Off topic: Mel Stride on Sky News this morning said that the pensioner tax bribe break would only apply where the state pension was the person's sole income https://x.com/SkyNews/status/1795343486796882126 (1:20 to 1:30). If that is the case then I would think it will shift no votes at all, as the typical Tory voter tends not to be living on just the state pension.
That makes zero sense for a lot of reasons.
I suspect the easiest fix would be to make the state pension none taxable and then reduce pensioners tax allowance to £0 - would create a few hideous edge cases where people don't receive the full state pension but it would be the easiest way to implement such a scheme...
I agree with you. And the fact that isn't what they have done suggests that what Stride said is going to be the case.
The Tories largely know who their 2019 voters are. There's not much point in going looking for new voters this time around. Frankly, there aren't going to be many. But there will be a big effort over the next 5 weeks to talk to those who were supporters - and to convince them to be again.
If those efforts fail, then Labour will win. If they succeed, the result could be surprisingly close.
Labour will know who their voters were in 2019 too. But they will need to go find their new voters and turn them out. Which is much harder, and requires a lot of leg work.
PS Just to back this up, in 2019 we did a lot of door-knocking to assess the Conservative vote. Come the count, our door-knocking assessment was within 0.1% of the actual result....
Amidst all the people who don't understand politics creaming themselves on social media over 'Canada '93'! What do people actually consider a Canada 93 style result to be? 2 seats? Third in seats? Under 20?
Labour landslide, SNP official opposition and Reform ahead of the Tories on votes as well as seats. No we not heading for Canada 1993
I don't think the quadruple lock will shift the narrative from National Service. It's too complicated, doesn't directly affect enough people.
I wonder if they got the announcements the wrong way round?
Is it a case of 'there's no such thing as bad publicity'?. The commentary on the campaign is almost exclusively Tory related at the moment. Its like the others aren't running. It feeds the 'Labour offering nothing' and 'Davey! I'd forgotten about him' narratives. The party conference effect. I'd expect the others to start barging their way in more dramatically soon
I would just say that because of the timing of the election the number of children leaving private schools for the state sector will become very apparent by the Autumn and I expect it will not be good news for labour's calculations on the funding available from this decision
Yep, it's a really dumb idea - it's damaging the education sector already and, as the article says, it will cost the Treasury not benefit it. But as Keir Starmer is, by his own confession, "a socialist", he's pressing ahead with it regardless.
Lots of businesses and private citizens who are planning to vote for him are going to feel had in 12-18 months time.
It's going to be a very minor factor in the education sector - the big issues at the moment are
1) Demographics the number of pre-school age children is significantly lower than previous years. You can see that in general admissions into State Schools, private schools can't escape the issue. 2) Cost of living has increased significantly - I can see people looking at the cost and going - with our new mortgage rates it's not possible. 3) VAT - but that's a long range thing
Although you are always going to disagree Aston is closing because of points 1 and 2. 3 is a factor but it's the first point that will be impacting next years numbers...
You are entirely right.
But point 1 has only just started to bite for primary schools, and hasn't yet for secondary ones.
The implication is a lot of private schools will close and Labour's VAT policy may get the blame politically once in power.
That's an issue for a future election not this one, but it's fairly predictable how it'll play out.
Oh I know Labour will get the blame once it's in power and the policy has been implemented my point through out this was more that CR has been sold a lie and is believing it..
Everything about the announcement in his case was points 1 and 2 have occurred but thankfully here's reason 3 which I can use to say it's none of our (management, parents) faults. Otherwise you would have the couple of parents leaving because of point 2 thinking it was their fault the school was closing...
Comparse the frothing on here about Labour and nondoms: yet
The unions aren't saints - we know that. But rail crew are people too. Their employers aren't allowed by the government to hire enough staff. So the only way the service can operate is via goodwill - people working rest days and thus not spending time with their family.
What happens when that goodwill evaporates? The service can't run fully. Then add into the mix some bizarre DfT dictat that drivers should have route restrictions - meaning more crew needed to operate a single service - and you're asking for trouble.
The solution? The Shapps - Williams plan is a start. A wholesale restructure to simplify the utter chaos which is he current structure. The Tories have had this on the planner since 2021 and other than spending money on competitions as to in which Tory maginal the HQ should be have done *nothing*.
So yes, its clearly the fault of the unions. Of people. How Dare They not work on a day off. Who do they think they are, putting family first?
Its an outrage.
Safety, too, ultimately. Work people too often on rest days ...
I fear that argument's false. Rest-day working has been around for donkey's years, and I can't think of an incident caused by it. AIUI RDW does *not* affect the amount of rest a driver should get between shifts (what ?used? to be called the HIDDEN rules).
Good grief, how did I know know about this? It is on our local nature reserve.
Surely that kind of collision could be automated away.
I understand the reasoning behind not automating everything and only requiring the driver to do anything if they actually see something unusual - because then you definitely end up with someone having a snooze in the cab - but two trains on the same track?
Is this a case of it being too expensive (I sense a pattern here) to retrofit older trains?
I am bemused by the assertion that “ 'I do believe the ‘don’t knows’ will vote in fairly large numbers, and the indications from local council results is that they are beginning to break towards the Conservatives.”
Robert Hayward is an eminent psephologist and I am a random griefer on an internet message board, so what do I know. But - where are these indications? Where should we be looking for them?
Looking at the local councill results closest to me, Cherwell and West Oxfordshire - which together comprise two LibDem target constituencies and one Labour - I can see no sign of anyone “beginning to break towards the Conservatives”. The movement has all been away. The wards which a few years ago were narrow Conservative holds, presumably partly on the basis of Con-inclined DKs, have now tipped over to the LibDems or Labour with big majorities.
But Robert Hayward doesn’t say things like this without evidence. So where is it? What am I missing?
I would just say that because of the timing of the election the number of children leaving private schools for the state sector will become very apparent by the Autumn and I expect it will not be good news for labour's calculations on the funding available from this decision
There are fewer and fewer children each year right now. Down 17% in England and Wales from 2012 to 2022. And that trend is set to continue.
Given the small percentage of the population in private schools, even with a fall in private school numbers, existing state schools should easily be able to absorb the slack. So no increase in cost from the current position, and an increase in tax revenue.
Demographics on Labour's side here.
That is not what the Guardian is saying
Most papers with pretentions to being interesting will print contrary views. In the Graun's case, Simon Jenkins is normally their tame right winger.
But I'm not sure the article says what you wish. No, the author doesn't like the Labour plan. But he wants the same money spent on full-fee bursaries for poor kids. So parents paying will be lumbered with a similar bill.
So something like the old Assisted Places. Which a distinguished headmaster (can't remember who, it mentioned was here over the weekend) described as solving the problem of a hundred hungry children by taking one of them for a meal at the Savoy.
Assisted places are an excellent idea but they essentially try and do in private schools what grammar schools used to do for far more pupils when we had more of them
Will this election get its ‘day the polls turned’?
And on the first MRP, will supporters of whichever side surprise on the upside run around shrieking about it being 'the most accurate type of polling' like blithering idiots? The form book says yes
Our Canadian daughter in law is travelling to London today and flies to Vancouver tomorrow whilst our son spends a couple of weeks more with us
All Llandudno Junction to Euston trains have been cancelled today due to crew shortages leaving her with no option but take the Manchester Airport train to Chester, then a train to Crewe, then to Euston arriving much later and missing an appointment she had in London today
The railways are truly broken and is Starmer just going to concede all ASLEF's demands reinforcing the view that the unions are holding our railways to ransom
Crew shortages imply a lack of crew.
+1 would need to speak to my mate who lives there but I believe that train not working is a regular occurrence
But it’s a staff issue - very few drivers know the route and the train (both of which is required) so it’s possible that a combination of school holidays and someone being ill can knock the early morning train off.
Feck's sake , they don't know how to press a few buttons and turn a wheel , pampered arses right enough. Imagine lorry drivers saying "Sorry Boss I don't know that road". Useless overpaid lazy twats.
Trains generally go so fast that they can't stop in the distance visible to the driver, so it's kinda important that the driver knows the route, rather than reacting to it as it happens.
If the argument is that reacting to what you see can't be done in time, then that sounds like an argument in favour of abolishing drivers altogether and automating the trains.
As has been done in many cities around the planet.
Driverless cars aren't a thing because on the roads you need human reactions, but if trains are going too fast to allow human reactions so you need to act sight unseen, then simply abolish the drivers. Problem solved.
Obviously intercity routes will be harder to automate than services like the DLR that are automated, but you would think it would be a simpler stepping stone that all the way to driverless cars. It's the sort of thing that a well-resourced, forward-looking railway would be investing in and experimenting with.
The general result of attempting train automation is that unless you build it in when you build the line, it is very expensive to add afterwards.
I don't think the quadruple lock will shift the narrative from National Service. It's too complicated, doesn't directly affect enough people.
I wonder if they got the announcements the wrong way round?
Is it a case of 'there's no such thing as bad publicity'?. The commentary on the campaign is almost exclusively Tory related at the moment. Its like the others aren't running. It feeds the 'Labour offering nothing' and 'Davey! I'd forgotten about him' narratives. The party conference effect. I'd expect the others to start barging their way in more dramatically soon
I think that is precisely the strategy. But I would have gone for 2-3 days of chat about quadruple lock, then dropped the National Service bombshell.
Amidst all the people who don't understand politics creaming themselves on social media over 'Canada '93'! What do people actually consider a Canada 93 style result to be? 2 seats? Third in seats? Under 20?
Labour landslide, SNP official opposition and Reform ahead of the Tories on votes as well as seats. No we not heading for Canada 1993
I half expect, Labour landslide, Lib Dem opposition and the Tories 3rd thanks to gains they made at the expense of the SNP in Scotland...
Half expect because of the LOL value rather than actual reality...
I would just say that because of the timing of the election the number of children leaving private schools for the state sector will become very apparent by the Autumn and I expect it will not be good news for labour's calculations on the funding available from this decision
Yep, it's a really dumb idea - it's damaging the education sector already and, as the article says, it will cost the Treasury not benefit it. But as Keir Starmer is, by his own confession, "a socialist", he's pressing ahead with it regardless.
Lots of businesses and private citizens who are planning to vote for him are going to feel had in 12-18 months time.
As only 5% go to pivate schools I can't see how it would make any difference to anything. Talk about the tail wagging the dog. If the 1 in 20 parents who send their children to private schools think they are stealing a lead on the 19 in 20 who cant afford it then I don't see anything wrong with the state charging them a small premium. Consider it a fine for trying to buy privilege.
Only buy the best for your kids if it's trainers or smartphones.
Those of us who went down the 5% route will remember their school chums whose surnames were those of cities or towns or counties or the self made ones who are now are to be seen with titles of their own advising Prime Ministers or indeed sharing dormitories with them. No question money well spent but whether for the greater good I would say not
The Tories largely know who their 2019 voters are. There's not much point in going looking for new voters this time around. Frankly, there aren't going to be many. But there will be a big effort over the next 5 weeks to talk to those who were supporters - and to convince them to be again.
If those efforts fail, then Labour will win. If they succeed, the result could be surprisingly close.
Labour will know who their voters were in 2019 too. But they will need to go find their new voters and turn them out. Which is much harder, and requires a lot of leg work.
PS Just to back this up, in 2019 we did a lot of door-knocking to assess the Conservative vote. Come the count, our door-knocking assessment was within 0.1% of the actual result....
Labour will also know who Tory 2019 voters were and who they voted for previously - it may not be as hard as you think....
The risk would be that Labour get complacent with their 2019 voters but that doesn't seem to be the case here - I've got a number of letters / postcards already as I'm a known postal voter...
Yes if voters voted Conservative last time and still have not committed to vote Labour, LD or Reform it is likely in the end they will vote Conservative again
Not what happened in '97.
Conservatives down 4.5 million votes Labour up 2 million votes Lib Dems down 3/4 million votes
The big change was Conservative voters deciding to stay at home. There was an episode of Animal Hospital on.
I would just say that because of the timing of the election the number of children leaving private schools for the state sector will become very apparent by the Autumn and I expect it will not be good news for labour's calculations on the funding available from this decision
Yep, it's a really dumb idea - it's damaging the education sector already and, as the article says, it will cost the Treasury not benefit it. But as Keir Starmer is, by his own confession, "a socialist", he's pressing ahead with it regardless.
Lots of businesses and private citizens who are planning to vote for him are going to feel had in 12-18 months time.
As only 5% go to pivate schools I can't see how it would make any difference to anything. Talk about the tail wagging the dog. If the 1 in 20 parents who send their children to private schools think they are stealing a lead on the 19 in 20 who cant afford it then I don't see anything wrong with the state charging them a small premium. Consider it a fine for trying to buy privilege.
Only buy the best for your kids if it's trainers or smartphones.
Those of us who went down the 5% route will remember their school chums whose surnames were those of cities or town or counties or the self made ones who are now are to be seen with titles of their own advising Prime Ministers or indeed sharing dormitories with them. No question money well spent but whether for the greater good I would say not
Just think how much better adverts would have been if the privileged with contacts hadnt elbowed out the competition. People might even be begging the BBC to have ads.
This is a bit like the argument Britain's relative decline has nothing to do with Brexit. There may be other factors involved and those factors may or may not be more important. The fact is the camel's back was broken. People are bound to blame the straw that was added as the back broke. Particularly when loading the straw was a choice.
You might be in favour of VAT on school fees as a policy choice. If so, please understand the policy will be blamed for any private schools that close from now on.
I have a great deal of sympathy with those who are having to move school. I did so 7 times (all state), mainly due to family circumstance but also a result of rural school closure as populations declined. I would not want to minimise the disruptive impact this has on children.
However, spending per pupil in private schools has increased by 25% in real terms since 2010.
It has grown from around 50% higher than state schools to 100% higher. This is, to my mind, completely unsustainable for those schools during a cost of living crisis. Alternatively, it's a glaring indicator of how intergenerational inequality has grown under the Conservatives.
And there is the small, seperate matter of 100,000 children in some form of state care. That's where most people's concerns will lie - for every sad case of a child who has to move private school (or even to a state school), there is a horrific one for some kid being abused or neglected elsewhere.
The following question hasn’t been answer, to my knowledge.
A number of children with SEND are being sent to private SEND specialist schools by local authorities. What will happen there? What is expected to happen?
Yes if voters voted Conservative last time and still have not committed to vote Labour, LD or Reform it is likely in the end they will vote Conservative again
No, if they haven't yet committed to vote it is likely in the end that they will not vote. See 1997 for a guide to what that looks like.
I would just say that because of the timing of the election the number of children leaving private schools for the state sector will become very apparent by the Autumn and I expect it will not be good news for labour's calculations on the funding available from this decision
Yep, it's a really dumb idea - it's damaging the education sector already and, as the article says, it will cost the Treasury not benefit it. But as Keir Starmer is, by his own confession, "a socialist", he's pressing ahead with it regardless.
Lots of businesses and private citizens who are planning to vote for him are going to feel had in 12-18 months time.
It's going to be a very minor factor in the education sector - the big issues at the moment are
1) Demographics the number of pre-school age children is significantly lower than previous years. You can see that in general admissions into State Schools, private schools can't escape the issue. 2) Cost of living has increased significantly - I can see people looking at the cost and going - with our new mortgage rates it's not possible. 3) VAT - but that's a long range thing
Although you are always going to disagree Aston is closing because of points 1 and 2. 3 is a factor but it's the first point that will be impacting next years numbers...
You are entirely right.
But point 1 has only just started to bite for primary schools, and hasn't yet for secondary ones.
The implication is a lot of private schools will close and Labour's VAT policy may get the blame politically once in power.
That's an issue for a future election not this one, but it's fairly predictable how it'll play out.
Oh I know Labour will get the blame once it's in power and the policy has been implemented my point through out this was more that CR has been sold a lie and is believing it..
Everything about the announcement in his case was points 1 and 2 have occurred but thankfully here's reason 3 which I can use to say it's none of our (management, parents) faults. Otherwise you would have the couple of parents leaving because of point 2 thinking it was their fault the school was closing...
Comparse the frothing on here about Labour and nondoms: yet
It's another example of where Labour will get the blame for something the Tories have already spent the cash on...
The voters are not stupid. They will know that many of the challenges in the first few years reflect legacy problems. Labour can get away with blaming the Tories for a while. Indeed, the Tories keep trying to blame Labour even though they've been in charge for 14 years!
On topic. Sorry to go back to basics, but there can't really be polling "errors". Only if you believe they predict votes. They don't. They repeat what people have told you they'd do today, some weeks out. If you ask the wrong people, they lie, change their mind, or decide they can/can't be arsed after all, then they aren't errors.
This is a bit like the argument Britain's relative decline has nothing to do with Brexit. There may be other factors involved and those factors may or may not be more important. The fact is the camel's back was broken. People are bound to blame the straw that was added as the back broke. Particularly when loading the straw was a choice.
You might be in favour of VAT on school fees as a policy choice. If so, please understand the policy will be blamed for any private schools that close from now on.
I have a great deal of sympathy with those who are having to move school. I did so 7 times (all state), mainly due to family circumstance but also a result of rural school closure as populations declined. I would not want to minimise the disruptive impact this has on children.
However, spending per pupil in private schools has increased by 25% in real terms since 2010.
It has grown from around 50% higher than state schools to 100% higher. This is, to my mind, completely unsustainable for those schools during a cost of living crisis. Alternatively, it's a glaring indicator of how intergenerational inequality has grown under the Conservatives.
And there is the small, seperate matter of 100,000 children in some form of state care. That's where most people's concerns will lie - for every sad case of a child who has to move private school (or even to a state school), there is a horrific one for some kid being abused or neglected elsewhere.
The following question hasn’t been answer, to my knowledge.
A number of children with SEND are being sent to private SEND specialist schools by local authorities. What will happen there? What is expected to happen?
The Tories largely know who their 2019 voters are. There's not much point in going looking for new voters this time around. Frankly, there aren't going to be many. But there will be a big effort over the next 5 weeks to talk to those who were supporters - and to convince them to be again.
If those efforts fail, then Labour will win. If they succeed, the result could be surprisingly close.
Labour will know who their voters were in 2019 too. But they will need to go find their new voters and turn them out. Which is much harder, and requires a lot of leg work.
PS Just to back this up, in 2019 we did a lot of door-knocking to assess the Conservative vote. Come the count, our door-knocking assessment was within 0.1% of the actual result....
Labour will also know who Tory 2019 voters were and who they voted for previously - it may not be as hard as you think....
A large proportion of the Tory 2019 vote will either stay Tory or not vote. It is really hard yards for Labour to go find the few % of converts amongst those known Tories.
I would just say that because of the timing of the election the number of children leaving private schools for the state sector will become very apparent by the Autumn and I expect it will not be good news for labour's calculations on the funding available from this decision
Yep, it's a really dumb idea - it's damaging the education sector already and, as the article says, it will cost the Treasury not benefit it. But as Keir Starmer is, by his own confession, "a socialist", he's pressing ahead with it regardless.
Lots of businesses and private citizens who are planning to vote for him are going to feel had in 12-18 months time.
As only 5% go to pivate schools I can't see how it would make any difference to anything. Talk about the tail wagging the dog. If the 1 in 20 parents who send their children to private schools think they are stealing a lead on the 19 in 20 who cant afford it then I don't see anything wrong with the state charging them a small premium. Consider it a fine for trying to buy privilege.
Only buy the best for your kids if it's trainers or smartphones.
Those of us who went down the 5% route will remember their school chums whose surnames were those of cities or town or counties or the self made ones who are now are to be seen with titles of their own advising Prime Ministers or indeed sharing dormitories with them. No question money well spent but whether for the greater good I would say not
Except Labour's VAT on fees plan won't hit the likes of Eton and Harrow and Fettes and Charterhouse and the school that was posh enough for your kids, bankers and corporate lawyers and KCs and surgeons and Russian oligarchs and Nigerian and Saudi oil barons and Far Eastern billionaires will still easily afford the fees
Instead it will hit small businessmen, midwives, police sergeants, deputy heads, pharmacists, and those with autistic or disabled children who scrimp and save to send their children to small local private and special schools desperately trying to stay open and keep costs down
The Tories largely know who their 2019 voters are. There's not much point in going looking for new voters this time around. Frankly, there aren't going to be many. But there will be a big effort over the next 5 weeks to talk to those who were supporters - and to convince them to be again.
If those efforts fail, then Labour will win. If they succeed, the result could be surprisingly close.
Labour will know who their voters were in 2019 too. But they will need to go find their new voters and turn them out. Which is much harder, and requires a lot of leg work.
PS Just to back this up, in 2019 we did a lot of door-knocking to assess the Conservative vote. Come the count, our door-knocking assessment was within 0.1% of the actual result....
But wouldn't they have voted Conservative anyway, even if you hadn't knocked on all those doors?
I am very skeptical of the value of the "ground game" when it comes to General Elections.
Look at 1997 - we gained seats where we didn't bother campaigning on a national tide.
But it makes activists feel good about themselves.
Locals. Sometimes it makes a difference. Seats won "against the head" can be a result of a good local campaign. But even here, the Tories lost close to 500 seats because of local issues, not 500 poorly run local efforts by the Blues and brilliancy by Reds, Greens and Yellows.
I would just say that because of the timing of the election the number of children leaving private schools for the state sector will become very apparent by the Autumn and I expect it will not be good news for labour's calculations on the funding available from this decision
Yep, it's a really dumb idea - it's damaging the education sector already and, as the article says, it will cost the Treasury not benefit it. But as Keir Starmer is, by his own confession, "a socialist", he's pressing ahead with it regardless.
Lots of businesses and private citizens who are planning to vote for him are going to feel had in 12-18 months time.
As only 5% go to pivate schools I can't see how it would make any difference to anything. Talk about the tail wagging the dog. If the 1 in 20 parents who send their children to private schools think they are stealing a lead on the 19 in 20 who cant afford it then I don't see anything wrong with the state charging them a small premium. Consider it a fine for trying to buy privilege.
Only buy the best for your kids if it's trainers or smartphones.
Those of us who went down the 5% route will remember their school chums whose surnames were those of cities or town or counties or the self made ones who are now are to be seen with titles of their own advising Prime Ministers or indeed sharing dormitories with them. No question money well spent but whether for the greater good I would say not
And rather than tear all that down, the focus should be on making it a waste of money because you can't buy better than the base model. The State models of health, education etc etc are simply are not good enough, are poorly run and waste billions every year. Make better trainers than Reebok Big Bollox, provide something Apple can only dream of. They're clapped out old nags, we need stallions
On topic. Sorry to go back to basics, but there can't really be polling "errors". Only if you believe they predict votes. They don't. They repeat what people have told you they'd do today, some weeks out. If you ask the wrong people, they lie, change their mind, or decide they can/can't be arsed after all, then they aren't errors.
The errors - if there are errors - are in what they do with the data after they gather it. They have to adjust for various factors, including shy Tories too embarrassed say they are voting for *that*.
I would just say that because of the timing of the election the number of children leaving private schools for the state sector will become very apparent by the Autumn and I expect it will not be good news for labour's calculations on the funding available from this decision
Yep, it's a really dumb idea - it's damaging the education sector already and, as the article says, it will cost the Treasury not benefit it. But as Keir Starmer is, by his own confession, "a socialist", he's pressing ahead with it regardless.
Lots of businesses and private citizens who are planning to vote for him are going to feel had in 12-18 months time.
It's going to be a very minor factor in the education sector - the big issues at the moment are
1) Demographics the number of pre-school age children is significantly lower than previous years. You can see that in general admissions into State Schools, private schools can't escape the issue. 2) Cost of living has increased significantly - I can see people looking at the cost and going - with our new mortgage rates it's not possible. 3) VAT - but that's a long range thing
Although you are always going to disagree Aston is closing because of points 1 and 2. 3 is a factor but it's the first point that will be impacting next years numbers...
You are entirely right.
But point 1 has only just started to bite for primary schools, and hasn't yet for secondary ones.
The implication is a lot of private schools will close and Labour's VAT policy may get the blame politically once in power.
That's an issue for a future election not this one, but it's fairly predictable how it'll play out.
Oh I know Labour will get the blame once it's in power and the policy has been implemented my point through out this was more that CR has been sold a lie and is believing it..
Everything about the announcement in his case was points 1 and 2 have occurred but thankfully here's reason 3 which I can use to say it's none of our (management, parents) faults. Otherwise you would have the couple of parents leaving because of point 2 thinking it was their fault the school was closing...
Comparse the frothing on here about Labour and nondoms: yet
It's another example of where Labour will get the blame for something the Tories have already spent the cash on...
The voters are not stupid. They will know that many of the challenges in the first few years reflect legacy problems. Labour can get away with blaming the Tories for a while. Indeed, the Tories keep trying to blame Labour even though they've been in charge for 14 years!
I think you'd have to be a pretty incompetent government to not be able to get away with blaming the opposition your entire first term and at least blunt criticism.
Brown was still trying to use it 13 years in too, and that was too much to be credible.
I don't think the quadruple lock will shift the narrative from National Service. It's too complicated, doesn't directly affect enough people.
I wonder if they got the announcements the wrong way round?
Is it a case of 'there's no such thing as bad publicity'?. The commentary on the campaign is almost exclusively Tory related at the moment. Its like the others aren't running. It feeds the 'Labour offering nothing' and 'Davey! I'd forgotten about him' narratives. The party conference effect. I'd expect the others to start barging their way in more dramatically soon
I think that is precisely the strategy. But I would have gone for 2-3 days of chat about quadruple lock, then dropped the National Service bombshell.
You could argue (I am not sure how correctly of course!) That NS got the crinklies listening and mega roll down super lock gets them buying.
On topic. Sorry to go back to basics, but there can't really be polling "errors". Only if you believe they predict votes. They don't. They repeat what people have told you they'd do today, some weeks out. If you ask the wrong people, they lie, change their mind, or decide they can/can't be arsed after all, then they aren't errors.
The errors - if there are errors - are in what they do with the data after they gather it. They have to adjust for various factors, including shy Tories too embarrassed say they are voting for *that*.
Indeed. But that is itself driven by the belief that they are supposed to be a predictor.
Yes if voters voted Conservative last time and still have not committed to vote Labour, LD or Reform it is likely in the end they will vote Conservative again
In the absence of other information, the best predictor of behaviour is what you did last time.
However, expressed intention is a better predictor still. If people say they are going to vote for X or not vote, then believe them.
That leaves the don't-knows. Yes, I think probably the most likely thing a 2019 Tory voter saying don't know now will do is vote Tory. But is that 100% of them, or 40% of them? Even if it's 100% of them, Labour win an overall majority unless something else happens.
Yes if voters voted Conservative last time and still have not committed to vote Labour, LD or Reform it is likely in the end they will vote Conservative again
I’d agree with that. I think the Tories will do enough in terms of policy announcements to get them back on board . For that reason I expect the polls to narrow . We should also factor in the Rayner investigation. So far Labours campaign has gone smoothly with no major dramas but if Rayner is charged that will cause a lot of problems for them. The Manchester police really need to conclude this investigation quickly .
I would just say that because of the timing of the election the number of children leaving private schools for the state sector will become very apparent by the Autumn and I expect it will not be good news for labour's calculations on the funding available from this decision
Yep, it's a really dumb idea - it's damaging the education sector already and, as the article says, it will cost the Treasury not benefit it. But as Keir Starmer is, by his own confession, "a socialist", he's pressing ahead with it regardless.
Lots of businesses and private citizens who are planning to vote for him are going to feel had in 12-18 months time.
It's going to be a very minor factor in the education sector - the big issues at the moment are
1) Demographics the number of pre-school age children is significantly lower than previous years. You can see that in general admissions into State Schools, private schools can't escape the issue. 2) Cost of living has increased significantly - I can see people looking at the cost and going - with our new mortgage rates it's not possible. 3) VAT - but that's a long range thing
Although you are always going to disagree Aston is closing because of points 1 and 2. 3 is a factor but it's the first point that will be impacting next years numbers...
You are entirely right.
But point 1 has only just started to bite for primary schools, and hasn't yet for secondary ones.
The implication is a lot of private schools will close and Labour's VAT policy may get the blame politically once in power.
That's an issue for a future election not this one, but it's fairly predictable how it'll play out.
Oh I know Labour will get the blame once it's in power and the policy has been implemented my point through out this was more that CR has been sold a lie and is believing it..
Everything about the announcement in his case was points 1 and 2 have occurred but thankfully here's reason 3 which I can use to say it's none of our (management, parents) faults. Otherwise you would have the couple of parents leaving because of point 2 thinking it was their fault the school was closing...
Comparse the frothing on here about Labour and nondoms: yet
It's another example of where Labour will get the blame for something the Tories have already spent the cash on...
The voters are not stupid. They will know that many of the challenges in the first few years reflect legacy problems. Labour can get away with blaming the Tories for a while. Indeed, the Tories keep trying to blame Labour even though they've been in charge for 14 years!
I think you'd have to be a pretty incompetent government to not be able to get away with blaming the opposition your entire first term and at least blunt criticism.
Brown was still trying to use it 13 years in too, and that was too much to be credible.
We have a few weeks of shocked and breathless ministers claiming 'its worse than we thought, they left a massive poo in the treasury' fun to come from July 5th
Robert Hayward is to be respected but the divergence in the Labour lead is more to do with how the polling companies themselves choose to operate in terms of methodology, sampling, allocation of Undecideds etc.
That won't be resolved until the vote itself and we'll be able to witter on about a new "gold standard" pollster or pollsters.
The secondary assumption that Undecideds will somehow break back to the Conservatives is impossible to challenge now and hopefully will be the subject of some detailed post-election research and analysis but Hayward's "break towards the Conservatives" occupies the same zone of wishful thinking as @DougSeal's 5-point Conservative lead or the "I can't see the Tories going below 200 seats" mantra.
That's the thing with polls - dig deep enough and there's a nugget of hope which can be developed into a gold mine of optimism.
We're not even a week into the campaign - I suspect the vast majority are still to engage with the election. I constantly see DKs running at 8% among those likely to vote which isn't a large numberso minds are largely made up (or so it seems).
Hayward himself admits he's not contemplating a Lazarus-like comeback for Team Sunak but as others have said, the margins between 1997 and something worse are quite fine. The Conservative campaign thus far, which seems to consist of throw out an idea every day and hope something sticks, is clearly defensive and aimed at shoring up the "core" vote (whatever that is now).
The unions aren't saints - we know that. But rail crew are people too. Their employers aren't allowed by the government to hire enough staff. So the only way the service can operate is via goodwill - people working rest days and thus not spending time with their family.
What happens when that goodwill evaporates? The service can't run fully. Then add into the mix some bizarre DfT dictat that drivers should have route restrictions - meaning more crew needed to operate a single service - and you're asking for trouble.
The solution? The Shapps - Williams plan is a start. A wholesale restructure to simplify the utter chaos which is he current structure. The Tories have had this on the planner since 2021 and other than spending money on competitions as to in which Tory maginal the HQ should be have done *nothing*.
So yes, its clearly the fault of the unions. Of people. How Dare They not work on a day off. Who do they think they are, putting family first?
Its an outrage.
Safety, too, ultimately. Work people too often on rest days ...
I fear that argument's false. Rest-day working has been around for donkey's years, and I can't think of an incident caused by it. AIUI RDW does *not* affect the amount of rest a driver should get between shifts (what ?used? to be called the HIDDEN rules).
Good grief, how did I know know about this? It is on our local nature reserve.
Surely that kind of collision could be automated away.
I understand the reasoning behind not automating everything and only requiring the driver to do anything if they actually see something unusual - because then you definitely end up with someone having a snooze in the cab - but two trains on the same track?
Is this a case of it being too expensive (I sense a pattern here) to retrofit older trains?
A mixture of things IMO. The reasons these incidents are so remarkable is that they're rare, and that's because they try to process them out. Lessons are learnt, and more processes added to avoid them. An automated system has to implement all of those safety lessons - and that's really difficult. Especially when it also has to cope with the unusual - something humans do quite well. Just the human interactions of checking a door is closed and no-one waiting on the platform is going to try to open a door is hard to automate.
One of my bugbears is people introducing a brand-new transport system and calling it 'safe' without any of these very expensive systems. We saw it with Maglev, where it was claimed it was impossible to crash - just before many people were killed in a crash. We see it with 'Hyperloop', where pixies and fairy dust will keep people 'safe'.
Safety costs. The more safety you want, the more you pay.
This is a bit like the argument Britain's relative decline has nothing to do with Brexit. There may be other factors involved and those factors may or may not be more important. The fact is the camel's back was broken. People are bound to blame the straw that was added as the back broke. Particularly when loading the straw was a choice.
You might be in favour of VAT on school fees as a policy choice. If so, please understand the policy will be blamed for any private schools that close from now on.
I have a great deal of sympathy with those who are having to move school. I did so 7 times (all state), mainly due to family circumstance but also a result of rural school closure as populations declined. I would not want to minimise the disruptive impact this has on children.
However, spending per pupil in private schools has increased by 25% in real terms since 2010.
It has grown from around 50% higher than state schools to 100% higher. This is, to my mind, completely unsustainable for those schools during a cost of living crisis. Alternatively, it's a glaring indicator of how intergenerational inequality has grown under the Conservatives.
And there is the small, seperate matter of 100,000 children in some form of state care. That's where most people's concerns will lie - for every sad case of a child who has to move private school (or even to a state school), there is a horrific one for some kid being abused or neglected elsewhere.
The following question hasn’t been answer, to my knowledge.
A number of children with SEND are being sent to private SEND specialist schools by local authorities. What will happen there? What is expected to happen?
The Labour policy excuses those from the VAT imposition.
The Tory admission that they have failed to tackle over £80bn of tax avoidance since they took power is an interesting one.
I thought all political parties were huge fans of (legal) tax avoidance, they certainly provide enough opportunities for people and companies to engage in it.
Well since you're writing in the present tense that would be better phrased as you thinking that the political party which has run the Treasury for the last 14 years is a huge fan of (legal) tax avoidance and provides ample opportunities for people and companies to engage in it.
That's the same party which is branding Starmer as a socialist who will do things differently. On tax avoidance I think they're probably right.
I would just say that because of the timing of the election the number of children leaving private schools for the state sector will become very apparent by the Autumn and I expect it will not be good news for labour's calculations on the funding available from this decision
Yep, it's a really dumb idea - it's damaging the education sector already and, as the article says, it will cost the Treasury not benefit it. But as Keir Starmer is, by his own confession, "a socialist", he's pressing ahead with it regardless.
Lots of businesses and private citizens who are planning to vote for him are going to feel had in 12-18 months time.
As only 5% go to pivate schools I can't see how it would make any difference to anything. Talk about the tail wagging the dog. If the 1 in 20 parents who send their children to private schools think they are stealing a lead on the 19 in 20 who cant afford it then I don't see anything wrong with the state charging them a small premium. Consider it a fine for trying to buy privilege.
Only buy the best for your kids if it's trainers or smartphones.
Those of us who went down the 5% route will remember their school chums whose surnames were those of cities or town or counties or the self made ones who are now are to be seen with titles of their own advising Prime Ministers or indeed sharing dormitories with them. No question money well spent but whether for the greater good I would say not
Except Labour's VAT on fees plan won't hit the likes of Eton and Harrow and Fettes and Charterhouse and the school that was posh enough for your kids, bankers and corporate lawyers and KCs and surgeons and Russian oligarchs and Nigerian and Saudi oil barons and Far Eastern billionaires will still easily afford the fees
Instead it will hit small businessmen, midwives, police sergeants, deputy heads, pharmacists, and those with autistic or disabled children who scrimp and save to send their children to small local private and special schools desperately trying to stay open and keep costs down
Do you appreciate what a desperate set of affairs it is when midwives, police officers and (state) deputy heads feel the need to send their kids to a private school? Especially when those kids are disabled?
This is what happens when public services are set up to benefit older people. People with families turn to the private sector, whether for education or healthcare.
The Tories largely know who their 2019 voters are. There's not much point in going looking for new voters this time around. Frankly, there aren't going to be many. But there will be a big effort over the next 5 weeks to talk to those who were supporters - and to convince them to be again.
If those efforts fail, then Labour will win. If they succeed, the result could be surprisingly close.
Labour will know who their voters were in 2019 too. But they will need to go find their new voters and turn them out. Which is much harder, and requires a lot of leg work.
PS Just to back this up, in 2019 we did a lot of door-knocking to assess the Conservative vote. Come the count, our door-knocking assessment was within 0.1% of the actual result....
But wouldn't they have voted Conservative anyway, even if you hadn't knocked on all those doors?
I am very skeptical of the value of the "ground game" when it comes to General Elections.
Look at 1997 - we gained seats where we didn't bother campaigning on a national tide.
But it makes activists feel good about themselves.
Locals. Sometimes it makes a difference. Seats won "against the head" can be a result of a good local campaign. But even here, the Tories lost close to 500 seats because of local issues, not 500 poorly run local efforts by the Blues and brilliancy by Reds, Greens and Yellows.
Yes, you have to question how significant an effect it can really have, and given most races are not super close on how many occasions is it determinative. We all have examples of winning or losing irrespective of effort.
I don't think it's meaningless, but it seems to mostly be about local party morale to me to play up how crucial it is or how accurate local info is (plenty of surprised local activists too). For Locals it's easier for it to have an impact.
I would just say that because of the timing of the election the number of children leaving private schools for the state sector will become very apparent by the Autumn and I expect it will not be good news for labour's calculations on the funding available from this decision
Yep, it's a really dumb idea - it's damaging the education sector already and, as the article says, it will cost the Treasury not benefit it. But as Keir Starmer is, by his own confession, "a socialist", he's pressing ahead with it regardless.
Lots of businesses and private citizens who are planning to vote for him are going to feel had in 12-18 months time.
As only 5% go to pivate schools I can't see how it would make any difference to anything. Talk about the tail wagging the dog. If the 1 in 20 parents who send their children to private schools think they are stealing a lead on the 19 in 20 who cant afford it then I don't see anything wrong with the state charging them a small premium. Consider it a fine for trying to buy privilege.
Only buy the best for your kids if it's trainers or smartphones.
Those of us who went down the 5% route will remember their school chums whose surnames were those of cities or town or counties or the self made ones who are now are to be seen with titles of their own advising Prime Ministers or indeed sharing dormitories with them. No question money well spent but whether for the greater good I would say not
And rather than tear all that down, the focus should be on making it a waste of money because you can't buy better than the base model. The State models of health, education etc etc are simply are not good enough, are poorly run and waste billions every year. Make better trainers than Reebok Big Bollox, provide something Apple can only dream of. They're clapped out old nags, we need stallions
Disagree, but I would say that, wouldn't I?
State schools generally do pretty well on somewhere between a third and a half of the rations that the private sector takes. If you want to look for flabby practices, I know which sector I'd start looking at.
One of the problems that second division and below indies have is that it's less and less obvious what value they are providing for the cost.
I think I'd frame this as "things have changed again in a way we have not seen, so they are thinking and working out how to model it", rather than around errors in polls.
Has it really only been 13 years of outrageous puns?
I would just say that because of the timing of the election the number of children leaving private schools for the state sector will become very apparent by the Autumn and I expect it will not be good news for labour's calculations on the funding available from this decision
Yep, it's a really dumb idea - it's damaging the education sector already and, as the article says, it will cost the Treasury not benefit it. But as Keir Starmer is, by his own confession, "a socialist", he's pressing ahead with it regardless.
Lots of businesses and private citizens who are planning to vote for him are going to feel had in 12-18 months time.
As only 5% go to pivate schools I can't see how it would make any difference to anything. Talk about the tail wagging the dog. If the 1 in 20 parents who send their children to private schools think they are stealing a lead on the 19 in 20 who cant afford it then I don't see anything wrong with the state charging them a small premium. Consider it a fine for trying to buy privilege.
Only buy the best for your kids if it's trainers or smartphones.
Those of us who went down the 5% route will remember their school chums whose surnames were those of cities or town or counties or the self made ones who are now are to be seen with titles of their own advising Prime Ministers or indeed sharing dormitories with them. No question money well spent but whether for the greater good I would say not
Just think how much better adverts would have been if the privileged with contacts hadnt elbowed out the competition. People might even be begging the BBC to have ads.
Advertising and associated trades is very egalitarian surprisingly. But don't you find it odd that someone you were at school with is now in a great position of influence and you knew them to be without any obvious talent or ability?
Yes if voters voted Conservative last time and still have not committed to vote Labour, LD or Reform it is likely in the end they will vote Conservative again
No, if they haven't yet committed to vote it is likely in the end that they will not vote. See 1997 for a guide to what that looks like.
A reminder to Lord Hayward - in 2017 and 2010, Labour polled better than the polls had been suggesting. So it's not all one way traffic. Pollsters do adjust their methodology and sometimes seem to over adjust especially where they are trying to make their poll into a prediction rather than just a test of opinion.
My experience from doorstep canvassing is that an extraordinary number of former Conservative voters when pressed say that they won't vote at all. For those who are not going to vote Labour the conversation still very often tends to progress along lines of "well I just don't know what I'm going to do this time" but ends up when pressed with "to be honest I'll probably end up not voting at all, they're all as bad as each other". Are the polls recording the former without progressing to the reality of the latter?
What we can say about current polling is that in an election which is widely forecast to have a low turnout there are an unduly high number of respondents who claim that they are going to vote. I certainly think the "don't vote" party is being underestimated in polling and a lot of those will come from the undecided camp.
One other point: If out of all the current undecided, 25% break for the Conservatives (which isn't unrealistic when only 25% of the decideds have choosen the Conservatives), 25% break for Labour, 20% for others and 30% dont vote, then the Labour lead in percentage terms will narrow. But in terms of the absolute difference between Labour and Conservative voters it will be unchanged.
I am not being overly complacent, for the lousy state of the electoral register this time does give cause for concern, although it would have been a lot worse had Sunak chosen November.
Definitely finding the same thing on the doorstep.
As the legendary Yes PM sketch stated, people don't like to look foolish when questioned. Saying that you 'don't know' makes you seem intelligent and considering all the options. By contrast, saying 'won't vote' makes it look as if you don't care.
My hunch, equally valid and as prone to error as Lord Hayward, is that most of the 'Don't Knows' will spend a happy polling day in their lounge and not give the election another thought.
Mmm......you get quite a lot of those don't know this time and all as bad each other types in the random street interviews they do in marginals and I have to say in all honesty they never strike me as particularly intelligent.
I would just say that because of the timing of the election the number of children leaving private schools for the state sector will become very apparent by the Autumn and I expect it will not be good news for labour's calculations on the funding available from this decision
Yep, it's a really dumb idea - it's damaging the education sector already and, as the article says, it will cost the Treasury not benefit it. But as Keir Starmer is, by his own confession, "a socialist", he's pressing ahead with it regardless.
Lots of businesses and private citizens who are planning to vote for him are going to feel had in 12-18 months time.
It's going to be a very minor factor in the education sector - the big issues at the moment are
1) Demographics the number of pre-school age children is significantly lower than previous years. You can see that in general admissions into State Schools, private schools can't escape the issue. 2) Cost of living has increased significantly - I can see people looking at the cost and going - with our new mortgage rates it's not possible. 3) VAT - but that's a long range thing
Although you are always going to disagree Aston is closing because of points 1 and 2. 3 is a factor but it's the first point that will be impacting next years numbers...
You are entirely right.
But point 1 has only just started to bite for primary schools, and hasn't yet for secondary ones.
The implication is a lot of private schools will close and Labour's VAT policy may get the blame politically once in power.
That's an issue for a future election not this one, but it's fairly predictable how it'll play out.
Oh I know Labour will get the blame once it's in power and the policy has been implemented my point through out this was more that CR has been sold a lie and is believing it..
Everything about the announcement in his case was points 1 and 2 have occurred but thankfully here's reason 3 which I can use to say it's none of our (management, parents) faults. Otherwise you would have the couple of parents leaving because of point 2 thinking it was their fault the school was closing...
Comparse the frothing on here about Labour and nondoms: yet
It's another example of where Labour will get the blame for something the Tories have already spent the cash on...
The voters are not stupid. They will know that many of the challenges in the first few years reflect legacy problems. Labour can get away with blaming the Tories for a while. Indeed, the Tories keep trying to blame Labour even though they've been in charge for 14 years!
Governments blame the previous lot.
Usually with some justification.
Governments blame world events.
Usually with some justification.
But these are excuses to be used when increasing taxes or cutting spending on groups who don't vote for the party in government.
Those groups which support the party in government get the extra spending instead.
So the Conservatives were able to balance cuts in some areas with profligacy on the oldies.
Labour will likewise need to reward some groups if it doesn't want its support to melt away.
No leaflets through the door yet, get a move on local parties.
I had 7 leaflets from the local LDs in 2021 so I expect to be inundated very soon.
I'm expecting a love-bombing to the point where I'm tempted to stick a sign in the door saying WE WILL BE VOTING LIB DEM UNLESS YOU ANNOY US TOO MUCH WITH CANVASSING.
The Tory admission that they have failed to tackle over £80bn of tax avoidance since they took power is an interesting one.
I thought all political parties were huge fans of (legal) tax avoidance, they certainly provide enough opportunities for people and companies to engage in it.
Well since you're writing in the present tense that would be better phrased as you thinking that the political party which has run the Treasury for the last 14 years is a huge fan of (legal) tax avoidance and provides ample opportunities for people and companies to engage in it.
That's the same party which is branding Starmer as a socialist who will do things differently. On tax avoidance I think they're probably right.
I was not paying much attention at the tail end of the last Labour government but I'm skeptical that we did not have a lot of tax avoidance then too due to complex rules and loopholes seemingly designed for that purpose. Happy to be corrected otherwise.
Regardless, there are many things I would class as political behaviour not partisan behaviour, meaning parties of all types may engage in it, but over time it will vary as to which is better or worse, rather than either being inherently so.
The Tories largely know who their 2019 voters are. There's not much point in going looking for new voters this time around. Frankly, there aren't going to be many. But there will be a big effort over the next 5 weeks to talk to those who were supporters - and to convince them to be again.
If those efforts fail, then Labour will win. If they succeed, the result could be surprisingly close.
Labour will know who their voters were in 2019 too. But they will need to go find their new voters and turn them out. Which is much harder, and requires a lot of leg work.
PS Just to back this up, in 2019 we did a lot of door-knocking to assess the Conservative vote. Come the count, our door-knocking assessment was within 0.1% of the actual result....
But wouldn't they have voted Conservative anyway, even if you hadn't knocked on all those doors?
I am very skeptical of the value of the "ground game" when it comes to General Elections.
Look at 1997 - we gained seats where we didn't bother campaigning on a national tide.
But it makes activists feel good about themselves.
Locals. Sometimes it makes a difference. Seats won "against the head" can be a result of a good local campaign. But even here, the Tories lost close to 500 seats because of local issues, not 500 poorly run local efforts by the Blues and brilliancy by Reds, Greens and Yellows.
I'm sure I've seen some evidence from somewhere that ground game/ GOTV can be worth a % or two, which in some cases can be enough of a nudge.
There are no doubt exceptions to this as well, where the much-vaunted 'personal vote' comes into play.
I would just say that because of the timing of the election the number of children leaving private schools for the state sector will become very apparent by the Autumn and I expect it will not be good news for labour's calculations on the funding available from this decision
Yep, it's a really dumb idea - it's damaging the education sector already and, as the article says, it will cost the Treasury not benefit it. But as Keir Starmer is, by his own confession, "a socialist", he's pressing ahead with it regardless.
Lots of businesses and private citizens who are planning to vote for him are going to feel had in 12-18 months time.
As only 5% go to pivate schools I can't see how it would make any difference to anything. Talk about the tail wagging the dog. If the 1 in 20 parents who send their children to private schools think they are stealing a lead on the 19 in 20 who cant afford it then I don't see anything wrong with the state charging them a small premium. Consider it a fine for trying to buy privilege.
Only buy the best for your kids if it's trainers or smartphones.
Those of us who went down the 5% route will remember their school chums whose surnames were those of cities or town or counties or the self made ones who are now are to be seen with titles of their own advising Prime Ministers or indeed sharing dormitories with them. No question money well spent but whether for the greater good I would say not
Except Labour's VAT on fees plan won't hit the likes of Eton and Harrow and Fettes and Charterhouse and the school that was posh enough for your kids, bankers and corporate lawyers and KCs and surgeons and Russian oligarchs and Nigerian and Saudi oil barons and Far Eastern billionaires will still easily afford the fees
Instead it will hit small businessmen, midwives, police sergeants, deputy heads, pharmacists, and those with autistic or disabled children who scrimp and save to send their children to small local private and special schools desperately trying to stay open and keep costs down
So it has been said, but do we have any figures on this? How many midwives send their kids to private schools? (And specialist private schools for those with autism or disabilities are excluded from Labour's proposals.)
We can do a back of an envelope calculation. About 6% of kids go to private schools. That's not exactly the wealthiest 6% of families, but it's somewhere close to it. So, let's presume sending your kids to private school is a top 10% thing.
You need to earn about £65k to be in the top decile. An experienced midwife earns £50k, says https://nationalcareers.service.gov.uk/job-profiles/midwife If you are a one-income family, then no, midwives aren't sending their kids to private school.
The average salary for a police sergeant is £50k. Ditto.
I would just say that because of the timing of the election the number of children leaving private schools for the state sector will become very apparent by the Autumn and I expect it will not be good news for labour's calculations on the funding available from this decision
Yep, it's a really dumb idea - it's damaging the education sector already and, as the article says, it will cost the Treasury not benefit it. But as Keir Starmer is, by his own confession, "a socialist", he's pressing ahead with it regardless.
Lots of businesses and private citizens who are planning to vote for him are going to feel had in 12-18 months time.
As only 5% go to pivate schools I can't see how it would make any difference to anything. Talk about the tail wagging the dog. If the 1 in 20 parents who send their children to private schools think they are stealing a lead on the 19 in 20 who cant afford it then I don't see anything wrong with the state charging them a small premium. Consider it a fine for trying to buy privilege.
Only buy the best for your kids if it's trainers or smartphones.
Those of us who went down the 5% route will remember their school chums whose surnames were those of cities or town or counties or the self made ones who are now are to be seen with titles of their own advising Prime Ministers or indeed sharing dormitories with them. No question money well spent but whether for the greater good I would say not
And rather than tear all that down, the focus should be on making it a waste of money because you can't buy better than the base model. The State models of health, education etc etc are simply are not good enough, are poorly run and waste billions every year. Make better trainers than Reebok Big Bollox, provide something Apple can only dream of. They're clapped out old nags, we need stallions
Disagree, but I would say that, wouldn't I?
State schools generally do pretty well on somewhere between a third and a half of the rations that the private sector takes. If you want to look for flabby practices, I know which sector I'd start looking at.
One of the problems that second division and below indies have is that it's less and less obvious what value they are providing for the cost.
And it's the second division private schools that will have a problem - the top ones in an area won't have a problem keeping numbers up but the others well...
And a lot of private schools have spent millions on facilities - I don't know how much Yarm school spent on their auditorium (can't call it a hall as it's way too posh) but the downstairs bar facilities make those of the recently refurbished Globe look third rate...
On topic, pollsters like YouGov probably are overstating Labour's lead because of the overly-politically active nature of their panels.
However, the results from Westminster by-elections and local elections suggest that a Labour lead in the high teens is very credible and we should expect something like that were the election today.
I don't buy the 'DK 2019 Tories will return' argument. The Tories have done a huge amount to piss off that group, many of whom were first-time Tory voters then anyway so have no deep loyalty to the brand (quite the opposite, if anything). They will most likely end up as DK-Abstain; to the extent they don't, they'll splinter all over the place to minimal effect either way.
The unions aren't saints - we know that. But rail crew are people too. Their employers aren't allowed by the government to hire enough staff. So the only way the service can operate is via goodwill - people working rest days and thus not spending time with their family.
What happens when that goodwill evaporates? The service can't run fully. Then add into the mix some bizarre DfT dictat that drivers should have route restrictions - meaning more crew needed to operate a single service - and you're asking for trouble.
The solution? The Shapps - Williams plan is a start. A wholesale restructure to simplify the utter chaos which is he current structure. The Tories have had this on the planner since 2021 and other than spending money on competitions as to in which Tory maginal the HQ should be have done *nothing*.
So yes, its clearly the fault of the unions. Of people. How Dare They not work on a day off. Who do they think they are, putting family first?
Its an outrage.
Safety, too, ultimately. Work people too often on rest days ...
I fear that argument's false. Rest-day working has been around for donkey's years, and I can't think of an incident caused by it. AIUI RDW does *not* affect the amount of rest a driver should get between shifts (what ?used? to be called the HIDDEN rules).
Good grief, how did I know know about this? It is on our local nature reserve.
Surely that kind of collision could be automated away.
I understand the reasoning behind not automating everything and only requiring the driver to do anything if they actually see something unusual - because then you definitely end up with someone having a snooze in the cab - but two trains on the same track?
Is this a case of it being too expensive (I sense a pattern here) to retrofit older trains?
A mixture of things IMO. The reasons these incidents are so remarkable is that they're rare, and that's because they try to process them out. Lessons are learnt, and more processes added to avoid them. An automated system has to implement all of those safety lessons - and that's really difficult. Especially when it also has to cope with the unusual - something humans do quite well. Just the human interactions of checking a door is closed and no-one waiting on the platform is going to try to open a door is hard to automate.
One of my bugbears is people introducing a brand-new transport system and calling it 'safe' without any of these very expensive systems. We saw it with Maglev, where it was claimed it was impossible to crash - just before many people were killed in a crash. We see it with 'Hyperloop', where pixies and fairy dust will keep people 'safe'.
Safety costs. The more safety you want, the more you pay.
Whenever new transport systems are mooted it seems to be on the assumption that maintenance is not a thing and stuff never breaks.
In most cases it seems like just building more trains would be a better option but it's not sexy enough to get attention.
On topic. Sorry to go back to basics, but there can't really be polling "errors". Only if you believe they predict votes. They don't. They repeat what people have told you they'd do today, some weeks out. If you ask the wrong people, they lie, change their mind, or decide they can/can't be arsed after all, then they aren't errors.
The errors - if there are errors - are in what they do with the data after they gather it. They have to adjust for various factors, including shy Tories too embarrassed say they are voting for *that*.
Using opinion polls to predict election outcomes is a tricky old thing. An opinion poll is not the same as using sampling of actual votes to model the whole election, where the science and practice of statistics can help (how big a sample do you need, what are the margins of error etc. An opinion poll is, I think, far harder to make useful. Pre the internet much polling was over the phone. The danger being that if you ring during office hours, who are you sampling? And how do you adjust for that? Now I suspect that online polling is the vast majority and again - who are you sampling?
We sometimes see the phenomenon of 'herding' towards the end of campaigns. Does this reflect a genuine drift together of the base data or are polling companies afraid of being out of the herd and changing their adjustments?
I have long argued that irrespective of the echo chambers of twitter and places such as PB, and irrespective of what people have said in opinion polls, in the privacy of the booth, some will change their minds and vote Tory. I don't think it will be enough to stop a Labour majority. But I also don't think the ludicrous wipe-out stories will be anywhere near the mark.*
*Benchmark this and note I did NOT promise to eat my hat if it IS a wipe out!
I would just say that because of the timing of the election the number of children leaving private schools for the state sector will become very apparent by the Autumn and I expect it will not be good news for labour's calculations on the funding available from this decision
Yep, it's a really dumb idea - it's damaging the education sector already and, as the article says, it will cost the Treasury not benefit it. But as Keir Starmer is, by his own confession, "a socialist", he's pressing ahead with it regardless.
Lots of businesses and private citizens who are planning to vote for him are going to feel had in 12-18 months time.
As only 5% go to pivate schools I can't see how it would make any difference to anything. Talk about the tail wagging the dog. If the 1 in 20 parents who send their children to private schools think they are stealing a lead on the 19 in 20 who cant afford it then I don't see anything wrong with the state charging them a small premium. Consider it a fine for trying to buy privilege.
Only buy the best for your kids if it's trainers or smartphones.
Those of us who went down the 5% route will remember their school chums whose surnames were those of cities or town or counties or the self made ones who are now are to be seen with titles of their own advising Prime Ministers or indeed sharing dormitories with them. No question money well spent but whether for the greater good I would say not
Except Labour's VAT on fees plan won't hit the likes of Eton and Harrow and Fettes and Charterhouse and the school that was posh enough for your kids, bankers and corporate lawyers and KCs and surgeons and Russian oligarchs and Nigerian and Saudi oil barons and Far Eastern billionaires will still easily afford the fees
Instead it will hit small businessmen, midwives, police sergeants, deputy heads, pharmacists, and those with autistic or disabled children who scrimp and save to send their children to small local private and special schools desperately trying to stay open and keep costs down
Fallacy. There's plenty of people sending children to Eton and Harrow that can afford it but only just
Indeed is it a law of economics that all goods are bought by the whole spectrum from zero to huge opportunity cost? Or are, say, Bugattis only bought by people who can buy them for pocket change?
Time for that immortal James Carville line: “Whenever I hear a campaign talk about a need to energise its base, that’s a campaign that’s going down the toilet”
The unions aren't saints - we know that. But rail crew are people too. Their employers aren't allowed by the government to hire enough staff. So the only way the service can operate is via goodwill - people working rest days and thus not spending time with their family.
What happens when that goodwill evaporates? The service can't run fully. Then add into the mix some bizarre DfT dictat that drivers should have route restrictions - meaning more crew needed to operate a single service - and you're asking for trouble.
The solution? The Shapps - Williams plan is a start. A wholesale restructure to simplify the utter chaos which is he current structure. The Tories have had this on the planner since 2021 and other than spending money on competitions as to in which Tory maginal the HQ should be have done *nothing*.
So yes, its clearly the fault of the unions. Of people. How Dare They not work on a day off. Who do they think they are, putting family first?
Its an outrage.
Safety, too, ultimately. Work people too often on rest days ...
I fear that argument's false. Rest-day working has been around for donkey's years, and I can't think of an incident caused by it. AIUI RDW does *not* affect the amount of rest a driver should get between shifts (what ?used? to be called the HIDDEN rules).
Good grief, how did I know know about this? It is on our local nature reserve.
Surely that kind of collision could be automated away.
I understand the reasoning behind not automating everything and only requiring the driver to do anything if they actually see something unusual - because then you definitely end up with someone having a snooze in the cab - but two trains on the same track?
Is this a case of it being too expensive (I sense a pattern here) to retrofit older trains?
I think it is not so much the train retrofitting and more having to retrofit the whole railway network. In this case the problem was failure to slow down enough before the red signal, so you would need to have enough lineside equipment to tell the train about that upcoming red, as well as the onboard part to make it apply the brakes. The network is very big so there's a lot of kit that would need to be installed all over the country. (We already have some forms of this, but for this particular accident the RAIB reckon TPWS would only have reduced the severity of the crash, not avoided it, and it wasn't fitted because this kind of "no junction involved" signal has an exemption from having to have TPWS. So even if we did mandate an enhanced automation this signal would be a long way down the priority list for rolling it out.)
On a new line you can make better specs -- I think HS2 is ETCS, for instance -- but retrofitting is painful. And at some point you need to look at the cost spent per life saved and start wondering whether we'd be better off trying to reduce road casualties or something instead...
The unions aren't saints - we know that. But rail crew are people too. Their employers aren't allowed by the government to hire enough staff. So the only way the service can operate is via goodwill - people working rest days and thus not spending time with their family.
What happens when that goodwill evaporates? The service can't run fully. Then add into the mix some bizarre DfT dictat that drivers should have route restrictions - meaning more crew needed to operate a single service - and you're asking for trouble.
The solution? The Shapps - Williams plan is a start. A wholesale restructure to simplify the utter chaos which is he current structure. The Tories have had this on the planner since 2021 and other than spending money on competitions as to in which Tory maginal the HQ should be have done *nothing*.
So yes, its clearly the fault of the unions. Of people. How Dare They not work on a day off. Who do they think they are, putting family first?
Its an outrage.
Safety, too, ultimately. Work people too often on rest days ...
I fear that argument's false. Rest-day working has been around for donkey's years, and I can't think of an incident caused by it. AIUI RDW does *not* affect the amount of rest a driver should get between shifts (what ?used? to be called the HIDDEN rules).
Good grief, how did I know know about this? It is on our local nature reserve.
Surely that kind of collision could be automated away.
I understand the reasoning behind not automating everything and only requiring the driver to do anything if they actually see something unusual - because then you definitely end up with someone having a snooze in the cab - but two trains on the same track?
Is this a case of it being too expensive (I sense a pattern here) to retrofit older trains?
A mixture of things IMO. The reasons these incidents are so remarkable is that they're rare, and that's because they try to process them out. Lessons are learnt, and more processes added to avoid them. An automated system has to implement all of those safety lessons - and that's really difficult. Especially when it also has to cope with the unusual - something humans do quite well. Just the human interactions of checking a door is closed and no-one waiting on the platform is going to try to open a door is hard to automate.
One of my bugbears is people introducing a brand-new transport system and calling it 'safe' without any of these very expensive systems. We saw it with Maglev, where it was claimed it was impossible to crash - just before many people were killed in a crash. We see it with 'Hyperloop', where pixies and fairy dust will keep people 'safe'.
Safety costs. The more safety you want, the more you pay.
Whenever new transport systems are mooted it seems to be on the assumption that maintenance is not a thing and stuff never breaks.
In most cases it seems like just building more trains would be a better option but it's not sexy enough to get attention.
There are hard limits on the number of carriages that a platform / station can handle and how many trains an hour can go down the track.
The latter is why HS2 was so important - it allowed the fast trains to be segregated on to fast tracks so you end up with 16 fast trains / hour, and 16 slow trains / hour on the old tracks rather than 10 trains per hour.
I would just say that because of the timing of the election the number of children leaving private schools for the state sector will become very apparent by the Autumn and I expect it will not be good news for labour's calculations on the funding available from this decision
Yep, it's a really dumb idea - it's damaging the education sector already and, as the article says, it will cost the Treasury not benefit it. But as Keir Starmer is, by his own confession, "a socialist", he's pressing ahead with it regardless.
Lots of businesses and private citizens who are planning to vote for him are going to feel had in 12-18 months time.
It's going to be a very minor factor in the education sector - the big issues at the moment are
1) Demographics the number of pre-school age children is significantly lower than previous years. You can see that in general admissions into State Schools, private schools can't escape the issue. 2) Cost of living has increased significantly - I can see people looking at the cost and going - with our new mortgage rates it's not possible. 3) VAT - but that's a long range thing
Although you are always going to disagree Aston is closing because of points 1 and 2. 3 is a factor but it's the first point that will be impacting next years numbers...
You are entirely right.
But point 1 has only just started to bite for primary schools, and hasn't yet for secondary ones.
The implication is a lot of private schools will close and Labour's VAT policy may get the blame politically once in power.
That's an issue for a future election not this one, but it's fairly predictable how it'll play out.
Oh I know Labour will get the blame once it's in power and the policy has been implemented my point through out this was more that CR has been sold a lie and is believing it..
Everything about the announcement in his case was points 1 and 2 have occurred but thankfully here's reason 3 which I can use to say it's none of our (management, parents) faults. Otherwise you would have the couple of parents leaving because of point 2 thinking it was their fault the school was closing...
Comparse the frothing on here about Labour and nondoms: yet
It's another example of where Labour will get the blame for something the Tories have already spent the cash on...
The voters are not stupid. They will know that many of the challenges in the first few years reflect legacy problems. Labour can get away with blaming the Tories for a while. Indeed, the Tories keep trying to blame Labour even though they've been in charge for 14 years!
Governments blame the previous lot.
Usually with some justification.
Governments blame world events.
Usually with some justification.
But these are excuses to be used when increasing taxes or cutting spending on groups who don't vote for the party in government.
Those groups which support the party in government get the extra spending instead.
So the Conservatives were able to balance cuts in some areas with profligacy on the oldies.
Labour will likewise need to reward some groups if it doesn't want its support to melt away.
I think post 2010 it was fair to blame the economic backdrop for why policy needed to be what it was. Whether is was fair to blame a global recession on Labour is rather different question. The same will apply to 2024.
Its not particularly fair, but it happens. If you are in power when the poo hits the whirly thing then you get covered in poo.
No leaflets through the door yet, get a move on local parties.
I had 7 leaflets from the local LDs in 2021 so I expect to be inundated very soon.
I’m abroad at the moment but expect to see lots of canvassers on my return to Eastbourne later in June. If the Lib Dems don’t win that seat then it would be a massive shock .
A reminder to Lord Hayward - in 2017 and 2010, Labour polled better than the polls had been suggesting. So it's not all one way traffic. Pollsters do adjust their methodology and sometimes seem to over adjust especially where they are trying to make their poll into a prediction rather than just a test of opinion.
My experience from doorstep canvassing is that an extraordinary number of former Conservative voters when pressed say that they won't vote at all. For those who are not going to vote Labour the conversation still very often tends to progress along lines of "well I just don't know what I'm going to do this time" but ends up when pressed with "to be honest I'll probably end up not voting at all, they're all as bad as each other". Are the polls recording the former without progressing to the reality of the latter?
What we can say about current polling is that in an election which is widely forecast to have a low turnout there are an unduly high number of respondents who claim that they are going to vote. I certainly think the "don't vote" party is being underestimated in polling and a lot of those will come from the undecided camp.
One other point: If out of all the current undecided, 25% break for the Conservatives (which isn't unrealistic when only 25% of the decideds have choosen the Conservatives), 25% break for Labour, 20% for others and 30% dont vote, then the Labour lead in percentage terms will narrow. But in terms of the absolute difference between Labour and Conservative voters it will be unchanged.
I am not being overly complacent, for the lousy state of the electoral register this time does give cause for concern, although it would have been a lot worse had Sunak chosen November.
Definitely finding the same thing on the doorstep.
As the legendary Yes PM sketch stated, people don't like to look foolish when questioned. Saying that you 'don't know' makes you seem intelligent and considering all the options. By contrast, saying 'won't vote' makes it look as if you don't care.
My hunch, equally valid and as prone to error as Lord Hayward, is that most of the 'Don't Knows' will spend a happy polling day in their lounge and not give the election another thought.
Mmm......you get quite a lot of those don't know this time and all as bad each other types in the random street interviews they do in marginals and I have to say in all honesty they never strike me as particularly intelligent.
I've done studies on COVID-19-related behaviours. I read studies on COVID-19-related conspiracy theories. One thing that stands out to me is that those voting Con and those voting Lab are more alike each other than either group is like non-voters. Non-voters are the different group, who engage less with society's rules and believe more unorthodox ideas.
But people who didn't vote in 2019 and don't vote this year don't matter. The persistent non-voters are irrelevant to voting! What's interesting are those who voted in 2019 and won't vote this year. I wonder whether these are people who didn't vote in 2010, 2015, but did vote in the referendum and did vote to get Brexit done. Will they revert to their usual not voting behaviour?
I would just say that because of the timing of the election the number of children leaving private schools for the state sector will become very apparent by the Autumn and I expect it will not be good news for labour's calculations on the funding available from this decision
Yep, it's a really dumb idea - it's damaging the education sector already and, as the article says, it will cost the Treasury not benefit it. But as Keir Starmer is, by his own confession, "a socialist", he's pressing ahead with it regardless.
Lots of businesses and private citizens who are planning to vote for him are going to feel had in 12-18 months time.
As only 5% go to pivate schools I can't see how it would make any difference to anything. Talk about the tail wagging the dog. If the 1 in 20 parents who send their children to private schools think they are stealing a lead on the 19 in 20 who cant afford it then I don't see anything wrong with the state charging them a small premium. Consider it a fine for trying to buy privilege.
Only buy the best for your kids if it's trainers or smartphones.
Those of us who went down the 5% route will remember their school chums whose surnames were those of cities or town or counties or the self made ones who are now are to be seen with titles of their own advising Prime Ministers or indeed sharing dormitories with them. No question money well spent but whether for the greater good I would say not
Except Labour's VAT on fees plan won't hit the likes of Eton and Harrow and Fettes and Charterhouse and the school that was posh enough for your kids, bankers and corporate lawyers and KCs and surgeons and Russian oligarchs and Nigerian and Saudi oil barons and Far Eastern billionaires will still easily afford the fees
Instead it will hit small businessmen, midwives, police sergeants, deputy heads, pharmacists, and those with autistic or disabled children who scrimp and save to send their children to small local private and special schools desperately trying to stay open and keep costs down
That's interesting. Do you have figures for relative numbers who go to local private schools as opposed to the wealthy public and prep schools?
The unions aren't saints - we know that. But rail crew are people too. Their employers aren't allowed by the government to hire enough staff. So the only way the service can operate is via goodwill - people working rest days and thus not spending time with their family.
What happens when that goodwill evaporates? The service can't run fully. Then add into the mix some bizarre DfT dictat that drivers should have route restrictions - meaning more crew needed to operate a single service - and you're asking for trouble.
The solution? The Shapps - Williams plan is a start. A wholesale restructure to simplify the utter chaos which is he current structure. The Tories have had this on the planner since 2021 and other than spending money on competitions as to in which Tory maginal the HQ should be have done *nothing*.
So yes, its clearly the fault of the unions. Of people. How Dare They not work on a day off. Who do they think they are, putting family first?
Its an outrage.
Safety, too, ultimately. Work people too often on rest days ...
I fear that argument's false. Rest-day working has been around for donkey's years, and I can't think of an incident caused by it. AIUI RDW does *not* affect the amount of rest a driver should get between shifts (what ?used? to be called the HIDDEN rules).
Good grief, how did I know know about this? It is on our local nature reserve.
Surely that kind of collision could be automated away.
I understand the reasoning behind not automating everything and only requiring the driver to do anything if they actually see something unusual - because then you definitely end up with someone having a snooze in the cab - but two trains on the same track?
Is this a case of it being too expensive (I sense a pattern here) to retrofit older trains?
A mixture of things IMO. The reasons these incidents are so remarkable is that they're rare, and that's because they try to process them out. Lessons are learnt, and more processes added to avoid them. An automated system has to implement all of those safety lessons - and that's really difficult. Especially when it also has to cope with the unusual - something humans do quite well. Just the human interactions of checking a door is closed and no-one waiting on the platform is going to try to open a door is hard to automate.
One of my bugbears is people introducing a brand-new transport system and calling it 'safe' without any of these very expensive systems. We saw it with Maglev, where it was claimed it was impossible to crash - just before many people were killed in a crash. We see it with 'Hyperloop', where pixies and fairy dust will keep people 'safe'.
Safety costs. The more safety you want, the more you pay.
Whenever new transport systems are mooted it seems to be on the assumption that maintenance is not a thing and stuff never breaks.
In most cases it seems like just building more trains would be a better option but it's not sexy enough to get attention.
There are hard limits on the number of carriages that a platform / station can handle and how many trains an hour can go down the track.
The latter is why HS2 was so important - it allowed the fast trains to be segregated on to fast tracks so you end up with 16 fast trains / hour, and 16 slow trains / hour on the old tracks rather than 10 trains per hour.
By more trains I was being inclusive of all sorts of associated train infrastructure, rather than building a hyperloop or some other futuristic new option, until suddenly you are building Neom, the line shaped city of Saudi Arabia.
I would just say that because of the timing of the election the number of children leaving private schools for the state sector will become very apparent by the Autumn and I expect it will not be good news for labour's calculations on the funding available from this decision
Yep, it's a really dumb idea - it's damaging the education sector already and, as the article says, it will cost the Treasury not benefit it. But as Keir Starmer is, by his own confession, "a socialist", he's pressing ahead with it regardless.
Lots of businesses and private citizens who are planning to vote for him are going to feel had in 12-18 months time.
As only 5% go to pivate schools I can't see how it would make any difference to anything. Talk about the tail wagging the dog. If the 1 in 20 parents who send their children to private schools think they are stealing a lead on the 19 in 20 who cant afford it then I don't see anything wrong with the state charging them a small premium. Consider it a fine for trying to buy privilege.
Only buy the best for your kids if it's trainers or smartphones.
Those of us who went down the 5% route will remember their school chums whose surnames were those of cities or towns or counties or the self made ones who are now are to be seen with titles of their own advising Prime Ministers or indeed sharing dormitories with them. No question money well spent but whether for the greater good I would say not
Only a very small proportion of private schools are like that. I went to a couple (was both state and privately educated) and at the high end one, that kind of tie flashing stuff simply didn’t happen.
On the subject of learning train routes and I will admit I have no knowledge of the complexity of it wouldn't it just be possible to have a box sat in the cab which is chirping out messages such as curve in 3 miles start to slow down here to reduce your speed to 50mph, points coming up in 4 miles etc.
A sort of sat nav for trains....tie it into the train systems and signalling system and could replace learning the route.....maybe I am missing something?
I would just say that because of the timing of the election the number of children leaving private schools for the state sector will become very apparent by the Autumn and I expect it will not be good news for labour's calculations on the funding available from this decision
Yep, it's a really dumb idea - it's damaging the education sector already and, as the article says, it will cost the Treasury not benefit it. But as Keir Starmer is, by his own confession, "a socialist", he's pressing ahead with it regardless.
Lots of businesses and private citizens who are planning to vote for him are going to feel had in 12-18 months time.
As only 5% go to pivate schools I can't see how it would make any difference to anything. Talk about the tail wagging the dog. If the 1 in 20 parents who send their children to private schools think they are stealing a lead on the 19 in 20 who cant afford it then I don't see anything wrong with the state charging them a small premium. Consider it a fine for trying to buy privilege.
Only buy the best for your kids if it's trainers or smartphones.
Those of us who went down the 5% route will remember their school chums whose surnames were those of cities or town or counties or the self made ones who are now are to be seen with titles of their own advising Prime Ministers or indeed sharing dormitories with them. No question money well spent but whether for the greater good I would say not
Except Labour's VAT on fees plan won't hit the likes of Eton and Harrow and Fettes and Charterhouse and the school that was posh enough for your kids, bankers and corporate lawyers and KCs and surgeons and Russian oligarchs and Nigerian and Saudi oil barons and Far Eastern billionaires will still easily afford the fees
Instead it will hit small businessmen, midwives, police sergeants, deputy heads, pharmacists, and those with autistic or disabled children who scrimp and save to send their children to small local private and special schools desperately trying to stay open and keep costs down
Fallacy. There's plenty of people sending children to Eton and Harrow that can afford it but only just
Indeed is it a law of economics that all goods are bought by the whole spectrum from zero to huge opportunity cost? Or are, say, Bugattis only bought by people who can buy them for pocket change?
Yes, logic suggests that some people who are sending their children to Eton or Harrow, or any other private school, can only just afford to do so.
I note, however, that private school fees have risen far higher than inflation over the last few decades. This suggests considerable price inelasticity. People have kept sending their kids despite increases in fees higher than the imposition of VAT will cause.
The unions aren't saints - we know that. But rail crew are people too. Their employers aren't allowed by the government to hire enough staff. So the only way the service can operate is via goodwill - people working rest days and thus not spending time with their family.
What happens when that goodwill evaporates? The service can't run fully. Then add into the mix some bizarre DfT dictat that drivers should have route restrictions - meaning more crew needed to operate a single service - and you're asking for trouble.
The solution? The Shapps - Williams plan is a start. A wholesale restructure to simplify the utter chaos which is he current structure. The Tories have had this on the planner since 2021 and other than spending money on competitions as to in which Tory maginal the HQ should be have done *nothing*.
So yes, its clearly the fault of the unions. Of people. How Dare They not work on a day off. Who do they think they are, putting family first?
Its an outrage.
Safety, too, ultimately. Work people too often on rest days ...
I fear that argument's false. Rest-day working has been around for donkey's years, and I can't think of an incident caused by it. AIUI RDW does *not* affect the amount of rest a driver should get between shifts (what ?used? to be called the HIDDEN rules).
Good grief, how did I know know about this? It is on our local nature reserve.
Surely that kind of collision could be automated away.
I understand the reasoning behind not automating everything and only requiring the driver to do anything if they actually see something unusual - because then you definitely end up with someone having a snooze in the cab - but two trains on the same track?
Is this a case of it being too expensive (I sense a pattern here) to retrofit older trains?
A mixture of things IMO. The reasons these incidents are so remarkable is that they're rare, and that's because they try to process them out. Lessons are learnt, and more processes added to avoid them. An automated system has to implement all of those safety lessons - and that's really difficult. Especially when it also has to cope with the unusual - something humans do quite well. Just the human interactions of checking a door is closed and no-one waiting on the platform is going to try to open a door is hard to automate.
One of my bugbears is people introducing a brand-new transport system and calling it 'safe' without any of these very expensive systems. We saw it with Maglev, where it was claimed it was impossible to crash - just before many people were killed in a crash. We see it with 'Hyperloop', where pixies and fairy dust will keep people 'safe'.
Safety costs. The more safety you want, the more you pay.
Whenever new transport systems are mooted it seems to be on the assumption that maintenance is not a thing and stuff never breaks.
In most cases it seems like just building more trains would be a better option but it's not sexy enough to get attention.
There are hard limits on the number of carriages that a platform / station can handle and how many trains an hour can go down the track.
The latter is why HS2 was so important - it allowed the fast trains to be segregated on to fast tracks so you end up with 16 fast trains / hour, and 16 slow trains / hour on the old tracks rather than 10 trains per hour.
By more trains I was being inclusive of all sorts of associated train infrastructure, rather than building a hyperloop or some other futuristic new option, until suddenly you are building Neom, the line shaped city of Saudi Arabia.
I thought as much - but the issue is that on the routes that are running close to capacity adding any more capacity is virtually impossible.
Case in point from Friday morning. With the North bound ECML blocked in Darlington station all trains both North and South were using the South bound platform - so you need a contingence of 12 trains an hour max for that to work...
On the Angela Rayner thing, it seems a relatively small matter given all the other stuff that many politicians do. I mentioned Margaret Beckett's financial shenanigans yesterday.
But much of it is about brighter and dimmer spotlights, plus who gets to point them.
How does the potential impact of the Angela Rayner matter compare to the potential impact of the Angus Macneil matter?
Lord Hayward may well be right, although the following two statements (four if you permit replays) don’t inspire confidence that this is based on anything other than a hunch:
'I do believe the ‘don’t knows’ will vote in fairly large numbers, and the indications from local council results is that they are beginning to break towards the Conservatives.’
There’s no indication from the local council results of anything firm at national level and there’s no evidence that can be pulled out to show ‘they are beginning to break towards the Conservatives.’
And secondly, the ‘I believe’ comment shows that this isn’t based in evidence.
His belief may be right. It may not be.
Even when he repeats himself
It doesn't stop a comfortable Labour victory but it does stop a massacre. Of course, this time it could be different.
But that’s the point I was making. It’s just speculation.
It sort-of has a basis in history although that’s highly selective: 2019 over say 1931, 1945, or 1997.
As some of you may recall, I’ve argued that 2019 was a unique set of circumstances and a VERY bad baseline to use if you are betting money. It was ‘almost’ a referendum on Get Brexit Done following a remainer Parliament that made even me exasperated.
Go back to 2017 or 2015 which were true General Elections.
It’s really poor psephology to use 2019.
I wasn't relying on any particular result but what I would say is that in 2019 the majority of the don't knows who voted were probably Labour supporters, appalled by Corbyn. And yet, come the day, the majority of them who voted probably voted Labour. We certainly saw that in 2017.
It is the underlying explanation for swing back. The habit of voting for a particular party is not an easy one to break no matter how much they upset you between elections. Our voting patterns may be becoming more volatile and I agree with you that the 2019 coalition created by Boris did contain quite a number of non traditional Tories who are not coming back, hence the large Labour leads.
My guess, FWIW, is that this tendency will put the Tories in the very low 30s and Labour in the very low 40s which will give Labour an easy win.
I agree that the habit of voting for one party is hard to break but the point about 2019 is that many of the votes Johnson got were first time Tory voters so the habit argument doesn't really apply. For many I suspect it will be first and last time they voted Tory largely due to the way Brexit (when popular) cut across traditional party lines.
On topic, pollsters like YouGov probably are overstating Labour's lead because of the overly-politically active nature of their panels.
However, the results from Westminster by-elections and local elections suggest that a Labour lead in the high teens is very credible and we should expect something like that were the election today.
I don't buy the 'DK 2019 Tories will return' argument. The Tories have done a huge amount to piss off that group, many of whom were first-time Tory voters then anyway so have no deep loyalty to the brand (quite the opposite, if anything). They will most likely end up as DK-Abstain; to the extent they don't, they'll splinter all over the place to minimal effect either way.
Plus the real voting will include tactical mechanics which are hard to show in a poll.
Maybe Sunak will pull back a decent chunk of DK but there will be seats where the tactical switch to, say, Lab from LibDem in order to get them out will be compensate I suspect.
On the Angela Rayner thing, it seems a relatively small matter given all the other stuff that many politicians do. I mentioned Margaret Beckett's financial shenanigans yesterday.
But much of it is about brighter and dimmer spotlights, plus who gets to point them.
How does the potential impact of the Angela Rayner matter compare to the potential impact of the Angus Macneil matter?
If there were to be developments on the red haired lady front, it's less about the issue and more that it would become a 'question of judgement' thing for Starmer on backing her. I believe the other is priced in.
One of the most enjoyable aspects of this election so far, other than the Tories flying kites in the thunderclouds, has been the spectre of Schrödinger's Labour.
We're being earnestly told by some commentators that Labour won't have the fiscal room or the inclination to do anything differently, so there's no point voting for them. At the same time, we're told they will usher in a dangerous radical break straight after, nay, even BEFORE the election, so one shouldn't vote for them.
(There some joke about putting the cat among the pigeons / dead cat strategy here that I can't quite nail down)
It's quite fun to see. As it happens, I don't find myself hugely disagreeing with the former group hugely, although I think they overstate the case.
This is a function of Labour Party strategy, they have located themselves in a good political position whereby they don’t put out too many hostages to fortune or anything that their opponents can get their teeth into. So all that’s left is projection of the type that is going on.
Their positioning will handsomely win them the election but will have post election consequences. Supporters are projecting too and there is plenty of wishful thinking going on. Labour will undoubtedly disappoint the wildest expectations. The course of the next Parliament will be determined by whether disappointed voters give Labour the benefit of the doubt or whether they start to listen to the siren voices that are already doing their warmup exercises.
I would just say that because of the timing of the election the number of children leaving private schools for the state sector will become very apparent by the Autumn and I expect it will not be good news for labour's calculations on the funding available from this decision
Yep, it's a really dumb idea - it's damaging the education sector already and, as the article says, it will cost the Treasury not benefit it. But as Keir Starmer is, by his own confession, "a socialist", he's pressing ahead with it regardless.
Lots of businesses and private citizens who are planning to vote for him are going to feel had in 12-18 months time.
As only 5% go to pivate schools I can't see how it would make any difference to anything. Talk about the tail wagging the dog. If the 1 in 20 parents who send their children to private schools think they are stealing a lead on the 19 in 20 who cant afford it then I don't see anything wrong with the state charging them a small premium. Consider it a fine for trying to buy privilege.
Only buy the best for your kids if it's trainers or smartphones.
Those of us who went down the 5% route will remember their school chums whose surnames were those of cities or town or counties or the self made ones who are now are to be seen with titles of their own advising Prime Ministers or indeed sharing dormitories with them. No question money well spent but whether for the greater good I would say not
Except Labour's VAT on fees plan won't hit the likes of Eton and Harrow and Fettes and Charterhouse and the school that was posh enough for your kids, bankers and corporate lawyers and KCs and surgeons and Russian oligarchs and Nigerian and Saudi oil barons and Far Eastern billionaires will still easily afford the fees
Instead it will hit small businessmen, midwives, police sergeants, deputy heads, pharmacists, and those with autistic or disabled children who scrimp and save to send their children to small local private and special schools desperately trying to stay open and keep costs down
That's interesting. Do you have figures for relative numbers who go to local private schools as opposed to the wealthy public and prep schools?
I'm obviously in a minority on here, but I think swingaway is just as plausible as swingback. The evidence from both opinion polls and actual elections over the last two years suggests that the Tories are stuffed, and I've seen nothing in the opening gambits of the respective campaigns to suggest that's going to change - potentially the reverse.
As for the argument that "in the privacy of the polling booth lots of former Tories will hold their nose and put a cross next to the blue candidate", I'm unconvinced. Given the way it's going, I can imagine lots of former Tories in the privacy of the polling booth thinking "sod this for a game of soldiers" and avoiding the blue candidate.
@TheScreamingEagles , you've duplicated the text. The words "Some of the polls before the general election may...the accuracy of the polls this election." occur twice
I would just say that because of the timing of the election the number of children leaving private schools for the state sector will become very apparent by the Autumn and I expect it will not be good news for labour's calculations on the funding available from this decision
Yep, it's a really dumb idea - it's damaging the education sector already and, as the article says, it will cost the Treasury not benefit it. But as Keir Starmer is, by his own confession, "a socialist", he's pressing ahead with it regardless.
Lots of businesses and private citizens who are planning to vote for him are going to feel had in 12-18 months time.
As only 5% go to pivate schools I can't see how it would make any difference to anything. Talk about the tail wagging the dog. If the 1 in 20 parents who send their children to private schools think they are stealing a lead on the 19 in 20 who cant afford it then I don't see anything wrong with the state charging them a small premium. Consider it a fine for trying to buy privilege.
Only buy the best for your kids if it's trainers or smartphones.
Those of us who went down the 5% route will remember their school chums whose surnames were those of cities or town or counties or the self made ones who are now are to be seen with titles of their own advising Prime Ministers or indeed sharing dormitories with them. No question money well spent but whether for the greater good I would say not
Except Labour's VAT on fees plan won't hit the likes of Eton and Harrow and Fettes and Charterhouse and the school that was posh enough for your kids, bankers and corporate lawyers and KCs and surgeons and Russian oligarchs and Nigerian and Saudi oil barons and Far Eastern billionaires will still easily afford the fees
Instead it will hit small businessmen, midwives, police sergeants, deputy heads, pharmacists, and those with autistic or disabled children who scrimp and save to send their children to small local private and special schools desperately trying to stay open and keep costs down
Fallacy. There's plenty of people sending children to Eton and Harrow that can afford it but only just
Indeed is it a law of economics that all goods are bought by the whole spectrum from zero to huge opportunity cost? Or are, say, Bugattis only bought by people who can buy them for pocket change?
Yes, logic suggests that some people who are sending their children to Eton or Harrow, or any other private school, can only just afford to do so.
I note, however, that private school fees have risen far higher than inflation over the last few decades. This suggests considerable price inelasticity. People have kept sending their kids despite increases in fees higher than the imposition of VAT will cause.
There’s been a huge race to compete on facilities, as international student numbers have grown and parents no longer tolerate falling down classrooms and mouldy concrete changing rooms. Private schools have been investing in buildings, technology, sports facilities and labs. That seems to be where the money has been going.
Exactly the kind of infrastructure the state sector could do with. Anyone who’s done the secondary school open day with year 6 children can testify to the huge gulf in facilities between private and state. Private schools have also kept their playing fields, the teaching and in many cases the results are not that different, it’s the physical estate where the contrasts are. That and class sizes.
One of the most enjoyable aspects of this election so far, other than the Tories flying kites in the thunderclouds, has been the spectre of Schrödinger's Labour.
We're being earnestly told by some commentators that Labour won't have the fiscal room or the inclination to do anything differently, so there's no point voting for them. At the same time, we're told they will usher in a dangerous radical break straight after, nay, even BEFORE the election, so one shouldn't vote for them.
(There some joke about putting the cat among the pigeons / dead cat strategy here that I can't quite nail down)
It's quite fun to see. As it happens, I don't find myself hugely disagreeing with the former group hugely, although I think they overstate the case.
This is a function of Labour Party strategy, they have located themselves in a good political position whereby they don’t put out too many hostages to fortune or anything that their opponents can get their teeth into. So all that’s left is projection of the type that is going on.
Their positioning will handsomely win them the election but will have post election consequences. Supporters are projecting too and there is plenty of wishful thinking going on. Labour will undoubtedly disappoint the wildest expectations. The course of the next Parliament will be determined by whether disappointed voters give Labour the benefit of the doubt or whether they start to listen to the siren voices that are already doing their warmup exercises.
Bit in bold - the point is that Labour has deliberately not set any wild expectations. Lefties like me are somewhat disappointed by the lack of ambition thus far in Labour's offer.
Starmer's strategy is clear - under-promise but over-deliver.
The unions aren't saints - we know that. But rail crew are people too. Their employers aren't allowed by the government to hire enough staff. So the only way the service can operate is via goodwill - people working rest days and thus not spending time with their family.
What happens when that goodwill evaporates? The service can't run fully. Then add into the mix some bizarre DfT dictat that drivers should have route restrictions - meaning more crew needed to operate a single service - and you're asking for trouble.
The solution? The Shapps - Williams plan is a start. A wholesale restructure to simplify the utter chaos which is he current structure. The Tories have had this on the planner since 2021 and other than spending money on competitions as to in which Tory maginal the HQ should be have done *nothing*.
So yes, its clearly the fault of the unions. Of people. How Dare They not work on a day off. Who do they think they are, putting family first?
Its an outrage.
Safety, too, ultimately. Work people too often on rest days ...
I fear that argument's false. Rest-day working has been around for donkey's years, and I can't think of an incident caused by it. AIUI RDW does *not* affect the amount of rest a driver should get between shifts (what ?used? to be called the HIDDEN rules).
Good grief, how did I know know about this? It is on our local nature reserve.
Surely that kind of collision could be automated away.
I understand the reasoning behind not automating everything and only requiring the driver to do anything if they actually see something unusual - because then you definitely end up with someone having a snooze in the cab - but two trains on the same track?
Is this a case of it being too expensive (I sense a pattern here) to retrofit older trains?
I think it is not so much the train retrofitting and more having to retrofit the whole railway network. In this case the problem was failure to slow down enough before the red signal, so you would need to have enough lineside equipment to tell the train about that upcoming red, as well as the onboard part to make it apply the brakes. The network is very big so there's a lot of kit that would need to be installed all over the country. (We already have some forms of this, but for this particular accident the RAIB reckon TPWS would only have reduced the severity of the crash, not avoided it, and it wasn't fitted because this kind of "no junction involved" signal has an exemption from having to have TPWS. So even if we did mandate an enhanced automation this signal would be a long way down the priority list for rolling it out.)
On a new line you can make better specs -- I think HS2 is ETCS, for instance -- but retrofitting is painful. And at some point you need to look at the cost spent per life saved and start wondering whether we'd be better off trying to reduce road casualties or something instead...
So someone was speeding, essentially.
The section involved is an old bit of track that doesn't get used a lot so I can understand why it hasn't been upgraded.
I understand wireless communications can't be relied on but is there a reason that this kind of thing can't be caught by the addition of online GPS train positioning?
I suppose introducing further complexity for less than 100% coverage is a safety no-no.
I would just say that because of the timing of the election the number of children leaving private schools for the state sector will become very apparent by the Autumn and I expect it will not be good news for labour's calculations on the funding available from this decision
Yep, it's a really dumb idea - it's damaging the education sector already and, as the article says, it will cost the Treasury not benefit it. But as Keir Starmer is, by his own confession, "a socialist", he's pressing ahead with it regardless.
Lots of businesses and private citizens who are planning to vote for him are going to feel had in 12-18 months time.
As only 5% go to pivate schools I can't see how it would make any difference to anything. Talk about the tail wagging the dog. If the 1 in 20 parents who send their children to private schools think they are stealing a lead on the 19 in 20 who cant afford it then I don't see anything wrong with the state charging them a small premium. Consider it a fine for trying to buy privilege.
Only buy the best for your kids if it's trainers or smartphones.
Those of us who went down the 5% route will remember their school chums whose surnames were those of cities or town or counties or the self made ones who are now are to be seen with titles of their own advising Prime Ministers or indeed sharing dormitories with them. No question money well spent but whether for the greater good I would say not
Except Labour's VAT on fees plan won't hit the likes of Eton and Harrow and Fettes and Charterhouse and the school that was posh enough for your kids, bankers and corporate lawyers and KCs and surgeons and Russian oligarchs and Nigerian and Saudi oil barons and Far Eastern billionaires will still easily afford the fees
Instead it will hit small businessmen, midwives, police sergeants, deputy heads, pharmacists, and those with autistic or disabled children who scrimp and save to send their children to small local private and special schools desperately trying to stay open and keep costs down
Fallacy. There's plenty of people sending children to Eton and Harrow that can afford it but only just
Indeed is it a law of economics that all goods are bought by the whole spectrum from zero to huge opportunity cost? Or are, say, Bugattis only bought by people who can buy them for pocket change?
Yes, logic suggests that some people who are sending their children to Eton or Harrow, or any other private school, can only just afford to do so.
I note, however, that private school fees have risen far higher than inflation over the last few decades. This suggests considerable price inelasticity. People have kept sending their kids despite increases in fees higher than the imposition of VAT will cause.
There’s been a huge race to compete on facilities, as international student numbers have grown and parents no longer tolerate falling down classrooms and mouldy concrete changing rooms. Private schools have been investing in buildings, technology, sports facilities and labs. That seems to be where the money has been going.
Exactly the kind of infrastructure the state sector could do with. Anyone who’s done the secondary school open day with year 6 children can testify to the huge gulf in facilities between private and state. Private schools have also kept their playing fields, the teaching and in many cases the results are not that different, it’s the physical estate where the contrasts are. That and class sizes.
Thanks for the possible explanation. This suggests that the private school sector can absorb VAT and that parents can afford some fee increases. Whatever the rights or wrongs of the policy, this suggests that the policy is unlikely to produce a torrent of closures forcing pupils into state schools.
I would just say that because of the timing of the election the number of children leaving private schools for the state sector will become very apparent by the Autumn and I expect it will not be good news for labour's calculations on the funding available from this decision
Yep, it's a really dumb idea - it's damaging the education sector already and, as the article says, it will cost the Treasury not benefit it. But as Keir Starmer is, by his own confession, "a socialist", he's pressing ahead with it regardless.
Lots of businesses and private citizens who are planning to vote for him are going to feel had in 12-18 months time.
As only 5% go to pivate schools I can't see how it would make any difference to anything. Talk about the tail wagging the dog. If the 1 in 20 parents who send their children to private schools think they are stealing a lead on the 19 in 20 who cant afford it then I don't see anything wrong with the state charging them a small premium. Consider it a fine for trying to buy privilege.
Only buy the best for your kids if it's trainers or smartphones.
Those of us who went down the 5% route will remember their school chums whose surnames were those of cities or town or counties or the self made ones who are now are to be seen with titles of their own advising Prime Ministers or indeed sharing dormitories with them. No question money well spent but whether for the greater good I would say not
Except Labour's VAT on fees plan won't hit the likes of Eton and Harrow and Fettes and Charterhouse and the school that was posh enough for your kids, bankers and corporate lawyers and KCs and surgeons and Russian oligarchs and Nigerian and Saudi oil barons and Far Eastern billionaires will still easily afford the fees
Instead it will hit small businessmen, midwives, police sergeants, deputy heads, pharmacists, and those with autistic or disabled children who scrimp and save to send their children to small local private and special schools desperately trying to stay open and keep costs down
That's interesting. Do you have figures for relative numbers who go to local private schools as opposed to the wealthy public and prep schools?
Don't have those figures, but I can tell you:
In the top ten percent of families by income, about half of children go to private schools. (That's a family income of about 200k gross.)
That falls to about a quarter in the next two deciles (down to about 75k gross) and fairly small numbers below that.
It generally isn't JAMs scrimping and saving. Because, as previously discussed, school fees have risen so far above inflation that the scrimp and save option doesn't really exist any more.
On the subject of learning train routes and I will admit I have no knowledge of the complexity of it wouldn't it just be possible to have a box sat in the cab which is chirping out messages such as curve in 3 miles start to slow down here to reduce your speed to 50mph, points coming up in 4 miles etc.
A sort of sat nav for trains....tie it into the train systems and signalling system and could replace learning the route.....maybe I am missing something?
Such devices were devised (and implemented...) for the APT project
And AIUI the Pendolino (and indeed the current TPWS-style safety systems also use similar trackside devices, which you can often see between the tracks at stations.
But as for route learning: it is much more than that. To be fair, it was far more important in the days of steam, where visibility of signals was poor (a boiler in the way, and lots of steam/smoke), so you had to know when a signal was coming up. But when a heavy train can take a long distance to stop, knowledge of what is coming up is vital.
I would just say that because of the timing of the election the number of children leaving private schools for the state sector will become very apparent by the Autumn and I expect it will not be good news for labour's calculations on the funding available from this decision
Yep, it's a really dumb idea - it's damaging the education sector already and, as the article says, it will cost the Treasury not benefit it. But as Keir Starmer is, by his own confession, "a socialist", he's pressing ahead with it regardless.
Lots of businesses and private citizens who are planning to vote for him are going to feel had in 12-18 months time.
As only 5% go to pivate schools I can't see how it would make any difference to anything. Talk about the tail wagging the dog. If the 1 in 20 parents who send their children to private schools think they are stealing a lead on the 19 in 20 who cant afford it then I don't see anything wrong with the state charging them a small premium. Consider it a fine for trying to buy privilege.
Only buy the best for your kids if it's trainers or smartphones.
Those of us who went down the 5% route will remember their school chums whose surnames were those of cities or town or counties or the self made ones who are now are to be seen with titles of their own advising Prime Ministers or indeed sharing dormitories with them. No question money well spent but whether for the greater good I would say not
Just think how much better adverts would have been if the privileged with contacts hadnt elbowed out the competition. People might even be begging the BBC to have ads.
Advertising and associated trades is very egalitarian surprisingly. But don't you find it odd that someone you were at school with is now in a great position of influence and you knew them to be without any obvious talent or ability?
The industry I’ve worked in all my career is also very egalitarian as if you can’t do the work and don’t make money for clients and the company then it doesn’t matter where you went to school, you get dumped out.
I would find it odd if someone I was at school with was in a great position of influence without talent or ability - everyone I still have contact with from school appears to have found careers they are successful in and they were bright, decent, motivated pupils at school so no surprise.
There are also peers of mine who had huge talent and ability in academic, sporting and frankly human behaviour who have followed careers where they might not use all their talents but either enjoy what they do, such as youth workers, or are good at what they do, such as in the military, or one in particular who has decided not to use any of his brains and chose to become head of Eton.
I would just say that because of the timing of the election the number of children leaving private schools for the state sector will become very apparent by the Autumn and I expect it will not be good news for labour's calculations on the funding available from this decision
Yep, it's a really dumb idea - it's damaging the education sector already and, as the article says, it will cost the Treasury not benefit it. But as Keir Starmer is, by his own confession, "a socialist", he's pressing ahead with it regardless.
Lots of businesses and private citizens who are planning to vote for him are going to feel had in 12-18 months time.
As only 5% go to pivate schools I can't see how it would make any difference to anything. Talk about the tail wagging the dog. If the 1 in 20 parents who send their children to private schools think they are stealing a lead on the 19 in 20 who cant afford it then I don't see anything wrong with the state charging them a small premium. Consider it a fine for trying to buy privilege.
Only buy the best for your kids if it's trainers or smartphones.
Those of us who went down the 5% route will remember their school chums whose surnames were those of cities or town or counties or the self made ones who are now are to be seen with titles of their own advising Prime Ministers or indeed sharing dormitories with them. No question money well spent but whether for the greater good I would say not
Except Labour's VAT on fees plan won't hit the likes of Eton and Harrow and Fettes and Charterhouse and the school that was posh enough for your kids, bankers and corporate lawyers and KCs and surgeons and Russian oligarchs and Nigerian and Saudi oil barons and Far Eastern billionaires will still easily afford the fees
Instead it will hit small businessmen, midwives, police sergeants, deputy heads, pharmacists, and those with autistic or disabled children who scrimp and save to send their children to small local private and special schools desperately trying to stay open and keep costs down
So it has been said, but do we have any figures on this? How many midwives send their kids to private schools? (And specialist private schools for those with autism or disabilities are excluded from Labour's proposals.)
We can do a back of an envelope calculation. About 6% of kids go to private schools. That's not exactly the wealthiest 6% of families, but it's somewhere close to it. So, let's presume sending your kids to private school is a top 10% thing.
You need to earn about £65k to be in the top decile. An experienced midwife earns £50k, says https://nationalcareers.service.gov.uk/job-profiles/midwife If you are a one-income family, then no, midwives aren't sending their kids to private school.
The average salary for a police sergeant is £50k. Ditto.
Deputy head, £53k-£59k in the state sector.
To clarify, the exclusion in Labour's proposals (insofar as anyone knows what they are) looks likely to apply to kids being sent to a private school because of a formally issued EHCP - an Education, Health & Care Plan, or what used to be called a "statement".
Unfortunately in many areas it's borderline impossible to get an EHCP. Typically, first the parents go through everything they can think of with the primary school (and often there's an element of the parents being reluctant to admit there's a problem). Eventually they agree to apply for an EHCP. The school puts together the application, which in itself takes a good while because the SENCO has 50 other things to do.
The council then takes up to two years to consider the application. It's supposed to take 20 weeks, but round here at least, it doesn't.
Considering the application may, of course, mean saying no. So then the parents appeal... and round it goes again. I can't remember offhand the amount of money Oxfordshire County Council is spending on fighting appeals right now but it's horrific.
So what parents do is sell the second car, or raid the piggy-bank of Grandpa & Grandma, or take on an extra job, so they can send the kid to a local private school with autism experience and small class sizes, right now. It's not really a discretionary "nice-to-have", it's a choice of whether you want to fail your kid for the next two years - and at primary level those are crucial development years. But there's no formal EHCP, so Labour's exception won't apply.
This isn't a "Conservatives good, Labour bad" thing - the blame for this state of affairs, IMO, can be shared equally between 14 years of Conservative underfunding and the general denigration of special education that began with David Blunkett in 1997. But this is the type of kid who's going to be affected most by Labour's policy. Eton and Harrow won't bat an eyelid.
Newsclipping of "Rishi Sunak to bring back mandatory national service" sandwiched by "register to vote, or they'll register you for the army"
Absolute gift for Labour, one of the most high impact messages I've seen.
The next 2 weeks will be very much ensuring Students are in a position to vote and that they vote where it's most practical - which for a lot of them will be at home...
The unions aren't saints - we know that. But rail crew are people too. Their employers aren't allowed by the government to hire enough staff. So the only way the service can operate is via goodwill - people working rest days and thus not spending time with their family.
What happens when that goodwill evaporates? The service can't run fully. Then add into the mix some bizarre DfT dictat that drivers should have route restrictions - meaning more crew needed to operate a single service - and you're asking for trouble.
The solution? The Shapps - Williams plan is a start. A wholesale restructure to simplify the utter chaos which is he current structure. The Tories have had this on the planner since 2021 and other than spending money on competitions as to in which Tory maginal the HQ should be have done *nothing*.
So yes, its clearly the fault of the unions. Of people. How Dare They not work on a day off. Who do they think they are, putting family first?
Its an outrage.
Safety, too, ultimately. Work people too often on rest days ...
I fear that argument's false. Rest-day working has been around for donkey's years, and I can't think of an incident caused by it. AIUI RDW does *not* affect the amount of rest a driver should get between shifts (what ?used? to be called the HIDDEN rules).
Good grief, how did I know know about this? It is on our local nature reserve.
Surely that kind of collision could be automated away.
I understand the reasoning behind not automating everything and only requiring the driver to do anything if they actually see something unusual - because then you definitely end up with someone having a snooze in the cab - but two trains on the same track?
Is this a case of it being too expensive (I sense a pattern here) to retrofit older trains?
A mixture of things IMO. The reasons these incidents are so remarkable is that they're rare, and that's because they try to process them out. Lessons are learnt, and more processes added to avoid them. An automated system has to implement all of those safety lessons - and that's really difficult. Especially when it also has to cope with the unusual - something humans do quite well. Just the human interactions of checking a door is closed and no-one waiting on the platform is going to try to open a door is hard to automate.
One of my bugbears is people introducing a brand-new transport system and calling it 'safe' without any of these very expensive systems. We saw it with Maglev, where it was claimed it was impossible to crash - just before many people were killed in a crash. We see it with 'Hyperloop', where pixies and fairy dust will keep people 'safe'.
Safety costs. The more safety you want, the more you pay.
Whenever new transport systems are mooted it seems to be on the assumption that maintenance is not a thing and stuff never breaks.
In most cases it seems like just building more trains would be a better option but it's not sexy enough to get attention.
The reason people try not to build more trains is not that they are unsexy. It is that they cost lots of money upfront.
If railways cost £1 billion a mile, then we can’t have lots of railways.
It may well be that it would have been cheaper to put every single inch of HS2 underground, in the end. This would have eliminated about 90% of the enquirista nonesense.
If we simply say - “there is no other way” then nothing will change.
Similarly, many ideas for energy storage, such as tidal ponds, will slowly spin. As more and more ISO containers of batteries are installed. Not because ISO containers of batteries are so much better.
But because they can be done at any scale from 1 up and they don’t need 13 years, quarter of a billion spent on the planning application and 100 million words.
That’s got us part of the way to *starting* the Lower Thames Crossing
I would just say that because of the timing of the election the number of children leaving private schools for the state sector will become very apparent by the Autumn and I expect it will not be good news for labour's calculations on the funding available from this decision
Yep, it's a really dumb idea - it's damaging the education sector already and, as the article says, it will cost the Treasury not benefit it. But as Keir Starmer is, by his own confession, "a socialist", he's pressing ahead with it regardless.
Lots of businesses and private citizens who are planning to vote for him are going to feel had in 12-18 months time.
As only 5% go to pivate schools I can't see how it would make any difference to anything. Talk about the tail wagging the dog. If the 1 in 20 parents who send their children to private schools think they are stealing a lead on the 19 in 20 who cant afford it then I don't see anything wrong with the state charging them a small premium. Consider it a fine for trying to buy privilege.
Only buy the best for your kids if it's trainers or smartphones.
Those of us who went down the 5% route will remember their school chums whose surnames were those of cities or town or counties or the self made ones who are now are to be seen with titles of their own advising Prime Ministers or indeed sharing dormitories with them. No question money well spent but whether for the greater good I would say not
Except Labour's VAT on fees plan won't hit the likes of Eton and Harrow and Fettes and Charterhouse and the school that was posh enough for your kids, bankers and corporate lawyers and KCs and surgeons and Russian oligarchs and Nigerian and Saudi oil barons and Far Eastern billionaires will still easily afford the fees
Instead it will hit small businessmen, midwives, police sergeants, deputy heads, pharmacists, and those with autistic or disabled children who scrimp and save to send their children to small local private and special schools desperately trying to stay open and keep costs down
That's interesting. Do you have figures for relative numbers who go to local private schools as opposed to the wealthy public and prep schools?
Don't have those figures, but I can tell you:
In the top ten percent of families by income, about half of children go to private schools. (That's a family income of about 200k gross.)
That falls to about a quarter in the next two deciles (down to about 75k gross) and fairly small numbers below that.
It generally isn't JAMs scrimping and saving. Because, as previously discussed, school fees have risen so far above inflation that the scrimp and save option doesn't really exist any more.
Indeed. I think many of us here think back to when we went to school -- and many of us went to private school -- and think that our memories still reflect the situation today. Rather, state schools have improved in quality, and there is less scrimping and saving to send kids to private school so they can get a decent education. Instead, wealth inequality has increased and private schools have become more a preserve for the very wealthy.
Those who will be most impacted by VAT being imposed are at the bottom end of those who send their kids to private school, but bottom end of those who send their kids to private school is still very much the top end of wealth in society as a whole.
Looking at the Survation last poll before the 2019 election, GE17 Con voters were 8.7% undecided, GE17 Lab voters were 14.3% undecided. Was there a swing back to Labour? No, the top line figures were 45% Con, 34% Lab, almost exactly the final result.
It is an opportunity for the Tories to have 13.7% of GE19 Con voters (latest Survation) undecided. It means that Starmer hasn't sealed the deal with them and they have voted Tory before so are open to doing it again. But at the moment they are telling pollsters that they are undecided and there's no evidence that by undecided they really mean Tory.
There is a quirk in the Survation data that might be methodology, in 2019 there was 6.2% refused to say, in 2024 that's only 0.4%. Any insight into why that might be?
Not sure why the press were covering Farages speech, he's not standing in this election and has an 'honorary' attachment to Reform. He's just 'some bloke' in terms of this election.
I would just say that because of the timing of the election the number of children leaving private schools for the state sector will become very apparent by the Autumn and I expect it will not be good news for labour's calculations on the funding available from this decision
Yep, it's a really dumb idea - it's damaging the education sector already and, as the article says, it will cost the Treasury not benefit it. But as Keir Starmer is, by his own confession, "a socialist", he's pressing ahead with it regardless.
Lots of businesses and private citizens who are planning to vote for him are going to feel had in 12-18 months time.
As only 5% go to pivate schools I can't see how it would make any difference to anything. Talk about the tail wagging the dog. If the 1 in 20 parents who send their children to private schools think they are stealing a lead on the 19 in 20 who cant afford it then I don't see anything wrong with the state charging them a small premium. Consider it a fine for trying to buy privilege.
Only buy the best for your kids if it's trainers or smartphones.
Those of us who went down the 5% route will remember their school chums whose surnames were those of cities or town or counties or the self made ones who are now are to be seen with titles of their own advising Prime Ministers or indeed sharing dormitories with them. No question money well spent but whether for the greater good I would say not
Except Labour's VAT on fees plan won't hit the likes of Eton and Harrow and Fettes and Charterhouse and the school that was posh enough for your kids, bankers and corporate lawyers and KCs and surgeons and Russian oligarchs and Nigerian and Saudi oil barons and Far Eastern billionaires will still easily afford the fees
Instead it will hit small businessmen, midwives, police sergeants, deputy heads, pharmacists, and those with autistic or disabled children who scrimp and save to send their children to small local private and special schools desperately trying to stay open and keep costs down
Fallacy. There's plenty of people sending children to Eton and Harrow that can afford it but only just
Indeed is it a law of economics that all goods are bought by the whole spectrum from zero to huge opportunity cost? Or are, say, Bugattis only bought by people who can buy them for pocket change?
Yes, logic suggests that some people who are sending their children to Eton or Harrow, or any other private school, can only just afford to do so.
I note, however, that private school fees have risen far higher than inflation over the last few decades. This suggests considerable price inelasticity. People have kept sending their kids despite increases in fees higher than the imposition of VAT will cause.
There’s been a huge race to compete on facilities, as international student numbers have grown and parents no longer tolerate falling down classrooms and mouldy concrete changing rooms. Private schools have been investing in buildings, technology, sports facilities and labs. That seems to be where the money has been going.
Exactly the kind of infrastructure the state sector could do with. Anyone who’s done the secondary school open day with year 6 children can testify to the huge gulf in facilities between private and state. Private schools have also kept their playing fields, the teaching and in many cases the results are not that different, it’s the physical estate where the contrasts are. That and class sizes.
Thanks for the possible explanation. This suggests that the private school sector can absorb VAT and that parents can afford some fee increases. Whatever the rights or wrongs of the policy, this suggests that the policy is unlikely to produce a torrent of closures forcing pupils into state schools.
But it will do so at the margins and the margins is where CR is when it comes to private education given that only 50% of families earning £200,000 go private.
Not sure why the press were covering Farages speech, he's not standing in this election and has an 'honorary' attachment to Reform. He's just 'some bloke' in terms of this election.
Because Nigel is going to focus on attack points where the Tories are losing votes on the right flank..
A lovely city. Red squirrels everywhere in the botanic gardens and very moving and even handed memorial to the bombing victims in the basement of the St Nikolai Kirche.
I'm working atm in the harbour. Down by the dockside but cant see any of @TSE lady friends.
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If those efforts fail, then Labour will win. If they succeed, the result could be surprisingly close.
Labour will know who their voters were in 2019 too. But they will need to go find their new voters and turn them out. Which is much harder, and requires a lot of leg work.
PS Just to back this up, in 2019 we did a lot of door-knocking to assess the Conservative vote. Come the count, our door-knocking assessment was within 0.1% of the actual result....
I'd expect the others to start barging their way in more dramatically soon
What the longer term effects are we will have to wait and see.
Surely that kind of collision could be automated away.
I understand the reasoning behind not automating everything and only requiring the driver to do anything if they actually see something unusual - because then you definitely end up with someone having a snooze in the cab - but two trains on the same track?
Is this a case of it being too expensive (I sense a pattern here) to retrofit older trains?
Robert Hayward is an eminent psephologist and I am a random griefer on an internet message board, so what do I know. But - where are these indications? Where should we be looking for them?
Looking at the local councill results closest to me, Cherwell and West Oxfordshire - which together comprise two LibDem target constituencies and one Labour - I can see no sign of anyone “beginning to break towards the Conservatives”. The movement has all been away. The wards which a few years ago were narrow Conservative holds, presumably partly on the basis of Con-inclined DKs, have now tipped over to the LibDems or Labour with big majorities.
But Robert Hayward doesn’t say things like this without evidence. So where is it? What am I missing?
Half expect because of the LOL value rather than actual reality...
The risk would be that Labour get complacent with their 2019 voters but that doesn't seem to be the case here - I've got a number of letters / postcards already as I'm a known postal voter...
Conservatives down 4.5 million votes
Labour up 2 million votes
Lib Dems down 3/4 million votes
The big change was Conservative voters deciding to stay at home. There was an episode of Animal Hospital on.
https://genome.ch.bbc.co.uk/schedules/service_bbc_one_london/1997-05-01
And whilst history doesn't have to rhyme, it tends to do so much of the time.
A number of children with SEND are being sent to private SEND specialist schools by local authorities. What will happen there? What is expected to happen?
Sorry to go back to basics, but there can't really be polling "errors".
Only if you believe they predict votes.
They don't.
They repeat what people have told you they'd do today, some weeks out.
If you ask the wrong people, they lie, change their mind, or decide they can/can't be arsed after all, then they aren't errors.
Yes, you guessed. The Lib Dems facing Tories in blue wall seats.
Instead it will hit small businessmen, midwives, police sergeants, deputy heads, pharmacists, and those with autistic or disabled children who scrimp and save to send their children to small local private and special schools desperately trying to stay open and keep costs down
I am very skeptical of the value of the "ground game" when it comes to General Elections.
Look at 1997 - we gained seats where we didn't bother campaigning on a national tide.
But it makes activists feel good about themselves.
Locals. Sometimes it makes a difference. Seats won "against the head" can be a result of a good local campaign. But even here, the Tories lost close to 500 seats because of local issues, not 500 poorly run local efforts by the Blues and brilliancy by Reds, Greens and Yellows.
Brown was still trying to use it 13 years in too, and that was too much to be credible.
But that is itself driven by the belief that they are supposed to be a predictor.
However, expressed intention is a better predictor still. If people say they are going to vote for X or not vote, then believe them.
That leaves the don't-knows. Yes, I think probably the most likely thing a 2019 Tory voter saying don't know now will do is vote Tory. But is that 100% of them, or 40% of them? Even if it's 100% of them, Labour win an overall majority unless something else happens.
Robert Hayward is to be respected but the divergence in the Labour lead is more to do with how the polling companies themselves choose to operate in terms of methodology, sampling, allocation of Undecideds etc.
That won't be resolved until the vote itself and we'll be able to witter on about a new "gold standard" pollster or pollsters.
The secondary assumption that Undecideds will somehow break back to the Conservatives is impossible to challenge now and hopefully will be the subject of some detailed post-election research and analysis but Hayward's "break towards the Conservatives" occupies the same zone of wishful thinking as @DougSeal's 5-point Conservative lead or the "I can't see the Tories going below 200 seats" mantra.
That's the thing with polls - dig deep enough and there's a nugget of hope which can be developed into a gold mine of optimism.
We're not even a week into the campaign - I suspect the vast majority are still to engage with the election. I constantly see DKs running at 8% among those likely to vote which isn't a large numberso minds are largely made up (or so it seems).
Hayward himself admits he's not contemplating a Lazarus-like comeback for Team Sunak but as others have said, the margins between 1997 and something worse are quite fine. The Conservative campaign thus far, which seems to consist of throw out an idea every day and hope something sticks, is clearly defensive and aimed at shoring up the "core" vote (whatever that is now).
One of my bugbears is people introducing a brand-new transport system and calling it 'safe' without any of these very expensive systems. We saw it with Maglev, where it was claimed it was impossible to crash - just before many people were killed in a crash. We see it with 'Hyperloop', where pixies and fairy dust will keep people 'safe'.
Safety costs. The more safety you want, the more you pay.
That's the same party which is branding Starmer as a socialist who will do things differently. On tax avoidance I think they're probably right.
This is what happens when public services are set up to benefit older people. People with families turn to the private sector, whether for education or healthcare.
I don't think it's meaningless, but it seems to mostly be about local party morale to me to play up how crucial it is or how accurate local info is (plenty of surprised local activists too). For Locals it's easier for it to have an impact.
State schools generally do pretty well on somewhere between a third and a half of the rations that the private sector takes. If you want to look for flabby practices, I know which sector I'd start looking at.
One of the problems that second division and below indies have is that it's less and less obvious what value they are providing for the cost.
I think I'd frame this as "things have changed again in a way we have not seen, so they are thinking and working out how to model it", rather than around errors in polls.
Has it really only been 13 years of outrageous puns?
Why does time seem to move so slowly?
I had 7 leaflets from the local LDs in 2021 so I expect to be inundated very soon.
As a Lib Dem candidate can you explain their policy on vat on private school fees
This is a genuine question as I am interested if they are on the same page as Labour
Usually with some justification.
Governments blame world events.
Usually with some justification.
But these are excuses to be used when increasing taxes or cutting spending on groups who don't vote for the party in government.
Those groups which support the party in government get the extra spending instead.
So the Conservatives were able to balance cuts in some areas with profligacy on the oldies.
Labour will likewise need to reward some groups if it doesn't want its support to melt away.
Regardless, there are many things I would class as political behaviour not partisan behaviour, meaning parties of all types may engage in it, but over time it will vary as to which is better or worse, rather than either being inherently so.
There are no doubt exceptions to this as well, where the much-vaunted 'personal vote' comes into play.
We can do a back of an envelope calculation. About 6% of kids go to private schools. That's not exactly the wealthiest 6% of families, but it's somewhere close to it. So, let's presume sending your kids to private school is a top 10% thing.
You need to earn about £65k to be in the top decile. An experienced midwife earns £50k, says https://nationalcareers.service.gov.uk/job-profiles/midwife If you are a one-income family, then no, midwives aren't sending their kids to private school.
The average salary for a police sergeant is £50k. Ditto.
Deputy head, £53k-£59k in the state sector.
And a lot of private schools have spent millions on facilities - I don't know how much Yarm school spent on their auditorium (can't call it a hall as it's way too posh) but the downstairs bar facilities make those of the recently refurbished Globe look third rate...
However, the results from Westminster by-elections and local elections suggest that a Labour lead in the high teens is very credible and we should expect something like that were the election today.
I don't buy the 'DK 2019 Tories will return' argument. The Tories have done a huge amount to piss off that group, many of whom were first-time Tory voters then anyway so have no deep loyalty to the brand (quite the opposite, if anything). They will most likely end up as DK-Abstain; to the extent they don't, they'll splinter all over the place to minimal effect either way.
In most cases it seems like just building more trains would be a better option but it's not sexy enough to get attention.
We sometimes see the phenomenon of 'herding' towards the end of campaigns. Does this reflect a genuine drift together of the base data or are polling companies afraid of being out of the herd and changing their adjustments?
I have long argued that irrespective of the echo chambers of twitter and places such as PB, and irrespective of what people have said in opinion polls, in the privacy of the booth, some will change their minds and vote Tory. I don't think it will be enough to stop a Labour majority. But I also don't think the ludicrous wipe-out stories will be anywhere near the mark.*
*Benchmark this and note I did NOT promise to eat my hat if it IS a wipe out!
Indeed is it a law of economics that all goods are bought by the whole spectrum from zero to huge opportunity cost? Or are, say, Bugattis only bought by people who can buy them for pocket change?
@JohnRentoul
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Time for that immortal James Carville line: “Whenever I hear a campaign talk about a need to energise its base, that’s a campaign that’s going down the toilet”
On a new line you can make better specs -- I think HS2 is ETCS, for instance -- but retrofitting is painful. And at some point you need to look at the cost spent per life saved and start wondering whether we'd be better off trying to reduce road casualties or something instead...
The latter is why HS2 was so important - it allowed the fast trains to be segregated on to fast tracks so you end up with 16 fast trains / hour, and 16 slow trains / hour on the old tracks rather than 10 trains per hour.
Its not particularly fair, but it happens. If you are in power when the poo hits the whirly thing then you get covered in poo.
(I have a 16 month old. I think about poo a lot).
But people who didn't vote in 2019 and don't vote this year don't matter. The persistent non-voters are irrelevant to voting! What's interesting are those who voted in 2019 and won't vote this year. I wonder whether these are people who didn't vote in 2010, 2015, but did vote in the referendum and did vote to get Brexit done. Will they revert to their usual not voting behaviour?
A sort of sat nav for trains....tie it into the train systems and signalling system and could replace learning the route.....maybe I am missing something?
I note, however, that private school fees have risen far higher than inflation over the last few decades. This suggests considerable price inelasticity. People have kept sending their kids despite increases in fees higher than the imposition of VAT will cause.
Case in point from Friday morning. With the North bound ECML blocked in Darlington station all trains both North and South were using the South bound platform - so you need a contingence of 12 trains an hour max for that to work...
But much of it is about brighter and dimmer spotlights, plus who gets to point them.
How does the potential impact of the Angela Rayner matter compare to the potential impact of the Angus Macneil matter?
Maybe Sunak will pull back a decent chunk of DK but there will be seats where the tactical switch to, say, Lab from LibDem in order to get them out will be compensate I suspect.
I believe the other is priced in.
Their positioning will handsomely win them the election but will have post election consequences. Supporters are projecting too and there is plenty of wishful thinking going on. Labour will undoubtedly disappoint the wildest expectations. The course of the next Parliament will be determined by whether disappointed voters give Labour the benefit of the doubt or whether they start to listen to the siren voices that are already doing their warmup exercises.
Wild.
Here Keir Starmer says over and over again he can't afford to raise taxes on the top 5%.
When in fact that would help fund the pledges he now says he can't afford.
Just straightforward dishonesty which is insulting everyone's intelligence.
As for the argument that "in the privacy of the polling booth lots of former Tories will hold their nose and put a cross next to the blue candidate", I'm unconvinced. Given the way it's going, I can imagine lots of former Tories in the privacy of the polling booth thinking "sod this for a game of soldiers" and avoiding the blue candidate.
Exactly the kind of infrastructure the state sector could do with. Anyone who’s done the secondary school open day with year 6 children can testify to the huge gulf in facilities between private and state. Private schools have also kept their playing fields, the teaching and in many cases the results are not that different, it’s the physical estate where the contrasts are. That and class sizes.
Starmer's strategy is clear - under-promise but over-deliver.
The section involved is an old bit of track that doesn't get used a lot so I can understand why it hasn't been upgraded.
I understand wireless communications can't be relied on but is there a reason that this kind of thing can't be caught by the addition of online GPS train positioning?
I suppose introducing further complexity for less than 100% coverage is a safety no-no.
In the top ten percent of families by income, about half of children go to private schools. (That's a family income of about 200k gross.)
That falls to about a quarter in the next two deciles (down to about 75k gross) and fairly small numbers below that.
It generally isn't JAMs scrimping and saving. Because, as previously discussed, school fees have risen so far above inflation that the scrimp and save option doesn't really exist any more.
https://www.llakes.ac.uk/wp-content/uploads/2021/03/RP-62.-Green-Anders-Henderson-Henseke.pdf
Newsclipping of "Rishi Sunak to bring back mandatory national service" sandwiched by "register to vote, or they'll register you for the army"
Absolute gift for Labour, one of the most high impact messages I've seen.
https://www.apt-p.com/aptcapt.htm
And AIUI the Pendolino (and indeed the current TPWS-style safety systems also use similar trackside devices, which you can often see between the tracks at stations.
But as for route learning: it is much more than that. To be fair, it was far more important in the days of steam, where visibility of signals was poor (a boiler in the way, and lots of steam/smoke), so you had to know when a signal was coming up. But when a heavy train can take a long distance to stop, knowledge of what is coming up is vital.
I would find it odd if someone I was at school with was in a great position of influence without talent or ability - everyone I still have contact with from school appears to have found careers they are successful in and they were bright, decent, motivated pupils at school so no surprise.
There are also peers of mine who had huge talent and ability in academic, sporting and frankly human behaviour who have followed careers where they might not use all their talents but either enjoy what they do, such as youth workers, or are good at what they do, such as in the military, or one in particular who has decided not to use any of his brains and chose to become head of Eton.
Unfortunately in many areas it's borderline impossible to get an EHCP. Typically, first the parents go through everything they can think of with the primary school (and often there's an element of the parents being reluctant to admit there's a problem). Eventually they agree to apply for an EHCP. The school puts together the application, which in itself takes a good while because the SENCO has 50 other things to do.
The council then takes up to two years to consider the application. It's supposed to take 20 weeks, but round here at least, it doesn't.
Considering the application may, of course, mean saying no. So then the parents appeal... and round it goes again. I can't remember offhand the amount of money Oxfordshire County Council is spending on fighting appeals right now but it's horrific.
So what parents do is sell the second car, or raid the piggy-bank of Grandpa & Grandma, or take on an extra job, so they can send the kid to a local private school with autism experience and small class sizes, right now. It's not really a discretionary "nice-to-have", it's a choice of whether you want to fail your kid for the next two years - and at primary level those are crucial development years. But there's no formal EHCP, so Labour's exception won't apply.
This isn't a "Conservatives good, Labour bad" thing - the blame for this state of affairs, IMO, can be shared equally between 14 years of Conservative underfunding and the general denigration of special education that began with David Blunkett in 1997. But this is the type of kid who's going to be affected most by Labour's policy. Eton and Harrow won't bat an eyelid.
If railways cost £1 billion a mile, then we can’t have lots of railways.
It may well be that it would have been cheaper to put every single inch of HS2 underground, in the end. This would have eliminated about 90% of the enquirista nonesense.
If we simply say - “there is no other way” then nothing will change.
Similarly, many ideas for energy storage, such as tidal ponds, will slowly spin. As more and more ISO containers of batteries are installed. Not because ISO containers of batteries are so much better.
But because they can be done at any scale from 1 up and they don’t need 13 years, quarter of a billion spent on the planning application and 100 million words.
That’s got us part of the way to *starting* the Lower Thames Crossing
Those who will be most impacted by VAT being imposed are at the bottom end of those who send their kids to private school, but bottom end of those who send their kids to private school is still very much the top end of wealth in society as a whole.
Looking at the Survation last poll before the 2019 election, GE17 Con voters were 8.7% undecided, GE17 Lab voters were 14.3% undecided. Was there a swing back to Labour? No, the top line figures were 45% Con, 34% Lab, almost exactly the final result.
It is an opportunity for the Tories to have 13.7% of GE19 Con voters (latest Survation) undecided. It means that Starmer hasn't sealed the deal with them and they have voted Tory before so are open to doing it again. But at the moment they are telling pollsters that they are undecided and there's no evidence that by undecided they really mean Tory.
There is a quirk in the Survation data that might be methodology, in 2019 there was 6.2% refused to say, in 2024 that's only 0.4%. Any insight into why that might be?