I sense it will be sellable, the tide against Brexit is one way and it is powerful. You can feel it
The Tories have blown it. Blown Brexit
Not at all.
This version of Brexit is plausibly the best version there ever could be.
We told you before you voted for it, it would be a shitshow.
And now here we are...
Clearly bollocks from you as even most Remainers admit.
Richard is right. I bow to nobody in my loathing for Brexit and its proponents.
I still gnash my teeth when I remember how Gisela Stuart dissembled in the televised pre referendum debate about the effect on Northern Ireland.
But the truth is we have had a lowest decile Brexit. Pretty much everything that could go wrong for the Brexiteers has gone wrong - no US FTA, Trump lost to Biden, the EU played hardball (talking about Swexit and Italexit during negotiations was an own goal by Farage).
There have been almost no economic benefits from Brexit to talk about - and our post-Brexit trade deals under Truss were to our disadvantage.
Even the political mood music - continued political confrontation with the Citizens of Nowhere as part of a misguided Red Wall strategy - was ill chosen.
None of this was certain in 2016.
The worst thing is that I feel deep sympathy for committed Brexiteers. To work for something for decades and to see it mishandled so grievously must be really upsetting.
I hear kids in primary schools are now using Brexit as shorthand for screwed up. Not good.
And .ore widely - not good for the country. A period of competent administration is desperately needed.
This of course is the Brexit as socialism view. Brexit is pure and wonderful just that it hasn't been tried properly yet.
So the logical conclusion of your claim is that May, Johnson and Truss were top notch politicians and leaders who made no mistakes, created the best possible Brexit and were only bought low by the project rather than by their own incompetence and ineptitude? Its a 'courageous' theory at least.
But, like communism, it is no good having a world view that requires five impossible things before breakfast in order to work. If you support radical change it has to survive contact with the real, messy world - including the shortcomings of our rulers - otherwise when you are old you’ll just be sitting there, repeating over and over, “it would have worked, if only…if only….”
Not at all. If we only made changes that were 100% bound to work in the any we wanted and were proofed against any possible abuse, irrespective of how much the system we were seeking to change had failed, then we would still all be living under the feudal system. All change has its shortcomings. And the idea of the status quo over any length of time is, in itself, ether possible or desirable is another of those 'impossible things'.
Your political antenna let you down, Richard, you let your idealism get the better of you.
You should have taken a look at all the politicians you rightly excoriate and asked yourself the question: "are these people likely not to make a complete hash of it?"
The answer after the briefest moment of contemplation is of course that they would be guaranteed to make a hash of it yet you still voted for it.
Now that is weird.
Not at all. Unless you are claiming that all possible candidates for PM were ignorant, dishonest incompetents. Which, given that until that point this was your party (and note, not mine) would be a remarkable claim. Bear in mind May was a Remainer and previous Home Secretary in a Government you supported.
Brexit was necessary no matter who was going to be running the country afterwards. There was no status quo and the longer we waited to leave the more difficult it would have been. You only have to look at the recent Elysee statement to see it is filled with the sorts of things Remain supporters said would not happen.
And, as I say, had we voted the other way we would have been having exactly the same arguments now in reverse.
Your position of any flavour of Brexit is better than having stayed in is consistent. But it slightly throws those who are in a less fortunate position than you are to the dogs. As we are seeing with the IMF forecast.
Your idealism meant that you would rather conduct a huge experiment with the country, suspecting that it would fail but at least we tried, than opt for a more moderate course which would likely have protected a greater number of needy people.
You were in that fortunate position to be able to conduct that experiment and hence again the similarity to socialism.
I couldn't possibly call you a Champagne Brexiter, but perhaps a Medium Sweet English Sparkling White one.
It was not an experiment but an inevitable necessity.
Well of course I disagree. In theory. In practice the country by 2019 absolutely wanted Brexit and they wanted it good and hard. And their wishes have been granted.
But staying in the EU was not as unimaginable as you maintain. Especially with Dave's Deal which protected against many of the federalist elements of the EU. And even without it we have been able, as with the Fiscal Compact, and the Euro for that matter, to decline to participate in various elements of that ever closer union.
Once the referendum result had been declared, staying in the EU was unimaginable.
I agree it was too late then. But leaving could have been to a Swiss or Norway style arrangement. That would have deflated the Remainder opposition.
The problem is, that would have needed either it being officially made clear that was a possibility before the referendum (vetoed by Cameron as it would have made the referendum harder to win) of an immediate move in the last week of June by the most prominent Remainers and the prominent Leavers who would have been happy with such an arrangement to make that the default - which would have given May the cover to do it.
That's true.
If only Remainers had been magnanimous in defeat, eh?
In response to data showing that #Brexit significantly hurt the UK economy, to the extent we are now doing worse than any comparable country, including France and Germany, Tominey's response is to say that at least we are doing better than France and Germany.
Brexit is gone now, as some Persian said "The Moving Finger writes; and, having writ, Moves on: nor all thy Piety nor Wit shall lure it back to cancel half a Line, Nor all thy Tears wash out a Word of it."
Brexit is gone now, as some Persian said "The Moving Finger writes; and, having writ, Moves on: nor all thy Piety nor Wit shall lure it back to cancel half a Line, Nor all thy Tears wash out a Word of it."
Not half as tiresome as the whining from the irreconcilable remoaners.
You are getting off lightly. Europhiles had to put with the antics and whining of Farage et al for several decades. The Brexit vote was not even a decade ago.
They could have stopped it by giving us a referendum on Maastricht, the euro, or the constitution in either of its guises amongst other opportunities.
They?
I couldn't have done any of those things so I feel I am perfectly at liberty to point out what a disaster Brexit is. As predicted.
You could have voted for a party that would have.
Which party should I have voted for to get a referendum on Maastrict? I certainly never voted for the party that signed up to it.
The euro? Remind me, when did we join the euro without a referendum?
A referendum on the euro would have been an opportunity for the British people to make clear that they were unhappy with the direction of travel of the EU without having to pull out of the thing entirely. That could tehn have been leveraged into politial pressure against integration.
But Blair, Brown and Cameron couldn't see beyond integration.
I suspect the UK will be back in the EU in time, 'maybe not in my lifetime but in yours'.
Not half as tiresome as the whining from the irreconcilable remoaners.
You are getting off lightly. Europhiles had to put with the antics and whining of Farage et al for several decades. The Brexit vote was not even a decade ago.
They could have stopped it by giving us a referendum on Maastricht, the euro, or the constitution in either of its guises amongst other opportunities.
They?
I couldn't have done any of those things so I feel I am perfectly at liberty to point out what a disaster Brexit is. As predicted.
You could have voted for a party that would have.
Which party should I have voted for to get a referendum on Maastrict? I certainly never voted for the party that signed up to it.
The euro? Remind me, when did we join the euro without a referendum?
A referendum on the euro would have been an opportunity for the British people to make clear that they were unhappy with the direction of travel of the EU without having to pull out of the thing entirely. That could tehn have been leveraged into politial pressure against integration.
But Blair, Brown and Cameron couldn't see beyond integration.
I suspect the UK will be back in the EU in time, 'maybe not in my lifetime but in yours'.
Maybe not today, maybe not tomorrow, but soon, and for the rest of you younger chaps and ladies' lives.
Not half as tiresome as the whining from the irreconcilable remoaners.
You are getting off lightly. Europhiles had to put with the antics and whining of Farage et al for several decades. The Brexit vote was not even a decade ago.
They could have stopped it by giving us a referendum on Maastricht, the euro, or the constitution in either of its guises amongst other opportunities.
They?
I couldn't have done any of those things so I feel I am perfectly at liberty to point out what a disaster Brexit is. As predicted.
You could have voted for a party that would have.
Which party should I have voted for to get a referendum on Maastrict? I certainly never voted for the party that signed up to it.
The euro? Remind me, when did we join the euro without a referendum?
A referendum on the euro would have been an opportunity for the British people to make clear that they were unhappy with the direction of travel of the EU without having to pull out of the thing entirely. That could tehn have been leveraged into politial pressure against integration.
But Blair, Brown and Cameron couldn't see beyond integration.
I suspect the UK will be back in the EU in time, 'maybe not in my lifetime but in yours'.
Not half as tiresome as the whining from the irreconcilable remoaners.
You are getting off lightly. Europhiles had to put with the antics and whining of Farage et al for several decades. The Brexit vote was not even a decade ago.
They could have stopped it by giving us a referendum on Maastricht, the euro, or the constitution in either of its guises amongst other opportunities.
They?
I couldn't have done any of those things so I feel I am perfectly at liberty to point out what a disaster Brexit is. As predicted.
You could have voted for a party that would have.
Which party should I have voted for to get a referendum on Maastrict? I certainly never voted for the party that signed up to it.
The euro? Remind me, when did we join the euro without a referendum?
A referendum on the euro would have been an opportunity for the British people to make clear that they were unhappy with the direction of travel of the EU without having to pull out of the thing entirely. That could tehn have been leveraged into politial pressure against integration.
But Blair, Brown and Cameron couldn't see beyond integration.
I suspect the UK will be back in the EU in time, 'maybe not in my lifetime but in yours'.
Maybe not today, maybe not tomorrow, but soon, and for the rest of you younger chaps and ladies' lives.
Not half as tiresome as the whining from the irreconcilable remoaners.
You are getting off lightly. Europhiles had to put with the antics and whining of Farage et al for several decades. The Brexit vote was not even a decade ago.
They could have stopped it by giving us a referendum on Maastricht, the euro, or the constitution in either of its guises amongst other opportunities.
They?
I couldn't have done any of those things so I feel I am perfectly at liberty to point out what a disaster Brexit is. As predicted.
You could have voted for a party that would have.
Which party should I have voted for to get a referendum on Maastrict? I certainly never voted for the party that signed up to it.
The euro? Remind me, when did we join the euro without a referendum?
A referendum on the euro would have been an opportunity for the British people to make clear that they were unhappy with the direction of travel of the EU without having to pull out of the thing entirely. That could tehn have been leveraged into politial pressure against integration.
But Blair, Brown and Cameron couldn't see beyond integration.
I suspect the UK will be back in the EU in time, 'maybe not in my lifetime but in yours'.
Not half as tiresome as the whining from the irreconcilable remoaners.
You are getting off lightly. Europhiles had to put with the antics and whining of Farage et al for several decades. The Brexit vote was not even a decade ago.
They could have stopped it by giving us a referendum on Maastricht, the euro, or the constitution in either of its guises amongst other opportunities.
They?
I couldn't have done any of those things so I feel I am perfectly at liberty to point out what a disaster Brexit is. As predicted.
You could have voted for a party that would have.
Which party should I have voted for to get a referendum on Maastrict? I certainly never voted for the party that signed up to it.
The euro? Remind me, when did we join the euro without a referendum?
A referendum on the euro would have been an opportunity for the British people to make clear that they were unhappy with the direction of travel of the EU without having to pull out of the thing entirely. That could tehn have been leveraged into politial pressure against integration.
But Blair, Brown and Cameron couldn't see beyond integration.
I suspect the UK will be back in the EU in time, 'maybe not in my lifetime but in yours'.
Maybe not today, maybe not tomorrow, but soon, and for the rest of you younger chaps and ladies' lives.
Football: tiny bit green for Serie A, better for Ligue 1 and the Premier League but La Liga was so dreadful I ended up red for the last month and a bit by about one stake. Irked, but still green overall for the year.
Essentially, laid Lille at home at 1.56 and backed over 2.5 goals at 1.91 in Rennes vs Strasbourg. That goal target has been struck in 80% of the home side's matches (at home) this year, and the away side have a good away scoring record.
Not half as tiresome as the whining from the irreconcilable remoaners.
You are getting off lightly. Europhiles had to put with the antics and whining of Farage et al for several decades. The Brexit vote was not even a decade ago.
They could have stopped it by giving us a referendum on Maastricht, the euro, or the constitution in either of its guises amongst other opportunities.
They?
I couldn't have done any of those things so I feel I am perfectly at liberty to point out what a disaster Brexit is. As predicted.
You could have voted for a party that would have.
Which party should I have voted for to get a referendum on Maastrict? I certainly never voted for the party that signed up to it.
The euro? Remind me, when did we join the euro without a referendum?
A referendum on the euro would have been an opportunity for the British people to make clear that they were unhappy with the direction of travel of the EU without having to pull out of the thing entirely. That could tehn have been leveraged into politial pressure against integration.
But Blair, Brown and Cameron couldn't see beyond integration.
I suspect the UK will be back in the EU in time, 'maybe not in my lifetime but in yours'.
Not half as tiresome as the whining from the irreconcilable remoaners.
You are getting off lightly. Europhiles had to put with the antics and whining of Farage et al for several decades. The Brexit vote was not even a decade ago.
They could have stopped it by giving us a referendum on Maastricht, the euro, or the constitution in either of its guises amongst other opportunities.
They?
I couldn't have done any of those things so I feel I am perfectly at liberty to point out what a disaster Brexit is. As predicted.
You could have voted for a party that would have.
Which party should I have voted for to get a referendum on Maastrict? I certainly never voted for the party that signed up to it.
The euro? Remind me, when did we join the euro without a referendum?
A referendum on the euro would have been an opportunity for the British people to make clear that they were unhappy with the direction of travel of the EU without having to pull out of the thing entirely. That could tehn have been leveraged into politial pressure against integration.
But Blair, Brown and Cameron couldn't see beyond integration.
I suspect the UK will be back in the EU in time, 'maybe not in my lifetime but in yours'.
Maybe not today, maybe not tomorrow, but soon, and for the rest of you younger chaps and ladies' lives.
Not everyone is a fan of the current Polish government.
Applebaum has been pretty good at reporting their democratically dubious behaviour.
https://twitter.com/anneapplebaum/status/1620434094797778944 Just as in 1990s Russia, the Polish ruling party is now transferring massive amounts of state wealth into "private" foundations run by their supporters. Naturally that money will be used to keep the Party in power (and maintain the lifestyle of its members) in return
@IsabelOakeshott Without any apparent irony, the Tories claim they’re “seizing the opportunities of Brexit.” Literally nobody believes that. What they’re actually doing is systematically squandering the opportunities. People need to see and feel some benefit, not listen to empty boasts!
Had our politicians been different, they might not have left. It reminds me of the Boston tea party. The colonialists had a grievance but we ignored it. Never mind, they'll repent in time. As long as they pay off the outstanding tea taxes, we'll let them return.
Not everyone is a fan of the current Polish government.
Applebaum has been pretty good at reporting their democratically dubious behaviour.
https://twitter.com/anneapplebaum/status/1620434094797778944 Just as in 1990s Russia, the Polish ruling party is now transferring massive amounts of state wealth into "private" foundations run by their supporters. Naturally that money will be used to keep the Party in power (and maintain the lifestyle of its members) in return
I'm sympathetic to those wanting pay increases in line with inflation. In particular, teaching ought to be a more highly valued profession. But:
- The only way for public sector workers to have more is for others to have less.
This is not how the economy works!
Paying teachers more will require tax rises or cuts elsewhere, that will other people poorer. That is the immediate effect.
Now you may say the case for teachers or some other public sector employees being paid more is worth the (most likely) tax rise or (less likely) cuts elsewhere. The teaching unions have to lay out a business plan for it just as I do when I make the case for members of my team getting pay rises. What additional responsibilities will they be taking on, what productivity gains can we expect from them and what will the end result be from the pay rises.
For nurses, the actual numbers are pretty easy to see, pay them a bit more, increase retention rates, increase training places due to better and more reliable staffing and ease the short term healthcare crunch and get the million "sick" back into work. That the government is unable to see this means they are still beholden to treasury groupthink. For teachers the case is much, much less clear cut. Teacher salaries in the UK are comparable to similar countries across Europe and there's not exactly a huge international market for teachers as there is for healthcare workers. There's also huge quality issues surrounding teaching and education in general, the sector seems to have decided bells and whistles like interactive whiteboards and touch screen tablets will make up for not actually teaching the kids very much, that may or may not be the fault of the DoE but that's where we're at.
(1) Workloads are not. We have either larger classes or higher expectations of what needs to be done.
(2) There really is. It is extremely easy to get a job in just about any country if you are trained in delivering English exams. There are enormous numbers of international schools who would snap me up (for example) except I don't have a particular desire to live anywhere else.
(3) No there isn't. In fact, I would say the key issue from that point of view in most schools at present is the lack of tech in schools due to the Luddite-like attitude of the DfE. Where prepackaged lessons are delivered by rote that's because they can't recruit anyone. Will salaries sort that? Possibly, possibly not, but it's idle to pretend they're not part of the conversation.
I would avoid facile analyses from the Daily Mail, the DfE and other drunks who don't know what they're talking about but have a very definite agenda to push. It makes you look ignorant.
Technology to automate processes makes sense and requires some investment, yes. Technology in the classroom is just flash. It brings nothing to the table that a white board and market pen can do with a good teacher. Some of the best education systems in the world have fairly traditional classrooms, they don't go in for the flash because it adds nothing. The UK seems to have been captured by the classroom tech sales people in whose interest it is to sell classroom tech and all it's really doing is covering up for worse teaching or poorly deployed resources.
Going back to the question I had before, every classroom now seems to have a teacher and a TA, this means there has been a huge net drop in classroom productivity in the 20 or so years since I left school. There are now two people doing the job that one person used to do even if class sizes have increased from 20 to 30 or 25 to 35 or 30 to 40, that's a massive net drop in productivity in the education sector.
As I said, it's up to the teaching unions to make the business case for teacher salaries to rise, they haven't made a convincing one yet and I'm sure there is one out there which revolves around attracting the best candidates for teaching young people and allowing good schools to expand and the expense of shit ones etc...
The last thread was boring enough except for some BS about schools.
No, we were just doing the Casablanca puns. No intention of replaying it again.
Funnily enough, Morocco tried to join the EU (or whatever it was called back then) in 1987, but was rejected as it wasn't in Europe, which I would have thought the people of Morocco would know
So many safe seats e.g. East Hants could go Lib Dem if Labour voters vote tactically, I think they would in such a seat, Lib Dems clearly the challenger there
I'm sympathetic to those wanting pay increases in line with inflation. In particular, teaching ought to be a more highly valued profession. But:
- The only way for public sector workers to have more is for others to have less.
This is not how the economy works!
Paying teachers more will require tax rises or cuts elsewhere, that will other people poorer. That is the immediate effect.
Now you may say the case for teachers or some other public sector employees being paid more is worth the (most likely) tax rise or (less likely) cuts elsewhere. The teaching unions have to lay out a business plan for it just as I do when I make the case for members of my team getting pay rises. What additional responsibilities will they be taking on, what productivity gains can we expect from them and what will the end result be from the pay rises.
For nurses, the actual numbers are pretty easy to see, pay them a bit more, increase retention rates, increase training places due to better and more reliable staffing and ease the short term healthcare crunch and get the million "sick" back into work. That the government is unable to see this means they are still beholden to treasury groupthink. For teachers the case is much, much less clear cut. Teacher salaries in the UK are comparable to similar countries across Europe and there's not exactly a huge international market for teachers as there is for healthcare workers. There's also huge quality issues surrounding teaching and education in general, the sector seems to have decided bells and whistles like interactive whiteboards and touch screen tablets will make up for not actually teaching the kids very much, that may or may not be the fault of the DoE but that's where we're at.
But come on Max, you are the one who has been saying - with some justification - that we should be taxing the elderly more (or paying them less) to try and equalise the generational differences and to support working people more. This seems to me to be a damn good example of that.
But that's not what's going to happen, the cost of public sector pay rises and following pension costs will be lumped onto working age people and backloaded onto the young rather than the almost of retirement age.
Both the Tories and Labour seem incapable of standing up to my parents generation and calling them out for what they are, selfish and greedy. The next big clash will be intergenerational, one of the parties (my money is actually on the Tories, oddly) will decide to go all in on a new strategy within 5-7 years and start campaigning on how shit of a deal young people get, simply it's where the votes will be in the 2030s and 2040s.
No it won’t.
The average voter will still be 50 not 30 even in the 2030s or 2040s
And what age do you think someone who is 30-40 will be in the 2030s and 2040s?!
I'm sympathetic to those wanting pay increases in line with inflation. In particular, teaching ought to be a more highly valued profession. But:
- The only way for public sector workers to have more is for others to have less.
This is not how the economy works!
Paying teachers more will require tax rises or cuts elsewhere, that will other people poorer. That is the immediate effect.
Now you may say the case for teachers or some other public sector employees being paid more is worth the (most likely) tax rise or (less likely) cuts elsewhere. The teaching unions have to lay out a business plan for it just as I do when I make the case for members of my team getting pay rises. What additional responsibilities will they be taking on, what productivity gains can we expect from them and what will the end result be from the pay rises.
For nurses, the actual numbers are pretty easy to see, pay them a bit more, increase retention rates, increase training places due to better and more reliable staffing and ease the short term healthcare crunch and get the million "sick" back into work. That the government is unable to see this means they are still beholden to treasury groupthink. For teachers the case is much, much less clear cut. Teacher salaries in the UK are comparable to similar countries across Europe and there's not exactly a huge international market for teachers as there is for healthcare workers. There's also huge quality issues surrounding teaching and education in general, the sector seems to have decided bells and whistles like interactive whiteboards and touch screen tablets will make up for not actually teaching the kids very much, that may or may not be the fault of the DoE but that's where we're at.
But come on Max, you are the one who has been saying - with some justification - that we should be taxing the elderly more (or paying them less) to try and equalise the generational differences and to support working people more. This seems to me to be a damn good example of that.
But that's not what's going to happen, the cost of public sector pay rises and following pension costs will be lumped onto working age people and backloaded onto the young rather than the almost of retirement age.
Both the Tories and Labour seem incapable of standing up to my parents generation and calling them out for what they are, selfish and greedy. The next big clash will be intergenerational, one of the parties (my money is actually on the Tories, oddly) will decide to go all in on a new strategy within 5-7 years and start campaigning on how shit of a deal young people get, simply it's where the votes will be in the 2030s and 2040s.
No it won’t.
The average voter will still be 50 not 30 even in the 2030s or 2040s
And what age do you think someone who is 30-40 will be in the 2030s and 2040s?!
By then they will almost certainly own property themselves given the age of first property ownership is 39 and be starting to look to retirement
I'm sympathetic to those wanting pay increases in line with inflation. In particular, teaching ought to be a more highly valued profession. But:
- The only way for public sector workers to have more is for others to have less.
This is not how the economy works!
Paying teachers more will require tax rises or cuts elsewhere, that will other people poorer. That is the immediate effect.
Now you may say the case for teachers or some other public sector employees being paid more is worth the (most likely) tax rise or (less likely) cuts elsewhere. The teaching unions have to lay out a business plan for it just as I do when I make the case for members of my team getting pay rises. What additional responsibilities will they be taking on, what productivity gains can we expect from them and what will the end result be from the pay rises.
For nurses, the actual numbers are pretty easy to see, pay them a bit more, increase retention rates, increase training places due to better and more reliable staffing and ease the short term healthcare crunch and get the million "sick" back into work. That the government is unable to see this means they are still beholden to treasury groupthink. For teachers the case is much, much less clear cut. Teacher salaries in the UK are comparable to similar countries across Europe and there's not exactly a huge international market for teachers as there is for healthcare workers. There's also huge quality issues surrounding teaching and education in general, the sector seems to have decided bells and whistles like interactive whiteboards and touch screen tablets will make up for not actually teaching the kids very much, that may or may not be the fault of the DoE but that's where we're at.
(1) Workloads are not. We have either larger classes or higher expectations of what needs to be done.
(2) There really is. It is extremely easy to get a job in just about any country if you are trained in delivering English exams. There are enormous numbers of international schools who would snap me up (for example) except I don't have a particular desire to live anywhere else.
(3) No there isn't. In fact, I would say the key issue from that point of view in most schools at present is the lack of tech in schools due to the Luddite-like attitude of the DfE. Where prepackaged lessons are delivered by rote that's because they can't recruit anyone. Will salaries sort that? Possibly, possibly not, but it's idle to pretend they're not part of the conversation.
I would avoid facile analyses from the Daily Mail, the DfE and other drunks who don't know what they're talking about but have a very definite agenda to push. It makes you look ignorant.
Technology to automate processes makes sense and requires some investment, yes. Technology in the classroom is just flash. It brings nothing to the table that a white board and market pen can do with a good teacher. Some of the best education systems in the world have fairly traditional classrooms, they don't go in for the flash because it adds nothing. The UK seems to have been captured by the classroom tech sales people in whose interest it is to sell classroom tech and all it's really doing is covering up for worse teaching or poorly deployed resources.
Going back to the question I had before, every classroom now seems to have a teacher and a TA, this means there has been a huge net drop in classroom productivity in the 20 or so years since I left school. There are now two people doing the job that one person used to do even if class sizes have increased from 20 to 30 or 25 to 35 or 30 to 40, that's a massive net drop in productivity in the education sector.
As I said, it's up to the teaching unions to make the business case for teacher salaries to rise, they haven't made a convincing one yet and I'm sure there is one out there which revolves around attracting the best candidates for teaching young people and allowing good schools to expand and the expense of shit ones etc...
(1) How would you know? You are not a teacher. I would in fact, having taught in both types, have said technology rightly handled is extremely useful and important in extending learning.
(2) That is simply not true. Having taught for ten years I had three classes with a TA in them, in all cases to deal with students who had complex disabilities. All of them, in the timeframe you mention, would not have been in mainstream schools but in specialist disability schools - which were all shut in the interests of economy. In other cases, as @dixiedean has been explaining, the issue is not having TAs where we should have them. This is nothing to do with productivity and everything to do with stupid policy.
The case is that we can’t attract and retain teachers. If your department is understaffed because you can’t hire decent staff, do you automatically blame your staff? If so you’re (a) a bad manager and (b) missed your vocation as a civil servant. But somehow I don’t think you do.
As it happens I’m inclined to think from my own experience including as a union rep that workload is a bigger problem than salary. But that will never be addressed because that would mean the DfE admitting how badly they have mismanaged things. So pay is the only way left to go.
Edit - re your last point, what do you think Freedman’s academy chains were? But they have been at best an expensive and disruptive fiasco.
I'm sympathetic to those wanting pay increases in line with inflation. In particular, teaching ought to be a more highly valued profession. But:
- The only way for public sector workers to have more is for others to have less.
This is not how the economy works!
Paying teachers more will require tax rises or cuts elsewhere, that will other people poorer. That is the immediate effect.
Now you may say the case for teachers or some other public sector employees being paid more is worth the (most likely) tax rise or (less likely) cuts elsewhere. The teaching unions have to lay out a business plan for it just as I do when I make the case for members of my team getting pay rises. What additional responsibilities will they be taking on, what productivity gains can we expect from them and what will the end result be from the pay rises.
For nurses, the actual numbers are pretty easy to see, pay them a bit more, increase retention rates, increase training places due to better and more reliable staffing and ease the short term healthcare crunch and get the million "sick" back into work. That the government is unable to see this means they are still beholden to treasury groupthink. For teachers the case is much, much less clear cut. Teacher salaries in the UK are comparable to similar countries across Europe and there's not exactly a huge international market for teachers as there is for healthcare workers. There's also huge quality issues surrounding teaching and education in general, the sector seems to have decided bells and whistles like interactive whiteboards and touch screen tablets will make up for not actually teaching the kids very much, that may or may not be the fault of the DoE but that's where we're at.
(1) Workloads are not. We have either larger classes or higher expectations of what needs to be done.
(2) There really is. It is extremely easy to get a job in just about any country if you are trained in delivering English exams. There are enormous numbers of international schools who would snap me up (for example) except I don't have a particular desire to live anywhere else.
(3) No there isn't. In fact, I would say the key issue from that point of view in most schools at present is the lack of tech in schools due to the Luddite-like attitude of the DfE. Where prepackaged lessons are delivered by rote that's because they can't recruit anyone. Will salaries sort that? Possibly, possibly not, but it's idle to pretend they're not part of the conversation.
I would avoid facile analyses from the Daily Mail, the DfE and other drunks who don't know what they're talking about but have a very definite agenda to push. It makes you look ignorant.
Going back to the question I had before, every classroom now seems to have a teacher and a TA, this means there has been a huge net drop in classroom productivity in the 20 or so years since I left school. There are now two people doing the job that one person used to do even if class sizes have increased from 20 to 30 or 25 to 35 or 30 to 40, that's a massive net drop in productivity in the education sector...
Over two thirds of those are in primary schools, though. And they are paid about half as much as a teacher.
You also have to account for the movement of a large number of SEN children from specialist schools into the mainstream system, as a factor in the large growth in TA numbers.
The last thread was boring enough except for some BS about schools.
No, we were just doing the Casablanca puns. No intention of replaying it again.
Funnily enough, Morocco tried to join the EU (or whatever it was called back then) in 1987, but was rejected as it wasn't in Europe, which I would have thought the people of Morocco would know
And yet they let in Bulgaria, where the devil has the people by the throat.
... Going back to the question I had before, every classroom now seems to have a teacher and a TA, this means there has been a huge net drop in classroom productivity in the 20 or so years since I left school. There are now two people doing the job that one person used to do even if class sizes have increased from 20 to 30 or 25 to 35 or 30 to 40, that's a massive net drop in productivity in the education sector.
Isn't this 100% the wrong way to think about productivity in Education?
You could have classes of 50 pupils to one teacher, and on your basis a huge increase in teacher productivity, but the quality of teaching would surely suffer, and even if the 50 children still received their quota of x years of education, they'd surely be less well educated at the end of the process.
A lot of countries with better education outcomes than the UK have much smaller class sizes (e.g. Netherlands, Scandinavia) - and so on the face of it, much lower Education productivity - but perhaps they are concentrating on the right things, rather than on industrial style productivity metrics.
I'm sympathetic to those wanting pay increases in line with inflation. In particular, teaching ought to be a more highly valued profession. But:
- The only way for public sector workers to have more is for others to have less.
This is not how the economy works!
Paying teachers more will require tax rises or cuts elsewhere, that will other people poorer. That is the immediate effect.
Now you may say the case for teachers or some other public sector employees being paid more is worth the (most likely) tax rise or (less likely) cuts elsewhere. The teaching unions have to lay out a business plan for it just as I do when I make the case for members of my team getting pay rises. What additional responsibilities will they be taking on, what productivity gains can we expect from them and what will the end result be from the pay rises.
For nurses, the actual numbers are pretty easy to see, pay them a bit more, increase retention rates, increase training places due to better and more reliable staffing and ease the short term healthcare crunch and get the million "sick" back into work. That the government is unable to see this means they are still beholden to treasury groupthink. For teachers the case is much, much less clear cut. Teacher salaries in the UK are comparable to similar countries across Europe and there's not exactly a huge international market for teachers as there is for healthcare workers. There's also huge quality issues surrounding teaching and education in general, the sector seems to have decided bells and whistles like interactive whiteboards and touch screen tablets will make up for not actually teaching the kids very much, that may or may not be the fault of the DoE but that's where we're at.
But come on Max, you are the one who has been saying - with some justification - that we should be taxing the elderly more (or paying them less) to try and equalise the generational differences and to support working people more. This seems to me to be a damn good example of that.
But that's not what's going to happen, the cost of public sector pay rises and following pension costs will be lumped onto working age people and backloaded onto the young rather than the almost of retirement age.
Both the Tories and Labour seem incapable of standing up to my parents generation and calling them out for what they are, selfish and greedy. The next big clash will be intergenerational, one of the parties (my money is actually on the Tories, oddly) will decide to go all in on a new strategy within 5-7 years and start campaigning on how shit of a deal young people get, simply it's where the votes will be in the 2030s and 2040s.
No it won’t.
The average voter will still be 50 not 30 even in the 2030s or 2040s
And what age do you think someone who is 30-40 will be in the 2030s and 2040s?!
By then they will almost certainly own property themselves given the age of first property ownership is 39 and be starting to look to retirement
I have owned a property since I was 21 and have never voted Tory. I am 60 and currently own a big ****-off house in the Vale of Glamorgan, at what point do I start voting Conservative? The thought hasn't crossed my mind yet, so when?
I'm sympathetic to those wanting pay increases in line with inflation. In particular, teaching ought to be a more highly valued profession. But:
- The only way for public sector workers to have more is for others to have less.
This is not how the economy works!
Paying teachers more will require tax rises or cuts elsewhere, that will other people poorer. That is the immediate effect.
Now you may say the case for teachers or some other public sector employees being paid more is worth the (most likely) tax rise or (less likely) cuts elsewhere. The teaching unions have to lay out a business plan for it just as I do when I make the case for members of my team getting pay rises. What additional responsibilities will they be taking on, what productivity gains can we expect from them and what will the end result be from the pay rises.
For nurses, the actual numbers are pretty easy to see, pay them a bit more, increase retention rates, increase training places due to better and more reliable staffing and ease the short term healthcare crunch and get the million "sick" back into work. That the government is unable to see this means they are still beholden to treasury groupthink. For teachers the case is much, much less clear cut. Teacher salaries in the UK are comparable to similar countries across Europe and there's not exactly a huge international market for teachers as there is for healthcare workers. There's also huge quality issues surrounding teaching and education in general, the sector seems to have decided bells and whistles like interactive whiteboards and touch screen tablets will make up for not actually teaching the kids very much, that may or may not be the fault of the DoE but that's where we're at.
(1) Workloads are not. We have either larger classes or higher expectations of what needs to be done.
(2) There really is. It is extremely easy to get a job in just about any country if you are trained in delivering English exams. There are enormous numbers of international schools who would snap me up (for example) except I don't have a particular desire to live anywhere else.
(3) No there isn't. In fact, I would say the key issue from that point of view in most schools at present is the lack of tech in schools due to the Luddite-like attitude of the DfE. Where prepackaged lessons are delivered by rote that's because they can't recruit anyone. Will salaries sort that? Possibly, possibly not, but it's idle to pretend they're not part of the conversation.
I would avoid facile analyses from the Daily Mail, the DfE and other drunks who don't know what they're talking about but have a very definite agenda to push. It makes you look ignorant.
Technology to automate processes makes sense and requires some investment, yes. Technology in the classroom is just flash. It brings nothing to the table that a white board and market pen can do with a good teacher. Some of the best education systems in the world have fairly traditional classrooms, they don't go in for the flash because it adds nothing. The UK seems to have been captured by the classroom tech sales people in whose interest it is to sell classroom tech and all it's really doing is covering up for worse teaching or poorly deployed resources.
Going back to the question I had before, every classroom now seems to have a teacher and a TA, this means there has been a huge net drop in classroom productivity in the 20 or so years since I left school. There are now two people doing the job that one person used to do even if class sizes have increased from 20 to 30 or 25 to 35 or 30 to 40, that's a massive net drop in productivity in the education sector.
As I said, it's up to the teaching unions to make the business case for teacher salaries to rise, they haven't made a convincing one yet and I'm sure there is one out there which revolves around attracting the best candidates for teaching young people and allowing good schools to expand and the expense of shit ones etc...
...As it happens I’m inclined to think from my own experience including as a union rep that workload is a bigger problem than salary. But that will never be addressed because that would mean the DfE admitting how badly they have mismanaged things. So pay is the only way left to go...
Agreed; I made the same point on the last thread. Anecdotally, ever teacher I know of that left the profession early did so because of the workload/bullshit issues rather than pay. FWIW.
The last thread was boring enough except for some BS about schools.
No, we were just doing the Casablanca puns. No intention of replaying it again.
Funnily enough, Morocco tried to join the EU (or whatever it was called back then) in 1987, but was rejected as it wasn't in Europe, which I would have thought the people of Morocco would know
And yet they let in Bulgaria, where the devil has the people by the throat.
Morocco in the EU would have been excellent and potentially transformation for the Maghreb. The flip side being they’d have ended up erecting a huge fence across the Sahara, like the US-Mexico border. And the Western Sahara issue would have to be solved.
I'm sympathetic to those wanting pay increases in line with inflation. In particular, teaching ought to be a more highly valued profession. But:
- The only way for public sector workers to have more is for others to have less.
This is not how the economy works!
Paying teachers more will require tax rises or cuts elsewhere, that will other people poorer. That is the immediate effect.
Now you may say the case for teachers or some other public sector employees being paid more is worth the (most likely) tax rise or (less likely) cuts elsewhere. The teaching unions have to lay out a business plan for it just as I do when I make the case for members of my team getting pay rises. What additional responsibilities will they be taking on, what productivity gains can we expect from them and what will the end result be from the pay rises.
For nurses, the actual numbers are pretty easy to see, pay them a bit more, increase retention rates, increase training places due to better and more reliable staffing and ease the short term healthcare crunch and get the million "sick" back into work. That the government is unable to see this means they are still beholden to treasury groupthink. For teachers the case is much, much less clear cut. Teacher salaries in the UK are comparable to similar countries across Europe and there's not exactly a huge international market for teachers as there is for healthcare workers. There's also huge quality issues surrounding teaching and education in general, the sector seems to have decided bells and whistles like interactive whiteboards and touch screen tablets will make up for not actually teaching the kids very much, that may or may not be the fault of the DoE but that's where we're at.
But come on Max, you are the one who has been saying - with some justification - that we should be taxing the elderly more (or paying them less) to try and equalise the generational differences and to support working people more. This seems to me to be a damn good example of that.
But that's not what's going to happen, the cost of public sector pay rises and following pension costs will be lumped onto working age people and backloaded onto the young rather than the almost of retirement age.
Both the Tories and Labour seem incapable of standing up to my parents generation and calling them out for what they are, selfish and greedy. The next big clash will be intergenerational, one of the parties (my money is actually on the Tories, oddly) will decide to go all in on a new strategy within 5-7 years and start campaigning on how shit of a deal young people get, simply it's where the votes will be in the 2030s and 2040s.
No it won’t.
The average voter will still be 50 not 30 even in the 2030s or 2040s
And what age do you think someone who is 30-40 will be in the 2030s and 2040s?!
By then they will almost certainly own property themselves given the age of first property ownership is 39 and be starting to look to retirement
I have owned a property since I was 21 and have never voted Tory. I am 60 and currently own a big ****-off house in the Vale of Glamorgan, at what point do I start voting Conservative? The thought hasn't crossed my mind yet, so when?
I'm sympathetic to those wanting pay increases in line with inflation. In particular, teaching ought to be a more highly valued profession. But:
- The only way for public sector workers to have more is for others to have less.
This is not how the economy works!
Paying teachers more will require tax rises or cuts elsewhere, that will other people poorer. That is the immediate effect.
Now you may say the case for teachers or some other public sector employees being paid more is worth the (most likely) tax rise or (less likely) cuts elsewhere. The teaching unions have to lay out a business plan for it just as I do when I make the case for members of my team getting pay rises. What additional responsibilities will they be taking on, what productivity gains can we expect from them and what will the end result be from the pay rises.
For nurses, the actual numbers are pretty easy to see, pay them a bit more, increase retention rates, increase training places due to better and more reliable staffing and ease the short term healthcare crunch and get the million "sick" back into work. That the government is unable to see this means they are still beholden to treasury groupthink. For teachers the case is much, much less clear cut. Teacher salaries in the UK are comparable to similar countries across Europe and there's not exactly a huge international market for teachers as there is for healthcare workers. There's also huge quality issues surrounding teaching and education in general, the sector seems to have decided bells and whistles like interactive whiteboards and touch screen tablets will make up for not actually teaching the kids very much, that may or may not be the fault of the DoE but that's where we're at.
But come on Max, you are the one who has been saying - with some justification - that we should be taxing the elderly more (or paying them less) to try and equalise the generational differences and to support working people more. This seems to me to be a damn good example of that.
But that's not what's going to happen, the cost of public sector pay rises and following pension costs will be lumped onto working age people and backloaded onto the young rather than the almost of retirement age.
Both the Tories and Labour seem incapable of standing up to my parents generation and calling them out for what they are, selfish and greedy. The next big clash will be intergenerational, one of the parties (my money is actually on the Tories, oddly) will decide to go all in on a new strategy within 5-7 years and start campaigning on how shit of a deal young people get, simply it's where the votes will be in the 2030s and 2040s.
No it won’t.
The average voter will still be 50 not 30 even in the 2030s or 2040s
And what age do you think someone who is 30-40 will be in the 2030s and 2040s?!
By then they will almost certainly own property themselves given the age of first property ownership is 39 and be starting to look to retirement
I have owned a property since I was 21 and have never voted Tory. I am 60 and currently own a big ****-off house in the Vale of Glamorgan, at what point do I start voting Conservative? The thought hasn't crossed my mind yet, so when?
Snap (Well, 62 and the Blackmore Vale but otherwise ditto.)
I'm sympathetic to those wanting pay increases in line with inflation. In particular, teaching ought to be a more highly valued profession. But:
- The only way for public sector workers to have more is for others to have less.
This is not how the economy works!
Paying teachers more will require tax rises or cuts elsewhere, that will other people poorer. That is the immediate effect.
Now you may say the case for teachers or some other public sector employees being paid more is worth the (most likely) tax rise or (less likely) cuts elsewhere. The teaching unions have to lay out a business plan for it just as I do when I make the case for members of my team getting pay rises. What additional responsibilities will they be taking on, what productivity gains can we expect from them and what will the end result be from the pay rises.
For nurses, the actual numbers are pretty easy to see, pay them a bit more, increase retention rates, increase training places due to better and more reliable staffing and ease the short term healthcare crunch and get the million "sick" back into work. That the government is unable to see this means they are still beholden to treasury groupthink. For teachers the case is much, much less clear cut. Teacher salaries in the UK are comparable to similar countries across Europe and there's not exactly a huge international market for teachers as there is for healthcare workers. There's also huge quality issues surrounding teaching and education in general, the sector seems to have decided bells and whistles like interactive whiteboards and touch screen tablets will make up for not actually teaching the kids very much, that may or may not be the fault of the DoE but that's where we're at.
(1) Workloads are not. We have either larger classes or higher expectations of what needs to be done.
(2) There really is. It is extremely easy to get a job in just about any country if you are trained in delivering English exams. There are enormous numbers of international schools who would snap me up (for example) except I don't have a particular desire to live anywhere else.
(3) No there isn't. In fact, I would say the key issue from that point of view in most schools at present is the lack of tech in schools due to the Luddite-like attitude of the DfE. Where prepackaged lessons are delivered by rote that's because they can't recruit anyone. Will salaries sort that? Possibly, possibly not, but it's idle to pretend they're not part of the conversation.
I would avoid facile analyses from the Daily Mail, the DfE and other drunks who don't know what they're talking about but have a very definite agenda to push. It makes you look ignorant.
Technology to automate processes makes sense and requires some investment, yes. Technology in the classroom is just flash. It brings nothing to the table that a white board and market pen can do with a good teacher. Some of the best education systems in the world have fairly traditional classrooms, they don't go in for the flash because it adds nothing. The UK seems to have been captured by the classroom tech sales people in whose interest it is to sell classroom tech and all it's really doing is covering up for worse teaching or poorly deployed resources.
Going back to the question I had before, every classroom now seems to have a teacher and a TA, this means there has been a huge net drop in classroom productivity in the 20 or so years since I left school. There are now two people doing the job that one person used to do even if class sizes have increased from 20 to 30 or 25 to 35 or 30 to 40, that's a massive net drop in productivity in the education sector.
As I said, it's up to the teaching unions to make the business case for teacher salaries to rise, they haven't made a convincing one yet and I'm sure there is one out there which revolves around attracting the best candidates for teaching young people and allowing good schools to expand and the expense of shit ones etc...
...As it happens I’m inclined to think from my own experience including as a union rep that workload is a bigger problem than salary. But that will never be addressed because that would mean the DfE admitting how badly they have mismanaged things. So pay is the only way left to go...
Agreed; I made the same point on the last thread. Anecdotally, ever teacher I know of that left the profession early did so because of the workload/bullshit issues rather than pay. FWIW.
although some, tbf, it was because they were paid so much they simply took early retirement.
Mind you, one who keeps rearing his head here on his own admission did hardly any work for thirty years before that!
SNP politicians who oppose Holyrood’s controversial gender reform bill should resign from the party and stand as independents, an MP close to Nicola Sturgeon has said.
Alyn Smith, the MP for Stirling, said party colleagues were “obliged to defend the SNP position” on any proposal in the manifesto upon which they were elected.
SNP politicians who oppose Holyrood’s controversial gender reform bill should resign from the party and stand as independents, an MP close to Nicola Sturgeon has said.
Alyn Smith, the MP for Stirling, said party colleagues were “obliged to defend the SNP position” on any proposal in the manifesto upon which they were elected.
The last thread was boring enough except for some BS about schools.
No, we were just doing the Casablanca puns. No intention of replaying it again.
Funnily enough, Morocco tried to join the EU (or whatever it was called back then) in 1987, but was rejected as it wasn't in Europe, which I would have thought the people of Morocco would know
I'm sympathetic to those wanting pay increases in line with inflation. In particular, teaching ought to be a more highly valued profession. But:
- The only way for public sector workers to have more is for others to have less.
This is not how the economy works!
Paying teachers more will require tax rises or cuts elsewhere, that will other people poorer. That is the immediate effect.
Now you may say the case for teachers or some other public sector employees being paid more is worth the (most likely) tax rise or (less likely) cuts elsewhere. The teaching unions have to lay out a business plan for it just as I do when I make the case for members of my team getting pay rises. What additional responsibilities will they be taking on, what productivity gains can we expect from them and what will the end result be from the pay rises.
For nurses, the actual numbers are pretty easy to see, pay them a bit more, increase retention rates, increase training places due to better and more reliable staffing and ease the short term healthcare crunch and get the million "sick" back into work. That the government is unable to see this means they are still beholden to treasury groupthink. For teachers the case is much, much less clear cut. Teacher salaries in the UK are comparable to similar countries across Europe and there's not exactly a huge international market for teachers as there is for healthcare workers. There's also huge quality issues surrounding teaching and education in general, the sector seems to have decided bells and whistles like interactive whiteboards and touch screen tablets will make up for not actually teaching the kids very much, that may or may not be the fault of the DoE but that's where we're at.
But come on Max, you are the one who has been saying - with some justification - that we should be taxing the elderly more (or paying them less) to try and equalise the generational differences and to support working people more. This seems to me to be a damn good example of that.
But that's not what's going to happen, the cost of public sector pay rises and following pension costs will be lumped onto working age people and backloaded onto the young rather than the almost of retirement age.
Both the Tories and Labour seem incapable of standing up to my parents generation and calling them out for what they are, selfish and greedy. The next big clash will be intergenerational, one of the parties (my money is actually on the Tories, oddly) will decide to go all in on a new strategy within 5-7 years and start campaigning on how shit of a deal young people get, simply it's where the votes will be in the 2030s and 2040s.
No it won’t.
The average voter will still be 50 not 30 even in the 2030s or 2040s
And what age do you think someone who is 30-40 will be in the 2030s and 2040s?!
By then they will almost certainly own property themselves given the age of first property ownership is 39 and be starting to look to retirement
I have owned a property since I was 21 and have never voted Tory. I am 60 and currently own a big ****-off house in the Vale of Glamorgan, at what point do I start voting Conservative? The thought hasn't crossed my mind yet, so when?
Snap (Well, 62 and the Blackmore Vale but otherwise ditto.)
I spent a year trying to unravel the gazillion tonnes of legally dubious (but not necessarily illegal) waste deposited on the unused WW2 runways at Henstridge aerodrome. My wife still shops online at Harts of Stur. Small world.
SNP politicians who oppose Holyrood’s controversial gender reform bill should resign from the party and stand as independents, an MP close to Nicola Sturgeon has said.
Alyn Smith, the MP for Stirling, said party colleagues were “obliged to defend the SNP position” on any proposal in the manifesto upon which they were elected.
SNP politicians who oppose Holyrood’s controversial gender reform bill should resign from the party and stand as independents, an MP close to Nicola Sturgeon has said.
Alyn Smith, the MP for Stirling, said party colleagues were “obliged to defend the SNP position” on any proposal in the manifesto upon which they were elected.
SNP politicians who oppose Holyrood’s controversial gender reform bill should resign from the party and stand as independents, an MP close to Nicola Sturgeon has said.
Alyn Smith, the MP for Stirling, said party colleagues were “obliged to defend the SNP position” on any proposal in the manifesto upon which they were elected.
Yes @MaxPB a party will soon decide to appeal to young people.
Scrap tuition fees, tax cuts, that will be the offer. Elephant in the room is the EU
And who is going to pay for scrapping tuition fees? Tax cuts require spending cuts short term as Truss discovered.
No tuition fees was sustainable in the 1970s when 10% went to university, not now 40% go
What happens to that logic if you replace "no tuition fees" with "the state pension" and "went to university" with "are pensioners"?
Pensioners pay in through National Insurance throughout their working lives before they get the State pension and only get it if sufficient National Insurance payments or credits .
I'm sympathetic to those wanting pay increases in line with inflation. In particular, teaching ought to be a more highly valued profession. But:
- The only way for public sector workers to have more is for others to have less.
This is not how the economy works!
Paying teachers more will require tax rises or cuts elsewhere, that will other people poorer. That is the immediate effect.
Now you may say the case for teachers or some other public sector employees being paid more is worth the (most likely) tax rise or (less likely) cuts elsewhere. The teaching unions have to lay out a business plan for it just as I do when I make the case for members of my team getting pay rises. What additional responsibilities will they be taking on, what productivity gains can we expect from them and what will the end result be from the pay rises.
For nurses, the actual numbers are pretty easy to see, pay them a bit more, increase retention rates, increase training places due to better and more reliable staffing and ease the short term healthcare crunch and get the million "sick" back into work. That the government is unable to see this means they are still beholden to treasury groupthink. For teachers the case is much, much less clear cut. Teacher salaries in the UK are comparable to similar countries across Europe and there's not exactly a huge international market for teachers as there is for healthcare workers. There's also huge quality issues surrounding teaching and education in general, the sector seems to have decided bells and whistles like interactive whiteboards and touch screen tablets will make up for not actually teaching the kids very much, that may or may not be the fault of the DoE but that's where we're at.
But come on Max, you are the one who has been saying - with some justification - that we should be taxing the elderly more (or paying them less) to try and equalise the generational differences and to support working people more. This seems to me to be a damn good example of that.
But that's not what's going to happen, the cost of public sector pay rises and following pension costs will be lumped onto working age people and backloaded onto the young rather than the almost of retirement age.
Both the Tories and Labour seem incapable of standing up to my parents generation and calling them out for what they are, selfish and greedy. The next big clash will be intergenerational, one of the parties (my money is actually on the Tories, oddly) will decide to go all in on a new strategy within 5-7 years and start campaigning on how shit of a deal young people get, simply it's where the votes will be in the 2030s and 2040s.
No it won’t.
The average voter will still be 50 not 30 even in the 2030s or 2040s
And what age do you think someone who is 30-40 will be in the 2030s and 2040s?!
By then they will almost certainly own property themselves given the age of first property ownership is 39 and be starting to look to retirement
I have owned a property since I was 21 and have never voted Tory. I am 60 and currently own a big ****-off house in the Vale of Glamorgan, at what point do I start voting Conservative? The thought hasn't crossed my mind yet, so when?
I voted Tory even when I was a student, neither of us are the average voter!!
I'm sympathetic to those wanting pay increases in line with inflation. In particular, teaching ought to be a more highly valued profession. But:
- The only way for public sector workers to have more is for others to have less.
This is not how the economy works!
Paying teachers more will require tax rises or cuts elsewhere, that will other people poorer. That is the immediate effect.
Now you may say the case for teachers or some other public sector employees being paid more is worth the (most likely) tax rise or (less likely) cuts elsewhere. The teaching unions have to lay out a business plan for it just as I do when I make the case for members of my team getting pay rises. What additional responsibilities will they be taking on, what productivity gains can we expect from them and what will the end result be from the pay rises.
For nurses, the actual numbers are pretty easy to see, pay them a bit more, increase retention rates, increase training places due to better and more reliable staffing and ease the short term healthcare crunch and get the million "sick" back into work. That the government is unable to see this means they are still beholden to treasury groupthink. For teachers the case is much, much less clear cut. Teacher salaries in the UK are comparable to similar countries across Europe and there's not exactly a huge international market for teachers as there is for healthcare workers. There's also huge quality issues surrounding teaching and education in general, the sector seems to have decided bells and whistles like interactive whiteboards and touch screen tablets will make up for not actually teaching the kids very much, that may or may not be the fault of the DoE but that's where we're at.
But come on Max, you are the one who has been saying - with some justification - that we should be taxing the elderly more (or paying them less) to try and equalise the generational differences and to support working people more. This seems to me to be a damn good example of that.
But that's not what's going to happen, the cost of public sector pay rises and following pension costs will be lumped onto working age people and backloaded onto the young rather than the almost of retirement age.
Both the Tories and Labour seem incapable of standing up to my parents generation and calling them out for what they are, selfish and greedy. The next big clash will be intergenerational, one of the parties (my money is actually on the Tories, oddly) will decide to go all in on a new strategy within 5-7 years and start campaigning on how shit of a deal young people get, simply it's where the votes will be in the 2030s and 2040s.
No it won’t.
The average voter will still be 50 not 30 even in the 2030s or 2040s
And what age do you think someone who is 30-40 will be in the 2030s and 2040s?!
By then they will almost certainly own property themselves given the age of first property ownership is 39 and be starting to look to retirement
I have owned a property since I was 21 and have never voted Tory. I am 60 and currently own a big ****-off house in the Vale of Glamorgan, at what point do I start voting Conservative? The thought hasn't crossed my mind yet, so when?
I voted Tory even when I was a student, neither of us are the average voter!!
In the one general election held when I was a student I also voted Tory (the only time I voted Tory while living in Wales - otherwise I hovered between Lib Dem and Plaid plus a few independents).
I was planning to vote Liberal Democrat, having quite a respect for Mark Williams.
Then I met the Labour candidate, and concluded that the interests of democracy required he come fourth.
By then they will almost certainly own property themselves given the age of first property ownership is 39 and be starting to look to retirement
HYUFD I am telling you as a young person, it's not going to happen.
I own a flat, I hate the Tories for what they have done to us. You are finished.
Not many young people own a flat though
Yes because of our failure of economic policy.
Housing crash now, fuck the elderly.
Extend NI to all income. That would level things up a lot.
And then merge income tax and NI. We don't need multiple classes of income tax.
No restore NI to its original purpose, to fund only the state pension, contributory unemployment benefits and some healthcare on the social insurance model of most western nations
By then they will almost certainly own property themselves given the age of first property ownership is 39 and be starting to look to retirement
HYUFD I am telling you as a young person, it's not going to happen.
I own a flat, I hate the Tories for what they have done to us. You are finished.
Not many young people own a flat though
Yes because of our failure of economic policy.
Housing crash now, fuck the elderly.
Extend NI to all income. That would level things up a lot.
And then merge income tax and NI. We don't need multiple classes of income tax.
No restore NI to its original purpose, to fund only the state pension, contributory unemployment benefits and some healthcare on the social insurance model of most western nations
Sure, then lets cut the state pension, welfare and NHS to appropriate levels to be covered by NI. Works for me.
By then they will almost certainly own property themselves given the age of first property ownership is 39 and be starting to look to retirement
HYUFD I am telling you as a young person, it's not going to happen.
I own a flat, I hate the Tories for what they have done to us. You are finished.
Not many young people own a flat though
Yes because of our failure of economic policy.
Housing crash now, fuck the elderly.
Extend NI to all income. That would level things up a lot.
And then merge income tax and NI. We don't need multiple classes of income tax.
No restore NI to its original purpose, to fund only the state pension, contributory unemployment benefits and some healthcare on the social insurance model of most western nations
Sure, then lets cut the state pension, welfare and NHS to appropriate levels to be covered by NI. Works for me.
I'm sympathetic to those wanting pay increases in line with inflation. In particular, teaching ought to be a more highly valued profession. But:
- The only way for public sector workers to have more is for others to have less.
This is not how the economy works!
Paying teachers more will require tax rises or cuts elsewhere, that will other people poorer. That is the immediate effect.
Now you may say the case for teachers or some other public sector employees being paid more is worth the (most likely) tax rise or (less likely) cuts elsewhere. The teaching unions have to lay out a business plan for it just as I do when I make the case for members of my team getting pay rises. What additional responsibilities will they be taking on, what productivity gains can we expect from them and what will the end result be from the pay rises.
For nurses, the actual numbers are pretty easy to see, pay them a bit more, increase retention rates, increase training places due to better and more reliable staffing and ease the short term healthcare crunch and get the million "sick" back into work. That the government is unable to see this means they are still beholden to treasury groupthink. For teachers the case is much, much less clear cut. Teacher salaries in the UK are comparable to similar countries across Europe and there's not exactly a huge international market for teachers as there is for healthcare workers. There's also huge quality issues surrounding teaching and education in general, the sector seems to have decided bells and whistles like interactive whiteboards and touch screen tablets will make up for not actually teaching the kids very much, that may or may not be the fault of the DoE but that's where we're at.
But come on Max, you are the one who has been saying - with some justification - that we should be taxing the elderly more (or paying them less) to try and equalise the generational differences and to support working people more. This seems to me to be a damn good example of that.
But that's not what's going to happen, the cost of public sector pay rises and following pension costs will be lumped onto working age people and backloaded onto the young rather than the almost of retirement age.
Both the Tories and Labour seem incapable of standing up to my parents generation and calling them out for what they are, selfish and greedy. The next big clash will be intergenerational, one of the parties (my money is actually on the Tories, oddly) will decide to go all in on a new strategy within 5-7 years and start campaigning on how shit of a deal young people get, simply it's where the votes will be in the 2030s and 2040s.
No it won’t.
The average voter will still be 50 not 30 even in the 2030s or 2040s
And what age do you think someone who is 30-40 will be in the 2030s and 2040s?!
By then they will almost certainly own property themselves given the age of first property ownership is 39 and be starting to look to retirement
I have owned a property since I was 21 and have never voted Tory. I am 60 and currently own a big ****-off house in the Vale of Glamorgan, at what point do I start voting Conservative? The thought hasn't crossed my mind yet, so when?
I voted Tory even when I was a student, neither of us are the average voter!!
Like yourself I too have voted Plaid, but I have also voted Labour and LibDem depending upon which side the "anyone but the Tory" addressed.
By then they will almost certainly own property themselves given the age of first property ownership is 39 and be starting to look to retirement
HYUFD I am telling you as a young person, it's not going to happen.
I own a flat, I hate the Tories for what they have done to us. You are finished.
Yes but you hated the Tories even in 2019 when they won a landslide, so what?
I voted Tory in 2005 you doughnut
When the Tories lost, you didn't vote for them when they won, so again you are not a key swing voter
"Key swing voter" in that respect is unlikely to be of great significance at the next election. They will be seriously outnumbered by the rest of the wave, whose likely existence you're welcome to keep denying.
By then they will almost certainly own property themselves given the age of first property ownership is 39 and be starting to look to retirement
HYUFD I am telling you as a young person, it's not going to happen.
I own a flat, I hate the Tories for what they have done to us. You are finished.
Yes but you hated the Tories even in 2019 when they won a landslide, so what?
I voted Tory in 2005 you doughnut
When the Tories lost, you didn't vote for them when they won, so again you are not a key swing voter
"Key swing voter" in that respect is unlikely to be of great significance at the next election. They will be seriously outnumbered by the rest of the wave, whose likely existence you're welcome to keep denying.
No, Deltapoll has the Tories at 31% for example ie the same total as the true Tory core vote of 1997.
The lower rating in other polls is mainly leakage to RefUK or DK much of which will come back
Well, if in doubt your birth certificate should give a rough outline. Failing that, if you are fortunate enough to have a living parent, which I of course am not, they may recollect the date
Welcome all to politicalbetting.com HYUFD against the world.
I'm sometimes reminded of Paul Kruger when arguing with Hyufd. He was a flat earther (which curiously with one exception is a nineteenth-century idea, but that's another story) and on one occasion he got very agitated on meeting a sailor who had circumnavigated the globe. Kruger started shouting and raging 'No! you can't have done! The earth is flat! You must be lying.'
Of course, Hyufd doesn't generally accuse people of lying, just makes ever more abstruse and irrational statements to make us shut up and go home, but the principle seems much the same.
Welcome all to politicalbetting.com HYUFD against the world.
Well at least 25% to 31% of the electorate are voting Tory including me on the latest polls but nobody else on the thread at present I think so no surprise
Welcome all to politicalbetting.com HYUFD against the world.
Well at least 25% to 31% of the electorate are voting Tory including me on the latest polls but nobody else on the thread at present I think so no surprise
Doesn't it worry you just a little that intelligent, well-informed, politically engaged voters hate the Tories?
By then they will almost certainly own property themselves given the age of first property ownership is 39 and be starting to look to retirement
HYUFD I am telling you as a young person, it's not going to happen.
I own a flat, I hate the Tories for what they have done to us. You are finished.
Not many young people own a flat though
Yes because of our failure of economic policy.
Housing crash now, fuck the elderly.
Extend NI to all income. That would level things up a lot.
And then merge income tax and NI. We don't need multiple classes of income tax.
No restore NI to its original purpose, to fund only the state pension, contributory unemployment benefits and some healthcare on the social insurance model of most western nations
Sure, then lets cut the state pension, welfare and NHS to appropriate levels to be covered by NI. Works for me.
I think NI brings in about £60bn a year.
State pensions alone are almost twice that way £115bn.
I think @hyufd needs to be aware of what exactly he's proposing
I'm sympathetic to those wanting pay increases in line with inflation. In particular, teaching ought to be a more highly valued profession. But:
- The only way for public sector workers to have more is for others to have less.
This is not how the economy works!
Paying teachers more will require tax rises or cuts elsewhere, that will other people poorer. That is the immediate effect.
Now you may say the case for teachers or some other public sector employees being paid more is worth the (most likely) tax rise or (less likely) cuts elsewhere. The teaching unions have to lay out a business plan for it just as I do when I make the case for members of my team getting pay rises. What additional responsibilities will they be taking on, what productivity gains can we expect from them and what will the end result be from the pay rises.
For nurses, the actual numbers are pretty easy to see, pay them a bit more, increase retention rates, increase training places due to better and more reliable staffing and ease the short term healthcare crunch and get the million "sick" back into work. That the government is unable to see this means they are still beholden to treasury groupthink. For teachers the case is much, much less clear cut. Teacher salaries in the UK are comparable to similar countries across Europe and there's not exactly a huge international market for teachers as there is for healthcare workers. There's also huge quality issues surrounding teaching and education in general, the sector seems to have decided bells and whistles like interactive whiteboards and touch screen tablets will make up for not actually teaching the kids very much, that may or may not be the fault of the DoE but that's where we're at.
But come on Max, you are the one who has been saying - with some justification - that we should be taxing the elderly more (or paying them less) to try and equalise the generational differences and to support working people more. This seems to me to be a damn good example of that.
But that's not what's going to happen, the cost of public sector pay rises and following pension costs will be lumped onto working age people and backloaded onto the young rather than the almost of retirement age.
Both the Tories and Labour seem incapable of standing up to my parents generation and calling them out for what they are, selfish and greedy. The next big clash will be intergenerational, one of the parties (my money is actually on the Tories, oddly) will decide to go all in on a new strategy within 5-7 years and start campaigning on how shit of a deal young people get, simply it's where the votes will be in the 2030s and 2040s.
No it won’t.
The average voter will still be 50 not 30 even in the 2030s or 2040s
And what age do you think someone who is 30-40 will be in the 2030s and 2040s?!
By then they will almost certainly own property themselves given the age of first property ownership is 39 and be starting to look to retirement
I have owned a property since I was 21 and have never voted Tory. I am 60 and currently own a big ****-off house in the Vale of Glamorgan, at what point do I start voting Conservative? The thought hasn't crossed my mind yet, so when?
One morning, as you singing the Red Flag, you fail to finish…
That’s the start. Before you can say “@SeanT on drugs” you will be a slum landlord, eating the poor roasted and voting Tory.
In response to the MP who’s constituency has the women’s prison and had nothing to say about convicted male rapists being housed there, now saying opponents should quit the party:
Self identification was not promised in the SNP manifesto & our conference did not debate never mind back it. We rebels are going nowhere particularly now that events have substantiated our legitimate concerns. I hope that’s clear.
Comments
If only Remainers had been magnanimous in defeat, eh?
It's a disease. ~AA
https://twitter.com/BestForBritain/status/1620430274663440385?s=20&t=-RfImDb8Z_JytkDEUJ5lfw
Moves on: nor all thy Piety nor Wit shall lure it back to cancel half a Line,
Nor all thy Tears wash out a Word of it."
Stop crying.
Football: tiny bit green for Serie A, better for Ligue 1 and the Premier League but La Liga was so dreadful I ended up red for the last month and a bit by about one stake. Irked, but still green overall for the year.
Two tips for Ligue 1: https://enormo-haddock.blogspot.com/2023/01/la-liga-and-ligue-1-31-january-2023.html
Essentially, laid Lille at home at 1.56 and backed over 2.5 goals at 1.91 in Rennes vs Strasbourg. That goal target has been struck in 80% of the home side's matches (at home) this year, and the away side have a good away scoring record.
✍️ Isabel Hardman https://www.spectator.co.uk/article/are-tory-mps-resigned-to-defeat/
Applebaum has been pretty good at reporting their democratically dubious behaviour.
https://twitter.com/anneapplebaum/status/1620434094797778944
Just as in 1990s Russia, the Polish ruling party is now transferring massive amounts of state wealth into "private" foundations run by their supporters. Naturally that money will be used to keep the Party in power (and maintain the lifestyle of its members) in return
@IsabelOakeshott
Without any apparent irony, the Tories claim they’re “seizing the opportunities of Brexit.” Literally nobody believes that. What they’re actually doing is systematically squandering the opportunities. People need to see and feel some benefit, not listen to empty boasts!
Oh, wait...
Had our politicians been different, they might not have left. It reminds me of the Boston tea party. The colonialists had a grievance but we ignored it. Never mind, they'll repent in time. As long as they pay off the outstanding tea taxes, we'll let them return.
Biden says new Baltimore train tunnel will improve service, create jobs
https://www.thebaltimorebanner.com/politics-power/national-politics/president-joe-biden-to-mark-start-of-tunnel-renovation-in-baltimore-DCZPJHV5JFCTDEPN4ORXTI5HCA/
...At 150 years old, the Baltimore and Potomac Tunnel is the oldest of its kind operated by Amtrak. It’s slated for replacement, which is funded by the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law pushed through Congress by Democrats in November of 2021...
No she's not, she's done
The last thread was boring enough except for some BS about schools.
Sounds like a bit of a contradiction there!
No intention of replaying it again.
My kind of guy.
Although even more @Sunil_Prasannan 's kind of guy...
And it did get the odd GOP vote:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Infrastructure_Investment_and_Jobs_Act
LAB: 447 (+245) - 48.6%
CON: 109 (-256) - 26.8%
SNP: 43 (-5) - 3.9%
LDM: 27 (+16) - 8.6%
PLC: 4 (=) - 0.6%
GRN: 1 (=) - 4.8%
RFM: 0 (=) - 5.4%
Others: 0 (=) - 1.3%
LAB Majority of 244.
Changes w/ GE2019.
electionmaps.uk/nowcast
An almighty swing would be required to undo this.
Going back to the question I had before, every classroom now seems to have a teacher and a TA, this means there has been a huge net drop in classroom productivity in the 20 or so years since I left school. There are now two people doing the job that one person used to do even if class sizes have increased from 20 to 30 or 25 to 35 or 30 to 40, that's a massive net drop in productivity in the education sector.
As I said, it's up to the teaching unions to make the business case for teacher salaries to rise, they haven't made a convincing one yet and I'm sure there is one out there which revolves around attracting the best candidates for teaching young people and allowing good schools to expand and the expense of shit ones etc...
Scrap tuition fees, tax cuts, that will be the offer. Elephant in the room is the EU
No tuition fees was sustainable in the 1970s when 10% went to university, not now 40% go
(2) That is simply not true. Having taught for ten years I had three classes with a TA in them, in all cases to deal with students who had complex disabilities. All of them, in the timeframe you mention, would not have been in mainstream schools but in specialist disability schools - which were all shut in the interests of economy. In other cases, as @dixiedean has been explaining, the issue is not having TAs where we should have them. This is nothing to do with productivity and everything to do with stupid policy.
The case is that we can’t attract and retain teachers. If your department is understaffed because you can’t hire decent staff, do you automatically blame your staff? If so you’re (a) a bad manager and (b) missed your vocation as a civil servant. But somehow I don’t think you do.
As it happens I’m inclined to think from my own experience including as a union rep that workload is a bigger problem than salary. But that will never be addressed because that would mean the DfE admitting how badly they have mismanaged things. So pay is the only way left to go.
Edit - re your last point, what do you think Freedman’s academy chains were? But they have been at best an expensive and disruptive fiasco.
I own a flat, I hate the Tories for what they have done to us. You are finished.
And they are paid about half as much as a teacher.
You also have to account for the movement of a large number of SEN children from specialist schools into the mainstream system, as a factor in the large growth in TA numbers.
You could have classes of 50 pupils to one teacher, and on your basis a huge increase in teacher productivity, but the quality of teaching would surely suffer, and even if the 50 children still received their quota of x years of education, they'd surely be less well educated at the end of the process.
A lot of countries with better education outcomes than the UK have much smaller class sizes (e.g. Netherlands, Scandinavia) - and so on the face of it, much lower Education productivity - but perhaps they are concentrating on the right things, rather than on industrial style productivity metrics.
Anecdotally, ever teacher I know of that left the profession early did so because of the workload/bullshit issues rather than pay. FWIW.
Maghreb. The flip side being they’d have ended up erecting a huge fence across the Sahara, like the US-Mexico border. And the Western Sahara issue would have to be solved.
Housing crash now, fuck the elderly.
Mind you, one who keeps rearing his head here on his own admission did hardly any work for thirty years before that!
Alyn Smith, the MP for Stirling, said party colleagues were “obliged to defend the SNP position” on any proposal in the manifesto upon which they were elected.
https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/snps-gender-bill-rebels-should-quit-party-says-alyn-smith-7zfllbsgf
90% of pensioners never even went to university
I was planning to vote Liberal Democrat, having quite a respect for Mark Williams.
Then I met the Labour candidate, and concluded that the interests of democracy required he come fourth.
To be a key swing voter you would have to have voted Labour from 1997 to 2005 and Tory from 2010 to 2019 and probably now be voting Labour again
Hatred is by definition irrational and it makes people do irrational things. Like voting for a party led by Jeremy Corbyn.
They will be seriously outnumbered by the rest of the wave, whose likely existence you're welcome to keep denying.
The lower rating in other polls is mainly leakage to RefUK or DK much of which will come back
Of course, Hyufd doesn't generally accuse people of lying, just makes ever more abstruse and irrational statements to make us shut up and go home, but the principle seems much the same.
State pensions alone are almost twice that way £115bn.
I think @hyufd needs to be aware of what exactly he's proposing
That’s the start. Before you can say “@SeanT on drugs” you will be a slum landlord, eating the poor roasted and voting Tory.
Self identification was not promised in the SNP manifesto & our conference did not debate never mind back it. We rebels are going nowhere particularly now that events have substantiated our legitimate concerns. I hope that’s clear.
https://twitter.com/joannaccherry/status/1620448185553387522