Mr. L, you're right, but the current 'women are wonderful' Zeitgeist means this won't be mentioned by politicians who would be crucified by a delinquent media for 'sexism'.
I think we need to recognise that Labour's lead has slipped a few points. Nothing too worrying yet, but if the Tories have a good conference we could see that sub-10% point, which in turn may affect the by-election betting.
I think we'd need to see this consistently in more polls to be sure it's not just statistical variation.
A summary judgement, that makes wild allegations from the prosecution about the value of his properties, from a judge and a prosecutor elected on a platform of “We’ll Get Trump”.
They suggest that the 17-acre Mar-a-Lago property is worth $18m, when half an acre with a house on it next door sells for double that amount.
You don’t have to like the guy, to think that there’s a co-ordinated effort to tie him up in legalities for the next year.
This is the sort of sh!t we see in Africa, not what you’d expect in a first world democracy.
Mar-a-Lago is not a house, and your (selective) comparison of this apple with that orange is pretty meaningless.
And how do you explain low valuations offered for tax reasons and improbably high valuations given in order to obtain loans, on the same property? Either he is defrauding the banks or he is defrauding the IRS.
"The ex-partner of a man who suffocated their three-month-old daughter said she feels "let down" and scared to learn of his imminent release.
Simon Smith killed baby Lauren in 1994 in Staffordshire. An investigation led to the grim discovery he had also murdered his two other children.
He was convicted of all three murders and jailed for life in 1996.
Lauren's mother Rachel Playfair said the public would be horrified to know a triple murderer was being released.
The Parole Board confirmed it had directed the release of Smith on licence following a hearing."
Unless we lock 'em up and throw away the key, we shall continue to hear these stories whenever a murderer is released or paroled. Some will say life should mean life, or even death.
For these type of cases it would now be a whole life term if sentenced in the present day.
Since the Police, Crime, Sentencing and Courts Act was passed by this Conservative government last year, premeditated murder of a child means judges must give an automatic whole life term order
The issue people should consider more this is the cost of 'throwing away the key'. If you aren't going to execute the prisoner, you have to accept that they have some rights, IE the right not to be murdered or assaulted by another inmate. They need to be fed etc. The cost is I believe about £47,000 per prisoner per year in the UK, but higher in very high security prisons. Even if you got rid of human rights and have poor conditions with jails like in the USA, the cost does not reduce that much (it is something like $40,000 per prisoner per year at federal level).
Maybe we should send them all to private school instead?
On which point, it seems Starmer may agree with me and you:
"Labour drops plan to strip public schools of charitable status"
Let's all agree that Labour has adopted a sensible compromise that raises money to fund education for the majority without being unnecessarily punitive on this persecuted minority.
Good morning
Our son works in this sector and it is clear that the likes of Eton and other elite schools will see little effect as the wealthy will pay it, but there are many more less elite schools who are at risk of losing so many students they may well close with the loss of many jobs, a problem for local state schools having to admit more students, and the loss to the community of a facility that provides bursaries to the poorest and charitable work to and in the community
I do not want to argue over this, but I am seeing it first hand and it is going to affect those fairly normal families who sacrifice considerably to provide their children with the education they want them to have
Furthermore, it will not raise anything like the expected income and is likely to face legal challenges from the sector
So no, I do not accept labour have adopted a sensible compromise as the 20% VAT charge and possibly the cancellation of gift aid will have a detrimental effect on the sector as I have outlined and an adverse effect for their communities and add to the numbers moving to state schools
The IFS have run the numbers and say it will raise a material amount of money, which will help to improve things for the 93% of children who attend state schools. If we're going to trade personal anecdotes, my three children are all at state schools - our local primary, our local secondary and a Sixth form college - and they are crying out for more money, while the party you support so loyally is cutting real terms funding per pupil - so thanks for harming their life chances every day with your support for the Tories.
You need to see what is happening to our grandchildren education here in Wales which is the responsibility of Welsh Labour government, and I simply do not accept for the reasons I have stated the net income to Labour will be anywhere near the figures quoted and may be negative
As an example of the support the school provides to the community they allow him all the time he needs to fulfil his duties as RNLI crew including attending shouts, extensive time in training and indeed for the three days he has been away in Poole this week at RNLI training headquarters
Both my children had an excellent education in a state sector comprehensive here in Wales. Both went on to graduate with 2:1s which is better than my Desmond (post grammar school).
I have no problem with you sending your offspring to a Headmasters Conference School or one of those Mickey Mouse local private schools, normally prefixed with "St." It's your money, spend as you see fit. But I don't want my taxes supplementing other people's social climbing plans, when that money could be used to fill my potholes or replace the WRAAC in my local hospital or fund teaching assistants for my local state primary school.
A summary judgement, that makes wild allegations from the prosecution about the value of his properties, from a judge and a prosecutor elected on a platform of “We’ll Get Trump”.
They suggest that the 17-acre Mar-a-Lago property is worth $18m, when half an acre with a house on it next door sells for double that amount.
You don’t have to like the guy, to think that there’s a co-ordinated effort to tie him up in legalities for the next year.
This is the sort of sh!t we see in Africa, not what you’d expect in a first world democracy.
"They" didn't "suggest" the value - Trump agreed the valuation of $18m - to get the benefit of tax breaks!
This is a civil case. There is discussion on whether this evidence can form the basis of a criminal prosecution (issues around whether statute of limitations apply, complicated by issues of the clock not running the four years he was President).
But this summary judgement is utterly damning. And cancels the licences needed for the Trump businesses to operate in New York.
The “taxable value” came from the State’s assessor, not from Trump.
The accusation is that he declared that as the taxable value, while using the actual value to secure the property against loans, and that the discrepancy amounts to fraud.
Trying to do politics through the courts, is likely to increase his support rather than diminish it. It’s a seriously worrying development in a first-world democracy.
I look forward to your expressing similar disquiet over the 'impeachment' of Hunter Biden.
How could Hunter Biden be impeached, when he’s never held elected office? If Burisma wants to pay a drug addict $50k a month for ‘advise’, that’s between their management and their shareholders.
Good question. That is what the GOP Congress is currently doing.
Nope, they’re looking to impeach Joe Biden for what he did as vice-president, tying Ukrainian aid to the firing of the prosecutor who was investigating Burisma.
A summary judgement, that makes wild allegations from the prosecution about the value of his properties, from a judge and a prosecutor elected on a platform of “We’ll Get Trump”.
They suggest that the 17-acre Mar-a-Lago property is worth $18m, when half an acre with a house on it next door sells for double that amount.
You don’t have to like the guy, to think that there’s a co-ordinated effort to tie him up in legalities for the next year.
This is the sort of sh!t we see in Africa, not what you’d expect in a first world democracy.
Mar-a-Lago is not a house, and your (selective) comparison of this apple with that orange is pretty meaningless.
And how do you explain low valuations offered for tax reasons and improbably high valuations given in order to obtain loans, on the same property? Either he is defrauding the banks or he is defrauding the IRS.
A summary judgement, that makes wild allegations from the prosecution about the value of his properties, from a judge and a prosecutor elected on a platform of “We’ll Get Trump”.
They suggest that the 17-acre Mar-a-Lago property is worth $18m, when half an acre with a house on it next door sells for double that amount.
You don’t have to like the guy, to think that there’s a co-ordinated effort to tie him up in legalities for the next year.
This is the sort of sh!t we see in Africa, not what you’d expect in a first world democracy.
Mar-a-Lago is not a house, and your (selective) comparison of this apple with that orange is pretty meaningless.
And how do you explain low valuations offered for tax reasons and improbably high valuations given in order to obtain loans, on the same property? Either he is defrauding the banks or he is defrauding the IRS.
"The ex-partner of a man who suffocated their three-month-old daughter said she feels "let down" and scared to learn of his imminent release.
Simon Smith killed baby Lauren in 1994 in Staffordshire. An investigation led to the grim discovery he had also murdered his two other children.
He was convicted of all three murders and jailed for life in 1996.
Lauren's mother Rachel Playfair said the public would be horrified to know a triple murderer was being released.
The Parole Board confirmed it had directed the release of Smith on licence following a hearing."
Unless we lock 'em up and throw away the key, we shall continue to hear these stories whenever a murderer is released or paroled. Some will say life should mean life, or even death.
For these type of cases it would now be a whole life term if sentenced in the present day.
Since the Police, Crime, Sentencing and Courts Act was passed by this Conservative government last year, premeditated murder of a child means judges must give an automatic whole life term order
The issue people should consider more this is the cost of 'throwing away the key'. If you aren't going to execute the prisoner, you have to accept that they have some rights, IE the right not to be murdered or assaulted by another inmate. They need to be fed etc. The cost is I believe about £47,000 per prisoner per year in the UK, but higher in very high security prisons. Even if you got rid of human rights and have poor conditions with jails like in the USA, the cost does not reduce that much (it is something like $40,000 per prisoner per year at federal level).
Maybe we should send them all to private school instead?
On which point, it seems Starmer may agree with me and you:
"Labour drops plan to strip public schools of charitable status"
Let's all agree that Labour has adopted a sensible compromise that raises money to fund education for the majority without being unnecessarily punitive on this persecuted minority.
Good morning
Our son works in this sector and it is clear that the likes of Eton and other elite schools will see little effect as the wealthy will pay it, but there are many more less elite schools who are at risk of losing so many students they may well close with the loss of many jobs, a problem for local state schools having to admit more students, and the loss to the community of a facility that provides bursaries to the poorest and charitable work to and in the community
I do not want to argue over this, but I am seeing it first hand and it is going to affect those fairly normal families who sacrifice considerably to provide their children with the education they want them to have
Furthermore, it will not raise anything like the expected income and is likely to face legal challenges from the sector
So no, I do not accept labour have adopted a sensible compromise as the 20% VAT charge and possibly the cancellation of gift aid will have a detrimental effect on the sector as I have outlined and an adverse effect for their communities and add to the numbers moving to state schools
The IFS have run the numbers and say it will raise a material amount of money, which will help to improve things for the 93% of children who attend state schools. If we're going to trade personal anecdotes, my three children are all at state schools - our local primary, our local secondary and a Sixth form college - and they are crying out for more money, while the party you support so loyally is cutting real terms funding per pupil - so thanks for harming their life chances every day with your support for the Tories.
You need to see what is happening to our grandchildren education here in Wales which is the responsibility of Welsh Labour government, and I simply do not accept for the reasons I have stated the net income to Labour will be anywhere near the figures quoted and may be negative
As an example of the support the school provides to the community they allow him all the time he needs to fulfil his duties as RNLI crew including attending shouts, extensive time in training and indeed for the three days he has been away in Poole this week at RNLI training headquarters
Both my children had an excellent education in a state sector comprehensive here in Wales. Both went on to graduate with 2:1s which is better than my Desmond (post grammar school).
I have no problem with you sending your offspring to a Headmasters Conference School or one of those Mickey Mouse local private schools, normally prefixed with "St." It's your money, spend as you see fit, but I don't want my taxes supplementing other people's social climbing plans, when that money could be used to fill my potholes or replace the WRAAC in my local hospital or fund teaching assistants for my local state primary school.
And that highlights an interesting issue: the quality of state schools can be just as spotty and varied as that of (say) GP services. One school in a town can be excellent; another poor, despite being only a couple of miles apart.
There's a significant chance that some increased funding goes to the 'excellent' school; perhaps because results matter, or the parents, PTA and staff are much more inclined to fight for the funding.
I don't expect Labour to improve education much where it matters: at the bottom end of attainment, because the problems are really difficult and much depends on parenting. I don't expect the Conservatives or Lib Dems to do much there, either.
A geoengineering proposal to address global warming. Looks pretty good to me.
https://nephewjonathan.substack.com/p/diy-geoengineering-the-whitepaper ...Global warming, though not ocean acidification, is quickly and cheaply reversed by ejecting calcite nanoparticles (with an average radius in the ~90nm range) into the stratosphere, using a propeller-based system to prevent particle clumping. The particles should be carried up by hydrogen balloons, and very preferably released over the tropics. The total amount needed will be on the order of several hundred kilotons yearly, and the total cost should be somewhere between $1B and $5B yearly.
Let's go through this piece by piece...
Even if the cost is out by an order of magnitude, it could easily be funded by (for instance) the EU on its own.
If it goes wrong, how easily can it be reversed? And who is to judge whether or not it works?
It's OK, you do it over the tropics so if anything goes wrong it's not us who will be affected. Genius!
Can you suggest what there is to "go wrong" ?
Point is that if it works, it works. If it doesn't, it's just a lot of non toxic dust in the atmosphere for a fairly short time. Which happens every time a wind blows across the Sahara.
The reason did doing it in the tropics is that that's where the effect (as we've seen with what happened with the marine diesel sulphur ban) is most pronounced.
What can possibly go wrong with reducing the amount of sunlight reaching areas of the world where people rely on it to grow food and are already often food-insecure... Hmm let me think.
We've already done much the same experiment (unwittingly) while freight shipping was pumping sulphur dioxide aerosol into the atmosphere. Setting aside the ocean acidification resulting (which isn't a thing with this idea) there weren't such effects.
And in any event, the effects of excessive temperatures on crop growth will be far greater than anything resulting from a small increase in solar energy being reflected back into space.
If there are possible objections to the experiment, I think this one is pretty feeble.
Seems a bit risky to me. Why not just decarbonise our economy instead of creating additional potential risks for the poorest people in the world, who have played almost no role in creating this problem.
You're comparing a controlled, measured process with a massive volcanic eruption ?
Sounds a bit bollocks to me.
And not 'instead'; as well as. We need both, since decarbonisation will take too long to prevent serious consequences for precisely those 'poorest people in the world'.
"The ex-partner of a man who suffocated their three-month-old daughter said she feels "let down" and scared to learn of his imminent release.
Simon Smith killed baby Lauren in 1994 in Staffordshire. An investigation led to the grim discovery he had also murdered his two other children.
He was convicted of all three murders and jailed for life in 1996.
Lauren's mother Rachel Playfair said the public would be horrified to know a triple murderer was being released.
The Parole Board confirmed it had directed the release of Smith on licence following a hearing."
Unless we lock 'em up and throw away the key, we shall continue to hear these stories whenever a murderer is released or paroled. Some will say life should mean life, or even death.
For these type of cases it would now be a whole life term if sentenced in the present day.
Since the Police, Crime, Sentencing and Courts Act was passed by this Conservative government last year, premeditated murder of a child means judges must give an automatic whole life term order
The issue people should consider more this is the cost of 'throwing away the key'. If you aren't going to execute the prisoner, you have to accept that they have some rights, IE the right not to be murdered or assaulted by another inmate. They need to be fed etc. The cost is I believe about £47,000 per prisoner per year in the UK, but higher in very high security prisons. Even if you got rid of human rights and have poor conditions with jails like in the USA, the cost does not reduce that much (it is something like $40,000 per prisoner per year at federal level).
Maybe we should send them all to private school instead?
On which point, it seems Starmer may agree with me and you:
"Labour drops plan to strip public schools of charitable status"
Let's all agree that Labour has adopted a sensible compromise that raises money to fund education for the majority without being unnecessarily punitive on this persecuted minority.
Good morning
Our son works in this sector and it is clear that the likes of Eton and other elite schools will see little effect as the wealthy will pay it, but there are many more less elite schools who are at risk of losing so many students they may well close with the loss of many jobs, a problem for local state schools having to admit more students, and the loss to the community of a facility that provides bursaries to the poorest and charitable work to and in the community
I do not want to argue over this, but I am seeing it first hand and it is going to affect those fairly normal families who sacrifice considerably to provide their children with the education they want them to have
Furthermore, it will not raise anything like the expected income and is likely to face legal challenges from the sector
So no, I do not accept labour have adopted a sensible compromise as the 20% VAT charge and possibly the cancellation of gift aid will have a detrimental effect on the sector as I have outlined and an adverse effect for their communities and add to the numbers moving to state schools
It really isn't normal families. Even amongst high income families, it's a very small minority.
The proportion of children attending private school is close to zero across the vast majority of the income distribution, and doesn’t rise above 10% of the cohort except among those with the top 5% of incomes. Only half of those in the top 1% send their kids to private school
It doesn't make the policy right or wrong, but normal families, even normal professional families, stopped being able to afford private schools out of salaries long ago.
Quite so. Friend of mine (London high flyer) sent his children to the same Headmasters' Conference "public" school as he attended in the 1970s. Then, it was full of normal professional families - children of accountants and farmers, and the like. Now, vastly shifted to the financial elite and a very high percentage of students from overseas.
I have to say that our experience with Dundee High School was almost the opposite of that. When my daughter started there 25 years ago now the school ethos and cohort was dominated by trustafarians from Broughty Ferry and the country whose fees were being paid out of capital. Over the next 20 odd years this grouping became ever less significant with far more children coming from the homes of professionals and business people in Dundee, specifically immigrant business people. By the time my son left 2 years ago the old money group were a very small minority indeed.
This had some positive effects on the school. The professionals were much more interested in results than those who simply wished to ensure that their kids had a social network that was likely to help them through life. They put pressure on the school to improve results and it worked. Extra help for those who wanted to study medicine, for example, was made available relating to their specific entrance exams.
In the 2 years since my son left there has been a sharp increase in fees. This is partly because of tax changes, notably rates, but also because fees were held down during Covid. We would have found the current fees very difficult to pay from income and if this trend continues it may be that the old money once again becomes more signficant.
Interesting - my friend made a similar kind oif comment about exam results, though in some respects in the opposite temporal direction to yours. His opinion was that it had averaged down over time, with more attention paid to the thickies and difficult ones [edit] under parental pressure for value for kmoney in terms of Int Bacc and A-level results, and much less attentoon paid to pushing/encouraging the intelligent (and very noticeably fewer Oxbridge results, which he attributed to that rather than to increased competition).
I think we need to recognise that Labour's lead has slipped a few points. Nothing too worrying yet, but if the Tories have a good conference we could see that sub-10% point, which in turn may affect the by-election betting.
I think the lead has slipped, but it looks like Starmer's net favourability lead over Sunak is still going up (thanks to Sunak's honeymoon still unwinding).
A geoengineering proposal to address global warming. Looks pretty good to me.
https://nephewjonathan.substack.com/p/diy-geoengineering-the-whitepaper ...Global warming, though not ocean acidification, is quickly and cheaply reversed by ejecting calcite nanoparticles (with an average radius in the ~90nm range) into the stratosphere, using a propeller-based system to prevent particle clumping. The particles should be carried up by hydrogen balloons, and very preferably released over the tropics. The total amount needed will be on the order of several hundred kilotons yearly, and the total cost should be somewhere between $1B and $5B yearly.
Let's go through this piece by piece...
Even if the cost is out by an order of magnitude, it could easily be funded by (for instance) the EU on its own.
If it goes wrong, how easily can it be reversed? And who is to judge whether or not it works?
It's OK, you do it over the tropics so if anything goes wrong it's not us who will be affected. Genius!
Can you suggest what there is to "go wrong" ?
Point is that if it works, it works. If it doesn't, it's just a lot of non toxic dust in the atmosphere for a fairly short time. Which happens every time a wind blows across the Sahara.
The reason did doing it in the tropics is that that's where the effect (as we've seen with what happened with the marine diesel sulphur ban) is most pronounced.
What can possibly go wrong with reducing the amount of sunlight reaching areas of the world where people rely on it to grow food and are already often food-insecure... Hmm let me think.
We've already done much the same experiment (unwittingly) while freight shipping was pumping sulphur dioxide aerosol into the atmosphere. Setting aside the ocean acidification resulting (which isn't a thing with this idea) there weren't such effects.
And in any event, the effects of excessive temperatures on crop growth will be far greater than anything resulting from a small increase in solar energy being reflected back into space.
If there are possible objections to the experiment, I think this one is pretty feeble.
Seems a bit risky to me. Why not just decarbonise our economy instead of creating additional potential risks for the poorest people in the world, who have played almost no role in creating this problem.
You're comparing a controlled, measured process with a massive volcanic eruption ?
Sounds a bit bollocks to me.
And not 'instead'; as well as. We need both, since decarbonisation will take too long to prevent serious consequences for precisely those 'poorest people in the world'.
Is there not a gender issue here? Anecdotally, I have read several times that the problem is largely young, female doctors who choose to go part time in their child bearing years and that the relative over performance of girls academically meant that they were increasing their proportion of the cohort for what remains a very competitive course.
The problem for the government is that it costs us so much to subsidise the training of a doctor that it becomes an issue if so many of them either do not practise in the NHS at all or only do so on a part time basis.
I have a very senior doctor friend who has said for years,in the safety of social situations with only a couple of good friends, that there is a big problem with the loss of female doctors from the system when they have children.
It’s clearly something that would be career suicide if he mentioned it in his professional world, and clearly we can’t have a situation where we don’t train women as doctors because you train them then lose a lot for a chunk of their career, but I wonder if it is something that can never be solved because the optics of bringing it up as an issue would be beyond problematic.
Not sure that this would be something that would really be backed up by hard evidence, though the more interesting aspect is with respect to the whole training program for doctors whether male or female that needs to be reviewed. It is of course not likely with the BMA being the most powerful union in the known universe and one of the few self-interest groups that never seems to be challenged by journalists, particularly the BBC (contrast how BBC breakfast interviewers interview a doctor versus an MP- the deference is embarrassing)
The reality is that while certain medical specialisms require intense brainpower (eg cardiac electrophysiology. radiology, haematology, oncological surgery) you do not need to be a genius to be a GP, or trained over the many years that it currently takes. A large amount of what they do, whilst often important, is as a gatekeeper to passing on to someone with a specialism. It is also questionable as to whether GPs as we know them will even be needed in the future. There will be a point where AI will be able to triage symptoms more accurately than a bored GP who hasnt bothered to keep up with their CPD.
A geoengineering proposal to address global warming. Looks pretty good to me.
https://nephewjonathan.substack.com/p/diy-geoengineering-the-whitepaper ...Global warming, though not ocean acidification, is quickly and cheaply reversed by ejecting calcite nanoparticles (with an average radius in the ~90nm range) into the stratosphere, using a propeller-based system to prevent particle clumping. The particles should be carried up by hydrogen balloons, and very preferably released over the tropics. The total amount needed will be on the order of several hundred kilotons yearly, and the total cost should be somewhere between $1B and $5B yearly.
Let's go through this piece by piece...
Even if the cost is out by an order of magnitude, it could easily be funded by (for instance) the EU on its own.
If it goes wrong, how easily can it be reversed? And who is to judge whether or not it works?
It's OK, you do it over the tropics so if anything goes wrong it's not us who will be affected. Genius!
Can you suggest what there is to "go wrong" ?
Point is that if it works, it works. If it doesn't, it's just a lot of non toxic dust in the atmosphere for a fairly short time. Which happens every time a wind blows across the Sahara.
The reason did doing it in the tropics is that that's where the effect (as we've seen with what happened with the marine diesel sulphur ban) is most pronounced.
What can possibly go wrong with reducing the amount of sunlight reaching areas of the world where people rely on it to grow food and are already often food-insecure... Hmm let me think.
We've already done much the same experiment (unwittingly) while freight shipping was pumping sulphur dioxide aerosol into the atmosphere. Setting aside the ocean acidification resulting (which isn't a thing with this idea) there weren't such effects.
And in any event, the effects of excessive temperatures on crop growth will be far greater than anything resulting from a small increase in solar energy being reflected back into space.
If there are possible objections to the experiment, I think this one is pretty feeble.
Seems a bit risky to me. Why not just decarbonise our economy instead of creating additional potential risks for the poorest people in the world, who have played almost no role in creating this problem.
You're comparing a controlled, measured process with a massive volcanic eruption ?
Sounds a bit bollocks to me.
And not 'instead'; as well as. We need both, since decarbonisation will take too long to prevent serious consequences for precisely those 'poorest people in the world'.
History is littered with "controlled" interventions that turn out to be disasters. When you are potentially impacting the livelihoods of some of the poorest people in the world - to fix a problem others have created - I say tread incredibly carefully.
A summary judgement, that makes wild allegations from the prosecution about the value of his properties, from a judge and a prosecutor elected on a platform of “We’ll Get Trump”.
They suggest that the 17-acre Mar-a-Lago property is worth $18m, when half an acre with a house on it next door sells for double that amount.
You don’t have to like the guy, to think that there’s a co-ordinated effort to tie him up in legalities for the next year.
This is the sort of sh!t we see in Africa, not what you’d expect in a first world democracy.
Mar-a-Lago is not a house, and your (selective) comparison of this apple with that orange is pretty meaningless.
And how do you explain low valuations offered for tax reasons and improbably high valuations given in order to obtain loans, on the same property? Either he is defrauding the banks or he is defrauding the IRS.
The taxable value came from the State’s tax assessor. The value for the purposes of the loan, came from the bank that issued the loan. Given that Palm Beach land goes for around $15m/acre, the 17 acre plot is worth around $250m without the successful country club business on it.
"The ex-partner of a man who suffocated their three-month-old daughter said she feels "let down" and scared to learn of his imminent release.
Simon Smith killed baby Lauren in 1994 in Staffordshire. An investigation led to the grim discovery he had also murdered his two other children.
He was convicted of all three murders and jailed for life in 1996.
Lauren's mother Rachel Playfair said the public would be horrified to know a triple murderer was being released.
The Parole Board confirmed it had directed the release of Smith on licence following a hearing."
Unless we lock 'em up and throw away the key, we shall continue to hear these stories whenever a murderer is released or paroled. Some will say life should mean life, or even death.
For these type of cases it would now be a whole life term if sentenced in the present day.
Since the Police, Crime, Sentencing and Courts Act was passed by this Conservative government last year, premeditated murder of a child means judges must give an automatic whole life term order
The issue people should consider more this is the cost of 'throwing away the key'. If you aren't going to execute the prisoner, you have to accept that they have some rights, IE the right not to be murdered or assaulted by another inmate. They need to be fed etc. The cost is I believe about £47,000 per prisoner per year in the UK, but higher in very high security prisons. Even if you got rid of human rights and have poor conditions with jails like in the USA, the cost does not reduce that much (it is something like $40,000 per prisoner per year at federal level).
Maybe we should send them all to private school instead?
On which point, it seems Starmer may agree with me and you:
"Labour drops plan to strip public schools of charitable status"
Let's all agree that Labour has adopted a sensible compromise that raises money to fund education for the majority without being unnecessarily punitive on this persecuted minority.
Good morning
Our son works in this sector and it is clear that the likes of Eton and other elite schools will see little effect as the wealthy will pay it, but there are many more less elite schools who are at risk of losing so many students they may well close with the loss of many jobs, a problem for local state schools having to admit more students, and the loss to the community of a facility that provides bursaries to the poorest and charitable work to and in the community
I do not want to argue over this, but I am seeing it first hand and it is going to affect those fairly normal families who sacrifice considerably to provide their children with the education they want them to have
Furthermore, it will not raise anything like the expected income and is likely to face legal challenges from the sector
So no, I do not accept labour have adopted a sensible compromise as the 20% VAT charge and possibly the cancellation of gift aid will have a detrimental effect on the sector as I have outlined and an adverse effect for their communities and add to the numbers moving to state schools
The IFS have run the numbers and say it will raise a material amount of money, which will help to improve things for the 93% of children who attend state schools. If we're going to trade personal anecdotes, my three children are all at state schools - our local primary, our local secondary and a Sixth form college - and they are crying out for more money, while the party you support so loyally is cutting real terms funding per pupil - so thanks for harming their life chances every day with your support for the Tories.
You need to see what is happening to our grandchildren education here in Wales which is the responsibility of Welsh Labour government, and I simply do not accept for the reasons I have stated the net income to Labour will be anywhere near the figures quoted and may be negative
As an example of the support the school provides to the community they allow him all the time he needs to fulfil his duties as RNLI crew including attending shouts, extensive time in training and indeed for the three days he has been away in Poole this week at RNLI training headquarters
Both my children had an excellent education in a state sector comprehensive here in Wales. Both went on to graduate with 2:1s which is better than my Desmond (post grammar school).
I have no problem with you sending your offspring to a Headmasters Conference School or one of those Mickey Mouse local private schools, normally prefixed with "St." It's your money, spend as you see fit, but I don't want my taxes supplementing other people's social climbing plans, when that money could be used to fill my potholes or replace the WRAAC in my local hospital or fund teaching assistants for my local state primary school.
And that highlights an interesting issue: the quality of state schools can be just as spotty and varied as that of (say) GP services. One school in a town can be excellent; another poor, despite being only a couple of miles apart.
There's a significant chance that some increased funding goes to the 'excellent' school; perhaps because results matter, or the parents, PTA and staff are much more inclined to fight for the funding.
I don't expect Labour to improve education much where it matters: at the bottom end of attainment, because the problems are really difficult and much depends on parenting. I don't expect the Conservatives or Lib Dems to do much there, either.
If a Party policy is to promote elite private and elite state education there is less in the pot for average to sink schools.
I have no great expectations for substantial educational improvement under any future Labour Government (I doubt a non-Conservative government will happen in my lifetime anyway). But I am not anticipating the quality of education for the bottom 90% getting any better under continued Conservative administrations.
Mr. L, you're right, but the current 'women are wonderful' Zeitgeist means this won't be mentioned by politicians who would be crucified by a delinquent media for 'sexism'.
Why don’t you use the bloody quote function for crying out loud Morris? This looked like an interesting comment but I have no idea what it relates to.
The Human Rights Act 1988 incorporates the ECHR into British law and British judges rule on it.
Those who think that that will be fine if the U.K. withdraws from the Convention are being, in Lenin's wonderful phrase, "useful idiots". And, yes, I include Sumption in this. He may be super-intelligent but he is also being naive and lacking in the cunning those attacking the ECHR are displaying. Those Tories agitating for withdrawal are not concerned about the foreign court aspect. They don't like the rights the ECHR contains and will - if withdrawal happens - be seeking to remove or limit some of those rights and not just from foreigners either.
That is what Raab's ill-fated Bill of Rights Bill was trying to do. That is what the attempts to water down judicial review are trying to do.
This is like Brexit all over again - "we just want a bit more control while having a close relationship" turned into the ERG's "we don't want to have anything to do with those nasty Europeans at all". "We want you - Parliament - to have more control" turned into "we the executive want to take all the powers to ourselves and ignore everyone else". The latter was what they wanted all along .
Getting rid or watering down many of the Convention rights for all of us is what Braverman and others want and those who think otherwise are deluded.
A geoengineering proposal to address global warming. Looks pretty good to me.
https://nephewjonathan.substack.com/p/diy-geoengineering-the-whitepaper ...Global warming, though not ocean acidification, is quickly and cheaply reversed by ejecting calcite nanoparticles (with an average radius in the ~90nm range) into the stratosphere, using a propeller-based system to prevent particle clumping. The particles should be carried up by hydrogen balloons, and very preferably released over the tropics. The total amount needed will be on the order of several hundred kilotons yearly, and the total cost should be somewhere between $1B and $5B yearly.
Let's go through this piece by piece...
Even if the cost is out by an order of magnitude, it could easily be funded by (for instance) the EU on its own.
If it goes wrong, how easily can it be reversed? And who is to judge whether or not it works?
It's OK, you do it over the tropics so if anything goes wrong it's not us who will be affected. Genius!
Can you suggest what there is to "go wrong" ?
Point is that if it works, it works. If it doesn't, it's just a lot of non toxic dust in the atmosphere for a fairly short time. Which happens every time a wind blows across the Sahara.
The reason did doing it in the tropics is that that's where the effect (as we've seen with what happened with the marine diesel sulphur ban) is most pronounced.
What can possibly go wrong with reducing the amount of sunlight reaching areas of the world where people rely on it to grow food and are already often food-insecure... Hmm let me think.
We've already done much the same experiment (unwittingly) while freight shipping was pumping sulphur dioxide aerosol into the atmosphere. Setting aside the ocean acidification resulting (which isn't a thing with this idea) there weren't such effects.
And in any event, the effects of excessive temperatures on crop growth will be far greater than anything resulting from a small increase in solar energy being reflected back into space.
If there are possible objections to the experiment, I think this one is pretty feeble.
Seems a bit risky to me. Why not just decarbonise our economy instead of creating additional potential risks for the poorest people in the world, who have played almost no role in creating this problem.
You're comparing a controlled, measured process with a massive volcanic eruption ?
Sounds a bit bollocks to me.
And not 'instead'; as well as. We need both, since decarbonisation will take too long to prevent serious consequences for precisely those 'poorest people in the world'.
Human meddling has screwed up the planet.
What do we need? More human meddling!
Fecking genius.
I think it sounds something that should be considered, particularly as hoping that the West, let alone China and India, going to all start wearing hair shirts as many green activists would like is just not going to happen. However, in answer to the question "what could go wrong", I would suggest that as the Earth has so many variables then it could result in an extreme "correction" which could, in extremis, lead to rapid cooling. IMHO an ice age would be even less palatable than global warming. Proceed with extreme caution might be sensible.
A geoengineering proposal to address global warming. Looks pretty good to me.
https://nephewjonathan.substack.com/p/diy-geoengineering-the-whitepaper ...Global warming, though not ocean acidification, is quickly and cheaply reversed by ejecting calcite nanoparticles (with an average radius in the ~90nm range) into the stratosphere, using a propeller-based system to prevent particle clumping. The particles should be carried up by hydrogen balloons, and very preferably released over the tropics. The total amount needed will be on the order of several hundred kilotons yearly, and the total cost should be somewhere between $1B and $5B yearly.
Let's go through this piece by piece...
Even if the cost is out by an order of magnitude, it could easily be funded by (for instance) the EU on its own.
If it goes wrong, how easily can it be reversed? And who is to judge whether or not it works?
It's OK, you do it over the tropics so if anything goes wrong it's not us who will be affected. Genius!
Can you suggest what there is to "go wrong" ?
Point is that if it works, it works. If it doesn't, it's just a lot of non toxic dust in the atmosphere for a fairly short time. Which happens every time a wind blows across the Sahara.
The reason did doing it in the tropics is that that's where the effect (as we've seen with what happened with the marine diesel sulphur ban) is most pronounced.
What can possibly go wrong with reducing the amount of sunlight reaching areas of the world where people rely on it to grow food and are already often food-insecure... Hmm let me think.
I'm somewhat surprised to see it being suggested it is used over the Tropics. I would have thought that (caveat, it's Putin) using it over the Russian taiga and tundra would stop the release of methane there which is the bigger problem. And over Greenland and Antarctica, to stabilise the ice sheets and stop water levels rising.
But hey, what do I know.
Injecting aerosols into the tropical stratosphere has a far bigger impact on global temperatures than doing it in mid latitudes. In the tropics the stratosphere is higher, more stable (less likely to be pulled down and rained out); it allows aerosols to be dispersed globally over both hemispheres. Inject into the tropics and within a few months you have global coverage. Inject over mid or high latitudes and it remains in those latitudes. Insolation is highest in the tropics too, so the impact on radiation balance of the earth is much greater. That’s why tropical volcanoes like pinatubo and el chichon had a far greater impact on global temperature than high latitude ones.
The trouble with geo-engineering is a political and moral one. Climate change through CO2 is attributable to humans, but not to an individual company or agency, or even directly to a country. So people may die in floods or heatwaves but there’s nobody you can realistically sue or prosecute. Geo engineering is a deliberate action that can be traced to a single body or country. Any global change had regional impacts - it would likely reduce overall global rainfall and cause quite directly attributable droughts and crop failures. The affected country, especially if it didn’t sign up to the experiment in the first place, will have a stronger legal recourse. Or if it doesn’t, the farmers will have recourse to their country.
It’s not necessarily true that aerosol injection would have wildly unpredictable results. It can be modelled quite accurately including on a regional scale. Famously after Pinatubo James Hansen at NASA accurately predicted to within a tenth of a degree the cooling impact and duration. And modelling is better now. But that’s also a problem because the losers from any action would know ahead who they are, and would quite reasonably resist it.
So getting someone to press the button seems tricky.
There are also predictable benefits. Given the low costs involved, it ought to be fairly simple to finance compensation alongside the project.
I'd far rather finance something like this than (eg) the useless carbon capture schemes our government is planning to spend tens of billions on.
A geoengineering proposal to address global warming. Looks pretty good to me.
https://nephewjonathan.substack.com/p/diy-geoengineering-the-whitepaper ...Global warming, though not ocean acidification, is quickly and cheaply reversed by ejecting calcite nanoparticles (with an average radius in the ~90nm range) into the stratosphere, using a propeller-based system to prevent particle clumping. The particles should be carried up by hydrogen balloons, and very preferably released over the tropics. The total amount needed will be on the order of several hundred kilotons yearly, and the total cost should be somewhere between $1B and $5B yearly.
Let's go through this piece by piece...
Even if the cost is out by an order of magnitude, it could easily be funded by (for instance) the EU on its own.
If it goes wrong, how easily can it be reversed? And who is to judge whether or not it works?
It's OK, you do it over the tropics so if anything goes wrong it's not us who will be affected. Genius!
Can you suggest what there is to "go wrong" ?
Point is that if it works, it works. If it doesn't, it's just a lot of non toxic dust in the atmosphere for a fairly short time. Which happens every time a wind blows across the Sahara.
The reason did doing it in the tropics is that that's where the effect (as we've seen with what happened with the marine diesel sulphur ban) is most pronounced.
What can possibly go wrong with reducing the amount of sunlight reaching areas of the world where people rely on it to grow food and are already often food-insecure... Hmm let me think.
We've already done much the same experiment (unwittingly) while freight shipping was pumping sulphur dioxide aerosol into the atmosphere. Setting aside the ocean acidification resulting (which isn't a thing with this idea) there weren't such effects.
And in any event, the effects of excessive temperatures on crop growth will be far greater than anything resulting from a small increase in solar energy being reflected back into space.
If there are possible objections to the experiment, I think this one is pretty feeble.
Seems a bit risky to me. Why not just decarbonise our economy instead of creating additional potential risks for the poorest people in the world, who have played almost no role in creating this problem.
You're comparing a controlled, measured process with a massive volcanic eruption ?
Sounds a bit bollocks to me.
And not 'instead'; as well as. We need both, since decarbonisation will take too long to prevent serious consequences for precisely those 'poorest people in the world'.
A geoengineering proposal to address global warming. Looks pretty good to me.
https://nephewjonathan.substack.com/p/diy-geoengineering-the-whitepaper ...Global warming, though not ocean acidification, is quickly and cheaply reversed by ejecting calcite nanoparticles (with an average radius in the ~90nm range) into the stratosphere, using a propeller-based system to prevent particle clumping. The particles should be carried up by hydrogen balloons, and very preferably released over the tropics. The total amount needed will be on the order of several hundred kilotons yearly, and the total cost should be somewhere between $1B and $5B yearly.
Let's go through this piece by piece...
Even if the cost is out by an order of magnitude, it could easily be funded by (for instance) the EU on its own.
If it goes wrong, how easily can it be reversed? And who is to judge whether or not it works?
It's OK, you do it over the tropics so if anything goes wrong it's not us who will be affected. Genius!
Can you suggest what there is to "go wrong" ?
Point is that if it works, it works. If it doesn't, it's just a lot of non toxic dust in the atmosphere for a fairly short time. Which happens every time a wind blows across the Sahara.
The reason did doing it in the tropics is that that's where the effect (as we've seen with what happened with the marine diesel sulphur ban) is most pronounced.
What can possibly go wrong with reducing the amount of sunlight reaching areas of the world where people rely on it to grow food and are already often food-insecure... Hmm let me think.
We've already done much the same experiment (unwittingly) while freight shipping was pumping sulphur dioxide aerosol into the atmosphere. Setting aside the ocean acidification resulting (which isn't a thing with this idea) there weren't such effects.
And in any event, the effects of excessive temperatures on crop growth will be far greater than anything resulting from a small increase in solar energy being reflected back into space.
If there are possible objections to the experiment, I think this one is pretty feeble.
Seems a bit risky to me. Why not just decarbonise our economy instead of creating additional potential risks for the poorest people in the world, who have played almost no role in creating this problem.
You're comparing a controlled, measured process with a massive volcanic eruption ?
Sounds a bit bollocks to me.
And not 'instead'; as well as. We need both, since decarbonisation will take too long to prevent serious consequences for precisely those 'poorest people in the world'.
Human meddling has screwed up the planet.
What do we need? More human meddling!
Fecking genius.
Of course, you omit yourself from this, your being a perfect citizen and all, just like you omit yourself from your desire to see fewer people on the planet.
A geoengineering proposal to address global warming. Looks pretty good to me.
https://nephewjonathan.substack.com/p/diy-geoengineering-the-whitepaper ...Global warming, though not ocean acidification, is quickly and cheaply reversed by ejecting calcite nanoparticles (with an average radius in the ~90nm range) into the stratosphere, using a propeller-based system to prevent particle clumping. The particles should be carried up by hydrogen balloons, and very preferably released over the tropics. The total amount needed will be on the order of several hundred kilotons yearly, and the total cost should be somewhere between $1B and $5B yearly.
Let's go through this piece by piece...
Even if the cost is out by an order of magnitude, it could easily be funded by (for instance) the EU on its own.
If it goes wrong, how easily can it be reversed? And who is to judge whether or not it works?
It's OK, you do it over the tropics so if anything goes wrong it's not us who will be affected. Genius!
Can you suggest what there is to "go wrong" ?
Point is that if it works, it works. If it doesn't, it's just a lot of non toxic dust in the atmosphere for a fairly short time. Which happens every time a wind blows across the Sahara.
The reason did doing it in the tropics is that that's where the effect (as we've seen with what happened with the marine diesel sulphur ban) is most pronounced.
What can possibly go wrong with reducing the amount of sunlight reaching areas of the world where people rely on it to grow food and are already often food-insecure... Hmm let me think.
We've already done much the same experiment (unwittingly) while freight shipping was pumping sulphur dioxide aerosol into the atmosphere. Setting aside the ocean acidification resulting (which isn't a thing with this idea) there weren't such effects.
And in any event, the effects of excessive temperatures on crop growth will be far greater than anything resulting from a small increase in solar energy being reflected back into space.
If there are possible objections to the experiment, I think this one is pretty feeble.
Seems a bit risky to me. Why not just decarbonise our economy instead of creating additional potential risks for the poorest people in the world, who have played almost no role in creating this problem.
You're comparing a controlled, measured process with a massive volcanic eruption ?
Sounds a bit bollocks to me.
And not 'instead'; as well as. We need both, since decarbonisation will take too long to prevent serious consequences for precisely those 'poorest people in the world'.
Human meddling has screwed up the planet.
What do we need? More human meddling!
Fecking genius.
I think it sounds something that should be considered, particularly as hoping that the West, let alone China and India, going to all start wearing hair shirts as many green activists would like is just not going to happen. However, in answer to the question "what could go wrong", I would suggest that as the Earth has so many variables then it could result in an extreme "correction" which could, in extremis, lead to rapid cooling. IMHO an ice age would be even less palatable than global warming. Proceed with extreme caution might be sensible.
But we've already done it. We just stopped doing it a couple of years ago with the international ban on high sulphur marine fuels.
"The ex-partner of a man who suffocated their three-month-old daughter said she feels "let down" and scared to learn of his imminent release.
Simon Smith killed baby Lauren in 1994 in Staffordshire. An investigation led to the grim discovery he had also murdered his two other children.
He was convicted of all three murders and jailed for life in 1996.
Lauren's mother Rachel Playfair said the public would be horrified to know a triple murderer was being released.
The Parole Board confirmed it had directed the release of Smith on licence following a hearing."
Unless we lock 'em up and throw away the key, we shall continue to hear these stories whenever a murderer is released or paroled. Some will say life should mean life, or even death.
For these type of cases it would now be a whole life term if sentenced in the present day.
Since the Police, Crime, Sentencing and Courts Act was passed by this Conservative government last year, premeditated murder of a child means judges must give an automatic whole life term order
The issue people should consider more this is the cost of 'throwing away the key'. If you aren't going to execute the prisoner, you have to accept that they have some rights, IE the right not to be murdered or assaulted by another inmate. They need to be fed etc. The cost is I believe about £47,000 per prisoner per year in the UK, but higher in very high security prisons. Even if you got rid of human rights and have poor conditions with jails like in the USA, the cost does not reduce that much (it is something like $40,000 per prisoner per year at federal level).
Maybe we should send them all to private school instead?
On which point, it seems Starmer may agree with me and you:
"Labour drops plan to strip public schools of charitable status"
Let's all agree that Labour has adopted a sensible compromise that raises money to fund education for the majority without being unnecessarily punitive on this persecuted minority.
Good morning
Our son works in this sector and it is clear that the likes of Eton and other elite schools will see little effect as the wealthy will pay it, but there are many more less elite schools who are at risk of losing so many students they may well close with the loss of many jobs, a problem for local state schools having to admit more students, and the loss to the community of a facility that provides bursaries to the poorest and charitable work to and in the community
I do not want to argue over this, but I am seeing it first hand and it is going to affect those fairly normal families who sacrifice considerably to provide their children with the education they want them to have
Furthermore, it will not raise anything like the expected income and is likely to face legal challenges from the sector
So no, I do not accept labour have adopted a sensible compromise as the 20% VAT charge and possibly the cancellation of gift aid will have a detrimental effect on the sector as I have outlined and an adverse effect for their communities and add to the numbers moving to state schools
The IFS have run the numbers and say it will raise a material amount of money, which will help to improve things for the 93% of children who attend state schools. If we're going to trade personal anecdotes, my three children are all at state schools - our local primary, our local secondary and a Sixth form college - and they are crying out for more money, while the party you support so loyally is cutting real terms funding per pupil - so thanks for harming their life chances every day with your support for the Tories.
You need to see what is happening to our grandchildren education here in Wales which is the responsibility of Welsh Labour government, and I simply do not accept for the reasons I have stated the net income to Labour will be anywhere near the figures quoted and may be negative
As an example of the support the school provides to the community they allow him all the time he needs to fulfil his duties as RNLI crew including attending shouts, extensive time in training and indeed for the three days he has been away in Poole this week at RNLI training headquarters
But the schools can absorb the VAT charge by lowering their fees. Successive Conservative governments have demanded that state schools spend less per pupil, so there is surely scope for private schools to do the same.
Private schools could lower spending per pupil to state school levels, keep fees the same, and double the number of pupils on free scholarships. What's not to love about this? Fee paying parents are only sending their kids private for the good of society as a whole, so they will be happy to contribute. Private schools' real purpose as charities is educating the great unwashed, not giving the already privileged an additional leg up, so they will love this change. And resentful chippy fellows like me will be satisfied that we have a level playing field at last. There, problem solved. You're welcome.
I think resentful chippy fellows like you need to get a life. Some people have more privileges than you, some have more than me. Get over it. When you do, you will start being more successful and much happier. Being jealous of others is very debilitating. It is why socialists are, without exception, failures in life.
A summary judgement, that makes wild allegations from the prosecution about the value of his properties, from a judge and a prosecutor elected on a platform of “We’ll Get Trump”.
They suggest that the 17-acre Mar-a-Lago property is worth $18m, when half an acre with a house on it next door sells for double that amount.
You don’t have to like the guy, to think that there’s a co-ordinated effort to tie him up in legalities for the next year.
This is the sort of sh!t we see in Africa, not what you’d expect in a first world democracy.
Mar-a-Lago is not a house, and your (selective) comparison of this apple with that orange is pretty meaningless.
And how do you explain low valuations offered for tax reasons and improbably high valuations given in order to obtain loans, on the same property? Either he is defrauding the banks or he is defrauding the IRS.
The taxable value came from the State’s tax assessor. The value for the purposes of the loan, came from the bank that issued the loan. Given that Palm Beach land goes for around $15m/acre, the 17 acre plot is worth around $250m without the successful country club business on it.
Is there not a gender issue here? Anecdotally, I have read several times that the problem is largely young, female doctors who choose to go part time in their child bearing years and that the relative over performance of girls academically meant that they were increasing their proportion of the cohort for what remains a very competitive course.
The problem for the government is that it costs us so much to subsidise the training of a doctor that it becomes an issue if so many of them either do not practise in the NHS at all or only do so on a part time basis.
Our small town has one GP practice with three GP’s, all female and all part-time. I’ve met two of them and they are both mothers of primary school children. Incidentally, the practice is not accepting new patients. However we have a further 300 houses beIng built, which from the look of the estate will soon have residents. We’ve been promised more medical services, but it’s a bit difficult to see them coming. Our neighbour community has a similar amount of building and as far as I can see there are fewer full-time GP’s than a few years ago.
Many GPs work part time because their salaries are so high that they earn enough without having to work full time. Incidentally, "full time" for GPs means 4 days a week, not 5.
Also, they are then able to retire early as they will have built up a very nice pension pot.
Case in point - my brother in law - retired at 58. Prior to that he was working 3 days.
Pay them less and they'll have to put a shift in, and keep at it into their mid-60s.
"The ex-partner of a man who suffocated their three-month-old daughter said she feels "let down" and scared to learn of his imminent release.
Simon Smith killed baby Lauren in 1994 in Staffordshire. An investigation led to the grim discovery he had also murdered his two other children.
He was convicted of all three murders and jailed for life in 1996.
Lauren's mother Rachel Playfair said the public would be horrified to know a triple murderer was being released.
The Parole Board confirmed it had directed the release of Smith on licence following a hearing."
Unless we lock 'em up and throw away the key, we shall continue to hear these stories whenever a murderer is released or paroled. Some will say life should mean life, or even death.
For these type of cases it would now be a whole life term if sentenced in the present day.
Since the Police, Crime, Sentencing and Courts Act was passed by this Conservative government last year, premeditated murder of a child means judges must give an automatic whole life term order
The issue people should consider more this is the cost of 'throwing away the key'. If you aren't going to execute the prisoner, you have to accept that they have some rights, IE the right not to be murdered or assaulted by another inmate. They need to be fed etc. The cost is I believe about £47,000 per prisoner per year in the UK, but higher in very high security prisons. Even if you got rid of human rights and have poor conditions with jails like in the USA, the cost does not reduce that much (it is something like $40,000 per prisoner per year at federal level).
Maybe we should send them all to private school instead?
On which point, it seems Starmer may agree with me and you:
"Labour drops plan to strip public schools of charitable status"
Let's all agree that Labour has adopted a sensible compromise that raises money to fund education for the majority without being unnecessarily punitive on this persecuted minority.
Good morning
Our son works in this sector and it is clear that the likes of Eton and other elite schools will see little effect as the wealthy will pay it, but there are many more less elite schools who are at risk of losing so many students they may well close with the loss of many jobs, a problem for local state schools having to admit more students, and the loss to the community of a facility that provides bursaries to the poorest and charitable work to and in the community
I do not want to argue over this, but I am seeing it first hand and it is going to affect those fairly normal families who sacrifice considerably to provide their children with the education they want them to have
Furthermore, it will not raise anything like the expected income and is likely to face legal challenges from the sector
So no, I do not accept labour have adopted a sensible compromise as the 20% VAT charge and possibly the cancellation of gift aid will have a detrimental effect on the sector as I have outlined and an adverse effect for their communities and add to the numbers moving to state schools
It really isn't normal families. Even amongst high income families, it's a very small minority.
The proportion of children attending private school is close to zero across the vast majority of the income distribution, and doesn’t rise above 10% of the cohort except among those with the top 5% of incomes. Only half of those in the top 1% send their kids to private school
It doesn't make the policy right or wrong, but normal families, even normal professional families, stopped being able to afford private schools out of salaries long ago.
There were 550,000 children at almost 1,400 independent schools last year:
The average for pupils at 6-7% but it varies across the age range:
At the primary stage, 5 percent of pupils attend private schools. At the secondary stage, 8 percent of pupils attend private schools. Of those in sixth forms, 17 percent of pupils attend private schools.
Roughly 9% of the British population have been to a private school at some time in their lives. And, they account for about 9% of all schools in England.
What's strange is that Labour's policy will make private schools even more elitist, and do the same for state schools too as the best ones crowd out everyone else through higher house prices in their vicinity, whilst also reducing the size of the education sector and resources available to it overall, but that's the politics of envy, I guess.
"The ex-partner of a man who suffocated their three-month-old daughter said she feels "let down" and scared to learn of his imminent release.
Simon Smith killed baby Lauren in 1994 in Staffordshire. An investigation led to the grim discovery he had also murdered his two other children.
He was convicted of all three murders and jailed for life in 1996.
Lauren's mother Rachel Playfair said the public would be horrified to know a triple murderer was being released.
The Parole Board confirmed it had directed the release of Smith on licence following a hearing."
Unless we lock 'em up and throw away the key, we shall continue to hear these stories whenever a murderer is released or paroled. Some will say life should mean life, or even death.
For these type of cases it would now be a whole life term if sentenced in the present day.
Since the Police, Crime, Sentencing and Courts Act was passed by this Conservative government last year, premeditated murder of a child means judges must give an automatic whole life term order
The issue people should consider more this is the cost of 'throwing away the key'. If you aren't going to execute the prisoner, you have to accept that they have some rights, IE the right not to be murdered or assaulted by another inmate. They need to be fed etc. The cost is I believe about £47,000 per prisoner per year in the UK, but higher in very high security prisons. Even if you got rid of human rights and have poor conditions with jails like in the USA, the cost does not reduce that much (it is something like $40,000 per prisoner per year at federal level).
Maybe we should send them all to private school instead?
On which point, it seems Starmer may agree with me and you:
"Labour drops plan to strip public schools of charitable status"
Let's all agree that Labour has adopted a sensible compromise that raises money to fund education for the majority without being unnecessarily punitive on this persecuted minority.
Good morning
Our son works in this sector and it is clear that the likes of Eton and other elite schools will see little effect as the wealthy will pay it, but there are many more less elite schools who are at risk of losing so many students they may well close with the loss of many jobs, a problem for local state schools having to admit more students, and the loss to the community of a facility that provides bursaries to the poorest and charitable work to and in the community
I do not want to argue over this, but I am seeing it first hand and it is going to affect those fairly normal families who sacrifice considerably to provide their children with the education they want them to have
Furthermore, it will not raise anything like the expected income and is likely to face legal challenges from the sector
So no, I do not accept labour have adopted a sensible compromise as the 20% VAT charge and possibly the cancellation of gift aid will have a detrimental effect on the sector as I have outlined and an adverse effect for their communities and add to the numbers moving to state schools
The IFS have run the numbers and say it will raise a material amount of money, which will help to improve things for the 93% of children who attend state schools. If we're going to trade personal anecdotes, my three children are all at state schools - our local primary, our local secondary and a Sixth form college - and they are crying out for more money, while the party you support so loyally is cutting real terms funding per pupil - so thanks for harming their life chances every day with your support for the Tories.
You need to see what is happening to our grandchildren education here in Wales which is the responsibility of Welsh Labour government, and I simply do not accept for the reasons I have stated the net income to Labour will be anywhere near the figures quoted and may be negative
As an example of the support the school provides to the community they allow him all the time he needs to fulfil his duties as RNLI crew including attending shouts, extensive time in training and indeed for the three days he has been away in Poole this week at RNLI training headquarters
But the schools can absorb the VAT charge by lowering their fees. Successive Conservative governments have demanded that state schools spend less per pupil, so there is surely scope for private schools to do the same.
Private schools could lower spending per pupil to state school levels, keep fees the same, and double the number of pupils on free scholarships. What's not to love about this? Fee paying parents are only sending their kids private for the good of society as a whole, so they will be happy to contribute. Private schools' real purpose as charities is educating the great unwashed, not giving the already privileged an additional leg up, so they will love this change. And resentful chippy fellows like me will be satisfied that we have a level playing field at last. There, problem solved. You're welcome.
I think resentful chippy fellows like you need to get a life. Some people have more privileges than you, some have more than me. Get over it. When you do, you will start being more successful and much happier. Being jealous of others is very debilitating. It is why socialists are, without exception, failures in life.
Socialist me here, sitting my cosy house, with loving family and enjoyable job, please explain why my left leanings make me a failure?
I see no 10 are now resorting to threatening the ECHR .
Yes of course we can trust the Tories to enshrine our rights ! With the Mary Poppins of today Braverman we surely will be basking in more rights than ever before ! Whats to fear !!!
In their scorched earth policy security co-operation with the EU goes , the Good Friday Agreement is breached and the UK ends up in the company of Russia and Belarus .
What sort of message does leaving the ECHR send to the rest of the world and other European countries especially at this time .
It says: We are now Sovereign, and, usefully, Fuck Off You Left Lawyer Wankers
The EHCR is bullshit we do not need. THIS IS ENGLAND
So you trust the Tories with your rights . You really are deluded .
Surely as a democrat you need to put your faith in the electorate?
Relying on a foreign body to overrule the votes of the British electorate… hmmh…
Another who is missing the point . The whole point of the ECHR is to protect citizens from their own government, it has to be a Supra national organization.
And where exactly is it over ruling votes . Did the Tories have the Stop the boats in their last election manifesto in 2019. If they want to leave the ECHR they should put it to a referendum then .
What a naïve and ridiculous comment.
The rest of the world manages just fine without supranational courts. Australia, Canada, New Zealand, Japan, plenty of democracies around the planet rely upon sovereign national Supreme Courts and the rule of law that way.
The ECHR is a failure. Until last year it maintained Russia as a full sovereign member of the Court and the Convention. Russia wasn't removed because it was a one party dictatorship that has no free press, no free elections, routinely murders its civilians both domestically and abroad. No, Russia was only removed because it invaded Ukraine.
Relying upon the ECHR to protect your rights is like relying upon healing crystals to cure cancer.
The only way to ensure your rights are protected, as we've done for hundreds of years, is to fight for them, fight to maintain them, and ensure them in Parliament. And to vote accordingly, and campaign accordingly.
When democracies stop being democracies or attack minorities, it's usually in a series of steps. Pretty much every country has a constitution that recognizes this: Any individual government could go bad, so you never want to give the election winner unlimited power.
To defend against governments-gone-rogue you need defence in depth: You usually have a parliament and an upper house, and you have a role for the courts in restraining the government, and you have specific limitations in the constitution to what the government can do, and (ideally) you have international agreements that are binding on the government. All of these can be unwound over time by a determined government that keeps winning elections, because somebody has to appoint the judges, and somebody has to choose the people in the second chamber, and a government can vote to leave the jurisdiction of an international court, and international courts don't have any armies. This is as it should be, because otherwise if *they* went bad the voters couldn't fix it. But unwinding them takes time, and when you're doing it, people can at least see that you're doing it and try to change the government to stop it.
Russia stopped abiding by the ECHR rulings a bit at a time; As far as I can tell they do seem to have been helpful to dissidents and other people who were screwed by the Russian system, and loads of cases got brought. Then in 2015 they changed Russian law to make them non-binding, and basically started ignoring them. Even late into Russia's decline into personalist authoritarianism the court does seem to have been useful to dissidents, because they kept bringing cases.
The key to this whole thing working and preventing democracies from sliding into non-democracies one step at a time is, if you see your government trying to take apart the restrictions on its power, YOU HAVE TO TRY TO STOP IT.
"The ex-partner of a man who suffocated their three-month-old daughter said she feels "let down" and scared to learn of his imminent release.
Simon Smith killed baby Lauren in 1994 in Staffordshire. An investigation led to the grim discovery he had also murdered his two other children.
He was convicted of all three murders and jailed for life in 1996.
Lauren's mother Rachel Playfair said the public would be horrified to know a triple murderer was being released.
The Parole Board confirmed it had directed the release of Smith on licence following a hearing."
Unless we lock 'em up and throw away the key, we shall continue to hear these stories whenever a murderer is released or paroled. Some will say life should mean life, or even death.
For these type of cases it would now be a whole life term if sentenced in the present day.
Since the Police, Crime, Sentencing and Courts Act was passed by this Conservative government last year, premeditated murder of a child means judges must give an automatic whole life term order
The issue people should consider more this is the cost of 'throwing away the key'. If you aren't going to execute the prisoner, you have to accept that they have some rights, IE the right not to be murdered or assaulted by another inmate. They need to be fed etc. The cost is I believe about £47,000 per prisoner per year in the UK, but higher in very high security prisons. Even if you got rid of human rights and have poor conditions with jails like in the USA, the cost does not reduce that much (it is something like $40,000 per prisoner per year at federal level).
Maybe we should send them all to private school instead?
On which point, it seems Starmer may agree with me and you:
"Labour drops plan to strip public schools of charitable status"
They can't strip the charitable status because it would require redefining what a "charity" is - as a few of us have pointed out - but they still plan to press ahead with charging VAT on school fees regardless.
That would require a complex change on VAT exemptions for education in the law, which would mean it also potentially hits private tuition and private nursery fees as well. Anything else wouldn't necessarily hold up in the courts.
Labour have got themselves into a right mess on this and are clearly worried about this opening up a flank to the Liberal Democrats and Conservatives in some of their target seats.
The electoral impact of extending VAT to all forms of educational activity would be interesting.
A summary judgement, that makes wild allegations from the prosecution about the value of his properties, from a judge and a prosecutor elected on a platform of “We’ll Get Trump”.
They suggest that the 17-acre Mar-a-Lago property is worth $18m, when half an acre with a house on it next door sells for double that amount.
You don’t have to like the guy, to think that there’s a co-ordinated effort to tie him up in legalities for the next year.
This is the sort of sh!t we see in Africa, not what you’d expect in a first world democracy.
Mar-a-Lago is not a house, and your (selective) comparison of this apple with that orange is pretty meaningless.
And how do you explain low valuations offered for tax reasons and improbably high valuations given in order to obtain loans, on the same property? Either he is defrauding the banks or he is defrauding the IRS.
The taxable value came from the State’s tax assessor. The value for the purposes of the loan, came from the bank that issued the loan. Given that Palm Beach land goes for around $15m/acre, the 17 acre plot is worth around $250m without the successful country club business on it.
Is there not a gender issue here? Anecdotally, I have read several times that the problem is largely young, female doctors who choose to go part time in their child bearing years and that the relative over performance of girls academically meant that they were increasing their proportion of the cohort for what remains a very competitive course.
The problem for the government is that it costs us so much to subsidise the training of a doctor that it becomes an issue if so many of them either do not practise in the NHS at all or only do so on a part time basis.
Our small town has one GP practice with three GP’s, all female and all part-time. I’ve met two of them and they are both mothers of primary school children. Incidentally, the practice is not accepting new patients. However we have a further 300 houses beIng built, which from the look of the estate will soon have residents. We’ve been promised more medical services, but it’s a bit difficult to see them coming. Our neighbour community has a similar amount of building and as far as I can see there are fewer full-time GP’s than a few years ago.
Many GPs work part time because their salaries are so high that they earn enough without having to work full time. Incidentally, "full time" for GPs means 4 days a week, not 5.
Also, they are then able to retire early as they will have built up a very nice pension pot.
Case in point - my brother in law - retired at 58. Prior to that he was working 3 days.
Pay them less and they'll have to put a shift in, and keep at it into their mid-60s.
Well said. It is an absolute scandal. And yet, because of the deference to the medical profession by journalists it is never commented on. The idea that someone who is (supposedly) highly skilled should retire on a fat pension that is paid for by the taxpayer at 58 when they are fully fit and able and at peak of experience is outrageous.
And on that note, I ought to go and do some work so I can keep the public sector in their gold plated fat cat pensions that they seem to believe they are so entitled to!
"The ex-partner of a man who suffocated their three-month-old daughter said she feels "let down" and scared to learn of his imminent release.
Simon Smith killed baby Lauren in 1994 in Staffordshire. An investigation led to the grim discovery he had also murdered his two other children.
He was convicted of all three murders and jailed for life in 1996.
Lauren's mother Rachel Playfair said the public would be horrified to know a triple murderer was being released.
The Parole Board confirmed it had directed the release of Smith on licence following a hearing."
Unless we lock 'em up and throw away the key, we shall continue to hear these stories whenever a murderer is released or paroled. Some will say life should mean life, or even death.
For these type of cases it would now be a whole life term if sentenced in the present day.
Since the Police, Crime, Sentencing and Courts Act was passed by this Conservative government last year, premeditated murder of a child means judges must give an automatic whole life term order
The issue people should consider more this is the cost of 'throwing away the key'. If you aren't going to execute the prisoner, you have to accept that they have some rights, IE the right not to be murdered or assaulted by another inmate. They need to be fed etc. The cost is I believe about £47,000 per prisoner per year in the UK, but higher in very high security prisons. Even if you got rid of human rights and have poor conditions with jails like in the USA, the cost does not reduce that much (it is something like $40,000 per prisoner per year at federal level).
Maybe we should send them all to private school instead?
On which point, it seems Starmer may agree with me and you:
"Labour drops plan to strip public schools of charitable status"
They can't strip the charitable status because it would require redefining what a "charity" is - as a few of us have pointed out - but they still plan to press ahead with charging VAT on school fees regardless.
That would require a complex change on VAT exemptions for education in the law, which would mean it also potentially hits private tuition and private nursery fees as well. Anything else wouldn't necessarily hold up in the courts.
Labour have got themselves into a right mess on this and are clearly worried about this opening up a flank to the Liberal Democrats and Conservatives in some of their target seats.
A geoengineering proposal to address global warming. Looks pretty good to me.
https://nephewjonathan.substack.com/p/diy-geoengineering-the-whitepaper ...Global warming, though not ocean acidification, is quickly and cheaply reversed by ejecting calcite nanoparticles (with an average radius in the ~90nm range) into the stratosphere, using a propeller-based system to prevent particle clumping. The particles should be carried up by hydrogen balloons, and very preferably released over the tropics. The total amount needed will be on the order of several hundred kilotons yearly, and the total cost should be somewhere between $1B and $5B yearly.
Let's go through this piece by piece...
Even if the cost is out by an order of magnitude, it could easily be funded by (for instance) the EU on its own.
If it goes wrong, how easily can it be reversed? And who is to judge whether or not it works?
It's OK, you do it over the tropics so if anything goes wrong it's not us who will be affected. Genius!
Can you suggest what there is to "go wrong" ?
Point is that if it works, it works. If it doesn't, it's just a lot of non toxic dust in the atmosphere for a fairly short time. Which happens every time a wind blows across the Sahara.
The reason did doing it in the tropics is that that's where the effect (as we've seen with what happened with the marine diesel sulphur ban) is most pronounced.
What can possibly go wrong with reducing the amount of sunlight reaching areas of the world where people rely on it to grow food and are already often food-insecure... Hmm let me think.
I'm somewhat surprised to see it being suggested it is used over the Tropics. I would have thought that (caveat, it's Putin) using it over the Russian taiga and tundra would stop the release of methane there which is the bigger problem. And over Greenland and Antarctica, to stabilise the ice sheets and stop water levels rising.
But hey, what do I know.
Injecting aerosols into the tropical stratosphere has a far bigger impact on global temperatures than doing it in mid latitudes. In the tropics the stratosphere is higher, more stable (less likely to be pulled down and rained out); it allows aerosols to be dispersed globally over both hemispheres. Inject into the tropics and within a few months you have global coverage. Inject over mid or high latitudes and it remains in those latitudes. Insolation is highest in the tropics too, so the impact on radiation balance of the earth is much greater. That’s why tropical volcanoes like pinatubo and el chichon had a far greater impact on global temperature than high latitude ones.
The trouble with geo-engineering is a political and moral one. Climate change through CO2 is attributable to humans, but not to an individual company or agency, or even directly to a country. So people may die in floods or heatwaves but there’s nobody you can realistically sue or prosecute. Geo engineering is a deliberate action that can be traced to a single body or country. Any global change had regional impacts - it would likely reduce overall global rainfall and cause quite directly attributable droughts and crop failures. The affected country, especially if it didn’t sign up to the experiment in the first place, will have a stronger legal recourse. Or if it doesn’t, the farmers will have recourse to their country.
It’s not necessarily true that aerosol injection would have wildly unpredictable results. It can be modelled quite accurately including on a regional scale. Famously after Pinatubo James Hansen at NASA accurately predicted to within a tenth of a degree the cooling impact and duration. And modelling is better now. But that’s also a problem because the losers from any action would know ahead who they are, and would quite reasonably resist it.
So getting someone to press the button seems tricky.
There are also predictable benefits. Given the low costs involved, it ought to be fairly simple to finance compensation alongside the project.
I'd far rather finance something like this than (eg) the useless carbon capture schemes our government is planning to spend tens of billions on.
If we are going to turn this appalling tragedy into an offensive party political issue, how about focusing on a functioning Home Secretary that doesn't spend her days grandstanding to a 30 strong neo-con think tank audience in Washington DC, whilst simultaneously pitching for the role of Prime Minister?
"The ex-partner of a man who suffocated their three-month-old daughter said she feels "let down" and scared to learn of his imminent release.
Simon Smith killed baby Lauren in 1994 in Staffordshire. An investigation led to the grim discovery he had also murdered his two other children.
He was convicted of all three murders and jailed for life in 1996.
Lauren's mother Rachel Playfair said the public would be horrified to know a triple murderer was being released.
The Parole Board confirmed it had directed the release of Smith on licence following a hearing."
Unless we lock 'em up and throw away the key, we shall continue to hear these stories whenever a murderer is released or paroled. Some will say life should mean life, or even death.
For these type of cases it would now be a whole life term if sentenced in the present day.
Since the Police, Crime, Sentencing and Courts Act was passed by this Conservative government last year, premeditated murder of a child means judges must give an automatic whole life term order
The issue people should consider more this is the cost of 'throwing away the key'. If you aren't going to execute the prisoner, you have to accept that they have some rights, IE the right not to be murdered or assaulted by another inmate. They need to be fed etc. The cost is I believe about £47,000 per prisoner per year in the UK, but higher in very high security prisons. Even if you got rid of human rights and have poor conditions with jails like in the USA, the cost does not reduce that much (it is something like $40,000 per prisoner per year at federal level).
Maybe we should send them all to private school instead?
On which point, it seems Starmer may agree with me and you:
"Labour drops plan to strip public schools of charitable status"
Let's all agree that Labour has adopted a sensible compromise that raises money to fund education for the majority without being unnecessarily punitive on this persecuted minority.
Good morning
Our son works in this sector and it is clear that the likes of Eton and other elite schools will see little effect as the wealthy will pay it, but there are many more less elite schools who are at risk of losing so many students they may well close with the loss of many jobs, a problem for local state schools having to admit more students, and the loss to the community of a facility that provides bursaries to the poorest and charitable work to and in the community
I do not want to argue over this, but I am seeing it first hand and it is going to affect those fairly normal families who sacrifice considerably to provide their children with the education they want them to have
Furthermore, it will not raise anything like the expected income and is likely to face legal challenges from the sector
So no, I do not accept labour have adopted a sensible compromise as the 20% VAT charge and possibly the cancellation of gift aid will have a detrimental effect on the sector as I have outlined and an adverse effect for their communities and add to the numbers moving to state schools
It really isn't normal families. Even amongst high income families, it's a very small minority.
The proportion of children attending private school is close to zero across the vast majority of the income distribution, and doesn’t rise above 10% of the cohort except among those with the top 5% of incomes. Only half of those in the top 1% send their kids to private school
It doesn't make the policy right or wrong, but normal families, even normal professional families, stopped being able to afford private schools out of salaries long ago.
There were 550,000 children at almost 1,400 independent schools last year:
The average for pupils at 6-7% but it varies across the age range:
At the primary stage, 5 percent of pupils attend private schools. At the secondary stage, 8 percent of pupils attend private schools. Of those in sixth forms, 17 percent of pupils attend private schools.
Roughly 9% of the British population have been to a private school at some time in their lives. And, they account for about 9% of all schools in England.
What's strange is that Labour's policy will make private schools even more elitist, and do the same for state schools too as the best ones crowd out everyone else through higher house prices in their vicinity, whilst also reducing the size of the education sector and resources available to it overall, but that's the politics of envy, I guess.
I've already outlined my modest proposal for making private schools less elitist and closer to the charitable ideal they are striving for, which hopefully you will get behind.
Is there not a gender issue here? Anecdotally, I have read several times that the problem is largely young, female doctors who choose to go part time in their child bearing years and that the relative over performance of girls academically meant that they were increasing their proportion of the cohort for what remains a very competitive course.
The problem for the government is that it costs us so much to subsidise the training of a doctor that it becomes an issue if so many of them either do not practise in the NHS at all or only do so on a part time basis.
I have a very senior doctor friend who has said for years,in the safety of social situations with only a couple of good friends, that there is a big problem with the loss of female doctors from the system when they have children.
It’s clearly something that would be career suicide if he mentioned it in his professional world, and clearly we can’t have a situation where we don’t train women as doctors because you train them then lose a lot for a chunk of their career, but I wonder if it is something that can never be solved because the optics of bringing it up as an issue would be beyond problematic.
Not sure that this would be something that would really be backed up by hard evidence, though the more interesting aspect is with respect to the whole training program for doctors whether male or female that needs to be reviewed. It is of course not likely with the BMA being the most powerful union in the known universe and one of the few self-interest groups that never seems to be challenged by journalists, particularly the BBC (contrast how BBC breakfast interviewers interview a doctor versus an MP- the deference is embarrassing)
The reality is that while certain medical specialisms require intense brainpower (eg cardiac electrophysiology. radiology, haematology, oncological surgery) you do not need to be a genius to be a GP, or trained over the many years that it currently takes. A large amount of what they do, whilst often important, is as a gatekeeper to passing on to someone with a specialism. It is also questionable as to whether GPs as we know them will even be needed in the future. There will be a point where AI will be able to triage symptoms more accurately than a bored GP who hasnt bothered to keep up with their CPD.
Re the backing up by hard evidence I’m an exceptionally lazy person and cannot be arsed to look up the figures for the sake of an internet discussion but from a logical point of view if each cohort of, say 5000, newly qualified doctors are split 50/50 male/female than out of the 2,500 female doctors a good chunk over the next 20 years are going to have one or more children.
Each of those will either take maternity leave only then return, leave whilst they bring up their children to an age they feel they can return, return part time whilst bringing up children (I know this sounds sexist suggesting it’s the females who will step back to raise the children but it’s still the norm and I don’t agree with it being so), return part time after children or full time after children or leave to bring up children then never return.
So obviously out of each cohort you are losing for various periods of time people who have been trained for many years. Now of course you will also lose make doctors for various reasons and female doctors for reasons other than having children but it must make a dent in the numbers trained versus the numbers working.
From pure anecdata I know six female doctors out of which one has decided never to have children, one who quit as an A&E doc and says she won’t go back ever to medicine now she has started her family, two who took out 12 and 16 years and now returned, one in a hospital and one as a GP and two who aren’t in relationships where they so far are not considering starting families yet. That is a lot of trained doctors lost for good chunks of time.
I have no idea what the solution is as biology is biology but I do wonder if the issue is too toxic to raise and so impossible to make a plan to assist and mitigate.
"The ex-partner of a man who suffocated their three-month-old daughter said she feels "let down" and scared to learn of his imminent release.
Simon Smith killed baby Lauren in 1994 in Staffordshire. An investigation led to the grim discovery he had also murdered his two other children.
He was convicted of all three murders and jailed for life in 1996.
Lauren's mother Rachel Playfair said the public would be horrified to know a triple murderer was being released.
The Parole Board confirmed it had directed the release of Smith on licence following a hearing."
Unless we lock 'em up and throw away the key, we shall continue to hear these stories whenever a murderer is released or paroled. Some will say life should mean life, or even death.
For these type of cases it would now be a whole life term if sentenced in the present day.
Since the Police, Crime, Sentencing and Courts Act was passed by this Conservative government last year, premeditated murder of a child means judges must give an automatic whole life term order
The issue people should consider more this is the cost of 'throwing away the key'. If you aren't going to execute the prisoner, you have to accept that they have some rights, IE the right not to be murdered or assaulted by another inmate. They need to be fed etc. The cost is I believe about £47,000 per prisoner per year in the UK, but higher in very high security prisons. Even if you got rid of human rights and have poor conditions with jails like in the USA, the cost does not reduce that much (it is something like $40,000 per prisoner per year at federal level).
Maybe we should send them all to private school instead?
On which point, it seems Starmer may agree with me and you:
"Labour drops plan to strip public schools of charitable status"
Let's all agree that Labour has adopted a sensible compromise that raises money to fund education for the majority without being unnecessarily punitive on this persecuted minority.
Good morning
Our son works in this sector and it is clear that the likes of Eton and other elite schools will see little effect as the wealthy will pay it, but there are many more less elite schools who are at risk of losing so many students they may well close with the loss of many jobs, a problem for local state schools having to admit more students, and the loss to the community of a facility that provides bursaries to the poorest and charitable work to and in the community
I do not want to argue over this, but I am seeing it first hand and it is going to affect those fairly normal families who sacrifice considerably to provide their children with the education they want them to have
Furthermore, it will not raise anything like the expected income and is likely to face legal challenges from the sector
So no, I do not accept labour have adopted a sensible compromise as the 20% VAT charge and possibly the cancellation of gift aid will have a detrimental effect on the sector as I have outlined and an adverse effect for their communities and add to the numbers moving to state schools
The IFS have run the numbers and say it will raise a material amount of money, which will help to improve things for the 93% of children who attend state schools. If we're going to trade personal anecdotes, my three children are all at state schools - our local primary, our local secondary and a Sixth form college - and they are crying out for more money, while the party you support so loyally is cutting real terms funding per pupil - so thanks for harming their life chances every day with your support for the Tories.
You need to see what is happening to our grandchildren education here in Wales which is the responsibility of Welsh Labour government, and I simply do not accept for the reasons I have stated the net income to Labour will be anywhere near the figures quoted and may be negative
As an example of the support the school provides to the community they allow him all the time he needs to fulfil his duties as RNLI crew including attending shouts, extensive time in training and indeed for the three days he has been away in Poole this week at RNLI training headquarters
But the schools can absorb the VAT charge by lowering their fees. Successive Conservative governments have demanded that state schools spend less per pupil, so there is surely scope for private schools to do the same.
Private schools could lower spending per pupil to state school levels, keep fees the same, and double the number of pupils on free scholarships. What's not to love about this? Fee paying parents are only sending their kids private for the good of society as a whole, so they will be happy to contribute. Private schools' real purpose as charities is educating the great unwashed, not giving the already privileged an additional leg up, so they will love this change. And resentful chippy fellows like me will be satisfied that we have a level playing field at last. There, problem solved. You're welcome.
I think resentful chippy fellows like you need to get a life. Some people have more privileges than you, some have more than me. Get over it. When you do, you will start being more successful and much happier. Being jealous of others is very debilitating. It is why socialists are, without exception, failures in life.
Ha ha. I have a great life thanks - I could list all the ways but I don't want to sound boastful. I'm not resentful of people who are better off than me - there aren't enough of them to matter - I'm concerned about those less fortunate whom our current system is failing. Wholly unsurprising though that the idea of caring about other people and it not being all about me doesn't even occur to you.
I see no 10 are now resorting to threatening the ECHR .
Yes of course we can trust the Tories to enshrine our rights ! With the Mary Poppins of today Braverman we surely will be basking in more rights than ever before ! Whats to fear !!!
In their scorched earth policy security co-operation with the EU goes , the Good Friday Agreement is breached and the UK ends up in the company of Russia and Belarus .
What sort of message does leaving the ECHR send to the rest of the world and other European countries especially at this time .
It says: We are now Sovereign, and, usefully, Fuck Off You Left Lawyer Wankers
The EHCR is bullshit we do not need. THIS IS ENGLAND
So you trust the Tories with your rights . You really are deluded .
Surely as a democrat you need to put your faith in the electorate?
Relying on a foreign body to overrule the votes of the British electorate… hmmh…
Another who is missing the point . The whole point of the ECHR is to protect citizens from their own government, it has to be a Supra national organization.
And where exactly is it over ruling votes . Did the Tories have the Stop the boats in their last election manifesto in 2019. If they want to leave the ECHR they should put it to a referendum then .
What a naïve and ridiculous comment.
The rest of the world manages just fine without supranational courts. Australia, Canada, New Zealand, Japan, plenty of democracies around the planet rely upon sovereign national Supreme Courts and the rule of law that way.
The ECHR is a failure. Until last year it maintained Russia as a full sovereign member of the Court and the Convention. Russia wasn't removed because it was a one party dictatorship that has no free press, no free elections, routinely murders its civilians both domestically and abroad. No, Russia was only removed because it invaded Ukraine.
Relying upon the ECHR to protect your rights is like relying upon healing crystals to cure cancer.
The only way to ensure your rights are protected, as we've done for hundreds of years, is to fight for them, fight to maintain them, and ensure them in Parliament. And to vote accordingly, and campaign accordingly.
A full separation of powers, that is constitutionally watertight, has to be a pre-requisite. And human rights are human rights, they do not depend on nationality, so we need to be very clear about the difference between the rights of UK citizens and the rights of all people. Basically, we need the system in place and ready to go on the day of withdrawal. There can be no gap. Otherwise, it will not be Parliament deciding what rights we have. It will be Suella Braverman.
No, it does not have to be a pre-requisite. A full separation of powers is impossible, because quis custodiet ipsos custodes?The Westminster system has a stronger track record on maintaining human rights than almost any other country on the planet.
With regards to the Westminster system in Britain
* there are rather a lot of dead Irish that speak against that * there are rather a lot of dead Indians that speak against that * there are rather a lot of dead Chinese opium addicts that speak against that * there are rather a lot of [that's enough - Ed]
"The ex-partner of a man who suffocated their three-month-old daughter said she feels "let down" and scared to learn of his imminent release.
Simon Smith killed baby Lauren in 1994 in Staffordshire. An investigation led to the grim discovery he had also murdered his two other children.
He was convicted of all three murders and jailed for life in 1996.
Lauren's mother Rachel Playfair said the public would be horrified to know a triple murderer was being released.
The Parole Board confirmed it had directed the release of Smith on licence following a hearing."
Unless we lock 'em up and throw away the key, we shall continue to hear these stories whenever a murderer is released or paroled. Some will say life should mean life, or even death.
For these type of cases it would now be a whole life term if sentenced in the present day.
Since the Police, Crime, Sentencing and Courts Act was passed by this Conservative government last year, premeditated murder of a child means judges must give an automatic whole life term order
The issue people should consider more this is the cost of 'throwing away the key'. If you aren't going to execute the prisoner, you have to accept that they have some rights, IE the right not to be murdered or assaulted by another inmate. They need to be fed etc. The cost is I believe about £47,000 per prisoner per year in the UK, but higher in very high security prisons. Even if you got rid of human rights and have poor conditions with jails like in the USA, the cost does not reduce that much (it is something like $40,000 per prisoner per year at federal level).
Maybe we should send them all to private school instead?
On which point, it seems Starmer may agree with me and you:
"Labour drops plan to strip public schools of charitable status"
Let's all agree that Labour has adopted a sensible compromise that raises money to fund education for the majority without being unnecessarily punitive on this persecuted minority.
Good morning
Our son works in this sector and it is clear that the likes of Eton and other elite schools will see little effect as the wealthy will pay it, but there are many more less elite schools who are at risk of losing so many students they may well close with the loss of many jobs, a problem for local state schools having to admit more students, and the loss to the community of a facility that provides bursaries to the poorest and charitable work to and in the community
I do not want to argue over this, but I am seeing it first hand and it is going to affect those fairly normal families who sacrifice considerably to provide their children with the education they want them to have
Furthermore, it will not raise anything like the expected income and is likely to face legal challenges from the sector
So no, I do not accept labour have adopted a sensible compromise as the 20% VAT charge and possibly the cancellation of gift aid will have a detrimental effect on the sector as I have outlined and an adverse effect for their communities and add to the numbers moving to state schools
The IFS have run the numbers and say it will raise a material amount of money, which will help to improve things for the 93% of children who attend state schools. If we're going to trade personal anecdotes, my three children are all at state schools - our local primary, our local secondary and a Sixth form college - and they are crying out for more money, while the party you support so loyally is cutting real terms funding per pupil - so thanks for harming their life chances every day with your support for the Tories.
You need to see what is happening to our grandchildren education here in Wales which is the responsibility of Welsh Labour government, and I simply do not accept for the reasons I have stated the net income to Labour will be anywhere near the figures quoted and may be negative
As an example of the support the school provides to the community they allow him all the time he needs to fulfil his duties as RNLI crew including attending shouts, extensive time in training and indeed for the three days he has been away in Poole this week at RNLI training headquarters
But the schools can absorb the VAT charge by lowering their fees. Successive Conservative governments have demanded that state schools spend less per pupil, so there is surely scope for private schools to do the same.
Private schools could lower spending per pupil to state school levels, keep fees the same, and double the number of pupils on free scholarships. What's not to love about this? Fee paying parents are only sending their kids private for the good of society as a whole, so they will be happy to contribute. Private schools' real purpose as charities is educating the great unwashed, not giving the already privileged an additional leg up, so they will love this change. And resentful chippy fellows like me will be satisfied that we have a level playing field at last. There, problem solved. You're welcome.
I think resentful chippy fellows like you need to get a life. Some people have more privileges than you, some have more than me. Get over it. When you do, you will start being more successful and much happier. Being jealous of others is very debilitating. It is why socialists are, without exception, failures in life.
Nigel, I may be wrong, but I believe from previous conversations that @OnlyLivingBoy has been rather successful in life so I suspect his comments are made from conviction not jealousy.
Is there not a gender issue here? Anecdotally, I have read several times that the problem is largely young, female doctors who choose to go part time in their child bearing years and that the relative over performance of girls academically meant that they were increasing their proportion of the cohort for what remains a very competitive course.
The problem for the government is that it costs us so much to subsidise the training of a doctor that it becomes an issue if so many of them either do not practise in the NHS at all or only do so on a part time basis.
Our small town has one GP practice with three GP’s, all female and all part-time. I’ve met two of them and they are both mothers of primary school children. Incidentally, the practice is not accepting new patients. However we have a further 300 houses beIng built, which from the look of the estate will soon have residents. We’ve been promised more medical services, but it’s a bit difficult to see them coming. Our neighbour community has a similar amount of building and as far as I can see there are fewer full-time GP’s than a few years ago.
This is exactly our experience. Our GP also has 3 female part-time GP’s supplemented by locums. The surgery is in old Victorian buildings that are questionably fit for purpose these days and with no potential to expand.
The community is expanding with new build housing. It is getting harder and harder to see a Doctor, especially for non urgent matters. And to see the Doctor of your preference - for consistency - just doesn’t happen.
The whole system has been broken, for different reasons, by different interest groups, but the fundamental problem is that the population has risen whilst provision hasn’t.
Police officers are accused of mishandling body-worn video in more than 150 incidents, including switching off cameras and sharing footage on WhatsApp, a BBC investigation has found.
Body-worn video is widely used by police in England and Wales but cases released under freedom of information detail a catalogue of misuse.
While the footage is intended to benefit the public and the police, officers are accused of switching off cameras during incidents and failing to disclose inconvenient evidence they record.
In some incidents where cameras were switched off officers faced no sanctions, with one force saying an officer may have been “confused”, the BBC reported.
Misuse of footage appears to be widespread. The BBC uncovered cases in seven forces where officers shared footage with colleagues or friends, either in person or using social media. In one instance, images of a naked person were shared between officers on email, according to the BBC.
In some instances video was lost, deleted or not marked as evidence.
The National Police Chiefs’ Council’s lead for body-worn video, Jim Colwell, an acting chief constable, said the NPCC would be updating its guidance for body-worn video next month and it would be “more strongly worded to recommend that forces need to take action towards officers who are not using BWV correctly”.
He said the technology was “an important policing tool which helps to provide greater transparency and scrutiny of police powers”.
Is there not a gender issue here? Anecdotally, I have read several times that the problem is largely young, female doctors who choose to go part time in their child bearing years and that the relative over performance of girls academically meant that they were increasing their proportion of the cohort for what remains a very competitive course.
The problem for the government is that it costs us so much to subsidise the training of a doctor that it becomes an issue if so many of them either do not practise in the NHS at all or only do so on a part time basis.
I have a very senior doctor friend who has said for years,in the safety of social situations with only a couple of good friends, that there is a big problem with the loss of female doctors from the system when they have children.
It’s clearly something that would be career suicide if he mentioned it in his professional world, and clearly we can’t have a situation where we don’t train women as doctors because you train them then lose a lot for a chunk of their career, but I wonder if it is something that can never be solved because the optics of bringing it up as an issue would be beyond problematic.
We could even things up by encouraging more men to work part time, take career breaks, etc, more often...
Is there not a gender issue here? Anecdotally, I have read several times that the problem is largely young, female doctors who choose to go part time in their child bearing years and that the relative over performance of girls academically meant that they were increasing their proportion of the cohort for what remains a very competitive course.
The problem for the government is that it costs us so much to subsidise the training of a doctor that it becomes an issue if so many of them either do not practise in the NHS at all or only do so on a part time basis.
I have a very senior doctor friend who has said for years,in the safety of social situations with only a couple of good friends, that there is a big problem with the loss of female doctors from the system when they have children.
It’s clearly something that would be career suicide if he mentioned it in his professional world, and clearly we can’t have a situation where we don’t train women as doctors because you train them then lose a lot for a chunk of their career, but I wonder if it is something that can never be solved because the optics of bringing it up as an issue would be beyond problematic.
Not sure that this would be something that would really be backed up by hard evidence, though the more interesting aspect is with respect to the whole training program for doctors whether male or female that needs to be reviewed. It is of course not likely with the BMA being the most powerful union in the known universe and one of the few self-interest groups that never seems to be challenged by journalists, particularly the BBC (contrast how BBC breakfast interviewers interview a doctor versus an MP- the deference is embarrassing)
The reality is that while certain medical specialisms require intense brainpower (eg cardiac electrophysiology. radiology, haematology, oncological surgery) you do not need to be a genius to be a GP, or trained over the many years that it currently takes. A large amount of what they do, whilst often important, is as a gatekeeper to passing on to someone with a specialism. It is also questionable as to whether GPs as we know them will even be needed in the future. There will be a point where AI will be able to triage symptoms more accurately than a bored GP who hasnt bothered to keep up with their CPD.
Once AI gets involved diagnosis is just a game of probability. Take out the human factor and you may miss an awful lot. A patient may not be able to recognise their own symptoms, never mind accurately represent them to a Bot.
"The ex-partner of a man who suffocated their three-month-old daughter said she feels "let down" and scared to learn of his imminent release.
Simon Smith killed baby Lauren in 1994 in Staffordshire. An investigation led to the grim discovery he had also murdered his two other children.
He was convicted of all three murders and jailed for life in 1996.
Lauren's mother Rachel Playfair said the public would be horrified to know a triple murderer was being released.
The Parole Board confirmed it had directed the release of Smith on licence following a hearing."
Unless we lock 'em up and throw away the key, we shall continue to hear these stories whenever a murderer is released or paroled. Some will say life should mean life, or even death.
For these type of cases it would now be a whole life term if sentenced in the present day.
Since the Police, Crime, Sentencing and Courts Act was passed by this Conservative government last year, premeditated murder of a child means judges must give an automatic whole life term order
The issue people should consider more this is the cost of 'throwing away the key'. If you aren't going to execute the prisoner, you have to accept that they have some rights, IE the right not to be murdered or assaulted by another inmate. They need to be fed etc. The cost is I believe about £47,000 per prisoner per year in the UK, but higher in very high security prisons. Even if you got rid of human rights and have poor conditions with jails like in the USA, the cost does not reduce that much (it is something like $40,000 per prisoner per year at federal level).
Maybe we should send them all to private school instead?
On which point, it seems Starmer may agree with me and you:
"Labour drops plan to strip public schools of charitable status"
Let's all agree that Labour has adopted a sensible compromise that raises money to fund education for the majority without being unnecessarily punitive on this persecuted minority.
Good morning
Our son works in this sector and it is clear that the likes of Eton and other elite schools will see little effect as the wealthy will pay it, but there are many more less elite schools who are at risk of losing so many students they may well close with the loss of many jobs, a problem for local state schools having to admit more students, and the loss to the community of a facility that provides bursaries to the poorest and charitable work to and in the community
I do not want to argue over this, but I am seeing it first hand and it is going to affect those fairly normal families who sacrifice considerably to provide their children with the education they want them to have
Furthermore, it will not raise anything like the expected income and is likely to face legal challenges from the sector
So no, I do not accept labour have adopted a sensible compromise as the 20% VAT charge and possibly the cancellation of gift aid will have a detrimental effect on the sector as I have outlined and an adverse effect for their communities and add to the numbers moving to state schools
The IFS have run the numbers and say it will raise a material amount of money, which will help to improve things for the 93% of children who attend state schools. If we're going to trade personal anecdotes, my three children are all at state schools - our local primary, our local secondary and a Sixth form college - and they are crying out for more money, while the party you support so loyally is cutting real terms funding per pupil - so thanks for harming their life chances every day with your support for the Tories.
You need to see what is happening to our grandchildren education here in Wales which is the responsibility of Welsh Labour government, and I simply do not accept for the reasons I have stated the net income to Labour will be anywhere near the figures quoted and may be negative
As an example of the support the school provides to the community they allow him all the time he needs to fulfil his duties as RNLI crew including attending shouts, extensive time in training and indeed for the three days he has been away in Poole this week at RNLI training headquarters
But the schools can absorb the VAT charge by lowering their fees. Successive Conservative governments have demanded that state schools spend less per pupil, so there is surely scope for private schools to do the same.
Private schools could lower spending per pupil to state school levels, keep fees the same, and double the number of pupils on free scholarships. What's not to love about this? Fee paying parents are only sending their kids private for the good of society as a whole, so they will be happy to contribute. Private schools' real purpose as charities is educating the great unwashed, not giving the already privileged an additional leg up, so they will love this change. And resentful chippy fellows like me will be satisfied that we have a level playing field at last. There, problem solved. You're welcome.
I think resentful chippy fellows like you need to get a life. Some people have more privileges than you, some have more than me. Get over it. When you do, you will start being more successful and much happier. Being jealous of others is very debilitating. It is why socialists are, without exception, failures in life.
Nigel, I may be wrong, but I believe from previous conversations that @OnlyLivingBoy has been rather successful in life so I suspect his comments are made from conviction not jealousy.
That's absolutely right. Although of course that just makes me a champagne socialist. For Tories there is no acceptable place on the income distribution from which to attack privilege and inequality.
Police officers are accused of mishandling body-worn video in more than 150 incidents, including switching off cameras and sharing footage on WhatsApp, a BBC investigation has found.
Body-worn video is widely used by police in England and Wales but cases released under freedom of information detail a catalogue of misuse.
While the footage is intended to benefit the public and the police, officers are accused of switching off cameras during incidents and failing to disclose inconvenient evidence they record.
In some incidents where cameras were switched off officers faced no sanctions, with one force saying an officer may have been “confused”, the BBC reported.
Misuse of footage appears to be widespread. The BBC uncovered cases in seven forces where officers shared footage with colleagues or friends, either in person or using social media. In one instance, images of a naked person were shared between officers on email, according to the BBC.
In some instances video was lost, deleted or not marked as evidence.
The National Police Chiefs’ Council’s lead for body-worn video, Jim Colwell, an acting chief constable, said the NPCC would be updating its guidance for body-worn video next month and it would be “more strongly worded to recommend that forces need to take action towards officers who are not using BWV correctly”.
He said the technology was “an important policing tool which helps to provide greater transparency and scrutiny of police powers”.
We're going to be knee-deep in dead cats this time next year.
Dead cats are probably Sadiq Khan's fault too.
The various congestion/emissions schemes are removing cars from the roads, increasing average speeds and so more cats involved in collisions with cars are dying [citation needed]
Of course, on the other hand, LTNs and speed restrictions are (a) making cats less car aware due to lower exposure, increasing their deaths on other roads due to worse training and by increasing journey times increase the time at risk of collision for cats.
A summary judgement, that makes wild allegations from the prosecution about the value of his properties, from a judge and a prosecutor elected on a platform of “We’ll Get Trump”.
They suggest that the 17-acre Mar-a-Lago property is worth $18m, when half an acre with a house on it next door sells for double that amount.
You don’t have to like the guy, to think that there’s a co-ordinated effort to tie him up in legalities for the next year.
This is the sort of sh!t we see in Africa, not what you’d expect in a first world democracy.
Mar-a-Lago is not a house, and your (selective) comparison of this apple with that orange is pretty meaningless.
And how do you explain low valuations offered for tax reasons and improbably high valuations given in order to obtain loans, on the same property? Either he is defrauding the banks or he is defrauding the IRS.
It's probably (likely) he's defrauding both the banks and the IRS...
We're going to be knee-deep in dead cats this time next year.
Dead cats are probably Sadiq Khan's fault too.
The various congestion/emissions schemes are removing cars from the roads, increasing average speeds and so more cats involved in collisions with cars are dying [citation needed]
Of course, on the other hand, LTNs and speed restrictions are (a) making cats less car aware due to lower exposure, increasing their deaths on other roads due to worse training and by increasing journey times increase the time at risk of collision for cats.
There, have I covered every eventuality?
The reduction in cats dying from car accidents is mostly down to them being eaten by the xlBullies.
The Human Rights Act 1988 incorporates the ECHR into British law and British judges rule on it.
Those who think that that will be fine if the U.K. withdraws from the Convention are being, in Lenin's wonderful phrase, "useful idiots". And, yes, I include Sumption in this. He may be super-intelligent but he is also being naive and lacking in the cunning those attacking the ECHR are displaying. Those Tories agitating for withdrawal are not concerned about the foreign court aspect. They don't like the rights the ECHR contains and will - if withdrawal happens - be seeking to remove or limit some of those rights and not just from foreigners either.
That is what Raab's ill-fated Bill of Rights Bill was trying to do. That is what the attempts to water down judicial review are trying to do.
This is like Brexit all over again - "we just want a bit more control while having a close relationship" turned into the ERG's "we don't want to have anything to do with those nasty Europeans at all". "We want you - Parliament - to have more control" turned into "we the executive want to take all the powers to ourselves and ignore everyone else". The latter was what they wanted all along .
Getting rid or watering down many of the Convention rights for all of us is what Braverman and others want and those who think otherwise are deluded.
Yes, for the Tory hard right, it’s all about power. Absolute power. Brexit, Henry VIII, ECHR, starving local Government. All about putting absolute power in their own pockets, and the power they wish to wield extends to you and your family.
They are basically right wing totalitarians and it is dangerous to ignore that.
I see no 10 are now resorting to threatening the ECHR .
Yes of course we can trust the Tories to enshrine our rights ! With the Mary Poppins of today Braverman we surely will be basking in more rights than ever before ! Whats to fear !!!
In their scorched earth policy security co-operation with the EU goes , the Good Friday Agreement is breached and the UK ends up in the company of Russia and Belarus .
What sort of message does leaving the ECHR send to the rest of the world and other European countries especially at this time .
It says: We are now Sovereign, and, usefully, Fuck Off You Left Lawyer Wankers
The EHCR is bullshit we do not need. THIS IS ENGLAND
So you trust the Tories with your rights . You really are deluded .
Surely as a democrat you need to put your faith in the electorate?
Relying on a foreign body to overrule the votes of the British electorate… hmmh…
Another who is missing the point . The whole point of the ECHR is to protect citizens from their own government, it has to be a Supra national organization.
And where exactly is it over ruling votes . Did the Tories have the Stop the boats in their last election manifesto in 2019. If they want to leave the ECHR they should put it to a referendum then .
What a naïve and ridiculous comment.
The rest of the world manages just fine without supranational courts. Australia, Canada, New Zealand, Japan, plenty of democracies around the planet rely upon sovereign national Supreme Courts and the rule of law that way.
The ECHR is a failure. Until last year it maintained Russia as a full sovereign member of the Court and the Convention. Russia wasn't removed because it was a one party dictatorship that has no free press, no free elections, routinely murders its civilians both domestically and abroad. No, Russia was only removed because it invaded Ukraine.
Relying upon the ECHR to protect your rights is like relying upon healing crystals to cure cancer.
The only way to ensure your rights are protected, as we've done for hundreds of years, is to fight for them, fight to maintain them, and ensure them in Parliament. And to vote accordingly, and campaign accordingly.
A full separation of powers, that is constitutionally watertight, has to be a pre-requisite. And human rights are human rights, they do not depend on nationality, so we need to be very clear about the difference between the rights of UK citizens and the rights of all people. Basically, we need the system in place and ready to go on the day of withdrawal. There can be no gap. Otherwise, it will not be Parliament deciding what rights we have. It will be Suella Braverman.
No, it does not have to be a pre-requisite. A full separation of powers is impossible, because quis custodiet ipsos custodes?The Westminster system has a stronger track record on maintaining human rights than almost any other country on the planet.
With regards to the Westminster system in Britain
* there are rather a lot of dead Irish that speak against that * there are rather a lot of dead Indians that speak against that * there are rather a lot of dead Chinese opium addicts that speak against that * there are rather a lot of [that's enough - Ed]
One could repeat that statement with every nation in the world.
I think that culture and people matter more than formal systems. The Soviet Union had an impressive set of rights laid down in its constitution, which were ignored by everybody in charge. The Nazis never formally abolished the Weimar constitution, and they had plenty of able jurists in their ranks - who simply saw their role as justifying everything that the government did.
It was after all, a very famous jurist, Ulpian, who formulated the doctrine "That which is pleasing to the Prince has the force of law."
I think our legal culture is valuable - and the experience of having trained at the English or Scottish Bar does have some impact on countries where human rights are not held in high regard. There are two problems at the moment:
1. Our government (and to be fair, the Brown/Blair government) tends to treat the will of the government as being one and the same as the law of the land. It is not, and nor should it ever be. The Courts are there to enforce the will of Parliament, not the will of the Government - a distinction that tends to get lost.
2. Lawfare. A tendency for pressure groups to lawyer up, the moment that a political decision goes against them. It really does jam up the process of government, and cause needless expense. It's a reason why things don't get done, that need to be done.
"The ex-partner of a man who suffocated their three-month-old daughter said she feels "let down" and scared to learn of his imminent release.
Simon Smith killed baby Lauren in 1994 in Staffordshire. An investigation led to the grim discovery he had also murdered his two other children.
He was convicted of all three murders and jailed for life in 1996.
Lauren's mother Rachel Playfair said the public would be horrified to know a triple murderer was being released.
The Parole Board confirmed it had directed the release of Smith on licence following a hearing."
Unless we lock 'em up and throw away the key, we shall continue to hear these stories whenever a murderer is released or paroled. Some will say life should mean life, or even death.
For these type of cases it would now be a whole life term if sentenced in the present day.
Since the Police, Crime, Sentencing and Courts Act was passed by this Conservative government last year, premeditated murder of a child means judges must give an automatic whole life term order
The issue people should consider more this is the cost of 'throwing away the key'. If you aren't going to execute the prisoner, you have to accept that they have some rights, IE the right not to be murdered or assaulted by another inmate. They need to be fed etc. The cost is I believe about £47,000 per prisoner per year in the UK, but higher in very high security prisons. Even if you got rid of human rights and have poor conditions with jails like in the USA, the cost does not reduce that much (it is something like $40,000 per prisoner per year at federal level).
Maybe we should send them all to private school instead?
On which point, it seems Starmer may agree with me and you:
"Labour drops plan to strip public schools of charitable status"
Let's all agree that Labour has adopted a sensible compromise that raises money to fund education for the majority without being unnecessarily punitive on this persecuted minority.
Good morning
Our son works in this sector and it is clear that the likes of Eton and other elite schools will see little effect as the wealthy will pay it, but there are many more less elite schools who are at risk of losing so many students they may well close with the loss of many jobs, a problem for local state schools having to admit more students, and the loss to the community of a facility that provides bursaries to the poorest and charitable work to and in the community
I do not want to argue over this, but I am seeing it first hand and it is going to affect those fairly normal families who sacrifice considerably to provide their children with the education they want them to have
Furthermore, it will not raise anything like the expected income and is likely to face legal challenges from the sector
So no, I do not accept labour have adopted a sensible compromise as the 20% VAT charge and possibly the cancellation of gift aid will have a detrimental effect on the sector as I have outlined and an adverse effect for their communities and add to the numbers moving to state schools
The IFS have run the numbers and say it will raise a material amount of money, which will help to improve things for the 93% of children who attend state schools. If we're going to trade personal anecdotes, my three children are all at state schools - our local primary, our local secondary and a Sixth form college - and they are crying out for more money, while the party you support so loyally is cutting real terms funding per pupil - so thanks for harming their life chances every day with your support for the Tories.
You need to see what is happening to our grandchildren education here in Wales which is the responsibility of Welsh Labour government, and I simply do not accept for the reasons I have stated the net income to Labour will be anywhere near the figures quoted and may be negative
As an example of the support the school provides to the community they allow him all the time he needs to fulfil his duties as RNLI crew including attending shouts, extensive time in training and indeed for the three days he has been away in Poole this week at RNLI training headquarters
Both my children had an excellent education in a state sector comprehensive here in Wales. Both went on to graduate with 2:1s which is better than my Desmond (post grammar school).
I have no problem with you sending your offspring to a Headmasters Conference School or one of those Mickey Mouse local private schools, normally prefixed with "St." It's your money, spend as you see fit, but I don't want my taxes supplementing other people's social climbing plans, when that money could be used to fill my potholes or replace the WRAAC in my local hospital or fund teaching assistants for my local state primary school.
And that highlights an interesting issue: the quality of state schools can be just as spotty and varied as that of (say) GP services. One school in a town can be excellent; another poor, despite being only a couple of miles apart.
There's a significant chance that some increased funding goes to the 'excellent' school; perhaps because results matter, or the parents, PTA and staff are much more inclined to fight for the funding.
I don't expect Labour to improve education much where it matters: at the bottom end of attainment, because the problems are really difficult and much depends on parenting. I don't expect the Conservatives or Lib Dems to do much there, either.
If a Party policy is to promote elite private and elite state education there is less in the pot for average to sink schools.
I have no great expectations for substantial educational improvement under any future Labour Government (I doubt a non-Conservative government will happen in my lifetime anyway). But I am not anticipating the quality of education for the bottom 90% getting any better under continued Conservative administrations.
My issue is the following:
The great scandal in schooling is functional illiteracy and innumeracy: both of which have hovered in the 15-20% range for decades, over many governments. To his credit, Blair mentioned this in 1997, and Estelle Morris resigned over failure to meet targets. But otherwise it is ignored, and politicians of all stripes look at the number of A's achieved.
Meanwhile, countless thousands of kids leave school every year without even the basic skills they require.
*That* is what politicians with a backbone need to be screaming about, and schools policies should be designed around fixing this massive issue. But it won't happen, because it's a massive societal problem, and it's easier just to throw meaningless measures at your core base and pretend that will fix everything.
A summary judgement, that makes wild allegations from the prosecution about the value of his properties, from a judge and a prosecutor elected on a platform of “We’ll Get Trump”.
They suggest that the 17-acre Mar-a-Lago property is worth $18m, when half an acre with a house on it next door sells for double that amount.
You don’t have to like the guy, to think that there’s a co-ordinated effort to tie him up in legalities for the next year.
This is the sort of sh!t we see in Africa, not what you’d expect in a first world democracy.
Mar-a-Lago is not a house, and your (selective) comparison of this apple with that orange is pretty meaningless.
And how do you explain low valuations offered for tax reasons and improbably high valuations given in order to obtain loans, on the same property? Either he is defrauding the banks or he is defrauding the IRS.
The taxable value came from the State’s tax assessor. The value for the purposes of the loan, came from the bank that issued the loan. Given that Palm Beach land goes for around $15m/acre, the 17 acre plot is worth around $250m without the successful country club business on it.
Except that the Mar A Lago property has restrictions on it (think of it as a Listed property) which prevent development - which significantly reduces its value. The official assessed value is currently 26 million and Trumps own team challenged the valuation saying it should be less. Face it - Trump has been playing the system and has been caught out. Oh dear. How sad. Never mind.
Well I suppose probably it is woke. ISTR seeing the other day HS2 publishing a breakdown of the sexuality of its senior employees. That's quite woke. However its wokeness or otherwise isn't the main issue its detractors have with it, nor its supporters support. It's just an irritating facet of anything associated with modern life/the public sector/big business. The Sun could have saved themselves a word there.
House GOP circulating new memo on impeachment inquiry, saying scope "will span the time of Joe Biden’s Vice Presidency to the present, including his time out of office"
"The ex-partner of a man who suffocated their three-month-old daughter said she feels "let down" and scared to learn of his imminent release.
Simon Smith killed baby Lauren in 1994 in Staffordshire. An investigation led to the grim discovery he had also murdered his two other children.
He was convicted of all three murders and jailed for life in 1996.
Lauren's mother Rachel Playfair said the public would be horrified to know a triple murderer was being released.
The Parole Board confirmed it had directed the release of Smith on licence following a hearing."
Unless we lock 'em up and throw away the key, we shall continue to hear these stories whenever a murderer is released or paroled. Some will say life should mean life, or even death.
For these type of cases it would now be a whole life term if sentenced in the present day.
Since the Police, Crime, Sentencing and Courts Act was passed by this Conservative government last year, premeditated murder of a child means judges must give an automatic whole life term order
The issue people should consider more this is the cost of 'throwing away the key'. If you aren't going to execute the prisoner, you have to accept that they have some rights, IE the right not to be murdered or assaulted by another inmate. They need to be fed etc. The cost is I believe about £47,000 per prisoner per year in the UK, but higher in very high security prisons. Even if you got rid of human rights and have poor conditions with jails like in the USA, the cost does not reduce that much (it is something like $40,000 per prisoner per year at federal level).
Maybe we should send them all to private school instead?
On which point, it seems Starmer may agree with me and you:
"Labour drops plan to strip public schools of charitable status"
Let's all agree that Labour has adopted a sensible compromise that raises money to fund education for the majority without being unnecessarily punitive on this persecuted minority.
Good morning
Our son works in this sector and it is clear that the likes of Eton and other elite schools will see little effect as the wealthy will pay it, but there are many more less elite schools who are at risk of losing so many students they may well close with the loss of many jobs, a problem for local state schools having to admit more students, and the loss to the community of a facility that provides bursaries to the poorest and charitable work to and in the community
I do not want to argue over this, but I am seeing it first hand and it is going to affect those fairly normal families who sacrifice considerably to provide their children with the education they want them to have
Furthermore, it will not raise anything like the expected income and is likely to face legal challenges from the sector
So no, I do not accept labour have adopted a sensible compromise as the 20% VAT charge and possibly the cancellation of gift aid will have a detrimental effect on the sector as I have outlined and an adverse effect for their communities and add to the numbers moving to state schools
The IFS have run the numbers and say it will raise a material amount of money, which will help to improve things for the 93% of children who attend state schools. If we're going to trade personal anecdotes, my three children are all at state schools - our local primary, our local secondary and a Sixth form college - and they are crying out for more money, while the party you support so loyally is cutting real terms funding per pupil - so thanks for harming their life chances every day with your support for the Tories.
You need to see what is happening to our grandchildren education here in Wales which is the responsibility of Welsh Labour government, and I simply do not accept for the reasons I have stated the net income to Labour will be anywhere near the figures quoted and may be negative
As an example of the support the school provides to the community they allow him all the time he needs to fulfil his duties as RNLI crew including attending shouts, extensive time in training and indeed for the three days he has been away in Poole this week at RNLI training headquarters
But the schools can absorb the VAT charge by lowering their fees. Successive Conservative governments have demanded that state schools spend less per pupil, so there is surely scope for private schools to do the same.
Private schools could lower spending per pupil to state school levels, keep fees the same, and double the number of pupils on free scholarships. What's not to love about this? Fee paying parents are only sending their kids private for the good of society as a whole, so they will be happy to contribute. Private schools' real purpose as charities is educating the great unwashed, not giving the already privileged an additional leg up, so they will love this change. And resentful chippy fellows like me will be satisfied that we have a level playing field at last. There, problem solved. You're welcome.
Yep, that works. Or there's my idea (a touch more radical but worth a look, I think) whereby ALL schools become private, and all parents get a 'voucher' from the government of the same value per child to be spent at the school of their choice, fees at all schools capped at an amount equal to the voucher, no top ups. Then hands off and let the magic happen. A first class 'free at the point of delivery' private school for every child in every nook and cranny of the land. Aspiration for all!
We're going to be knee-deep in dead cats this time next year.
Dead cats are probably Sadiq Khan's fault too.
The various congestion/emissions schemes are removing cars from the roads, increasing average speeds and so more cats involved in collisions with cars are dying [citation needed]
Of course, on the other hand, LTNs and speed restrictions are (a) making cats less car aware due to lower exposure, increasing their deaths on other roads due to worse training and by increasing journey times increase the time at risk of collision for cats.
There, have I covered every eventuality?
The reduction in cats dying from car accidents is mostly down to them being eaten by the xlBullies.
Confusing. Is it the cars being eaten by XL bullies, or the cats? I'd prefer the former.
We're going to be knee-deep in dead cats this time next year.
Dead cats are probably Sadiq Khan's fault too.
The various congestion/emissions schemes are removing cars from the roads, increasing average speeds and so more cats involved in collisions with cars are dying [citation needed]
Of course, on the other hand, LTNs and speed restrictions are (a) making cats less car aware due to lower exposure, increasing their deaths on other roads due to worse training and by increasing journey times increase the time at risk of collision for cats.
There, have I covered every eventuality?
The reduction in cats dying from car accidents is mostly down to them being eaten by the xlBullies.
Confusing. Is it the cars being eaten by XL bullies, or the cats? I'd prefer the former.
I'm sure they could rip a tyre into shreds. Very woke.
Note that the judgement does not itself value Mar-a-Lago at £18m. It notes that, "From 2011-2021, the Palm Beach County Assessor appraised the market value of Mar-a-Lago at between $18 million and $27.6 million." It is not saying that number is perfectly accurate, but it provides a plausible reference.
You argued that, "They suggest that the 17-acre Mar-a-Lago property is worth $18m, when half an acre with a house on it next door sells for double that amount." So, you're comparing a 2011 assessment to a 2023 value, which is obviously problematic.
The judgement also notes the significant limits on how Mar-a-Lago can be used, which impact on its value: "In 1995, Donald Trump signed a Deed of Conservation and Preservation Easement in which he gave up his right to use Mar-a-Lago for any purpose other than as a social club [...] The 2002 Deed also specifically "limits changes to the Property including, without limitation, the division or subdivision of the Property for any purpose, including use as single family homes, the interior renovation of the mansion, which may be necessary and desirable for the sale of the Property as a single family residential estate, the construction of new buildings and the obstruction of open vistas." Id. In exchange for granting the easement, Mar-a-Lago was taxed at a significantly lower rate (the club rate) than it otherwise would have been (the private home rate)."
The half an acre you offer as a comparison, does that have any limitations on its use? Limitations on use affect value.
The defendants argue that they can just ignore this: "Defendants further imply that they may ignore the plain language of the 2002 Deed restrictions because they would likely be able to use the Florida judicial system to get out of their contractual requirements; they further assert that because they may successfully breach their contract in the future, they were not required to consider the restrictions of the 2002 Deed when valuing the property [...] This argument is wholly without merit."
The judgement notes, "Donald Trump's SFC for 2011-2021 value Mar-a-Lago at between $426,529,614 million and $612,110,496, an overvaluation of at least 2,300% , compared to the assessor's appraisal."
A geoengineering proposal to address global warming. Looks pretty good to me.
https://nephewjonathan.substack.com/p/diy-geoengineering-the-whitepaper ...Global warming, though not ocean acidification, is quickly and cheaply reversed by ejecting calcite nanoparticles (with an average radius in the ~90nm range) into the stratosphere, using a propeller-based system to prevent particle clumping. The particles should be carried up by hydrogen balloons, and very preferably released over the tropics. The total amount needed will be on the order of several hundred kilotons yearly, and the total cost should be somewhere between $1B and $5B yearly.
Let's go through this piece by piece...
Even if the cost is out by an order of magnitude, it could easily be funded by (for instance) the EU on its own.
If it goes wrong, how easily can it be reversed? And who is to judge whether or not it works?
It's OK, you do it over the tropics so if anything goes wrong it's not us who will be affected. Genius!
Can you suggest what there is to "go wrong" ?
Point is that if it works, it works. If it doesn't, it's just a lot of non toxic dust in the atmosphere for a fairly short time. Which happens every time a wind blows across the Sahara.
The reason did doing it in the tropics is that that's where the effect (as we've seen with what happened with the marine diesel sulphur ban) is most pronounced.
What can possibly go wrong with reducing the amount of sunlight reaching areas of the world where people rely on it to grow food and are already often food-insecure... Hmm let me think.
We've already done much the same experiment (unwittingly) while freight shipping was pumping sulphur dioxide aerosol into the atmosphere. Setting aside the ocean acidification resulting (which isn't a thing with this idea) there weren't such effects.
And in any event, the effects of excessive temperatures on crop growth will be far greater than anything resulting from a small increase in solar energy being reflected back into space.
If there are possible objections to the experiment, I think this one is pretty feeble.
Seems a bit risky to me. Why not just decarbonise our economy instead of creating additional potential risks for the poorest people in the world, who have played almost no role in creating this problem.
You're comparing a controlled, measured process with a massive volcanic eruption ?
Sounds a bit bollocks to me.
And not 'instead'; as well as. We need both, since decarbonisation will take too long to prevent serious consequences for precisely those 'poorest people in the world'.
Human meddling has screwed up the planet.
What do we need? More human meddling!
Fecking genius.
Of course, you omit yourself from this, your being a perfect citizen and all, just like you omit yourself from your desire to see fewer people on the planet.
Funny old world.
I didn't have the option not to be born. However, I have taken the option not to have children, so I am doing my bit towards my goal.
Interesting stuff. Never heard of Abd Al-Rahman III [sp]. Also interesting to hear of Al-Mansur[sp] and his successful 'soft' coup only for it to fall to bits shortly thereafter.
A geoengineering proposal to address global warming. Looks pretty good to me.
https://nephewjonathan.substack.com/p/diy-geoengineering-the-whitepaper ...Global warming, though not ocean acidification, is quickly and cheaply reversed by ejecting calcite nanoparticles (with an average radius in the ~90nm range) into the stratosphere, using a propeller-based system to prevent particle clumping. The particles should be carried up by hydrogen balloons, and very preferably released over the tropics. The total amount needed will be on the order of several hundred kilotons yearly, and the total cost should be somewhere between $1B and $5B yearly.
Let's go through this piece by piece...
Even if the cost is out by an order of magnitude, it could easily be funded by (for instance) the EU on its own.
If it goes wrong, how easily can it be reversed? And who is to judge whether or not it works?
It's OK, you do it over the tropics so if anything goes wrong it's not us who will be affected. Genius!
Can you suggest what there is to "go wrong" ?
Point is that if it works, it works. If it doesn't, it's just a lot of non toxic dust in the atmosphere for a fairly short time. Which happens every time a wind blows across the Sahara.
The reason did doing it in the tropics is that that's where the effect (as we've seen with what happened with the marine diesel sulphur ban) is most pronounced.
What can possibly go wrong with reducing the amount of sunlight reaching areas of the world where people rely on it to grow food and are already often food-insecure... Hmm let me think.
We've already done much the same experiment (unwittingly) while freight shipping was pumping sulphur dioxide aerosol into the atmosphere. Setting aside the ocean acidification resulting (which isn't a thing with this idea) there weren't such effects.
And in any event, the effects of excessive temperatures on crop growth will be far greater than anything resulting from a small increase in solar energy being reflected back into space.
If there are possible objections to the experiment, I think this one is pretty feeble.
Seems a bit risky to me. Why not just decarbonise our economy instead of creating additional potential risks for the poorest people in the world, who have played almost no role in creating this problem.
You're comparing a controlled, measured process with a massive volcanic eruption ?
Sounds a bit bollocks to me.
And not 'instead'; as well as. We need both, since decarbonisation will take too long to prevent serious consequences for precisely those 'poorest people in the world'.
Human meddling has screwed up the planet.
What do we need? More human meddling!
Fecking genius.
I think it sounds something that should be considered, particularly as hoping that the West, let alone China and India, going to all start wearing hair shirts as many green activists would like is just not going to happen. However, in answer to the question "what could go wrong", I would suggest that as the Earth has so many variables then it could result in an extreme "correction" which could, in extremis, lead to rapid cooling. IMHO an ice age would be even less palatable than global warming. Proceed with extreme caution might be sensible.
To be fair, mitigation of the temperature rise through reduced insolation (as proposed here) is less likely to result in an overcorrection than most of the other large-scale geoengineering schemes that have been suggested (such as enhanced weathering).
The big problem is that it would do nothing to stop ocean acidification, so only solves part of the problem.
It's the sort of thing we might want to test on a limited basis, but keep full-scale deployment in reserve to be used only in an emergency situation.
A summary judgement, that makes wild allegations from the prosecution about the value of his properties, from a judge and a prosecutor elected on a platform of “We’ll Get Trump”.
They suggest that the 17-acre Mar-a-Lago property is worth $18m, when half an acre with a house on it next door sells for double that amount.
You don’t have to like the guy, to think that there’s a co-ordinated effort to tie him up in legalities for the next year.
This is the sort of sh!t we see in Africa, not what you’d expect in a first world democracy.
Mar-a-Lago is not a house, and your (selective) comparison of this apple with that orange is pretty meaningless.
And how do you explain low valuations offered for tax reasons and improbably high valuations given in order to obtain loans, on the same property? Either he is defrauding the banks or he is defrauding the IRS.
The taxable value came from the State’s tax assessor. The value for the purposes of the loan, came from the bank that issued the loan. Given that Palm Beach land goes for around $15m/acre, the 17 acre plot is worth around $250m without the successful country club business on it.
(a) You ignore the restrictions on its use.
(b) You say the land is worth $250m. Trump valued it at $612m.
A summary judgement, that makes wild allegations from the prosecution about the value of his properties, from a judge and a prosecutor elected on a platform of “We’ll Get Trump”.
They suggest that the 17-acre Mar-a-Lago property is worth $18m, when half an acre with a house on it next door sells for double that amount.
You don’t have to like the guy, to think that there’s a co-ordinated effort to tie him up in legalities for the next year.
This is the sort of sh!t we see in Africa, not what you’d expect in a first world democracy.
Aren’t you comparing today’s prices to the prices that Trump declared 15+ years ago?
This was a known secret in NY circles - there was a reason why only Deutsche Bank would lend to him
(And Catherine Belton’s book makes some interesting contentions although it’s really an afterword than focused on Trump. It’s clear he’d associated with a lot of interesting people for a long time
"The ex-partner of a man who suffocated their three-month-old daughter said she feels "let down" and scared to learn of his imminent release.
Simon Smith killed baby Lauren in 1994 in Staffordshire. An investigation led to the grim discovery he had also murdered his two other children.
He was convicted of all three murders and jailed for life in 1996.
Lauren's mother Rachel Playfair said the public would be horrified to know a triple murderer was being released.
The Parole Board confirmed it had directed the release of Smith on licence following a hearing."
Unless we lock 'em up and throw away the key, we shall continue to hear these stories whenever a murderer is released or paroled. Some will say life should mean life, or even death.
For these type of cases it would now be a whole life term if sentenced in the present day.
Since the Police, Crime, Sentencing and Courts Act was passed by this Conservative government last year, premeditated murder of a child means judges must give an automatic whole life term order
The issue people should consider more this is the cost of 'throwing away the key'. If you aren't going to execute the prisoner, you have to accept that they have some rights, IE the right not to be murdered or assaulted by another inmate. They need to be fed etc. The cost is I believe about £47,000 per prisoner per year in the UK, but higher in very high security prisons. Even if you got rid of human rights and have poor conditions with jails like in the USA, the cost does not reduce that much (it is something like $40,000 per prisoner per year at federal level).
Maybe we should send them all to private school instead?
On which point, it seems Starmer may agree with me and you:
"Labour drops plan to strip public schools of charitable status"
Let's all agree that Labour has adopted a sensible compromise that raises money to fund education for the majority without being unnecessarily punitive on this persecuted minority.
Good morning
Our son works in this sector and it is clear that the likes of Eton and other elite schools will see little effect as the wealthy will pay it, but there are many more less elite schools who are at risk of losing so many students they may well close with the loss of many jobs, a problem for local state schools having to admit more students, and the loss to the community of a facility that provides bursaries to the poorest and charitable work to and in the community
I do not want to argue over this, but I am seeing it first hand and it is going to affect those fairly normal families who sacrifice considerably to provide their children with the education they want them to have
Furthermore, it will not raise anything like the expected income and is likely to face legal challenges from the sector
So no, I do not accept labour have adopted a sensible compromise as the 20% VAT charge and possibly the cancellation of gift aid will have a detrimental effect on the sector as I have outlined and an adverse effect for their communities and add to the numbers moving to state schools
The IFS have run the numbers and say it will raise a material amount of money, which will help to improve things for the 93% of children who attend state schools. If we're going to trade personal anecdotes, my three children are all at state schools - our local primary, our local secondary and a Sixth form college - and they are crying out for more money, while the party you support so loyally is cutting real terms funding per pupil - so thanks for harming their life chances every day with your support for the Tories.
You need to see what is happening to our grandchildren education here in Wales which is the responsibility of Welsh Labour government, and I simply do not accept for the reasons I have stated the net income to Labour will be anywhere near the figures quoted and may be negative
As an example of the support the school provides to the community they allow him all the time he needs to fulfil his duties as RNLI crew including attending shouts, extensive time in training and indeed for the three days he has been away in Poole this week at RNLI training headquarters
But the schools can absorb the VAT charge by lowering their fees. Successive Conservative governments have demanded that state schools spend less per pupil, so there is surely scope for private schools to do the same.
Private schools could lower spending per pupil to state school levels, keep fees the same, and double the number of pupils on free scholarships. What's not to love about this? Fee paying parents are only sending their kids private for the good of society as a whole, so they will be happy to contribute. Private schools' real purpose as charities is educating the great unwashed, not giving the already privileged an additional leg up, so they will love this change. And resentful chippy fellows like me will be satisfied that we have a level playing field at last. There, problem solved. You're welcome.
Yep, that works. Or there's my idea (a touch more radical but worth a look, I think) whereby ALL schools become private, and all parents get a 'voucher' from the government of the same value per child to be spent at the school of their choice, fees at all schools capped at an amount equal to the voucher, no top ups. Then hands off and let the magic happen. A first class 'free at the point of delivery' private school for every child in every nook and cranny of the land. Aspiration for all!
I don't want to sound like I'm surprised to ever agree with you, but I'm surprised to find I agree with you. That's exactly what I'd do. Not dissimilar to nurseries.
You'd need to build an element of redundancy into the system - otherwise the choice aspect would be illusory: you'd just go where there was space.
But - like nurseries - you motivate schools to provide the sort of education the parents want their kids to have. And parents get to choose. And niches get to flourish (albeit probably only in urban areas where density of population makes choice realistic).
I don't feel strongly about the 'no top-ups' aspect. It wouldn't necessarily have been the way I'd have done it. But I don't feel particularly strongly against it. My motivation is that schools be responsive to what parents want.
The downside of course is that there is a minority of parents who potentially want a very weird education for their children (I'm thinking in particular of the hardcore religious - obviously the Islamic schools tend to get the attention, but I passed this place a few months back and thought it looked a bit, well, odd: http://solacademy.org.uk/). There's not very many of these, but they are there, and do you want the state to be funding that sort of education? That said, maybe the state already does fund that sort of thing?
Still, I think your idea (which is also my idea) is worth pursuing.
A summary judgement, that makes wild allegations from the prosecution about the value of his properties, from a judge and a prosecutor elected on a platform of “We’ll Get Trump”.
They suggest that the 17-acre Mar-a-Lago property is worth $18m, when half an acre with a house on it next door sells for double that amount.
You don’t have to like the guy, to think that there’s a co-ordinated effort to tie him up in legalities for the next year.
This is the sort of sh!t we see in Africa, not what you’d expect in a first world democracy.
"They" didn't "suggest" the value - Trump agreed the valuation of $18m - to get the benefit of tax breaks!
This is a civil case. There is discussion on whether this evidence can form the basis of a criminal prosecution (issues around whether statute of limitations apply, complicated by issues of the clock not running the four years he was President).
But this summary judgement is utterly damning. And cancels the licences needed for the Trump businesses to operate in New York.
The “taxable value” came from the State’s assessor, not from Trump.
The accusation is that he declared that as the taxable value, while using the actual value to secure the property against loans, and that the discrepancy amounts to fraud.
Trying to do politics through the courts, is likely to increase his support rather than diminish it. It’s a seriously worrying development in a first-world democracy.
I look forward to your expressing similar disquiet over the 'impeachment' of Hunter Biden.
How could Hunter Biden be impeached, when he’s never held elected office? If Burisma wants to pay a drug addict $50k a month for ‘advise’, that’s between their management and their shareholders.
Influence peddling is a crime
One of the basic rules of compliance is that if there is no business justification for a transaction it merits further investigations
"The ex-partner of a man who suffocated their three-month-old daughter said she feels "let down" and scared to learn of his imminent release.
Simon Smith killed baby Lauren in 1994 in Staffordshire. An investigation led to the grim discovery he had also murdered his two other children.
He was convicted of all three murders and jailed for life in 1996.
Lauren's mother Rachel Playfair said the public would be horrified to know a triple murderer was being released.
The Parole Board confirmed it had directed the release of Smith on licence following a hearing."
Unless we lock 'em up and throw away the key, we shall continue to hear these stories whenever a murderer is released or paroled. Some will say life should mean life, or even death.
For these type of cases it would now be a whole life term if sentenced in the present day.
Since the Police, Crime, Sentencing and Courts Act was passed by this Conservative government last year, premeditated murder of a child means judges must give an automatic whole life term order
The issue people should consider more this is the cost of 'throwing away the key'. If you aren't going to execute the prisoner, you have to accept that they have some rights, IE the right not to be murdered or assaulted by another inmate. They need to be fed etc. The cost is I believe about £47,000 per prisoner per year in the UK, but higher in very high security prisons. Even if you got rid of human rights and have poor conditions with jails like in the USA, the cost does not reduce that much (it is something like $40,000 per prisoner per year at federal level).
Maybe we should send them all to private school instead?
On which point, it seems Starmer may agree with me and you:
"Labour drops plan to strip public schools of charitable status"
Let's all agree that Labour has adopted a sensible compromise that raises money to fund education for the majority without being unnecessarily punitive on this persecuted minority.
Good morning
Our son works in this sector and it is clear that the likes of Eton and other elite schools will see little effect as the wealthy will pay it, but there are many more less elite schools who are at risk of losing so many students they may well close with the loss of many jobs, a problem for local state schools having to admit more students, and the loss to the community of a facility that provides bursaries to the poorest and charitable work to and in the community
I do not want to argue over this, but I am seeing it first hand and it is going to affect those fairly normal families who sacrifice considerably to provide their children with the education they want them to have
Furthermore, it will not raise anything like the expected income and is likely to face legal challenges from the sector
So no, I do not accept labour have adopted a sensible compromise as the 20% VAT charge and possibly the cancellation of gift aid will have a detrimental effect on the sector as I have outlined and an adverse effect for their communities and add to the numbers moving to state schools
The IFS have run the numbers and say it will raise a material amount of money, which will help to improve things for the 93% of children who attend state schools. If we're going to trade personal anecdotes, my three children are all at state schools - our local primary, our local secondary and a Sixth form college - and they are crying out for more money, while the party you support so loyally is cutting real terms funding per pupil - so thanks for harming their life chances every day with your support for the Tories.
You need to see what is happening to our grandchildren education here in Wales which is the responsibility of Welsh Labour government, and I simply do not accept for the reasons I have stated the net income to Labour will be anywhere near the figures quoted and may be negative
As an example of the support the school provides to the community they allow him all the time he needs to fulfil his duties as RNLI crew including attending shouts, extensive time in training and indeed for the three days he has been away in Poole this week at RNLI training headquarters
But the schools can absorb the VAT charge by lowering their fees. Successive Conservative governments have demanded that state schools spend less per pupil, so there is surely scope for private schools to do the same.
Private schools could lower spending per pupil to state school levels, keep fees the same, and double the number of pupils on free scholarships. What's not to love about this? Fee paying parents are only sending their kids private for the good of society as a whole, so they will be happy to contribute. Private schools' real purpose as charities is educating the great unwashed, not giving the already privileged an additional leg up, so they will love this change. And resentful chippy fellows like me will be satisfied that we have a level playing field at last. There, problem solved. You're welcome.
Yep, that works. Or there's my idea (a touch more radical but worth a look, I think) whereby ALL schools become private, and all parents get a 'voucher' from the government of the same value per child to be spent at the school of their choice, fees at all schools capped at an amount equal to the voucher, no top ups. Then hands off and let the magic happen. A first class 'free at the point of delivery' private school for every child in every nook and cranny of the land. Aspiration for all!
I don't want to sound like I'm surprised to ever agree with you, but I'm surprised to find I agree with you. That's exactly what I'd do. Not dissimilar to nurseries.
You'd need to build an element of redundancy into the system - otherwise the choice aspect would be illusory: you'd just go where there was space.
But - like nurseries - you motivate schools to provide the sort of education the parents want their kids to have. And parents get to choose. And niches get to flourish (albeit probably only in urban areas where density of population makes choice realistic).
I don't feel strongly about the 'no top-ups' aspect. It wouldn't necessarily have been the way I'd have done it. But I don't feel particularly strongly against it. My motivation is that schools be responsive to what parents want.
The downside of course is that there is a minority of parents who potentially want a very weird education for their children (I'm thinking in particular of the hardcore religious - obviously the Islamic schools tend to get the attention, but I passed this place a few months back and thought it looked a bit, well, odd: http://solacademy.org.uk/). There's not very many of these, but they are there, and do you want the state to be funding that sort of education? That said, maybe the state already does fund that sort of thing?
Still, I think your idea (which is also my idea) is worth pursuing.
Hmm, the state already funds C of E/Episcopalian and RC schools, and you can't argue that it's because the C of E is Established as that doesn't account for the other three nations, or RC schools in England. So either extend that to every other sect, or ban religious schools of any kind from state funding. Anything else is prima facie unjust.
"The ex-partner of a man who suffocated their three-month-old daughter said she feels "let down" and scared to learn of his imminent release.
Simon Smith killed baby Lauren in 1994 in Staffordshire. An investigation led to the grim discovery he had also murdered his two other children.
He was convicted of all three murders and jailed for life in 1996.
Lauren's mother Rachel Playfair said the public would be horrified to know a triple murderer was being released.
The Parole Board confirmed it had directed the release of Smith on licence following a hearing."
Unless we lock 'em up and throw away the key, we shall continue to hear these stories whenever a murderer is released or paroled. Some will say life should mean life, or even death.
For these type of cases it would now be a whole life term if sentenced in the present day.
Since the Police, Crime, Sentencing and Courts Act was passed by this Conservative government last year, premeditated murder of a child means judges must give an automatic whole life term order
The issue people should consider more this is the cost of 'throwing away the key'. If you aren't going to execute the prisoner, you have to accept that they have some rights, IE the right not to be murdered or assaulted by another inmate. They need to be fed etc. The cost is I believe about £47,000 per prisoner per year in the UK, but higher in very high security prisons. Even if you got rid of human rights and have poor conditions with jails like in the USA, the cost does not reduce that much (it is something like $40,000 per prisoner per year at federal level).
Maybe we should send them all to private school instead?
On which point, it seems Starmer may agree with me and you:
"Labour drops plan to strip public schools of charitable status"
Let's all agree that Labour has adopted a sensible compromise that raises money to fund education for the majority without being unnecessarily punitive on this persecuted minority.
Good morning
Our son works in this sector and it is clear that the likes of Eton and other elite schools will see little effect as the wealthy will pay it, but there are many more less elite schools who are at risk of losing so many students they may well close with the loss of many jobs, a problem for local state schools having to admit more students, and the loss to the community of a facility that provides bursaries to the poorest and charitable work to and in the community
I do not want to argue over this, but I am seeing it first hand and it is going to affect those fairly normal families who sacrifice considerably to provide their children with the education they want them to have
Furthermore, it will not raise anything like the expected income and is likely to face legal challenges from the sector
So no, I do not accept labour have adopted a sensible compromise as the 20% VAT charge and possibly the cancellation of gift aid will have a detrimental effect on the sector as I have outlined and an adverse effect for their communities and add to the numbers moving to state schools
The IFS have run the numbers and say it will raise a material amount of money, which will help to improve things for the 93% of children who attend state schools. If we're going to trade personal anecdotes, my three children are all at state schools - our local primary, our local secondary and a Sixth form college - and they are crying out for more money, while the party you support so loyally is cutting real terms funding per pupil - so thanks for harming their life chances every day with your support for the Tories.
You need to see what is happening to our grandchildren education here in Wales which is the responsibility of Welsh Labour government, and I simply do not accept for the reasons I have stated the net income to Labour will be anywhere near the figures quoted and may be negative
As an example of the support the school provides to the community they allow him all the time he needs to fulfil his duties as RNLI crew including attending shouts, extensive time in training and indeed for the three days he has been away in Poole this week at RNLI training headquarters
But the schools can absorb the VAT charge by lowering their fees. Successive Conservative governments have demanded that state schools spend less per pupil, so there is surely scope for private schools to do the same.
Private schools could lower spending per pupil to state school levels, keep fees the same, and double the number of pupils on free scholarships. What's not to love about this? Fee paying parents are only sending their kids private for the good of society as a whole, so they will be happy to contribute. Private schools' real purpose as charities is educating the great unwashed, not giving the already privileged an additional leg up, so they will love this change. And resentful chippy fellows like me will be satisfied that we have a level playing field at last. There, problem solved. You're welcome.
Yep, that works. Or there's my idea (a touch more radical but worth a look, I think) whereby ALL schools become private, and all parents get a 'voucher' from the government of the same value per child to be spent at the school of their choice, fees at all schools capped at an amount equal to the voucher, no top ups. Then hands off and let the magic happen. A first class 'free at the point of delivery' private school for every child in every nook and cranny of the land. Aspiration for all!
I don't want to sound like I'm surprised to ever agree with you, but I'm surprised to find I agree with you. That's exactly what I'd do. Not dissimilar to nurseries.
You'd need to build an element of redundancy into the system - otherwise the choice aspect would be illusory: you'd just go where there was space.
But - like nurseries - you motivate schools to provide the sort of education the parents want their kids to have. And parents get to choose. And niches get to flourish (albeit probably only in urban areas where density of population makes choice realistic).
I don't feel strongly about the 'no top-ups' aspect. It wouldn't necessarily have been the way I'd have done it. But I don't feel particularly strongly against it. My motivation is that schools be responsive to what parents want.
The downside of course is that there is a minority of parents who potentially want a very weird education for their children (I'm thinking in particular of the hardcore religious - obviously the Islamic schools tend to get the attention, but I passed this place a few months back and thought it looked a bit, well, odd: http://solacademy.org.uk/). There's not very many of these, but they are there, and do you want the state to be funding that sort of education? That said, maybe the state already does fund that sort of thing?
Still, I think your idea (which is also my idea) is worth pursuing.
Hmm, the state already funds C of E/Episcopalian and RC schools, and you can't argue that it's because the C of E is Established as that doesn't account for the other three nations, or RC schools in England. So either extend that to every other sect, or ban religious schools of any kind from state funding. Anything else is prima facie unjust.
There are a few non-Christian state-funded schools. To quote Wikipedia:
"In 2011, about one third of the 20,000 state funded schools in England were faith schools,[9] approximately 7,000 in total, of which 68% were Church of England schools and 30% were Roman Catholic. There were 42 Jewish, 12 Muslim, 3 Sikh and 1 Hindu faith schools.[1]"
"The ex-partner of a man who suffocated their three-month-old daughter said she feels "let down" and scared to learn of his imminent release.
Simon Smith killed baby Lauren in 1994 in Staffordshire. An investigation led to the grim discovery he had also murdered his two other children.
He was convicted of all three murders and jailed for life in 1996.
Lauren's mother Rachel Playfair said the public would be horrified to know a triple murderer was being released.
The Parole Board confirmed it had directed the release of Smith on licence following a hearing."
Unless we lock 'em up and throw away the key, we shall continue to hear these stories whenever a murderer is released or paroled. Some will say life should mean life, or even death.
For these type of cases it would now be a whole life term if sentenced in the present day.
Since the Police, Crime, Sentencing and Courts Act was passed by this Conservative government last year, premeditated murder of a child means judges must give an automatic whole life term order
The issue people should consider more this is the cost of 'throwing away the key'. If you aren't going to execute the prisoner, you have to accept that they have some rights, IE the right not to be murdered or assaulted by another inmate. They need to be fed etc. The cost is I believe about £47,000 per prisoner per year in the UK, but higher in very high security prisons. Even if you got rid of human rights and have poor conditions with jails like in the USA, the cost does not reduce that much (it is something like $40,000 per prisoner per year at federal level).
Maybe we should send them all to private school instead?
On which point, it seems Starmer may agree with me and you:
"Labour drops plan to strip public schools of charitable status"
Let's all agree that Labour has adopted a sensible compromise that raises money to fund education for the majority without being unnecessarily punitive on this persecuted minority.
Good morning
Our son works in this sector and it is clear that the likes of Eton and other elite schools will see little effect as the wealthy will pay it, but there are many more less elite schools who are at risk of losing so many students they may well close with the loss of many jobs, a problem for local state schools having to admit more students, and the loss to the community of a facility that provides bursaries to the poorest and charitable work to and in the community
I do not want to argue over this, but I am seeing it first hand and it is going to affect those fairly normal families who sacrifice considerably to provide their children with the education they want them to have
Furthermore, it will not raise anything like the expected income and is likely to face legal challenges from the sector
So no, I do not accept labour have adopted a sensible compromise as the 20% VAT charge and possibly the cancellation of gift aid will have a detrimental effect on the sector as I have outlined and an adverse effect for their communities and add to the numbers moving to state schools
The IFS have run the numbers and say it will raise a material amount of money, which will help to improve things for the 93% of children who attend state schools. If we're going to trade personal anecdotes, my three children are all at state schools - our local primary, our local secondary and a Sixth form college - and they are crying out for more money, while the party you support so loyally is cutting real terms funding per pupil - so thanks for harming their life chances every day with your support for the Tories.
You need to see what is happening to our grandchildren education here in Wales which is the responsibility of Welsh Labour government, and I simply do not accept for the reasons I have stated the net income to Labour will be anywhere near the figures quoted and may be negative
As an example of the support the school provides to the community they allow him all the time he needs to fulfil his duties as RNLI crew including attending shouts, extensive time in training and indeed for the three days he has been away in Poole this week at RNLI training headquarters
But the schools can absorb the VAT charge by lowering their fees. Successive Conservative governments have demanded that state schools spend less per pupil, so there is surely scope for private schools to do the same.
Private schools could lower spending per pupil to state school levels, keep fees the same, and double the number of pupils on free scholarships. What's not to love about this? Fee paying parents are only sending their kids private for the good of society as a whole, so they will be happy to contribute. Private schools' real purpose as charities is educating the great unwashed, not giving the already privileged an additional leg up, so they will love this change. And resentful chippy fellows like me will be satisfied that we have a level playing field at last. There, problem solved. You're welcome.
Yep, that works. Or there's my idea (a touch more radical but worth a look, I think) whereby ALL schools become private, and all parents get a 'voucher' from the government of the same value per child to be spent at the school of their choice, fees at all schools capped at an amount equal to the voucher, no top ups. Then hands off and let the magic happen. A first class 'free at the point of delivery' private school for every child in every nook and cranny of the land. Aspiration for all!
I don't want to sound like I'm surprised to ever agree with you, but I'm surprised to find I agree with you. That's exactly what I'd do. Not dissimilar to nurseries.
You'd need to build an element of redundancy into the system - otherwise the choice aspect would be illusory: you'd just go where there was space.
But - like nurseries - you motivate schools to provide the sort of education the parents want their kids to have. And parents get to choose. And niches get to flourish (albeit probably only in urban areas where density of population makes choice realistic).
I don't feel strongly about the 'no top-ups' aspect. It wouldn't necessarily have been the way I'd have done it. But I don't feel particularly strongly against it. My motivation is that schools be responsive to what parents want.
The downside of course is that there is a minority of parents who potentially want a very weird education for their children (I'm thinking in particular of the hardcore religious - obviously the Islamic schools tend to get the attention, but I passed this place a few months back and thought it looked a bit, well, odd: http://solacademy.org.uk/). There's not very many of these, but they are there, and do you want the state to be funding that sort of education? That said, maybe the state already does fund that sort of thing?
Still, I think your idea (which is also my idea) is worth pursuing.
The complexity of course, is that it is quite possible for a private school to deliver a higher quality education for the same cost as a state school even if the state school is behaving completely efficiently because the private school gets to choose its intake. Some children are a lot cheaper to educate than others. How do we deal with SEN? How do we deal with kids who are borderline criminal? I think there are solutions though.
"The ex-partner of a man who suffocated their three-month-old daughter said she feels "let down" and scared to learn of his imminent release.
Simon Smith killed baby Lauren in 1994 in Staffordshire. An investigation led to the grim discovery he had also murdered his two other children.
He was convicted of all three murders and jailed for life in 1996.
Lauren's mother Rachel Playfair said the public would be horrified to know a triple murderer was being released.
The Parole Board confirmed it had directed the release of Smith on licence following a hearing."
Unless we lock 'em up and throw away the key, we shall continue to hear these stories whenever a murderer is released or paroled. Some will say life should mean life, or even death.
For these type of cases it would now be a whole life term if sentenced in the present day.
Since the Police, Crime, Sentencing and Courts Act was passed by this Conservative government last year, premeditated murder of a child means judges must give an automatic whole life term order
The issue people should consider more this is the cost of 'throwing away the key'. If you aren't going to execute the prisoner, you have to accept that they have some rights, IE the right not to be murdered or assaulted by another inmate. They need to be fed etc. The cost is I believe about £47,000 per prisoner per year in the UK, but higher in very high security prisons. Even if you got rid of human rights and have poor conditions with jails like in the USA, the cost does not reduce that much (it is something like $40,000 per prisoner per year at federal level).
Maybe we should send them all to private school instead?
On which point, it seems Starmer may agree with me and you:
"Labour drops plan to strip public schools of charitable status"
Let's all agree that Labour has adopted a sensible compromise that raises money to fund education for the majority without being unnecessarily punitive on this persecuted minority.
Good morning
Our son works in this sector and it is clear that the likes of Eton and other elite schools will see little effect as the wealthy will pay it, but there are many more less elite schools who are at risk of losing so many students they may well close with the loss of many jobs, a problem for local state schools having to admit more students, and the loss to the community of a facility that provides bursaries to the poorest and charitable work to and in the community
I do not want to argue over this, but I am seeing it first hand and it is going to affect those fairly normal families who sacrifice considerably to provide their children with the education they want them to have
Furthermore, it will not raise anything like the expected income and is likely to face legal challenges from the sector
So no, I do not accept labour have adopted a sensible compromise as the 20% VAT charge and possibly the cancellation of gift aid will have a detrimental effect on the sector as I have outlined and an adverse effect for their communities and add to the numbers moving to state schools
The IFS have run the numbers and say it will raise a material amount of money, which will help to improve things for the 93% of children who attend state schools. If we're going to trade personal anecdotes, my three children are all at state schools - our local primary, our local secondary and a Sixth form college - and they are crying out for more money, while the party you support so loyally is cutting real terms funding per pupil - so thanks for harming their life chances every day with your support for the Tories.
You need to see what is happening to our grandchildren education here in Wales which is the responsibility of Welsh Labour government, and I simply do not accept for the reasons I have stated the net income to Labour will be anywhere near the figures quoted and may be negative
As an example of the support the school provides to the community they allow him all the time he needs to fulfil his duties as RNLI crew including attending shouts, extensive time in training and indeed for the three days he has been away in Poole this week at RNLI training headquarters
But the schools can absorb the VAT charge by lowering their fees. Successive Conservative governments have demanded that state schools spend less per pupil, so there is surely scope for private schools to do the same.
Private schools could lower spending per pupil to state school levels, keep fees the same, and double the number of pupils on free scholarships. What's not to love about this? Fee paying parents are only sending their kids private for the good of society as a whole, so they will be happy to contribute. Private schools' real purpose as charities is educating the great unwashed, not giving the already privileged an additional leg up, so they will love this change. And resentful chippy fellows like me will be satisfied that we have a level playing field at last. There, problem solved. You're welcome.
Yep, that works. Or there's my idea (a touch more radical but worth a look, I think) whereby ALL schools become private, and all parents get a 'voucher' from the government of the same value per child to be spent at the school of their choice, fees at all schools capped at an amount equal to the voucher, no top ups. Then hands off and let the magic happen. A first class 'free at the point of delivery' private school for every child in every nook and cranny of the land. Aspiration for all!
I don't want to sound like I'm surprised to ever agree with you, but I'm surprised to find I agree with you. That's exactly what I'd do. Not dissimilar to nurseries.
You'd need to build an element of redundancy into the system - otherwise the choice aspect would be illusory: you'd just go where there was space.
But - like nurseries - you motivate schools to provide the sort of education the parents want their kids to have. And parents get to choose. And niches get to flourish (albeit probably only in urban areas where density of population makes choice realistic).
I don't feel strongly about the 'no top-ups' aspect. It wouldn't necessarily have been the way I'd have done it. But I don't feel particularly strongly against it. My motivation is that schools be responsive to what parents want.
The downside of course is that there is a minority of parents who potentially want a very weird education for their children (I'm thinking in particular of the hardcore religious - obviously the Islamic schools tend to get the attention, but I passed this place a few months back and thought it looked a bit, well, odd: http://solacademy.org.uk/). There's not very many of these, but they are there, and do you want the state to be funding that sort of education? That said, maybe the state already does fund that sort of thing?
Still, I think your idea (which is also my idea) is worth pursuing.
Hmm, the state already funds C of E/Episcopalian and RC schools, and you can't argue that it's because the C of E is Established as that doesn't account for the other three nations, or RC schools in England. So either extend that to every other sect, or ban religious schools of any kind from state funding. Anything else is prima facie unjust.
There are a few non-Christian state-funded schools. To quote Wikipedia:
"In 2011, about one third of the 20,000 state funded schools in England were faith schools,[9] approximately 7,000 in total, of which 68% were Church of England schools and 30% were Roman Catholic. There were 42 Jewish, 12 Muslim, 3 Sikh and 1 Hindu faith schools.[1]"
Police officers are accused of mishandling body-worn video in more than 150 incidents, including switching off cameras and sharing footage on WhatsApp, a BBC investigation has found.
Body-worn video is widely used by police in England and Wales but cases released under freedom of information detail a catalogue of misuse.
While the footage is intended to benefit the public and the police, officers are accused of switching off cameras during incidents and failing to disclose inconvenient evidence they record.
In some incidents where cameras were switched off officers faced no sanctions, with one force saying an officer may have been “confused”, the BBC reported.
Misuse of footage appears to be widespread. The BBC uncovered cases in seven forces where officers shared footage with colleagues or friends, either in person or using social media. In one instance, images of a naked person were shared between officers on email, according to the BBC.
In some instances video was lost, deleted or not marked as evidence.
The National Police Chiefs’ Council’s lead for body-worn video, Jim Colwell, an acting chief constable, said the NPCC would be updating its guidance for body-worn video next month and it would be “more strongly worded to recommend that forces need to take action towards officers who are not using BWV correctly”.
He said the technology was “an important policing tool which helps to provide greater transparency and scrutiny of police powers”.
How have we got ourselves into a situation where individual officers are responsible for handling the footage from their own cameras?
It should be being being sent automatically to a central site, with access strictly controlled. The access logs should be available for review, the integrity of the system should be regularly tested, and any attempt to tamper or interfere with the data should be treated as a crime.
"The ex-partner of a man who suffocated their three-month-old daughter said she feels "let down" and scared to learn of his imminent release.
Simon Smith killed baby Lauren in 1994 in Staffordshire. An investigation led to the grim discovery he had also murdered his two other children.
He was convicted of all three murders and jailed for life in 1996.
Lauren's mother Rachel Playfair said the public would be horrified to know a triple murderer was being released.
The Parole Board confirmed it had directed the release of Smith on licence following a hearing."
Unless we lock 'em up and throw away the key, we shall continue to hear these stories whenever a murderer is released or paroled. Some will say life should mean life, or even death.
For these type of cases it would now be a whole life term if sentenced in the present day.
Since the Police, Crime, Sentencing and Courts Act was passed by this Conservative government last year, premeditated murder of a child means judges must give an automatic whole life term order
The issue people should consider more this is the cost of 'throwing away the key'. If you aren't going to execute the prisoner, you have to accept that they have some rights, IE the right not to be murdered or assaulted by another inmate. They need to be fed etc. The cost is I believe about £47,000 per prisoner per year in the UK, but higher in very high security prisons. Even if you got rid of human rights and have poor conditions with jails like in the USA, the cost does not reduce that much (it is something like $40,000 per prisoner per year at federal level).
Maybe we should send them all to private school instead?
On which point, it seems Starmer may agree with me and you:
"Labour drops plan to strip public schools of charitable status"
Let's all agree that Labour has adopted a sensible compromise that raises money to fund education for the majority without being unnecessarily punitive on this persecuted minority.
Good morning
Our son works in this sector and it is clear that the likes of Eton and other elite schools will see little effect as the wealthy will pay it, but there are many more less elite schools who are at risk of losing so many students they may well close with the loss of many jobs, a problem for local state schools having to admit more students, and the loss to the community of a facility that provides bursaries to the poorest and charitable work to and in the community
I do not want to argue over this, but I am seeing it first hand and it is going to affect those fairly normal families who sacrifice considerably to provide their children with the education they want them to have
Furthermore, it will not raise anything like the expected income and is likely to face legal challenges from the sector
So no, I do not accept labour have adopted a sensible compromise as the 20% VAT charge and possibly the cancellation of gift aid will have a detrimental effect on the sector as I have outlined and an adverse effect for their communities and add to the numbers moving to state schools
The IFS have run the numbers and say it will raise a material amount of money, which will help to improve things for the 93% of children who attend state schools. If we're going to trade personal anecdotes, my three children are all at state schools - our local primary, our local secondary and a Sixth form college - and they are crying out for more money, while the party you support so loyally is cutting real terms funding per pupil - so thanks for harming their life chances every day with your support for the Tories.
You need to see what is happening to our grandchildren education here in Wales which is the responsibility of Welsh Labour government, and I simply do not accept for the reasons I have stated the net income to Labour will be anywhere near the figures quoted and may be negative
As an example of the support the school provides to the community they allow him all the time he needs to fulfil his duties as RNLI crew including attending shouts, extensive time in training and indeed for the three days he has been away in Poole this week at RNLI training headquarters
But the schools can absorb the VAT charge by lowering their fees. Successive Conservative governments have demanded that state schools spend less per pupil, so there is surely scope for private schools to do the same.
Private schools could lower spending per pupil to state school levels, keep fees the same, and double the number of pupils on free scholarships. What's not to love about this? Fee paying parents are only sending their kids private for the good of society as a whole, so they will be happy to contribute. Private schools' real purpose as charities is educating the great unwashed, not giving the already privileged an additional leg up, so they will love this change. And resentful chippy fellows like me will be satisfied that we have a level playing field at last. There, problem solved. You're welcome.
Yep, that works. Or there's my idea (a touch more radical but worth a look, I think) whereby ALL schools become private, and all parents get a 'voucher' from the government of the same value per child to be spent at the school of their choice, fees at all schools capped at an amount equal to the voucher, no top ups. Then hands off and let the magic happen. A first class 'free at the point of delivery' private school for every child in every nook and cranny of the land. Aspiration for all!
I don't want to sound like I'm surprised to ever agree with you, but I'm surprised to find I agree with you. That's exactly what I'd do. Not dissimilar to nurseries.
You'd need to build an element of redundancy into the system - otherwise the choice aspect would be illusory: you'd just go where there was space.
But - like nurseries - you motivate schools to provide the sort of education the parents want their kids to have. And parents get to choose. And niches get to flourish (albeit probably only in urban areas where density of population makes choice realistic).
I don't feel strongly about the 'no top-ups' aspect. It wouldn't necessarily have been the way I'd have done it. But I don't feel particularly strongly against it. My motivation is that schools be responsive to what parents want.
The downside of course is that there is a minority of parents who potentially want a very weird education for their children (I'm thinking in particular of the hardcore religious - obviously the Islamic schools tend to get the attention, but I passed this place a few months back and thought it looked a bit, well, odd: http://solacademy.org.uk/). There's not very many of these, but they are there, and do you want the state to be funding that sort of education? That said, maybe the state already does fund that sort of thing?
Still, I think your idea (which is also my idea) is worth pursuing.
Hmm, the state already funds C of E/Episcopalian and RC schools, and you can't argue that it's because the C of E is Established as that doesn't account for the other three nations, or RC schools in England. So either extend that to every other sect, or ban religious schools of any kind from state funding. Anything else is prima facie unjust.
There are a few non-Christian state-funded schools. To quote Wikipedia:
"In 2011, about one third of the 20,000 state funded schools in England were faith schools,[9] approximately 7,000 in total, of which 68% were Church of England schools and 30% were Roman Catholic. There were 42 Jewish, 12 Muslim, 3 Sikh and 1 Hindu faith schools.[1]"
I'm not particularly comfortable with the state funding religious schools of any stripe. Though I appreciate this would be a logical outcome of the system which I'm proposing! I presume there are so many C of E schools because many of them predate state education? I don't really understand why there are others. Catholic schools appear to punch well above their weight in the actual population. There are at least two Catholic primary schools within a mile of my house.
I was assured on PB that the Tories had 'momentum' and that the Net Zero stuff was a 'game-changer' masterstroke – mostly from Labour bedwetters rather than the PB Tories (who, with the exception of the breathless G-Wales, were far more circumspect TBF)
A geoengineering proposal to address global warming. Looks pretty good to me.
https://nephewjonathan.substack.com/p/diy-geoengineering-the-whitepaper ...Global warming, though not ocean acidification, is quickly and cheaply reversed by ejecting calcite nanoparticles (with an average radius in the ~90nm range) into the stratosphere, using a propeller-based system to prevent particle clumping. The particles should be carried up by hydrogen balloons, and very preferably released over the tropics. The total amount needed will be on the order of several hundred kilotons yearly, and the total cost should be somewhere between $1B and $5B yearly.
Let's go through this piece by piece...
Even if the cost is out by an order of magnitude, it could easily be funded by (for instance) the EU on its own.
If it goes wrong, how easily can it be reversed? And who is to judge whether or not it works?
It's OK, you do it over the tropics so if anything goes wrong it's not us who will be affected. Genius!
Can you suggest what there is to "go wrong" ?
Point is that if it works, it works. If it doesn't, it's just a lot of non toxic dust in the atmosphere for a fairly short time. Which happens every time a wind blows across the Sahara.
The reason did doing it in the tropics is that that's where the effect (as we've seen with what happened with the marine diesel sulphur ban) is most pronounced.
What can possibly go wrong with reducing the amount of sunlight reaching areas of the world where people rely on it to grow food and are already often food-insecure... Hmm let me think.
We've already done much the same experiment (unwittingly) while freight shipping was pumping sulphur dioxide aerosol into the atmosphere. Setting aside the ocean acidification resulting (which isn't a thing with this idea) there weren't such effects.
And in any event, the effects of excessive temperatures on crop growth will be far greater than anything resulting from a small increase in solar energy being reflected back into space.
If there are possible objections to the experiment, I think this one is pretty feeble.
Seems a bit risky to me. Why not just decarbonise our economy instead of creating additional potential risks for the poorest people in the world, who have played almost no role in creating this problem.
You're comparing a controlled, measured process with a massive volcanic eruption ?
Sounds a bit bollocks to me.
And not 'instead'; as well as. We need both, since decarbonisation will take too long to prevent serious consequences for precisely those 'poorest people in the world'.
Human meddling has screwed up the planet.
What do we need? More human meddling!
Fecking genius.
Of course, you omit yourself from this, your being a perfect citizen and all, just like you omit yourself from your desire to see fewer people on the planet.
Funny old world.
I didn't have the option not to be born. However, I have taken the option not to have children, so I am doing my bit towards my goal.
Aren't you just perfect? Remember that when the children you didn't have are paying your pension.
Is there not a gender issue here? Anecdotally, I have read several times that the problem is largely young, female doctors who choose to go part time in their child bearing years and that the relative over performance of girls academically meant that they were increasing their proportion of the cohort for what remains a very competitive course.
The problem for the government is that it costs us so much to subsidise the training of a doctor that it becomes an issue if so many of them either do not practise in the NHS at all or only do so on a part time basis.
I have a very senior doctor friend who has said for years,in the safety of social situations with only a couple of good friends, that there is a big problem with the loss of female doctors from the system when they have children.
It’s clearly something that would be career suicide if he mentioned it in his professional world, and clearly we can’t have a situation where we don’t train women as doctors because you train them then lose a lot for a chunk of their career, but I wonder if it is something that can never be solved because the optics of bringing it up as an issue would be beyond problematic.
The solution is to “charge” the doctors the cost of their training but write it off over - say - 10 years of full time employment. (Make it tax free).
If someone works part time then the write off is pro rata
If someone retires or leaves the NHS then the charge becomes repayable and interest bearing
A geoengineering proposal to address global warming. Looks pretty good to me.
https://nephewjonathan.substack.com/p/diy-geoengineering-the-whitepaper ...Global warming, though not ocean acidification, is quickly and cheaply reversed by ejecting calcite nanoparticles (with an average radius in the ~90nm range) into the stratosphere, using a propeller-based system to prevent particle clumping. The particles should be carried up by hydrogen balloons, and very preferably released over the tropics. The total amount needed will be on the order of several hundred kilotons yearly, and the total cost should be somewhere between $1B and $5B yearly.
Let's go through this piece by piece...
Even if the cost is out by an order of magnitude, it could easily be funded by (for instance) the EU on its own.
If it goes wrong, how easily can it be reversed? And who is to judge whether or not it works?
It's OK, you do it over the tropics so if anything goes wrong it's not us who will be affected. Genius!
Can you suggest what there is to "go wrong" ?
Point is that if it works, it works. If it doesn't, it's just a lot of non toxic dust in the atmosphere for a fairly short time. Which happens every time a wind blows across the Sahara.
The reason did doing it in the tropics is that that's where the effect (as we've seen with what happened with the marine diesel sulphur ban) is most pronounced.
What can possibly go wrong with reducing the amount of sunlight reaching areas of the world where people rely on it to grow food and are already often food-insecure... Hmm let me think.
We've already done much the same experiment (unwittingly) while freight shipping was pumping sulphur dioxide aerosol into the atmosphere. Setting aside the ocean acidification resulting (which isn't a thing with this idea) there weren't such effects.
And in any event, the effects of excessive temperatures on crop growth will be far greater than anything resulting from a small increase in solar energy being reflected back into space.
If there are possible objections to the experiment, I think this one is pretty feeble.
Seems a bit risky to me. Why not just decarbonise our economy instead of creating additional potential risks for the poorest people in the world, who have played almost no role in creating this problem.
You're comparing a controlled, measured process with a massive volcanic eruption ?
Sounds a bit bollocks to me.
And not 'instead'; as well as. We need both, since decarbonisation will take too long to prevent serious consequences for precisely those 'poorest people in the world'.
Human meddling has screwed up the planet.
What do we need? More human meddling!
Fecking genius.
Of course, you omit yourself from this, your being a perfect citizen and all, just like you omit yourself from your desire to see fewer people on the planet.
Funny old world.
I didn't have the option not to be born. However, I have taken the option not to have children, so I am doing my bit towards my goal.
Aren't you just perfect? Remember that when the children you didn't have are paying your pension.
I know it's increasingly unfashionable, but I quite like humans. Some of my best friends are humans.
Is there not a gender issue here? Anecdotally, I have read several times that the problem is largely young, female doctors who choose to go part time in their child bearing years and that the relative over performance of girls academically meant that they were increasing their proportion of the cohort for what remains a very competitive course.
The problem for the government is that it costs us so much to subsidise the training of a doctor that it becomes an issue if so many of them either do not practise in the NHS at all or only do so on a part time basis.
I have a very senior doctor friend who has said for years,in the safety of social situations with only a couple of good friends, that there is a big problem with the loss of female doctors from the system when they have children.
It’s clearly something that would be career suicide if he mentioned it in his professional world, and clearly we can’t have a situation where we don’t train women as doctors because you train them then lose a lot for a chunk of their career, but I wonder if it is something that can never be solved because the optics of bringing it up as an issue would be beyond problematic.
The solution is to “charge” the doctors the cost of their training but write it off over - say - 10 years of full time employment. (Make it tax free).
If someone works part time then the write off is pro rata
If someone retires or leaves the NHS then the charge becomes repayable and interest bearing
The issue though then becomes that it is unfair to penalise female doctors by training cost rebates for having children as they have every right to have children.
My point is more about finding a way to factor in the lost years of trained doctors - nobody would say we need to enforce a higher ratio of male to female trainees but clearly there should be the freedom for doctors etc to discuss the problem and solutions without the risk of being labelled as sexist for pointing out a weakness in the system.
A geoengineering proposal to address global warming. Looks pretty good to me.
https://nephewjonathan.substack.com/p/diy-geoengineering-the-whitepaper ...Global warming, though not ocean acidification, is quickly and cheaply reversed by ejecting calcite nanoparticles (with an average radius in the ~90nm range) into the stratosphere, using a propeller-based system to prevent particle clumping. The particles should be carried up by hydrogen balloons, and very preferably released over the tropics. The total amount needed will be on the order of several hundred kilotons yearly, and the total cost should be somewhere between $1B and $5B yearly.
Let's go through this piece by piece...
Even if the cost is out by an order of magnitude, it could easily be funded by (for instance) the EU on its own.
If it goes wrong, how easily can it be reversed? And who is to judge whether or not it works?
It's OK, you do it over the tropics so if anything goes wrong it's not us who will be affected. Genius!
Can you suggest what there is to "go wrong" ?
Point is that if it works, it works. If it doesn't, it's just a lot of non toxic dust in the atmosphere for a fairly short time. Which happens every time a wind blows across the Sahara.
The reason did doing it in the tropics is that that's where the effect (as we've seen with what happened with the marine diesel sulphur ban) is most pronounced.
What can possibly go wrong with reducing the amount of sunlight reaching areas of the world where people rely on it to grow food and are already often food-insecure... Hmm let me think.
We've already done much the same experiment (unwittingly) while freight shipping was pumping sulphur dioxide aerosol into the atmosphere. Setting aside the ocean acidification resulting (which isn't a thing with this idea) there weren't such effects.
And in any event, the effects of excessive temperatures on crop growth will be far greater than anything resulting from a small increase in solar energy being reflected back into space.
If there are possible objections to the experiment, I think this one is pretty feeble.
Seems a bit risky to me. Why not just decarbonise our economy instead of creating additional potential risks for the poorest people in the world, who have played almost no role in creating this problem.
You're comparing a controlled, measured process with a massive volcanic eruption ?
Sounds a bit bollocks to me.
And not 'instead'; as well as. We need both, since decarbonisation will take too long to prevent serious consequences for precisely those 'poorest people in the world'.
Human meddling has screwed up the planet.
What do we need? More human meddling!
Fecking genius.
Of course, you omit yourself from this, your being a perfect citizen and all, just like you omit yourself from your desire to see fewer people on the planet.
Funny old world.
I didn't have the option not to be born. However, I have taken the option not to have children, so I am doing my bit towards my goal.
Aren't you just perfect? Remember that when the children you didn't have are paying your pension.
Aren't we importing fully-fledged adults for that purpose?
"The ex-partner of a man who suffocated their three-month-old daughter said she feels "let down" and scared to learn of his imminent release.
Simon Smith killed baby Lauren in 1994 in Staffordshire. An investigation led to the grim discovery he had also murdered his two other children.
He was convicted of all three murders and jailed for life in 1996.
Lauren's mother Rachel Playfair said the public would be horrified to know a triple murderer was being released.
The Parole Board confirmed it had directed the release of Smith on licence following a hearing."
Unless we lock 'em up and throw away the key, we shall continue to hear these stories whenever a murderer is released or paroled. Some will say life should mean life, or even death.
For these type of cases it would now be a whole life term if sentenced in the present day.
Since the Police, Crime, Sentencing and Courts Act was passed by this Conservative government last year, premeditated murder of a child means judges must give an automatic whole life term order
The issue people should consider more this is the cost of 'throwing away the key'. If you aren't going to execute the prisoner, you have to accept that they have some rights, IE the right not to be murdered or assaulted by another inmate. They need to be fed etc. The cost is I believe about £47,000 per prisoner per year in the UK, but higher in very high security prisons. Even if you got rid of human rights and have poor conditions with jails like in the USA, the cost does not reduce that much (it is something like $40,000 per prisoner per year at federal level).
Maybe we should send them all to private school instead?
On which point, it seems Starmer may agree with me and you:
"Labour drops plan to strip public schools of charitable status"
Let's all agree that Labour has adopted a sensible compromise that raises money to fund education for the majority without being unnecessarily punitive on this persecuted minority.
Good morning
Our son works in this sector and it is clear that the likes of Eton and other elite schools will see little effect as the wealthy will pay it, but there are many more less elite schools who are at risk of losing so many students they may well close with the loss of many jobs, a problem for local state schools having to admit more students, and the loss to the community of a facility that provides bursaries to the poorest and charitable work to and in the community
I do not want to argue over this, but I am seeing it first hand and it is going to affect those fairly normal families who sacrifice considerably to provide their children with the education they want them to have
Furthermore, it will not raise anything like the expected income and is likely to face legal challenges from the sector
So no, I do not accept labour have adopted a sensible compromise as the 20% VAT charge and possibly the cancellation of gift aid will have a detrimental effect on the sector as I have outlined and an adverse effect for their communities and add to the numbers moving to state schools
The IFS have run the numbers and say it will raise a material amount of money, which will help to improve things for the 93% of children who attend state schools. If we're going to trade personal anecdotes, my three children are all at state schools - our local primary, our local secondary and a Sixth form college - and they are crying out for more money, while the party you support so loyally is cutting real terms funding per pupil - so thanks for harming their life chances every day with your support for the Tories.
You need to see what is happening to our grandchildren education here in Wales which is the responsibility of Welsh Labour government, and I simply do not accept for the reasons I have stated the net income to Labour will be anywhere near the figures quoted and may be negative
As an example of the support the school provides to the community they allow him all the time he needs to fulfil his duties as RNLI crew including attending shouts, extensive time in training and indeed for the three days he has been away in Poole this week at RNLI training headquarters
But the schools can absorb the VAT charge by lowering their fees. Successive Conservative governments have demanded that state schools spend less per pupil, so there is surely scope for private schools to do the same.
Private schools could lower spending per pupil to state school levels, keep fees the same, and double the number of pupils on free scholarships. What's not to love about this? Fee paying parents are only sending their kids private for the good of society as a whole, so they will be happy to contribute. Private schools' real purpose as charities is educating the great unwashed, not giving the already privileged an additional leg up, so they will love this change. And resentful chippy fellows like me will be satisfied that we have a level playing field at last. There, problem solved. You're welcome.
Yep, that works. Or there's my idea (a touch more radical but worth a look, I think) whereby ALL schools become private, and all parents get a 'voucher' from the government of the same value per child to be spent at the school of their choice, fees at all schools capped at an amount equal to the voucher, no top ups. Then hands off and let the magic happen. A first class 'free at the point of delivery' private school for every child in every nook and cranny of the land. Aspiration for all!
I don't want to sound like I'm surprised to ever agree with you, but I'm surprised to find I agree with you. That's exactly what I'd do. Not dissimilar to nurseries.
You'd need to build an element of redundancy into the system - otherwise the choice aspect would be illusory: you'd just go where there was space.
But - like nurseries - you motivate schools to provide the sort of education the parents want their kids to have. And parents get to choose. And niches get to flourish (albeit probably only in urban areas where density of population makes choice realistic).
I don't feel strongly about the 'no top-ups' aspect. It wouldn't necessarily have been the way I'd have done it. But I don't feel particularly strongly against it. My motivation is that schools be responsive to what parents want.
The downside of course is that there is a minority of parents who potentially want a very weird education for their children (I'm thinking in particular of the hardcore religious - obviously the Islamic schools tend to get the attention, but I passed this place a few months back and thought it looked a bit, well, odd: http://solacademy.org.uk/). There's not very many of these, but they are there, and do you want the state to be funding that sort of education? That said, maybe the state already does fund that sort of thing?
Still, I think your idea (which is also my idea) is worth pursuing.
Hmm, the state already funds C of E/Episcopalian and RC schools, and you can't argue that it's because the C of E is Established as that doesn't account for the other three nations, or RC schools in England. So either extend that to every other sect, or ban religious schools of any kind from state funding. Anything else is prima facie unjust.
There are a few non-Christian state-funded schools. To quote Wikipedia:
"In 2011, about one third of the 20,000 state funded schools in England were faith schools,[9] approximately 7,000 in total, of which 68% were Church of England schools and 30% were Roman Catholic. There were 42 Jewish, 12 Muslim, 3 Sikh and 1 Hindu faith schools.[1]"
I'm not particularly comfortable with the state funding religious schools of any stripe. Though I appreciate this would be a logical outcome of the system which I'm proposing! I presume there are so many C of E schools because many of them predate state education? I don't really understand why there are others. Catholic schools appear to punch well above their weight in the actual population. There are at least two Catholic primary schools within a mile of my house.
Schools were historically Christian and it was the local parish vicar who got the gig by default, basically.
But school history is complex - essentially a mix of voluntary/charsitable and parish operations many brought under the umbrella of government funding and supervision over time both national and local. Quite a few schools began as parish schools linked to the parish church, anyway.
In Scotland it was the local C of S minister who was usually on the school committee and was involved. But in latter years those in Episcopalian or RC-dense areas protested at paying rates for Presbyterian schools, hence the introduction of Episcopalian and RC schools.
Is there not a gender issue here? Anecdotally, I have read several times that the problem is largely young, female doctors who choose to go part time in their child bearing years and that the relative over performance of girls academically meant that they were increasing their proportion of the cohort for what remains a very competitive course.
The problem for the government is that it costs us so much to subsidise the training of a doctor that it becomes an issue if so many of them either do not practise in the NHS at all or only do so on a part time basis.
I have a very senior doctor friend who has said for years,in the safety of social situations with only a couple of good friends, that there is a big problem with the loss of female doctors from the system when they have children.
It’s clearly something that would be career suicide if he mentioned it in his professional world, and clearly we can’t have a situation where we don’t train women as doctors because you train them then lose a lot for a chunk of their career, but I wonder if it is something that can never be solved because the optics of bringing it up as an issue would be beyond problematic.
The solution is to “charge” the doctors the cost of their training but write it off over - say - 10 years of full time employment. (Make it tax free).
If someone works part time then the write off is pro rata
If someone retires or leaves the NHS then the charge becomes repayable and interest bearing
Might as well give them a free one-way ticket to Australia (or other country of their choice) when they graduate...
A geoengineering proposal to address global warming. Looks pretty good to me.
https://nephewjonathan.substack.com/p/diy-geoengineering-the-whitepaper ...Global warming, though not ocean acidification, is quickly and cheaply reversed by ejecting calcite nanoparticles (with an average radius in the ~90nm range) into the stratosphere, using a propeller-based system to prevent particle clumping. The particles should be carried up by hydrogen balloons, and very preferably released over the tropics. The total amount needed will be on the order of several hundred kilotons yearly, and the total cost should be somewhere between $1B and $5B yearly.
Let's go through this piece by piece...
Even if the cost is out by an order of magnitude, it could easily be funded by (for instance) the EU on its own.
If it goes wrong, how easily can it be reversed? And who is to judge whether or not it works?
It's OK, you do it over the tropics so if anything goes wrong it's not us who will be affected. Genius!
Can you suggest what there is to "go wrong" ?
Point is that if it works, it works. If it doesn't, it's just a lot of non toxic dust in the atmosphere for a fairly short time. Which happens every time a wind blows across the Sahara.
The reason did doing it in the tropics is that that's where the effect (as we've seen with what happened with the marine diesel sulphur ban) is most pronounced.
What can possibly go wrong with reducing the amount of sunlight reaching areas of the world where people rely on it to grow food and are already often food-insecure... Hmm let me think.
We've already done much the same experiment (unwittingly) while freight shipping was pumping sulphur dioxide aerosol into the atmosphere. Setting aside the ocean acidification resulting (which isn't a thing with this idea) there weren't such effects.
And in any event, the effects of excessive temperatures on crop growth will be far greater than anything resulting from a small increase in solar energy being reflected back into space.
If there are possible objections to the experiment, I think this one is pretty feeble.
Seems a bit risky to me. Why not just decarbonise our economy instead of creating additional potential risks for the poorest people in the world, who have played almost no role in creating this problem.
You're comparing a controlled, measured process with a massive volcanic eruption ?
Sounds a bit bollocks to me.
And not 'instead'; as well as. We need both, since decarbonisation will take too long to prevent serious consequences for precisely those 'poorest people in the world'.
Human meddling has screwed up the planet.
What do we need? More human meddling!
Fecking genius.
Of course, you omit yourself from this, your being a perfect citizen and all, just like you omit yourself from your desire to see fewer people on the planet.
Funny old world.
I didn't have the option not to be born. However, I have taken the option not to have children, so I am doing my bit towards my goal.
Aren't you just perfect? Remember that when the children you didn't have are paying your pension.
Thee is also the fact that in our world of extreme specialisation, we need to maintain a critical number of people of various talents in order to sustain our modern civilisation. We need to have children, but not too many.
Police officers are accused of mishandling body-worn video in more than 150 incidents, including switching off cameras and sharing footage on WhatsApp, a BBC investigation has found.
Body-worn video is widely used by police in England and Wales but cases released under freedom of information detail a catalogue of misuse.
While the footage is intended to benefit the public and the police, officers are accused of switching off cameras during incidents and failing to disclose inconvenient evidence they record.
In some incidents where cameras were switched off officers faced no sanctions, with one force saying an officer may have been “confused”, the BBC reported.
Misuse of footage appears to be widespread. The BBC uncovered cases in seven forces where officers shared footage with colleagues or friends, either in person or using social media. In one instance, images of a naked person were shared between officers on email, according to the BBC.
In some instances video was lost, deleted or not marked as evidence.
The National Police Chiefs’ Council’s lead for body-worn video, Jim Colwell, an acting chief constable, said the NPCC would be updating its guidance for body-worn video next month and it would be “more strongly worded to recommend that forces need to take action towards officers who are not using BWV correctly”.
He said the technology was “an important policing tool which helps to provide greater transparency and scrutiny of police powers”.
How have we got ourselves into a situation where individual officers are responsible for handling the footage from their own cameras?
It should be being being sent automatically to a central site, with access strictly controlled. The access logs should be available for review, the integrity of the system should be regularly tested, and any attempt to tamper or interfere with the data should be treated as a crime.
This is really, really basic stuff.
Next you’ll be suggesting that police officers shouldn’t re-write their notebooks after the fact.
A geoengineering proposal to address global warming. Looks pretty good to me.
https://nephewjonathan.substack.com/p/diy-geoengineering-the-whitepaper ...Global warming, though not ocean acidification, is quickly and cheaply reversed by ejecting calcite nanoparticles (with an average radius in the ~90nm range) into the stratosphere, using a propeller-based system to prevent particle clumping. The particles should be carried up by hydrogen balloons, and very preferably released over the tropics. The total amount needed will be on the order of several hundred kilotons yearly, and the total cost should be somewhere between $1B and $5B yearly.
Let's go through this piece by piece...
Even if the cost is out by an order of magnitude, it could easily be funded by (for instance) the EU on its own.
If it goes wrong, how easily can it be reversed? And who is to judge whether or not it works?
It's OK, you do it over the tropics so if anything goes wrong it's not us who will be affected. Genius!
Can you suggest what there is to "go wrong" ?
Point is that if it works, it works. If it doesn't, it's just a lot of non toxic dust in the atmosphere for a fairly short time. Which happens every time a wind blows across the Sahara.
The reason did doing it in the tropics is that that's where the effect (as we've seen with what happened with the marine diesel sulphur ban) is most pronounced.
What can possibly go wrong with reducing the amount of sunlight reaching areas of the world where people rely on it to grow food and are already often food-insecure... Hmm let me think.
We've already done much the same experiment (unwittingly) while freight shipping was pumping sulphur dioxide aerosol into the atmosphere. Setting aside the ocean acidification resulting (which isn't a thing with this idea) there weren't such effects.
And in any event, the effects of excessive temperatures on crop growth will be far greater than anything resulting from a small increase in solar energy being reflected back into space.
If there are possible objections to the experiment, I think this one is pretty feeble.
Seems a bit risky to me. Why not just decarbonise our economy instead of creating additional potential risks for the poorest people in the world, who have played almost no role in creating this problem.
You're comparing a controlled, measured process with a massive volcanic eruption ?
Sounds a bit bollocks to me.
And not 'instead'; as well as. We need both, since decarbonisation will take too long to prevent serious consequences for precisely those 'poorest people in the world'.
Human meddling has screwed up the planet.
What do we need? More human meddling!
Fecking genius.
Of course, you omit yourself from this, your being a perfect citizen and all, just like you omit yourself from your desire to see fewer people on the planet.
Funny old world.
I didn't have the option not to be born. However, I have taken the option not to have children, so I am doing my bit towards my goal.
Aren't you just perfect? Remember that when the children you didn't have are paying your pension.
I know it's increasingly unfashionable, but I quite like humans. Some of my best friends are humans.
Well if the alternative is XL Bully dogs, then I think you have a point!
Comments
Mr. L, you're right, but the current 'women are wonderful' Zeitgeist means this won't be mentioned by politicians who would be crucified by a delinquent media for 'sexism'.
I have no problem with you sending your offspring to a Headmasters Conference School or one of those Mickey Mouse local private schools, normally prefixed with "St." It's your money, spend as you see fit. But I don't want my taxes supplementing other people's social climbing plans, when that money could be used to fill my potholes or replace the WRAAC in my local hospital or fund teaching assistants for my local state primary school.
They've presented literally zero evidence against the president - see my post at the top of the thread, as an example.
This is just shit stirring - and most if what they've talked about is indeed Hunter Biden, who, as you perspicaciously note, is a private citizen.
And note some of the republicans were also calling fur the firing of the Ukrainian prosecutor at the time. Because he was corrupt.
There's a significant chance that some increased funding goes to the 'excellent' school; perhaps because results matter, or the parents, PTA and staff are much more inclined to fight for the funding.
I don't expect Labour to improve education much where it matters: at the bottom end of attainment, because the problems are really difficult and much depends on parenting. I don't expect the Conservatives or Lib Dems to do much there, either.
Sounds a bit bollocks to me.
And not 'instead'; as well as.
We need both, since decarbonisation will take too long to prevent serious consequences for precisely those 'poorest people in the world'.
What do we need? More human meddling!
Fecking genius.
The reality is that while certain medical specialisms require intense brainpower (eg cardiac electrophysiology. radiology, haematology, oncological surgery) you do not need to be a genius to be a GP, or trained over the many years that it currently takes. A large amount of what they do, whilst often important, is as a gatekeeper to passing on to someone with a specialism. It is also questionable as to whether GPs as we know them will even be needed in the future. There will be a point where AI will be able to triage symptoms more accurately than a bored GP who hasnt bothered to keep up with their CPD.
https://x.com/sturdyAlex/status/1707304103091511563?s=20
I have no great expectations for substantial educational improvement under any future Labour Government (I doubt a non-Conservative government will happen in my lifetime anyway). But I am not anticipating the quality of education for the bottom 90% getting any better under continued Conservative administrations.
Re Braverman, Sunak and the ECHR.
The Human Rights Act 1988 incorporates the ECHR into British law and British judges rule on it.
Those who think that that will be fine if the U.K. withdraws from the Convention are being, in Lenin's wonderful phrase, "useful idiots". And, yes, I include Sumption in this. He may be super-intelligent but he is also being naive and lacking in the cunning those attacking the ECHR are displaying. Those Tories agitating for withdrawal are not concerned about the foreign court aspect. They don't like the rights the ECHR contains and will - if withdrawal happens - be seeking to remove or limit some of those rights and not just from foreigners either.
That is what Raab's ill-fated Bill of Rights Bill was trying to do. That is what the attempts to water down judicial review are trying to do.
This is like Brexit all over again - "we just want a bit more control while having a close relationship" turned into the ERG's "we don't want to have anything to do with those nasty Europeans at all". "We want you - Parliament - to have more control" turned into "we the executive want to take all the powers to ourselves and ignore everyone else". The latter was what they wanted all along .
Getting rid or watering down many of the Convention rights for all of us is what Braverman and others want and those who think otherwise are deluded.
Given the low costs involved, it ought to be fairly simple to finance compensation alongside the project.
I'd far rather finance something like this than (eg) the useless carbon capture schemes our government is planning to spend tens of billions on.
Ditto the useless 'carbon offsets'.
Fecking genius.
Funny old world.
We just stopped doing it a couple of years ago with the international ban on high sulphur marine fuels.
https://www.landwatch.com/florida-land-for-sale/west-palm-beach
Also, they are then able to retire early as they will have built up a very nice pension pot.
Case in point - my brother in law - retired at 58. Prior to that he was working 3 days.
Pay them less and they'll have to put a shift in, and keep at it into their mid-60s.
https://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/independent-schools-council-north-west-wales-south-west-london-b2096347.html
The average for pupils at 6-7% but it varies across the age range:
At the primary stage, 5 percent of pupils attend private schools.
At the secondary stage, 8 percent of pupils attend private schools.
Of those in sixth forms, 17 percent of pupils attend private schools.
Roughly 9% of the British population have been to a private school at some time in their lives. And, they account for about 9% of all schools in England.
https://www.pepf.co.uk/fact-finder/facts-and-figures/
What's strange is that Labour's policy will make private schools even more elitist, and do the same for state schools too as the best ones crowd out everyone else through higher house prices in their vicinity, whilst also reducing the size of the education sector and resources available to it overall, but that's the politics of envy, I guess.
To defend against governments-gone-rogue you need defence in depth: You usually have a parliament and an upper house, and you have a role for the courts in restraining the government, and you have specific limitations in the constitution to what the government can do, and (ideally) you have international agreements that are binding on the government. All of these can be unwound over time by a determined government that keeps winning elections, because somebody has to appoint the judges, and somebody has to choose the people in the second chamber, and a government can vote to leave the jurisdiction of an international court, and international courts don't have any armies. This is as it should be, because otherwise if *they* went bad the voters couldn't fix it. But unwinding them takes time, and when you're doing it, people can at least see that you're doing it and try to change the government to stop it.
Russia stopped abiding by the ECHR rulings a bit at a time; As far as I can tell they do seem to have been helpful to dissidents and other people who were screwed by the Russian system, and loads of cases got brought. Then in 2015 they changed Russian law to make them non-binding, and basically started ignoring them. Even late into Russia's decline into personalist authoritarianism the court does seem to have been useful to dissidents, because they kept bringing cases.
The key to this whole thing working and preventing democracies from sliding into non-democracies one step at a time is, if you see your government trying to take apart the restrictions on its power, YOU HAVE TO TRY TO STOP IT.
And on that note, I ought to go and do some work so I can keep the public sector in their gold plated fat cat pensions that they seem to believe they are so entitled to!
think tank audience in Washington DC, whilst simultaneously pitching for the role of Prime Minister?
Each of those will either take maternity leave only then return, leave whilst they bring up their children to an age they feel they can return, return part time whilst bringing up children (I know this sounds sexist suggesting it’s the females who will step back to raise the children but it’s still the norm and I don’t agree with it being so), return part time after children or full time after children or leave to bring up children then never return.
So obviously out of each cohort you are losing for various periods of time people who have been trained for many years. Now of course you will also lose make doctors for various reasons and female doctors for reasons other than having children but it must make a dent in the numbers trained versus the numbers working.
From pure anecdata I know six female doctors out of which one has decided never to have children, one who quit as an A&E doc and says she won’t go back ever to medicine now she has started her family, two who took out 12 and 16 years and now returned, one in a hospital and one as a GP and two who aren’t in relationships where they so far are not considering starting families yet. That is a lot of trained doctors lost for good chunks of time.
I have no idea what the solution is as biology is biology but I do wonder if the issue is too toxic to raise and so impossible to make a plan to assist and mitigate.
* there are rather a lot of dead Irish that speak against that
* there are rather a lot of dead Indians that speak against that
* there are rather a lot of dead Chinese opium addicts that speak against that
* there are rather a lot of [that's enough - Ed]
The community is expanding with new build housing. It is getting harder and harder to see a Doctor, especially for non urgent matters. And to see the Doctor of your preference - for consistency - just doesn’t happen.
The whole system has been broken, for different reasons, by different interest groups, but the fundamental problem is that the population has risen whilst provision hasn’t.
Body-worn video is widely used by police in England and Wales but cases released under freedom of information detail a catalogue of misuse.
While the footage is intended to benefit the public and the police, officers are accused of switching off cameras during incidents and failing to disclose inconvenient evidence they record.
In some incidents where cameras were switched off officers faced no sanctions, with one force saying an officer may have been “confused”, the BBC reported.
Misuse of footage appears to be widespread. The BBC uncovered cases in seven forces where officers shared footage with colleagues or friends, either in person or using social media. In one instance, images of a naked person were shared between officers on email, according to the BBC.
In some instances video was lost, deleted or not marked as evidence.
The National Police Chiefs’ Council’s lead for body-worn video, Jim Colwell, an acting chief constable, said the NPCC would be updating its guidance for body-worn video next month and it would be “more strongly worded to recommend that forces need to take action towards officers who are not using BWV correctly”.
He said the technology was “an important policing tool which helps to provide greater transparency and scrutiny of police powers”.
https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2023/sep/28/police-accused-widely-misusing-body-worn-video-england-wales
also
WE MUST STOP DOCTORS EARNING SO MUCH SO THEY DON'T RETIRE WHEN THEY GET OLD
gtf
Of course, on the other hand, LTNs and speed restrictions are (a) making cats less car aware due to lower exposure, increasing their deaths on other roads due to worse training and by increasing journey times increase the time at risk of collision for cats.
There, have I covered every eventuality?
Labour 45
Tories 24
LibDems 11
Reform 8
Greens 7
SNP 3
https://twitter.com/SpaJw/status/1707315836195667987
They are basically right wing totalitarians and it is dangerous to ignore that.
I think that culture and people matter more than formal systems. The Soviet Union had an impressive set of rights laid down in its constitution, which were ignored by everybody in charge. The Nazis never formally abolished the Weimar constitution, and they had plenty of able jurists in their ranks - who simply saw their role as justifying everything that the government did.
It was after all, a very famous jurist, Ulpian, who formulated the doctrine "That which is pleasing to the Prince has the force of law."
I think our legal culture is valuable - and the experience of having trained at the English or Scottish Bar does have some impact on countries where human rights are not held in high regard. There are two problems at the moment:
1. Our government (and to be fair, the Brown/Blair government) tends to treat the will of the government as being one and the same as the law of the land. It is not, and nor should it ever be. The Courts are there to enforce the will of Parliament, not the will of the Government - a distinction that tends to get lost.
2. Lawfare. A tendency for pressure groups to lawyer up, the moment that a political decision goes against them. It really does jam up the process of government, and cause needless expense. It's a reason why things don't get done, that need to be done.
The great scandal in schooling is functional illiteracy and innumeracy: both of which have hovered in the 15-20% range for decades, over many governments. To his credit, Blair mentioned this in 1997, and Estelle Morris resigned over failure to meet targets. But otherwise it is ignored, and politicians of all stripes look at the number of A's achieved.
Meanwhile, countless thousands of kids leave school every year without even the basic skills they require.
*That* is what politicians with a backbone need to be screaming about, and schools policies should be designed around fixing this massive issue. But it won't happen, because it's a massive societal problem, and it's easier just to throw meaningless measures at your core base and pretend that will fix everything.
It won't.
Oh dear. How sad. Never mind.
YouGov sees Labour +2% and Con - 3%.
GOP wants records of Joe Biden, Biden family members, Obama/Biden admin officials: https://politico.com/f/?id=0000018a-d9d0-d56c-abfa-fdfd35f20000
https://twitter.com/jordainc/status/1707236303555698718
Just curious, what is the constitutional or legal basis for this ?
I suspect there will be a number of Arkell v Pressdram responses to the GOP 'wants'.
Note that the judgement does not itself value Mar-a-Lago at £18m. It notes that, "From 2011-2021, the Palm Beach County Assessor appraised the market value of Mar-a-Lago at between $18 million and $27.6 million." It is not saying that number is perfectly accurate, but it provides a plausible reference.
You argued that, "They suggest that the 17-acre Mar-a-Lago property is worth $18m, when half an acre with a house on it next door sells for double that amount." So, you're comparing a 2011 assessment to a 2023 value, which is obviously problematic.
The judgement also notes the significant limits on how Mar-a-Lago can be used, which impact on its value: "In 1995, Donald Trump signed a Deed of Conservation and Preservation Easement in which he gave up his right to use Mar-a-Lago for any purpose other than as a social club [...] The 2002 Deed also specifically "limits changes to the Property including, without limitation, the division or subdivision of the Property for any purpose, including use as single family homes, the interior renovation of the mansion, which may be necessary and desirable for the sale of the Property as a single family residential estate, the construction of new buildings and the obstruction of open vistas." Id. In exchange for granting the easement, Mar-a-Lago was taxed at a significantly lower rate (the club rate) than it otherwise would have been (the private home rate)."
The half an acre you offer as a comparison, does that have any limitations on its use? Limitations on use affect value.
The defendants argue that they can just ignore this: "Defendants further imply that they may ignore the plain language of the 2002 Deed restrictions because they would likely be able to use the Florida judicial system to get out of their contractual requirements; they further assert that because they may successfully breach their contract in the future, they were not required to consider the restrictions of the 2002 Deed when valuing the property [...] This argument is wholly without merit."
The judgement notes, "Donald Trump's SFC for 2011-2021 value Mar-a-Lago at between $426,529,614 million and $612,110,496, an overvaluation of at least 2,300% , compared to the assessor's appraisal."
Interesting stuff. Never heard of Abd Al-Rahman III [sp]. Also interesting to hear of Al-Mansur[sp] and his successful 'soft' coup only for it to fall to bits shortly thereafter.
@KevinASchofield
Asked about the behaviour of Nadine Dorries this morning, Rishi Sunak said: "I'm not focused on the past, I'm focused on the future."
Asked whether HS2 will go to Manchester, he said: "I'm not speculating on future things."
🤷♂️
On
@TimesRadio
, the goddess that is Dame Joan Bakewell (90) just called Lawrence Fox "a dick".
The big problem is that it would do nothing to stop ocean acidification, so only solves part of the problem.
It's the sort of thing we might want to test on a limited basis, but keep full-scale deployment in reserve to be used only in an emergency situation.
(b) You say the land is worth $250m. Trump valued it at $612m.
This was a known secret in NY circles - there was a reason why only Deutsche Bank would lend to him
(And Catherine Belton’s book makes some interesting contentions although it’s really an afterword than focused on Trump. It’s clear he’d associated with a lot of interesting people for a long time
You'd need to build an element of redundancy into the system - otherwise the choice aspect would be illusory: you'd just go where there was space.
But - like nurseries - you motivate schools to provide the sort of education the parents want their kids to have. And parents get to choose. And niches get to flourish (albeit probably only in urban areas where density of population makes choice realistic).
I don't feel strongly about the 'no top-ups' aspect. It wouldn't necessarily have been the way I'd have done it. But I don't feel particularly strongly against it. My motivation is that schools be responsive to what parents want.
The downside of course is that there is a minority of parents who potentially want a very weird education for their children (I'm thinking in particular of the hardcore religious - obviously the Islamic schools tend to get the attention, but I passed this place a few months back and thought it looked a bit, well, odd: http://solacademy.org.uk/). There's not very many of these, but they are there, and do you want the state to be funding that sort of education? That said, maybe the state already does fund that sort of thing?
Still, I think your idea (which is also my idea) is worth pursuing.
One of the basic rules of compliance is that if there is no business justification for a transaction it merits further investigations
"In 2011, about one third of the 20,000 state funded schools in England were faith schools,[9] approximately 7,000 in total, of which 68% were Church of England schools and 30% were Roman Catholic. There were 42 Jewish, 12 Muslim, 3 Sikh and 1 Hindu faith schools.[1]"
On this day 197 years ago the world's first ever public railway was opened in northern England.
And a whole new form of architecture was born: the train station.
So, to celebrate, here are some of the world's greatest train stations...
https://x.com/culturaltutor/status/1707114027497701761?s=20
How have we got ourselves into a situation where individual officers are responsible for handling the footage from their own cameras?
It should be being being sent automatically to a central site, with access strictly controlled. The access logs should be available for review, the integrity of the system should be regularly tested, and any attempt to tamper or interfere with the data should be treated as a crime.
This is really, really basic stuff.
I presume there are so many C of E schools because many of them predate state education? I don't really understand why there are others. Catholic schools appear to punch well above their weight in the actual population. There are at least two Catholic primary schools within a mile of my house.
If someone works part time then the write off is pro rata
If someone retires or leaves the NHS then the charge becomes repayable and interest bearing
My point is more about finding a way to factor in the lost years of trained doctors - nobody would say we need to enforce a higher ratio of male to female trainees but clearly there should be the freedom for doctors etc to discuss the problem and solutions without the risk of being labelled as sexist for pointing out a weakness in the system.
And no, I am not perfect.
But school history is complex - essentially a mix of voluntary/charsitable and parish operations many brought under the umbrella of government funding and supervision over time both national and local. Quite a few schools began as parish schools linked to the parish church, anyway.
In Scotland it was the local C of S minister who was usually on the school committee and was involved. But in latter years those in Episcopalian or RC-dense areas protested at paying rates for Presbyterian schools, hence the introduction of Episcopalian and RC schools.