and higher tax on other unearned incomes. I'd also look to eliminate all in working benefits, all housing benefits and have a review of how we pay long term sick and unemployment benefits as it's clear the system is broken and being abused by "won't works" rather than being used as a last resort for "can't works".
Day pupils could therefore leave at 15.30 on Wednesdays and Saturdays, and 17.30 on the other days. My parents much preferred the 17.30 one (we could also stay longer if parents were delayed - mine often picked me up at 18.00).
So perhaps have non-academic staff doing things like sport activities until 17.30? Still costly, but would free up time currently taken up by 'sports' during the day for academic topics.
But everything will have a cost, either for parents or the school.
But it depends what you value: you can get a reasonably priced ticket at the station for the next train in Italy. And the coffee at the station bar is always good and cheap.
Given the prior extreme reluctance to supply MBTs (and Germany's to permit the supply of Leopards by third countries), it's not unreasonable to think that it's just as much about building pressure to change that ahead if this week's Ramstein meeting.
Lambrecht was both crap and resistant to sending tanks. She's just formally resigned, btw
https://amp.dw.com/en/breaking-german-defense-minister-announces-resignation/a-64401401
This is just the reverse of the argument where Scottish MP's don't vote on England only laws, just its hard to define England only. For example if shops in England can open 24 hours on sundays that affects shops over the border.
And besides, Sturgeon absolutely WANTS Sunak to do this - yet another grievance.
https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/wraparound-and-holiday-childcare-responding-to-requests
In primary and lower secondary, there's already strong encouragement to have childcare available at cost to cover 8 am to 6 pm if there's a viable level of demand. I suspect that most primary schools have some sort of arrangement, but I've not seen secondaries do this.
The "at cost" is the tricky bit. Baseline funding for primary pupils in England is £4362 per year. Over 195 days, that's £22 per pupil per day. The going rate for breakfast+after school clubs at local schools looks like it's around £17 a day. I'm sure it's cheaper in other parts of the country. Not quite doubling, but not far off.
We had chapel 8.45 until 9 every morning then Monday to Saturday lessons from 9 to 1, lunch until 2 then on Mondays Wednesdays and Fridays lessons from 4 to 6 (Tuesdays and Thursdays nothing after lunch) and then on all days including Saturdays compulsory study in your rooms from 7 to 9pm. You couldn’t do this at day schools and also the evening study period was policed by house prefects so no need for staff to cover which again wouldn’t likely be possible at day schools.
During the afternoons you had sports or cultural exercise so could go to art school or do CDT or whatever clubs or societies were doing things. This didn’t actually require a lot of staff as the art school etc would be manned by the art staff anyway, some sports senior boys trained juniors alongside sports staff which released pressure. All a lot easier again when you have a captive set of pupils but also pretty strict hierarchies where junior pupils have to obey senior ones and live cheek by jowl 24/7.
A lot of people must just have given up on trying to get from Leeds to Manchester by train.
For my sins, I am making this journey every day this week.
Or it's a NATO coordinated good cop bad cop routine.
Just saying.
In addition, the management vs workforce social structure of the NHS is quite 1950s in style. Management (Government down) thinks in terms of “getting one over” in the unions in terms of pay. Strangely, this attitude is the reciprocated by the unions.
The response to discussion of productivity as meaning “people working harder” is straight out of 19th cent thinking. Productivity is never about how hard people work. It is about mechanising portions of work and/or changing processes and types of staffing to do more for the same (or even less) effort.
In short, a centralised system, using the industrial relations/management of the 1950s results in the outcome if the 1950s - management vs Union hostility and strikes.
- Public sector (LNER) success story
- Testament to privatisation and competition (four rivals for some services - LNER, Hull, Lumo, Grand Central?)
I'm fairly agnostic on who owns the rail companies, but it is great to have a choice of providers. I can generally choose between LNER, Hull and Grand Central on any given day I need to go to London, although that's partly a happy circumstance of location - York or Selby are viable stations for me, which broadens choice. Privatisation that leaves the consumer with no choice doesn't seem to offer obvious advantages over public ownership.
ETA: Actually I'm not sure anyone has four choices - Lumo don't stop south of Newcastle and Hull don't go past Hull/Selby? But three, for some people, at least, and two for many.
E2TA: fixed GNER to LNER, I can't keep up with the saga!
Suppose there's a deal on the Northern Ireland protocol which involves an element of compromise on the side of the British government, and it passes the Commons only because Labour abstain, or vote with the government.
If the issue is important enough to enough backbenchers then they might split from the party and precipitate an election in an attempt to block the deal. I think this is unlikely because generally Tory backbenchers play a longer game aimed at becoming Tory frontbenchers, but it's the only thing I can see.
A more whimsical suggestion would be that Labour-friendly figures in industry start making lucrative job offers to Tory MPs who are doomed to lose their seats, on the condition that they start their new jobs immediately and resign their Commons seats. 35-40 well-paid jobs in the private sector later...
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-64234234
Edit to add a further point: this also explained the recent crack down on expensive uniforms.
The background was interesting - the mother came from a poorer background than most of the middle/upper class parents. In her world both parents had to work - and not have the flexibility of employment to pick up the kids. Or send the nanny to do it. Or afford one-to-one childcare.
So she set this up - for a few pounds, the kids were supervised until 6pm. Done on the school site.
The children seemed happy with it - my daughter said that it was better than being on her own with a child minder, since she was with friends.
Just saying.
Remember this is a non-strike day...
So the question is entirely whether this piece of legislation related to a matter that is devolved to Holyrood or reserved to Westminster. Obviously this will boost the independence cause if the SNP can make a good case that it *should* be decided at Holyrood, but if supporters of the Union can't make the contrary case then the argument for the Union is lost regardless.
Interesting to hear how the goalposts are moving. The new line is that no tanks can be ready before 2024.
https://twitter.com/NetworkRailWssx/status/1614649111055040513
And Lambrecht had previously said the same about Marders. Which proved not to be entirely true.
Finally, given Germany is claiming to be about to nearly double its defence budget, the ministerial post is set to become a job for the ambitious.
I thought it was clear cut. Anything which impacts on reserved UK legislation cannot be unilaterally enacted by the Scottish government. The SNP have long used the mirror argument to vote on Westminster legislation, claiming its impact on Scotland.
This is one of the great failings of devolution. And I agree it is therefore advancing the philosophical/theoretical argument for independence (on both sides) even if it has little impact on the ground in terms of public opinion. To my mind that makes it a good thing.
https://www.theguardian.com/books/2023/jan/15/ronald-blythe-obituary
His chapter on an authoritarian Tory Home Secretary of the 1920s includes:
“The Home Office could have been invented for Jix and he for it. His nature and its function closed with each other in inseparable embrace. Here was the seat of awe, if not of majesty. Here were the brakes, the cold douches, the wet blankets, the Great Book of Don’t, the little cane and the big stick, the king’s ear, the dear old codes all laid out in lavender, the Union Jacks and the succulent rubber stamps, all of them, though dusty from disgraceful neglect, in splendid working order. Jix entered upon his heritage with undisguised joy.”
— The Age of Illusion: England in the Twenties and Thirties, 1919-1940 by Dr Ronald Blythe
A century on….
Still the TPX Hud-Lds and Hud-Man stoppers are moderately reliable (only cancelled a bit).
As I understand it, Rheinmetall are only talking about the spares in their inventory. Presumably the German army does have some tanks in service that are battle-ready, though it may be embarrassing if they have to admit it's not many...
But Poland was a victim of both Germany and Russia, as were several other European countries seeking German permission to send Leopards to Ukraine.
https://www.timeout.com/london/news/we-win-again-london-named-best-city-in-the-world-to-visit-in-2023-011323