As far as I'm concerned the YouGov and ICM polls simply show that the 10-point lead isn't developing into a larger lead for Labour. Back to deuce at 10%, if you like, from advantage Labour.
Naughty Avery - George could meet his fiscal targets by selling off Kent and counting the proceeds against the fiscal deficit that year but that would be cheating!
Great comment from a teacher on Speccy blog this evening -
"I'm a teacher. I'm not your average left-wing moaner and I often find myself starkly at odds with colleagues on union matters. I see myself as a socially-liberal thatcherite. I used to think I was a cameroon but those days have sadly passed. Anyway, that's all by the by. I typed it only because I want to distance myself from the "usual suspects" before I embark on a little rant.
I'd be unwilling to recommend teaching, as a career, to anybody. It's not because I find the students unmanageable. Quite the opposite. I truly enjoy my time with them. No, I reject teaching because the efforts to render the profession accountable have resulted in a system whereby good teaching is often seen as being inadequate. I teach history and RE. Today I taught a lesson which was designed to illustrate the divergence between religious orthodoxy and reformist trends. It ended as being a lesson based entirely upon discussion and debate. I enjoyed the lesson. A student (not usually effusive in praise) said it had been "cool, sir." They all left having learned something relevant and interesting. Still, if OFSTED had been present it would have been inadequate. The pertinent boxes would not have been ticked.
Schools now focus entirely upon those things which OFSTED value. If OFSTED moves the goalposts (as it often does) we move our practice. What is right for the students is of secondary importance. We chase an ever distant rainbow.
I'm all for accountability but I'm simply sick of having to read endless graphs and spreadsheets which detail the achievements, or lack thereof, of White British, FSM, Ever 6, Traveller, SEN etc etc etc subgroups. I'm tired of completing pointless paperwork which serves only to cover our backs in case of failure. We're psychologically on the defensive, reduced to proving that nothing better could be expected of such and such a student. I had awesome teachers when I was a kid. Those state-school teachers helped me into Cambridge. I wanted to emulate their inspirational practice. I can only do this when I'm certain that nobody is listening.
I'm also sick of seeing resources squandered on waster students who wreck lessons for others. I don't have much of a behaviour problem in my classes but I see people being paid thousands simply to follow a student around a school. These well-meaning people do their best but have no visible impact and siphon resources away from those who truly deserve them.
I'm tired of lots of things in education. It's a noble vocation but a wrecked system. I don't as yet, see any improvement as a result of Gove's reforms. Life, on the ground, continues much as ever.
I am working my way out of the profession, having trained as a psychotherapist. I look forward to that last day but do think it a shame that someone whose lessons were once judged "of the very highest quality," by an embarrassingly effusive LEA observer, are now worthy only of being hidden away from the sight of the inspectors.
Students are endlessly fascinating, amusing and endearing. Being an employee in this sector is dreary.
Targets in education skew the system as surely as they have in the NHS. We want Cs, nothing but Cs. A*? Well, we don't get anything much for those. Why bother? Gove may change this in time but he has a decade of mediocrity culture to overcome."
There's nowhere near enough time to reposition the Tories following an announcement, which they'll need to do: it won't be just Ed Balls who'll struggle to describe the Tories (/government). It is essential at the ballot box the voter knows what he or she is being asked to vote for.
It's not like they've got a coherent message at the moment. They had one when they started out (serious, non-ideological, firm-but-fair, taking difficult decisions because there is no money left), but they blew that up with the top-rate tax cuts. Since then they've ditched their fiscal targets and started trying to re-inflate a housing bubble.
If they embraced Abenomics fully, consistently, shamelessly and without reservation they could turn their messaging around in a weekend.
As far as I'm concerned the YouGov and ICM polls simply show that the 10-point lead isn't developing into a larger lead for Labour. Back to deuce at 10%, if you like, from advantage Labour.
No, I think the Tories are genuinely having a less bad patch - Labour is still steady at around 40, but the Conservatives are recovering to the low 30s. A combination of Thatcher and the absence of major bad news for a bit, perhaps. Not enough to worry Ed at this stage, though.
The principal message of tomorrow will be that the whole free world, apart from a few Guardianistas and other extremists, honours the memory of Lady Thatcher.
As well they should, given that her policies have been near-universally adopted not only in the liberal democracies which thrived in the post-war years, but also in all those countries which have since emerged from the dark ages of Marxism and other forms of socialism and totalitarianism to become full, free and prosperous members of the international community once again:
Without her, our fight against communists would have lasted much longer. It would have been confronted with bigger difficulties, if not destruction. Lech Walesa
Naughty Avery - George could meet his fiscal targets by selling off Kent and counting the proceeds against the fiscal deficit that year but that would be cheating!
I remember being brassic as a student and delving down the back of a sofa to find lost coins.
It is not cheating Neil, it is entrepreneurial acumen.
It's not like they've got a coherent message at the moment. They had one when they started out (serious, non-ideological, firm-but-fair, taking difficult decisions because there is no money left), but they blew that up with the top-rate tax cuts. Since then they've ditched their fiscal targets and started trying to re-inflate a housing bubble. If they embraced Abenomics fully, consistently, shamelessly and without reservation they could turn their messaging around in a weekend.
I disagree on both points.
No-one struggles to name government policies or to tell a Labour policy from a Conservative one, where they differ, on most issues. I though Ed's line a year or so ago about being lased to the mast was a far more effective line: to paint Tory policy not as unclear, but adhered to as if a religion: one which was wrong and getting wronger.
I can't think of any such change in policies which has been conducted on such a scale.Tony Blair took years to fully re-position Labour in the key areas he wanted to.
Politics supplies never-ending amusement. Tonight's is watching the left executing a delightfully elegant pirouette in order to shift the message from 'the Conservatives are terminally unpopular because of the memory of the Thatcher terror' to 'the Conservatives have got a short-lived boost in the polls because voters have been reminded of Lady Thatcher's career'.
No, I think the Tories are genuinely having a less bad patch - Labour is still steady at around 40, but the Conservatives are recovering to the low 30s. A combination of Thatcher and the absence of major bad news for a bit, perhaps. Not enough to worry Ed at this stage, though.
From the local elections last year to the end of the year, the average Labour lead over the Conservatives, on a 9-poll moving average, only varied between 9 and 12 points. (Even on a 5-poll it went 8 to 13).
The Conservative share went between 29 and 34; Labour between 41 and 44.
YouGov: CON 31%, LAB 39%, LD 12%, UKIP 12% ICM: CON 32%, LAB 38%, LD 15%, UKIP 9%
Labour's share down slightly, maybe: there it is a genuine outlier. A Tory recovery seems unlikely, even if these were a true representation and not a statistical effect, they would not represent a change in the long-term average.
Edit:
The LD share went between 9 and 10 points almost entirely during the year; if 12% were the true figure, it would be an improvement for the LDs.
A fascinating discussion on Oz tv this morning on media worthiness of deaths.
1 life ended in Melbourne equals 2 in NZ equals 5 in Europe or States equals 100 in Iraq and unsure how mnay in Syria as constant deaths there on a daily basis and without video they do not even justify a mention.
The hosts actually apologised; stating it was a fine balance and they understood that many people would not be happy with the wall to wall coverage on Boston when other areas were effectively ignored.
Oh, Maggie, Maggie May, they've taken her away, She's never going to parliament anymore For she gave her life for others, while doing down the brothers, And now she's in St. Pauls, where she'l lay.
@MikeK an apposite Liverpool sea shanty about a whore and thief who was transported to Botany Bay...
I was happy to let Thatcher have a dignified quiet funeral, but the madness we have seen over the past week now makes me hope she has a good send off, by protests which if necessary disrupt her funeral...
Stopping Big Ben was the last straw.
Insanity.
You'd think Santa Claus had died from the lamentations on here and elsewhere...
I knew George was posh but are you seriously suggesting that his sofa is so big that we could have lost Kent in it?
It was an Osborne and Large Knole sofa, Neil.
Covered in a blue damask.
I think the word "Kent" was said with his posh accent and we misheard it assuming it to be a geographical description rather than one of a more base nature.
@MikeK an apposite Liverpool sea shanty about a whore and thief who was transported to Botany Bay...
I was happy to let Thatcher have a dignified quiet funeral, but the madness we have seen over the past week now makes me hope she has a good send off, by protests which if necessary disrupt her funeral...
Stopping Big Ben was the last straw.
Insanity.
You'd think Santa Claus had died from the lamentations on here and elsewhere...
Comments
Government/Coalition 43%
Labour 40%
Really?
Surely not?
You're kidding!
Right?
"I'm a teacher. I'm not your average left-wing moaner and I often find myself starkly at odds with colleagues on union matters. I see myself as a socially-liberal thatcherite. I used to think I was a cameroon but those days have sadly passed. Anyway, that's all by the by. I typed it only because I want to distance myself from the "usual suspects" before I embark on a little rant.
I'd be unwilling to recommend teaching, as a career, to anybody. It's not because I find the students unmanageable. Quite the opposite. I truly enjoy my time with them. No, I reject teaching because the efforts to render the profession accountable have resulted in a system whereby good teaching is often seen as being inadequate. I teach history and RE. Today I taught a lesson which was designed to illustrate the divergence between religious orthodoxy and reformist trends. It ended as being a lesson based entirely upon discussion and debate. I enjoyed the lesson. A student (not usually effusive in praise) said it had been "cool, sir." They all left having learned something relevant and interesting. Still, if OFSTED had been present it would have been inadequate. The pertinent boxes would not have been ticked.
Schools now focus entirely upon those things which OFSTED value. If OFSTED moves the goalposts (as it often does) we move our practice. What is right for the students is of secondary importance. We chase an ever distant rainbow.
I'm all for accountability but I'm simply sick of having to read endless graphs and spreadsheets which detail the achievements, or lack thereof, of White British, FSM, Ever 6, Traveller, SEN etc etc etc subgroups. I'm tired of completing pointless paperwork which serves only to cover our backs in case of failure. We're psychologically on the defensive, reduced to proving that nothing better could be expected of such and such a student. I had awesome teachers when I was a kid. Those state-school teachers helped me into Cambridge. I wanted to emulate their inspirational practice. I can only do this when I'm certain that nobody is listening.
I'm also sick of seeing resources squandered on waster students who wreck lessons for others. I don't have much of a behaviour problem in my classes but I see people being paid thousands simply to follow a student around a school. These well-meaning people do their best but have no visible impact and siphon resources away from those who truly deserve them.
I'm tired of lots of things in education. It's a noble vocation but a wrecked system. I don't as yet, see any improvement as a result of Gove's reforms. Life, on the ground, continues much as ever.
I am working my way out of the profession, having trained as a psychotherapist. I look forward to that last day but do think it a shame that someone whose lessons were once judged "of the very highest quality," by an embarrassingly effusive LEA observer, are now worthy only of being hidden away from the sight of the inspectors.
Students are endlessly fascinating, amusing and endearing. Being an employee in this sector is dreary.
Targets in education skew the system as surely as they have in the NHS. We want Cs, nothing but Cs. A*? Well, we don't get anything much for those. Why bother? Gove may change this in time but he has a decade of mediocrity culture to overcome."
If they embraced Abenomics fully, consistently, shamelessly and without reservation they could turn their messaging around in a weekend.
As well they should, given that her policies have been near-universally adopted not only in the liberal democracies which thrived in the post-war years, but also in all those countries which have since emerged from the dark ages of Marxism and other forms of socialism and totalitarianism to become full, free and prosperous members of the international community once again:
Without her, our fight against communists would have lasted much longer. It would have been confronted with bigger difficulties, if not destruction. Lech Walesa
http://www.guardian.co.uk/politics/interactive/2013/apr/08/margaret-thatcher-i-knew#mikhail-gorbachev
It is not cheating Neil, it is entrepreneurial acumen.
No-one struggles to name government policies or to tell a Labour policy from a Conservative one, where they differ, on most issues. I though Ed's line a year or so ago about being lased to the mast was a far more effective line: to paint Tory policy not as unclear, but adhered to as if a religion: one which was wrong and getting wronger.
I can't think of any such change in policies which has been conducted on such a scale.Tony Blair took years to fully re-position Labour in the key areas he wanted to.
The Conservative share went between 29 and 34; Labour between 41 and 44.
YouGov: CON 31%, LAB 39%, LD 12%, UKIP 12%
ICM: CON 32%, LAB 38%, LD 15%, UKIP 9%
Labour's share down slightly, maybe: there it is a genuine outlier. A Tory recovery seems unlikely, even if these were a true representation and not a statistical effect, they would not represent a change in the long-term average.
Edit:
The LD share went between 9 and 10 points almost entirely during the year; if 12% were the true figure, it would be an improvement for the LDs.
I knew George was posh but are you seriously suggesting that his sofa is so big that we could have lost Kent in it?
Covered in a blue damask.
http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2013-04-16/anthrax-scare-20-letter-addressed-us-senate-office-tests-positive-ricin-poison
1 life ended in Melbourne equals 2 in NZ equals 5 in Europe or States equals 100 in Iraq and unsure how mnay in Syria as constant deaths there on a daily basis and without video they do not even justify a mention.
The hosts actually apologised; stating it was a fine balance and they understood that many people would not be happy with the wall to wall coverage on Boston when other areas were effectively ignored.
I mean they happily built the tunnel that connects Great Britain to France.
A few centuries ago, that's treasonable behaviour.
She's never going to parliament anymore
For she gave her life for others, while doing down the brothers,
And now she's in St. Pauls, where she'l lay.
My Ode to Maggie; with a nod to that old song.
Letter sent to US Senate office tests positive for the poison ricin.
an apposite Liverpool sea shanty about a whore and thief who was transported to Botany Bay...
I was happy to let Thatcher have a dignified quiet funeral, but the madness we have seen over the past week now makes me hope she has a good send off, by protests which if necessary disrupt her funeral...
Stopping Big Ben was the last straw.
Insanity.
You'd think Santa Claus had died from the lamentations on here and elsewhere...