Similarly, ITV News, yesterday, had the sympathetic new political idiot nodding along to the idea of kids with lower grades being allowed into Oxbridge if they weren't from private school.
Compare two 18 year olds with grades B B C at A level. One went to Eton and one went to Jack Straw Comprehensive in the Mandela Estate in London. Which would you think is more likely to get a first after 3 years at Oxford?
Neither would get within spitting distance of Oxford Brookes, let alone the real thing, with those grades, so odd question.
In my day they let in a certain number of comp pupils with lower grades than would usually be asked for. What usually happened was that these people then dismally failed mods/prelims and were promptly slung out again. Harsh, but what else do you do?
Really? Our experience at Leicester Medical School (AAA usual offer, but AAB acceptable) is that with the same grades the State school students outperform in exams compared to those from independent schools. We use feedback on internal exams and reports to adjust admissions criteria.
As a matter of interest, you were saying about the drop-off in applications to medical schools this year - please can you tell us how different the recent intakes look, having come through Clearing, compared to the usual tough competition for places?
(edited to add: good afternoon, everybody)
I don't teach the pre clinical students, only clinical ones, so cannot really say. The analytic data is held by the University in confidence, I only see the changes in the admissions process.
In my day, 20 years ago, my peers trying to study medicine found courses 10x oversubscribed, with many that didn’t make it sudying things like pharmacology and chemistry with the hope of transferring later to the medicine course. Is there actually a shortage of qualified students wanting to study medicine now, or is the issue with the number of places available for study?
2013 17000 UK applicans, for 2017 14450, so a decline of 2500 in applications, while the number of places has gone from approx 6000 to 7000. Competition per place is down from 3:1 to 2:1.
These are the crude figures from UCAS on applications, so not all will make their grades, and likely that applicants will get in on lower interview and aptitude test scores.
Applications closed on Oct 2015, and I am doing interviews in Dec and Jan so can give some impressions at that time.
Similarly, ITV News, yesterday, had the sympathetic new political idiot nodding along to the idea of kids with lower grades being allowed into Oxbridge if they weren't from private school.
Compare two 18 year olds with grades B B C at A level. One went to Eton and one went to Jack Straw Comprehensive in the Mandela Estate in London. Which would you think is more likely to get a first after 3 years at Oxford?
Neither would get within spitting distance of Oxford Brookes, let alone the real thing, with those grades, so odd question.
In my day they let in a certain number of comp pupils with lower grades than would usually be asked for. What usually happened was that these people then dismally failed mods/prelims and were promptly slung out again. Harsh, but what else do you do?
Really? Our experience at Leicester Medical School (AAA usual offer, but AAB acceptable) is that with the same grades the State school students outperform in exams compared to those from independent schools. We use feedback on internal exams and reports to adjust admissions criteria.
As a matter of interest, you were saying about the drop-off in applications to medical schools this year - please can you tell us how different the recent intakes look, having come through Clearing, compared to the usual tough competition for places?
(edited to add: good afternoon, everybody)
I don't teach the pre clinical students, only clinical ones, so cannot really say. The analytic data is held by the University in confidence, I only see the changes in the admissions process.
I don't think there's a single person who has changed their mind on Brexit in over a year of arguing about it.
A few leavers are pessimistic about the current government's *ability* to carry out Brexit but that doesn't mean they think it's inherently bad thing or would change their mind in a second referendum, although a small number might. Points to a posible 52/48 outcome for remain in a second referendum, which would be disastrous for democracy and split the country even further down the middle.
Quite a few remainers are of the opinion "I don't like this, I disagree with it all, but the vote must be respected, we must get on with the job and get out with a minimum amount of harm." A few more are of the opinion "The boil must be lanced before Britain can be cured of its Euroscepticism". Points to an increased majority for leave.
Of course PB is not a representative sample of the population at large (who may be very resentful at being asked to vote again and may vote in a "stuff the lot of you" fashion), but I find it _very_ telling how nobody on here has changed their mind since last year.
I voted Remain but would now vote Leave, there is no point going back into the EU now given we are clearly headed in a different direction and clearly distinct from the majority of EU members in the Eurozone, I would be happy for us to rejoin EFTA and maybe even the EEA in time but not the full EU.
I stand corrected - at least one person has changed their mind in the last year then!
But you raise a very good point - how many people voted remain but have either, as you say, come to the realisation that the UK and rEU are heading in clearly different directions or who have had their worst fears about the EU confirmed by their intransigence to admit the need for reform and their stubbornness in their treatment of Britain since then?
Given the available anecdata I would be betting heavily on an increased 'leave' vote in a hypothetical second referendum - unless of course the youth vote turned out in force. They certainly flexed their muscles in 2017.
Here is a full list of all the PB posters who believe that HYUFD voted Remain:
kyf_100
Well you can look at old PB threads from before the Referendum if you want to see what HYUFD's views were at the time.
Or if that's too much trouble have a guess at whether an ultra party loyalist was supporting or opposing Cameron's side.
Excellent thread CycleFree - as ever, context is everything - and while neither a British politician nor a man, I suspect history will judge Merkel a key player in tipping the vote in favour of BREXIT - First her “People Smugglers Charter”, then with “compulsory EU sharing of refugees economic migrants and sod the Dublin Convention” and finally “David, what’s the problem with immigration?” renegotiation....
Similarly, ITV News, yesterday, had the sympathetic new political idiot nodding along to the idea of kids with lower grades being allowed into Oxbridge if they weren't from private school.
Compare two 18 year olds with grades B B C at A level. One went to Eton and one went to Jack Straw Comprehensive in the Mandela Estate in London. Which would you think is more likely to get a first after 3 years at Oxford?
Neither would get within spitting distance of Oxford Brookes, let alone the real thing, with those grades, so odd question.
In my day they let in a certain number of comp pupils with lower grades than would usually be asked for. What usually happened was that these people then dismally failed mods/prelims and were promptly slung out again. Harsh, but what else do you do?
Really? Our experience at Leicester Medical School (AAA usual offer, but AAB acceptable) is that with the same grades the State school students outperform in exams compared to those from independent schools. We use feedback on internal exams and reports to adjust admissions criteria.
It doesn't surprise me that that is the case for pupils *with the same grades*; I was talking about state school applicants accepted with lower grades than would usually be expected.
Well the corollary of my point is that on lower grades, state school pupils equal better A level scores from independent schools.
My impression is that state school are much more aware of social determinants of health at interview too, but independent school students can be good at that, and often have more extracurricular frills on their CV.
I think it's a bit dishonest to act like euroscepticism is either pro-membership or completely hardcore Moggism. I think the bulk of us middle of the road eurosceptics found the Brexit vote to be a genuinely hard decision, but ultimately plumped for Leave. I thought the EU had positives and negatives, but ultimately the negatives were greater and no-one on the Remain side could spell out a convincing path forward for how reform was going to happen. "We'll change it from the inside" was an empty slogan with no detail behind it.
Some middle of the road eurosceptics will have voted leave and some remain. I know a few who voted remain even though they disliked the EU, some quite intensely, because they felt the Leave prospectus was too uncertain / dislikeable or away with the fairies.
I agree to some extent with what you (and @Richard_Tyndall) say about reform from within. But Britain got quite a lot out of the EU and some better negotiation - itself a huge topic - would still have given an option other than full withdrawal.
It was, though, a genuinely hard decision for me.
What I will say is that I have despaired of how the outcome has been handled. A complete and embarrassing shambles.
This last bit is the thing that I don't recognise and it really mystifies me so many people I usually agree with hold it. It was never going to be an easy negotiation, but the government quite quickly worked out what was politically unpalatable and then pushed for the closest possible relationship short of that. We have accepted we will need a transitional period to have time for the final deal to be done, and managed to spin it as a concession. We have recognised we are going to have to pay fees for a few years more but have done it slowly in exchange for them budging on sillier points.
I don't think it's some sort of masterclass in statesmanship but it is reasonable muddling through of a difficult topic, made triply harder from most of the political/media class refusing to accept the result and trying to undermine it from the get go.
Similarly, ITV News, yesterday, had the sympathetic new political idiot nodding along to the idea of kids with lower grades being allowed into Oxbridge if they weren't from private school.
Compare two 18 year olds with grades B B C at A level. One went to Eton and one went to Jack Straw Comprehensive in the Mandela Estate in London. Which would you think is more likely to get a first after 3 years at Oxford?
Neither would get within spitting distance of Oxford Brookes, let alone the real thing, with those grades, so odd question.
In my day they let in a certain number of comp pupils with lower grades than would usually be asked for. What usually happened was that these people then dismally failed mods/prelims and were promptly slung out again. Harsh, but what else do you do?
Really? Our experience at Leicester Medical School (AAA usual offer, but AAB acceptable) is that with the same grades the State school students outperform in exams compared to those from independent schools. We use feedback on internal exams and reports to adjust admissions criteria.
(edited to add: good afternoon, everybody)
I don't teach the pre clinical students, only clinical ones, so cannot really say. The analytic data is held by the University in confidence, I only see the changes in the admissions process.
In my day, 20 years ago, my peers trying to study medicine found courses 10x oversubscribed, with many that didn’t make it sudying things like pharmacology and chemistry with the hope of transferring later to the medicine course. Is there actually a shortage of qualified students wanting to study medicine now, or is the issue with the number of places available for study?
2013 17000 UK applicans, for 2017 14450, so a decline of 2500 in applications, while the number of places has gone from approx 6000 to 7000. Competition per place is down from 3:1 to 2:1.
These are the crude figures from UCAS on applications, so not all will make their grades, and likely that applicants will get in on lower interview and aptitude test scores.
Applications closed on Oct 2015, and I am doing interviews in Dec and Jan so can give some impressions at that time.
One question I’ve never seen discussed in this context is whether there are the same number of 18 year olds.
To add to the list of the guilty how about Nigel Lawson.
His attempts as Chancellor to get Sterling to shadow the Mark led to first strong growth turning into an economic boom and then that boom turning into the inevitable inflation, higher interest rates, the ERM and recession.
All bad enough but it was the ERM exit and the project fear ** which preceeded it that began Britain's uncoupling from the EU.
** We were told by Major, Heseltine, Clarke etc that if Britain left the ERM interst rates and inflation would soar, there would be no more foreign investment, the car factories would shut down, the City would relocate to Frankfurt and sterling would become as worthless as the Ukranian Coupon. Needless to say the opposite happened.
That's a very good point. He has been rather let off the hook for his disastrous "shadow the Mark" policy, which led to out of control inflation, followed by a slamming on of the breaks, and to the horrible early 1990s recession when house prices fell almost 40% in real terms. (They fell 13.2% in absolute terms, but there was another 25% impact from inflation.)
I must admit to amusement about Lawson's 30 year shift from wanting to join the ERM to wanting to leave the EU.
The economy grew at about 5% ** each year from 1986 to 1988 with Lawson first cutting interest rates much too far and then ramming them up too quickly:
To add to the list of the guilty how about Nigel Lawson.
His attempts as Chancellor to get Sterling to shadow the Mark led to first strong growth turning into an economic boom and then that boom turning into the inevitable inflation, higher interest rates, the ERM and recession.
All bad enough but it was the ERM exit and the project fear ** which preceeded it that began Britain's uncoupling from the EU.
** We were told by Major, Heseltine, Clarke etc that if Britain left the ERM interst rates and inflation would soar, there would be no more foreign investment, the car factories would shut down, the City would relocate to Frankfurt and sterling would become as worthless as the Ukranian Coupon. Needless to say the opposite happened.
That's a very good point. He has been rather let off the hook for his disastrous "shadow the Mark" policy, which led to out of control inflation, followed by a slamming on of the breaks, and to the horrible early 1990s recession when house prices fell almost 40% in real terms. (They fell 13.2% in absolute terms, but there was another 25% impact from inflation.)
Lawson is a nutter, as demonstrated by his views on climate change. Yet we have this perverse penchant in the UK of putting any politician on some pedestal of respected elder statesman if they have been around long enough. Eventually, Emily Thornberry and Liam Fox will qualify.
I think it's a bit dishonest to act like euroscepticism is either pro-membership or completely hardcore Moggism. I think the bulk of us middle of the road eurosceptics found the Brexit vote to be a genuinely hard decision, but ultimately plumped for Leave. I thought the EU had positives and negatives, but ultimately the negatives were greater and no-one on the Remain side could spell out a convincing path forward for how reform was going to happen. "We'll change it from the inside" was an empty slogan with no detail behind it.
Some middle of the road eurosceptics will have voted leave and some remain. I know a few who voted remain even though they disliked the EU, some quite intensely, because they felt the Leave prospectus was too uncertain / dislikeable or away with the fairies.
I agree to some extent with what you (and @Richard_Tyndall) say about reform from within. But Britain got quite a lot out of the EU and some better negotiation - itself a huge topic - would still have given an option other than full withdrawal.
It was, though, a genuinely hard decision for me.
What I will say is that I have despaired of how the outcome has been handled. A complete and embarrassing shambles.
This last bit is the thing that I don't recognise and it really mystifies me so many people I usually agree with hold it. It was never going to be an easy negotiation, but the government quite quickly worked out what was politically unpalatable and then pushed for the closest possible relationship short of that. We have accepted we will need a transitional period to have time for the final deal to be done, and managed to spin it as a concession. We have recognised we are going to have to pay fees for a few years more but have done it slowly in exchange for them budging on sillier points.
I don't think it's some sort of masterclass in statesmanship but it is reasonable muddling through of a difficult topic, made triply harder from most of the political/media class refusing to accept the result and trying to undermine it from the get go.
The best negotiating tactic is to talk softly but carry a big stick. I.e., to have viable alternatives but appear very amenable, making it clear that while you want a deal, you can walk away.
Our policy - until the Florence speech - was to yell blue murder, while stark naked.
The problem is that most people who want us to carry a big stick, also want us to ramp up the aggression. While those people who want a deal seem also to think that nakedness works in our favour.
Similarly, ITV News, yesterday, had the sympathetic new political idiot nodding along to the idea of kids with lower grades being allowed into Oxbridge if they weren't from private school.
Compare two 18 year olds with grades B B C at A level. One went to Eton and one went to Jack Straw Comprehensive in the Mandela Estate in London. Which would you think is more likely to get a first after 3 years at Oxford?
Neither would get within spitting distance of Oxford Brookes, let alone the real thing, with those grades, so odd question.
In my day they let in a certain number of comp pupils with lower grades than would usually be asked for. What usually happened was that these people then dismally failed mods/prelims and were promptly slung out again. Harsh, but what else do you do?
Really? Our experience at Leicester Medical School (AAA usual offer, but AAB acceptable) is that with the same grades the State school students outperform in exams compared to those from independent schools. We use feedback on internal exams and reports to adjust admissions criteria.
(edited to add: good afternoon, everybody)
I don't teach the pre clinical students, only clinical ones, so cannot really say. The analytic data is held by the University in confidence, I only see the changes in the admissions process.
In my day, 20 years ago, my peers trying to study medicine found courses 10x oversubscribed, with many that didn’t make it sudying things like pharmacology and chemistry with the hope of transferring later to the medicine course. Is there actually a shortage of qualified students wanting to study medicine now, or is the issue with the number of places available for study?
2013 17000 UK applicans, for 2017 14450, so a decline of 2500 in applications, while the number of places has gone from approx 6000 to 7000. Competition per place is down from 3:1 to 2:1.
These are the crude figures from UCAS on applications, so not all will make their grades, and likely that applicants will get in on lower interview and aptitude test scores.
Applications closed on Oct 2015, and I am doing interviews in Dec and Jan so can give some impressions at that time.
One question I’ve never seen discussed in this context is whether there are the same number of 18 year olds.
Maybe slightly fewer, if you extrapolate from this population chart:
I think it's a bit dishonest to act like euroscepticism is either pro-membership or completely hardcore Moggism. I think the bulk of us middle of the road eurosceptics found the Brexit vote to be a genuinely hard decision, but ultimately plumped for Leave. I thought the EU had positives and negatives, but ultimately the negatives were greater and no-one on the Remain side could spell out a convincing path forward for how reform was going to happen. "We'll change it from the inside" was an empty slogan with no detail behind it.
Some middle of the road eurosceptics will have voted leave and some remain. I know a few who voted remain even though they disliked the EU, some quite intensely, because they felt the Leave prospectus was too uncertain / dislikeable or away with the fairies.
I agree to some extent with what you (and @Richard_Tyndall) say about reform from within. But Britain got quite a lot out of the EU and some better negotiation - itself a huge topic - would still have given an option other than full withdrawal.
It was, though, a genuinely hard decision for me.
What I will say is that I have despaired of how the outcome has been handled. A complete and embarrassing shambles.
This last bit is the thing that I don't recognise and it really mystifies me so many people I usually agree with hold it. It was never going to be an easy negotiation, but the government quite quickly worked out what was politically unpalatable and then pushed for the closest possible relationship short of that. We have accepted we will need a transitional period to have time for the final deal to be done, and managed to spin it as a concession. We have recognised we are going to have to pay fees for a few years more but have done it slowly in exchange for them budging on sillier points.
I don't think it's some sort of masterclass in statesmanship but it is reasonable muddling through of a difficult topic, made triply harder from most of the political/media class refusing to accept the result and trying to undermine it from the get go.
I disagree. It seems to me that May worked out what was politically unacceptable to a vocal section of the Tory party and has based its negotiating strategy on that. The one thing it has not done is to reach out to to those who voted Remain or to try and get a wide base of support for its strategy or to find a way of implementing the result slowly and carefully and in a way which will cause the least harm (to us/our neighbours/our reputation) and put us in the best possible position to succeed. Too much was ruled out at the start by May with, as far as one can tell, no input from anyone.
To add to the list of the guilty how about Nigel Lawson.
His attempts as Chancellor to get Sterling to shadow the Mark led to first strong growth turning into an economic boom and then that boom turning into the inevitable inflation, higher interest rates, the ERM and recession.
All bad enough but it was the ERM exit and the project fear ** which preceeded it that began Britain's uncoupling from the EU.
** We were told by Major, Heseltine, Clarke etc that if Britain left the ERM interst rates and inflation would soar, there would be no more foreign investment, the car factories would shut down, the City would relocate to Frankfurt and sterling would become as worthless as the Ukranian Coupon. Needless to say the opposite happened.
That's a very good point. He has been rather let off the hook for his disastrous "shadow the Mark" policy, which led to out of control inflation, followed by a slamming on of the breaks, and to the horrible early 1990s recession when house prices fell almost 40% in real terms. (They fell 13.2% in absolute terms, but there was another 25% impact from inflation.)
Lawson is a nutter, as demonstrated by his views on climate change. Yet we have this perverse penchant in the UK of putting any politician on some pedestal of respected elder statesman if they have been around long enough. Eventually, Emily Thornberry and Liam Fox will qualify.
I've never understood the cult of Lawson. His judgment on practical issues seems consistently to have been pretty dreadful.
I think it's a bit dishonest to act like euroscepticism is either pro-membership or completely hardcore Moggism. I think the bulk of us middle of the road eurosceptics found the Brexit vote to be a genuinely hard decision, but ultimately plumped for Leave. I thought the EU had positives and negatives, but ultimately the negatives were greater and no-one on the Remain side could spell out a convincing path forward for how reform was going to happen. "We'll change it from the inside" was an empty slogan with no detail behind it.
Some middle of the road eurosceptics will have voted leave and some remain. I know a few who voted remain even though they disliked the EU, some quite intensely, because they felt the Leave prospectus was too uncertain / dislikeable or away with the fairies.
I agree to some extent with what you (and @Richard_Tyndall) say about reform from within. But Britain got quite a lot out of the EU and some better negotiation - itself a huge topic - would still have given an option other than full withdrawal.
It was, though, a genuinely hard decision for me.
What I will say is that I have despaired of how the outcome has been handled. A complete and embarrassing shambles.
I don't think it's some sort of masterclass in statesmanship but it is reasonable muddling through of a difficult topic, made triply harder from most of the political/media class refusing to accept the result and trying to undermine it from the get go.
The best negotiating tactic is to talk softly but carry a big stick. I.e., to have viable alternatives but appear very amenable, making it clear that while you want a deal, you can walk away.
Our policy - until the Florence speech - was to yell blue murder, while stark naked.
The problem is that most people who want us to carry a big stick, also want us to ramp up the aggression. While those people who want a deal seem also to think that nakedness works in our favour.
That wasn't May or Davis though. Although occasionally those playing mischief tried to take terms out of context to spin it as that. And after every time they did, May or Davis followed up by clarifying the matter.
I've never really liked May after a lot of what she did at the Home Office, but I have found myself sympathising with her after so much has been spun so unfairly against her.
To add to the list of the guilty how about Nigel Lawson.
His attempts as Chancellor to get Sterling to shadow the Mark led to first strong growth turning into an economic boom and then that boom turning into the inevitable inflation, higher interest rates, the ERM and recession.
All bad enough but it was the ERM exit and the project fear ** which preceeded it that began Britain's uncoupling from the EU.
** We were told by Major, Heseltine, Clarke etc that if Britain left the ERM interst rates and inflation would soar, there would be no more foreign investment, the car factories would shut down, the City would relocate to Frankfurt and sterling would become as worthless as the Ukranian Coupon. Needless to say the opposite happened.
That's a very good point. He has been rather let off the hook for his disastrous "shadow the Mark" policy, which led to out of control inflation, followed by a slamming on of the breaks, and to the horrible early 1990s recession when house prices fell almost 40% in real terms. (They fell 13.2% in absolute terms, but there was another 25% impact from inflation.)
Lawson is a nutter, as demonstrated by his views on climate change. Yet we have this perverse penchant in the UK of putting any politician on some pedestal of respected elder statesman if they have been around long enough. Eventually, Emily Thornberry and Liam Fox will qualify.
I do wonder what Thatcher would have made of Lawson's anti-science views on climate change?
Thank you @Cyclefree for an enjoyable header. But I’m not sure you have the correct roll-call of “bastards”. This source maintains that Sir John Major was referring to Michael Portillo, Michael Howard and Peter Lilley as “bastards” when he didn’t remove his microphone after an interview with ITV’s Michael Brunson.
I was much amused by your saying “Few people will listen to arguments, however reasonable, from the sort of person you wouldn’t want to sit next to on a long bus journey with no stops” because I recall doing just that with one of those “bastards” – Peter Lilley. This was in 1964 and we were students on a student-organised Study Tour of the South of France. It lasted the best part of a week. This was one of the turning points of my life, because he, a student of physics, nearly always got the better of an argument with me on economics. I had rather leftish views and had just begun to study economics. In retrospect I can say that my political outlook was shifted 180 degrees as a result of that experience.
Yes you’re right. It was shorthand. I expect, though, that Major will have called the likes of IDS “bastard” at some point during those years.
To add to the list of the guilty how about Nigel Lawson.
His attempts as Chancellor to get Sterling to shadow the Mark led to first strong growth turning into an economic boom and then that boom turning into the inevitable inflation, higher interest rates, the ERM and recession.
All bad enough but it was the ERM exit and the project fear ** which preceeded it that began Britain's uncoupling from the EU.
** We were told by Major, Heseltine, Clarke etc that if Britain left the ERM interst rates and inflation would soar, there would be no more foreign investment, the car factories would shut down, the City would relocate to Frankfurt and sterling would become as worthless as the Ukranian Coupon. Needless to say the opposite happened.
That's a very good point. He has been rather let off the hook for his disastrous "shadow the Mark" policy, which led to out of control inflation, followed by a slamming on of the breaks, and to the horrible early 1990s recession when house prices fell almost 40% in real terms. (They fell 13.2% in absolute terms, but there was another 25% impact from inflation.)
I am somewhat baffled though how even when interst rates never went as low as 7% we still had a genuine economic boom with a huge amount of business investment in the 1980s.
Whereas now with ZIRP the only thing we increase spending on is personal consumption.
Has there been a fundamental shift in the balance of the British economy, or a fundamental shift in British mentality or is there genuinely nothing left for British business to invest in ?
I can't profess any great interest in football, but appreciation for the embarrassment of the absurd Jose Mourinho surely transcends sporting barriers ?
I think it's a bit dishonest to act like euroscepticism is either pro-membership or completely hardcore Moggism. I think the bulk of us middle of the road eurosceptics found the Brexit vote to be a genuinely hard decision, but ultimately plumped for Leave. I thought the EU had positives and negatives, but ultimately the negatives were greater and no-one on the Remain side could spell out a convincing path forward for how reform was going to happen. "We'll change it from the inside" was an empty slogan with no detail behind it.
Some middle of the road eurosceptics will have voted leave and some remain. I know a few who voted remain even though they disliked the EU, some quite intensely, because they felt the Leave prospectus was too uncertain / dislikeable or away with the fairies.
I agree to some extent with what you (and @Richard_Tyndall) say about reform from within. But Britain got quite a lot out of the EU and some better negotiation - itself a huge topic - would still have given an option other than full withdrawal.
It was, though, a genuinely hard decision for me.
What I will say is that I have despaired of how the outcome has been handled. A complete and embarrassing shambles.
I don't think it's some sort of masterclass in statesmanship but it is reasonable muddling through of a difficult topic, made triply harder from most of the political/media class refusing to accept the result and trying to undermine it from the get go.
I disagree. It seems to me that May worked out what was politically unacceptable to a vocal section of the Tory party and has based its negotiating strategy on that. The one thing it has not done is to reach out to to those who voted Remain or to try and get a wide base of support for its strategy or to find a way of implementing the result slowly and carefully and in a way which will cause the least harm (to us/our neighbours/our reputation) and put us in the best possible position to succeed. Too much was ruled out at the start by May with, as far as one can tell, no input from anyone.
I disagree in turn! Maybe it's because I'm not from London and its environs, but I have seen just how much opposition there is to immigration in my hometown. It was never going to be doable to do a deal that included freedom of movement, and the EU made clear early it would be cherrypicking to exclude that but stay in the single market. After that, she said she wanted an early deal on EU migrants (which the EU rejected) and she wanted a special unique partnership between the UK and the EU. That seemed to me a positive reach out to Remainers and reassured reluctant Leavers like me.
I voted Remain but would now vote Leave, there is no point going back into the EU now given we are clearly headed in a different direction and clearly distinct from the majority of EU members in the Eurozone, I would be happy for us to rejoin EFTA and maybe even the EEA in time but not the full EU.
I stand corrected - at least one person has changed their mind in the last year then!
But you raise a very good point - how many people voted remain but have either, as you say, come to the realisation that the UK and rEU are heading in clearly different directions or who have had their worst fears about the EU confirmed by their intransigence to admit the need for reform and their stubbornness in their treatment of Britain since then?
Given the available anecdata I would be betting heavily on an increased 'leave' vote in a hypothetical second referendum - unless of course the youth vote turned out in force. They certainly flexed their muscles in 2017.
Here is a full list of all the PB posters who believe that HYUFD voted Remain:
kyf_100
Mr Hobnob, welcome to PB.
I do hope that the fact your first post was deleted and your second post was to accuse a long established and (despite my personal differences with him) respected poster of lying is not an ill omen.
Similarly, ITV News, yesterday, had the sympathetic new political idiot nodding along to the idea of kids with lower grades being allowed into Oxbridge if they weren't from private school.
Compare two 18 year olds with grades B B C at A level. One went to Eton and one went to Jack Straw Comprehensive in the Mandela Estate in London. Which would you think is more likely to get a first after 3 years at Oxford?
In my day they let in a certain number of comp pupils with lower grades than would usually be asked for. What usually happened was that these people then dismally failed mods/prelims and were promptly slung out again. Harsh, but what else do you do?
We use feedback on internal exams and reports to adjust admissions criteria.
(edited to add: good afternoon, everybody)
I don't teach the pre clinical students, only clinical ones, so cannot really say. The analytic data is held by the University in confidence, I only see the changes in the admissions process.
In my day, 20 years ago, my peers trying to study medicine found courses 10x oversubscribed, with many that didn’t make it sudying things like pharmacology and chemistry with the hope of transferring later to the medicine course. Is there actually a shortage of qualified students wanting to study medicine now, or is the issue with the number of places available for study?
2013 17000 UK applicans, for 2017 14450, so a decline of 2500 in applications, while the number of places has gone from approx 6000 to 7000. Competition per place is down from 3:1 to 2:1.
These are the crude figures from UCAS on applications, so not all will make their grades, and likely that applicants will get in on lower interview and aptitude test scores.
Applications closed on Oct 2015, and I am doing interviews in Dec and Jan so can give some impressions at that time.
One question I’ve never seen discussed in this context is whether there are the same number of 18 year olds.
Maybe slightly fewer, if you extrapolate from this population chart:
Clive Lewis has reopened a row over comments he made at a Labour event after he "liked" tweets which called his words "harmless banter" and said his critics were expressing "faux outrage".
Cyclefree blames who Cyclefree doesn't like. Who'd have thunk it. Not sure it's helpful to talk about 'guilt' anyway.
Responsible is a better word.
The PM that called the referendum, personally negotiated with the EU and led the campaign should share a smidgen of responsibility.
I am talking about the debate in the preceding years not last year’s campaign. Cameron certainly bears responsibility for that. But not, I think, for the toxicity of the debate.
The title was a nod to a famous book by Michael Foot.
Cyclefree blames who Cyclefree doesn't like. Who'd have thunk it. Not sure it's helpful to talk about 'guilt' anyway.
Responsible is a better word.
The PM that called the referendum, personally negotiated with the EU and led the campaign should share a smidgen of responsibility.
Nope. The guilty (responsible) folk are those that voted for it. Most guilty are those who now do not want to take responsibility for their baby.
See my comment above.
When did you hear Cameron say a positive word about the EU prior to 2016? He indulged and fed the toxicity in opposition and in office - despite believing it would be disastrous for the UK to leave. Unlike Blair, Major and Delors he never had the courage of his convictions. See also George Osborne.
Fair enough. But I think his sins were mostly down to a lack of courage, as you say, and appearing two-faced about the topic. He wasn’t actively malicious and his rudeness was mostly directed to Ukippers, though that was bad tactics.
I voted Remain but would now vote Leave, there is no point going back into the EU now given we are clearly headed in a different direction and clearly distinct from the majority of EU members in the Eurozone, I would be happy for us to rejoin EFTA and maybe even the EEA in time but not the full EU.
I stand corrected - at least one person has changed their mind in the last year then!
But you raise a very good point - how many people voted remain but have either, as you say, come to the realisation that the UK and rEU are heading in clearly different directions or who have had their worst fears about the EU confirmed by their intransigence to admit the need for reform and their stubbornness in their treatment of Britain since then?
Given the available anecdata I would be betting heavily on an increased 'leave' vote in a hypothetical second referendum - unless of course the youth vote turned out in force. They certainly flexed their muscles in 2017.
Here is a full list of all the PB posters who believe that HYUFD voted Remain:
kyf_100
Mr Hobnob, welcome to PB.
I do hope that the fact your first post was deleted and your second post was to accuse a long established and (despite my personal differences with him) respected poster of lying is not an ill omen.
Some middle of the road eurosceptics will have voted leave and some remain. I know a few who voted remain even though they disliked the EU, some quite intensely, because they felt the Leave prospectus was too uncertain / dislikeable or away with the fairies.
I agree to some extent with what you (and @Richard_Tyndall) say about reform from within. But Britain got quite a lot out of the EU and some better negotiation - itself a huge topic - would still have given an option other than full withdrawal.
It was, though, a genuinely hard decision for me.
What I will say is that I have despaired of how the outcome has been handled. A complete and embarrassing shambles.
This last bit is the thing that I don't recognise and it really mystifies me so many people I usually agree with hold it. It was never going to be an easy negotiation, but the government quite quickly worked out what was politically unpalatable and then pushed for the closest possible relationship short of that. We have accepted we will need a transitional period to have time for the final deal to be done, and managed to spin it as a concession. We have recognised we are going to have to pay fees for a few years more but have done it slowly in exchange for them budging on sillier points.
I don't think it's some sort of masterclass in statesmanship but it is reasonable muddling through of a difficult topic, made triply harder from most of the political/media class refusing to accept the result and trying to undermine it from the get go.
The best negotiating tactic is to talk softly but carry a big stick. I.e., to have viable alternatives but appear very amenable, making it clear that while you want a deal, you can walk away.
Our policy - until the Florence speech - was to yell blue murder, while stark naked.
The problem is that most people who want us to carry a big stick, also want us to ramp up the aggression. While those people who want a deal seem also to think that nakedness works in our favour.
British negotiating has been disastrous for decades.
From Major to Blair to Cameron it seemed to consist of posture beforehand, surrender during, lie afterwards.
The leaders of the EU and the other EU countries should deservedly hold the British political establishment in contempt.
To add to the list of the guilty how about Nigel Lawson.
His attempts as Chancellor to get Sterling to shadow the Mark led to first strong growth turning into an economic boom and then that boom turning into the inevitable inflation, higher interest rates, the ERM and recession.
All bad enough but it was the ERM exit and the project fear ** which preceeded it that began Britain's uncoupling from the EU.
** We were told by Major, Heseltine, Clarke etc that if Britain left the ERM interst rates and inflation would soar, there would be no more foreign investment, the car factories would shut down, the City would relocate to Frankfurt and sterling would become as worthless as the Ukranian Coupon. Needless to say the opposite happened.
That's a very good point. He has been rather let off the hook for his disastrous "shadow the Mark" policy, which led to out of control inflation, followed by a slamming on of the breaks, and to the horrible early 1990s recession when house prices fell almost 40% in real terms. (They fell 13.2% in absolute terms, but there was another 25% impact from inflation.)
Lawson is a nutter, as demonstrated by his views on climate change. Yet we have this perverse penchant in the UK of putting any politician on some pedestal of respected elder statesman if they have been around long enough. Eventually, Emily Thornberry and Liam Fox will qualify.
Clive Lewis has reopened a row over comments he made at a Labour event after he "liked" tweets which called his words "harmless banter" and said his critics were expressing "faux outrage".
Forgive me if i'm wrong, but weren't you a fully signed up member of the tories4corbyn mob?
Clive Lewis has reopened a row over comments he made at a Labour event after he "liked" tweets which called his words "harmless banter" and said his critics were expressing "faux outrage".
Clive Lewis has reopened a row over comments he made at a Labour event after he "liked" tweets which called his words "harmless banter" and said his critics were expressing "faux outrage".
Clive Lewis has reopened a row over comments he made at a Labour event after he "liked" tweets which called his words "harmless banter" and said his critics were expressing "faux outrage".
Is it not therefore rather worrying that if placed in a contest based on intellect, skill and sanity he would still wallop pretty well every member of the Shadow Cabinet?
And even if you drop the sanity clause only Macdonnell slips in ahead of him.
Some middle of the road eurosceptics will have voted leave and some remain. I know a few who voted remain even though they disliked the EU, some quite intensely, because they felt the Leave prospectus was too uncertain / dislikeable or away with the fairies.
I agree to some extent with what you (and @Richard_Tyndall) say about reform from within. But Britain got quite a lot out of the EU and some better negotiation - itself a huge topic - would still have given an option other than full withdrawal.
It was, though, a genuinely hard decision for me.
What I will say is that I have despaired of how the outcome has been handled. A complete and embarrassing shambles.
This last bit is the thing that I don't recognise and it really mystifies me so many people I usually agree with hold it. It was never going to be an easy negotiation, but the government quite quickly worked out what was politically unpalatable and then pushed for the closest possible relationship short of that. We have accepted we will need a transitional period to have time for the final deal to be done, and managed to spin it as a concession. We have recognised we are going to have to pay fees for a few years more but have done it slowly in exchange for them budging on sillier points.
I don't think it's some sort of masterclass in statesmanship but it is reasonable muddling through of a difficult topic, made triply harder from most of the political/media class refusing to accept the result and trying to undermine it from the get go.
The best negotiating tactic is to talk softly but carry a big stick. I.e., to have viable alternatives but appear very amenable, making it clear that while you want a deal, you can walk away.
Our policy - until the Florence speech - was to yell blue murder, while stark naked.
The problem is that most people who want us to carry a big stick, also want us to ramp up the aggression. While those people who want a deal seem also to think that nakedness works in our favour.
British negotiating has been disastrous for decades.
From Major to Blair to Cameron it seemed to consist of posture beforehand, surrender during, lie afterwards.
The leaders of the EU and the other EU countries should deservedly hold the British political establishment in contempt.
Similarly, ITV News, yesterday, had the sympathetic new political idiot nodding along to the idea of kids with lower grades being allowed into Oxbridge if they weren't from private school.
Compare two 18 year olds with grades B B C at A level. One went to Eton and one went to Jack Straw Comprehensive in the Mandela Estate in London. Which would you think is more likely to get a first after 3 years at Oxford?
When I was at Cambridge (1992-1995), the college with the highest proportion of state school kids was King's, and they came top of the academic rankings. Magdalene College had the lowest proportion of state school pupils and was bottom.
I tend to think that if you have been to an "A" class school, you are more likely to have achieved your full potential than if you went to poor school. I don't therefore think there is anything particular outrageous about Oxbridge giving lower offers to kids they think have more room to grow.
Of course a number of state schools, especially highly academically selective grammar schools, get higher average exam results than non selective private schools so the state v private divide is not as clearcut as it seems.
When we are talking about relatively small numbers of students, the “state school” numbers are hugely distorted both by the grammar schools and a small number of highly academic state schools in the nicer parts of London. If you go to a bog standard state comp anywhere else in the country, you’ve got a statistically tiny chance of ending up at Oxbridge.
With academies and free schools as well as the continued existence of a number of grammar and top notch Church of England schools (as well as some from other religions too) though the bog standard comprehensive is rather less of a monopoly in state education than it once was.
Yes, hopefully as Gove’s structural reforms feed their way through, things will improve. There’s certainly some seriously good heads running academies and free schools.
Clive Lewis has reopened a row over comments he made at a Labour event after he "liked" tweets which called his words "harmless banter" and said his critics were expressing "faux outrage".
Similarly, ITV News, yesterday, had the sympathetic new political idiot nodding along to the idea of kids with lower grades being allowed into Oxbridge if they weren't from private school.
Compare two 18 year olds with grades B B C at A level. One went to Eton and one went to Jack Straw Comprehensive in the Mandela Estate in London. Which would you think is more likely to get a first after 3 years at Oxford?
Neither would get within spitting distance of Oxford Brookes, let alone the real thing, with those grades, so odd question.
In my day they let in a certain number of comp pupils with lower grades than would usually be asked for. What usually happened was that these people then dismally failed mods/prelims and were promptly slung out again. Harsh, but what else do you do?
Really? Our experience at Leicester Medical School (AAA usual offer, but AAB acceptable) is that with the same grades the State school students outperform in exams compared to those from independent schools. We use feedback on internal exams and reports to adjust admissions criteria.
As a matter of interest, you were saying about the drop-off in applications to medical schools this year - please can you tell us how different the recent intakes look, having come through Clearing, compared to the usual tough competition for places?
(edited to add: good afternoon, everybody)
I don't teach the pre clinical students, only clinical ones, so cannot really say. The analytic data is held by the University in confidence, I only see the changes in the admissions process.
In my day, 20 years ago, my peers trying to study medicine found courses 10x oversubscribed, with many that didn’t make it sudying things like pharmacology and chemistry with the hope of transferring later to the medicine course. Is there actually a shortage of qualified students wanting to study medicine now, or is the issue with the number of places available for study?
2013 17000 UK applicans, for 2017 14450, so a decline of 2500 in applications, while the number of places has gone from approx 6000 to 7000. Competition per place is down from 3:1 to 2:1.
These are the crude figures from UCAS on applications, so not all will make their grades, and likely that applicants will get in on lower interview and aptitude test scores.
Applications closed on Oct 2015, and I am doing interviews in Dec and Jan so can give some impressions at that time.
Similarly, ITV News, yesterday, had the sympathetic new political idiot nodding along to the idea of kids with lower grades being allowed into Oxbridge if they weren't from private school.
Compare two 18 year olds with grades B B C at A level. One went to Eton and one went to Jack Straw Comprehensive in the Mandela Estate in London. Which would you think is more likely to get a first after 3 years at Oxford?
When I was at Cambridge (1992-1995), the college with the highest proportion of state school kids was King's, and they came top of the academic rankings. Magdalene College had the lowest proportion of state school pupils and was bottom.
I tend to think that if you have been to an "A" class school, you are more likely to have achieved your full potential than if you went to poor school. I don't therefore think there is anything particular outrageous about Oxbridge giving lower offers to kids they think have more room to grow.
Of course a number of state schools, especially highly academically selective grammar schools, get higher average exam results than non selective private schools so the state v private divide is not as clearcut as it seems.
When we are talking about relatively small numbers of students, the “state school” numbers are hugely distorted both by the grammar schools and a small number of highly academic state schools in the nicer parts of London. If you go to a bog standard state comp anywhere else in the country, you’ve got a statistically tiny chance of ending up at Oxbridge.
With academies and free schools as well as the continued existence of a number of grammar and top notch Church of England schools (as well as some from other religions too) though the bog standard comprehensive is rather less of a monopoly in state education than it once was.
Yes, hopefully as Gove’s structural reforms feed their way through, things will improve. There’s certainly some seriously good heads running academies and free schools.
Yes both Blair and Cameron and John Major too can take some credit for that.
Clive Lewis has reopened a row over comments he made at a Labour event after he "liked" tweets which called his words "harmless banter" and said his critics were expressing "faux outrage".
Forgive me if i'm wrong, but weren't you a fully signed up member of the tories4corbyn mob?
No I wasn't. For a starters I am not a Tory. I have never, and will never, be a member of a political party.
Clive Lewis has reopened a row over comments he made at a Labour event after he "liked" tweets which called his words "harmless banter" and said his critics were expressing "faux outrage".
Forgive me if i'm wrong, but weren't you a fully signed up member of the tories4corbyn mob?
Clive Lewis has reopened a row over comments he made at a Labour event after he "liked" tweets which called his words "harmless banter" and said his critics were expressing "faux outrage".
I think it's a bit dishonest to act like euroscepticism is either pro-membership or completely hardcore Moggism. I think the bulk of us middle of the road eurosceptics found the Brexit vote to be a genuinely hard decision, but ultimately plumped for Leave. I thought the EU had positives and negatives, but ultimately the negatives were greater and no-one on the Remain side could spell out a convincing path forward for how reform was going to happen. "We'll change it from the inside" was an empty slogan with no detail behind it.
Some middle of the road eurosceptics will have voted leave and some remain. I know a few who voted remain even though they disliked the EU, some quite intensely, because they felt the Leave prospectus was too uncertain / dislikeable or away with the fairies.
I agree to some extent with what you (and @Richard_Tyndall) say about reform from within. But Britain got quite a lot out of the EU and some better negotiation - itself a huge topic - would still have given an option other than full withdrawal.
It was, though, a genuinely hard decision for me.
What I will say is that I have despaired of how the outcome has been handled. A complete and embarrassing shambles.
This last bit is the thing that I don't recognise and it really mystifies me so many people I usually agree with hold it. It was never going to be an easy negotiation, but the government quite quickly worked out what was politically unpalatable and then pushed for the closest possible relationship short of that. We have accepted we will need a transitional period to have time for the final deal to be done, and managed to spin it as a concession. We have recognised we are going to have to pay fees for a few years more but have done it slowly in exchange for them budging on sillier points.
I don't think it's some sort of masterclass in statesmanship but it is reasonable muddling through of a difficult topic, made triply harder from most of the political/media class refusing to accept the result and trying to undermine it from the get go.
Clive Lewis has reopened a row over comments he made at a Labour event after he "liked" tweets which called his words "harmless banter" and said his critics were expressing "faux outrage".
Forgive me if i'm wrong, but weren't you a fully signed up member of the tories4corbyn mob?
Clive Lewis has reopened a row over comments he made at a Labour event after he "liked" tweets which called his words "harmless banter" and said his critics were expressing "faux outrage".
Clive Lewis has reopened a row over comments he made at a Labour event after he "liked" tweets which called his words "harmless banter" and said his critics were expressing "faux outrage".
Forgive me if i'm wrong, but weren't you a fully signed up member of the tories4corbyn mob?
Clive Lewis has reopened a row over comments he made at a Labour event after he "liked" tweets which called his words "harmless banter" and said his critics were expressing "faux outrage".
Clive Lewis has reopened a row over comments he made at a Labour event after he "liked" tweets which called his words "harmless banter" and said his critics were expressing "faux outrage".
Forgive me if i'm wrong, but weren't you a fully signed up member of the tories4corbyn mob?
It was never going to be an easy negotiation, but the government quite quickly worked out what was politically unpalatable and then pushed for the closest possible relationship short of that.
May gave a speech that said "No deal is better than a bad deal"
If she thought single market membership was "politically unpalatable", wait until the consequences of "no deal" become apparent
Clive Lewis has reopened a row over comments he made at a Labour event after he "liked" tweets which called his words "harmless banter" and said his critics were expressing "faux outrage".
Clive Lewis has reopened a row over comments he made at a Labour event after he "liked" tweets which called his words "harmless banter" and said his critics were expressing "faux outrage".
Clive Lewis has reopened a row over comments he made at a Labour event after he "liked" tweets which called his words "harmless banter" and said his critics were expressing "faux outrage".
It was never going to be an easy negotiation, but the government quite quickly worked out what was politically unpalatable and then pushed for the closest possible relationship short of that.
May gave a speech that said "No deal is better than a bad deal"
If she thought single market membership was "politically unpalatable", wait until the consequences of "no deal" become apparent
That made a damn lot more sense than saying "we will sign whatever you put in front of us", which seems to be the Clegg/Soubry approach.
To add to the list of the guilty how about Nigel Lawson.
His attempts as Chancellor to get Sterling to shadow the Mark led to first strong growth turning into an economic boom and then that boom turning into the inevitable inflation, higher interest rates, the ERM and recession.
All bad enough but it was the ERM exit and the project fear ** which preceeded it that began Britain's uncoupling from the EU.
** We were told by Major, Heseltine, Clarke etc that if Britain left the ERM interst rates and inflation would soar, there would be no more foreign investment, the car factories would shut down, the City would relocate to Frankfurt and sterling would become as worthless as the Ukranian Coupon. Needless to say the opposite happened.
That's a very good point. He has been rather let off the hook for his disastrous "shadow the Mark" policy, which led to out of control inflation, followed by a slamming on of the breaks, and to the horrible early 1990s recession when house prices fell almost 40% in real terms. (They fell 13.2% in absolute terms, but there was another 25% impact from inflation.)
I blame Gordon Brown.
No, seriously, the right's preoccupation with the Blair/Brown wars meant the bare-knuckle fights between Thatcher and Lawson were airbrushed, or spun, out of history.
I think it's a bit dishonest to act like euroscepticism is either pro-membership or completely hardcore Moggism. I think the bulk of us middle of the road eurosceptics found the Brexit vote to be a genuinely hard decision, but ultimately plumped for Leave. I thought the EU had positives and negatives, but ultimately the negatives were greater and no-one on the Remain side could spell out a convincing path forward for how reform was going to happen. "We'll change it from the inside" was an empty slogan with no detail behind it.
Some middle of the road eurosceptics will have voted leave and some remain. I know a few who voted remain even though they disliked the EU, some quite intensely, because they felt the Leave prospectus was too uncertain / dislikeable or away with the fairies.
I agree to some extent with what you (and @Richard_Tyndall) say about reform from within. But Britain got quite a lot out of the EU and some better negotiation - itself a huge topic - would still have given an option other than full withdrawal.
It was, though, a genuinely hard decision for me.
What I will say is that I have despaired of how the outcome has been handled. A complete and embarrassing shambles.
I don't think it's some sort of masterclass in statesmanship but it is reasonable muddling through of a difficult topic, made triply harder from most of the political/media class refusing to accept the result and trying to undermine it from the get go.
I disagree. It seems to me that May worked out what was politically unacceptable to a vocal section of the Tory party and has based its negotiating strategy on that. The one thing it has not done is to reach out to to those who voted Remain or to try and get a wide base of support for its strategy or to find a way of implementing the result slowly and carefully and in a way which will cause the least harm (to us/our neighbours/our reputation) and put us in the best possible position to succeed. Too much was ruled out at the start by May with, as far as one can tell, no input from anyone.
I disagree in turn! Maybe it's because I'm not from London and its environs, but I have seen just how much opposition there is to immigration in my hometown. It was never going to be doable to do a deal that included freedom of movement, and the EU made clear early it would be cherrypicking to exclude that but stay in the single market. After that, she said she wanted an early deal on EU migrants (which the EU rejected) and she wanted a special unique partnership between the UK and the EU. That seemed to me a positive reach out to Remainers and reassured reluctant Leavers like me.
Where is your home town, if you don’t mind me asking?
To add to the list of the guilty how about Nigel Lawson.
His attempts as Chancellor to get Sterling to shadow the Mark led to first strong growth turning into an economic boom and then that boom turning into the inevitable inflation, higher interest rates, the ERM and recession.
All bad enough but it was the ERM exit and the project fear ** which preceeded it that began Britain's uncoupling from the EU.
** We were told by Major, Heseltine, Clarke etc that if Britain left the ERM interst rates and inflation would soar, there would be no more foreign investment, the car factories would shut down, the City would relocate to Frankfurt and sterling would become as worthless as the Ukranian Coupon. Needless to say the opposite happened.
That's a very good point. He has been rather let off the hook for his disastrous "shadow the Mark" policy, which led to out of control inflation, followed by a slamming on of the breaks, and to the horrible early 1990s recession when house prices fell almost 40% in real terms. (They fell 13.2% in absolute terms, but there was another 25% impact from inflation.)
I blame Gordon Brown.
No, seriously, the right's preoccupation with the Blair/Brown wars meant the bare-knuckle fights between Thatcher and Lawson were airbrushed, or spun, out of history.
Because Thatcher and Lawson were just handbags, when compared to the Blair and Brown knife fight.
Clive Lewis has reopened a row over comments he made at a Labour event after he "liked" tweets which called his words "harmless banter" and said his critics were expressing "faux outrage".
What's the 'ultimate source' of the £165,000. 9 ex-miners don't have that sort of cash hanging around to give to a Labour MP...
I believe they took a voluntary cut from the compensation payments they secured for ex-miners re vibration white finger and other industrial illnesses.
There was a lot of compensation money for miners during the 1990s and onwards.
And scandals as to how much of it was siphoned off:
I can't profess any great interest in football, but appreciation for the embarrassment of the absurd Jose Mourinho surely transcends sporting barriers ?
I was at the match. Probably Huddersfield's best win since they beat the Wolverhampton of Billy Wright many moons ago. It was a case of Town taking their chances and Man Utd not.
Clive Lewis has reopened a row over comments he made at a Labour event after he "liked" tweets which called his words "harmless banter" and said his critics were expressing "faux outrage".
What's the 'ultimate source' of the £165,000. 9 ex-miners don't have that sort of cash hanging around to give to a Labour MP...
I believe they took a voluntary cut from the compensation payments they secured for ex-miners re vibration white finger and other industrial illnesses.
There was a lot of compensation money for miners during the 1990s and onwards.
And scandals as to how much of it was siphoned off:
It was never going to be an easy negotiation, but the government quite quickly worked out what was politically unpalatable and then pushed for the closest possible relationship short of that.
May gave a speech that said "No deal is better than a bad deal"
If she thought single market membership was "politically unpalatable", wait until the consequences of "no deal" become apparent
That made a damn lot more sense than saying "we will sign whatever you put in front of us", which seems to be the Clegg/Soubry approach.
In case you have not noticed we have no leverage. To coin a phrase we are the dockside hooker and we just have to take it.
Meanwhile the rest of the a world continues to laugh at us - an a Indian diplomat friend of mine said at dinner yesterday "Are you guys still going through with Brexit."
Interesting thread. Personally speaking, I have only met people who have gone from Remain to Leave, although acquaintances have told me about people switching the other way.
While I sometimes despair about the way the Government is carrying out the negotiations, they are hamstrung by a governing and media class which largely cannot accept the result, and the parliamentary arithmetic following the General Election.
If there was a second referendum I would campaign like a man possessed for Leave. I think the campaign would run on righteous anger, and would deliver a second victory.
It was never going to be an easy negotiation, but the government quite quickly worked out what was politically unpalatable and then pushed for the closest possible relationship short of that.
May gave a speech that said "No deal is better than a bad deal"
If she thought single market membership was "politically unpalatable", wait until the consequences of "no deal" become apparent
That made a damn lot more sense than saying "we will sign whatever you put in front of us", which seems to be the Clegg/Soubry approach.
In case you have not noticed we have no leverage. To coin a phrase we are the dockside hooker and we just have to take it.
Meanwhile the rest of the a world continues to laugh at us - an a Indian diplomat friend of mine said at dinner yesterday "Are you guys still going through with Brexit."
It was never going to be an easy negotiation, but the government quite quickly worked out what was politically unpalatable and then pushed for the closest possible relationship short of that.
May gave a speech that said "No deal is better than a bad deal"
If she thought single market membership was "politically unpalatable", wait until the consequences of "no deal" become apparent
That made a damn lot more sense than saying "we will sign whatever you put in front of us", which seems to be the Clegg/Soubry approach.
In case you have not noticed we have no leverage. To coin a phrase we are the dockside hooker and we just have to take it.
Like Blair did when he gave away half the Rebate ?
How many tens of billions does that add up to now ?
It was never going to be an easy negotiation, but the government quite quickly worked out what was politically unpalatable and then pushed for the closest possible relationship short of that.
May gave a speech that said "No deal is better than a bad deal"
If she thought single market membership was "politically unpalatable", wait until the consequences of "no deal" become apparent
That made a damn lot more sense than saying "we will sign whatever you put in front of us", which seems to be the Clegg/Soubry approach.
In case you have not noticed we have no leverage. To coin a phrase we are the dockside hooker and we just have to take it.
Meanwhile the rest of the a world continues to laugh at us - an a Indian diplomat friend of mine said at dinner yesterday "Are you guys still going through with Brexit."
True Chamberlainism.
I am a pragmatist and not some kind of deluded nationalist.
Interesting thread. Personally speaking, I have only met people who have gone from Remain to Leave, although acquaintances have told me about people switching the other way.
While I sometimes despair about the way the Government is carrying out the negotiations, they are hamstrung by a governing and media class which largely cannot accept the result, and the parliamentary arithmetic following the General Election.
If there was a second referendum I would campaign like a man possessed for Leave. I think the campaign would run on righteous anger, and would deliver a second victory.
A second referendum is going to be about a different choice. A50 has been served, the countdown has begun. Are people expecting a vote that will put time into reverse? If we can't impose leaving terms on the EU, we certainly can't impose a "Sorry, forget we said it" vote.
But I suppose if anyone wants a really insane story of an organisation that has entirely lost its moral compass:
www.bbc.co.uk/news/amp/world-africa-41702662
It's incredible.
Coming next: ISIS to head the UN World Tourism Organisation, Kim Jong-Un to lead the International Labor Organisation and Bashar al-Assad to head the Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons.
Oh, and due to his experience in communications between nations, Putin to lead the International Telecommunication Union.
It was never going to be an easy negotiation, but the government quite quickly worked out what was politically unpalatable and then pushed for the closest possible relationship short of that.
May gave a speech that said "No deal is better than a bad deal"
If she thought single market membership was "politically unpalatable", wait until the consequences of "no deal" become apparent
That made a damn lot more sense than saying "we will sign whatever you put in front of us", which seems to be the Clegg/Soubry approach.
In case you have not noticed we have no leverage. To coin a phrase we are the dockside hooker and we just have to take it.
Meanwhile the rest of the a world continues to laugh at us - an a Indian diplomat friend of mine said at dinner yesterday "Are you guys still going through with Brexit."
True Chamberlainism.
I am a pragmatist and not some kind of deluded nationalist.
When this country is in trouble pal,All political classes jump on the nationalist cause,otherwise this country would have been sunk years ago.
Yes, hopefully as Gove’s structural reforms feed their way through, things will improve. There’s certainly some seriously good heads running academies and free schools.
That does not ring true, Mr Sandpit. Can you provide us with some names please?
It was never going to be an easy negotiation, but the government quite quickly worked out what was politically unpalatable and then pushed for the closest possible relationship short of that.
May gave a speech that said "No deal is better than a bad deal"
If she thought single market membership was "politically unpalatable", wait until the consequences of "no deal" become apparent
That made a damn lot more sense than saying "we will sign whatever you put in front of us", which seems to be the Clegg/Soubry approach.
In case you have not noticed we have no leverage. To coin a phrase we are the dockside hooker and we just have to take it.
Meanwhile the rest of the a world continues to laugh at us - an a Indian diplomat friend of mine said at dinner yesterday "Are you guys still going through with Brexit."
True Chamberlainism.
I am a pragmatist and not some kind of deluded nationalist.
You are not much of a pragmatist if you think the UK has no leverage at all. You are just as ideological but on the other side. It is Trump/Corbyn style thinking where you can't accept people can disagree with you other than through idiocy or malice.
Similarly, ITV News, yesterday, had the sympathetic new political idiot nodding along to the idea of kids with lower grades being allowed into Oxbridge if they weren't from private school.
Compare two 18 year olds with grades B B C at A level. One went to Eton and one went to Jack Straw Comprehensive in the Mandela Estate in London. Which would you think is more likely to get a first after 3 years at Oxford?
Neither would get within spitting distance of Oxford Brookes, let alone the real thing, with those grades, so odd question.
In my day they let in a certain number of comp pupils with lower grades than would usually be asked for. What usually happened was that these people then dismally failed mods/prelims and were promptly slung out again. Harsh, but what else do you do?
Yes, you needed minimum AAB for Oxbridge in 2000 when I did my A Levels and most had AAA, nowadays most have A*s too.
I had a friend who got in to Oxford in the early 1970s to study Modern Languages with A level grades of BBD. To be fair, I am talking about a time when the system of Relative marking was being used - and he had to pass the Entrance Exam.
I think it's a bit dishonest to act like euroscepticism is either pro-membership or completely hardcore Moggism. I think the bulk of us middle of the road eurosceptics found the Brexit vote to be a genuinely hard decision, but ultimately plumped for Leave. I thought the EU had positives and negatives, but ultimately the negatives were greater and no-one on the Remain side could spell out a convincing path forward for how reform was going to happen. "We'll change it from the inside" was an empty slogan with no detail behind it.
Some middle of the road eurosceptics will have voted leave and some remain. I know a few who voted remain even though they disliked the EU, some quite intensely, because they felt the Leave prospectus was too uncertain / dislikeable or away with the fairies.
I agree to some extent with what you (and @Richard_Tyndall) say about reform from within. But Britain got quite a lot out of the EU and some better negotiation - itself a huge topic - would still have given an option other than full withdrawal.
It was, though, a genuinely hard decision for me.
What I will say is that I have despaired of how the outcome has been handled. A complete and embarrassing shambles.
I don't think it's some sort of masterclass in statesmanship but it is reasonable muddling through of a difficult topic, made triply harder from most of the political/media class refusing to accept the result and trying to undermine it from the get go.
as one can tell, no input from anyone.
I disagree in turn! Maybe it's because I'm not from London and its environs, but I have seen just how much opposition there is to immigration in my hometown. It was never going to be doable to do a deal that included freedom of movement, and the EU made clear early it would be cherrypicking to exclude that but stay in the single market. After that, she said she wanted an early deal on EU migrants (which the EU rejected) and she wanted a special unique partnership between the UK and the EU. That seemed to me a positive reach out to Remainers and reassured reluctant Leavers like me.
Where is your home town, if you don’t mind me asking?
"Millennials don’t fear censorship because they plan on doing all the censoring By stifling free speech, the young oppress their future selves Lionel Shriver"
Similarly, ITV News, yesterday, had the sympathetic new political idiot nodding along to the idea of kids with lower grades being allowed into Oxbridge if they weren't from private school.
Compare two 18 year olds with grades B B C at A level. One went to Eton and one went to Jack Straw Comprehensive in the Mandela Estate in London. Which would you think is more likely to get a first after 3 years at Oxford?
Neither would get within spitting distance of Oxford Brookes, let alone the real thing, with those grades, so odd question.
In my day they let in a certain number of comp pupils with lower grades than would usually be asked for. What usually happened was that these people then dismally failed mods/prelims and were promptly slung out again. Harsh, but what else do you do?
Yes, you needed minimum AAB for Oxbridge in 2000 when I did my A Levels and most had AAA, nowadays most have A*s too.
I had a friend who got in to Oxford in the early 1970s to study Modern Languages with A level grades of BBD. To be fair, I am talking about a time when the system of Relative marking was being used - and he had to pass the Entrance Exam.
We should of never abandond relative marking, move the levels in relation to available places but having a universal pass mark was ridiculous
It was never going to be an easy negotiation, but the government quite quickly worked out what was politically unpalatable and then pushed for the closest possible relationship short of that.
May gave a speech that said "No deal is better than a bad deal"
If she thought single market membership was "politically unpalatable", wait until the consequences of "no deal" become apparent
That made a damn lot more sense than saying "we will sign whatever you put in front of us", which seems to be the Clegg/Soubry approach.
In case you have not noticed we have no leverage. To coin a phrase we are the dockside hooker and we just have to take it.
Meanwhile the rest of the a world continues to laugh at us - an a Indian diplomat friend of mine said at dinner yesterday "Are you guys still going through with Brexit."
True Chamberlainism.
I am a pragmatist and not some kind of deluded nationalist.
Great thread header Cyclefree, very thought-provoking, thanks!
I'd add Cameron to the list of guilty men. In trying to de-toxify Europe for the Tories he has succeeded in royally screwing up the country:
- He committed to a referendum he never expected to have to deliver; - The referendum was badly set-up (a major change like this needs more than a simple majority to be binding); - He should have kept out of (neutral in) the campaign; - There was no plan a No vote; - He buggered-off straight away after losing rather than staying and sorting out the mess he had made.
Similarly, ITV News, yesterday, had the sympathetic new political idiot nodding along to the idea of kids with lower grades being allowed into Oxbridge if they weren't from private school.
Compare two 18 year olds with grades B B C at A level. One went to Eton and one went to Jack Straw Comprehensive in the Mandela Estate in London. Which would you think is more likely to get a first after 3 years at Oxford?
Neither would get within spitting distance of Oxford Brookes, let alone the real thing, with those grades, so odd question.
In my day they let in a certain number of comp pupils with lower grades than would usually be asked for. What usually happened was that these people then dismally failed mods/prelims and were promptly slung out again. Harsh, but what else do you do?
Yes, you needed minimum AAB for Oxbridge in 2000 when I did my A Levels and most had AAA, nowadays most have A*s too.
I had a friend who got in to Oxford in the early 1970s to study Modern Languages with A level grades of BBD. To be fair, I am talking about a time when the system of Relative marking was being used - and he had to pass the Entrance Exam.
We should of never abandond relative marking, move the levels in relation to available places but having a universal pass mark was ridiculous
It was never going to be an easy negotiation, but the government quite quickly worked out what was politically unpalatable and then pushed for the closest possible relationship short of that.
May gave a speech that said "No deal is better than a bad deal"
If she thought single market membership was "politically unpalatable", wait until the consequences of "no deal" become apparent
That made a damn lot more sense than saying "we will sign whatever you put in front of us", which seems to be the Clegg/Soubry approach.
In case you have not noticed we have no leverage. To coin a phrase we are the dockside hooker and we just have to take it.
Meanwhile the rest of the a world continues to laugh at us - an a Indian diplomat friend of mine said at dinner yesterday "Are you guys still going through with Brexit."
True Chamberlainism.
I am a pragmatist and not some kind of deluded nationalist.
It was never going to be an easy negotiation, but the government quite quickly worked out what was politically unpalatable and then pushed for the closest possible relationship short of that.
May gave a speech that said "No deal is better than a bad deal"
If she thought single market membership was "politically unpalatable", wait until the consequences of "no deal" become apparent
That made a damn lot more sense than saying "we will sign whatever you put in front of us", which seems to be the Clegg/Soubry approach.
In case you have not noticed we have no leverage. To coin a phrase we are the dockside hooker and we just have to take it.
Meanwhile the rest of the a world continues to laugh at us - an a Indian diplomat friend of mine said at dinner yesterday "Are you guys still going through with Brexit."
True Chamberlainism.
I am a pragmatist and not some kind of deluded nationalist.
It was never going to be an easy negotiation, but the government quite quickly worked out what was politically unpalatable and then pushed for the closest possible relationship short of that.
May gave a speech that said "No deal is better than a bad deal"
If she thought single market membership was "politically unpalatable", wait until the consequences of "no deal" become apparent
That made a damn lot more sense than saying "we will sign whatever you put in front of us", which seems to be the Clegg/Soubry approach.
In case you have not noticed we have no leverage. To coin a phrase we are the dockside hooker and we just have to take it.
Meanwhile the rest of the a world continues to laugh at us - an a Indian diplomat friend of mine said at dinner yesterday "Are you guys still going through with Brexit."
True Chamberlainism.
I am a pragmatist and not some kind of deluded nationalist.
Similarly, ITV News, yesterday, had the sympathetic new political idiot nodding along to the idea of kids with lower grades being allowed into Oxbridge if they weren't from private school.
Compare two 18 year olds with grades B B C at A level. One went to Eton and one went to Jack Straw Comprehensive in the Mandela Estate in London. Which would you think is more likely to get a first after 3 years at Oxford?
Neither would get within spitting distance of Oxford Brookes, let alone the real thing, with those grades, so odd question.
In my day they let in a certain number of comp pupils with lower grades than would usually be asked for. What usually happened was that these people then dismally failed mods/prelims and were promptly slung out again. Harsh, but what else do you do?
Yes, you needed minimum AAB for Oxbridge in 2000 when I did my A Levels and most had AAA, nowadays most have A*s too.
I had a friend who got in to Oxford in the early 1970s to study Modern Languages with A level grades of BBD. To be fair, I am talking about a time when the system of Relative marking was being used - and he had to pass the Entrance Exam.
We should of never abandond relative marking, move the levels in relation to available places but having a universal pass mark was ridiculous
"...have never..."
My inner Grammar Nazi is singing the Horst Wessel song and preparing to goose step!
I think it's a bit dishonest to act like euroscepticism is either pro-membership or completely hardcore Moggism. I think the bulk of us middle of the road eurosceptics found the Brexit vote to be a genuinely hard decision, but ultimately plumped for Leave. I thought the EU had positives and negatives, but ultimately the negatives were greater and no-one on the Remain side could spell out a convincing path forward for how reform was going to happen. "We'll change it from the inside" was an empty slogan with no detail behind it.
Some middle of the road eurosceptics will have voted leave and some remain. I know a few who voted remain even though they disliked the EU, some quite intensely, because they felt the Leave prospectus was too uncertain / dislikeable or away with the fairies.
I agree to some extent with what you (and @Richard_Tyndall) say about reform from within. But Britain got quite a lot out of the EU and some better negotiation - itself a huge topic - would still have given an option other than full withdrawal.
It was, though, a genuinely hard decision for me.
What I will say is that I have despaired of how the outcome has been handled. A complete and embarrassing shambles.
I don't think it's some sort of masterclass in statesmanship but it is reasonable muddling through of a difficult topic, made triply harder from most of the political/media class refusing to accept the result and trying to undermine it from the get go.
as one can tell, no input from anyone.
I disagree in turn! Maybe it's because I'm not from London and its environs, but I have seen just how much opposition there is to immigration in my hometown. It was never going to be doable to do a deal that included freedom of movement, and the EU made clear early it would be cherrypicking to exclude that but stay in the single market. After that, she said she wanted an early deal on EU migrants (which the EU rejected) and she wanted a special unique partnership between the UK and the EU. That seemed to me a positive reach out to Remainers and reassured reluctant Leavers like me.
Where is your home town, if you don’t mind me asking?
Thank you for the article, Cyclefree. There is, however, one obvious omission and that is Mikhail Gorbachev. His actions in bringing about the end of Soviet control in Eastern Europe and the collapse of the Berlin Wall leading to the re-unification of Germany in 1990 had huge consequences which arguably reverberate to this day.
Finland, Austria and Sweden, who had all remained neutral during the Cold War and who had considered EEC membership to be incompatible with that neutrality, were all free to join and the subsequent enlargements of 1999, 2004 and 2007 have led us to the current status of 28 member states.
The EEC, designed for western Europe, struggled with the accession of the poor southern European economies and the likes of Spain, Greece and Portugal, all of whom endured periods of dictatorship before joining the EEC, needed economic support to bring their countries closer to the likes of West Germany, the Low Countries and the UK.
The Single Market was designed for that smaller, more economically equal Europe, not for the EU emerging from Maastricht, Lisbon and the Cold War. Even a generation after the fall of Communism, the countries of the former Warsaw pact were so far behind those of Western Europe that the opportunity to get a taste of the wealth of the West was understandably irresistible.
The problem was the desire to lock the post-Communist Eastern European countries into the western military and economic orbit was so strong that concerns about economic disparity and concerns about the response of Russia to the push east of NATO and the West were ignored - to her credit, Mrs Thatcher opposed German re-unification and everyone thought she was harking back to the past when in fact she was seeing the future.
Had the EU remained primarily west, north and south of the Elbe there would have been problems but I doubt we'd be where we are now if the Berlin Wall was still in place. That has been a huge benefit but not without consequences.
A couple of other comments - the Mail has laid in to the Police today but the decision to withdraw from community policing was led by Theresa May when Home Secretary. Crime is rising sharply but apparently it's the Police's fault - I suspect that wouldn't be the Mail's line if we had a Labour Government.
On housing, I see Hammond has finally seen the light and realised the house builders have some 400,000 plots with planning permission ready to have houses built on them. These land banks should be put into use or compulsorily relinquished or heavily taxed (that'll give some on here a fit of the vapours).
One of my neighbours is letting off fireworks. To make the effect more spectacular, he is holding them in the air with his left hand while lighting them with his right and letting them go as they fire.
If they explode do I send for an ambulance or just nominate him for a Darwin Award?
A couple of other comments - the Mail has laid in to the Police today but the decision to withdraw from community policing was led by Theresa May when Home Secretary. Crime is rising sharply but apparently it's the Police's fault - I suspect that wouldn't be the Mail's line if we had a Labour Government.
On housing, I see Hammond has finally seen the light and realised the house builders have some 400,000 plots with planning permission ready to have houses built on them. These land banks should be put into use or compulsorily relinquished or heavily taxed (that'll give some on here a fit of the vapours).
In the difficult situation he finds himself in, a tax may be the best form of defence.
The Mail has laid in to the Police today but the decision to withdraw from community policing was led by Theresa May when Home Secretary. Crime is rising sharply but apparently it's the Police's fault - I suspect that wouldn't be the Mail's line if we had a Labour Government.
I find the debate about crime interesting. For years, we were told that crime was falling and that perceptions of crime were wrong. Now we're told that crime is rising and that it's due to cuts to police budgets. I could understand clean up rates falling due to a reduction in police budgets, but I'm sceptical that people only obey the law because they fear they may get caught and punished.
It would be good to hear what the police say they are unable to do that means people are more likely to commit crime. I can think of one - stop and search - but apparently that's a bad thing.
One of my neighbours is letting off fireworks. To make the effect more spectacular, he is holding them in the air with his left hand while lighting them with his right and letting them go as they fire.
If they explode do I send for an ambulance or just nominate him for a Darwin Award?
From my Hornblower and Aubrey studies, that sounds like a pretty authentic reenactment of an early C19th naval battle.
The Mail has laid in to the Police today but the decision to withdraw from community policing was led by Theresa May when Home Secretary. Crime is rising sharply but apparently it's the Police's fault - I suspect that wouldn't be the Mail's line if we had a Labour Government.
I find the debate about crime interesting. For years, we were told that crime was falling and that perceptions of crime were wrong. Now we're told that crime is rising and that it's due to cuts to police budgets. I could understand clean up rates falling due to a reduction in police budgets, but I'm sceptical that people only obey the law because they fear they may get caught and punished.
It would be good to hear what the police say they are unable to do that means people are more likely to commit crime. I can think of one - stop and search - but apparently that's a bad thing.
I remember seeing a report on a study showing that the best deterrence wasn't harsh sentences, it was a perception that justice is administered swiftly, fairly, and that there was little chance of getting away with it.
Comments
These are the crude figures from UCAS on applications, so not all will make their grades, and likely that applicants will get in on lower interview and aptitude test scores.
Applications closed on Oct 2015, and I am doing interviews in Dec and Jan so can give some impressions at that time.
My impression is that state school are much more aware of social determinants of health at interview too, but independent school students can be good at that, and often have more extracurricular frills on their CV.
I don't think it's some sort of masterclass in statesmanship but it is reasonable muddling through of a difficult topic, made triply harder from most of the political/media class refusing to accept the result and trying to undermine it from the get go.
The economy grew at about 5% ** each year from 1986 to 1988 with Lawson first cutting interest rates much too far and then ramming them up too quickly:
http://www.bankofengland.co.uk/boeapps/iadb/Repo.asp
** And that was when GDP growth was equal to GDP growth per capita rather than being 0.2% larger each quarter.
Our policy - until the Florence speech - was to yell blue murder, while stark naked.
The problem is that most people who want us to carry a big stick, also want us to ramp up the aggression. While those people who want a deal seem also to think that nakedness works in our favour.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Population_pyramid_for_the_United_Kingdom_using_2011_census_data.png
I've never really liked May after a lot of what she did at the Home Office, but I have found myself sympathising with her after so much has been spun so unfairly against her.
http://www.clivejames.com/evenaswespeak/hitler
Clive James is of course not an historian, but I found his analysis to be very intriguing.
Whereas now with ZIRP the only thing we increase spending on is personal consumption.
Has there been a fundamental shift in the balance of the British economy, or a fundamental shift in British mentality or is there genuinely nothing left for British business to invest in ?
I do hope that the fact your first post was deleted and your second post was to accuse a long established and (despite my personal differences with him) respected poster of lying is not an ill omen.
Thank you.
Clive Lewis has reopened a row over comments he made at a Labour event after he "liked" tweets which called his words "harmless banter" and said his critics were expressing "faux outrage".
From Major to Blair to Cameron it seemed to consist of posture beforehand, surrender during, lie afterwards.
The leaders of the EU and the other EU countries should deservedly hold the British political establishment in contempt.
Out at 25/1 as next leader.
And even if you drop the sanity clause only Macdonnell slips in ahead of him.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/newsbeat/article/41707505/magazine-apologises-to-solange-for-editing-image
https://twitter.com/Nus_Ghani/status/921745822210981888
But the Ian Lavery case is far more serious if rather less fashionable.
If she thought single market membership was "politically unpalatable", wait until the consequences of "no deal" become apparent
The rest is pretty in line with what's long been known of the NUM's leadership frankly so while embarrassing for Labour it is hardly surprising.
But an organisation of just ten with 165 grand to blow? That is really quite surprising.
www.bbc.co.uk/news/amp/world-africa-41702662
No, seriously, the right's preoccupation with the Blair/Brown wars meant the bare-knuckle fights between Thatcher and Lawson were airbrushed, or spun, out of history.
Only paid a little attention to the practice but it seems like many penalties abound.
And scandals as to how much of it was siphoned off:
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1094009/Solicitors-tens-millions-sick-elderly-miners-struck-off.html
I'm not sure what's more disgusting - the way the money was taken from the poor who deserved and needed it, or what it was ultimately used for.
I would willingly have sworn there was no way the NUM could go down in my estimation. I would have been wrong.
Meanwhile the rest of the a world continues to laugh at us - an a Indian diplomat friend of mine said at dinner yesterday "Are you guys still going through with Brexit."
While I sometimes despair about the way the Government is carrying out the negotiations, they are hamstrung by a governing and media class which largely cannot accept the result, and the parliamentary arithmetic following the General Election.
If there was a second referendum I would campaign like a man possessed for Leave. I think the campaign would run on righteous anger, and would deliver a second victory.
How many tens of billions does that add up to now ?
edited for typo
Coming next: ISIS to head the UN World Tourism Organisation, Kim Jong-Un to lead the International Labor Organisation and Bashar al-Assad to head the Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons.
Oh, and due to his experience in communications between nations, Putin to lead the International Telecommunication Union.
https://twitter.com/catalannews/status/921787755818045440
http://enormo-haddock.blogspot.co.uk/2017/10/usa-pre-qualifying-2017.html
So, no tip. A reminder qualifying starts at the unusually late hour of 10pm.
"Millennials don’t fear censorship because they plan on doing all the censoring
By stifling free speech, the young oppress their future selves
Lionel Shriver"
https://www.spectator.co.uk/2017/10/millennials-dont-fear-censorship-because-they-plan-on-doing-all-the-censoring/
https://twitter.com/jorisluijendijk/status/921732381916258304
I'd add Cameron to the list of guilty men. In trying to de-toxify Europe for the Tories he has succeeded in royally screwing up the country:
- He committed to a referendum he never expected to have to deliver;
- The referendum was badly set-up (a major change like this needs more than a simple majority to be binding);
- He should have kept out of (neutral in) the campaign;
- There was no plan a No vote;
- He buggered-off straight away after losing rather than staying and sorting out the mess he had made.
History will judge Cameron as a failure imo.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-41708844
now you post a bloke who recommends wife beating
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/England_expects_that_every_man_will_do_his_duty
A: When it's a yes.
Thank you for the article, Cyclefree. There is, however, one obvious omission and that is Mikhail Gorbachev. His actions in bringing about the end of Soviet control in Eastern Europe and the collapse of the Berlin Wall leading to the re-unification of Germany in 1990 had huge consequences which arguably reverberate to this day.
Finland, Austria and Sweden, who had all remained neutral during the Cold War and who had considered EEC membership to be incompatible with that neutrality, were all free to join and the subsequent enlargements of 1999, 2004 and 2007 have led us to the current status of 28 member states.
The EEC, designed for western Europe, struggled with the accession of the poor southern European economies and the likes of Spain, Greece and Portugal, all of whom endured periods of dictatorship before joining the EEC, needed economic support to bring their countries closer to the likes of West Germany, the Low Countries and the UK.
The Single Market was designed for that smaller, more economically equal Europe, not for the EU emerging from Maastricht, Lisbon and the Cold War. Even a generation after the fall of Communism, the countries of the former Warsaw pact were so far behind those of Western Europe that the opportunity to get a taste of the wealth of the West was understandably irresistible.
The problem was the desire to lock the post-Communist Eastern European countries into the western military and economic orbit was so strong that concerns about economic disparity and concerns about the response of Russia to the push east of NATO and the West were ignored - to her credit, Mrs Thatcher opposed German re-unification and everyone thought she was harking back to the past when in fact she was seeing the future.
Had the EU remained primarily west, north and south of the Elbe there would have been problems but I doubt we'd be where we are now if the Berlin Wall was still in place. That has been a huge benefit but not without consequences.
It was dropped because people wanted it backdated.
I'l leave posing down the pub to others.
A couple of other comments - the Mail has laid in to the Police today but the decision to withdraw from community policing was led by Theresa May when Home Secretary. Crime is rising sharply but apparently it's the Police's fault - I suspect that wouldn't be the Mail's line if we had a Labour Government.
On housing, I see Hammond has finally seen the light and realised the house builders have some 400,000 plots with planning permission ready to have houses built on them. These land banks should be put into use or compulsorily relinquished or heavily taxed (that'll give some on here a fit of the vapours).
One of my neighbours is letting off fireworks. To make the effect more spectacular, he is holding them in the air with his left hand while lighting them with his right and letting them go as they fire.
If they explode do I send for an ambulance or just nominate him for a Darwin Award?
PR... not even once.
I'll get my coat.
It would be good to hear what the police say they are unable to do that means people are more likely to commit crime. I can think of one - stop and search - but apparently that's a bad thing.
Not the same link, but it covers similar points:
https://nij.gov/five-things/pages/deterrence.aspx