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politicalbetting.com » Blog Archive » Damian Hinds – the 100/1 CON leadership longshot who at Oxford
politicalbetting.com » Blog Archive » Damian Hinds – the 100/1 CON leadership longshot who at Oxford beat Moggsy for the Union Presidency
I’m sure those political obsessives amongst us all remember the ‘Party Games’ episode of Yes Minister where 2 candidates on the extremes of the party were frontrunners for the post, only for the civil service to conspire to see them withdraw in favour of a compromise candidate. Sir Humphrey and Sir Arnold listed their requirements ‘malleable, flexible, likeable, No firm opinions, no bright ideas ect’ and eventually arrived, to initial self-amusement, at Jim Hacker.
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Thousands of bus routes at risk of being scrapped.
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-47182101
Can anyone think of a Leader of the Opposition who has been unaccountably banging on about bus services at PMQs? Still confident the next election will be all about Brexit?
Who?
As for Hinds, since he has been promoted to cabinet he has been the invisible man.
Free bus passes for pensioners has been electorally popular, but disastrous for bus services. What's the point in a free bus pass if your village's service has been reduced from hourly to two times a day, or removed entirely?
Bet narrowly came off, Ireland winning by 9 points. Only saw the second half. Scotland mostly played well, but kept making silly errors.
http://www.conservativehome.com/thetorydiary/2016/01/our-future-tory-leader-feels-the-brexit-factor-as-theresa-may-goes-top.html
I think however you are vastly underrating the potential for a legacy disaster - the exams system is still beyond a shambles and it is going to end in calamity at some point. He is also sooner rather than later going to have to do something about OFSTED, whose chief inspector has never actually had any credibility but is rapidly moving beyond a joke to something both nasty and dangerous (see here for her latest extraordinary display of ignorance: https://www.tes.com/news/exclusive-shock-ofsted-chiefs-lack-knowledge-peer-abuse-guidance). While removing OFSTED would probably improve teaching in this country to a quite remarkable degree, it would also earn him the undying enmity of the red tops who have swallowed the lies of the likes of disgraced failed teacher and sex offender Woodhead plus serial liar and propagandist Cummings whole. And while teachers would lay the blame firmly with Gove and Morgan where it belongs, I suspect the public would be less forgiving.
I also feel at this moment he's too junior. I can only think of one immediately former Secretary of State for Education who was elected party leader, and that was 44 years ago, under highly unusual circumstances. No other holder of the office has ever become party leader, despite some fairly important figures (Hailsham, Clarke, Balls, Halifax, Butler) holding it.
So I agree with @DecrepitJohnL - if he moves on before the shit hits the fan, next leader but one is realistic. Not this time around. If as I expect there is a new PM in the next four months, it will be either Hunt or Javid.
Incidentally, where is Hyufd these days?
https://twitter.com/Lies_Breaker/status/1094262694536978432
There is no need for this to be a national free bus pass. My eighty something parents travel free by bus when visiting London by train, and the poor Isle of Wight has to subsidise older tourists to travel free.
Have vague memories of, a year or two ago, my mother mentioning (when she was on the bus) overhearing a man complaining that when he was in Scotland his bus pass wasn't deemed valid and he had to pay.
One is the worst batsman in the History of Test cricket, the dismissing of whom is about as difficult as making a cup of tea and often takes less time.
The other was a distinguished New Zealand pace bowler.
Or something like that! (I was 7 when WWII ended). I've got a free TV licence too!
I use my bus pass quite a lot, and TBH I wouldn't mind having to pay something towards it. Many's the time I've been on a bus with ONLY pensioners on it, especially the one from the Park and Ride to our local hospital.
We should though be encouraging bus use; I'd use it a lot more if the available routes were a better fit with my life.
"Funny how quiet the media was when another Japanese car giant did start a major new production line – just last month Toyota commenced production of the new 2019 Corolla at its Burnaston plant in Derbyshire where over 3000 people are employed. The Corolla is not a niche SUV like the Nissan X-Trail, it is the best-selling car model in the world…"
Yes. That's because the 2019 Corolla is replacing the 2018 Corolla (or the Auris, as it was branded). I'm not sure that if, say, McVities change the recipe for Jaffa Cakes, their revised production line is billed as a great economic win for Britain.
Councils are cash-strapped. Bus services are (rightly IMO) a lower priority than some other services, and the buses are subsidised. Therefore if they can stop running services then they save that subsidy.
So the operator goes: "This service has fifteen people travelling from A to L."
The council replies: "You only sell three tickets."
Operator: "The others are free bus passes."
Council: "We think most of those get off at point C. Let's cut back the service to there, as only three people are going beyond C to L."
Unless you survey ridership (and surveys are expensive and often inaccurate) you now don't have the figures for ridership over the route, as you don't know when the free pass holders got off the bus.
It's a mess, and a predictable one.
Hopefully for his sake he is only pretending to be a decent bloke and below the surface there rages an amoral beast with a burning ambition to lead his party.
At our last CQC visit I wss put up to be interviewed by the inspectors, who were woefully junior and green. They didn't spot any of the problematic areas in the department, but got obsessed with inflicting more garbage tick boxes on us. It seems as if it doesn't matter if patients are suffering as long as everyone has done their Prevent training.
Inspectors seem to be able to spot forms not being done, but neither neglect or excellence.
Ultimately, I believe schools should be responsible to parents. That isn't possible in its purest form, but OFSTED is unhelpful as it sets a false standard that doesn't reflect reality (as @Foxy comments of the CQC) and actively takes accountability away from governors, parents and local authorities who pay the bills.
And before anyone makes remarks about sour grapes, I should perhaps point out they graded me and my faculty outstanding at their last inspection.
Macrons bounce is because he is promising lots of goodies from his debat nationale Since lots of it is contradictory he has to disappioint some section of voters later in the year.
There used, at one time to be a postgrad nursing module in Inspection issues at Anglia Ruskin but it was scrapped after a year or two.
Similarly, given how different classes, schools, teachers and subjects are, how do you say something is 'good' or not? It's very subjective. But if you are subjective, you have no standard to judge against. As a result checking what forms and procedures are in place is much easier. That also means however that schools who ignore such pettifogging regulations in record keeping as are required, they are threatened with special measures (as a friend of mine was a couple of years ago).
Yet those, while important, are ultimately not good criteria to judge a school by. Both Wilshaw and Spielmann said they wished to dispense with the checkboxes, but they abandoned that idea when they realised that would leave them with nothing to actually inspect.
Which is why I come back again to parents and governors.
The answer of 'NOT Corbyn' must be overwhelming with not just Tory activists, but Tory voters.
Far easier to test whether it was manufactured the same way as something else.
The majority of the membership are now UKIP in disguise so any of the saner Tories will have no chance .
And again, in all four of the schools I have worked in, including two inner-city comps, the parents have been very engaged to the point of being incredibly difficult at times. But they do not trust governors to press their interests (rightly, given how they've been emasculated).
But as I say, I think for other reasons he's not he right candidate.
It would make his little grey Europhile head explode....
Ireland continues to move forward , in recent years liberalizing its laws and showing to the world it’s an open tolerant country .
The reverse for the UK , more mean spirited and insular , trashing its reputation. Scotland really needs to escape so it’s not dragged into the same cesspit .
On the world stage Irish people can proudly go around with their heads held high , whilst many Brits are now shamed by the last two years .
These are very dark times for the UK.
Jaffa cakes now come in strawberry flavour.
https://www.cosmopolitan.com/uk/worklife/a26249541/strawberry-jaffa-cakes/
But the truth is the Windies haven't needed to bowl jaffers. England have just been pathetic.
Sadly all the decent UK politicians seem to be stuck on the backbenches .
Ireland has recently been dragged into the twentieth century.....
You can ignore the damage done to brand UK but you’re living in denial . Ireland on the other hand has made great strides in recent years and looks a much more welcoming country than Brexit Britain !
It was of course the Eurozone that ultimately pulled Ireland around, but major problems remain.
As they do for us, of course.
I must confess I don't think that's quite correct.
Be careful you don't confuse wishful thinking with informed analysis. That way lies Faragedom.
Far too many people think that, because they are intelligent, they can do anything. In fact, too often they've specialised down too an incredibly narrow area. To pick one example: they might be able to tell you the exact way to architect an RF chip, but not be able to work out how to open the fuel cap on a car.
I'm not saying that control should be ceded to thick people; just that intelligence - or even the ability to do one thing well - does not mean you'd be able to reorganise an education system that touches on a number of areas aside from education.
I reckon if you got twenty very-educated, highly-intelligent teachers in a room, they wouldn't be able to agree what the outputs of the education system should be, yet alone how to achieve those outputs ...