That's been one of Gove's major challenges to get the focus shifted from indian dancing to numeracy & literacy in the face of the usual opposition from the union dinosaurs
And the Prime Minister. And Lord Coe, for Indian dancing is PE, if not actually a sport, and we are supposed to be keen on that, post-Olympics. Gove does not care about sport because like almost every other politician, the basis of his education policy is that pupils should do more of what he liked at school, and less of what he did not like.
@tim For once I agree entirely - this is 2013's version of the 1970's 'Barber Boom' Lord help us - a CONSERVATIVE CotE who is deliberately inflating house prices.
Hanging, drawing & quartering is too good for those responsible.
"As London becomes ever more split ** between a high earning/educational/skilled group and a menial low skilled service group the only way to prosper there will be through ensuring your kids join the first group."
That is not a new split, Mr. Richard, and I am not even sure it is an old one growing wider. "You have got to get a trade, boy" was a familiar refrain from the parents of my friends when I was growing up in South London. Getting one's children into a skilled trade or a good education was a solid ambition of the working class in the fifties, probably before and I am no different now.
@tim For once I agree entirely - this is 2013's version of the 1970's 'Barber Boom' Lord help us - a CONSERVATIVE CotE who is deliberately inflating house prices. .
But why should you be surprised? The "good times" from 1992-2008 were predicated on four things - cheap food, cheap fuel, cheap money and rising asset values. If your house was rising in value 10% per annum and inflation was 3%, fantastic. The opening up of China and other new markets led to big falls in commodity prices and a flood of cheap imports - go through your wardrobe and see how much of it comes from China.
Osborne knows he can't do much about food (he needs sterling to be devalued to help exports) or fuel (let's face it, the fuel duty is a huge cash cow for any Government). The cheap money is in the bag with low interest rates so all that's need politically to re-install some consumer confidence is to see property prices rising again. It's a political ploy aimed at middle-class southern English voters to convince them that the "good times" can come back with steadfast voting.
A good angle of Big Ben, that you never see photographed, is from Lambeth Palace Road near St Thomas' Hospital. That road has the benefit of normal everyday life taking place on it, so it would be easy to get a woman pushing pram or man walking a dog etc in the foreground with Ben Ben in the background.
"you seem to be describing competition in a capitalist economy"
In a way I am.
The problem is if we continue to have the trend of increasing global capitalist competition then this country is fcked.
Because we'll be up against countries which have workforces which are as intelligent and educated as ours, harder working and much lower cost. They'll also be operating under much lower taxation and regulation.
So all our living standards are heading for decline and it will be goodbye to the welfare state.
Now that's something some free marketeering capitalists will cheer and something which the highly skilled and extremely rich will be able to benefit from.
But for the rest of us it will mean harder work and lower living standards.
The industrial revolution gave the West two centuries of economic dominance with the consequent military and political dominance over the world.
We're seeing all that disappear.
Within 50 years London will be an economic backwater, a Venice on the Thames, and all the young and ambitious and skilled people will be heading East.
As it's Good Friday and he gets mentioned so often by so many on here, I thought I'd do something I've never done for and read a piece by Dan Hodges.
A Dan Hodges piece, you say? Was it a disaster for Ed Miliband, this thing, whatever it was, that Hodges discussed?
Hold on while I toddle over to the Getelarph ... ah, yes, there it is, in the final paragraph: "Until Ed Miliband begins to demonstrate that leadership, I still believe a Tory victory in 2015 is the most likely outcome."
Interesting. The fall as a percentage of GDP will be faster than forecast, perhaps in part to reduced numbers in the schemes. I know a few people in the NHS who opted out recently.
The faster fall is not based on more people opting out of the scheme (that may be happening but there's an assumption for that and it hasnt changed since Hutton's projections). It's largely based on the further developments since Hutton (including, for example, increase in pension up to 68).
The pensions changes and public sector pay freeze, do make for some paradoxes. As we are pretty certain to be getting no pay rise, or a sub inflationary one for the next few years, the increase in pension by accruing extra years is offset by a lower final salary. As pensions (like benefits) are linked to CPI, it is quite possible to have a larger pension from fewer years of service. In addition the pension is better protected against further reductions in benefit.
I know a number of docs who have taken early retirement on this basis, only to return to work, opted out of further superannuation very shortly afterwards, collecting both pension and salary. This 24 hour retirement is becoming quite common amongst GPs, particularly in areas where recruitment is difficult and they can regain their own job easily.
@tim - Tim, you keep bleating on about Osborne moving in to "sub prime lending" but this simply isn't true. What is proposed is lending to buyers who are short on equity, that is not sub prime lending, that is lending to people with flawed credit histories.
As I understand it, the borrowers will be vetted by the principle lender (who's putting up 75%) in accordance with their normal criteria which will weed out any sub rime applications. Any chance of you desisting peddling this myth?
"Getting one's children into a skilled trade or a good education was a solid ambition of the working class in the fifties, probably before and I am no different now."
Certainly and likewise outside London as well.
My point is that the lifestyle a skilled trade or good education would have brought you in London of the fifties or outside London now is much lower than such things would get you in London now.
To succeed in London now you need to be very skilled or educated rather than merely skilled or educated.
And there's only a limited number who can reach that level.
It does seem that "some" Conservatives have already worked out a scenario - Labour win in 2015, Cameron is unceremoniously dumped and replaced by a more hardline leader who is able not only to forge a takeover of UKIP but also to take advantage of the complete failure of the MIlliband Government to improve anything.
Come 2020 (if they last that long), the Conservatives are swept back into office with a landslide on a mandate of radical neo-Thatcherite economics and a referendum predicated on voting to leave the EU. Obviously, said new Conservative torch-bearer won't be Boris.
Stodge's Fifth Law of Politics states that the one thing worse then not being in Government is being in Government and not being able to carry out the policies you want.
History. Personally I would like a bit more world history to be taught. You know, like what was going on in China at the same time the Romans were invading Britain. And the fact that the Vikings didn't principally exist to invade England. And that there were civilisations in Africa before the British colonies were set up. Learning our own country's history is important, but so is context. One of my favourite history books: http://www.amazon.com/Smithsonian-Timelines-Ancient-World-Scarre/dp/1564583058
Great for the very rich or very highly skilled. Good for outgoing young people with some money. Exciting for those who come from backward or poor countries.
But not ideal for average people who earn average money from average jobs and who want to live in an average house with an average family. Like their parents and grandparents and great-grandparents did before them.
London's a great place to visit but most people will have higher living standards, a better lifestyle and a better future for their kids elsewhere.
This is absolutely right. My family on both sides has lived in the same part of London for at least the last 100 years. But now my Mum and sister are the only ones there. My Mum because she and my Dad bought their house for £7,000 in 1970, my sister because she got a council flat back in the 1990s and then bought it. For anyone who is not fabulously wealthy, trading up on a house they bought a while ago in the same area or living in council accommodation NW5 is now out of reach.
I realise you want to push single vaccines against all the medical evidence.
tim, I guess you didn't read what I said. No surprises.
I know the pros and cons of combination vaccines very well. After all I've just sold one of the world leaders in combination vaccines (press release coming out tomorrow). You think I could do that without doing my homework?
The medical evidence is that it is very difficult to get multivalent vaccines right. It is incredibly easy to make them so that they either over-stimulate or under-stimulate the immune system (it depends, inter alia, on the antigens, how they interact, the precise adjuvant and the source of the carrier protein as well as how secure the cold chain channel was plus appropriate administration). Even big firms get this wrong - one of the largest global pharmaceutical companies just had to pull its vaccine range from a specific market because it over-stimulated the immune system. Single vaccines have fewer disadvantages - but are more expensive, more inconvenient and harder to obtain.
I quite understand why governments push combination vaccines (compliance is critical from a public health perspective). And I quite understand why vaccination is critical for the individual. However there is scope for a reasoned debate between multivalent and monovalent products.
The other issue about London is the that a lot of the income and economic growth there is generated by people who do not live there, and a lot of the people in London are consuming rather than generating the Nations wealth.
Many who work in the city commute in to work, whether stockbroker or secretary. Their value to the London economy is much more than that of someone on benefits living in the city. It is a fallacy to attribute London's worth to the latter rather than the former.
The singer, Pat Kane, is a mover & shaker in the Yes campaign, and he's always been a leftish supporter of Scottish independence. Was never much of a fan of his white bread soul, but he's a smart cookie.
A much more sensible approach, which would also be chronological, would be to identify key points in history and to focus in order and in depth on those from a variety of perspectives.
I rather assume that that is precisely what they are going to do - the alternative that you are holding up would be ridiculous* Equally, the 'no facts, all sources' is equally ridiculous. I am sure there is a happy medium somewhere in between the two extremes.
* Our Island Story which includes the same amount of space on Prince Brutus and the Founding of Br[u]tain as the Industrial Revolution is one of my favorite books though...
"BBC unions silent over the Maggie Question BBC staff who went on strike yesterday said they were prepared to return to their desks if Nelson Mandela died, however the staff's generosity stopped there."
"The Labour frontbench has accepted more than £600,000-worth of free help from one of the City’s biggest firms. PricewaterhouseCoopers sends staff on secondment to the offices of members of Ed Miliband’s team, including the Shadow Chancellor Ed Balls.
The amount of help given has rocketed over the past year, with the value doubling since last March. One Labour MP has described the development as “unhealthy for democracy”..."
"The most respected and famous international political figure of all time versus (probably) the most despised the British Isles has known (certainly in my lifetime)."
They probably wouldn't want it to interfere with the party they are planning when she pops her clogs.....
What I suppose it depends on what you think think the point of teaching history in schools at GCSE and below should be? Personally, I think giving our children a sense of how we came to be where we are, our island story if you like, is probably the best we can hope for given the time constraints imposed. If you want children to be taught what was happening in China, India, the Americas and Africa at the same time as, say, the Glorious Revolution, then you are going to scrap other bits of the school curriculum (probably maths and science) in order to fit that in and then you'll only be scrapping the surface.
"The Labour frontbench has accepted more than £600,000-worth of free help from one of the City’s biggest firms. PricewaterhouseCoopers sends staff on secondment to the offices of members of Ed Miliband’s team, including the Shadow Chancellor Ed Balls.
The amount of help given has rocketed over the past year, with the value doubling since last March. One Labour MP has described the development as “unhealthy for democracy”..."
It's an unintended consequence of taking a hard line on unpaid internships. I was asked informally whether I could find support for a shadow Cabinet member. Ironically, the role would have been wonderful for any unpaid intern's cv, in or out of politics.
HurstLama/Mrs B: It's always instructive to go to another country and while there, read up on their history. Especially as it relates to England's. "History" for someone brought up and educated in England looks quite different when viewed from a Welsh perspective. And one cannot get much closer that that!
I get the distinct impression Charles knows what he is talking about regarding vaccines, particularly if he has a press release out tomorrow. I suspect his knowledge would put Tim to shame, but I am more than happy to give Tim the chance to convince me otherwise on this one. I add that I know a little bit about this; as I work as a part time consultant to the egg industry where the vaccine business for medical needs is far more profitable than shell egg and pulp.
...I've seen some really good school simulations of e.g. African village life, not too didactic or message-driven.
As a war gamer with Squad Leader, even thirty years later, I can give an erudite explanation of the pros and done of various arcane German and Soviet tank designs. Happy days, but not something that comes up much in my medical practice.
Ah, another wargamer emerges from the closet. Did you ever come across my books on board wargaming? The day SPI sent me *80* games in a parcel to be reviewed in the first one is one of the most memorable of my life (how sad is that!).
HurstLama/Mrs B: It's always instructive to go to another country and while there, read up on their history. Especially as it relates to England's. "History" for someone brought up and educated in England looks quite different when viewed from a Welsh perspective. And one cannot get much closer that that!
Yes but history shows that the Welsh spent as much (if not more) time fighting among themselves as they did fighting the English - hence they lost.
Problem is that mentally they are still doing both today - hence a declining economy, education, health service and infrastructure. If they just concentrated on improving their own lot and ignored mentally trying to re-fight the battles of the Middle Ages, then they might see some improvement.
I have just seen that both I and Mr. Charles have used the term "Our Island Story". If anyone is wondering what would make a good primary school to GCSE history syllabus they could do a lot worse than take "This Sceptred Isle" (beautifully narrated beautifully by the late Anna Massey) as the text. No bullshit, no Hobsawm-style spin just how we came to be where we are.
In fact I'd go further. I'd make it mandatory for aspiring MPs to pass a tough exam on the content of the series before they could stand for election. I'd also make it mandatory for anyone aspiring to a senior role in HMG (elected or civil service) or indeed any publicly funded post worth more than £100k p.a. to pass a very tough exam on Sun Tzu's the "Art of War".
Yes but history shows that the Welsh spent as much (if not more) time fighting among themselves as they did fighting the English - hence they lost.
Sadly true. Doesn't alter the fact the period up to 1282 looks quite different though. Or the history of mass education in the 19th and early 20th Centuries.
One set of my grandchildren are learning history from a Thai perspective. It will be fascinating to talk to them in a few years time. That's, of course if I live long enough!
HurstLama/Mrs B: It's always instructive to go to another country and while there, read up on their history. Especially as it relates to England's. "History" for someone brought up and educated in England looks quite different when viewed from a Welsh perspective. And one cannot get much closer that that!
Yes but history shows that the Welsh spent as much (if not more) time fighting among themselves as they did fighting the English - hence they lost.
Problem is that mentally they are still doing both today - hence a declining economy, education, health service and infrastructure. If they just concentrated on improving their own lot and ignored mentally trying to re-fight the battles of the Middle Ages, then they might see some improvement.
The problem is one man's terrorist is another man's freedom fighter depending where you stand. The brutal colonisation of Ireland, Wales and Scotland is not on the schoool curriculum in England although perhaps it needs to be.
Fuel watch: I paid 140.9 for diesel at my Tesco the other day, the spread to petrol was only 4 pence. Not been that low in ages. Anyone else notice this ?
The MMR vaccine is probably the most research vaccine in history, which is why I was susprised when Charles started pumping out scare stories, to back up his choice of single vaccines. However I'm glad he seems to have taken on board the facts regarding the higher risks involved in single vaccines that we discussed a month or two back, it's all in the archive if you want to run through his journey of discovery,but he seems to have reached the correct decision in the end.
All's well that end's well.
If Charles averaged 200 mill of sales a year over the last 10 years then that tells me he knows his stuff.
HurstLama/Mrs B: It's always instructive to go to another country and while there, read up on their history. Especially as it relates to England's. "History" for someone brought up and educated in England looks quite different when viewed from a Welsh perspective. And one cannot get much closer that that!
Yes but history shows that the Welsh spent as much (if not more) time fighting among themselves as they did fighting the English - hence they lost.
Problem is that mentally they are still doing both today - hence a declining economy, education, health service and infrastructure. If they just concentrated on improving their own lot and ignored mentally trying to re-fight the battles of the Middle Ages, then they might see some improvement.
The problem is one man's terrorist is another man's freedom fighter depending where you stand. The brutal colonisation of Ireland, Wales and Scotland is not on the schoool curriculum in England although perhaps it needs to be.
Of course the Romans first colonised Wales (as they did England) but built walls against the Scots.
If the Welsh had not kept up their border incursions, I suppose that the English may have left them alone depending on the ambitions of the Marcher barons. In another way the same could be applied to the Scots, but the advent of James I (VI) pulled Scotland and England together.
If I recall, did not a lot of Scots colonise parts of Ulster?
"The brutal colonisation of Ireland, Wales and Scotland is not on the schoool curriculum "
And here we see another, far more worrisome in my view, of the modern teaching of history, the imposition of current societal norms on people who lived by a very different set of values.
"The brutal colonisation of Ireland, Wales and Scotland is not on the schoool curriculum "
And here we see another, far more worrisome in my view, of the modern teaching of history, the imposition of current societal norms on people who lived by a very different set of values.
How else would you describe the English practice in Ireland? In Wales and Scotland, particularly the former, there was a class element ..... local Welsh princelings married the daughters of Marcher lords etc, Scots aristocracy had connections acorss the border. There was also a significant element of bribery!
...I've seen some really good school simulations of e.g. African village life, not too didactic or message-driven.
As a war gamer with Squad Leader, even thirty years later, I can give an erudite explanation of the pros and done of various arcane German and Soviet tank designs. Happy days, but not something that comes up much in my medical practice.
Ah, another wargamer emerges from the closet. Did you ever come across my books on board wargaming? The day SPI sent me *80* games in a parcel to be reviewed in the first one is one of the most memorable of my life (how sad is that!).
Happy days!; I subscibed to "Strategy and Tactics" for some years and greatly looked forward to the game with every edition. "Squad Leader" was my favourite, and I still have it up in my loft, though the other games have sadly departed. Computer games have their charms, but I still love cardboard, hexes and dice.
I have managed to get my son into D and D, so we play that from time to time.
If I recall, did not a lot of Scots colonise parts of Ulster?
Not to mention Canada or New Zealand.....
As the NYT observed yesterday, 'Scotland has benefited disproportionately from the spoils of the British Empire...'
Wasn't much of the Scots emigration to Canada fuelled by the Highland Clearances? And those were largely the responsibility of the local, albeit Anglicised, aristocracy.
"The brutal colonisation of Ireland, Wales and Scotland is not on the schoool curriculum "
And here we see another, far more worrisome in my view, of the modern teaching of history, the imposition of current societal norms on people who lived by a very different set of values.
How else would you describe the English practice in Ireland? In Wales and Scotland, particularly the former, there was a class element ..... local Welsh princelings married the daughters of Marcher lords etc, Scots aristocracy had connections acorss the border. There was also a significant element of bribery!
"The brutal colonisation of Ireland, Wales and Scotland is not on the schoool curriculum "
And here we see another, far more worrisome in my view, of the modern teaching of history, the imposition of current societal norms on people who lived by a very different set of values.
How else would you describe the English practice in Ireland? In Wales and Scotland, particularly the former, there was a class element ..... local Welsh princelings married the daughters of Marcher lords etc, Scots aristocracy had connections acorss the border. There was also a significant element of bribery!
To be fair, England was brutally colonised too.
Yes, there wasn't much of the Saxon aristocracy 50 years after the Conquest, apart from the odd grandmother.
@pupstar Fuel watch: I paid 140.9 for diesel at my Tesco the other day, the spread to petrol was only 4 pence. Not been that low in ages. Anyone else notice this ?
There seems to be a supermarket price war going on in Norfolk as prices suddenly dropped by 4p a couple of weeks back. Unleaded is now 132p locally.
"After the Rennard story, broken by Channel 4 News, one would have expected a much greater urgency about the Lib Dems’ response to the allegations against Hancock, which the MP strenuously denies. These allegations are arguably a lot more serious than those against Lord Rennard.
One wonders how much, if anything, the Liberal Democrats have learnt from their embarrassment over the Rennard scandal."
On the one hand it's admirable that women these days think they can do anything they like, but at the same time I do shake my head slightly when I read this:
"Three British women travelling in an aid convoy were raped after being kidnapped in Benghazi, Libyan authorities have said.
Two of the women, who are originally from Pakistan, were travelling with two men on their way to the airport when they were snatched, reportedly by pro-government militiamen.
The Deputy Prime Minister, Awad al Barassi, has visited the women in hospital and said that they were in "very bad shape" following the ordeal on Tuesday.
The women had been travelling with other activists as part of a convoy heading towards Gaza."
@Carlotta. "BBC unions silent over the Maggie Question"
The most respected and famous international political figure of all time versus (probably) the most despised the British Isles has known (certainly in my lifetime).
I can see the equivalence!
(Probably) wrong on both counts, about par for you Roger.
Anyone else being plagued by fake calls from "Microsoft", wanting to access my PC, and then charge me to do it? I've had 3 in 3 days. Mind you, there's good sport to be had in stringing them along!
He did something similar in Bengal during WWII, though, I believe.
I think you'll find that it was the Japanese who invaded Burma, and cut off Bengal's food supply, not Churchill.....
Read something recently, but can't find it now, that the British government refused either to supply ships ...... which was to some degree understadable ...... or to put pressure on the parts of India which had enough food. There was I think, also a problem with transport.
Like most such circumstances it wasn't as simple as either of us initially posted.
"Three British women travelling in an aid convoy were raped after being kidnapped in Benghazi, Libyan authorities have said.
Two of the women, who are originally from Pakistan, were travelling with two men on their way to the airport when they were snatched, reportedly by pro-government militiamen.
The Deputy Prime Minister, Awad al Barassi, has visited the women in hospital and said that they were in "very bad shape" following the ordeal on Tuesday.
The women had been travelling with other activists as part of a convoy heading towards Gaza."
Unfortunately they will probably blame the Israelis for this, even though it was their fellow muslims that raped them. BTW it was the Egyptians that stopped them at the border from proceeding to Gaza. Egypt is having a torrid time with Hamas lately, accusing them of killing up up 17 Egyptian border guards. (I may be mistaken in the actual number)
Inevitably there are differing interpretations - the Wikipedia article lays the blame at the door of democratically elected regional governments which sought to preserve food for themselves and a failure of central government to get stuck in:
Pleasant thread as we idly chew not very partisan cuds. Southam - do you ever outsource any editing/proof-reading? If so I'll send you a bid...
As a gamer I'd like to see more use of role-playing to bring understanding of other periods and other current environments to life - I've seen some really good school simulations of e.g. African village life, not too didactic or message-driven.
As a war gamer with Squad Leader, even thirty years later, I can give an erudite explanation of the pros and done of various arcane German and Soviet tank designs. Happy days, but not something that comes up much in my medical practice.
Squad leader was such a great game.
Spent many a happy Sunday with friends playing that game.
Actually, I still have it in a cupboard somewhere..... << rummage>>
"Unfortunately they will probably blame the Israelis for this, even though it was their fellow muslims that raped them"
Yes of course they will. After being raped within an inch of their life what could be more rational than falsely identifying the rapists as Israelis knowing they weren't.
Inevitably there are differing interpretations - the Wikipedia article lays the blame at the door of democratically elected regional governments which sought to preserve food for themselves and a failure of central government to get stuck in:
As ever, 'cock-up' much more to the fore than 'conspiracy'.....
The Bengal Famine of 1943 was no cock-up. Vast amounts of food were shipped into the interior parts of India so that they would not fall to the Japanese.
There was no reason for a famine. The harvest was a very good one indeed. Peopel in Calcutta did not see much of the famine. The deaths were in the villages.
There is a brilliant film by Satyajit Ray called "The Distant Thunder" on this.
Pleasant thread as we idly chew not very partisan cuds. Southam - do you ever outsource any editing/proof-reading? If so I'll send you a bid...
As a gamer I'd like to see more use of role-playing to bring understanding of other periods and other current environments to life - I've seen some really good school simulations of e.g. African village life, not too didactic or message-driven.
As a war gamer with Squad Leader, even thirty years later, I can give an erudite explanation of the pros and done of various arcane German and Soviet tank designs. Happy days, but not something that comes up much in my medical practice.
Squad leader was such a great game.
Spent many a happy Sunday with friends playing that game.
Actually, I still have it in a cupboard somewhere..... << rummage>>
The problem is one man's terrorist is another man's freedom fighter depending where you stand. The brutal colonisation of Ireland, Wales and Scotland is not on the schoool curriculum in England although perhaps it needs to be.
Not if you adopt a sensible definition of terrorism, such as the one I was taught at university: "the targeting of violence towards civilians for psychological effect in order to cause political change."
That definition holds true whether you support the political change or not.
"The Ecuadorean government believes there is so little prospect of Wikileaks founder Julian Assange leaving its London embassy in the near future that it has held talks with the Labour Party in a bid to strike a deal that would see him sent to Sweden to face rape charges after the 2015 election."
BenedictBrogan @benedictbrogan: Too true MT @nicholaswatt: Why do people say Hayes is popular? Homilies on aesthetics greeted with guffaws, inc from PM circle
"The Ecuadorean government believes there is so little prospect of Wikileaks founder Julian Assange leaving its London embassy in the near future that it has held talks with the Labour Party in a bid to strike a deal that would see him sent to Sweden to face rape charges after the 2015 election."
"The brutal colonisation of Ireland, Wales and Scotland is not on the schoool curriculum "
And here we see another, far more worrisome in my view, of the modern teaching of history, the imposition of current societal norms on people who lived by a very different set of values.
How else would you describe the English practice in Ireland? In Wales and Scotland, particularly the former, there was a class element ..... local Welsh princelings married the daughters of Marcher lords etc, Scots aristocracy had connections acorss the border. There was also a significant element of bribery!
To be fair, England was brutally colonised too.
Yes, there wasn't much of the Saxon aristocracy 50 years after the Conquest, apart from the odd grandmother.
My ancestors came over wth the Norman conquest, but we are of Anglo-Saxon descent having first been part of the North men that invaded/settled in that part of France. Our surname is still recognisable as being Anglo-Saxon, even though about 600 years ago we dropped the "le" which was the prefix to our name in the 11th century.
20% functional illiteracy among fifteen-year-old pupils according to the OECD.
As we don't have a working democracy there's been no public debate over who's statistics are honest but one of either the OECD or the educational wing of the nomenklatura are lying or wrong.
If the OECD are correct then where are those 20%? Are they evenly spread across the whole country or are there more in some areas than others? For instance is the percentage higher in the suburbs and small towns or in the inner cities?
If the nomenklatura's stats about London are honest and there has been a dramatic improvement in the inner cities over the last ten years - which would be a 180 degree turnaround in fact given that for most of the last 40 years up until a few years ago the below average educational attainment in the inner city was being blamed on racism - while the OECD says there's been an increase in functional illiteracy over the country as a whole during the same period then that implies there's more than 20% functional illiteracy in the suburbs and small towns and less than 20% in the inner city areas.
Your mileage may vary.
Also 7th to 25th in reading and 8th to 28th in maths between 2000 and 2009 according to the OECD doesn't fit well dramatic improvements. There may be genuine reasons or dishonest spin why the direction of travel isn't as dramatically downwards as it might at first appear but a 180 degree dramatic improvement?
There are some ways both the OECD and the educational wing of the nomenklatura could be correct / telling the truth.
1) There is the dramatic increase in the use of private tuition especially in London
"According to research in 2009 by the Sutton Trust, half of state secondary pupils in London have received private tuition in some form during their school years - up from 36 per cent in 2005. Across the country, the proportion has seen a jump from 18 per cent to 22 per cent."
which when combined with the emphasis on coursework could explain a lot.
2) A second related possibility is the average standard was so low that the influx of Chinese getting 10 GCSEs thanks to their parents teaching their kids after school has managed to improve the overall average on their own despite the rest of the pupils sinking lower.
Or alternatively the educational nomenklatura could be trying to cover up the disaster they have made of education in the rough areas where state education isn't or can't be topped up by the parents.
TL;DR
The stats from the educational wing of the nomenklatura - who will never admit they were wrong on discipline in schools and don't care how many kids get their education wrecked in the process as long as they afford to get their own kids into catchment colony schools - are inconsistent with the stats from the OECD.
It's worth noting that David Cameron has promised to "fight" for Turkish EU membership, and providing unlimited access to the UK for the 73 million Turkish citizens. It's worth bearing in mind that's more than the populations of all the A8 countries that joined in 2004 (Poland, Czechia, Hungary, Slovakia, Lithuania, Latvia, Slovenia and Estonia) put together. It's also growing a lot faster - the population will reach 94 million by 2030.
Comments
For once I agree entirely - this is 2013's version of the 1970's 'Barber Boom'
Lord help us - a CONSERVATIVE CotE who is deliberately inflating house prices.
Hanging, drawing & quartering is too good for those responsible.
That is not a new split, Mr. Richard, and I am not even sure it is an old one growing wider. "You have got to get a trade, boy" was a familiar refrain from the parents of my friends when I was growing up in South London. Getting one's children into a skilled trade or a good education was a solid ambition of the working class in the fifties, probably before and I am no different now.
Osborne knows he can't do much about food (he needs sterling to be devalued to help exports) or fuel (let's face it, the fuel duty is a huge cash cow for any Government). The cheap money is in the bag with low interest rates so all that's need politically to re-install some consumer confidence is to see property prices rising again. It's a political ploy aimed at middle-class southern English voters to convince them that the "good times" can come back with steadfast voting.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7d8eIUBR7l8&
A good angle of Big Ben, that you never see photographed, is from Lambeth Palace Road near St Thomas' Hospital. That road has the benefit of normal everyday life taking place on it, so it would be easy to get a woman pushing pram or man walking a dog etc in the foreground with Ben Ben in the background.
One day I'll get round to taking that photo...
In a way I am.
The problem is if we continue to have the trend of increasing global capitalist competition then this country is fcked.
Because we'll be up against countries which have workforces which are as intelligent and educated as ours, harder working and much lower cost. They'll also be operating under much lower taxation and regulation.
So all our living standards are heading for decline and it will be goodbye to the welfare state.
Now that's something some free marketeering capitalists will cheer and something which the highly skilled and extremely rich will be able to benefit from.
But for the rest of us it will mean harder work and lower living standards.
The industrial revolution gave the West two centuries of economic dominance with the consequent military and political dominance over the world.
We're seeing all that disappear.
Within 50 years London will be an economic backwater, a Venice on the Thames, and all the young and ambitious and skilled people will be heading East.
Hold on while I toddle over to the Getelarph ... ah, yes, there it is, in the final paragraph: "Until Ed Miliband begins to demonstrate that leadership, I still believe a Tory victory in 2015 is the most likely outcome."
Its an attempt to recreate the Barber Boom.
For all the inflationary effects of the Barber Boom it was still a boom.
And so could be said to have 'worked', which is more than Osborne's attempt to recreate it will.
Osborne's fizzle-out will be a more appropriate name.
I know a number of docs who have taken early retirement on this basis, only to return to work, opted out of further superannuation very shortly afterwards, collecting both pension and salary. This 24 hour retirement is becoming quite common amongst GPs, particularly in areas where recruitment is difficult and they can regain their own job easily.
As I understand it, the borrowers will be vetted by the principle lender (who's putting up 75%) in accordance with their normal criteria which will weed out any sub rime applications. Any chance of you desisting peddling this myth?
Certainly and likewise outside London as well.
My point is that the lifestyle a skilled trade or good education would have brought you in London of the fifties or outside London now is much lower than such things would get you in London now.
To succeed in London now you need to be very skilled or educated rather than merely skilled or educated.
And there's only a limited number who can reach that level.
http://www.spectator.co.uk/columnists/politics/8875001/most-tories-expect-to-lose-and-now-some-want-to/
Do Tories want David Cameron to lose?
'Ann Pettifor, socialist Keynesian economist, adviser to last Labour government…'
No need to read anymore after 'adviser to the last Labour government'.
On the contrary that is by definition sub prime lending.
If they were prime borrowers they would have had sufficient wealth to have a deposit of secure size.
Come 2020 (if they last that long), the Conservatives are swept back into office with a landslide on a mandate of radical neo-Thatcherite economics and a referendum predicated on voting to leave the EU. Obviously, said new Conservative torch-bearer won't be Boris.
Stodge's Fifth Law of Politics states that the one thing worse then not being in Government is being in Government and not being able to carry out the policies you want.
History.
Personally I would like a bit more world history to be taught. You know, like what was going on in China at the same time the Romans were invading Britain. And the fact that the Vikings didn't principally exist to invade England. And that there were civilisations in Africa before the British colonies were set up.
Learning our own country's history is important, but so is context.
One of my favourite history books: http://www.amazon.com/Smithsonian-Timelines-Ancient-World-Scarre/dp/1564583058
Would be rather bad luck for them if he turned out to be Jim Callaghan instead.
I know the pros and cons of combination vaccines very well. After all I've just sold one of the world leaders in combination vaccines (press release coming out tomorrow). You think I could do that without doing my homework?
The medical evidence is that it is very difficult to get multivalent vaccines right. It is incredibly easy to make them so that they either over-stimulate or under-stimulate the immune system (it depends, inter alia, on the antigens, how they interact, the precise adjuvant and the source of the carrier protein as well as how secure the cold chain channel was plus appropriate administration). Even big firms get this wrong - one of the largest global pharmaceutical companies just had to pull its vaccine range from a specific market because it over-stimulated the immune system. Single vaccines have fewer disadvantages - but are more expensive, more inconvenient and harder to obtain.
I quite understand why governments push combination vaccines (compliance is critical from a public health perspective). And I quite understand why vaccination is critical for the individual. However there is scope for a reasoned debate between multivalent and monovalent products.
The other issue about London is the that a lot of the income and economic growth there is generated by people who do not live there, and a lot of the people in London are consuming rather than generating the Nations wealth.
Many who work in the city commute in to work, whether stockbroker or secretary. Their value to the London economy is much more than that of someone on benefits living in the city. It is a fallacy to attribute London's worth to the latter rather than the former.
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/obituaries/culture-obituaries/film-obituaries/9961457/Richard-Griffiths.html
http://www.wscountytimes.co.uk/news/local/breaking-news-top-horsham-tory-defects-to-ukip-exclusive-1-4950972#.UVVx-puD-Gs.twitter
The singer, Pat Kane, is a mover & shaker in the Yes campaign, and he's always been a leftish supporter of Scottish independence. Was never much of a fan of his white bread soul, but he's a smart cookie.
* Our Island Story which includes the same amount of space on Prince Brutus and the Founding of Br[u]tain as the Industrial Revolution is one of my favorite books though...
How much work have you done in the field of combination vaccines?
I have bought or sold vaccine companies worth more than $2 billion over the last 10 years
"The Labour frontbench has accepted more than £600,000-worth of free help from one of the City’s biggest firms. PricewaterhouseCoopers sends staff on secondment to the offices of members of Ed Miliband’s team, including the Shadow Chancellor Ed Balls.
The amount of help given has rocketed over the past year, with the value doubling since last March. One Labour MP has described the development as “unhealthy for democracy”..."
"The most respected and famous international political figure of all time versus (probably) the most despised the British Isles has known (certainly in my lifetime)."
They probably wouldn't want it to interfere with the party they are planning when she pops her clogs.....
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8agVRne6pQA
Phew, for a second I was very afraid for the defector's health, incurring the wrath of JohnO would be a very unwise move!
What I suppose it depends on what you think think the point of teaching history in schools at GCSE and below should be? Personally, I think giving our children a sense of how we came to be where we are, our island story if you like, is probably the best we can hope for given the time constraints imposed. If you want children to be taught what was happening in China, India, the Americas and Africa at the same time as, say, the Glorious Revolution, then you are going to scrap other bits of the school curriculum (probably maths and science) in order to fit that in and then you'll only be scrapping the surface.
It must be wearisome always being so spotlessly right all the time.
Imagine how impossible life would be without Google for a few on here...
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wp9mbVfDMCQ
I suspect his knowledge would put Tim to shame, but I am more than happy to give Tim the chance to convince me otherwise on this one.
I add that I know a little bit about this; as I work as a part time consultant to the egg industry where the vaccine business for medical needs is far more profitable than shell egg and pulp.
Problem is that mentally they are still doing both today - hence a declining economy, education, health service and infrastructure. If they just concentrated on improving their own lot and ignored mentally trying to re-fight the battles of the Middle Ages, then they might see some improvement.
In fact I'd go further. I'd make it mandatory for aspiring MPs to pass a tough exam on the content of the series before they could stand for election. I'd also make it mandatory for anyone aspiring to a senior role in HMG (elected or civil service) or indeed any publicly funded post worth more than £100k p.a. to pass a very tough exam on Sun Tzu's the "Art of War".
One set of my grandchildren are learning history from a Thai perspective. It will be fascinating to talk to them in a few years time. That's, of course if I live long enough!
If the Welsh had not kept up their border incursions, I suppose that the English may have left them alone depending on the ambitions of the Marcher barons. In another way the same could be applied to the Scots, but the advent of James I (VI) pulled Scotland and England together.
If I recall, did not a lot of Scots colonise parts of Ulster?
And here we see another, far more worrisome in my view, of the modern teaching of history, the imposition of current societal norms on people who lived by a very different set of values.
As the NYT observed yesterday, 'Scotland has benefited disproportionately from the spoils of the British Empire...'
I have managed to get my son into D and D, so we play that from time to time.
Fuel watch: I paid 140.9 for diesel at my Tesco the other day, the spread to petrol was only 4 pence. Not been that low in ages. Anyone else notice this ?
There seems to be a supermarket price war going on in Norfolk as prices suddenly dropped by 4p a couple of weeks back. Unleaded is now 132p locally.
But I'm not aware of any 'clearances' or 'enclosures' carried out with much thought for the dispossessed anywhere.
Least of all for the native North Americans, the dispossessed Scots went on themselves to clear.....
Oddly enough the "arms" were rifles!
http://blogs.channel4.com/michael-crick-on-politics/
"After the Rennard story, broken by Channel 4 News, one would have expected a much greater urgency about the Lib Dems’ response to the allegations against Hancock, which the MP strenuously denies. These allegations are arguably a lot more serious than those against Lord Rennard.
One wonders how much, if anything, the Liberal Democrats have learnt from their embarrassment over the Rennard scandal."
Churchill: 'Leastways, madam, not what you did with yours...'
(Probably) wrong on both counts, about par for you Roger.
Like most such circumstances it wasn't as simple as either of us initially posted.
Inevitably there are differing interpretations - the Wikipedia article lays the blame at the door of democratically elected regional governments which sought to preserve food for themselves and a failure of central government to get stuck in:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bengal_famine_of_1943
The Churchill centre takes on the 'Churchill's holocaust' argument:
http://www.winstonchurchill.org/learn/in-the-media/churchill-in-the-news/575-the-bengali-famine
As ever, 'cock-up' much more to the fore than 'conspiracy'.....
Spent many a happy Sunday with friends playing that game.
Actually, I still have it in a cupboard somewhere..... << rummage>>
"Unfortunately they will probably blame the Israelis for this, even though it was their fellow muslims that raped them"
Yes of course they will. After being raped within an inch of their life what could be more rational than falsely identifying the rapists as Israelis knowing they weren't.
You really are a bigoted clown.
There was no reason for a famine. The harvest was a very good one indeed. Peopel in Calcutta did not see much of the famine. The deaths were in the villages.
There is a brilliant film by Satyajit Ray called "The Distant Thunder" on this.
Nigel Farage is starring in the remake.
Yes you do look like a monkey. Great photo.
That definition holds true whether you support the political change or not.
http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/home-news/ecuadorean-government-holds-talks-with-labour-over-julian-assange-embassy-impasse-8554601.html
Assange should be careful.....'extraordinary rendition'...cough...
Motions before the Conference:
Conference therefore instructs the Executive to
1. Declare that Ofsted is no longer fit for purpose and must be abolished;
and
2. Campaign for the removal of Michael Gove as Secretary of State and Michael Wilshaw as head of Ofsted.
http://www.teachers.org.uk/files/nut-final-agenda-annual-conference-2013.pdf
Not many motions on the education of children, curiously enough....
Any word on the date of the South Shields by-election?
Maybe it wouldn't have happened if the Japanese hadn't invaded Burma?
Anything goes on Good Friday so in a spirit of goodwill here are the Best Harlem Shakes on Youtube.
Number 5 is class. Where'd he get all those stunning girls from?
Cameron should get some of these Harlem Shake organisers organising policy for him. He'd clean up.
Have fun
20% functional illiteracy among fifteen-year-old pupils according to the OECD.
As we don't have a working democracy there's been no public debate over who's statistics are honest but one of either the OECD or the educational wing of the nomenklatura are lying or wrong.
If the OECD are correct then where are those 20%? Are they evenly spread across the whole country or are there more in some areas than others? For instance is the percentage higher in the suburbs and small towns or in the inner cities?
If the nomenklatura's stats about London are honest and there has been a dramatic improvement in the inner cities over the last ten years - which would be a 180 degree turnaround in fact given that for most of the last 40 years up until a few years ago the below average educational attainment in the inner city was being blamed on racism - while the OECD says there's been an increase in functional illiteracy over the country as a whole during the same period then that implies there's more than 20% functional illiteracy in the suburbs and small towns and less than 20% in the inner city areas.
Your mileage may vary.
Also 7th to 25th in reading and 8th to 28th in maths between 2000 and 2009 according to the OECD doesn't fit well dramatic improvements. There may be genuine reasons or dishonest spin why the direction of travel isn't as dramatically downwards as it might at first appear but a 180 degree dramatic improvement?
There are some ways both the OECD and the educational wing of the nomenklatura could be correct / telling the truth.
1) There is the dramatic increase in the use of private tuition especially in London
http://www.tes.co.uk/article.aspx?storycode=6109995
"According to research in 2009 by the Sutton Trust, half of state secondary pupils in London have received private tuition in some form during their school years - up from 36 per cent in 2005. Across the country, the proportion has seen a jump from 18 per cent to 22 per cent."
which when combined with the emphasis on coursework could explain a lot.
2) A second related possibility is the average standard was so low that the influx of Chinese getting 10 GCSEs thanks to their parents teaching their kids after school has managed to improve the overall average on their own despite the rest of the pupils sinking lower.
Or alternatively the educational nomenklatura could be trying to cover up the disaster they have made of education in the rough areas where state education isn't or can't be topped up by the parents.
TL;DR
The stats from the educational wing of the nomenklatura - who will never admit they were wrong on discipline in schools and don't care how many kids get their education wrecked in the process as long as they afford to get their own kids into catchment colony schools - are inconsistent with the stats from the OECD.
http://www.hurriyetdailynews.com/erdogan-to-visit-brussels-after-the-opening-of-new-chapter-eu-minister.aspx?pageID=238&nID=43876&NewsCatID=351
It's worth noting that David Cameron has promised to "fight" for Turkish EU membership, and providing unlimited access to the UK for the 73 million Turkish citizens. It's worth bearing in mind that's more than the populations of all the A8 countries that joined in 2004 (Poland, Czechia, Hungary, Slovakia, Lithuania, Latvia, Slovenia and Estonia) put together. It's also growing a lot faster - the population will reach 94 million by 2030.