Poor old Rachel Gunn - really affected by her Olympics experience. Whatever her performance it's a shame that an Olympian, who went through the selection process (I appreciate there were questions over this) should have been so badly affected.
If there was corruption in the selection process (and there seems to be more heat than light over that...), then that should be investigated.
But otherwise, she made it to the Olympics, and seemed to be always smiling. Unlike many of the other 'top' athletes, who so often seem utterly miserable.
It was a stupid 'sport' to have in the Olympics anyway...
Josephine Cumbo @JosephineCumbo Son achieved AAA in Physics, Further Maths and Maths and no offer from First Choice or Insurance University. Now doing mad scramble for Clearing places. Stress levels are high.
But, then I remembered that there is now an A* grade. Presumably, for many universities, the A* just replaced the A.
Who the hell has an insurance offer dependent on getting A*s?
I got an offer from Cambridge (AAB), and a slew of other offers (St Andrews, LSE, UCL and Aberdeen). I chose UCL as my insurance because they generously offered me EE, and I reckoned that I was likely to achieve that even on a really bad day. St Andrew's offer (ABB) was discarded almost immediately because it was simply too close to my Cambridge offer. I didn't want a situation where I got ABC and didn't get in anywhere.
I should note that I got an A in History, with Bs in Maths and Economics.
I also got an A in General Studies.
Trinity College, Cambridge sent me a letter telling me that I had failed to get the required grades.
So I called them and told them that the offer didn't specifically exclude General Studies. The lady said that "we don't count general studies," and I politely pointed out that the letter they'd sent me didn't mention that.
An hour later the Admissions Director called me to let me know that I was in.
I framed and hung my rejection letter on the wall of my room in the first year.
That's odd. No doubt you must have had a strong dose of imposter syndrome when surrounded by the likes of Kwasi Kwarteng. However what life eventually teaches us is that excelling in exams isn't everything.
Kwasi and I had a mutual friend: a utterly brilliant lady, who managed to do three degrees simultaneously, getting simultaneous Firsts in Philosophy, Music and English.
I always liked him, but do wonder if he wouldn't have been a lot happier if he'd chosen a career path other than politics.
While you knew Kwasi Kwarteng at Cambridge, I was in the same year as Liz Truss at Oxford. Although sadly our paths never crossed.
The only political figures I know are Sian Berry, who I knew at Trinity, the new MP for North Cornwall, Ben Maguire, who was a trainee solicitor, and briefly a newly qualified solicitor, in my department at my last firm.
The most famous trainee solicitor I worked with was Dave Rowntree out of Blur, and unsuccessful Labour candidate for Mid-Sussex, when I was at Kingsley Napley.
Sorry, name dropping is most unedifying I know but I started typing and couldn't finish.
That sounds rather thrilling from Starmer then. Can't see why the left are so pissed off with him.
It's quite remarkable how Conservatives like Allister Heath (there are a few on here too) lose the plot so comprehensively when their party are out of government. Perhaps the blue scarf is tied too tightly around the neck thus cutting off the blood supply to the brain.*
Josephine Cumbo @JosephineCumbo Son achieved AAA in Physics, Further Maths and Maths and no offer from First Choice or Insurance University. Now doing mad scramble for Clearing places. Stress levels are high.
But, then I remembered that there is now an A* grade. Presumably, for many universities, the A* just replaced the A.
Who the hell has an insurance offer dependent on getting A*s?
I got an offer from Cambridge (AAB), and a slew of other offers (St Andrews, LSE, UCL and Aberdeen). I chose UCL as my insurance because they generously offered me EE, and I reckoned that I was likely to achieve that even on a really bad day. St Andrew's offer (ABB) was discarded almost immediately because it was simply too close to my Cambridge offer. I didn't want a situation where I got ABC and didn't get in anywhere.
I should note that I got an A in History, with Bs in Maths and Economics.
I also got an A in General Studies.
Trinity College, Cambridge sent me a letter telling me that I had failed to get the required grades.
So I called them and told them that the offer didn't specifically exclude General Studies. The lady said that "we don't count general studies," and I politely pointed out that the letter they'd sent me didn't mention that.
An hour later the Admissions Director called me to let me know that I was in.
I framed and hung my rejection letter on the wall of my room in the first year.
That's odd. No doubt you must have had a strong dose of imposter syndrome when surrounded by the likes of Kwasi Kwarteng. However what life eventually teaches us is that excelling in exams isn't everything.
Kwasi and I had a mutual friend: a utterly brilliant lady, who managed to do three degrees simultaneously, getting simultaneous Firsts in Philosophy, Music and English.
I always liked him, but do wonder if he wouldn't have been a lot happier if he'd chosen a career path other than politics.
While you knew Kwasi Kwarteng at Cambridge, I was in the same year as Liz Truss at Oxford. Although sadly our paths never crossed.
The only political figures I know are Sian Berry, who I knew at Trinity, the new MP for North Cornwall, Ben Maguire, who was a trainee solicitor, and briefly a newly qualified solicitor, in my department at my last firm.
The most famous trainee solicitor I worked with was Dave Rowntree out of Blur, and unsuccessful Labour candidate for Mid-Sussex, when I was at Kingsley Napley.
Sorry, name dropping is most unedifying I know but I started typing and couldn't finish.
Blur? Arguably the best British band of the 1990s.
Josephine Cumbo @JosephineCumbo Son achieved AAA in Physics, Further Maths and Maths and no offer from First Choice or Insurance University. Now doing mad scramble for Clearing places. Stress levels are high.
But, then I remembered that there is now an A* grade. Presumably, for many universities, the A* just replaced the A.
I wonder how poor his personal statement was.
I know that my nephew was rejected from a lot of universities for having nothing to write about for hobbies or achievements outside academia (he's ended up in Birmingham). My niece (next year) shouldn't have a problem given that she has done things outside of school, is the bassist in a reasonably successful band and makes money doing GCSE maths tuition.. Downside is she wants to do medicine so everything rests on the exam in a few weeks.
Oh I suspect his personal statement was excellent as he got the offer. Alas, he didn't make the grade.
At Bath the main criteria for offer is existing and predicted grades. The personal statement has little weight. Other courses/unis may differ (e.g. medicine its important to have gained experiences in healthcare and to reflect on them).
Medicine has got it wrong, as can be seen from the number of junior doctors looking for outs.
A friend was talking about his nephew who is studying medicine. They had arranged for him to shadow a consultant, including dealing with an emergency which, it was later agreed, should not have included the nephew, leading to a great personal statement. His friend who did not have the same contacts did not get in.
There is definitely something in this. I also recall an old TV show about applicants for Officer training at (I think) Sandhurst. The interviewers (all seemingly old public school chaps) got on best and ranked best the public school applicants...
At Bath we are required to take endless unconscious bias training etc. It has its point, but sometimes seems rather biased in its presentation.
First three minutes of this might blow your mind...
Re comments on Democrats winning the House and Senate.
The former looks entirely possible. It’s on a knife edge anyway.
The Senate likely all comes down to Montana. They are generally polling ahead in the other close races I think, and WV is gone. So Tester winning would produce a 50-50 Senate and VP casting vote. At the moment, I think Tester is polling slightly behind.
I’m not sure they’ll be too upset with a 49-51 Senate though. The filibuster sadly probably remains, but they’ll have Murkowski and Collins on the GOP side who will probably get them where they need to be on nominations etc.
Dems are behind in Montana. But even if they win there, there are a few other very close races they would need to hold to keep it 50-50.
Some say Dems have a 'tough map this year'. Which is kind of true. But the truth is the whole Senate map of 50 states is tough for the Dems. There are simply more red states than blue states. And as the phenomenon of Dem senators in red states slowly disappears, it's going to be very hard for the Dems to get a Senate majority in any election where the national vote is close-ish.
Which is why its ridiculous they've not made DC and Puerto Rico states, both of which deserve to be states.
The latter would be a purple state, but a purple one they could win in a good year.
It was a deliberate choice by the founders that Washington was not a state
It was a deliberate choice to maintain the institution of slavery. It doesn't mean it can't be changed.
And the Article IV process for admitting a new state is massively simpler than that for amending the Constitution. New States may be admitted by the Congress into this Union; but no new State shall be formed or erected within the Jurisdiction of any other State; nor any State be formed by the Junction of two or more States, or Parts of States, without the Consent of the Legislatures of the States concerned as well as of the Congress.
Canberra is not a state either
The seat of federal government should not be part of a state because that muddies the lines of accountability.
It's a view. Which is why most proposals for DC statehood suggest something along the lines of Barty's earlier comment. "Redefining the capital territory as the uninhabited land spanning the White House, US Congress etc while admitting the rest of the inhabited territory as a new state would be entirely plausible and reasonable."
Canberra may not be a state, but it has representation in the Australian Senate. Berlin is a state in the Federal Republic. Delhi is a state in India. I don't see what problems these cause. Of course every country is different, but giving residents of DC no representation in the Senate doesn't seem right.
Is legislation against monopolies, or price fixing, or unfair consumer contract terms, the same thing as "price controls" ?
"Get a grip on inflation!" "No, not like that!"
"We will have the best economy, as soon as I'm President again." (Pretty well the entirety of the GOP platform.)
I think one of Trump's biggest problems is the lack of substance. His 'offer' is essentially Donald Trump. P25 was supposed to provide a coherent policy framework but he's having to disown that because it's too far to the right of the electorate.
Biden's withdrawal has really left him in a bad place. His re-election ticket was "Me big and strong, Him frail and feeble". That was it, pretty much, and it was probably going to be enough. Now, robbed of that, he's befuddled and just flailing about basically.
Trump's platform is the same as Starmer's. The incumbents have made a mess of things. Let me fix it (don't worry about how).
The differences are that the mess is arguably not as bad in the US as in the UK, and Starmer doesn't have Trump's negatives (but Starmer doesn't have such strong supporters either).
A further (big) difference is that Trump is essentially a Personality Cult. SKS is "the government I will lead" whereas Trump is more "I am the government".
Trump is more "Leave me alone. I am not the Government" - last time, he was so uninterested that they stopped giving him daily intelligence briefings.
He'll be playing with something else - I've no idea what. I'm sticking by my Kaiser Bill comparison who played with, I think, boats.
Well, yes, in reality he does nothing but watch tv, play golf, talk trash. But he presents to his followers as Big Man Running The Whole Show.
Josephine Cumbo @JosephineCumbo Son achieved AAA in Physics, Further Maths and Maths and no offer from First Choice or Insurance University. Now doing mad scramble for Clearing places. Stress levels are high.
But, then I remembered that there is now an A* grade. Presumably, for many universities, the A* just replaced the A.
Hmmm.
He must have aimed very high with his first uni if he got no response to three As in those subjects.
But I'm also surprised his insurance offer wasn't rather lower than three As. That suggests bad planning.
If he's got an A in Further Maths I'd also be surprised if he has any trouble at all getting a place through Clearing, but maybe it would be better to defer?
Anyway, none of that is presumably of any use to her.
Lots of duplication between Maths, Further Maths, and Physics, though - it's only really 2½ A-Levels at best.
Presumably he'll have done another one or two subjects as well, so maybe the conditional offers were based on those?
I'd certainly agree with the maths/further maths. Not so sure about physics - at least in my day there was a considerable lab based element.
Our school pushed the best maths students through GCSE a year early, then A level the same giving u the Further maths in one year.
Roughly 15 - 20% of A level physics is practicals but I'd say a third of the rest could be described as the application of maths. Plenty of people do Maths but not Physics at A level, but some struggle if doing Physics without Maths.
A level Physics is full of calculus, which isn’t taught for GCSE Maths. If you’re only guy on the Physics course not also doing A level Maths, then you’ll be teaching yourself calculus.
I remember on PB, of all places, people disagreeing with me virulently (can you believe it) when I told them that it was important to understand the underlying causes of social behaviour.
In 2011 I posted on here about the riots. I pointed to study after study which explained some of the underlying reasons that sections (in this case young black men) of the UK rioted. Plenty on here dismissed this with a shrug saying that thuggery was thuggery.
I see no reason now not to suppose that there are valid underlying reasons for the recent riots and they should be taken as seriously as those of the 2011 riots.
I am also pretty sure that the union set of those who dismissed the 2011 rioters as mindless thugs and those who say the current WWC riots have a just cause is quite big.
Josephine Cumbo @JosephineCumbo Son achieved AAA in Physics, Further Maths and Maths and no offer from First Choice or Insurance University. Now doing mad scramble for Clearing places. Stress levels are high.
But, then I remembered that there is now an A* grade. Presumably, for many universities, the A* just replaced the A.
Who the hell has an insurance offer dependent on getting A*s?
I got an offer from Cambridge (AAB), and a slew of other offers (St Andrews, LSE, UCL and Aberdeen). I chose UCL as my insurance because they generously offered me EE, and I reckoned that I was likely to achieve that even on a really bad day. St Andrew's offer (ABB) was discarded almost immediately because it was simply too close to my Cambridge offer. I didn't want a situation where I got ABC and didn't get in anywhere.
I should note that I got an A in History, with Bs in Maths and Economics.
I also got an A in General Studies.
Trinity College, Cambridge sent me a letter telling me that I had failed to get the required grades.
So I called them and told them that the offer didn't specifically exclude General Studies. The lady said that "we don't count general studies," and I politely pointed out that the letter they'd sent me didn't mention that.
An hour later the Admissions Director called me to let me know that I was in.
I framed and hung my rejection letter on the wall of my room in the first year.
That's odd. No doubt you must have had a strong dose of imposter syndrome when surrounded by the likes of Kwasi Kwarteng. However what life eventually teaches us is that excelling in exams isn't everything.
Kwasi and I had a mutual friend: a utterly brilliant lady, who managed to do three degrees simultaneously, getting simultaneous Firsts in Philosophy, Music and English.
I always liked him, but do wonder if he wouldn't have been a lot happier if he'd chosen a career path other than politics.
While you knew Kwasi Kwarteng at Cambridge, I was in the same year as Liz Truss at Oxford. Although sadly our paths never crossed.
The only political figures I know are Sian Berry, who I knew at Trinity, the new MP for North Cornwall, Ben Maguire, who was a trainee solicitor, and briefly a newly qualified solicitor, in my department at my last firm.
The most famous trainee solicitor I worked with was Dave Rowntree out of Blur, and unsuccessful Labour candidate for Mid-Sussex, when I was at Kingsley Napley.
Sorry, name dropping is most unedifying I know but I started typing and couldn't finish.
Blur? Arguably the best British band of the 1990s.
The correct answer to Oasis v Blur was always Pulp.
rcs1000 wrote: "Even if that was the case (and Mandy Rice-Davis applies), it is doubtful it is in the interests of the American taxpayer to fund drug development for the rest of the world."
It can be. Consider a related example: The US and the Soviet Union worked together to end smalllpox. The end of the disease benefited both nations, and the world at large.
A drug that stops a disease outside the US may prevent that disease from spreading to the US. With globalization and fast travel, that is not a small matter.
By the way, Bill Gates disagrees with you.
For the record: As always, I am not defending the US medical systems which are absurdly wasteful, but do think their positive aspects are often missed by foreign critics.
Josephine Cumbo @JosephineCumbo Son achieved AAA in Physics, Further Maths and Maths and no offer from First Choice or Insurance University. Now doing mad scramble for Clearing places. Stress levels are high.
But, then I remembered that there is now an A* grade. Presumably, for many universities, the A* just replaced the A.
Hmmm.
He must have aimed very high with his first uni if he got no response to three As in those subjects.
But I'm also surprised his insurance offer wasn't rather lower than three As. That suggests bad planning.
If he's got an A in Further Maths I'd also be surprised if he has any trouble at all getting a place through Clearing, but maybe it would be better to defer?
Anyway, none of that is presumably of any use to her.
Lots of duplication between Maths, Further Maths, and Physics, though - it's only really 2½ A-Levels at best.
Presumably he'll have done another one or two subjects as well, so maybe the conditional offers were based on those?
I'd certainly agree with the maths/further maths. Not so sure about physics - at least in my day there was a considerable lab based element.
Our school pushed the best maths students through GCSE a year early, then A level the same giving u the Further maths in one year.
Roughly 15 - 20% of A level physics is practicals but I'd say a third of the rest could be described as the application of maths. Plenty of people do Maths but not Physics at A level, but some struggle if doing Physics without Maths.
A level Physics is full of calculus, which isn’t taught for GCSE Maths. If you’re only guy on the Physics course not also doing A level Maths, then you’ll be teaching yourself calculus.
I think the big change over the past decade or two has been (albeit at degree level) the phenomenal amount of higher maths required for economics degrees. If your maths is not pretty advanced you have no chance of keeping up with most modern economics theory.
I'm reminded, with @TSE's imminent holiday and therefore the near certainty of the collapse of civilisation and a millennium of darkness (or Labour/LD Government if you prefer), just how "quiet" August is and has been:
110 years since the outbreak of World War 1 85 years since the signing of the Ribbentrop-Molotov Pact which made World War 2 inevitable 79 years since the dropping of the atomic bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki 56 years since the Warsaw Pact invasion of Czechoslovakia and the end of the Prague Spring 55 years since the deployment of British troops in Ulster 50 years since the Turkish invasion of Cyprus 45 years since my A-Level results 34 years since the Iraqi invasion of Kuwait 33 years since the attempted coup in the former Soviet Union
I'm sure there are plenty more and especially more recently but I'll leave anything from the mid-90s onward to others.
Re comments on Democrats winning the House and Senate.
The former looks entirely possible. It’s on a knife edge anyway.
The Senate likely all comes down to Montana. They are generally polling ahead in the other close races I think, and WV is gone. So Tester winning would produce a 50-50 Senate and VP casting vote. At the moment, I think Tester is polling slightly behind.
I’m not sure they’ll be too upset with a 49-51 Senate though. The filibuster sadly probably remains, but they’ll have Murkowski and Collins on the GOP side who will probably get them where they need to be on nominations etc.
Dems are behind in Montana. But even if they win there, there are a few other very close races they would need to hold to keep it 50-50.
Some say Dems have a 'tough map this year'. Which is kind of true. But the truth is the whole Senate map of 50 states is tough for the Dems. There are simply more red states than blue states. And as the phenomenon of Dem senators in red states slowly disappears, it's going to be very hard for the Dems to get a Senate majority in any election where the national vote is close-ish.
Which is why its ridiculous they've not made DC and Puerto Rico states, both of which deserve to be states.
The latter would be a purple state, but a purple one they could win in a good year.
It was a deliberate choice by the founders that Washington was not a state
It was a deliberate choice to maintain the institution of slavery. It doesn't mean it can't be changed.
And the Article IV process for admitting a new state is massively simpler than that for amending the Constitution. New States may be admitted by the Congress into this Union; but no new State shall be formed or erected within the Jurisdiction of any other State; nor any State be formed by the Junction of two or more States, or Parts of States, without the Consent of the Legislatures of the States concerned as well as of the Congress.
Canberra is not a state either
The seat of federal government should not be part of a state because that muddies the lines of accountability.
It's a view. Which is why most proposals for DC statehood suggest something along the lines of Barty's earlier comment. "Redefining the capital territory as the uninhabited land spanning the White House, US Congress etc while admitting the rest of the inhabited territory as a new state would be entirely plausible and reasonable."
Canberra may not be a state, but it has representation in the Australian Senate. Berlin is a state in the Federal Republic. Delhi is a state in India. I don't see what problems these cause. Of course every country is different, but giving residents of DC no representation in the Senate doesn't seem right.
DC used to be an precise square of 10 square miles but the portion on the other side of the Potomac was retroceded back to Virginia in 1847, while the part that used to be in Maryland was retained.
The most sensible solution IMHO would be to retrocede all of the remaining parts of DC back to Maryland SAVE for the areas immediately adjacent to the White House, Congress and the Supreme Court. Hardly anyone lives there so it would meet the need for a "neutral" site for the Federal Government outside the jurisdiction of any State while disenfranchising very few people, if any.
Josephine Cumbo @JosephineCumbo Son achieved AAA in Physics, Further Maths and Maths and no offer from First Choice or Insurance University. Now doing mad scramble for Clearing places. Stress levels are high.
But, then I remembered that there is now an A* grade. Presumably, for many universities, the A* just replaced the A.
Hmmm.
He must have aimed very high with his first uni if he got no response to three As in those subjects.
But I'm also surprised his insurance offer wasn't rather lower than three As. That suggests bad planning.
If he's got an A in Further Maths I'd also be surprised if he has any trouble at all getting a place through Clearing, but maybe it would be better to defer?
Anyway, none of that is presumably of any use to her.
Lots of duplication between Maths, Further Maths, and Physics, though - it's only really 2½ A-Levels at best.
Presumably he'll have done another one or two subjects as well, so maybe the conditional offers were based on those?
I'd certainly agree with the maths/further maths. Not so sure about physics - at least in my day there was a considerable lab based element.
Our school pushed the best maths students through GCSE a year early, then A level the same giving u the Further maths in one year.
Roughly 15 - 20% of A level physics is practicals but I'd say a third of the rest could be described as the application of maths. Plenty of people do Maths but not Physics at A level, but some struggle if doing Physics without Maths.
A level Physics is full of calculus, which isn’t taught for GCSE Maths. If you’re only guy on the Physics course not also doing A level Maths, then you’ll be teaching yourself calculus.
Not any Physics A Level I've taught. Indeed, in theory A Level Physics is doable without studying A Level maths as well; the maths requirements are tied to GCSE.
Poor old Rachel Gunn - really affected by her Olympics experience. Whatever her performance it's a shame that an Olympian, who went through the selection process (I appreciate there were questions over this) should have been so badly affected.
If there was corruption in the selection process (and there seems to be more heat than light over that...), then that should be investigated.
But otherwise, she made it to the Olympics, and seemed to be always smiling. Unlike many of the other 'top' athletes, who so often seem utterly miserable.
It was a stupid 'sport' to have in the Olympics anyway...
The main post Olympic foci seem to be R Gunn, the too cool for school Turkish shooter with the classic style (I have no issue with this one) and the pole vaulter whose manhood* caught the bar and the boxing controversies.
* If you watch carefully he clips with his knees first I think
I think the problem perhaps is the Olympics was missing a Bolt - Lyles is no Bolt, pole vaulting is a bit niche for Duplantis to capture the imagination of the entire games and Marchand is, well, French. Fwiw the men's breakdancing seemed a hell of a lot stronger than the women's, some of the top men you feel could have made it on pommel or floor if they'd gone down the gymnastics route.
It's common sense that A grades should go to roughly the top 10%, and A stars to the top 2 or 3%.
That depends on what the purpose of the exam and qualification are.
If you want to use the exam results to be able to select the top x% of each age cohort then I guess your way makes sense.
However, you might want a particular grade to equate to a stable level of proficiency in the subject being tested. In which case the proportion achieving that level would be expected to vary according to the quality of education, and the ability of those choosing to take the exam.
It should be relatively simple to combine the two. Give a grade on a fixed scale equations to proficiency in the subject, and then a percentile number to show where the student was relative to the rest of their cohort.
Thus, in a very poor year, you might have a student with a B95 - only a B grade, but in the 95th percentile of their cohort. And in a very good year, you might see a student with A84 - a proficient student, but 16% of their cohort scoring more highly in the exam.
Josephine Cumbo @JosephineCumbo Son achieved AAA in Physics, Further Maths and Maths and no offer from First Choice or Insurance University. Now doing mad scramble for Clearing places. Stress levels are high.
But, then I remembered that there is now an A* grade. Presumably, for many universities, the A* just replaced the A.
Hmmm.
He must have aimed very high with his first uni if he got no response to three As in those subjects.
But I'm also surprised his insurance offer wasn't rather lower than three As. That suggests bad planning.
If he's got an A in Further Maths I'd also be surprised if he has any trouble at all getting a place through Clearing, but maybe it would be better to defer?
Anyway, none of that is presumably of any use to her.
Lots of duplication between Maths, Further Maths, and Physics, though - it's only really 2½ A-Levels at best.
Presumably he'll have done another one or two subjects as well, so maybe the conditional offers were based on those?
I'd certainly agree with the maths/further maths. Not so sure about physics - at least in my day there was a considerable lab based element.
Our school pushed the best maths students through GCSE a year early, then A level the same giving u the Further maths in one year.
Roughly 15 - 20% of A level physics is practicals but I'd say a third of the rest could be described as the application of maths. Plenty of people do Maths but not Physics at A level, but some struggle if doing Physics without Maths.
A level Physics is full of calculus, which isn’t taught for GCSE Maths. If you’re only guy on the Physics course not also doing A level Maths, then you’ll be teaching yourself calculus.
There is no calculus in Physics A level and hasn't been for about 20 years.
You need Algebra, Logs and exponentials, Trig, graphs and equations of motion.
Equally A level maths used to have physics in the applied papers until the late 1980's. It was largely replaced with statistics and probability.
We Think/Omnisis has at least thrown a crumb or two for those of us starved of polls to microanalyse since the election.
The figures for the previous poll on Wikipedia are completely wrong. That poll had, excluding Don't Knows and Would Not Votes - Labour 36%, Conservatives 22%, Reform 17%, Liberal Democrats 11% and Greens 7% with 3% opting for "an Independent Candidate".
The current offering has Labour 33% (-3), Reform 21% (+4), Conservatives 20% (-2), Liberal Democrats 11% (nc), Greens 8% (+1) and Independent 3% (nc)
The final We Think poll before the GE underestimated BOTH the Conservatives and LDs by one and a half percent and Others by two and a half percent while overestimating Labour by five and a half percent. My thought is the pollsters missed the strength of the "Independent" vote in some inner urban Labour seats and also missed the abstention among likely Labour voters which I've seen at anything up to 1.7 million people.
We can therefore argue the Conservatives were, to an extent, "saved" by Labour supporters not bothering to vote - why they didn't bother is or should be a subject for much research.
The current poll has a very small sample but the England sub sample (just a bit of fun, as Mr P. Snow used to say) has Labour on 34% (-1), Conservative 22% (-4), Reform 21% (+6), Liberal Democrats 11% (-2), Greens 8% (+1) and Independents 3% (+1) - changes reflecting rounding and from the GE.
Poor old Rachel Gunn - really affected by her Olympics experience. Whatever her performance it's a shame that an Olympian, who went through the selection process (I appreciate there were questions over this) should have been so badly affected.
If there was corruption in the selection process (and there seems to be more heat than light over that...), then that should be investigated.
But otherwise, she made it to the Olympics, and seemed to be always smiling. Unlike many of the other 'top' athletes, who so often seem utterly miserable.
It was a stupid 'sport' to have in the Olympics anyway...
The main post Olympic foci seem to be R Gunn, the too cool for school Turkish shooter with the classic style (I have no issue with this one) and the pole vaulter whose manhood* caught the bar and the boxing controversies.
* If you watch carefully he clips with his knees first I think
I think the problem perhaps is the Olympics was missing a Bolt - Lyles is no Bolt, pole vaulting is a bit niche for Duplantis to capture the imagination of the entire games and Marchand is, well, French. Fwiw the men's breakdancing seemed a hell of a lot stronger than the women's, some of the top men you feel could have made it on pommel or floor if they'd gone down the gymnastics route.
Sydney McLaughlin was the standout for me, she’d have qualified 9th for the 400m flat, with her 400m hurdles world record.
Comments
But otherwise, she made it to the Olympics, and seemed to be always smiling. Unlike many of the other 'top' athletes, who so often seem utterly miserable.
It was a stupid 'sport' to have in the Olympics anyway...
The only political figures I know are Sian Berry, who I knew at Trinity, the new MP for North Cornwall, Ben Maguire, who was a trainee solicitor, and briefly a newly qualified solicitor, in my department at my last firm.
The most famous trainee solicitor I worked with was Dave Rowntree out of Blur, and unsuccessful Labour candidate for Mid-Sussex, when I was at Kingsley Napley.
Sorry, name dropping is most unedifying I know but I started typing and couldn't finish.
* Courtesy of James O'Brien.
Quite a lot of presence.
Fat lot of good it did me.
In 2011 I posted on here about the riots. I pointed to study after study which explained some of the underlying reasons that sections (in this case young black men) of the UK rioted. Plenty on here dismissed this with a shrug saying that thuggery was thuggery.
I see no reason now not to suppose that there are valid underlying reasons for the recent riots and they should be taken as seriously as those of the 2011 riots.
I am also pretty sure that the union set of those who dismissed the 2011 rioters as mindless thugs and those who say the current WWC riots have a just cause is quite big.
It can be. Consider a related example: The US and the Soviet Union worked together to end smalllpox. The end of the disease benefited both nations, and the world at large.
A drug that stops a disease outside the US may prevent that disease from spreading to the US. With globalization and fast travel, that is not a small matter.
By the way, Bill Gates disagrees with you.
For the record: As always, I am not defending the US medical systems which are absurdly wasteful, but do think their positive aspects are often missed by foreign critics.
(Note please, I said systems.)
NEW THREAD
I'm reminded, with @TSE's imminent holiday and therefore the near certainty of the collapse of civilisation and a millennium of darkness (or Labour/LD Government if you prefer), just how "quiet" August is and has been:
110 years since the outbreak of World War 1
85 years since the signing of the Ribbentrop-Molotov Pact which made World War 2 inevitable
79 years since the dropping of the atomic bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki
56 years since the Warsaw Pact invasion of Czechoslovakia and the end of the Prague Spring
55 years since the deployment of British troops in Ulster
50 years since the Turkish invasion of Cyprus
45 years since my A-Level results
34 years since the Iraqi invasion of Kuwait
33 years since the attempted coup in the former Soviet Union
I'm sure there are plenty more and especially more recently but I'll leave anything from the mid-90s onward to others.
Bon Voyage, Mr Eagles.
The most sensible solution IMHO would be to retrocede all of the remaining parts of DC back to Maryland SAVE for the areas immediately adjacent to the White House, Congress and the Supreme Court. Hardly anyone lives there so it would meet the need for a "neutral" site for the Federal Government outside the jurisdiction of any State while disenfranchising very few people, if any.
Though I wouldn't recommend it.
* If you watch carefully he clips with his knees first I think
I think the problem perhaps is the Olympics was missing a Bolt - Lyles is no Bolt, pole vaulting is a bit niche for Duplantis to capture the imagination of the entire games and Marchand is, well, French.
Fwiw the men's breakdancing seemed a hell of a lot stronger than the women's, some of the top men you feel could have made it on pommel or floor if they'd gone down the gymnastics route.
If you want to use the exam results to be able to select the top x% of each age cohort then I guess your way makes sense.
However, you might want a particular grade to equate to a stable level of proficiency in the subject being tested. In which case the proportion achieving that level would be expected to vary according to the quality of education, and the ability of those choosing to take the exam.
It should be relatively simple to combine the two. Give a grade on a fixed scale equations to proficiency in the subject, and then a percentile number to show where the student was relative to the rest of their cohort.
Thus, in a very poor year, you might have a student with a B95 - only a B grade, but in the 95th percentile of their cohort. And in a very good year, you might see a student with A84 - a proficient student, but 16% of their cohort scoring more highly in the exam.
You need Algebra, Logs and exponentials, Trig, graphs and equations of motion.
Equally A level maths used to have physics in the applied papers until the late 1980's.
It was largely replaced with statistics and probability.
The figures for the previous poll on Wikipedia are completely wrong. That poll had, excluding Don't Knows and Would Not Votes - Labour 36%, Conservatives 22%, Reform 17%, Liberal Democrats 11% and Greens 7% with 3% opting for "an Independent Candidate".
The current offering has Labour 33% (-3), Reform 21% (+4), Conservatives 20% (-2), Liberal Democrats 11% (nc), Greens 8% (+1) and Independent 3% (nc)
The final We Think poll before the GE underestimated BOTH the Conservatives and LDs by one and a half percent and Others by two and a half percent while overestimating Labour by five and a half percent. My thought is the pollsters missed the strength of the "Independent" vote in some inner urban Labour seats and also missed the abstention among likely Labour voters which I've seen at anything up to 1.7 million people.
We can therefore argue the Conservatives were, to an extent, "saved" by Labour supporters not bothering to vote - why they didn't bother is or should be a subject for much research.
The current poll has a very small sample but the England sub sample (just a bit of fun, as Mr P. Snow used to say) has Labour on 34% (-1), Conservative 22% (-4), Reform 21% (+6), Liberal Democrats 11% (-2), Greens 8% (+1) and Independents 3% (+1) - changes reflecting rounding and from the GE.