Disappointing but not wholly unsurprising news from Israel this morning. Netanyahu is the consummate politician and played to this electorate's fears very well. I presume his calculation is the current administration is more concerned with IS and the next (hopefully for him) GOP administration will be much more sympathetic so status quo can be preserved. ..
I think Netanyahu panicked a bit in the face of the opinion polls and the large turnout of Israeli Arabs. He felt it necessary to repudiate the two state solution and promise more settlements to gather in the right wing votes including from Hachad. He was successful in that. That's democracy for you. But there will be an international cost.
Sauber have had a bloody fantastic first race. Fourteen points. They were helped by Raikkonen woe and Bottas' back, but even on pure pace they would've had a double points finish.
They may do very well in Malaysia as well. I wrote in my post-race piece they could be on for fourth. That's not impossible. The pace of development of the Renault engine will be critical in determining how Red Bull/Toro Rosso do.
"There is nothing left wing about "concern for the disadvantaged"
"I'm a Tory & take some fairly practical steps to help in the limited way that I can."
How can someone who believes in private education for the sons and daughters of the rich in the knowledge that 90% of the population can't afford that education be considered compassionate?
Why is it accepted that state education is necessarily so much worse than private education? Why is it necessarily so? I mean facilities, trips here and there I get but why the actual edjumacation bit?
For hundreds of years the national elite has sent its sons and, latterly, its daughters to public schools to be educated. That is bound to have a significant influence on general perceptions. What's more, it is undoubtedly the case that a private education buys your children more attention from teachers, better facilities and less disruptive classes in which to learn. These are all very rational reasons to prefer it. But, as we know, on a like for like basis state schools out-perform private schools. Given the pool from which they attract their clients, private schools should do a whole lot better than they do.
That feels like a synthetic comparison. What is the state equivalent of Winchester College or Christ's Hospital School with which they are being compared ?
The school I went to had about 80 people per year. Around 60% of people did not speak English as a first language (mostly Urdu, and Gujerati), and almost half were on free school meals.
Of that 80, around 40 went through the sixth form to do A-Levels. And of that 40, four of us got into Oxbridge - and all (except me who got a 2:2) got excellent degrees.
I think that's a staggeringly good result for a state school in a deprived area.
I would think this applies to many pensioners who have paid off their mortgage and have savings. I know it is a real bugbear of my parents. Same under Labour I guess
Fraser Nelson (@FraserNelson) 18/03/2015 09:49 How have savers have fared under Osborne? £1,000 deposited in an Cash ISA seven years ago is worth just £916 now. pic.twitter.com/9FQ1mEHh0S
The school I went to had about 80 people per year. Around 60% of people did not speak English as a first language (mostly Urdu, and Gujerati), and almost half were on free school meals.
Of that 80, around 40 went through the sixth form to do A-Levels. And of that 40, four of us got into Oxbridge - and all (except me who got a 2:2) got excellent degrees.
I think that's a staggeringly good result for a state school in a deprived area.
Absolutely.
I was casting doubt on the supposed like for like comparisons, which in reality will only be possible in mid market schools, there are (for obvious reasons) no state schools that could realistically be compared to the top private schools which can attract the best staff, and provide an academic atmosphere of only top students (due to selective entry).
On the other hand, if we go all state school which is good from the "fairness" point of view, its another move toward national mediocrity, unless we replace private schools with state schools that select the brightest and the best for special training, and there isn't the faintest chance of the left being comfortable with that.
Where I am now they have National Science High Schools in most cities, which are state schools with very strict selection on purely academic criteria (they are also damn hard work) but they produce some of the best minds in the country.
"There is nothing left wing about "concern for the disadvantaged"
"I'm a Tory & take some fairly practical steps to help in the limited way that I can."
How can someone who believes in private education for the sons and daughters of the rich in the knowledge that 90% of the population can't afford that education be considered compassionate?
Why is it accepted that state education is necessarily so much worse than private education? Why is it necessarily so? I mean facilities, trips here and there I get but why the actual edjumacation bit?
For hundreds of years the national elite has sent its sons and, latterly, its daughters to public schools to be educated. That is bound to have a significant influence on general perceptions. What's more, it is undoubtedly the case that a private education buys your children more attention from teachers, better facilities and less disruptive classes in which to learn. These are all very rational reasons to prefer it. But, as we know, on a like for like basis state schools out-perform private schools. Given the pool from which they attract their clients, private schools should do a whole lot better than they do.
so what are you saying? Perceptions trump quantified out-performance?
Or that playing fields make or break an education (disruptive classes are presumably accounted or controlled for in the out-performance stats)?
I am saying that on a like for like basis, the OECD tells us that our state schools outperform our private schools. And I am seeking to explain why, in the face of this, private education in this country is perceived to be superior.
@Roger do intelligent parents, with children at a comprehensive school, who help their children to study, so giving them an advantage over children with less intelligent parents, also lack compassion?
Because there's no real moral difference in doing that to sending one's children to a private school.
How many of the negative reviewers have read the book do you think? You don't have to have bought it to review on amazon. You could say the same for positive reviews I guess, but I would bet big that there a fewer of those from non readers
I would think this applies to many pensioners who have paid off their mortgage and have savings. I know it is a real bugbear of my parents. Same under Labour I guess
Fraser Nelson (@FraserNelson) 18/03/2015 09:49 How have savers have fared under Osborne? £1,000 deposited in an Cash ISA seven years ago is worth just £916 now. pic.twitter.com/9FQ1mEHh0S
So Osborne was Chancellor seven years ago? News to me... (yes, still a fall between 2010-2015, but Fraser has form on this.
How many of the negative reviewers have read the book do you think? You don't have to have bought it to review on amazon. You could say the same for positive reviews I guess, but I would bet big that there a fewer of those from non readers
Reading the reviews (both positive and negative), it seems that the book is being rated entirely independently of any intrinsic merits.
The school I went to had about 80 people per year. Around 60% of people did not speak English as a first language (mostly Urdu, and Gujerati), and almost half were on free school meals.
Of that 80, around 40 went through the sixth form to do A-Levels. And of that 40, four of us got into Oxbridge - and all (except me who got a 2:2) got excellent degrees.
I think that's a staggeringly good result for a state school in a deprived area.
Absolutely.
I was casting doubt on the supposed like for like comparisons, which in reality will only be possible in mid market schools, there are (for obvious reasons) no state schools that could realistically be compared to the top private schools which can attract the best staff, and provide an academic atmosphere of only top students (due to selective entry).
On the other hand, if we go all state school which is good from the "fairness" point of view, its another move toward national mediocrity, unless we replace private schools with state schools that select the brightest and the best for special training, and there isn't the faintest chance of the left being comfortable with that.
Where I am now they have National Science High Schools in most cities, which are state schools with very strict selection on purely academic criteria (they are also damn hard work) but they produce some of the best minds in the country.
Like for like refers to the socio-economic background of pupils, not the type of school.
Daily Mail U.K. (@DailyMailUK) 18/03/2015 08:59 Documentary showcases the life of a KFC chicken... in a shed full of 34,000 others dailym.ai/1CrPlT4 pic.twitter.com/g9OfNKnWdr
"There is nothing left wing about "concern for the disadvantaged"
"I'm a Tory & take some fairly practical steps to help in the limited way that I can."
How can someone who believes in private education for the sons and daughters of the rich in the knowledge that 90% of the population can't afford that education be considered compassionate?
Because I would rather than private schools didn't need to exist in anything like the scale that they do at present (there will always be a proportion of demand but a lot of it is driven by perceived better educational outcomes).
That's why I am a huge supporter of efforts to allow state schools their independence from the cold dead hand of LEAs. Let them flourish.
And, as we know, in the UK "perceived" is the apposite word. The reality is that on a like for like basis state schools out-perform private schools:
"There is nothing left wing about "concern for the disadvantaged"
"I'm a Tory & take some fairly practical steps to help in the limited way that I can."
How can someone who believes in private education for the sons and daughters of the rich in the knowledge that 90% of the population can't afford that education be considered compassionate?
Why is it accepted that state education is necessarily so much worse than private education? Why is it necessarily so? I mean facilities, trips here and there I get but why the actual edjumacation bit?
For hundreds of years the national elite has sent its sons and, latterly, its daughters to public schools to be educated. That is bound to have a significant influence on general perceptions. What's more, it is undoubtedly the case that a private education buys your children more attention from teachers, better facilities and less disruptive classes in which to learn. These are all very rational reasons to prefer it. But, as we know, on a like for like basis state schools out-perform private schools. Given the pool from which they attract their clients, private schools should do a whole lot better than they do.
so what are you saying? Perceptions trump quantified out-performance?
Or that playing fields make or break an education (disruptive classes are presumably accounted or controlled for in the out-performance stats)?
I am saying that on a like for like basis, the OECD tells us that our state schools outperform our private schools. And I am seeking to explain why, in the face of this, private education in this country is perceived to be superior.
The question is "superior to what". Because of catchment areas, you get precious little choice which school your children go to, especially outside London, where as you can send your children to any private school your wallet can match. Lots of towns have several mediocre schools, and one heavily over subscribed school which is significantly better. If you cant get into the right catchment area for that school, or can't get in the school even in the catchment area because its full, private schooling will in most cases be a preferable alternative to the less good local schools.
I would think this applies to many pensioners who have paid off their mortgage and have savings. I know it is a real bugbear of my parents. Same under Labour I guess
Fraser Nelson (@FraserNelson) 18/03/2015 09:49 How have savers have fared under Osborne? £1,000 deposited in an Cash ISA seven years ago is worth just £916 now. pic.twitter.com/9FQ1mEHh0S
FTSE tracker would have spanked that by some margin - as would other investments. Does Nelson want a higher interest rate just to suit unimaginative savers ?
There were 1.86 million unemployed people, 102,000 fewer than for August to October 2014 and 479,000 fewer than for a year earlier.
Comparing the three months ending January 2015 with a year earlier, pay for employees in Great Britain increased by 1.8% including bonuses and by 1.6% excluding bonuses
Happy Days Are Here Again!
This net following job losses in the public sector. At least 350,000 public sector jobs have disappeared as far as I can tell, with another million to go over the next 5 years. So the job performance has been even better than you suggest. This loss of public sector jobs is a good thing. We have too many. But will these people who have lost their jobs be happy? Is it going to help the govt, the Tory Party, with votes? If right wingers vote in a totally perverse way, then no.
It's hard to know how much of the fall in public sector jobs is true efficiencies, or the public sector stopping doing certain things, and simply a result of reclassifying jobs as being private sector that were formerly counted as public sector.
The best information is probably here. Here is my interpretation.
1. Employment in Education and the NHS is up markedly, though the reclassification of FE colleges as being in the private sector distorts the headline figures for education.
2. About 150,000 jobs in Public Administration have been lost since 2010, following a reduction of almost 100,000 between 2006-10.
3. There have been large cuts in employment by RBS and Lloyds while they have counted as public sector employment, and also as Lloyds has been reclassified as private sector following share sales.
4. Since 2010 there have been employment drops of nearly 50,000 in the police, 40,000 in the armed forces, and 100,000 in other health and social work.
It's a mixed bag, really. I think the cut in 100,000 jobs in other health and social work will be regretted, given that it is that sort of work which helps to keep old people out of expensive hospital beds. The fall in Public Administration continues the efficiencies instituted by Labour before the Crash.
Mike - can we be sure that Lord Ashcroft is using the same pollster for his national polls and his constituency polls? Otherwise some of the difference could be due to house effect.
The same question also applies to his new constituency polls compared to when they were first done.
It's important for Conservative supporters not to discount the polls just because we don't like the results.
Personally, I can't understand any logical reason why Worcester would have swung to the Tories, and Chester heavily to Labour - they're old Middle England historic towns/cities in not dissimiliar parts of the country.
But any critique I'd like to be on evidence - like margin of error - not conjecture.
You are right - no one should discount polls they do not like (or just rely on polls that suit them). However it must be legitimate to ask if we are working from the same base line. Has Ashcroft confirmed that? Maybe he thinks it too obvious to mention, however he never tells us who does his polling.
I would think this applies to many pensioners who have paid off their mortgage and have savings. I know it is a real bugbear of my parents. Same under Labour I guess
Fraser Nelson (@FraserNelson) 18/03/2015 09:49 How have savers have fared under Osborne? £1,000 deposited in an Cash ISA seven years ago is worth just £916 now. pic.twitter.com/9FQ1mEHh0S
FTSE tracker would have spanked that by some margin - as would other investments. Does Nelson want a higher interest rate just to suit unimaginative savers ?
How many of the negative reviewers have read the book do you think? You don't have to have bought it to review on amazon. You could say the same for positive reviews I guess, but I would bet big that there a fewer of those from non readers
Reading the reviews (both positive and negative), it seems that the book is being rated entirely independently of any intrinsic merits.
There are very few (I couldn't find any) "verified purchases".....
Public sector employment 5.397m in Q4 2014, lowest level since series began in 1999
If you strip out the effect of privatising Royal Mail then it's still higher than in 1999.
Why would you strip them out? They aren't public sector no more...
When people talk about cutting public sector jobs the obvious implication is that they are talking about jobs paid for by taxes, ie, we will cut these non-jobs and then be able to cut your taxes.
Jobs in Royal Mail were paid for by the sale of postal services, so their removal from the public sector headcount does nothing to alter the cost to the taxpayer of paying for their employment which was nil before and is nil now.
If the Chancellor talks about cutting the number of public sector jobs, and uses the headline numbers, he will be misleading the public, because people will not realise the decrease consists largely of cuts in jobs at RBS, the sale of Lloyds and Royal Mail shares and the reclassification of FE colleges to the private sector (that they still have to pay for), and only a relatively small amount by the cuts in government administration jobs that they will think he is talking about.
I would think this applies to many pensioners who have paid off their mortgage and have savings. I know it is a real bugbear of my parents. Same under Labour I guess
Fraser Nelson (@FraserNelson) 18/03/2015 09:49 How have savers have fared under Osborne? £1,000 deposited in an Cash ISA seven years ago is worth just £916 now. pic.twitter.com/9FQ1mEHh0S
FTSE tracker would have spanked that by some margin - as would other investments. Does Nelson want a higher interest rate just to suit unimaginative savers ?
'Unimaginative savers'
There's someone who doesn't understand most of the population. Hope a Tory MP uses that line
I would think this applies to many pensioners who have paid off their mortgage and have savings. I know it is a real bugbear of my parents. Same under Labour I guess
Fraser Nelson (@FraserNelson) 18/03/2015 09:49 How have savers have fared under Osborne? £1,000 deposited in an Cash ISA seven years ago is worth just £916 now. pic.twitter.com/9FQ1mEHh0S
FTSE tracker would have spanked that by some margin - as would other investments. Does Nelson want a higher interest rate just to suit unimaginative savers ?
Maybe just to suit those without a crystal ball.
Hence best to have a mixed portfolio ? Nelson does dart down some blind alleys occasionally.
Daily Mail U.K. (@DailyMailUK) 18/03/2015 08:59 Documentary showcases the life of a KFC chicken... in a shed full of 34,000 others dailym.ai/1CrPlT4 pic.twitter.com/g9OfNKnWdr
Actually I think those chickens look like they have an OK life. Not great but I'd be happy to eat a chicken from that shed.
It's more that left-wing politics can be characterised as responding to human suffering by trying to intervene directly and immediately to relieve it, whereas right-wing responses often focus more on "incentivising" those who are suffering to take steps themselves to address the problem, and managing the overall economy in a way that is intended to benefit all, including the disadvantaged, in the longer term.
You can see this difference in the bedroom tax for example. It's not unreasonable for the state to limit the provision of excessively large homes to those who rely on the state for housing. But the Tory implementation of the policy seems to be to change the system and wait for the reality to catch up, effectively penalising some people for failing to move to homes that don't exist, as well as ignoring the social and economic costs of forcing people to move away from family support networks etc. The approach that many Labour supporters would like to see their party adopt would aim for the same ultimate outcome, but only punish people for refusing to move to an actual existent home in a reasonable location for their current family circumstances, make some provision for the unavoidable costs of moving, and if sufficient houses didn't exist, would take steps to change that.
I'm not holding my breath for the current Labour party to do that, mind....
A typically thoughtful response. As SO said there is little that a sensible Tory and a moderate social democrat would disagree with.
The housing issue/bedroom tax is an interesting one. Clearly the long-term solution has to be (a) more social housing (and more appropriate designs) and (b) short term contracts - say 3-5 years - after which people can stay in them but rents increase to closer to a market rate.
What you are forgetting is the context: we need to reduce current spending to eliminate what was a structural deficit in excess of £150bn when the coalition took power. That's a horrifying number - living way beyond our means as a country. Plus the gradualist approach as you suggest has been tried for the last few years and really doesn't seem to have worked, so some element of stick was needed.
The fundamental point, for a Tory, is that social housing is a scarce and valuable commodity. It should therefore be allocated in such a way as to maximise the social benefit. The problem is that there will always be people who do well out of the current system who will scream blue murder at losing that privileged position. But I don't care: I want to ensure that the neediest in society have the minimum that they need, not that Frank Dobson gets to living in a lovely 4 bedroom flat in Marylebone on the taxpayers' dime
It's more that left-wing politics can be characterised as responding to human suffering by trying to intervene directly and immediately to relieve it, whereas right-wing responses often focus more on "incentivising" those who are suffering to take steps themselves to address the problem, and managing the overall economy in a way that is intended to benefit all, including the disadvantaged, in the longer term.
You can see this difference in the bedroom tax for example. It's not unreasonable for the state to limit the provision of excessively large homes to those who rely on the state for housing. But the Tory implementation of the policy seems to be to change the system and wait for the reality to catch up, effectively penalising some people for failing to move to homes that don't exist, as well as ignoring the social and economic costs of forcing people to move away from family support networks etc. The approach that many Labour supporters would like to see their party adopt would aim for the same ultimate outcome, but only punish people for refusing to move to an actual existent home in a reasonable location for their current family circumstances, make some provision for the unavoidable costs of moving, and if sufficient houses didn't exist, would take steps to change that.
I'm not holding my breath for the current Labour party to do that, mind....
A typically thoughtful response. As SO said there is little that a sensible Tory and a moderate social democrat would disagree with.
The housing issue/bedroom tax is an interesting one. Clearly the long-term solution has to be (a) more social housing (and more appropriate designs) and (b) short term contracts - say 3-5 years - after which people can stay in them but rents increase to closer to a market rate.
What you are forgetting is the context: we need to reduce current spending to eliminate what was a structural deficit in excess of £150bn when the coalition took power. That's a horrifying number - living way beyond our means as a country. Plus the gradualist approach as you suggest has been tried for the last few years and really doesn't seem to have worked, so some element of stick was needed.
The fundamental point, for a Tory, is that social housing is a scarce and valuable commodity. It should therefore be allocated in such a way as to maximise the social benefit. The problem is that there will always be people who do well out of the current system who will scream blue murder at losing that privileged position. But I don't care: I want to ensure that the neediest in society have the minimum that they need, not that Frank Dobson gets to living in a lovely 4 bedroom flat in Marylebone on the taxpayers' dime
Public sector employment 5.397m in Q4 2014, lowest level since series began in 1999
If you strip out the effect of privatising Royal Mail then it's still higher than in 1999.
Why would you strip them out? They aren't public sector no more...
When people talk about cutting public sector jobs the obvious implication is that they are talking about jobs paid for by taxes, ie, we will cut these non-jobs and then be able to cut your taxes.
Jobs in Royal Mail were paid for by the sale of postal services, so their removal from the public sector headcount does nothing to alter the cost to the taxpayer of paying for their employment which was nil before and is nil now.
If the Chancellor talks about cutting the number of public sector jobs, and uses the headline numbers, he will be misleading the public, because people will not realise the decrease consists largely of cuts in jobs at RBS, the sale of Lloyds and Royal Mail shares and the reclassification of FE colleges to the private sector (that they still have to pay for), and only a relatively small amount by the cuts in government administration jobs that they will think he is talking about.
So you don't count Royal Mail employees, but do count RBS employees. Your argument for not including the former surely applies to the latter?
I think Netanyahu panicked a bit in the face of the opinion polls and the large turnout of Israeli Arabs. He felt it necessary to repudiate the two state solution and promise more settlements to gather in the right wing votes including from Hachad. He was successful in that. That's democracy for you. But there will be an international cost.
My view is Netanyahu will bide his time and hope that a Republican wins next autumn. The Congressional letter to Iran could have been written by Netanyahu himself and as long as the GOP controls the legislature there's not a huge amount in truth that Washington can do.
Combine that with the West's preoccupation with IS and Tel Aviv might be able to continue in the background with current policies. The longer-term problem is inaction will lead to radicalisation and it will be that bit harder to reach an accommodation.
"There is nothing left wing about "concern for the disadvantaged"
"I'm a Tory & take some fairly practical steps to help in the limited way that I can."
How can someone who believes in private education for the sons and daughters of the rich in the knowledge that 90% of the population can't afford that education be considered compassionate?
Because I would rather than private schools didn't need to exist in anything like the scale that they do at present (there will always be a proportion of demand but a lot of it is driven by perceived better educational outcomes).
That's why I am a huge supporter of efforts to allow state schools their independence from the cold dead hand of LEAs. Let them flourish.
And, as we know, in the UK "perceived" is the apposite word. The reality is that on a like for like basis state schools out-perform private schools:
So why so lefties bitch about private education all the time?
If state schools are better, the rich parents are just unburdening the system, and creating jobs in the private sector.
Rich parents are behaving entirely rationally. They are buying their children access to opportunities that most of those attending state schools do not get. In this country who you know is often much more important than what you know.
I would think this applies to many pensioners who have paid off their mortgage and have savings. I know it is a real bugbear of my parents. Same under Labour I guess
Fraser Nelson (@FraserNelson) 18/03/2015 09:49 How have savers have fared under Osborne? £1,000 deposited in an Cash ISA seven years ago is worth just £916 now. pic.twitter.com/9FQ1mEHh0S
FTSE tracker would have spanked that by some margin - as would other investments. Does Nelson want a higher interest rate just to suit unimaginative savers ?
'Unimaginative savers'
There's someone who doesn't understand most of the population. Hope a Tory MP uses that line
Really - you want the government to spend time ensuring all savings methods are great just incase people don't shop around ?
How many of the negative reviewers have read the book do you think? You don't have to have bought it to review on amazon. You could say the same for positive reviews I guess, but I would bet big that there a fewer of those from non readers
Reading the reviews (both positive and negative), it seems that the book is being rated entirely independently of any intrinsic merits.
Its possible, maybe probable, that less than 5% of the negative reviewers have read it. I'd put the positive reviewers percentage probably ten times higher
But it makes lefties happy to lie and crack jokes that only they will find funny at people different to them. Hope they don't think it shifts votes though, probably stiffens resolve against them
Amazon should only allow reviews from people that have bought the product
I think a lot of people who've been sexually abused just want to put it out of their minds, and don't want to relive their experiences in Court.
Rotherham has 260,000 people. The idea that 0.5% of that population have been sexually abused over the course of 15 years is not at all far-fetched.
One of the problems with Rotherham, Oxford and the like is that those who seek to question the numbers are seen as "deniers", who are seeking to sweep the issue under the carpet.I found myself in this position, when @Socrates or @SeanT suggested 2 million girls could have been abused, and I pointed out that 2m was equivalent to one-third of the girls who had passed through the 13-16 age group in the last decade - and that, therefore, the number was probably not particularly plausible.
Taking Rotherham, 0.5% of people abused in the town does not sound unlikely. But you do need to adjust the data - only half the people are girls. And only 20% of these will have been in the 13-16 age group at some point in the last 15 years. So, we're saying 5% of girls who were teenagers in the last 15 years were abused. Which is possible - and fairly horrendous.
As an aside, I thought the majority of people we know to have been abused were in care, and therefore particularly vulnerable. (And which, of course, makes the council even more culpable.)
That would be around 20% of all girls that had been teenagers in the last decade.
Which seems high.
Will have been some boys in the mix too.
Abuse comes in many forms. One in five does not seem that outlandish in a country that has always been extremely poor at protecting children from abusers, and at punishing abusers.
On the other hand it is totally in the self interest of the local labour MP to invent a figure in the process of trying to spread the blame around and absolve herself. Likewise these events occurred in labour constituencies, but surprisingly all the accusations against the 'privileged' against MPs are against tories. Pardon me if I wonder about the Daily Mirror in this respect.
It's more that left-wing politics can be characterised as responding to human suffering by trying to intervene directly and immediately to relieve it, whereas right-wing responses often focus more on "incentivising" those who are suffering to take steps themselves to address the problem, and managing the overall economy in a way that is intended to benefit all, including the disadvantaged, in the longer term.
You can see this difference in the bedroom tax for example. It's not unreasonable for the state to limit the provision of excessively large homes to those who rely on the state for housing. But the Tory implementation of the policy seems to be to change the system and wait for the reality to catch up, effectively penalising some people for failing to move to homes that don't exist, as well as ignoring the social and economic costs of forcing people to move away from family support networks etc. The approach that many Labour supporters would like to see their party adopt would aim for the same ultimate outcome, but only punish people for refusing to move to an actual existent home in a reasonable location for their current family circumstances, make some provision for the unavoidable costs of moving, and if sufficient houses didn't exist, would take steps to change that.
I'm not holding my breath for the current Labour party to do that, mind....
A typically thoughtful response. As SO said there is little that a sensible Tory and a moderate social democrat would disagree with.
The housing issue/bedroom tax is an interesting one. Clearly the long-term solution has to be (a) more social housing (and more appropriate designs) and (b) short term contracts - say 3-5 years - after which people can stay in them but rents increase to closer to a market rate.
What you are forgetting is the context: we need to reduce current spending to eliminate what was a structural deficit in excess of £150bn when the coalition took power. That's a horrifying number - living way beyond our means as a country. Plus the gradualist approach as you suggest has been tried for the last few years and really doesn't seem to have worked, so some element of stick was needed.
The fundamental point, for a Tory, is that social housing is a scarce and valuable commodity. It should therefore be allocated in such a way as to maximise the social benefit. The problem is that there will always be people who do well out of the current system who will scream blue murder at losing that privileged position. But I don't care: I want to ensure that the neediest in society have the minimum that they need, not that Frank Dobson gets to living in a lovely 4 bedroom flat in Marylebone on the taxpayers' dime
But the government is happy to subsidise Frank Dobson if he wants to buy his flat.
Public sector employment 5.397m in Q4 2014, lowest level since series began in 1999
If you strip out the effect of privatising Royal Mail then it's still higher than in 1999.
Why would you strip them out? They aren't public sector no more...
When people talk about cutting public sector jobs the obvious implication is that they are talking about jobs paid for by taxes, ie, we will cut these non-jobs and then be able to cut your taxes.
Jobs in Royal Mail were paid for by the sale of postal services, so their removal from the public sector headcount does nothing to alter the cost to the taxpayer of paying for their employment which was nil before and is nil now.
If the Chancellor talks about cutting the number of public sector jobs, and uses the headline numbers, he will be misleading the public, because people will not realise the decrease consists largely of cuts in jobs at RBS, the sale of Lloyds and Royal Mail shares and the reclassification of FE colleges to the private sector (that they still have to pay for), and only a relatively small amount by the cuts in government administration jobs that they will think he is talking about.
So you don't count Royal Mail employees, but do count RBS employees. Your argument for not including the former surely applies to the latter?
The ONS include RBS at present because they are mostly owned by the state, and thus they will be in the headline figures. In order to do a proper like-for-like comparison I would strip them out. When you do so public sector employment is higher now than in 1999. I referred to Royal Mail alone by way of an example, but the figures I was referring to strip out all such major reclassifications. See Figure 6.
@Roger do intelligent parents, with children at a comprehensive school, who help their children to study, so giving them an advantage over children with less intelligent parents, also lack compassion?
Because there's no real moral difference in doing that to sending one's children to a private school.
Well, yeah. Kind of. If they do that without regard to the needs of less privileged children and focus on just their own it's a pretty atomised, unpleasant society. If (as many do) they seek to help others, for example by volunteering around school, supporting their children's less privileged friends with homework and so on then that would help to answer the charge.
Of course the problem with that is that our individual spheres of influence don't extend very far, and we can't really do a lot to help children in underprivileged sink schools a hundred miles away. Perhaps that compassion could be demonstrated by voting for a government that prioritises funding for extra support measures for underprivileged children's education to help offset those disadvantages. You know, things like deciding to forgo increased individual wealth as a result of higher taxes rather than cutting spending on measures like surestart and local libraries. That would be more compassionate than just stopping helping their own children in order to level the playing field as low as possible.
"There is nothing left wing about "concern for the disadvantaged"
"I'm a Tory & take some fairly practical steps to help in the limited way that I can."
How can someone who believes in private education for the sons and daughters of the rich in the knowledge that 90% of the population can't afford that education be considered compassionate?
Because I would rather than private schools didn't need to exist in anything like the scale that they do at present (there will always be a proportion of demand but a lot of it is driven by perceived better educational outcomes).
That's why I am a huge supporter of efforts to allow state schools their independence from the cold dead hand of LEAs. Let them flourish.
And, as we know, in the UK "perceived" is the apposite word. The reality is that on a like for like basis state schools out-perform private schools:
So why so lefties bitch about private education all the time?
If state schools are better, the rich parents are just unburdening the system, and creating jobs in the private sector.
Rich parents are behaving entirely rationally. They are buying their children access to opportunities that most of those attending state schools do not get. In this country who you know is often much more important than what you know.
So, imagine we've banned private education; do you really think that would stop children from richer families having better contacts and opportunities than the poorer kids?
Or would that be the next thing for the left to try to ban somehow?
I think the swingback effect might be caused by shy voters not for nurse for fear of worse.
If the public narrative is negative for a party then people will be shy of admitting support. 1992 comes to mind. Also 2010. These were swingbacks to the ruling party because the ruling party was suffering from the negative narrative.
But today it is the Labour Party that is suffering from a negative narrative. "You surely are not thinking of voting for that Ed Miliband are you!!!" The Tories are getting quite a positive narrative "At least they are competent and that nice David Cameron".
So there may be shy Labour voters not showing in the polls. Be prepared for surprises.
I think a lot of people who've been sexually abused just want to put it out of their minds, and don't want to relive their experiences in Court.
Rotherham has 260,000 people. The idea that 0.5% of that population have been sexually abused over the course of 15 years is not at all far-fetched.
One of the problems with Rotherham, Oxford and the like is that those who seek to question the numbers are seen as "deniers", who are seeking to sweep the issue under the carpet.I found myself in this position, when @Socrates or @SeanT suggested 2 million girls could have been abused, and I pointed out that 2m was equivalent to one-third of the girls who had passed through the 13-16 age group in the last decade - and that, therefore, the number was probably not particularly plausible.
Taking Rotherham, 0.5% of people abused in the town does not sound unlikely. But you do need to adjust the data - only half the people are girls. And only 20% of these will have been in the 13-16 age group at some point in the last 15 years. So, we're saying 5% of girls who were teenagers in the last 15 years were abused. Which is possible - and fairly horrendous.
As an aside, I thought the majority of people we know to have been abused were in care, and therefore particularly vulnerable. (And which, of course, makes the council even more culpable.)
That would be around 20% of all girls that had been teenagers in the last decade.
Which seems high.
Will have been some boys in the mix too.
Abuse comes in many forms. One in five does not seem that outlandish in a country that has always been extremely poor at protecting children from abusers, and at punishing abusers.
On the other hand it is totally in the self interest of the local labour MP to invent a figure in the process of trying to spread the blame around and absolve herself. Likewise these events occurred in labour constituencies, but surprisingly all the accusations against the 'privileged' against MPs are against tories. Pardon me if I wonder about the Daily Mirror in this respect.
If you wish to believe that the sexual abuse of children only occurs in Labour controlled areas, so be it.
I would think this applies to many pensioners who have paid off their mortgage and have savings. I know it is a real bugbear of my parents. Same under Labour I guess
Fraser Nelson (@FraserNelson) 18/03/2015 09:49 How have savers have fared under Osborne? £1,000 deposited in an Cash ISA seven years ago is worth just £916 now. pic.twitter.com/9FQ1mEHh0S
FTSE tracker would have spanked that by some margin - as would other investments. Does Nelson want a higher interest rate just to suit unimaginative savers ?
'Unimaginative savers'
There's someone who doesn't understand most of the population. Hope a Tory MP uses that line
Really - you want the government to spend time ensuring all savings methods are great just incase people don't shop around ?
Twist and turn as you so desire. You've demonstrated you have no idea how most normal people live their lives, that'll do
"There is nothing left wing about "concern for the disadvantaged"
"I'm a Tory & take some fairly practical steps to help in the limited way that I can."
How can someone who believes in private education for the sons and daughters of the rich in the knowledge that 90% of the population can't afford that education be considered compassionate?
Because I would rather than private schools didn't need to exist in anything like the scale that they do at present (there will always be a proportion of demand but a lot of it is driven by perceived better educational outcomes).
That's why I am a huge supporter of efforts to allow state schools their independence from the cold dead hand of LEAs. Let them flourish.
And, as we know, in the UK "perceived" is the apposite word. The reality is that on a like for like basis state schools out-perform private schools:
So why so lefties bitch about private education all the time?
If state schools are better, the rich parents are just unburdening the system, and creating jobs in the private sector.
Rich parents are behaving entirely rationally. They are buying their children access to opportunities that most of those attending state schools do not get. In this country who you know is often much more important than what you know.
So, imagine we've banned private education; do you really think that would stop children from richer families having better contacts and opportunities than the poorer kids?
Or would that be the next thing for the left to try to ban somehow?
I expect the usual suspects will now be lobbying for Boris & Dave to make similar arrangements.
'Nicola Sturgeon vows not to take full salary after Holyrood vote makes her top-paid British politician Nicola Sturgeon is eligible to a salary of £144,687 from next month but a ministerial pay freeze means she will only take £135,605.'
Just had an email from Ed Balls about George Osborne.
He talks about broken promises and concludes " That's why everyone knows the only way the Tories can make their sums add up is by breaking their promises again — raising VAT and putting our NHS at risk."
The interesting word there is VAT. I wonder if Labour will rule out a VAT increase (not progressive) and then press the Tories to give a similar commitment with no weasel words like "we do not plan etc etc"?
UK VAT rates are amongst the lowest in Europe. Mind you, if you believe anything Ed Balls trumpets then I have a great deal from some Spanish Prisoners you might be interested in.
The financial news is full of stories pointing out that the Tory's sums are adding up. Desperate stuff from Ed Balls.
I expect the usual suspects will now be lobbying for Boris & Dave to make similar arrangements.
'Nicola Sturgeon vows not to take full salary after Holyrood vote makes her top-paid British politician Nicola Sturgeon is eligible to a salary of £144,687 from next month but a ministerial pay freeze means she will only take £135,605.'
Public sector employment 5.397m in Q4 2014, lowest level since series began in 1999
If you strip out the effect of privatising Royal Mail then it's still higher than in 1999.
Why would you strip them out? They aren't public sector no more...
When people talk about cutting public sector jobs the obvious implication is that they are talking about jobs paid for by taxes, ie, we will cut these non-jobs and then be able to cut your taxes.
Jobs in Royal Mail were paid for by the sale of postal services, so their removal from the public sector headcount does nothing to alter the cost to the taxpayer of paying for their employment which was nil before and is nil now.
If the Chancellor talks about cutting the number of public sector jobs, and uses the headline numbers, he will be misleading the public, because people will not realise the decrease consists largely of cuts in jobs at RBS, the sale of Lloyds and Royal Mail shares and the reclassification of FE colleges to the private sector (that they still have to pay for), and only a relatively small amount by the cuts in government administration jobs that they will think he is talking about.
So you don't count Royal Mail employees, but do count RBS employees. Your argument for not including the former surely applies to the latter?
The ONS include RBS at present because they are mostly owned by the state, and thus they will be in the headline figures. In order to do a proper like-for-like comparison I would strip them out. When you do so public sector employment is higher now than in 1999. I referred to Royal Mail alone by way of an example, but the figures I was referring to strip out all such major reclassifications. See Figure 6.
Thanks for the link. So there is still a squeeze, just not as dramatic. Shame the chart scale is so skewed by plotting both public and private sectors on the same plot.
"I wonder what sort of faux outrage would have occurred if before the referendum, some minor BTers had burnt copies of Scotland's Future"
The SNP councillors were foolish, but their actions were as nothing compared with Glenn Campbell, a supposedly neutral BBC reporter (still reporting on politics at the BBC), holding up the SNP manifesto and casually ripping it up live on Reporting Scotland
Rich parents are behaving entirely rationally. They are buying their children access to opportunities that most of those attending state schools do not get. In this country who you know is often much more important than what you know.
But that happens even without money. People tend to rely on old school mates and university colleagues for introductions. If they went to a school or university with more able than average students (which will be well placed in later life, and which statistically will come from more intelligent, and ergo more prosperous families) they will have access to better contacts and introductions.
Here students that go to the very strictly selective state schools for students gifted at science, are usually very well set up for contacts as their peers are the academic top notchers and go on to get the best jobs, and yet no one them paid a dime to go to school.
BBC Breaking News @BBCBreaking 10s10 seconds ago UK unemployment fell 102,000 to 1.86m (5.7%) in 3 months to January, @ONS says http://bbc.in/1HZbE2O
Wonder what conspiracy theory the BBC will come up with this time to try and explain away this massive reduction in unemployment over the past 6-9 months? We had the "its all part time" jobs, we have had "its all zero hour contracts", we have had "they are all unskilled ones"...all of which have been found to be nonsense.
BBC journo unhappy you say ?
Linda Yueh @lindayueh 5m5 minutes ago UK avg wage growth slows to 1.8% vs expected 2.2% & unemployment rate unchanged at 5.7% vs exp fall to 5.6%. Just ahead of Budget 12:30GMT.
Mike - can we be sure that Lord Ashcroft is using the same pollster for his national polls and his constituency polls? Otherwise some of the difference could be due to house effect.
The same question also applies to his new constituency polls compared to when they were first done.
It's important for Conservative supporters not to discount the polls just because we don't like the results.
Personally, I can't understand any logical reason why Worcester would have swung to the Tories, and Chester heavily to Labour - they're old Middle England historic towns/cities in not dissimiliar parts of the country.
But any critique I'd like to be on evidence - like margin of error - not conjecture.
You are right - no one should discount polls they do not like (or just rely on polls that suit them). However it must be legitimate to ask if we are working from the same base line. Has Ashcroft confirmed that? Maybe he thinks it too obvious to mention, however he never tells us who does his polling.
The October poll was in the immediate aftermath of the Heywood by-election.
The movement in the raw numbers appears to be UKIP to Labour.
Daily Mail U.K. (@DailyMailUK) 18/03/2015 08:59 Documentary showcases the life of a KFC chicken... in a shed full of 34,000 others dailym.ai/1CrPlT4 pic.twitter.com/g9OfNKnWdr
Actually I think those chickens look like they have an OK life. Not great but I'd be happy to eat a chicken from that shed.
I reacted similarly. I have seen some horrendous images of battery chickens, cattle grids and abattoirs, but that image seemed fairly innocuous. It does not matter how many chickens are in a shed together, providing each one has enough room to walk about.
So why so lefties bitch about private education all the time?
If state schools are better, the rich parents are just unburdening the system, and creating jobs in the private sector.
Rich parents are behaving entirely rationally. They are buying their children access to opportunities that most of those attending state schools do not get. In this country who you know is often much more important than what you know.
So, imagine we've banned private education; do you really think that would stop children from richer families having better contacts and opportunities than the poorer kids?
Or would that be the next thing for the left to try to ban somehow?
I am not advocating banning private education.
I've reread my comments and I didn't actually say you were; I just asked you to imagine that we had.
How do you think we should try to make sure that all children have equal opportunities, if at all?
"There is nothing left wing about "concern for the disadvantaged"
"I'm a Tory & take some fairly practical steps to help in the limited way that I can."
How can someone who believes in private education for the sons and daughters of the rich in the knowledge that 90% of the population can't afford that education be considered compassionate?
Because I would rather than private schools didn't need to exist in anything like the scale that they do at present (there will always be a proportion of demand but a lot of it is driven by perceived better educational outcomes).
That's why I am a huge supporter of efforts to allow state schools their independence from the cold dead hand of LEAs. Let them flourish.
And, as we know, in the UK "perceived" is the apposite word. The reality is that on a like for like basis state schools out-perform private schools:
That report is bollocks. It uses management rather than funding as the basis for determining what is private or public-sector. i.e. a church foundation school will be classed as private even though the money really comes from the state.
'How can someone who believes in private education for the sons and daughters of the rich in the knowledge that 90% of the population can't afford that education be considered compassionate?'
Does that apply to people like you when you use BUPA for your health care instead of the NHS?
I worked in offices opposite an abattoir in Dorking High St [really - it was called Chitty's and been there for decades].
Occasionally a pig would escape the final walk and run squealing into the road - and once memorably, the local branch of Barclays. The sound of them being unloaded was most disconcerting. I haven't forgotten it 20yrs on.
I remain a carnivore - but not much of a pork eater, unsurprisingly. Pigs are really smart. Unlike chickens.
Daily Mail U.K. (@DailyMailUK) 18/03/2015 08:59 Documentary showcases the life of a KFC chicken... in a shed full of 34,000 others dailym.ai/1CrPlT4 pic.twitter.com/g9OfNKnWdr
I would think this applies to many pensioners who have paid off their mortgage and have savings. I know it is a real bugbear of my parents. Same under Labour I guess
Fraser Nelson (@FraserNelson) 18/03/2015 09:49 How have savers have fared under Osborne? £1,000 deposited in an Cash ISA seven years ago is worth just £916 now. pic.twitter.com/9FQ1mEHh0S
FTSE tracker would have spanked that by some margin - as would other investments. Does Nelson want a higher interest rate just to suit unimaginative savers ?
'Unimaginative savers'
There's someone who doesn't understand most of the population. Hope a Tory MP uses that line
Really - you want the government to spend time ensuring all savings methods are great just incase people don't shop around ?
Twist and turn as you so desire. You've demonstrated you have no idea how most normal people live their lives, that'll do
Twist and turn you just want more state intervention and less choice less freedom. 7 years ago we had a labour govt. I would not rely on Fraser Nelson for anything to do with economics. Its shocking that inflation and interest rates are so low as far as he is concerned
So you don't count Royal Mail employees, but do count RBS employees. Your argument for not including the former surely applies to the latter?
The ONS include RBS at present because they are mostly owned by the state, and thus they will be in the headline figures. In order to do a proper like-for-like comparison I would strip them out. When you do so public sector employment is higher now than in 1999. I referred to Royal Mail alone by way of an example, but the figures I was referring to strip out all such major reclassifications. See Figure 6.
Thanks for the link. So there is still a squeeze, just not as dramatic. Shame the chart scale is so skewed by plotting both public and private sectors on the same plot.
Your latter point also illustrates another curiosity about the numbers. According to the classification of public/private that I linked to public sector jobs make up no more than 20% of the total, yet public spending is roughly 40% of GDP. Thus we can see that roughly half of public spending is spent on buying goods and services from private companies. In the case of services this might be largely from companies such as Capita, G4S, Serco, for example.
If you concentrate just on the distorted measure of public sector employment then it can allow large inefficiencies to develop with these sorts of outsourcing contracts.
I doubt that we're heading towards a union of the two parties, not least because PR in Stormont and councils means there's much less value to doing so, but the divisions between the DUP and UUP are much less pronounced than they once were and once electoral pacts become the norm, these things sometimes develop a momentum of their own.
Nicola Sturgeon is eligible to a salary of £144,687 from next month but a ministerial pay freeze means she will only take £135,605.'
She's giving up less than 100 quid a week in her hand - but of course her full salary counts towards her big fat taxpayer funded final salary pension ?
@Roger do intelligent parents, with children at a comprehensive school, who help their children to study, so giving them an advantage over children with less intelligent parents, also lack compassion?
Because there's no real moral difference in doing that to sending one's children to a private school.
Well, yeah. Kind of. If they do that without regard to the needs of less privileged children and focus on just their own it's a pretty atomised, unpleasant society. If (as many do) they seek to help others, for example by volunteering around school, supporting their children's less privileged friends with homework and so on then that would help to answer the charge.
Of course the problem with that is that our individual spheres of influence don't extend very far, and we can't really do a lot to help children in underprivileged sink schools a hundred miles away. Perhaps that compassion could be demonstrated by voting for a government that prioritises funding for extra support measures for underprivileged children's education to help offset those disadvantages. You know, things like deciding to forgo increased individual wealth as a result of higher taxes rather than cutting spending on measures like surestart and local libraries. That would be more compassionate than just stopping helping their own children in order to level the playing field as low as possible.
That is aiming for equality of outcome, not equality of opportunity is it not ? In any case most parents doing a full time jobs barely have the energy left at the end of the busy day to help their own children never mind spend extra effort on someone else's. Not saying I disagree with you in principle, but its rather a utopian view given the average working week in the UK.
I have been tutoring a child that effectively missed preschool and started school in the first year of junior school, she isn't very clever but tries hard and is conscientious, and it has taken me four years at 3 hours a day to catch her up to where she should be in school. It takes an immense amount of effort to fix someone's education once it starts to go wrong.
The most decisive measure, which no amount of money, libraries and tbh sure-start programs can make any impact on is parental engagement in their child's education. If you have a disinterested parent, or even a parent which is intellectually well below the child, the child is going to struggle. Middle class parents just are more engaged in their child's education, and there is often a negative image for academic achievement in many working class peer groups, "swot", "nerd" etc.
I would think this applies to many pensioners who have paid off their mortgage and have savings. I know it is a real bugbear of my parents. Same under Labour I guess
Fraser Nelson (@FraserNelson) 18/03/2015 09:49 How have savers have fared under Osborne? £1,000 deposited in an Cash ISA seven years ago is worth just £916 now. pic.twitter.com/9FQ1mEHh0S
Those same pensioners would have been (rightly) more than compensated for such a loss by the triple lock on their pensions protecting them from the austerity the rest of public expenditure has gone through. If they've paid off their mortgage, they have also benefitted from continued house price rises improving their net worth. Given that, I would far prefer a few savers see modest returns (or even mild losses) over experiencing Eurozone-style deflation.
I think a lot of people who've been sexually abused just want to put it out of their minds, and don't want to relive their experiences in Court.
Rotherham has 260,000 people. The idea that 0.5% of that population have been sexually abused over the course of 15 years is not at all far-fetched.
....
Taking Rotherham, 0.5% of people abused in the town does not sound unlikely. But you do need to adjust the data - only half the people are girls. And only 20% of these will have been in the 13-16 age group at some point in the last 15 years. So, we're saying 5% of girls who were teenagers in the last 15 years were abused. Which is possible - and fairly horrendous.
As an aside, I thought the majority of people we know to have been abused were in care, and therefore particularly vulnerable. (And which, of course, makes the council even more culpable.)
That would be around 20% of all girls that had been teenagers in the last decade.
Which seems high.
Will have been some boys in the mix too.
Abuse comes in many forms. One in five does not seem that outlandish in a country that has always been extremely poor at protecting children from abusers, and at punishing abusers.
On the other hand it is totally in the self interest of the local labour MP to invent a figure in the process of trying to spread the blame around and absolve herself. Likewise these events occurred in labour constituencies, but surprisingly all the accusations against the 'privileged' against MPs are against tories. Pardon me if I wonder about the Daily Mirror in this respect.
If you wish to believe that the sexual abuse of children only occurs in Labour controlled areas, so be it.
I don't say that but the scandals have been in Labour seats..
JZ Rogers school was 30k pa..he doesn't want anyone else to have a good education outside of the state schools... along with Chukka and Tristram.. it is called hypocrisy..
I remembered your previous post on PISA hence the inclusion of "perceived"...
But you need to be very careful with sweeping statements. For instance, Eton is the worst school in the country for GSCEs with 0% of pupils achieving 5 A-C grades. The fact that they do tremendously well at iGCSEs doesn't count for the league table.
Additionally many private schools also teach non-academic benefits: handwriting and manners have been mentioned. For me the benefit of Eton was they took my natural intellectual curiosity and honed it into a lifelong love of learning. It may be that a state school wound have done that as well - but I doubt it is measured by PISA.
I think a lot of people who've been sexually abused just want to put it out of their minds, and don't want to relive their experiences in Court.
Rotherham has 260,000 people. The idea that 0.5% of that population have been sexually abused over the course of 15 years is not at all far-fetched.
One of the problems with Rotherham, Oxford and the like is that those who seek to question the numbers are seen as "deniers", who are seeking to sweep the issue under the carpet.I found myself in this position, when @Socrates or @SeanT suggested 2 million girls could have been abused, and I pointed out that 2m was equivalent to one-third of the girls who had passed through the 13-16 age group in the last decade - and that, therefore, the number was probably not particularly plausible.
Taking Rotherham, 0.5% of people abused in the town does not sound unlikely. But you do need to adjust the data - only half the people are girls. And only 20% of these will have been in the 13-16 age group at some point in the last 15 years. So, we're saying 5% of girls who were teenagers in the last 15 years were abused. Which is possible - and fairly horrendous.
As an aside, I thought the majority of people we know to have been abused were in care, and therefore particularly vulnerable. (And which, of course, makes the council even more culpable.)
That would be around 20% of all girls that had been teenagers in the last decade.
Which seems high.
Extrapolating from Rotherham would suggest 250,000 or so. Which is still a very disturbing number. Even if Rotherham is exceptional, it could easily be 150-200,000.
Those numbers are simply shocking if true! What are you extrapolating the numbers to? I saw the coverage of a similar situation in Oxford, but nothing beyond that.
I think the swingback effect might be caused by shy voters not for nurse for fear of worse.
If the public narrative is negative for a party then people will be shy of admitting support. 1992 comes to mind. Also 2010. These were swingbacks to the ruling party because the ruling party was suffering from the negative narrative.
But today it is the Labour Party that is suffering from a negative narrative. "You surely are not thinking of voting for that Ed Miliband are you!!!" The Tories are getting quite a positive narrative "At least they are competent and that nice David Cameron".
So there may be shy Labour voters not showing in the polls. Be prepared for surprises.
With the spiral of silence adjustment, ICM and Ashcroft assume that people are more willing to say who they voted for at the previous general election, but that the shyness kicks in for the next general election. If that holds, then you can use the don't know figures as a proxy for how shy the supporters of each party are, and you would expect ICM/Ashcroft to be more accurate because they reallocate some of these don't knows back to their previous support.
During this Parliament it has been clear that it is 2010 Lib Dems who are most likely to say that they don't know who they will vote for in 2015. I think I can see a trend in Ashcroft National Polls for these voters to start to declare their support for Cameron's Conservatives as the election approaches, but only 51 days until we have the results in full.
I would think this applies to many pensioners who have paid off their mortgage and have savings. I know it is a real bugbear of my parents. Same under Labour I guess
Fraser Nelson (@FraserNelson) 18/03/2015 09:49 How have savers have fared under Osborne? £1,000 deposited in an Cash ISA seven years ago is worth just £916 now. pic.twitter.com/9FQ1mEHh0S
FTSE tracker would have spanked that by some margin - as would other investments. Does Nelson want a higher interest rate just to suit unimaginative savers ?
'Unimaginative savers'
There's someone who doesn't understand most of the population. Hope a Tory MP uses that line
Really - you want the government to spend time ensuring all savings methods are great just incase people don't shop around ?
Twist and turn as you so desire. You've demonstrated you have no idea how most normal people live their lives, that'll do
Twist and turn you just want more state intervention and less choice less freedom. 7 years ago we had a labour govt. I would not rely on Fraser Nelson for anything to do with economics. Its shocking that inflation and interest rates are so low as far as he is concerned
Yeah I said in my original post it would probably be the same under Labour... That gets ignored of course as the Tories here just love defending their men and so turn everything into a partisan argument (see @felix last week re PMQs)
Who said anything about less freedom of choice? Or more state intervention?
We already have big state intervention, it has meant no interest on savings hasn't it?
I think a lot of people who've been sexually abused just want to put it out of their minds, and don't want to relive their experiences in Court.
Rotherham has 260,000 people. The idea that 0.5% of that population have been sexually abused over the course of 15 years is not at all far-fetched.
....
Taking Rotherham, 0.5% of people abused in the town does not sound unlikely. But you do need to adjust the data - only half the people are girls. And only 20% of these will have been in the 13-16 age group at some point in the last 15 years. So, we're saying 5% of girls who were teenagers in the last 15 years were abused. Which is possible - and fairly horrendous.
As an aside, I thought the majority of people we know to have been abused were in care, and therefore particularly vulnerable. (And which, of course, makes the council even more culpable.)
That would be around 20% of all girls that had been teenagers in the last decade.
Which seems high.
Will have been some boys in the mix too.
Abuse comes in many forms. One in five does not seem that outlandish in a country that has always been extremely poor at protecting children from abusers, and at punishing abusers.
On the other hand it is totally in the self interest of the local labour MP to invent a figure in the process of trying to spread the blame around and absolve herself. Likewise these events occurred in labour constituencies, but surprisingly all the accusations against the 'privileged' against MPs are against tories. Pardon me if I wonder about the Daily Mirror in this respect.
If you wish to believe that the sexual abuse of children only occurs in Labour controlled areas, so be it.
I don't say that but the scandals have been in Labour seats..
Around the nation those who abuse children don't care who won in their parliamentary seat.
I think a lot of people who've been sexually abused just want to put it out of their minds, and don't want to relive their experiences in Court.
Rotherham has 260,000 people. The idea that 0.5% of that population have been sexually abused over the course of 15 years is not at all far-fetched.
....
Taking Rotherham, 0.5% of people abused in the town does not sound unlikely. But you do need to adjust the data - only half the people are girls. And only 20% of these will have been in the 13-16 age group at some point in the last 15 years. So, we're saying 5% of girls who were teenagers in the last 15 years were abused. Which is possible - and fairly horrendous.
As an aside, I thought the majority of people we know to have been abused were in care, and therefore particularly vulnerable. (And which, of course, makes the council even more culpable.)
That would be around 20% of all girls that had been teenagers in the last decade.
Which seems high.
Will have been some boys in the mix too.
Abuse comes in many forms. One in five does not seem that outlandish in a country that has always been extremely poor at protecting children from abusers, and at punishing abusers.
On the other hand it is totally in the self interest of the local labour MP to invent a figure in the process of trying to spread the blame around and absolve herself. Likewise these events occurred in labour constituencies, but surprisingly all the accusations against the 'privileged' against MPs are against tories. Pardon me if I wonder about the Daily Mirror in this respect.
If you wish to believe that the sexual abuse of children only occurs in Labour controlled areas, so be it.
I don't say that but the scandals have been in Labour seats..
I would think this applies to many pensioners who have paid off their mortgage and have savings. I know it is a real bugbear of my parents. Same under Labour I guess
Fraser Nelson (@FraserNelson) 18/03/2015 09:49 How have savers have fared under Osborne? £1,000 deposited in an Cash ISA seven years ago is worth just £916 now. pic.twitter.com/9FQ1mEHh0S
Those same pensioners would have been (rightly) more than compensated for such a loss by the triple lock on their pensions protecting them from the austerity the rest of public expenditure has gone through. If they've paid off their mortgage, they have also benefitted from continued house price rises improving their net worth. Given that, I would far prefer a few savers see modest returns (or even mild losses) over experiencing Eurozone-style deflation.
Good for you.
Let's see how ordinary pensioners feel about it, those that aren't financial whizzkids, don't want to move from their home,and can't justify paying financial advisors
I would think this applies to many pensioners who have paid off their mortgage and have savings. I know it is a real bugbear of my parents. Same under Labour I guess
Fraser Nelson (@FraserNelson) 18/03/2015 09:49 How have savers have fared under Osborne? £1,000 deposited in an Cash ISA seven years ago is worth just £916 now. pic.twitter.com/9FQ1mEHh0S
Those same pensioners would have been (rightly) more than compensated for such a loss by the triple lock on their pensions protecting them from the austerity the rest of public expenditure has gone through. If they've paid off their mortgage, they have also benefitted from continued house price rises improving their net worth. Given that, I would far prefer a few savers see modest returns (or even mild losses) over experiencing Eurozone-style deflation.
Good for you.
Let's see how ordinary pensioners feel about it, those that aren't financial whizzkids, don't want to move from their home,and can't justify paying financial advisors
Free and unlimited patronising remarks for all pensioners under Ukip (and Fraser Nelson).
I remembered your previous post on PISA hence the inclusion of "perceived"...
But you need to be very careful with sweeping statements. For instance, Eton is the worst school in the country for GSCEs with 0% of pupils achieving 5 A-C grades. The fact that they do tremendously well at iGCSEs doesn't count for the league table.
Additionally many private schools also teach non-academic benefits: handwriting and manners have been mentioned. For me the benefit of Eton was they took my natural intellectual curiosity and honed it into a lifelong love of learning. It may be that a state school wound have done that as well - but I doubt it is measured by PISA.
I have no doubt that Eton is one of the best schools in the world. But PISA does not look at GCSE results. It looks at performance in tests specifically set by the OECD. The idea being that the results are then comparable.
There are many flaws with PISA (in particular, if you set up your system so that kids are good at passing PISA tests then you will do very well in the PISA rankings) and that we should not be too obsessed by it. But the PISA results have framed UK education policy for a fair while now.
I would think this applies to many pensioners who have paid off their mortgage and have savings. I know it is a real bugbear of my parents. Same under Labour I guess
Fraser Nelson (@FraserNelson) 18/03/2015 09:49 How have savers have fared under Osborne? £1,000 deposited in an Cash ISA seven years ago is worth just £916 now. pic.twitter.com/9FQ1mEHh0S
Those same pensioners would have been (rightly) more than compensated for such a loss by the triple lock on their pensions protecting them from the austerity the rest of public expenditure has gone through. If they've paid off their mortgage, they have also benefitted from continued house price rises improving their net worth. Given that, I would far prefer a few savers see modest returns (or even mild losses) over experiencing Eurozone-style deflation.
Good for you.
Let's see how ordinary pensioners feel about it, those that aren't financial whizzkids, don't want to move from their home,and can't justify paying financial advisors
Free and unlimited patronising remarks for all pensioners under Ukip (and Fraser Nelson).
No need to go on you've made your point and shown you are clueless
You'll see from my original point I said it would be the same under labour
I would think this applies to many pensioners who have paid off their mortgage and have savings. I know it is a real bugbear of my parents. Same under Labour I guess
Fraser Nelson (@FraserNelson) 18/03/2015 09:49 How have savers have fared under Osborne? £1,000 deposited in an Cash ISA seven years ago is worth just £916 now. pic.twitter.com/9FQ1mEHh0S
Those same pensioners would have been (rightly) more than compensated for such a loss by the triple lock on their pensions protecting them from the austerity the rest of public expenditure has gone through. If they've paid off their mortgage, they have also benefitted from continued house price rises improving their net worth. Given that, I would far prefer a few savers see modest returns (or even mild losses) over experiencing Eurozone-style deflation.
Good for you.
Let's see how ordinary pensioners feel about it, those that aren't financial whizzkids, don't want to move from their home,and can't justify paying financial advisors
They don't need to. Plenty of thoroughly boring high street financial institutions like building societies offer access to savings products linked to stock markets or the like. It's not difficult and people need to take some responsibility for their own lives and decisions.
I doubt that we're heading towards a union of the two parties, not least because PR in Stormont and councils means there's much less value to doing so, but the divisions between the DUP and UUP are much less pronounced than they once were and once electoral pacts become the norm, these things sometimes develop a momentum of their own.
Nicola Sturgeon is eligible to a salary of £144,687 from next month but a ministerial pay freeze means she will only take £135,605.'
She's giving up less than 100 quid a week in her hand - but of course her full salary counts towards her big fat taxpayer funded final salary pension ?
Whoop de doo.
But you'd frotted yourself into a frenzy that she might be earning more than than your heroes! You Tory cock-rockers can now rest easy that Dave and Boris are still top of the pile.
Morning all and hurrah, another "Tories are fcuked" thread. Wonder how many of those prospective Labour voters in the marginals are actually on the voters roll? It is quite clear from an exchange I had with Ben Page from Ipsos Mori the other day, some pollsters haven't a clue about individual registration and the potential impact both in individual seats and in headline totals. He thought they were still using the electoral roll from before last October and the introduction of individual voter registration. Incidentally I see more frequent TV ads telling people to register online by 20th April.
I would think this applies to many pensioners who have paid off their mortgage and have savings. I know it is a real bugbear of my parents. Same under Labour I guess
Fraser Nelson (@FraserNelson) 18/03/2015 09:49 How have savers have fared under Osborne? £1,000 deposited in an Cash ISA seven years ago is worth just £916 now. pic.twitter.com/9FQ1mEHh0S
Those same pensioners would have been (rightly) more than compensated for such a loss by the triple lock on their pensions protecting them from the austerity the rest of public expenditure has gone through. If they've paid off their mortgage, they have also benefitted from continued house price rises improving their net worth. Given that, I would far prefer a few savers see modest returns (or even mild losses) over experiencing Eurozone-style deflation.
Good for you.
Let's see how ordinary pensioners feel about it, those that aren't financial whizzkids, don't want to move from their home,and can't justify paying financial advisors
Free and unlimited patronising remarks for all pensioners under Ukip (and Fraser Nelson).
No need to go on you've made your point and shown you are clueless
You'll see from my original point I said it would be the same under labour
'Unimaginative savers'
"ordinary pensioners"
Now THAT is patronising. Seriously what are Ukip proposing - to increase interest rates by how much ? For the sole reason that cash ISAs pay out more ? Baffling.
Comments
https://twitter.com/SauberF1Team/status/578131840109813760
Sauber have had a bloody fantastic first race. Fourteen points. They were helped by Raikkonen woe and Bottas' back, but even on pure pace they would've had a double points finish.
They may do very well in Malaysia as well. I wrote in my post-race piece they could be on for fourth. That's not impossible. The pace of development of the Renault engine will be critical in determining how Red Bull/Toro Rosso do.
Fraser Nelson (@FraserNelson)
18/03/2015 09:49
How have savers have fared under Osborne? £1,000 deposited in an Cash ISA seven years ago is worth just £916 now. pic.twitter.com/9FQ1mEHh0S
I was casting doubt on the supposed like for like comparisons, which in reality will only be possible in mid market schools, there are (for obvious reasons) no state schools that could realistically be compared to the top private schools which can attract the best staff, and provide an academic atmosphere of only top students (due to selective entry).
On the other hand, if we go all state school which is good from the "fairness" point of view, its another move toward national mediocrity, unless we replace private schools with state schools that select the brightest and the best for special training, and there isn't the faintest chance of the left being comfortable with that.
Where I am now they have National Science High Schools in most cities, which are state schools with very strict selection on purely academic criteria (they are also damn hard work) but they produce some of the best minds in the country.
http://www.amazon.co.uk/product-reviews/B00UEXOUE0/ref=cm_cr_dp_see_all_btm?ie=UTF8&showViewpoints=1&sortBy=bySubmissionDateDescending
Because there's no real moral difference in doing that to sending one's children to a private school.
No meat for a few days methinks
Daily Mail U.K. (@DailyMailUK)
18/03/2015 08:59
Documentary showcases the life of a KFC chicken... in a shed full of 34,000 others dailym.ai/1CrPlT4 pic.twitter.com/g9OfNKnWdr
If state schools are better, the rich parents are just unburdening the system, and creating jobs in the private sector.
The best information is probably here. Here is my interpretation.
1. Employment in Education and the NHS is up markedly, though the reclassification of FE colleges as being in the private sector distorts the headline figures for education.
2. About 150,000 jobs in Public Administration have been lost since 2010, following a reduction of almost 100,000 between 2006-10.
3. There have been large cuts in employment by RBS and Lloyds while they have counted as public sector employment, and also as Lloyds has been reclassified as private sector following share sales.
4. Since 2010 there have been employment drops of nearly 50,000 in the police, 40,000 in the armed forces, and 100,000 in other health and social work.
It's a mixed bag, really. I think the cut in 100,000 jobs in other health and social work will be regretted, given that it is that sort of work which helps to keep old people out of expensive hospital beds. The fall in Public Administration continues the efficiencies instituted by Labour before the Crash.
Jobs in Royal Mail were paid for by the sale of postal services, so their removal from the public sector headcount does nothing to alter the cost to the taxpayer of paying for their employment which was nil before and is nil now.
If the Chancellor talks about cutting the number of public sector jobs, and uses the headline numbers, he will be misleading the public, because people will not realise the decrease consists largely of cuts in jobs at RBS, the sale of Lloyds and Royal Mail shares and the reclassification of FE colleges to the private sector (that they still have to pay for), and only a relatively small amount by the cuts in government administration jobs that they will think he is talking about.
There's someone who doesn't understand most of the population. Hope a Tory MP uses that line
I do however avoid battery farmed eggs: http://www.aact.org.au/battery_hens.htm
The housing issue/bedroom tax is an interesting one. Clearly the long-term solution has to be (a) more social housing (and more appropriate designs) and (b) short term contracts - say 3-5 years - after which people can stay in them but rents increase to closer to a market rate.
What you are forgetting is the context: we need to reduce current spending to eliminate what was a structural deficit in excess of £150bn when the coalition took power. That's a horrifying number - living way beyond our means as a country. Plus the gradualist approach as you suggest has been tried for the last few years and really doesn't seem to have worked, so some element of stick was needed.
The fundamental point, for a Tory, is that social housing is a scarce and valuable commodity. It should therefore be allocated in such a way as to maximise the social benefit. The problem is that there will always be people who do well out of the current system who will scream blue murder at losing that privileged position. But I don't care: I want to ensure that the neediest in society have the minimum that they need, not that Frank Dobson gets to living in a lovely 4 bedroom flat in Marylebone on the taxpayers' dime
The housing issue/bedroom tax is an interesting one. Clearly the long-term solution has to be (a) more social housing (and more appropriate designs) and (b) short term contracts - say 3-5 years - after which people can stay in them but rents increase to closer to a market rate.
What you are forgetting is the context: we need to reduce current spending to eliminate what was a structural deficit in excess of £150bn when the coalition took power. That's a horrifying number - living way beyond our means as a country. Plus the gradualist approach as you suggest has been tried for the last few years and really doesn't seem to have worked, so some element of stick was needed.
The fundamental point, for a Tory, is that social housing is a scarce and valuable commodity. It should therefore be allocated in such a way as to maximise the social benefit. The problem is that there will always be people who do well out of the current system who will scream blue murder at losing that privileged position. But I don't care: I want to ensure that the neediest in society have the minimum that they need, not that Frank Dobson gets to living in a lovely 4 bedroom flat in Marylebone on the taxpayers' dime
Ah, no, I see. Super early here!
Combine that with the West's preoccupation with IS and Tel Aviv might be able to continue in the background with current policies. The longer-term problem is inaction will lead to radicalisation and it will be that bit harder to reach an accommodation.
But it makes lefties happy to lie and crack jokes that only they will find funny at people different to them. Hope they don't think it shifts votes though, probably stiffens resolve against them
Amazon should only allow reviews from people that have bought the product
Likewise these events occurred in labour constituencies, but surprisingly all the accusations against the 'privileged' against MPs are against tories. Pardon me if I wonder about the Daily Mirror in this respect.
Of course the problem with that is that our individual spheres of influence don't extend very far, and we can't really do a lot to help children in underprivileged sink schools a hundred miles away. Perhaps that compassion could be demonstrated by voting for a government that prioritises funding for extra support measures for underprivileged children's education to help offset those disadvantages. You know, things like deciding to forgo increased individual wealth as a result of higher taxes rather than cutting spending on measures like surestart and local libraries. That would be more compassionate than just stopping helping their own children in order to level the playing field as low as possible.
Or would that be the next thing for the left to try to ban somehow?
ICM STILL don't have their tables up
If the public narrative is negative for a party then people will be shy of admitting support.
1992 comes to mind. Also 2010. These were swingbacks to the ruling party because the ruling party was suffering from the negative narrative.
But today it is the Labour Party that is suffering from a negative narrative. "You surely are not thinking of voting for that Ed Miliband are you!!!" The Tories are getting quite a positive narrative "At least they are competent and that nice David Cameron".
So there may be shy Labour voters not showing in the polls. Be prepared for surprises.
Growth rate of 2.8% now looks good too.
Not too much adulation from those ARSE deniers in the back rows please.
'Nicola Sturgeon vows not to take full salary after Holyrood vote makes her top-paid British politician
Nicola Sturgeon is eligible to a salary of £144,687 from next month but a ministerial pay freeze means she will only take £135,605.'
http://tinyurl.com/o8jw5ka
"I wonder what sort of faux outrage would have occurred if before the referendum, some minor BTers had burnt copies of Scotland's Future"
The SNP councillors were foolish, but their actions were as nothing compared with
Glenn Campbell, a supposedly neutral BBC reporter (still reporting on politics at the BBC), holding up the SNP manifesto and casually ripping it up live on Reporting Scotland
Here students that go to the very strictly selective state schools for students gifted at science, are usually very well set up for contacts as their peers are the academic top notchers and go on to get the best jobs, and yet no one them paid a dime to go to school.
The movement in the raw numbers appears to be UKIP to Labour.
How do you think we should try to make sure that all children have equal opportunities, if at all?
'How can someone who believes in private education for the sons and daughters of the rich in the knowledge that 90% of the population can't afford that education be considered compassionate?'
Does that apply to people like you when you use BUPA for your health care instead of the NHS?
Occasionally a pig would escape the final walk and run squealing into the road - and once memorably, the local branch of Barclays. The sound of them being unloaded was most disconcerting. I haven't forgotten it 20yrs on.
I remain a carnivore - but not much of a pork eater, unsurprisingly. Pigs are really smart. Unlike chickens.
7 years ago we had a labour govt. I would not rely on Fraser Nelson for anything to do with economics. Its shocking that inflation and interest rates are so low as far as he is concerned
If you concentrate just on the distorted measure of public sector employment then it can allow large inefficiencies to develop with these sorts of outsourcing contracts.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-northern-ireland-31930496
I doubt that we're heading towards a union of the two parties, not least because PR in Stormont and councils means there's much less value to doing so, but the divisions between the DUP and UUP are much less pronounced than they once were and once electoral pacts become the norm, these things sometimes develop a momentum of their own.
Whoop de doo.
I have been tutoring a child that effectively missed preschool and started school in the first year of junior school, she isn't very clever but tries hard and is conscientious, and it has taken me four years at 3 hours a day to catch her up to where she should be in school. It takes an immense amount of effort to fix someone's education once it starts to go wrong.
The most decisive measure, which no amount of money, libraries and tbh sure-start programs can make any impact on is parental engagement in their child's education. If you have a disinterested parent, or even a parent which is intellectually well below the child, the child is going to struggle. Middle class parents just are more engaged in their child's education, and there is often a negative image for academic achievement in many working class peer groups, "swot", "nerd" etc.
Ham, bacon, pork, gammon, all from one animal! Huzzah for pigs!
I remembered your previous post on PISA hence the inclusion of "perceived"...
But you need to be very careful with sweeping statements. For instance, Eton is the worst school in the country for GSCEs with 0% of pupils achieving 5 A-C grades. The fact that they do tremendously well at iGCSEs doesn't count for the league table.
Additionally many private schools also teach non-academic benefits: handwriting and manners have been mentioned. For me the benefit of Eton was they took my natural intellectual curiosity and honed it into a lifelong love of learning. It may be that a state school wound have done that as well - but I doubt it is measured by PISA.
During this Parliament it has been clear that it is 2010 Lib Dems who are most likely to say that they don't know who they will vote for in 2015. I think I can see a trend in Ashcroft National Polls for these voters to start to declare their support for Cameron's Conservatives as the election approaches, but only 51 days until we have the results in full.
Who said anything about less freedom of choice? Or more state intervention?
We already have big state intervention, it has meant no interest on savings hasn't it?
Let's see how ordinary pensioners feel about it, those that aren't financial whizzkids, don't want to move from their home,and can't justify paying financial advisors
Black Pudding
Mr. Jimmy, ha, I almost included scratchings. They're good but you can't really make a meal of them.
There are many flaws with PISA (in particular, if you set up your system so that kids are good at passing PISA tests then you will do very well in the PISA rankings) and that we should not be too obsessed by it. But the PISA results have framed UK education policy for a fair while now.
You'll see from my original point I said it would be the same under labour
'Unimaginative savers'
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TJxGi8bizEg
A minute after I got on Dodds at 4-9 with Paddy power it was cut to 1-4 !
Now THAT is patronising. Seriously what are Ukip proposing - to increase interest rates by how much ? For the sole reason that cash ISAs pay out more ? Baffling.
Cut tax on savings is a much better solution.