'This is all of course playing beautifully for Burnham if he were to win because he would have lost the lefty label that he was being tarred with. Just by virtue of winning he will have had his clause 4 moment.'
Keep trying to put a positive spin on things no matter what happens,don't let go of those straws.
Really Nick? The Labour Party may be about to elect as leader someone who has chosen to be friends with terrorist organizations with explicitly anit-semitic and genocidal goals and who do not believe in democracy but in the establishment of a theocracy with no room for minorities of any kind.
I would expect Labour to be against fascism, anti-semitism and the use of violence to get your political aims not to call them "friends". That you think this is something of no moment suggests, to be polite, some complacency on your part.
How do you think such links will look when the next Islamist atrocity happens in the UK or to British citizens?
I'm sometimes maybe too charitable, but the interview that he gave on this point which excited many here was convincing to me - as he said, he talks to anyone, including the expansionist Israeli right, and reserves the right to disagree with them, as he does with Hamas and Hezbollah, but thinks we have to engage with them. I think that's normally correct, in the same way that I supported talking to and ultimately signing an agreement with the IRA, who I've always seen as bonkers - either you engage with persistent enemies or you defeat them.
We might be able to defeat ISIS and they don't seem to have much to talk about, but that's the exception: is it really possible to imagine a Middle East settlement that doesn't involve part of Hamas? And talking to a pro-Palestinian audience it's sensible to be polite about the people you're trying to engage. I've known JC a long time, and his modus operandi is to treat everyone as an interesting friend who needs to be engaged. In the same way, I support talking to BNP supporters, and one of my closest friends has voted for them, though he doesn't now.
I'm citing the interview because people react to it it so differently. Tories posting here think it shows rage and guilt; Labour people who I've talked to think it shows intelligence and courage. And the selection is not, with silly exceptions, being made by Tories, so for PB purposes it's important to recognise what is likely to affect the result.
Antifrank- if Corbyn loses the leadership election, even by the tiniest margin, the new leader (Cooper or Burnham) will get a huge boost just by winning and seeming to vanquish the left. This would provide them with a better starting platform than they could have dreamt of following a mundane contest, and a million times better than Ed had after defeating his brother. So there's some very big positives for Labour if Corbyn doesn't make it.
This is all of course playing beautifully for Burnham if he were to win because he would have lost the lefty label that he was being tarred with. Just by virtue of winning he will have had his clause 4 moment.
I doubt very much that Corbyn's new found supporters would be prepared (or could be arsed) to do the heavy lifting of constituency politics and divide the Labour party.
If Burnham wins without the (big) union recommendation as well, that'd be another potential area of weakness he wouldn't now have.
WTF results in Scottish exams up 18% in a year??!?!
Just imagine how good they would have been if we had voted Yes.
Well, with the price of oil so low, many schools would have closed to ensure that cash was still available for Nicola's spin doctors.
Yes but it is the job of the SQA to ensure that pupils get the results they deserve, apparently. So closed schools could be taken account of and adjustments can be made.
1 hour 10 minutes sounds frightfully short to judge 2 years worth of Maths eduction on.
Are the papers held as pdfs anywhere, wouldn't mind a gander...
My understanding is that there was one question which was different from the exemplar they had provided and which required the students to apply their mathematical skills in a way that was different from how they had been taught.
Also the Scottish Higher is not a 2 year course. National 5s or 4s are sat in 4th year and Highers are usually sat in 5th Year. Essentially it is a 6 month course (albeit one that builds on earlier knowledge of course).
I'm citing the interview because people react to it it so differently. Tories posting here think it shows rage and guilt; Labour people who I've talked to think it shows intelligence and courage. And the selection is not, with silly exceptions, being made by Tories, so for PB purposes it's important to recognise what is likely to affect the result.
Thank you Nick for your reply.
Three points:-
1. JC has said that he will or would or has talked to the expansionist Israeli right. Except that no-one has found any evidence that he has ever done so or tried to do so or that he has called them "friends". So I am a little sceptical that this is mere politeness on his part. His friends seem to be consistently anti-Western, illiberal, anti-democratic and in a significant number of cases, anti-Semitic. This worries me. It ought to worry any decent Labour person. That it doesn't seem to also worries me.
2. My concerns do not relate to just one interview but to the range of his associations with Islamists and anti-Semites over a period.
3. How do you think it possible to achieve peace or even dialogue with an organization which has as its explicit goal in its founding charter the slaughter of all Jews? What would the dialogue be about? How many Jews to be killed perhaps?
Peace in relation to Israel/Palestine will only come when the representatives of both sides sit down and talk but those talks will, IMO, only have a fruitful outcome when all the parties involved accept that they have to compromise and cannot have all they want nor can they have the total elimination of the other. Peace talks usually happen - as in Northern Ireland - when the parties realise that the military option will not work. The IRA were in effect defeated and riddled with informers and realised that they would not be able to bomb their way to a united Ireland. So they accepted democracy instead. Hamas and Hezbollah have explicitly rejected democracy and JC - if he were serious - would be telling them in no uncertain terms - that they will get nowhere and should get nowhere - until they do. Instead a democratic politician flirts with people who loathe democracy and want to see it replaced by a theocracy.
I'm sorry to say this, Nick, but this is not showing "intelligence and courage". It is demonstrating moral obtuseness and appeasement. Labour should be better than that. Labour voters - no, all of us - deserve better than that from our official opposition.
"My understanding is that there was one question which was different from the exemplar they had provided and which required the students to apply their mathematical skills in a way that was different from how they had been taught."
Crikey, a maths exam that at least in part tested students' knowledge of and skills in maths in a way that couldn't be coached. No wonder everyone was up in arms about it. If that idea caught on mathematics teachers would have to teach mathematics rather than how to pass an exam, students would have to learn mathematics rather than how to pass an exam. it would be the most radical shake-up in maths education in living memory.
Most maths teachers would be rendered helpless and unable to cope. They would be going off sick with stress and taking early retirement in massive numbers. The costs would be enormous. Then think of the knock on effects. E.g. the few pupils who got through the system would arrive at Uni with good maths skills so Uni lecturers wouldn't be able to coast the first year teaching a subset of the A level. More stress.
Who ever set that question needs to be fired, if they haven't been already eased out and the examining board told in no uncertain terms that they must stick to the script.
"My understanding is that there was one question which was different from the exemplar they had provided and which required the students to apply their mathematical skills in a way that was different from how they had been taught."
Crikey, a maths exam that at least in part tested students' knowledge of and skills in maths in a way that couldn't be coached. No wonder everyone was up in arms about it. If that idea caught on mathematics teachers would have to teach mathematics rather than how to pass an exam, students would have to learn mathematics rather than how to pass an exam. it would be the most radical shake-up in maths education in living memory.
Most maths teachers would be rendered helpless and unable to cope. They would be going off sick with stress and taking early retirement in massive numbers. The costs would be enormous. Then think of the knock on effects. E.g. the few pupils who got through the system would arrive at Uni with good maths skills so Uni lecturers wouldn't be able to coast the first year teaching a subset of the A level. More stress.
Who ever set that question needs to be fired, if they haven't been already eased out and the examining board told in no uncertain terms that they must stick to the script.
Enjoy? Suck it and see.
There are n sweets in a bag. 6 of the sweets are orange. The rest of the sweets are yellow.
Hannah takes a random sweet from the bag. She eats the sweet.
Hannah then takes at random another sweet from the bag. She eats the sweet.
The probability that Hannah eats two orange sweets is 1/3.
Show that n² – n – 90 = 0.
Oh! The answer? Courtesy of the Guardian.
Let’s solve it:
If Hannah takes a sweet from the bag on her first selection, there is a 6/n chance it will be orange.
That’s because there are 6 oranges and n sweets.
If Hannah takes a sweet from the bag on her second selection, there is a 5/(n-1) chance it will be orange.
That’s because there are only 5 orange sweets left out of a total of n - 1 sweets.
The chance of getting two orange sweets in a row is the first probability MULTIPLIED BY the second one. (That’s the most important thing to learn from your lesson today, peeps!)
Which is 6/n x 5/n–1
The question tells us that the chance of Hannah getting two orange sweets is 1/3.
Corbyn deliberately hung himself tonight on NEWSNIGHT by claiming that ''Blair is a war criminal who could be put on trial ''...Corbyn never wanted to be leader anyway , he just wanted to stir the pot ...I fully expect COOPER to be the next LP leader and expect Burnham to finish just ahead of Kendal and almost last , just like he did in the last leadership election
Comments
'This is all of course playing beautifully for Burnham if he were to win because he would have lost the lefty label that he was being tarred with. Just by virtue of winning he will have had his clause 4 moment.'
Keep trying to put a positive spin on things no matter what happens,don't let go of those straws.
We might be able to defeat ISIS and they don't seem to have much to talk about, but that's the exception: is it really possible to imagine a Middle East settlement that doesn't involve part of Hamas? And talking to a pro-Palestinian audience it's sensible to be polite about the people you're trying to engage. I've known JC a long time, and his modus operandi is to treat everyone as an interesting friend who needs to be engaged. In the same way, I support talking to BNP supporters, and one of my closest friends has voted for them, though he doesn't now.
I'm citing the interview because people react to it it so differently. Tories posting here think it shows rage and guilt; Labour people who I've talked to think it shows intelligence and courage. And the selection is not, with silly exceptions, being made by Tories, so for PB purposes it's important to recognise what is likely to affect the result.
If Burnham wins without the (big) union recommendation as well, that'd be another potential area of weakness he wouldn't now have.
My understanding is that there was one question which was different from the exemplar they had provided and which required the students to apply their mathematical skills in a way that was different from how they had been taught.
Also the Scottish Higher is not a 2 year course. National 5s or 4s are sat in 4th year and Highers are usually sat in 5th Year. Essentially it is a 6 month course (albeit one that builds on earlier knowledge of course).
Perhaps we should ask them to add "None" as a runner?
Three points:-
1. JC has said that he will or would or has talked to the expansionist Israeli right. Except that no-one has found any evidence that he has ever done so or tried to do so or that he has called them "friends". So I am a little sceptical that this is mere politeness on his part. His friends seem to be consistently anti-Western, illiberal, anti-democratic and in a significant number of cases, anti-Semitic. This worries me. It ought to worry any decent Labour person. That it doesn't seem to also worries me.
2. My concerns do not relate to just one interview but to the range of his associations with Islamists and anti-Semites over a period.
3. How do you think it possible to achieve peace or even dialogue with an organization which has as its explicit goal in its founding charter the slaughter of all Jews? What would the dialogue be about? How many Jews to be killed perhaps?
Peace in relation to Israel/Palestine will only come when the representatives of both sides sit down and talk but those talks will, IMO, only have a fruitful outcome when all the parties involved accept that they have to compromise and cannot have all they want nor can they have the total elimination of the other. Peace talks usually happen - as in Northern Ireland - when the parties realise that the military option will not work. The IRA were in effect defeated and riddled with informers and realised that they would not be able to bomb their way to a united Ireland. So they accepted democracy instead. Hamas and Hezbollah have explicitly rejected democracy and JC - if he were serious - would be telling them in no uncertain terms - that they will get nowhere and should get nowhere - until they do. Instead a democratic politician flirts with people who loathe democracy and want to see it replaced by a theocracy.
I'm sorry to say this, Nick, but this is not showing "intelligence and courage". It is demonstrating moral obtuseness and appeasement. Labour should be better than that. Labour voters - no, all of us - deserve better than that from our official opposition.
Crikey, a maths exam that at least in part tested students' knowledge of and skills in maths in a way that couldn't be coached. No wonder everyone was up in arms about it. If that idea caught on mathematics teachers would have to teach mathematics rather than how to pass an exam, students would have to learn mathematics rather than how to pass an exam. it would be the most radical shake-up in maths education in living memory.
Most maths teachers would be rendered helpless and unable to cope. They would be going off sick with stress and taking early retirement in massive numbers. The costs would be enormous. Then think of the knock on effects. E.g. the few pupils who got through the system would arrive at Uni with good maths skills so Uni lecturers wouldn't be able to coast the first year teaching a subset of the A level. More stress.
Who ever set that question needs to be fired, if they haven't been already eased out and the examining board told in no uncertain terms that they must stick to the script.
There are n sweets in a bag. 6 of the sweets are orange. The rest of the sweets are yellow.
Hannah takes a random sweet from the bag. She eats the sweet.
Hannah then takes at random another sweet from the bag. She eats the sweet.
The probability that Hannah eats two orange sweets is 1/3.
Show that n² – n – 90 = 0.
Oh! The answer? Courtesy of the Guardian.
Let’s solve it:
If Hannah takes a sweet from the bag on her first selection, there is a 6/n chance it will be orange.
That’s because there are 6 oranges and n sweets.
If Hannah takes a sweet from the bag on her second selection, there is a 5/(n-1) chance it will be orange.
That’s because there are only 5 orange sweets left out of a total of n - 1 sweets.
The chance of getting two orange sweets in a row is the first probability MULTIPLIED BY the second one. (That’s the most important thing to learn from your lesson today, peeps!)
Which is 6/n x 5/n–1
The question tells us that the chance of Hannah getting two orange sweets is 1/3.
So: 6/n x 5/n–1 = 1/3
All we need to do now is rearrange this equation.
(6x5)/n(n-1) = 30/(n2 – n) = 1/3
Or 90/(n2 – n) = 1
So (n2 – n) = 90
Voila: n2 – n – 90 = 0