Elitist snob that I am, I'm not the only one who would prefer his doctors to have degrees?
NHS scheme will allow school leavers to train as doctors without traditional medical degree
New apprenticeships would put people on wards straight after their A-levels, instead of paying pricey fees for five years at university
School leavers will be able to start working as doctors without going to university, under new NHS plans to fix the growing staff crisis.
The apprenticeship scheme could allow one in 10 doctors to start work without a traditional medical degree, straight after their A-levels. A third of nurses are also expected to be trained under the "radical new approach".
It is the centrepiece of a long-delayed NHS workforce strategy, following warnings that staff shortages in England could reach half a million without action to find new ways to train and recruit health workers.
This is right back to the old days of apothecaries and 'surgeons' learning on the job as apprentices. Formal training optional. Uni only if you wanted to be posh and gentlemanly and cater for a posh clientele. 180 years ago?
It is not necessary to go quite that far back. Even in the first part of the 20th century, most doctors did not have medical degrees. I'm not sure it is necessary even now. You went to medical school and at the end you passed the exams and became a doctor, but the exams might be degree exams set by the university, or they might be set by the Royal Colleges or other bodies. Many took both as a belt-and-braces approach. If you think back to your childhood GPs, they might have been Dr Smith-Jones MBBS MRCS LRCP or LMSSA. The training was the same, it was just the exams.
I'm pretty supportive of anyone bypassing university. Learning stuff is important. But university is rarely the optimum way to do it.
For most graduates, university is a faux finishing school. The number of vocational degrees is really quite small, and even fewer if we do not count those who go on to do something else.
@MrHarryCole Non-exhaustive list of people who appear to have said no to being Tory candidate for London Mayor, so far:
Iain Dale Osborne Vaizey Tom Tugs Nick Candy Karen Bradey
Hinting:
Rob Rinder Dan Korski Shaun Bailey Nick Rogers Paul Scully
Running:
Samuel Kasumu Andrew Boff
That's gonna be one hell of a tough gig. Why would anyone want to face certain defeat in 2024 when 2028 could be a lot more attractive for Con?
Because everyone else has said they won't do it. A 10% chance of victory against Sadiq * a 50% chance against the other Tory = 5%. A 40% chance in 2028 * a 10% chance against the other interested Tories = 4%. Figures are plucked out of my hat. But you get the idea.
Elitist snob that I am, I'm not the only one who would prefer his doctors to have degrees?
NHS scheme will allow school leavers to train as doctors without traditional medical degree
New apprenticeships would put people on wards straight after their A-levels, instead of paying pricey fees for five years at university
School leavers will be able to start working as doctors without going to university, under new NHS plans to fix the growing staff crisis.
The apprenticeship scheme could allow one in 10 doctors to start work without a traditional medical degree, straight after their A-levels. A third of nurses are also expected to be trained under the "radical new approach".
It is the centrepiece of a long-delayed NHS workforce strategy, following warnings that staff shortages in England could reach half a million without action to find new ways to train and recruit health workers.
Downgrading the prestige of doctors is an odd way of addressing a problem caused by doctors leaving the country because they have higher prestige in other countries.
We'll end up with a completely inverted hierarchy in the NHS:managers at the top, all with economics degrees and MBAs, nurses in the middle, all with advanced degrees in sociology or psychology, and doctors at the bottom, only necessary to meet the targets and treated as a mild inconvenience.
Elitist snob that I am, I'm not the only one who would prefer his doctors to have degrees?
NHS scheme will allow school leavers to train as doctors without traditional medical degree
New apprenticeships would put people on wards straight after their A-levels, instead of paying pricey fees for five years at university
School leavers will be able to start working as doctors without going to university, under new NHS plans to fix the growing staff crisis.
The apprenticeship scheme could allow one in 10 doctors to start work without a traditional medical degree, straight after their A-levels. A third of nurses are also expected to be trained under the "radical new approach".
It is the centrepiece of a long-delayed NHS workforce strategy, following warnings that staff shortages in England could reach half a million without action to find new ways to train and recruit health workers.
This is right back to the old days of apothecaries and 'surgeons' learning on the job as apprentices. Formal training optional. Uni only if you wanted to be posh and gentlemanly and cater for a posh clientele. 180 years ago?
180 years ago the status of a surgeon (largely required for hacking off limbs with saws - hence the title "sawbones") was very much more humble than a physician, where the main role of the latter was to diagnose and to advise treatment, such as leaches. At some point in the last 100 years or so, when surgery became more complex, the comparative status largely reversed where surgeons were consider the more prestigious end of the medical profession. It is because of this distinction within the profession that in the UK and Ireland surgeons are still referred to as "Mr" rather than "Dr"
This is a peculiarity (IIRC) of the UK and Ireland medical profession. Elsewhere in the world surgeons are all called the honorific "Dr". It causes great confusion to people visiting UK hospitals from overseas.
I do remember reading a few years ago in a book on the history of medicine that there was a year in the mid 1920s that was quite momentous in terms of public health. It was the first time in the UK that statistically someone who was ill or injured had more chance of surviving if they saw a doctor than if they didn't. Whilst I understand that crossover had to happen sometime I was amazed that it was so recent in history - only a century ago or so. I would love to find it again.
@MrHarryCole Non-exhaustive list of people who appear to have said no to being Tory candidate for London Mayor, so far:
Iain Dale Osborne Vaizey Tom Tugs Nick Candy Karen Bradey
Hinting:
Rob Rinder Dan Korski Shaun Bailey Nick Rogers Paul Scully
Running:
Samuel Kasumu Andrew Boff
Shaun Bailey is often seen as a bit of a figure of fun/joke candidate, but getting 45% of the run-off in a Labour city is a pretty strong achievement. The Tories could do worse than have him as a candidate again.
Elitist snob that I am, I'm not the only one who would prefer his doctors to have degrees?
NHS scheme will allow school leavers to train as doctors without traditional medical degree
New apprenticeships would put people on wards straight after their A-levels, instead of paying pricey fees for five years at university
School leavers will be able to start working as doctors without going to university, under new NHS plans to fix the growing staff crisis.
The apprenticeship scheme could allow one in 10 doctors to start work without a traditional medical degree, straight after their A-levels. A third of nurses are also expected to be trained under the "radical new approach".
It is the centrepiece of a long-delayed NHS workforce strategy, following warnings that staff shortages in England could reach half a million without action to find new ways to train and recruit health workers.
This is right back to the old days of apothecaries and 'surgeons' learning on the job as apprentices. Formal training optional. Uni only if you wanted to be posh and gentlemanly and cater for a posh clientele. 180 years ago?
It is not necessary to go quite that far back. Even in the first part of the 20th century, most doctors did not have medical degrees. I'm not sure it is necessary even now. You went to medical school and at the end you passed the exams and became a doctor, but the exams might be degree exams set by the university, or they might be set by the Royal Colleges or other bodies. Many took both as a belt-and-braces approach. If you think back to your childhood GPs, they might have been Dr Smith-Jones MBBS MRCS LRCP or LMSSA. The training was the same, it was just the exams.
I'm pretty supportive of anyone bypassing university. Learning stuff is important. But university is rarely the optimum way to do it.
For most graduates, university is a faux finishing school. The number of vocational degrees is really quite small, and even fewer if we do not count those who go on to do something else.
Vocational degrees belong in polytechnics, not universities.
Universities are there to help people develop their thinking skills, on a range of subjects. And to express their thoughts clearly. Not finishing schools at all.
Elitist snob that I am, I'm not the only one who would prefer his doctors to have degrees?
NHS scheme will allow school leavers to train as doctors without traditional medical degree
New apprenticeships would put people on wards straight after their A-levels, instead of paying pricey fees for five years at university
School leavers will be able to start working as doctors without going to university, under new NHS plans to fix the growing staff crisis.
The apprenticeship scheme could allow one in 10 doctors to start work without a traditional medical degree, straight after their A-levels. A third of nurses are also expected to be trained under the "radical new approach".
It is the centrepiece of a long-delayed NHS workforce strategy, following warnings that staff shortages in England could reach half a million without action to find new ways to train and recruit health workers.
This is right back to the old days of apothecaries and 'surgeons' learning on the job as apprentices. Formal training optional. Uni only if you wanted to be posh and gentlemanly and cater for a posh clientele. 180 years ago?
180 years ago the status of a surgeon (largely required for hacking off limbs with saws - hence the title "sawbones") was very much more humble than a physician, where the main role of the latter was to diagnose and to advise treatment, such as leaches. At some point in the last 100 years or so, when surgery became more complex, the comparative status largely reversed where surgeons were consider the more prestigious end of the medical profession. It is because of this distinction within the profession that in the UK and Ireland surgeons are still referred to as "Mr" rather than "Dr"
This is a peculiarity (IIRC) of the UK and Ireland medical profession. Elsewhere in the world surgeons are all called the honorific "Dr". It causes great confusion to people visiting UK hospitals from overseas.
I do remember reading a few years ago in a book on the history of medicine that there was a year in the mid 1920s that was quite momentous in terms of public health. It was the first time in the UK that statistically someone who was ill or injured had more chance of surviving if they saw a doctor than if they didn't. Whilst I understand that crossover had to happen sometime I was amazed that it was so recent in history - only a century ago or so. I would love to find it again.
Please do post if you rediscover the source. (I presume we all think that it's wrong, but perhaps not by much)
"without falling prey for various rape myths which juries are said to be prone to. The evidence for these myths affecting jurors is a pilot based on mock trials (not real ones)."
I am not a lawyer (tm). AIUI in England (and I presume Scotland, though not the US?), jurors cannot be questioned about *why* they decided one way or the other. Is this correct, and if so, what alternative is there to mock trials when you want to try to understand *why* juries vote the way they do?
(Apols if my understanding is incorrect.)
I cannot find the reference, but I read somewhere that in the past, Judges were allowed to ask the Jury their reasoning, and send them back in to deliberate again, with additional instructions. The case cited was from 1697 though...
Was that before or after the Penn case that established the sanctity Jury decisions?
Elitist snob that I am, I'm not the only one who would prefer his doctors to have degrees?
NHS scheme will allow school leavers to train as doctors without traditional medical degree
New apprenticeships would put people on wards straight after their A-levels, instead of paying pricey fees for five years at university
School leavers will be able to start working as doctors without going to university, under new NHS plans to fix the growing staff crisis.
The apprenticeship scheme could allow one in 10 doctors to start work without a traditional medical degree, straight after their A-levels. A third of nurses are also expected to be trained under the "radical new approach".
It is the centrepiece of a long-delayed NHS workforce strategy, following warnings that staff shortages in England could reach half a million without action to find new ways to train and recruit health workers.
This is right back to the old days of apothecaries and 'surgeons' learning on the job as apprentices. Formal training optional. Uni only if you wanted to be posh and gentlemanly and cater for a posh clientele. 180 years ago?
It is not necessary to go quite that far back. Even in the first part of the 20th century, most doctors did not have medical degrees. I'm not sure it is necessary even now. You went to medical school and at the end you passed the exams and became a doctor, but the exams might be degree exams set by the university, or they might be set by the Royal Colleges or other bodies. Many took both as a belt-and-braces approach. If you think back to your childhood GPs, they might have been Dr Smith-Jones MBBS MRCS LRCP or LMSSA. The training was the same, it was just the exams.
I'm pretty supportive of anyone bypassing university. Learning stuff is important. But university is rarely the optimum way to do it.
Agreed. A lot about the way we educate our youngsters is, when you step back and look at it, a bit odd.
Elitist snob that I am, I'm not the only one who would prefer his doctors to have degrees?
NHS scheme will allow school leavers to train as doctors without traditional medical degree
New apprenticeships would put people on wards straight after their A-levels, instead of paying pricey fees for five years at university
School leavers will be able to start working as doctors without going to university, under new NHS plans to fix the growing staff crisis.
The apprenticeship scheme could allow one in 10 doctors to start work without a traditional medical degree, straight after their A-levels. A third of nurses are also expected to be trained under the "radical new approach".
It is the centrepiece of a long-delayed NHS workforce strategy, following warnings that staff shortages in England could reach half a million without action to find new ways to train and recruit health workers.
This is right back to the old days of apothecaries and 'surgeons' learning on the job as apprentices. Formal training optional. Uni only if you wanted to be posh and gentlemanly and cater for a posh clientele. 180 years ago?
It is not necessary to go quite that far back. Even in the first part of the 20th century, most doctors did not have medical degrees. I'm not sure it is necessary even now. You went to medical school and at the end you passed the exams and became a doctor, but the exams might be degree exams set by the university, or they might be set by the Royal Colleges or other bodies. Many took both as a belt-and-braces approach. If you think back to your childhood GPs, they might have been Dr Smith-Jones MBBS MRCS LRCP or LMSSA. The training was the same, it was just the exams.
I'm pretty supportive of anyone bypassing university. Learning stuff is important. But university is rarely the optimum way to do it.
For most graduates, university is a faux finishing school. The number of vocational degrees is really quite small, and even fewer if we do not count those who go on to do something else.
Vocational degrees belong in polytechnics, not universities.
Universities are there to help people develop their thinking skills, on a range of subjects. And to express their thoughts cleaarly. Not finishing schools at all.
Like Michael Gove, I believe education should be valued for its own sake. But for most, finishing schools are a good metaphor.
Embattled US Rep George Santos arrested on fraud, money laundering charges reut.rs/3pnYQDL
I've somehow missed this story - utterly bizarre. The Republicans have always had their share of kooks, but how does a guy like this get through even minimal vetting?
Elitist snob that I am, I'm not the only one who would prefer his doctors to have degrees?
NHS scheme will allow school leavers to train as doctors without traditional medical degree
New apprenticeships would put people on wards straight after their A-levels, instead of paying pricey fees for five years at university
School leavers will be able to start working as doctors without going to university, under new NHS plans to fix the growing staff crisis.
The apprenticeship scheme could allow one in 10 doctors to start work without a traditional medical degree, straight after their A-levels. A third of nurses are also expected to be trained under the "radical new approach".
It is the centrepiece of a long-delayed NHS workforce strategy, following warnings that staff shortages in England could reach half a million without action to find new ways to train and recruit health workers.
This is right back to the old days of apothecaries and 'surgeons' learning on the job as apprentices. Formal training optional. Uni only if you wanted to be posh and gentlemanly and cater for a posh clientele. 180 years ago?
It is not necessary to go quite that far back. Even in the first part of the 20th century, most doctors did not have medical degrees. I'm not sure it is necessary even now. You went to medical school and at the end you passed the exams and became a doctor, but the exams might be degree exams set by the university, or they might be set by the Royal Colleges or other bodies. Many took both as a belt-and-braces approach. If you think back to your childhood GPs, they might have been Dr Smith-Jones MBBS MRCS LRCP or LMSSA. The training was the same, it was just the exams.
I'm pretty supportive of anyone bypassing university. Learning stuff is important. But university is rarely the optimum way to do it.
Agreed. A lot about the way we educate our youngsters is, when you step back and look at it, a bit odd.
Elitist snob that I am, I'm not the only one who would prefer his doctors to have degrees?
NHS scheme will allow school leavers to train as doctors without traditional medical degree
New apprenticeships would put people on wards straight after their A-levels, instead of paying pricey fees for five years at university
School leavers will be able to start working as doctors without going to university, under new NHS plans to fix the growing staff crisis.
The apprenticeship scheme could allow one in 10 doctors to start work without a traditional medical degree, straight after their A-levels. A third of nurses are also expected to be trained under the "radical new approach".
It is the centrepiece of a long-delayed NHS workforce strategy, following warnings that staff shortages in England could reach half a million without action to find new ways to train and recruit health workers.
Downgrading the prestige of doctors is an odd way of addressing a problem caused by doctors leaving the country because they have higher prestige in other countries.
We'll end up with a completely inverted hierarchy in the NHS:managers at the top, all with economics degrees and MBAs, nurses in the middle, all with advanced degrees in sociology or psychology, and doctors at the bottom, only necessary to meet the targets and treated as a mild inconvenience.
It is different to that. Via this scheme Apprentices will have to pass the same exams to the same standard. It is am alternative pathway rather than an easier one. Indeed in many ways harder, as days will be spent on ward or GP work rather than formal teaching.
We do have a lot of Nurse apprenticeships that train this way, converting Health Care Assistants to Registered Nurses.
Blair wanted to get rid of juries for big fraud trials. I remember him using the word "nobbled" in the House of Commons and for some reason it made me laugh.
I can see the arguments for getting rid of juries for fraud trials, some of them take ages (some have taken two years) and it is unrealistic to expect jurors to give up their time for so long.
Then there's the complexity angle.
I've often wondered about Juries for particularly distressing crimes. Eg the one recently where the baby boy was ... well it's hard to even think about ... that one. Cases like this must take a terrible toll on the 12 members of the public charged with immersing themselves in it.
Imagine being a judge who tries criminal cases, and probably has to deal with a score of utterly revolting and depraved cases during his or her career.
On the subject of conventional wisdom based on dodgy evidence, interesting piece on the questionable causational link between cannabis use and schizophrenia.
Rape convictions are too low. But this is not because of the existence of juries. It is because the investigations are poor and the delays before trial too long.
Cyclefree's view, from the article. This may be true, but it may also be true that conviction rates are low because of the standard of proof required in cases where independent evidence is often lacking. These difficulties are inherent in cases where there was some sort of relationship subsisting between the parties; and, I suspect, juries also tend to think that sentencing for rape starts too high for cases where the evidence is between two people who have had involvement together and where at best both have not acted especially wisely.
I too thought conviction rates in rape trials were much lower than for other serious crimes of violence but the data linked above (Nigel's post) seems to contradict this.
Conviction rates in rape trials are notably high
The supposed scandal is the number of ALLEGATIONS that never make court. But until they reach court, they are merely that: allegations
Yes. But it is a problem that so few get to court. Only way that's not a problem is if one believes women lie about it not every so often but habitually.
"without falling prey for various rape myths which juries are said to be prone to. The evidence for these myths affecting jurors is a pilot based on mock trials (not real ones)."
I am not a lawyer (tm). AIUI in England (and I presume Scotland, though not the US?), jurors cannot be questioned about *why* they decided one way or the other. Is this correct, and if so, what alternative is there to mock trials when you want to try to understand *why* juries vote the way they do?
(Apols if my understanding is incorrect.)
The idea of verdicts requiring an explanation is an interesting one. We've all at some point reacted to the verdict in a trial we've been following with "Wow. What on earth were the jury thinking?" Usually we never find out.
It's fruitless to think that unless you've been in court and heard all the evidence yourself. Juries may get it wrong sometimes, but not half as much as someone who's just read the headline and half a paragraph in some fucking tabloid and thinks they know exactly what happened.
I generally agree your point and avoid second guessing Juries but sometimes there's one comes along that truly, objectively, is bizarre. OJ for maybe the most obvious example.
I actually had a conversation about this last night. The issue is that the courts insisted that they pick jurors who (a) hadn’t seen OJ trying to escape from the police / the bronco chase ; and (b) didn’t know who OJ was.
The result was you ended up with a jury of brain dead isolated morons who could barely string a sentence together
Elitist snob that I am, I'm not the only one who would prefer his doctors to have degrees?
NHS scheme will allow school leavers to train as doctors without traditional medical degree
New apprenticeships would put people on wards straight after their A-levels, instead of paying pricey fees for five years at university
School leavers will be able to start working as doctors without going to university, under new NHS plans to fix the growing staff crisis.
The apprenticeship scheme could allow one in 10 doctors to start work without a traditional medical degree, straight after their A-levels. A third of nurses are also expected to be trained under the "radical new approach".
It is the centrepiece of a long-delayed NHS workforce strategy, following warnings that staff shortages in England could reach half a million without action to find new ways to train and recruit health workers.
Downgrading the prestige of doctors is an odd way of addressing a problem caused by doctors leaving the country because they have higher prestige in other countries.
We'll end up with a completely inverted hierarchy in the NHS:managers at the top, all with economics degrees and MBAs, nurses in the middle, all with advanced degrees in sociology or psychology, and doctors at the bottom, only necessary to meet the targets and treated as a mild inconvenience.
It is different to that. Via this scheme Apprentices will have to pass the same exams to the same standard. It is am alternative pathway rather than an easier one. Indeed in many ways harder, as days will be spent on ward or GP work rather than formal teaching.
We do have a lot of Nurse apprenticeships that train this way, converting Health Care Assistants to Registered Nurses.
Tried to explain this upthread but PB bloviators just want to bloviate.
Embattled US Rep George Santos arrested on fraud, money laundering charges reut.rs/3pnYQDL
I've somehow missed this story - utterly bizarre. The Republicans have always had their share of kooks, but how does a guy like this get through even minimal vetting?
If Trump is your President, how can you vet someone for not telling the truth...
"without falling prey for various rape myths which juries are said to be prone to. The evidence for these myths affecting jurors is a pilot based on mock trials (not real ones)."
I am not a lawyer (tm). AIUI in England (and I presume Scotland, though not the US?), jurors cannot be questioned about *why* they decided one way or the other. Is this correct, and if so, what alternative is there to mock trials when you want to try to understand *why* juries vote the way they do?
(Apols if my understanding is incorrect.)
The idea of verdicts requiring an explanation is an interesting one. We've all at some point reacted to the verdict in a trial we've been following with "Wow. What on earth were the jury thinking?" Usually we never find out.
It's fruitless to think that unless you've been in court and heard all the evidence yourself. Juries may get it wrong sometimes, but not half as much as someone who's just read the headline and half a paragraph in some fucking tabloid and thinks they know exactly what happened.
I generally agree your point and avoid second guessing Juries but sometimes there's one comes along that truly, objectively, is bizarre. OJ for maybe the most obvious example.
I actually had a conversation about this last night. The issue is that the courts insisted that they pick jurors who (a) hadn’t seen OJ trying to escape from the police / the bronco chase ; and (b) didn’t know who OJ was.
The result was you ended up with a jury of brain dead isolated morons who could barely string a sentence together
There's an element of that in the jury selection for the recent Trump case. Though it's notable that one juror got his news almost entirely from a right wing blogger.
Yeah - quoting the Independent! (I so miss that newspaper of the 80s/90s - whatever it is now is worthless)
I dunno - doing the puzzles and crossword in the i is part of my daily routine.
There's a nice bit in the (excellent) Film Four adaptation of David Peace's 1974 where the editor of the local newspaper slaps down the ambitious young investigative reporter Andrew Garfield by reminding him that most men who buy their paper do so for the spot-the-ball competition, not for complex exposees of corruption in the council.
Elitist snob that I am, I'm not the only one who would prefer his doctors to have degrees?
NHS scheme will allow school leavers to train as doctors without traditional medical degree
New apprenticeships would put people on wards straight after their A-levels, instead of paying pricey fees for five years at university
School leavers will be able to start working as doctors without going to university, under new NHS plans to fix the growing staff crisis.
The apprenticeship scheme could allow one in 10 doctors to start work without a traditional medical degree, straight after their A-levels. A third of nurses are also expected to be trained under the "radical new approach".
It is the centrepiece of a long-delayed NHS workforce strategy, following warnings that staff shortages in England could reach half a million without action to find new ways to train and recruit health workers.
Utterly misleading. Degree apprenticeships are based around clinical training in addition to university based scholarship, and will usually take longer to achieve the qualifications. They will not be acting as doctors straight from A levels, anymore than a medical student is during experiential clinical placements.
Not so misleading. Apprenticeship doctors may eventually be as well qualified as those going through the traditional route but the key difference is that they will be unleashed on patients from day 1 while most doctors have to go through the training first. Which may or may not be a good idea, but it's definitely a big difference.
Embattled US Rep George Santos arrested on fraud, money laundering charges reut.rs/3pnYQDL
I've somehow missed this story - utterly bizarre. The Republicans have always had their share of kooks, but how does a guy like this get through even minimal vetting?
I'd love to see a betting market offering odds on Santos and Trump sharing a cell in the next few years.
Elitist snob that I am, I'm not the only one who would prefer his doctors to have degrees?
NHS scheme will allow school leavers to train as doctors without traditional medical degree
New apprenticeships would put people on wards straight after their A-levels, instead of paying pricey fees for five years at university
School leavers will be able to start working as doctors without going to university, under new NHS plans to fix the growing staff crisis.
The apprenticeship scheme could allow one in 10 doctors to start work without a traditional medical degree, straight after their A-levels. A third of nurses are also expected to be trained under the "radical new approach".
It is the centrepiece of a long-delayed NHS workforce strategy, following warnings that staff shortages in England could reach half a million without action to find new ways to train and recruit health workers.
For life experience, you mean, or because unis will train them better technically? Not sure the latter has to apply. Eg if you have top A levels and then combine work experience with study in some non-uni setting I can see that this might produce good doctors?
There is something to be said for seeing how folk interact at an early stage - benefits both sides before they go too far. Mrs C did quite a bit of voluntary work with old folk when considering what university degree to go for. She went into another field, but to this day has much more sympathy and understanding with the old than many of us do.
But there are other ways to achieve that specific aim.
Maybe a plus for the idea is it might help more young people from poorer non-professional backgrounds into medicine? Those who are clever enough but are put off uni by the cost of it and the debt you have to take on.
Agreed. If it is good enough for lawyers and accountants it is good enough for the medical profession. The idea that you need to be some kind of academic genius to be a doctor is ridiculous.
Although you can't do that route into chartered accountancy now. You need a degree. Still that's chartered accountancy. Medicine and law are slightly more forgiving than chartered accountancy. What isn't let's be honest.
Elitist snob that I am, I'm not the only one who would prefer his doctors to have degrees?
NHS scheme will allow school leavers to train as doctors without traditional medical degree
New apprenticeships would put people on wards straight after their A-levels, instead of paying pricey fees for five years at university
School leavers will be able to start working as doctors without going to university, under new NHS plans to fix the growing staff crisis.
The apprenticeship scheme could allow one in 10 doctors to start work without a traditional medical degree, straight after their A-levels. A third of nurses are also expected to be trained under the "radical new approach".
It is the centrepiece of a long-delayed NHS workforce strategy, following warnings that staff shortages in England could reach half a million without action to find new ways to train and recruit health workers.
Downgrading the prestige of doctors is an odd way of addressing a problem caused by doctors leaving the country because they have higher prestige in other countries.
We'll end up with a completely inverted hierarchy in the NHS:managers at the top, all with economics degrees and MBAs, nurses in the middle, all with advanced degrees in sociology or psychology, and doctors at the bottom, only necessary to meet the targets and treated as a mild inconvenience.
It is different to that. Via this scheme Apprentices will have to pass the same exams to the same standard. It is am alternative pathway rather than an easier one. Indeed in many ways harder, as days will be spent on ward or GP work rather than formal teaching.
We do have a lot of Nurse apprenticeships that train this way, converting Health Care Assistants to Registered Nurses.
A better question might have been to ask why medical degrees take five years, when the same medical schools offer 4-year degrees for graduate entrants. Knocking 20 per cent off the cost in time and money might have been a better approach than this untested line.
Elitist snob that I am, I'm not the only one who would prefer his doctors to have degrees?
NHS scheme will allow school leavers to train as doctors without traditional medical degree
New apprenticeships would put people on wards straight after their A-levels, instead of paying pricey fees for five years at university
School leavers will be able to start working as doctors without going to university, under new NHS plans to fix the growing staff crisis.
The apprenticeship scheme could allow one in 10 doctors to start work without a traditional medical degree, straight after their A-levels. A third of nurses are also expected to be trained under the "radical new approach".
It is the centrepiece of a long-delayed NHS workforce strategy, following warnings that staff shortages in England could reach half a million without action to find new ways to train and recruit health workers.
For life experience, you mean, or because unis will train them better technically? Not sure the latter has to apply. Eg if you have top A levels and then combine work experience with study in some non-uni setting I can see that this might produce good doctors?
There is something to be said for seeing how folk interact at an early stage - benefits both sides before they go too far. Mrs C did quite a bit of voluntary work with old folk when considering what university degree to go for. She went into another field, but to this day has much more sympathy and understanding with the old than many of us do.
But there are other ways to achieve that specific aim.
Maybe a plus for the idea is it might help more young people from poorer non-professional backgrounds into medicine? Those who are clever enough but are put off uni by the cost of it and the debt you have to take on.
Working class kids were hardly teeming into medicine before the introduction of fees.
Item 1 in the header is a fascinating one - what's the justification for the proposal?
Item 2 I read about yesterday. It is as stated about increasing convictions, something most people would like to achieve somehow, but some means are not reasonable ways of doing it. Not being aware of Item 1 I was not aware of the additional implicit pressure to secure convictions, which is troubling indeed.
But I also come back on if the argument is accepted at face value that judge trials are better than juries for these sorts of issues, wouldn't they be better for every type of offence?
Item 3 is quite right that two wrongs do not make a right. It is very reminiscent of the rather startling revelations in the Henriques report that the police felt perfectly comfortabel reversing the burden of proof and expecting people to prove themselves innocent, and in fact continued to argue the point.
Item 4 also looks spot on.
As for the question of why people keep trying to bring back illiberal proposals - if they manage it is easier for them, and the public will often either support it or not care about it.
On the subject of conventional wisdom based on dodgy evidence, interesting piece on the questionable causational link between cannabis use and schizophrenia.
It’s very hard to get an honest debate about cannabis use. David Nutt was hounded out from his advisor role all those years ago for pointing out relative risks cf to other activities such as horse riding. A more mature society might think about whether legalising and ensuring quality of product for ALL drugs might not be the best way to minimise harms. As it is, my collaborator, who receives lots of drug samples for analysis, is constantly encountering extremely odd things, usually nothing like what they purport to be. My favourite recently is a sample of ‘skra’ that is actually a mix of ibuprofen and paracetamol… That one’s not dangerous, but many are. Many older folk have fond memories of weed. The modern incarnation is vastly stronger in THC content, and bears no relation to what Nicki Campbell and Tony Blair smoked in the 1970’s. Is this an issue? Hard to say because it’s really hard to do research in the current puritan environment.
Elitist snob that I am, I'm not the only one who would prefer his doctors to have degrees?
NHS scheme will allow school leavers to train as doctors without traditional medical degree
New apprenticeships would put people on wards straight after their A-levels, instead of paying pricey fees for five years at university
School leavers will be able to start working as doctors without going to university, under new NHS plans to fix the growing staff crisis.
The apprenticeship scheme could allow one in 10 doctors to start work without a traditional medical degree, straight after their A-levels. A third of nurses are also expected to be trained under the "radical new approach".
It is the centrepiece of a long-delayed NHS workforce strategy, following warnings that staff shortages in England could reach half a million without action to find new ways to train and recruit health workers.
For life experience, you mean, or because unis will train them better technically? Not sure the latter has to apply. Eg if you have top A levels and then combine work experience with study in some non-uni setting I can see that this might produce good doctors?
There is something to be said for seeing how folk interact at an early stage - benefits both sides before they go too far. Mrs C did quite a bit of voluntary work with old folk when considering what university degree to go for. She went into another field, but to this day has much more sympathy and understanding with the old than many of us do.
But there are other ways to achieve that specific aim.
Maybe a plus for the idea is it might help more young people from poorer non-professional backgrounds into medicine? Those who are clever enough but are put off uni by the cost of it and the debt you have to take on.
Working class kids were hardly teeming into medicine before the introduction of fees.
Or into any profession for that matter.
It's a tribute to the country that skin colour isn't a bar to getting into professional jobs, it is your social class.
Elitist snob that I am, I'm not the only one who would prefer his doctors to have degrees?
NHS scheme will allow school leavers to train as doctors without traditional medical degree
New apprenticeships would put people on wards straight after their A-levels, instead of paying pricey fees for five years at university
School leavers will be able to start working as doctors without going to university, under new NHS plans to fix the growing staff crisis.
The apprenticeship scheme could allow one in 10 doctors to start work without a traditional medical degree, straight after their A-levels. A third of nurses are also expected to be trained under the "radical new approach".
It is the centrepiece of a long-delayed NHS workforce strategy, following warnings that staff shortages in England could reach half a million without action to find new ways to train and recruit health workers.
For life experience, you mean, or because unis will train them better technically? Not sure the latter has to apply. Eg if you have top A levels and then combine work experience with study in some non-uni setting I can see that this might produce good doctors?
There is something to be said for seeing how folk interact at an early stage - benefits both sides before they go too far. Mrs C did quite a bit of voluntary work with old folk when considering what university degree to go for. She went into another field, but to this day has much more sympathy and understanding with the old than many of us do.
But there are other ways to achieve that specific aim.
Maybe a plus for the idea is it might help more young people from poorer non-professional backgrounds into medicine? Those who are clever enough but are put off uni by the cost of it and the debt you have to take on.
Agreed. If it is good enough for lawyers and accountants it is good enough for the medical profession. The idea that you need to be some kind of academic genius to be a doctor is ridiculous.
Although you can't do that route into chartered accountancy now. You need a degree. Still that's chartered accountancy. Medicine and law are slightly more forgiving than chartered accountancy. What isn't let's be honest.
Ah, forgive my mistake. I thought accountancy now allows apprenticeships. I guess the requirement for a degree does mean the poor things have three years of fun before embarking on a career of mind bending boredom?
Elitist snob that I am, I'm not the only one who would prefer his doctors to have degrees?
NHS scheme will allow school leavers to train as doctors without traditional medical degree
New apprenticeships would put people on wards straight after their A-levels, instead of paying pricey fees for five years at university
School leavers will be able to start working as doctors without going to university, under new NHS plans to fix the growing staff crisis.
The apprenticeship scheme could allow one in 10 doctors to start work without a traditional medical degree, straight after their A-levels. A third of nurses are also expected to be trained under the "radical new approach".
It is the centrepiece of a long-delayed NHS workforce strategy, following warnings that staff shortages in England could reach half a million without action to find new ways to train and recruit health workers.
Utterly misleading. Degree apprenticeships are based around clinical training in addition to university based scholarship, and will usually take longer to achieve the qualifications. They will not be acting as doctors straight from A levels, anymore than a medical student is during experiential clinical placements.
Not so misleading. Apprenticeship doctors may eventually be as well qualified as those going through the traditional route but the key difference is that they will be unleashed on patients from day 1 while most doctors have to go through the training first. Which may or may not be a good idea, but it's definitely a big difference.
Which proves you don’t know much about training medics. All UG doctors will be getting clinical placement during their degrees. What they are not doing is acting as doctors. They will start with experiential visits and move on from there as there training allows.
He's basically whining that a private organisation does not want him representing it - does he believe political parties should be forced to allow anyone to represent them, regardless of their views? Should Jeremy Corbyn be allowed to stand as a Tory MP? Why not, he's just exercising his free speech?
Given what the organisation is very happy to have representing it that should give him pause, but does not, because like many an internet free speecher (aka anti-vaxxer conspiracist) he doesn't want to say what he wants - he can do that anywhere - he wants to be called a hero when people disagree with him.
He's such a fan of Reclaim he only joined them once he was shown the door by the Conservative Party, truly a ringing endorsement.
Elitist snob that I am, I'm not the only one who would prefer his doctors to have degrees?
NHS scheme will allow school leavers to train as doctors without traditional medical degree
New apprenticeships would put people on wards straight after their A-levels, instead of paying pricey fees for five years at university
School leavers will be able to start working as doctors without going to university, under new NHS plans to fix the growing staff crisis.
The apprenticeship scheme could allow one in 10 doctors to start work without a traditional medical degree, straight after their A-levels. A third of nurses are also expected to be trained under the "radical new approach".
It is the centrepiece of a long-delayed NHS workforce strategy, following warnings that staff shortages in England could reach half a million without action to find new ways to train and recruit health workers.
Downgrading the prestige of doctors is an odd way of addressing a problem caused by doctors leaving the country because they have higher prestige in other countries.
We'll end up with a completely inverted hierarchy in the NHS:managers at the top, all with economics degrees and MBAs, nurses in the middle, all with advanced degrees in sociology or psychology, and doctors at the bottom, only necessary to meet the targets and treated as a mild inconvenience.
It is different to that. Via this scheme Apprentices will have to pass the same exams to the same standard. It is am alternative pathway rather than an easier one. Indeed in many ways harder, as days will be spent on ward or GP work rather than formal teaching.
We do have a lot of Nurse apprenticeships that train this way, converting Health Care Assistants to Registered Nurses.
A better question might have been to ask why medical degrees take five years, when the same medical schools offer 4-year degrees for graduate entrants. Knocking 20 per cent off the cost in time and money might have been a better approach than this untested line.
Take a look at the course structure - see how much is clinical. They are not at Uni in lecture theatres for 5 years.
@MrHarryCole Non-exhaustive list of people who appear to have said no to being Tory candidate for London Mayor, so far:
Iain Dale Osborne Vaizey Tom Tugs Nick Candy Karen Bradey
Hinting:
Rob Rinder Dan Korski Shaun Bailey Nick Rogers Paul Scully
Running:
Samuel Kasumu Andrew Boff
Shaun Bailey is often seen as a bit of a figure of fun/joke candidate, but getting 45% of the run-off in a Labour city is a pretty strong achievement. The Tories could do worse than have him as a candidate again.
Given they seemed to have basically disowned him by the time of the election he had a good result indeed. They have even less chance of doing well now, so there's not much harm rewarding him for doing better than anticipated.
"without falling prey for various rape myths which juries are said to be prone to. The evidence for these myths affecting jurors is a pilot based on mock trials (not real ones)."
I am not a lawyer (tm). AIUI in England (and I presume Scotland, though not the US?), jurors cannot be questioned about *why* they decided one way or the other. Is this correct, and if so, what alternative is there to mock trials when you want to try to understand *why* juries vote the way they do?
(Apols if my understanding is incorrect.)
The idea of verdicts requiring an explanation is an interesting one. We've all at some point reacted to the verdict in a trial we've been following with "Wow. What on earth were the jury thinking?" Usually we never find out.
It's fruitless to think that unless you've been in court and heard all the evidence yourself. Juries may get it wrong sometimes, but not half as much as someone who's just read the headline and half a paragraph in some fucking tabloid and thinks they know exactly what happened.
I generally agree your point and avoid second guessing Juries but sometimes there's one comes along that truly, objectively, is bizarre. OJ for maybe the most obvious example.
I actually had a conversation about this last night. The issue is that the courts insisted that they pick jurors who (a) hadn’t seen OJ trying to escape from the police / the bronco chase ; and (b) didn’t know who OJ was.
The result was you ended up with a jury of brain dead isolated morons who could barely string a sentence together
And Furman was poison. Plus the Jonnie factor. Could sell sand to the sahara.
Embattled US Rep George Santos arrested on fraud, money laundering charges reut.rs/3pnYQDL
I've somehow missed this story - utterly bizarre. The Republicans have always had their share of kooks, but how does a guy like this get through even minimal vetting?
Through not having any at all?
The man seems to have been addicted to lies and fraud, yet there he was happily going along with just the occasional finger wag.
It's pretty apparent his only real issue for them is he got caught out.
Elitist snob that I am, I'm not the only one who would prefer his doctors to have degrees?
NHS scheme will allow school leavers to train as doctors without traditional medical degree
New apprenticeships would put people on wards straight after their A-levels, instead of paying pricey fees for five years at university
School leavers will be able to start working as doctors without going to university, under new NHS plans to fix the growing staff crisis.
The apprenticeship scheme could allow one in 10 doctors to start work without a traditional medical degree, straight after their A-levels. A third of nurses are also expected to be trained under the "radical new approach".
It is the centrepiece of a long-delayed NHS workforce strategy, following warnings that staff shortages in England could reach half a million without action to find new ways to train and recruit health workers.
For life experience, you mean, or because unis will train them better technically? Not sure the latter has to apply. Eg if you have top A levels and then combine work experience with study in some non-uni setting I can see that this might produce good doctors?
There is something to be said for seeing how folk interact at an early stage - benefits both sides before they go too far. Mrs C did quite a bit of voluntary work with old folk when considering what university degree to go for. She went into another field, but to this day has much more sympathy and understanding with the old than many of us do.
But there are other ways to achieve that specific aim.
Maybe a plus for the idea is it might help more young people from poorer non-professional backgrounds into medicine? Those who are clever enough but are put off uni by the cost of it and the debt you have to take on.
Working class kids were hardly teeming into medicine before the introduction of fees.
Or into any profession for that matter.
System working as planned then.
Getting brain surgery from a chap with a cockney accent? No thanks.
Andrew Bridgen is facing hypocrisy claims for refusing to call a by-election to seek a new mandate as the anti-woke Reclaim Party’s first MP.
The MP has crossed the floor in the House of Commons to sit on the opposition benches after being expelled by the Conservatives for claiming Covid vaccines were the “biggest crime against humanity since the Holocaust”.
Mr Bridgen has said in the past that Tory defectors should face a fresh vote in their constituencies to shore up their mandate. But the MP refused to call a by-election in his own seat after announcing he was joining Reclaim on Wednesday.
The Lib Dems said he would be guilty of “breathtaking hypocrisy” if he declined to resign to trigger a vote.
Asked at a press conference in Westminster if he was willing to have a by-election in his constituency of North West Leicestershire, he said he wouldn’t want to subject local people to two votes in quick succession.
“I think we're going to have a general election very soon,” he said. “We have to have one more or less within 12 months. I think it'll be sooner than that. I don’t think this Government can carry on too much longer. I think they’ll want to get the boundary changes through and I think we'll be having an election this autumn.
Elitist snob that I am, I'm not the only one who would prefer his doctors to have degrees?
NHS scheme will allow school leavers to train as doctors without traditional medical degree
New apprenticeships would put people on wards straight after their A-levels, instead of paying pricey fees for five years at university
School leavers will be able to start working as doctors without going to university, under new NHS plans to fix the growing staff crisis.
The apprenticeship scheme could allow one in 10 doctors to start work without a traditional medical degree, straight after their A-levels. A third of nurses are also expected to be trained under the "radical new approach".
It is the centrepiece of a long-delayed NHS workforce strategy, following warnings that staff shortages in England could reach half a million without action to find new ways to train and recruit health workers.
For life experience, you mean, or because unis will train them better technically? Not sure the latter has to apply. Eg if you have top A levels and then combine work experience with study in some non-uni setting I can see that this might produce good doctors?
There is something to be said for seeing how folk interact at an early stage - benefits both sides before they go too far. Mrs C did quite a bit of voluntary work with old folk when considering what university degree to go for. She went into another field, but to this day has much more sympathy and understanding with the old than many of us do.
But there are other ways to achieve that specific aim.
Maybe a plus for the idea is it might help more young people from poorer non-professional backgrounds into medicine? Those who are clever enough but are put off uni by the cost of it and the debt you have to take on.
Working class kids were hardly teeming into medicine before the introduction of fees.
Or into any profession for that matter.
It would be interesting to see whether there were more "working class" children accessing the professions back in the days of grammar schools. Love them or loathe them, they gave access to a level of education now reserved for those who can privately educate or are able to buy a house in an area that has a top performing school.
Of course, it also depends on your definition of "working class". Personally I think people who keep using this anachronistic term are as responsible for the maintenance of the class system as much as the worst middle class snob.
Glancing at the data tables from the two polls from yesterday and today:
For England, YouGov's sub sample had Labour 44%, Conservative 28% and Liberal Democrat 11%, Green 8% and Reform 6%.
BMG has Labour on 45%, Conservatives on 30%, Liberal Democrats 12%, Greens 6% and Reform 5%
The swing in England from Conservative to Labour is between 14 and 15%. These polls did fieldwork before the locals so it's not yet clear whether the 16% recorded by the LDs on the R&W poll on Monday is an outlier - I suspect it is.
Andrew Bridgen is facing hypocrisy claims for refusing to call a by-election to seek a new mandate as the anti-woke Reclaim Party’s first MP.
The MP has crossed the floor in the House of Commons to sit on the opposition benches after being expelled by the Conservatives for claiming Covid vaccines were the “biggest crime against humanity since the Holocaust”.
Mr Bridgen has said in the past that Tory defectors should face a fresh vote in their constituencies to shore up their mandate. But the MP refused to call a by-election in his own seat after announcing he was joining Reclaim on Wednesday.
The Lib Dems said he would be guilty of “breathtaking hypocrisy” if he declined to resign to trigger a vote.
Asked at a press conference in Westminster if he was willing to have a by-election in his constituency of North West Leicestershire, he said he wouldn’t want to subject local people to two votes in quick succession.
“I think we're going to have a general election very soon,” he said. “We have to have one more or less within 12 months. I think it'll be sooner than that. I don’t think this Government can carry on too much longer. I think they’ll want to get the boundary changes through and I think we'll be having an election this autumn.
This autumn? I know there's a chance things could get even worse from 2023-2024, but I feel like Sunak is not going to go unless he gets at least 2 years as PM under his belt. 2022-2024 looks a lot better than 2022-2023.
On the hypocrisy point, well, that's obviously true, though he could perhaps have made a distinction between people expelled from their party vs those choosing to leave (even if they felt forced out after being suspended).
It's one reason I wouldn't support a rule requiring a by-election if someone crosses the floor, since a ruthless leader could use that as a cudgel against internal opponents.
UKIP, as was, deserve some credit that their defectors did force by-elections.
@MrHarryCole Non-exhaustive list of people who appear to have said no to being Tory candidate for London Mayor, so far:
Iain Dale Osborne Vaizey Tom Tugs Nick Candy Karen Bradey
Hinting:
Rob Rinder Dan Korski Shaun Bailey Nick Rogers Paul Scully
Running:
Samuel Kasumu Andrew Boff
Shaun Bailey is often seen as a bit of a figure of fun/joke candidate, but getting 45% of the run-off in a Labour city is a pretty strong achievement. The Tories could do worse than have him as a candidate again.
But that was at the height of Boris's Covid bounce, after he had hosed the private sector with furlough money, and bounce back "loans".
Elitist snob that I am, I'm not the only one who would prefer his doctors to have degrees?
NHS scheme will allow school leavers to train as doctors without traditional medical degree
New apprenticeships would put people on wards straight after their A-levels, instead of paying pricey fees for five years at university
School leavers will be able to start working as doctors without going to university, under new NHS plans to fix the growing staff crisis.
The apprenticeship scheme could allow one in 10 doctors to start work without a traditional medical degree, straight after their A-levels. A third of nurses are also expected to be trained under the "radical new approach".
It is the centrepiece of a long-delayed NHS workforce strategy, following warnings that staff shortages in England could reach half a million without action to find new ways to train and recruit health workers.
For life experience, you mean, or because unis will train them better technically? Not sure the latter has to apply. Eg if you have top A levels and then combine work experience with study in some non-uni setting I can see that this might produce good doctors?
There is something to be said for seeing how folk interact at an early stage - benefits both sides before they go too far. Mrs C did quite a bit of voluntary work with old folk when considering what university degree to go for. She went into another field, but to this day has much more sympathy and understanding with the old than many of us do.
But there are other ways to achieve that specific aim.
Maybe a plus for the idea is it might help more young people from poorer non-professional backgrounds into medicine? Those who are clever enough but are put off uni by the cost of it and the debt you have to take on.
Working class kids were hardly teeming into medicine before the introduction of fees.
Or into any profession for that matter.
It would be interesting to see whether there were more "working class" children accessing the professions back in the days of grammar schools. Love them or loathe them, they gave access to a level of education now reserved for those who can privately educate or are able to buy a house in an area that has a top performing school.
Of course, it also depends on your definition of "working class". Personally I think people who keep using this anachronistic term are as responsible for the maintenance of the class system as much as the worst middle class snob.
There were also more "working class" people full stop - in the sense of manual work, limited formal education and such.
On the subject of conventional wisdom based on dodgy evidence, interesting piece on the questionable causational link between cannabis use and schizophrenia.
It’s very hard to get an honest debate about cannabis use. David Nutt was hounded out from his advisor role all those years ago for pointing out relative risks cf to other activities such as horse riding. A more mature society might think about whether legalising and ensuring quality of product for ALL drugs might not be the best way to minimise harms. As it is, my collaborator, who receives lots of drug samples for analysis, is constantly encountering extremely odd things, usually nothing like what they purport to be. My favourite recently is a sample of ‘skra’ that is actually a mix of ibuprofen and paracetamol… That one’s not dangerous, but many are. Many older folk have fond memories of weed. The modern incarnation is vastly stronger in THC content, and bears no relation to what Nicki Campbell and Tony Blair smoked in the 1970’s. Is this an issue? Hard to say because it’s really hard to do research in the current puritan environment.
I think cannabis use is a significant part of the explanation of why working class boys do so badly at school. It is quite endemic in Leicesters schools, with its characteristic effects of lassitude, paranoia and aggression.
Being doped up to the eyeballs inhibits social mobility and economic productivity. It ain't a successful formula for either individual or country.
Embattled US Rep George Santos arrested on fraud, money laundering charges reut.rs/3pnYQDL
I've somehow missed this story - utterly bizarre. The Republicans have always had their share of kooks, but how does a guy like this get through even minimal vetting?
I'd love to see a betting market offering odds on Santos and Trump sharing a cell in the next few years.
Which one would be more buggered in that scenario?
Elitist snob that I am, I'm not the only one who would prefer his doctors to have degrees?
NHS scheme will allow school leavers to train as doctors without traditional medical degree
New apprenticeships would put people on wards straight after their A-levels, instead of paying pricey fees for five years at university
School leavers will be able to start working as doctors without going to university, under new NHS plans to fix the growing staff crisis.
The apprenticeship scheme could allow one in 10 doctors to start work without a traditional medical degree, straight after their A-levels. A third of nurses are also expected to be trained under the "radical new approach".
It is the centrepiece of a long-delayed NHS workforce strategy, following warnings that staff shortages in England could reach half a million without action to find new ways to train and recruit health workers.
For life experience, you mean, or because unis will train them better technically? Not sure the latter has to apply. Eg if you have top A levels and then combine work experience with study in some non-uni setting I can see that this might produce good doctors?
There is something to be said for seeing how folk interact at an early stage - benefits both sides before they go too far. Mrs C did quite a bit of voluntary work with old folk when considering what university degree to go for. She went into another field, but to this day has much more sympathy and understanding with the old than many of us do.
But there are other ways to achieve that specific aim.
Maybe a plus for the idea is it might help more young people from poorer non-professional backgrounds into medicine? Those who are clever enough but are put off uni by the cost of it and the debt you have to take on.
Working class kids were hardly teeming into medicine before the introduction of fees.
Or into any profession for that matter.
It would be interesting to see whether there were more "working class" children accessing the professions back in the days of grammar schools. Love them or loathe them, they gave access to a level of education now reserved for those who can privately educate or are able to buy a house in an area that has a top performing school.
Of course, it also depends on your definition of "working class". Personally I think people who keep using this anachronistic term are as responsible for the maintenance of the class system as much as the worst middle class snob.
The pundit, er, classes, always seem more obsessed by class than anyone I've ever met in real life. But that might be just my class talking.
On the subject of conventional wisdom based on dodgy evidence, interesting piece on the questionable causational link between cannabis use and schizophrenia.
It’s very hard to get an honest debate about cannabis use. David Nutt was hounded out from his advisor role all those years ago for pointing out relative risks cf to other activities such as horse riding. A more mature society might think about whether legalising and ensuring quality of product for ALL drugs might not be the best way to minimise harms. As it is, my collaborator, who receives lots of drug samples for analysis, is constantly encountering extremely odd things, usually nothing like what they purport to be. My favourite recently is a sample of ‘skra’ that is actually a mix of ibuprofen and paracetamol… That one’s not dangerous, but many are. Many older folk have fond memories of weed. The modern incarnation is vastly stronger in THC content, and bears no relation to what Nicki Campbell and Tony Blair smoked in the 1970’s. Is this an issue? Hard to say because it’s really hard to do research in the current puritan environment.
I think cannabis use is a significant part of the explanation of why working class boys do so badly at school. It is quite endemic in Leicesters schools, with its characteristic effects of lassitude, paranoia and aggression.
Being doped up to the eyeballs inhibits social mobility and economic productivity. It ain't a successful formula for either individual or country.
If you think enough young boys are smoking that much weed that it is a 'significant' part of the poor performance nationally, not just a part of it, then I think you'd need quite a lot of evidence for that theory. It seems like a bit of a simplistic explanation, and one dependent on an absolutely mammoth amount of drug taking going on.
I don't doubt there's quite a bit of drug taking in some areas, but to a level specifically among the working class boys to significantly drag down performance overall?
Elitist snob that I am, I'm not the only one who would prefer his doctors to have degrees?
NHS scheme will allow school leavers to train as doctors without traditional medical degree
New apprenticeships would put people on wards straight after their A-levels, instead of paying pricey fees for five years at university
School leavers will be able to start working as doctors without going to university, under new NHS plans to fix the growing staff crisis.
The apprenticeship scheme could allow one in 10 doctors to start work without a traditional medical degree, straight after their A-levels. A third of nurses are also expected to be trained under the "radical new approach".
It is the centrepiece of a long-delayed NHS workforce strategy, following warnings that staff shortages in England could reach half a million without action to find new ways to train and recruit health workers.
For life experience, you mean, or because unis will train them better technically? Not sure the latter has to apply. Eg if you have top A levels and then combine work experience with study in some non-uni setting I can see that this might produce good doctors?
There is something to be said for seeing how folk interact at an early stage - benefits both sides before they go too far. Mrs C did quite a bit of voluntary work with old folk when considering what university degree to go for. She went into another field, but to this day has much more sympathy and understanding with the old than many of us do.
But there are other ways to achieve that specific aim.
Maybe a plus for the idea is it might help more young people from poorer non-professional backgrounds into medicine? Those who are clever enough but are put off uni by the cost of it and the debt you have to take on.
Working class kids were hardly teeming into medicine before the introduction of fees.
Or into any profession for that matter.
It would be interesting to see whether there were more "working class" children accessing the professions back in the days of grammar schools. Love them or loathe them, they gave access to a level of education now reserved for those who can privately educate or are able to buy a house in an area that has a top performing school.
Of course, it also depends on your definition of "working class". Personally I think people who keep using this anachronistic term are as responsible for the maintenance of the class system as much as the worst middle class snob.
The pundit, er, classes, always seem more obsessed by class than anyone I've ever met in real life. But that might be just my class talking.
I always find it a little odd when people say "I am proud to be working class" when they are actually a very well off BBC producer or novelist or such like. Perhaps it is code for "look how clever I was to come from this humble background and yet be soooo successful"
I guess I find the concept of being "proud" about anything that you did not chose a little peculiar.
Elitist snob that I am, I'm not the only one who would prefer his doctors to have degrees?
NHS scheme will allow school leavers to train as doctors without traditional medical degree
New apprenticeships would put people on wards straight after their A-levels, instead of paying pricey fees for five years at university
School leavers will be able to start working as doctors without going to university, under new NHS plans to fix the growing staff crisis.
The apprenticeship scheme could allow one in 10 doctors to start work without a traditional medical degree, straight after their A-levels. A third of nurses are also expected to be trained under the "radical new approach".
It is the centrepiece of a long-delayed NHS workforce strategy, following warnings that staff shortages in England could reach half a million without action to find new ways to train and recruit health workers.
For life experience, you mean, or because unis will train them better technically? Not sure the latter has to apply. Eg if you have top A levels and then combine work experience with study in some non-uni setting I can see that this might produce good doctors?
There is something to be said for seeing how folk interact at an early stage - benefits both sides before they go too far. Mrs C did quite a bit of voluntary work with old folk when considering what university degree to go for. She went into another field, but to this day has much more sympathy and understanding with the old than many of us do.
But there are other ways to achieve that specific aim.
Maybe a plus for the idea is it might help more young people from poorer non-professional backgrounds into medicine? Those who are clever enough but are put off uni by the cost of it and the debt you have to take on.
Working class kids were hardly teeming into medicine before the introduction of fees.
Or into any profession for that matter.
System working as planned then.
Getting brain surgery from a chap with a cockney accent? No thanks.
Maybe not brain surgery, but I did as a student work with Mike Knight, who did sound like a costermonger, and who was the protegee of Lord Rodney Smith. In surgery, results generally do the talking.
Elitist snob that I am, I'm not the only one who would prefer his doctors to have degrees?
NHS scheme will allow school leavers to train as doctors without traditional medical degree
New apprenticeships would put people on wards straight after their A-levels, instead of paying pricey fees for five years at university
School leavers will be able to start working as doctors without going to university, under new NHS plans to fix the growing staff crisis.
The apprenticeship scheme could allow one in 10 doctors to start work without a traditional medical degree, straight after their A-levels. A third of nurses are also expected to be trained under the "radical new approach".
It is the centrepiece of a long-delayed NHS workforce strategy, following warnings that staff shortages in England could reach half a million without action to find new ways to train and recruit health workers.
For life experience, you mean, or because unis will train them better technically? Not sure the latter has to apply. Eg if you have top A levels and then combine work experience with study in some non-uni setting I can see that this might produce good doctors?
There is something to be said for seeing how folk interact at an early stage - benefits both sides before they go too far. Mrs C did quite a bit of voluntary work with old folk when considering what university degree to go for. She went into another field, but to this day has much more sympathy and understanding with the old than many of us do.
But there are other ways to achieve that specific aim.
Maybe a plus for the idea is it might help more young people from poorer non-professional backgrounds into medicine? Those who are clever enough but are put off uni by the cost of it and the debt you have to take on.
Working class kids were hardly teeming into medicine before the introduction of fees.
Or into any profession for that matter.
It would be interesting to see whether there were more "working class" children accessing the professions back in the days of grammar schools. Love them or loathe them, they gave access to a level of education now reserved for those who can privately educate or are able to buy a house in an area that has a top performing school.
Of course, it also depends on your definition of "working class". Personally I think people who keep using this anachronistic term are as responsible for the maintenance of the class system as much as the worst middle class snob.
The pundit, er, classes, always seem more obsessed by class than anyone I've ever met in real life. But that might be just my class talking.
I always find it a little odd when people say "I am proud to be working class" when they are actually a very well off BBC producer or novelist or such like. Perhaps it is code for "look how clever I was to come from this humble background and yet be soooo successful"
I guess I find the concept of being "proud" about anything that you did not chose a little peculiar.
Tell it to His Majesty! Lot of pride there according to the papers.
But someone please think of those who are really suffering here - people who grew up poor but of middle class background (judging by family profession etc) and who have simply done ok.
Elitist snob that I am, I'm not the only one who would prefer his doctors to have degrees?
NHS scheme will allow school leavers to train as doctors without traditional medical degree
New apprenticeships would put people on wards straight after their A-levels, instead of paying pricey fees for five years at university
School leavers will be able to start working as doctors without going to university, under new NHS plans to fix the growing staff crisis.
The apprenticeship scheme could allow one in 10 doctors to start work without a traditional medical degree, straight after their A-levels. A third of nurses are also expected to be trained under the "radical new approach".
It is the centrepiece of a long-delayed NHS workforce strategy, following warnings that staff shortages in England could reach half a million without action to find new ways to train and recruit health workers.
Downgrading the prestige of doctors is an odd way of addressing a problem caused by doctors leaving the country because they have higher prestige in other countries.
We'll end up with a completely inverted hierarchy in the NHS:managers at the top, all with economics degrees and MBAs, nurses in the middle, all with advanced degrees in sociology or psychology, and doctors at the bottom, only necessary to meet the targets and treated as a mild inconvenience.
It is different to that. Via this scheme Apprentices will have to pass the same exams to the same standard. It is am alternative pathway rather than an easier one. Indeed in many ways harder, as days will be spent on ward or GP work rather than formal teaching.
We do have a lot of Nurse apprenticeships that train this way, converting Health Care Assistants to Registered Nurses.
A better question might have been to ask why medical degrees take five years, when the same medical schools offer 4-year degrees for graduate entrants. Knocking 20 per cent off the cost in time and money might have been a better approach than this untested line.
Take a look at the course structure - see how much is clinical. They are not at Uni in lecture theatres for 5 years.
Yes, I know, but there are still 4- and 5-year courses. That might be a better place to look rather than the government's blue sky approach.
A more trivial question, and perhaps one you may have been asked before (driven by my curiosity about people's nom de plumes): Are you without a bicycle or do you like to cycle without inhibition or, perhaps, has your washing machine broken (in which case I recommend Calgon)?
I know, I am losing it!
I do most things without inhibition!
I have been cycling since a student & have cycled to work in all my jobs, though currently unable to because of injury. I have quite a few cycling injuries.
The name comes from my very first ever comment on social media which was about cycling in Regents Park, which was prohibited at the time - stupidly. I have even been stopped by the police for doing so. (In July 2005). And was given a verbal warning which they then wrote out in triplicate. I am not at all sorry to say that I gave that policeman quite a lot of cheek back when I saw that, just short of the amount that would have got me into trouble.
Elitist snob that I am, I'm not the only one who would prefer his doctors to have degrees?
NHS scheme will allow school leavers to train as doctors without traditional medical degree
New apprenticeships would put people on wards straight after their A-levels, instead of paying pricey fees for five years at university
School leavers will be able to start working as doctors without going to university, under new NHS plans to fix the growing staff crisis.
The apprenticeship scheme could allow one in 10 doctors to start work without a traditional medical degree, straight after their A-levels. A third of nurses are also expected to be trained under the "radical new approach".
It is the centrepiece of a long-delayed NHS workforce strategy, following warnings that staff shortages in England could reach half a million without action to find new ways to train and recruit health workers.
For life experience, you mean, or because unis will train them better technically? Not sure the latter has to apply. Eg if you have top A levels and then combine work experience with study in some non-uni setting I can see that this might produce good doctors?
There is something to be said for seeing how folk interact at an early stage - benefits both sides before they go too far. Mrs C did quite a bit of voluntary work with old folk when considering what university degree to go for. She went into another field, but to this day has much more sympathy and understanding with the old than many of us do.
But there are other ways to achieve that specific aim.
Maybe a plus for the idea is it might help more young people from poorer non-professional backgrounds into medicine? Those who are clever enough but are put off uni by the cost of it and the debt you have to take on.
Working class kids were hardly teeming into medicine before the introduction of fees.
Or into any profession for that matter.
It would be interesting to see whether there were more "working class" children accessing the professions back in the days of grammar schools. Love them or loathe them, they gave access to a level of education now reserved for those who can privately educate or are able to buy a house in an area that has a top performing school.
Of course, it also depends on your definition of "working class". Personally I think people who keep using this anachronistic term are as responsible for the maintenance of the class system as much as the worst middle class snob.
What is class? is a PB repeater that I don't wish to trigger but for me - in its serious political sense - it's about money rather than all of that 'using a fish knife' fun to talk about stuff. So you have rich and poor and shades of in between.
This is one of those things that I put down to political not partisan behaviours - the inability to look more than 5 minutes ahead, or not caring if later you will almost certainly make the same point you are criticising.
See divergent statements from parties about a change of PM requiring an election depending on whether they are currently in or out of power.
@MrHarryCole Non-exhaustive list of people who appear to have said no to being Tory candidate for London Mayor, so far:
Iain Dale Osborne Vaizey Tom Tugs Nick Candy Karen Bradey
Hinting:
Rob Rinder Dan Korski Shaun Bailey Nick Rogers Paul Scully
Running:
Samuel Kasumu Andrew Boff
Shaun Bailey is often seen as a bit of a figure of fun/joke candidate, but getting 45% of the run-off in a Labour city is a pretty strong achievement. The Tories could do worse than have him as a candidate again.
But that was at the height of Boris's Covid bounce, after he had hosed the private sector with furlough money, and bounce back "loans".
I am no apologist for the liar Johnson, but if the private sector had not been "hosed" with money as you put it (as was the case in most western nations) then huge number of employers would have gone bust and there would have been mass unemployment. A large number of companies are still struggling back to profitability. I guess you are probably one of those in a nice safe public sector job, or retired on a very large fat public sector final salary pension perhaps? If there is no private sector to be milked, there is no magic money tree for the public sector to harvest.
Elitist snob that I am, I'm not the only one who would prefer his doctors to have degrees?
NHS scheme will allow school leavers to train as doctors without traditional medical degree
New apprenticeships would put people on wards straight after their A-levels, instead of paying pricey fees for five years at university
School leavers will be able to start working as doctors without going to university, under new NHS plans to fix the growing staff crisis.
The apprenticeship scheme could allow one in 10 doctors to start work without a traditional medical degree, straight after their A-levels. A third of nurses are also expected to be trained under the "radical new approach".
It is the centrepiece of a long-delayed NHS workforce strategy, following warnings that staff shortages in England could reach half a million without action to find new ways to train and recruit health workers.
For life experience, you mean, or because unis will train them better technically? Not sure the latter has to apply. Eg if you have top A levels and then combine work experience with study in some non-uni setting I can see that this might produce good doctors?
There is something to be said for seeing how folk interact at an early stage - benefits both sides before they go too far. Mrs C did quite a bit of voluntary work with old folk when considering what university degree to go for. She went into another field, but to this day has much more sympathy and understanding with the old than many of us do.
But there are other ways to achieve that specific aim.
Maybe a plus for the idea is it might help more young people from poorer non-professional backgrounds into medicine? Those who are clever enough but are put off uni by the cost of it and the debt you have to take on.
Working class kids were hardly teeming into medicine before the introduction of fees.
Or into any profession for that matter.
It would be interesting to see whether there were more "working class" children accessing the professions back in the days of grammar schools. Love them or loathe them, they gave access to a level of education now reserved for those who can privately educate or are able to buy a house in an area that has a top performing school.
Of course, it also depends on your definition of "working class". Personally I think people who keep using this anachronistic term are as responsible for the maintenance of the class system as much as the worst middle class snob.
The pundit, er, classes, always seem more obsessed by class than anyone I've ever met in real life. But that might be just my class talking.
I always find it a little odd when people say "I am proud to be working class" when they are actually a very well off BBC producer or novelist or such like. Perhaps it is code for "look how clever I was to come from this humble background and yet be soooo successful"
I guess I find the concept of being "proud" about anything that you did not chose a little peculiar.
Depends on how you define class. Some people would draw one line: those whose income is from work, and those whose income is from wealth. I personally find that the most illuminating distinction rather than noodling around in all these nanoscopic details about whether a self-employed plumber is middle class, upper working class or whatever.
And by that token, being proud of making your own way rather than leeching off rent is something that makes sense. A lot of sense.
A fine distinction but that would make TSE the same class as his chauffeur, which seems less than useful.
Elitist snob that I am, I'm not the only one who would prefer his doctors to have degrees?
NHS scheme will allow school leavers to train as doctors without traditional medical degree
New apprenticeships would put people on wards straight after their A-levels, instead of paying pricey fees for five years at university
School leavers will be able to start working as doctors without going to university, under new NHS plans to fix the growing staff crisis.
The apprenticeship scheme could allow one in 10 doctors to start work without a traditional medical degree, straight after their A-levels. A third of nurses are also expected to be trained under the "radical new approach".
It is the centrepiece of a long-delayed NHS workforce strategy, following warnings that staff shortages in England could reach half a million without action to find new ways to train and recruit health workers.
For life experience, you mean, or because unis will train them better technically? Not sure the latter has to apply. Eg if you have top A levels and then combine work experience with study in some non-uni setting I can see that this might produce good doctors?
There is something to be said for seeing how folk interact at an early stage - benefits both sides before they go too far. Mrs C did quite a bit of voluntary work with old folk when considering what university degree to go for. She went into another field, but to this day has much more sympathy and understanding with the old than many of us do.
But there are other ways to achieve that specific aim.
Maybe a plus for the idea is it might help more young people from poorer non-professional backgrounds into medicine? Those who are clever enough but are put off uni by the cost of it and the debt you have to take on.
Working class kids were hardly teeming into medicine before the introduction of fees.
Or into any profession for that matter.
System working as planned then.
Getting brain surgery from a chap with a cockney accent? No thanks.
Imagine Ray Winstone bearing down on you with a scalpel. Yikes.
Elitist snob that I am, I'm not the only one who would prefer his doctors to have degrees?
NHS scheme will allow school leavers to train as doctors without traditional medical degree
New apprenticeships would put people on wards straight after their A-levels, instead of paying pricey fees for five years at university
School leavers will be able to start working as doctors without going to university, under new NHS plans to fix the growing staff crisis.
The apprenticeship scheme could allow one in 10 doctors to start work without a traditional medical degree, straight after their A-levels. A third of nurses are also expected to be trained under the "radical new approach".
It is the centrepiece of a long-delayed NHS workforce strategy, following warnings that staff shortages in England could reach half a million without action to find new ways to train and recruit health workers.
For life experience, you mean, or because unis will train them better technically? Not sure the latter has to apply. Eg if you have top A levels and then combine work experience with study in some non-uni setting I can see that this might produce good doctors?
There is something to be said for seeing how folk interact at an early stage - benefits both sides before they go too far. Mrs C did quite a bit of voluntary work with old folk when considering what university degree to go for. She went into another field, but to this day has much more sympathy and understanding with the old than many of us do.
But there are other ways to achieve that specific aim.
Maybe a plus for the idea is it might help more young people from poorer non-professional backgrounds into medicine? Those who are clever enough but are put off uni by the cost of it and the debt you have to take on.
Working class kids were hardly teeming into medicine before the introduction of fees.
Or into any profession for that matter.
It would be interesting to see whether there were more "working class" children accessing the professions back in the days of grammar schools. Love them or loathe them, they gave access to a level of education now reserved for those who can privately educate or are able to buy a house in an area that has a top performing school.
Of course, it also depends on your definition of "working class". Personally I think people who keep using this anachronistic term are as responsible for the maintenance of the class system as much as the worst middle class snob.
What is class? is a PB repeater that I don't wish to trigger but for me - in its serious political sense - it's about money rather than all of that 'using a fish knife' fun to talk about stuff. So you have rich and poor and shades of in between.
I think you have used the phrase often though have you not? Am I mixing you up with someone else, but did you not describe yourself as such?
Elitist snob that I am, I'm not the only one who would prefer his doctors to have degrees?
NHS scheme will allow school leavers to train as doctors without traditional medical degree
New apprenticeships would put people on wards straight after their A-levels, instead of paying pricey fees for five years at university
School leavers will be able to start working as doctors without going to university, under new NHS plans to fix the growing staff crisis.
The apprenticeship scheme could allow one in 10 doctors to start work without a traditional medical degree, straight after their A-levels. A third of nurses are also expected to be trained under the "radical new approach".
It is the centrepiece of a long-delayed NHS workforce strategy, following warnings that staff shortages in England could reach half a million without action to find new ways to train and recruit health workers.
For life experience, you mean, or because unis will train them better technically? Not sure the latter has to apply. Eg if you have top A levels and then combine work experience with study in some non-uni setting I can see that this might produce good doctors?
There is something to be said for seeing how folk interact at an early stage - benefits both sides before they go too far. Mrs C did quite a bit of voluntary work with old folk when considering what university degree to go for. She went into another field, but to this day has much more sympathy and understanding with the old than many of us do.
But there are other ways to achieve that specific aim.
Maybe a plus for the idea is it might help more young people from poorer non-professional backgrounds into medicine? Those who are clever enough but are put off uni by the cost of it and the debt you have to take on.
Working class kids were hardly teeming into medicine before the introduction of fees.
Or into any profession for that matter.
It would be interesting to see whether there were more "working class" children accessing the professions back in the days of grammar schools. Love them or loathe them, they gave access to a level of education now reserved for those who can privately educate or are able to buy a house in an area that has a top performing school.
Of course, it also depends on your definition of "working class". Personally I think people who keep using this anachronistic term are as responsible for the maintenance of the class system as much as the worst middle class snob.
The pundit, er, classes, always seem more obsessed by class than anyone I've ever met in real life. But that might be just my class talking.
I always find it a little odd when people say "I am proud to be working class" when they are actually a very well off BBC producer or novelist or such like. Perhaps it is code for "look how clever I was to come from this humble background and yet be soooo successful"
I guess I find the concept of being "proud" about anything that you did not chose a little peculiar.
Depends on how you define class. Some people would draw one line: those whose income is from work, and those whose income is from wealth. I personally find that the most illuminating distinction rather than noodling around in all these nanoscopic details about whether a self-employed plumber is middle class, upper working class or whatever.
And by that token, being proud of making your own way rather than leeching off rent is something that makes sense. A lot of sense.
What class are the retired in under your definition?
Yeah - quoting the Independent! (I so miss that newspaper of the 80s/90s - whatever it is now is worthless)
I dunno - doing the puzzles and crossword in the i is part of my daily routine.
There's a nice bit in the (excellent) Film Four adaptation of David Peace's 1974 where the editor of the local newspaper slaps down the ambitious young investigative reporter Andrew Garfield by reminding him that most men who buy their paper do so for the spot-the-ball competition, not for complex exposees of corruption in the council.
The Independent was, at one time, a great newspaper.
I am picking up some absolute fury of Brexiteer Tory MPs who went to see chief whip Simon Hart at 5pm tonight about the watering down of the REUL Bill.
Twenty Tory MPs were there to protest. The Chief just listened. He left after 45 mins to go to see Sir Graham Brady, as normal.
Brexiteer Tory MPs cannot understand why the Government has done this.
They point out that not a single Tory MP voted against the REUL ill at the Second or Third Reading.
Two Tories tell me they think the U-turn is part of a deal with the EU for agreeing the Windsor Framework.
Elitist snob that I am, I'm not the only one who would prefer his doctors to have degrees?
NHS scheme will allow school leavers to train as doctors without traditional medical degree
New apprenticeships would put people on wards straight after their A-levels, instead of paying pricey fees for five years at university
School leavers will be able to start working as doctors without going to university, under new NHS plans to fix the growing staff crisis.
The apprenticeship scheme could allow one in 10 doctors to start work without a traditional medical degree, straight after their A-levels. A third of nurses are also expected to be trained under the "radical new approach".
It is the centrepiece of a long-delayed NHS workforce strategy, following warnings that staff shortages in England could reach half a million without action to find new ways to train and recruit health workers.
For life experience, you mean, or because unis will train them better technically? Not sure the latter has to apply. Eg if you have top A levels and then combine work experience with study in some non-uni setting I can see that this might produce good doctors?
There is something to be said for seeing how folk interact at an early stage - benefits both sides before they go too far. Mrs C did quite a bit of voluntary work with old folk when considering what university degree to go for. She went into another field, but to this day has much more sympathy and understanding with the old than many of us do.
But there are other ways to achieve that specific aim.
Maybe a plus for the idea is it might help more young people from poorer non-professional backgrounds into medicine? Those who are clever enough but are put off uni by the cost of it and the debt you have to take on.
Working class kids were hardly teeming into medicine before the introduction of fees.
Or into any profession for that matter.
It would be interesting to see whether there were more "working class" children accessing the professions back in the days of grammar schools. Love them or loathe them, they gave access to a level of education now reserved for those who can privately educate or are able to buy a house in an area that has a top performing school.
Of course, it also depends on your definition of "working class". Personally I think people who keep using this anachronistic term are as responsible for the maintenance of the class system as much as the worst middle class snob.
The pundit, er, classes, always seem more obsessed by class than anyone I've ever met in real life. But that might be just my class talking.
I always find it a little odd when people say "I am proud to be working class" when they are actually a very well off BBC producer or novelist or such like. Perhaps it is code for "look how clever I was to come from this humble background and yet be soooo successful"
I guess I find the concept of being "proud" about anything that you did not chose a little peculiar.
Tell it to His Majesty! Lot of pride there according to the papers.
But someone please think of those who are really suffering here - people who grew up poor but of middle class background (judging by family profession etc) and who have simply done ok.
I grew up in a poor family that believed itself to be "middle class". I guess the aspiration served me quite well in the long run.
@MrHarryCole Non-exhaustive list of people who appear to have said no to being Tory candidate for London Mayor, so far:
Iain Dale Osborne Vaizey Tom Tugs Nick Candy Karen Bradey
Hinting:
Rob Rinder Dan Korski Shaun Bailey Nick Rogers Paul Scully
Running:
Samuel Kasumu Andrew Boff
Shaun Bailey is often seen as a bit of a figure of fun/joke candidate, but getting 45% of the run-off in a Labour city is a pretty strong achievement. The Tories could do worse than have him as a candidate again.
But that was at the height of Boris's Covid bounce, after he had hosed the private sector with furlough money, and bounce back "loans".
I am no apologist for the liar Johnson, but if the private sector had not been "hosed" with money as you put it (as was the case in most western nations) then huge number of employers would have gone bust and there would have been mass unemployment. A large number of companies are still struggling back to profitability. I guess you are probably one of those in a nice safe public sector job, or retired on a very large fat public sector final salary pension perhaps? If there is no private sector to be milked, there is no magic money tree for the public sector to harvest.
Putting to one side that large parts of the private sector depend on servicing the public sector, the subsidies and loans around covid might have been a good opportunity to test the student loan-like system I've been advocating, with contingent repayments. (Ironically, this seems a daft system for student loans.)
Elitist snob that I am, I'm not the only one who would prefer his doctors to have degrees?
NHS scheme will allow school leavers to train as doctors without traditional medical degree
New apprenticeships would put people on wards straight after their A-levels, instead of paying pricey fees for five years at university
School leavers will be able to start working as doctors without going to university, under new NHS plans to fix the growing staff crisis.
The apprenticeship scheme could allow one in 10 doctors to start work without a traditional medical degree, straight after their A-levels. A third of nurses are also expected to be trained under the "radical new approach".
It is the centrepiece of a long-delayed NHS workforce strategy, following warnings that staff shortages in England could reach half a million without action to find new ways to train and recruit health workers.
For life experience, you mean, or because unis will train them better technically? Not sure the latter has to apply. Eg if you have top A levels and then combine work experience with study in some non-uni setting I can see that this might produce good doctors?
There is something to be said for seeing how folk interact at an early stage - benefits both sides before they go too far. Mrs C did quite a bit of voluntary work with old folk when considering what university degree to go for. She went into another field, but to this day has much more sympathy and understanding with the old than many of us do.
But there are other ways to achieve that specific aim.
Maybe a plus for the idea is it might help more young people from poorer non-professional backgrounds into medicine? Those who are clever enough but are put off uni by the cost of it and the debt you have to take on.
Agreed. If it is good enough for lawyers and accountants it is good enough for the medical profession. The idea that you need to be some kind of academic genius to be a doctor is ridiculous.
Although you can't do that route into chartered accountancy now. You need a degree. Still that's chartered accountancy. Medicine and law are slightly more forgiving than chartered accountancy. What isn't let's be honest.
Ah, forgive my mistake. I thought accountancy now allows apprenticeships. I guess the requirement for a degree does mean the poor things have three years of fun before embarking on a career of mind bending boredom?
Yes, get your fun in, then knuckle down and serve.
Elitist snob that I am, I'm not the only one who would prefer his doctors to have degrees?
NHS scheme will allow school leavers to train as doctors without traditional medical degree
New apprenticeships would put people on wards straight after their A-levels, instead of paying pricey fees for five years at university
School leavers will be able to start working as doctors without going to university, under new NHS plans to fix the growing staff crisis.
The apprenticeship scheme could allow one in 10 doctors to start work without a traditional medical degree, straight after their A-levels. A third of nurses are also expected to be trained under the "radical new approach".
It is the centrepiece of a long-delayed NHS workforce strategy, following warnings that staff shortages in England could reach half a million without action to find new ways to train and recruit health workers.
For life experience, you mean, or because unis will train them better technically? Not sure the latter has to apply. Eg if you have top A levels and then combine work experience with study in some non-uni setting I can see that this might produce good doctors?
There is something to be said for seeing how folk interact at an early stage - benefits both sides before they go too far. Mrs C did quite a bit of voluntary work with old folk when considering what university degree to go for. She went into another field, but to this day has much more sympathy and understanding with the old than many of us do.
But there are other ways to achieve that specific aim.
Maybe a plus for the idea is it might help more young people from poorer non-professional backgrounds into medicine? Those who are clever enough but are put off uni by the cost of it and the debt you have to take on.
Working class kids were hardly teeming into medicine before the introduction of fees.
Or into any profession for that matter.
It would be interesting to see whether there were more "working class" children accessing the professions back in the days of grammar schools. Love them or loathe them, they gave access to a level of education now reserved for those who can privately educate or are able to buy a house in an area that has a top performing school.
Of course, it also depends on your definition of "working class". Personally I think people who keep using this anachronistic term are as responsible for the maintenance of the class system as much as the worst middle class snob.
What is class? is a PB repeater that I don't wish to trigger but for me - in its serious political sense - it's about money rather than all of that 'using a fish knife' fun to talk about stuff. So you have rich and poor and shades of in between.
It's one of those self-id situations. If you're not sure what class you are, you're probably middle class. If you're sure what class you are, you're probably a silly snob or you've got a chip on your shoulder (in both cases regardless of personal wealth).
@MrHarryCole Non-exhaustive list of people who appear to have said no to being Tory candidate for London Mayor, so far:
Iain Dale Osborne Vaizey Tom Tugs Nick Candy Karen Bradey
Hinting:
Rob Rinder Dan Korski Shaun Bailey Nick Rogers Paul Scully
Running:
Samuel Kasumu Andrew Boff
Shaun Bailey is often seen as a bit of a figure of fun/joke candidate, but getting 45% of the run-off in a Labour city is a pretty strong achievement. The Tories could do worse than have him as a candidate again.
But that was at the height of Boris's Covid bounce, after he had hosed the private sector with furlough money, and bounce back "loans".
I am no apologist for the liar Johnson, but if the private sector had not been "hosed" with money as you put it (as was the case in most western nations) then huge number of employers would have gone bust and there would have been mass unemployment. A large number of companies are still struggling back to profitability. I guess you are probably one of those in a nice safe public sector job, or retired on a very large fat public sector final salary pension perhaps? If there is no private sector to be milked, there is no magic money tree for the public sector to harvest.
Putting to one side that large parts of the private sector depend on servicing the public sector, the subsidies and loans around covid might have been a good opportunity to test the student loan-like system I've been advocating, with contingent repayments. (Ironically, this seems a daft system for student loans.)
The system was an absolute dogs dinner, but it did keep a lot of businesses going.
Elitist snob that I am, I'm not the only one who would prefer his doctors to have degrees?
NHS scheme will allow school leavers to train as doctors without traditional medical degree
New apprenticeships would put people on wards straight after their A-levels, instead of paying pricey fees for five years at university
School leavers will be able to start working as doctors without going to university, under new NHS plans to fix the growing staff crisis.
The apprenticeship scheme could allow one in 10 doctors to start work without a traditional medical degree, straight after their A-levels. A third of nurses are also expected to be trained under the "radical new approach".
It is the centrepiece of a long-delayed NHS workforce strategy, following warnings that staff shortages in England could reach half a million without action to find new ways to train and recruit health workers.
For life experience, you mean, or because unis will train them better technically? Not sure the latter has to apply. Eg if you have top A levels and then combine work experience with study in some non-uni setting I can see that this might produce good doctors?
There is something to be said for seeing how folk interact at an early stage - benefits both sides before they go too far. Mrs C did quite a bit of voluntary work with old folk when considering what university degree to go for. She went into another field, but to this day has much more sympathy and understanding with the old than many of us do.
But there are other ways to achieve that specific aim.
Maybe a plus for the idea is it might help more young people from poorer non-professional backgrounds into medicine? Those who are clever enough but are put off uni by the cost of it and the debt you have to take on.
Working class kids were hardly teeming into medicine before the introduction of fees.
Or into any profession for that matter.
System working as planned then.
Getting brain surgery from a chap with a cockney accent? No thanks.
Imagine Ray Winstone bearing down on you with a scalpel. Yikes.
You can be quite amusing for someone who trained in accountancy. Did you switch to lion taming by any chance?
Elitist snob that I am, I'm not the only one who would prefer his doctors to have degrees?
NHS scheme will allow school leavers to train as doctors without traditional medical degree
New apprenticeships would put people on wards straight after their A-levels, instead of paying pricey fees for five years at university
School leavers will be able to start working as doctors without going to university, under new NHS plans to fix the growing staff crisis.
The apprenticeship scheme could allow one in 10 doctors to start work without a traditional medical degree, straight after their A-levels. A third of nurses are also expected to be trained under the "radical new approach".
It is the centrepiece of a long-delayed NHS workforce strategy, following warnings that staff shortages in England could reach half a million without action to find new ways to train and recruit health workers.
For life experience, you mean, or because unis will train them better technically? Not sure the latter has to apply. Eg if you have top A levels and then combine work experience with study in some non-uni setting I can see that this might produce good doctors?
There is something to be said for seeing how folk interact at an early stage - benefits both sides before they go too far. Mrs C did quite a bit of voluntary work with old folk when considering what university degree to go for. She went into another field, but to this day has much more sympathy and understanding with the old than many of us do.
But there are other ways to achieve that specific aim.
Maybe a plus for the idea is it might help more young people from poorer non-professional backgrounds into medicine? Those who are clever enough but are put off uni by the cost of it and the debt you have to take on.
Working class kids were hardly teeming into medicine before the introduction of fees.
Or into any profession for that matter.
It would be interesting to see whether there were more "working class" children accessing the professions back in the days of grammar schools. Love them or loathe them, they gave access to a level of education now reserved for those who can privately educate or are able to buy a house in an area that has a top performing school.
Of course, it also depends on your definition of "working class". Personally I think people who keep using this anachronistic term are as responsible for the maintenance of the class system as much as the worst middle class snob.
The pundit, er, classes, always seem more obsessed by class than anyone I've ever met in real life. But that might be just my class talking.
I always find it a little odd when people say "I am proud to be working class" when they are actually a very well off BBC producer or novelist or such like. Perhaps it is code for "look how clever I was to come from this humble background and yet be soooo successful"
I guess I find the concept of being "proud" about anything that you did not chose a little peculiar.
Depends on how you define class. Some people would draw one line: those whose income is from work, and those whose income is from wealth. I personally find that the most illuminating distinction rather than noodling around in all these nanoscopic details about whether a self-employed plumber is middle class, upper working class or whatever.
And by that token, being proud of making your own way rather than leeching off rent is something that makes sense. A lot of sense.
What class are the retired in under your definition?
I am picking up some absolute fury of Brexiteer Tory MPs who went to see chief whip Simon Hart at 5pm tonight about the watering down of the REUL Bill.
Twenty Tory MPs were there to protest. The Chief just listened. He left after 45 mins to go to see Sir Graham Brady, as normal.
Brexiteer Tory MPs cannot understand why the Government has done this.
They point out that not a single Tory MP voted against the REUL ill at the Second or Third Reading.
Two Tories tell me they think the U-turn is part of a deal with the EU for agreeing the Windsor Framework.
Maybe it is - sounds like they understand it just fine.
Never understood why it was necessary to move so quickly on these things - yes, evil civil servant remainiacs dragging their feet or whatever, but if you set a completely arbitrary target and a completely arbitrary date then why piss yourself when the arbitrary numbers alter a bit? You'd not be assessing properly what to keep, what to bin, and what to mirror or not, in pursuit of a meaningless target.
I am picking up some absolute fury of Brexiteer Tory MPs who went to see chief whip Simon Hart at 5pm tonight about the watering down of the REUL Bill.
Twenty Tory MPs were there to protest. The Chief just listened. He left after 45 mins to go to see Sir Graham Brady, as normal.
Brexiteer Tory MPs cannot understand why the Government has done this.
They point out that not a single Tory MP voted against the REUL ill at the Second or Third Reading.
Two Tories tell me they think the U-turn is part of a deal with the EU for agreeing the Windsor Framework.
The tin-foil wearing MPs might be right but surely the more logical assumption is the REUL Bill would need huge amounts of effort to make it workable rather than a series of banal truisms. We can applaud getting rid of unnecessary regulations but unless these can easily be identified, the bill is mere claptrap.
Elitist snob that I am, I'm not the only one who would prefer his doctors to have degrees?
NHS scheme will allow school leavers to train as doctors without traditional medical degree
New apprenticeships would put people on wards straight after their A-levels, instead of paying pricey fees for five years at university
School leavers will be able to start working as doctors without going to university, under new NHS plans to fix the growing staff crisis.
The apprenticeship scheme could allow one in 10 doctors to start work without a traditional medical degree, straight after their A-levels. A third of nurses are also expected to be trained under the "radical new approach".
It is the centrepiece of a long-delayed NHS workforce strategy, following warnings that staff shortages in England could reach half a million without action to find new ways to train and recruit health workers.
For life experience, you mean, or because unis will train them better technically? Not sure the latter has to apply. Eg if you have top A levels and then combine work experience with study in some non-uni setting I can see that this might produce good doctors?
There is something to be said for seeing how folk interact at an early stage - benefits both sides before they go too far. Mrs C did quite a bit of voluntary work with old folk when considering what university degree to go for. She went into another field, but to this day has much more sympathy and understanding with the old than many of us do.
But there are other ways to achieve that specific aim.
Maybe a plus for the idea is it might help more young people from poorer non-professional backgrounds into medicine? Those who are clever enough but are put off uni by the cost of it and the debt you have to take on.
Working class kids were hardly teeming into medicine before the introduction of fees.
Or into any profession for that matter.
It would be interesting to see whether there were more "working class" children accessing the professions back in the days of grammar schools. Love them or loathe them, they gave access to a level of education now reserved for those who can privately educate or are able to buy a house in an area that has a top performing school.
Of course, it also depends on your definition of "working class". Personally I think people who keep using this anachronistic term are as responsible for the maintenance of the class system as much as the worst middle class snob.
What is class? is a PB repeater that I don't wish to trigger but for me - in its serious political sense - it's about money rather than all of that 'using a fish knife' fun to talk about stuff. So you have rich and poor and shades of in between.
The “using a fish knife” thing is etiquette, class is not embarrassing someone by pointing out that they aren’t using it correctly.
I am picking up some absolute fury of Brexiteer Tory MPs who went to see chief whip Simon Hart at 5pm tonight about the watering down of the REUL Bill.
Twenty Tory MPs were there to protest. The Chief just listened. He left after 45 mins to go to see Sir Graham Brady, as normal.
Brexiteer Tory MPs cannot understand why the Government has done this.
They point out that not a single Tory MP voted against the REUL ill at the Second or Third Reading.
Two Tories tell me they think the U-turn is part of a deal with the EU for agreeing the Windsor Framework.
The tin-foil wearing MPs might be right but surely the more logical assumption is the REUL Bill would need huge amounts of effort to make it workable rather than a series of banal truisms. We can applaud getting rid of unnecessary regulations but unless these can easily be identified, the bill is mere claptrap.
It's more proof of Rishi Sunak overpromising and under delivering, again.
I am picking up some absolute fury of Brexiteer Tory MPs who went to see chief whip Simon Hart at 5pm tonight about the watering down of the REUL Bill.
Twenty Tory MPs were there to protest. The Chief just listened. He left after 45 mins to go to see Sir Graham Brady, as normal.
Brexiteer Tory MPs cannot understand why the Government has done this.
They point out that not a single Tory MP voted against the REUL ill at the Second or Third Reading.
Two Tories tell me they think the U-turn is part of a deal with the EU for agreeing the Windsor Framework.
The tin-foil wearing MPs might be right but surely the more logical assumption is the REUL Bill would need huge amounts of effort to make it workable rather than a series of banal truisms. We can applaud getting rid of unnecessary regulations but unless these can easily be identified, the bill is mere claptrap.
It's more proof of Rishi Sunak overpromising and under delivering, again.
When do you expect BoJo and the Trussites to challenge him?
Yeah - quoting the Independent! (I so miss that newspaper of the 80s/90s - whatever it is now is worthless)
I dunno - doing the puzzles and crossword in the i is part of my daily routine.
There's a nice bit in the (excellent) Film Four adaptation of David Peace's 1974 where the editor of the local newspaper slaps down the ambitious young investigative reporter Andrew Garfield by reminding him that most men who buy their paper do so for the spot-the-ball competition, not for complex exposees of corruption in the council.
The Independent was, at one time, a great newspaper.
It swerved between great and lousy pretty much constantly from 1995 onwards, often managing to be both on the same page. There were outstanding op-ed columnists and interesting feature writers, coupled with some absolute gobshites and constantly shrinking news coverage.
I was a loyal reader for many years but it did test your patience sometimes. I think the appointment of Janet Street-Porter at the Sindy was the move that finally drove me into the arms of the Observer on Sunday instead. Simon Kelner ran out of ideas about five years before he finally moved on (only to come back again).
I am picking up some absolute fury of Brexiteer Tory MPs who went to see chief whip Simon Hart at 5pm tonight about the watering down of the REUL Bill.
Twenty Tory MPs were there to protest. The Chief just listened. He left after 45 mins to go to see Sir Graham Brady, as normal.
Brexiteer Tory MPs cannot understand why the Government has done this.
They point out that not a single Tory MP voted against the REUL ill at the Second or Third Reading.
Two Tories tell me they think the U-turn is part of a deal with the EU for agreeing the Windsor Framework.
The tin-foil wearing MPs might be right but surely the more logical assumption is the REUL Bill would need huge amounts of effort to make it workable rather than a series of banal truisms. We can applaud getting rid of unnecessary regulations but unless these can easily be identified, the bill is mere claptrap.
It's more proof of Rishi Sunak overpromising and under delivering, again.
When do you expect BoJo and the Trussites to challenge him?
Next May.
Edit - Or when Sunak whips his MPs to suspend Boris Johnson for more than 10 days.
Elitist snob that I am, I'm not the only one who would prefer his doctors to have degrees?
NHS scheme will allow school leavers to train as doctors without traditional medical degree
New apprenticeships would put people on wards straight after their A-levels, instead of paying pricey fees for five years at university
School leavers will be able to start working as doctors without going to university, under new NHS plans to fix the growing staff crisis.
The apprenticeship scheme could allow one in 10 doctors to start work without a traditional medical degree, straight after their A-levels. A third of nurses are also expected to be trained under the "radical new approach".
It is the centrepiece of a long-delayed NHS workforce strategy, following warnings that staff shortages in England could reach half a million without action to find new ways to train and recruit health workers.
For life experience, you mean, or because unis will train them better technically? Not sure the latter has to apply. Eg if you have top A levels and then combine work experience with study in some non-uni setting I can see that this might produce good doctors?
There is something to be said for seeing how folk interact at an early stage - benefits both sides before they go too far. Mrs C did quite a bit of voluntary work with old folk when considering what university degree to go for. She went into another field, but to this day has much more sympathy and understanding with the old than many of us do.
But there are other ways to achieve that specific aim.
Maybe a plus for the idea is it might help more young people from poorer non-professional backgrounds into medicine? Those who are clever enough but are put off uni by the cost of it and the debt you have to take on.
Working class kids were hardly teeming into medicine before the introduction of fees.
Or into any profession for that matter.
It's a tribute to the country that skin colour isn't a bar to getting into professional jobs, it is your social class.
Yes much progress on the first. But black people still have poor outcomes.
… Number 10 has refused to rule out a Tory deal with the DUP or other parties if it fails to secure a majority at the next general election. Rishi Sunak's spokesman said: "I don't think anyone at this stage is going to speculate on the results of the next election…
WTF? Speculating on the Lib Lab coalition of chaos after the next election results is EXACTLY what Sunak did at PMQs 🫣
I am picking up some absolute fury of Brexiteer Tory MPs who went to see chief whip Simon Hart at 5pm tonight about the watering down of the REUL Bill.
Twenty Tory MPs were there to protest. The Chief just listened. He left after 45 mins to go to see Sir Graham Brady, as normal.
Brexiteer Tory MPs cannot understand why the Government has done this.
They point out that not a single Tory MP voted against the REUL ill at the Second or Third Reading.
Two Tories tell me they think the U-turn is part of a deal with the EU for agreeing the Windsor Framework.
The tin-foil wearing MPs might be right but surely the more logical assumption is the REUL Bill would need huge amounts of effort to make it workable rather than a series of banal truisms. We can applaud getting rid of unnecessary regulations but unless these can easily be identified, the bill is mere claptrap.
It's more proof of Rishi Sunak overpromising and under delivering, again.
When do you expect BoJo and the Trussites to challenge him?
Next May.
Edit - Or when Sunak whips his MPs to suspend Boris Johnson for more than 10 days.
He won't whip them to do that. Not when he's overseen this in order to give those same MPs a legal pretext to reject any sanction over 10 days. It'd be a waste of money to do otherwise.
Elitist snob that I am, I'm not the only one who would prefer his doctors to have degrees?
NHS scheme will allow school leavers to train as doctors without traditional medical degree
New apprenticeships would put people on wards straight after their A-levels, instead of paying pricey fees for five years at university
School leavers will be able to start working as doctors without going to university, under new NHS plans to fix the growing staff crisis.
The apprenticeship scheme could allow one in 10 doctors to start work without a traditional medical degree, straight after their A-levels. A third of nurses are also expected to be trained under the "radical new approach".
It is the centrepiece of a long-delayed NHS workforce strategy, following warnings that staff shortages in England could reach half a million without action to find new ways to train and recruit health workers.
For life experience, you mean, or because unis will train them better technically? Not sure the latter has to apply. Eg if you have top A levels and then combine work experience with study in some non-uni setting I can see that this might produce good doctors?
There is something to be said for seeing how folk interact at an early stage - benefits both sides before they go too far. Mrs C did quite a bit of voluntary work with old folk when considering what university degree to go for. She went into another field, but to this day has much more sympathy and understanding with the old than many of us do.
But there are other ways to achieve that specific aim.
Maybe a plus for the idea is it might help more young people from poorer non-professional backgrounds into medicine? Those who are clever enough but are put off uni by the cost of it and the debt you have to take on.
Working class kids were hardly teeming into medicine before the introduction of fees.
Or into any profession for that matter.
It's a tribute to the country that skin colour isn't a bar to getting into professional jobs, it is your social class.
Yes much progress on the first. But black people still have poor outcomes.
"Adjoa Andoh's 'terribly white' coronation remark becomes most complained about moment of 2023, Ofcom says
Thousands of complaints were filed about the remark, which the Bridgerton star made when she appeared on ITV's live coverage of the King's coronation celebrations. Acknowledging the backlash in a radio interview, she said: "I think I upset a few people.""
Elitist snob that I am, I'm not the only one who would prefer his doctors to have degrees?
NHS scheme will allow school leavers to train as doctors without traditional medical degree
New apprenticeships would put people on wards straight after their A-levels, instead of paying pricey fees for five years at university
School leavers will be able to start working as doctors without going to university, under new NHS plans to fix the growing staff crisis.
The apprenticeship scheme could allow one in 10 doctors to start work without a traditional medical degree, straight after their A-levels. A third of nurses are also expected to be trained under the "radical new approach".
It is the centrepiece of a long-delayed NHS workforce strategy, following warnings that staff shortages in England could reach half a million without action to find new ways to train and recruit health workers.
For life experience, you mean, or because unis will train them better technically? Not sure the latter has to apply. Eg if you have top A levels and then combine work experience with study in some non-uni setting I can see that this might produce good doctors?
There is something to be said for seeing how folk interact at an early stage - benefits both sides before they go too far. Mrs C did quite a bit of voluntary work with old folk when considering what university degree to go for. She went into another field, but to this day has much more sympathy and understanding with the old than many of us do.
But there are other ways to achieve that specific aim.
Maybe a plus for the idea is it might help more young people from poorer non-professional backgrounds into medicine? Those who are clever enough but are put off uni by the cost of it and the debt you have to take on.
Working class kids were hardly teeming into medicine before the introduction of fees.
Or into any profession for that matter.
It's a tribute to the country that skin colour isn't a bar to getting into professional jobs, it is your social class.
A hereditary monarchy means that someone from mine or TSE's ethnic/religious background(s) will never become King or Queen.
Comments
A 10% chance of victory against Sadiq * a 50% chance against the other Tory = 5%.
A 40% chance in 2028 * a 10% chance against the other interested Tories = 4%.
Figures are plucked out of my hat. But you get the idea.
We'll end up with a completely inverted hierarchy in the NHS:managers at the top, all with economics degrees and MBAs, nurses in the middle, all with advanced degrees in sociology or psychology, and doctors at the bottom, only necessary to meet the targets and treated as a mild inconvenience.
@LozzaFox
Andrew Bridgen - 'I've joined the Reclaim Party because they respect free speech'
Free speech belongs to everyone. It doesn’t discriminate.
Andrew Bridgen officially joins Laurence Fox's Reclaim Party as he lashes out at Tories"
https://twitter.com/LozzaFox/status/1656317825269612545
Universities are there to help people develop their thinking skills, on a range of subjects. And to express their thoughts clearly. Not finishing schools at all.
MLK’s famous criticism of Malcolm X was a ‘fraud’, author finds
https://www.washingtonpost.com/history/2023/05/10/mlk-malcolm-x-playboy-alex-haley/
We do have a lot of Nurse apprenticeships that train this way, converting Health Care Assistants to Registered Nurses.
The increasingly important question about the potential harms of marijuana
https://gidmk.medium.com/cannabis-and-schizophrenia-d06bdc093f6
The result was you ended up with a jury of brain dead isolated morons who could barely string a sentence together
Russian state TV's Ruslan Ostashko says the UK has turned out to be the "most predatory and bloodthirsty country" in the war in Ukraine
Err, are you sure about that? There’s another country which springs to mind
https://twitter.com/francis_scarr/status/1656238626664054785?cxt=HHwWgoC82a-QkvwtAAAA
Though it's notable that one juror got his news almost entirely from a right wing blogger.
There's a nice bit in the (excellent) Film Four adaptation of David Peace's 1974 where the editor of the local newspaper slaps down the ambitious young investigative reporter Andrew Garfield by reminding him that most men who buy their paper do so for the spot-the-ball competition, not for complex exposees of corruption in the council.
Item 2 I read about yesterday. It is as stated about increasing convictions, something most people would like to achieve somehow, but some means are not reasonable ways of doing it. Not being aware of Item 1 I was not aware of the additional implicit pressure to secure convictions, which is troubling indeed.
But I also come back on if the argument is accepted at face value that judge trials are better than juries for these sorts of issues, wouldn't they be better for every type of offence?
Item 3 is quite right that two wrongs do not make a right. It is very reminiscent of the rather startling revelations in the Henriques report that the police felt perfectly comfortabel reversing the burden of proof and expecting people to prove themselves innocent, and in fact continued to argue the point.
Item 4 also looks spot on.
As for the question of why people keep trying to bring back illiberal proposals - if they manage it is easier for them, and the public will often either support it or not care about it.
Many older folk have fond memories of weed. The modern incarnation is vastly stronger in THC content, and bears no relation to what Nicki Campbell and Tony Blair smoked in the 1970’s. Is this an issue? Hard to say because it’s really hard to do research in the current puritan environment.
Given what the organisation is very happy to have representing it that should give him pause, but does not, because like many an internet free speecher (aka anti-vaxxer conspiracist) he doesn't want to say what he wants - he can do that anywhere - he wants to be called a hero when people disagree with him.
He's such a fan of Reclaim he only joined them once he was shown the door by the Conservative Party, truly a ringing endorsement.
The man seems to have been addicted to lies and fraud, yet there he was happily going along with just the occasional finger wag.
It's pretty apparent his only real issue for them is he got caught out.
Getting brain surgery from a chap with a cockney accent? No thanks.
The MP has crossed the floor in the House of Commons to sit on the opposition benches after being expelled by the Conservatives for claiming Covid vaccines were the “biggest crime against humanity since the Holocaust”.
Mr Bridgen has said in the past that Tory defectors should face a fresh vote in their constituencies to shore up their mandate. But the MP refused to call a by-election in his own seat after announcing he was joining Reclaim on Wednesday.
The Lib Dems said he would be guilty of “breathtaking hypocrisy” if he declined to resign to trigger a vote.
Asked at a press conference in Westminster if he was willing to have a by-election in his constituency of North West Leicestershire, he said he wouldn’t want to subject local people to two votes in quick succession.
“I think we're going to have a general election very soon,” he said. “We have to have one more or less within 12 months. I think it'll be sooner than that. I don’t think this Government can carry on too much longer. I think they’ll want to get the boundary changes through and I think we'll be having an election this autumn.
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/politics/2023/05/10/tory-mp-andrew-bridgen-reclaim-party-laurence-fox-election/
Of course, it also depends on your definition of "working class". Personally I think people who keep using this anachronistic term are as responsible for the maintenance of the class system as much as the worst middle class snob.
Glancing at the data tables from the two polls from yesterday and today:
For England, YouGov's sub sample had Labour 44%, Conservative 28% and Liberal Democrat 11%, Green 8% and Reform 6%.
BMG has Labour on 45%, Conservatives on 30%, Liberal Democrats 12%, Greens 6% and Reform 5%
The swing in England from Conservative to Labour is between 14 and 15%. These polls did fieldwork before the locals so it's not yet clear whether the 16% recorded by the LDs on the R&W poll on Monday is an outlier - I suspect it is.
On the hypocrisy point, well, that's obviously true, though he could perhaps have made a distinction between people expelled from their party vs those choosing to leave (even if they felt forced out after being suspended).
It's one reason I wouldn't support a rule requiring a by-election if someone crosses the floor, since a ruthless leader could use that as a cudgel against internal opponents.
UKIP, as was, deserve some credit that their defectors did force by-elections.
Being doped up to the eyeballs inhibits social mobility and economic productivity. It ain't a successful formula for either individual or country.
I don't doubt there's quite a bit of drug taking in some areas, but to a level specifically among the working class boys to significantly drag down performance overall?
I guess I find the concept of being "proud" about anything that you did not chose a little peculiar.
https://livesonline.rcseng.ac.uk/client/en_GB/lives/search/detailnonmodal/ent:$002f$002fSD_ASSET$002f0$002fSD_ASSET:373671/one?qu="rcs:+E001488"&rt=false|||IDENTIFIER|||Resource+Identifier&h=0
But someone please think of those who are really suffering here - people who grew up poor but of middle class background (judging by family profession etc) and who have simply done ok.
I have been cycling since a student & have cycled to work in all my jobs, though currently unable to because of injury. I have quite a few cycling injuries.
The name comes from my very first ever comment on social media which was about cycling in Regents Park, which was prohibited at the time - stupidly. I have even been stopped by the police for doing so. (In July 2005). And was given a verbal warning which they then wrote out in triplicate. I am not at all sorry to say that I gave that policeman quite a lot of cheek back when I saw that, just short of the amount that would have got me into trouble.
Comes despite the Tories jumping up and down about Keir Starmer failing to rule out a deal with the Lib Dems.
https://twitter.com/KevinASchofield/status/1656268204665188356
Tories cannot do politics again
See divergent statements from parties about a change of PM requiring an election depending on whether they are currently in or out of power.
Twenty Tory MPs were there to protest. The Chief just listened. He left after 45 mins to go to see Sir Graham Brady, as normal.
Brexiteer Tory MPs cannot understand why the Government has done this.
They point out that not a single Tory MP voted against the REUL ill at the Second or Third Reading.
Two Tories tell me they think the U-turn is part of a deal with the EU for agreeing the Windsor Framework.
https://twitter.com/christopherhope/status/1656357221142261775
The party will not forgive her betrayal on the EU laws bill.
Never understood why it was necessary to move so quickly on these things - yes, evil civil servant remainiacs dragging their feet or whatever, but if you set a completely arbitrary target and a completely arbitrary date then why piss yourself when the arbitrary numbers alter a bit? You'd not be assessing properly what to keep, what to bin, and what to mirror or not, in pursuit of a meaningless target.
The former PM is being investigated by MPs over whether he misled them over lockdown parties in Downing Street.
He is facing growing calls to cover the legal costs himself, as the bill for his defence team increased this week for a second time.
The BBC has learned the Treasury did not sign off the decision to use public money to pay the bill.
I was a loyal reader for many years but it did test your patience sometimes. I think the appointment of Janet Street-Porter at the Sindy was the move that finally drove me into the arms of the Observer on Sunday instead. Simon Kelner ran out of ideas about five years before he finally moved on (only to come back again).
Edit - Or when Sunak whips his MPs to suspend Boris Johnson for more than 10 days.
EDIT: Did I just press "send"???
… Number 10 has refused to rule out a Tory deal with the DUP or other parties if it fails to secure a majority at the next general election.
Rishi Sunak's spokesman said: "I don't think anyone at this stage is going to speculate on the results of the next election…
WTF? Speculating on the Lib Lab coalition of chaos after the next election results is EXACTLY what Sunak did at PMQs 🫣
Thousands of complaints were filed about the remark, which the Bridgerton star made when she appeared on ITV's live coverage of the King's coronation celebrations. Acknowledging the backlash in a radio interview, she said: "I think I upset a few people.""
https://news.sky.com/story/adjoa-andohs-terribly-white-coronation-remark-becomes-most-complained-about-moment-of-2023-ofcom-says-12877889