There’s a little bit of Telegraph exaggeration there. The head of the union is mooting a ballot on strike action. There’s nothing imminent.
The union remains militant, but I’m not certain the membership is that eager for more strike action. But the union is right that the sector is in trouble. Undergrad fees remain frozen despite the inflation of recent years. It’s not rocket science: costs have gone up, but a major source of income hasn’t, so universities are in deficit.
If they increase tuition fees further then there'll be a further decline in student numbers, they're also being rinsed for accommodation. From ES "Figures from Ucas (Universities and Colleges Admissions Service) show by the end of June 41.9% of all 18-year-olds in the UK had applied through their system – compared to 42.1% last year and 44.1% in 2022."
I am very pro universities, but the idea that 40%+ of our 18 year olds should be even thinking of going to one is ludicrous. The way in which the entire media prioritise them as the route for young people is absurd and damaging, and must be contributing to the jobs crisis in unfashionable fields, the marginalisation of FE, and apprentices.
I can't think of a country other than Britain where the idea that its young people are receiving too much education has so much traction. If you suggested this in Ireland people would think you were madder than Donald Trump.
What is wrong with Britain?
Take this argument to it's logical conclusion - if full time education is so good for us, we should all remain in full time education until we are 50, or even 70. Just think what an amazing workforce the country would have, all these brilliant educated minds...
The reality is that time spent in education is not free - it's years of life not spent doing something else. If you enter the labour force at 22, and retire at 65, that's 43 years. The four years from 18-22 are almost ten percent of your working life. Imagine what the country could do with 10% more workers and no extra costs (it might solve the "need" for the mass immigration Ponzi scheme)
I didn't go to university, and spent the equivalent part of my life doing relatively menial jobs in a factory (although as I grew up I took on supervisory roles). I'm now at the age of 37 running a successful small business, currently employing 5 people. Having just looked it up, I'm earning just under the 90th percentile of the income distribution (and not in the outrageously overpriced South East either, unlike most such high earners).
A lot of my success comes from what I learnt (particularly about human nature) during the 5 years I worked in that factory. I had the grades to go to uni. I had a fees paid scholarship to do physics at Aberystwyth. Had I done that, I think it's very likely I would have either dropped out or got a poor grade, followed by a menial job - Although I was very bright, and academically able, I didn't like being academic and I didn't at that age have the drive and work ethic required.
IMHO 90% of young people would actually learn more useful stuff going into the workforce at 18, rather than spending 3-4 years and £50-100k for a system that basically amounts to credentialism, so they can get a "graduate level" job. And as a bonus, they would be economically productive for those 3-4 years, rather than just a net drain.
You forget that the reason Labour increased student numbers was to manage youth unemployment numbers.
There's a few things here
1) Trying to get 18 year olds to decide the course of their lives is pretty silly. The average 18 year old is concentrating on the things that are important at 18 - partying and other 18 year olds of the right variety. When I went to university in 1990 there were half a dozen mature students on my course. Who all did well. Going back and doing a degree later is good for some
2) The last big, real "class divide" is between degree'd and non-degree'd
3) Earning power of the non-degree'd has surpassed some sections of the degree'd
4) Making all white collar jobs (pretty much) require a degree hasn't increased the pay or quality of many of the jobs in question.
My solution to the above is to merge all types of training into degrees. And then make degrees mix academic and hands on skills. So you can have a degree in plumbing, but you need to read some Yeats. And you can have a degree in Poetry, but you'll need to learn how to run a lathe.
It's very noticeable that at universities, like UCL and Imperial, which offer non-engineering students the chance to do "shop" stuff (welding, machining, 3D printing etc etc), the makeup is very enthusiastic. Even when it is not academically credited.
Why are 3 and 4 an issue?
3) surely reflects the market, and is only (maybe) an issue if University degrees need to swallow funding from other sources, so child benefit, NHS, justice or defence spending is under pressure to pay for degrees.
In one example of markets operating, people will retrain as Tradespeople ( ). I have known several women in the 30-50 age bracket who have shifted into the plumbing or gas engineer trade, for example.
My own gas engineer went from police->gas engineer when she unable to deal with the shifts and childcare after relationship breakdown.
4) There are white collar jobs and white collar jobs. I'd support degree nursing, I think (John Major's Nurse 2000 programme), but not for some others. Office Managers in a small company do not necessarily need a degree, for example.
In that context, degrees covering a substantial chunk of their own costs makes a lot of sense, as an appropriate criteria in a process of choice.
3) and 4) are about the realities.
The pitch is "Get a degree and you'll be in an office in a posh job on lots of money"
The reality is that we need more people with a mix of skills - academic and practical. Think about the chap across from me, right now, the road laying/connecting fibre. Who was telling me about all the courses he did...
There’s a little bit of Telegraph exaggeration there. The head of the union is mooting a ballot on strike action. There’s nothing imminent.
The union remains militant, but I’m not certain the membership is that eager for more strike action. But the union is right that the sector is in trouble. Undergrad fees remain frozen despite the inflation of recent years. It’s not rocket science: costs have gone up, but a major source of income hasn’t, so universities are in deficit.
If they increase tuition fees further then there'll be a further decline in student numbers, they're also being rinsed for accommodation. From ES "Figures from Ucas (Universities and Colleges Admissions Service) show by the end of June 41.9% of all 18-year-olds in the UK had applied through their system – compared to 42.1% last year and 44.1% in 2022."
I am very pro universities, but the idea that 40%+ of our 18 year olds should be even thinking of going to one is ludicrous. The way in which the entire media prioritise them as the route for young people is absurd and damaging, and must be contributing to the jobs crisis in unfashionable fields, the marginalisation of FE, and apprentices.
I can't think of a country other than Britain where the idea that its young people are receiving too much education has so much traction. If you suggested this in Ireland people would think you were madder than Donald Trump.
What is wrong with Britain?
Take this argument to it's logical conclusion - if full time education is so good for us, we should all remain in full time education until we are 50, or even 70. Just think what an amazing workforce the country would have, all these brilliant educated minds...
The reality is that time spent in education is not free - it's years of life not spent doing something else. If you enter the labour force at 22, and retire at 65, that's 43 years. The four years from 18-22 are almost ten percent of your working life. Imagine what the country could do with 10% more workers and no extra costs (it might solve the "need" for the mass immigration Ponzi scheme)
I didn't go to university, and spent the equivalent part of my life doing relatively menial jobs in a factory (although as I grew up I took on supervisory roles). I'm now at the age of 37 running a successful small business, currently employing 5 people. Having just looked it up, I'm earning just under the 90th percentile of the income distribution (and not in the outrageously overpriced South East either, unlike most such high earners).
A lot of my success comes from what I learnt (particularly about human nature) during the 5 years I worked in that factory. I had the grades to go to uni. I had a fees paid scholarship to do physics at Aberystwyth. Had I done that, I think it's very likely I would have either dropped out or got a poor grade, followed by a menial job - Although I was very bright, and academically able, I didn't like being academic and I didn't at that age have the drive and work ethic required.
IMHO 90% of young people would actually learn more useful stuff going into the workforce at 18, rather than spending 3-4 years and £50-100k for a system that basically amounts to credentialism, so they can get a "graduate level" job. And as a bonus, they would be economically productive for those 3-4 years, rather than just a net drain.
You forget that the reason Labour increased student numbers was to manage youth unemployment numbers.
There's a few things here
1) Trying to get 18 year olds to decide the course of their lives is pretty silly. The average 18 year old is concentrating on the things that are important at 18 - partying and other 18 year olds of the right variety. When I went to university in 1990 there were half a dozen mature students on my course. Who all did well. Going back and doing a degree later is good for some
2) The last big, real "class divide" is between degree'd and non-degree'd
3) Earning power of the non-degree'd has surpassed some sections of the degree'd
4) Making all white collar jobs (pretty much) require a degree hasn't increased the pay or quality of many of the jobs in question.
My solution to the above is to merge all types of training into degrees. And then make degrees mix academic and hands on skills. So you can have a degree in plumbing, but you need to read some Yeats. And you can have a degree in Poetry, but you'll need to learn how to run a lathe.
It's very noticeable that at universities, like UCL and Imperial, which offer non-engineering students the chance to do "shop" stuff (welding, machining, 3D printing etc etc), the makeup is very enthusiastic. Even when it is not academically credited.
So you’re saying that woodwork and plumbing should now require getting into £50k of debt as well?
No.
But if you move "apprenticeships" to be "degrees"....
What is a fact is that a woman was arrested for eating a cat on the street, in Ohio. She is an American citizen. What is also a fact, is that a man was photographed carrying what looks like a wild bird on the street, in Ohio.
There was a man who mentioned street people eating cats at a public meeting in Springfield, OH.
There are some ambiguities regarding exact times and locations (not necessarily Springfield), but the story is not the wild conspiracy theory it’s been made out to be.
There are also a number of community Facebook posts relating to eating cats, but no photos and no arrest records, so difficult to stand up individual cases.
When I saw it this morning, I thought Harris looked weak because she appeared to feel the need to be the one to go to his territory. But maybe she was being assertive and showing that she's in charge?
Assertive but not aggressive, I thought. Which is the sweet spot. And they'd never met so "I'm Kamala Harris" worked ok.
There’s a little bit of Telegraph exaggeration there. The head of the union is mooting a ballot on strike action. There’s nothing imminent.
The union remains militant, but I’m not certain the membership is that eager for more strike action. But the union is right that the sector is in trouble. Undergrad fees remain frozen despite the inflation of recent years. It’s not rocket science: costs have gone up, but a major source of income hasn’t, so universities are in deficit.
If they increase tuition fees further then there'll be a further decline in student numbers, they're also being rinsed for accommodation. From ES "Figures from Ucas (Universities and Colleges Admissions Service) show by the end of June 41.9% of all 18-year-olds in the UK had applied through their system – compared to 42.1% last year and 44.1% in 2022."
I am very pro universities, but the idea that 40%+ of our 18 year olds should be even thinking of going to one is ludicrous. The way in which the entire media prioritise them as the route for young people is absurd and damaging, and must be contributing to the jobs crisis in unfashionable fields, the marginalisation of FE, and apprentices.
I can't think of a country other than Britain where the idea that its young people are receiving too much education has so much traction. If you suggested this in Ireland people would think you were madder than Donald Trump.
What is wrong with Britain?
Take this argument to it's logical conclusion - if full time education is so good for us, we should all remain in full time education until we are 50, or even 70. Just think what an amazing workforce the country would have, all these brilliant educated minds...
The reality is that time spent in education is not free - it's years of life not spent doing something else. If you enter the labour force at 22, and retire at 65, that's 43 years. The four years from 18-22 are almost ten percent of your working life. Imagine what the country could do with 10% more workers and no extra costs (it might solve the "need" for the mass immigration Ponzi scheme)
I didn't go to university, and spent the equivalent part of my life doing relatively menial jobs in a factory (although as I grew up I took on supervisory roles). I'm now at the age of 37 running a successful small business, currently employing 5 people. Having just looked it up, I'm earning just under the 90th percentile of the income distribution (and not in the outrageously overpriced South East either, unlike most such high earners).
A lot of my success comes from what I learnt (particularly about human nature) during the 5 years I worked in that factory. I had the grades to go to uni. I had a fees paid scholarship to do physics at Aberystwyth. Had I done that, I think it's very likely I would have either dropped out or got a poor grade, followed by a menial job - Although I was very bright, and academically able, I didn't like being academic and I didn't at that age have the drive and work ethic required.
IMHO 90% of young people would actually learn more useful stuff going into the workforce at 18, rather than spending 3-4 years and £50-100k for a system that basically amounts to credentialism, so they can get a "graduate level" job. And as a bonus, they would be economically productive for those 3-4 years, rather than just a net drain.
Every other country in the world believes that the way to get ahead is to improve the skills of its people to compete as a modern global economy.
In Britain people are still grumbling about not being able to send kids down the mine because they're in school until age 14 (to slightly unfairly paraphrase your argument).
It's baffling.
The problem with your argument, is that someone needs to go down the mine. What we're doing is sending them on a very expensive course in something often unrelated to mining, so that they can go down the mine afterwards. This may not be value.
I'm pretty unconvinced that Uni actually does much for the useful skills people need - my wife works at the back end of a Financial services outfit; they recruit graduates to do lots of relatively straightforward processes. She has endless problems which boil down to the fact most of them don't understand things like percentages properly; which you might hope to have learnt in GCSE maths.
It’s a sector that should be ripe for disruption with technology.
Not really. A university is really all about thinking - doing it, showing how to do it, writing about it and criticising it.
Transmission of supposed certainties and appropriate professional tecniques is more proper to a technical education.
There is room for both and a need for both. But it is time to make a distinction.
Pre-internet, universities also provided a pretty unique function of providing a place for smart people interested in particular academic disciplines to get together to communicate and collaborate. That just isn't so true any more.
And the distinction between academic and technical skills isn't entirely clear cut.
They still provide something that nowhere else really does, but it's not ridiculous that we rethink the way in which they fulfil that role.
There is probably more to be gained from rethinking the school curriculum to reflect the modern world, from using spreadsheets to using paintbrushes; from cycling to driving. Do our children really need to know about Oxbow lakes and the unification of Italy?
I'd agree that we should be rethinking education for everyone from infants to oldies. Doing so effectively would require a degree of experimentation though. Top down Gove-style stuff is unlikely to bring about significant improvements.
Taylor Swift’s endorsement of Harris is just pitch perfect. And signing off as Childless Cat Lady the chef’s kiss.
Lady is all class.
And Musk’s subsequent offer to impregnate her just put all that into relief.
Nothing has changed my view that the 5th of November will be a blowout for Harris.
How many voters are there that care about Taylor Swift’s voting preference that would not already be voting democrat? It’s more a fleeting morale boost to the campaigners than a game changer surely. The Liz Cheney endorsement feels far more impactful to me.
I think you underestimate Swift's country music base and their voting patterns.
Swift's political preferences are fairly obvious given her endorsement of Biden in 2020 etc. I am with @kamski on this one that she waited to see of Harris would not f--k it up in the debate before giving her endorsement.
Does it add to many votes? Probably a few but, as has already been pointed out, her audience base overlaps a lot with the KH demographic. I'm not sure the country fan base is going to be swayed much given the other issues.
I think one of the issues we have on here is that - I imagine - we are a reasonably well-educated, professionally-orientated commentary base. So things like Swift's endorsement and Trump's comments about immigrants eating cats are seen as defining moments. Whereas for a lot of Americans, they like Swift for her music but she's a rich pop star, and in many communities, the eating cats is the sort of thing they would easily believe.
It’s a sector that should be ripe for disruption with technology.
Not really. A university is really all about thinking - doing it, showing how to do it, writing about it and criticising it.
Transmission of supposed certainties and appropriate professional tecniques is more proper to a technical education.
There is room for both and a need for both. But it is time to make a distinction.
Pre-internet, universities also provided a pretty unique function of providing a place for smart people interested in particular academic disciplines to get together to communicate and collaborate. That just isn't so true any more.
And the distinction between academic and technical skills isn't entirely clear cut.
They still provide something that nowhere else really does, but it's not ridiculous that we rethink the way in which they fulfil that role.
There is probably more to be gained from rethinking the school curriculum to reflect the modern world, from using spreadsheets to using paintbrushes; from cycling to driving. Do our children really need to know about Oxbow lakes and the unification of Italy?
There’s a little bit of Telegraph exaggeration there. The head of the union is mooting a ballot on strike action. There’s nothing imminent.
The union remains militant, but I’m not certain the membership is that eager for more strike action. But the union is right that the sector is in trouble. Undergrad fees remain frozen despite the inflation of recent years. It’s not rocket science: costs have gone up, but a major source of income hasn’t, so universities are in deficit.
If they increase tuition fees further then there'll be a further decline in student numbers, they're also being rinsed for accommodation. From ES "Figures from Ucas (Universities and Colleges Admissions Service) show by the end of June 41.9% of all 18-year-olds in the UK had applied through their system – compared to 42.1% last year and 44.1% in 2022."
I am very pro universities, but the idea that 40%+ of our 18 year olds should be even thinking of going to one is ludicrous. The way in which the entire media prioritise them as the route for young people is absurd and damaging, and must be contributing to the jobs crisis in unfashionable fields, the marginalisation of FE, and apprentices.
I can't think of a country other than Britain where the idea that its young people are receiving too much education has so much traction. If you suggested this in Ireland people would think you were madder than Donald Trump.
What is wrong with Britain?
Take this argument to it's logical conclusion - if full time education is so good for us, we should all remain in full time education until we are 50, or even 70. Just think what an amazing workforce the country would have, all these brilliant educated minds...
The reality is that time spent in education is not free - it's years of life not spent doing something else. If you enter the labour force at 22, and retire at 65, that's 43 years. The four years from 18-22 are almost ten percent of your working life. Imagine what the country could do with 10% more workers and no extra costs (it might solve the "need" for the mass immigration Ponzi scheme)
I didn't go to university, and spent the equivalent part of my life doing relatively menial jobs in a factory (although as I grew up I took on supervisory roles). I'm now at the age of 37 running a successful small business, currently employing 5 people. Having just looked it up, I'm earning just under the 90th percentile of the income distribution (and not in the outrageously overpriced South East either, unlike most such high earners).
A lot of my success comes from what I learnt (particularly about human nature) during the 5 years I worked in that factory. I had the grades to go to uni. I had a fees paid scholarship to do physics at Aberystwyth. Had I done that, I think it's very likely I would have either dropped out or got a poor grade, followed by a menial job - Although I was very bright, and academically able, I didn't like being academic and I didn't at that age have the drive and work ethic required.
IMHO 90% of young people would actually learn more useful stuff going into the workforce at 18, rather than spending 3-4 years and £50-100k for a system that basically amounts to credentialism, so they can get a "graduate level" job. And as a bonus, they would be economically productive for those 3-4 years, rather than just a net drain.
You forget that the reason Labour increased student numbers was to manage youth unemployment numbers.
There's a few things here
1) Trying to get 18 year olds to decide the course of their lives is pretty silly. The average 18 year old is concentrating on the things that are important at 18 - partying and other 18 year olds of the right variety. When I went to university in 1990 there were half a dozen mature students on my course. Who all did well. Going back and doing a degree later is good for some
2) The last big, real "class divide" is between degree'd and non-degree'd
3) Earning power of the non-degree'd has surpassed some sections of the degree'd
4) Making all white collar jobs (pretty much) require a degree hasn't increased the pay or quality of many of the jobs in question.
My solution to the above is to merge all types of training into degrees. And then make degrees mix academic and hands on skills. So you can have a degree in plumbing, but you need to read some Yeats. And you can have a degree in Poetry, but you'll need to learn how to run a lathe.
It's very noticeable that at universities, like UCL and Imperial, which offer non-engineering students the chance to do "shop" stuff (welding, machining, 3D printing etc etc), the makeup is very enthusiastic. Even when it is not academically credited.
So you’re saying that woodwork and plumbing should now require getting into £50k of debt as well?
No.
But if you move "apprenticeships" to be "degrees"....
There’s a little bit of Telegraph exaggeration there. The head of the union is mooting a ballot on strike action. There’s nothing imminent.
The union remains militant, but I’m not certain the membership is that eager for more strike action. But the union is right that the sector is in trouble. Undergrad fees remain frozen despite the inflation of recent years. It’s not rocket science: costs have gone up, but a major source of income hasn’t, so universities are in deficit.
If they increase tuition fees further then there'll be a further decline in student numbers, they're also being rinsed for accommodation. From ES "Figures from Ucas (Universities and Colleges Admissions Service) show by the end of June 41.9% of all 18-year-olds in the UK had applied through their system – compared to 42.1% last year and 44.1% in 2022."
I am very pro universities, but the idea that 40%+ of our 18 year olds should be even thinking of going to one is ludicrous. The way in which the entire media prioritise them as the route for young people is absurd and damaging, and must be contributing to the jobs crisis in unfashionable fields, the marginalisation of FE, and apprentices.
I can't think of a country other than Britain where the idea that its young people are receiving too much education has so much traction. If you suggested this in Ireland people would think you were madder than Donald Trump.
What is wrong with Britain?
Take this argument to it's logical conclusion - if full time education is so good for us, we should all remain in full time education until we are 50, or even 70. Just think what an amazing workforce the country would have, all these brilliant educated minds...
The reality is that time spent in education is not free - it's years of life not spent doing something else. If you enter the labour force at 22, and retire at 65, that's 43 years. The four years from 18-22 are almost ten percent of your working life. Imagine what the country could do with 10% more workers and no extra costs (it might solve the "need" for the mass immigration Ponzi scheme)
I didn't go to university, and spent the equivalent part of my life doing relatively menial jobs in a factory (although as I grew up I took on supervisory roles). I'm now at the age of 37 running a successful small business, currently employing 5 people. Having just looked it up, I'm earning just under the 90th percentile of the income distribution (and not in the outrageously overpriced South East either, unlike most such high earners).
A lot of my success comes from what I learnt (particularly about human nature) during the 5 years I worked in that factory. I had the grades to go to uni. I had a fees paid scholarship to do physics at Aberystwyth. Had I done that, I think it's very likely I would have either dropped out or got a poor grade, followed by a menial job - Although I was very bright, and academically able, I didn't like being academic and I didn't at that age have the drive and work ethic required.
IMHO 90% of young people would actually learn more useful stuff going into the workforce at 18, rather than spending 3-4 years and £50-100k for a system that basically amounts to credentialism, so they can get a "graduate level" job. And as a bonus, they would be economically productive for those 3-4 years, rather than just a net drain.
Every other country in the world believes that the way to get ahead is to improve the skills of its people to compete as a modern global economy.
In Britain people are still grumbling about not being able to send kids down the mine because they're in school until age 14 (to slightly unfairly paraphrase your argument).
It's baffling.
The problem with your argument, is that someone needs to go down the mine. What we're doing is sending them on a very expensive course in something often unrelated to mining, so that they can go down the mine afterwards. This may not be value.
I'm pretty unconvinced that Uni actually does much for the useful skills people need - my wife works at the back end of a Financial services outfit; they recruit graduates to do lots of relatively straightforward processes. She has endless problems which boil down to the fact most of them don't understand things like percentages properly; which you might hope to have learnt in GCSE maths.
Your comment identifies two problems - a lack of investment in productivity to reduce the low-skilled labour required by the economy, and the quality of education delivered in Britain.
You do not solve either problem by just throwing up your hands and giving up on education.
There’s a little bit of Telegraph exaggeration there. The head of the union is mooting a ballot on strike action. There’s nothing imminent.
The union remains militant, but I’m not certain the membership is that eager for more strike action. But the union is right that the sector is in trouble. Undergrad fees remain frozen despite the inflation of recent years. It’s not rocket science: costs have gone up, but a major source of income hasn’t, so universities are in deficit.
Good morning everyone.
I think this is an interesting one.
Despite its squeezes, the university sector has had a long period relatively in the sun - meaning perhaps 25 years, compared to for example local authorities, public transport, the legal system, or defence.
How will this play in a competition for scarce (or "find your own" resources)?
Universities across the country have been milking the Student Accommodation cash-cow since 2000 or before, and heavily since ~2005-2010, and have also targeted intertnational student fees. What other income sources are available?
Open up university exam certification to anyone paying the (reasonable) costs of the exam. Let them get the tuition where and when they want, how they want and from whoever they want. Job done.
That's what the real cost of the degree is - the certificate from X university saying you got that degree.
The lessons without the exams can be found on the internet for peanuts..
Exactly. The universities are trying to sell scarcity, in a world where information is no longer scarce.
Not quite - they are selling a stamp of approval based on their reputation within HR / the employment market.
They are selling a deliberately very limited number of such stamps, to very many fewer people than would be able to successfully complete the course.
When I saw it this morning, I thought Harris looked weak because she appeared to feel the need to be the one to go to his territory. But maybe she was being assertive and showing that she's in charge?
I'm not really sure what Team Kamala hoped to achieve. She travelled to him, and it emphasised their size difference. On the other hand, if the idea was to rattle The Donald, maybe it worked.
I think she wanted to bridge over the divide with MAGA Republicans, and to acknowledge Trumps humanity. The very opposite of Hillary's "basket of deplorables".
Watching the debate last night was awful, and I couldn’t sleep afterwards. Yes, Kamala won, but Trump was a ranting, weird, venal spectre. He is very obviously clinically insane. The fact he is so close to power is barely believable, and deeply harrowing.
Do we have straightforward numbers for how many USA voters viewed the debate, and which groups they were?
(ie How many Trump-supporters will have been exposed to this? And will it make a difference? ! )
The WH2016 betting moves markedly back to Clinton after convincing first debate performance
Yebbut, she won the popular vote. Her mistake was taking the 'blue wall' for granted and not bothering to campaign there. Trump visited late in the campaign and won by tiny majorities, but that gave him the Electoral College.
It’s a sector that should be ripe for disruption with technology.
Not really. A university is really all about thinking - doing it, showing how to do it, writing about it and criticising it.
Transmission of supposed certainties and appropriate professional tecniques is more proper to a technical education.
There is room for both and a need for both. But it is time to make a distinction.
Pre-internet, universities also provided a pretty unique function of providing a place for smart people interested in particular academic disciplines to get together to communicate and collaborate. That just isn't so true any more.
And the distinction between academic and technical skills isn't entirely clear cut.
They still provide something that nowhere else really does, but it's not ridiculous that we rethink the way in which they fulfil that role.
There is probably more to be gained from rethinking the school curriculum to reflect the modern world, from using spreadsheets to using paintbrushes; from cycling to driving. Do our children really need to know about Oxbow lakes and the unification of Italy?
When I saw it this morning, I thought Harris looked weak because she appeared to feel the need to be the one to go to his territory. But maybe she was being assertive and showing that she's in charge?
I'm not really sure what Team Kamala hoped to achieve. She travelled to him, and it emphasised their size difference. On the other hand, if the idea was to rattle The Donald, maybe it worked.
"I'm Kamala Harris" was about introducing herself to America.
Although Trump was probably still expecting Biden.
Taylor Swift’s endorsement of Harris is just pitch perfect. And signing off as Childless Cat Lady the chef’s kiss.
Lady is all class.
And Musk’s subsequent offer to impregnate her just put all that into relief.
Nothing has changed my view that the 5th of November will be a blowout for Harris.
How many voters are there that care about Taylor Swift’s voting preference that would not already be voting democrat? It’s more a fleeting morale boost to the campaigners than a game changer surely. The Liz Cheney endorsement feels far more impactful to me.
??? You only think Democrats follow pop music? You think young people can't be influenced by who they follow? You know that group that is the easiest to influence, unlike us oldies. You think Country music (her origins) is followed by mainly Democrats? You think that most young people have heard of Liz Cheney? Who do you think most voters have heard of Liz Cheney or Taylor Swift?
A but tongue in cheek but I wonder how Swift's endorsement may persuade some people to vote for Trump? She's young, gorgeous and female. Surely a hate figure for male incels.
What is a fact is that a woman was arrested for eating a cat on the street, in Ohio. She is an American citizen. What is also a fact, is that a man was photographed carrying what looks like a wild bird on the street, in Ohio.
There was a man who mentioned street people eating cats at a public meeting in Springfield, OH.
There are some ambiguities regarding exact times and locations (not necessarily Springfield), but the story is not the wild conspiracy theory it’s been made out to be.
There are also a number of community Facebook posts relating to eating cats, but no photos and no arrest records, so difficult to stand up individual cases.
A few anecdotes and a could of tangentially relayed facts spun up into an overarching narrative almost sounds like the definition of a “wild conspiracy theory”
On topic - that Haley quote looks almost as prescient as my recent reminder to you all that the first debate in 2020 probably cost Trump the election.
A way to go yet but that performance leaves Trump in deep trouble outside of his base.
I don't think the woman who recently (and unnecessarily) endorsed Trump is "the other winner from the debate".
If anything, that reduced her chances of leading a post-MAGA GOP. And if it stays MAGA, the MAGAts aren't going to forgive her the things she said when campaigning against their leader.
There’s a little bit of Telegraph exaggeration there. The head of the union is mooting a ballot on strike action. There’s nothing imminent.
The union remains militant, but I’m not certain the membership is that eager for more strike action. But the union is right that the sector is in trouble. Undergrad fees remain frozen despite the inflation of recent years. It’s not rocket science: costs have gone up, but a major source of income hasn’t, so universities are in deficit.
If they increase tuition fees further then there'll be a further decline in student numbers, they're also being rinsed for accommodation. From ES "Figures from Ucas (Universities and Colleges Admissions Service) show by the end of June 41.9% of all 18-year-olds in the UK had applied through their system – compared to 42.1% last year and 44.1% in 2022."
I am very pro universities, but the idea that 40%+ of our 18 year olds should be even thinking of going to one is ludicrous. The way in which the entire media prioritise them as the route for young people is absurd and damaging, and must be contributing to the jobs crisis in unfashionable fields, the marginalisation of FE, and apprentices.
I can't think of a country other than Britain where the idea that its young people are receiving too much education has so much traction. If you suggested this in Ireland people would think you were madder than Donald Trump.
What is wrong with Britain?
Take this argument to it's logical conclusion - if full time education is so good for us, we should all remain in full time education until we are 50, or even 70. Just think what an amazing workforce the country would have, all these brilliant educated minds...
The reality is that time spent in education is not free - it's years of life not spent doing something else. If you enter the labour force at 22, and retire at 65, that's 43 years. The four years from 18-22 are almost ten percent of your working life. Imagine what the country could do with 10% more workers and no extra costs (it might solve the "need" for the mass immigration Ponzi scheme)
I didn't go to university, and spent the equivalent part of my life doing relatively menial jobs in a factory (although as I grew up I took on supervisory roles). I'm now at the age of 37 running a successful small business, currently employing 5 people. Having just looked it up, I'm earning just under the 90th percentile of the income distribution (and not in the outrageously overpriced South East either, unlike most such high earners).
A lot of my success comes from what I learnt (particularly about human nature) during the 5 years I worked in that factory. I had the grades to go to uni. I had a fees paid scholarship to do physics at Aberystwyth. Had I done that, I think it's very likely I would have either dropped out or got a poor grade, followed by a menial job - Although I was very bright, and academically able, I didn't like being academic and I didn't at that age have the drive and work ethic required.
IMHO 90% of young people would actually learn more useful stuff going into the workforce at 18, rather than spending 3-4 years and £50-100k for a system that basically amounts to credentialism, so they can get a "graduate level" job. And as a bonus, they would be economically productive for those 3-4 years, rather than just a net drain.
You forget that the reason Labour increased student numbers was to manage youth unemployment numbers.
There's a few things here
1) Trying to get 18 year olds to decide the course of their lives is pretty silly. The average 18 year old is concentrating on the things that are important at 18 - partying and other 18 year olds of the right variety. When I went to university in 1990 there were half a dozen mature students on my course. Who all did well. Going back and doing a degree later is good for some
2) The last big, real "class divide" is between degree'd and non-degree'd
3) Earning power of the non-degree'd has surpassed some sections of the degree'd
4) Making all white collar jobs (pretty much) require a degree hasn't increased the pay or quality of many of the jobs in question.
My solution to the above is to merge all types of training into degrees. And then make degrees mix academic and hands on skills. So you can have a degree in plumbing, but you need to read some Yeats. And you can have a degree in Poetry, but you'll need to learn how to run a lathe.
It's very noticeable that at universities, like UCL and Imperial, which offer non-engineering students the chance to do "shop" stuff (welding, machining, 3D printing etc etc), the makeup is very enthusiastic. Even when it is not academically credited.
So you’re saying that woodwork and plumbing should now require getting into £50k of debt as well?
No.
But if you move "apprenticeships" to be "degrees"....
Then you can charge nine grand a year for them…?
No. You turn the apprenticeship system into a degree-as-you-earn.
When I saw it this morning, I thought Harris looked weak because she appeared to feel the need to be the one to go to his territory. But maybe she was being assertive and showing that she's in charge?
I'm not really sure what Team Kamala hoped to achieve. She travelled to him, and it emphasised their size difference. On the other hand, if the idea was to rattle The Donald, maybe it worked.
The WH2016 betting moves markedly back to Clinton after convincing first debate performance
Yebbut, she won the popular vote. Her mistake was taking the 'blue wall' for granted and not bothering to campaign there. Trump visited late in the campaign and won by tiny majorities, but that gave him the Electoral College.
Clinton was surrounded by idiots - for letting her lose the blue wall.
But she was a uniqely unpleasant offering for high office. Nobody since Nixon had come close. Thankfully for her long-term record, J D Vance has clearly stolen her title.
Martin Lewis talking about using council tax bands as an alternative to pension credit as piggy-back criteria for winter fuel payment. Interesting idea.
Martin Lewis suggested that one immediately after the original proposal came out, and told them iirc his video at the time that it was too narrow in consultations before the original announcement.
For me that throws up a concern with whether Mr Starmer's neck is too stiff, and whether he is too likely to continue a charge once he started in that direction.
While there's an argument for ending its universality due to tight national finances, it's being squeezed to too narrow a group – just those on benefits and Pension Credit.
Yet again, those just above the thresholds will be hardest hit. This is often justified as there's a 'lack of household income data' to allow other targeting. However, there's a usable precedent from the emergency energy crisis measures announced in April 2022, which I'd urge the Government to look at.
Then, a payment was made to homes in council tax bands A to D – as an imperfect but workable proxy for lower household incomes. That'd allow an additional group of lower to middle-income pensioners to keep the payments and mitigate bill shocks. Councils' discretionary funds could also be funded as in April 2022, for the limited numbers who still need help but don't qualify.
Is the government providing incentives - or is this the first genuinely significant Brexit benefit ? Might Amazon not want their servers in EU jurisdiction given recent EU regulations regarding (eg) AI ?
It’s a sector that should be ripe for disruption with technology.
Not really. A university is really all about thinking - doing it, showing how to do it, writing about it and criticising it.
Transmission of supposed certainties and appropriate professional tecniques is more proper to a technical education.
There is room for both and a need for both. But it is time to make a distinction.
Pre-internet, universities also provided a pretty unique function of providing a place for smart people interested in particular academic disciplines to get together to communicate and collaborate. That just isn't so true any more.
And the distinction between academic and technical skills isn't entirely clear cut.
They still provide something that nowhere else really does, but it's not ridiculous that we rethink the way in which they fulfil that role.
There is probably more to be gained from rethinking the school curriculum to reflect the modern world, from using spreadsheets to using paintbrushes; from cycling to driving. Do our children really need to know about Oxbow lakes and the unification of Italy?
It’s a sector that should be ripe for disruption with technology.
Not really. A university is really all about thinking - doing it, showing how to do it, writing about it and criticising it.
Transmission of supposed certainties and appropriate professional tecniques is more proper to a technical education.
There is room for both and a need for both. But it is time to make a distinction.
Pre-internet, universities also provided a pretty unique function of providing a place for smart people interested in particular academic disciplines to get together to communicate and collaborate. That just isn't so true any more.
And the distinction between academic and technical skills isn't entirely clear cut.
They still provide something that nowhere else really does, but it's not ridiculous that we rethink the way in which they fulfil that role.
There is probably more to be gained from rethinking the school curriculum to reflect the modern world, from using spreadsheets to using paintbrushes; from cycling to driving. Do our children really need to know about Oxbow lakes and the unification of Italy?
c) Which hopefully will help registration of Democrats and influence true Independents. Small numbers but that is all that is available and all that matters.
d) Taylor Swift's endorsement is the same. Likely to influence small numbers, but they are the critical numbers particularly of the young. Increased registration of voters, again particularly young voters.
Also a nice double whammy. TS looks like she held back from going for Trump after he misrepresented her.
It will not change one mind. There will not be a single Trump voter who will now say after watching that will now vote Harris.
But, what it will do is harden the Democrat vote and soften the Republican vote at the margins. The reverse of 2016 when Americans found Trump entertaining and Clinton grating. Those debates just gave the Trump campaign oxygen despite Clinton seemingly winning them.
Swift's endorsement in a celebrity obsessed world is just as important than Kamala's steady hand which allowed the Democrats more than anything to expel a huge sigh of relief.
About 10.30 last night a distress flare was seen in Llandudno Bay resulting in multiple 999 calls and the immediate launch of Llandudno's All Weather Shannon lifeboat which conducted pattern searches before the coastguard eventually found the empty flare canister on the beach let off by some irresponsible individual or group of individuals.
Commentators seemed to have missed Trumps accusation that Harris slept around with his she “put it out “. That was in the middle of his response to the question of her race .
Martin Lewis talking about using council tax bands as an alternative to pension credit as piggy-back criteria for winter fuel payment. Interesting idea.
Martin Lewis suggested that one immediately after the original proposal came out, and told them iirc his video at the time that it was too narrow in consultations before the original announcement.
For me that throws up a concern with whether Mr Starmer's neck is too stiff, and whether he is too likely to continue a charge once he started in that direction.
While there's an argument for ending its universality due to tight national finances, it's being squeezed to too narrow a group – just those on benefits and Pension Credit.
Yet again, those just above the thresholds will be hardest hit. This is often justified as there's a 'lack of household income data' to allow other targeting. However, there's a usable precedent from the emergency energy crisis measures announced in April 2022, which I'd urge the Government to look at.
Then, a payment was made to homes in council tax bands A to D – as an imperfect but workable proxy for lower household incomes. That'd allow an additional group of lower to middle-income pensioners to keep the payments and mitigate bill shocks. Councils' discretionary funds could also be funded as in April 2022, for the limited numbers who still need help but don't qualify.
The problem there is that council tax data doesn't include the age of residents so you would need to combine it with another data source.
Good luck trying to do that given 1 of them is address data...
“Two [Russian] kids aged 13 and 14 sneaked into an airfield in Noyabrsk, Russia, and set a helicopter ablaze, destroying it entirely. The boys were persuaded to do this through Telegram, where they got promised 5 million Russian Rubles. Their father is currently part of the Russian invasion in Ukraine.”
It will not change one mind. There will not be a single Trump voter who will now say after watching that will now vote Harris.
But, what it will do is harden the Democrat vote and soften the Republican vote at the margins. The reverse of 2016 when Americans found Trump entertaining and Clinton grating. Those debates just gave the Trump campaign oxygen despite Clinton seemingly winning them.
Swift's endorsement in a celebrity obsessed world is just as important than Kamala's steady hand which allowed the Democrats more than anything to expel a huge sigh of relief.
Someone upthread posted a poll suggesting 6% of republicans and 2% of Dems would change their mind as a result of the debate
More Republicans than democrats would reconsider as well
“Two [Russian] kids aged 13 and 14 sneaked into an airfield in Noyabrsk, Russia, and set a helicopter ablaze, destroying it entirely. The boys were persuaded to do this through Telegram, where they got promised 5 million Russian Rubles. Their father is currently part of the Russian invasion in Ukraine.”
(5m roubles is about $50k, £40k).
I’m not sure they will find it hilarious now they’ve been identified
The WH2016 betting moves markedly back to Clinton after convincing first debate performance
Yebbut, she won the popular vote. Her mistake was taking the 'blue wall' for granted and not bothering to campaign there. Trump visited late in the campaign and won by tiny majorities, but that gave him the Electoral College.
Clinton was surrounded by idiots - for letting her lose the blue wall.
But she was a uniqely unpleasant offering for high office. Nobody since Nixon had come close. Thankfully for her long-term record, J D Vance has clearly stolen her title.
But at the time that is not how Clinton was perceived. No one viewed her as 'uniquely unpleasant' just as 6 months no one on here thought Joe Biden was mentally incapable.
She was though an idiot for taking the Blue Wall for granted.
Commentators seemed to have missed Trumps accusation that Harris slept around with his she “put it out “. That was in the middle of his response to the question of her race .
A bit sexist of him, after all he has famously slept around himself. Why shouldn't a single woman too?
It’s a sector that should be ripe for disruption with technology.
Not really. A university is really all about thinking - doing it, showing how to do it, writing about it and criticising it.
Transmission of supposed certainties and appropriate professional tecniques is more proper to a technical education.
There is room for both and a need for both. But it is time to make a distinction.
Pre-internet, universities also provided a pretty unique function of providing a place for smart people interested in particular academic disciplines to get together to communicate and collaborate. That just isn't so true any more.
And the distinction between academic and technical skills isn't entirely clear cut.
They still provide something that nowhere else really does, but it's not ridiculous that we rethink the way in which they fulfil that role.
There is probably more to be gained from rethinking the school curriculum to reflect the modern world, from using spreadsheets to using paintbrushes; from cycling to driving. Do our children really need to know about Oxbow lakes and the unification of Italy?
The main problem with only teaching what people need to know is who decides?
An education that restricted itself to only the things people need to know would run up against a big problem: how can you possibly know now what will be useful in ten, twenty, or thirty years? I ended up using the O-level French I learned at school far more than I did my A-level Chemistry, but at the time I regarded it as a waste of time. Ox-bow lakes are often give as a classic example of useless knowledge, but understanding physical geography helps to explain why some things are where they are and why building on that nice flat bit of land near the river might not be such a good idea.
Commentators seemed to have missed Trumps accusation that Harris slept around with his she “put it out “. That was in the middle of his response to the question of her race .
Perhaps they just didn't want to dignify that shit by giving it any attention ?
What difference US is from Europe. You have Democrats and Republicans split down the middle. It's like some Newton's laws for every positive action there is a corresponding negative action.
So, as the Democrats make inroads with educated, wealthier types, the Republicans counterbalance with rallying non college educated. The Democrats make inroads with suburban white females, Republicans come back with Hispanic males.
And it's all on the margins fought in marginal states.
The swing's we have in the European elections are inconceivable in the US.
There’s a little bit of Telegraph exaggeration there. The head of the union is mooting a ballot on strike action. There’s nothing imminent.
The union remains militant, but I’m not certain the membership is that eager for more strike action. But the union is right that the sector is in trouble. Undergrad fees remain frozen despite the inflation of recent years. It’s not rocket science: costs have gone up, but a major source of income hasn’t, so universities are in deficit.
Good morning everyone.
I think this is an interesting one.
Despite its squeezes, the university sector has had a long period relatively in the sun - meaning perhaps 25 years, compared to for example local authorities, public transport, the legal system, or defence.
How will this play in a competition for scarce (or "find your own" resources)?
Universities across the country have been milking the Student Accommodation cash-cow since 2000 or before, and heavily since ~2005-2010, and have also targeted intertnational student fees. What other income sources are available?
I would want to see evidence to back up that claim
The biggest providers in the market nowadays are private firms such as Unite, IQ or Student Roost all backed by pension funds.
Which claim?
I made several observations. I was also timed out with the following bonus bit:
Domestic student fees are down afaics by about 35% in real terms since 2010 (£9000 then to £9250 now).
The claim that Universities are milking the accommodation cash-cow. It's not universities who are the real offenders there...
OK. Looked up the actual numbers for tuition fee caps in England.
(External factors are other funding sources and how they change)
So 2011 £3000 / year 2012 £9000 / year 2024 £9250 / year 2011 to 2024 increased by 3.08 2012 to 2024 CPI increase 1.39
what's your point?
The repayment system has changed, so some debate over that but the main issue is that £9k is something that you could realistically see yourself clearing in a few years once in a job, but £27,750 isn't, people struggle to reduce the outstanding balance.
“Two [Russian] kids aged 13 and 14 sneaked into an airfield in Noyabrsk, Russia, and set a helicopter ablaze, destroying it entirely. The boys were persuaded to do this through Telegram, where they got promised 5 million Russian Rubles. Their father is currently part of the Russian invasion in Ukraine.”
(5m roubles is about $50k, £40k).
I’m not sure they will find it hilarious now they’ve been identified
Oh well, then don’t set helicopters on fire. I suspect they’ll be given the choice of prison or conscription, I mean 13 and 14 isn’t too young to go to the meat grinder, is it?
Meanwhile, there’s one fewer helicopter for the Russians to use.
Watching the debate last night was awful, and I couldn’t sleep afterwards. Yes, Kamala won, but Trump was a ranting, weird, venal spectre. He is very obviously clinically insane. The fact he is so close to power is barely believable, and deeply harrowing.
Do we have straightforward numbers for how many USA voters viewed the debate, and which groups they were?
(ie How many Trump-supporters will have been exposed to this? And will it make a difference? ! )
I think I'll listen to a recording.
If I can find a &^%$£" recording !
It's all "the most important moments" (in our opinion) and "the debate in 3 minutes".
“Two [Russian] kids aged 13 and 14 sneaked into an airfield in Noyabrsk, Russia, and set a helicopter ablaze, destroying it entirely. The boys were persuaded to do this through Telegram, where they got promised 5 million Russian Rubles. Their father is currently part of the Russian invasion in Ukraine.”
(5m roubles is about $50k, £40k).
Also an extremely efficient and humane way of waging war, assuming the helicopter was empty and the boys are too young to be prosecuted.
Martin Lewis talking about using council tax bands as an alternative to pension credit as piggy-back criteria for winter fuel payment. Interesting idea.
Martin Lewis suggested that one immediately after the original proposal came out, and told them iirc his video at the time that it was too narrow in consultations before the original announcement.
For me that throws up a concern with whether Mr Starmer's neck is too stiff, and whether he is too likely to continue a charge once he started in that direction.
While there's an argument for ending its universality due to tight national finances, it's being squeezed to too narrow a group – just those on benefits and Pension Credit.
Yet again, those just above the thresholds will be hardest hit. This is often justified as there's a 'lack of household income data' to allow other targeting. However, there's a usable precedent from the emergency energy crisis measures announced in April 2022, which I'd urge the Government to look at.
Then, a payment was made to homes in council tax bands A to D – as an imperfect but workable proxy for lower household incomes. That'd allow an additional group of lower to middle-income pensioners to keep the payments and mitigate bill shocks. Councils' discretionary funds could also be funded as in April 2022, for the limited numbers who still need help but don't qualify.
The problem there is that council tax data doesn't include the age of residents so you would need to combine it with another data source.
Good luck trying to do that given 1 of them is address data...
That's part of the point - how can one do it better?
It’s a sector that should be ripe for disruption with technology.
Not really. A university is really all about thinking - doing it, showing how to do it, writing about it and criticising it.
Transmission of supposed certainties and appropriate professional tecniques is more proper to a technical education.
There is room for both and a need for both. But it is time to make a distinction.
Pre-internet, universities also provided a pretty unique function of providing a place for smart people interested in particular academic disciplines to get together to communicate and collaborate. That just isn't so true any more.
And the distinction between academic and technical skills isn't entirely clear cut.
They still provide something that nowhere else really does, but it's not ridiculous that we rethink the way in which they fulfil that role.
There is probably more to be gained from rethinking the school curriculum to reflect the modern world, from using spreadsheets to using paintbrushes; from cycling to driving. Do our children really need to know about Oxbow lakes and the unification of Italy?
The main problem with only teaching what people need to know is who decides?
An education that restricted itself to only the things people need to know would run up against a big problem: how can you possibly know now what will be useful in ten, twenty, or thirty years? I ended up using the O-level French I learned at school far more than I did my A-level Chemistry, but at the time I regarded it as a waste of time. Ox-bow lakes are often give as a classic example of useless knowledge, but understanding physical geography helps to explain why some things are where they are and why building on that nice flat bit of land near the river might not be such a good idea.
Arguable that that's why professional exams were largely replaced by university degrees. With just a top-up of essential professional stuff.
Martin Lewis talking about using council tax bands as an alternative to pension credit as piggy-back criteria for winter fuel payment. Interesting idea.
Martin Lewis suggested that one immediately after the original proposal came out, and told them iirc his video at the time that it was too narrow in consultations before the original announcement.
For me that throws up a concern with whether Mr Starmer's neck is too stiff, and whether he is too likely to continue a charge once he started in that direction.
While there's an argument for ending its universality due to tight national finances, it's being squeezed to too narrow a group – just those on benefits and Pension Credit.
Yet again, those just above the thresholds will be hardest hit. This is often justified as there's a 'lack of household income data' to allow other targeting. However, there's a usable precedent from the emergency energy crisis measures announced in April 2022, which I'd urge the Government to look at.
Then, a payment was made to homes in council tax bands A to D – as an imperfect but workable proxy for lower household incomes. That'd allow an additional group of lower to middle-income pensioners to keep the payments and mitigate bill shocks. Councils' discretionary funds could also be funded as in April 2022, for the limited numbers who still need help but don't qualify.
wouldnt it just be easier if pensioners turned up at Rachel Reeves house with it government paid mega heating ? All warm and cosy chez Rachel.
Not sure it’s that close, but winning Florida makes the map look very different for Harris.
At the moment Harris has more cash in the bank, so it might be worth throwing some at FL if only to encourage Trump to think it’s in play and need to follow suit, distracting him from Pennsylvania and the other swing States.
Is the government providing incentives - or is this the first genuinely significant Brexit benefit ? Might Amazon not want their servers in EU jurisdiction given recent EU regulations regarding (eg) AI ?
I think, at least in part, that's a vote of confidence in National Grid and British investment in new generating capacity.
Amazon and others have faced increasing difficulties in securing connections to the grid for new data centres in Ireland, because the investment in new generating capacity hasn't happened (consequently Irish imports of British electricity have increased).
I would guess that must of that £8bn investment will be spent on the imported servers, though, so it's not as good as the headline number suggests.
There’s a little bit of Telegraph exaggeration there. The head of the union is mooting a ballot on strike action. There’s nothing imminent.
The union remains militant, but I’m not certain the membership is that eager for more strike action. But the union is right that the sector is in trouble. Undergrad fees remain frozen despite the inflation of recent years. It’s not rocket science: costs have gone up, but a major source of income hasn’t, so universities are in deficit.
If they increase tuition fees further then there'll be a further decline in student numbers, they're also being rinsed for accommodation. From ES "Figures from Ucas (Universities and Colleges Admissions Service) show by the end of June 41.9% of all 18-year-olds in the UK had applied through their system – compared to 42.1% last year and 44.1% in 2022."
I am very pro universities, but the idea that 40%+ of our 18 year olds should be even thinking of going to one is ludicrous. The way in which the entire media prioritise them as the route for young people is absurd and damaging, and must be contributing to the jobs crisis in unfashionable fields, the marginalisation of FE, and apprentices.
I can't think of a country other than Britain where the idea that its young people are receiving too much education has so much traction. If you suggested this in Ireland people would think you were madder than Donald Trump.
What is wrong with Britain?
Take this argument to it's logical conclusion - if full time education is so good for us, we should all remain in full time education until we are 50, or even 70. Just think what an amazing workforce the country would have, all these brilliant educated minds...
The reality is that time spent in education is not free - it's years of life not spent doing something else. If you enter the labour force at 22, and retire at 65, that's 43 years. The four years from 18-22 are almost ten percent of your working life. Imagine what the country could do with 10% more workers and no extra costs (it might solve the "need" for the mass immigration Ponzi scheme)
I didn't go to university, and spent the equivalent part of my life doing relatively menial jobs in a factory (although as I grew up I took on supervisory roles). I'm now at the age of 37 running a successful small business, currently employing 5 people. Having just looked it up, I'm earning just under the 90th percentile of the income distribution (and not in the outrageously overpriced South East either, unlike most such high earners).
A lot of my success comes from what I learnt (particularly about human nature) during the 5 years I worked in that factory. I had the grades to go to uni. I had a fees paid scholarship to do physics at Aberystwyth. Had I done that, I think it's very likely I would have either dropped out or got a poor grade, followed by a menial job - Although I was very bright, and academically able, I didn't like being academic and I didn't at that age have the drive and work ethic required.
IMHO 90% of young people would actually learn more useful stuff going into the workforce at 18, rather than spending 3-4 years and £50-100k for a system that basically amounts to credentialism, so they can get a "graduate level" job. And as a bonus, they would be economically productive for those 3-4 years, rather than just a net drain.
You forget that the reason Labour increased student numbers was to manage youth unemployment numbers.
There's a few things here
1) Trying to get 18 year olds to decide the course of their lives is pretty silly. The average 18 year old is concentrating on the things that are important at 18 - partying and other 18 year olds of the right variety. When I went to university in 1990 there were half a dozen mature students on my course. Who all did well. Going back and doing a degree later is good for some
2) The last big, real "class divide" is between degree'd and non-degree'd
3) Earning power of the non-degree'd has surpassed some sections of the degree'd
4) Making all white collar jobs (pretty much) require a degree hasn't increased the pay or quality of many of the jobs in question.
My solution to the above is to merge all types of training into degrees. And then make degrees mix academic and hands on skills. So you can have a degree in plumbing, but you need to read some Yeats. And you can have a degree in Poetry, but you'll need to learn how to run a lathe.
It's very noticeable that at universities, like UCL and Imperial, which offer non-engineering students the chance to do "shop" stuff (welding, machining, 3D printing etc etc), the makeup is very enthusiastic. Even when it is not academically credited.
So you’re saying that woodwork and plumbing should now require getting into £50k of debt as well?
No.
But if you move "apprenticeships" to be "degrees"....
Then you can charge nine grand a year for them…?
No. You turn the apprenticeship system into a degree-as-you-earn.
Is the government providing incentives - or is this the first genuinely significant Brexit benefit ? Might Amazon not want their servers in EU jurisdiction given recent EU regulations regarding (eg) AI ?
They make these announcements even when the data centre is just for serving the UK. So it might just be par.
“Two [Russian] kids aged 13 and 14 sneaked into an airfield in Noyabrsk, Russia, and set a helicopter ablaze, destroying it entirely. The boys were persuaded to do this through Telegram, where they got promised 5 million Russian Rubles. Their father is currently part of the Russian invasion in Ukraine.”
(5m roubles is about $50k, £40k).
Also an extremely efficient and humane way of waging war, assuming the helicopter was empty and the boys are too young to be prosecuted.
This is Russia. They'll get a pasting off the FSB and be shipped off to a juvenile 'colony' where they will be ridden raw. Their families are probably right in the shit as well.
E2A: both sides do this crypto bounty business on Telegram to turn gullible morons into disposable assets.
There’s a little bit of Telegraph exaggeration there. The head of the union is mooting a ballot on strike action. There’s nothing imminent.
The union remains militant, but I’m not certain the membership is that eager for more strike action. But the union is right that the sector is in trouble. Undergrad fees remain frozen despite the inflation of recent years. It’s not rocket science: costs have gone up, but a major source of income hasn’t, so universities are in deficit.
If they increase tuition fees further then there'll be a further decline in student numbers, they're also being rinsed for accommodation. From ES "Figures from Ucas (Universities and Colleges Admissions Service) show by the end of June 41.9% of all 18-year-olds in the UK had applied through their system – compared to 42.1% last year and 44.1% in 2022."
I am very pro universities, but the idea that 40%+ of our 18 year olds should be even thinking of going to one is ludicrous. The way in which the entire media prioritise them as the route for young people is absurd and damaging, and must be contributing to the jobs crisis in unfashionable fields, the marginalisation of FE, and apprentices.
I can't think of a country other than Britain where the idea that its young people are receiving too much education has so much traction. If you suggested this in Ireland people would think you were madder than Donald Trump.
What is wrong with Britain?
Take this argument to it's logical conclusion - if full time education is so good for us, we should all remain in full time education until we are 50, or even 70. Just think what an amazing workforce the country would have, all these brilliant educated minds...
The reality is that time spent in education is not free - it's years of life not spent doing something else. If you enter the labour force at 22, and retire at 65, that's 43 years. The four years from 18-22 are almost ten percent of your working life. Imagine what the country could do with 10% more workers and no extra costs (it might solve the "need" for the mass immigration Ponzi scheme)
I didn't go to university, and spent the equivalent part of my life doing relatively menial jobs in a factory (although as I grew up I took on supervisory roles). I'm now at the age of 37 running a successful small business, currently employing 5 people. Having just looked it up, I'm earning just under the 90th percentile of the income distribution (and not in the outrageously overpriced South East either, unlike most such high earners).
A lot of my success comes from what I learnt (particularly about human nature) during the 5 years I worked in that factory. I had the grades to go to uni. I had a fees paid scholarship to do physics at Aberystwyth. Had I done that, I think it's very likely I would have either dropped out or got a poor grade, followed by a menial job - Although I was very bright, and academically able, I didn't like being academic and I didn't at that age have the drive and work ethic required.
IMHO 90% of young people would actually learn more useful stuff going into the workforce at 18, rather than spending 3-4 years and £50-100k for a system that basically amounts to credentialism, so they can get a "graduate level" job. And as a bonus, they would be economically productive for those 3-4 years, rather than just a net drain.
You forget that the reason Labour increased student numbers was to manage youth unemployment numbers.
There's a few things here
1) Trying to get 18 year olds to decide the course of their lives is pretty silly. The average 18 year old is concentrating on the things that are important at 18 - partying and other 18 year olds of the right variety. When I went to university in 1990 there were half a dozen mature students on my course. Who all did well. Going back and doing a degree later is good for some
2) The last big, real "class divide" is between degree'd and non-degree'd
3) Earning power of the non-degree'd has surpassed some sections of the degree'd
4) Making all white collar jobs (pretty much) require a degree hasn't increased the pay or quality of many of the jobs in question.
My solution to the above is to merge all types of training into degrees. And then make degrees mix academic and hands on skills. So you can have a degree in plumbing, but you need to read some Yeats. And you can have a degree in Poetry, but you'll need to learn how to run a lathe.
It's very noticeable that at universities, like UCL and Imperial, which offer non-engineering students the chance to do "shop" stuff (welding, machining, 3D printing etc etc), the makeup is very enthusiastic. Even when it is not academically credited.
Re point 2) isn't the class divide between between privately educated and state educatded also pretty big? Not sure what the respective numbers are for those who go on to get degrees is but I guess schooling bleeds into it in any case ('good' universities and, er, not so good).
I would say that the private/state thing is much smaller. Remember, universities are majority state school educated. Even Oxford and Cambridge.
😳 that UCL has fallen behind Oxford!
Durham, Edinburgh and Exeter now poshest universities.
Good news for Sir Graham Brady, Tom Harwood, Jeremy Vine and Gabby Logan
The WH2016 betting moves markedly back to Clinton after convincing first debate performance
Yebbut, she won the popular vote. Her mistake was taking the 'blue wall' for granted and not bothering to campaign there. Trump visited late in the campaign and won by tiny majorities, but that gave him the Electoral College.
Clinton was surrounded by idiots - for letting her lose the blue wall.
But she was a uniqely unpleasant offering for high office. Nobody since Nixon had come close. Thankfully for her long-term record, J D Vance has clearly stolen her title.
But at the time that is not how Clinton was perceived. No one viewed her as 'uniquely unpleasant' just as 6 months no one on here thought Joe Biden was mentally incapable.
She was though an idiot for taking the Blue Wall for granted.
Oh no, she was. Her high negatives in the polling were there to see. I was in the US in summer 2016 and spoke with several people very critical of Clinton.
She was the wrong pick to win an election, even though it's possible she's might have made a decent President.
It’s a sector that should be ripe for disruption with technology.
Not really. A university is really all about thinking - doing it, showing how to do it, writing about it and criticising it.
Transmission of supposed certainties and appropriate professional tecniques is more proper to a technical education.
There is room for both and a need for both. But it is time to make a distinction.
Pre-internet, universities also provided a pretty unique function of providing a place for smart people interested in particular academic disciplines to get together to communicate and collaborate. That just isn't so true any more.
And the distinction between academic and technical skills isn't entirely clear cut.
They still provide something that nowhere else really does, but it's not ridiculous that we rethink the way in which they fulfil that role.
There is probably more to be gained from rethinking the school curriculum to reflect the modern world, from using spreadsheets to using paintbrushes; from cycling to driving. Do our children really need to know about Oxbow lakes and the unification of Italy?
The main problem with only teaching what people need to know is who decides?
An education that restricted itself to only the things people need to know would run up against a big problem: how can you possibly know now what will be useful in ten, twenty, or thirty years? I ended up using the O-level French I learned at school far more than I did my A-level Chemistry, but at the time I regarded it as a waste of time. Ox-bow lakes are often give as a classic example of useless knowledge, but understanding physical geography helps to explain why some things are where they are and why building on that nice flat bit of land near the river might not be such a good idea.
We cannot teach everything so the question is, if we are to add new subjects in order to make the curriculum more relevant to today, which sacred cows are to be dropped?
A bigger problem is that if you don't teach 13-year-olds that table salt is sodium chloride arranged in face centred cubic crystals, which almost no-one needs to know, we shan't have any scientists in the decades to come.
There’s a little bit of Telegraph exaggeration there. The head of the union is mooting a ballot on strike action. There’s nothing imminent.
The union remains militant, but I’m not certain the membership is that eager for more strike action. But the union is right that the sector is in trouble. Undergrad fees remain frozen despite the inflation of recent years. It’s not rocket science: costs have gone up, but a major source of income hasn’t, so universities are in deficit.
If they increase tuition fees further then there'll be a further decline in student numbers, they're also being rinsed for accommodation. From ES "Figures from Ucas (Universities and Colleges Admissions Service) show by the end of June 41.9% of all 18-year-olds in the UK had applied through their system – compared to 42.1% last year and 44.1% in 2022."
I am very pro universities, but the idea that 40%+ of our 18 year olds should be even thinking of going to one is ludicrous. The way in which the entire media prioritise them as the route for young people is absurd and damaging, and must be contributing to the jobs crisis in unfashionable fields, the marginalisation of FE, and apprentices.
I can't think of a country other than Britain where the idea that its young people are receiving too much education has so much traction. If you suggested this in Ireland people would think you were madder than Donald Trump.
What is wrong with Britain?
Take this argument to it's logical conclusion - if full time education is so good for us, we should all remain in full time education until we are 50, or even 70. Just think what an amazing workforce the country would have, all these brilliant educated minds...
The reality is that time spent in education is not free - it's years of life not spent doing something else. If you enter the labour force at 22, and retire at 65, that's 43 years. The four years from 18-22 are almost ten percent of your working life. Imagine what the country could do with 10% more workers and no extra costs (it might solve the "need" for the mass immigration Ponzi scheme)
I didn't go to university, and spent the equivalent part of my life doing relatively menial jobs in a factory (although as I grew up I took on supervisory roles). I'm now at the age of 37 running a successful small business, currently employing 5 people. Having just looked it up, I'm earning just under the 90th percentile of the income distribution (and not in the outrageously overpriced South East either, unlike most such high earners).
A lot of my success comes from what I learnt (particularly about human nature) during the 5 years I worked in that factory. I had the grades to go to uni. I had a fees paid scholarship to do physics at Aberystwyth. Had I done that, I think it's very likely I would have either dropped out or got a poor grade, followed by a menial job - Although I was very bright, and academically able, I didn't like being academic and I didn't at that age have the drive and work ethic required.
IMHO 90% of young people would actually learn more useful stuff going into the workforce at 18, rather than spending 3-4 years and £50-100k for a system that basically amounts to credentialism, so they can get a "graduate level" job. And as a bonus, they would be economically productive for those 3-4 years, rather than just a net drain.
You forget that the reason Labour increased student numbers was to manage youth unemployment numbers.
There's a few things here
1) Trying to get 18 year olds to decide the course of their lives is pretty silly. The average 18 year old is concentrating on the things that are important at 18 - partying and other 18 year olds of the right variety. When I went to university in 1990 there were half a dozen mature students on my course. Who all did well. Going back and doing a degree later is good for some
2) The last big, real "class divide" is between degree'd and non-degree'd
3) Earning power of the non-degree'd has surpassed some sections of the degree'd
4) Making all white collar jobs (pretty much) require a degree hasn't increased the pay or quality of many of the jobs in question.
My solution to the above is to merge all types of training into degrees. And then make degrees mix academic and hands on skills. So you can have a degree in plumbing, but you need to read some Yeats. And you can have a degree in Poetry, but you'll need to learn how to run a lathe.
It's very noticeable that at universities, like UCL and Imperial, which offer non-engineering students the chance to do "shop" stuff (welding, machining, 3D printing etc etc), the makeup is very enthusiastic. Even when it is not academically credited.
Re point 2) isn't the class divide between between privately educated and state educatded also pretty big? Not sure what the respective numbers are for those who go on to get degrees is but I guess schooling bleeds into it in any case ('good' universities and, er, not so good).
I would say that the private/state thing is much smaller. Remember, universities are majority state school educated. Even Oxford and Cambridge.
😳 that UCL has fallen behind Oxford!
Durham, Edinburgh and Exeter now poshest universities.
Good news for Sir Graham Brady, Tom Harwood, Jeremy Vine and Gabby Logan
I'm not convinced that "% of independent school pupils at the University" is an adequate definition of "posh".
It will not change one mind. There will not be a single Trump voter who will now say after watching that will now vote Harris.
But, what it will do is harden the Democrat vote and soften the Republican vote at the margins. The reverse of 2016 when Americans found Trump entertaining and Clinton grating. Those debates just gave the Trump campaign oxygen despite Clinton seemingly winning them.
Swift's endorsement in a celebrity obsessed world is just as important than Kamala's steady hand which allowed the Democrats more than anything to expel a huge sigh of relief.
Someone upthread posted a poll suggesting 6% of republicans and 2% of Dems would change their mind as a result of the debate
More Republicans than democrats would reconsider as well
No change was 78% Rep and 88% for Dem
My worry about that is why would any Democrats change their mind from that debate, which then puts in doubt the Republican figure who would consider changing their vote.
It’s a sector that should be ripe for disruption with technology.
Not really. A university is really all about thinking - doing it, showing how to do it, writing about it and criticising it.
Transmission of supposed certainties and appropriate professional tecniques is more proper to a technical education.
There is room for both and a need for both. But it is time to make a distinction.
Pre-internet, universities also provided a pretty unique function of providing a place for smart people interested in particular academic disciplines to get together to communicate and collaborate. That just isn't so true any more.
And the distinction between academic and technical skills isn't entirely clear cut.
They still provide something that nowhere else really does, but it's not ridiculous that we rethink the way in which they fulfil that role.
There is probably more to be gained from rethinking the school curriculum to reflect the modern world, from using spreadsheets to using paintbrushes; from cycling to driving. Do our children really need to know about Oxbow lakes and the unification of Italy?
(((Dan Hodges))) @DPJHodges · 1h Joking aside, I think we should be careful about the Dead Dog mockery. It's completely bonkers. But it pulls the debate into an area Trump wants. "Are migrants eating dead dogs or not". Harris needs to be careful she doesn't let him throw a half-eaten dog on the table.
It will not change one mind. There will not be a single Trump voter who will now say after watching that will now vote Harris.
But, what it will do is harden the Democrat vote and soften the Republican vote at the margins. The reverse of 2016 when Americans found Trump entertaining and Clinton grating. Those debates just gave the Trump campaign oxygen despite Clinton seemingly winning them.
Swift's endorsement in a celebrity obsessed world is just as important than Kamala's steady hand which allowed the Democrats more than anything to expel a huge sigh of relief.
Someone upthread posted a poll suggesting 6% of republicans and 2% of Dems would change their mind as a result of the debate
More Republicans than democrats would reconsider as well
No change was 78% Rep and 88% for Dem
My worry about that is why would any Democrats change their mind from that debate, which then puts in doubt the Republican figure who would consider changing their vote.
Not sure there’s too many minds to be changed. At this point it’s all about the two parties getting their supporters to turn out in the key States.
Is the government providing incentives - or is this the first genuinely significant Brexit benefit ? Might Amazon not want their servers in EU jurisdiction given recent EU regulations regarding (eg) AI ?
They make these announcements even when the data centre is just for serving the UK. So it might just be par.
Yep it's just another AWS data centre because the old ones are at capacity.
The thing to watch out for is that Amazon will build a new centre / warehouse and then quietly run down the old one..
When I saw it this morning, I thought Harris looked weak because she appeared to feel the need to be the one to go to his territory. But maybe she was being assertive and showing that she's in charge?
I'm not really sure what Team Kamala hoped to achieve. She travelled to him, and it emphasised their size difference. On the other hand, if the idea was to rattle The Donald, maybe it worked.
Yes, it emphasised that a lady of south Asian descent was more petite than an overweight, male Scottish American. Wonders never cease!!
It’s a sector that should be ripe for disruption with technology.
Not really. A university is really all about thinking - doing it, showing how to do it, writing about it and criticising it.
Transmission of supposed certainties and appropriate professional tecniques is more proper to a technical education.
There is room for both and a need for both. But it is time to make a distinction.
Pre-internet, universities also provided a pretty unique function of providing a place for smart people interested in particular academic disciplines to get together to communicate and collaborate. That just isn't so true any more.
And the distinction between academic and technical skills isn't entirely clear cut.
They still provide something that nowhere else really does, but it's not ridiculous that we rethink the way in which they fulfil that role.
There is probably more to be gained from rethinking the school curriculum to reflect the modern world, from using spreadsheets to using paintbrushes; from cycling to driving. Do our children really need to know about Oxbow lakes and the unification of Italy?
Surely schools can teach geography and real life skills like how to managed finances and a budget and cooking?
They can but introducing new material means dropping existing material, and every subject will be staunchly defended. That said, we have in recent decades done away with woodwork and metalwork, and technical drawing and geology.
Mostly the advocates of relevance are silent on what has become irrelevant, even if they have thought about it at all.
Is it time to retire the idea that men don't share their feelings?
I've just listened to the 9th September Ukraine: The Latest podcast from the Telegraph, and it was striking to hear the emotion from the two Telegraph journalists as they talked about the loss of their friend and colleague David Knowles.
There does seem to have been a major change over recent years.
It interesting to see it at the Telegraph. Certainly the idea of 'permission' for men to express their emotions / share their feelings publicly has been bubbling under for a very long time indeed.
I wonder whether this at the Telegraph represents the readership demographic / staff adjusting their values, or is an outworking of a new generation with changed values becoming more prominent as the older generation starts to fade away.
It will be interesting to see how some of the more 'typically Telegraph' commentators react, such as those in the Daily T or Planet Normal podcasts.
If DJT does lose, I think the point he chucked it away was when he was unable to resist parading the supplication of JDV and gave him the Veep slot.
That stupid Childless Cat Lady shit and similar lack-witted drivel has dragged on the campaign. He'd have been better off bringing Haley in from the cold.
It will not change one mind. There will not be a single Trump voter who will now say after watching that will now vote Harris.
But, what it will do is harden the Democrat vote and soften the Republican vote at the margins. The reverse of 2016 when Americans found Trump entertaining and Clinton grating. Those debates just gave the Trump campaign oxygen despite Clinton seemingly winning them.
Swift's endorsement in a celebrity obsessed world is just as important than Kamala's steady hand which allowed the Democrats more than anything to expel a huge sigh of relief.
Someone upthread posted a poll suggesting 6% of republicans and 2% of Dems would change their mind as a result of the debate
More Republicans than democrats would reconsider as well
No change was 78% Rep and 88% for Dem
Polling vs PB Leftie anecdote
(just pulling your leg @tyson – great to have you back)
It’s a sector that should be ripe for disruption with technology.
Not really. A university is really all about thinking - doing it, showing how to do it, writing about it and criticising it.
Transmission of supposed certainties and appropriate professional tecniques is more proper to a technical education.
There is room for both and a need for both. But it is time to make a distinction.
Pre-internet, universities also provided a pretty unique function of providing a place for smart people interested in particular academic disciplines to get together to communicate and collaborate. That just isn't so true any more.
And the distinction between academic and technical skills isn't entirely clear cut.
They still provide something that nowhere else really does, but it's not ridiculous that we rethink the way in which they fulfil that role.
There is probably more to be gained from rethinking the school curriculum to reflect the modern world, from using spreadsheets to using paintbrushes; from cycling to driving. Do our children really need to know about Oxbow lakes and the unification of Italy?
Surely schools can teach geography and real life skills like how to managed finances and a budget and cooking?
They can but introducing new material means dropping existing material, and every subject will be staunchly defended. That said, we have in recent decades done away with woodwork and metalwork, and technical drawing and geology.
Mostly the advocates of relevance are silent on what has become irrelevant, even if they have thought about it at all.
Still a place for most of the above in Design and Technology classes in schools and geology in Geography
There’s a little bit of Telegraph exaggeration there. The head of the union is mooting a ballot on strike action. There’s nothing imminent.
The union remains militant, but I’m not certain the membership is that eager for more strike action. But the union is right that the sector is in trouble. Undergrad fees remain frozen despite the inflation of recent years. It’s not rocket science: costs have gone up, but a major source of income hasn’t, so universities are in deficit.
If they increase tuition fees further then there'll be a further decline in student numbers, they're also being rinsed for accommodation. From ES "Figures from Ucas (Universities and Colleges Admissions Service) show by the end of June 41.9% of all 18-year-olds in the UK had applied through their system – compared to 42.1% last year and 44.1% in 2022."
I am very pro universities, but the idea that 40%+ of our 18 year olds should be even thinking of going to one is ludicrous. The way in which the entire media prioritise them as the route for young people is absurd and damaging, and must be contributing to the jobs crisis in unfashionable fields, the marginalisation of FE, and apprentices.
I can't think of a country other than Britain where the idea that its young people are receiving too much education has so much traction. If you suggested this in Ireland people would think you were madder than Donald Trump.
What is wrong with Britain?
Take this argument to it's logical conclusion - if full time education is so good for us, we should all remain in full time education until we are 50, or even 70. Just think what an amazing workforce the country would have, all these brilliant educated minds...
The reality is that time spent in education is not free - it's years of life not spent doing something else. If you enter the labour force at 22, and retire at 65, that's 43 years. The four years from 18-22 are almost ten percent of your working life. Imagine what the country could do with 10% more workers and no extra costs (it might solve the "need" for the mass immigration Ponzi scheme)
I didn't go to university, and spent the equivalent part of my life doing relatively menial jobs in a factory (although as I grew up I took on supervisory roles). I'm now at the age of 37 running a successful small business, currently employing 5 people. Having just looked it up, I'm earning just under the 90th percentile of the income distribution (and not in the outrageously overpriced South East either, unlike most such high earners).
A lot of my success comes from what I learnt (particularly about human nature) during the 5 years I worked in that factory. I had the grades to go to uni. I had a fees paid scholarship to do physics at Aberystwyth. Had I done that, I think it's very likely I would have either dropped out or got a poor grade, followed by a menial job - Although I was very bright, and academically able, I didn't like being academic and I didn't at that age have the drive and work ethic required.
IMHO 90% of young people would actually learn more useful stuff going into the workforce at 18, rather than spending 3-4 years and £50-100k for a system that basically amounts to credentialism, so they can get a "graduate level" job. And as a bonus, they would be economically productive for those 3-4 years, rather than just a net drain.
You forget that the reason Labour increased student numbers was to manage youth unemployment numbers.
There's a few things here
1) Trying to get 18 year olds to decide the course of their lives is pretty silly. The average 18 year old is concentrating on the things that are important at 18 - partying and other 18 year olds of the right variety. When I went to university in 1990 there were half a dozen mature students on my course. Who all did well. Going back and doing a degree later is good for some
2) The last big, real "class divide" is between degree'd and non-degree'd
3) Earning power of the non-degree'd has surpassed some sections of the degree'd
4) Making all white collar jobs (pretty much) require a degree hasn't increased the pay or quality of many of the jobs in question.
My solution to the above is to merge all types of training into degrees. And then make degrees mix academic and hands on skills. So you can have a degree in plumbing, but you need to read some Yeats. And you can have a degree in Poetry, but you'll need to learn how to run a lathe.
It's very noticeable that at universities, like UCL and Imperial, which offer non-engineering students the chance to do "shop" stuff (welding, machining, 3D printing etc etc), the makeup is very enthusiastic. Even when it is not academically credited.
Re point 2) isn't the class divide between between privately educated and state educatded also pretty big? Not sure what the respective numbers are for those who go on to get degrees is but I guess schooling bleeds into it in any case ('good' universities and, er, not so good).
I would say that the private/state thing is much smaller. Remember, universities are majority state school educated. Even Oxford and Cambridge.
😳 that UCL has fallen behind Oxford!
Durham, Edinburgh and Exeter now poshest universities.
Good news for Sir Graham Brady, Tom Harwood, Jeremy Vine and Gabby Logan
I'm not convinced that "% of independent school pupils at the University" is an adequate definition of "posh".
Durham has a working class society to go with the various foreign country ones...
Commentators seemed to have missed Trumps accusation that Harris slept around with his she “put it out “. That was in the middle of his response to the question of her race .
A bit sexist of him, after all he has famously slept around himself. Why shouldn't a single woman too?
I know we are not supposed to mention this these days, but Kamala is a very attractive woman. I cannot believe she is almost 60 years of age!
It will not change one mind. There will not be a single Trump voter who will now say after watching that will now vote Harris.
But, what it will do is harden the Democrat vote and soften the Republican vote at the margins. The reverse of 2016 when Americans found Trump entertaining and Clinton grating. Those debates just gave the Trump campaign oxygen despite Clinton seemingly winning them.
Swift's endorsement in a celebrity obsessed world is just as important than Kamala's steady hand which allowed the Democrats more than anything to expel a huge sigh of relief.
Someone upthread posted a poll suggesting 6% of republicans and 2% of Dems would change their mind as a result of the debate
More Republicans than democrats would reconsider as well
No change was 78% Rep and 88% for Dem
My worry about that is why would any Democrats change their mind from that debate, which then puts in doubt the Republican figure who would consider changing their vote.
Not sure there’s too many minds to be changed. At this point it’s all about the two parties getting their supporters to turn out in the key States.
Which may be the main benefit of Taylor Swift - she may get her fans to go out and vote and by the looks of it vote early...
It’s a sector that should be ripe for disruption with technology.
Not really. A university is really all about thinking - doing it, showing how to do it, writing about it and criticising it.
Transmission of supposed certainties and appropriate professional tecniques is more proper to a technical education.
There is room for both and a need for both. But it is time to make a distinction.
Pre-internet, universities also provided a pretty unique function of providing a place for smart people interested in particular academic disciplines to get together to communicate and collaborate. That just isn't so true any more.
And the distinction between academic and technical skills isn't entirely clear cut.
They still provide something that nowhere else really does, but it's not ridiculous that we rethink the way in which they fulfil that role.
There is probably more to be gained from rethinking the school curriculum to reflect the modern world, from using spreadsheets to using paintbrushes; from cycling to driving. Do our children really need to know about Oxbow lakes and the unification of Italy?
Surely schools can teach geography and real life skills like how to managed finances and a budget and cooking?
This is former bankrupt Kerry Katona who advertised Iceland’s prawn rings so likely doesn’t know how to cook, didn’t know there were two icelands due to lack of geography lessons and has no financial management skills.
If DJT does lose, I think the point he chucked it away was when he was unable to resist parading the supplication of JDV and gave him the Veep slot.
That stupid Childless Cat Lady shit and similar lack-witted drivel has dragged on the campaign. He'd have been better off bringing Haley in from the cold.
Haley is apparently sane and gives some impression on competence. More importantly, she seems to have some ideas of her own, rather than obsequious crawling to Trump.
It will not change one mind. There will not be a single Trump voter who will now say after watching that will now vote Harris.
But, what it will do is harden the Democrat vote and soften the Republican vote at the margins. The reverse of 2016 when Americans found Trump entertaining and Clinton grating. Those debates just gave the Trump campaign oxygen despite Clinton seemingly winning them.
Swift's endorsement in a celebrity obsessed world is just as important than Kamala's steady hand which allowed the Democrats more than anything to expel a huge sigh of relief.
Someone upthread posted a poll suggesting 6% of republicans and 2% of Dems would change their mind as a result of the debate
More Republicans than democrats would reconsider as well
No change was 78% Rep and 88% for Dem
My worry about that is why would any Democrats change their mind from that debate, which then puts in doubt the Republican figure who would consider changing their vote.
Not sure there’s too many minds to be changed. At this point it’s all about the two parties getting their supporters to turn out in the key States.
Which may be the main benefit of Taylor Swift - she may get her fans to go out and vote and by the looks of it vote early...
TayTay burned DJT to the ground with that Insta post. He asked for it when he posted that AI generated shit about her. And, having asked for it, he fucking got it.
If DJT does lose, I think the point he chucked it away was when he was unable to resist parading the supplication of JDV and gave him the Veep slot.
That stupid Childless Cat Lady shit and similar lack-witted drivel has dragged on the campaign. He'd have been better off bringing Haley in from the cold.
Yes, Vance brought nothing. Ohio is not a swing State anymore, and he is not a popular Senator.
It will not change one mind. There will not be a single Trump voter who will now say after watching that will now vote Harris.
But, what it will do is harden the Democrat vote and soften the Republican vote at the margins. The reverse of 2016 when Americans found Trump entertaining and Clinton grating. Those debates just gave the Trump campaign oxygen despite Clinton seemingly winning them.
Swift's endorsement in a celebrity obsessed world is just as important than Kamala's steady hand which allowed the Democrats more than anything to expel a huge sigh of relief.
Someone upthread posted a poll suggesting 6% of republicans and 2% of Dems would change their mind as a result of the debate
More Republicans than democrats would reconsider as well
No change was 78% Rep and 88% for Dem
My worry about that is why would any Democrats change their mind from that debate, which then puts in doubt the Republican figure who would consider changing their vote.
Pre debate polling showed Harris getting around 92% of 2020 Dem voters, while Trump was polling around 97% of those who voted for him in 2020. So there's possible upside for her even among those voters, along with those who didn't vote last time around (particularly the under 30s), and in whatever the 'undecided' category is.
There are, I think, something like 16m new eligible voters since 2020. (And there'll have been a bit more than 10m deaths.) A large number of those newly eligible won't even register, but you can see how a small percentage difference can be significant when the national vote last time was around 168m. https://www.pewresearch.org/politics/2023/07/12/voter-turnout-2018-2022/
Debates aren't so much about changing the minds of the already committed.
(((Dan Hodges))) @DPJHodges· 1h Joking aside, I think we should be careful about the Dead Dog mockery. It's completely bonkers. But it pulls the debate into an area Trump wants. "Are migrants eating dead dogs or not". Harris needs to be careful she doesn't let him throw a half-eaten dog on the table.
It’s a sector that should be ripe for disruption with technology.
Not really. A university is really all about thinking - doing it, showing how to do it, writing about it and criticising it.
Transmission of supposed certainties and appropriate professional tecniques is more proper to a technical education.
There is room for both and a need for both. But it is time to make a distinction.
Pre-internet, universities also provided a pretty unique function of providing a place for smart people interested in particular academic disciplines to get together to communicate and collaborate. That just isn't so true any more.
And the distinction between academic and technical skills isn't entirely clear cut.
They still provide something that nowhere else really does, but it's not ridiculous that we rethink the way in which they fulfil that role.
There is probably more to be gained from rethinking the school curriculum to reflect the modern world, from using spreadsheets to using paintbrushes; from cycling to driving. Do our children really need to know about Oxbow lakes and the unification of Italy?
I'd agree that we should be rethinking education for everyone from infants to oldies. Doing so effectively would require a degree of experimentation though. Top down Gove-style stuff is unlikely to bring about significant improvements.
The danger here is that every rethink of education tends towards valuing it for its extrinsic worth (how does this help me make money, get a nice job) instead of intrinsic worth (knowing stuff, understanding valuing and participating in science, history, culture etc for their own sake, and because of the sort of person you become through it) without which life is not really very meaningful.
If DJT does lose, I think the point he chucked it away was when he was unable to resist parading the supplication of JDV and gave him the Veep slot.
That stupid Childless Cat Lady shit and similar lack-witted drivel has dragged on the campaign. He'd have been better off bringing Haley in from the cold.
In the unlikely event of it being offered, would she have accepted ?
If DJT does lose, I think the point he chucked it away was when he was unable to resist parading the supplication of JDV and gave him the Veep slot.
That stupid Childless Cat Lady shit and similar lack-witted drivel has dragged on the campaign. He'd have been better off bringing Haley in from the cold.
Yes, Vance brought nothing. Ohio is not a swing State anymore, and he is not a popular Senator.
The Thielcoins might have had something or a lot to do with it.
It’s a sector that should be ripe for disruption with technology.
Not really. A university is really all about thinking - doing it, showing how to do it, writing about it and criticising it.
Transmission of supposed certainties and appropriate professional tecniques is more proper to a technical education.
There is room for both and a need for both. But it is time to make a distinction.
Pre-internet, universities also provided a pretty unique function of providing a place for smart people interested in particular academic disciplines to get together to communicate and collaborate. That just isn't so true any more.
And the distinction between academic and technical skills isn't entirely clear cut.
They still provide something that nowhere else really does, but it's not ridiculous that we rethink the way in which they fulfil that role.
There is probably more to be gained from rethinking the school curriculum to reflect the modern world, from using spreadsheets to using paintbrushes; from cycling to driving. Do our children really need to know about Oxbow lakes and the unification of Italy?
Surely schools can teach geography and real life skills like how to managed finances and a budget and cooking?
This is former bankrupt Kerry Katona who advertised Iceland’s prawn rings so likely doesn’t know how to cook, didn’t know there were two icelands due to lack of geography lessons and has no financial management skills.
She makes a decent income from something called "Onlyfans" £170K in the first month alone. Can't see the appeal myself, it is hardly as if she has not had her anatomy plastered all over various red tops.
If DJT does lose, I think the point he chucked it away was when he was unable to resist parading the supplication of JDV and gave him the Veep slot.
That stupid Childless Cat Lady shit and similar lack-witted drivel has dragged on the campaign. He'd have been better off bringing Haley in from the cold.
Yes, Vance brought nothing. Ohio is not a swing State anymore, and he is not a popular Senator.
The Thielcoins might have had something or a lot to do with it.
(((Dan Hodges))) @DPJHodges · 1h Joking aside, I think we should be careful about the Dead Dog mockery. It's completely bonkers. But it pulls the debate into an area Trump wants. "Are migrants eating dead dogs or not". Harris needs to be careful she doesn't let him throw a half-eaten dog on the table.
Playing Devil's Advocate - no one is really going to pay attention to a small midwestern city in 99%+ of circumstances even when it's a take of declining jobs, broken communities etc and nor are broadcasters going to send their TV reporters to the place.
But they will do if a former President starts claiming immigrants are eating cats and dogs. It is the sort of story that TV (and online) commentators love because it draws in audiences.
I suspect Trump's ploy here is not to get people outraged about cats and dogs but to focus the spotlight on a small American town that he can portray as a microcosm of what is happening across much of America and where many of the themes he has highlighted - a large percentage of the population being immigrant (many illegal), local employers saying they prefer to hire Haitians rather than local Americans because they work more etc - are writ large. If the campaign is dominated by talk about Springfield and the like, Trump probably wins.
It’s a sector that should be ripe for disruption with technology.
Not really. A university is really all about thinking - doing it, showing how to do it, writing about it and criticising it.
Transmission of supposed certainties and appropriate professional tecniques is more proper to a technical education.
There is room for both and a need for both. But it is time to make a distinction.
Pre-internet, universities also provided a pretty unique function of providing a place for smart people interested in particular academic disciplines to get together to communicate and collaborate. That just isn't so true any more.
And the distinction between academic and technical skills isn't entirely clear cut.
They still provide something that nowhere else really does, but it's not ridiculous that we rethink the way in which they fulfil that role.
There is probably more to be gained from rethinking the school curriculum to reflect the modern world, from using spreadsheets to using paintbrushes; from cycling to driving. Do our children really need to know about Oxbow lakes and the unification of Italy?
I'd agree that we should be rethinking education for everyone from infants to oldies. Doing so effectively would require a degree of experimentation though. Top down Gove-style stuff is unlikely to bring about significant improvements.
The danger here is that every rethink of education tends towards valuing it for its extrinsic worth (how does this help me make money, get a nice job) instead of intrinsic worth (knowing stuff, understanding valuing and participating in science, history, culture etc for their own sake, and because of the sort of person you become through it) without which life is not really very meaningful.
Hence my avoid Gove II comment. Local experimentation (though there'd probably be howls about that) might be the way to go about it.
(((Dan Hodges))) @DPJHodges· 1h Joking aside, I think we should be careful about the Dead Dog mockery. It's completely bonkers. But it pulls the debate into an area Trump wants. "Are migrants eating dead dogs or not". Harris needs to be careful she doesn't let him throw a half-eaten dog on the table.
Harris showed pretty well during the debate that she's in control of the narrative.
Not sure. I think Hodges has a point, given that Trump is close or ahead in the polls and betting markets, and personally I think he is going to win.
It is obvious there are millions of USA voters who while not especially believing that migrants eat other people's pet dogs prefer to vote for someone who says they do. Just as the same people (includings millions of so called evangelicals!) who are mostly not sexual abusers vote cheerfully for someone who says he is.
When I saw it this morning, I thought Harris looked weak because she appeared to feel the need to be the one to go to his territory. But maybe she was being assertive and showing that she's in charge?
I'm not really sure what Team Kamala hoped to achieve. She travelled to him, and it emphasised their size difference. On the other hand, if the idea was to rattle The Donald, maybe it worked.
Yes, it emphasised that a lady of south Asian descent was more petite than an overweight, male Scottish American. Wonders never cease!!
I think it was definitely the right decision. It made her look statesmanlike and him tetchy.
Comments
The pitch is "Get a degree and you'll be in an office in a posh job on lots of money"
The reality is that we need more people with a mix of skills - academic and practical. Think about the chap across from me, right now, the road laying/connecting fibre. Who was telling me about all the courses he did...
Degrees should move to match the reality.
But if you move "apprenticeships" to be "degrees"....
Case closed
I'm pretty unconvinced that Uni actually does much for the useful skills people need - my wife works at the back end of a Financial services outfit; they recruit graduates to do lots of relatively straightforward processes. She has endless problems which boil down to the fact most of them don't understand things like percentages properly; which you might hope to have learnt in GCSE maths.
Doing so effectively would require a degree of experimentation though. Top down Gove-style stuff is unlikely to bring about significant improvements.
Does it add to many votes? Probably a few but, as has already been pointed out, her audience base overlaps a lot with the KH demographic. I'm not sure the country fan base is going to be swayed much given the other issues.
I think one of the issues we have on here is that - I imagine - we are a reasonably well-educated, professionally-orientated commentary base. So things like Swift's endorsement and Trump's comments about immigrants eating cats are seen as defining moments. Whereas for a lot of Americans, they like Swift for her music but she's a rich pop star, and in many communities, the eating cats is the sort of thing they would easily believe.
Kerry Katona slams schools for teaching 'pointless subjects like geography' instead of 'real-life skills'
https://www.lbc.co.uk/news/kerry-katona-slams-schools-teaching-pointless-subjects-like-geography/
You do not solve either problem by just throwing up your hands and giving up on education.
https://x.com/ProjectLincoln/status/1833697036236886356
(ie How many Trump-supporters will have been exposed to this? And will it make a difference? ! )
I think I'll listen to a recording.
Her mistake was taking the 'blue wall' for granted and not bothering to campaign there. Trump visited late in the campaign and won by tiny majorities, but that gave him the Electoral College.
Absolutely spot on.
A way to go yet but that performance leaves Trump in deep trouble outside of his base.
Although Trump was probably still expecting Biden.
If anything, that reduced her chances of leading a post-MAGA GOP.
And if it stays MAGA, the MAGAts aren't going to forgive her the things she said when campaigning against their leader.
https://www.economist.com/graphic-detail/2020/02/19/in-politics-height-matters
But she was a uniqely unpleasant offering for high office. Nobody since Nixon had come close. Thankfully for her long-term record, J D Vance has clearly stolen her title.
For me that throws up a concern with whether Mr Starmer's neck is too stiff, and whether he is too likely to continue a charge once he started in that direction.
Here's part of his statement from July 29:
https://x.com/MartinSLewis/status/1817938929938514274?lang=en
While there's an argument for ending its universality due to tight national finances, it's being squeezed to too narrow a group – just those on benefits and Pension Credit.
Yet again, those just above the thresholds will be hardest hit. This is often justified as there's a 'lack of household income data' to allow other targeting. However, there's a usable precedent from the emergency energy crisis measures announced in April 2022, which I'd urge the Government to look at.
Then, a payment was made to homes in council tax bands A to D – as an imperfect but workable proxy for lower household incomes. That'd allow an additional group of lower to middle-income pensioners to keep the payments and mitigate bill shocks. Councils' discretionary funds could also be funded as in April 2022, for the limited numbers who still need help but don't qualify.
https://www.gov.uk/government/news/chancellor-announces-8-billion-amazon-web-services-investment-as-she-vows-to-make-every-part-of-britain-better-off
Is the government providing incentives - or is this the first genuinely significant Brexit benefit ?
Might Amazon not want their servers in EU jurisdiction given recent EU regulations regarding (eg) AI ?
a) Key was Harris not screwing up. She didn't
b) The bonus was she did really well.
c) Which hopefully will help registration of Democrats and influence true Independents. Small numbers but that is all that is available and all that matters.
d) Taylor Swift's endorsement is the same. Likely to influence small numbers, but they are the critical numbers particularly of the young. Increased registration of voters, again particularly young voters.
Also a nice double whammy. TS looks like she held back from going for Trump after he misrepresented her.
It will not change one mind. There will not be a single Trump voter who will now say after watching that will now vote Harris.
But, what it will do is harden the Democrat vote and soften the Republican vote at the margins. The reverse of 2016 when Americans found Trump entertaining and Clinton grating. Those debates just gave the Trump campaign oxygen despite Clinton seemingly winning them.
Swift's endorsement in a celebrity obsessed world is just as important than Kamala's steady hand which allowed the Democrats more than anything to expel a huge sigh of relief.
Just idiotic behaviour
Good luck trying to do that given 1 of them is address data...
https://x.com/tendar/status/1833762466012057821
“Two [Russian] kids aged 13 and 14 sneaked into an airfield in Noyabrsk, Russia, and set a helicopter ablaze, destroying it entirely. The boys were persuaded to do this through Telegram, where they got promised 5 million Russian Rubles. Their father is currently part of the Russian invasion in Ukraine.”
(5m roubles is about $50k, £40k).
More Republicans than democrats would reconsider as well
No change was 78% Rep and 88% for Dem
She was though an idiot for taking the Blue Wall for granted.
https://www.smbc-comics.com/comic/why-i-couldn39t-be-a-math-teacher
An education that restricted itself to only the things people need to know would run up against a big problem: how can you possibly know now what will be useful in ten, twenty, or thirty years? I ended up using the O-level French I learned at school far more than I did my A-level Chemistry, but at the time I regarded it as a waste of time.
Ox-bow lakes are often give as a classic example of useless knowledge, but understanding physical geography helps to explain why some things are where they are and why building on that nice flat bit of land near the river might not be such a good idea.
So, as the Democrats make inroads with educated, wealthier types, the Republicans counterbalance with rallying non college educated. The Democrats make inroads with suburban white females, Republicans come back with Hispanic males.
And it's all on the margins fought in marginal states.
The swing's we have in the European elections are inconceivable in the US.
Great for betting mind....
2012 £9000 / year
2024 £9250 / year
2011 to 2024 increased by 3.08
2012 to 2024 CPI increase 1.39
what's your point?
The repayment system has changed, so some debate over that but the main issue is that £9k is something that you could realistically see yourself clearing in a few years once in a job, but £27,750 isn't, people struggle to reduce the outstanding balance.
Here's the Hill:
Democrats grow more optimistic about flipping Florida
https://thehill.com/homenews/campaign/4871851-florida-democrats-optimistic-presidential-senate/
Meanwhile, there’s one fewer helicopter for the Russians to use.
It's all "the most important moments" (in our opinion) and "the debate in 3 minutes".
Gah.
The precedent exists, however.
At the moment Harris has more cash in the bank, so it might be worth throwing some at FL if only to encourage Trump to think it’s in play and need to follow suit, distracting him from Pennsylvania and the other swing States.
The BBC maintains a an international website in pidgin,with a report of the Presidential debate:
https://www.bbc.com/pidgin/articles/ckgw7ln5qwzo
Amazon and others have faced increasing difficulties in securing connections to the grid for new data centres in Ireland, because the investment in new generating capacity hasn't happened (consequently Irish imports of British electricity have increased).
I would guess that must of that £8bn investment will be spent on the imported servers, though, so it's not as good as the headline number suggests.
E2A: both sides do this crypto bounty business on Telegram to turn gullible morons into disposable assets.
Good news for Sir Graham Brady, Tom Harwood, Jeremy Vine and Gabby Logan
She was the wrong pick to win an election, even though it's possible she's might have made a decent President.
A bigger problem is that if you don't teach 13-year-olds that table salt is sodium chloride arranged in face centred cubic crystals, which almost no-one needs to know, we shan't have any scientists in the decades to come.
We use cookies to give you di best online experience. Abeg let us know if you gree to all od dif cookies dem.
@DPJHodges
·
1h
Joking aside, I think we should be careful about the Dead Dog mockery. It's completely bonkers. But it pulls the debate into an area Trump wants. "Are migrants eating dead dogs or not". Harris needs to be careful she doesn't let him throw a half-eaten dog on the table.
https://x.com/DPJHodges?ref_src=twsrc^google|twcamp^serp|twgr^author
(The spread is wider, and the odds shorter, to back Harris directly.)
https://www.betfair.com/exchange/plus/politics/market/1.229997015
It's my biggest state bet at the moment.
The thing to watch out for is that Amazon will build a new centre / warehouse and then quietly run down the old one..
Mostly the advocates of relevance are silent on what has become irrelevant, even if they have thought about it at all.
I wonder whether this at the Telegraph represents the readership demographic / staff adjusting their values, or is an outworking of a new generation with changed values becoming more prominent as the older generation starts to fade away.
It will be interesting to see how some of the more 'typically Telegraph' commentators react, such as those in the Daily T or Planet Normal podcasts.
That stupid Childless Cat Lady shit and similar lack-witted drivel has dragged on the campaign. He'd have been better off bringing Haley in from the cold.
(just pulling your leg @tyson – great to have you back)
There's nothing there, that is of use to him.
So there's possible upside for her even among those voters, along with those who didn't vote last time around (particularly the under 30s), and in whatever the 'undecided' category is.
There are, I think, something like 16m new eligible voters since 2020.
(And there'll have been a bit more than 10m deaths.)
A large number of those newly eligible won't even register, but you can see how a small percentage difference can be significant when the national vote last time was around 168m.
https://www.pewresearch.org/politics/2023/07/12/voter-turnout-2018-2022/
Debates aren't so much about changing the minds of the already committed.
Maybe she has improved her financial literacy.
https://www.nytimes.com/2024/07/17/technology/jd-vance-tech-silicon-valley.html
But they will do if a former President starts claiming immigrants are eating cats and dogs. It is the sort of story that TV (and online) commentators love because it draws in audiences.
I suspect Trump's ploy here is not to get people outraged about cats and dogs but to focus the spotlight on a small American town that he can portray as a microcosm of what is happening across much of America and where many of the themes he has highlighted - a large percentage of the population being immigrant (many illegal), local employers saying they prefer to hire Haitians rather than local Americans because they work more etc - are writ large. If the campaign is dominated by talk about Springfield and the like, Trump probably wins.
Local experimentation (though there'd probably be howls about that) might be the way to go about it.
It is obvious there are millions of USA voters who while not especially believing that migrants eat other people's pet dogs prefer to vote for someone who says they do. Just as the same people (includings millions of so called evangelicals!) who are mostly not sexual abusers vote cheerfully for someone who says he is.