What on earth are UKIP thinking of in putting one of their highest-profile candidates up in Cambridge of all places?
It's very generous of them to help Julian Huppert, and I'm personally grateful, having bet on him, but otherwise it seems a really odd decision. Anyone know what their thinking is?
High profile is a very relative term with regard to Flynn, isn't it?
True, but he's a good communicator and a very credible candidate. I would have thought they'd want him to stand in one of the dozen or so of their best shots.
I had S Cambs as a seat where UKIP may do well, but not Cambridge...have to assume they know what theyre doing...
They are gifting the seat to an arch federalist.
Its the Kipper way !
Farage seems keen to give other senior figures difficult seats. One wonders why.
Does one really?! Yes maybe Farage is in sole control of who gets which seat and forces people to volunteer to stand in ones they dont want to, & wont win!!
It does mean that the "winnable" UKIP seats will go to relative unknowns.
Faragist elements do seem capable of edging candidates out of power: Natrass, Sinclair, Andreason, that fellow he is standing against in Thanet South etc.
"I would like major local employers to have much more input into what was taught. I would like their concerns about or approbation of the skills of their trainees to be positively fed back into the colleges."
All that was supposed to have happened more than a decade ago. There were quangos set up to see that it would and lots more money provided for FE colleges to provide what local employers were demanding. In fact you comment could have been taken almost directly as a lift from the guff that was coming out of central government at the time. I wonder what happened to those initiatives and quangos.
Well it didn't. I suspect the vested interests of colleges who wanted to teach hairdressing because they always had regardless of the lack of demand at the end of the course prevailed.
At the moment colleges are paid for the number of students that "complete" a course. This has of course completely destroyed academic rigour but it has also had some truly perverse effects.
So, in my wife's college, if someone manages to get a full time job during the year and does not complete the course this is regarded as a failure rather than a success and the college is penalised. The money should be based on those who gain employment at the end of their courses with a bonus if that employment is related to what they were taught.
What on earth are UKIP thinking of in putting one of their highest-profile candidates up in Cambridge of all places?
It's very generous of them to help Julian Huppert, and I'm personally grateful, having bet on him, but otherwise it seems a really odd decision. Anyone know what their thinking is?
High profile is a very relative term with regard to Flynn, isn't it?
True, but he's a good communicator and a very credible candidate. I would have thought they'd want him to stand in one of the dozen or so of their best shots.
I had S Cambs as a seat where UKIP may do well, but not Cambridge...have to assume they know what theyre doing...
They are gifting the seat to an arch federalist.
Its the Kipper way !
Farage seems keen to give other senior figures difficult seats. One wonders why.
Does one really?! Yes maybe Farage is in sole control of who gets which seat and forces people to volunteer to stand in ones they dont want to, & wont win!!
It does mean that the "winnable" UKIP seats will go to relative unknowns.
Faragist elements do seem capable of edging candidates out of power: Natrass, Sinclair, Andreason, that fellow he is standing against in Thanet South etc.
Perhaps they could not be relied upon.
oooh conspiracy!!
UKIP has quite a track record of infighting between factions; something that I am happy to continue!
Sorting out what to put in the manifesto will show whether the kippers are united, or if they are as divided as ever.
Matthew Goodwin @GoodwinMJ · 1h Cambridge far from ideal #Ukip terrain! But is local for @oflynnmep & suspect also has mind on larger 2015 general election comms & MEP work
Patrick O'Flynn @oflynnmep · 1h @GoodwinMJ there's also the point about four other significant blocks of votes meaning the winning post is a very low overall vote share!
@HurstLlama The same thing as has happened since Thatcher, The idea is sound in theory, but successive governments play the "shell game" instead of actually making it work. This, you would think, would become apparent to the public, but they dream up new formats, and carry on as before.
Sorry , but I have no idea what the "shell game" is and to which of my posts your are replying, if any.
You're on very good form at identifying what's wrong this morning, comrade, but a few ideas of what you think should be done about the problems you identify might help move the discussion forward.
What on earth are UKIP thinking of in putting one of their highest-profile candidates up in Cambridge of all places?
It's very generous of them to help Julian Huppert, and I'm personally grateful, having bet on him, but otherwise it seems a really odd decision. Anyone know what their thinking is?
Agree that it seems odd on the surface - I wonder if he is acting slightly sacrificially for the benefit of the wider party? Basically, if he is the Comms Director and will have a national profile, then he won't actually be in his own seat so why waste a genuine opportunity? Better to put yourself up in a 'high profile' seat that the media will cover a bit and make sure that you are seen nationally to help everywhere else. Or UKIP are just strategically inept - could be either.
I'd love to see the many PB faces that scoff, if O'Flynn actually won the seat.
While it's a difficult ask (in the European elections, UKIP trailed Labour, the Lib Dems, the Conservatives and the Greens...), this could be a seat where the LibDems, the Conservatives, and Labour are all in the twenties, and where the Greens are in the teens. It is possible (but not likely) that UKIP does manage to 'sneak through the middle'.
I'm pretty certain Labour will win Cambridge. It is full of Miliband liberals but perhaps not quite so much as other University areas, the ECM rushing people into the City each day etc. Scoff at the talk of Miliband liberals if you want (as a comparator to say Reagan Democrats) but as your father keeps pointing out, they are a crucial voting segment at the next GE.
Perhaps not all those switchers would call themselves liberals (some may simply have voted LD because they were more socialist than Labour). However I expect plenty of Cambridge liberals to vote for Ed and a commitment to keep the East Coast Mainline in public ownership will have them eating out of his hand. As Nick Palmer has said, these are voters uninterested in bacon sandwiches or weirdness.
Patrick O'Flynn @oflynnmep · 1h @GoodwinMJ there's also the point about four other significant blocks of votes meaning the winning post is a very low overall vote share!
Clearly he read my post on here in reply to @MikeK :-)
Must be quite a lot of votes for other Greens, SNP etc. Not good for Labour or Tories really, if the ended up only getting 33% of votes. This poll would leave Labour short of a majority by a handful of seats.
Patrick O'Flynn @oflynnmep · 1h @GoodwinMJ there's also the point about four other significant blocks of votes meaning the winning post is a very low overall vote share!
I doubt there will be 5 significant blocks of votes in the constituency. Green voters there know all about split-voting and will be squeezed tremendously. I'd be surprised if more than 3 candidates reached double digits.
What on earth are UKIP thinking of in putting one of their highest-profile candidates up in Cambridge of all places?
It's very generous of them to help Julian Huppert, and I'm personally grateful, having bet on him, but otherwise it seems a really odd decision. Anyone know what their thinking is?
Agree that it seems odd on the surface - I wonder if he is acting slightly sacrificially for the benefit of the wider party? Basically, if he is the Comms Director and will have a national profile, then he won't actually be in his own seat so why waste a genuine opportunity? Better to put yourself up in a 'high profile' seat that the media will cover a bit and make sure that you are seen nationally to help everywhere else. Or UKIP are just strategically inept - could be either.
I'd love to see the many PB faces that scoff, if O'Flynn actually won the seat.
While it's a difficult ask (in the European elections, UKIP trailed Labour, the Lib Dems, the Conservatives and the Greens...), this could be a seat where the LibDems, the Conservatives, and Labour are all in the twenties, and where the Greens are in the teens. It is possible (but not likely) that UKIP does manage to 'sneak through the middle'.
I'm pretty certain Labour will win Cambridge. It is full of Miliband liberals but perhaps not quite so much as other University areas, the ECM rushing people into the City each day etc. Scoff at the talk of Miliband liberals if you want (as a comparator to say Reagan Democrats) but as your father keeps pointing out, they are a crucial voting segment at the next GE.
Perhaps not all those switchers would call themselves liberals (some may simply have voted LD because they were more socialist than Labour). However I expect plenty of Cambridge liberals to vote for Ed and a commitment to keep the East Coast Mainline in public ownership will have them eating out of his hand. As Nick Palmer has said, these are voters uninterested in bacon sandwiches or weirdness.
I agree that Camrbidge is a near certain Labour gain. However, my father, @MarkSenior and @JackW all believe Huppert (who was at Trinity at the same time as Kwasi Kwarteng, Tristram Hunt and me) will hold it, so I've not put my money where my mouth is.
Must be quite a lot of votes for other Greens, SNP etc. Not good for Labour or Tories really, if the ended up only getting 33% of votes. This poll would leave Labour short of a majority by a handful of seats.
Doesn't make a difference because of working tax credit withdrawal. It's why the Tories didn't pick the policy up for 2010. The only way to get real wages rising for low income people is to end corporate welfare like WTC and housing benefits for working people and force companies to pay their employees a proper wage. The state should not be involved with keeping unsustainable business practices in operation. Creative destruction.
Given that the stock of houses and flats is pretty much constant (the number being built is tiny compared with the existing stock), the payment of housing benefit can only have one effect: to raise rents. Nice for Buy-To-Let landlords, but not obviously beneficial to society as a whole.
And yet the government have done nothing to curtail buy-to-let and very little on housing benefit for employed people.
The benefits system in this country has become a way of life, it tops up wages, it pays the rent it allows one to have more children than is affordable. Until the Conservatives turn the benefits and tax credits system into an actual safety net whereby people who find themselves out of work are supported until they find a job they will be out of power. Too many people in the country who pay the basic rate of tax receive tax credits and benefits. It is too late for this Parliament, but next time around if the Tories manage to get the most seats an axe must be taken to in-work benefits and the minimum wage must be raised and regionalised, inflation be damned. The government shouldn't be involved in subsidising wages for poorly thought out businesses that require it.
Last time I did the calculation it worked out that the government would need to raise the tax free allowance to £12,800 to begin seeing any political benefit from it as that is the level where the tax savings overtake working tax credit withdrawal. As you know it is why the Tories didn't bother stealing the £10k tax allowance policy from the Lib Dems, there is no political gain from it because of the web of tax credits created by Brown.
Patrick O'Flynn @oflynnmep · 1h @GoodwinMJ there's also the point about four other significant blocks of votes meaning the winning post is a very low overall vote share!
I doubt there will be 5 significant blocks of votes in the constituency. Green voters there know all about split-voting and will be squeezed tremendously. I'd be surprised if more than 3 candidates reached double digits.
I don't know: I reckon the Libs should persuade 10 people to vote for them...
@HurstLlama The "shell game" is an old carnival trick where you try to guess which "shell" the "pea" (usally rubber) is hidden under. For years I have been arguing for a different form of vocational training establishment, funded partly by businesses, but whose main input would be in the form of older workers in the company passing on skills and knowledge, and in return the company gets to see the best recruits for it's services. Think on it as a job centre that looks like a factory, complete with canteen.
I think IPSOS is far closer to the money on the Lib Dem/UKIP battle than ICM. But the average of the two is decent enough for UKIP if you want an unbias ICM-Ipsos viewpoint.
Thanks Andy, great work keeping this updated. I'll let you know when we have some Pirates to add to the list - I think that we are going to be confirming some when in September.
Seeing people like 'Class War' and 'Justice for...' - is there any data on how many people/groups state an intention to stand and then fail to do so for whatever reason?
"I would like major local employers to have much more input into what was taught. I would like their concerns about or approbation of the skills of their trainees to be positively fed back into the colleges."
All that was supposed to have happened more than a decade ago. There were quangos set up to see that it would and lots more money provided for FE colleges to provide what local employers were demanding. In fact you comment could have been taken almost directly as a lift from the guff that was coming out of central government at the time. I wonder what happened to those initiatives and quangos.
Well it didn't. I suspect the vested interests of colleges who wanted to teach hairdressing because they always had regardless of the lack of demand at the end of the course prevailed.
At the moment colleges are paid for the number of students that "complete" a course. This has of course completely destroyed academic rigour but it has also had some truly perverse effects.
So, in my wife's college, if someone manages to get a full time job during the year and does not complete the course this is regarded as a failure rather than a success and the college is penalised. The money should be based on those who gain employment at the end of their courses with a bonus if that employment is related to what they were taught.
Tricky Mr. L, one of the prime functions of FE colleges has been keeping young people from unemployment, hence one local to me having a fine arts department, for which the only qualification was a willingness to sign up. However, it did provide well-paid employment for a number of tutors and administrators.
To do what you are suggesting would mean taking on the educational establishment and look what happens to people who try to do that.
This morning, a voter registration form popped through the letterbox. I do not know if the form is the same nationwide, but the bit in big letters at the top could have been more clearly written.
"Your vote matters. The way you register to vote is changing so make sure you're in. Go to www.gov.uk/register-to-vote to register."
So do they want me to stay in and wait for someone to call, or go to the website, or fill in the form?
Reading on, it seems they want me to register online but also fill in the form, "so that everyone in your house [sic] has the opportunity to register". In that case, whether people living alone need to return the form is unclear.
@HurstLlama The "shell game" is an old carnival trick where you try to guess which "shell" the "pea" (usally rubber) is hidden under. For years I have been arguing for a different form of vocational training establishment, funded partly by businesses, but whose main input would be in the form of older workers in the company passing on skills and knowledge, and in return the company gets to see the best recruits for it's services. Think on it as a job centre that looks like a factory, complete with canteen.
OK, thanks, still not sure what the connection is between vocational training and the shell game, but I'll think oabout it this aftrenoon.
One of the problems of your idea is what qualifications would these older workers have to teach youngsters? Will they have to have PGCEs or Cert Eds or what other nonsense the educational establishment has come up with in recent years. You can't just have a master brick-layer or tool maker teaching young people, you know. Well you can but not in a FE college or anything like it. You see as soon as you start to talk about vocational, or any, education you walk smack bang into the educational establishment who will defend their turf more fiercely than the medieval guilds or the trade unions of the 1940s, 1950s or 1960s..
This morning, a voter registration form popped through the letterbox. I do not know if the form is the same nationwide, but the bit in big letters at the top could have been more clearly written.
"Your vote matters. The way you register to vote is changing so make sure you're in. Go to www.gov.uk/register-to-vote to register."
So do they want me to stay in and wait for someone to call, or go to the website, or fill in the form?
Reading on, it seems they want me to register online but also fill in the form, "so that everyone in your house [sic] has the opportunity to register". In that case, whether people living alone need to return the form is unclear.
I don't know where you are but voter registration in England is administered by the local council. For the new register each voter much register as an individual, the days of "Head of Household" doing it for everyone living with him/her are over. This is a huge change and one that I don't think has yet been appreciated. In my opinion the likely effect is a substantial reduction in the number of people who will registered to vote. No doubt once the changes become apparent people like Mr. Observer, gent of this parish, will be screaming blue murder about "Tory Gerrymandering".
If the letter you have received is unclear then your recourse is to your local council, they are the ones who have responsibility. The letter I received from my council was clear, consise and wholly unobjectionable.
@HurstLlama One would assume that the "teachers" would have served time in their chosen field, as this would be of maximum benefit to the companies involved. The government would of course find a suitable disused factory, and make it serviceable with a few basic bits of equipment for starters. as for the shell game? The damn "pea" is never under the shell you think it is, sickness benefit, training, sanctions, "self employment" etc,....one could almost believe the "pea" didn't exist, except that reason tells you it must. Edit....the companies involved would be the main drivers of what was being taught, or in some cases merely demonstrated, as those unemployed who are interested will soon make themselves known.
@DavidL I am glad you are finally looking at the problem. Our idea of reskilling has for years been parking people for a year in a privately run training establishment, and handing out an NVQ2 at the end, I am not denigrating the qualification, I leave that to the employers, but we have a need for "proper skills", and a commitment to invest in manufacturing, or come the next financial crash, we are heading down the plughole. Burger flipping is not a great help in the export side of things.
I can never understand the obsession with the size of the manufacturing sector on this site. It is a GOOD THING that fewer people these days are employed in menial factory jobs. Services are the future of developed economy as globalization has put paid to manufacturing cheaply here. In any case, 3D printing will eliminate most of the manufacturing industry within the next 20 years.
Completely disagree. Those employed in our car industry, for example, are not employed in "menial factory jobs" but are amongst the most productive and value added employees in the country. I also would not buy a car produced by a 3D printer until their quality has changed out of all recognition.
Services are of course very important but they ultimately require something to service. The clue is in the name.
Those jobs in the car industry will be replaced by robots in 10 years.
@DavidL I am glad you are finally looking at the problem. Our idea of reskilling has for years been parking people for a year in a privately run training establishment, and handing out an NVQ2 at the end, I am not denigrating the qualification, I leave that to the employers, but we have a need for "proper skills", and a commitment to invest in manufacturing, or come the next financial crash, we are heading down the plughole. Burger flipping is not a great help in the export side of things.
I can never understand the obsession with the size of the manufacturing sector on this site. It is a GOOD THING that fewer people these days are employed in menial factory jobs. Services are the future of developed economy as globalization has put paid to manufacturing cheaply here. In any case, 3D printing will eliminate most of the manufacturing industry within the next 20 years.
Yes will be great when everybody is serving coffee flipping burgers or cleaning houses, cannot wait.
@DavidL I am glad you are finally looking at the problem. Our idea of reskilling has for years been parking people for a year in a privately run training establishment, and handing out an NVQ2 at the end, I am not denigrating the qualification, I leave that to the employers, but we have a need for "proper skills", and a commitment to invest in manufacturing, or come the next financial crash, we are heading down the plughole. Burger flipping is not a great help in the export side of things.
I can never understand the obsession with the size of the manufacturing sector on this site. It is a GOOD THING that fewer people these days are employed in menial factory jobs. Services are the future of developed economy as globalization has put paid to manufacturing cheaply here. In any case, 3D printing will eliminate most of the manufacturing industry within the next 20 years.
Yes will be great when everybody is serving coffee flipping burgers or cleaning houses, cannot wait.
Burger flipping jobs won't exist, they will be one of many that been replaced with the likes of this:
@Smarmeron "One would assume that the "teachers" would have served time in their chosen field, as this would be of maximum benefit to the companies involved."
Sounds good master bricklayers teaching bricklaying etc. However, what qualifications would they have to teach? Once you concede that an expert who is passionate about his or her subject and supremely good about passing on his/her skills to a new generation can just do that without having a teaching qualification, you undermine the whole basis of the educational establishment.
Crikey, if a bricklayer can just turn up and teach bricklaying then a historian could teach history without a PGCE! It would be the end of civilisation as we know it.
@Smarmeron "One would assume that the "teachers" would have served time in their chosen field, as this would be of maximum benefit to the companies involved."
Sounds good master bricklayers teaching bricklaying etc. However, what qualifications would they have to teach? Once you concede that an expert who is passionate about his or her subject and supremely good about passing on his/her skills to a new generation can just do that without having a teaching qualification, you undermine the whole basis of the educational establishment.
Crikey, if a bricklayer can just turn up and teach bricklaying then a historian could teach history without a PGCE! It would be the end of civilisation as we know it.
Being good at a skill is very different from being good at teaching it, as anyone who has been to a University lecture will know.
Put away the tissues my friends, and have a look at wage growth. It tells a story that very few on here notice or understand.
Very true. What is means is that new jobs are being created as the economy rebalances. Unsurprisingly, all those people now entering the jobs market for the first time or after a period of unemployment are not going straight into high-paying jobs in financial services. At the same time, in financial services big bonuses and very high salaries are falling, which reduces the average. This of course does not mean that individuals outside those very high-paying sectors are seeing their own wages fall.
It is getting very hard indeed to deny that IDS was right: restructuring the welfare system to remove perverse incentives which prevented people getting off benefits and into work (with all the attendant advantages both for themselves and for society as a whole) is really beginning to show results.
Credit must also be given to Labour's reforms... Blair's Rights and Responsibilities agenda set explicit targets for raising the proportion of the population in work. Single parents were singled out and the child's age at which a parents was expected to be working and benefits withdrawn was gradually rduced. Equally, disability welfare spending was switched from supporting long term sheltered employment (e.g. Remploy) to funding the placement of disabled people into mainstream employment.
Interesting to see long term reforms actually working and the importance of cross party consensus.
Another long term initiative now bearing fruit is the impact of the London Challenge on the performance of inner city London comprehensives. A programme stated under Estelle Morris is proving a real success, ironic given she thought she wasn't up to the job.
@not_on_fire There will always be a need for humans, but like in the motor trade, there is a tendency to de-skill the workforce. Car dealers no longer train mechanics, instead they train franchise "technicians" which makes moving to a different company less easy.
@not_on_fire There will always be a need for humans, but like in the motor trade, there is a tendency to de-skill the workforce. Car dealers no longer train mechanics, instead they train franchise "technicians" which makes moving to a different company less easy.
Also means they can say we read the codes and there is nothing wrong , that will be £150 please.
@Smarmeron "One would assume that the "teachers" would have served time in their chosen field, as this would be of maximum benefit to the companies involved."
Sounds good master bricklayers teaching bricklaying etc. However, what qualifications would they have to teach? Once you concede that an expert who is passionate about his or her subject and supremely good about passing on his/her skills to a new generation can just do that without having a teaching qualification, you undermine the whole basis of the educational establishment.
Crikey, if a bricklayer can just turn up and teach bricklaying then a historian could teach history without a PGCE! It would be the end of civilisation as we know it.
Being good at a skill is very different from being good at teaching it, as anyone who has been to a University lecture will know.
Yes I know, I have a PGCE and I have been through the system and taught in FE and trained skills in the private and public sector. Having a teaching/training qualification is no guarantee of quality for the learner either. Can a person teach/train is more important than do they have a bit of paper that says they can. The concentration on bits of paper serves the establishment not the learner.
@not_on_fire Most of the older workers have a fairly good idea of what it takes to train people, but the main idea is not the training itself, it is to show what the job entails and let those who are interested try it out for themselves. If they find people with an aptitude that the company requires, then "training" can be tailored (and preferably "on the job")
@DavidL I am glad you are finally looking at the problem. Our idea of reskilling has for years been parking people for a year in a privately run training establishment, and handing out an NVQ2 at the end, I am not denigrating the qualification, I leave that to the employers, but we have a need for "proper skills", and a commitment to invest in manufacturing, or come the next financial crash, we are heading down the plughole. Burger flipping is not a great help in the export side of things.
I can never understand the obsession with the size of the manufacturing sector on this site. It is a GOOD THING that fewer people these days are employed in menial factory jobs. Services are the future of developed economy as globalization has put paid to manufacturing cheaply here. In any case, 3D printing will eliminate most of the manufacturing industry within the next 20 years.
Yes will be great when everybody is serving coffee flipping burgers or cleaning houses, cannot wait.
Burger flipping jobs won't exist, they will be one of many that been replaced with the likes of this:
I am seriously concerned on behalf of my 18 month old daughter about how few jobs will have survived automation by the time she is an adult.
If I were you I'd start very early, like about now, on teaching her a foreign language. It doesn't really matter which because the earlier a child becomes multi-lingual the easier it is to pick up additional languages later on. Then whatever she wants to do in the future the easier it will be for her to be able to move to a country where they are doing it.
@DavidL I am glad you are finally looking at the problem. Our idea of reskilling has for years been parking people for a year in a privately run training establishment, and handing out an NVQ2 at the end, I am not denigrating the qualification, I leave that to the employers, but we have a need for "proper skills", and a commitment to invest in manufacturing, or come the next financial crash, we are heading down the plughole. Burger flipping is not a great help in the export side of things.
I can never understand the obsession with the size of the manufacturing sector on this site. It is a GOOD THING that fewer people these days are employed in menial factory jobs. Services are the future of developed economy as globalization has put paid to manufacturing cheaply here. In any case, 3D printing will eliminate most of the manufacturing industry within the next 20 years.
Yes will be great when everybody is serving coffee flipping burgers or cleaning houses, cannot wait.
Burger flipping jobs won't exist, they will be one of many that been replaced with the likes of this:
I am seriously concerned on behalf of my 18 month old daughter about how few jobs will have survived automation by the time she is an adult.
If I were you I'd start very early, like about now, on teaching her a foreign language. It doesn't really matter which because the earlier a child becomes multi-lingual the easier it is to pick up additional languages later on. Then whatever she wants to do in the future the easier it will be for her to be able to move to a country where they are doing it.
@DavidL I am glad you are finally looking at the problem. Our idea of reskilling has for years been parking people for a year in a privately run training establishment, and handing out an NVQ2 at the end, I am not denigrating the qualification, I leave that to the employers, but we have a need for "proper skills", and a commitment to invest in manufacturing, or come the next financial crash, we are heading down the plughole. Burger flipping is not a great help in the export side of things.
I can never understand the obsession with the size of the manufacturing sector on this site. It is a GOOD THING that fewer people these days are employed in menial factory jobs. Services are the future of developed economy as globalization has put paid to manufacturing cheaply here. In any case, 3D printing will eliminate most of the manufacturing industry within the next 20 years.
Yes will be great when everybody is serving coffee flipping burgers or cleaning houses, cannot wait.
Burger flipping jobs won't exist, they will be one of many that been replaced with the likes of this:
@malcolmg Reading codes is a nice earner, as a lot of the techs just run through the sequence indicated leaving you with a bill for a MAF sensor, when ten minutes and a can of carb cleaner would have done. Other unwarranted expenditures available on request.
If I were you I'd start very early, like about now, on teaching her a foreign language. It doesn't really matter which because the earlier a child becomes multi-lingual the easier it is to pick up additional languages later on.
I wonder if that is true. If it is true, then presumably Welsh and Irish children should be better at learning French, and Asian children pick up Spanish more quickly. It might just be that children pre-disposed to learn languages choose to learn more than one of them.
And if it is true, should Nicky Morgan be moving language teachers from secondary to primary schools?
For the purposes of comparison, the Tories had a 16% lead with Ipsos-Mori in August 2009
And what is the point of comparing with August 2009 . are you saying that because the Conservative lead fell by 9% between Aug 2009 and the GE in 2010 they will fall 9% further behind by the time of next years GE .
@DavidL I am glad you are finally looking at the problem. Our idea of reskilling has for years been parking people for a year in a privately run training establishment, and handing out an NVQ2 at the end, I am not denigrating the qualification, I leave that to the employers, but we have a need for "proper skills", and a commitment to invest in manufacturing, or come the next financial crash, we are heading down the plughole. Burger flipping is not a great help in the export side of things.
I can never understand the obsession with the size of the manufacturing sector on this site. It is a GOOD THING that fewer people these days are employed in menial factory jobs. Services are the future of developed economy as globalization has put paid to manufacturing cheaply here. In any case, 3D printing will eliminate most of the manufacturing industry within the next 20 years.
Yes will be great when everybody is serving coffee flipping burgers or cleaning houses, cannot wait.
Burger flipping jobs won't exist, they will be one of many that been replaced with the likes of this:
I am seriously concerned on behalf of my 18 month old daughter about how few jobs will have survived automation by the time she is an adult.
If I were you I'd start very early, like about now, on teaching her a foreign language. It doesn't really matter which because the earlier a child becomes multi-lingual the easier it is to pick up additional languages later on. Then whatever she wants to do in the future the easier it will be for her to be able to move to a country where they are doing it.
For the purposes of comparison, the Tories had a 16% lead with Ipsos-Mori in August 2009
And what is the point of comparing with August 2009 . are you saying that because the Conservative lead fell by 9% between Aug 2009 and the GE in 2010 they will fall 9% further behind by the time of next years GE .
The point is a very simple one, yet one which many don't seem to have understood: the polling this far out from the election is a very poor guide to the final result.
@DavidL I am glad you are finally looking at the problem. Our idea of reskilling has for years been parking people for a year in a privately run training establishment, and handing out an NVQ2 at the end, I am not denigrating the qualification, I leave that to the employers, but we have a need for "proper skills", and a commitment to invest in manufacturing, or come the next financial crash, we are heading down the plughole. Burger flipping is not a great help in the export side of things.
I can never understand the obsession with the size of the manufacturing sector on this site. It is a GOOD THING that fewer people these days are employed in menial factory jobs. Services are the future of developed economy as globalization has put paid to manufacturing cheaply here. In any case, 3D printing will eliminate most of the manufacturing industry within the next 20 years.
Yes will be great when everybody is serving coffee flipping burgers or cleaning houses, cannot wait.
Burger flipping jobs won't exist, they will be one of many that been replaced with the likes of this:
I am seriously concerned on behalf of my 18 month old daughter about how few jobs will have survived automation by the time she is an adult.
If I were you I'd start very early, like about now, on teaching her a foreign language. It doesn't really matter which because the earlier a child becomes multi-lingual the easier it is to pick up additional languages later on. Then whatever she wants to do in the future the easier it will be for her to be able to move to a country where they are doing it.
I suggest Mandarin.
Because China will face a labour shortage?
The working age population of China peaks in 2017, so that's not an entirely stupid idea.
What on earth are UKIP thinking of in putting one of their highest-profile candidates up in Cambridge of all places?
It's very generous of them to help Julian Huppert, and I'm personally grateful, having bet on him, but otherwise it seems a really odd decision. Anyone know what their thinking is?
High profile is a very relative term with regard to Flynn, isn't it?
True, but he's a good communicator and a very credible candidate. I would have thought they'd want him to stand in one of the dozen or so of their best shots.
I had S Cambs as a seat where UKIP may do well, but not Cambridge...have to assume they know what theyre doing...
They are gifting the seat to an arch federalist.
Its the Kipper way !
Any seat that UKIP don't win goes to a pro EU/pro federalist party
Being good at a skill is very different from being good at teaching it, as anyone who has been to a University lecture will know.
University should be about the students teaching themselves. Can anyone imagine the horror of Oxbridge academics if it were suggested that they needed a PGCE to take a tutorial?
For the purposes of comparison, the Tories had a 16% lead with Ipsos-Mori in August 2009
And what is the point of comparing with August 2009 . are you saying that because the Conservative lead fell by 9% between Aug 2009 and the GE in 2010 they will fall 9% further behind by the time of next years GE .
Historically speaking the opposition's lead falls between now and Election Day.
And the point that Richard below and Ipsos-Mori make themselves.
Voting intention polls between elections are a measurement of how a representative sample of the public think they would vote at a given point in time. Voting intentions in “peacetime” (non-election periods, such as this one) should be regarded as useful indicators of the political mood rather than predictions of a future electoral result. Voting intentions should be read in conjunction with other political indicators.
What on earth are UKIP thinking of in putting one of their highest-profile candidates up in Cambridge of all places?
It's very generous of them to help Julian Huppert, and I'm personally grateful, having bet on him, but otherwise it seems a really odd decision. Anyone know what their thinking is?
High profile is a very relative term with regard to Flynn, isn't it?
True, but he's a good communicator and a very credible candidate. I would have thought they'd want him to stand in one of the dozen or so of their best shots.
I had S Cambs as a seat where UKIP may do well, but not Cambridge...have to assume they know what theyre doing...
They are gifting the seat to an arch federalist.
Its the Kipper way !
Any seat that UKIP don't win goes to a pro EU/pro federalist party
There will always be a need for people in the workforce, this corporate utopia of automation is complete and utter bullshit.
Humans need other human,an example of which is human excrement.There will always be jobs for shit-shovellers of one sort or another.Working in sewage is an honourable career and as long as the human race continues to defecate there will always be jobs in wiping it up and disposing of it safely.
If I were you I'd start very early, like about now, on teaching her a foreign language. It doesn't really matter which because the earlier a child becomes multi-lingual the easier it is to pick up additional languages later on.
I wonder if that is true. If it is true, then presumably Welsh and Irish children should be better at learning French, and Asian children pick up Spanish more quickly. It might just be that children pre-disposed to learn languages choose to learn more than one of them.
And if it is true, should Nicky Morgan be moving language teachers from secondary to primary schools?
Mr. JohnL, I think the evidence that young children learn languages far easier than adults is pretty much unassailable. How old were you when you learned English? My God-daughter's children amaze me, growing up from a very early age in Holland, they were even as toddlers quickly able to switch from Dutch to English and back to Dutch again in the same sentence. They are all now tri-lingual and the Eldest is pretty much fluent in a fourth language, French (why he bothered I don't know).
Putting foreign language teaching into primary schools, or rather back into primary schools because it was once there, at least in some areas, I think would be a spiffing idea. I'd put it into nursery schools if I had the chance and make at least some lessons in reception/infants classes conducted in a foreign language.
Never happen though. I was chatting to a teacher at the infants school where my wife works, she told me her biggest problem in reception class was children who were still in nappies and were "completely un-socialised", by which she meant children who had no social skills and no ability to get on with others or communicate. And that in a nice, relatively small town in West Sussex.
Being good at a skill is very different from being good at teaching it, as anyone who has been to a University lecture will know.
University should be about the students teaching themselves. Can anyone imagine the horror of Oxbridge academics if it were suggested that they needed a PGCE to take a tutorial?
You're not comparing like with like. To most academics, teaching is a tedious bread and butter activity that pays for the research.
Comments
Con 33 (+1) Lab 33 (-2) LD 7 (-1) UKIP 13 (+1)
Mind you, I thought the same about the Euro elections, and they almost got wiped out there.
At the moment colleges are paid for the number of students that "complete" a course. This has of course completely destroyed academic rigour but it has also had some truly perverse effects.
So, in my wife's college, if someone manages to get a full time job during the year and does not complete the course this is regarded as a failure rather than a success and the college is penalised. The money should be based on those who gain employment at the end of their courses with a bonus if that employment is related to what they were taught.
Clear boost for Dave, and down for Ed over their respective policies re Israel and Gaza.
Lab: 416
Con: 268
UKIP: 201
LD: 162
Green: 34
PC: 30
Class War: 9
Ind: 8
MK: 4
Justice For Men and Boys: 2
Health Concern: 1
National Health Action: 1
SDLP: 1
TUSC: 1
Total: 1,138
http://bit.ly/Xb3122
Sorting out what to put in the manifesto will show whether the kippers are united, or if they are as divided as ever.
Matthew Goodwin @GoodwinMJ · 1h
Cambridge far from ideal #Ukip terrain! But is local for @oflynnmep & suspect also has mind on larger 2015 general election comms & MEP work
Patrick O'Flynn @oflynnmep · 1h
@GoodwinMJ there's also the point about four other significant blocks of votes meaning the winning post is a very low overall vote share!
You're on very good form at identifying what's wrong this morning, comrade, but a few ideas of what you think should be done about the problems you identify might help move the discussion forward.
Lab 38 / 33
Con 31/ 33
UKIP 10 / 12
Lib Dem 12 / 7
Which gives an equal weighted average of
Lab 35.5
Con 32
UKIP 11
Lib Dem 9.5
Utter tosh, check the averages I've posted above - nothing has changed. Labour still 3.5 ahead.
Perhaps not all those switchers would call themselves liberals (some may simply have voted LD because they were more socialist than Labour). However I expect plenty of Cambridge liberals to vote for Ed and a commitment to keep the East Coast Mainline in public ownership will have them eating out of his hand. As Nick Palmer has said, these are voters uninterested in bacon sandwiches or weirdness.
http://www.theguardian.com/world/middle-east-live/live/2014/aug/13/iraq-crisis-us-and-uk-step-up-involvement-live-updates
The benefits system in this country has become a way of life, it tops up wages, it pays the rent it allows one to have more children than is affordable. Until the Conservatives turn the benefits and tax credits system into an actual safety net whereby people who find themselves out of work are supported until they find a job they will be out of power. Too many people in the country who pay the basic rate of tax receive tax credits and benefits. It is too late for this Parliament, but next time around if the Tories manage to get the most seats an axe must be taken to in-work benefits and the minimum wage must be raised and regionalised, inflation be damned. The government shouldn't be involved in subsidising wages for poorly thought out businesses that require it.
Last time I did the calculation it worked out that the government would need to raise the tax free allowance to £12,800 to begin seeing any political benefit from it as that is the level where the tax savings overtake working tax credit withdrawal. As you know it is why the Tories didn't bother stealing the £10k tax allowance policy from the Lib Dems, there is no political gain from it because of the web of tax credits created by Brown.
The "shell game" is an old carnival trick where you try to guess which "shell" the "pea" (usally rubber) is hidden under.
For years I have been arguing for a different form of vocational training establishment, funded partly by businesses, but whose main input would be in the form of older workers in the company passing on skills and knowledge, and in return the company gets to see the best recruits for it's services.
Think on it as a job centre that looks like a factory, complete with canteen.
That was fun.
Seeing people like 'Class War' and 'Justice for...' - is there any data on how many people/groups state an intention to stand and then fail to do so for whatever reason?
ICM: Former non voters worth 50%, reallocate Don't knows to former parties under last GE splits; 7/10+ filtered ?
Ipsos Mori - Only use 10/10 to vote ?
To do what you are suggesting would mean taking on the educational establishment and look what happens to people who try to do that.
Wife of anti-gay group president left him - for another woman
http://i100.independent.co.uk/article/wife-of-antigay-group-president-left-himfor-another-woman--gJ9XEEMkXx
"Your vote matters. The way you register to vote is changing so make sure you're in. Go to www.gov.uk/register-to-vote to register."
So do they want me to stay in and wait for someone to call, or go to the website, or fill in the form?
Reading on, it seems they want me to register online but also fill in the form, "so that everyone in your house [sic] has the opportunity to register". In that case, whether people living alone need to return the form is unclear.
http://www.theguardian.com/world/2014/aug/13/uk-intervene-militarily-protect-iraq-liam-fox-islamic-state-isis
One of the problems of your idea is what qualifications would these older workers have to teach youngsters? Will they have to have PGCEs or Cert Eds or what other nonsense the educational establishment has come up with in recent years. You can't just have a master brick-layer or tool maker teaching young people, you know. Well you can but not in a FE college or anything like it. You see as soon as you start to talk about vocational, or any, education you walk smack bang into the educational establishment who will defend their turf more fiercely than the medieval guilds or the trade unions of the 1940s, 1950s or 1960s..
*I know, before any Irish people get upset, about what Ulster is.
If the letter you have received is unclear then your recourse is to your local council, they are the ones who have responsibility. The letter I received from my council was clear, consise and wholly unobjectionable.
P.S. Are you in Scotland?
One would assume that the "teachers" would have served time in their chosen field, as this would be of maximum benefit to the companies involved. The government would of course find a suitable disused factory, and make it serviceable with a few basic bits of equipment for starters. as for the shell game? The damn "pea" is never under the shell you think it is, sickness benefit, training, sanctions, "self employment" etc,....one could almost believe the "pea" didn't exist, except that reason tells you it must.
Edit....the companies involved would be the main drivers of what was being taught, or in some cases merely demonstrated, as those unemployed who are interested will soon make themselves known.
We all put our car keys in a bowl, then swapped points.
http://momentummachines.com/#product
I am seriously concerned on behalf of my 18 month old daughter about how few jobs will have survived automation by the time she is an adult.
"One would assume that the "teachers" would have served time in their chosen field, as this would be of maximum benefit to the companies involved."
Sounds good master bricklayers teaching bricklaying etc. However, what qualifications would they have to teach? Once you concede that an expert who is passionate about his or her subject and supremely good about passing on his/her skills to a new generation can just do that without having a teaching qualification, you undermine the whole basis of the educational establishment.
Crikey, if a bricklayer can just turn up and teach bricklaying then a historian could teach history without a PGCE! It would be the end of civilisation as we know it.
Interesting to see long term reforms actually working and the importance of cross party consensus.
Another long term initiative now bearing fruit is the impact of the London Challenge on the performance of inner city London comprehensives. A programme stated under Estelle Morris is proving a real success, ironic given she thought she wasn't up to the job.
There will always be a need for humans, but like in the motor trade, there is a tendency to de-skill the workforce. Car dealers no longer train mechanics, instead they train franchise "technicians" which makes moving to a different company less easy.
There will always be a need for people in the workforce, this corporate utopia of automation is complete and utter bullshit.
Most of the older workers have a fairly good idea of what it takes to train people, but the main idea is not the training itself, it is to show what the job entails and let those who are interested try it out for themselves. If they find people with an aptitude that the company requires, then "training" can be tailored (and preferably "on the job")
Reading codes is a nice earner, as a lot of the techs just run through the sequence indicated leaving you with a bill for a MAF sensor, when ten minutes and a can of carb cleaner would have done.
Other unwarranted expenditures available on request.
that's very
"As a matter of interest..."
Male;
Muslim;
Sunni;
Don't drink, smoke and enjoy prayers as your main hobby.
Nazi Germany did seem rather less sexist.
Bit like when Henry VIII in the Tudors points out that its not him commanding various executions but the will of "God"...
And if it is true, should Nicky Morgan be moving language teachers from secondary to primary schools?
Caveat punter.
Does Clacton have a "pro EU/pro federalist" MP ?
And the point that Richard below and Ipsos-Mori make themselves.
Voting intention polls between elections are a measurement of how a representative sample of the public think they would vote at a given point in time. Voting intentions in “peacetime” (non-election
periods, such as this one) should be regarded as useful indicators of the political mood rather than predictions of a future electoral result. Voting intentions should be read in conjunction with other
political indicators.
http://www.ipsos-mori.com/researchpublications/researcharchive/3433/Labour-and-Conservatives-neck-and-neck-while-Boris-Johnson-has-biggest-impact-on-potential-Conservative-vote-share-over-other-possible-challengers.aspx
Theresa May as Tory leader, gives a Lab lead of 4%
And George Osborne as Tory leader, gives a Lab lead of 9%
Putting foreign language teaching into primary schools, or rather back into primary schools because it was once there, at least in some areas, I think would be a spiffing idea. I'd put it into nursery schools if I had the chance and make at least some lessons in reception/infants classes conducted in a foreign language.
Never happen though. I was chatting to a teacher at the infants school where my wife works, she told me her biggest problem in reception class was children who were still in nappies and were "completely un-socialised", by which she meant children who had no social skills and no ability to get on with others or communicate. And that in a nice, relatively small town in West Sussex.