Whitehall ‘braced for private schools collapse’ due to fee rises
The Independent Schools Council says the threat of closures after the imposition of VAT on fees is ‘very rea
Contingency plans are being drawn up in Whitehall for an influx in demand for state school places amid fears private schools will go bankrupt and close because of fee increases.
Officials are braced for the prospect that some independent schools may collapse when VAT on school fees comes into force in the new year.
Schools that are smaller, with lower fees and in areas with higher levels of competition are most at risk, government sources told The Times.
They are being monitored to see how they fare under the change, combined with publicly available information about their finances from Companies House.
Campaigners against the change warn some parents will be unable to pay a fee rise of 20 per cent, given some private schools are preparing to pass on the itIt in full.
The VAT imposition will come into effect on January 1, with Treasury estimates suggesting it will lead to 37,000 fewer private school pupils in the long term — equal to about 6 per cent of children at private schools.
However, there is expected to be a smaller, more immediate impact. About 3,000 children will be taken out of private schools and will need a state place before the end of the academic year, the government believes.
Smaller private schools will be hit in particular reducing parental choice.
Yet do we expect any better from this awful socialist government having already hit pensioners, business owners and farmers?
This government doesn't strike me as particularly 'socialist'.
It is the most socialist class war ridden government of my lifetime, even more than Brown's. Farmers, pensioners, small business owners, private school payments, the remaining hereditary peers, even foxhunters on scent trails are within the sights of Starmer and Reeves
If they are hunting foxes they're breaking the law. Edit: passed under a Tory PM (for England, anyway). Not new.
"foxhunters"
Again, if you must clutch pearls please do it accurately. Don't fib - it doesn't work on here.
Whitehall ‘braced for private schools collapse’ due to fee rises
The Independent Schools Council says the threat of closures after the imposition of VAT on fees is ‘very rea
Contingency plans are being drawn up in Whitehall for an influx in demand for state school places amid fears private schools will go bankrupt and close because of fee increases.
Officials are braced for the prospect that some independent schools may collapse when VAT on school fees comes into force in the new year.
Schools that are smaller, with lower fees and in areas with higher levels of competition are most at risk, government sources told The Times.
They are being monitored to see how they fare under the change, combined with publicly available information about their finances from Companies House.
Campaigners against the change warn some parents will be unable to pay a fee rise of 20 per cent, given some private schools are preparing to pass on the itIt in full.
The VAT imposition will come into effect on January 1, with Treasury estimates suggesting it will lead to 37,000 fewer private school pupils in the long term — equal to about 6 per cent of children at private schools.
However, there is expected to be a smaller, more immediate impact. About 3,000 children will be taken out of private schools and will need a state place before the end of the academic year, the government believes.
Smaller private schools will be hit in particular reducing parental choice.
Yet do we expect any better from this awful socialist government having already hit pensioners, business owners and farmers?
This government doesn't strike me as particularly 'socialist'.
It is the most socialist class war ridden government of my lifetime, even more than Brown's. Farmers, pensioners, small business owners, private school payments, the remaining hereditary peers, even foxhunters on scent trails are within the sights of Starmer and Reeves
If only that were true.
If it were they would already be directing Kent and Warwickshire to replace their Grammar schools with comprehensives. You are lucky I'm not Phillipson, from next September Grammar schools would all be phased out. Year one intake would be universal. Call me Mrs Thatcher if you like.
Whitehall ‘braced for private schools collapse’ due to fee rises
The Independent Schools Council says the threat of closures after the imposition of VAT on fees is ‘very rea
Contingency plans are being drawn up in Whitehall for an influx in demand for state school places amid fears private schools will go bankrupt and close because of fee increases.
Officials are braced for the prospect that some independent schools may collapse when VAT on school fees comes into force in the new year.
Schools that are smaller, with lower fees and in areas with higher levels of competition are most at risk, government sources told The Times.
They are being monitored to see how they fare under the change, combined with publicly available information about their finances from Companies House.
Campaigners against the change warn some parents will be unable to pay a fee rise of 20 per cent, given some private schools are preparing to pass on the costs in full.
The VAT imposition will come into effect on January 1, with Treasury estimates suggesting it will lead to 37,000 fewer private school pupils in the long term — equal to about 6 per cent of children at private schools.
However, there is expected to be a smaller, more immediate impact. About 3,000 children will be taken out of private schools and will need a state place before the end of the academic year, the government believes.
Smaller private schools will be hit in particular reducing parental choice.
Yet do we expect any better from this awful socialist government having already hit pensioners, business owners and farmers?
Isn't the article suggesting the expected impact is pretty low?
It also mentions that the schools at most risk are the ones where there are higher levels of competition. Which I read as there being other private schools that are more popular in the same area. Sounds more like capitalism than socialism to me.
A tax rise closing private schools is socialism not capitalist choice
I know he's an unconventional politician, but who announces something like this at a fox hunt?
Being against fox hunting is one of the few issues that unites every age group, and every political persuasion.
Not if the packed Boxing Day hunt crowd round our rural way is anything to go by. Still plenty of support for the hunt in rural areas and Farage wants to be seen there to tap into it
I know he's an unconventional politician, but who announces something like this at a fox hunt?
Being against fox hunting is one of the few issues that unites every age group, and every political persuasion.
Not if the packed Boxing Day hunt crowd round our rural way is anything to go by. Still plenty of support for the hunt in rural areas and Farage wants to be seen there to tap into it
Whitehall ‘braced for private schools collapse’ due to fee rises
The Independent Schools Council says the threat of closures after the imposition of VAT on fees is ‘very rea
Contingency plans are being drawn up in Whitehall for an influx in demand for state school places amid fears private schools will go bankrupt and close because of fee increases.
Officials are braced for the prospect that some independent schools may collapse when VAT on school fees comes into force in the new year.
Schools that are smaller, with lower fees and in areas with higher levels of competition are most at risk, government sources told The Times.
They are being monitored to see how they fare under the change, combined with publicly available information about their finances from Companies House.
Campaigners against the change warn some parents will be unable to pay a fee rise of 20 per cent, given some private schools are preparing to pass on the itIt in full.
The VAT imposition will come into effect on January 1, with Treasury estimates suggesting it will lead to 37,000 fewer private school pupils in the long term — equal to about 6 per cent of children at private schools.
However, there is expected to be a smaller, more immediate impact. About 3,000 children will be taken out of private schools and will need a state place before the end of the academic year, the government believes.
Smaller private schools will be hit in particular reducing parental choice.
Yet do we expect any better from this awful socialist government having already hit pensioners, business owners and farmers?
This government doesn't strike me as particularly 'socialist'.
It is the most socialist class war ridden government of my lifetime, even more than Brown's. Farmers, pensioners, small business owners, private school payments, the remaining hereditary peers, even foxhunters on scent trails are within the sights of Starmer and Reeves
If they are hunting foxes they're breaking the law. Edit: passed under a Tory PM (for England, anyway). Not new.
"foxhunters"
Again, if you must clutch pearls please do it accurately. Don't fib - it doesn't work on here.
To be fair, our friend does refer to 'foxhunters on scent trails' which I took to mean that the red-jacketed mob weren't actually pursing their traditional barbaric practice, but simply following a man with a bag smelling of fox. Are they actually a target? Of course I believe they've a nasty habit of making the odd mistake and actually killing a fox.
@Cyclefree, thanks for another hard-hitting article. This was the stand-out sentence for me:
''For a successful technology, reality must take precedence over public relations, for nature cannot be fooled.”
Not only applicable for successful technologies.
Speaking of 'nature cannot be fooled,' I assumed that Trump tweet @williamglenn regaled is with on the last thread was a parody.
I now find it wasn't.
Plus he had another one ranting about evil left wing judges.
With any other person we'd be talking not just about the 25th but about him being sectioned. Trump is clearly off his head.
In his last administration he was malign, lazy, dishonest, corrupt, displayed truly shocking judgement and a very thin skin and was totally incompetent but he was not actually insane. Nor did he have untrammelled power as he now does.
The big worry, and this is why he should never have been nominated, is that he's surrounded by sycophants who won't do what is necessary to either constrain or remove him.
When America lurches from crisis to crisis over the next four years Republicans (and the Supreme Court) have only themselves to blame, but I'm willing to bet that like NASA they will blame everyone else first.
The even bigger worry is that Trump was put forward and financed by malign, lazy, dishonest, corrupt bastards displaying truly shocking judgement - who intend to move him on using the 25th and install sombody who is so malign, lazy, dishonest, corrupt, and displaying truly shocking judgement that he would never have got elected in his own right.
Step forward in 2025 President Vance.
The election's over.
You don't have to keep up the pretence that Vance is the worst ever VP candidate.
Or that Tim Walz wasn't anything other than a weak VP candidate chosen by a weak presidential candidate.
And do you think Trump will make a better President? Do you think threatening to invade Panama and Greenland is a good idea? Have you read the report into Matt Gaetz, who used prostitutes illegally (including one who was under the age of consent), took all sorts of drugs, cheated on campaign finances and lied to passport officials? Do you think Trump was right to nominate him for Attorney General? Is Trump right to nominate Pete Hegseth for secretary of defense, despite the rape case? Do you think Hegseth and Tusli Gabbard are good nominations given their anti-Ukraine comments? Is Mehmet Oz a good nomination given the many health scams he’s been involved with?
That Trump is so evidently unfit to be president merely highlights how weak the Harris-Walz combination were.
Too many Pbers indulged in imbecilic levels of cheerleading and wishful thinking about Harris-Walz.
The peak being when people were defending 'Coach Walz' insinuating that Vance was a furniture-fucker.
With anyone not joining in with the groupthink being accused of being a Trump supporter.
Merry Christmas to you too.
I suspect a number of us overdosed on hopium in the light of the Republican being absolutely unfit for office. In fact the candidate should have spent the election serving time in Terra Haute for sedition and treason.
I don't recall many posters making too much of Vance and the sofa, although it was absurdly funny. He could be condemned on more substantive evidence.
Adam Boulton called it right. Harris overcoming being both a woman and a woman of colour was perhaps too much to ask.
Harris was simply second rate at national level politics. Which is why she lost the nomination to Biden, originally.
Hoping that the proven second rater would mutate into a first rate politician....
I remember when people said that America would never elect a black president - citing the joke candidacies of Jesse Jackson. They elected the first black presidential candidate actually offered to them. Because he was a good candidate.
I was referencing Adam Boulton, although I don't necessarily disagree.
If Harris was second rate (I thought after the late hospital pass from Biden she did just fine) what rate was Trump?
She did as well as could be expected, I think.
Trump is something else, again - from outside conventional politics. The previous closest example was Berlusconi. And he was a good deal more sane and sensible.
I'd say that Harris did better than expected.
The problem being she was expected to be unelectable.
Which was likely one reason Biden chose her to be VP.
I agree Harris outperformed.
Her problem was that she (a) was not a great candidate (as shown by her crashing and burning in 2020), (b) that she'd been given a pretty awful portfolio by Biden which she had not performed evidently well at, and - most importantly -(c) which is that she was the incumbent at a time when prices had risen faster than wages.
She also (perhaps unfairly) was associated with woke and Defund the Police. And I say unfairly, because as District Attorney, she was notably tough. And I can't think of any pronouncements where she was actually particularly woke.
Man City and Chelsea drawing and losing respectively at home.
Prior to kick off later today Liverpool currently lead the league by 4 points, with 11 points over the Champions, and 2 games in hand over 2nd, 3rd and the Champions.
Find the betting odds remarkable on the League, surely Liverpool now should be overwhelming favourites?
Whitehall ‘braced for private schools collapse’ due to fee rises
The Independent Schools Council says the threat of closures after the imposition of VAT on fees is ‘very rea
Contingency plans are being drawn up in Whitehall for an influx in demand for state school places amid fears private schools will go bankrupt and close because of fee increases.
Officials are braced for the prospect that some independent schools may collapse when VAT on school fees comes into force in the new year.
Schools that are smaller, with lower fees and in areas with higher levels of competition are most at risk, government sources told The Times.
They are being monitored to see how they fare under the change, combined with publicly available information about their finances from Companies House.
Campaigners against the change warn some parents will be unable to pay a fee rise of 20 per cent, given some private schools are preparing to pass on the costs in full.
The VAT imposition will come into effect on January 1, with Treasury estimates suggesting it will lead to 37,000 fewer private school pupils in the long term — equal to about 6 per cent of children at private schools.
However, there is expected to be a smaller, more immediate impact. About 3,000 children will be taken out of private schools and will need a state place before the end of the academic year, the government believes.
Smaller private schools will be hit in particular reducing parental choice.
Yet do we expect any better from this awful socialist government having already hit pensioners, business owners and farmers?
Isn't the article suggesting the expected impact is pretty low?
It also mentions that the schools at most risk are the ones where there are higher levels of competition. Which I read as there being other private schools that are more popular in the same area. Sounds more like capitalism than socialism to me.
A tax rise closing private schools is socialism not capitalist choice
Why should the taxpayer fund an unfair advantage? If they are viable they will survive. No one is closing anything. I thought as an exponent of Grammar Schools you would demand children succeed on merit and not from the wealth of they parents.
Isn't the standard response to nurses using food banks one of "they wouldn't need to if they cancel Netflix and drive a cheaper car"? Perhaps there is a correlation between monthly TV subscriptions, cheaper cars and VAT on schools.
Whitehall ‘braced for private schools collapse’ due to fee rises
The Independent Schools Council says the threat of closures after the imposition of VAT on fees is ‘very rea
Contingency plans are being drawn up in Whitehall for an influx in demand for state school places amid fears private schools will go bankrupt and close because of fee increases.
Officials are braced for the prospect that some independent schools may collapse when VAT on school fees comes into force in the new year.
Schools that are smaller, with lower fees and in areas with higher levels of competition are most at risk, government sources told The Times.
They are being monitored to see how they fare under the change, combined with publicly available information about their finances from Companies House.
Campaigners against the change warn some parents will be unable to pay a fee rise of 20 per cent, given some private schools are preparing to pass on the itIt in full.
The VAT imposition will come into effect on January 1, with Treasury estimates suggesting it will lead to 37,000 fewer private school pupils in the long term — equal to about 6 per cent of children at private schools.
However, there is expected to be a smaller, more immediate impact. About 3,000 children will be taken out of private schools and will need a state place before the end of the academic year, the government believes.
Smaller private schools will be hit in particular reducing parental choice.
Yet do we expect any better from this awful socialist government having already hit pensioners, business owners and farmers?
This government doesn't strike me as particularly 'socialist'.
It is the most socialist class war ridden government of my lifetime, even more than Brown's. Farmers, pensioners, small business owners, private school payments, the remaining hereditary peers, even foxhunters on scent trails are within the sights of Starmer and Reeves
If they are hunting foxes they're breaking the law. Edit: passed under a Tory PM (for England, anyway). Not new.
"foxhunters"
Again, if you must clutch pearls please do it accurately. Don't fib - it doesn't work on here.
To be fair, our friend does refer to 'foxhunters on scent trails' which I took to mean that the red-jacketed mob weren't actually pursing their traditional barbaric practice, but simply following a man with a bag smelling of fox. Are they actually a target? Of course I believe they've a nasty habit of making the odd mistake and actually killing a fox.
Point taken, but given it's been 20 years since it was illegal to hunt a fox, it's a curious error to call the folk in pinks foxhunters.
Whitehall ‘braced for private schools collapse’ due to fee rises
The Independent Schools Council says the threat of closures after the imposition of VAT on fees is ‘very rea
Contingency plans are being drawn up in Whitehall for an influx in demand for state school places amid fears private schools will go bankrupt and close because of fee increases.
Officials are braced for the prospect that some independent schools may collapse when VAT on school fees comes into force in the new year.
Schools that are smaller, with lower fees and in areas with higher levels of competition are most at risk, government sources told The Times.
They are being monitored to see how they fare under the change, combined with publicly available information about their finances from Companies House.
Campaigners against the change warn some parents will be unable to pay a fee rise of 20 per cent, given some private schools are preparing to pass on the itIt in full.
The VAT imposition will come into effect on January 1, with Treasury estimates suggesting it will lead to 37,000 fewer private school pupils in the long term — equal to about 6 per cent of children at private schools.
However, there is expected to be a smaller, more immediate impact. About 3,000 children will be taken out of private schools and will need a state place before the end of the academic year, the government believes.
Smaller private schools will be hit in particular reducing parental choice.
Yet do we expect any better from this awful socialist government having already hit pensioners, business owners and farmers?
This government doesn't strike me as particularly 'socialist'.
It is the most socialist class war ridden government of my lifetime, even more than Brown's. Farmers, pensioners, small business owners, private school payments, the remaining hereditary peers, even foxhunters on scent trails are within the sights of Starmer and Reeves
If only that were true.
If it were they would already be directing Kent and Warwickshire to replace their Grammar schools with comprehensives. You are lucky I'm not Phillipson, from next September Grammar schools would all be phased out. Year one intake would be universal. Call me Mrs Thatcher if you like.
We should be holding ballots to open new grammar schools not just to close the remaining ones, absolutely not.
More pupils were in grammar schools at the end of the Thatcher and Major years than in 1979
Whitehall ‘braced for private schools collapse’ due to fee rises
The Independent Schools Council says the threat of closures after the imposition of VAT on fees is ‘very rea
Contingency plans are being drawn up in Whitehall for an influx in demand for state school places amid fears private schools will go bankrupt and close because of fee increases.
Officials are braced for the prospect that some independent schools may collapse when VAT on school fees comes into force in the new year.
Schools that are smaller, with lower fees and in areas with higher levels of competition are most at risk, government sources told The Times.
They are being monitored to see how they fare under the change, combined with publicly available information about their finances from Companies House.
Campaigners against the change warn some parents will be unable to pay a fee rise of 20 per cent, given some private schools are preparing to pass on the itIt in full.
The VAT imposition will come into effect on January 1, with Treasury estimates suggesting it will lead to 37,000 fewer private school pupils in the long term — equal to about 6 per cent of children at private schools.
However, there is expected to be a smaller, more immediate impact. About 3,000 children will be taken out of private schools and will need a state place before the end of the academic year, the government believes.
Smaller private schools will be hit in particular reducing parental choice.
Yet do we expect any better from this awful socialist government having already hit pensioners, business owners and farmers?
This government doesn't strike me as particularly 'socialist'.
It is the most socialist class war ridden government of my lifetime, even more than Brown's. Farmers, pensioners, small business owners, private school payments, the remaining hereditary peers, even foxhunters on scent trails are within the sights of Starmer and Reeves
If they are hunting foxes they're breaking the law. Edit: passed under a Tory PM (for England, anyway). Not new.
"foxhunters"
Again, if you must clutch pearls please do it accurately. Don't fib - it doesn't work on here.
To be fair, our friend does refer to 'foxhunters on scent trails' which I took to mean that the red-jacketed mob weren't actually pursing their traditional barbaric practice, but simply following a man with a bag smelling of fox. Are they actually a target? Of course I believe they've a nasty habit of making the odd mistake and actually killing a fox.
Point taken, but given it's been 20 years since it was illegal to hunt a fox, it's a curious error to call the folk in pinks foxhunters.
Man City and Chelsea drawing and losing respectively at home.
Prior to kick off later today Liverpool currently lead the league by 4 points, with 11 points over the Champions, and 2 games in hand over 2nd, 3rd and the Champions.
Find the betting odds remarkable on the League, surely Liverpool now should be overwhelming favourites?
Of course inquiries are long, expensive and pointless.
Politicians need a way to dodge questions so there's a whole industry to support. Cynical, parasitical lawyers and consultants have to eat somehow and useless judges need some form of retirement income - God forbid they should rely on their gold-plated pensions.
The inquiry industry also explains why building new infrastructure costs four times what it should and gives us ridiculous bat tunnels.
Look at the praise this very PB garlanded on barristers at the inquiries into Covid and the Post Office, but also the complaints they seemed concerned mainly with process and tittle-tattle rather than lessons for next time. Discovering which minister dropped the ball (which turns out to be most of them) is of little real use because they won't be in office when the next crisis hits.
The Covid inquiry has seemed to me to be pointless.
But what the PO Inquiry has done - very well to my mind, though it shames my profession to have to say this but it needs saying, indeed shouting from the rooftops - is show that it is not in reality an IT scandal at all but a legal one. That was not clear until the inquiry and was one reason why the story took so long to gain traction.
What happened was created by lawyers, perpetrated by lawyers and covered up by lawyers. The IT system was merely the mechanism. Every part of the legal profession has been shown wanting. It is like the GFC for the legal profession in every part of the U.K., from the Ministry of Justice and Attorney-General down. The fact that there have been heroic lawyers working to put it right does not change this depressing fact. Even now I don't think that the legal profession as a whole has understood the very great harm this scandal has done it. Nor the amount of hard work which is needed to put it right.
The Inquiry has shed a harsh light on the legal profession's dirty little secrets: that fact too many of those working in it are second and third rate, too many focus on clever tactics or clever answers to limited questions, too many ignore the essential ethical underpinnings of their work, too many forget that there is a difference between what the client wants and what the client needs and that a good lawyer needs to understand that difference especially when working in-house and too many are unwilling to call out bad behaviour. There are too many well remunerated cowards in the upper reaches of the profession and we saw some of them on show in the Inquiry.
It has also focused very much on the human impact of the tragedy and has put the subpostmasters and their stories at the heart of the evidence. That was a deliberate decision by the judge and inquiry counsel and very much to their credit. It happened too long before the ITV drama.
What it has also shown - though less obviously- is how the state abandoned its responsibilities for the criminal justice system. I have written a whole chapter on this re the PO and how it has happened elsewhere too. It is a theme - the same retreat from essential state obligations leads to great harm to citizens (Grenfell/ blood contamination) and the state then does everything it can to wash its hands of any responsibility for putting matters right or helping those affected.
This political retreat from essential state responsibilities is so corrosive of trust in the state and in politics. It is to my mind the most important political issue to put right and no-one in politics seems to have the first idea how to do this or even how big a problem it is. If anything their actions make it worse. Destroy trust and society starts failing (and politics becomes unworkable).
This is not recent either. Look at Aberfan - how the state behaved there both before, during and after is the template for how it has behaved in many tragedies / scandals since then.
The other trouble with the legal system and not just in the UK is that people can see it is stacked against them when dealing with government/large corporations/rich people.
People have made much about americans for example being supportive of the shooting of the insurance of the CEO. While I agree shooting someone is not the answer, I can also understand to an extent the support. Simply put his companies actions caused deaths and bankruptcies for people and the people affected really had no viable legal route of redress.
Increasingly the case across both the US and the UK at an ever accelerating rate especially now it is next to impossible to get legal aid. This was an element of the PO debacle.....innocent people feeling they had to plead guilty as they had no means to fight.
This is a direct consequence of the state abdicating from its responsibility for the criminal justice system, the first and most fundamental duty of the state. Not one political party is prepared to change this for the better.
I'm pretty sure that it's an insight I've got from one of the smart cookies here, but when a system gives outputs you don't like, it's more than likely that the system is doing what it was asked to do. The problem is the aims and the plumbing, rather than human incompetence or malignancy.
The notorious example in schools was when we used to pour absurd amounts of resource- the most experienced staff, books and website subscriptions, motivational away days- into the small slice of year 11 who were on track for 4 GCSE passes. Because the success criterion was the proportion who got 5.
My suspicion is that, if we don't like the current setup, part of the answer is to make organisations that do stuff- whether business or government- smaller and less centralised than they currently are. Partly to allow smaller, lower risk experiments, but also to improve the chances that those giving the orders know what they're talking about.
But there must be non-malign reasons why we ended up here.
Yes, that is it, absolutely. People mostly behave as the pressures and incentives they are subject to within their organisation direct them to. When something goes wrong, everyone runs round looking for the individual(s) to blame and less commonly stand back to understand that the vast majority of people, placed into the same situation and subject to the same pressures and incentives, would have done exactly the same.
But designing systems to avoid such incidences is exceptionally hard, and even if you resolve the problem at hand, you have probably designed in some new unanticipated consequence that will later emerge
The biggest risk in any system, in any organisation are the humans in it. Understanding what makes human beings tick is critical and is what managers are generally very bad at. I have done thousands of investigations and can tell you that in every single one people didn't misbehave because they didn't know the rules. It was because there were other factors which meant that breaking or ignoring the rules seemed the sensible, profitable, easy thing to do.
What most organisations get wrong is not understanding this human behaviour. @DavidL is write that we don't generally need more rules and laws. We do need better enforcement of the ones we do have and probably more sensible rules. But what we need above all is good judgment and an understanding of how to motivate and manage people, how to create trust, how to build on it, how to make people want to do the right thing, how to behave with courage and how to demonstrate the qualities we want to see - or say we do. You can't do this sort of management using spreadsheets. You can't measure it. But it is absolutely essential if you want to minimise the sorts of problems we have been seeing.
And one way of doing it is by accepting that we all make mistakes, catching them early and learning from them - in the sort of iterative way @rcs1000 has described. Not doing nothing, waiting until we have a crisis then rushing round pointing fingers, picking scapegoats & learning precisely nothing.
@Cyclefree, thanks for another hard-hitting article. This was the stand-out sentence for me:
''For a successful technology, reality must take precedence over public relations, for nature cannot be fooled.”
Not only applicable for successful technologies.
Speaking of 'nature cannot be fooled,' I assumed that Trump tweet @williamglenn regaled is with on the last thread was a parody.
I now find it wasn't.
Plus he had another one ranting about evil left wing judges.
With any other person we'd be talking not just about the 25th but about him being sectioned. Trump is clearly off his head.
In his last administration he was malign, lazy, dishonest, corrupt, displayed truly shocking judgement and a very thin skin and was totally incompetent but he was not actually insane. Nor did he have untrammelled power as he now does.
The big worry, and this is why he should never have been nominated, is that he's surrounded by sycophants who won't do what is necessary to either constrain or remove him.
When America lurches from crisis to crisis over the next four years Republicans (and the Supreme Court) have only themselves to blame, but I'm willing to bet that like NASA they will blame everyone else first.
The even bigger worry is that Trump was put forward and financed by malign, lazy, dishonest, corrupt bastards displaying truly shocking judgement - who intend to move him on using the 25th and install sombody who is so malign, lazy, dishonest, corrupt, and displaying truly shocking judgement that he would never have got elected in his own right.
Step forward in 2025 President Vance.
The election's over.
You don't have to keep up the pretence that Vance is the worst ever VP candidate.
Or that Tim Walz wasn't anything other than a weak VP candidate chosen by a weak presidential candidate.
And do you think Trump will make a better President? Do you think threatening to invade Panama and Greenland is a good idea? Have you read the report into Matt Gaetz, who used prostitutes illegally (including one who was under the age of consent), took all sorts of drugs, cheated on campaign finances and lied to passport officials? Do you think Trump was right to nominate him for Attorney General? Is Trump right to nominate Pete Hegseth for secretary of defense, despite the rape case? Do you think Hegseth and Tusli Gabbard are good nominations given their anti-Ukraine comments? Is Mehmet Oz a good nomination given the many health scams he’s been involved with?
That Trump is so evidently unfit to be president merely highlights how weak the Harris-Walz combination were.
Too many Pbers indulged in imbecilic levels of cheerleading and wishful thinking about Harris-Walz.
The peak being when people were defending 'Coach Walz' insinuating that Vance was a furniture-fucker.
With anyone not joining in with the groupthink being accused of being a Trump supporter.
Merry Christmas to you too.
I suspect a number of us overdosed on hopium in the light of the Republican being absolutely unfit for office. In fact the candidate should have spent the election serving time in Terra Haute for sedition and treason.
I don't recall many posters making too much of Vance and the sofa, although it was absurdly funny. He could be condemned on more substantive evidence.
Adam Boulton called it right. Harris overcoming being both a woman and a woman of colour was perhaps too much to ask.
Harris was simply second rate at national level politics. Which is why she lost the nomination to Biden, originally.
Hoping that the proven second rater would mutate into a first rate politician....
I remember when people said that America would never elect a black president - citing the joke candidacies of Jesse Jackson. They elected the first black presidential candidate actually offered to them. Because he was a good candidate.
I was referencing Adam Boulton, although I don't necessarily disagree.
If Harris was second rate (I thought after the late hospital pass from Biden she did just fine) what rate was Trump?
She did as well as could be expected, I think.
Trump is something else, again - from outside conventional politics. The previous closest example was Berlusconi. And he was a good deal more sane and sensible.
I'd say that Harris did better than expected.
The problem being she was expected to be unelectable.
Which was likely one reason Biden chose her to be VP.
I agree Harris outperformed.
Her problem was that she (a) was not a great candidate (as shown by her crashing and burning in 2020), (b) that she'd been given a pretty awful portfolio by Biden which she had not performed evidently well at, and - most importantly -(c) which is that she was the incumbent at a time when prices had risen faster than wages.
She also (perhaps unfairly) was associated with woke and Defund the Police. And I say unfairly, because as District Attorney, she was notably tough. And I can't think of any pronouncements where she was actually particularly woke.
Harris led the Democrats to their worst defeat since Dukakis in 1988, much as I predicted in the summer even if few agreed on here
Whitehall ‘braced for private schools collapse’ due to fee rises
The Independent Schools Council says the threat of closures after the imposition of VAT on fees is ‘very rea
Contingency plans are being drawn up in Whitehall for an influx in demand for state school places amid fears private schools will go bankrupt and close because of fee increases.
Officials are braced for the prospect that some independent schools may collapse when VAT on school fees comes into force in the new year.
Schools that are smaller, with lower fees and in areas with higher levels of competition are most at risk, government sources told The Times.
They are being monitored to see how they fare under the change, combined with publicly available information about their finances from Companies House.
Campaigners against the change warn some parents will be unable to pay a fee rise of 20 per cent, given some private schools are preparing to pass on the itIt in full.
The VAT imposition will come into effect on January 1, with Treasury estimates suggesting it will lead to 37,000 fewer private school pupils in the long term — equal to about 6 per cent of children at private schools.
However, there is expected to be a smaller, more immediate impact. About 3,000 children will be taken out of private schools and will need a state place before the end of the academic year, the government believes.
Smaller private schools will be hit in particular reducing parental choice.
Yet do we expect any better from this awful socialist government having already hit pensioners, business owners and farmers?
This government doesn't strike me as particularly 'socialist'.
It is the most socialist class war ridden government of my lifetime, even more than Brown's. Farmers, pensioners, small business owners, private school payments, the remaining hereditary peers, even foxhunters on scent trails are within the sights of Starmer and Reeves
If only that were true.
If it were they would already be directing Kent and Warwickshire to replace their Grammar schools with comprehensives. You are lucky I'm not Phillipson, from next September Grammar schools would all be phased out. Year one intake would be universal. Call me Mrs Thatcher if you like.
We should be holding ballots to open new grammar schools not just to close the remaining ones, absolutely not.
More pupils were in grammar schools at the end of the Thatcher and Major years than in 1979
I get the impression from relatives in the world of education that it isn't those at the top of the intellectual ladder who are having problems but those a lot lower down. Largely due to Covid and the abolition of Sure Start.
Whitehall ‘braced for private schools collapse’ due to fee rises
The Independent Schools Council says the threat of closures after the imposition of VAT on fees is ‘very rea
Contingency plans are being drawn up in Whitehall for an influx in demand for state school places amid fears private schools will go bankrupt and close because of fee increases.
Officials are braced for the prospect that some independent schools may collapse when VAT on school fees comes into force in the new year.
Schools that are smaller, with lower fees and in areas with higher levels of competition are most at risk, government sources told The Times.
They are being monitored to see how they fare under the change, combined with publicly available information about their finances from Companies House.
Campaigners against the change warn some parents will be unable to pay a fee rise of 20 per cent, given some private schools are preparing to pass on the itIt in full.
The VAT imposition will come into effect on January 1, with Treasury estimates suggesting it will lead to 37,000 fewer private school pupils in the long term — equal to about 6 per cent of children at private schools.
However, there is expected to be a smaller, more immediate impact. About 3,000 children will be taken out of private schools and will need a state place before the end of the academic year, the government believes.
Smaller private schools will be hit in particular reducing parental choice.
Yet do we expect any better from this awful socialist government having already hit pensioners, business owners and farmers?
This government doesn't strike me as particularly 'socialist'.
It is the most socialist class war ridden government of my lifetime, even more than Brown's. Farmers, pensioners, small business owners, private school payments, the remaining hereditary peers, even foxhunters on scent trails are within the sights of Starmer and Reeves
If only that were true.
If it were they would already be directing Kent and Warwickshire to replace their Grammar schools with comprehensives. You are lucky I'm not Phillipson, from next September Grammar schools would all be phased out. Year one intake would be universal. Call me Mrs Thatcher if you like.
We should be holding ballots to open new grammar schools not just to close the remaining ones, absolutely not.
More pupils were in grammar schools at the end of the Thatcher and Major years than in 1979
Very much misleading. You've carefully not corrected for numbers of children overall. Those of us interested in real facts want percentages - and in that case see this graph which tells a very different story.
Whitehall ‘braced for private schools collapse’ due to fee rises
The Independent Schools Council says the threat of closures after the imposition of VAT on fees is ‘very rea
Contingency plans are being drawn up in Whitehall for an influx in demand for state school places amid fears private schools will go bankrupt and close because of fee increases.
Officials are braced for the prospect that some independent schools may collapse when VAT on school fees comes into force in the new year.
Schools that are smaller, with lower fees and in areas with higher levels of competition are most at risk, government sources told The Times.
They are being monitored to see how they fare under the change, combined with publicly available information about their finances from Companies House.
Campaigners against the change warn some parents will be unable to pay a fee rise of 20 per cent, given some private schools are preparing to pass on the itIt in full.
The VAT imposition will come into effect on January 1, with Treasury estimates suggesting it will lead to 37,000 fewer private school pupils in the long term — equal to about 6 per cent of children at private schools.
However, there is expected to be a smaller, more immediate impact. About 3,000 children will be taken out of private schools and will need a state place before the end of the academic year, the government believes.
Smaller private schools will be hit in particular reducing parental choice.
Yet do we expect any better from this awful socialist government having already hit pensioners, business owners and farmers?
This government doesn't strike me as particularly 'socialist'.
It is the most socialist class war ridden government of my lifetime, even more than Brown's. Farmers, pensioners, small business owners, private school payments, the remaining hereditary peers, even foxhunters on scent trails are within the sights of Starmer and Reeves
If only that were true.
If it were they would already be directing Kent and Warwickshire to replace their Grammar schools with comprehensives. You are lucky I'm not Phillipson, from next September Grammar schools would all be phased out. Year one intake would be universal. Call me Mrs Thatcher if you like.
We should be holding ballots to open new grammar schools not just to close the remaining ones, absolutely not.
More pupils were in grammar schools at the end of the Thatcher and Major years than in 1979
Life changing academic assessment at aged 11 is immoral. And in those areas with Grammar schools the parents of Tim, nice but dims are paying for cramming lessons not available to Jim, clever but poor.
Whitehall ‘braced for private schools collapse’ due to fee rises
The Independent Schools Council says the threat of closures after the imposition of VAT on fees is ‘very rea
Contingency plans are being drawn up in Whitehall for an influx in demand for state school places amid fears private schools will go bankrupt and close because of fee increases.
Officials are braced for the prospect that some independent schools may collapse when VAT on school fees comes into force in the new year.
Schools that are smaller, with lower fees and in areas with higher levels of competition are most at risk, government sources told The Times.
They are being monitored to see how they fare under the change, combined with publicly available information about their finances from Companies House.
Campaigners against the change warn some parents will be unable to pay a fee rise of 20 per cent, given some private schools are preparing to pass on the itIt in full.
The VAT imposition will come into effect on January 1, with Treasury estimates suggesting it will lead to 37,000 fewer private school pupils in the long term — equal to about 6 per cent of children at private schools.
However, there is expected to be a smaller, more immediate impact. About 3,000 children will be taken out of private schools and will need a state place before the end of the academic year, the government believes.
Smaller private schools will be hit in particular reducing parental choice.
Yet do we expect any better from this awful socialist government having already hit pensioners, business owners and farmers?
This government doesn't strike me as particularly 'socialist'.
It is the most socialist class war ridden government of my lifetime, even more than Brown's. Farmers, pensioners, small business owners, private school payments, the remaining hereditary peers, even foxhunters on scent trails are within the sights of Starmer and Reeves
If they are hunting foxes they're breaking the law. Edit: passed under a Tory PM (for England, anyway). Not new.
"foxhunters"
Again, if you must clutch pearls please do it accurately. Don't fib - it doesn't work on here.
Labour is looking to ban trail hunts, not even with foxes, no doubt with support from you and your far left cronies.
The fox hunt ban came in under Blair not a Tory though he later said he regretted it
Manipulating your own supporters at Xmas eh, Nigel? It’s not real. It’s a fake ⏰ coded to tick up automatically. We’ve been watching the back end for days and can also see they’ve just changed the code to link to a different site as people point this out.
Farage doesn’t understand the digital age. This kind of fakery gets found out pretty quickly, although not before many are fooled…(1/5)
Kemi Badenoch has decided to go on a genuinely bizarre Twitter rant about Reform UK faking their numbers. I know she supposedly has a technology background but it is genuinely written by somebody that has never written a line of code in their life.
I am confident in my assertion that as long as she remains leader, Labour are the luckiest political party on Earth.
Whitehall ‘braced for private schools collapse’ due to fee rises
The Independent Schools Council says the threat of closures after the imposition of VAT on fees is ‘very rea
Contingency plans are being drawn up in Whitehall for an influx in demand for state school places amid fears private schools will go bankrupt and close because of fee increases.
Officials are braced for the prospect that some independent schools may collapse when VAT on school fees comes into force in the new year.
Schools that are smaller, with lower fees and in areas with higher levels of competition are most at risk, government sources told The Times.
They are being monitored to see how they fare under the change, combined with publicly available information about their finances from Companies House.
Campaigners against the change warn some parents will be unable to pay a fee rise of 20 per cent, given some private schools are preparing to pass on the itIt in full.
The VAT imposition will come into effect on January 1, with Treasury estimates suggesting it will lead to 37,000 fewer private school pupils in the long term — equal to about 6 per cent of children at private schools.
However, there is expected to be a smaller, more immediate impact. About 3,000 children will be taken out of private schools and will need a state place before the end of the academic year, the government believes.
Smaller private schools will be hit in particular reducing parental choice.
Yet do we expect any better from this awful socialist government having already hit pensioners, business owners and farmers?
This government doesn't strike me as particularly 'socialist'.
It is the most socialist class war ridden government of my lifetime, even more than Brown's. Farmers, pensioners, small business owners, private school payments, the remaining hereditary peers, even foxhunters on scent trails are within the sights of Starmer and Reeves
If they are hunting foxes they're breaking the law. Edit: passed under a Tory PM (for England, anyway). Not new.
"foxhunters"
Again, if you must clutch pearls please do it accurately. Don't fib - it doesn't work on here.
Labour is looking to ban trail hunts, not even with foxes, no doubt with support from you and your far left cronies.
The fox hunt ban came in under Blair not a Tory though he later said he regretted it
I don't have any far left cronies. Your fantasy. Plus I wouldn't dream of interfering. Not like you to demand Scottish MPs interfere in English matters.
And tthe Tories kept the Blair act (thanks for the amendment btw, quite right).
@Cyclefree, thanks for another hard-hitting article. This was the stand-out sentence for me:
''For a successful technology, reality must take precedence over public relations, for nature cannot be fooled.”
Not only applicable for successful technologies.
Speaking of 'nature cannot be fooled,' I assumed that Trump tweet @williamglenn regaled is with on the last thread was a parody.
I now find it wasn't.
Plus he had another one ranting about evil left wing judges.
With any other person we'd be talking not just about the 25th but about him being sectioned. Trump is clearly off his head.
In his last administration he was malign, lazy, dishonest, corrupt, displayed truly shocking judgement and a very thin skin and was totally incompetent but he was not actually insane. Nor did he have untrammelled power as he now does.
The big worry, and this is why he should never have been nominated, is that he's surrounded by sycophants who won't do what is necessary to either constrain or remove him.
When America lurches from crisis to crisis over the next four years Republicans (and the Supreme Court) have only themselves to blame, but I'm willing to bet that like NASA they will blame everyone else first.
The even bigger worry is that Trump was put forward and financed by malign, lazy, dishonest, corrupt bastards displaying truly shocking judgement - who intend to move him on using the 25th and install sombody who is so malign, lazy, dishonest, corrupt, and displaying truly shocking judgement that he would never have got elected in his own right.
Step forward in 2025 President Vance.
The election's over.
You don't have to keep up the pretence that Vance is the worst ever VP candidate.
Or that Tim Walz wasn't anything other than a weak VP candidate chosen by a weak presidential candidate.
And do you think Trump will make a better President? Do you think threatening to invade Panama and Greenland is a good idea? Have you read the report into Matt Gaetz, who used prostitutes illegally (including one who was under the age of consent), took all sorts of drugs, cheated on campaign finances and lied to passport officials? Do you think Trump was right to nominate him for Attorney General? Is Trump right to nominate Pete Hegseth for secretary of defense, despite the rape case? Do you think Hegseth and Tusli Gabbard are good nominations given their anti-Ukraine comments? Is Mehmet Oz a good nomination given the many health scams he’s been involved with?
That Trump is so evidently unfit to be president merely highlights how weak the Harris-Walz combination were.
Too many Pbers indulged in imbecilic levels of cheerleading and wishful thinking about Harris-Walz.
The peak being when people were defending 'Coach Walz' insinuating that Vance was a furniture-fucker.
With anyone not joining in with the groupthink being accused of being a Trump supporter.
Merry Christmas to you too.
I suspect a number of us overdosed on hopium in the light of the Republican being absolutely unfit for office. In fact the candidate should have spent the election serving time in Terra Haute for sedition and treason.
I don't recall many posters making too much of Vance and the sofa, although it was absurdly funny. He could be condemned on more substantive evidence.
Adam Boulton called it right. Harris overcoming being both a woman and a woman of colour was perhaps too much to ask.
Harris was simply second rate at national level politics. Which is why she lost the nomination to Biden, originally.
Hoping that the proven second rater would mutate into a first rate politician....
I remember when people said that America would never elect a black president - citing the joke candidacies of Jesse Jackson. They elected the first black presidential candidate actually offered to them. Because he was a good candidate.
I was referencing Adam Boulton, although I don't necessarily disagree.
If Harris was second rate (I thought after the late hospital pass from Biden she did just fine) what rate was Trump?
She did as well as could be expected, I think.
Trump is something else, again - from outside conventional politics. The previous closest example was Berlusconi. And he was a good deal more sane and sensible.
I'd say that Harris did better than expected.
The problem being she was expected to be unelectable.
Which was likely one reason Biden chose her to be VP.
I agree Harris outperformed.
Her problem was that she (a) was not a great candidate (as shown by her crashing and burning in 2020), (b) that she'd been given a pretty awful portfolio by Biden which she had not performed evidently well at, and - most importantly -(c) which is that she was the incumbent at a time when prices had risen faster than wages.
She also (perhaps unfairly) was associated with woke and Defund the Police. And I say unfairly, because as District Attorney, she was notably tough. And I can't think of any pronouncements where she was actually particularly woke.
I would like to take issue with your view in the campaign that "noone knows anything" The betting markets had Trump solid favourite the last 4 weeks of the campaign and they have correctly predicted all but 2 american election results (one failure was hilary clinton). The betting markets will have incoroporaated into the price much private polling we are unaware of hence it isnt correct to just say "noone knows anything". That clearly wasnt true.
Manipulating your own supporters at Xmas eh, Nigel? It’s not real. It’s a fake ⏰ coded to tick up automatically. We’ve been watching the back end for days and can also see they’ve just changed the code to link to a different site as people point this out.
Farage doesn’t understand the digital age. This kind of fakery gets found out pretty quickly, although not before many are fooled…(1/5)
Kemi Badenoch has decided to go on a genuinely bizarre Twitter rant about Reform UK faking their numbers. I know she supposedly has a technology background but it is genuinely written by somebody that has never written a line of code in their life.
I am confident in my assertion that as long as she remains leader, Labour are the luckiest political party on Earth.
If she's been watching the back end for days, is she confessing to hacking again?
@Cyclefree, thanks for another hard-hitting article. This was the stand-out sentence for me:
''For a successful technology, reality must take precedence over public relations, for nature cannot be fooled.”
Not only applicable for successful technologies.
Speaking of 'nature cannot be fooled,' I assumed that Trump tweet @williamglenn regaled is with on the last thread was a parody.
I now find it wasn't.
Plus he had another one ranting about evil left wing judges.
With any other person we'd be talking not just about the 25th but about him being sectioned. Trump is clearly off his head.
In his last administration he was malign, lazy, dishonest, corrupt, displayed truly shocking judgement and a very thin skin and was totally incompetent but he was not actually insane. Nor did he have untrammelled power as he now does.
The big worry, and this is why he should never have been nominated, is that he's surrounded by sycophants who won't do what is necessary to either constrain or remove him.
When America lurches from crisis to crisis over the next four years Republicans (and the Supreme Court) have only themselves to blame, but I'm willing to bet that like NASA they will blame everyone else first.
The even bigger worry is that Trump was put forward and financed by malign, lazy, dishonest, corrupt bastards displaying truly shocking judgement - who intend to move him on using the 25th and install sombody who is so malign, lazy, dishonest, corrupt, and displaying truly shocking judgement that he would never have got elected in his own right.
Step forward in 2025 President Vance.
The election's over.
You don't have to keep up the pretence that Vance is the worst ever VP candidate.
Or that Tim Walz wasn't anything other than a weak VP candidate chosen by a weak presidential candidate.
And do you think Trump will make a better President? Do you think threatening to invade Panama and Greenland is a good idea? Have you read the report into Matt Gaetz, who used prostitutes illegally (including one who was under the age of consent), took all sorts of drugs, cheated on campaign finances and lied to passport officials? Do you think Trump was right to nominate him for Attorney General? Is Trump right to nominate Pete Hegseth for secretary of defense, despite the rape case? Do you think Hegseth and Tusli Gabbard are good nominations given their anti-Ukraine comments? Is Mehmet Oz a good nomination given the many health scams he’s been involved with?
That Trump is so evidently unfit to be president merely highlights how weak the Harris-Walz combination were.
Too many Pbers indulged in imbecilic levels of cheerleading and wishful thinking about Harris-Walz.
The peak being when people were defending 'Coach Walz' insinuating that Vance was a furniture-fucker.
With anyone not joining in with the groupthink being accused of being a Trump supporter.
Merry Christmas to you too.
I suspect a number of us overdosed on hopium in the light of the Republican being absolutely unfit for office. In fact the candidate should have spent the election serving time in Terra Haute for sedition and treason.
I don't recall many posters making too much of Vance and the sofa, although it was absurdly funny. He could be condemned on more substantive evidence.
Adam Boulton called it right. Harris overcoming being both a woman and a woman of colour was perhaps too much to ask.
Harris was simply second rate at national level politics. Which is why she lost the nomination to Biden, originally.
Hoping that the proven second rater would mutate into a first rate politician....
I remember when people said that America would never elect a black president - citing the joke candidacies of Jesse Jackson. They elected the first black presidential candidate actually offered to them. Because he was a good candidate.
I was referencing Adam Boulton, although I don't necessarily disagree.
If Harris was second rate (I thought after the late hospital pass from Biden she did just fine) what rate was Trump?
She did as well as could be expected, I think.
Trump is something else, again - from outside conventional politics. The previous closest example was Berlusconi. And he was a good deal more sane and sensible.
I'd say that Harris did better than expected.
The problem being she was expected to be unelectable.
Which was likely one reason Biden chose her to be VP.
I agree Harris outperformed.
Her problem was that she (a) was not a great candidate (as shown by her crashing and burning in 2020), (b) that she'd been given a pretty awful portfolio by Biden which she had not performed evidently well at, and - most importantly -(c) which is that she was the incumbent at a time when prices had risen faster than wages.
She also (perhaps unfairly) was associated with woke and Defund the Police. And I say unfairly, because as District Attorney, she was notably tough. And I can't think of any pronouncements where she was actually particularly woke.
Harris led the Democrats to their worst defeat since Dukakis in 1988, much as I predicted in the summer even if few agreed on here
That's only true in terms of the electoral college and, even then, Harris only did slightly worse than H Clinton. She was nowhere near Dukakis levels (or, indeed, McCain, Romney or Dole on the other side). Harris's popular vote loss was less than Kerry's in 2004.
The significant political development in the US over Christmas has been a major split emerging in the MAGA coalition between the Musk faction who want to ramp up H1B immigration and the America First faction who want serious immigration restrictions.
Will Trump make the same mistake as Boris Johnson and betray his own supporters, or will Musk find himself sidelined?
Yes ive just mentioned that now. Ive seen stuff like this.
I know heritage American Harvard seniors with >3.8 GPA who don’t have a full time job offer after >30 applications.
This is degrading. The social contract has been violated. The system is not working for us, the youth. The boomers betrayed us in their love for cheap foreign labor and signaling anti-racism.
Whitehall ‘braced for private schools collapse’ due to fee rises
The Independent Schools Council says the threat of closures after the imposition of VAT on fees is ‘very rea
Contingency plans are being drawn up in Whitehall for an influx in demand for state school places amid fears private schools will go bankrupt and close because of fee increases.
Officials are braced for the prospect that some independent schools may collapse when VAT on school fees comes into force in the new year.
Schools that are smaller, with lower fees and in areas with higher levels of competition are most at risk, government sources told The Times.
They are being monitored to see how they fare under the change, combined with publicly available information about their finances from Companies House.
Campaigners against the change warn some parents will be unable to pay a fee rise of 20 per cent, given some private schools are preparing to pass on the costs in full.
The VAT imposition will come into effect on January 1, with Treasury estimates suggesting it will lead to 37,000 fewer private school pupils in the long term — equal to about 6 per cent of children at private schools.
However, there is expected to be a smaller, more immediate impact. About 3,000 children will be taken out of private schools and will need a state place before the end of the academic year, the government believes.
Smaller private schools will be hit in particular reducing parental choice.
Yet do we expect any better from this awful socialist government having already hit pensioners, business owners and farmers?
Isn't the article suggesting the expected impact is pretty low?
It also mentions that the schools at most risk are the ones where there are higher levels of competition. Which I read as there being other private schools that are more popular in the same area. Sounds more like capitalism than socialism to me.
A tax rise closing private schools is socialism not capitalist choice
Is that true of any business? If a tax rises closes it, that's socialism?
Manipulating your own supporters at Xmas eh, Nigel? It’s not real. It’s a fake ⏰ coded to tick up automatically. We’ve been watching the back end for days and can also see they’ve just changed the code to link to a different site as people point this out.
Farage doesn’t understand the digital age. This kind of fakery gets found out pretty quickly, although not before many are fooled…(1/5)
Kemi Badenoch has decided to go on a genuinely bizarre Twitter rant about Reform UK faking their numbers. I know she supposedly has a technology background but it is genuinely written by somebody that has never written a line of code in their life.
I am confident in my assertion that as long as she remains leader, Labour are the luckiest political party on Earth.
Main swing since July Labour to Reform so she will gain seats even if Tory vote stands still
Man City and Chelsea drawing and losing respectively at home.
Prior to kick off later today Liverpool currently lead the league by 4 points, with 11 points over the Champions, and 2 games in hand over 2nd, 3rd and the Champions.
Find the betting odds remarkable on the League, surely Liverpool now should be overwhelming favourites?
Aren't they strong favourites in the betting?
I would say that we're not quite half way yet, and we've seen 6, 8, 10 point leads evaporate pretty quickly in the last decade or so. United, under Ferguson, were 8 points up with just six to go, and lost the lead in just four games. Liverpool have lost multiple leads, and Arsenal were running away with it a couple of years ago. Admittedly, it was always Man City hunting teams down, but that recent history suggests that seasons do change.
The significant political development in the US over Christmas has been a major split emerging in the MAGA coalition between the Musk faction who want to ramp up H1B immigration and the America First faction who want serious immigration restrictions.
Will Trump make the same mistake as Boris Johnson and betray his own supporters, or will Musk find himself sidelined?
Yes ive just mentioned that now. Ive seen stuff like this.
I know heritage American Harvard seniors with >3.8 GPA who don’t have a full time job offer after >30 applications.
This is degrading. The social contract has been violated. The system is not working for us, the youth. The boomers betrayed us in their love for cheap foreign labor and signaling anti-racism.
Whitehall ‘braced for private schools collapse’ due to fee rises
The Independent Schools Council says the threat of closures after the imposition of VAT on fees is ‘very rea
Contingency plans are being drawn up in Whitehall for an influx in demand for state school places amid fears private schools will go bankrupt and close because of fee increases.
Officials are braced for the prospect that some independent schools may collapse when VAT on school fees comes into force in the new year.
Schools that are smaller, with lower fees and in areas with higher levels of competition are most at risk, government sources told The Times.
They are being monitored to see how they fare under the change, combined with publicly available information about their finances from Companies House.
Campaigners against the change warn some parents will be unable to pay a fee rise of 20 per cent, given some private schools are preparing to pass on the itIt in full.
The VAT imposition will come into effect on January 1, with Treasury estimates suggesting it will lead to 37,000 fewer private school pupils in the long term — equal to about 6 per cent of children at private schools.
However, there is expected to be a smaller, more immediate impact. About 3,000 children will be taken out of private schools and will need a state place before the end of the academic year, the government believes.
Smaller private schools will be hit in particular reducing parental choice.
Yet do we expect any better from this awful socialist government having already hit pensioners, business owners and farmers?
This government doesn't strike me as particularly 'socialist'.
It is the most socialist class war ridden government of my lifetime, even more than Brown's. Farmers, pensioners, small business owners, private school payments, the remaining hereditary peers, even foxhunters on scent trails are within the sights of Starmer and Reeves
If only that were true.
If it were they would already be directing Kent and Warwickshire to replace their Grammar schools with comprehensives. You are lucky I'm not Phillipson, from next September Grammar schools would all be phased out. Year one intake would be universal. Call me Mrs Thatcher if you like.
We should be holding ballots to open new grammar schools not just to close the remaining ones, absolutely not.
More pupils were in grammar schools at the end of the Thatcher and Major years than in 1979
Life changing academic assessment at aged 11 is immoral. And in those areas with Grammar schools the parents of Tim, nice but dims are paying for cramming lessons not available to Jim, clever but poor.
Clever pupils with high IQs will get in regardless of parents income or tutoring and be on a path to top universities and a profession.
All your attitude does is favour children with money who can choose private schools or state schools in wealthy catchment areas. That is why proper conservatives must fight such attitudes and push for more grammar schools
The significant political development in the US over Christmas has been a major split emerging in the MAGA coalition between the Musk faction who want to ramp up H1B immigration and the America First faction who want serious immigration restrictions.
Will Trump make the same mistake as Boris Johnson and betray his own supporters, or will Musk find himself sidelined?
Yes ive just mentioned that now. Ive seen stuff like this.
I know heritage American Harvard seniors with >3.8 GPA who don’t have a full time job offer after >30 applications.
This is degrading. The social contract has been violated. The system is not working for us, the youth. The boomers betrayed us in their love for cheap foreign labor and signaling anti-racism.
I think he is talking about the US workforce rather than the UK political party that squandered the 14 year Tory golden legacy.
However you look at it, whatever Labour inherited on the economy, they have made it worse.
A government for growth my arse.
Come back to me in four and a half years, and if Labour have not grown the economy you will get your RefCon government.
Even if they haven't grown the economy, it depends on who the voters blame. If Labour can persuade them that it's still the fault of the last lot and/or Trump and/or Musk and/or Putin, voters may happily keep Labour in No. 10.
Manipulating your own supporters at Xmas eh, Nigel? It’s not real. It’s a fake ⏰ coded to tick up automatically. We’ve been watching the back end for days and can also see they’ve just changed the code to link to a different site as people point this out.
Farage doesn’t understand the digital age. This kind of fakery gets found out pretty quickly, although not before many are fooled…(1/5)
Kemi Badenoch has decided to go on a genuinely bizarre Twitter rant about Reform UK faking their numbers. I know she supposedly has a technology background but it is genuinely written by somebody that has never written a line of code in their life.
I am confident in my assertion that as long as she remains leader, Labour are the luckiest political party on Earth.
Do you think the Reform UK membership numbers are genuinely ticking up as displayed, or is Badenoch right that it's fake?
Whitehall ‘braced for private schools collapse’ due to fee rises
The Independent Schools Council says the threat of closures after the imposition of VAT on fees is ‘very rea
Contingency plans are being drawn up in Whitehall for an influx in demand for state school places amid fears private schools will go bankrupt and close because of fee increases.
Officials are braced for the prospect that some independent schools may collapse when VAT on school fees comes into force in the new year.
Schools that are smaller, with lower fees and in areas with higher levels of competition are most at risk, government sources told The Times.
They are being monitored to see how they fare under the change, combined with publicly available information about their finances from Companies House.
Campaigners against the change warn some parents will be unable to pay a fee rise of 20 per cent, given some private schools are preparing to pass on the costs in full.
The VAT imposition will come into effect on January 1, with Treasury estimates suggesting it will lead to 37,000 fewer private school pupils in the long term — equal to about 6 per cent of children at private schools.
However, there is expected to be a smaller, more immediate impact. About 3,000 children will be taken out of private schools and will need a state place before the end of the academic year, the government believes.
Smaller private schools will be hit in particular reducing parental choice.
Yet do we expect any better from this awful socialist government having already hit pensioners, business owners and farmers?
Isn't the article suggesting the expected impact is pretty low?
It also mentions that the schools at most risk are the ones where there are higher levels of competition. Which I read as there being other private schools that are more popular in the same area. Sounds more like capitalism than socialism to me.
A tax rise closing private schools is socialism not capitalist choice
Is that true of any business? If a tax rises closes it, that's socialism?
One person's tax rise is another person's loophole plug.
Whitehall ‘braced for private schools collapse’ due to fee rises
The Independent Schools Council says the threat of closures after the imposition of VAT on fees is ‘very rea
Contingency plans are being drawn up in Whitehall for an influx in demand for state school places amid fears private schools will go bankrupt and close because of fee increases.
Officials are braced for the prospect that some independent schools may collapse when VAT on school fees comes into force in the new year.
Schools that are smaller, with lower fees and in areas with higher levels of competition are most at risk, government sources told The Times.
They are being monitored to see how they fare under the change, combined with publicly available information about their finances from Companies House.
Campaigners against the change warn some parents will be unable to pay a fee rise of 20 per cent, given some private schools are preparing to pass on the itIt in full.
The VAT imposition will come into effect on January 1, with Treasury estimates suggesting it will lead to 37,000 fewer private school pupils in the long term — equal to about 6 per cent of children at private schools.
However, there is expected to be a smaller, more immediate impact. About 3,000 children will be taken out of private schools and will need a state place before the end of the academic year, the government believes.
Smaller private schools will be hit in particular reducing parental choice.
Yet do we expect any better from this awful socialist government having already hit pensioners, business owners and farmers?
This government doesn't strike me as particularly 'socialist'.
It is the most socialist class war ridden government of my lifetime, even more than Brown's. Farmers, pensioners, small business owners, private school payments, the remaining hereditary peers, even foxhunters on scent trails are within the sights of Starmer and Reeves
If only that were true.
If it were they would already be directing Kent and Warwickshire to replace their Grammar schools with comprehensives. You are lucky I'm not Phillipson, from next September Grammar schools would all be phased out. Year one intake would be universal. Call me Mrs Thatcher if you like.
We should be holding ballots to open new grammar schools not just to close the remaining ones, absolutely not.
More pupils were in grammar schools at the end of the Thatcher and Major years than in 1979
Life changing academic assessment at aged 11 is immoral. And in those areas with Grammar schools the parents of Tim, nice but dims are paying for cramming lessons not available to Jim, clever but poor.
Clever pupils with high IQs will get in regardless of parents income or tutoring and be on a path to top universities and a profession.
All your attitude does is favour children with money who can choose private schools or state schools in wealthy catchment areas. That is why proper conservatives must fight such attitudes and push for more grammar schools
John Prescott failed the 11+
And what if somebody is ill on the day of the exam? No resits in the current system.
It's also not a given that somebody who is doing well at 11 will keep doing so. I remember one boy in my school who at 11 was a brilliant mathematician.* Could do any sum of any sort in his head. Definitely went backwards at secondary school and got a B at GCSE before crashing and burning at A-level. No idea why, as he worked assiduously and wasn't on any drugs - he just never seemed to develop mentally.
Personally if we were to look at selective schooling I'd want middle schools across the nation and selection at 14 or 15. Not at 11.
*Not me. Never liked the subject. Too theoretical.
Whitehall ‘braced for private schools collapse’ due to fee rises
The Independent Schools Council says the threat of closures after the imposition of VAT on fees is ‘very rea
Contingency plans are being drawn up in Whitehall for an influx in demand for state school places amid fears private schools will go bankrupt and close because of fee increases.
Officials are braced for the prospect that some independent schools may collapse when VAT on school fees comes into force in the new year.
Schools that are smaller, with lower fees and in areas with higher levels of competition are most at risk, government sources told The Times.
They are being monitored to see how they fare under the change, combined with publicly available information about their finances from Companies House.
Campaigners against the change warn some parents will be unable to pay a fee rise of 20 per cent, given some private schools are preparing to pass on the costs in full.
The VAT imposition will come into effect on January 1, with Treasury estimates suggesting it will lead to 37,000 fewer private school pupils in the long term — equal to about 6 per cent of children at private schools.
However, there is expected to be a smaller, more immediate impact. About 3,000 children will be taken out of private schools and will need a state place before the end of the academic year, the government believes.
Smaller private schools will be hit in particular reducing parental choice.
Yet do we expect any better from this awful socialist government having already hit pensioners, business owners and farmers?
Isn't the article suggesting the expected impact is pretty low?
It also mentions that the schools at most risk are the ones where there are higher levels of competition. Which I read as there being other private schools that are more popular in the same area. Sounds more like capitalism than socialism to me.
A tax rise closing private schools is socialism not capitalist choice
Why should the taxpayer fund an unfair advantage? If they are viable they will survive. No one is closing anything. I thought as an exponent of Grammar Schools you would demand children succeed on merit and not from the wealth of they parents.
Isn't the standard response to nurses using food banks one of "they wouldn't need to if they cancel Netflix and drive a cheaper car"? Perhaps there is a correlation between monthly TV subscriptions, cheaper cars and VAT on schools.
All VAT on school fees will do is reduced choice and reduce scholarships and bursaries making private schools even more exclusive
Man City and Chelsea drawing and losing respectively at home.
Prior to kick off later today Liverpool currently lead the league by 4 points, with 11 points over the Champions, and 2 games in hand over 2nd, 3rd and the Champions.
Find the betting odds remarkable on the League, surely Liverpool now should be overwhelming favourites?
Whitehall ‘braced for private schools collapse’ due to fee rises
The Independent Schools Council says the threat of closures after the imposition of VAT on fees is ‘very rea
Contingency plans are being drawn up in Whitehall for an influx in demand for state school places amid fears private schools will go bankrupt and close because of fee increases.
Officials are braced for the prospect that some independent schools may collapse when VAT on school fees comes into force in the new year.
Schools that are smaller, with lower fees and in areas with higher levels of competition are most at risk, government sources told The Times.
They are being monitored to see how they fare under the change, combined with publicly available information about their finances from Companies House.
Campaigners against the change warn some parents will be unable to pay a fee rise of 20 per cent, given some private schools are preparing to pass on the itIt in full.
The VAT imposition will come into effect on January 1, with Treasury estimates suggesting it will lead to 37,000 fewer private school pupils in the long term — equal to about 6 per cent of children at private schools.
However, there is expected to be a smaller, more immediate impact. About 3,000 children will be taken out of private schools and will need a state place before the end of the academic year, the government believes.
Smaller private schools will be hit in particular reducing parental choice.
Yet do we expect any better from this awful socialist government having already hit pensioners, business owners and farmers?
This government doesn't strike me as particularly 'socialist'.
It is the most socialist class war ridden government of my lifetime, even more than Brown's. Farmers, pensioners, small business owners, private school payments, the remaining hereditary peers, even foxhunters on scent trails are within the sights of Starmer and Reeves
If only that were true.
If it were they would already be directing Kent and Warwickshire to replace their Grammar schools with comprehensives. You are lucky I'm not Phillipson, from next September Grammar schools would all be phased out. Year one intake would be universal. Call me Mrs Thatcher if you like.
We should be holding ballots to open new grammar schools not just to close the remaining ones, absolutely not.
More pupils were in grammar schools at the end of the Thatcher and Major years than in 1979
Life changing academic assessment at aged 11 is immoral. And in those areas with Grammar schools the parents of Tim, nice but dims are paying for cramming lessons not available to Jim, clever but poor.
Clever pupils with high IQs will get in regardless of parents income or tutoring and be on a path to top universities and a profession.
All your attitude does is favour children with money who can choose private schools or state schools in wealthy catchment areas. That is why proper conservatives must fight such attitudes and push for more grammar schools
John Prescott failed the 11+
And what if somebody is ill on the day of the exam? No resits in the current system.
It's also not a given that somebody who is doing well at 11 will keep doing so. I remember one boy in my school who at 11 was a brilliant mathematician.* Could do any sum of any sort in his head. Definitely went backwards at secondary school and got a B at GCSE before crashing and burning at A-level. No idea why, as he worked assiduously and wasn't on any drugs - he just never seemed to develop mentally.
Personally if we were to look at selective schooling I'd want middle schools across the nation and selection at 14 or 15. Not at 11.
*Not me. Never liked the subject. Too theoretical.
Well if you want to suggest Prescott had a high IQ that would be quite a statement.
It's risk and responsibility, isn't it? I hope I can be forgiven a modest Boxing Day rant.
An "anybody else but me" culture which tolerates risk, in the belief it won't happen this time so we can ignore it, followed by "it" happening, followed by revenge by those who chose to turn a blind eye on those who did not do so.
Then those who ignored the risk will lie about it afterwards, to cover their arses, most perniciously lying even to themselves.
That's human nature 99% of the time, I'm afraid, and we have to build cultures to counter it. When I was doing software engineering, we used concepts such as "egoless programming" to make things "our problem" not "HIS or HER problem". The techniques go back to Fagan inspections and before, which was formalised 47 years ago. But if it is not institutionalised, the cultural values are lost.
At its root the principle is exactly the same as a school-run mum in her SUV blocking visibility of the school gates for 3 minutes "because I need to drop my daughter off". Or the Notts County Highway Maintenance team I caught with their van / lorry parked on the entrance to a mini roundabout, outside a busy chip shop on Friday lunchtime, in a pinch point, across the dropped pedestrian kerb, on the pavement, blocking visibility of the pedestrian crossing from the roundabout, all because his team of three would not walk an extra 10m carrying one bag of asphalt to fill one pothole. If something happens they will lie to their employer, they will lie to the police, they will lie to the Courts, and they will lie to themselves - and their employer will back them up.
Here's my photo quota of the above. It's the official contractor, VIA. They have also blocked the dropped kerb from the side road :
The lying-to-himself excuses are always the same: "I need to", "I won't be very long", "I'll move if anyone asks *, "They can go round". Pathetic little twunt of a man.
Complaints will cause the organisation to do into self-protect-and-cover-the-arse mode.
That one got a jail sentence, but were it not a policeman or the injury to the pedestrian or cyclist less severe, in many places the police would be complicit in minimising or victim blaming, or it would be treated as a "tragic accident" - hiding behind "but are roads are safe" generalist BS.
* They are unlikely to ask, because when they did ask before they will have received self-serving lies, often a mouthful of abuse, and sometimes threats. That I am afraid is the Conservative Government legacy - create a Wild West, and you get cowboys.
A paradox here is that the harsher you treat offenders, the keener they are to cover it up. If you treat single offenders mildly, they're more likely to accept the "our problem" approach. But each scandal increases demand for harsher consequences, which increases the likelihood of cover-ups.
To take an example with which most of us are familiar, I've sometimes driven carelessly - over the speed limit, or not checking properly for people popping out unexpectedly or slowing down unexpectedly. I don't believe that many drivers have never done any of that. But if vigilance was greater (e.g. hidden speed cameras, why not?) and initial penalties milder, we'd all adjust more sensibly.
Exactly. We learn best from our mistakes, then those of others we work with then the stories of others mistakes. We need to be open about them. Those organisations which say they have zero tolerance for mistakes are heading for trouble because if people can't admit to a mistake or not knowing what to do, then they will hide and cover up and then you really have a problem - with integrity, which is far more serious than whatever the original issue was.
Whitehall ‘braced for private schools collapse’ due to fee rises
The Independent Schools Council says the threat of closures after the imposition of VAT on fees is ‘very rea
Contingency plans are being drawn up in Whitehall for an influx in demand for state school places amid fears private schools will go bankrupt and close because of fee increases.
Officials are braced for the prospect that some independent schools may collapse when VAT on school fees comes into force in the new year.
Schools that are smaller, with lower fees and in areas with higher levels of competition are most at risk, government sources told The Times.
They are being monitored to see how they fare under the change, combined with publicly available information about their finances from Companies House.
Campaigners against the change warn some parents will be unable to pay a fee rise of 20 per cent, given some private schools are preparing to pass on the itIt in full.
The VAT imposition will come into effect on January 1, with Treasury estimates suggesting it will lead to 37,000 fewer private school pupils in the long term — equal to about 6 per cent of children at private schools.
However, there is expected to be a smaller, more immediate impact. About 3,000 children will be taken out of private schools and will need a state place before the end of the academic year, the government believes.
Smaller private schools will be hit in particular reducing parental choice.
Yet do we expect any better from this awful socialist government having already hit pensioners, business owners and farmers?
This government doesn't strike me as particularly 'socialist'.
It is the most socialist class war ridden government of my lifetime, even more than Brown's. Farmers, pensioners, small business owners, private school payments, the remaining hereditary peers, even foxhunters on scent trails are within the sights of Starmer and Reeves
If only that were true.
If it were they would already be directing Kent and Warwickshire to replace their Grammar schools with comprehensives. You are lucky I'm not Phillipson, from next September Grammar schools would all be phased out. Year one intake would be universal. Call me Mrs Thatcher if you like.
We should be holding ballots to open new grammar schools not just to close the remaining ones, absolutely not.
More pupils were in grammar schools at the end of the Thatcher and Major years than in 1979
Life changing academic assessment at aged 11 is immoral. And in those areas with Grammar schools the parents of Tim, nice but dims are paying for cramming lessons not available to Jim, clever but poor.
Clever pupils with high IQs will get in regardless of parents income or tutoring and be on a path to top universities and a profession.
All your attitude does is favour children with money who can choose private schools or state schools in wealthy catchment areas. That is why proper conservatives must fight such attitudes and push for more grammar schools
John Prescott failed the 11+
And what if somebody is ill on the day of the exam? No resits in the current system.
It's also not a given that somebody who is doing well at 11 will keep doing so. I remember one boy in my school who at 11 was a brilliant mathematician.* Could do any sum of any sort in his head. Definitely went backwards at secondary school and got a B at GCSE before crashing and burning at A-level. No idea why, as he worked assiduously and wasn't on any drugs - he just never seemed to develop mentally.
Personally if we were to look at selective schooling I'd want middle schools across the nation and selection at 14 or 15. Not at 11.
*Not me. Never liked the subject. Too theoretical.
Well if you want to suggest Prescott had a high IQ that would be quite a statement.
Most grammars also have entry at 13 and 16 too
John Prescott went to Oxford. I think you regard that as a top university and thus evidence of high IQ? I must admit I don't, on its own, but it undermines your own point which is why I made it.
And having (unlike you) worked in a grammar school I know how the admissions systems work, thanks. But what you are suggesting would make entry at 13 or at 16 much harder, and it isn't easy now.
Edit - my mistake, Prescott was actually at Ruskin, which was associated with but not part of the University of Oxford. Mind you, it was part of the Open University for a time which is much tougher in terms of academic quality than Oxford is, but not I think when Prescott was there.
Manipulating your own supporters at Xmas eh, Nigel? It’s not real. It’s a fake ⏰ coded to tick up automatically. We’ve been watching the back end for days and can also see they’ve just changed the code to link to a different site as people point this out.
Farage doesn’t understand the digital age. This kind of fakery gets found out pretty quickly, although not before many are fooled…(1/5)
Kemi Badenoch has decided to go on a genuinely bizarre Twitter rant about Reform UK faking their numbers. I know she supposedly has a technology background but it is genuinely written by somebody that has never written a line of code in their life.
I am confident in my assertion that as long as she remains leader, Labour are the luckiest political party on Earth.
Not great from Kemi. Of course the ticker is set to rise automatically - otherwise every time Reform added another big blob of members to their database, it would go up by a huge number. Providing the numbers are a reflection of reality, I think it's fine. Perhaps even Kemi looks a bit out of touch by thinking she's got some sort of zinger by exposing a rather harmless piece of online presentation.
The worst of it is, if Reform really do have those numbers, they may now ask for some sort of official member number adjudication, which if Kemi backs out of, she looks terrible.
As for Kemi saying Reform have 'no plan'? Um? Really? Where's your plan??
Whitehall ‘braced for private schools collapse’ due to fee rises
The Independent Schools Council says the threat of closures after the imposition of VAT on fees is ‘very rea
Contingency plans are being drawn up in Whitehall for an influx in demand for state school places amid fears private schools will go bankrupt and close because of fee increases.
Officials are braced for the prospect that some independent schools may collapse when VAT on school fees comes into force in the new year.
Schools that are smaller, with lower fees and in areas with higher levels of competition are most at risk, government sources told The Times.
They are being monitored to see how they fare under the change, combined with publicly available information about their finances from Companies House.
Campaigners against the change warn some parents will be unable to pay a fee rise of 20 per cent, given some private schools are preparing to pass on the itIt in full.
The VAT imposition will come into effect on January 1, with Treasury estimates suggesting it will lead to 37,000 fewer private school pupils in the long term — equal to about 6 per cent of children at private schools.
However, there is expected to be a smaller, more immediate impact. About 3,000 children will be taken out of private schools and will need a state place before the end of the academic year, the government believes.
Smaller private schools will be hit in particular reducing parental choice.
Yet do we expect any better from this awful socialist government having already hit pensioners, business owners and farmers?
This government doesn't strike me as particularly 'socialist'.
It is the most socialist class war ridden government of my lifetime, even more than Brown's. Farmers, pensioners, small business owners, private school payments, the remaining hereditary peers, even foxhunters on scent trails are within the sights of Starmer and Reeves
If only that were true.
If it were they would already be directing Kent and Warwickshire to replace their Grammar schools with comprehensives. You are lucky I'm not Phillipson, from next September Grammar schools would all be phased out. Year one intake would be universal. Call me Mrs Thatcher if you like.
We should be holding ballots to open new grammar schools not just to close the remaining ones, absolutely not.
More pupils were in grammar schools at the end of the Thatcher and Major years than in 1979
Life changing academic assessment at aged 11 is immoral. And in those areas with Grammar schools the parents of Tim, nice but dims are paying for cramming lessons not available to Jim, clever but poor.
Clever pupils with high IQs will get in regardless of parents income or tutoring and be on a path to top universities and a profession.
All your attitude does is favour children with money who can choose private schools or state schools in wealthy catchment areas. That is why proper conservatives must fight such attitudes and push for more grammar schools
John Prescott failed the 11+
And what if somebody is ill on the day of the exam? No resits in the current system.
It's also not a given that somebody who is doing well at 11 will keep doing so. I remember one boy in my school who at 11 was a brilliant mathematician.* Could do any sum of any sort in his head. Definitely went backwards at secondary school and got a B at GCSE before crashing and burning at A-level. No idea why, as he worked assiduously and wasn't on any drugs - he just never seemed to develop mentally.
Personally if we were to look at selective schooling I'd want middle schools across the nation and selection at 14 or 15. Not at 11.
*Not me. Never liked the subject. Too theoretical.
Well if you want to suggest Prescott had a high IQ that would be quite a statement.
Most grammars also have entry at 13 and 16 too
John Prescott went to Oxford. I think you regard that as a top university and thus evidence of high IQ? I must admit I don't, on its own, but it undermines your own point which is why I made it.
And having (unlike you) worked in a grammar school I know how the admissions systems work, thanks. But what you are suggesting would make entry at 13 or at 16 much harder, and it isn't easy now.
No he went to work after school and did a trade union funded course at a non traditional Oxford college.
The significant political development in the US over Christmas has been a major split emerging in the MAGA coalition between the Musk faction who want to ramp up H1B immigration and the America First faction who want serious immigration restrictions.
Will Trump make the same mistake as Boris Johnson and betray his own supporters, or will Musk find himself sidelined?
Yes ive just mentioned that now. Ive seen stuff like this.
I know heritage American Harvard seniors with >3.8 GPA who don’t have a full time job offer after >30 applications.
This is degrading. The social contract has been violated. The system is not working for us, the youth. The boomers betrayed us in their love for cheap foreign labor and signaling anti-racism.
I think he is talking about the US workforce rather than the UK political party that squandered the 14 year Tory golden legacy.
However you look at it, whatever Labour inherited on the economy, they have made it worse.
A government for growth my arse.
Come back to me in four and a half years, and if Labour have not grown the economy you will get your RefCon government.
Even if they haven't grown the economy, it depends on who the voters blame. If Labour can persuade them that it's still the fault of the last lot and/or Trump and/or Musk and/or Putin, voters may happily keep Labour in No. 10.
And how other countries get on. Although politically for the incumbent I think doing well but relatively badly is better than doing badly but relatively well. An irony because they've probably done a better job in the latter case.
@Cyclefree, thanks for another hard-hitting article. This was the stand-out sentence for me:
''For a successful technology, reality must take precedence over public relations, for nature cannot be fooled.”
Not only applicable for successful technologies.
A(nother) great article from Cyclefree.
It is the departure from reality that is most worrying about the recent surge of populist politics. Pretending climate change isn’t real won’t stop its effects. Pretending vaccines are dangerous will kill. And so on.
The departure from reality about climate change is not really about the new breed of populists. The serious minded global conferences, political action and agreements have now being going on for a few decades. The net result thus far is that the continuing net output of CO2 is not falling but rising and very non populist China is still building coal fired power stations.
Is it surprising that many voters have decided that the serious centrists as well as the oligarchs don't actually mean what they say?
This is what happens when you stop pretending: If the science is right, then what it forsees is going to happen because there is no global will to stop it.
The only chances: Mitigation; preparedness; tech solutions; hope for and look for the upside to be greater than the downside; hope the science is wrong.
I think I would add a further necessary component to your list of chances: a form of global truth and reconciliation commission for crimes against the climate and future generations. It would allow current representatives of countries with historic responsibility for altering the climate to acknowledge the current benefits to their countries from past climate crimes, including reparations where these are deemed justified (based on current benefit deriving from past burning of fossil fuels).
It would aim to heal the desire for retribution from climate losers.
I don't think it will happen, but think it is needed.
Trying to get reparations out of western democracies is a sure fire way to get the likes of Farage and Trump elected I fear.
Oh I agree. I'm not saying it's possible, just that it's needed.
It's a ridiculous idea. Not needed at all.
@Andy_JS I'm intrigued to read what your reaction would be if you were a small business owner in Botswana who realises that there is/was this abundant globe-wide resource that can super-charge your business by providing incredibly cheap and dense energy, but then realise the fuckers that keep undercutting you by importing substitutes for your product can do so because they've used up all the really cheap and accessible stockpiles of said resource and then are telling you you can't use any of it yourself because they've fucked up the climate.
Oh and the water table you rely on to get clean drinking water for your family is rapidly drying up.
The significant political development in the US over Christmas has been a major split emerging in the MAGA coalition between the Musk faction who want to ramp up H1B immigration and the America First faction who want serious immigration restrictions.
Will Trump make the same mistake as Boris Johnson and betray his own supporters, or will Musk find himself sidelined?
Yes ive just mentioned that now. Ive seen stuff like this.
I know heritage American Harvard seniors with >3.8 GPA who don’t have a full time job offer after >30 applications.
This is degrading. The social contract has been violated. The system is not working for us, the youth. The boomers betrayed us in their love for cheap foreign labor and signaling anti-racism.
I think he is talking about the US workforce rather than the UK political party that squandered the 14 year Tory golden legacy.
However you look at it, whatever Labour inherited on the economy, they have made it worse.
A government for growth my arse.
Come back to me in four and a half years, and if Labour have not grown the economy you will get your RefCon government.
Even if they haven't grown the economy, it depends on who the voters blame. If Labour can persuade them that it's still the fault of the last lot and/or Trump and/or Musk and/or Putin, voters may happily keep Labour in No. 10.
And how other countries get on. Although politically for the incumbent I think doing well but relatively badly is better than doing badly but relatively well. An irony because they've probably done a better job in the latter case.
Yes I dont think the likes of Musk and Trump are racist enough for the MAGA voters judging by what im seeing on social media. Maybe give Nick Fuentes a try next.
Man City and Chelsea drawing and losing respectively at home.
Prior to kick off later today Liverpool currently lead the league by 4 points, with 11 points over the Champions, and 2 games in hand over 2nd, 3rd and the Champions.
Find the betting odds remarkable on the League, surely Liverpool now should be overwhelming favourites?
Aren't they strong favourites in the betting?
I would say that we're not quite half way yet, and we've seen 6, 8, 10 point leads evaporate pretty quickly in the last decade or so. United, under Ferguson, were 8 points up with just six to go, and lost the lead in just four games. Liverpool have lost multiple leads, and Arsenal were running away with it a couple of years ago. Admittedly, it was always Man City hunting teams down, but that recent history suggests that seasons do change.
I think they have a lot of the tougher away matches to come which will rein them in. I do have an odd theory though that the Everton match being delayed by the storm might be the thing that wins them the title.
Everton are in a good run of form, well in a defensive solid way, and their last three draws with City, Arsenal and Chelsea show they can hold their own. Being the last home derby as well if the Liverpool match had gone ahead it was possible that it wouldn’t have ended well for Liverpool and likely cards and injuries as seems the norm.
With the match being postponed it removed a possible blip fromLiverpool’s form, avoided potential injuries or suspensions and gave the team a rest window ahead of the crazy Christmas period.
There is every chance now that with new owners they might choose to replace Dyche and so the rearranged game might be at a time and under a coach which is better for Liverpool’s prospects.
Those three points they might win, the rest ahead of Christmas and a positive atmosphere could be what wins the title - all thanks to a storm.
Manipulating your own supporters at Xmas eh, Nigel? It’s not real. It’s a fake ⏰ coded to tick up automatically. We’ve been watching the back end for days and can also see they’ve just changed the code to link to a different site as people point this out.
Farage doesn’t understand the digital age. This kind of fakery gets found out pretty quickly, although not before many are fooled…(1/5)
Kemi Badenoch has decided to go on a genuinely bizarre Twitter rant about Reform UK faking their numbers. I know she supposedly has a technology background but it is genuinely written by somebody that has never written a line of code in their life.
I am confident in my assertion that as long as she remains leader, Labour are the luckiest political party on Earth.
Not great from Kemi. Of course the ticker is set to rise automatically - otherwise every time Reform added another big blob of members to their database, it would go up by a huge number. Providing the numbers are a reflection of reality, I think it's fine. Perhaps even Kemi looks a bit out of touch by thinking she's got some sort of zinger by exposing a rather harmless piece of online presentation.
The worst of it is, if Reform really do have those numbers, they may now ask for some sort of official member number adjudication, which if Kemi backs out of, she looks terrible.
As for Kemi saying Reform have 'no plan'? Um? Really? Where's your plan??
Why would Reform be adding new members to their database in large blobs?
Manipulating your own supporters at Xmas eh, Nigel? It’s not real. It’s a fake ⏰ coded to tick up automatically. We’ve been watching the back end for days and can also see they’ve just changed the code to link to a different site as people point this out.
Farage doesn’t understand the digital age. This kind of fakery gets found out pretty quickly, although not before many are fooled…(1/5)
Kemi Badenoch has decided to go on a genuinely bizarre Twitter rant about Reform UK faking their numbers. I know she supposedly has a technology background but it is genuinely written by somebody that has never written a line of code in their life.
I am confident in my assertion that as long as she remains leader, Labour are the luckiest political party on Earth.
Do you think the Reform UK membership numbers are genuinely ticking up as displayed, or is Badenoch right that it's fake?
It's possible/plausible. But it's not dignified or useful for Kemi B to go off on one about it, on TwiX, on Boxing Day.
This is what political parties have tame journalists and newspapers for. So is the problem that the Conservative press is no longer tame, or that the Leader of the Opposition is insanely easy to wind up online?
The significant political development in the US over Christmas has been a major split emerging in the MAGA coalition between the Musk faction who want to ramp up H1B immigration and the America First faction who want serious immigration restrictions.
Will Trump make the same mistake as Boris Johnson and betray his own supporters, or will Musk find himself sidelined?
Yes ive just mentioned that now. Ive seen stuff like this.
I know heritage American Harvard seniors with >3.8 GPA who don’t have a full time job offer after >30 applications.
This is degrading. The social contract has been violated. The system is not working for us, the youth. The boomers betrayed us in their love for cheap foreign labor and signaling anti-racism.
I think he is talking about the US workforce rather than the UK political party that squandered the 14 year Tory golden legacy.
However you look at it, whatever Labour inherited on the economy, they have made it worse.
A government for growth my arse.
Come back to me in four and a half years, and if Labour have not grown the economy you will get your RefCon government.
Even if they haven't grown the economy, it depends on who the voters blame. If Labour can persuade them that it's still the fault of the last lot and/or Trump and/or Musk and/or Putin, voters may happily keep Labour in No. 10.
And how other countries get on. Although politically for the incumbent I think doing well but relatively badly is better than doing badly but relatively well. An irony because they've probably done a better job in the latter case.
Yes I dont think the likes of Musk and Trump are racist enough for the MAGA voters judging by what im seeing on social media. Maybe give Nick Fuentes a try next.
Musk is very racist, but he's not being racist in the right way for some MAGA voters. Trump is also very racist and usually finds his way back to being as racist as his voting base wants.
The significant political development in the US over Christmas has been a major split emerging in the MAGA coalition between the Musk faction who want to ramp up H1B immigration and the America First faction who want serious immigration restrictions.
Will Trump make the same mistake as Boris Johnson and betray his own supporters, or will Musk find himself sidelined?
Yes ive just mentioned that now. Ive seen stuff like this.
I know heritage American Harvard seniors with >3.8 GPA who don’t have a full time job offer after >30 applications.
This is degrading. The social contract has been violated. The system is not working for us, the youth. The boomers betrayed us in their love for cheap foreign labor and signaling anti-racism.
I think he is talking about the US workforce rather than the UK political party that squandered the 14 year Tory golden legacy.
However you look at it, whatever Labour inherited on the economy, they have made it worse.
A government for growth my arse.
Come back to me in four and a half years, and if Labour have not grown the economy you will get your RefCon government.
Even if they haven't grown the economy, it depends on who the voters blame. If Labour can persuade them that it's still the fault of the last lot and/or Trump and/or Musk and/or Putin, voters may happily keep Labour in No. 10.
And how other countries get on. Although politically for the incumbent I think doing well but relatively badly is better than doing badly but relatively well. An irony because they've probably done a better job in the latter case.
Yes I dont think the likes of Musk and Trump are racist enough for the MAGA voters judging by what im seeing on social media. Maybe give Nick Fuentes a try next.
They're getting a good solid racist as Defense Secretary, I believe?
The significant political development in the US over Christmas has been a major split emerging in the MAGA coalition between the Musk faction who want to ramp up H1B immigration and the America First faction who want serious immigration restrictions.
Will Trump make the same mistake as Boris Johnson and betray his own supporters, or will Musk find himself sidelined?
Yes ive just mentioned that now. Ive seen stuff like this.
I know heritage American Harvard seniors with >3.8 GPA who don’t have a full time job offer after >30 applications.
This is degrading. The social contract has been violated. The system is not working for us, the youth. The boomers betrayed us in their love for cheap foreign labor and signaling anti-racism.
I think he is talking about the US workforce rather than the UK political party that squandered the 14 year Tory golden legacy.
However you look at it, whatever Labour inherited on the economy, they have made it worse.
A government for growth my arse.
Come back to me in four and a half years, and if Labour have not grown the economy you will get your RefCon government.
Even if they haven't grown the economy, it depends on who the voters blame. If Labour can persuade them that it's still the fault of the last lot and/or Trump and/or Musk and/or Putin, voters may happily keep Labour in No. 10.
And how other countries get on. Although politically for the incumbent I think doing well but relatively badly is better than doing badly but relatively well. An irony because they've probably done a better job in the latter case.
Yes I dont think the likes of Musk and Trump are racist enough for the MAGA voters judging by what im seeing on social media. Maybe give Nick Fuentes a try next.
Musk is very racist, but he's not being racist in the right way for some MAGA voters. Trump is also very racist and usually finds his way back to being as racist as his voting base wants.
No Musk likes the indians a bit too much. Cant be having that.
I know he's an unconventional politician, but who announces something like this at a fox hunt?
Being against fox hunting is one of the few issues that unites every age group, and every political persuasion.
Not if the packed Boxing Day hunt crowd round our rural way is anything to go by. Still plenty of support for the hunt in rural areas and Farage wants to be seen there to tap into it
This is another example of where Farage is a world apart from the average ReFuk voter.
Manipulating your own supporters at Xmas eh, Nigel? It’s not real. It’s a fake ⏰ coded to tick up automatically. We’ve been watching the back end for days and can also see they’ve just changed the code to link to a different site as people point this out.
Farage doesn’t understand the digital age. This kind of fakery gets found out pretty quickly, although not before many are fooled…(1/5)
Kemi Badenoch has decided to go on a genuinely bizarre Twitter rant about Reform UK faking their numbers. I know she supposedly has a technology background but it is genuinely written by somebody that has never written a line of code in their life.
I am confident in my assertion that as long as she remains leader, Labour are the luckiest political party on Earth.
Not great from Kemi. Of course the ticker is set to rise automatically - otherwise every time Reform added another big blob of members to their database, it would go up by a huge number. Providing the numbers are a reflection of reality, I think it's fine. Perhaps even Kemi looks a bit out of touch by thinking she's got some sort of zinger by exposing a rather harmless piece of online presentation.
The worst of it is, if Reform really do have those numbers, they may now ask for some sort of official member number adjudication, which if Kemi backs out of, she looks terrible.
As for Kemi saying Reform have 'no plan'? Um? Really? Where's your plan??
Why would Reform be adding new members to their database in large blobs?
Reform will have a large number of members joining by post or other means than by a single website sign up mechanism. Their information will be collated and (I imagine) added to the central database in batches. If the website ticker code worked by offering a regularly updated total of actual members its behaviour would be erratic, with long periods of inactivity followed by big jumps of uploads. Which itself wouldn't be a true reflection of the process of attracting and signing up members. I think what Reform have done to display their number is similar to what all charities and businesses do to display a large public movement, and providing the final tally is accurate, I don’t think an attractive display of numbers trickling up is the zinger that Kemi evidently regards it as.
Manipulating your own supporters at Xmas eh, Nigel? It’s not real. It’s a fake ⏰ coded to tick up automatically. We’ve been watching the back end for days and can also see they’ve just changed the code to link to a different site as people point this out.
Farage doesn’t understand the digital age. This kind of fakery gets found out pretty quickly, although not before many are fooled…(1/5)
Kemi Badenoch has decided to go on a genuinely bizarre Twitter rant about Reform UK faking their numbers. I know she supposedly has a technology background but it is genuinely written by somebody that has never written a line of code in their life.
I am confident in my assertion that as long as she remains leader, Labour are the luckiest political party on Earth.
Do you think the Reform UK membership numbers are genuinely ticking up as displayed, or is Badenoch right that it's fake?
It's possible/plausible. But it's not dignified or useful for Kemi B to go off on one about it, on TwiX, on Boxing Day.
This is what political parties have tame journalists and newspapers for. So is the problem that the Conservative press is no longer tame, or that the Leader of the Opposition is insanely easy to wind up online?
Neither is a good sign.
Oh yes, that's all true. But I am interested in the narrow point of what Reform are doing with their membership number display, purely from a technical point of interest. It wouldn't be hard to plug it into the database for live updates, as people signed up on the website.
In some ways it would be more complicated to set it up not to do that, and yet for the numbers to still bear relation to reality.
The significant political development in the US over Christmas has been a major split emerging in the MAGA coalition between the Musk faction who want to ramp up H1B immigration and the America First faction who want serious immigration restrictions.
Will Trump make the same mistake as Boris Johnson and betray his own supporters, or will Musk find himself sidelined?
Yes ive just mentioned that now. Ive seen stuff like this.
I know heritage American Harvard seniors with >3.8 GPA who don’t have a full time job offer after >30 applications.
This is degrading. The social contract has been violated. The system is not working for us, the youth. The boomers betrayed us in their love for cheap foreign labor and signaling anti-racism.
I think he is talking about the US workforce rather than the UK political party that squandered the 14 year Tory golden legacy.
However you look at it, whatever Labour inherited on the economy, they have made it worse.
A government for growth my arse.
Come back to me in four and a half years, and if Labour have not grown the economy you will get your RefCon government.
Even if they haven't grown the economy, it depends on who the voters blame. If Labour can persuade them that it's still the fault of the last lot and/or Trump and/or Musk and/or Putin, voters may happily keep Labour in No. 10.
And how other countries get on. Although politically for the incumbent I think doing well but relatively badly is better than doing badly but relatively well. An irony because they've probably done a better job in the latter case.
Yes I dont think the likes of Musk and Trump are racist enough for the MAGA voters judging by what im seeing on social media. Maybe give Nick Fuentes a try next.
Musk is very racist, but he's not being racist in the right way for some MAGA voters. Trump is also very racist and usually finds his way back to being as racist as his voting base wants.
The irony of Trump posing as a right wing outsider is that he's not only a consummate politician, but he's a veritable Marxist:
'Here are my principles. If you don't like them, I have others.'
'A man is as old as the woman he feels.'
'Groucho: "That's in every contract, that's what you call a sanity clause." Chico: "You can't a fool a me there ain't no sanity clause"'
Manipulating your own supporters at Xmas eh, Nigel? It’s not real. It’s a fake ⏰ coded to tick up automatically. We’ve been watching the back end for days and can also see they’ve just changed the code to link to a different site as people point this out.
Farage doesn’t understand the digital age. This kind of fakery gets found out pretty quickly, although not before many are fooled…(1/5)
Kemi Badenoch has decided to go on a genuinely bizarre Twitter rant about Reform UK faking their numbers. I know she supposedly has a technology background but it is genuinely written by somebody that has never written a line of code in their life.
I am confident in my assertion that as long as she remains leader, Labour are the luckiest political party on Earth.
Not great from Kemi. Of course the ticker is set to rise automatically - otherwise every time Reform added another big blob of members to their database, it would go up by a huge number. Providing the numbers are a reflection of reality, I think it's fine. Perhaps even Kemi looks a bit out of touch by thinking she's got some sort of zinger by exposing a rather harmless piece of online presentation.
The worst of it is, if Reform really do have those numbers, they may now ask for some sort of official member number adjudication, which if Kemi backs out of, she looks terrible.
As for Kemi saying Reform have 'no plan'? Um? Really? Where's your plan??
Why would Reform be adding new members to their database in large blobs?
Reform will have a large number of members joining by post or other means than by a single website sign up mechanism. Their information will be collated and (I imagine) added to the central database in batches. If the website ticker code worked by offering a regularly updated total of actual members its behaviour would be erratic, with long periods of inactivity followed by big jumps of uploads. Which itself wouldn't be a true reflection of the process of attracting and signing up members. I think what Reform have done to display their number is similar to what all charities and businesses do to display a large public movement, and providing the final tally is accurate, I don’t think an attractive display of numbers trickling up is the zinger that Kemi evidently regards it as.
I don't think all the paper applications will be processed in a ten-minute window as soon as the post is delivered. They will also trickle in during the day.
Manipulating your own supporters at Xmas eh, Nigel? It’s not real. It’s a fake ⏰ coded to tick up automatically. We’ve been watching the back end for days and can also see they’ve just changed the code to link to a different site as people point this out.
Farage doesn’t understand the digital age. This kind of fakery gets found out pretty quickly, although not before many are fooled…(1/5)
Kemi Badenoch has decided to go on a genuinely bizarre Twitter rant about Reform UK faking their numbers. I know she supposedly has a technology background but it is genuinely written by somebody that has never written a line of code in their life.
I am confident in my assertion that as long as she remains leader, Labour are the luckiest political party on Earth.
Main swing since July Labour to Reform so she will gain seats even if Tory vote stands still
Whitehall ‘braced for private schools collapse’ due to fee rises
The Independent Schools Council says the threat of closures after the imposition of VAT on fees is ‘very rea
Contingency plans are being drawn up in Whitehall for an influx in demand for state school places amid fears private schools will go bankrupt and close because of fee increases.
Officials are braced for the prospect that some independent schools may collapse when VAT on school fees comes into force in the new year.
Schools that are smaller, with lower fees and in areas with higher levels of competition are most at risk, government sources told The Times.
They are being monitored to see how they fare under the change, combined with publicly available information about their finances from Companies House.
Campaigners against the change warn some parents will be unable to pay a fee rise of 20 per cent, given some private schools are preparing to pass on the itIt in full.
The VAT imposition will come into effect on January 1, with Treasury estimates suggesting it will lead to 37,000 fewer private school pupils in the long term — equal to about 6 per cent of children at private schools.
However, there is expected to be a smaller, more immediate impact. About 3,000 children will be taken out of private schools and will need a state place before the end of the academic year, the government believes.
Smaller private schools will be hit in particular reducing parental choice.
Yet do we expect any better from this awful socialist government having already hit pensioners, business owners and farmers?
This government doesn't strike me as particularly 'socialist'.
It is the most socialist class war ridden government of my lifetime, even more than Brown's. Farmers, pensioners, small business owners, private school payments, the remaining hereditary peers, even foxhunters on scent trails are within the sights of Starmer and Reeves
If only that were true.
If it were they would already be directing Kent and Warwickshire to replace their Grammar schools with comprehensives. You are lucky I'm not Phillipson, from next September Grammar schools would all be phased out. Year one intake would be universal. Call me Mrs Thatcher if you like.
We should be holding ballots to open new grammar schools not just to close the remaining ones, absolutely not.
More pupils were in grammar schools at the end of the Thatcher and Major years than in 1979
Life changing academic assessment at aged 11 is immoral. And in those areas with Grammar schools the parents of Tim, nice but dims are paying for cramming lessons not available to Jim, clever but poor.
Clever pupils with high IQs will get in regardless of parents income or tutoring and be on a path to top universities and a profession.
All your attitude does is favour children with money who can choose private schools or state schools in wealthy catchment areas. That is why proper conservatives must fight such attitudes and push for more grammar schools
John Prescott failed the 11+
And what if somebody is ill on the day of the exam? No resits in the current system.
It's also not a given that somebody who is doing well at 11 will keep doing so. I remember one boy in my school who at 11 was a brilliant mathematician.* Could do any sum of any sort in his head. Definitely went backwards at secondary school and got a B at GCSE before crashing and burning at A-level. No idea why, as he worked assiduously and wasn't on any drugs - he just never seemed to develop mentally.
Personally if we were to look at selective schooling I'd want middle schools across the nation and selection at 14 or 15. Not at 11.
*Not me. Never liked the subject. Too theoretical.
Well if you want to suggest Prescott had a high IQ that would be quite a statement.
Most grammars also have entry at 13 and 16 too
John Prescott went to Oxford. I think you regard that as a top university and thus evidence of high IQ? I must admit I don't, on its own, but it undermines your own point which is why I made it.
And having (unlike you) worked in a grammar school I know how the admissions systems work, thanks. But what you are suggesting would make entry at 13 or at 16 much harder, and it isn't easy now.
Edit - my mistake, Prescott was actually at Ruskin, which was associated with but not part of the University of Oxford. Mind you, it was part of the Open University for a time which is much tougher in terms of academic quality than Oxford is, but not I think when Prescott was there.
Absolutely. Those with a PPE degree from the OU stand head and shoulders above those with the equivalent from Oxford.
Manipulating your own supporters at Xmas eh, Nigel? It’s not real. It’s a fake ⏰ coded to tick up automatically. We’ve been watching the back end for days and can also see they’ve just changed the code to link to a different site as people point this out.
Farage doesn’t understand the digital age. This kind of fakery gets found out pretty quickly, although not before many are fooled…(1/5)
Kemi Badenoch has decided to go on a genuinely bizarre Twitter rant about Reform UK faking their numbers. I know she supposedly has a technology background but it is genuinely written by somebody that has never written a line of code in their life.
I am confident in my assertion that as long as she remains leader, Labour are the luckiest political party on Earth.
Not great from Kemi. Of course the ticker is set to rise automatically - otherwise every time Reform added another big blob of members to their database, it would go up by a huge number. Providing the numbers are a reflection of reality, I think it's fine. Perhaps even Kemi looks a bit out of touch by thinking she's got some sort of zinger by exposing a rather harmless piece of online presentation.
The worst of it is, if Reform really do have those numbers, they may now ask for some sort of official member number adjudication, which if Kemi backs out of, she looks terrible.
As for Kemi saying Reform have 'no plan'? Um? Really? Where's your plan??
Why would Reform be adding new members to their database in large blobs?
Reform will have a large number of members joining by post or other means than by a single website sign up mechanism. Their information will be collated and (I imagine) added to the central database in batches. If the website ticker code worked by offering a regularly updated total of actual members its behaviour would be erratic, with long periods of inactivity followed by big jumps of uploads. Which itself wouldn't be a true reflection of the process of attracting and signing up members. I think what Reform have done to display their number is similar to what all charities and businesses do to display a large public movement, and providing the final tally is accurate, I don’t think an attractive display of numbers trickling up is the zinger that Kemi evidently regards it as.
I don't think all the paper applications will be processed in a ten-minute window as soon as the post is delivered. They will also trickle in during the day.
They won't, but it's highly likely that they'd be compiled in locally held lists before being added to the main one.
Are you saying that you don't think that Reform have these numbers? Because that's what Kemi appears rather naively to be alleging. Whereas the reality is, they have probably had them for yonks and waited to do this presentation ticker as a nice Christmas publicity stunt.
Manipulating your own supporters at Xmas eh, Nigel? It’s not real. It’s a fake ⏰ coded to tick up automatically. We’ve been watching the back end for days and can also see they’ve just changed the code to link to a different site as people point this out.
Farage doesn’t understand the digital age. This kind of fakery gets found out pretty quickly, although not before many are fooled…(1/5)
Kemi Badenoch has decided to go on a genuinely bizarre Twitter rant about Reform UK faking their numbers. I know she supposedly has a technology background but it is genuinely written by somebody that has never written a line of code in their life.
I am confident in my assertion that as long as she remains leader, Labour are the luckiest political party on Earth.
Not great from Kemi. Of course the ticker is set to rise automatically - otherwise every time Reform added another big blob of members to their database, it would go up by a huge number. Providing the numbers are a reflection of reality, I think it's fine. Perhaps even Kemi looks a bit out of touch by thinking she's got some sort of zinger by exposing a rather harmless piece of online presentation.
The worst of it is, if Reform really do have those numbers, they may now ask for some sort of official member number adjudication, which if Kemi backs out of, she looks terrible.
As for Kemi saying Reform have 'no plan'? Um? Really? Where's your plan??
Why would Reform be adding new members to their database in large blobs?
Reform will have a large number of members joining by post or other means than by a single website sign up mechanism. Their information will be collated and (I imagine) added to the central database in batches. If the website ticker code worked by offering a regularly updated total of actual members its behaviour would be erratic, with long periods of inactivity followed by big jumps of uploads. Which itself wouldn't be a true reflection of the process of attracting and signing up members. I think what Reform have done to display their number is similar to what all charities and businesses do to display a large public movement, and providing the final tally is accurate, I don’t think an attractive display of numbers trickling up is the zinger that Kemi evidently regards it as.
I don't think all the paper applications will be processed in a ten-minute window as soon as the post is delivered. They will also trickle in during the day.
They won't, but it's highly likely that they'd be compiled in locally held lists before being added to the main one.
Are you saying that you don't think that Reform have these numbers? Because that's what Kemi appears rather naively to be alleging. Whereas the reality is, they have probably had them for yonks and waited to do this presentation ticker as a nice Christmas publicity stunt.
I don't think that Reform have local memberships in the way that Labour and Conservatives will have people joining through local branches, no. They will have a central membership only.
I'm not disputing the numbers at all. I'm just interested in the technical details.
I think your explanation at the end is sound. They probably didn't start the ticket until they already knew they had reached beyond the Tories published membership numbers, and set up the display as a more interesting way to announce that, than a simple one-off statement.
The significant political development in the US over Christmas has been a major split emerging in the MAGA coalition between the Musk faction who want to ramp up H1B immigration and the America First faction who want serious immigration restrictions.
Will Trump make the same mistake as Boris Johnson and betray his own supporters, or will Musk find himself sidelined?
Yes ive just mentioned that now. Ive seen stuff like this.
I know heritage American Harvard seniors with >3.8 GPA who don’t have a full time job offer after >30 applications.
This is degrading. The social contract has been violated. The system is not working for us, the youth. The boomers betrayed us in their love for cheap foreign labor and signaling anti-racism.
I think he is talking about the US workforce rather than the UK political party that squandered the 14 year Tory golden legacy.
However you look at it, whatever Labour inherited on the economy, they have made it worse.
A government for growth my arse.
Come back to me in four and a half years, and if Labour have not grown the economy you will get your RefCon government.
Even if they haven't grown the economy, it depends on who the voters blame. If Labour can persuade them that it's still the fault of the last lot and/or Trump and/or Musk and/or Putin, voters may happily keep Labour in No. 10.
And how other countries get on. Although politically for the incumbent I think doing well but relatively badly is better than doing badly but relatively well. An irony because they've probably done a better job in the latter case.
Yes I dont think the likes of Musk and Trump are racist enough for the MAGA voters judging by what im seeing on social media. Maybe give Nick Fuentes a try next.
Musk is very racist, but he's not being racist in the right way for some MAGA voters. Trump is also very racist and usually finds his way back to being as racist as his voting base wants.
The irony of Trump posing as a right wing outsider is that he's not only a consummate politician, but he's a veritable Marxist:
'Here are my principles. If you don't like them, I have others.'
'A man is as old as the woman he feels.'
'Groucho: "That's in every contract, that's what you call a sanity clause." Chico: "You can't a fool a me there ain't no sanity clause"'
"Please accept my resignation. I don't want to belong to any club that will accept people like me as a member."
Off topic, I would just like to point out that The Heed have scored a total of twenty goals in their last four matches, including today's victory against the Poolies in the County Durham derby.
Off topic, I would just like to point out that The Heed have scored a total of twenty goals in their last four matches, including today's victory against the Poolies in the County Durham derby.
I know he's an unconventional politician, but who announces something like this at a fox hunt?
Being against fox hunting is one of the few issues that unites every age group, and every political persuasion.
Not if the packed Boxing Day hunt crowd round our rural way is anything to go by. Still plenty of support for the hunt in rural areas and Farage wants to be seen there to tap into it
This is another example of where Farage is a world apart from the average ReFuk voter.
At some point the penny has to drop.
The average RefUK voter wants to deport most immigrants and supported Trump. Do you think they are very likely to be not pro hunting too?
Off topic, I would just like to point out that The Heed have scored a total of twenty goals in their last four matches, including today's victory against the Poolies in the County Durham derby.
Off topic, I would just like to point out that The Heed have scored a total of twenty goals in their last four matches, including today's victory against the Poolies in the County Durham derby.
Pity about your flyover, oh well.
Civil engineering. Bunch of chancers!
Indeed! Fortunately, won't impinge too much on my planned spring-time operation to capture the Ashington branch (on camera!). If I do want a ride on the Metro, looks like a walk from Central station to Monument station however.
Manipulating your own supporters at Xmas eh, Nigel? It’s not real. It’s a fake ⏰ coded to tick up automatically. We’ve been watching the back end for days and can also see they’ve just changed the code to link to a different site as people point this out.
Farage doesn’t understand the digital age. This kind of fakery gets found out pretty quickly, although not before many are fooled…(1/5)
Kemi Badenoch has decided to go on a genuinely bizarre Twitter rant about Reform UK faking their numbers. I know she supposedly has a technology background but it is genuinely written by somebody that has never written a line of code in their life.
I am confident in my assertion that as long as she remains leader, Labour are the luckiest political party on Earth.
Not great from Kemi. Of course the ticker is set to rise automatically - otherwise every time Reform added another big blob of members to their database, it would go up by a huge number. Providing the numbers are a reflection of reality, I think it's fine. Perhaps even Kemi looks a bit out of touch by thinking she's got some sort of zinger by exposing a rather harmless piece of online presentation.
The worst of it is, if Reform really do have those numbers, they may now ask for some sort of official member number adjudication, which if Kemi backs out of, she looks terrible.
As for Kemi saying Reform have 'no plan'? Um? Really? Where's your plan??
Why would Reform be adding new members to their database in large blobs?
Reform will have a large number of members joining by post or other means than by a single website sign up mechanism. Their information will be collated and (I imagine) added to the central database in batches. If the website ticker code worked by offering a regularly updated total of actual members its behaviour would be erratic, with long periods of inactivity followed by big jumps of uploads. Which itself wouldn't be a true reflection of the process of attracting and signing up members. I think what Reform have done to display their number is similar to what all charities and businesses do to display a large public movement, and providing the final tally is accurate, I don’t think an attractive display of numbers trickling up is the zinger that Kemi evidently regards it as.
I don't think all the paper applications will be processed in a ten-minute window as soon as the post is delivered. They will also trickle in during the day.
They won't, but it's highly likely that they'd be compiled in locally held lists before being added to the main one.
Are you saying that you don't think that Reform have these numbers? Because that's what Kemi appears rather naively to be alleging. Whereas the reality is, they have probably had them for yonks and waited to do this presentation ticker as a nice Christmas publicity stunt.
I don't think that Reform have local memberships in the way that Labour and Conservatives will have people joining through local branches, no. They will have a central membership only.
I'm not disputing the numbers at all. I'm just interested in the technical details.
I think your explanation at the end is sound. They probably didn't start the ticket until they already knew they had reached beyond the Tories published membership numbers, and set up the display as a more interesting way to announce that, than a simple one-off statement.
And Kemi was very silly to go on it. Especially to allege effectively that the Tories still had more members than Reform, which even if true, is still likely to be overturned quickly if Reform are adding members at a higher rate than the Tories.
I think I would have gone on:
'I am glad so many people have decided to join a political party, and oppose this Labour Government, this is good for democracy'....
"However, I also note that Reform seems to be spending most of its time recently trying to attract millionaire donors, and I wonder how much influence that new members will have, given that Nigel has had more personal meetings with Elon Musk than he has with his Clacton constituents this year."..
"I would also note that whilst we don't shout about our member numbers, membership of the Conservative Party has also grown significantly since the election."
"Our members have a real voice within the party, which we will augment further under my leadership, whilst Nigel Farage's party is still a company owned by one man."
"We will continue to do the tricky and sometimes thankless job of opposition whilst Labour continues to fail the country and Reform engages in stunts."
I know he's an unconventional politician, but who announces something like this at a fox hunt?
Being against fox hunting is one of the few issues that unites every age group, and every political persuasion.
Not if the packed Boxing Day hunt crowd round our rural way is anything to go by. Still plenty of support for the hunt in rural areas and Farage wants to be seen there to tap into it
This is another example of where Farage is a world apart from the average ReFuk voter.
At some point the penny has to drop.
The average RefUK voter wants to deport most immigrants and supported Trump. Do you think they are very likely to be not pro hunting too?
That is because they believe those things will benefit them economically.
I don't think they will care about hunting as it's an irrelevance to them.
They may say they want it unbanned to annoy people they dislike but, as Theresa May found, it will make no difference to their votes.
I know he's an unconventional politician, but who announces something like this at a fox hunt?
Being against fox hunting is one of the few issues that unites every age group, and every political persuasion.
Not if the packed Boxing Day hunt crowd round our rural way is anything to go by. Still plenty of support for the hunt in rural areas and Farage wants to be seen there to tap into it
This is another example of where Farage is a world apart from the average ReFuk voter.
At some point the penny has to drop.
The average RefUK voter wants to deport most immigrants and supported Trump. Do you think they are very likely to be not pro hunting too?
All the polling suggests very few people in the UK are pro-hunting, and certainly not as a sport.
There was a large poll early in the year, which had support at around 7%, and only around 12% amongst Tory voters. YouGov only last month, had just 10% support for recreational hunting. And it's not like it's a 'meh' issue either - almost everyone was against it.
Off topic, I would just like to point out that The Heed have scored a total of twenty goals in their last four matches, including today's victory against the Poolies in the County Durham derby.
Pity about your flyover, oh well.
Civil engineering. Bunch of chancers!
In the old Yellow Pages, it would say under Boring - see Civil Engineers.
I know he's an unconventional politician, but who announces something like this at a fox hunt?
Being against fox hunting is one of the few issues that unites every age group, and every political persuasion.
Not if the packed Boxing Day hunt crowd round our rural way is anything to go by. Still plenty of support for the hunt in rural areas and Farage wants to be seen there to tap into it
This is another example of where Farage is a world apart from the average ReFuk voter.
At some point the penny has to drop.
Not necessarily. Reason says that at some point the penny will drop with American voters WRT Trump. Not yet. Quite the reverse.
Reform' chance of doing well - even being part of the mess out of which a future government emerges - does not worsen at all by photo ops of Farage looking like part of a trad English Boxing day scene. The takeaway, if any, is that Farage is on the side of ordinary trad English volk.
Reform's chance of doing well rests on exactly two major things: Can they carry on without blowing up; Can they still be present as a voting option when enough of the middling ground decides that everyone else has had a chance and blown it, and Reform are the last man standing.
A mistake nice liberals make: Trump can't win, there aren't enough extremists. Ditto Reform. Ditto Brexit.
Millions of non extremists can and do vote Trump. Ditto Leave. It can be the same with Reform.
I know he's an unconventional politician, but who announces something like this at a fox hunt?
Being against fox hunting is one of the few issues that unites every age group, and every political persuasion.
Not if the packed Boxing Day hunt crowd round our rural way is anything to go by. Still plenty of support for the hunt in rural areas and Farage wants to be seen there to tap into it
This is another example of where Farage is a world apart from the average ReFuk voter.
At some point the penny has to drop.
The average RefUK voter wants to deport most immigrants and supported Trump. Do you think they are very likely to be not pro hunting too?
They talk of little else in the Hartlepool Spoons.
Huge racist anti-Indian thing going on Twitter at the moment. Haley back the ‘nativists’ - who of course aren’t.
Once again, The Nice People are oblivious to the context. Which MAGA are exploiting.
1) The Nice People signed up to NAFTA and other trade deals, removing trade barriers. 2) “If your job goes, learn to code” 3) American companies of a certain level of shittines, bought large numbers of visa’d people in (often from India) and forced their existing employees to hand over knowledge to them. Then fire the original employees.
As can be imagined, 3) goes down very very badly.
This creates a lake of gasoline, just looking for a match.
Huge racist anti-Indian thing going on Twitter at the moment. Haley back the ‘nativists’ - who of course aren’t.
Once again, The Nice People are oblivious to the context. Which MAGA are exploiting.
1) The Nice People signed up to NAFTA and other trade deals, removing trade barriers. 2) “If your job goes, learn to code” 3) American companies of a certain level of shittines, bought large numbers of visa’d people in (often from India) and forced their existing employees to hand over knowledge to them. Then fire the original employees.
As can be imagined, 3) goes down very very badly.
This creates a lake of gasoline, just looking for a match.
Two thirds of the leading US startups in the last decade or so have been created by immigrants. Not a few if whom are Indian.
The US has problems with the left behind; blaming it on immigrants is simply misdirection.
Huge racist anti-Indian thing going on Twitter at the moment. Haley back the ‘nativists’ - who of course aren’t.
Once again, The Nice People are oblivious to the context. Which MAGA are exploiting.
1) The Nice People signed up to NAFTA and other trade deals, removing trade barriers. 2) “If your job goes, learn to code” 3) American companies of a certain level of shittines, bought large numbers of visa’d people in (often from India) and forced their existing employees to hand over knowledge to them. Then fire the original employees.
As can be imagined, 3) goes down very very badly.
This creates a lake of gasoline, just looking for a match.
Two thirds of the leading US startups in the last decade or so have been created by immigrants. Not a few if whom are Indian.
The US has problems with the left behind; blaming it on immigrants is simply misdirection.
Huge racist anti-Indian thing going on Twitter at the moment. Haley back the ‘nativists’ - who of course aren’t.
Once again, The Nice People are oblivious to the context. Which MAGA are exploiting.
1) The Nice People signed up to NAFTA and other trade deals, removing trade barriers. 2) “If your job goes, learn to code” 3) American companies of a certain level of shittines, bought large numbers of visa’d people in (often from India) and forced their existing employees to hand over knowledge to them. Then fire the original employees.
As can be imagined, 3) goes down very very badly.
This creates a lake of gasoline, just looking for a match.
Is the "Nice People" a new term for the bean peasants?
Whitehall ‘braced for private schools collapse’ due to fee rises
The Independent Schools Council says the threat of closures after the imposition of VAT on fees is ‘very rea
Contingency plans are being drawn up in Whitehall for an influx in demand for state school places amid fears private schools will go bankrupt and close because of fee increases.
Officials are braced for the prospect that some independent schools may collapse when VAT on school fees comes into force in the new year.
Schools that are smaller, with lower fees and in areas with higher levels of competition are most at risk, government sources told The Times.
They are being monitored to see how they fare under the change, combined with publicly available information about their finances from Companies House.
Campaigners against the change warn some parents will be unable to pay a fee rise of 20 per cent, given some private schools are preparing to pass on the itIt in full.
The VAT imposition will come into effect on January 1, with Treasury estimates suggesting it will lead to 37,000 fewer private school pupils in the long term — equal to about 6 per cent of children at private schools.
However, there is expected to be a smaller, more immediate impact. About 3,000 children will be taken out of private schools and will need a state place before the end of the academic year, the government believes.
Smaller private schools will be hit in particular reducing parental choice.
Yet do we expect any better from this awful socialist government having already hit pensioners, business owners and farmers?
This government doesn't strike me as particularly 'socialist'.
It is the most socialist class war ridden government of my lifetime, even more than Brown's. Farmers, pensioners, small business owners, private school payments, the remaining hereditary peers, even foxhunters on scent trails are within the sights of Starmer and Reeves
If only that were true.
If it were they would already be directing Kent and Warwickshire to replace their Grammar schools with comprehensives. You are lucky I'm not Phillipson, from next September Grammar schools would all be phased out. Year one intake would be universal. Call me Mrs Thatcher if you like.
We should be holding ballots to open new grammar schools not just to close the remaining ones, absolutely not.
More pupils were in grammar schools at the end of the Thatcher and Major years than in 1979
Life changing academic assessment at aged 11 is immoral. And in those areas with Grammar schools the parents of Tim, nice but dims are paying for cramming lessons not available to Jim, clever but poor.
Clever pupils with high IQs will get in regardless of parents income or tutoring and be on a path to top universities and a profession.
All your attitude does is favour children with money who can choose private schools or state schools in wealthy catchment areas. That is why proper conservatives must fight such attitudes and push for more grammar schools
John Prescott failed the 11+
And what if somebody is ill on the day of the exam? No resits in the current system.
It's also not a given that somebody who is doing well at 11 will keep doing so. I remember one boy in my school who at 11 was a brilliant mathematician.* Could do any sum of any sort in his head. Definitely went backwards at secondary school and got a B at GCSE before crashing and burning at A-level. No idea why, as he worked assiduously and wasn't on any drugs - he just never seemed to develop mentally.
Personally if we were to look at selective schooling I'd want middle schools across the nation and selection at 14 or 15. Not at 11.
*Not me. Never liked the subject. Too theoretical.
I tend to agree with this, and I think it's no coincidence that the old Public Schools did selection at 13 not 11.
Whilst driving to a relative's this afternoon, my dad pointed out a layby on the A50 westbound, somewhere near Sudbury. The layby has been closed and coned off for about a year, with a solitary trailer standing in it. The trailer has had some wheels stolen.
*Apparently* it is filled with asbestos. Some scrotes do asbestos removal jobs, and instead of paying the disposal costs, they just filled up the trailer and dumped it in the layby. As it's a 'dangerous' cargo, the layby's been coned off, and because no-one wants to pay for disposal, the trailer has remained there whilst the council tries to work out who owns it. Good luck to them with that...
I say it is rather off-topic, but there are connections with the topic. The cargo is seen as dangerous, but no-one wants to take responsibility. We saw this with the ammonium nitrate that was stored in Beirut for years - before that went disastrously wrong.
The trailer has already had some wheels stolen. Imagine, perhaps, if some other scrotes try to set the trailer on fire. It won't be an explosion, but the resultant clean-up will be more costly. Someone needs to take responsibility and just FDI, because it'll be more expensive to do later, and the chances of finding the 'owners' and getting the funds to do it is miniscule.
Manipulating your own supporters at Xmas eh, Nigel? It’s not real. It’s a fake ⏰ coded to tick up automatically. We’ve been watching the back end for days and can also see they’ve just changed the code to link to a different site as people point this out.
Farage doesn’t understand the digital age. This kind of fakery gets found out pretty quickly, although not before many are fooled…(1/5)
Kemi Badenoch has decided to go on a genuinely bizarre Twitter rant about Reform UK faking their numbers. I know she supposedly has a technology background but it is genuinely written by somebody that has never written a line of code in their life.
I am confident in my assertion that as long as she remains leader, Labour are the luckiest political party on Earth.
Do you think the Reform UK membership numbers are genuinely ticking up as displayed, or is Badenoch right that it's fake?
If Kemi Badenoch has evidence that it is faked she should have published it, and sunk the story at once. My current conclusion is that she does not have convincing evidence therefore.
As an individual, her credibility is at best midrange - given the political background from where she has emerged.
And she won't develop credibility by public displays of noisy flapping.
FWIW I still think the RefUK numbers are highly questionable. It could just be donors of £100 joining up as youth under 10 email addresses. Somebody, somewhere will have something as simple as a graph of hourly screenshots, or something more sophisticated.
Huge racist anti-Indian thing going on Twitter at the moment. Haley back the ‘nativists’ - who of course aren’t.
Once again, The Nice People are oblivious to the context. Which MAGA are exploiting.
1) The Nice People signed up to NAFTA and other trade deals, removing trade barriers. 2) “If your job goes, learn to code” 3) American companies of a certain level of shittines, bought large numbers of visa’d people in (often from India) and forced their existing employees to hand over knowledge to them. Then fire the original employees.
As can be imagined, 3) goes down very very badly.
This creates a lake of gasoline, just looking for a match.
Two thirds of the leading US startups in the last decade or so have been created by immigrants. Not a few if whom are Indian.
The US has problems with the left behind; blaming it on immigrants is simply misdirection.
After all, what the eff is Elon ?
Elon is South African, not Indian.
No duh. Don’t white immigrants count as immigrants ?
Whilst driving to a relative's this afternoon, my dad pointed out a layby on the A50 westbound, somewhere near Sudbury. The layby has been closed and coned off for about a year, with a solitary trailer standing in it. The trailer has had some wheels stolen.
*Apparently* it is filled with asbestos. Some scrotes do asbestos removal jobs, and instead of paying the disposal costs, they just filled up the trailer and dumped it in the layby. As it's a 'dangerous' cargo, the layby's been coned off, and because no-one wants to pay for disposal, the trailer has remained there whilst the council tries to work out who owns it. Good luck to them with that...
I say it is rather off-topic, but there are connections with the topic. The cargo is seen as dangerous, but no-one wants to take responsibility. We saw this with the ammonium nitrate that was stored in Beirut for years - before that went disastrously wrong.
The trailer has already had some wheels stolen. Imagine, perhaps, if some other scrotes try to set the trailer on fire. It won't be an explosion, but the resultant clean-up will be more costly. Someone needs to take responsibility and just FDI, because it'll be more expensive to do later, and the chances of finding the 'owners' and getting the funds to do it is miniscule.
Whilst driving to a relative's this afternoon, my dad pointed out a layby on the A50 westbound, somewhere near Sudbury. The layby has been closed and coned off for about a year, with a solitary trailer standing in it. The trailer has had some wheels stolen.
*Apparently* it is filled with asbestos. Some scrotes do asbestos removal jobs, and instead of paying the disposal costs, they just filled up the trailer and dumped it in the layby. As it's a 'dangerous' cargo, the layby's been coned off, and because no-one wants to pay for disposal, the trailer has remained there whilst the council tries to work out who owns it. Good luck to them with that...
I say it is rather off-topic, but there are connections with the topic. The cargo is seen as dangerous, but no-one wants to take responsibility. We saw this with the ammonium nitrate that was stored in Beirut for years - before that went disastrously wrong.
The trailer has already had some wheels stolen. Imagine, perhaps, if some other scrotes try to set the trailer on fire. It won't be an explosion, but the resultant clean-up will be more costly. Someone needs to take responsibility and just FDI, because it'll be more expensive to do later, and the chances of finding the 'owners' and getting the funds to do it is miniscule.
At least they left it in the container, rather than fly-tipping it in a country lane.
So only 8 out of 10 in their scumminess.
In that quantity, it's probably quicker just to abandon it than try to unload it. And you're less likely to be caught in the act. I guess...
Edit: I came across this story form elsewhere: ""Removal has taken much longer than we would want, because the waste material inside the abandoned vehicles has had to be sampled and tested for contaminants, and a specialist removal contractor employed," he said.
"Because of the scale of the removal needed, lane closures will be required as we complete the clearance so we are working to coordinate each site with other roadworks in the area to minimise disruption to the travelling public."" https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/cwy1vedey0qo
Huge racist anti-Indian thing going on Twitter at the moment. Haley back the ‘nativists’ - who of course aren’t.
Once again, The Nice People are oblivious to the context. Which MAGA are exploiting.
1) The Nice People signed up to NAFTA and other trade deals, removing trade barriers. 2) “If your job goes, learn to code” 3) American companies of a certain level of shittines, bought large numbers of visa’d people in (often from India) and forced their existing employees to hand over knowledge to them. Then fire the original employees.
As can be imagined, 3) goes down very very badly.
This creates a lake of gasoline, just looking for a match.
Indeed. By your standards thats a good post. Although it seems from my X feed that half of America turned white nationalist over their Turkey lunch yesterday.
This isnt going down well from Vivek. "get rid of that grubby indian" announces MAGA in reply.
The reason top tech companies often hire foreign-born & first-generation engineers over “native” Americans isn’t because of an innate American IQ deficit (a lazy & wrong explanation). A key part of it comes down to the c-word: culture. Tough questions demand tough answers & if we’re really serious about fixing the problem, we have to confront the TRUTH:
Our American culture has venerated mediocrity over excellence for way too long (at least since the 90s and likely longer). That doesn’t start in college, it starts YOUNG.
A culture that celebrates the prom queen over the math olympiad champ, or the jock over the valedictorian, will not produce the best engineers.
A culture that venerates Cory from “Boy Meets World,” or Zach & Slater over Screech in “Saved by the Bell,” or ‘Stefan’ over Steve Urkel in “Family Matters,” will not produce the best engineers.
(Fact: I know *multiple* sets of immigrant parents in the 90s who actively limited how much their kids could watch those TV shows precisely because they promoted mediocrity…and their kids went on to become wildly successful STEM graduates).
More movies like Whiplash, fewer reruns of “Friends.” More math tutoring, fewer sleepovers. More weekend science competitions, fewer Saturday morning cartoons. More books, less TV. More creating, less “chillin.” More extracurriculars, less “hanging out at the mall.”
Most normal American parents look skeptically at “those kinds of parents.” More normal American kids view such “those kinds of kids” with scorn. If you grow up aspiring to normalcy, normalcy is what you will achieve.
Now close your eyes & visualize which families you knew in the 90s (or even now) who raise their kids according to one model versus the other. Be brutally honest.
“Normalcy” doesn’t cut it in a hyper-competitive global market for technical talent. And if we pretend like it does, we’ll have our asses handed to us by China.
This can be our Sputnik moment. We’ve awaken from slumber before & we can do it again. Trump’s election hopefully marks the beginning of a new golden era in America, but only if our culture fully wakes up. A culture that once again prioritizes achievement over normalcy; excellence over mediocrity; nerdiness over conformity; hard work over laziness.
That’s the work we have cut out for us, rather than wallowing in victimhood & just wishing (or legislating) alternative hiring practices into existence. I’m confident we can do it. 🇺🇸 🇺🇸 4:02 PM · Dec 26, 2024 · 8.5M Views
Whilst driving to a relative's this afternoon, my dad pointed out a layby on the A50 westbound, somewhere near Sudbury. The layby has been closed and coned off for about a year, with a solitary trailer standing in it. The trailer has had some wheels stolen.
*Apparently* it is filled with asbestos. Some scrotes do asbestos removal jobs, and instead of paying the disposal costs, they just filled up the trailer and dumped it in the layby. As it's a 'dangerous' cargo, the layby's been coned off, and because no-one wants to pay for disposal, the trailer has remained there whilst the council tries to work out who owns it. Good luck to them with that...
I say it is rather off-topic, but there are connections with the topic. The cargo is seen as dangerous, but no-one wants to take responsibility. We saw this with the ammonium nitrate that was stored in Beirut for years - before that went disastrously wrong.
The trailer has already had some wheels stolen. Imagine, perhaps, if some other scrotes try to set the trailer on fire. It won't be an explosion, but the resultant clean-up will be more costly. Someone needs to take responsibility and just FDI, because it'll be more expensive to do later, and the chances of finding the 'owners' and getting the funds to do it is miniscule.
At least they left it in the container, rather than fly-tipping it in a country lane.
So only 8 out of 10 in their scumminess.
Is this not fairly clear - it is on public land and therefore the Council's responsibility, and they can then go after the trailer owner? The road is the responsibility of the LHA, who are also the County Council.
That's what they would say to any private land-owner subjected to fly tipping.
I continue to be surprised at Kemi's political ineptness. What makes her think it is good politics to get into a Twitter/X spat with Farage over the numbers joining Reform? Why on earth does she want to give Farage even more publicity than he already has? (And note the spat is on her own X account, not the Conservative Party's, so it can't be blamed on poor advice). Farage will be loving it.
Comments
They have followed the Tories in having a £10 youth membership (came in in late autumn).
It's an attention grabbing number for the media; the next major telltale imo will be Local Elections in May 2025.
"foxhunters"
Again, if you must clutch pearls please do it accurately. Don't fib - it doesn't work on here.
If it were they would already be directing Kent and Warwickshire to replace their Grammar schools with comprehensives. You are lucky I'm not Phillipson, from next September Grammar schools would all be phased out. Year one intake would be universal. Call me Mrs Thatcher if you like.
Are they actually a target? Of course I believe they've a nasty habit of making the odd mistake and actually killing a fox.
Her problem was that she (a) was not a great candidate (as shown by her crashing and burning in 2020), (b) that she'd been given a pretty awful portfolio by Biden which she had not performed evidently well at, and - most importantly -(c) which is that she was the incumbent at a time when prices had risen faster than wages.
She also (perhaps unfairly) was associated with woke and Defund the Police. And I say unfairly, because as District Attorney, she was notably tough. And I can't think of any pronouncements where she was actually particularly woke.
Prior to kick off later today Liverpool currently lead the league by 4 points, with 11 points over the Champions, and 2 games in hand over 2nd, 3rd and the Champions.
Find the betting odds remarkable on the League, surely Liverpool now should be overwhelming favourites?
Oh! Hi, TSE!
Isn't the standard response to nurses using food banks one of "they wouldn't need to if they cancel Netflix and drive a cheaper car"? Perhaps there is a correlation between monthly TV subscriptions, cheaper cars and VAT on schools.
More pupils were in grammar schools at the end of the Thatcher and Major years than in 1979
What most organisations get wrong is not understanding this human behaviour. @DavidL is write that we don't generally need more rules and laws. We do need better enforcement of the ones we do have and probably more sensible rules. But what we need above all is good judgment and an understanding of how to motivate and manage people, how to create trust, how to build on it, how to make people want to do the right thing, how to behave with courage and how to demonstrate the qualities we want to see - or say we do. You can't do this sort of management using spreadsheets. You can't measure it. But it is absolutely essential if you want to minimise the sorts of problems we have been seeing.
And one way of doing it is by accepting that we all make mistakes, catching them early and learning from them - in the sort of iterative way @rcs1000 has described. Not doing nothing, waiting until we have a crisis then rushing round pointing fingers, picking scapegoats & learning precisely nothing.
https://schoolsweek.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2016/07/SN01398.pdf (see p. 4)
The fox hunt ban came in under Blair not a Tory though he later said he regretted it
It’s not real. It’s a fake ⏰ coded to tick up automatically. We’ve been watching the back end for days and can also see they’ve just changed the code to link to a different site as people point this out.
Farage doesn’t understand the digital age. This kind of fakery gets found out pretty quickly, although not before many are fooled…(1/5)
https://x.com/KemiBadenoch/status/1872316097900212533
Kemi Badenoch has decided to go on a genuinely bizarre Twitter rant about Reform UK faking their numbers. I know she supposedly has a technology background but it is genuinely written by somebody that has never written a line of code in their life.
I am confident in my assertion that as long as she remains leader, Labour are the luckiest political party on Earth.
And tthe Tories kept the Blair act (thanks for the amendment btw, quite right).
The betting markets had Trump solid favourite the last 4 weeks of the campaign and they have correctly predicted all but 2 american election results (one failure was hilary clinton). The betting markets will have incoroporaated into the price much private polling we are unaware of hence it isnt correct to just say "noone knows anything". That clearly wasnt true.
A government for growth my arse.
I would say that we're not quite half way yet, and we've seen 6, 8, 10 point leads evaporate pretty quickly in the last decade or so. United, under Ferguson, were 8 points up with just six to go, and lost the lead in just four games. Liverpool have lost multiple leads, and Arsenal were running away with it a couple of years ago. Admittedly, it was always Man City hunting teams down, but that recent history suggests that seasons do change.
All your attitude does is favour children with money who can choose private schools or state schools in wealthy catchment areas. That is why proper conservatives must fight such attitudes and push for more grammar schools
And what if somebody is ill on the day of the exam? No resits in the current system.
It's also not a given that somebody who is doing well at 11 will keep doing so. I remember one boy in my school who at 11 was a brilliant mathematician.* Could do any sum of any sort in his head. Definitely went backwards at secondary school and got a B at GCSE before crashing and burning at A-level. No idea why, as he worked assiduously and wasn't on any drugs - he just never seemed to develop mentally.
Personally if we were to look at selective schooling I'd want middle schools across the nation and selection at 14 or 15. Not at 11.
*Not me. Never liked the subject. Too theoretical.
Most grammars also have entry at 13 and 16 too
And having (unlike you) worked in a grammar school I know how the admissions systems work, thanks. But what you are suggesting would make entry at 13 or at 16 much harder, and it isn't easy now.
Edit - my mistake, Prescott was actually at Ruskin, which was associated with but not part of the University of Oxford. Mind you, it was part of the Open University for a time which is much tougher in terms of academic quality than Oxford is, but not I think when Prescott was there.
The worst of it is, if Reform really do have those numbers, they may now ask for some sort of official member number adjudication, which if Kemi backs out of, she looks terrible.
As for Kemi saying Reform have 'no plan'? Um? Really? Where's your plan??
course at a non traditional Oxford college.
Oh and the water table you rely on to get clean drinking water for your family is rapidly drying up.
Everton are in a good run of form, well in a defensive solid way, and their last three draws with City, Arsenal and Chelsea show they can hold their own. Being the last home derby as well if the Liverpool match had gone ahead it was possible that it wouldn’t have ended well for Liverpool and likely cards and injuries as seems the norm.
With the match being postponed it removed a possible blip fromLiverpool’s form, avoided potential injuries or suspensions and gave the team a rest window ahead of the crazy Christmas period.
There is every chance now that with new owners they might choose to replace Dyche and so the rearranged game might be at a time and under a coach which is better for Liverpool’s prospects.
Those three points they might win, the rest ahead of Christmas and a positive atmosphere could be what wins the title - all thanks to a storm.
This is what political parties have tame journalists and newspapers for. So is the problem that the Conservative press is no longer tame, or that the Leader of the Opposition is insanely easy to wind up online?
Neither is a good sign.
At some point the penny has to drop.
In some ways it would be more complicated to set it up not to do that, and yet for the numbers to still bear relation to reality.
'Here are my principles. If you don't like them, I have others.'
'A man is as old as the woman he feels.'
'Groucho: "That's in every contract, that's what you call a sanity clause."
Chico: "You can't a fool a me there ain't no sanity clause"'
Are you saying that you don't think that Reform have these numbers? Because that's what Kemi appears rather naively to be alleging. Whereas the reality is, they have probably had them for yonks and waited to do this presentation ticker as a nice Christmas publicity stunt.
I'm not disputing the numbers at all. I'm just interested in the technical details.
I think your explanation at the end is sound. They probably didn't start the ticket until they already knew they had reached beyond the Tories published membership numbers, and set up the display as a more interesting way to announce that, than a simple one-off statement.
I think I would have gone on:
'I am glad so many people have decided to join a political party, and oppose this Labour Government, this is good for democracy'....
"However, I also note that Reform seems to be spending most of its time recently trying to attract millionaire donors, and I wonder how much influence that new members will have, given that Nigel has had more personal meetings with Elon Musk than he has with his Clacton constituents this year."..
"I would also note that whilst we don't shout about our member numbers, membership of the Conservative Party has also grown significantly since the election."
"Our members have a real voice within the party, which we will augment further under my leadership, whilst Nigel Farage's party is still a company owned by one man."
"We will continue to do the tricky and sometimes thankless job of opposition whilst Labour continues to fail the country and Reform engages in stunts."
I don't think they will care about hunting as it's an irrelevance to them.
They may say they want it unbanned to annoy people they dislike but, as Theresa May found, it will make no difference to their votes.
There was a large poll early in the year, which had support at around 7%, and only around 12% amongst Tory voters. YouGov only last month, had just 10% support for recreational hunting. And it's not like it's a 'meh' issue either - almost everyone was against it.
https://x.com/nikkihaley/status/1872344248915554712
Reform' chance of doing well - even being part of the mess out of which a future government emerges - does not worsen at all by photo ops of Farage looking like part of a trad English Boxing day scene. The takeaway, if any, is that Farage is on the side of ordinary trad English volk.
Reform's chance of doing well rests on exactly two major things: Can they carry on without blowing up; Can they still be present as a voting option when enough of the middling ground decides that everyone else has had a chance and blown it, and Reform are the last man standing.
A mistake nice liberals make: Trump can't win, there aren't enough extremists. Ditto Reform. Ditto Brexit.
Millions of non extremists can and do vote Trump. Ditto Leave. It can be the same with Reform.
Haley back the ‘nativists’ - who of course aren’t.
1) The Nice People signed up to NAFTA and other trade deals, removing trade barriers.
2) “If your job goes, learn to code”
3) American companies of a certain level of shittines, bought large numbers of visa’d people in (often from India) and forced their existing employees to hand over knowledge to them. Then fire the original employees.
As can be imagined, 3) goes down very very badly.
This creates a lake of gasoline, just looking for a match.
The US has problems with the left behind; blaming it on immigrants is simply misdirection.
After all, what the eff is Elon ?
Whilst driving to a relative's this afternoon, my dad pointed out a layby on the A50 westbound, somewhere near Sudbury. The layby has been closed and coned off for about a year, with a solitary trailer standing in it. The trailer has had some wheels stolen.
*Apparently* it is filled with asbestos. Some scrotes do asbestos removal jobs, and instead of paying the disposal costs, they just filled up the trailer and dumped it in the layby. As it's a 'dangerous' cargo, the layby's been coned off, and because no-one wants to pay for disposal, the trailer has remained there whilst the council tries to work out who owns it. Good luck to them with that...
I say it is rather off-topic, but there are connections with the topic. The cargo is seen as dangerous, but no-one wants to take responsibility. We saw this with the ammonium nitrate that was stored in Beirut for years - before that went disastrously wrong.
The trailer has already had some wheels stolen. Imagine, perhaps, if some other scrotes try to set the trailer on fire. It won't be an explosion, but the resultant clean-up will be more costly. Someone needs to take responsibility and just FDI, because it'll be more expensive to do later, and the chances of finding the 'owners' and getting the funds to do it is miniscule.
Here's the offending trailer:
https://maps.app.goo.gl/tgwFBdMFN8dZVVXg7
(This is all scuttlebutt, so might be wrong...)
As an individual, her credibility is at best midrange - given the political background from where she has emerged.
And she won't develop credibility by public displays of noisy flapping.
FWIW I still think the RefUK numbers are highly questionable. It could just be donors of £100 joining up as youth under 10 email addresses. Somebody, somewhere will have something as simple as a graph of hourly screenshots, or something more sophisticated.
Don’t white immigrants count as immigrants ?
So only 8 out of 10 in their scumminess.
Edit: I came across this story form elsewhere:
""Removal has taken much longer than we would want, because the waste material inside the abandoned vehicles has had to be sampled and tested for contaminants, and a specialist removal contractor employed," he said.
"Because of the scale of the removal needed, lane closures will be required as we complete the clearance so we are working to coordinate each site with other roadworks in the area to minimise disruption to the travelling public.""
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/cwy1vedey0qo
The reason top tech companies often hire foreign-born & first-generation engineers over “native” Americans isn’t because of an innate American IQ deficit (a lazy & wrong explanation). A key part of it comes down to the c-word: culture. Tough questions demand tough answers & if we’re really serious about fixing the problem, we have to confront the TRUTH:
Our American culture has venerated mediocrity over excellence for way too long (at least since the 90s and likely longer). That doesn’t start in college, it starts YOUNG.
A culture that celebrates the prom queen over the math olympiad champ, or the jock over the valedictorian, will not produce the best engineers.
A culture that venerates Cory from “Boy Meets World,” or Zach & Slater over Screech in “Saved by the Bell,” or ‘Stefan’ over Steve Urkel in “Family Matters,” will not produce the best engineers.
(Fact: I know *multiple* sets of immigrant parents in the 90s who actively limited how much their kids could watch those TV shows precisely because they promoted mediocrity…and their kids went on to become wildly successful STEM graduates).
More movies like Whiplash, fewer reruns of “Friends.” More math tutoring, fewer sleepovers. More weekend science competitions, fewer Saturday morning cartoons. More books, less TV. More creating, less “chillin.” More extracurriculars, less “hanging out at the mall.”
Most normal American parents look skeptically at “those kinds of parents.” More normal American kids view such “those kinds of kids” with scorn. If you grow up aspiring to normalcy, normalcy is what you will achieve.
Now close your eyes & visualize which families you knew in the 90s (or even now) who raise their kids according to one model versus the other. Be brutally honest.
“Normalcy” doesn’t cut it in a hyper-competitive global market for technical talent. And if we pretend like it does, we’ll have our asses handed to us by China.
This can be our Sputnik moment. We’ve awaken from slumber before & we can do it again. Trump’s election hopefully marks the beginning of a new golden era in America, but only if our culture fully wakes up. A culture that once again prioritizes achievement over normalcy; excellence over mediocrity; nerdiness over conformity; hard work over laziness.
That’s the work we have cut out for us, rather than wallowing in victimhood & just wishing (or legislating) alternative hiring practices into existence. I’m confident we can do it. 🇺🇸 🇺🇸
4:02 PM · Dec 26, 2024
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https://x.com/GranTorinoDSA/status/1872320863338643764
That's what they would say to any private land-owner subjected to fly tipping.
(And note the spat is on her own X account, not the Conservative Party's, so it can't be blamed on poor advice).
Farage will be loving it.