Museums rarely make me emotional. The DC Air and Space Museum just brought me very close to blubbing. Twice. Because of this
And this
If you have time, I'd recommend checking out the Museum of the American Indian. I spent a full day there and it was fascinating. I was gutted the Air and Space Museum was closed when I was in DC, though if it had been open I probably wouldn't have seen much else!
Half of it is shut for renovation and half of the collection is now in a new museum out of town
It doesn’t matter. It actually makes it better. There are only two exhibitions you really need to see
The Wright Brothers with the actual first plane - utterly spine tingling - and then the NASA space endeavours ending with the actual Apollo 11 and Armstrong’s space suit. They have a video montage of the 1960s culminating in the Eagle has Landed along with Woodstock and Vietnam and the Rolling Stones and JFK dying and the Beatles and Martin Luther King and right behind you is the Apollo capsule
Honestly. Tears were close
You have to choose between the actual plane or the actual spot (with dog for scale)
So Washington is a pompous, dull and quite ugly city with some of the very greatest museums on the planet
A challenging place for someone already bipolar
How is it pompous? (Was thinking of visiting in the next 12 months).
The architecture. It’s like Buenos Aires redesigned by Franco with endless money. It’s quasi Fascist. An attempt to project power by sheer size and scale but actually expresses the insecurity of a needy nation. How many columns do you really require?
Also why is everything this weird sludgy grey-brown colour, like waste water?
And yet: the museums. You absolutely have to come here for the museums. Unbelievably good
Re: the museums, you've barely scratched the surface.
I’m staying an extra day for them alone. Not staying for yet another neo classical splodge of shite or pomo-by-Ceaucescu like THIS
The area to the north of the centre is quite like parts of London, I thought.
So Washington is a pompous, dull and quite ugly city with some of the very greatest museums on the planet
A challenging place for someone already bipolar
Some of the monuments are quite good. The MLK, FDR and, of course Lincoln memorials are impressive but I actually found the Eisenhower Memorial to be quite moving. Same with the Korean War Memorial.
Own take on reading this. Proportional swing could operate against the Tories to some extent at the next election, increasing seat losses a bit, but won't be huge and UNS (plus tactical selection of where to swing) will be the main factor.
Kellner reckoned there was a 0.04% proportional swing against Labour in 2019 for every % of prior vote share on top of UNS, I suspect the Tories could suffer a higher proportional swing next time per % of vote share.
I like the explanation suggested that o a first approximation UNS is caused by swing voters swinging which they do to a similar degree in all constituencies, whilst any additional proportional swing is caused by loyalist desertion which will affect areas with more loyalists.
Thanks for those links. Very interesting analysis by Kellner. But reading the article, I think he categorises too easily the 2015 evidence of proportional swings in Scotland and in Lib Dem seats as exceptions to a general rule of UNS. Apart from these cases, we haven't had an election since 1997 where there was a sea change in attitudes to the Conservatives. I think he's also dismissing 1997 as a UNS election whereas there are clear elements of proportionality that tweaked the UNS result. i.e. A 12.8% loss in Tory support in 1997 in seats where they started with >50% is more than just "slightly greater" than a 10.6% loss in seats where they started with >25% and <33%.
He's also overlooking one factor that at the next election is going to produce a much bigger loss of Conservative vote share in seats that the Conservatives held in 2017-19 compared to ones that they didn't hold. The Reform/Brexit Party. In 2019, the Brexit Party stood only in seats the Conservatives didn't hold, winning 4% in those seats and about 2% overall, the average being dragged down by their tactical choice not to contest Conservative-held seats. Next time, Reform are going to try and contest everywhere, and mostly at the expense of the Conservatives. If they get an average 4% everywhere, that will be 4% more than they got last time in then Conservative held seats, but 0% more in other seats.That will be akin to proportional swing against the Conservatives, they start with a much greater share of the vote in seats that they held in 2017-2019 compared to those they didn't.
Like you, I think the anti-Conservative swing in 2024 will be predominantly UNS but with proportionality kicking in a bit, and with tactical voting on top. Not dissimilar to 1997 in pattern if not necessarily scale. And that election produced Labour and Lib Dem seat gains significantly greater than would have been expected on a pure UNS model.
I will be astounded if the Reform/Brexit party manages to stand in as many seats as it did the last time. It's dead and has been for some time everywhere but in the polling figures. Some won't vote at all but I am expecting a small boost for the Tories from the detritus. It won't be enough though.
I will be astounded if the Reform/Brexit party manages to stand in as many seats as it did the last time. It's dead and has been for some time everywhere but in the polling figures. Some won't vote at all but I am expecting a small boost for the Tories from the detritus. It won't be enough though.
I think hopes of getting Reform votes are seriously misplaced. Where's the reason for Reform Party voters to save Sunak's Government? Yes there are mutterings of Starmer joining the single market but they also know that Brexit isn't safe with Sunak. He'd be lucky if he got Tories to come out and vote, let alone Ukippers.
Which is funnier - that the Saudis from LIV Golf have taken over the PGA Tour, or that Donald Trump predicted a year ago that was exactly what would happen?
Johnson still popular(ish) though. If the by elections are sold as Johnson versus Sunak then a Tory voter strike, in solidarity with Johnson, is possible.
Thread:
Johnson's appeal was limited in 2019, he was toxic in 2022, and he is still toxic now. Some graphs to illustrate each point follow...
I mean specifically in this seat. It's not hard to come across conservative voters here who think he was unfairly treated. Adams - a Johnson loyalist - is also well regarded, at least among the Tory vote.
I had this very weird dream last night and I know it was a dream because this wouldn't happen in real life.
OGH went on holiday and
1) Donald Trump was indicted by the Feds 2) Boris Johnson resigned as MP in an epic temper tantrum after the Committee recommended to suspend him for more than 10 days 3) Two other Tory MPs resigned after they weren't ennobled 4) Nicola Sturgeon was arrested
Something interesting for Pride month, sexual orientation is a changeable thing throughout life, though curiously the study was very binary in self assessed gender, and no gender changes in the sample.
We went from the first manned powered heavier than air flight - for about 1 minute a few feet above sand dunes - to putting a man on the MOON (and returning him) in 66 years
That is mind blowing
What have we done with the 54 years since Apollo 11?
I guess if we achieve AI then we can say Yeah we did it again
The Internet.
It has had massively more effect on the world than Apollo 11 - or even flight.
More Spanish polls overnight give a clearer lead in seats for the PP/VOX combo.
Though there's a poll there where PSOE + Sumar > PP, so PP would need Vox actively supporting them rather than just not opposing them. There might be a couple of others that do that once you factor in nationalists.
If push comes to shove, I'm sure there's a deal to be done; PP want power and who else can Vox support? But in the medium term, the PP would prefer not to have the taint of pacting with the hard right and Vox would prefer not to make the compromises that go with being a junior partner.
Something interesting for Pride month, sexual orientation is a changeable thing throughout life, though curiously the study was very binary in self assessed gender, and no gender changes in the sample.
Interesting, though the quotes in the article frame it in terms of people 'coming out' rather than people's sexual identity changing (which to me implies straight, or gay, individuals becoming gay, or straight).
My feeling is that this could be a cohort effect of relaxing attitudes towards same sex relationships and it's telling that the biggest change was seen in groups who, traditionally, might have stigmatised same-sex relationships. It's not even that people were lying about their initial response but that they might not have ever had knowledge about their own sexuality.
More Spanish polls overnight give a clearer lead in seats for the PP/VOX combo.
Though there's a poll there where PSOE + Sumar > PP, so PP would need Vox actively supporting them rather than just not opposing them. There might be a couple of others that do that once you factor in nationalists.
If push comes to shove, I'm sure there's a deal to be done; PP want power and who else can Vox support? But in the medium term, the PP would prefer not to have the taint of pacting with the hard right and Vox would prefer not to make the compromises that go with being a junior partner.
I think a pact as such is unlikely. Vox are the ones with zero option apart from the PP. Otherwise Sanchez stays. PP have always the grand coalition option if Vox won't play. At the moment all polls would require PP as part of the mix, unless Vox want to join the left! An election which decides nothing is still a possibility.
Which is funnier - that the Saudis from LIV Golf have taken over the PGA Tour, or that Donald Trump predicted a year ago that was exactly what would happen?
Something interesting for Pride month, sexual orientation is a changeable thing throughout life, though curiously the study was very binary in self assessed gender, and no gender changes in the sample.
Interesting, though the quotes in the article frame it in terms of people 'coming out' rather than people's sexual identity changing (which to me implies straight, or gay, individuals becoming gay, or straight).
My feeling is that this could be a cohort effect of relaxing attitudes towards same sex relationships and it's telling that the biggest change was seen in groups who, traditionally, might have stigmatised same-sex relationships. It's not even that people were lying about their initial response but that they might not have ever had knowledge about their own sexuality.
I don't think it purely a cohort effect even though a lot changed between the studies, as there was no net movement between groups. Not surprisingly the most fluid group was Bisexual and other.
We went from the first manned powered heavier than air flight - for about 1 minute a few feet above sand dunes - to putting a man on the MOON (and returning him) in 66 years
That is mind blowing
What have we done with the 54 years since Apollo 11?
I guess if we achieve AI then we can say Yeah we did it again
The Internet.
It has had massively more effect on the world than Apollo 11 - or even flight.
We've gone small rather than large, manipulating matter at the atomic level for a wide variety of purposes.
Apollo was a bit like the pyramids - a hugely impressive statement - but beyond its one time use, of little practical value.
The most significant thing that came out of 60s aerospace funding was the microchip industry.
Own take on reading this. Proportional swing could operate against the Tories to some extent at the next election, increasing seat losses a bit, but won't be huge and UNS (plus tactical selection of where to swing) will be the main factor.
Thanks for those links. Very interesting analysis by Kellner. But reading the article, I think he categorises too easily the 2015 evidence of proportional swings in Scotland and in Lib Dem seats as exceptions to a general rule of UNS. Apart from these cases, we haven't had an election since 1997 where there was a sea change in attitudes to the Conservatives. I think he's also dismissing 1997 as a UNS election whereas there are clear elements of proportionality that tweaked the UNS result. i.e. A 12.8% loss in Tory support in 1997 in seats where they started with >50% is more than just "slightly greater" than a 10.6% loss in seats where they started with >25% and Like you, I think the anti-Conservative swing in 2024 will be predominantly UNS but with proportionality kicking in a bit, and with tactical voting on top. Not dissimilar to 1997 in pattern if not necessarily scale. And that election produced Labour and Lib Dem seat gains significantly greater than would have been expected on a pure UNS model.
I’ve written before that UNS is accepted without anyone knowing why it (mostly) works.
Kellner advances a new hypothesis - that there is a type of person called a “defector” (a new name for floating voters) and that there are roughly even numbers of such people spread around, despite every other political and demographic characteristic varying from one place to another.
Why this should be so isn’t explained! I would expect being a potential floating voter to correlate with other social characteristics - accept that, it is hard to see why they should be so remarkably evenly distributed?
Kellner also re-writes history by suggesting that this was always what Butler had in mind when he first advanced UNS.
Looking back at Butler & Stokes (1974) and Taylor & Johnson (1979), the early explanations of UNS rested on what was called the “neighbourhood effect”. This is that, when Tories are unpopular, those in Sunderland encounter a lot of negative feedback for their views from the generally Labour populace, whereas those in Sevenoaks are shored up by the similar views of those around them. And vice versa for Labour.
Various research is cited to support this, including study of the communist vote in Paris precincts and the Democrat vote in Ohio. However it also drew criticism; other studies found that the influence of neighbourhood (whether geographical or through networks such as employment or social class) was small in influencing voting. Other studies found people mostly discuss politics with people who agree with them.
Other theories included that local campaigning shores up support where that party is strong and well organised (I suggest that modern focusing of campaigns on marginal seats since these books were written means we can now discount this?), or that people self-select where they live based on political affiliation, or self-select their political affiliation based on where they live.
This last, I have time for. Sevenoaks is my home town and I do recall people who appeared to pick up their politics as they might take up gardening - as part of the lifestyle package- when moving there to commute into rather than live in town, as became popular from the 1960s.
I also have my own theory that, since governments look after their “own areas”, Tory voters in Sunderland are more likely discontented with their party’s policies in power than those in Sevenoaks, and vice versa for Labour.
Bottom line is, no-one really knows why the UNS model appears to work for Tory and Labour support (I don’t believe it does for minor parties). Kellner’s hypothesis appears weak.
Over time the MRPs will collect data on voting behaviour over an extended period of time - so perhaps one day we will be able to test whether people who float are indeed evenly distributed? Although I’d think that the tendency of some people to vote in some elections and not others, and the turnover of electors with demographics and internal migration, are likely more important.
Flight to Crete (and numerous other flights from Gatwick) cancelled "due to the hot weather". It was a bit hot (31) but still?? Trains back home disrupted by the hot weather - rails buckling, signals failing.
I wonder if we're so used to a temperate climate that the infrastructure isn't really up to it?
Trying again tomorrow...
My train was cancelled due to flooding, the first rain we've had for ages.
Sorry to hear that. However, also have an apt book suggestion for you too:
The Johnstown Flood by David McCollough
Believe it was the first of his many excellent books dealing with various aspects of American history.
It seems that people are complaining that just because child safeguarding is no good the whole school gets an inadequate, or ineffective rating. So you can have a school which has cracking Maths and English Departments but is no good at safeguarding children and it seems people think it should receive a good or outstanding rating.
Reminds me of the NHS outperforming on all measures apart from health outcomes and saving lives.
It seems that people are complaining that just because child safeguarding is no good the whole school gets an inadequate, or ineffective rating. So you can have a school which has cracking Maths and English Departments but is no good at safeguarding children and it seems people think it should receive a good or outstanding rating.
Reminds me of the NHS outperforming on all measures apart from health outcomes and saving lives.
probably needs to be more nuanced that that though as being "good" at safeguarding can be a combination of empty virtue signalling and boxticking without solving anything serious
It seems that people are complaining that just because child safeguarding is no good the whole school gets an inadequate, or ineffective rating. So you can have a school which has cracking Maths and English Departments but is no good at safeguarding children and it seems people think it should receive a good or outstanding rating.
Reminds me of the NHS outperforming on all measures apart from health outcomes and saving lives.
probably needs to be more nuanced that that though as being "good" at safeguarding can be a combination of empty virtue signalling and boxticking without solving anything serious
It seemed that Ofsted believes safeguarding outweighs every other factor when it comes to the ratings and if this is no good then the whole school gets an inadequate rating no matter how good the Art department is.
Flight to Crete (and numerous other flights from Gatwick) cancelled "due to the hot weather". It was a bit hot (31) but still?? Trains back home disrupted by the hot weather - rails buckling, signals failing.
I wonder if we're so used to a temperate climate that the infrastructure isn't really up to it?
Trying again tomorrow...
I wonder if it was like when I flew back from Luton a few weeks back. Departures were suspended twice because of storm cells on the departure route. And when we did get away we flew a very unusual climb out to avoid them.
- The police investigation into the SNP finances starts in July 2021. This follows complaints about what has happened to £600,000 raised for another independence referendum.
- 19 months later in February 2023 the Head of Police Scotland announces his intention to retire 2 years early in summer 2023. It is reported that this because of a clash with the SNP government about the policing budget.
- Also in February 2023 after this announcement Nicola Sturgeon announces her intention to stand down.
- March 2023: Peter Murrell, SNP CEO, resigns.
- April 2023: Peter Murrell arrested and questioned. His and Sturgeon's home is searched.
- April 2023: campervan seized; Colin Beattie, SNP Treasurer, arrested and questioned; he resigns from his post.
- June 2023: Sturgeon arrested and questioned.
Now, investigating the whereabouts of £600,000 is not, on the face of it, the most complicated investigation ever. So what exactly were the police doing between July 2021 and February 2023? Is it just a coincidence that this all seems to come to a head in the wake of Police Scotland's Head's decision?
It seems that people are complaining that just because child safeguarding is no good the whole school gets an inadequate, or ineffective rating. So you can have a school which has cracking Maths and English Departments but is no good at safeguarding children and it seems people think it should receive a good or outstanding rating.
Reminds me of the NHS outperforming on all measures apart from health outcomes and saving lives.
probably needs to be more nuanced that that though as being "good" at safeguarding can be a combination of empty virtue signalling and boxticking without solving anything serious
It seemed that Ofsted believes safeguarding outweighs every other factor when it comes to the ratings and if this is no good then the whole school gets an inadequate rating no matter how good the Art department is.
Seems fair enough to me.
Inconsistency is the hallmark of big organisations, so we might have a hospital where paediatrics is excellent but General Surgery is poor. Just as we may have systematic bullying in one Army training establishment while another unit is well run.
All reports require reading past the top line, not least OFSTED and EQA visits which are much more about policies and protocols rather than any real activity or commitment.
I will be astounded if the Reform/Brexit party manages to stand in as many seats as it did the last time. It's dead and has been for some time everywhere but in the polling figures. Some won't vote at all but I am expecting a small boost for the Tories from the detritus. It won't be enough though.
I did float the idea of Boris running for ReFUK. Decried as madness on here - and mad it would be.
But - and its a big but - the crank right enjoy madness. In 2019 they succeeded in gifting Labour retention of seats like Stockton North and Sunderland Central.
In 2024? A conservative party needs to be on the ballot somewhere, and that party is Reform UK. I can see donors putting up enough money for candidates and as we have seen post the Brexit referendum all kinds of names reappear in all kinds of unlikely places.
Boris wants to be relevant. Seems the Tory party have declared him persona non grata, despite so many actual Tory MPs and voters still thinking he is the man. He can't reinvent himself inside the party - a party he and so many describe as not conservative enough.
So why not? He will be running as BORIS primarily, the George Galloway of the right. Go get 'em Bozza.
It seems that people are complaining that just because child safeguarding is no good the whole school gets an inadequate, or ineffective rating. So you can have a school which has cracking Maths and English Departments but is no good at safeguarding children and it seems people think it should receive a good or outstanding rating.
Reminds me of the NHS outperforming on all measures apart from health outcomes and saving lives.
probably needs to be more nuanced that that though as being "good" at safeguarding can be a combination of empty virtue signalling and boxticking without solving anything serious
It seemed that Ofsted believes safeguarding outweighs every other factor when it comes to the ratings and if this is no good then the whole school gets an inadequate rating no matter how good the Art department is.
Seems fair enough to me.
Inconsistency is the hallmark of big organisations, so we might have a hospital where paediatrics is excellent but General Surgery is poor. Just as we may have systematic bullying in one Army training establishment while another unit is well run.
All reports require reading past the top line, not least OFSTED and EQA visits which are much more about policies and protocols rather than any real activity or commitment.
Absolutely but I think that it is fair enough for Ofsted to adopt the approach of safeguarding being the critical and overriding ratings input whereby if it is deemed not to have reached appropriate standards in that area then the whole school gets an inadequate rating.
If I were a parent choosing a school I wouldn't care if buried in the fine print of an Outstanding rating was the fact that the Geography dept was no good but I would very much care if the safeguarding was deemed not up to standard.
It seems that people are complaining that just because child safeguarding is no good the whole school gets an inadequate, or ineffective rating. So you can have a school which has cracking Maths and English Departments but is no good at safeguarding children and it seems people think it should receive a good or outstanding rating.
Reminds me of the NHS outperforming on all measures apart from health outcomes and saving lives.
probably needs to be more nuanced that that though as being "good" at safeguarding can be a combination of empty virtue signalling and boxticking without solving anything serious
It seemed that Ofsted believes safeguarding outweighs every other factor when it comes to the ratings and if this is no good then the whole school gets an inadequate rating no matter how good the Art department is.
Seems fair enough to me.
Who is the school safeguarding the children from ?
- The police investigation into the SNP finances starts in July 2021. This follows complaints about what has happened to £600,000 raised for another independence referendum.
- 19 months later in February 2023 the Head of Police Scotland announces his intention to retire 2 years early in summer 2023. It is reported that this because of a clash with the SNP government about the policing budget.
- Also in February 2023 after this announcement Nicola Sturgeon announces her intention to stand down.
- March 2023: Peter Murrell, SNP CEO, resigns.
- April 2023: Peter Murrell arrested and questioned. His and Sturgeon's home is searched.
- April 2023: campervan seized; Colin Beattie, SNP Treasurer, arrested and questioned; he resigns from his post.
- June 2023: Sturgeon arrested and questioned.
Now, investigating the whereabouts of £600,000 is not, on the face of it, the most complicated investigation ever. So what exactly were the police doing between July 2021 and February 2023? Is it just a coincidence that this all seems to come to a head in the wake of Police Scotland's Head's decision?
Do our Scottish posters have a view?
I don't see why us Scottish posters would have any more of an insight. In fact, given the partisan instincts of people on either side, Scottish posters are probably, on average, less able to give a balanced view due to strong feelings for and against independence.
I'm just grateful we live in a country where holding powerful people to account for possible crimes is possible. In all too many places rule of law does not extend to the connected.
I am curious as to whether there might be something going on re the police / SNP relationship which has not been reported south of the border. I would imagine that Scotland-based posters might be better informed.
It seems that people are complaining that just because child safeguarding is no good the whole school gets an inadequate, or ineffective rating. So you can have a school which has cracking Maths and English Departments but is no good at safeguarding children and it seems people think it should receive a good or outstanding rating.
Reminds me of the NHS outperforming on all measures apart from health outcomes and saving lives.
Except OFSTED are not measuring adverse events, but rather paperwork and systems. And their judgments are often disputed.
It seems that people are complaining that just because child safeguarding is no good the whole school gets an inadequate, or ineffective rating. So you can have a school which has cracking Maths and English Departments but is no good at safeguarding children and it seems people think it should receive a good or outstanding rating.
Reminds me of the NHS outperforming on all measures apart from health outcomes and saving lives.
probably needs to be more nuanced that that though as being "good" at safeguarding can be a combination of empty virtue signalling and boxticking without solving anything serious
It seemed that Ofsted believes safeguarding outweighs every other factor when it comes to the ratings and if this is no good then the whole school gets an inadequate rating no matter how good the Art department is.
Seems fair enough to me.
Isn’t it the contention of one of the teachers here that OFSTEDs own child safeguarding measures are critically flawed?
It seems that people are complaining that just because child safeguarding is no good the whole school gets an inadequate, or ineffective rating. So you can have a school which has cracking Maths and English Departments but is no good at safeguarding children and it seems people think it should receive a good or outstanding rating.
Reminds me of the NHS outperforming on all measures apart from health outcomes and saving lives.
probably needs to be more nuanced that that though as being "good" at safeguarding can be a combination of empty virtue signalling and boxticking without solving anything serious
That's closer to the situation.
The current introspection has been driven by the tragedy that happened in Reading last year, where a head committed suicide.
I don't think anyone has claimed that the children at her school were anything but well educated and cared for and safe. But some of the paperwork wasn't complete.
Now, the paperwork is important. But not like this. The trouble is that Ofsted spends such a short time in a given school for a given inspection that the paperwork plays too great a role.
- The police investigation into the SNP finances starts in July 2021. This follows complaints about what has happened to £600,000 raised for another independence referendum.
- 19 months later in February 2023 the Head of Police Scotland announces his intention to retire 2 years early in summer 2023. It is reported that this because of a clash with the SNP government about the policing budget.
- Also in February 2023 after this announcement Nicola Sturgeon announces her intention to stand down.
- March 2023: Peter Murrell, SNP CEO, resigns.
- April 2023: Peter Murrell arrested and questioned. His and Sturgeon's home is searched.
- April 2023: campervan seized; Colin Beattie, SNP Treasurer, arrested and questioned; he resigns from his post.
- June 2023: Sturgeon arrested and questioned.
Now, investigating the whereabouts of £600,000 is not, on the face of it, the most complicated investigation ever. So what exactly were the police doing between July 2021 and February 2023? Is it just a coincidence that this all seems to come to a head in the wake of Police Scotland's Head's decision?
Do our Scottish posters have a view?
I don't see why us Scottish posters would have any more of an insight. In fact, given the partisan instincts of people on either side, Scottish posters are probably, on average, less able to give a balanced view due to strong feelings for and against independence.
I'm just grateful we live in a country where holding powerful people to account for possible crimes is possible. In all too many places rule of law does not extend to the connected.
The arrest of a former First Minister (again) demonstrates to a wider public that nobody is above the law. Which is more than we can say for Prime Ministers and senior cabinet ministers in Westminster...
It seems that people are complaining that just because child safeguarding is no good the whole school gets an inadequate, or ineffective rating. So you can have a school which has cracking Maths and English Departments but is no good at safeguarding children and it seems people think it should receive a good or outstanding rating.
Reminds me of the NHS outperforming on all measures apart from health outcomes and saving lives.
probably needs to be more nuanced that that though as being "good" at safeguarding can be a combination of empty virtue signalling and boxticking without solving anything serious
It seemed that Ofsted believes safeguarding outweighs every other factor when it comes to the ratings and if this is no good then the whole school gets an inadequate rating no matter how good the Art department is.
Seems fair enough to me.
trouble is nobody can really judge safeguarding very well -wasnt offsted in trouble itself recently over the suicide of a teacher? You can only judge on meaningful stuff and safeguarding is very subjective and top down agenda driven in terms of what is good - wheras you can judge academic results more easily
Something used to cost £100. It now costs £110 due to inflation. Rishi Rich says that he will halve inflation. We are meant to feel grateful when the price increases to £115.50.
Get the price down to £105 if you want public gratitude, PM.
I see your point, but actually deflation is generally seen as an economically even worse problem than inflation as people defer spending if prices are expected to fall.
In general, price stability not dropping prices is the appropriate macroeconomic aim.
This is a point I have made about falling house prices and its impact on housebuilding. People like the idea that falling house prices and an increase in housebuilding could go together, but the reality is that when house prices are falling people are less likely to borrow large sums of money to buy premium new build houses, so there would be less demand for this type of housing, so the most probable outcome is that housebuilding also falls.
I think you've got it backwards.
We don't want a fall in prices to lead to an increase in construction.
We want an increase in construction to lead to a fall in prices.
Increased competition absolutely can lead to prices stabilising or falling. And if competition increases, then prices stabilise or fall, then housebuilding falls back, then it will be because the shortage of houses in the system has resolved. Although unless population growth stops entirely, there will always be a need for construction.
There was no let up in the production of various goods that have fallen in price, massively, over the decades.
Half the cost of building work is directly wages. That is half is bricks and roof tiles, half labour. Approximately. But the material themselves have labour inputs. And the materials for the materials.
Some guesses put the ultimate labour portion of a house at 70-80%.
Labour cost is a direct function, these days, of housing costs. The biggest cost for workers is their own housing!
So when house prices actually fall, for a period, labour costs will begin to trend down (assuming a competitive labour market). This in turn will make it cheaper to build houses.
In addition, the U.K. building industry is low productivity, compared to many other countries. Investment in non-exotic machinery - mini cranes and small diggers, say - could halve the work force on a house.
Its worth noting that half the building work cost of houses may be labour but that's not half the cost of the house.
An incredibly significant portion of the cost of housing is the cost of land, and almost all of the cost of land is planning permission.
An acre of farmland can cost £12-25k while an acre of land with planning permission for a house can be worth hundreds of thousands.
Eliminate that discrepancy and the cost of housing would collapse, without affecting labour costs. And as you say, if its cheaper to house people, then everything including labour becomes cheaper.
That is, ostensibly, Starmer’s headline policy. Whether he can deliver will be interesting to watch.
If he comes up with serious policies on this issue, I will hold my nose and vote Labour at the next election.
Careful. HYUFD might say you’re not a real Tory.
LOL.
One thing HYUFD is right about is that. I'm certainly a liberal who normally votes Tory. If I vote Labour at the next election it will only be the second time in my life, after voting Labour in 2001 in my first election.
The Tories should be the party of aspiration for people to have their own home.
If Starmer can get the importance of that but Sunak can't, what does it say about the state of today's Tory party?
I was going to offer Land Value Taxation as a policy here (good old Liberal idea).
The problem Sunak has is he has to balance the requirement of his core vote to maintain the status quo - his core of middle age and elderly northern and midlands home owners rather like the value of their asset continuing to rise which they can pass on (without IHT hopefully) to the children and grandchildren to provide the deposit for the next generation of home owners).
On the other side, he knows the longer term interests of the country and his Party are served by creating a new generation of home owners but he can't make houses affordable without causing existing values to drop which alienates his core.
That's not an easy circle to square.
It's impossible, which is why the Conservative Party will always cave to the interests of the already wealthy in the end. It's why the rumours of the abolition of IHT and revival of Help to Buy continue to swirl, and it also explains why they've already caved to their Southern Nimbies by junking housing targets for local authorities.
Today's Tories will always default to the elderly homeowner interest, trusting that they can return to power if they bring enough of them on side. What happens when the housing shortage means there aren't enough elderly homeowners left to outvote pissed-off renters is a problem for tomorrow's Tories to solve.
By then their children will have inherited of course (and even today by 39 most own property with a mortgage)
There aren't enough houses, therefore those that exist are too expensive. Inheritances will eventually bail some people out, but the numbers staggering under crippling rents into middle age will continue to increase. Eventually this will also undermine your party's support with the grey vote, as more of them end up having to work until they drop down dead to service rents.
No use bellyaching about the concreting of the countryside I'm afraid. If the Conservatives won't do it, eventually things will get so bad that voters will turn to somebody else who will.
There are if we cut immigration.
Most will have inherited by 60-65, so certainly wouldn't need to work beyond normal retirement age (having pensions already saved for too).
Voters across the South are already voting for NIMBY LDs and Greens and Independents because even the modest housebuilding proposed by former Tory controlled councils was too much. If Starmer tried to concrete all over the greenbelt there would be a revolution in the South
Cutting immigration will no more resolve the housing shortage than cutting inflation will see prices fall back down.
Even if net immigration dropped to zero today our pre-existing shortage of houses will still exist. Just as if inflation dropped to zero today, then prices would remain higher than they were in the past.
If we cut net immigration to zero our population would decline as we have a birthrate now well below replacement level. On that basis even just controlled immigration and a fractional net increase each year would still see us have more than enough houses than we need
You're wrong as usual. In all but 2 of the past 50 years we've had more births than deaths in any given year.
"Replacement level" is a BS measure for measuring population change in any meaningful timespan,, birth rate versus death rate is the measure, and that has our births exceeding deaths every year but the height of the pandemic and one other year in the past half century.
The simple reality is that the housing crisis is already here. A typical healthy economy has 10% of houses empty which allows for churn as people move and for people to turn down houses that are unsuitable or priced unsuitably etc and we're running at 99% occupancy which is in any walk of life a failing system.
We don't need a few thousand extra homes, we need millions of extra houses in order to end the imbalance in the market. That will bring down inflation, bring down costs as people can afford their own home etc and at minimal cost to any 'green' space as we're not talking houses for a billion people, just the ones who live in this country and any net changes.
Flight to Crete (and numerous other flights from Gatwick) cancelled "due to the hot weather". It was a bit hot (31) but still?? Trains back home disrupted by the hot weather - rails buckling, signals failing.
I wonder if we're so used to a temperate climate that the infrastructure isn't really up to it?
Trying again tomorrow...
I wonder if it was like when I flew back from Luton a few weeks back. Departures were suspended twice because of storm cells on the departure route. And when we did get away we flew a very unusual climb out to avoid them.
Turbulence, I believe, is the problem - for the passengers as much as the plane itself. I remember flying to Bournemouth one hot summer's day. Looked out the window, saw the cu-nimbus, and finished my meal and drink asap. The chap in front didn't, and spilt his red wine on the ceiling.
I’m not sure what point Trump thinks he was making here ?
'Those tapes are my tapes!' Trump enraged by Jack Smith's evidence against him https://www.rawstory.com/donald-trump-tapes/ Former President Donald Trump on Sunday confirmed the existence of audio recordings that could be used as evidence against him in a case about the mishandling of classified documents.
During an interview on Sunday with host Roger Stone, Trump responded to reports indicating he admitted he did not declassify some documents before leaving office with them. Those recordings are reportedly in the hands of special counsel Jack Smith.
"By the way, the tapes that you read about, those tapes are my tapes," Trump growled. "I gave them very willingly, the tapes."
Trump complained that President Joe Biden "probably doesn't have tapes" incriminating himself.
"I gave them the tapes!" he exclaimed before threatening to release tapes of the FBI searching Mar-a-Lago.
"I have tapes of the FBI during the raid. I didn't put them out because I was asked not to by them," he ranted. "But I have tapes of the raid by FBI. You want to see some tapes? Those are tapes."
Either he has no point and it's another example of him seemingly enraged that something of his is taken away (even when, like the documents, they are not his), or he's trying to say he must be innocent else why would he have let them have the tapes (though it may be he did not, or had no choice).
It seems that people are complaining that just because child safeguarding is no good the whole school gets an inadequate, or ineffective rating. So you can have a school which has cracking Maths and English Departments but is no good at safeguarding children and it seems people think it should receive a good or outstanding rating.
Reminds me of the NHS outperforming on all measures apart from health outcomes and saving lives.
probably needs to be more nuanced that that though as being "good" at safeguarding can be a combination of empty virtue signalling and boxticking without solving anything serious
That's closer to the situation.
The current introspection has been driven by the tragedy that happened in Reading last year, where a head committed suicide.
I don't think anyone has claimed that the children at her school were anything but well educated and cared for and safe. But some of the paperwork wasn't complete.
Now, the paperwork is important. But not like this. The trouble is that Ofsted spends such a short time in a given school for a given inspection that the paperwork plays too great a role.
Ah interesting. So the issue is then not that people disagree with the principle that safeguarding should be the main determinant of the rating, but that Ofsted's measurement of safeguarding and the process around reporting it are flawed?
It seems that people are complaining that just because child safeguarding is no good the whole school gets an inadequate, or ineffective rating. So you can have a school which has cracking Maths and English Departments but is no good at safeguarding children and it seems people think it should receive a good or outstanding rating.
Reminds me of the NHS outperforming on all measures apart from health outcomes and saving lives.
probably needs to be more nuanced that that though as being "good" at safeguarding can be a combination of empty virtue signalling and boxticking without solving anything serious
It seemed that Ofsted believes safeguarding outweighs every other factor when it comes to the ratings and if this is no good then the whole school gets an inadequate rating no matter how good the Art department is.
Seems fair enough to me.
Who is the school safeguarding the children from ?
Risks? Teachers? Guests to the school? Parents? Strangers? Other pupils? Inanimate objects?
Plenty goes into safeguarding surely.
If safeguarding is a fail then absolutely the school should fail its inspection even if everything else is excellent. It's a Critical Control Point and if it's failed, the school has failed.
If the safeguarding assessment is flawed, object to that. But don't object to its importance.
It seems that people are complaining that just because child safeguarding is no good the whole school gets an inadequate, or ineffective rating. So you can have a school which has cracking Maths and English Departments but is no good at safeguarding children and it seems people think it should receive a good or outstanding rating.
Reminds me of the NHS outperforming on all measures apart from health outcomes and saving lives.
probably needs to be more nuanced that that though as being "good" at safeguarding can be a combination of empty virtue signalling and boxticking without solving anything serious
It seemed that Ofsted believes safeguarding outweighs every other factor when it comes to the ratings and if this is no good then the whole school gets an inadequate rating no matter how good the Art department is.
Seems fair enough to me.
Isn’t it the contention of one of the teachers here that OFSTEDs own child safeguarding measures are critically flawed?
It seems that people are complaining that just because child safeguarding is no good the whole school gets an inadequate, or ineffective rating. So you can have a school which has cracking Maths and English Departments but is no good at safeguarding children and it seems people think it should receive a good or outstanding rating.
Reminds me of the NHS outperforming on all measures apart from health outcomes and saving lives.
All relies on if they are good at assessing things of course.
It seems that people are complaining that just because child safeguarding is no good the whole school gets an inadequate, or ineffective rating. So you can have a school which has cracking Maths and English Departments but is no good at safeguarding children and it seems people think it should receive a good or outstanding rating.
Reminds me of the NHS outperforming on all measures apart from health outcomes and saving lives.
probably needs to be more nuanced that that though as being "good" at safeguarding can be a combination of empty virtue signalling and boxticking without solving anything serious
It seemed that Ofsted believes safeguarding outweighs every other factor when it comes to the ratings and if this is no good then the whole school gets an inadequate rating no matter how good the Art department is.
Seems fair enough to me.
Who is the school safeguarding the children from ?
- protecting children from maltreatment - preventing impairment of children’s health or development - ensuring that children are growing up in circumstances consistent with the provision of safe and effective care - taking action to enable all children to have the best outcomes
It seems that people are complaining that just because child safeguarding is no good the whole school gets an inadequate, or ineffective rating. So you can have a school which has cracking Maths and English Departments but is no good at safeguarding children and it seems people think it should receive a good or outstanding rating.
Reminds me of the NHS outperforming on all measures apart from health outcomes and saving lives.
probably needs to be more nuanced that that though as being "good" at safeguarding can be a combination of empty virtue signalling and boxticking without solving anything serious
It seemed that Ofsted believes safeguarding outweighs every other factor when it comes to the ratings and if this is no good then the whole school gets an inadequate rating no matter how good the Art department is.
Seems fair enough to me.
Who is the school safeguarding the children from ?
Risks? Teachers? Guests to the school? Parents? Strangers? Other pupils? Inanimate objects?
Plenty goes into safeguarding surely.
If safeguarding is a fail then absolutely the school should fail its inspection even if everything else is excellent. It's a Critical Control Point and if it's failed, the school has failed.
If the safeguarding assessment is flawed, object to that. But don't object to its importance.
Add non-teaching staff too. And Ofsted staff (which perhaps don't count as 'guests' if they don't need approval to be on the premises).
It seems that people are complaining that just because child safeguarding is no good the whole school gets an inadequate, or ineffective rating. So you can have a school which has cracking Maths and English Departments but is no good at safeguarding children and it seems people think it should receive a good or outstanding rating.
Reminds me of the NHS outperforming on all measures apart from health outcomes and saving lives.
probably needs to be more nuanced that that though as being "good" at safeguarding can be a combination of empty virtue signalling and boxticking without solving anything serious
That's closer to the situation.
The current introspection has been driven by the tragedy that happened in Reading last year, where a head committed suicide.
I don't think anyone has claimed that the children at her school were anything but well educated and cared for and safe. But some of the paperwork wasn't complete.
Now, the paperwork is important. But not like this. The trouble is that Ofsted spends such a short time in a given school for a given inspection that the paperwork plays too great a role.
Ah interesting. So the issue is then not that people disagree with the principle that safeguarding should be the main determinant of the rating, but that Ofsted's measurement of safeguarding and the process around reporting it are flawed?
Have you read none of @ydoethur 's comments on this issue ?
Question for the criminal lawyers eg @DavidL - Why do the police arrest someone who is voluntarily helping them and whom they are not going to charge (at least at this point in time)? Does it make any difference to the weight of the evidence?
- The police investigation into the SNP finances starts in July 2021. This follows complaints about what has happened to £600,000 raised for another independence referendum.
- 19 months later in February 2023 the Head of Police Scotland announces his intention to retire 2 years early in summer 2023. It is reported that this because of a clash with the SNP government about the policing budget.
- Also in February 2023 after this announcement Nicola Sturgeon announces her intention to stand down.
- March 2023: Peter Murrell, SNP CEO, resigns.
- April 2023: Peter Murrell arrested and questioned. His and Sturgeon's home is searched.
- April 2023: campervan seized; Colin Beattie, SNP Treasurer, arrested and questioned; he resigns from his post.
- June 2023: Sturgeon arrested and questioned.
Now, investigating the whereabouts of £600,000 is not, on the face of it, the most complicated investigation ever. So what exactly were the police doing between July 2021 and February 2023? Is it just a coincidence that this all seems to come to a head in the wake of Police Scotland's Head's decision?
Do our Scottish posters have a view?
I don't see why us Scottish posters would have any more of an insight. In fact, given the partisan instincts of people on either side, Scottish posters are probably, on average, less able to give a balanced view due to strong feelings for and against independence.
I'm just grateful we live in a country where holding powerful people to account for possible crimes is possible. In all too many places rule of law does not extend to the connected.
The arrest of a former First Minister (again) demonstrates to a wider public that nobody is above the law. Which is more than we can say for Prime Ministers and senior cabinet ministers in Westminster...
The current and previous-but-one PMs were fined for breaking lockdown rules... and I think there was something about seatbelts recently too but I don't remember whether a fine was issued. Do you think there is some more serious crime that's gone uninvestigated or unpunished?
It's not like friends and family of MPs and donors were given unfettered access to multi- million pound public sector contracts without going through a formal tender process or anything genuinely scandalous like that? Or £63m of London ratepayers' money being spent on a garden bridge that is yet to see the first brick laid.
If either of those fictional scenarios were to be a reality and no one investigated the potential for criminality, now there would be a scandal of Sicilian proportions.
- The police investigation into the SNP finances starts in July 2021. This follows complaints about what has happened to £600,000 raised for another independence referendum.
- 19 months later in February 2023 the Head of Police Scotland announces his intention to retire 2 years early in summer 2023. It is reported that this because of a clash with the SNP government about the policing budget.
- Also in February 2023 after this announcement Nicola Sturgeon announces her intention to stand down.
- March 2023: Peter Murrell, SNP CEO, resigns.
- April 2023: Peter Murrell arrested and questioned. His and Sturgeon's home is searched.
- April 2023: campervan seized; Colin Beattie, SNP Treasurer, arrested and questioned; he resigns from his post.
- June 2023: Sturgeon arrested and questioned.
Now, investigating the whereabouts of £600,000 is not, on the face of it, the most complicated investigation ever. So what exactly were the police doing between July 2021 and February 2023? Is it just a coincidence that this all seems to come to a head in the wake of Police Scotland's Head's decision?
Do our Scottish posters have a view?
I don't see why us Scottish posters would have any more of an insight. In fact, given the partisan instincts of people on either side, Scottish posters are probably, on average, less able to give a balanced view due to strong feelings for and against independence.
I'm just grateful we live in a country where holding powerful people to account for possible crimes is possible. In all too many places rule of law does not extend to the connected.
I am curious as to whether there might be something going on re the police / SNP relationship which has not been reported south of the border. I would imagine that Scotland-based posters might be better informed.
As to your point about accountability, I agree.
Well, possibly, so perhaps I should just speak for just myself and state that I know nothing because I know nobody of any consequence in matters like this. I'm just a prole and people like me don't rub shoulders with people like them. Like you, I would like to know more.
You two are perhaps omitting the Procurator Fiscal - but I say 'perhaps' as it seems too early for them to be involved in any definite way, if PS are still gathering evidence as to what if anything has happened.
It seems that people are complaining that just because child safeguarding is no good the whole school gets an inadequate, or ineffective rating. So you can have a school which has cracking Maths and English Departments but is no good at safeguarding children and it seems people think it should receive a good or outstanding rating.
Reminds me of the NHS outperforming on all measures apart from health outcomes and saving lives.
probably needs to be more nuanced that that though as being "good" at safeguarding can be a combination of empty virtue signalling and boxticking without solving anything serious
It seemed that Ofsted believes safeguarding outweighs every other factor when it comes to the ratings and if this is no good then the whole school gets an inadequate rating no matter how good the Art department is.
Seems fair enough to me.
trouble is nobody can really judge safeguarding very well -wasnt offsted in trouble itself recently over the suicide of a teacher? You can only judge on meaningful stuff and safeguarding is very subjective and top down agenda driven in terms of what is good - wheras you can judge academic results more easily
Question for the criminal lawyers eg @DavidL - Why do the police arrest someone who is voluntarily helping them and whom they are not going to charge (at least at this point in time)? Does it make any difference to the weight of the evidence?
Very curious to know.
I'd also be curious to know for definite - but assumed that it was to ensure that you were questioning them under oath (with appropriate perjury penalties), rather than just having an informal conversation with them.
It seems that people are complaining that just because child safeguarding is no good the whole school gets an inadequate, or ineffective rating. So you can have a school which has cracking Maths and English Departments but is no good at safeguarding children and it seems people think it should receive a good or outstanding rating.
Reminds me of the NHS outperforming on all measures apart from health outcomes and saving lives.
probably needs to be more nuanced that that though as being "good" at safeguarding can be a combination of empty virtue signalling and boxticking without solving anything serious
It seemed that Ofsted believes safeguarding outweighs every other factor when it comes to the ratings and if this is no good then the whole school gets an inadequate rating no matter how good the Art department is.
Seems fair enough to me.
trouble is nobody can really judge safeguarding very well -wasnt offsted in trouble itself recently over the suicide of a teacher? You can only judge on meaningful stuff and safeguarding is very subjective and top down agenda driven in terms of what is good - wheras you can judge academic results more easily
I'm surprised it's only 10 - you have to remember Ofsted can destory someone's career instantly with zero right of reply and often on dubious points because what they say goes...
And safeguarding rules are a mess as various items slightly contradict each other and you never quite know which variation of the rules that inspector cares about.. I've seen Inadequate schools with brilliant safeguarding and outstanding schools where you look at things from outside and ask HTF did they allow that to happen.
It seems that people are complaining that just because child safeguarding is no good the whole school gets an inadequate, or ineffective rating. So you can have a school which has cracking Maths and English Departments but is no good at safeguarding children and it seems people think it should receive a good or outstanding rating.
Reminds me of the NHS outperforming on all measures apart from health outcomes and saving lives.
probably needs to be more nuanced that that though as being "good" at safeguarding can be a combination of empty virtue signalling and boxticking without solving anything serious
That's closer to the situation.
The current introspection has been driven by the tragedy that happened in Reading last year, where a head committed suicide.
I don't think anyone has claimed that the children at her school were anything but well educated and cared for and safe. But some of the paperwork wasn't complete.
Now, the paperwork is important. But not like this. The trouble is that Ofsted spends such a short time in a given school for a given inspection that the paperwork plays too great a role.
Ah interesting. So the issue is then not that people disagree with the principle that safeguarding should be the main determinant of the rating, but that Ofsted's measurement of safeguarding and the process around reporting it are flawed?
Also, does the consequence fit the failing? At the moment, an Ofsted Inadequate means that a school will be taken over by an academy chain, and the head and deputies will almost certainly be sacked and probably looking for new careers.
If we're talking a school where children are at risk from staff, strangers or other children, that's fair enough. But that's difficult to check on one day. Much easier to look at the admin.
It seems that people are complaining that just because child safeguarding is no good the whole school gets an inadequate, or ineffective rating. So you can have a school which has cracking Maths and English Departments but is no good at safeguarding children and it seems people think it should receive a good or outstanding rating.
Reminds me of the NHS outperforming on all measures apart from health outcomes and saving lives.
probably needs to be more nuanced that that though as being "good" at safeguarding can be a combination of empty virtue signalling and boxticking without solving anything serious
It seemed that Ofsted believes safeguarding outweighs every other factor when it comes to the ratings and if this is no good then the whole school gets an inadequate rating no matter how good the Art department is.
Seems fair enough to me.
trouble is nobody can really judge safeguarding very well -wasnt offsted in trouble itself recently over the suicide of a teacher? You can only judge on meaningful stuff and safeguarding is very subjective and top down agenda driven in terms of what is good - wheras you can judge academic results more easily
I'm surprised it's only 10 - you have to remember Ofsted can destory someone's career instantly with zero right of reply and often on dubious points because what they say goes...
- The police investigation into the SNP finances starts in July 2021. This follows complaints about what has happened to £600,000 raised for another independence referendum.
- 19 months later in February 2023 the Head of Police Scotland announces his intention to retire 2 years early in summer 2023. It is reported that this because of a clash with the SNP government about the policing budget.
- Also in February 2023 after this announcement Nicola Sturgeon announces her intention to stand down.
- March 2023: Peter Murrell, SNP CEO, resigns.
- April 2023: Peter Murrell arrested and questioned. His and Sturgeon's home is searched.
- April 2023: campervan seized; Colin Beattie, SNP Treasurer, arrested and questioned; he resigns from his post.
- June 2023: Sturgeon arrested and questioned.
Now, investigating the whereabouts of £600,000 is not, on the face of it, the most complicated investigation ever. So what exactly were the police doing between July 2021 and February 2023? Is it just a coincidence that this all seems to come to a head in the wake of Police Scotland's Head's decision?
Do our Scottish posters have a view?
I don't see why us Scottish posters would have any more of an insight. In fact, given the partisan instincts of people on either side, Scottish posters are probably, on average, less able to give a balanced view due to strong feelings for and against independence.
I'm just grateful we live in a country where holding powerful people to account for possible crimes is possible. In all too many places rule of law does not extend to the connected.
The arrest of a former First Minister (again) demonstrates to a wider public that nobody is above the law. Which is more than we can say for Prime Ministers and senior cabinet ministers in Westminster...
The current and previous-but-one PMs were fined for breaking lockdown rules... and I think there was something about seatbelts recently too but I don't remember whether a fine was issued. Do you think there is some more serious crime that's gone uninvestigated or unpunished?
It's not like friends and family of MPs and donors were given unfettered access to multi- million pound public sector contracts without going through a formal tender process or anything genuinely scandalous like that? Or £63m of London ratepayers' money being spent on a garden bridge that is yet to see the first brick laid.
If either of those fictional scenarios were to be a reality and no one investigated the potential for criminality, now there would be a scandal of Sicilian proportions.
Oh that. Yeah ok.
Or a man (A) facilitates the underwriting of a substantial loan on behalf of another man (B) and without favour, man A becomes Chairman of the state broadcaster on the recommendation of man B. It just wouldn't happen here. We are not some central African or American banana republic.
Which is funnier - that the Saudis from LIV Golf have taken over the PGA Tour, or that Donald Trump predicted a year ago that was exactly what would happen?
Crikes! Did Leon forsee this too? After all, he and the Donald both were early on the lab leak thing. Both USE CAPS QUITE A BIT. Either they're both blessed with foresight or... Could they be one and the same?
Question for the criminal lawyers eg @DavidL - Why do the police arrest someone who is voluntarily helping them and whom they are not going to charge (at least at this point in time)? Does it make any difference to the weight of the evidence?
Very curious to know.
I'd also be curious to know for definite - but assumed that it was to ensure that you were questioning them under oath (with appropriate perjury penalties), rather than just having an informal conversation with them.
If someone is a potential suspect, arresting them gives them certain rights such as to have a lawyer represent them, as well as to be formally read the caution.
I actually think Uxbridge is safer for the Tories than Mid Beds.
The LDs by election machine is fearsome and Central Beds council is now NOC.
The Labour by election machine, while I would not go quite so far as to say is hopeless, is shall we say rather less feared by we Tories than the LD by election machine.
Uxbridge also has a high Hindu population who will be pro Rishi and Hillingdon council remains Conservative controlled.
Selby I expect the LDs will leave to focus on Mid Beds so I expect a narrow Conservative hold there but with a swing to Labour at the national average. If confirmed a by election in Rutherglen I suspect Labour will at least gain that from the SNP now
It seems that people are complaining that just because child safeguarding is no good the whole school gets an inadequate, or ineffective rating. So you can have a school which has cracking Maths and English Departments but is no good at safeguarding children and it seems people think it should receive a good or outstanding rating.
Reminds me of the NHS outperforming on all measures apart from health outcomes and saving lives.
probably needs to be more nuanced that that though as being "good" at safeguarding can be a combination of empty virtue signalling and boxticking without solving anything serious
It seemed that Ofsted believes safeguarding outweighs every other factor when it comes to the ratings and if this is no good then the whole school gets an inadequate rating no matter how good the Art department is.
Seems fair enough to me.
Who is the school safeguarding the children from ?
Risks? Teachers? Guests to the school? Parents? Strangers? Other pupils? Inanimate objects?
Plenty goes into safeguarding surely.
If safeguarding is a fail then absolutely the school should fail its inspection even if everything else is excellent. It's a Critical Control Point and if it's failed, the school has failed.
If the safeguarding assessment is flawed, object to that. But don't object to its importance.
Question for the criminal lawyers eg @DavidL - Why do the police arrest someone who is voluntarily helping them and whom they are not going to charge (at least at this point in time)? Does it make any difference to the weight of the evidence?
Very curious to know.
I'd also be curious to know for definite - but assumed that it was to ensure that you were questioning them under oath (with appropriate perjury penalties), rather than just having an informal conversation with them.
You don't get questioned by Police "under oath" so it isn't perjury (although, whether you're a suspect or not, lying to police can entail perverting the course of justice or wasting police time, which are separate offences).
I believe that the key is that a suspect under arrest has additional protections that someone being interviewed as a witness does not and, if the person is later charged, evidence obtained at the interview is less likely to be deemed inadmissible if the person has given that evidence under arrest and caution (because they've had those additional protections).
It seems that people are complaining that just because child safeguarding is no good the whole school gets an inadequate, or ineffective rating. So you can have a school which has cracking Maths and English Departments but is no good at safeguarding children and it seems people think it should receive a good or outstanding rating.
Reminds me of the NHS outperforming on all measures apart from health outcomes and saving lives.
probably needs to be more nuanced that that though as being "good" at safeguarding can be a combination of empty virtue signalling and boxticking without solving anything serious
It seemed that Ofsted believes safeguarding outweighs every other factor when it comes to the ratings and if this is no good then the whole school gets an inadequate rating no matter how good the Art department is.
Seems fair enough to me.
Who is the school safeguarding the children from ?
Sex workers wanting to read stories to the children?
It seems that people are complaining that just because child safeguarding is no good the whole school gets an inadequate, or ineffective rating. So you can have a school which has cracking Maths and English Departments but is no good at safeguarding children and it seems people think it should receive a good or outstanding rating.
Reminds me of the NHS outperforming on all measures apart from health outcomes and saving lives.
probably needs to be more nuanced that that though as being "good" at safeguarding can be a combination of empty virtue signalling and boxticking without solving anything serious
It seemed that Ofsted believes safeguarding outweighs every other factor when it comes to the ratings and if this is no good then the whole school gets an inadequate rating no matter how good the Art department is.
Seems fair enough to me.
Who is the school safeguarding the children from ?
- protecting children from maltreatment - preventing impairment of children’s health or development - ensuring that children are growing up in circumstances consistent with the provision of safe and effective care - taking action to enable all children to have the best outcomes
Those areas look to me to be overwhemingly related to the parents and carers of the children. I'll be honest that's not going to be top of my priorities when I come to look at OFSTED reports for schools in a few years time since I'll be ticking those boxes at home for my daughter.
For the school overall it matters greatly. For individual parents, what happens in the homes of other parents with other children - rather less so.
It is extremely important but I think it should be outside the general OFSTED criteria and report.
Question for the criminal lawyers eg @DavidL - Why do the police arrest someone who is voluntarily helping them and whom they are not going to charge (at least at this point in time)? Does it make any difference to the weight of the evidence?
Very curious to know.
I'd also be curious to know for definite - but assumed that it was to ensure that you were questioning them under oath (with appropriate perjury penalties), rather than just having an informal conversation with them.
If someone is a potential suspect, arresting them gives them certain rights such as to have a lawyer represent them, as well as to be formally read the caution.
Perhaps there should be a better term, such as interviewed under caution, rather than arrested (and presumably dearrested or unarrested or some such immediately afterwards).
It seems that people are complaining that just because child safeguarding is no good the whole school gets an inadequate, or ineffective rating. So you can have a school which has cracking Maths and English Departments but is no good at safeguarding children and it seems people think it should receive a good or outstanding rating.
Reminds me of the NHS outperforming on all measures apart from health outcomes and saving lives.
probably needs to be more nuanced that that though as being "good" at safeguarding can be a combination of empty virtue signalling and boxticking without solving anything serious
That's closer to the situation.
The current introspection has been driven by the tragedy that happened in Reading last year, where a head committed suicide.
I don't think anyone has claimed that the children at her school were anything but well educated and cared for and safe. But some of the paperwork wasn't complete.
Now, the paperwork is important. But not like this. The trouble is that Ofsted spends such a short time in a given school for a given inspection that the paperwork plays too great a role.
Ah interesting. So the issue is then not that people disagree with the principle that safeguarding should be the main determinant of the rating, but that Ofsted's measurement of safeguarding and the process around reporting it are flawed?
Also, does the consequence fit the failing? At the moment, an Ofsted Inadequate means that a school will be taken over by an academy chain, and the head and deputies will almost certainly be sacked and probably looking for new careers.
If we're talking a school where children are at risk from staff, strangers or other children, that's fair enough. But that's difficult to check on one day. Much easier to look at the admin.
So we agree that safeguarding should outweigh other factors, such as PT and Home Economics. How should Ofsted safeguarding inspections be conducted? What is the biggest/central failing right now?
It seems that people are complaining that just because child safeguarding is no good the whole school gets an inadequate, or ineffective rating. So you can have a school which has cracking Maths and English Departments but is no good at safeguarding children and it seems people think it should receive a good or outstanding rating.
Reminds me of the NHS outperforming on all measures apart from health outcomes and saving lives.
probably needs to be more nuanced that that though as being "good" at safeguarding can be a combination of empty virtue signalling and boxticking without solving anything serious
It seemed that Ofsted believes safeguarding outweighs every other factor when it comes to the ratings and if this is no good then the whole school gets an inadequate rating no matter how good the Art department is.
Seems fair enough to me.
trouble is nobody can really judge safeguarding very well -wasnt offsted in trouble itself recently over the suicide of a teacher? You can only judge on meaningful stuff and safeguarding is very subjective and top down agenda driven in terms of what is good - wheras you can judge academic results more easily
I'm surprised it's only 10 - you have to remember Ofsted can destory someone's career instantly with zero right of reply and often on dubious points because what they say goes...
Unsurprising. The management teams in primary schools are tiny and not really set up to deal with juggernauts like Ofsted. Which is why LEAs made some sort of sense, even when they didn't do their job well. (The one at the primary I governed really should have stepped in long before it did.)
The Gove vision of thousands of free standing good schools fell down for many reasons, but a key one was overestimating how many heads would be willing or able or have enough budget to run schools that way.
Selby could be the surprise packet, mainly rural in North Yorkshire whose Council has 47 Cons, 13 Lib Dems, 12 Labour and 5 Greens. The last of the four is quite active in the area and put up loads of candidates in 2022. If there is a significant movement from Con to Lib Dem and some Labour to Green this could be a 3 way marginal, with a recount. No doubt the Lib Dems will be deploying their northern resources to the seat, remember nearby Hull was captured last year, and some of the constituency villages are part of the Harrogate area, They should have sufficient workers from London, South East and Midlands to cover Mid Beds. It could gain any of three ways.
It seems that people are complaining that just because child safeguarding is no good the whole school gets an inadequate, or ineffective rating. So you can have a school which has cracking Maths and English Departments but is no good at safeguarding children and it seems people think it should receive a good or outstanding rating.
Reminds me of the NHS outperforming on all measures apart from health outcomes and saving lives.
probably needs to be more nuanced that that though as being "good" at safeguarding can be a combination of empty virtue signalling and boxticking without solving anything serious
It seemed that Ofsted believes safeguarding outweighs every other factor when it comes to the ratings and if this is no good then the whole school gets an inadequate rating no matter how good the Art department is.
Seems fair enough to me.
Who is the school safeguarding the children from ?
Risks? Teachers? Guests to the school? Parents? Strangers? Other pupils? Inanimate objects?
Plenty goes into safeguarding surely.
If safeguarding is a fail then absolutely the school should fail its inspection even if everything else is excellent. It's a Critical Control Point and if it's failed, the school has failed.
If the safeguarding assessment is flawed, object to that. But don't object to its importance.
Themselves? Self harm is a serious problem
Another question is how much it should matter to other families if (under safeguarding) the school has not noticed that you are roughing your children up or not feeding them properly.
It seems that people are complaining that just because child safeguarding is no good the whole school gets an inadequate, or ineffective rating. So you can have a school which has cracking Maths and English Departments but is no good at safeguarding children and it seems people think it should receive a good or outstanding rating.
Reminds me of the NHS outperforming on all measures apart from health outcomes and saving lives.
probably needs to be more nuanced that that though as being "good" at safeguarding can be a combination of empty virtue signalling and boxticking without solving anything serious
It seemed that Ofsted believes safeguarding outweighs every other factor when it comes to the ratings and if this is no good then the whole school gets an inadequate rating no matter how good the Art department is.
Seems fair enough to me.
Who is the school safeguarding the children from ?
Sex workers wanting to read stories to the children?
Why would they need safeguarding from someone wanting to read a story?
Unless that worker has a criminal conviction that means they would fail a DBS, their chosen career is immaterial surely?
Either Mogg has been at the ayahuasca, or is considering a career in imaginative fiction.
https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2023/jun/11/senior-tories-tell-boris-johnson-and-allies-to-shut-up-and-go-away ...Jacob Rees-Mogg, who was knighted in Johnson’s resignation honours, said he was hopeful about the former prime minister’s chance of a comeback. He said Sunak should remain leader until the next general election – but predicted that “at some indeterminate date in the future when Rishi’s hair has gone grey and he decides to retire,” Johnson could come back “on his charger to save the nation”...
Question for the criminal lawyers eg @DavidL - Why do the police arrest someone who is voluntarily helping them and whom they are not going to charge (at least at this point in time)? Does it make any difference to the weight of the evidence?
Very curious to know.
I'd also be curious to know for definite - but assumed that it was to ensure that you were questioning them under oath (with appropriate perjury penalties), rather than just having an informal conversation with them.
If someone is a potential suspect, arresting them gives them certain rights such as to have a lawyer represent them, as well as to be formally read the caution.
Perhaps there should be a better term, such as interviewed under caution, rather than arrested (and presumably dearrested or unarrested or some such immediately afterwards).
They aren't the same thing. You can be interviewed under caution without being arrested (but can leave the interview at any time in such circumstances).
It seems that people are complaining that just because child safeguarding is no good the whole school gets an inadequate, or ineffective rating. So you can have a school which has cracking Maths and English Departments but is no good at safeguarding children and it seems people think it should receive a good or outstanding rating.
Reminds me of the NHS outperforming on all measures apart from health outcomes and saving lives.
The purpose of schools is to educate, especially in Maths and English, as saving lives is for hospitals, safeguarding is important too but not the purpose of school. Indeed 50 years ago most schools, state or private, didn't even do any safeguarding at all.
Question for the criminal lawyers eg @DavidL - Why do the police arrest someone who is voluntarily helping them and whom they are not going to charge (at least at this point in time)? Does it make any difference to the weight of the evidence?
Very curious to know.
I'd also be curious to know for definite - but assumed that it was to ensure that you were questioning them under oath (with appropriate perjury penalties), rather than just having an informal conversation with them.
If someone is a potential suspect, arresting them gives them certain rights such as to have a lawyer represent them, as well as to be formally read the caution.
Perhaps there should be a better term, such as interviewed under caution, rather than arrested (and presumably dearrested or unarrested or some such immediately afterwards).
They aren't the same thing. You can be interviewed under caution without being arrested (but can leave the interview at any time in such circumstances).
Yes, but an alternative term *like* that. One that does not imply the police know they've got you bang to rights and it is only those lefty lawyers saving you from being strung up in the town centre.
I will be astounded if the Reform/Brexit party manages to stand in as many seats as it did the last time. It's dead and has been for some time everywhere but in the polling figures. Some won't vote at all but I am expecting a small boost for the Tories from the detritus. It won't be enough though.
I did float the idea of Boris running for ReFUK. Decried as madness on here - and mad it would be.
But - and its a big but - the crank right enjoy madness. In 2019 they succeeded in gifting Labour retention of seats like Stockton North and Sunderland Central.
In 2024? A conservative party needs to be on the ballot somewhere, and that party is Reform UK. I can see donors putting up enough money for candidates and as we have seen post the Brexit referendum all kinds of names reappear in all kinds of unlikely places.
Boris wants to be relevant. Seems the Tory party have declared him persona non grata, despite so many actual Tory MPs and voters still thinking he is the man. He can't reinvent himself inside the party - a party he and so many describe as not conservative enough.
So why not? He will be running as BORIS primarily, the George Galloway of the right. Go get 'em Bozza.
No, Boris is more likely to run for Mayor of London again next year, given the approved Tory candidates aren't even known to most London Tories let alone Londoners overall and how unpopular Mayor Khan's ULEZ is.
Boris has no interest in RefUK under FPTP and Farage and Tice will not allow him to challenge their control of the party either
More Spanish polls overnight give a clearer lead in seats for the PP/VOX combo.
Though there's a poll there where PSOE + Sumar > PP, so PP would need Vox actively supporting them rather than just not opposing them. There might be a couple of others that do that once you factor in nationalists.
If push comes to shove, I'm sure there's a deal to be done; PP want power and who else can Vox support? But in the medium term, the PP would prefer not to have the taint of pacting with the hard right and Vox would prefer not to make the compromises that go with being a junior partner.
I think a pact as such is unlikely. Vox are the ones with zero option apart from the PP. Otherwise Sanchez stays. PP have always the grand coalition option if Vox won't play. At the moment all polls would require PP as part of the mix, unless Vox want to join the left! An election which decides nothing is still a possibility.
If PP went into a grand coalition with PSOE, they would lose some of their more rightwing voters to Vox and PSOE would lose some of their more leftwing voters to Sumar
It seems that people are complaining that just because child safeguarding is no good the whole school gets an inadequate, or ineffective rating. So you can have a school which has cracking Maths and English Departments but is no good at safeguarding children and it seems people think it should receive a good or outstanding rating.
Reminds me of the NHS outperforming on all measures apart from health outcomes and saving lives.
The purpose of schools is to educate, especially in Maths and English, as saving lives is for hospitals, safeguarding is important too but not the purpose of school. Indeed 50 years ago most schools, state or private, didn't even do any safeguarding at all.
Indeed, back in the 1970s "safeguarding" involved beating a child with a cane.
It seems that people are complaining that just because child safeguarding is no good the whole school gets an inadequate, or ineffective rating. So you can have a school which has cracking Maths and English Departments but is no good at safeguarding children and it seems people think it should receive a good or outstanding rating.
Reminds me of the NHS outperforming on all measures apart from health outcomes and saving lives.
probably needs to be more nuanced that that though as being "good" at safeguarding can be a combination of empty virtue signalling and boxticking without solving anything serious
That's closer to the situation.
The current introspection has been driven by the tragedy that happened in Reading last year, where a head committed suicide.
I don't think anyone has claimed that the children at her school were anything but well educated and cared for and safe. But some of the paperwork wasn't complete.
Now, the paperwork is important. But not like this. The trouble is that Ofsted spends such a short time in a given school for a given inspection that the paperwork plays too great a role.
Ah interesting. So the issue is then not that people disagree with the principle that safeguarding should be the main determinant of the rating, but that Ofsted's measurement of safeguarding and the process around reporting it are flawed?
Also, does the consequence fit the failing? At the moment, an Ofsted Inadequate means that a school will be taken over by an academy chain, and the head and deputies will almost certainly be sacked and probably looking for new careers.
If we're talking a school where children are at risk from staff, strangers or other children, that's fair enough. But that's difficult to check on one day. Much easier to look at the admin.
So we agree that safeguarding should outweigh other factors, such as PT and Home Economics. How should Ofsted safeguarding inspections be conducted? What is the biggest/central failing right now?
Judging process not outcome, especially when the standards of the required process aren't as clear as they should be.
As for how to improve things, separate the paperwork audit function (which should be every school every year, but with a clear checklist and the possibility to do a second submission if there are issues with the first) from the important but subjective task of getting into schools and seeing how well the safety of children is being guarded.
And more generally, Ofsted needs some counterpoint to its claimed infallibility.
It seems that people are complaining that just because child safeguarding is no good the whole school gets an inadequate, or ineffective rating. So you can have a school which has cracking Maths and English Departments but is no good at safeguarding children and it seems people think it should receive a good or outstanding rating.
Reminds me of the NHS outperforming on all measures apart from health outcomes and saving lives.
The purpose of schools is to educate, especially in Maths and English, as saving lives is for hospitals, safeguarding is important too but not the purpose of school. Indeed 50 years ago most schools, state or private, didn't even do any safeguarding at all.
Indeed, back in the 1970s "safeguarding" involved beating a child with a cane.
And quite right too I thought to myself as the naughty kids in my first school went up to the headmaster's office.
Question for the criminal lawyers eg @DavidL - Why do the police arrest someone who is voluntarily helping them and whom they are not going to charge (at least at this point in time)? Does it make any difference to the weight of the evidence?
Very curious to know.
I'd also be curious to know for definite - but assumed that it was to ensure that you were questioning them under oath (with appropriate perjury penalties), rather than just having an informal conversation with them.
If someone is a potential suspect, arresting them gives them certain rights such as to have a lawyer represent them, as well as to be formally read the caution.
Perhaps there should be a better term, such as interviewed under caution, rather than arrested (and presumably dearrested or unarrested or some such immediately afterwards).
IIRC the Swedes do this - arrest is used much more sparingly.
I think it definitely needs looking at - arrest = guilty in the minds of too many people.
Question for the criminal lawyers eg @DavidL - Why do the police arrest someone who is voluntarily helping them and whom they are not going to charge (at least at this point in time)? Does it make any difference to the weight of the evidence?
Very curious to know.
I'd also be curious to know for definite - but assumed that it was to ensure that you were questioning them under oath (with appropriate perjury penalties), rather than just having an informal conversation with them.
If someone is a potential suspect, arresting them gives them certain rights such as to have a lawyer represent them, as well as to be formally read the caution.
Perhaps there should be a better term, such as interviewed under caution, rather than arrested (and presumably dearrested or unarrested or some such immediately afterwards).
They aren't the same thing. You can be interviewed under caution without being arrested (but can leave the interview at any time in such circumstances).
Yes, but an alternative term *like* that. One that does not imply the police know they've got you bang to rights and it is only those lefty lawyers saving you from being strung up in the town centre.
I don't think that would help in any way as the "no smoke without fire" people would read whatever term was chosen as implying guilt.
And, frankly, it is serious. The Police suspect Sturgeon of committing a crime, and felt it was necessary to interview her under caution given the real prospect of charges being brought and evidence admissibility being a debate. They felt the need to arrest her as this is essentially a conspiracy allegation so they didn't want her leaving to potentially sort out her story with others.
None of that means she's guilty - the Police may be wrong in their suspicions. But it is a big deal - it's extremely unlikely to be a casual fishing expedition and arrest powers are not used lightly, perhaps particularly in a very high profile case where the Police will be heavily criticised if it turns out there was an innocent explanation for everything.
I will be astounded if the Reform/Brexit party manages to stand in as many seats as it did the last time. It's dead and has been for some time everywhere but in the polling figures. Some won't vote at all but I am expecting a small boost for the Tories from the detritus. It won't be enough though.
I did float the idea of Boris running for ReFUK. Decried as madness on here - and mad it would be.
But - and its a big but - the crank right enjoy madness. In 2019 they succeeded in gifting Labour retention of seats like Stockton North and Sunderland Central.
In 2024? A conservative party needs to be on the ballot somewhere, and that party is Reform UK. I can see donors putting up enough money for candidates and as we have seen post the Brexit referendum all kinds of names reappear in all kinds of unlikely places.
Boris wants to be relevant. Seems the Tory party have declared him persona non grata, despite so many actual Tory MPs and voters still thinking he is the man. He can't reinvent himself inside the party - a party he and so many describe as not conservative enough.
So why not? He will be running as BORIS primarily, the George Galloway of the right. Go get 'em Bozza.
No, Boris is more likely to run for Mayor of London again next year, given the approved Tory candidates aren't even known to most London Tories let alone Londoners overall and how unpopular Mayor Khan's ULEZ is.
Boris has no interest in RefUK under FPTP and Farage and Tice will not allow him to challenge their control of the party either
I'd wait until the report into him is published, if I were you.
I will be astounded if the Reform/Brexit party manages to stand in as many seats as it did the last time. It's dead and has been for some time everywhere but in the polling figures. Some won't vote at all but I am expecting a small boost for the Tories from the detritus. It won't be enough though.
I did float the idea of Boris running for ReFUK. Decried as madness on here - and mad it would be.
But - and its a big but - the crank right enjoy madness. In 2019 they succeeded in gifting Labour retention of seats like Stockton North and Sunderland Central.
In 2024? A conservative party needs to be on the ballot somewhere, and that party is Reform UK. I can see donors putting up enough money for candidates and as we have seen post the Brexit referendum all kinds of names reappear in all kinds of unlikely places.
Boris wants to be relevant. Seems the Tory party have declared him persona non grata, despite so many actual Tory MPs and voters still thinking he is the man. He can't reinvent himself inside the party - a party he and so many describe as not conservative enough.
So why not? He will be running as BORIS primarily, the George Galloway of the right. Go get 'em Bozza.
No, Boris is more likely to run for Mayor of London again next year, given the approved Tory candidates aren't even known to most London Tories let alone Londoners overall and how unpopular Mayor Khan's ULEZ is.
Boris has no interest in RefUK under FPTP and Farage and Tice will not allow him to challenge their control of the party either
Though the introduction of FPTP in Mayoral elections means that a Boris candidature would turn a likely win for Khan into a walkover. There are barely enough centre-right outer London voters for one candidate, let alone two.
Though given that the Conservative shortlist has a lower wattage than a Eurohoover, that's not going to make much difference anyway
I will be astounded if the Reform/Brexit party manages to stand in as many seats as it did the last time. It's dead and has been for some time everywhere but in the polling figures. Some won't vote at all but I am expecting a small boost for the Tories from the detritus. It won't be enough though.
I did float the idea of Boris running for ReFUK. Decried as madness on here - and mad it would be.
But - and its a big but - the crank right enjoy madness. In 2019 they succeeded in gifting Labour retention of seats like Stockton North and Sunderland Central.
In 2024? A conservative party needs to be on the ballot somewhere, and that party is Reform UK. I can see donors putting up enough money for candidates and as we have seen post the Brexit referendum all kinds of names reappear in all kinds of unlikely places.
Boris wants to be relevant. Seems the Tory party have declared him persona non grata, despite so many actual Tory MPs and voters still thinking he is the man. He can't reinvent himself inside the party - a party he and so many describe as not conservative enough.
So why not? He will be running as BORIS primarily, the George Galloway of the right. Go get 'em Bozza.
No, Boris is more likely to run for Mayor of London again next year, given the approved Tory candidates aren't even known to most London Tories let alone Londoners overall and how unpopular Mayor Khan's ULEZ is.
Boris has no interest in RefUK under FPTP and Farage and Tice will not allow him to challenge their control of the party either
Who said anything about Boris controlling RefUK? I don't think he'd be able to take control of any vaguely serious political party. But he could, in theory, stand for them.
Could he run for mayor of London as an independent as Ken living standard?
Since the voting age is set at 18 by the 26th amendment, and further amendment would require a 2/3rds majority of both Houses of Congress, file under "wind, p1ssing in".
It seems that people are complaining that just because child safeguarding is no good the whole school gets an inadequate, or ineffective rating. So you can have a school which has cracking Maths and English Departments but is no good at safeguarding children and it seems people think it should receive a good or outstanding rating.
Reminds me of the NHS outperforming on all measures apart from health outcomes and saving lives.
The purpose of schools is to educate, especially in Maths and English, as saving lives is for hospitals, safeguarding is important too but not the purpose of school. Indeed 50 years ago most schools, state or private, didn't even do any safeguarding at all.
Indeed, back in the 1970s "safeguarding" involved beating a child with a cane.
And ten years ago a poll found 53% of voters would allow teachers to use the cane again in school with Conservative voters in particular pro caning
"The right of citizens of the United States, who are eighteen years of age or older, to vote shall not be denied or abridged by the United States or by any State on account of age."
Mrs Capitano has been DSL (Designated Safeguarding Lead) at her last two schools and has mentored others on it. She was at the Oxfordshire safeguarding conference last week. I'd post the agenda but it would just make PB too depressing for a sunny Monday morning. Let's just say that an entire day on child sexual abuse is probably (hopefully) no-one's idea of fun.
A few points I've picked up from her, and from seeing our local primary get failed by Ofsted on safeguarding issues.
Safeguarding (at primary level at least) is almost entirely about home issues, not school issues. It is directly correlated with deprivation levels in the school catchment. It is basically teachers acting as social workers, because there aren't any/enough social workers. It is absolutely usual to have "team around the child" meetings for home problems which are nonetheless chaired by the head or the DSL because childrens' social care at county is under-resourced.
As such, a school's performance on safeguarding is probably not relevant to the majority of kids at the school or their parents. 99% of kids at her current school, and 90% at the previous one, have no cause to appear on the safeguarding radar at all.
So for that reason, I agree with those protesting about Ofsted's single-word judgements. For most parents/kids, it's misleading to add a single-word judgement where a failure on safeguarding masks excellent teaching. Just publish individual scores/levels without aggregating them into one single rating.
However...
Fulfilling your safeguarding responsibilities isn't really that hard. (Fixing the underlying social issues is, but Ofsted doesn't rate you on that!) If a school is neglecting its safeguarding responsibilities, the head is incompetent. And an incompetent head generally doesn't run a good school.
That was one of the reasons we chose not to send Capitano Junior to our local primary, and went out-of-catchment instead. It had just been failed by Ofsted on safeguarding. The school's line was that it was a "paperwork mistake". It turns out that the head had just told a close-to-retirement teacher to become DSL and hadn't checked at all whether she was doing her job. Surprise surprise, she wasn't. We looked a bit closer and this couldn't-care-less attitude permeated all the way through the school. Four years on, the school has got through two permanent heads, two temporaries, and might slowly be hauling itself back to an acceptable standard. Meanwhile, the school we did choose is not remotely "Ofsteddy" - it's a liberal little village primary where the kids are given space to develop - but the head is supremely competent and knows damn well that all her paperwork is in order, and that the troubled kids are being monitored and issues passed up to county.
Selby could be the surprise packet, mainly rural in North Yorkshire whose Council has 47 Cons, 13 Lib Dems, 12 Labour and 5 Greens. The last of the four is quite active in the area and put up loads of candidates in 2022. If there is a significant movement from Con to Lib Dem and some Labour to Green this could be a 3 way marginal, with a recount. No doubt the Lib Dems will be deploying their northern resources to the seat, remember nearby Hull was captured last year, and some of the constituency villages are part of the Harrogate area, They should have sufficient workers from London, South East and Midlands to cover Mid Beds. It could gain any of three ways.
The Greens are pretty insignificant in S&A, as far as I'm aware. Put it this way, over a few elections (including two GEs) while living in two different places inthe constituency, I have never received a Green Party leaflet (both in South of constituency though - see below).
The villages around York are far more fertile territory for Greens and LDs (quite a few York University academics living in the leafy villages thereabouts). Some in the S&A constituency too, for sure - as you correctly say, it skirts Harrogate. But you've got a lot of the old Selby Coalfield areas to the South, which are more trad Labour (socially conservative).
Yorkshire Party not much stronger than Greens, but I do wonder whether with a good candidate they could do enough to make it a bit unpredictable re the other two (e.g. if they had a traditional Con-appealing candidate, providing a safe place for disgruntled but voting Cons - the Greens would be better placed to squeeze Lab, but many voting Lab will surely want to give Cons a kicking and Lab are best placed).
ETA: As a natural LD supporter, I'd love to see them doing well here, but I just can't see it, to be honest. But, I do not know the north west corner of the seat very well.
I will be astounded if the Reform/Brexit party manages to stand in as many seats as it did the last time. It's dead and has been for some time everywhere but in the polling figures. Some won't vote at all but I am expecting a small boost for the Tories from the detritus. It won't be enough though.
I did float the idea of Boris running for ReFUK. Decried as madness on here - and mad it would be.
But - and its a big but - the crank right enjoy madness. In 2019 they succeeded in gifting Labour retention of seats like Stockton North and Sunderland Central.
In 2024? A conservative party needs to be on the ballot somewhere, and that party is Reform UK. I can see donors putting up enough money for candidates and as we have seen post the Brexit referendum all kinds of names reappear in all kinds of unlikely places.
Boris wants to be relevant. Seems the Tory party have declared him persona non grata, despite so many actual Tory MPs and voters still thinking he is the man. He can't reinvent himself inside the party - a party he and so many describe as not conservative enough.
So why not? He will be running as BORIS primarily, the George Galloway of the right. Go get 'em Bozza.
No, Boris is more likely to run for Mayor of London again next year, given the approved Tory candidates aren't even known to most London Tories let alone Londoners overall and how unpopular Mayor Khan's ULEZ is.
Boris has no interest in RefUK under FPTP and Farage and Tice will not allow him to challenge their control of the party either
Though the introduction of FPTP in Mayoral elections means that a Boris candidature would turn a likely win for Khan into a walkover. There are barely enough centre-right outer London voters for one candidate, let alone two.
Though given that the Conservative shortlist has a lower wattage than a Eurohoover, that's not going to make much difference anyway
Not impossible Corbyn will stand as an Independent too for London Mayor now he is barred from standing for Labour at the next general election in his Islington constituency, there have been rumours to that effect.
In which case you could have a 3 way battle between Boris, Corbyn and Khan for Mayor with the Tories official candidate likely a poor 4th.
Coincidentally Jezza had a party yesterday to celebrate 40 years as an Islington MP organised by his wife
- The police investigation into the SNP finances starts in July 2021. This follows complaints about what has happened to £600,000 raised for another independence referendum.
- 19 months later in February 2023 the Head of Police Scotland announces his intention to retire 2 years early in summer 2023. It is reported that this because of a clash with the SNP government about the policing budget.
- Also in February 2023 after this announcement Nicola Sturgeon announces her intention to stand down.
- March 2023: Peter Murrell, SNP CEO, resigns.
- April 2023: Peter Murrell arrested and questioned. His and Sturgeon's home is searched.
- April 2023: campervan seized; Colin Beattie, SNP Treasurer, arrested and questioned; he resigns from his post.
- June 2023: Sturgeon arrested and questioned.
Now, investigating the whereabouts of £600,000 is not, on the face of it, the most complicated investigation ever. So what exactly were the police doing between July 2021 and February 2023? Is it just a coincidence that this all seems to come to a head in the wake of Police Scotland's Head's decision?
Do our Scottish posters have a view?
I don't see why us Scottish posters would have any more of an insight. In fact, given the partisan instincts of people on either side, Scottish posters are probably, on average, less able to give a balanced view due to strong feelings for and against independence.
I'm just grateful we live in a country where holding powerful people to account for possible crimes is possible. In all too many places rule of law does not extend to the connected.
The arrest of a former First Minister (again) demonstrates to a wider public that nobody is above the law. Which is more than we can say for Prime Ministers and senior cabinet ministers in Westminster...
The current and previous-but-one PMs were fined for breaking lockdown rules... and I think there was something about seatbelts recently too but I don't remember whether a fine was issued. Do you think there is some more serious crime that's gone uninvestigated or unpunished?
It's not like friends and family of MPs and donors were given unfettered access to multi- million pound public sector contracts without going through a formal tender process or anything genuinely scandalous like that? Or £63m of London ratepayers' money being spent on a garden bridge that is yet to see the first brick laid.
If either of those fictional scenarios were to be a reality and no one investigated the potential for criminality, now there would be a scandal of Sicilian proportions.
Oh that. Yeah ok.
Or a man (A) facilitates the underwriting of a substantial loan on behalf of another man (B) and without favour, man A becomes Chairman of the state broadcaster. It just wouldn't happen here. We are not some central African or American banana republic.
We are not, as you say, a republic
Banana constitutional monarchy is a bit of a mouthful, as the actress said etc.
It seems that people are complaining that just because child safeguarding is no good the whole school gets an inadequate, or ineffective rating. So you can have a school which has cracking Maths and English Departments but is no good at safeguarding children and it seems people think it should receive a good or outstanding rating.
Reminds me of the NHS outperforming on all measures apart from health outcomes and saving lives.
The purpose of schools is to educate, especially in Maths and English, as saving lives is for hospitals, safeguarding is important too but not the purpose of school. Indeed 50 years ago most schools, state or private, didn't even do any safeguarding at all.
Indeed, back in the 1970s "safeguarding" involved beating a child with a cane.
And ten years ago a poll found 53% of voters would allow teachers to use the cane again in school with Conservative voters in particular pro caning
They probably mean that other people's children should be whacked. In any case, presumably the entire British cane-making industry closed down in the 1980s, not to mention we are still part of the ECHR. To be serious, what parents are saying is schools are not doing a very good job of preventing disruption, which brings us back to safeguarding, Ofsted and box-ticking.
When I was at school in the 90s it was a badly-kept secret that my English and Theory of Knowledge (Philosophy) teacher had done porn. Based on her age, I'd guess in the 70s or 80s. It never really came up except at the end of one year when the departing Year 12's did a performance at the school assembly where they roasted the teachers and one boy walked on stage dressed as her with exposed fake breasts.
I'd be curious if @Sandpit or anyone else would think she should be disbarred from having been a teacher for having been paid to do porn?
She was one of my best teachers, was head of the English department and Deputy Head of the school. Prudes might object to anything titillating or 'sex' based but unless its anything unlawful I fail to see why it should be a safeguarding issue for the school.
Far be it from me to provide actual evidence on Ofsted, but this is what the report on the school in Reading that led to the tragic suicide actually says on safeguarding:
Leaders have a weak understanding of safeguarding requirements and procedures. They have not exercised sufficient leadership or oversight of this important work. As a result, records of safeguarding concerns and the tracking of subsequent actions are poor. Leaders have not ensured that all required employment checks are complete for some staff employed at the school. These weaknesses pose potential risks to pupils.
Now, one can argue against the inspection framework and the emphasis on safeguarding, but I suspect we'd all agree that not completing all the required employment checks is pretty poor.
More Spanish polls overnight give a clearer lead in seats for the PP/VOX combo.
Though there's a poll there where PSOE + Sumar > PP, so PP would need Vox actively supporting them rather than just not opposing them. There might be a couple of others that do that once you factor in nationalists.
If push comes to shove, I'm sure there's a deal to be done; PP want power and who else can Vox support? But in the medium term, the PP would prefer not to have the taint of pacting with the hard right and Vox would prefer not to make the compromises that go with being a junior partner.
I think a pact as such is unlikely. Vox are the ones with zero option apart from the PP. Otherwise Sanchez stays. PP have always the grand coalition option if Vox won't play. At the moment all polls would require PP as part of the mix, unless Vox want to join the left! An election which decides nothing is still a possibility.
If PP went into a grand coalition with PSOE, they would lose some of their more rightwing voters to Vox and PSOE would lose some of their more leftwing voters to Sumar
Maybe , but if there was therefore no immediate election, so what?
Comments
More positively, it does appear that Ukraine have had a good weekend.
More Spanish polls overnight give a clearer lead in seats for the PP/VOX combo.
He's also overlooking one factor that at the next election is going to produce a much bigger loss of Conservative vote share in seats that the Conservatives held in 2017-19 compared to ones that they didn't hold. The Reform/Brexit Party. In 2019, the Brexit Party stood only in seats the Conservatives didn't hold, winning 4% in those seats and about 2% overall, the average being dragged down by their tactical choice not to contest Conservative-held seats. Next time, Reform are going to try and contest everywhere, and mostly at the expense of the Conservatives. If they get an average 4% everywhere, that will be 4% more than they got last time in then Conservative held seats, but 0% more in other seats.That will be akin to proportional swing against the Conservatives, they start with a much greater share of the vote in seats that they held in 2017-2019 compared to those they didn't.
Like you, I think the anti-Conservative swing in 2024 will be predominantly UNS but with proportionality kicking in a bit, and with tactical voting on top. Not dissimilar to 1997 in pattern if not necessarily scale. And that election produced Labour and Lib Dem seat gains significantly greater than would have been expected on a pure UNS model.
I will be astounded if the Reform/Brexit party manages to stand in as many seats as it did the last time. It's dead and has been for some time everywhere but in the polling figures. Some won't vote at all but I am expecting a small boost for the Tories from the detritus. It won't be enough though.
Time for the fan, I think.
https://twitter.com/NUCLRGOLF/status/1666094806127505410
OGH went on holiday and
1) Donald Trump was indicted by the Feds
2) Boris Johnson resigned as MP in an epic temper tantrum after the Committee recommended to suspend him for more than 10 days
3) Two other Tory MPs resigned after they weren't ennobled
4) Nicola Sturgeon was arrested
This all happened in less than 72 hours.
Utterly implausible eh?
https://www.theguardian.com/society/2023/jun/11/sexual-identity-mobility-study-uk
Is that also how you really annoy the taxi driver at the airport?
It has had massively more effect on the world than Apollo 11 - or even flight.
If push comes to shove, I'm sure there's a deal to be done; PP want power and who else can Vox support? But in the medium term, the PP would prefer not to have the taint of pacting with the hard right and Vox would prefer not to make the compromises that go with being a junior partner.
My feeling is that this could be a cohort effect of relaxing attitudes towards same sex relationships and it's telling that the biggest change was seen in groups who, traditionally, might have stigmatised same-sex relationships. It's not even that people were lying about their initial response but that they might not have ever had knowledge about their own sexuality.
The intelligence which goes on the opposite direction is possibly of considerably greater value.
https://read.dukeupress.edu/demography/article/60/3/659/373516/Sexual-Orientation-Identity-Mobility-in-the-United
I don't think it purely a cohort effect even though a lot changed between the studies, as there was no net movement between groups. Not surprisingly the most fluid group was Bisexual and other.
Apollo was a bit like the pyramids - a hugely impressive statement - but beyond its one time use, of little practical value.
The most significant thing that came out of 60s aerospace funding was the microchip industry.
Kellner advances a new hypothesis - that there is a type of person called a “defector” (a new name for floating voters) and that there are roughly even numbers of such people spread around, despite every other political and demographic characteristic varying from one place to another.
Why this should be so isn’t explained! I would expect being a potential floating voter to correlate with other social characteristics - accept that, it is hard to see why they should be so remarkably evenly distributed?
Kellner also re-writes history by suggesting that this was always what Butler had in mind when he first advanced UNS.
Looking back at Butler & Stokes (1974) and Taylor & Johnson (1979), the early explanations of UNS rested on what was called the “neighbourhood effect”. This is that, when Tories are unpopular, those in Sunderland encounter a lot of negative feedback for their views from the generally Labour populace, whereas those in Sevenoaks are shored up by the similar views of those around them. And vice versa for Labour.
Various research is cited to support this, including study of the communist vote in Paris precincts and the Democrat vote in Ohio. However it also drew criticism; other studies found that the influence of neighbourhood (whether geographical or through networks such as employment or social class) was small in influencing voting. Other studies found people mostly discuss politics with people who agree with them.
Other theories included that local campaigning shores up support where that party is strong and well organised (I suggest that modern focusing of campaigns on marginal seats since these books were written means we can now discount this?), or that people self-select where they live based on political affiliation, or self-select their political affiliation based on where they live.
This last, I have time for. Sevenoaks is my home town and I do recall people who appeared to pick up their politics as they might take up gardening - as part of the lifestyle package- when moving there to commute into rather than live in town, as became popular from the 1960s.
I also have my own theory that, since governments look after their “own areas”, Tory voters in Sunderland are more likely discontented with their party’s policies in power than those in Sevenoaks, and vice versa for Labour.
Bottom line is, no-one really knows why the UNS model appears to work for Tory and Labour support (I don’t believe it does for minor parties). Kellner’s hypothesis appears weak.
Over time the MRPs will collect data on voting behaviour over an extended period of time - so perhaps one day we will be able to test whether people who float are indeed evenly distributed? Although I’d think that the tendency of some people to vote in some elections and not others, and the turnover of electors with demographics and internal migration, are likely more important.
https://books.google.co.uk/books?id=yWtJGLG0aEcC&pg=PA263&redir_esc=y
Another good flood read/story ...
It seems that people are complaining that just because child safeguarding is no good the whole school gets an inadequate, or ineffective rating. So you can have a school which has cracking Maths and English Departments but is no good at safeguarding children and it seems people think it should receive a good or outstanding rating.
Reminds me of the NHS outperforming on all measures apart from health outcomes and saving lives.
Seems fair enough to me.
- 19 months later in February 2023 the Head of Police Scotland announces his intention to retire 2 years early in summer 2023. It is reported that this because of a clash with the SNP government about the policing budget.
- Also in February 2023 after this announcement Nicola Sturgeon announces her intention to stand down.
- March 2023: Peter Murrell, SNP CEO, resigns.
- April 2023: Peter Murrell arrested and questioned. His and Sturgeon's home is searched.
- April 2023: campervan seized; Colin Beattie, SNP Treasurer, arrested and questioned; he resigns from his post.
- June 2023: Sturgeon arrested and questioned.
Now, investigating the whereabouts of £600,000 is not, on the face of it, the most complicated investigation ever. So what exactly were the police doing between July 2021 and February 2023? Is it just a coincidence that this all seems to come to a head in the wake of Police Scotland's Head's decision?
Do our Scottish posters have a view?
All reports require reading past the top line, not least OFSTED and EQA visits which are much more about policies and protocols rather than any real activity or commitment.
But - and its a big but - the crank right enjoy madness. In 2019 they succeeded in gifting Labour retention of seats like Stockton North and Sunderland Central.
In 2024? A conservative party needs to be on the ballot somewhere, and that party is Reform UK. I can see donors putting up enough money for candidates and as we have seen post the Brexit referendum all kinds of names reappear in all kinds of unlikely places.
Boris wants to be relevant. Seems the Tory party have declared him persona non grata, despite so many actual Tory MPs and voters still thinking he is the man. He can't reinvent himself inside the party - a party he and so many describe as not conservative enough.
So why not? He will be running as BORIS primarily, the George Galloway of the right. Go get 'em Bozza.
If I were a parent choosing a school I wouldn't care if buried in the fine print of an Outstanding rating was the fact that the Geography dept was no good but I would very much care if the safeguarding was deemed not up to standard.
As to your point about accountability, I agree.
The current introspection has been driven by the tragedy that happened in Reading last year, where a head committed suicide.
I don't think anyone has claimed that the children at her school were anything but well educated and cared for and safe. But some of the paperwork wasn't complete.
Now, the paperwork is important. But not like this. The trouble is that Ofsted spends such a short time in a given school for a given inspection that the paperwork plays too great a role.
"Replacement level" is a BS measure for measuring population change in any meaningful timespan,, birth rate versus death rate is the measure, and that has our births exceeding deaths every year but the height of the pandemic and one other year in the past half century.
The simple reality is that the housing crisis is already here. A typical healthy economy has 10% of houses empty which allows for churn as people move and for people to turn down houses that are unsuitable or priced unsuitably etc and we're running at 99% occupancy which is in any walk of life a failing system.
We don't need a few thousand extra homes, we need millions of extra houses in order to end the imbalance in the market. That will bring down inflation, bring down costs as people can afford their own home etc and at minimal cost to any 'green' space as we're not talking houses for a billion people, just the ones who live in this country and any net changes.
Teachers?
Guests to the school?
Parents?
Strangers?
Other pupils?
Inanimate objects?
Plenty goes into safeguarding surely.
If safeguarding is a fail then absolutely the school should fail its inspection even if everything else is excellent. It's a Critical Control Point and if it's failed, the school has failed.
If the safeguarding assessment is flawed, object to that. But don't object to its importance.
Note that no one independently assesses OFSTED's judgments - they mark their own homework.
See the reporting of this case:
https://www.brownejacobson.com/insights/ofsted-v-durand-outcome-of-the-appeal
- preventing impairment of children’s health or development
- ensuring that children are growing up in circumstances consistent with the provision of safe and effective care
- taking action to enable all children to have the best outcomes
https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/ofsted-safeguarding-policy/ofsted-safeguarding-policy
Very curious to know.
If either of those fictional scenarios were to be a reality and no one investigated the potential for criminality, now there would be a scandal of Sicilian proportions.
https://www.theguardian.com/education/2023/mar/25/revealed-stress-of-ofsted-inspections-cited-as-factor-in-deaths-of-10-teachers
And safeguarding rules are a mess as various items slightly contradict each other and you never quite know which variation of the rules that inspector cares about.. I've seen Inadequate schools with brilliant safeguarding and outstanding schools where you look at things from outside and ask HTF did they allow that to happen.
If we're talking a school where children are at risk from staff, strangers or other children, that's fair enough. But that's difficult to check on one day. Much easier to look at the admin.
The OFSTED issues appear particularly bad at the primary level, as this set of anecdotes suggests;
https://yorkshirebylines.co.uk/news/education/we-felt-like-criminals-teachers-talking-ofsted/
The LDs by election machine is fearsome and Central Beds council is now NOC.
The Labour by election machine, while I would not go quite so far as to say is hopeless, is shall we say rather less feared by we Tories than the LD by election machine.
Uxbridge also has a high Hindu population who will be pro Rishi and Hillingdon council remains Conservative controlled.
Selby I expect the LDs will leave to focus on Mid Beds so I expect a narrow Conservative hold there but with a swing to Labour at the national average. If confirmed a by election in Rutherglen I suspect Labour will at least gain that from the SNP now
I believe that the key is that a suspect under arrest has additional protections that someone being interviewed as a witness does not and, if the person is later charged, evidence obtained at the interview is less likely to be deemed inadmissible if the person has given that evidence under arrest and caution (because they've had those additional protections).
For the school overall it matters greatly. For individual parents, what happens in the homes of other parents with other children - rather less so.
It is extremely important but I think it should be outside the general OFSTED criteria and report.
Can no one spare a word of sympathy for the producers and team members of HIGNFY. It’s recorded on Thursday night. What a treat they missed!
The Gove vision of thousands of free standing good schools fell down for many reasons, but a key one was overestimating how many heads would be willing or able or have enough budget to run schools that way.
If there is a significant movement from Con to Lib Dem and some Labour to Green this could be a 3 way marginal, with a recount.
No doubt the Lib Dems will be deploying their northern resources to the seat, remember nearby Hull was captured last year, and some of the constituency villages are part of the Harrogate area, They should have sufficient workers from London, South East and Midlands to cover Mid Beds.
It could gain any of three ways.
Unless that worker has a criminal conviction that means they would fail a DBS, their chosen career is immaterial surely?
https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2023/jun/11/senior-tories-tell-boris-johnson-and-allies-to-shut-up-and-go-away
...Jacob Rees-Mogg, who was knighted in Johnson’s resignation honours, said he was hopeful about the former prime minister’s chance of a comeback. He said Sunak should remain leader until the next general election – but predicted that “at some indeterminate date in the future when Rishi’s hair has gone grey and he decides to retire,” Johnson could come back “on his charger to save the nation”...
Boris has no interest in RefUK under FPTP and Farage and Tice will not allow him to challenge their control of the party either
As for how to improve things, separate the paperwork audit function (which should be every school every year, but with a clear checklist and the possibility to do a second submission if there are issues with the first) from the important but subjective task of getting into schools and seeing how well the safety of children is being guarded.
And more generally, Ofsted needs some counterpoint to its claimed infallibility.
I think it definitely needs looking at - arrest = guilty in the minds of too many people.
And, frankly, it is serious. The Police suspect Sturgeon of committing a crime, and felt it was necessary to interview her under caution given the real prospect of charges being brought and evidence admissibility being a debate. They felt the need to arrest her as this is essentially a conspiracy allegation so they didn't want her leaving to potentially sort out her story with others.
None of that means she's guilty - the Police may be wrong in their suspicions. But it is a big deal - it's extremely unlikely to be a casual fishing expedition and arrest powers are not used lightly, perhaps particularly in a very high profile case where the Police will be heavily criticised if it turns out there was an innocent explanation for everything.
Though given that the Conservative shortlist has a lower wattage than a Eurohoover, that's not going to make much difference anyway
https://edition.cnn.com/2023/05/11/politics/vivek-ramaswamy-raise-voting-age-25/index.html
https://yougov.co.uk/topics/politics/articles-reports/2011/10/07/should-schoolchildren-be-caned
"The right of citizens of the United States, who are eighteen years of age or older, to vote shall not be denied or abridged by the United States or by any State on account of age."
A few points I've picked up from her, and from seeing our local primary get failed by Ofsted on safeguarding issues.
Safeguarding (at primary level at least) is almost entirely about home issues, not school issues. It is directly correlated with deprivation levels in the school catchment. It is basically teachers acting as social workers, because there aren't any/enough social workers. It is absolutely usual to have "team around the child" meetings for home problems which are nonetheless chaired by the head or the DSL because childrens' social care at county is under-resourced.
As such, a school's performance on safeguarding is probably not relevant to the majority of kids at the school or their parents. 99% of kids at her current school, and 90% at the previous one, have no cause to appear on the safeguarding radar at all.
So for that reason, I agree with those protesting about Ofsted's single-word judgements. For most parents/kids, it's misleading to add a single-word judgement where a failure on safeguarding masks excellent teaching. Just publish individual scores/levels without aggregating them into one single rating.
However...
Fulfilling your safeguarding responsibilities isn't really that hard. (Fixing the underlying social issues is, but Ofsted doesn't rate you on that!) If a school is neglecting its safeguarding responsibilities, the head is incompetent. And an incompetent head generally doesn't run a good school.
That was one of the reasons we chose not to send Capitano Junior to our local primary, and went out-of-catchment instead. It had just been failed by Ofsted on safeguarding. The school's line was that it was a "paperwork mistake". It turns out that the head had just told a close-to-retirement teacher to become DSL and hadn't checked at all whether she was doing her job. Surprise surprise, she wasn't. We looked a bit closer and this couldn't-care-less attitude permeated all the way through the school. Four years on, the school has got through two permanent heads, two temporaries, and might slowly be hauling itself back to an acceptable standard. Meanwhile, the school we did choose is not remotely "Ofsteddy" - it's a liberal little village primary where the kids are given space to develop - but the head is supremely competent and knows damn well that all her paperwork is in order, and that the troubled kids are being monitored and issues passed up to county.
The villages around York are far more fertile territory for Greens and LDs (quite a few York University academics living in the leafy villages thereabouts). Some in the S&A constituency too, for sure - as you correctly say, it skirts Harrogate. But you've got a lot of the old Selby Coalfield areas to the South, which are more trad Labour (socially conservative).
Yorkshire Party not much stronger than Greens, but I do wonder whether with a good candidate they could do enough to make it a bit unpredictable re the other two (e.g. if they had a traditional Con-appealing candidate, providing a safe place for disgruntled but voting Cons - the Greens would be better placed to squeeze Lab, but many voting Lab will surely want to give Cons a kicking and Lab are best placed).
Consituency map:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Selby_and_Ainsty_(UK_Parliament_constituency)#/map/0
Recent GEs:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Selby_and_Ainsty_(UK_Parliament_constituency)#Elections_in_the_2010s
(Greens have only stood twice in four elections, with a high of 3.2%)
ETA: As a natural LD supporter, I'd love to see them doing well here, but I just can't see it, to be honest. But, I do not know the north west corner of the seat very well.
In which case you could have a 3 way battle between Boris, Corbyn and Khan for Mayor with the Tories official candidate likely a poor 4th.
Coincidentally Jezza had a party yesterday to celebrate 40 years as an Islington MP organised by his wife
https://twitter.com/LauraAlvarezJC/status/1668021510324224001?s=20
I'd be curious if @Sandpit or anyone else would think she should be disbarred from having been a teacher for having been paid to do porn?
She was one of my best teachers, was head of the English department and Deputy Head of the school. Prudes might object to anything titillating or 'sex' based but unless its anything unlawful I fail to see why it should be a safeguarding issue for the school.
Leaders have a weak understanding of safeguarding requirements and procedures. They have not exercised sufficient leadership or oversight of this important work. As a result, records of safeguarding concerns and the tracking of subsequent actions are poor. Leaders have not ensured that all required employment checks are complete for some staff employed at the school. These weaknesses pose potential risks to pupils.
Now, one can argue against the inspection framework and the emphasis on safeguarding, but I suspect we'd all agree that not completing all the required employment checks is pretty poor.