That would be a swing from Con to Lab of 0.25% and would imply 1 Labour gain from the Tories offset by losses to SNP and to LDs giving Labour circa 250 seats or so. The Tories would also lose 21 seats to LDs and circa 10 to SNP to leave a total of circa 285 seats.
The poll has the Tory lead over Labour at 2%, ie exactly the same as in 2017 as it does not go to decimal points so there would be no seat change between the Tories and Labour though both parties would lose seats to the LDs and SNP on this poll
The Tory lead was 2.5% in 2017. Labour would gain Southampton Itchen on this data.
You have added a decimal point, this poll did not, so as I said the 2% lead the Tories had in 2017 (actually 2.4%) remains unchanged on Comres
Why is that relevant? If it meets the legal definition of a charity then it is one. A charity is a legal construct defined in legislation.
Legislation is based on morality. Politics is ultimately applied ethics. If Eton is legally a charity, the legislation on charities is broken.
Legislation is not based on morality. Nor is politics about ethics. Politics is about making a space in which people can disagree and find a way to resolve those disagreements without violence. There is an ethical component.
But the idea that morality = politics = law is one which suited an earlier age and which can be found now in the sort of countries in which most of us would hate to live.
And now: dinner!
There's a sophistic turn in your second paragraph which misrepresents what I said. I did not say equals. And of course legislation is based on morality. All law is ultimately "this is wrong and must be stopped" or "this is right and should be protected". I do not, of course, intend to flatten the academic richness and the intricate layers that years of wisdom have built in modern legal systems. But the source of all of it is that one concern: what are the rules we should have in common?
Rules in common - yes I agree.
But what is lawful may not be moral. One should always oneself not just: "Is this legal?" But also: "Is it right?" The two are not the same.
I absolutely agree. I'm trying -- clumsily -- to say that law is an imperfect mapping from morality. Naturally, laws can be utterly wrong.
I think we are in agreement.
I said that law is intellectually fascinating. The interplay between law, politics and morality is one that has interested me since I started studying it at university (where I did not do law).
I know, I know: I should get a life......
Never apologise for being interested in something.
No Supreme Court decision tomorrow . Now more likely on Tuesday.
It’s very unlikely they’d be taking this long to just decide if the issue is justiciable .
Is that speculation or informed speculation?
Informed speculation ! Joshua Rozenberg who is as good as they get . The delay means at least on justiciable the court will agree that it does .
If they ruled against they wouldn’t need this long to compile the majority opinion , because aswell as this they wouldn’t have to deal with any of the arguments about lawfulness .
I meant the speculation about what it means for the ruling. Perhaps they are spending their time arguing about whether it is justiciable or not?
Looks like Thomas Cook flights are startling to be cancelled....
Where are you seeing that?
I'm keeping an eye on things for a friend who has a booking and I haven't seen any cancellations yet.
Brexit killed Thomas Cook , right ?
Apparently not, but it presumably hasn’t helped. Or more specifically the uncertainty created making people reluctant to plan foreign travel around Brexit dates and related collapse in the £.
No Supreme Court decision tomorrow . Now more likely on Tuesday.
It’s very unlikely they’d be taking this long to just decide if the issue is justiciable .
Looks like this is going to go against HMG.
HMG lied to HM, and she let them.
That doesn’t just cripple HMG, it fundamentally weakens HM and the entire system.
She has had a good run, but her reign is not going to end well. Cheers Dave.
Good news that the gaps in our constitution are being highlighted. Wouldn't have thought a few years ago it would be the Cons who drew attention to them, but it's good that we're collectively now reaching a level of awareness that there are problems.
Hardly good news since we have no remedy for fixing them. “A written constitution” you say? Who’s going to write it? Not Parliament I hope given what a horlicks have been made of various constitutional reforms since 1997? Can any one of them be seriously said to have been a success, or (perhaps more neutrally) be said to have achieved the declared aims of its proponents?
Now that Thomas Cook has gone it will be a very odd media week indeed if the noises coming out of the Supreme Court are confirmed. I imagine neither were on the Grid.
Whoever it was who said the movie Ad Astra was not worth anyone's time was very on the money. One of the most bizarrely and unintentionally surreal movie experiences I have encountered in a long time. Without major spoilers, any movie where I am left saying 'what on earth was the point of the space baboon attack?' is an odd one (and not as exciting as that sounds).
It wasn't me, but I did chime in with the opinion that anything that's heavily advertised it probably not going to be worthwhile. Haven't seen it (yet).
Heavily advertised? Not worth it? Are we talking about Ad Astra or Brexit?
The initial reviews for Ad Astra gave it five or four stars. "A great film". "A masterpiece". The initial Guardian review was five stars, then four stars, then Kermode's three stars as the public comments came in. It will end up on two or one star. How did that happen? What were the reviewers thinking?
Illustrates my point. I suspect herding from reviewers. Following the first few five star reviews, reviewers didn't want to step too much out of line. The audiences have no such qualms.
Hmmm.... The Last Jedi got an "official" 91% but an audience 44%...
That would be a swing from Con to Lab of 0.25% and would imply 1 Labour gain from the Tories offset by losses to SNP and to LDs giving Labour circa 250 seats or so. The Tories would also lose 21 seats to LDs and circa 10 to SNP to leave a total of circa 285 seats.
The poll has the Tory lead over Labour at 2%, ie exactly the same as in 2017 as it does not go to decimal points so there would be no seat change between the Tories and Labour though both parties would lose seats to the LDs and SNP on this poll
The Tory lead was 2.5% in 2017. Labour would gain Southampton Itchen on this data.
You have added a decimal point, this poll did not, so as I said the 2% lead the Tories had in 2017 (actually 2.4%) remains unchanged on Comres
No Supreme Court decision tomorrow . Now more likely on Tuesday.
It’s very unlikely they’d be taking this long to just decide if the issue is justiciable .
Is that speculation or informed speculation?
Informed speculation ! Joshua Rozenberg who is as good as they get . The delay means at least on justiciable the court will agree that it does .
If they ruled against they wouldn’t need this long to compile the majority opinion , because aswell as this they wouldn’t have to deal with any of the arguments about lawfulness .
I meant the speculation about what it means for the ruling. Perhaps they are spending their time arguing about whether it is justiciable or not?
No . They would have formed their opinions quite early there , you’ll note none of their questions directed towards Lord Pannick in the final argument we’re talking about that, just remedies .
Whoever it was who said the movie Ad Astra was not worth anyone's time was very on the money. One of the most bizarrely and unintentionally surreal movie experiences I have encountered in a long time. Without major spoilers, any movie where I am left saying 'what on earth was the point of the space baboon attack?' is an odd one (and not as exciting as that sounds).
It wasn't me, but I did chime in with the opinion that anything that's heavily advertised it probably not going to be worthwhile. Haven't seen it (yet).
Heavily advertised? Not worth it? Are we talking about Ad Astra or Brexit?
The initial reviews for Ad Astra gave it five or four stars. "A great film". "A masterpiece". The initial Guardian review was five stars, then four stars, then Kermode's three stars as the public comments came in. It will end up on two or one star. How did that happen? What were the reviewers thinking?
Illustrates my point. I suspect herding from reviewers. Following the first few five star reviews, reviewers didn't want to step too much out of line. The audiences have no such qualms.
Hmmm.... The Last Jedi got an "official" 91% but an audience 44%...
No Supreme Court decision tomorrow . Now more likely on Tuesday.
It’s very unlikely they’d be taking this long to just decide if the issue is justiciable .
Is that speculation or informed speculation?
Informed speculation ! Joshua Rozenberg who is as good as they get . The delay means at least on justiciable the court will agree that it does .
If they ruled against they wouldn’t need this long to compile the majority opinion , because aswell as this they wouldn’t have to deal with any of the arguments about lawfulness .
I meant the speculation about what it means for the ruling. Perhaps they are spending their time arguing about whether it is justiciable or not?
No . They would have formed their opinions quite early there , you’ll note none of their questions directed towards Lord Pannick in the final argument we’re talking about that, just remedies .
How does what one judge asked tell you about the opinions of the entire court? I don't think you can read too much into a delay, it could be due to a variety of different reasons.
Corbyn actually being displaced would change the game massively and would scare the Tories shitless. Especially if actually replaced by someone sensible who could genuinely command the support of the Parliamentary party.
Doesn't Cornyn have the party by the short and curlies?
It’s the Jezza party now - they will never add the members required to oust this Junta.
I don't know. It's a hard left party now, but Corbyn-mania has really faded.
There are a percentage of Labour folk - quite a big percentage - who have no appetite to return to the bad old days (as they'd see it) of New Labour, but also accept Corbyn has served his purpose.
Yes, there are zealots, but there are also people on the hard left who are NOT antisemitic and realise Corbyn has mishandled it appallingly (very probably due to some misplaced personal sympathy), are pro-European and realise Corbyn is not, and basically see him as damage goods, a husk of what they elected (twice).
There is a silent majority in the Labour party who will I think vote for a more moderate leadership candidate next time. Not an old school Blairite, probably someone to the left of Ed Miliband, but I don't believe there is an appetite to go down the wormhole that some of those close to Corbyn seem set on. The anti semitism stuff, the anti EU stuff, the crude class war stuff, just isn't where the vast majority of Labour supporters are. Mind you some of his internal opponents haven't helped themselves either, with their constant plotting. The whole thing is just so fucking depressing.
Corbyn actually being displaced would change the game massively and would scare the Tories shitless. Especially if actually replaced by someone sensible who could genuinely command the support of the Parliamentary party.
When Foreign Secretary, Dr Owen would be tapped up by MI6 to provide health assessments of foreign leaders he'd met (he was a consultant neurologist, iirc). If Corbyn is stepping down this suddenly, and cannot do a full day, then we need pb's medical cadre to hold their stethoscopes to the television coverage and tell us what is wrong. House could do it.
Jezza looks fit to me, mentally and physically. He arrived at the climate strike by bike for example.
Underneath, who knows? But that is true for us all.
Thanks. It might then be that pundits are getting ahead of themselves.
I see another labour policy is that universities can only admit a maximum of 7% of pupils from private schools. Good luck with making that one work.
Each university individually?
What about for each course?
Anyway, the concept of "indirect discrimination" waves hello.
I am beginning to think that were I a lawyer at the start of my career I would vote Labour out of self-interest: think of all the lucrative work coming my way ......!
Could you expand on that "indirect discrimination"? Which protected characteristic(s) are at play here?
Well, imagine that the rule is that only 7% on any course can be from private schools. If - and it is a big if - that means that, say, on a particular course students with protected characteristics were thereby prevented from attending that course then it might amount to indirect discrimination.
There are lots of assumptions in my scenario. But any quota system has the potential for creating a system which indirectly discriminates.
And numerical quotas are troubling for other reasons: law, for instance, has more Jewish people working in it than the percentage of Jews in the population. If you have a quota for public school pupils why not quotas for other characteristics under the guise of, say, increasing the number of white working-class boys in the law?
I am wary of this reductive approach to dealing with unfairness. It is easy to criticise public schools. Or newspapers with most of their journalists coming from a small number of select universities. But that does nothing to come up with effective policies - including more money - to improve the schools which educated the majority.
So far from Labour they want to reduce or abolish school inspections and attack Eton. How does that help an ordinary parent and their children?
Whoever it was who said the movie Ad Astra was not worth anyone's time was very on the money. One of the most bizarrely and unintentionally surreal movie experiences I have encountered in a long time. Without major spoilers, any movie where I am left saying 'what on earth was the point of the space baboon attack?' is an odd one (and not as exciting as that sounds).
It wasn't me, but I did chime in with the opinion that anything that's heavily advertised it probably not going to be worthwhile. Haven't seen it (yet).
Heavily advertised? Not worth it? Are we talking about Ad Astra or Brexit?
The initial reviews for Ad Astra gave it five or four stars. "A great film". "A masterpiece". The initial Guardian review was five stars, then four stars, then Kermode's three stars as the public comments came in. It will end up on two or one star. How did that happen? What were the reviewers thinking?
Illustrates my point. I suspect herding from reviewers. Following the first few five star reviews, reviewers didn't want to step too much out of line. The audiences have no such qualms.
Hmmm.... The Last Jedi got an "official" 91% but an audience 44%...
Putting the recent Opinium, YouGov and ComRes polls into the EMA gives:
Con 32% Lab 24% LD 19%
Average of Baxter and Flavible gives: Con 335 Lab 199 LD 43
My tactical voting model with "reasonable" assumptions about tactical voting behaviour gives: Con 296 Lab 231 LD 53
I will go along with yours. In fact, I should do a spreadsheet out of it.
Question about eg. Flavible modelling. Does it assume an election outcome consistent with the polling numbers, or does it use the polling numbers to inform an electoral outcome (which may produce different % numbers).
Eg. if the polling showed LD on 25% would it distribute that 25% in certain places to fit its model, or would it assume that in practice some of the 25% would disappear if those people in an election voted tactically for another party (and vice versa)? Which might lead to a LD vote share of less that 25% because the number of seats where they might shed votes would be lower than those where they gain.
No Supreme Court decision tomorrow . Now more likely on Tuesday.
It’s very unlikely they’d be taking this long to just decide if the issue is justiciable .
Looks like this is going to go against HMG.
HMG lied to HM, and she let them.
That doesn’t just cripple HMG, it fundamentally weakens HM and the entire system.
She has had a good run, but her reign is not going to end well. Cheers Dave.
Good news that the gaps in our constitution are being highlighted. Wouldn't have thought a few years ago it would be the Cons who drew attention to them, but it's good that we're collectively now reaching a level of awareness that there are problems.
Hardly good news since we have no remedy for fixing them. “A written constitution” you say? Who’s going to write it? Not Parliament I hope given what a horlicks have been made of various constitutional reforms since 1997? Can any one of them be seriously said to have been a success, or (perhaps more neutrally) be said to have achieved the declared aims of its proponents?
I see another labour policy is that universities can only admit a maximum of 7% of pupils from private schools. Good luck with making that one work.
Each university individually?
What about for each course?
Anyway, the concept of "indirect discrimination" waves hello.
I am beginning to think that were I a lawyer at the start of my career I would vote Labour out of self-interest: think of all the lucrative work coming my way ......!
Could you expand on that "indirect discrimination"? Which protected characteristic(s) are at play here?
Well, imagine that the rule is that only 7% on any course can be from private schools. If - and it is a big if - that means that, say, on a particular course students with protected characteristics were thereby prevented from attending that course then it might amount to indirect discrimination.
There are lots of assumptions in my scenario. But any quota system has the potential for creating a system which indirectly discriminates.
And numerical quotas are troubling for other reasons: law, for instance, has more Jewish people working in it than the percentage of Jews in the population. If you have a quota for public school pupils why not quotas for other characteristics under the guise of, say, increasing the number of white working-class boys in the law?
I am wary of this reductive approach to dealing with unfairness. It is easy to criticise public schools. Or newspapers with most of their journalists coming from a small number of select universities. But that does nothing to come up with effective policies - including more money - to improve the schools which educated the majority.
So far from Labour they want to reduce or abolish school inspections and attack Eton. How does that help an ordinary parent and their children?
State educated white males (like myself) are sorely under represented at Medical School...
No Supreme Court decision tomorrow . Now more likely on Tuesday.
It’s very unlikely they’d be taking this long to just decide if the issue is justiciable .
Is that speculation or informed speculation?
Informed speculation ! Joshua Rozenberg who is as good as they get . The delay means at least on justiciable the court will agree that it does .
If they ruled against they wouldn’t need this long to compile the majority opinion , because aswell as this they wouldn’t have to deal with any of the arguments about lawfulness .
I meant the speculation about what it means for the ruling. Perhaps they are spending their time arguing about whether it is justiciable or not?
No . They would have formed their opinions quite early there , you’ll note none of their questions directed towards Lord Pannick in the final argument we’re talking about that, just remedies .
How does what one judge asked tell you about the opinions of the entire court? I don't think you can read too much into a delay, it could be due to a variety of different reasons.
Yes. One of them could have had a dodgy lunch over the weekend and be behind on writing up their section of the judgement.
Any one of a number of things could have happened.
No Supreme Court decision tomorrow . Now more likely on Tuesday.
It’s very unlikely they’d be taking this long to just decide if the issue is justiciable .
Looks like this is going to go against HMG.
HMG lied to HM, and she let them.
That doesn’t just cripple HMG, it fundamentally weakens HM and the entire system.
She has had a good run, but her reign is not going to end well. Cheers Dave.
Good news that the gaps in our constitution are being highlighted. Wouldn't have thought a few years ago it would be the Cons who drew attention to them, but it's good that we're collectively now reaching a level of awareness that there are problems.
Hardly good news since we have no remedy for fixing them. “A written constitution” you say? Who’s going to write it? Not Parliament I hope given what a horlicks have been made of various constitutional reforms since 1997? Can any one of them be seriously said to have been a success, or (perhaps more neutrally) be said to have achieved the declared aims of its proponents?
Was the aim of the Scotland Act:
a. to improve the governance of Scotland? or
b. to kill nationalism stone dead?
The Act (depending which one you mean) certainly enacted the most remarkable voting system in the known cosmos. I was trying to explain the logic of it to a French colleague the other day.
Of course, it was not enacted in Edinburgh or of a Scottish parliament.
Looks like Thomas Cook flights are startling to be cancelled....
Where are you seeing that?
I'm keeping an eye on things for a friend who has a booking and I haven't seen any cancellations yet.
Brexit killed Thomas Cook , right ?
According to today's Times twice as many Germans are on holiday with Thomas Cook than Brits at the moment.
So you are saying the Brits didn't book?
It looks mostly internet to me. It is just too easy to book your own arrangements now.
Why would anybody use thomas cook for a holiday? You can get cheap flights with easyjet / ryanair, then use one of a 100 sites to find the cheapest hotel or there is airbnb / loads of villa rental websites.
No Supreme Court decision tomorrow . Now more likely on Tuesday.
It’s very unlikely they’d be taking this long to just decide if the issue is justiciable .
Is that speculation or informed speculation?
Informed speculation ! Joshua Rozenberg who is as good as they get . The delay means at least on justiciable the court will agree that it does .
If they ruled against they wouldn’t need this long to compile the majority opinion , because aswell as this they wouldn’t have to deal with any of the arguments about lawfulness .
I meant the speculation about what it means for the ruling. Perhaps they are spending their time arguing about whether it is justiciable or not?
No . They would have formed their opinions quite early there , you’ll note none of their questions directed towards Lord Pannick in the final argument we’re talking about that, just remedies .
How does what one judge asked tell you about the opinions of the entire court? I don't think you can read too much into a delay, it could be due to a variety of different reasons.
It was most of the judges . I’m not saying they’ll find it unlawful but given the delay they will agree on it being justiciable .
We’re due another update from the SC tomorrow afternoon as to when the ruling will be handed down .
Winning a majority would mean winning seats where the Lib Dems are, as of now, practically non-existent (or maybe active in one Council ward). Is that possible on a national air-war and a freepost?, when at least one other party in those areas has a decent list of supporters, an MP, a bit of a presence?
I know they've advanced since 2017, but they lost their deposit in a sizable majority of seats (375) in 2017.
I don't think saying they should be looking at a few dozen seats is predicting "massive underperformance" - I think it's realistic and indeed quite ambitious.
Is it possible Swinson is the revelation of the campaign while Johnson and Corbyn stumble from disaster to disaster? In theory, yes. But the 15-1 on most seats and 50-1 on a majority don't strike me as generous by any means at all. They just start from such a low base and with too few areas where they have a competitive ground game.
An excellent response
But I think you need to set FPTP aside for a second. Why? Because, this is really a bet on whether the LibDems get more votes than the Conservatives. At which, point, of course, FPTP breaks down. As in, in 2017 they were 38 points behind the Conservatives, and in 2019, they might (in some universe) be 3 points ahead.
So what we're really asking is, what is the chance that the LDs will beat the Conservatives in vote share?
And in the vast majority of circumstances they don't. But there are some where they do. Is the Leave vote split between a group who wants a Deal and a group who doesn't? Or have we left, and things haven't gone swimmingly? Or has Labour totally imploded?
All these are small probability outcomes. But I'd point out that a lot of traditional ruling parties have found themselves out of power around the world in the last few years. The lazy consensus of two parties handing the reigns of government between them has fallen in almost every European country except (so far) the UK.
So, is 50-1 a good bet? Well, worth remembering that stepping back fifty elections in the UK takes you back all the way to... well, a long way back. But it might happen. I think rather than a 2% chance it's probably a 3-3.5% one.
Although in most cases the two party duopoly has been broken by insurgent parties, not establishment ones.
While that's true, I would argue that both En Marche and Citizens were centrist, establishment responses to traditional parties not being as broad tents as they used to be.
I see another labour policy is that universities can only admit a maximum of 7% of pupils from private schools. Good luck with making that one work.
Each university individually?
What about for each course?
Anyway, the concept of "indirect discrimination" waves hello.
I am beginning to think that were I a lawyer at the start of my career I would vote Labour out of self-interest: think of all the lucrative work coming my way ......!
Could you expand on that "indirect discrimination"? Which protected characteristic(s) are at play here?
Well, imagine that the rule is that only 7% on any course can be from private schools. If - and it is a big if - that means that, say, on a particular course students with protected characteristics were thereby prevented from attending that course then it might amount to indirect discrimination.
There are lots of assumptions in my scenario. But any quota system has the potential for creating a system which indirectly discriminates.
And numerical quotas are troubling for other reasons: law, for instance, has more Jewish people working in it than the percentage of Jews in the population. If you have a quota for public school pupils why not quotas for other characteristics under the guise of, say, increasing the number of white working-class boys in the law?
I am wary of this reductive approach to dealing with unfairness. It is easy to criticise public schools. Or newspapers with most of their journalists coming from a small number of select universities. But that does nothing to come up with effective policies - including more money - to improve the schools which educated the majority.
So far from Labour they want to reduce or abolish school inspections and attack Eton. How does that help an ordinary parent and their children?
Yes, sorry, I should have been more precise. I understand the general point, but I was struggling to think which people of protected characteristics would be adversely affected by that limit. I find it convincing in general that it could be the case, but it's not obvious to me which. I wonder the possibility of such a case might also bring to light discriminatory outcomes in private education. Is there a gender or ethnic imbalance in the sector? If there are discriminatory selective practices, do they need to change? A minefield, to be sure.
Looks like Thomas Cook flights are startling to be cancelled....
Where are you seeing that?
I'm keeping an eye on things for a friend who has a booking and I haven't seen any cancellations yet.
Brexit killed Thomas Cook , right ?
According to today's Times twice as many Germans are on holiday with Thomas Cook than Brits at the moment.
So you are saying the Brits didn't book?
It looks mostly internet to me. It is just too easy to book your own arrangements now.
Why would anybody use thomas cook for a holiday? You can get cheap flights with easyjet / ryanair, then use one of a 100 sites to find the cheapest hotel or there is airbnb / loads of villa rental websites.
I think you overestimate how many people are IT literate and/or trust the internet. Booking through holiday companies also presumably still (present situation excepted) gives a measure of security not available if you make your own arrangements.
And frankly, some people simply don’t like to do it themselves and have to make the choices necessary. They are just happy to choose a destination and let somebody else do the rest.
I see another labour policy is that universities can only admit a maximum of 7% of pupils from private schools. Good luck with making that one work.
Each university individually?
What about for each course?
Anyway, the concept of "indirect discrimination" waves hello.
I am beginning to think that were I a lawyer at the start of my career I would vote Labour out of self-interest: think of all the lucrative work coming my way ......!
Could you expand on that "indirect discrimination"? Which protected characteristic(s) are at play here?
Well, imagine that the rule is that only 7% on any course can be from private schools. If - and it is a big if - that means that, say, on a particular course students with protected characteristics were thereby prevented from attending that course then it might amount to indirect discrimination.
There are lots of assumptions in my scenario. But any quota system has the potential for creating a system which indirectly discriminates.
And numerical quotas are troubling for other reasons: law, for instance, has more Jewish people working in it than the percentage of Jews in the population. If you have a quota for public school pupils why not quotas for other characteristics under the guise of, say, increasing the number of white working-class boys in the law?
I am wary of this reductive approach to dealing with unfairness. It is easy to criticise public schools. Or newspapers with most of their journalists coming from a small number of select universities. But that does nothing to come up with effective policies - including more money - to improve the schools which educated the majority.
So far from Labour they want to reduce or abolish school inspections and attack Eton. How does that help an ordinary parent and their children?
State educated white males (like myself) are sorely under represented at Medical School...
Pah - that's nothing. How many Italian-Irish women do you think there are in the City? Or the law, come to that? Or ones who have worked full-time or ones over 40? I have been a minority my entire life. I have rarely been in a work meeting or event where women have been even approaching 50/50 let alone a majority.
In my last full-time role I was the only female MD (the top rank) who had been in my department more than 10 years, was working full-time and had children. Most of the other women had left, were part-time or not promoted. And that was in a department which had quite a few women working in it. In the money-making areas, the position was even worse ......
Looks like Thomas Cook flights are startling to be cancelled....
Where are you seeing that?
I'm keeping an eye on things for a friend who has a booking and I haven't seen any cancellations yet.
Brexit killed Thomas Cook , right ?
According to today's Times twice as many Germans are on holiday with Thomas Cook than Brits at the moment.
So you are saying the Brits didn't book?
It looks mostly internet to me. It is just too easy to book your own arrangements now.
Why would anybody use thomas cook for a holiday? You can get cheap flights with easyjet / ryanair, then use one of a 100 sites to find the cheapest hotel or there is airbnb / loads of villa rental websites.
Because not everyone is comfortable with aggregating their own holiday? Because you get repatriation thrown in if your operator defaults? Not everyone is sophisticated.
The follow-on point here, and it is, I’m afraid, a Brexit one, is that there will likely be a personal insurance requirement when traveling to EU countries. Frankly I think significant minority won’t take it, will suffer adverse consequences and expect HMG to bail them out. Expect sob story newspaper stories in abandon.
Looks like Thomas Cook flights are startling to be cancelled....
Where are you seeing that?
I'm keeping an eye on things for a friend who has a booking and I haven't seen any cancellations yet.
Brexit killed Thomas Cook , right ?
According to today's Times twice as many Germans are on holiday with Thomas Cook than Brits at the moment.
So you are saying the Brits didn't book?
It looks mostly internet to me. It is just too easy to book your own arrangements now.
Why would anybody use thomas cook for a holiday? You can get cheap flights with easyjet / ryanair, then use one of a 100 sites to find the cheapest hotel or there is airbnb / loads of villa rental websites.
Well, sometimes too much choice is too much. You trust Thomas Cook to verify that the hotel is good enough and then you don't have to try and work that out from the internet listing.
Putting the recent Opinium, YouGov and ComRes polls into the EMA gives:
Con 32% Lab 24% LD 19%
Average of Baxter and Flavible gives: Con 335 Lab 199 LD 43
My tactical voting model with "reasonable" assumptions about tactical voting behaviour gives: Con 296 Lab 231 LD 53
I will go along with yours. In fact, I should do a spreadsheet out of it.
Question about eg. Flavible modelling. Does it assume an election outcome consistent with the polling numbers, or does it use the polling numbers to inform an electoral outcome (which may produce different % numbers).
Eg. if the polling showed LD on 25% would it distribute that 25% in certain places to fit its model, or would it assume that in practice some of the 25% would disappear if those people in an election voted tactically for another party (and vice versa)? Which might lead to a LD vote share of less that 25% because the number of seats where they might shed votes would be lower than those where they gain.
I don't know about Flavible modelling but my own constituency based tactical spreadsheet model can end up with slightly different shares from the input shares because of the tactical voting. Certainly the Green share is well down.
I use an exponential moving average of the polls. I use a combination of 75% arithmetical swing and 25% multiplicative swing. I assume 40% of the Green vote goes to Labour and 40% goes to LD. I assume if Lib Dems are way behind Lab (less than 30% of Lab votes) then 30% of LibDems will vote tactically for Labour. I assume if Lab is behind LibDem to any extent, then 60% of Labour voters will vote tactically for LibDem. I also assume that in a seat with Lab first and LD second, 10% of Tory voters will vote tactically for the LD. [But in practice this makes no difference to number of seats].
I see another labour policy is that universities can only admit a maximum of 7% of pupils from private schools. Good luck with making that one work.
Each university individually?
What about for each course?
Anyway, the concept of "indirect discrimination" waves hello.
I am beginning to think that were I a lawyer at the start of my career I would vote Labour out of self-interest: think of all the lucrative work coming my way ......!
Could you expand on that "indirect discrimination"? Which protected characteristic(s) are at play here?
Well, imagine that the rule is that only 7% on any course can be from private schools. If - and it is a big if - that means that, say, on a particular course students with protected characteristics were thereby prevented from attending that course then it might amount to indirect discrimination.
There are lots of assumptions in my scenario. But any quota system has the potential for creating a system which indirectly discriminates.
So far from Labour they want to reduce or abolish school inspections and attack Eton. How does that help an ordinary parent and their children?
State educated white males (like myself) are sorely under represented at Medical School...
Pah - that's nothing. How many Italian-Irish women do you think there are in the City? Or the law, come to that? Or ones who have worked full-time or ones over 40? I have been a minority my entire life. I have rarely been in a work meeting or event where women have been even approaching 50/50 let alone a majority.
In my last full-time role I was the only female MD (the top rank) who had been in my department more than 10 years, was working full-time and had children. Most of the other women had left, were part-time or not promoted. And that was in a department which had quite a few women working in it. In the money-making areas, the position was even worse ......
I am not claiming discrimination*, but in my Med School the entry is 65% female, 45% BME, and around 50% privately educated.
If we are to look at quotas then there should be positive discrimination for folk like me who comprise about 40% of the UK school leavers. That is the absurdity of quotas.
*indeed when I was starting out, I was on several occasions appointed over better qualified applicants.
I see another labour policy is that universities can only admit a maximum of 7% of pupils from private schools. Good luck with making that one work.
Each university individually?
I am beginning to think that were I a lawyer at the start of my career I would vote Labour out of self-interest: think of all the lucrative work coming my way ......!
Could you expand on that "indirect discrimination"? Which protected characteristic(s) are at play here?
Well, imagine that the rule is that only 7% on any course can be from private schools. If - and it is a big if - that means that, say, on a particular course students with protected characteristics were thereby prevented from attending that course then it might amount to indirect discrimination.
There are lots of assumptions in my scenario. But any quota system has the potential for creating a system which indirectly discriminates.
And numerical quotas are troubling for other reasons: law, for instance, has more Jewish people working in it than the percentage of Jews in the population. If you have a quota for public school pupils why not quotas for other characteristics under the guise of, say, increasing the number of white working-class boys in the law?
I am wary of this reductive approach to dealing with unfairness. It is easy to criticise public schools. Or newspapers with most of their journalists coming from a small number of select universities. But that does nothing to come up with effective policies - including more money - to improve the schools which educated the majority.
So far from Labour they want to reduce or abolish school inspections and attack Eton. How does that help an ordinary parent and their children?
State educated white males (like myself) are sorely under represented at Medical School...
Pah - that's nothing. How many Italian-Irish women do you think there are in the City? Or the law, come to that? Or ones who have worked full-time or ones over 40? I have been a minority my entire life. I have rarely been in a work meeting or event where women have been even approaching 50/50 let alone a majority.
In my last full-time role I was the only female MD (the top rank) who had been in my department more than 10 years, was working full-time and had children. Most of the other women had left, were part-time or not promoted. And that was in a department which had quite a few women working in it. In the money-making areas, the position was even worse ......
Very admirable. Sometimes us men do not appreciate or even understand what many womed go through.
Looks like Thomas Cook flights are startling to be cancelled....
Where are you seeing that?
I'm keeping an eye on things for a friend who has a booking and I haven't seen any cancellations yet.
Brexit killed Thomas Cook , right ?
According to today's Times twice as many Germans are on holiday with Thomas Cook than Brits at the moment.
So you are saying the Brits didn't book?
It looks mostly internet to me. It is just too easy to book your own arrangements now.
Why would anybody use thomas cook for a holiday? You can get cheap flights with easyjet / ryanair, then use one of a 100 sites to find the cheapest hotel or there is airbnb / loads of villa rental websites.
Because not everyone is comfortable with aggregating their own holiday? Because you get repatriation thrown in if your operator defaults? Not everyone is sophisticated.
The follow-on point here, and it is, I’m afraid, a Brexit one, is that there will likely be a personal insurance requirement when traveling to EU countries. Frankly I think significant minority won’t take it, will suffer adverse consequences and expect HMG to bail them out. Expect sob story newspaper stories in abandon.
There is already a personal insurance requirement when travelling to EU countries, people who don't insure are idiots. Travel insurance is cheap, and together with the consumer credit act gives you quite a measure of protection.
Anyway, the concept of "indirect discrimination" waves hello.
Could you expand on that "indirect discrimination"? Which protected characteristic(s) are at play here?
Well, imagine that the rule is that only 7% on any course can be from private schools. If - and it is a big if - that means that, say, on a particular course students with protected characteristics were thereby prevented from attending that course then it might amount to indirect discrimination.
There are lots of assumptions in my scenario. But any quota system has the potential for creating a system which indirectly discriminates.
So far from Labour they want to reduce or abolish school inspections and attack Eton. How does that help an ordinary parent and their children?
State educated white males (like myself) are sorely under represented at Medical School...
Pah - that's nothing. How many Italian-Irish women do you think there are in the City? Or the law, come to that? Or ones who have worked full-time or ones over 40? I have been a minority my entire life. I have rarely been in a work meeting or event where women have been even approaching 50/50 let alone a majority.
In my last full-time role I was the only female MD (the top rank) who had been in my department more than 10 years, was working full-time and had children. Most of the other women had left, were part-time or not promoted. And that was in a department which had quite a few women working in it. In the money-making areas, the position was even worse ......
I am not claiming discrimination*, but in my Med School the entry is 65% female, 45% BME, and around 50% privately educated.
If we are to look at quotas then there should be positive discrimination for folk like me who comprise about 40% of the UK school leavers. That is the absurdity of quotas.
*indeed when I was starting out, I was on several occasions appointed over better qualified applicants.
Nor am I. I was just noting that the position for women is not hunky dory either - and can often get worse as they get older. It was much much tougher working when my children were older than when they were young babies, a point I make when talking to womens' groups. People often assume - wrongly - that it is the other way around.
You need to fight hard against the "older women becoming invisible" rule which can be all too common in life.
Quotas are a very crude way of dealing with a very real problem.
Looks like Thomas Cook flights are startling to be cancelled....
Where are you seeing that?
I'm keeping an eye on things for a friend who has a booking and I haven't seen any cancellations yet.
Brexit killed Thomas Cook , right ?
Skyscanner and Booking.com. They're in a dying market.
Agreed.
Brexit certainly contributed, but Thomas Cook is a defunct business model.
Online has killed tens of thousands of old brands. And many, many more will fall. Including perhaps a 312 year golden oldie: the United Kingdom.
218, surely?
416?
The "United Kingdom" only came about after GB united with Ireland in 1801.
No Stuart is right. It was the United Kingdom from 1707. Well, according to wiki anyway!
Wiki is wrong and Sunil is right. It was 'Great Britain' from 1707, although the name was used informally from 1603 to 1649, and the 'United Kingdom' when the Kingdom of Ireland was integrated into it.
Looks like Thomas Cook flights are startling to be cancelled....
Where are you seeing that?
I'm keeping an eye on things for a friend who has a booking and I haven't seen any cancellations yet.
Brexit killed Thomas Cook , right ?
Skyscanner and Booking.com. They're in a dying market.
Agreed.
Brexit certainly contributed, but Thomas Cook is a defunct business model.
Online has killed tens of thousands of old brands. And many, many more will fall. Including perhaps a 312 year golden oldie: the United Kingdom.
218, surely?
416?
The "United Kingdom" only came about after GB united with Ireland in 1801.
No Stuart is right. It was the United Kingdom from 1707. Well, according to wiki anyway!
Wiki is wrong and Sunil is right. It was 'Great Britain' from 1707, although the name was used informally from 1603 to 1649, and the 'United Kingdom' when the Kingdom of Ireland was integrated into it.
Looks like Thomas Cook flights are startling to be cancelled....
Where are you seeing that?
I'm keeping an eye on things for a friend who has a booking and I haven't seen any cancellations yet.
Brexit killed Thomas Cook , right ?
According to today's Times twice as many Germans are on holiday with Thomas Cook than Brits at the moment.
I did a bit of reading on Thomas Cook yesterday. Given all that has happened to Thomas Cook over the last decade or so and that we are in an era of the likes of Booking.com and Expedia — and all the many incarnations they have — it's quite surprising that they are still going.
Only for leading at half time, I’d suggest. They generally fade dramatically (Western Samoa excepted...). Like Italy, if matches ended at 60 minutes they’d be world beaters. The interchange bench kills them.
Not sure Labour going after private schools is a good move .
Removing charitable status should really be the only thing they should do . Looks like another own goal .
The problem is all the key figures in Labour had a terrible education. Corbyn Milne, Starmer...they were all privately educated and promoted waaaaay beyond their very limited abilities as a result.
How in God's name is Eton, for example, a charity?
I don't mean legally, I mean morally.
What are the moral metrics you are using?
For instance, one could argue that a school which charges whatever Eton charges to rich parents couldn't possibly be a charity because those parents and their children are not the sort of people deserving of financial help, however indirect, as a result of the tax breaks the school receives.
Or one could argue that if the school provides financial and other help to other schools (eg by establishing them, paying for them) and pupils elsewhere (who would not otherwise benefit from this sort of education) and the financial worth of that help is greater than the financial worth of the tax breaks received, then society as a whole (and people who do deserve help) have received a benefit.
The former is a value metric based on who should receive charity. The latter is more a financial calculation mixed in with a value judgment about the recipients. There are other ways, of course, of calculating or determining what is or may be moral.
One final point: while the law and morality are not one and the same, the fact that a society has over a very long period of time determined that something is lawful may well be an indication that society considers it something worthwhile and moral in a more general sense. There are some obvious exceptions but what is lawful is an indication - not the only one, of course - but an important one of what a society values.
Your second paragraph summarises my views pretty well to be fair.
Eton uses its charitable status to benefit pupils whose parents can afford £42k per year to send them there. Said pupils then appear to benefit by being many times more likely to obtain a top job such as, oh I don't know, PM for example, than a pupil going to any other typical school.
I do not believe private schools should have charitable status.
I do not believe school fees should be VAT exempt.
I do not believe the private schools sector serves this country positively, perpetuating as it does undeserved privilege down through the generations within the same families.
I do not believe the private schools system helps the country make the most of its talent, since it enhances the chances of less able individuals whose families happen to be wealthy acheiving roles of great influence.
I do believe we should do all we can to reduce this malign influence going forwards.
Looks like Thomas Cook flights are startling to be cancelled....
Where are you seeing that?
I'm keeping an eye on things for a friend who has a booking and I haven't seen any cancellations yet.
Brexit killed Thomas Cook , right ?
According to today's Times twice as many Germans are on holiday with Thomas Cook than Brits at the moment.
I did a bit of reading on Thomas Cook yesterday. Given all that has happened to Thomas Cook over the last decade or so and that we are in an era of the likes of Booking.com and Expedia — and all the many incarnations they have — it's quite surprising that they are still going.
Low interest rates and customer inertia. It looks as if TUI will be the only big package operator left standing.
Not sure Labour going after private schools is a good move .
Removing charitable status should really be the only thing they should do . Looks like another own goal .
See discussion above. A legal minefield. You can’t just “remove charitable status” at the stroke of a pen. And many Private Schools are not charities anyway. Somehow find a way to remove charitable status from those that are and the likely effect is that they simply stop doing the charitable (and beneficial) works that they are currently required by law to carry out.
For instance, one could argue that a school which charges whatever Eton charges to rich parents couldn't possibly be a charity because those parents and their children are not the sort of people deserving of financial help, however indirect, as a result of the tax breaks the school receives.
Your second paragraph summarises my views pretty well to be fair.
Eton uses its charitable status to benefit pupils whose parents can afford £42k per year to send them there. Said pupils then appear to benefit by being many times more likely to obtain a top job such as, oh I don't know, PM for example, than a pupil going to any other typical school.
I do not believe private schools should have charitable status.
I do not believe school fees should be VAT exempt.
I do not believe the private schools sector serves this country positively, perpetuating as it does undeserved privilege down through the generations within the same families.
I do not believe the private schools system helps the country make the most of its talent, since it enhances the chances of less able individuals whose families happen to be wealthy acheiving roles of great influence.
I do believe we should do all we can to reduce this malign influence going forwards.
There, rant over. I feel much better now.
You may be right. I don't think however that Marxists or Stalinists have any sort of solution to anything. They invariably make everything very much worse.
As in much else in British public life we never look at what other European countries do in the educational field. In most countries - oh, all right, the ones I know - there is a much smaller private school sector. Perhaps we could learn from our fellow Europeans?
Mind you, there is still the issue of self-perpetuating elites even in those countries. So perhaps education is not the only issue. Still, I think we could probably still learn something if only we weren't in the process of turning our noses up at the very idea that Europe might have something to teach us.
Not sure Labour going after private schools is a good move .
Removing charitable status should really be the only thing they should do . Looks like another own goal .
The problem is all the key figures in Labour had a terrible education. Corbyn Milne, Starmer...they were all privately educated and promoted waaaaay beyond their very limited abilities as a result.
I'd dearly love to know why @Charles's mum thinks Starmer is not fit for public office.
How in God's name is Eton, for example, a charity?
I don't mean legally, I mean morally.
What are the moral metrics you are using?
For instance, one could argue that a school which charges whatever Eton charges to rich parents couldn't possibly be a charity because those parents and their children
Or one could argue that if the school provides financial and other help to other schools (eg by establishing them, paying for them) and pupils elsewhere (who would not otherwise benefit from this sort of education) and the financial worth of that help is greater than the financial worth of the tax breaks received, then society as a whole (and people who do deserve help) have received a benefit
One final point: while the law and morality are not one and the same, the fact that a society has over a very long period of time determined that something is lawful may well be an indication that society considers it something worthwhile and moral in a more general sense. There are some obvious exceptions but what is lawful is an indication - not the only one, of course - but an important one of what a society values.
Your second paragraph summarises my views pretty well to be fair.
Eton uses its charitable status to benefit pupils whose parents can afford £42k per year to send them there. Said pupils then appear to benefit by being many times more likely to obtain a top job such as, oh I don't know, PM for example, than a pupil going to any other typical school.
I do not believe private schools should have charitable status.
I do not believe school fees should be VAT exempt.
I do not believe the private schools sector serves this country positively, perpetuating as it does undeserved privilege down through the generations within the same families.
I do not believe the private schools system helps the country make the most of its talent, since it enhances the chances of less able individuals whose families happen to be wealthy acheiving roles of great influence.
I do believe we should do all we can to reduce this malign influence going forwards.
There, rant over. I feel much better now.
Have you considered the possibility that the charity “subsidy” does not benefit those paying the huge fees but those who don’t? That if they stopped doing the various charitable activities that they do, then it might make no difference to the large fee payers?
Not sure Labour going after private schools is a good move .
Removing charitable status should really be the only thing they should do . Looks like another own goal .
The problem is all the key figures in Labour had a terrible education. Corbyn Milne, Starmer...they were all privately educated and promoted waaaaay beyond their very limited abilities as a result.
I'd dearly love to know why @Charles's mum thinks Starmer is not fit for public office.
I'm still trying to understand what a 'chair of chairs' is?
For instance, one could argue that a school which charges whatever Eton charges to rich parents couldn't possibly be a charity because those parents and their children are not the sort of people deserving of financial help, however indirect, as a result of the tax breaks the school receives.
Your second paragraph summarises my views pretty well to be fair.
Eton uses its charitable status to benefit pupils whose parents can afford £42k per year to send them there. Said pupils then appear to benefit by being many times more likely to obtain a top job such as, oh I don't know, PM for example, than a pupil going to any other typical school.
I do not believe private schools should have charitable status.
I do not believe school fees should be VAT exempt.
I do not believe the private schools sector serves this country positively, perpetuating as it does undeserved privilege down through the generations within the same families.
I do not believe the private schools system helps the country make the most of its talent, since it enhances the chances of less able individuals whose families happen to be wealthy acheiving roles of great influence.
I do believe we should do all we can to reduce this malign influence going forwards.
There, rant over. I feel much better now.
You may be right. I don't think however that Marxists or Stalinists have any sort of solution to anything. They invariably make everything very much worse.
As in much else in British public life we never look at what other European countries do in the educational field. In most countries - oh, all right, the ones I know - there is a much smaller private school sector. Perhaps we could learn from our fellow Europeans?
Mind you, there is still the issue of self-perpetuating elites even in those countries. So perhaps education is not the only issue. Still, I think we could probably still learn something if only we weren't in the process of turning our noses up at the very idea that Europe might have something to teach us.
Only for leading at half time, I’d suggest. They generally fade dramatically (Western Samoa excepted...). Like Italy, if matches ended at 60 minutes they’d be world beaters. The interchange bench kills them.
Fair comment. Not saying they will win - just that worth a flutter at 9/1. Plus a side bet on the draw.
Anyway, the concept of "indirect discrimination" waves hello.
Could you expand on that "indirect discrimination"? Which protected characteristic(s) are at play here?
Well, imagine that the rule is that only 7% on any course can be from private schools. I
State educated white males (like myself) are sorely under represented at Medical School...
Pah - that's nothing. How many Italian-Irish women do you think there are in the City? Or the law, come to that? Or ones who have worked full-time or ones over 40? I have been a minority my entire life. I have rarely been in a work meeting or event where women have been even approaching 50/50 let alone a majority.
In my last full-time role I was the only female MD (the top rank) who had been in my department more than 10 years, was working full-time and had children. Most of the other women had left, were part-time or not promoted. And that was in a department which had quite a few women working in it. In the money-making areas, the position was even worse ......
I am not claiming dis
*indeed when I was starting out, I was on several occasions appointed over better qualified applicants.
Nor am I. I was just noting that the position for women is not hunky dory either - and can often get worse as they get older. It was much much tougher working when my children were older than when they were young babies, a point I make when talking to womens' groups. People often assume - wrongly - that it is the other way around.
You need to fight hard against the "older women becoming invisible" rule which can be all too common in life.
Quotas are a very crude way of dealing with a very real problem.
I think Medicine has pretty much sorted equal ops now, and genuinely is a level playing field in the UK, not least because training and careers are in effect single provider, and that provider has genuine commitment to equality.
I am not so convinced the same is true in areas where careers are much more exposed to patronage, networking, and club-ability. This is where discrimination happens now. Ironically, media, culture, politics and law seem particularly open to these.
As in much else in British public life we never look at what other European countries do in the educational field. In most countries - oh, all right, the ones I know - there is a much smaller private school sector. Perhaps we could learn from our fellow Europeans?
Tony Blair once said he wanted to make the state sector here like its equivalent in France, so good that nobody used private schools.
Which was in its own way amusing, as the French state sector is so shockingly bad that actually despite their long history of state action against private schooling the proportion of children privately educated in France was actually slightly higher than in the UK.
But in one way he did bring it in line with a France - when he left office in 2007 the numbers in private education had risen so far in relative and absolute terms that we were roughly in line with our French neighbours.
Or one could argue that if the school provides financial and other help to other schools (eg by establishing them, paying for them) and pupils elsewhere (who would not otherwise benefit from this sort of education) and the financial worth of that help is greater than the financial worth of the tax breaks received, then society as a whole (and people who do deserve help) have received a benefit
One final point: while the law and morality are not one and the same, the fact that a society has over a very long period of time determined that something is lawful may well be an indication that society considers it something worthwhile and moral in a more general sense. There are some obvious exceptions but what is lawful is an indication - not the only one, of course - but an important one of what a society values.
Your second paragraph summarises my views pretty well to be fair.
Eton uses its charitable status to benefit pupils whose parents can afford £42k per year to send them there. Said pupils then appear to benefit by being many times more likely to obtain a top job such as, oh I don't know, PM for example, than a pupil going to any other typical school.
I do not believe private schools should have charitable status.
I do not believe school fees should be VAT exempt.
I do not believe the private schools sector serves this country positively, perpetuating as it does undeserved privilege down through the generations within the same families.
I do not believe the private schools system helps the country make the most of its talent, since it enhances the chances of less able individuals whose families happen to be wealthy acheiving roles of great influence.
I do believe we should do all we can to reduce this malign influence going forwards.
There, rant over. I feel much better now.
Have you considered the possibility that the charity “subsidy” does not benefit those paying the huge fees but those who don’t? That if they stopped doing the various charitable activities that they do, then it might make no difference to the large fee payers?
Oh I am 100% certain it would make no noticable difference to the £42k Eton fee payers. But I still feel charitable status should be removed because it just plain wrong imo.
VAT on school fees might be a more relevant priority though.
Not sure Labour going after private schools is a good move .
Removing charitable status should really be the only thing they should do . Looks like another own goal .
The problem is all the key figures in Labour had a terrible education. Corbyn Milne, Starmer...they were all privately educated and promoted waaaaay beyond their very limited abilities as a result.
I'd dearly love to know why @Charles's mum thinks Starmer is not fit for public office.
I'm still trying to understand what a 'chair of chairs' is?
Who cares? It's the skeletons in Starmer's cupboard I want to know about ......
Interesting points @Cyclefree. Given private schools' charitable staus is a complete sham, what happens to a 'charity' that no longer meets the charity criteria?
Charity law was updated in 2011 and the question of whether schools are in fact charities in accordance with the law was looked at then and is constantly being looked at, both by the trustees of the charity and the directors of a school since they cannot afford to get it wrong. And there is also the Charity Commission.
There are various powers available to close down "sham" charities. But you are assuming what you are trying to prove. The legal status of public schools and their charitable endowments is considerably more complicated than the phrase "complete sham" would suggest.
I suspect that the schools have done a great deal to ensure that they are within the existing law. Whether charity law should be changed is another matter. One thing to remember though is that any change affecting education will catch a whole load of groups beyond the obvious public schools and may fall within my favourite law of all: the Law of Unintended Consequences.
The effectiveness of the Charity Commission, which is the regulator in this area, is quite another issue. They have been quite concerned with other matters: chuggers, for instance, and some charities being used to fund terror groups etc.
Many thanks for your response. I firmly believe their charitable status is a sham but I'm not really trying to prove it. I think Labour could find a way to force the rules to be tightened and yes, there will probably be some unfortunate unintended consequences.
My real point though, is that private schools' current charitable status is unlikely to be a barrier to Labour's plans.
But unless Labour is proposing to withdraw from the ECHR it does not entitle them to expropriate assets or ban the existence of non-state schools. And any law which Labour proposes has to, under the Human Rights Act, be declared to be compatible with that Act and the ECHR. If people think it isn't they won't hesitate to take the government to court. So Labour should not think that this is something which can easily be done.
Probably just one of those policies designed to get people fired up and will be ditched once in office and the complexities emerge, like revoke for the LDs (I'm not sure what the Tory equivalent is - I'd say the Hunting ban, but plenty of Tories don't seem to be up for a vote on that),
For instance, one could argue that a school which charges whatever Eton charges to rich parents couldn't possibly be a charity because those parents and their children are not the sort of people deserving of financial help, however indirect, as a result of the tax breaks the school receives.
Your second paragraph summarises my views pretty well to be fair.
Eton uses its charitable status to benefit pupils whose parents can afford £42k per year to send them there. Said pupils then appear to benefit by being many times more likely to obtain a top job such as, oh I don't know, PM for example, than a pupil going to any other typical school.
I do not believe private schools should have charitable status.
I do not believe school fees should be VAT exempt.
I do not believe the private schools sector serves this country positively, perpetuating as it does undeserved privilege down through the generations within the same families.
I do not believe the private schools system helps the country make the most of its talent, since it enhances the chances of less able individuals whose families happen to be wealthy acheiving roles of great influence.
I do believe we should do all we can to reduce this malign influence going forwards.
There, rant over. I feel much better now.
Mind you, there is still the issue of self-perpetuating elites even in those countries. So perhaps education is not the only issue. Still, I think we could probably still learn something if only we weren't in the process of turning our noses up at the very idea that Europe might have something to teach us.
I think all elites have a tendency to become self replicating oligarchies. After all, who is better suited to lead than people on this side of the interview table?
The benefits of new blood is vastly under estimated.
Not sure Labour going after private schools is a good move .
Removing charitable status should really be the only thing they should do . Looks like another own goal .
The problem is all the key figures in Labour had a terrible education. Corbyn Milne, Starmer...they were all privately educated and promoted waaaaay beyond their very limited abilities as a result.
I'd dearly love to know why @Charles's mum thinks Starmer is not fit for public office.
I'm still trying to understand what a 'chair of chairs' is?
Who cares? It's the skeletons in Starmer's cupboard I want to know about ......
Well it might indicate which cupboard the skeletons are in.
Comments
Con 32% Lab 24% LD 19%
Average of Baxter and Flavible gives:
Con 335 Lab 199 LD 43
My tactical voting model with "reasonable" assumptions about tactical voting behaviour gives:
Con 296 Lab 231 LD 53
It looks mostly internet to me. It is just too easy to book your own arrangements now.
Well, imagine that the rule is that only 7% on any course can be from private schools. If - and it is a big if - that means that, say, on a particular course students with protected characteristics were thereby prevented from attending that course then it might amount to indirect discrimination.
There are lots of assumptions in my scenario. But any quota system has the potential for creating a system which indirectly discriminates.
And numerical quotas are troubling for other reasons: law, for instance, has more Jewish people working in it than the percentage of Jews in the population. If you have a quota for public school pupils why not quotas for other characteristics under the guise of, say, increasing the number of white working-class boys in the law?
I am wary of this reductive approach to dealing with unfairness. It is easy to criticise public schools. Or newspapers with most of their journalists coming from a small number of select universities. But that does nothing to come up with effective policies - including more money - to improve the schools which educated the majority.
So far from Labour they want to reduce or abolish school inspections and attack Eton. How does that help an ordinary parent and their children?
Eg. if the polling showed LD on 25% would it distribute that 25% in certain places to fit its model, or would it assume that in practice some of the 25% would disappear if those people in an election voted tactically for another party (and vice versa)? Which might lead to a LD vote share of less that 25% because the number of seats where they might shed votes would be lower than those where they gain.
a. to improve the governance of Scotland? or
b. to kill nationalism stone dead?
Lib 160
Con 145
NDP 14
BQ 14
Grn 4
PPC 1
https://newsinteractives.cbc.ca/elections/poll-tracker/canada/
Any one of a number of things could have happened.
Of course, it was not enacted in Edinburgh or of a Scottish parliament.
We’re due another update from the SC tomorrow afternoon as to when the ruling will be handed down .
Brexit certainly contributed, but Thomas Cook is a defunct business model.
Online has killed tens of thousands of old brands. And many, many more will fall. Including perhaps a 312 year golden oldie: the United Kingdom.
I wonder the possibility of such a case might also bring to light discriminatory outcomes in private education. Is there a gender or ethnic imbalance in the sector? If there are discriminatory selective practices, do they need to change?
A minefield, to be sure.
And frankly, some people simply don’t like to do it themselves and have to make the choices necessary. They are just happy to choose a destination and let somebody else do the rest.
In my last full-time role I was the only female MD (the top rank) who had been in my department more than 10 years, was working full-time and had children. Most of the other women had left, were part-time or not promoted. And that was in a department which had quite a few women working in it. In the money-making areas, the position was even worse ......
The follow-on point here, and it is, I’m afraid, a Brexit one, is that there will likely be a personal insurance requirement when traveling to EU countries. Frankly I think significant minority won’t take it, will suffer adverse consequences and expect HMG to bail them out. Expect sob story newspaper stories in abandon.
I use an exponential moving average of the polls.
I use a combination of 75% arithmetical swing and 25% multiplicative swing.
I assume 40% of the Green vote goes to Labour and 40% goes to LD.
I assume if Lib Dems are way behind Lab (less than 30% of Lab votes) then 30% of LibDems will vote tactically for Labour.
I assume if Lab is behind LibDem to any extent, then 60% of Labour voters will vote tactically for LibDem.
I also assume that in a seat with Lab first and LD second, 10% of Tory voters will vote tactically for the LD. [But in practice this makes no difference to number of seats].
If we are to look at quotas then there should be positive discrimination for folk like me who comprise about 40% of the UK school leavers. That is the absurdity of quotas.
*indeed when I was starting out, I was on several occasions appointed over better qualified applicants.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1927_in_the_United_Kingdom
You need to fight hard against the "older women becoming invisible" rule which can be all too common in life.
Quotas are a very crude way of dealing with a very real problem.
Removing charitable status should really be the only thing they should do . Looks like another own goal .
Eton uses its charitable status to benefit pupils whose parents can afford £42k per year to send them there. Said pupils then appear to benefit by being many times more likely to obtain a top job such as, oh I don't know, PM for example, than a pupil going to any other typical school.
I do not believe private schools should have charitable status.
I do not believe school fees should be VAT exempt.
I do not believe the private schools sector serves this country positively, perpetuating as it does undeserved privilege down through the generations within the same families.
I do not believe the private schools system helps the country make the most of its talent, since it enhances the chances of less able individuals whose families happen to be wealthy acheiving roles of great influence.
I do believe we should do all we can to reduce this malign influence going forwards.
There, rant over. I feel much better now.
As in much else in British public life we never look at what other European countries do in the educational field. In most countries - oh, all right, the ones I know - there is a much smaller private school sector. Perhaps we could learn from our fellow Europeans?
Mind you, there is still the issue of self-perpetuating elites even in those countries. So perhaps education is not the only issue. Still, I think we could probably still learn something if only we weren't in the process of turning our noses up at the very idea that Europe might have something to teach us.
Little Britain?
I am not so convinced the same is true in areas where careers are much more exposed to patronage, networking, and club-ability. This is where discrimination happens now. Ironically, media, culture, politics and law seem particularly open to these.
Which was in its own way amusing, as the French state sector is so shockingly bad that actually despite their long history of state action against private schooling the proportion of children privately educated in France was actually slightly higher than in the UK.
But in one way he did bring it in line with a France - when he left office in 2007 the numbers in private education had risen so far in relative and absolute terms that we were roughly in line with our French neighbours.
In its own way that's quite funny.
VAT on school fees might be a more relevant priority though.
Nothing worse than rudeness to one's comrades.
Good night.
As if they haven't been in chaos for some time?
The benefits of new blood is vastly under estimated.