You sometimes hear people say that the world's entire population could fit on the Isle of Wight. That would be seriously impressive levels of immigration.
If this feat is ever to be attempted, I would prefer that we try to do so in Tahiti.
That was the premise, as I recall, behind Stand on Zanzibar by John Brunner, one of those SF books from the late 60s that was prescient in so many ways about the way the world was going to change.
By the time the book was set the whole world population would no longer fit on the Isle of Wight but on the considerably larger Zanzibar.
Edit. The book was set in 2010 and anticipated a population of about 7bn so he was not far off. next stop Zanzibar (although Tahiti sounds nicer).
You sometimes hear people say that the world's entire population could fit on the Isle of Wight. That would be seriously impressive levels of immigration.
If this feat is ever to be attempted, I would prefer that we try to do so in Tahiti.
When I was about 10yrs old - I heard that stat and thought it must be cobblers - so I got out my Guinness Book of Answers [the Google of its day] and there were IIRC 153 countries and populations listed.
It was possible to fit everyone on if they stood up and only occupied under 2sq ft. Given that there are a lot more humans nowadays - I suspect the IoW isn't big enough ;^ )
Compare and contrast what Blair did in the early 90s to what Miliband has done for the last 2 years. That is the difference between someone who knew elections had to be won and someone who seems to assume he is the default choice.
Interesting analysis apart from the fact that Blair was not leader in the early 90s. He became leader in July 1994, less than three years before the GE. Most of his reforms were in the period immediately running up to polling day.
The price of laziness. I couldn't be bothered checking exactly when Blair became leader so went for the vague "early 90s". You are right to call me up on it but the point remains valid. You don't win elections by default: you go out and win them by changing the narrative to your point of view. Blair did that spectacularly, so much so that we still live in his narrative today in many ways. Miliband, so far, not so much.
The price of laziness. I couldn't be bothered checking exactly when Blair became leader so went for the vague "early 90s". You are right to call me up on it but the point remains valid. You don't win elections by default: you go out and win them by changing the narrative to your point of view. Blair did that spectacularly, so much so that we still live in his narrative today in many ways. Miliband, so far, not so much.
Think the point isn't valid. Blair had a short sprint to the finishing line. He could keep up the image of change and activity. If Milliband had started when he was elected it would have been too soon. Will be interesting to see what EdM does at conference this year.
Out of curiosity - I just checked the population of Tahiti - its 178k. So even if its the same geographical size as Birmingham - it has less than 20% of the population.
That is happens to be in Polynesia and Birmingham is in the West Mids is clearly another factor weather wise...
@Plato: You would not expect Roger to know that - (Birmingham is in the West Mids) - not within his usual range of habitats.
Imagine how tim would react if Cameron were to say
"Each year enough immigrants enter Britain to fill an area the size of the Côte d'Azur..."
Setting out immigrants in a positive light? Or out of touch fop toff ?
Unless I missed the late Monagesque surge Roger isn't PM. Although I'm sure his Date Night photoshoots soul be more subtle than Dave's if he were.
The way he misquotes statistics to suit him he is well qualified be a member of this government
IDS - immigrants on benefit fill an area the size of Australia. Shapps - if you put the wheelchairs of all the disabled immigrant benefit claimants on top of each other they would reach Mars
@tim Please give full references for the two above quotations.
You sometimes hear people say that the world's entire population could fit on the Isle of Wight. That would be seriously impressive levels of immigration.
If this feat is ever to be attempted, I would prefer that we try to do so in Tahiti.
When I was about 10yrs old - I heard that stat and thought it must be cobblers - so I got out my Guinness Book of Answers [the Google of its day] and there were IIRC 153 countries and populations listed.
It was possible to fit everyone on if they stood up and only occupied under 2sq ft. Given that there are a lot more humans nowadays - I suspect the IoW isn't big enough ;^ )
*turns off Loony-mode
The Isle of Wight is 384km2, which would give 8 billion people just under 22 cm x 22 cm each (if I've done my maths correctly, which is far from certain). That does sound just a bit too snug.
You sometimes hear people say that the world's entire population could fit on the Isle of Wight. That would be seriously impressive levels of immigration.
If this feat is ever to be attempted, I would prefer that we try to do so in Tahiti.
When I was about 10yrs old - I heard that stat and thought it must be cobblers - so I got out my Guinness Book of Answers [the Google of its day] and there were IIRC 153 countries and populations listed.
It was possible to fit everyone on if they stood up and only occupied under 2sq ft. Given that there are a lot more humans nowadays - I suspect the IoW isn't big enough ;^ )
*turns off Loony-mode
I did a check on the population of Fiji, the simile I used instead of Tahiti, and it turns out that up to 2011 the population was 868,406, probably a lot more now.
One sentence summary: Regius Professor of History at Cambridge (the world's top ranked university for history teaching) discusses why Gove tells demonstrable untruths to create a false impression of how history is taught in schools.
One sentence summary: The distinguished professor seems rather confused:
Why, too, does the Secretary of State feel it necessary to keep denigrating the dedicated people who teach history in our schools? Where is his patriotic pride in the historical profession in our country, the best in the world?
And his evidence for this?
The recently released QS rankings of university history departments across the globe put Cambridge top, Oxford second and other British universities such as the LSE, UCL and Warwick only a little way behind.
Well, Gove wasn't talking about universities, or about the tiny number of privileged schoolchildren who go on (in large part from the best private schools) to Cambridge, Oxford or other top universities to read history. He was talking about the huge majority of the under-educated whom Professor Evans will never come across in his ivory Cambridge tower.
No, Gove was making things up about children being taught about the Third Reich using Mr Men and quoting "studies" that were, in fact, marketing exercises. What the Professor points out is that if history teaching in schools is so bad, why it that British university history schools - largely populated by the products of school history teaching - are considered to be the best in the world?
The basic point, I suppose, is this: if Gove demonstrably makes things up to justify his policies, is he really someone we can trust to do the best by our schools and the children taught in them?
I see you are calling the reduction in housing benefit a "tax" now on your website. It's better than calling it a tax, I suppose. But still not right. ;-)
Yes it is, from where I'm standing - see www.nickpalmer.org.uk for our exchange of views on this. But I put it in quotes in deference to the sensibilities of those who think that the starting point of the modern state is that nobody gets any support for anything (and the accompanying view, as implied by the Adam Smith Institute with their "Tax freedom day" concept, that any tax is "taking the money that I earned without any help from the infrastructure around me").
The real world social contract today is that we all pay into a collective pot for necessary services (with a democratic argument about what's necessary, of course) and those of us in particular need (very ill, unable to pay rent, etc.) get some help. No party - not even UKIP - is really suggesting a change in that basic model - we just argue about the amounts and eligibility. A change in that arrangement to the detriment of anyone in the latter group is *experienced* as a tax. Similarly, charging people to visit their GP would arguably be a "tax" on the sick.
I'm being deliberately provocative here, but it's an interesting case where an apparently purely semantic argument actually reflects a different philosophical view.
Could you not give a one line summary - life is too short to read what the Staggers thinks of Gove - more evidence he is doing something right IMHO if they are whining again.
One sentence summary: Regius Professor of History at Cambridge (the world's top ranked university for history teaching) discusses why Gove tells demonstrable untruths to create a false impression of how history is taught in schools.
Obviously that does not bother some folk. Just as they are eminently relaxed about the likes of IDS and Schappsy mangling facts and figures to create a false impression about welfare recipients.
SO: That is a politically biased assessment of that article. The author focuses mostly on teaching of history at universities and for A level and hardly mentions teaching of history for those who will not study it further and yet will find history useful and for future interest - a basic chronological appreciation of our history which is based on verifiable facts and not on the opinions of a few authors and teachers.
I have to say that that was my impression as well. It is hardly an answer to Gove's criticisms of how history is taught in junior schools to point out that Cambridge has the highest ranking in the world.
From my own experience with my children I think that there have been significant improvements in the way history is taught in school. It is more analytical and teaches transferable skills such as report writing etc. When I was at school it was simply learn and regurgitate facts, mainly about extremely dull agricultural machinery in the 18th century.
These things are a balance. You cannot have a meaningful analysis without some basic grasp of the facts and the narrative. That is Gove's point. On the other hand we would not want to lose the improvements that have come either which is the professor's point.
It depresses me that such a discussion becomes so polarised and political. Both sides are at fault here. The teaching professions are incredibly precious and unwilling to be open to other views. Gove, as a politician, tries to paint his argument in overly vivid colours getting their backs up yet further.
Some moderation of language on both sides would be a good thing. This article was not a step in that direction.
The way to answer Gove's criticisms of the way that history is taught in schools is to show that the claims he makes are false.
I see you are calling the reduction in housing benefit a "tax" now on your website. It's better than calling it a tax, I suppose. But still not right. ;-)
Yes it is, from where I'm standing - see www.nickpalmer.org.uk for our exchange of views on this. But I put it in quotes in deference to the sensibilities of those who think that the starting point of the modern state is that nobody gets any support for anything (and the accompanying view, as implied by the Adam Smith Institute with their "Tax freedom day" concept, that any tax is "taking the money that I earned without any help from the infrastructure around me").
The real world social contract today is that we all pay into a collective pot for necessary services (with a democratic argument about what's necessary, of course) and those of us in particular need (very ill, unable to pay rent, etc.) get some help. No party - not even UKIP - is really suggesting a change in that basic model - we just argue about the amounts and eligibility. A change in that arrangement to the detriment of anyone in the latter group is *experienced* as a tax. Similarly, charging people to visit their GP would arguably be a "tax" on the sick.
I'm being deliberately provocative here, but it's an interesting case where an apparently purely semantic argument actually reflects a different philosophical view.
Semantics are important here.
No one is arguing that there should be no contribution to broader society; even if you subscribe to the ASI view (which I don't), a business can't floruish in the medium term in a fractured environment.
Clearly a withdrawal of a benefit is experienced as a drop in income, so the financial effect is the same as a tax. *However* it is critical to keep in mind the difference: a tax is a contribution that someone makes to society and this is not the same as a making a smaller draw-down.
Could you not give a one line summary - life is too short to read what the Staggers thinks of Gove - more evidence he is doing something right IMHO if they are whining again.
One sentence summary: Regius Professor of History at Cambridge (the world's top ranked university for history teaching) discusses why Gove tells demonstrable untruths to create a false impression of how history is taught in schools.
Obviously that does not bother some folk. Just as they are eminently relaxed about the likes of IDS and Schappsy mangling facts and figures to create a false impression about welfare recipients.
It's funny how LibDem ministers are never caught doing this.
It does seem to be a favourite Tory strategy: tell untruths, distort the reality, present manipulated stats and get them into the public domain through favoured right wing papers in the knowledge that they will be reported as fact, and that the subsequent Fact Check and/or official rebuke will not be reported anywhere near as extensively. It's clever stuff.
Boris Johnson @MayorofLondon I'm at The Oval with @warne888 to encourage people to make a difference to their local community and join @TeamLDN pic.twitter.com/FyZQDMBB1z
I see you are calling the reduction in housing benefit a "tax" now on your website. It's better than calling it a tax, I suppose. But still not right. ;-)
Yes it is, from where I'm standing - see www.nickpalmer.org.uk for our exchange of views on this. But I put it in quotes in deference to the sensibilities of those who think that the starting point of the modern state is that nobody gets any support for anything (and the accompanying view, as implied by the Adam Smith Institute with their "Tax freedom day" concept, that any tax is "taking the money that I earned without any help from the infrastructure around me").
The real world social contract today is that we all pay into a collective pot for necessary services (with a democratic argument about what's necessary, of course) and those of us in particular need (very ill, unable to pay rent, etc.) get some help. No party - not even UKIP - is really suggesting a change in that basic model - we just argue about the amounts and eligibility. A change in that arrangement to the detriment of anyone in the latter group is *experienced* as a tax. Similarly, charging people to visit their GP would arguably be a "tax" on the sick.
I'm being deliberately provocative here, but it's an interesting case where an apparently purely semantic argument actually reflects a different philosophical view.
Semantics are important here.
No one is arguing that there should be no contribution to broader society; even if you subscribe to the ASI view (which I don't), a business can't floruish in the medium term in a fractured environment.
Clearly a withdrawal of a benefit is experienced as a drop in income, so the financial effect is the same as a tax. *However* it is critical to keep in mind the difference: a tax is a contribution that someone makes to society and this is not the same as a making a smaller draw-down.
Indeed - using this stupid Labour logic, when I became an adult my parents were taxed because I no longer allowed them to claim Child Benefit.
It's a ridiculous misuse of language to outrage those Labour want to recruit as voters. I'm sure Alistair Campbell would be delighted by it.
I see you are calling the reduction in housing benefit a "tax" now on your website. It's better than calling it a tax, I suppose. But still not right. ;-)
Yes it is, from where I'm standing - see www.nickpalmer.org.uk for our exchange of views on this. But I put it in quotes in deference to the sensibilities of those who think that the starting point of the modern state is that nobody gets any support for anything (and the accompanying view, as implied by the Adam Smith Institute with their "Tax freedom day" concept, that any tax is "taking the money that I earned without any help from the infrastructure around me").
The real world social contract today is that we all pay into a collective pot for necessary services (with a democratic argument about what's necessary, of course) and those of us in particular need (very ill, unable to pay rent, etc.) get some help. No party - not even UKIP - is really suggesting a change in that basic model - we just argue about the amounts and eligibility. A change in that arrangement to the detriment of anyone in the latter group is *experienced* as a tax. Similarly, charging people to visit their GP would arguably be a "tax" on the sick.
I'm being deliberately provocative here, but it's an interesting case where an apparently purely semantic argument actually reflects a different philosophical view.
replied on site. Helping drive your traffic. Entitles you to more advertising income ;-)
The Isle of Wight is 384km2, which would give 8 billion people just under 22 cm x 22 cm each (if I've done my maths correctly, which is far from certain). That does sound just a bit too snug.
I see you are calling the reduction in housing benefit a "tax" now on your website. It's better than calling it a tax, I suppose. But still not right. ;-)
Yes it is, from where I'm standing - see www.nickpalmer.org.uk for our exchange of views on this. But I put it in quotes in deference to the sensibilities of those who think that the starting point of the modern state is that nobody gets any support for anything (and the accompanying view, as implied by the Adam Smith Institute with their "Tax freedom day" concept, that any tax is "taking the money that I earned without any help from the infrastructure around me").
The real world social contract today is that we all pay into a collective pot for necessary services (with a democratic argument about what's necessary, of course) and those of us in particular need (very ill, unable to pay rent, etc.) get some help. No party - not even UKIP - is really suggesting a change in that basic model - we just argue about the amounts and eligibility. A change in that arrangement to the detriment of anyone in the latter group is *experienced* as a tax. Similarly, charging people to visit their GP would arguably be a "tax" on the sick.
I'm being deliberately provocative here, but it's an interesting case where an apparently purely semantic argument actually reflects a different philosophical view.
Semantics are important here.
No one is arguing that there should be no contribution to broader society; even if you subscribe to the ASI view (which I don't), a business can't floruish in the medium term in a fractured environment.
Clearly a withdrawal of a benefit is experienced as a drop in income, so the financial effect is the same as a tax. *However* it is critical to keep in mind the difference: a tax is a contribution that someone makes to society and this is not the same as a making a smaller draw-down.
Indeed - using this stupid Labour logic, when I became an adult my parents were taxed because I no longer allowed them to claim Child Benefit.
It's a ridiculous misuse of language to outrage those Labour want to recruit as voters. I'm sure Alistair Campbell would be delighted by it.
Not really - child benefit had a finite lifespan that was well communicated and everyone understood.
"Hate crimes against disabled people soar to a record level"
The Tories do not want people to be physically attacked and it is wrong to claim that they do. But they clearly do not think through the full consequences of misrepresenting statistics about welfare recipients.
I print this in full. Showing the despicable attitude of a Local NHS hospital and a Labour council wanting to cover up it's own malpractice:
Julie Bailey: Enemy of the People
Nick Cohen 30 May 2013 10:49
They’re running Julie Bailey out of town The poison pen letters, foul-mouthed phone calls, slashed tyres, shit through the letterbox, boycott of her cafe and attacks on her mother’s grave have become too much.
Stafford’s upstanding citizens, or a good number of them, want her gone. So she is leaving her home and business, and looking for a better place.
“People come up to me in the street and just start bawling,” she told me. “I can’t go out by myself. I always need someone with me.”
Bailey had been the public face of the campaign to highlight the cruel conditions inside Stafford Hospital. How many people had their lives cut short is uncertain: the public inquiry put the figure at between 400 and 1200. We know for sure, however, that nurses left food and drink out of patients’ reach; that those in agony screamed for pain relief that never came; that the thirsty had to drink water from flower vases. For many, Stafford Hospital was a torture chamber.
A proportion of the nurses “didn’t really want to be on the ward caring for patients and showed total disregard for their welfare,” Bailey said when the report was published. And, of course, Stafford’s managers and the managers of the NHS in Whitehall did not want to know. Bailey started fighting after her mother went into this death trap. “Over a period of eight weeks they managed to destroy a strong, brave woman.” Bailey remembered. “She was left begging for her life.”
Now the fight is over and a terrified NHS if reforming. But far from celebrating Julie Bailey’s achievement in bringing the scandal to light, and we should not forget, saving Stafford patients from an early death in the process, Stafford has turned on her.
As the local paper said,
One caller told her they hoped ‘she dies on the way to hospital’ and she received a card ‘thanking’ her for her “hard work in closing Stafford Hospital”. The card, which has been passed to police, reportedly read: “Thank you for closing Stafford hospital, Ha, Ha, Ha, you better now spend more time watching your mother’s grave.”
It’s not just thugs. Stafford’s worthies are not keen on praising Ms Bailey either. Two friends on the borough council proposed a motion to thank her and her fellow campaigners “for their invaluable contribution in highlighting the need for improvements in patient care” and to ask the authorities to do what they could to identify her abusers.
The council leader didn’t like it. The motion was “too evocative,” he said, and ordered an anodyne alternative instead.
Why are they hounding her? She has helped prevent her neighbours’ suffering, and maybe saved lives. A short answer is that Bailey took on powerful interests: the NHS, the borough and county council, which were both criticised by the inquiry, and the Labour Party, which cannot face what happened in the hospital on its watch. But there is more to it than the powerful turning on a woman who challenged them.
I don’t agree with Conservatives about much at the moment, but when they talk about the cult of the NHS, I can see their point. People don’t want to know about abuse at the hands of doctors and nurses. They will read about the incompetence of managers, certainly, and the danger of cuts to hospital budgets. But they do not like news that the people who care for them – before whom they lie powerless and vulnerable — are not always the angels of hospital dramas. Or as Bailey puts it, “the public doesn’t want to believe that the NHS is unsafe, even though small general hospitals, which are jacks of all trades and masters of none are dangerous.
And suppose the scandal closes the whole hospital. (It is unlikely, but possible.) Stafford is not poor by the standards of the West Midlands. But it remains over-dependent on the public sector – the county council, the Staffordshire Police headquarters, the prison and the hospital. In other words, Stafford hospital does not just provide treatment but much appreciated jobs and income.
Stafford today is not angry about neglect but about threats to services and the local economy. Forty thousand people have signed a petition against a proposal to close Stafford’s A&E department . Some are in denial. When I mentioned the scandal in passing a few years ago, I received furious phone calls from readers claiming that the stories of death and vindictiveness were all lies. Many people in Stafford cling on to that comforting illusion. Others may not be wholly irrational, however. If you think you won’t be mistreated, or if you think that standards have improved, you may want an A&E close by just in case.
Whistle blowers are rarely treated as heroes. Those around them wish they had not brought disgrace on their company or government department or town or tribe or sect: even if what they said was right – especially if what they said was right. By breaking taboos and speaking plainly, they delight the company/department/town/tribe/sect’s rivals and enemies, and expose those around them to danger. If you want to know why truly free societies are so rare, don’t just think about dictators and hierarchies but consider how hard it is to go against everyone you know.
In Ibsen’s Enemy of the People, Dr Thomas Stockmann infuriates a small Norwegian town by warning that contaminated water is filling the local baths – a lucrative tourist attraction. He’s right, but the town’s people turn on him, just as they have turned on Julie Bailey. If they admit the water is dangerous, they will have to spend a fortune on cleaning up the supply, and the bad publicity would destroy the tourist trade.
His brother, Peter, who is also the mayor, tells him to stay quiet.
Peter Stockmann. You have an ingrained tendency to take your own way, at all events; and, that is almost equally inadmissible in a well ordered community, The individual ought undoubtedly to acquiesce in subordinating himself to the community–or, to speak more accurately, to the authorities who have the care of the community’s welfare.
Dr. Stockmann. Very likely. But what the deuce has all this got to do with me?
Peter Stockmann. That is exactly what you never appear to be willing to learn, my dear Thomas. But, mark my words, some day you will have to suffer for it–sooner or later.
When I spoke to Julie Bailey she sounded very tired. She’s lived in Stafford all her life. Now her neighbours have driven her out for refusing to subordinate herself to the community. She’s looking for a new home – “a caravan would do” – a long way away.
They believe that she’s made sure that when people hear Stafford’s name they will think of the hospital scandal.
I believe – or at least hope – that they have made sure when people hear Stafford’s name they will think of the town that persecuted Julie Bailey for telling the truth.
What the Professor points out is that if history teaching in schools is so bad, why it that British university history schools - largely populated by the products of school history teaching - are considered to be the best in the world?
Because his pupils went either to Eton, Westminster, Winchester, and other top schools, where they are taught extremely well, or to one of the tiny number of state schools which account for the bulk of quality teaching in the state system . Not hard to understand that this has zero relevance to the point Gove was making, is it?
Cutting through the bullshit, the fact is that education for the bottom 25% by income in this country is abysmal. Not unsatisfactory, not 'could do better', but abysmal:
It is absolutely gob-smacking that it takes a Conservative, indeed rightish-wing Conservative, education minister to take an interest in tackling this:
All we get from Labour and the left are either excuses, defence of the vested interests responsible for this failure, the usual reaction to any problem of 'throw even more money at it', calls to rig university admissions systems in order to hide the failure, or just silence. Mostly silence.
"Hate crimes against disabled people soar to a record level"
The Tories do not want people to be physically attacked and it is wrong to claim that they do. But they clearly do not think through the full consequences of misrepresenting statistics about welfare recipients.
Its the inevitable consequence of their deliberate lies of of, not the specific aim,but their vilification and distortion of the truth has consequences a child can work out. What surprises me is that even on a blog like this there are certain posters falling for every press release. It's not just some thick drunk abusing someone in a wheelchair who are sucked in by it.
Sub prime stuff tim - compared with lying about WMD causing 100k+ dead Iraqis.
I print this in full. Showing the despicable attitude of a Local NHS hospital and a Labour council wanting to cover up it's own malpractice:
Julie Bailey: Enemy of the People
Nick Cohen 30 May 2013 10:49
They’re running Julie Bailey out of town The poison pen letters, foul-mouthed phone calls, slashed tyres, shit through the letterbox, boycott of her cafe and attacks on her mother’s grave have become too much.
Stafford’s upstanding citizens, or a good number of them, want her gone. So she is leaving her home and business, and looking for a better place.
You sometimes hear people say that the world's entire population could fit on the Isle of Wight. That would be seriously impressive levels of immigration.
If this feat is ever to be attempted, I would prefer that we try to do so in Tahiti.
When I was about 10yrs old - I heard that stat and thought it must be cobblers - so I got out my Guinness Book of Answers [the Google of its day] and there were IIRC 153 countries and populations listed.
It was possible to fit everyone on if they stood up and only occupied under 2sq ft. Given that there are a lot more humans nowadays - I suspect the IoW isn't big enough ;^ )
*turns off Loony-mode
I was in Skibbereen not too long ago and visited the famine visitor centre. Apparently the workhouse in Skibbereen became so crowded during the Famine that each person only had 2sq ft inside of it.
"Under Joe Chamberlain Brum was a major world city. We need to recapture that spirit not look down on it. We cannot all make our living serving you at the Ivy."
A bit chippy this morning. A resident of Birmingham an ex waitress or both?
I print this in full. Showing the despicable attitude of a Local NHS hospital and a Labour council wanting to cover up it's own malpractice:
Julie Bailey: Enemy of the People
Nick Cohen 30 May 2013 10:49
They’re running Julie Bailey out of town The poison pen letters, foul-mouthed phone calls, slashed tyres, shit through the letterbox, boycott of her cafe and attacks on her mother’s grave have become too much.
Stafford’s upstanding citizens, or a good number of them, want her gone. So she is leaving her home and business, and looking for a better place.
What the Professor points out is that if history teaching in schools is so bad, why it that British university history schools - largely populated by the products of school history teaching - are considered to be the best in the world?
Because his pupils went either to Eton, Westminster, Winchester, and other top schools, where they are taught extremely well, or to one of the tiny number of state schools which account for the bulk of quality teaching in the state system . Not hard to understand that this has zero relevance to the point Gove was making, is it?
According to Cambridge in 2011. 99 students read history from the state sector, 67 from the private sector and 25 from abroad. Not sure your argument holds up.
I print this in full. Showing the despicable attitude of a Local NHS hospital and a Labour council wanting to cover up it's own malpractice:
Julie Bailey: Enemy of the People
Nick Cohen 30 May 2013 10:49
They’re running Julie Bailey out of town The poison pen letters, foul-mouthed phone calls, slashed tyres, shit through the letterbox, boycott of her cafe and attacks on her mother’s grave have become too much.
Stafford’s upstanding citizens, or a good number of them, want her gone. So she is leaving her home and business, and looking for a better place.
Should I be sympathetic?
Only if you want to surprise us Ben..
I'm not surprised Stafford people are angry that a loudmouth who believes her own spin may be the cause of their local hospital shutting down (for political - not operational) reasons.
I'm being deliberately provocative here, but it's an interesting case where an apparently purely semantic argument actually reflects a different philosophical view.
replied on site. Helping drive your traffic. Entitles you to more advertising income ;-)
Excellent. If you stop doing it, I shall claim that you are taxing me.
(How do blogs get ad income, by the way? Habve never had occasion to explore, but I guess should.)
What the Professor points out is that if history teaching in schools is so bad, why it that British university history schools - largely populated by the products of school history teaching - are considered to be the best in the world?
Because his pupils went either to Eton, Westminster, Winchester, and other top schools, where they are taught extremely well, or to one of the tiny number of state schools which account for the bulk of quality teaching in the state system . Not hard to understand that this has zero relevance to the point Gove was making, is it?
Cutting through the bullshit, the fact is that education for the bottom 25% by income in this country is abysmal. Not unsatisfactory, not 'could do better', but abysmal:
It is absolutely gob-smacking that it takes a Conservative, indeed rightish-wing Conservative, education minister to take an interest in tackling this:
All we get from Labour and the left are either excuses, defence of the vested interests responsible for this failure, the usual reaction to any problem of 'throw even more money at it', calls to rig university admissions systems in order to hide the failure, or just silence. Mostly silence.
How is it supporting vested interests to point out that Gove tells fibs about the teaching of history at state schools? I thought Gove believes in rigour. You do not improve standards by misrepresenting the truth.
As for who is taught history at university. I thnk you'll find that the majority come from state schools - even at places like Cambridge.
According to Cambridge in 2011. 99 students read history from the state sector, 67 from the private sector and 25 from abroad. Not sure your argument holds up.
So only just over half came from state schools, and if you delve deeper you'll find that they came predominantly from a small sub-set of state schools.
Ponder this statistic from the Gove speech I linked to above:
The poorest children in our school system are those eligible for free school meals. There are about 80,000 children in every school year who are eligible. Tracking their progress through school we can see they fall further and further behind their peers by the time they reach the end of primary. At secondary the gulf grows wider still. By sixteen, a pupil not entitled to free school meals is over 3 times more likely to achieve five good GCSEs as one who is entitled. By the time they reach university age just 45 children out of a cohort of 80,000 on free school meals make it to Oxbridge.
I print this in full. Showing the despicable attitude of a Local NHS hospital and a Labour council wanting to cover up it's own malpractice:
Julie Bailey: Enemy of the People
Nick Cohen 30 May 2013 10:49
They’re running Julie Bailey out of town The poison pen letters, foul-mouthed phone calls, slashed tyres, shit through the letterbox, boycott of her cafe and attacks on her mother’s grave have become too much.
Stafford’s upstanding citizens, or a good number of them, want her gone. So she is leaving her home and business, and looking for a better place.
Should I be sympathetic?
Only if you want to surprise us Ben..
I'm not surprised Stafford people are angry that a loudmouth who believes her own spin may be the cause of their local hospital shutting down (for political - not operational) reasons.
Of course if it was Private Hospital and a Tory council, your response would be quite different, wouldn't it Ben? Nothing surprises me about you.
I'm not surprised Stafford people are angry that a loudmouth who believes her own spin may be the cause of their local hospital shutting down (for political - not operational) reasons.
Depends where your primary interest is, I suppose. On the poor people who died, or on the people who are employed at the hospital.
How is it supporting vested interests to point out that Gove tells fibs about the teaching of history at state schools? I thought Gove believes in rigour. You do not improve standards by misrepresenting the truth.
As for who is taught history at university. I thnk you'll find that the majority come from state schools - even at places like Cambridge.
Excuses, excuses, excuses. Everything is perfect in state sector education, is it? Nothing to see here, it's just Gove vilifying teachers, the fact that just 45 out of the 80,000 pupils from the bottom quartile by income in a given year will make it to the top universities is nothing to worry about.
As I said: all we get from the left,in the face of the most horrifying facts, is excuses or silence.
According to Cambridge in 2011. 99 students read history from the state sector, 67 from the private sector and 25 from abroad. Not sure your argument holds up.
So only just over half came from state schools, and if you delve deeper you'll find that they came predominantly from a small sub-set of state schools.
Ponder this statistic from the Gove speech I linked to above:
The poorest children in our school system are those eligible for free school meals. There are about 80,000 children in every school year who are eligible. Tracking their progress through school we can see they fall further and further behind their peers by the time they reach the end of primary. At secondary the gulf grows wider still. By sixteen, a pupil not entitled to free school meals is over 3 times more likely to achieve five good GCSEs as one who is entitled. By the time they reach university age just 45 children out of a cohort of 80,000 on free school meals make it to Oxbridge.
How does it help these children to tell fibs about the ways in which they are taught?
I print this in full. Showing the despicable attitude of a Local NHS hospital and a Labour council wanting to cover up it's own malpractice:
Julie Bailey: Enemy of the People
Nick Cohen 30 May 2013 10:49
They’re running Julie Bailey out of town The poison pen letters, foul-mouthed phone calls, slashed tyres, shit through the letterbox, boycott of her cafe and attacks on her mother’s grave have become too much.
Stafford’s upstanding citizens, or a good number of them, want her gone. So she is leaving her home and business, and looking for a better place.
Should I be sympathetic?
If you're human, yes.
Of course, I understand that some on here found the events at Stafford to be rather difficult for them to handle, which is why they have been so keen to downgrade what happened there.
But if you feel that what happened at Stafford was hideous (as most people probably do), then the woman who strove to destroy the veil of secrecy should be congratulated.
Instead, utter asshats are getting at her because they cannot handle the truth.
The doctors, nurses and management who treated patients with such utter contempt are not to blame in their eyes; instead, their ire goes on the woman who has saved lives by uncovering the truth.
Sickening.
But no more than I expect from the brain-dead at any end of the political spectrum.
(off-topic. Another Apache just flew over, heading for St Neots. The first this week).
How is it supporting vested interests to point out that Gove tells fibs about the teaching of history at state schools? I thought Gove believes in rigour. You do not improve standards by misrepresenting the truth.
As for who is taught history at university. I thnk you'll find that the majority come from state schools - even at places like Cambridge.
Excuses, excuses, excuses. Everything is perfect in state sector education, is it? Nothing to see here, it's just Gove vilifying teachers, the fact that just 45 out of the 80,000 pupils from the bottom quartile by income in a given year will make it to the top universities is nothing to worry about.
As I said: all we get from the left,in the face of the most horrifying facts, is excuses or silence.
Why are you desperately avoiding dealing with what I have said? How does fibbing about the way in which children are taught help to improve things?
I'm being deliberately provocative here, but it's an interesting case where an apparently purely semantic argument actually reflects a different philosophical view.
replied on site. Helping drive your traffic. Entitles you to more advertising income ;-)
Excellent. If you stop doing it, I shall claim that you are taxing me.
(How do blogs get ad income, by the way? Habve never had occasion to explore, but I guess should.)
I'm not really the expert - sure OGH or rcs could help more. Sure there is an aggregator service that provides Ads
What the Professor points out is that if history teaching in schools is so bad, why it that British university history schools - largely populated by the products of school history teaching - are considered to be the best in the world?
Because his pupils went either to Eton, Westminster, Winchester, and other top schools, where they are taught extremely well, or to one of the tiny number of state schools which account for the bulk of quality teaching in the state system . Not hard to understand that this has zero relevance to the point Gove was making, is it?
Cutting through the bullshit, the fact is that education for the bottom 25% by income in this country is abysmal. Not unsatisfactory, not 'could do better', but abysmal:
It is absolutely gob-smacking that it takes a Conservative, indeed rightish-wing Conservative, education minister to take an interest in tackling this:
All we get from Labour and the left are either excuses, defence of the vested interests responsible for this failure, the usual reaction to any problem of 'throw even more money at it', calls to rig university admissions systems in order to hide the failure, or just silence. Mostly silence.
How is it supporting vested interests to point out that Gove tells fibs about the teaching of history at state schools? I thought Gove believes in rigour. You do not improve standards by misrepresenting the truth.
As for who is taught history at university. I thnk you'll find that the majority come from state schools - even at places like Cambridge.
The Goveite clique is messianic and vaguely Trotskyist in this respect. Making up facts in the pursuit of rigour demonstrates rigour.
I thnk it's just the normal, isn't it? It's OK when Tories fib about, misrepresent and manipulate the truth. It's only wicked when Labour does it.
I'm not surprised Stafford people are angry that a loudmouth who believes her own spin may be the cause of their local hospital shutting down (for political - not operational) reasons.
Regardless, doesn't excuse subjecting her to abuse. I also think that people who dislike the NHS and/or Labour have tried to exploit the case to suggest it's typical, but it was clearly right to expose the wrongdoing.
I print this in full. Showing the despicable attitude of a Local NHS hospital and a Labour council wanting to cover up it's own malpractice:
Julie Bailey: Enemy of the People
Nick Cohen 30 May 2013 10:49
They’re running Julie Bailey out of town The poison pen letters, foul-mouthed phone calls, slashed tyres, shit through the letterbox, boycott of her cafe and attacks on her mother’s grave have become too much.
Stafford’s upstanding citizens, or a good number of them, want her gone. So she is leaving her home and business, and looking for a better place.
Should I be sympathetic?
If you're human, yes.
Of course, I understand that some on here found the events at Stafford to be rather difficult for them to handle, which is why they have been so keen to downgrade what happened there.
But if you feel that what happened at Stafford was hideous (as most people probably do), then the woman who strove to destroy the veil of secrecy should be congratulated.
Instead, utter asshats are getting at her because they cannot handle the truth.
The doctors, nurses and management who treated patients with such utter contempt are not to blame in their eyes; instead, their ire goes on the woman who has saved lives by uncovering the truth.
Sickening.
But no more than I expect from the brain-dead at any end of the political spectrum.
(off-topic. Another Apache just flew over, heading for St Neots. The first this week).
Well said JJ. I would be up in arms about this sort of thing if the culprits at fault were under Tory, L/dems, UKIP as well as Labour councils. Unfortunately most of the managers in NHS hospitals seem to have no idea of running a hospital "fit for purpose".
I'm not surprised Stafford people are angry that a loudmouth who believes her own spin may be the cause of their local hospital shutting down (for political - not operational) reasons.
Regardless, doesn't excuse subjecting her to abuse. I also think that people who dislike the NHS and/or Labour have tried to exploit the case to suggest it's typical, but it was clearly right to expose the wrongdoing.
Absolutely - two wrongs clearly don't make a right.
And if it is wrongdoing you want to expose, then look no further than the government you were a part of that allowed the chronic understaffing of the hospital to occur in the first place.
Whatever happened to that? Blair did start with the right intentions. Lord Adonis clearly had good intentions. But attempts to address the abysmal failure of our education system for the bottom half of performers ground to a halt.
Labour really need to think much harder about why. Why were producer interests more valued in education than the children they were supposed to help? Why did they back off league tables and external examination and closing failing schools and the Academy program? Why did England lose ground in this most important of international races?
The Stafford story has common themes. The producer interest again prevails. Labour really need to think, whose side are they on? The side of the users or the staff? It is a big decision but at the moment the failed attempts of Blair are buried under the producer nonsense of Brown with ever greater statistics that mask fundamental failure.
These are not easy questions and I don't pretend there are easy answers. Gove is trying to find some as are too few other ministers. If Ed is still wondering what to put on his piece of paper this is where he needs to start.
I'm not surprised Stafford people are angry that a loudmouth who believes her own spin may be the cause of their local hospital shutting down (for political - not operational) reasons.
Depends where your primary interest is, I suppose. On the poor people who died, or on the people who are employed at the hospital.
Which people died?
The HSMR stats (upon which people who bellow about the so-called 1200 "excess" deaths place their reliance) were dodgy. They were then corrected and audited, bringing the number down to near enough zero.
How does it help these children to tell fibs about the ways in which they are taught?
Oh, for heaven's sake! Is that really the best you can do? Find some trivial niggle about some minor thing Gove said (which in any case is disputed)?
How about addressing the issue - the quality of teaching and the abysmal results?
I agree that the results of children on free school meals are dreadful. The London Challenge, of course, proved to be tremendounsly successful in improving these. Gove scrapped it.
I'm not surprised Stafford people are angry that a loudmouth who believes her own spin may be the cause of their local hospital shutting down (for political - not operational) reasons.
Depends where your primary interest is, I suppose. On the poor people who died, or on the people who are employed at the hospital.
Which people died?
The HSMR stats (upon which people who bellow about the so-called 1200 "excess" deaths place their reliance) were dodgy. They were then corrected and audited, bringing the number down to near enough zero.
No they were not corrected and audited. What was shown was that it could not be concluded how many people died, because that is not the purpose of the stats.
But the blog which you use for your claim of 'possibly one person' dying is laughably statistically moribund as well.
Read the reports and the stories within, and tell me honestly that no-one died after such poor treatment.
These things can not be known for certain, and asking for names ('which people died') is pointless, as the inquiry did not set out to discover that.
Going back into history, this was why the total figures for deaths in the earlier Bristol heart scandal are also uncertain, despite (from memory) much more rigorous attempts to work out a number, with a much smaller number of potential patients.
Aquamarine Power has received full consent from the Scottish Government for a 40 MW wave power farm off the north-west coast of Lewis, Scotland - making it the world's largest fully-permitted ocean energy site.
The announcement was made by the Scottish Government's Minister for Energy, Enterprise and Tourism Fergus Ewing at the All Energy conference in Aberdeen.
The green-light from the government and its regulator Marine Scotland, along with onshore planning which was approved last September, means the Edinburgh firm, through its wholly owned subsidiary Lewis Wave Power Limited, will be able to begin installing their near-shore Oyster wave energy machines at the site in the next few years - once the necessary grid infrastructure has been put in place.
This will ultimately see the deployment of between 40 and 50 Oyster devices along the coast at Lag na Greine, near to Fivepenny Borve, in one of the best wave energy locations in Europe. Once complete, the farm will have the capacity to power nearly 30,000 homes.
Last year the local council, Comhairle nan Eilean Siar (Western Isles Council), approved planning for the onshore hydroelectric power plant which will be connected to the Oyster wave energy farm.
Aquamarine Power are currently testing their second full scale wave machine, known as the Oyster 800, at the European Marine Energy Centre (EMEC) in Orkney, and are now producing electrical power to the grid.
"This is a significant milestone for our company," says Aquamarine Power Chief Executive Officer Martin McAdam. "The goal of our industry is to become commercial, and to do this we need two things - reliable technologies and a route to market. Our engineers are currently working hard on getting the technology right and we now have a site where we can install our first small farm, with a larger-scale commercial build out in the years ahead.
Making the announcement, Minister for Energy, Enterprise and Tourism Fergus Ewing MSP said, "I am delighted to announce that Scottish Ministers have granted a License to Aquamarine Power to develop the largest commercial wave array in the world. Aquamarine Power is an exciting, dynamic Scottish company that is increasingly expanding its renewable business.
"The development of up to 50 Oyster wave devices off the North West coast of Lewis, when operational, will have the power to produce 40 MW of renewable electricity.
I'm not surprised Stafford people are angry that a loudmouth who believes her own spin may be the cause of their local hospital shutting down (for political - not operational) reasons.
Depends where your primary interest is, I suppose. On the poor people who died, or on the people who are employed at the hospital.
Which people died?
The HSMR stats (upon which people who bellow about the so-called 1200 "excess" deaths place their reliance) were dodgy. They were then corrected and audited, bringing the number down to near enough zero.
No they were not corrected and audited. What was shown was that it could not be concluded how many people died, because that is not the purpose of the stats.
But the blog which you use for your claim of 'possibly one person' dying is laughably statistically moribund as well.
Read the reports and the stories within, and tell me honestly that no-one died after such poor treatment.
These things can not be known for certain, and asking for names ('which people died') is pointless, as the inquiry did not set out to discover that.
Going back into history, this was why the total figures for deaths in the earlier Bristol heart scandal are also uncertain, despite (from memory) much more rigorous attempts to work out a number, with a much smaller number of potential patients.
1. If that is not the point of the [HSMR] stats, why do the NHS baiters keep repeating the 1200 deaths number?
2. If things cannot be known for certain why do NHS baiters keep claiming all these deaths as fact (one of the most horrendous accusations you can make so ought to be corroborated up by some copper bottomed set of data)?
3. No one has convincingly debunked Steve Walker's work yet. Certainly not you.
All this uncertainty yet allegations about death numbers are made from the usual quarters as if they *are* certain.
I'm not surprised Stafford people are angry that a loudmouth who believes her own spin may be the cause of their local hospital shutting down (for political - not operational) reasons.
Depends where your primary interest is, I suppose. On the poor people who died, or on the people who are employed at the hospital.
Which people died?
The HSMR stats (upon which people who bellow about the so-called 1200 "excess" deaths place their reliance) were dodgy. They were then corrected and audited, bringing the number down to near enough zero.
No they were not corrected and audited. What was shown was that it could not be concluded how many people died, because that is not the purpose of the stats.
But the blog which you use for your claim of 'possibly one person' dying is laughably statistically moribund as well.
Read the reports and the stories within, and tell me honestly that no-one died after such poor treatment.
These things can not be known for certain, and asking for names ('which people died') is pointless, as the inquiry did not set out to discover that.
Going back into history, this was why the total figures for deaths in the earlier Bristol heart scandal are also uncertain, despite (from memory) much more rigorous attempts to work out a number, with a much smaller number of potential patients.
1. If that is not the point of the [HSMR] stats, why do the NHS baiters keep repeating the 1200 deaths number?
2. If things cannot be known for certain why do NHS baiters keep claiming all these deaths as fact (one of the most horrendous accusations you can make so ought to be corroborated up by some copper bottomed set of data)?
3. No one has convincingly debunked Steve Walker's work yet. Certainly not you.
All this uncertainty yet allegations about death numbers are made from the usual quarters as if they *are* certain.
Haven't you just undermined your own case?
1) The people stating the 1,200 deaths numbers are wrong, just as you are with your blog-based 'possibly one' death. However saying there were 1,200 deaths, if possibly wrong, will at least force action. Whilst your 'possibly one' death will just lead to the hideous practices at Stafford being ignored. Or did you want them to continue?
2) See also the Bristol Heart scandal. Numbers were not known then, but the vague figures accepted.
3) Yes I have. You never responded. There are several methodological and logical flaws in what he claims. Read through it and see if you can find them - they're quite obvious. Start at looking at the way the samples were selected and the sample size compared to the number of deaths. And to make matters worse, he's misrepresenting what Dr Laker said.
But I'm on the side of the people who say there were 'many deaths'. This is serious enough to demand action, without knowing the number.
And action was demanded. You just want to sweep it under the carpet.
There has been evidence provided by Prof Jarman - of Doctor Foster [who have no dog in this fight] that shows Stafford isn't an isolated case.
You're a sensible chap - I can't understand why you're so resistant to the idea that like any other massive organisation, the NHS in these areas screwed up on a massive scale. The personal tragedies set out in the Francis Report are heart-breaking, and far from a few *isolated* incidents of poor care.
" Professor Sir Brian Jarman has accused ministers and officials of ignoring data on high death rates for a decade.
Sir Brian is working on the government review of 14 hospital trusts with higher-than-average death rates in the wake of the Stafford Hospital inquiry.
Speaking of the 14 hospital trusts, Sir Brian said there “must be at least tens of thousands of avoidable deaths in those hospitals alone, when we should have been going in and we should have been looking at them”.
He told BBC Radio 4’s Today programme: “Those hospitals which had persistently high death rates over all those years and have now been listed for investigation should have been investigated earlier, because it’s quite possible we would have had fewer deaths in those hospitals - and we are comparing them, don’t forget, with the national average.
What the Professor points out is that if history teaching in schools is so bad, why it that British university history schools - largely populated by the products of school history teaching - are considered to be the best in the world?
Because his pupils went either to Eton, Westminster, Winchester, and other top schools, where they are taught extremely well, or to one of the tiny number of state schools which account for the bulk of quality teaching in the state system . Not hard to understand that this has zero relevance to the point Gove was making, is it?
Cutting through the bullshit, the fact is that education for the bottom 25% by income in this country is abysmal. Not unsatisfactory, not 'could do better', but abysmal:
It is absolutely gob-smacking that it takes a Conservative, indeed rightish-wing Conservative, education minister to take an interest in tackling this:
All we get from Labour and the left are either excuses, defence of the vested interests responsible for this failure, the usual reaction to any problem of 'throw even more money at it', calls to rig university admissions systems in order to hide the failure, or just silence. Mostly silence.
How is it supporting vested interests to point out that Gove tells fibs about the teaching of history at state schools? I thought Gove believes in rigour. You do not improve standards by misrepresenting the truth.
As for who is taught history at university. I thnk you'll find that the majority come from state schools - even at places like Cambridge.
The Goveite clique is messianic and vaguely Trotskyist in this respect. Making up facts in the pursuit of rigour demonstrates rigour.
I thnk it's just the normal, isn't it? It's OK when Tories fib about, misrepresent and manipulate the truth. It's only wicked when Labour does it.
It is absolutely true that Redward needs to think of the consumer not the producer when he starts filling out that blank piece of paper. And I think the Labour Party was founded on representing the needs of workers over their employers.
But is now the party of the state. And the needs of the state employers prevail over the needs of consumers (the public). It is owned by the unions. Asking Labour to put pupils before teachers or sick people before the NHS is a pipe dream. Might as well ask UKIP to base their policy agenda on the needs of the Brussels machine.
We're going to get more spending and the unions running the show (before it all breaks).
Aquamarine Power has received full consent from the Scottish Government for a 40 MW wave power farm off the north-west coast of Lewis, Scotland - making it the world's largest fully-permitted ocean energy site.
The announcement was made by the Scottish Government's Minister for Energy, Enterprise and Tourism Fergus Ewing at the All Energy conference in Aberdeen.
The green-light from the government and its regulator Marine Scotland, along with onshore planning which was approved last September, means the Edinburgh firm, through its wholly owned subsidiary Lewis Wave Power Limited, will be able to begin installing their near-shore Oyster wave energy machines at the site in the next few years - once the necessary grid infrastructure has been put in place.
This will ultimately see the deployment of between 40 and 50 Oyster devices along the coast at Lag na Greine, near to Fivepenny Borve, in one of the best wave energy locations in Europe. Once complete, the farm will have the capacity to power nearly 30,000 homes.
Last year the local council, Comhairle nan Eilean Siar (Western Isles Council), approved planning for the onshore hydroelectric power plant which will be connected to the Oyster wave energy farm.
Aquamarine Power are currently testing their second full scale wave machine, known as the Oyster 800, at the European Marine Energy Centre (EMEC) in Orkney, and are now producing electrical power to the grid.
"This is a significant milestone for our company," says Aquamarine Power Chief Executive Officer Martin McAdam. "The goal of our industry is to become commercial, and to do this we need two things - reliable technologies and a route to market. Our engineers are currently working hard on getting the technology right and we now have a site where we can install our first small farm, with a larger-scale commercial build out in the years ahead.
Making the announcement, Minister for Energy, Enterprise and Tourism Fergus Ewing MSP said, "I am delighted to announce that Scottish Ministers have granted a License to Aquamarine Power to develop the largest commercial wave array in the world. Aquamarine Power is an exciting, dynamic Scottish company that is increasingly expanding its renewable business.
"The development of up to 50 Oyster wave devices off the North West coast of Lewis, when operational, will have the power to produce 40 MW of renewable electricity.
This may well be a technology that has some future. However, like the wind tech, so enamoured by our elite classes, they can only give small amounts of usable electricity. Providing of course that there will be enough wave power all the time and that the seas don't freeze over in winter in those northern climes.
Comments
By the time the book was set the whole world population would no longer fit on the Isle of Wight but on the considerably larger Zanzibar.
Edit. The book was set in 2010 and anticipated a population of about 7bn so he was not far off. next stop Zanzibar (although Tahiti sounds nicer).
It was possible to fit everyone on if they stood up and only occupied under 2sq ft. Given that there are a lot more humans nowadays - I suspect the IoW isn't big enough ;^ )
*turns off Loony-mode
Please give full references for the two above quotations.
Edited.
The basic point, I suppose, is this: if Gove demonstrably makes things up to justify his policies, is he really someone we can trust to do the best by our schools and the children taught in them?
The real world social contract today is that we all pay into a collective pot for necessary services (with a democratic argument about what's necessary, of course) and those of us in particular need (very ill, unable to pay rent, etc.) get some help. No party - not even UKIP - is really suggesting a change in that basic model - we just argue about the amounts and eligibility. A change in that arrangement to the detriment of anyone in the latter group is *experienced* as a tax. Similarly, charging people to visit their GP would arguably be a "tax" on the sick.
I'm being deliberately provocative here, but it's an interesting case where an apparently purely semantic argument actually reflects a different philosophical view.
No one is arguing that there should be no contribution to broader society; even if you subscribe to the ASI view (which I don't), a business can't floruish in the medium term in a fractured environment.
Clearly a withdrawal of a benefit is experienced as a drop in income, so the financial effect is the same as a tax. *However* it is critical to keep in mind the difference: a tax is a contribution that someone makes to society and this is not the same as a making a smaller draw-down.
http://tribune.com.pk/story/556024/uk-teen-threatened-to-be-killed-in-pakistan-if-she-refused-to-marry/
It does seem to be a favourite Tory strategy: tell untruths, distort the reality, present manipulated stats and get them into the public domain through favoured right wing papers in the knowledge that they will be reported as fact, and that the subsequent Fact Check and/or official rebuke will not be reported anywhere near as extensively. It's clever stuff.
Boris Johnson @MayorofLondon
I'm at The Oval with @warne888 to encourage people to make a difference to their local community and join @TeamLDN pic.twitter.com/FyZQDMBB1z
It's a ridiculous misuse of language to outrage those Labour want to recruit as voters. I'm sure Alistair Campbell would be delighted by it.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2013/may/28/syria-greatest-miscalculation-fascism?CMP=EMCNEWEML6619I2
8,000 million divided by 384 = 21 million per KM2
1KM2 = 1,000M2 * 1,000M2 = 1 million M2
So 21 people per M2
= approx 22 * 22
Julie Bailey: Enemy of the People
Nick Cohen 30 May 2013 10:49
They’re running Julie Bailey out of town The poison pen letters, foul-mouthed phone calls, slashed tyres, shit through the letterbox, boycott of her cafe and attacks on her mother’s grave have become too much.
Stafford’s upstanding citizens, or a good number of them, want her gone. So she is leaving her home and business, and looking for a better place.
“People come up to me in the street and just start bawling,” she told me. “I can’t go out by myself. I always need someone with me.”
Bailey had been the public face of the campaign to highlight the cruel conditions inside Stafford Hospital. How many people had their lives cut short is uncertain: the public inquiry put the figure at between 400 and 1200. We know for sure, however, that nurses left food and drink out of patients’ reach; that those in agony screamed for pain relief that never came; that the thirsty had to drink water from flower vases. For many, Stafford Hospital was a torture chamber.
A proportion of the nurses “didn’t really want to be on the ward caring for patients and showed total disregard for their welfare,” Bailey said when the report was published. And, of course, Stafford’s managers and the managers of the NHS in Whitehall did not want to know. Bailey started fighting after her mother went into this death trap. “Over a period of eight weeks they managed to destroy a strong, brave woman.” Bailey remembered. “She was left begging for her life.”
Now the fight is over and a terrified NHS if reforming. But far from celebrating Julie Bailey’s achievement in bringing the scandal to light, and we should not forget, saving Stafford patients from an early death in the process, Stafford has turned on her.
As the local paper said,
One caller told her they hoped ‘she dies on the way to hospital’ and she received a card ‘thanking’ her for her “hard work in closing Stafford Hospital”. The card, which has been passed to police, reportedly read: “Thank you for closing Stafford hospital, Ha, Ha, Ha, you better now spend more time watching your mother’s grave.”
It’s not just thugs. Stafford’s worthies are not keen on praising Ms Bailey either. Two friends on the borough council proposed a motion to thank her and her fellow campaigners “for their invaluable contribution in highlighting the need for improvements in patient care” and to ask the authorities to do what they could to identify her abusers.
The council leader didn’t like it. The motion was “too evocative,” he said, and ordered an anodyne alternative instead.
Why are they hounding her? She has helped prevent her neighbours’ suffering, and maybe saved lives. A short answer is that Bailey took on powerful interests: the NHS, the borough and county council, which were both criticised by the inquiry, and the Labour Party, which cannot face what happened in the hospital on its watch. But there is more to it than the powerful turning on a woman who challenged them.
I don’t agree with Conservatives about much at the moment, but when they talk about the cult of the NHS, I can see their point. People don’t want to know about abuse at the hands of doctors and nurses. They will read about the incompetence of managers, certainly, and the danger of cuts to hospital budgets. But they do not like news that the people who care for them – before whom they lie powerless and vulnerable — are not always the angels of hospital dramas. Or as Bailey puts it, “the public doesn’t want to believe that the NHS is unsafe, even though small general hospitals, which are jacks of all trades and masters of none are dangerous.
And suppose the scandal closes the whole hospital. (It is unlikely, but possible.) Stafford is not poor by the standards of the West Midlands. But it remains over-dependent on the public sector – the county council, the Staffordshire Police headquarters, the prison and the hospital. In other words, Stafford hospital does not just provide treatment but much appreciated jobs and income.
Stafford today is not angry about neglect but about threats to services and the local economy. Forty thousand people have signed a petition against a proposal to close Stafford’s A&E department . Some are in denial. When I mentioned the scandal in passing a few years ago, I received furious phone calls from readers claiming that the stories of death and vindictiveness were all lies. Many people in Stafford cling on to that comforting illusion. Others may not be wholly irrational, however. If you think you won’t be mistreated, or if you think that standards have improved, you may want an A&E close by just in case.
Whistle blowers are rarely treated as heroes. Those around them wish they had not brought disgrace on their company or government department or town or tribe or sect: even if what they said was right – especially if what they said was right. By breaking taboos and speaking plainly, they delight the company/department/town/tribe/sect’s rivals and enemies, and expose those around them to danger. If you want to know why truly free societies are so rare, don’t just think about dictators and hierarchies but consider how hard it is to go against everyone you know.
In Ibsen’s Enemy of the People, Dr Thomas Stockmann infuriates a small Norwegian town by warning that contaminated water is filling the local baths – a lucrative tourist attraction. He’s right, but the town’s people turn on him, just as they have turned on Julie Bailey. If they admit the water is dangerous, they will have to spend a fortune on cleaning up the supply, and the bad publicity would destroy the tourist trade.
His brother, Peter, who is also the mayor, tells him to stay quiet.
Peter Stockmann. You have an ingrained tendency to take your own
way, at all events; and, that is almost equally inadmissible in a
well ordered community, The individual ought undoubtedly to
acquiesce in subordinating himself to the community–or, to speak
more accurately, to the authorities who have the care of the
community’s welfare.
Dr. Stockmann. Very likely. But what the deuce has all this got
to do with me?
Peter Stockmann. That is exactly what you never appear to be
willing to learn, my dear Thomas. But, mark my words, some day
you will have to suffer for it–sooner or later.
When I spoke to Julie Bailey she sounded very tired. She’s lived in Stafford all her life. Now her neighbours have driven her out for refusing to subordinate herself to the community. She’s looking for a new home – “a caravan would do” – a long way away.
They believe that she’s made sure that when people hear Stafford’s name they will think of the hospital scandal.
I believe – or at least hope – that they have made sure when people hear Stafford’s name they will think of the town that persecuted Julie Bailey for telling the truth.
Cutting through the bullshit, the fact is that education for the bottom 25% by income in this country is abysmal. Not unsatisfactory, not 'could do better', but abysmal:
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/education-14069516
It is absolutely gob-smacking that it takes a Conservative, indeed rightish-wing Conservative, education minister to take an interest in tackling this:
https://www.gov.uk/government/speeches/michael-gove-to-westminster-academy
All we get from Labour and the left are either excuses, defence of the vested interests responsible for this failure, the usual reaction to any problem of 'throw even more money at it', calls to rig university admissions systems in order to hide the failure, or just silence. Mostly silence.
I dread to think what lunacy will be on here as the GE approaches and the great rEd dope continues not to set the fires alight.
"Under Joe Chamberlain Brum was a major world city. We need to recapture that spirit not look down on it. We cannot all make our living serving you at the Ivy."
A bit chippy this morning. A resident of Birmingham an ex waitress or both?
As for who is taught history at university. I thnk you'll find that the majority come from state schools - even at places like Cambridge.
Ponder this statistic from the Gove speech I linked to above:
The poorest children in our school system are those eligible for free school meals. There are about 80,000 children in every school year who are eligible. Tracking their progress through school we can see they fall further and further behind their peers by the time they reach the end of primary. At secondary the gulf grows wider still. By sixteen, a pupil not entitled to free school meals is over 3 times more likely to achieve five good GCSEs as one who is entitled. By the time they reach university age just 45 children out of a cohort of 80,000 on free school meals make it to Oxbridge.
As I said: all we get from the left,in the face of the most horrifying facts, is excuses or silence.
Of course, I understand that some on here found the events at Stafford to be rather difficult for them to handle, which is why they have been so keen to downgrade what happened there.
But if you feel that what happened at Stafford was hideous (as most people probably do), then the woman who strove to destroy the veil of secrecy should be congratulated.
Instead, utter asshats are getting at her because they cannot handle the truth.
The doctors, nurses and management who treated patients with such utter contempt are not to blame in their eyes; instead, their ire goes on the woman who has saved lives by uncovering the truth.
Sickening.
But no more than I expect from the brain-dead at any end of the political spectrum.
(off-topic. Another Apache just flew over, heading for St Neots. The first this week).
How about addressing the issue - the quality of teaching and the abysmal results?
And if it is wrongdoing you want to expose, then look no further than the government you were a part of that allowed the chronic understaffing of the hospital to occur in the first place.
Whatever happened to that? Blair did start with the right intentions. Lord Adonis clearly had good intentions. But attempts to address the abysmal failure of our education system for the bottom half of performers ground to a halt.
Labour really need to think much harder about why. Why were producer interests more valued in education than the children they were supposed to help? Why did they back off league tables and external examination and closing failing schools and the Academy program? Why did England lose ground in this most important of international races?
The Stafford story has common themes. The producer interest again prevails. Labour really need to think, whose side are they on? The side of the users or the staff? It is a big decision but at the moment the failed attempts of Blair are buried under the producer nonsense of Brown with ever greater statistics that mask fundamental failure.
These are not easy questions and I don't pretend there are easy answers. Gove is trying to find some as are too few other ministers. If Ed is still wondering what to put on his piece of paper this is where he needs to start.
The HSMR stats (upon which people who bellow about the so-called 1200 "excess" deaths place their reliance) were dodgy. They were then corrected and audited, bringing the number down to near enough zero.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/education-11929277
http://www.guardian.co.uk/education/2010/dec/07/uk-schools-slip-world-rankings
Even the Guardian does not seem to agree.
But the blog which you use for your claim of 'possibly one person' dying is laughably statistically moribund as well.
Read the reports and the stories within, and tell me honestly that no-one died after such poor treatment.
These things can not be known for certain, and asking for names ('which people died') is pointless, as the inquiry did not set out to discover that.
Going back into history, this was why the total figures for deaths in the earlier Bristol heart scandal are also uncertain, despite (from memory) much more rigorous attempts to work out a number, with a much smaller number of potential patients.
The announcement was made by the Scottish Government's Minister for Energy, Enterprise and Tourism Fergus Ewing at the All Energy conference in Aberdeen.
The green-light from the government and its regulator Marine Scotland, along with onshore planning which was approved last September, means the Edinburgh firm, through its wholly owned subsidiary Lewis Wave Power Limited, will be able to begin installing their near-shore Oyster wave energy machines at the site in the next few years - once the necessary grid infrastructure has been put in place.
This will ultimately see the deployment of between 40 and 50 Oyster devices along the coast at Lag na Greine, near to Fivepenny Borve, in one of the best wave energy locations in Europe. Once complete, the farm will have the capacity to power nearly 30,000 homes.
Last year the local council, Comhairle nan Eilean Siar (Western Isles Council), approved planning for the onshore hydroelectric power plant which will be connected to the Oyster wave energy farm.
Aquamarine Power are currently testing their second full scale wave machine, known as the Oyster 800, at the European Marine Energy Centre (EMEC) in Orkney, and are now producing electrical power to the grid.
"This is a significant milestone for our company," says Aquamarine Power Chief Executive Officer Martin McAdam. "The goal of our industry is to become commercial, and to do this we need two things - reliable technologies and a route to market. Our engineers are currently working hard on getting the technology right and we now have a site where we can install our first small farm, with a larger-scale commercial build out in the years ahead.
Making the announcement, Minister for Energy, Enterprise and Tourism Fergus Ewing MSP said, "I am delighted to announce that Scottish Ministers have granted a License to Aquamarine Power to develop the largest commercial wave array in the world. Aquamarine Power is an exciting, dynamic Scottish company that is increasingly expanding its renewable business.
"The development of up to 50 Oyster wave devices off the North West coast of Lewis, when operational, will have the power to produce 40 MW of renewable electricity.
http://www.pennenergy.com/articles/pennenergy/2013/05
Your link is "forbidden". Can you help with that? It is an interesting story, albeit still very small scale.
2. If things cannot be known for certain why do NHS baiters keep claiming all these deaths as fact (one of the most horrendous accusations you can make so ought to be corroborated up by some copper bottomed set of data)?
3. No one has convincingly debunked Steve Walker's work yet. Certainly not you.
All this uncertainty yet allegations about death numbers are made from the usual quarters as if they *are* certain.
Haven't you just undermined your own case?
Click on Power
Click on Renewable Energy
Should be first story on the News
2) See also the Bristol Heart scandal. Numbers were not known then, but the vague figures accepted.
3) Yes I have. You never responded. There are several methodological and logical flaws in what he claims. Read through it and see if you can find them - they're quite obvious. Start at looking at the way the samples were selected and the sample size compared to the number of deaths. And to make matters worse, he's misrepresenting what Dr Laker said.
But I'm on the side of the people who say there were 'many deaths'. This is serious enough to demand action, without knowing the number.
And action was demanded. You just want to sweep it under the carpet.
There has been evidence provided by Prof Jarman - of Doctor Foster [who have no dog in this fight] that shows Stafford isn't an isolated case.
You're a sensible chap - I can't understand why you're so resistant to the idea that like any other massive organisation, the NHS in these areas screwed up on a massive scale. The personal tragedies set out in the Francis Report are heart-breaking, and far from a few *isolated* incidents of poor care.
" Professor Sir Brian Jarman has accused ministers and officials of ignoring data on high death rates for a decade.
Sir Brian is working on the government review of 14 hospital trusts with higher-than-average death rates in the wake of the Stafford Hospital inquiry.
Speaking of the 14 hospital trusts, Sir Brian said there “must be at least tens of thousands of avoidable deaths in those hospitals alone, when we should have been going in and we should have been looking at them”.
He told BBC Radio 4’s Today programme: “Those hospitals which had persistently high death rates over all those years and have now been listed for investigation should have been investigated earlier, because it’s quite possible we would have had fewer deaths in those hospitals - and we are comparing them, don’t forget, with the national average.
“So we are saying that it’s got that number above what you would expect if they had the national average death rate.” http://www.telegraph.co.uk/health/heal-our-hospitals/9934555/Thousands-more-NHS-deaths-could-have-been-prevented-government-adviser-says.html
You're wasting your time Plato. The thread this morning show that left wing supporters are utterly impervious to any criticism of the NHS.
That is because The System Is Right. The dogma of state provision is far, far more important than the outcomes it provides.
Same on education.
Labour accuse Gove of fibbing, but that is nothing to the outrageous lie of grade inflation that happened under them.
But is now the party of the state. And the needs of the state employers prevail over the needs of consumers (the public). It is owned by the unions. Asking Labour to put pupils before teachers or sick people before the NHS is a pipe dream. Might as well ask UKIP to base their policy agenda on the needs of the Brussels machine.
We're going to get more spending and the unions running the show (before it all breaks).
One man band that ukip, wonder whether AJ has been doing the Stephen Twigg job of prepping a party stooge for her question
*oops she didn't actually ask a question
http://youtu.be/neewy2WaBKg
This may well be a technology that has some future. However, like the wind tech, so enamoured by our elite classes, they can only give small amounts of usable electricity. Providing of course that there will be enough wave power all the time and that the seas don't freeze over in winter in those northern climes.
Science Fiction Pioneer and Grand Master Jack Vance, 1916-2013
http://www.tor.com/blogs/2013/05/jack-vance-obituary-1916-2013