Mandatory printing of car registration numbers on all Drive Thru packaging.
I would like to get all Drive Thru retailers to be required to print car registrations on all take away packaging. Hopefully, to cut down on the amount of litter that is blighting roadsides all over the country.
Who on earth has got time to go through every bit of litter to look for a car registration number?
Furthermore, are they expecting McDonalds etc to print a reg number on every single bit of packaging for each customer? That's going to take ages.
Have not thought it through.
Easy - print a label, stick it on. Stop the feckers littering.
Print a label, stick it on the bag. Print another label stick it on the chips. Print another label stick it on the burger. Print another label stick it on the drink. Repeat x4 for a family of 4.
Off topic, why does Harry find the first amendment "baffling" ?
Because he's not very bright?
Because he has been convinced all his life that the UK press are a pack of uncontrolled snarling monsters out to exploit him and his family and he now finds that they are extremely controlled by our libel and other laws compared with the press in the US? A shattering of illusions.
If only he had a US wife who could have told him what the US Constitution says ........
He's an embarrassingly stupid man who has no real understanding of just how stupid he is.
As my mother said at the weekend; he got a B and a D at A level…and one of those was in art
Confirms Eton is overcharging parents?
Also, how easy must the entrance exam be? Or has Eton gone all Harrow and let in any kid of rich feckers?
Ludgrove and Eton both recommended he went to a different school. His grandmother (who appoints the Provost of Eton as her personal representative on the board and therefore has some sway) insisted. She wanted him close - this was shortly after Diana’s death - and she had him round to stay at her pad nearby most weekends
Connections eh.
How do we remove this unelected ruler?
It is an insult to millions of working class kids in the country who do not have these connections and cannot improve their lot in life.
Whether Harry went to Eton or Stowe would not have made the slightest difference to their life chances (or indeed his as he would be a multimillionaire through inheritance anyway), it was closing most of the grammar schools that reduced working class kids chances of getting into top universities and the top professions.
Tell that to Ben Houchen.
He's a Northumbria University Law School graduate.
Reading the tweets of Dominic Cummings today and some of his other pronouncements I realise who he reminds me of.
He's clearly the smartest guy in the room.
In fairness, I suspect that he often is. But he is also an iconoclast. A sociopath. An egoist. Just bloody dangerous to be let loose on anything that is going to be around longer than a campaign. Bringing him into Number 10 was brave in the Yes Minister sense.
Off topic, why does Harry find the first amendment "baffling" ?
Because he's not very bright?
Because he has been convinced all his life that the UK press are a pack of uncontrolled snarling monsters out to exploit him and his family and he now finds that they are extremely controlled by our libel and other laws compared with the press in the US? A shattering of illusions.
If only he had a US wife who could have told him what the US Constitution says ........
He's an embarrassingly stupid man who has no real understanding of just how stupid he is.
As my mother said at the weekend; he got a B and a D at A level…and one of those was in art
Confirms Eton is overcharging parents?
Also, how easy must the entrance exam be? Or has Eton gone all Harrow and let in any kid of rich feckers?
Ludgrove and Eton both recommended he went to a different school. His grandmother (who appoints the Provost of Eton as her personal representative on the board and therefore has some sway) insisted. She wanted him close - this was shortly after Diana’s death - and she had him round to stay at her pad nearby most weekends
Connections eh.
How do we remove this unelected ruler?
It is an insult to millions of working class kids in the country who do not have these connections and cannot improve their lot in life.
Whether Harry went to Eton or Stowe would not have made the slightest difference to their life chances (or indeed his as he would be a multimillionaire through inheritance anyway), it was closing most of the grammar schools that reduced working class kids chances of getting into top universities and the top professions.
You have just reminded me why I am not a Conservative.
Selection at aged 11 is immoral. Wealthy parents paying for 11 plus tuition to pass the exam at the expense of smarter kids who can't afford that luxury.
I went to a great, properly funded comprehensive in the mid seventies. Students in my year were high achievers in later life. This was followed by a grammar school where the second (bottom) set students were referred to as "less able". These "less able" students were the council house kids who didn't make 5 gces. In my book if 30 children passed the 11 plus and yet failed to achieve a mere 5 O levels that proves the system failed.
Who was in charge in the mid-70s?
Mrs Thatcher for some of that period, she did great as she helped to smash grammar schools, and they haven't recovered since.
If Boris orders pubs and restaurants to close down again because he fucked up over the Indian variant, I will not be responsible for my actions.
Enough.
It's highly unlikely, but not impossible.
The reason the government can't tell you what will happen in June is the sheer number of cases of the new variant which came in from India. It could be a while before there's sufficient data to determine whether it's showing increased transmissibility, or if the sudden large number of cases is just an artefact of allowing travellers in from a country experiencing a pandemic peak.
The government delayed even once it knew there was a new strain and despite all the terrible scenes from India. It is Italy all over again. It is the Kent strain all over again.
That is why we have a problem now. And if it leads to continuing lockdown / restrictions and destruction of businesses, the government should be crucified for its negligence.
I'm reasonably sure it's not Italy all over again, but it was indeed irresponsible.
Yeah there's no need to do it, the safety first approach makes the most sense at the moment. Our domestic unlockdown matter the most at the moment. Keeping the border open seems like a really unnecessary risk.
Off topic, why does Harry find the first amendment "baffling" ?
Because he's not very bright?
Because he has been convinced all his life that the UK press are a pack of uncontrolled snarling monsters out to exploit him and his family and he now finds that they are extremely controlled by our libel and other laws compared with the press in the US? A shattering of illusions.
If only he had a US wife who could have told him what the US Constitution says ........
He's an embarrassingly stupid man who has no real understanding of just how stupid he is.
As my mother said at the weekend; he got a B and a D at A level…and one of those was in art
Confirms Eton is overcharging parents?
Also, how easy must the entrance exam be? Or has Eton gone all Harrow and let in any kid of rich feckers?
Ludgrove and Eton both recommended he went to a different school. His grandmother (who appoints the Provost of Eton as her personal representative on the board and therefore has some sway) insisted. She wanted him close - this was shortly after Diana’s death - and she had him round to stay at her pad nearby most weekends
Connections eh.
How do we remove this unelected ruler?
It is an insult to millions of working class kids in the country who do not have these connections and cannot improve their lot in life.
Whether Harry went to Eton or Stowe would not have made the slightest difference to their life chances (or indeed his as he would be a multimillionaire through inheritance anyway), it was closing most of the grammar schools that reduced working class kids chances of getting into top universities and the top professions.
Tell that to Ben Houchen.
He's a Northumbria University Law School graduate.
His school was a former grammar school
Aye, that former grammar school got him into that prestigious university and it's done him no harm at all.
Also his school changed from a grammar school into a comprehensive 9 years before he was even born.
Reading the tweets of Dominic Cummings today and some of his other pronouncements I realise who he reminds me of.
He's clearly the smartest guy in the room.
In fairness, I suspect that he often is. But he is also an iconoclast. A sociopath. An egoist. Just bloody dangerous to be let loose on anything that is going to be around longer than a campaign. Bringing him into Number 10 was brave in the Yes Minister sense.
Speaking as someone who is often the smartest person in the room you all need oodles of modesty to go with it, otherwise you end up looking like a prick.
Off topic, why does Harry find the first amendment "baffling" ?
Because he's not very bright?
Because he has been convinced all his life that the UK press are a pack of uncontrolled snarling monsters out to exploit him and his family and he now finds that they are extremely controlled by our libel and other laws compared with the press in the US? A shattering of illusions.
If only he had a US wife who could have told him what the US Constitution says ........
He's an embarrassingly stupid man who has no real understanding of just how stupid he is.
As my mother said at the weekend; he got a B and a D at A level…and one of those was in art
Confirms Eton is overcharging parents?
Also, how easy must the entrance exam be? Or has Eton gone all Harrow and let in any kid of rich feckers?
Ludgrove and Eton both recommended he went to a different school. His grandmother (who appoints the Provost of Eton as her personal representative on the board and therefore has some sway) insisted. She wanted him close - this was shortly after Diana’s death - and she had him round to stay at her pad nearby most weekends
Connections eh.
How do we remove this unelected ruler?
It is an insult to millions of working class kids in the country who do not have these connections and cannot improve their lot in life.
Whether Harry went to Eton or Stowe would not have made the slightest difference to their life chances (or indeed his as he would be a multimillionaire through inheritance anyway), it was closing most of the grammar schools that reduced working class kids chances of getting into top universities and the top professions.
You have just reminded me why I am not a Conservative.
Selection at aged 11 is immoral. Wealthy parents paying for 11 plus tuition to pass the exam at the expense of smarter kids who can't afford that luxury.
I went to a great, properly funded comprehensive in the mid seventies. Students in my year were high achievers in later life. This was followed by a grammar school where the second (bottom) set students were referred to as "less able". These "less able" students were the council house kids who didn't make 5 gces. In my book if 30 children passed the 11 plus and yet failed to achieve a mere 5 O levels that proves the system failed.
Who was in charge in the mid-70s?
Mrs Thatcher for some of that period, she did great as she helped to smash grammar schools, and they haven't recovered since.
Well specifically wiki tells me from '74 - '79 we had a Labour administration. Which I think covers "mid-70s".
Re header, gosh, terrible for Keir Starmer. He has a year to turn things around and I'd be lying if I said I'm confident he will. But let's see. I'm long of him at 7.6 to be next PM and I'm still expecting to be laying that back at much shorter well before the GE.
Anyway let's park Starmer, because I'd like to say a word about Boris Johnson for a change. It's depressing beyond measure that such a man sits astride English politics but sit astride English politics such a man doth sit. It’s the truth of the matter and it must be faced.
I hear the dissing of him that goes on. He’s lucky. People don’t really like him, it’s all vaccine bounce, or it’s Brexit. Plus the Foremain OGH thesis - ok he wins elections but look at the opponents, a fag end Ken Livingstone, the risible Jeremy Corbyn. Anyone could have beaten them.
I don’t buy this. Red Ken was a London icon and London is a Labour city. Johnson beat him then beat him again. Jeremy Corbyn was such a terrible candidate that in the GE of 2017 he racked up Labour’s best English vote share since the 97 landslide and came within a whisker of number ten. Yes, he’d become a whipping boy by GE19, but does anybody really think if Jeremy Hunt had won the Tory leadership (another Johnson electoral triumph, btw, right there) that he’d have managed anything close to the 80 seat majority that Johnson scored. Not a chance. 30 seats max.
And let’s not forget Johnson’s biggest election win of all, 23 June 2016, 52/48, against a certain David Cameron, super smooth, super confident PM of the time, fresh from a GE triumph of his own the year before, see-er off of the rampant Scots the year before that. DC knew he’d win until he heard Johnson had plumped for the other side. Then he started to worry and he was right to.
So there you go. It’s not a view I enjoy holding but it is my view. Boris Johnson IS the Heineken politician. He DOES reach the people and the parts that other Tories cannot reach. And those people and parts are perfectly situated for turning Tory votes into Tory seats in FPTP general elections.
I’m not as bearish on Labour for the next GE as many seem to be – sense there’s some herd thinking going on – but I confess here and now that I’d fancy their chances a lot more if they were facing any Tory leader bar Boris Johnson. The guy’s a menace.
Boris is racking up the Falklands Moments with Brexit and COVID: Things the opposition told him were impossible and he was hopelessly mishandling. The demented screeching from Owen Jones, amongst others, just made that side of the argument look dim. He's allowed to have curtains. COVID - a natural disaster - was always going to be chaotic as natural disasters are. He was never going to be punished by the electorate for that.
I also take chasing away the French with boats on local election day as a sign the gods, who are obviously Greek, still want him in place, to steward the UK through choppy waters and then finish him off however they choose. I don't think Keir is chosen for much at all.
OJ's 'demented screeching' = having the cheek to expose the insouciant complacency and rank incompetence that cost £50 billion pounds and 50,000 lives.
But, yes, on your main point, I agree. As well as the political gifts there's the destiny - aka luck. He's run the tables with it.
One example of many. The Brexit into Covid sequence. He got the big positive buzz of the former - with the choreographed Christmas Eve deal which Got It Done - and then the pandemic came along to blot out the dreary aftermath.
Off topic, why does Harry find the first amendment "baffling" ?
Because he's not very bright?
Because he has been convinced all his life that the UK press are a pack of uncontrolled snarling monsters out to exploit him and his family and he now finds that they are extremely controlled by our libel and other laws compared with the press in the US? A shattering of illusions.
If only he had a US wife who could have told him what the US Constitution says ........
He's an embarrassingly stupid man who has no real understanding of just how stupid he is.
As my mother said at the weekend; he got a B and a D at A level…and one of those was in art
Confirms Eton is overcharging parents?
Also, how easy must the entrance exam be? Or has Eton gone all Harrow and let in any kid of rich feckers?
Ludgrove and Eton both recommended he went to a different school. His grandmother (who appoints the Provost of Eton as her personal representative on the board and therefore has some sway) insisted. She wanted him close - this was shortly after Diana’s death - and she had him round to stay at her pad nearby most weekends
Connections eh.
How do we remove this unelected ruler?
It is an insult to millions of working class kids in the country who do not have these connections and cannot improve their lot in life.
We could elect a House of Commons who would repeal or amend the Act of Settlement 1701, which both varied and defined the line of succession, contrary, in fact, to the wishes of the arguably rightful monarch in the sense of hereditary succession. So succession to the throne and arguably retention of the throne is, in law, at the sufferance of Parliament, and, thus, not in fact hereditary, still less as of right. So are we not in theory if not form or substance, a republic?
Going further, since Parliament can make or unmake any law whatsoever including its own historic act, and in fact has continued to do so as recently as the Succession to the Crown Act 2013; were it tomorrow to appoint one Doug Seal and his heirs as King Douglas I, I would have no more or less technically legitimate claim to the throne than Elizabeth I.
While theoretically the Queen could withhold assent to such a course of action, it would not become law, but that would not necessarily detract from the principle, because Parliament has passed laws which have governed the succession by which that monarch took the throne; thus this merely highlights the existence of a poorly planned republic rather than the absence of one. In principle Parliament may be able to pass an ordinance; a form of act where Royal Assent is not sought. The constitutional power to do so is questionable but interesting.
Incidentally, the monarch might also theoretically pick a random member of Sinn Fein as Prime Minister or veto every single act of Parliament just for shits and giggles. But it wouldn’t, just as HMQ would not withhold consent from a change to the Act of Settlement.
There has never been a pure peaceful hereditary monarchy in the long run. Lots of the time the best qualified relative/claimant got it by a combination of men in grey suits and force (eg the tanist system). Force majeure often gets it - William I, Henry VII - with the hereditary idea being a legitimation method after the event.
Our current system derives directly from both conquest, however peaceful, (William III) and exclusion (no Catholics allowed), hence protestant George (direct descent from James I but way off being first in line) and parliament intervention - by way of abdication and abolition of male primogeniture (bumping Charlotte up the list).
Having said all that our beloved HM is a direct descendent of Alfred the Great, each step of which is known and recorded. And if she lives another three years will overtake Louis XIV for length of reign.
Après Elle le déluge ?
In all seriousness, if the Royal family is lucky Charles will predecease his mother. William looks a steadier hand, especially with Kate.
Off topic, why does Harry find the first amendment "baffling" ?
Because he's not very bright?
Because he has been convinced all his life that the UK press are a pack of uncontrolled snarling monsters out to exploit him and his family and he now finds that they are extremely controlled by our libel and other laws compared with the press in the US? A shattering of illusions.
If only he had a US wife who could have told him what the US Constitution says ........
He's an embarrassingly stupid man who has no real understanding of just how stupid he is.
As my mother said at the weekend; he got a B and a D at A level…and one of those was in art
Confirms Eton is overcharging parents?
Also, how easy must the entrance exam be? Or has Eton gone all Harrow and let in any kid of rich feckers?
Ludgrove and Eton both recommended he went to a different school. His grandmother (who appoints the Provost of Eton as her personal representative on the board and therefore has some sway) insisted. She wanted him close - this was shortly after Diana’s death - and she had him round to stay at her pad nearby most weekends
Connections eh.
How do we remove this unelected ruler?
It is an insult to millions of working class kids in the country who do not have these connections and cannot improve their lot in life.
Whether Harry went to Eton or Stowe would not have made the slightest difference to their life chances (or indeed his as he would be a multimillionaire through inheritance anyway), it was closing most of the grammar schools that reduced working class kids chances of getting into top universities and the top professions.
You have just reminded me why I am not a Conservative.
Selection at aged 11 is immoral. Wealthy parents paying for 11 plus tuition to pass the exam at the expense of smarter kids who can't afford that luxury.
I went to a great, properly funded comprehensive in the mid seventies. Students in my year were high achievers in later life. This was followed by a grammar school where the second (bottom) set students were referred to as "less able". These "less able" students were the council house kids who didn't make 5 gces. In my book if 30 children passed the 11 plus and yet failed to achieve a mere 5 O levels that proves the system failed.
Who was in charge in the mid-70s?
Mrs Thatcher for some of that period, she did great as she helped to smash grammar schools, and they haven't recovered since.
Well specifically wiki tells me from '74 - '79 we had a Labour administration. Which I think covers "mid-70s".
She was still Education Secretary for parts of 1974.
Re header, gosh, terrible for Keir Starmer. He has a year to turn things around and I'd be lying if I said I'm confident he will. But let's see. I'm long of him at 7.6 to be next PM and I'm still expecting to be laying that back at much shorter well before the GE.
Anyway let's park Starmer, because I'd like to say a word about Boris Johnson for a change. It's depressing beyond measure that such a man sits astride English politics but sit astride English politics such a man doth sit. It’s the truth of the matter and it must be faced.
I hear the dissing of him that goes on. He’s lucky. People don’t really like him, it’s all vaccine bounce, or it’s Brexit. Plus the Foremain OGH thesis - ok he wins elections but look at the opponents, a fag end Ken Livingstone, the risible Jeremy Corbyn. Anyone could have beaten them.
I don’t buy this. Red Ken was a London icon and London is a Labour city. Johnson beat him then beat him again. Jeremy Corbyn was such a terrible candidate that in the GE of 2017 he racked up Labour’s best English vote share since the 97 landslide and came within a whisker of number ten. Yes, he’d become a whipping boy by GE19, but does anybody really think if Jeremy Hunt had won the Tory leadership (another Johnson electoral triumph, btw, right there) that he’d have managed anything close to the 80 seat majority that Johnson scored. Not a chance. 30 seats max.
And let’s not forget Johnson’s biggest election win of all, 23 June 2016, 52/48, against a certain David Cameron, super smooth, super confident PM of the time, fresh from a GE triumph of his own the year before, see-er off of the rampant Scots the year before that. DC knew he’d win until he heard Johnson had plumped for the other side. Then he started to worry and he was right to.
So there you go. It’s not a view I enjoy holding but it is my view. Boris Johnson IS the Heineken politician. He DOES reach the people and the parts that other Tories cannot reach. And those people and parts are perfectly situated for turning Tory votes into Tory seats in FPTP general elections.
I’m not as bearish on Labour for the next GE as many seem to be – sense there’s some herd thinking going on – but I confess here and now that I’d fancy their chances a lot more if they were facing any Tory leader bar Boris Johnson. The guy’s a menace.
You said it
Yep. Know thine enemy.
Saw you trying to throw your big grand around on PT btw. It's a fair price you ask for - evens on a Con majority at the next GE is in line with Betfair - but I'll pass. I price it as an odds on shot. Guess you do too.
I am as below atm -
Con maj 60% Hung parl 33% Lab maj 7%
And there was me thinking that you were being realistic about Labour’s predicament.
But my odds are more bearish (for Lab) than current Betfair!
You're one of these 'herders', David, are you, giving the GE to the Cons already?
Re header, gosh, terrible for Keir Starmer. He has a year to turn things around and I'd be lying if I said I'm confident he will. But let's see. I'm long of him at 7.6 to be next PM and I'm still expecting to be laying that back at much shorter well before the GE.
Anyway let's park Starmer, because I'd like to say a word about Boris Johnson for a change. It's depressing beyond measure that such a man sits astride English politics but sit astride English politics such a man doth sit. It’s the truth of the matter and it must be faced.
I hear the dissing of him that goes on. He’s lucky. People don’t really like him, it’s all vaccine bounce, or it’s Brexit. Plus the Foremain OGH thesis - ok he wins elections but look at the opponents, a fag end Ken Livingstone, the risible Jeremy Corbyn. Anyone could have beaten them.
I don’t buy this. Red Ken was a London icon and London is a Labour city. Johnson beat him then beat him again. Jeremy Corbyn was such a terrible candidate that in the GE of 2017 he racked up Labour’s best English vote share since the 97 landslide and came within a whisker of number ten. Yes, he’d become a whipping boy by GE19, but does anybody really think if Jeremy Hunt had won the Tory leadership (another Johnson electoral triumph, btw, right there) that he’d have managed anything close to the 80 seat majority that Johnson scored. Not a chance. 30 seats max.
And let’s not forget Johnson’s biggest election win of all, 23 June 2016, 52/48, against a certain David Cameron, super smooth, super confident PM of the time, fresh from a GE triumph of his own the year before, see-er off of the rampant Scots the year before that. DC knew he’d win until he heard Johnson had plumped for the other side. Then he started to worry and he was right to.
So there you go. It’s not a view I enjoy holding but it is my view. Boris Johnson IS the Heineken politician. He DOES reach the people and the parts that other Tories cannot reach. And those people and parts are perfectly situated for turning Tory votes into Tory seats in FPTP general elections.
I’m not as bearish on Labour for the next GE as many seem to be – sense there’s some herd thinking going on – but I confess here and now that I’d fancy their chances a lot more if they were facing any Tory leader bar Boris Johnson. The guy’s a menace.
Labour deluded if they don't recognise Boris Johnson is a formidable opponent who will be very tough to shift.
Unpopular opinion among left-wing circles: Boris Johnson is actually pretty funny. But why can't Labour find a politician who can tell a joke or two?
Mexican Pete has advanced a Benny Hill thesis that I think has merit. There's some Tommy Cooper in there too for me. As with both of those 2 titans of titter, it's not what they say, there's precious little wit, it's in the slapstick tomfoolery tradition. Quite a thing for a politician to have.
Also unique to him, so I don't think Labour should chase it. But, yes, we do need to see some relaxation and humour from Keir Starmer. The rub is, you need confidence for that, and it's hard to be confident when everyone's on your back telling you to shape up. My advice to Keir, should he come to me, would be to chill and start acting like he's miles ahead in the polls not miles behind.
The mannerisms, particularly the full handed salute is pure Benny Hill. I thought Benny Hill was utter s***e, but wasn't he the most popular celebrity on ITV for most of the 1970s?
One could imagine Benny Hill caught on a zipwire in a hard had waving two union Flags. Hilarious slapstick comedy for those who like that sort of thing. Cooper, however was far more sophisticated.
Reading the tweets of Dominic Cummings today and some of his other pronouncements I realise who he reminds me of.
He's clearly the smartest guy in the room.
In fairness, I suspect that he often is. But he is also an iconoclast. A sociopath. An egoist. Just bloody dangerous to be let loose on anything that is going to be around longer than a campaign. Bringing him into Number 10 was brave in the Yes Minister sense.
Speaking as someone who is often the smartest person in the room you all need oodles of modesty to go with it, otherwise you end up looking like a prick.
Quite. Absent your legendary modesty, you'd be insufferable.
Off topic, why does Harry find the first amendment "baffling" ?
Because he's not very bright?
Because he has been convinced all his life that the UK press are a pack of uncontrolled snarling monsters out to exploit him and his family and he now finds that they are extremely controlled by our libel and other laws compared with the press in the US? A shattering of illusions.
If only he had a US wife who could have told him what the US Constitution says ........
He's an embarrassingly stupid man who has no real understanding of just how stupid he is.
As my mother said at the weekend; he got a B and a D at A level…and one of those was in art
Harry inherited £10 million from Diana, so he knew he would be able to live a top 1% lifestyle no matter what his grades were and even if he no longer receives any Sovereign Grant or Duchy of Cornwall funds he still can
I don’t think his poor grades were the result of a lack of effort…
Well he did inherit Diana's IQ too to be fair, not just her millions
I recall Private Eye published a clerihew, which went something like:
Lady Diana Spencer Was not a member of Mensa. If she’d been brighter, She wouldn’t have married the blighter.
Indeed. First rule of being in someone else's country is that you slag off their traditions and institutions at your peril. He is showing the poor judgement of a man who has always had his judgements made for him.
Silly of him to attack the US press, especially if any of the rumours about what they have in their cuttings library about his wife are true.
Also stupid given how easy they've been going on the both of them. Why antagonise them? They've literally been signal boosting all of their crap for months.
You guys actually defending something as insane as what the First Amendment has become? That would be pretty clueless about America, because what held it together for so long is putting America at the top of the list above all,else, now the throughly dangerous First Amendment is burning through that putting America first like smouldering brimstone.
the First Amendment has mutated into free speech idolatry. Free speech has been placed on so high a pedestal that it is almost automatically privileged over privacy, fair trials, equality and public health, even protecting depictions of animal cruelty and violent video games sold to children. At the same time, dissent is unduly stifled and religious minorities are burdened. The First Amendment benefits the powerful at the expense of the vulnerable. By contrast, other Western democracies provide more reasonable accommodations between free speech and other values though their protections of dissent, and religious minorities are also inadequate.
Harry’s absolutely spot on. I feel embarrassed for the lot of you.
Off topic, why does Harry find the first amendment "baffling" ?
Because he's not very bright?
Because he has been convinced all his life that the UK press are a pack of uncontrolled snarling monsters out to exploit him and his family and he now finds that they are extremely controlled by our libel and other laws compared with the press in the US? A shattering of illusions.
If only he had a US wife who could have told him what the US Constitution says ........
He's an embarrassingly stupid man who has no real understanding of just how stupid he is.
As my mother said at the weekend; he got a B and a D at A level…and one of those was in art
Confirms Eton is overcharging parents?
Also, how easy must the entrance exam be? Or has Eton gone all Harrow and let in any kid of rich feckers?
Ludgrove and Eton both recommended he went to a different school. His grandmother (who appoints the Provost of Eton as her personal representative on the board and therefore has some sway) insisted. She wanted him close - this was shortly after Diana’s death - and she had him round to stay at her pad nearby most weekends
Connections eh.
How do we remove this unelected ruler?
It is an insult to millions of working class kids in the country who do not have these connections and cannot improve their lot in life.
Whether Harry went to Eton or Stowe would not have made the slightest difference to their life chances (or indeed his as he would be a multimillionaire through inheritance anyway), it was closing most of the grammar schools that reduced working class kids chances of getting into top universities and the top professions.
Tell that to Ben Houchen.
He's a Northumbria University Law School graduate.
His school was a former grammar school
Aye, that former grammar school got him into that prestigious university and it's done him no harm at all.
Also his school changed from a grammar school into a comprehensive 9 years before he was even born.
Most of the best comprehensives and academies used to be the grammar schools in their area, they still carry something of the ethos.
For example the best state school in Epping Forest, the Davenant, was a grammar until 1980 and is now an academy
Re header, gosh, terrible for Keir Starmer. He has a year to turn things around and I'd be lying if I said I'm confident he will. But let's see. I'm long of him at 7.6 to be next PM and I'm still expecting to be laying that back at much shorter well before the GE.
Anyway let's park Starmer, because I'd like to say a word about Boris Johnson for a change. It's depressing beyond measure that such a man sits astride English politics but sit astride English politics such a man doth sit. It’s the truth of the matter and it must be faced.
I hear the dissing of him that goes on. He’s lucky. People don’t really like him, it’s all vaccine bounce, or it’s Brexit. Plus the Foremain OGH thesis - ok he wins elections but look at the opponents, a fag end Ken Livingstone, the risible Jeremy Corbyn. Anyone could have beaten them.
I don’t buy this. Red Ken was a London icon and London is a Labour city. Johnson beat him then beat him again. Jeremy Corbyn was such a terrible candidate that in the GE of 2017 he racked up Labour’s best English vote share since the 97 landslide and came within a whisker of number ten. Yes, he’d become a whipping boy by GE19, but does anybody really think if Jeremy Hunt had won the Tory leadership (another Johnson electoral triumph, btw, right there) that he’d have managed anything close to the 80 seat majority that Johnson scored. Not a chance. 30 seats max.
And let’s not forget Johnson’s biggest election win of all, 23 June 2016, 52/48, against a certain David Cameron, super smooth, super confident PM of the time, fresh from a GE triumph of his own the year before, see-er off of the rampant Scots the year before that. DC knew he’d win until he heard Johnson had plumped for the other side. Then he started to worry and he was right to.
So there you go. It’s not a view I enjoy holding but it is my view. Boris Johnson IS the Heineken politician. He DOES reach the people and the parts that other Tories cannot reach. And those people and parts are perfectly situated for turning Tory votes into Tory seats in FPTP general elections.
I’m not as bearish on Labour for the next GE as many seem to be – sense there’s some herd thinking going on – but I confess here and now that I’d fancy their chances a lot more if they were facing any Tory leader bar Boris Johnson. The guy’s a menace.
You said it
Yep. Know thine enemy.
Saw you trying to throw your big grand around on PT btw. It's a fair price you ask for - evens on a Con majority at the next GE is in line with Betfair - but I'll pass. I price it as an odds on shot. Guess you do too.
I am as below atm -
Con maj 60% Hung parl 33% Lab maj 7%
And there was me thinking that you were being realistic about Labour’s predicament.
But my odds are more bearish (for Lab) than current Betfair!
You're one of these 'herders', David, are you, giving the GE to the Cons already?
I think that its very likely that there will be a Conservative majority given a starting base of 82 (and counting). I think it is possible that we could end up with a hung Parliament. I really struggle to conceive of circumstances where a Labour majority would be possible.
If Boris orders pubs and restaurants to close down again because he fucked up over the Indian variant, I will not be responsible for my actions.
Enough.
It's highly unlikely, but not impossible.
The reason the government can't tell you what will happen in June is the sheer number of cases of the new variant which came in from India. It could be a while before there's sufficient data to determine whether it's showing increased transmissibility, or if the sudden large number of cases is just an artefact of allowing travellers in from a country experiencing a pandemic peak.
The government delayed even once it knew there was a new strain and despite all the terrible scenes from India. It is Italy all over again. It is the Kent strain all over again.
That is why we have a problem now. And if it leads to continuing lockdown / restrictions and destruction of businesses, the government should be crucified for its negligence.
I'm reasonably sure it's not Italy all over again, but it was indeed irresponsible.
Yeah there's no need to do it, the safety first approach makes the most sense at the moment. Our domestic unlockdown matter the most at the moment. Keeping the border open seems like a really unnecessary risk.
A small mark of Labour's incompetence was their spokesman on R4 this morning describing it as "catastrophic", without even the qualification 'potentially'. They really don't understand how to oppose.
Reading the tweets of Dominic Cummings today and some of his other pronouncements I realise who he reminds me of.
He's clearly the smartest guy in the room.
In fairness, I suspect that he often is. But he is also an iconoclast. A sociopath. An egoist. Just bloody dangerous to be let loose on anything that is going to be around longer than a campaign. Bringing him into Number 10 was brave in the Yes Minister sense.
Speaking as someone who is often the smartest person in the room you all need oodles of modesty to go with it, otherwise you end up looking like a prick.
Quite. Absent your legendary modesty, you'd be insufferable.
The biggest mistake really clever people is just that they are brilliant in one field it doesn't mean they are automatically an expert in another field, see Lord Sumption as the perfect example of that.
One of the better pieces of advice my first boss ever gave me was 'don't try and be an expert in something you're not, don't wing it, pass it on to someone who is.'
Indeed. First rule of being in someone else's country is that you slag off their traditions and institutions at your peril. He is showing the poor judgement of a man who has always had his judgements made for him.
Silly of him to attack the US press, especially if any of the rumours about what they have in their cuttings library about his wife are true.
Also stupid given how easy they've been going on the both of them. Why antagonise them? They've literally been signal boosting all of their crap for months.
You guys actually defending something as insane as what the First Amendment has become? That would be pretty clueless about America, because what held it together for so long is putting America at the top of the list above all,else, now the throughly dangerous First Amendment is burning through that putting America first like smouldering brimstone.
the First Amendment has mutated into free speech idolatry. Free speech has been placed on so high a pedestal that it is almost automatically privileged over privacy, fair trials, equality and public health, even protecting depictions of animal cruelty and violent video games sold to children. At the same time, dissent is unduly stifled and religious minorities are burdened. The First Amendment benefits the powerful at the expense of the vulnerable. By contrast, other Western democracies provide more reasonable accommodations between free speech and other values though their protections of dissent, and religious minorities are also inadequate.
Harry’s absolutely spot on. I feel embarrassed for the lot of you.
Thank you for explaining in one paragraph why the First Amendment is a good idea.
Off topic, why does Harry find the first amendment "baffling" ?
Because he's not very bright?
Because he has been convinced all his life that the UK press are a pack of uncontrolled snarling monsters out to exploit him and his family and he now finds that they are extremely controlled by our libel and other laws compared with the press in the US? A shattering of illusions.
If only he had a US wife who could have told him what the US Constitution says ........
He's an embarrassingly stupid man who has no real understanding of just how stupid he is.
As my mother said at the weekend; he got a B and a D at A level…and one of those was in art
Confirms Eton is overcharging parents?
Also, how easy must the entrance exam be? Or has Eton gone all Harrow and let in any kid of rich feckers?
Ludgrove and Eton both recommended he went to a different school. His grandmother (who appoints the Provost of Eton as her personal representative on the board and therefore has some sway) insisted. She wanted him close - this was shortly after Diana’s death - and she had him round to stay at her pad nearby most weekends
Connections eh.
How do we remove this unelected ruler?
It is an insult to millions of working class kids in the country who do not have these connections and cannot improve their lot in life.
Whether Harry went to Eton or Stowe would not have made the slightest difference to their life chances (or indeed his as he would be a multimillionaire through inheritance anyway), it was closing most of the grammar schools that reduced working class kids chances of getting into top universities and the top professions.
Tell that to Ben Houchen.
He's a Northumbria University Law School graduate.
His school was a former grammar school
Aye, that former grammar school got him into that prestigious university and it's done him no harm at all.
Also his school changed from a grammar school into a comprehensive 9 years before he was even born.
Most of the best comprehensives used to be the grammar schools in their area still
Right, but what's your point?
Are you saying that good schools are good schools, regardless of whether they are grammar schools or not? Because it seems like that's what you're saying.
Reading the tweets of Dominic Cummings today and some of his other pronouncements I realise who he reminds me of.
He's clearly the smartest guy in the room.
In fairness, I suspect that he often is. But he is also an iconoclast. A sociopath. An egoist. Just bloody dangerous to be let loose on anything that is going to be around longer than a campaign. Bringing him into Number 10 was brave in the Yes Minister sense.
Speaking as someone who is often the smartest person in the room you all need oodles of modesty to go with it, otherwise you end up looking like a prick.
Quite. Absent your legendary modesty, you'd be insufferable.
The biggest mistake really clever people is just that they are brilliant in one field it doesn't mean they are automatically an expert in another field, see Lord Sumption as the perfect example of that.
One of the better pieces of advice my first boss ever gave me was 'don't try and be an expert in something you're not, don't wing it, pass it on to someone who is.'
Maybe, although doing something you're not an expert in is how you learn new things.
If Boris orders pubs and restaurants to close down again because he fucked up over the Indian variant, I will not be responsible for my actions.
Enough.
It's highly unlikely, but not impossible.
The reason the government can't tell you what will happen in June is the sheer number of cases of the new variant which came in from India. It could be a while before there's sufficient data to determine whether it's showing increased transmissibility, or if the sudden large number of cases is just an artefact of allowing travellers in from a country experiencing a pandemic peak.
The government delayed even once it knew there was a new strain and despite all the terrible scenes from India. It is Italy all over again. It is the Kent strain all over again.
That is why we have a problem now. And if it leads to continuing lockdown / restrictions and destruction of businesses, the government should be crucified for its negligence.
I'm reasonably sure it's not Italy all over again, but it was indeed irresponsible.
Yeah there's no need to do it, the safety first approach makes the most sense at the moment. Our domestic unlockdown matter the most at the moment. Keeping the border open seems like a really unnecessary risk.
A small mark of Labour's incompetence was their spokesman on R4 this morning describing it as "catastrophic", without even the qualification 'potentially'. They really don't understand how to oppose.
Off topic, why does Harry find the first amendment "baffling" ?
Because he's not very bright?
Because he has been convinced all his life that the UK press are a pack of uncontrolled snarling monsters out to exploit him and his family and he now finds that they are extremely controlled by our libel and other laws compared with the press in the US? A shattering of illusions.
If only he had a US wife who could have told him what the US Constitution says ........
He's an embarrassingly stupid man who has no real understanding of just how stupid he is.
As my mother said at the weekend; he got a B and a D at A level…and one of those was in art
Confirms Eton is overcharging parents?
Also, how easy must the entrance exam be? Or has Eton gone all Harrow and let in any kid of rich feckers?
Ludgrove and Eton both recommended he went to a different school. His grandmother (who appoints the Provost of Eton as her personal representative on the board and therefore has some sway) insisted. She wanted him close - this was shortly after Diana’s death - and she had him round to stay at her pad nearby most weekends
Connections eh.
How do we remove this unelected ruler?
It is an insult to millions of working class kids in the country who do not have these connections and cannot improve their lot in life.
Whether Harry went to Eton or Stowe would not have made the slightest difference to their life chances (or indeed his as he would be a multimillionaire through inheritance anyway), it was closing most of the grammar schools that reduced working class kids chances of getting into top universities and the top professions.
Tell that to Ben Houchen.
He's a Northumbria University Law School graduate.
His school was a former grammar school
Aye, that former grammar school got him into that prestigious university and it's done him no harm at all.
Also his school changed from a grammar school into a comprehensive 9 years before he was even born.
Most of the best comprehensives used to be the grammar schools in their area still
Right, but what's your point?
Are you saying that good schools are good schools, regardless of whether they are grammar schools or not? Because it seems like that's what you're saying.
Now they select by ability to pay [house prices] instead of exams at 11.
The DCMS has just published its performing arts guidance for stage 3 of the covid restrictions in England.
The restrictions on non-professional groups were expected to be the same as last autumn - rehearsals ok provided everyone socially distanced.
Whilst this guidance remains in general, for singing there is now a specific limit of 6 people indoors (30 outdoors). It is therefore impractical for most amateur choirs to recommence rehearsals in person.
Reading the tweets of Dominic Cummings today and some of his other pronouncements I realise who he reminds me of.
He's clearly the smartest guy in the room.
In fairness, I suspect that he often is. But he is also an iconoclast. A sociopath. An egoist. Just bloody dangerous to be let loose on anything that is going to be around longer than a campaign. Bringing him into Number 10 was brave in the Yes Minister sense.
Speaking as someone who is often the smartest person in the room you all need oodles of modesty to go with it, otherwise you end up looking like a prick.
Quite. Absent your legendary modesty, you'd be insufferable.
The biggest mistake really clever people is just that they are brilliant in one field it doesn't mean they are automatically an expert in another field, see Lord Sumption as the perfect example of that.
One of the better pieces of advice my first boss ever gave me was 'don't try and be an expert in something you're not, don't wing it, pass it on to someone who is.'
Off topic, why does Harry find the first amendment "baffling" ?
Because he's not very bright?
Because he has been convinced all his life that the UK press are a pack of uncontrolled snarling monsters out to exploit him and his family and he now finds that they are extremely controlled by our libel and other laws compared with the press in the US? A shattering of illusions.
If only he had a US wife who could have told him what the US Constitution says ........
He's an embarrassingly stupid man who has no real understanding of just how stupid he is.
As my mother said at the weekend; he got a B and a D at A level…and one of those was in art
Confirms Eton is overcharging parents?
Also, how easy must the entrance exam be? Or has Eton gone all Harrow and let in any kid of rich feckers?
You have to pass an entrance exam to get into Harrow too, Harrow may not be as academic as Eton or Winchester or Westminster but it is not Stowe either (and even Stowe requires 55% average at Common Entrance)
I suppose Q1 on the paper is "Can your parents afford the fees?"
The answer being no if your parent's initials are BJ
He's on his uppers! Which just plays into the persona, I'm afraid to say. With every mishap the legend grows. I'm at a loss right now tbh. We just have to wait it out until his pants fall down in a way that can't be construed as funny. Maybe you guys can do it for us. Lull him into a Sindy ref next year, or the year after, and hand him his gilded girthy ass.
Indeed. First rule of being in someone else's country is that you slag off their traditions and institutions at your peril. He is showing the poor judgement of a man who has always had his judgements made for him.
Silly of him to attack the US press, especially if any of the rumours about what they have in their cuttings library about his wife are true.
Also stupid given how easy they've been going on the both of them. Why antagonise them? They've literally been signal boosting all of their crap for months.
You guys actually defending something as insane as what the First Amendment has become? That would be pretty clueless about America, because what held it together for so long is putting America at the top of the list above all,else, now the throughly dangerous First Amendment is burning through that putting America first like smouldering brimstone.
the First Amendment has mutated into free speech idolatry. Free speech has been placed on so high a pedestal that it is almost automatically privileged over privacy, fair trials, equality and public health, even protecting depictions of animal cruelty and violent video games sold to children. At the same time, dissent is unduly stifled and religious minorities are burdened. The First Amendment benefits the powerful at the expense of the vulnerable. By contrast, other Western democracies provide more reasonable accommodations between free speech and other values though their protections of dissent, and religious minorities are also inadequate.
Harry’s absolutely spot on. I feel embarrassed for the lot of you.
Thank you for explaining in one paragraph why the First Amendment is a good idea.
Free Speech as described in the First Amendment is a great idea. If only America pursued it. Given that you get fired and cancelled in America for stating mere scientific truths, let alone opinions, it is sadly not the case that they protect free speech. Not any more
Reading the tweets of Dominic Cummings today and some of his other pronouncements I realise who he reminds me of.
He's clearly the smartest guy in the room.
In fairness, I suspect that he often is. But he is also an iconoclast. A sociopath. An egoist. Just bloody dangerous to be let loose on anything that is going to be around longer than a campaign. Bringing him into Number 10 was brave in the Yes Minister sense.
Speaking as someone who is often the smartest person in the room you all need oodles of modesty to go with it, otherwise you end up looking like a prick.
My favourite Judge, the late and great Lord Macfadyen, who died far too young, had a lovely phrase. He would think for a moment and then turn to you and say, "Perhaps its me, but...." and then completely demolish your argument with courtesy and charm.
Off topic, why does Harry find the first amendment "baffling" ?
Because he's not very bright?
Because he has been convinced all his life that the UK press are a pack of uncontrolled snarling monsters out to exploit him and his family and he now finds that they are extremely controlled by our libel and other laws compared with the press in the US? A shattering of illusions.
If only he had a US wife who could have told him what the US Constitution says ........
He's an embarrassingly stupid man who has no real understanding of just how stupid he is.
As my mother said at the weekend; he got a B and a D at A level…and one of those was in art
Confirms Eton is overcharging parents?
Also, how easy must the entrance exam be? Or has Eton gone all Harrow and let in any kid of rich feckers?
Ludgrove and Eton both recommended he went to a different school. His grandmother (who appoints the Provost of Eton as her personal representative on the board and therefore has some sway) insisted. She wanted him close - this was shortly after Diana’s death - and she had him round to stay at her pad nearby most weekends
Connections eh.
How do we remove this unelected ruler?
It is an insult to millions of working class kids in the country who do not have these connections and cannot improve their lot in life.
Whether Harry went to Eton or Stowe would not have made the slightest difference to their life chances (or indeed his as he would be a multimillionaire through inheritance anyway), it was closing most of the grammar schools that reduced working class kids chances of getting into top universities and the top professions.
Tell that to Ben Houchen.
He's a Northumbria University Law School graduate.
His school was a former grammar school
Aye, that former grammar school got him into that prestigious university and it's done him no harm at all.
Also his school changed from a grammar school into a comprehensive 9 years before he was even born.
Most of the best comprehensives used to be the grammar schools in their area still
Right, but what's your point?
Are you saying that good schools are good schools, regardless of whether they are grammar schools or not? Because it seems like that's what you're saying.
I am saying the best state schools in non selective areas still tend to carry something of the grammar school ethos and reputation they had before eg the best state school in Epping Forest, the Davenant, is a Church of England academy but was a grammar school until 1980
Indeed. First rule of being in someone else's country is that you slag off their traditions and institutions at your peril. He is showing the poor judgement of a man who has always had his judgements made for him.
Silly of him to attack the US press, especially if any of the rumours about what they have in their cuttings library about his wife are true.
Also stupid given how easy they've been going on the both of them. Why antagonise them? They've literally been signal boosting all of their crap for months.
You guys actually defending something as insane as what the First Amendment has become? That would be pretty clueless about America, because what held it together for so long is putting America at the top of the list above all,else, now the throughly dangerous First Amendment is burning through that putting America first like smouldering brimstone.
the First Amendment has mutated into free speech idolatry. Free speech has been placed on so high a pedestal that it is almost automatically privileged over privacy, fair trials, equality and public health, even protecting depictions of animal cruelty and violent video games sold to children. At the same time, dissent is unduly stifled and religious minorities are burdened. The First Amendment benefits the powerful at the expense of the vulnerable. By contrast, other Western democracies provide more reasonable accommodations between free speech and other values though their protections of dissent, and religious minorities are also inadequate.
Harry’s absolutely spot on. I feel embarrassed for the lot of you.
Thank you for explaining in one paragraph why the First Amendment is a good idea.
Free Speech as described in the First Amendment is a great idea. If only America pursued it. Given that you get fired and cancelled in America for stating mere scientific truths, let alone opinions, it is sadly not the case that they protect free speech. Not any more
The First Amendment protects free speech in law, not the societal consequences of free speech, no?
Reading the tweets of Dominic Cummings today and some of his other pronouncements I realise who he reminds me of.
He's clearly the smartest guy in the room.
In fairness, I suspect that he often is. But he is also an iconoclast. A sociopath. An egoist. Just bloody dangerous to be let loose on anything that is going to be around longer than a campaign. Bringing him into Number 10 was brave in the Yes Minister sense.
Speaking as someone who is often the smartest person in the room you all need oodles of modesty to go with it, otherwise you end up looking like a prick.
Quite. Absent your legendary modesty, you'd be insufferable.
The biggest mistake really clever people is just that they are brilliant in one field it doesn't mean they are automatically an expert in another field, see Lord Sumption as the perfect example of that.
One of the better pieces of advice my first boss ever gave me was 'don't try and be an expert in something you're not, don't wing it, pass it on to someone who is.'
What if you're not an expert in anything?
Then you're the President of the EU.
Actually that's not correct - the current EU President is an expert on screwing up in senior governmental jobs. With a proven rack record.
I am informed that Labour actually got a swing from the Cons of 2.2% in the locals. What do they need to win a General, is it 3.3%?. The left of centre vote held up very well, of course the right wing media will not tell you this, neither will TV news, it is not a story for them. Lib Dems got 17%, which is pretty good and the Greens must be in double figures.
To win a majority Labour need a huge swing of 10.52%, however they can deprive the Tories of their majority and get a hung parliament with a swing of just 3.84% yes and this time the DUP may refuse to support the Tories until the Irish Sea border is removed, especially with Poots now in charge
This situation is of extreme interest. The position is that no-one at all (even the DUP) can be relied on to play nicely with the Tories; and that everyone else (leave aside DUP and SF) is some sort of centre left, where you could not say it is impossible they will play nicely, but cannot say it is certain. The LDs hate being in power and have burned their fingers; the SNP have a shared centrist progressive agenda with Labour but part company on the one overriding issue. But, as with Millwall, they all hate the Tories.
Which means there is a huge area of possible result which the electorate traditionally don't much like: the zone of uncertainty - anything from a UNS (!!) of about 3.3-10 points - exactly the area you would expect a result probably to be.
Which plays, I think, to the advantage of the Tories, who can play every sort of 'better the devil you know' than 'the devil you can't even work out what shape it could be, or if it can run a country at all or get the numbers or find a mandate'.
BTW Mr Poots (a character from Dickens, Trollope, Grossman, Jerome K Jerome and Edmund Gosse all rolled into one) will be keen to tell what he doesn't want. Will be be any keener than his predecessors to propose a workable solution? Thought not.
Off topic, why does Harry find the first amendment "baffling" ?
Because he's not very bright?
Because he has been convinced all his life that the UK press are a pack of uncontrolled snarling monsters out to exploit him and his family and he now finds that they are extremely controlled by our libel and other laws compared with the press in the US? A shattering of illusions.
If only he had a US wife who could have told him what the US Constitution says ........
He's an embarrassingly stupid man who has no real understanding of just how stupid he is.
As my mother said at the weekend; he got a B and a D at A level…and one of those was in art
Confirms Eton is overcharging parents?
Also, how easy must the entrance exam be? Or has Eton gone all Harrow and let in any kid of rich feckers?
Ludgrove and Eton both recommended he went to a different school. His grandmother (who appoints the Provost of Eton as her personal representative on the board and therefore has some sway) insisted. She wanted him close - this was shortly after Diana’s death - and she had him round to stay at her pad nearby most weekends
Connections eh.
How do we remove this unelected ruler?
It is an insult to millions of working class kids in the country who do not have these connections and cannot improve their lot in life.
Whether Harry went to Eton or Stowe would not have made the slightest difference to their life chances (or indeed his as he would be a multimillionaire through inheritance anyway), it was closing most of the grammar schools that reduced working class kids chances of getting into top universities and the top professions.
Tell that to Ben Houchen.
He's a Northumbria University Law School graduate.
His school was a former grammar school
Aye, that former grammar school got him into that prestigious university and it's done him no harm at all.
Also his school changed from a grammar school into a comprehensive 9 years before he was even born.
Most of the best comprehensives used to be the grammar schools in their area still
Right, but what's your point?
Are you saying that good schools are good schools, regardless of whether they are grammar schools or not? Because it seems like that's what you're saying.
I am saying the best state schools in non selective areas still tend to carry something of the grammar school ethos and reputation they had before eg the best state school in Epping Forest, the Davenant, is a Church of England academy but was a grammar school until 1980
Great — so we agree grammar school status is not required to be a good school. Cool.
Off topic, why does Harry find the first amendment "baffling" ?
Because he's not very bright?
Because he has been convinced all his life that the UK press are a pack of uncontrolled snarling monsters out to exploit him and his family and he now finds that they are extremely controlled by our libel and other laws compared with the press in the US? A shattering of illusions.
If only he had a US wife who could have told him what the US Constitution says ........
He's an embarrassingly stupid man who has no real understanding of just how stupid he is.
As my mother said at the weekend; he got a B and a D at A level…and one of those was in art
Confirms Eton is overcharging parents?
Also, how easy must the entrance exam be? Or has Eton gone all Harrow and let in any kid of rich feckers?
You have to pass an entrance exam to get into Harrow too, Harrow may not be as academic as Eton or Winchester or Westminster but it is not Stowe either (and even Stowe requires 55% average at Common Entrance)
Did not David Cameron once muse that Eton was becoming too academically intensive and it was the thick sons of gentleman farmers and the aristocracy who made the place?
Eton is catching up with Winchester and Westminster, which have always traditionally been the most academically intense of the top rank public schools if slightly less socially exclusive than Eton, with scholarships and highly competitive entrance.
Before Cameron of course went to Eton as befits his class, along with Boris, even if their brains did not perhaps match those of Winchester educated Sunak
The last debating competition my son was in at Durham had 8 teams from Eton, one of which ultimately won. They haven’t given up on teaching future cabinet ministers just yet.
Oxbridge has become very wary of taking Etonians (one per college per year) so for those who miss out Durham, Exeter or St. Andrews remain popular choices. My nephew ended up at Durham.
Plenty of Etonians at Bristol too
Yep and Universities that they might have thought twice about previously such as Newcastle and Leeds. Very rah those now.
Newcastle has always been popular with them: party city!
Recall that Henderson Hall used to be known as Hooray Henderson Hall because of the number of old Etonians who were resident.
Reading the tweets of Dominic Cummings today and some of his other pronouncements I realise who he reminds me of.
He's clearly the smartest guy in the room.
In fairness, I suspect that he often is. But he is also an iconoclast. A sociopath. An egoist. Just bloody dangerous to be let loose on anything that is going to be around longer than a campaign. Bringing him into Number 10 was brave in the Yes Minister sense.
Speaking as someone who is often the smartest person in the room you all need oodles of modesty to go with it, otherwise you end up looking like a prick.
Quite. Absent your legendary modesty, you'd be insufferable.
The biggest mistake really clever people is just that they are brilliant in one field it doesn't mean they are automatically an expert in another field, see Lord Sumption as the perfect example of that.
One of the better pieces of advice my first boss ever gave me was 'don't try and be an expert in something you're not, don't wing it, pass it on to someone who is.'
What if you're not an expert in anything?
Then you're the President of the EU.
Actually that's not correct - the current EU President is an expert on screwing up in senior governmental jobs. With a proven rack record.
Off topic, why does Harry find the first amendment "baffling" ?
Because he's not very bright?
Because he has been convinced all his life that the UK press are a pack of uncontrolled snarling monsters out to exploit him and his family and he now finds that they are extremely controlled by our libel and other laws compared with the press in the US? A shattering of illusions.
If only he had a US wife who could have told him what the US Constitution says ........
He's an embarrassingly stupid man who has no real understanding of just how stupid he is.
As my mother said at the weekend; he got a B and a D at A level…and one of those was in art
Confirms Eton is overcharging parents?
Also, how easy must the entrance exam be? Or has Eton gone all Harrow and let in any kid of rich feckers?
Ludgrove and Eton both recommended he went to a different school. His grandmother (who appoints the Provost of Eton as her personal representative on the board and therefore has some sway) insisted. She wanted him close - this was shortly after Diana’s death - and she had him round to stay at her pad nearby most weekends
Connections eh.
How do we remove this unelected ruler?
It is an insult to millions of working class kids in the country who do not have these connections and cannot improve their lot in life.
Whether Harry went to Eton or Stowe would not have made the slightest difference to their life chances (or indeed his as he would be a multimillionaire through inheritance anyway), it was closing most of the grammar schools that reduced working class kids chances of getting into top universities and the top professions.
Tell that to Ben Houchen.
He's a Northumbria University Law School graduate.
His school was a former grammar school
Aye, that former grammar school got him into that prestigious university and it's done him no harm at all.
Also his school changed from a grammar school into a comprehensive 9 years before he was even born.
Most of the best comprehensives used to be the grammar schools in their area still
Right, but what's your point?
Are you saying that good schools are good schools, regardless of whether they are grammar schools or not? Because it seems like that's what you're saying.
I am saying the best state schools in non selective areas still tend to carry something of the grammar school ethos and reputation they had before eg the best state school in Epping Forest, the Davenant, is a Church of England academy but was a grammar school until 1980
Great — so we agree grammar school status is not required to be a good school. Cool.
No, the best state schools overall with the best exam results are still grammar schools and the best state schools with the best exam results in non selective areas still tend to be ex grammar schools.
Even if you do not have a wholesale return to selection, the uniforms, discipline, house systems, emphasis on excellence of grammars still produces results
Off topic, why does Harry find the first amendment "baffling" ?
Because he's not very bright?
Because he has been convinced all his life that the UK press are a pack of uncontrolled snarling monsters out to exploit him and his family and he now finds that they are extremely controlled by our libel and other laws compared with the press in the US? A shattering of illusions.
If only he had a US wife who could have told him what the US Constitution says ........
He's an embarrassingly stupid man who has no real understanding of just how stupid he is.
As my mother said at the weekend; he got a B and a D at A level…and one of those was in art
Confirms Eton is overcharging parents?
Also, how easy must the entrance exam be? Or has Eton gone all Harrow and let in any kid of rich feckers?
You have to pass an entrance exam to get into Harrow too, Harrow may not be as academic as Eton or Winchester or Westminster but it is not Stowe either (and even Stowe requires 55% average at Common Entrance)
Did not David Cameron once muse that Eton was becoming too academically intensive and it was the thick sons of gentleman farmers and the aristocracy who made the place?
Eton is catching up with Winchester and Westminster, which have always traditionally been the most academically intense of the top rank public schools if slightly less socially exclusive than Eton, with scholarships and highly competitive entrance.
Before Cameron of course went to Eton as befits his class, along with Boris, even if their brains did not perhaps match those of Winchester educated Sunak
The last debating competition my son was in at Durham had 8 teams from Eton, one of which ultimately won. They haven’t given up on teaching future cabinet ministers just yet.
Oxbridge has become very wary of taking Etonians (one per college per year) so for those who miss out Durham, Exeter or St. Andrews remain popular choices. My nephew ended up at Durham.
Plenty of Etonians at Bristol too
Yep and Universities that they might have thought twice about previously such as Newcastle and Leeds. Very rah those now.
Newcastle has always been popular with them: party city!
Newcastle, more specifically Castle Leazes, was full of rahs, including one Princess Eugenie who was a student there at the same time as me, the first time round.
I could have bumped into her in the Sinners trebles bar and never known it.
Regarding that Red Wall polling from YouGov. I think it’s strange that they are comparing all Red Wall voters with the rest of the country, rather than Lab>Tory switchers with current Labour voters, but one thing I misread on first viewing was the question on whether they think tensions are building between different ethnicities in the UK
43-30 (59-41) Rest of country said they were
48-27 (64-36) of Red Wallers said so
I first thought the majority were saying different ethnic groups generally get on well, but that is apparently the minority view.
Reading the tweets of Dominic Cummings today and some of his other pronouncements I realise who he reminds me of.
He's clearly the smartest guy in the room.
In fairness, I suspect that he often is. But he is also an iconoclast. A sociopath. An egoist. Just bloody dangerous to be let loose on anything that is going to be around longer than a campaign. Bringing him into Number 10 was brave in the Yes Minister sense.
Speaking as someone who is often the smartest person in the room you all need oodles of modesty to go with it, otherwise you end up looking like a prick.
Quite. Absent your legendary modesty, you'd be insufferable.
The biggest mistake really clever people is just that they are brilliant in one field it doesn't mean they are automatically an expert in another field, see Lord Sumption as the perfect example of that.
One of the better pieces of advice my first boss ever gave me was 'don't try and be an expert in something you're not, don't wing it, pass it on to someone who is.'
Maybe, although doing something you're not an expert in is how you learn new things.
The problem is rather assuming you're an expert in something you're not, which the "wing it" part of TSE's advice captured. Nobel laureate Michael Levitt, and his interventions on the pandemic, is a case in point.
No problem if you're prepared to start from scratch and put in the hard yards.
Off topic, why does Harry find the first amendment "baffling" ?
Because he's not very bright?
Because he has been convinced all his life that the UK press are a pack of uncontrolled snarling monsters out to exploit him and his family and he now finds that they are extremely controlled by our libel and other laws compared with the press in the US? A shattering of illusions.
If only he had a US wife who could have told him what the US Constitution says ........
He's an embarrassingly stupid man who has no real understanding of just how stupid he is.
As my mother said at the weekend; he got a B and a D at A level…and one of those was in art
Confirms Eton is overcharging parents?
Also, how easy must the entrance exam be? Or has Eton gone all Harrow and let in any kid of rich feckers?
Ludgrove and Eton both recommended he went to a different school. His grandmother (who appoints the Provost of Eton as her personal representative on the board and therefore has some sway) insisted. She wanted him close - this was shortly after Diana’s death - and she had him round to stay at her pad nearby most weekends
Connections eh.
How do we remove this unelected ruler?
It is an insult to millions of working class kids in the country who do not have these connections and cannot improve their lot in life.
Whether Harry went to Eton or Stowe would not have made the slightest difference to their life chances (or indeed his as he would be a multimillionaire through inheritance anyway), it was closing most of the grammar schools that reduced working class kids chances of getting into top universities and the top professions.
Tell that to Ben Houchen.
He's a Northumbria University Law School graduate.
His school was a former grammar school
Aye, that former grammar school got him into that prestigious university and it's done him no harm at all.
Also his school changed from a grammar school into a comprehensive 9 years before he was even born.
Most of the best comprehensives used to be the grammar schools in their area still
Right, but what's your point?
Are you saying that good schools are good schools, regardless of whether they are grammar schools or not? Because it seems like that's what you're saying.
I am saying the best state schools in non selective areas still tend to carry something of the grammar school ethos and reputation they had before eg the best state school in Epping Forest, the Davenant, is a Church of England academy but was a grammar school until 1980
Great — so we agree grammar school status is not required to be a good school. Cool.
No, the best state schools overall with the best exam results are still grammar schools and the best state schools with the best exam results in non selective areas still tend to be ex grammar schools.
Even if you do not have a wholesale return to selection, the uniforms, discipline, house systems, emphasis on excellence of grammars still produces results
Exactly — ex grammar schools. I.e. haven't been grammar schools for over 40 years.
Also "houses" are not unique to grammar schools. All my comprehensive schools had houses. And uniforms. And discipline.
Reading the tweets of Dominic Cummings today and some of his other pronouncements I realise who he reminds me of.
He's clearly the smartest guy in the room.
In fairness, I suspect that he often is. But he is also an iconoclast. A sociopath. An egoist. Just bloody dangerous to be let loose on anything that is going to be around longer than a campaign. Bringing him into Number 10 was brave in the Yes Minister sense.
Speaking as someone who is often the smartest person in the room you all need oodles of modesty to go with it, otherwise you end up looking like a prick.
Quite. Absent your legendary modesty, you'd be insufferable.
The biggest mistake really clever people is just that they are brilliant in one field it doesn't mean they are automatically an expert in another field, see Lord Sumption as the perfect example of that.
One of the better pieces of advice my first boss ever gave me was 'don't try and be an expert in something you're not, don't wing it, pass it on to someone who is.'
What if you're not an expert in anything?
In that case there will always be a place on the PB board of Scotch experts, no knowledge or qualification necessary.
Off topic, why does Harry find the first amendment "baffling" ?
Because he's not very bright?
Because he has been convinced all his life that the UK press are a pack of uncontrolled snarling monsters out to exploit him and his family and he now finds that they are extremely controlled by our libel and other laws compared with the press in the US? A shattering of illusions.
If only he had a US wife who could have told him what the US Constitution says ........
He's an embarrassingly stupid man who has no real understanding of just how stupid he is.
As my mother said at the weekend; he got a B and a D at A level…and one of those was in art
Confirms Eton is overcharging parents?
Also, how easy must the entrance exam be? Or has Eton gone all Harrow and let in any kid of rich feckers?
You have to pass an entrance exam to get into Harrow too, Harrow may not be as academic as Eton or Winchester or Westminster but it is not Stowe either (and even Stowe requires 55% average at Common Entrance)
I suppose Q1 on the paper is "Can your parents afford the fees?"
The answer being no if your parent's initials are BJ
He's on his uppers! Which just plays into the persona, I'm afraid to say. With every mishap the legend grows. I'm at a loss right now tbh. We just have to wait it out until his pants fall down in a way that can't be construed as funny. Maybe you guys can do it for us. Lull him into a Sindy ref next year, or the year after, and hand him his gilded girthy ass.
His initials aren’t even BJ! The eternal Shapeshifter
Off topic, why does Harry find the first amendment "baffling" ?
Because he's not very bright?
Because he has been convinced all his life that the UK press are a pack of uncontrolled snarling monsters out to exploit him and his family and he now finds that they are extremely controlled by our libel and other laws compared with the press in the US? A shattering of illusions.
If only he had a US wife who could have told him what the US Constitution says ........
He's an embarrassingly stupid man who has no real understanding of just how stupid he is.
As my mother said at the weekend; he got a B and a D at A level…and one of those was in art
Confirms Eton is overcharging parents?
Also, how easy must the entrance exam be? Or has Eton gone all Harrow and let in any kid of rich feckers?
Ludgrove and Eton both recommended he went to a different school. His grandmother (who appoints the Provost of Eton as her personal representative on the board and therefore has some sway) insisted. She wanted him close - this was shortly after Diana’s death - and she had him round to stay at her pad nearby most weekends
Connections eh.
How do we remove this unelected ruler?
It is an insult to millions of working class kids in the country who do not have these connections and cannot improve their lot in life.
Whether Harry went to Eton or Stowe would not have made the slightest difference to their life chances (or indeed his as he would be a multimillionaire through inheritance anyway), it was closing most of the grammar schools that reduced working class kids chances of getting into top universities and the top professions.
Tell that to Ben Houchen.
He's a Northumbria University Law School graduate.
His school was a former grammar school
Aye, that former grammar school got him into that prestigious university and it's done him no harm at all.
Also his school changed from a grammar school into a comprehensive 9 years before he was even born.
Most of the best comprehensives used to be the grammar schools in their area still
Right, but what's your point?
Are you saying that good schools are good schools, regardless of whether they are grammar schools or not? Because it seems like that's what you're saying.
I am saying the best state schools in non selective areas still tend to carry something of the grammar school ethos and reputation they had before eg the best state school in Epping Forest, the Davenant, is a Church of England academy but was a grammar school until 1980
Great — so we agree grammar school status is not required to be a good school. Cool.
No, the best state schools overall with the best exam results are still grammar schools and the best state schools with the best exam results in non selective areas still tend to be ex grammar schools.
Even if you do not have a wholesale return to selection, the uniforms, discipline, house systems, emphasis on excellence of grammars still produces results
Exactly — ex grammar schools. I.e. haven't been grammar schools for over 40 years.
Also "houses" are not unique to grammar schools. All my comprehensive schools had houses. And uniforms. And discipline.
Which is closer to the grammar school model than the model preferred by the left, selection or not
Off topic, why does Harry find the first amendment "baffling" ?
Because he's not very bright?
Because he has been convinced all his life that the UK press are a pack of uncontrolled snarling monsters out to exploit him and his family and he now finds that they are extremely controlled by our libel and other laws compared with the press in the US? A shattering of illusions.
If only he had a US wife who could have told him what the US Constitution says ........
He's an embarrassingly stupid man who has no real understanding of just how stupid he is.
As my mother said at the weekend; he got a B and a D at A level…and one of those was in art
Confirms Eton is overcharging parents?
Also, how easy must the entrance exam be? Or has Eton gone all Harrow and let in any kid of rich feckers?
Ludgrove and Eton both recommended he went to a different school. His grandmother (who appoints the Provost of Eton as her personal representative on the board and therefore has some sway) insisted. She wanted him close - this was shortly after Diana’s death - and she had him round to stay at her pad nearby most weekends
Connections eh.
How do we remove this unelected ruler?
It is an insult to millions of working class kids in the country who do not have these connections and cannot improve their lot in life.
Whether Harry went to Eton or Stowe would not have made the slightest difference to their life chances (or indeed his as he would be a multimillionaire through inheritance anyway), it was closing most of the grammar schools that reduced working class kids chances of getting into top universities and the top professions.
Tell that to Ben Houchen.
He's a Northumbria University Law School graduate.
His school was a former grammar school
Aye, that former grammar school got him into that prestigious university and it's done him no harm at all.
Also his school changed from a grammar school into a comprehensive 9 years before he was even born.
Most of the best comprehensives used to be the grammar schools in their area still
Right, but what's your point?
Are you saying that good schools are good schools, regardless of whether they are grammar schools or not? Because it seems like that's what you're saying.
I am saying the best state schools in non selective areas still tend to carry something of the grammar school ethos and reputation they had before eg the best state school in Epping Forest, the Davenant, is a Church of England academy but was a grammar school until 1980
Great — so we agree grammar school status is not required to be a good school. Cool.
In Trafford, where we have selection, historically, our non-Grammars have been better than the comprehensives in the other boroughs, even after allowing for demographic differences (Trafford being rather more affluent than the average GM Borough). The explanation for which was that Trafford's selective status was a result of it giving a shit about education, which wasn't the case elsewhere in GM where rather more 1980s practices had taken hold. That is now starting to unwind as other districts also now tend to give a shit about education.
Point being, selection or otherwise not as important as whether the authority believes education is important.
Off topic, why does Harry find the first amendment "baffling" ?
Because he's not very bright?
Because he has been convinced all his life that the UK press are a pack of uncontrolled snarling monsters out to exploit him and his family and he now finds that they are extremely controlled by our libel and other laws compared with the press in the US? A shattering of illusions.
If only he had a US wife who could have told him what the US Constitution says ........
He's an embarrassingly stupid man who has no real understanding of just how stupid he is.
As my mother said at the weekend; he got a B and a D at A level…and one of those was in art
Confirms Eton is overcharging parents?
Also, how easy must the entrance exam be? Or has Eton gone all Harrow and let in any kid of rich feckers?
Ludgrove and Eton both recommended he went to a different school. His grandmother (who appoints the Provost of Eton as her personal representative on the board and therefore has some sway) insisted. She wanted him close - this was shortly after Diana’s death - and she had him round to stay at her pad nearby most weekends
Connections eh.
How do we remove this unelected ruler?
It is an insult to millions of working class kids in the country who do not have these connections and cannot improve their lot in life.
Whether Harry went to Eton or Stowe would not have made the slightest difference to their life chances (or indeed his as he would be a multimillionaire through inheritance anyway), it was closing most of the grammar schools that reduced working class kids chances of getting into top universities and the top professions.
Tell that to Ben Houchen.
He's a Northumbria University Law School graduate.
His school was a former grammar school
Aye, that former grammar school got him into that prestigious university and it's done him no harm at all.
Also his school changed from a grammar school into a comprehensive 9 years before he was even born.
Most of the best comprehensives used to be the grammar schools in their area still
Right, but what's your point?
Are you saying that good schools are good schools, regardless of whether they are grammar schools or not? Because it seems like that's what you're saying.
I am saying the best state schools in non selective areas still tend to carry something of the grammar school ethos and reputation they had before eg the best state school in Epping Forest, the Davenant, is a Church of England academy but was a grammar school until 1980
Great — so we agree grammar school status is not required to be a good school. Cool.
No, the best state schools overall with the best exam results are still grammar schools and the best state schools with the best exam results in non selective areas still tend to be ex grammar schools.
Even if you do not have a wholesale return to selection, the uniforms, discipline, house systems, emphasis on excellence of grammars still produces results
Exactly — ex grammar schools. I.e. haven't been grammar schools for over 40 years.
Also "houses" are not unique to grammar schools. All my comprehensive schools had houses. And uniforms. And discipline.
Which is closer to the grammar school model than the model preferred by the left
You don't have a coherent point here.
Surely the "grammar school model" is just selection. Otherwise there's no difference from the comprehensive model.
Reading the tweets of Dominic Cummings today and some of his other pronouncements I realise who he reminds me of.
He's clearly the smartest guy in the room.
In fairness, I suspect that he often is. But he is also an iconoclast. A sociopath. An egoist. Just bloody dangerous to be let loose on anything that is going to be around longer than a campaign. Bringing him into Number 10 was brave in the Yes Minister sense.
Speaking as someone who is often the smartest person in the room you all need oodles of modesty to go with it, otherwise you end up looking like a prick.
Quite. Absent your legendary modesty, you'd be insufferable.
The biggest mistake really clever people is just that they are brilliant in one field it doesn't mean they are automatically an expert in another field, see Lord Sumption as the perfect example of that.
One of the better pieces of advice my first boss ever gave me was 'don't try and be an expert in something you're not, don't wing it, pass it on to someone who is.'
Maybe, although doing something you're not an expert in is how you learn new things.
The problem is rather assuming you're an expert in something you're not, which the "wing it" part of TSE's advice captured. Nobel laureate Michael Levitt, and his interventions on the pandemic, is a case in point.
No problem if you're prepared to start from scratch and put in the hard yards.
Yes, definitely. The problem isn't ignorance, it's ignorance combined with arrogance.
I see that a lot on here (and online generally) when people comment on my area of expertise.
And I'm sure other people see it when I comment on theirs. But I always try to accept corrections from people who know more about whatever it is than I do.
Off topic, why does Harry find the first amendment "baffling" ?
Because he's not very bright?
Because he has been convinced all his life that the UK press are a pack of uncontrolled snarling monsters out to exploit him and his family and he now finds that they are extremely controlled by our libel and other laws compared with the press in the US? A shattering of illusions.
If only he had a US wife who could have told him what the US Constitution says ........
He's an embarrassingly stupid man who has no real understanding of just how stupid he is.
As my mother said at the weekend; he got a B and a D at A level…and one of those was in art
Confirms Eton is overcharging parents?
Also, how easy must the entrance exam be? Or has Eton gone all Harrow and let in any kid of rich feckers?
Ludgrove and Eton both recommended he went to a different school. His grandmother (who appoints the Provost of Eton as her personal representative on the board and therefore has some sway) insisted. She wanted him close - this was shortly after Diana’s death - and she had him round to stay at her pad nearby most weekends
Connections eh.
How do we remove this unelected ruler?
It is an insult to millions of working class kids in the country who do not have these connections and cannot improve their lot in life.
Whether Harry went to Eton or Stowe would not have made the slightest difference to their life chances (or indeed his as he would be a multimillionaire through inheritance anyway), it was closing most of the grammar schools that reduced working class kids chances of getting into top universities and the top professions.
Tell that to Ben Houchen.
He's a Northumbria University Law School graduate.
His school was a former grammar school
Aye, that former grammar school got him into that prestigious university and it's done him no harm at all.
Also his school changed from a grammar school into a comprehensive 9 years before he was even born.
Most of the best comprehensives used to be the grammar schools in their area still
Right, but what's your point?
Are you saying that good schools are good schools, regardless of whether they are grammar schools or not? Because it seems like that's what you're saying.
I am saying the best state schools in non selective areas still tend to carry something of the grammar school ethos and reputation they had before eg the best state school in Epping Forest, the Davenant, is a Church of England academy but was a grammar school until 1980
Great — so we agree grammar school status is not required to be a good school. Cool.
No, the best state schools overall with the best exam results are still grammar schools and the best state schools with the best exam results in non selective areas still tend to be ex grammar schools.
Even if you do not have a wholesale return to selection, the uniforms, discipline, house systems, emphasis on excellence of grammars still produces results
Exactly — ex grammar schools. I.e. haven't been grammar schools for over 40 years.
Also "houses" are not unique to grammar schools. All my comprehensive schools had houses. And uniforms. And discipline.
Which is closer to the grammar school model than the model preferred by the left
You don't have a coherent point here.
Surely the "grammar school model" is just selection. Otherwise there's no difference from the comprehensive model.
No, the left oppose uniforms, oppose setting and oppose house systems and are less keen on strict discipline too
Off topic, why does Harry find the first amendment "baffling" ?
Because he's not very bright?
Because he has been convinced all his life that the UK press are a pack of uncontrolled snarling monsters out to exploit him and his family and he now finds that they are extremely controlled by our libel and other laws compared with the press in the US? A shattering of illusions.
If only he had a US wife who could have told him what the US Constitution says ........
He's an embarrassingly stupid man who has no real understanding of just how stupid he is.
As my mother said at the weekend; he got a B and a D at A level…and one of those was in art
Confirms Eton is overcharging parents?
Also, how easy must the entrance exam be? Or has Eton gone all Harrow and let in any kid of rich feckers?
Ludgrove and Eton both recommended he went to a different school. His grandmother (who appoints the Provost of Eton as her personal representative on the board and therefore has some sway) insisted. She wanted him close - this was shortly after Diana’s death - and she had him round to stay at her pad nearby most weekends
Connections eh.
How do we remove this unelected ruler?
It is an insult to millions of working class kids in the country who do not have these connections and cannot improve their lot in life.
Whether Harry went to Eton or Stowe would not have made the slightest difference to their life chances (or indeed his as he would be a multimillionaire through inheritance anyway), it was closing most of the grammar schools that reduced working class kids chances of getting into top universities and the top professions.
Tell that to Ben Houchen.
He's a Northumbria University Law School graduate.
His school was a former grammar school
Aye, that former grammar school got him into that prestigious university and it's done him no harm at all.
Also his school changed from a grammar school into a comprehensive 9 years before he was even born.
Most of the best comprehensives used to be the grammar schools in their area still
Right, but what's your point?
Are you saying that good schools are good schools, regardless of whether they are grammar schools or not? Because it seems like that's what you're saying.
I am saying the best state schools in non selective areas still tend to carry something of the grammar school ethos and reputation they had before eg the best state school in Epping Forest, the Davenant, is a Church of England academy but was a grammar school until 1980
Great — so we agree grammar school status is not required to be a good school. Cool.
No, the best state schools overall with the best exam results are still grammar schools and the best state schools with the best exam results in non selective areas still tend to be ex grammar schools.
Even if you do not have a wholesale return to selection, the uniforms, discipline, house systems, emphasis on excellence of grammars still produces results
Exactly — ex grammar schools. I.e. haven't been grammar schools for over 40 years.
Also "houses" are not unique to grammar schools. All my comprehensive schools had houses. And uniforms. And discipline.
Which is closer to the grammar school model than the model preferred by the left
You don't have a coherent point here.
Surely the "grammar school model" is just selection. Otherwise there's no difference from the comprehensive model.
No, the left oppose uniforms and oppose house systems and are less keen on strict discipline too
Off topic, why does Harry find the first amendment "baffling" ?
Because he's not very bright?
Because he has been convinced all his life that the UK press are a pack of uncontrolled snarling monsters out to exploit him and his family and he now finds that they are extremely controlled by our libel and other laws compared with the press in the US? A shattering of illusions.
If only he had a US wife who could have told him what the US Constitution says ........
He's an embarrassingly stupid man who has no real understanding of just how stupid he is.
As my mother said at the weekend; he got a B and a D at A level…and one of those was in art
Confirms Eton is overcharging parents?
Also, how easy must the entrance exam be? Or has Eton gone all Harrow and let in any kid of rich feckers?
You have to pass an entrance exam to get into Harrow too, Harrow may not be as academic as Eton or Winchester or Westminster but it is not Stowe either (and even Stowe requires 55% average at Common Entrance)
I suppose Q1 on the paper is "Can your parents afford the fees?"
That would be Q1a.
Q1b would be "how can we help?"
Harrow help 20% of pupils with costs. Scholarships to 25% or Bursaries to 100%.
Off topic, why does Harry find the first amendment "baffling" ?
Because he's not very bright?
Because he has been convinced all his life that the UK press are a pack of uncontrolled snarling monsters out to exploit him and his family and he now finds that they are extremely controlled by our libel and other laws compared with the press in the US? A shattering of illusions.
If only he had a US wife who could have told him what the US Constitution says ........
He's an embarrassingly stupid man who has no real understanding of just how stupid he is.
As my mother said at the weekend; he got a B and a D at A level…and one of those was in art
Confirms Eton is overcharging parents?
Also, how easy must the entrance exam be? Or has Eton gone all Harrow and let in any kid of rich feckers?
Ludgrove and Eton both recommended he went to a different school. His grandmother (who appoints the Provost of Eton as her personal representative on the board and therefore has some sway) insisted. She wanted him close - this was shortly after Diana’s death - and she had him round to stay at her pad nearby most weekends
Connections eh.
How do we remove this unelected ruler?
It is an insult to millions of working class kids in the country who do not have these connections and cannot improve their lot in life.
Whether Harry went to Eton or Stowe would not have made the slightest difference to their life chances (or indeed his as he would be a multimillionaire through inheritance anyway), it was closing most of the grammar schools that reduced working class kids chances of getting into top universities and the top professions.
Tell that to Ben Houchen.
He's a Northumbria University Law School graduate.
His school was a former grammar school
Aye, that former grammar school got him into that prestigious university and it's done him no harm at all.
Also his school changed from a grammar school into a comprehensive 9 years before he was even born.
Most of the best comprehensives used to be the grammar schools in their area still
Right, but what's your point?
Are you saying that good schools are good schools, regardless of whether they are grammar schools or not? Because it seems like that's what you're saying.
I am saying the best state schools in non selective areas still tend to carry something of the grammar school ethos and reputation they had before eg the best state school in Epping Forest, the Davenant, is a Church of England academy but was a grammar school until 1980
Great — so we agree grammar school status is not required to be a good school. Cool.
No, the best state schools overall with the best exam results are still grammar schools and the best state schools with the best exam results in non selective areas still tend to be ex grammar schools.
Even if you do not have a wholesale return to selection, the uniforms, discipline, house systems, emphasis on excellence of grammars still produces results
Exactly — ex grammar schools. I.e. haven't been grammar schools for over 40 years.
Also "houses" are not unique to grammar schools. All my comprehensive schools had houses. And uniforms. And discipline.
Which is closer to the grammar school model than the model preferred by the left
You don't have a coherent point here.
Surely the "grammar school model" is just selection. Otherwise there's no difference from the comprehensive model.
No, the left oppose uniforms and oppose house systems and are less keen on strict discipline too
Indeed. First rule of being in someone else's country is that you slag off their traditions and institutions at your peril. He is showing the poor judgement of a man who has always had his judgements made for him.
Silly of him to attack the US press, especially if any of the rumours about what they have in their cuttings library about his wife are true.
Also stupid given how easy they've been going on the both of them. Why antagonise them? They've literally been signal boosting all of their crap for months.
You guys actually defending something as insane as what the First Amendment has become? That would be pretty clueless about America, because what held it together for so long is putting America at the top of the list above all,else, now the throughly dangerous First Amendment is burning through that putting America first like smouldering brimstone.
the First Amendment has mutated into free speech idolatry. Free speech has been placed on so high a pedestal that it is almost automatically privileged over privacy, fair trials, equality and public health, even protecting depictions of animal cruelty and violent video games sold to children. At the same time, dissent is unduly stifled and religious minorities are burdened. The First Amendment benefits the powerful at the expense of the vulnerable. By contrast, other Western democracies provide more reasonable accommodations between free speech and other values though their protections of dissent, and religious minorities are also inadequate.
Harry’s absolutely spot on. I feel embarrassed for the lot of you.
Thank you for explaining in one paragraph why the First Amendment is a good idea.
Free Speech as described in the First Amendment is a great idea. If only America pursued it. Given that you get fired and cancelled in America for stating mere scientific truths, let alone opinions, it is sadly not the case that they protect free speech. Not any more
Which is still a damn sight better than the proposed "Online Safety Bill" that the Tories want to put through. See here for a blog post about it.....sites like this should be scared
Off topic, why does Harry find the first amendment "baffling" ?
Because he's not very bright?
Because he has been convinced all his life that the UK press are a pack of uncontrolled snarling monsters out to exploit him and his family and he now finds that they are extremely controlled by our libel and other laws compared with the press in the US? A shattering of illusions.
If only he had a US wife who could have told him what the US Constitution says ........
He's an embarrassingly stupid man who has no real understanding of just how stupid he is.
As my mother said at the weekend; he got a B and a D at A level…and one of those was in art
Confirms Eton is overcharging parents?
Also, how easy must the entrance exam be? Or has Eton gone all Harrow and let in any kid of rich feckers?
Ludgrove and Eton both recommended he went to a different school. His grandmother (who appoints the Provost of Eton as her personal representative on the board and therefore has some sway) insisted. She wanted him close - this was shortly after Diana’s death - and she had him round to stay at her pad nearby most weekends
Connections eh.
How do we remove this unelected ruler?
It is an insult to millions of working class kids in the country who do not have these connections and cannot improve their lot in life.
Whether Harry went to Eton or Stowe would not have made the slightest difference to their life chances (or indeed his as he would be a multimillionaire through inheritance anyway), it was closing most of the grammar schools that reduced working class kids chances of getting into top universities and the top professions.
Tell that to Ben Houchen.
He's a Northumbria University Law School graduate.
His school was a former grammar school
Aye, that former grammar school got him into that prestigious university and it's done him no harm at all.
Also his school changed from a grammar school into a comprehensive 9 years before he was even born.
Most of the best comprehensives used to be the grammar schools in their area still
Right, but what's your point?
Are you saying that good schools are good schools, regardless of whether they are grammar schools or not? Because it seems like that's what you're saying.
I am saying the best state schools in non selective areas still tend to carry something of the grammar school ethos and reputation they had before eg the best state school in Epping Forest, the Davenant, is a Church of England academy but was a grammar school until 1980
Great — so we agree grammar school status is not required to be a good school. Cool.
No, the best state schools overall with the best exam results are still grammar schools and the best state schools with the best exam results in non selective areas still tend to be ex grammar schools.
Even if you do not have a wholesale return to selection, the uniforms, discipline, house systems, emphasis on excellence of grammars still produces results
Exactly — ex grammar schools. I.e. haven't been grammar schools for over 40 years.
Also "houses" are not unique to grammar schools. All my comprehensive schools had houses. And uniforms. And discipline.
Which is closer to the grammar school model than the model preferred by the left
You don't have a coherent point here.
Surely the "grammar school model" is just selection. Otherwise there's no difference from the comprehensive model.
No, the left oppose uniforms and oppose house systems and are less keen on strict discipline too
No they don't lol. What a ridiculous statement.
Many do.
Not all, but he's by no means a master of nuance.
Well I was educated under Blair's Labour and I had houses, uniforms, discipline, and sets.
Just because Twitter hates some of those things doesn't mean the majority of voters do, as you say, even on the "left".
Off topic, why does Harry find the first amendment "baffling" ?
Because he's not very bright?
Because he has been convinced all his life that the UK press are a pack of uncontrolled snarling monsters out to exploit him and his family and he now finds that they are extremely controlled by our libel and other laws compared with the press in the US? A shattering of illusions.
If only he had a US wife who could have told him what the US Constitution says ........
He's an embarrassingly stupid man who has no real understanding of just how stupid he is.
As my mother said at the weekend; he got a B and a D at A level…and one of those was in art
Confirms Eton is overcharging parents?
Also, how easy must the entrance exam be? Or has Eton gone all Harrow and let in any kid of rich feckers?
Ludgrove and Eton both recommended he went to a different school. His grandmother (who appoints the Provost of Eton as her personal representative on the board and therefore has some sway) insisted. She wanted him close - this was shortly after Diana’s death - and she had him round to stay at her pad nearby most weekends
Connections eh.
How do we remove this unelected ruler?
It is an insult to millions of working class kids in the country who do not have these connections and cannot improve their lot in life.
Whether Harry went to Eton or Stowe would not have made the slightest difference to their life chances (or indeed his as he would be a multimillionaire through inheritance anyway), it was closing most of the grammar schools that reduced working class kids chances of getting into top universities and the top professions.
Tell that to Ben Houchen.
He's a Northumbria University Law School graduate.
His school was a former grammar school
Aye, that former grammar school got him into that prestigious university and it's done him no harm at all.
Also his school changed from a grammar school into a comprehensive 9 years before he was even born.
Most of the best comprehensives used to be the grammar schools in their area still
Right, but what's your point?
Are you saying that good schools are good schools, regardless of whether they are grammar schools or not? Because it seems like that's what you're saying.
I am saying the best state schools in non selective areas still tend to carry something of the grammar school ethos and reputation they had before eg the best state school in Epping Forest, the Davenant, is a Church of England academy but was a grammar school until 1980
Great — so we agree grammar school status is not required to be a good school. Cool.
No, the best state schools overall with the best exam results are still grammar schools and the best state schools with the best exam results in non selective areas still tend to be ex grammar schools.
Even if you do not have a wholesale return to selection, the uniforms, discipline, house systems, emphasis on excellence of grammars still produces results
Exactly — ex grammar schools. I.e. haven't been grammar schools for over 40 years.
Also "houses" are not unique to grammar schools. All my comprehensive schools had houses. And uniforms. And discipline.
Which is closer to the grammar school model than the model preferred by the left
You don't have a coherent point here.
Surely the "grammar school model" is just selection. Otherwise there's no difference from the comprehensive model.
I do see the point here. In the 1980s, many schools consciously rejected anything which might smack of elitism (uniform, houses, discipline, actually expecting and aspiring towards something good from its pupils, etc.) These schools, were, by and large, shit. Most grammar schools stuck with the traditional approach. And remained good schools. There are examples all over the country of schools which offer a 'grammar-school style' education (see above) without actually being selective, and they tend to be very popular. Some even retain the name 'grammar school'.
I think everyone supports schools which demand a certain level of academic rigour - at least as an option, if not universally (such a school would be right for my oldest, but not necessarily for my second oldest). Whether these schools should select by academic ability is a slightly separate point. The latter are, as you rightly point out, technically 'grammar schools' in a way which the former are not necessarily - we perhaps need another label for the former (or even for the latter).
Off topic, why does Harry find the first amendment "baffling" ?
Because he's not very bright?
Because he has been convinced all his life that the UK press are a pack of uncontrolled snarling monsters out to exploit him and his family and he now finds that they are extremely controlled by our libel and other laws compared with the press in the US? A shattering of illusions.
If only he had a US wife who could have told him what the US Constitution says ........
He's an embarrassingly stupid man who has no real understanding of just how stupid he is.
As my mother said at the weekend; he got a B and a D at A level…and one of those was in art
Confirms Eton is overcharging parents?
Also, how easy must the entrance exam be? Or has Eton gone all Harrow and let in any kid of rich feckers?
Ludgrove and Eton both recommended he went to a different school. His grandmother (who appoints the Provost of Eton as her personal representative on the board and therefore has some sway) insisted. She wanted him close - this was shortly after Diana’s death - and she had him round to stay at her pad nearby most weekends
Connections eh.
How do we remove this unelected ruler?
It is an insult to millions of working class kids in the country who do not have these connections and cannot improve their lot in life.
Whether Harry went to Eton or Stowe would not have made the slightest difference to their life chances (or indeed his as he would be a multimillionaire through inheritance anyway), it was closing most of the grammar schools that reduced working class kids chances of getting into top universities and the top professions.
Tell that to Ben Houchen.
He's a Northumbria University Law School graduate.
His school was a former grammar school
Aye, that former grammar school got him into that prestigious university and it's done him no harm at all.
Also his school changed from a grammar school into a comprehensive 9 years before he was even born.
Most of the best comprehensives used to be the grammar schools in their area still
Right, but what's your point?
Are you saying that good schools are good schools, regardless of whether they are grammar schools or not? Because it seems like that's what you're saying.
I am saying the best state schools in non selective areas still tend to carry something of the grammar school ethos and reputation they had before eg the best state school in Epping Forest, the Davenant, is a Church of England academy but was a grammar school until 1980
Great — so we agree grammar school status is not required to be a good school. Cool.
No, the best state schools overall with the best exam results are still grammar schools and the best state schools with the best exam results in non selective areas still tend to be ex grammar schools.
Even if you do not have a wholesale return to selection, the uniforms, discipline, house systems, emphasis on excellence of grammars still produces results
Exactly — ex grammar schools. I.e. haven't been grammar schools for over 40 years.
Also "houses" are not unique to grammar schools. All my comprehensive schools had houses. And uniforms. And discipline.
My grammar school didn’t have houses when I was there although my nephew goes there now and I understand they have been (re)introduced
Re header, gosh, terrible for Keir Starmer. He has a year to turn things around and I'd be lying if I said I'm confident he will. But let's see. I'm long of him at 7.6 to be next PM and I'm still expecting to be laying that back at much shorter well before the GE.
Anyway let's park Starmer, because I'd like to say a word about Boris Johnson for a change. It's depressing beyond measure that such a man sits astride English politics but sit astride English politics such a man doth sit. It’s the truth of the matter and it must be faced.
I hear the dissing of him that goes on. He’s lucky. People don’t really like him, it’s all vaccine bounce, or it’s Brexit. Plus the Foremain OGH thesis - ok he wins elections but look at the opponents, a fag end Ken Livingstone, the risible Jeremy Corbyn. Anyone could have beaten them.
I don’t buy this. Red Ken was a London icon and London is a Labour city. Johnson beat him then beat him again. Jeremy Corbyn was such a terrible candidate that in the GE of 2017 he racked up Labour’s best English vote share since the 97 landslide and came within a whisker of number ten. Yes, he’d become a whipping boy by GE19, but does anybody really think if Jeremy Hunt had won the Tory leadership (another Johnson electoral triumph, btw, right there) that he’d have managed anything close to the 80 seat majority that Johnson scored. Not a chance. 30 seats max.
And let’s not forget Johnson’s biggest election win of all, 23 June 2016, 52/48, against a certain David Cameron, super smooth, super confident PM of the time, fresh from a GE triumph of his own the year before, see-er off of the rampant Scots the year before that. DC knew he’d win until he heard Johnson had plumped for the other side. Then he started to worry and he was right to.
So there you go. It’s not a view I enjoy holding but it is my view. Boris Johnson IS the Heineken politician. He DOES reach the people and the parts that other Tories cannot reach. And those people and parts are perfectly situated for turning Tory votes into Tory seats in FPTP general elections.
I’m not as bearish on Labour for the next GE as many seem to be – sense there’s some herd thinking going on – but I confess here and now that I’d fancy their chances a lot more if they were facing any Tory leader bar Boris Johnson. The guy’s a menace.
Boris is racking up the Falklands Moments with Brexit and COVID: Things the opposition told him were impossible and he was hopelessly mishandling. The demented screeching from Owen Jones, amongst others, just made that side of the argument look dim. He's allowed to have curtains. COVID - a natural disaster - was always going to be chaotic as natural disasters are. He was never going to be punished by the electorate for that.
I also take chasing away the French with boats on local election day as a sign the gods, who are obviously Greek, still want him in place, to steward the UK through choppy waters and then finish him off however they choose. I don't think Keir is chosen for much at all.
OJ's 'demented screeching' = having the cheek to expose the insouciant complacency and rank incompetence that cost £50 billion pounds and 50,000 lives.
But, yes, on your main point, I agree. As well as the political gifts there's the destiny - aka luck. He's run the tables with it.
One example of many. The Brexit into Covid sequence. He got the big positive buzz of the former - with the choreographed Christmas Eve deal which Got It Done - and then the pandemic came along to blot out the dreary aftermath.
Grrr.
Napoleon would definitely approve of Boris
He would.
Weather tomorrow looking ok btw. Just a few drops in the afternoon.
Off topic, why does Harry find the first amendment "baffling" ?
Because he's not very bright?
Because he has been convinced all his life that the UK press are a pack of uncontrolled snarling monsters out to exploit him and his family and he now finds that they are extremely controlled by our libel and other laws compared with the press in the US? A shattering of illusions.
If only he had a US wife who could have told him what the US Constitution says ........
He's an embarrassingly stupid man who has no real understanding of just how stupid he is.
As my mother said at the weekend; he got a B and a D at A level…and one of those was in art
Confirms Eton is overcharging parents?
Also, how easy must the entrance exam be? Or has Eton gone all Harrow and let in any kid of rich feckers?
Ludgrove and Eton both recommended he went to a different school. His grandmother (who appoints the Provost of Eton as her personal representative on the board and therefore has some sway) insisted. She wanted him close - this was shortly after Diana’s death - and she had him round to stay at her pad nearby most weekends
Connections eh.
How do we remove this unelected ruler?
It is an insult to millions of working class kids in the country who do not have these connections and cannot improve their lot in life.
Whether Harry went to Eton or Stowe would not have made the slightest difference to their life chances (or indeed his as he would be a multimillionaire through inheritance anyway), it was closing most of the grammar schools that reduced working class kids chances of getting into top universities and the top professions.
Tell that to Ben Houchen.
He's a Northumbria University Law School graduate.
His school was a former grammar school
Aye, that former grammar school got him into that prestigious university and it's done him no harm at all.
Also his school changed from a grammar school into a comprehensive 9 years before he was even born.
Most of the best comprehensives used to be the grammar schools in their area still
Right, but what's your point?
Are you saying that good schools are good schools, regardless of whether they are grammar schools or not? Because it seems like that's what you're saying.
I am saying the best state schools in non selective areas still tend to carry something of the grammar school ethos and reputation they had before eg the best state school in Epping Forest, the Davenant, is a Church of England academy but was a grammar school until 1980
Great — so we agree grammar school status is not required to be a good school. Cool.
No, the best state schools overall with the best exam results are still grammar schools and the best state schools with the best exam results in non selective areas still tend to be ex grammar schools.
Even if you do not have a wholesale return to selection, the uniforms, discipline, house systems, emphasis on excellence of grammars still produces results
Exactly — ex grammar schools. I.e. haven't been grammar schools for over 40 years.
Also "houses" are not unique to grammar schools. All my comprehensive schools had houses. And uniforms. And discipline.
Which is closer to the grammar school model than the model preferred by the left
You don't have a coherent point here.
Surely the "grammar school model" is just selection. Otherwise there's no difference from the comprehensive model.
No, the left oppose uniforms, oppose setting and oppose house systems and are less keen on strict discipline too
Oops sorry! Seeing that sweeping leftwing stereotype, I must have accidentally logged onto ConHome.
Off topic, why does Harry find the first amendment "baffling" ?
Because he's not very bright?
Because he has been convinced all his life that the UK press are a pack of uncontrolled snarling monsters out to exploit him and his family and he now finds that they are extremely controlled by our libel and other laws compared with the press in the US? A shattering of illusions.
If only he had a US wife who could have told him what the US Constitution says ........
He's an embarrassingly stupid man who has no real understanding of just how stupid he is.
As my mother said at the weekend; he got a B and a D at A level…and one of those was in art
Confirms Eton is overcharging parents?
Also, how easy must the entrance exam be? Or has Eton gone all Harrow and let in any kid of rich feckers?
Ludgrove and Eton both recommended he went to a different school. His grandmother (who appoints the Provost of Eton as her personal representative on the board and therefore has some sway) insisted. She wanted him close - this was shortly after Diana’s death - and she had him round to stay at her pad nearby most weekends
Connections eh.
How do we remove this unelected ruler?
It is an insult to millions of working class kids in the country who do not have these connections and cannot improve their lot in life.
Whether Harry went to Eton or Stowe would not have made the slightest difference to their life chances (or indeed his as he would be a multimillionaire through inheritance anyway), it was closing most of the grammar schools that reduced working class kids chances of getting into top universities and the top professions.
Tell that to Ben Houchen.
He's a Northumbria University Law School graduate.
His school was a former grammar school
Aye, that former grammar school got him into that prestigious university and it's done him no harm at all.
Also his school changed from a grammar school into a comprehensive 9 years before he was even born.
Most of the best comprehensives used to be the grammar schools in their area still
Right, but what's your point?
Are you saying that good schools are good schools, regardless of whether they are grammar schools or not? Because it seems like that's what you're saying.
I am saying the best state schools in non selective areas still tend to carry something of the grammar school ethos and reputation they had before eg the best state school in Epping Forest, the Davenant, is a Church of England academy but was a grammar school until 1980
Great — so we agree grammar school status is not required to be a good school. Cool.
In Trafford, where we have selection, historically, our non-Grammars have been better than the comprehensives in the other boroughs, even after allowing for demographic differences (Trafford being rather more affluent than the average GM Borough). The explanation for which was that Trafford's selective status was a result of it giving a shit about education, which wasn't the case elsewhere in GM where rather more 1980s practices had taken hold. That is now starting to unwind as other districts also now tend to give a shit about education.
Point being, selection or otherwise not as important as whether the authority believes education is important.
Question Cookie - when I lived in Manchester, Trafford local elections were all about Grammar Schools. Assuming that has changed a lot given Grammars are still going but Labour is in comfortable control.
Off topic, why does Harry find the first amendment "baffling" ?
Because he's not very bright?
Because he has been convinced all his life that the UK press are a pack of uncontrolled snarling monsters out to exploit him and his family and he now finds that they are extremely controlled by our libel and other laws compared with the press in the US? A shattering of illusions.
If only he had a US wife who could have told him what the US Constitution says ........
He's an embarrassingly stupid man who has no real understanding of just how stupid he is.
As my mother said at the weekend; he got a B and a D at A level…and one of those was in art
Confirms Eton is overcharging parents?
Also, how easy must the entrance exam be? Or has Eton gone all Harrow and let in any kid of rich feckers?
Ludgrove and Eton both recommended he went to a different school. His grandmother (who appoints the Provost of Eton as her personal representative on the board and therefore has some sway) insisted. She wanted him close - this was shortly after Diana’s death - and she had him round to stay at her pad nearby most weekends
Connections eh.
How do we remove this unelected ruler?
It is an insult to millions of working class kids in the country who do not have these connections and cannot improve their lot in life.
Whether Harry went to Eton or Stowe would not have made the slightest difference to their life chances (or indeed his as he would be a multimillionaire through inheritance anyway), it was closing most of the grammar schools that reduced working class kids chances of getting into top universities and the top professions.
Tell that to Ben Houchen.
He's a Northumbria University Law School graduate.
His school was a former grammar school
Aye, that former grammar school got him into that prestigious university and it's done him no harm at all.
Also his school changed from a grammar school into a comprehensive 9 years before he was even born.
Most of the best comprehensives used to be the grammar schools in their area still
Right, but what's your point?
Are you saying that good schools are good schools, regardless of whether they are grammar schools or not? Because it seems like that's what you're saying.
I am saying the best state schools in non selective areas still tend to carry something of the grammar school ethos and reputation they had before eg the best state school in Epping Forest, the Davenant, is a Church of England academy but was a grammar school until 1980
Great — so we agree grammar school status is not required to be a good school. Cool.
No, the best state schools overall with the best exam results are still grammar schools and the best state schools with the best exam results in non selective areas still tend to be ex grammar schools.
Even if you do not have a wholesale return to selection, the uniforms, discipline, house systems, emphasis on excellence of grammars still produces results
Exactly — ex grammar schools. I.e. haven't been grammar schools for over 40 years.
Also "houses" are not unique to grammar schools. All my comprehensive schools had houses. And uniforms. And discipline.
Which is closer to the grammar school model than the model preferred by the left
You don't have a coherent point here.
Surely the "grammar school model" is just selection. Otherwise there's no difference from the comprehensive model.
I do see the point here. In the 1980s, many schools consciously rejected anything which might smack of elitism (uniform, houses, discipline, actually expecting and aspiring towards something good from its pupils, etc.) These schools, were, by and large, shit. Most grammar schools stuck with the traditional approach. And remained good schools. There are examples all over the country of schools which offer a 'grammar-school style' education (see above) without actually being selective, and they tend to be very popular. Some even retain the name 'grammar school'.
I think everyone supports schools which demand a certain level of academic rigour - at least as an option, if not universally (such a school would be right for my oldest, but not necessarily for my second oldest). Whether these schools should select by academic ability is a slightly separate point. The latter are, as you rightly point out, technically 'grammar schools' in a way which the former are not necessarily - we perhaps need another label for the former (or even for the latter).
I agree. I think really the label is simply "good schools" and "bad schools". I think obsession with "grammars" really clouds the issue. The fact that good comprehensives exist show that there's nothing wrong with that model per se, it's just bad schools are bad schools.
By the way the "house" system added pretty much nothing to my school or schooling, other than a few people being able to put "house captain" on their CV.
PS I was "Vice Captain", naturally. I was Nick Clegg.
Reading the tweets of Dominic Cummings today and some of his other pronouncements I realise who he reminds me of.
He's clearly the smartest guy in the room.
In fairness, I suspect that he often is. But he is also an iconoclast. A sociopath. An egoist. Just bloody dangerous to be let loose on anything that is going to be around longer than a campaign. Bringing him into Number 10 was brave in the Yes Minister sense.
Speaking as someone who is often the smartest person in the room you all need oodles of modesty to go with it, otherwise you end up looking like a prick.
Quite. Absent your legendary modesty, you'd be insufferable.
The biggest mistake really clever people is just that they are brilliant in one field it doesn't mean they are automatically an expert in another field, see Lord Sumption as the perfect example of that.
One of the better pieces of advice my first boss ever gave me was 'don't try and be an expert in something you're not, don't wing it, pass it on to someone who is.'
Maybe, although doing something you're not an expert in is how you learn new things.
The problem is rather assuming you're an expert in something you're not, which the "wing it" part of TSE's advice captured. Nobel laureate Michael Levitt, and his interventions on the pandemic, is a case in point.
No problem if you're prepared to start from scratch and put in the hard yards.
Yes, definitely. The problem isn't ignorance, it's ignorance combined with arrogance.
I see that a lot on here (and online generally) when people comment on my area of expertise.
And I'm sure other people see it when I comment on theirs. But I always try to accept corrections from people who know more about whatever it is than I do.
Off topic, why does Harry find the first amendment "baffling" ?
Because he's not very bright?
Because he has been convinced all his life that the UK press are a pack of uncontrolled snarling monsters out to exploit him and his family and he now finds that they are extremely controlled by our libel and other laws compared with the press in the US? A shattering of illusions.
If only he had a US wife who could have told him what the US Constitution says ........
He's an embarrassingly stupid man who has no real understanding of just how stupid he is.
As my mother said at the weekend; he got a B and a D at A level…and one of those was in art
Confirms Eton is overcharging parents?
Also, how easy must the entrance exam be? Or has Eton gone all Harrow and let in any kid of rich feckers?
Ludgrove and Eton both recommended he went to a different school. His grandmother (who appoints the Provost of Eton as her personal representative on the board and therefore has some sway) insisted. She wanted him close - this was shortly after Diana’s death - and she had him round to stay at her pad nearby most weekends
Connections eh.
How do we remove this unelected ruler?
It is an insult to millions of working class kids in the country who do not have these connections and cannot improve their lot in life.
Whether Harry went to Eton or Stowe would not have made the slightest difference to their life chances (or indeed his as he would be a multimillionaire through inheritance anyway), it was closing most of the grammar schools that reduced working class kids chances of getting into top universities and the top professions.
Tell that to Ben Houchen.
He's a Northumbria University Law School graduate.
His school was a former grammar school
Aye, that former grammar school got him into that prestigious university and it's done him no harm at all.
Also his school changed from a grammar school into a comprehensive 9 years before he was even born.
Most of the best comprehensives used to be the grammar schools in their area still
Right, but what's your point?
Are you saying that good schools are good schools, regardless of whether they are grammar schools or not? Because it seems like that's what you're saying.
I am saying the best state schools in non selective areas still tend to carry something of the grammar school ethos and reputation they had before eg the best state school in Epping Forest, the Davenant, is a Church of England academy but was a grammar school until 1980
Great — so we agree grammar school status is not required to be a good school. Cool.
No, the best state schools overall with the best exam results are still grammar schools and the best state schools with the best exam results in non selective areas still tend to be ex grammar schools.
Even if you do not have a wholesale return to selection, the uniforms, discipline, house systems, emphasis on excellence of grammars still produces results
Exactly — ex grammar schools. I.e. haven't been grammar schools for over 40 years.
Also "houses" are not unique to grammar schools. All my comprehensive schools had houses. And uniforms. And discipline.
Which is closer to the grammar school model than the model preferred by the left
You don't have a coherent point here.
Surely the "grammar school model" is just selection. Otherwise there's no difference from the comprehensive model.
No, the left oppose uniforms, oppose setting and oppose house systems and are less keen on strict discipline too
All the 5th form smokers queuing up in their full uniform waiting to be caned in my comp circa 1975/6 would doubtless disagree. I was in Langdale house by the way. Two of the others were Snowdon and Lomond, I can't remember the fourth, only it was yellow.
Reading the tweets of Dominic Cummings today and some of his other pronouncements I realise who he reminds me of.
He's clearly the smartest guy in the room.
In fairness, I suspect that he often is. But he is also an iconoclast. A sociopath. An egoist. Just bloody dangerous to be let loose on anything that is going to be around longer than a campaign. Bringing him into Number 10 was brave in the Yes Minister sense.
Speaking as someone who is often the smartest person in the room you all need oodles of modesty to go with it, otherwise you end up looking like a prick.
Quite. Absent your legendary modesty, you'd be insufferable.
The biggest mistake really clever people is just that they are brilliant in one field it doesn't mean they are automatically an expert in another field, see Lord Sumption as the perfect example of that.
One of the better pieces of advice my first boss ever gave me was 'don't try and be an expert in something you're not, don't wing it, pass it on to someone who is.'
The more experienced/older I get, the more I find I'm telling people "I don't know much about that". Not entirely sure where the explanation lies between: - being confident enough to say it (not feeling the need to 'prove' myself) - understanding 'that' well enough to know that what I do know about 'that' is not much - being asked for advice more often and on a wider range of things because people start to think I might actually know things - losing my faculties and actually knowing less and less
I like to think it's a combination of the first three, but I can't rule out number 4!
Off topic, why does Harry find the first amendment "baffling" ?
Because he's not very bright?
Because he has been convinced all his life that the UK press are a A shattering of illusions.
If only he had a US wife who could have told him what the US Constitution says ........
He's an embarrassingly stupid man who has no real understanding of just how stupid he is.
As my mother said at the weekend; he got a B and a D at A level…and one of those was in art
Confirms Eton is overcharging parents?
Also, how easy must the entrance exam be? Or has Eton gone all Harrow and let in any kid of rich feckers?
Ludgrove and Eton both recommended he went to a different school. His grandmother (who appoints the Provost of Eton as her personal representative on the board and therefore has some sway) insisted. She wanted him close - this was shortly after Diana’s death - and she had him round to stay at her pad nearby most weekends
Connections eh.
How do we remove this unelected ruler?
It is an insult to millions of working class kids in the country who do not have these connections and cannot improve their lot in life.
Whether Harry went to Eton or Stowe would not have made the slightest difference to their life chances (or indeed his as he would be a multimillionaire through inheritance anyway), it was closing most of the grammar schools that reduced working class kids chances of getting into top universities and the top professions.
Tell that to Ben Houchen.
He's a Northumbria University Law School graduate.
His school was a former grammar school
Aye, that former grammar school got him into that prestigious university and it's done him no harm at all.
Also his school changed from a grammar school into a comprehensive 9 years before he was even born.
Most of the best comprehensives used to be the grammar schools in their area still
Right, but what's your point?
Are you saying that good schools are good schools, regardless of whether they are grammar schools or not? Because it seems like that's what you're saying.
I am saying the best state schools in non selective areas still tend to carry something of the grammar school ethos and reputation they had before eg the best state school in Epping Forest, the Davenant, is a Church of England academy but was a grammar school until 1980
Great — so we agree grammar school status is not required to be a good school. Cool.
No, the best state schools overall with the best exam results are still grammar schools and the best state schools with the best exam results in non selective areas still tend to be ex grammar schools.
Even if you do not have a wholesale return to selection, the uniforms, discipline, house systems, emphasis on excellence of grammars still produces results
Exactly — ex grammar schools. I.e. haven't been grammar schools for over 40 years.
Also "houses" are not unique to grammar schools. All my comprehensive schools had houses. And uniforms. And discipline.
Which is closer to the grammar school model than the model preferred by the left
You don't have a coherent point here.
Surely the "grammar school model" is just selection. Otherwise there's no difference from the comprehensive model.
No, the left oppose uniforms, oppose setting and oppose house systems and are less keen on strict discipline too
Citation needed. “The left” don’t oppose those things.
Reading the tweets of Dominic Cummings today and some of his other pronouncements I realise who he reminds me of.
He's clearly the smartest guy in the room.
In fairness, I suspect that he often is. But he is also an iconoclast. A sociopath. An egoist. Just bloody dangerous to be let loose on anything that is going to be around longer than a campaign. Bringing him into Number 10 was brave in the Yes Minister sense.
Speaking as someone who is often the smartest person in the room you all need oodles of modesty to go with it, otherwise you end up looking like a prick.
Quite. Absent your legendary modesty, you'd be insufferable.
The biggest mistake really clever people is just that they are brilliant in one field it doesn't mean they are automatically an expert in another field, see Lord Sumption as the perfect example of that.
One of the better pieces of advice my first boss ever gave me was 'don't try and be an expert in something you're not, don't wing it, pass it on to someone who is.'
Maybe, although doing something you're not an expert in is how you learn new things.
The problem is rather assuming you're an expert in something you're not, which the "wing it" part of TSE's advice captured. Nobel laureate Michael Levitt, and his interventions on the pandemic, is a case in point.
No problem if you're prepared to start from scratch and put in the hard yards.
Yes, definitely. The problem isn't ignorance, it's ignorance combined with arrogance.
I see that a lot on here (and online generally) when people comment on my area of expertise.
And I'm sure other people see it when I comment on theirs. But I always try to accept corrections from people who know more about whatever it is than I do.
Off topic, why does Harry find the first amendment "baffling" ?
Because he's not very bright?
Because he has been convinced all his life that the UK press are a pack of uncontrolled snarling monsters out to exploit him and his family and he now finds that they are extremely controlled by our libel and other laws compared with the press in the US? A shattering of illusions.
If only he had a US wife who could have told him what the US Constitution says ........
He's an embarrassingly stupid man who has no real understanding of just how stupid he is.
As my mother said at the weekend; he got a B and a D at A level…and one of those was in art
Confirms Eton is overcharging parents?
Also, how easy must the entrance exam be? Or has Eton gone all Harrow and let in any kid of rich feckers?
Ludgrove and Eton both recommended he went to a different school. His grandmother (who appoints the Provost of Eton as her personal representative on the board and therefore has some sway) insisted. She wanted him close - this was shortly after Diana’s death - and she had him round to stay at her pad nearby most weekends
Connections eh.
How do we remove this unelected ruler?
It is an insult to millions of working class kids in the country who do not have these connections and cannot improve their lot in life.
Whether Harry went to Eton or Stowe would not have made the slightest difference to their life chances (or indeed his as he would be a multimillionaire through inheritance anyway), it was closing most of the grammar schools that reduced working class kids chances of getting into top universities and the top professions.
Tell that to Ben Houchen.
He's a Northumbria University Law School graduate.
His school was a former grammar school
Aye, that former grammar school got him into that prestigious university and it's done him no harm at all.
Also his school changed from a grammar school into a comprehensive 9 years before he was even born.
Most of the best comprehensives used to be the grammar schools in their area still
Right, but what's your point?
Are you saying that good schools are good schools, regardless of whether they are grammar schools or not? Because it seems like that's what you're saying.
I am saying the best state schools in non selective areas still tend to carry something of the grammar school ethos and reputation they had before eg the best state school in Epping Forest, the Davenant, is a Church of England academy but was a grammar school until 1980
Great — so we agree grammar school status is not required to be a good school. Cool.
In Trafford, where we have selection, historically, our non-Grammars have been better than the comprehensives in the other boroughs, even after allowing for demographic differences (Trafford being rather more affluent than the average GM Borough). The explanation for which was that Trafford's selective status was a result of it giving a shit about education, which wasn't the case elsewhere in GM where rather more 1980s practices had taken hold. That is now starting to unwind as other districts also now tend to give a shit about education.
Point being, selection or otherwise not as important as whether the authority believes education is important.
Question Cookie - when I lived in Manchester, Trafford local elections were all about Grammar Schools. Assuming that has changed a lot given Grammars are still going but Labour is in comfortable control.
Grammar schools are almost never mentioned at election time - I don't think it's a can of worms anyone wants to open. Greater Manchester Labour tends to be pretty pragmatic these days - very different from the ferocious class warriors of the 80s.
By the way the "house" system added pretty much nothing to my school or schooling, other than a few people being able to put "house captain" on their CV.
PS I was "Vice Captain", naturally. I was Nick Clegg.
I hope you at least contributed something on the vice front
Off topic, why does Harry find the first amendment "baffling" ?
Because he's not very bright?
Because he has been convinced all his life that the UK press are a pack of uncontrolled snarling monsters out to exploit him and his family and he now finds that they are extremely controlled by our libel and other laws compared with the press in the US? A shattering of illusions.
If only he had a US wife who could have told him what the US Constitution says ........
He's an embarrassingly stupid man who has no real understanding of just how stupid he is.
As my mother said at the weekend; he got a B and a D at A level…and one of those was in art
Confirms Eton is overcharging parents?
Also, how easy must the entrance exam be? Or has Eton gone all Harrow and let in any kid of rich feckers?
Ludgrove and Eton both recommended he went to a different school. His grandmother (who appoints the Provost of Eton as her personal representative on the board and therefore has some sway) insisted. She wanted him close - this was shortly after Diana’s death - and she had him round to stay at her pad nearby most weekends
Connections eh.
How do we remove this unelected ruler?
It is an insult to millions of working class kids in the country who do not have these connections and cannot improve their lot in life.
Whether Harry went to Eton or Stowe would not have made the slightest difference to their life chances (or indeed his as he would be a multimillionaire through inheritance anyway), it was closing most of the grammar schools that reduced working class kids chances of getting into top universities and the top professions.
Tell that to Ben Houchen.
He's a Northumbria University Law School graduate.
His school was a former grammar school
Aye, that former grammar school got him into that prestigious university and it's done him no harm at all.
Also his school changed from a grammar school into a comprehensive 9 years before he was even born.
Most of the best comprehensives used to be the grammar schools in their area still
Right, but what's your point?
Are you saying that good schools are good schools, regardless of whether they are grammar schools or not? Because it seems like that's what you're saying.
I am saying the best state schools in non selective areas still tend to carry something of the grammar school ethos and reputation they had before eg the best state school in Epping Forest, the Davenant, is a Church of England academy but was a grammar school until 1980
Great — so we agree grammar school status is not required to be a good school. Cool.
No, the best state schools overall with the best exam results are still grammar schools and the best state schools with the best exam results in non selective areas still tend to be ex grammar schools.
Even if you do not have a wholesale return to selection, the uniforms, discipline, house systems, emphasis on excellence of grammars still produces results
Exactly — ex grammar schools. I.e. haven't been grammar schools for over 40 years.
Also "houses" are not unique to grammar schools. All my comprehensive schools had houses. And uniforms. And discipline.
Which is closer to the grammar school model than the model preferred by the left
You don't have a coherent point here.
Surely the "grammar school model" is just selection. Otherwise there's no difference from the comprehensive model.
No, the left oppose uniforms, oppose setting and oppose house systems and are less keen on strict discipline too
Interestingly, school uniforms are extremely unusual in the US, even though it is a significantly more right wing country than the UK.
Reading the tweets of Dominic Cummings today and some of his other pronouncements I realise who he reminds me of.
He's clearly the smartest guy in the room.
In fairness, I suspect that he often is. But he is also an iconoclast. A sociopath. An egoist. Just bloody dangerous to be let loose on anything that is going to be around longer than a campaign. Bringing him into Number 10 was brave in the Yes Minister sense.
Speaking as someone who is often the smartest person in the room you all need oodles of modesty to go with it, otherwise you end up looking like a prick.
Quite. Absent your legendary modesty, you'd be insufferable.
The biggest mistake really clever people is just that they are brilliant in one field it doesn't mean they are automatically an expert in another field, see Lord Sumption as the perfect example of that.
One of the better pieces of advice my first boss ever gave me was 'don't try and be an expert in something you're not, don't wing it, pass it on to someone who is.'
The more experienced/older I get, the more I find I'm telling people "I don't know much about that". Not entirely sure where the explanation lies between: - being confident enough to say it (not feeling the need to 'prove' myself) - understanding 'that' well enough to know that what I do know about 'that' is not much - being asked for advice more often and on a wider range of things because people start to think I might actually know things - losing my faculties and actually knowing less and less
I like to think it's a combination of the first three, but I can't rule out number 4!
When I started off as a solicitor one of the things I learned was the key was not to think you know the answer or to guess but to be able to tell the client that you didn't know the answer but would find out with enough confidence that he or she retained faith in you. Once you could sell not actually knowing you had it made.
By the way the "house" system added pretty much nothing to my school or schooling, other than a few people being able to put "house captain" on their CV.
PS I was "Vice Captain", naturally. I was Nick Clegg.
I was “vice captain”. Sadly, for a 17/18 year old boy, it never delivered the free porn promised in the title.
By the way the "house" system added pretty much nothing to my school or schooling, other than a few people being able to put "house captain" on their CV.
PS I was "Vice Captain", naturally. I was Nick Clegg.
I hope you at least contributed something on the vice front
Off topic, why does Harry find the first amendment "baffling" ?
Because he's not very bright?
Because he has been convinced all his life that the UK press are a pack of uncontrolled snarling monsters out to exploit him and his family and he now finds that they are extremely controlled by our libel and other laws compared with the press in the US? A shattering of illusions.
If only he had a US wife who could have told him what the US Constitution says ........
He's an embarrassingly stupid man who has no real understanding of just how stupid he is.
As my mother said at the weekend; he got a B and a D at A level…and one of those was in art
Confirms Eton is overcharging parents?
Also, how easy must the entrance exam be? Or has Eton gone all Harrow and let in any kid of rich feckers?
Ludgrove and Eton both recommended he went to a different school. His grandmother (who appoints the Provost of Eton as her personal representative on the board and therefore has some sway) insisted. She wanted him close - this was shortly after Diana’s death - and she had him round to stay at her pad nearby most weekends
Connections eh.
How do we remove this unelected ruler?
It is an insult to millions of working class kids in the country who do not have these connections and cannot improve their lot in life.
Whether Harry went to Eton or Stowe would not have made the slightest difference to their life chances (or indeed his as he would be a multimillionaire through inheritance anyway), it was closing most of the grammar schools that reduced working class kids chances of getting into top universities and the top professions.
Tell that to Ben Houchen.
He's a Northumbria University Law School graduate.
His school was a former grammar school
Aye, that former grammar school got him into that prestigious university and it's done him no harm at all.
Also his school changed from a grammar school into a comprehensive 9 years before he was even born.
Most of the best comprehensives and academies used to be the grammar schools in their area, they still carry something of the ethos.
For example the best state school in Epping Forest, the Davenant, was a grammar until 1980 and is now an academy
A much better use of former grammar schools was a sixth form colleges, as happened in a lot of Hampshire. That way you can get the critical mass of academic staff and students in one place without the insane entrance criteria.
Off topic, why does Harry find the first amendment "baffling" ?
Because he's not very bright?
Because he has been convinced all his life that the UK press are a pack of uncontrolled snarling monsters out to exploit him and his family and he now finds that they are extremely controlled by our libel and other laws compared with the press in the US? A shattering of illusions.
If only he had a US wife who could have told him what the US Constitution says ........
He's an embarrassingly stupid man who has no real understanding of just how stupid he is.
As my mother said at the weekend; he got a B and a D at A level…and one of those was in art
Confirms Eton is overcharging parents?
Also, how easy must the entrance exam be? Or has Eton gone all Harrow and let in any kid of rich feckers?
Ludgrove and Eton both recommended he went to a different school. His grandmother (who appoints the Provost of Eton as her personal representative on the board and therefore has some sway) insisted. She wanted him close - this was shortly after Diana’s death - and she had him round to stay at her pad nearby most weekends
Connections eh.
How do we remove this unelected ruler?
It is an insult to millions of working class kids in the country who do not have these connections and cannot improve their lot in life.
Whether Harry went to Eton or Stowe would not have made the slightest difference to their life chances (or indeed his as he would be a multimillionaire through inheritance anyway), it was closing most of the grammar schools that reduced working class kids chances of getting into top universities and the top professions.
Tell that to Ben Houchen.
He's a Northumbria University Law School graduate.
His school was a former grammar school
Aye, that former grammar school got him into that prestigious university and it's done him no harm at all.
Also his school changed from a grammar school into a comprehensive 9 years before he was even born.
Most of the best comprehensives used to be the grammar schools in their area still
Right, but what's your point?
Are you saying that good schools are good schools, regardless of whether they are grammar schools or not? Because it seems like that's what you're saying.
I am saying the best state schools in non selective areas still tend to carry something of the grammar school ethos and reputation they had before eg the best state school in Epping Forest, the Davenant, is a Church of England academy but was a grammar school until 1980
Great — so we agree grammar school status is not required to be a good school. Cool.
No, the best state schools overall with the best exam results are still grammar schools and the best state schools with the best exam results in non selective areas still tend to be ex grammar schools.
Even if you do not have a wholesale return to selection, the uniforms, discipline, house systems, emphasis on excellence of grammars still produces results
Exactly — ex grammar schools. I.e. haven't been grammar schools for over 40 years.
Also "houses" are not unique to grammar schools. All my comprehensive schools had houses. And uniforms. And discipline.
Which is closer to the grammar school model than the model preferred by the left
You don't have a coherent point here.
Surely the "grammar school model" is just selection. Otherwise there's no difference from the comprehensive model.
No, the left oppose uniforms, oppose setting and oppose house systems and are less keen on strict discipline too
Oops sorry! Seeing that sweeping leftwing stereotype, I must have accidentally logged onto ConHome.
I think uniforms and house systems are ridiculous, certainly for teenagers, and I'm not remotely left wing.
Off topic, why does Harry find the first amendment "baffling" ?
Because he's not very bright?
Because he has been convinced all his life that the UK press are a pack of uncontrolled snarling monsters out to exploit him and his family and he now finds that they are extremely controlled by our libel and other laws compared with the press in the US? A shattering of illusions.
If only he had a US wife who could have told him what the US Constitution says ........
He's an embarrassingly stupid man who has no real understanding of just how stupid he is.
As my mother said at the weekend; he got a B and a D at A level…and one of those was in art
Confirms Eton is overcharging parents?
Also, how easy must the entrance exam be? Or has Eton gone all Harrow and let in any kid of rich feckers?
Ludgrove and Eton both recommended he went to a different school. His grandmother (who appoints the Provost of Eton as her personal representative on the board and therefore has some sway) insisted. She wanted him close - this was shortly after Diana’s death - and she had him round to stay at her pad nearby most weekends
Connections eh.
How do we remove this unelected ruler?
It is an insult to millions of working class kids in the country who do not have these connections and cannot improve their lot in life.
Whether Harry went to Eton or Stowe would not have made the slightest difference to their life chances (or indeed his as he would be a multimillionaire through inheritance anyway), it was closing most of the grammar schools that reduced working class kids chances of getting into top universities and the top professions.
Tell that to Ben Houchen.
He's a Northumbria University Law School graduate.
His school was a former grammar school
Aye, that former grammar school got him into that prestigious university and it's done him no harm at all.
Also his school changed from a grammar school into a comprehensive 9 years before he was even born.
Most of the best comprehensives used to be the grammar schools in their area still
Right, but what's your point?
Are you saying that good schools are good schools, regardless of whether they are grammar schools or not? Because it seems like that's what you're saying.
I am saying the best state schools in non selective areas still tend to carry something of the grammar school ethos and reputation they had before eg the best state school in Epping Forest, the Davenant, is a Church of England academy but was a grammar school until 1980
Great — so we agree grammar school status is not required to be a good school. Cool.
No, the best state schools overall with the best exam results are still grammar schools and the best state schools with the best exam results in non selective areas still tend to be ex grammar schools.
Even if you do not have a wholesale return to selection, the uniforms, discipline, house systems, emphasis on excellence of grammars still produces results
Exactly — ex grammar schools. I.e. haven't been grammar schools for over 40 years.
Also "houses" are not unique to grammar schools. All my comprehensive schools had houses. And uniforms. And discipline.
Which is closer to the grammar school model than the model preferred by the left
You don't have a coherent point here.
Surely the "grammar school model" is just selection. Otherwise there's no difference from the comprehensive model.
No, the left oppose uniforms, oppose setting and oppose house systems and are less keen on strict discipline too
Oops sorry! Seeing that sweeping leftwing stereotype, I must have accidentally logged onto ConHome.
I think uniforms and house systems are ridiculous, certainly for teenagers, and I'm not remotely left wing.
Off topic, why does Harry find the first amendment "baffling" ?
Because he's not very bright?
Because he has been convinced all his life that the UK press are a pack of uncontrolled snarling monsters out to exploit him and his family and he now finds that they are extremely controlled by our libel and other laws compared with the press in the US? A shattering of illusions.
If only he had a US wife who could have told him what the US Constitution says ........
He's an embarrassingly stupid man who has no real understanding of just how stupid he is.
As my mother said at the weekend; he got a B and a D at A level…and one of those was in art
Confirms Eton is overcharging parents?
Also, how easy must the entrance exam be? Or has Eton gone all Harrow and let in any kid of rich feckers?
Ludgrove and Eton both recommended he went to a different school. His grandmother (who appoints the Provost of Eton as her personal representative on the board and therefore has some sway) insisted. She wanted him close - this was shortly after Diana’s death - and she had him round to stay at her pad nearby most weekends
Connections eh.
How do we remove this unelected ruler?
It is an insult to millions of working class kids in the country who do not have these connections and cannot improve their lot in life.
Whether Harry went to Eton or Stowe would not have made the slightest difference to their life chances (or indeed his as he would be a multimillionaire through inheritance anyway), it was closing most of the grammar schools that reduced working class kids chances of getting into top universities and the top professions.
Tell that to Ben Houchen.
He's a Northumbria University Law School graduate.
His school was a former grammar school
Aye, that former grammar school got him into that prestigious university and it's done him no harm at all.
Also his school changed from a grammar school into a comprehensive 9 years before he was even born.
Most of the best comprehensives used to be the grammar schools in their area still
Right, but what's your point?
Are you saying that good schools are good schools, regardless of whether they are grammar schools or not? Because it seems like that's what you're saying.
I am saying the best state schools in non selective areas still tend to carry something of the grammar school ethos and reputation they had before eg the best state school in Epping Forest, the Davenant, is a Church of England academy but was a grammar school until 1980
Great — so we agree grammar school status is not required to be a good school. Cool.
No, the best state schools overall with the best exam results are still grammar schools and the best state schools with the best exam results in non selective areas still tend to be ex grammar schools.
Even if you do not have a wholesale return to selection, the uniforms, discipline, house systems, emphasis on excellence of grammars still produces results
Exactly — ex grammar schools. I.e. haven't been grammar schools for over 40 years.
Also "houses" are not unique to grammar schools. All my comprehensive schools had houses. And uniforms. And discipline.
Which is closer to the grammar school model than the model preferred by the left
You don't have a coherent point here.
Surely the "grammar school model" is just selection. Otherwise there's no difference from the comprehensive model.
I do see the point here. In the 1980s, many schools consciously rejected anything which might smack of elitism (uniform, houses, discipline, actually expecting and aspiring towards something good from its pupils, etc.) These schools, were, by and large, shit. Most grammar schools stuck with the traditional approach. And remained good schools. There are examples all over the country of schools which offer a 'grammar-school style' education (see above) without actually being selective, and they tend to be very popular. Some even retain the name 'grammar school'.
I think everyone supports schools which demand a certain level of academic rigour - at least as an option, if not universally (such a school would be right for my oldest, but not necessarily for my second oldest). Whether these schools should select by academic ability is a slightly separate point. The latter are, as you rightly point out, technically 'grammar schools' in a way which the former are not necessarily - we perhaps need another label for the former (or even for the latter).
I agree. I think really the label is simply "good schools" and "bad schools". I think obsession with "grammars" really clouds the issue. The fact that good comprehensives exist show that there's nothing wrong with that model per se, it's just bad schools are bad schools.
Pretty much, yes. Although there is also definitely a place for schools without quite so academic a focus as grammar schools have, especially in the cities where there is the realistic prospect of a choice. These needn't be 'bad' schools but won't be so recognisably modelled on the old-fashioned model from the 60s and before.
Re header, gosh, terrible for Keir Starmer. He has a year to turn things around and I'd be lying if I said I'm confident he will. But let's see. I'm long of him at 7.6 to be next PM and I'm still expecting to be laying that back at much shorter well before the GE.
Anyway let's park Starmer, because I'd like to say a word about Boris Johnson for a change. It's depressing beyond measure that such a man sits astride English politics but sit astride English politics such a man doth sit. It’s the truth of the matter and it must be faced.
I hear the dissing of him that goes on. He’s lucky. People don’t really like him, it’s all vaccine bounce, or it’s Brexit. Plus the Foremain OGH thesis - ok he wins elections but look at the opponents, a fag end Ken Livingstone, the risible Jeremy Corbyn. Anyone could have beaten them.
I don’t buy this. Red Ken was a London icon and London is a Labour city. Johnson beat him then beat him again. Jeremy Corbyn was such a terrible candidate that in the GE of 2017 he racked up Labour’s best English vote share since the 97 landslide and came within a whisker of number ten. Yes, he’d become a whipping boy by GE19, but does anybody really think if Jeremy Hunt had won the Tory leadership (another Johnson electoral triumph, btw, right there) that he’d have managed anything close to the 80 seat majority that Johnson scored. Not a chance. 30 seats max.
And let’s not forget Johnson’s biggest election win of all, 23 June 2016, 52/48, against a certain David Cameron, super smooth, super confident PM of the time, fresh from a GE triumph of his own the year before, see-er off of the rampant Scots the year before that. DC knew he’d win until he heard Johnson had plumped for the other side. Then he started to worry and he was right to.
So there you go. It’s not a view I enjoy holding but it is my view. Boris Johnson IS the Heineken politician. He DOES reach the people and the parts that other Tories cannot reach. And those people and parts are perfectly situated for turning Tory votes into Tory seats in FPTP general elections.
I’m not as bearish on Labour for the next GE as many seem to be – sense there’s some herd thinking going on – but I confess here and now that I’d fancy their chances a lot more if they were facing any Tory leader bar Boris Johnson. The guy’s a menace.
You said it
Yep. Know thine enemy.
Saw you trying to throw your big grand around on PT btw. It's a fair price you ask for - evens on a Con majority at the next GE is in line with Betfair - but I'll pass. I price it as an odds on shot. Guess you do too.
I am as below atm -
Con maj 60% Hung parl 33% Lab maj 7%
And there was me thinking that you were being realistic about Labour’s predicament.
But my odds are more bearish (for Lab) than current Betfair!
You're one of these 'herders', David, are you, giving the GE to the Cons already?
I think that its very likely that there will be a Conservative majority given a starting base of 82 (and counting). I think it is possible that we could end up with a hung Parliament. I really struggle to conceive of circumstances where a Labour majority would be possible.
But I was mainly joking.
Yes, Lab majority needs a black swan. But they're ten a penny these days. Can't move for them.
When I want to cheer myself up about next GE prospects I imagine getting 15 random English voters in a room. With how it is right now there'll be 6 Tories, 5 Labour, a Lib Dem and a Green, plus a couple of ditzy types who don't know what time it is and don't care to find out.
When you consider it this way - as opposed to 10 pt Con leads in opinion polls - a Labour win doesn't seem such a crazy outcome. Especially since the vote is still ages away.
Off topic, why does Harry find the first amendment "baffling" ?
Because he's not very bright?
Because he has been convinced all his life that the UK press are a pack of uncontrolled snarling monsters out to exploit him and his family and he now finds that they are extremely controlled by our libel and other laws compared with the press in the US? A shattering of illusions.
If only he had a US wife who could have told him what the US Constitution says ........
He's an embarrassingly stupid man who has no real understanding of just how stupid he is.
As my mother said at the weekend; he got a B and a D at A level…and one of those was in art
Confirms Eton is overcharging parents?
Also, how easy must the entrance exam be? Or has Eton gone all Harrow and let in any kid of rich feckers?
You have to pass an entrance exam to get into Harrow too, Harrow may not be as academic as Eton or Winchester or Westminster but it is not Stowe either (and even Stowe requires 55% average at Common Entrance)
Did not David Cameron once muse that Eton was becoming too academically intensive and it was the thick sons of gentleman farmers and the aristocracy who made the place?
Eton is catching up with Winchester and Westminster, which have always traditionally been the most academically intense of the top rank public schools if slightly less socially exclusive than Eton, with scholarships and highly competitive entrance.
Before Cameron of course went to Eton as befits his class, along with Boris, even if their brains did not perhaps match those of Winchester educated Sunak
The last debating competition my son was in at Durham had 8 teams from Eton, one of which ultimately won. They haven’t given up on teaching future cabinet ministers just yet.
Oxbridge has become very wary of taking Etonians (one per college per year) so for those who miss out Durham, Exeter or St. Andrews remain popular choices. My nephew ended up at Durham.
Plenty of Etonians at Bristol too
Yep and Universities that they might have thought twice about previously such as Newcastle and Leeds. Very rah those now.
Newcastle has always been popular with them: party city!
Newcastle, more specifically Castle Leazes, was full of rahs, including one Princess Eugenie who was a student there at the same time as me, the first time round.
I could have bumped into her in the Sinners trebles bar and never known it.
When he was a student at Exeter, Peter Philips - Princess Anne’s son - tried to seduce my then girlfriend (also a student). He failed. Or so she told me
Ironically, when I look back at old photos I realise that she was a dead ringer for Meghan Markle, except paler and more wistful. An absolute stunner
Reading the tweets of Dominic Cummings today and some of his other pronouncements I realise who he reminds me of.
He's clearly the smartest guy in the room.
In fairness, I suspect that he often is. But he is also an iconoclast. A sociopath. An egoist. Just bloody dangerous to be let loose on anything that is going to be around longer than a campaign. Bringing him into Number 10 was brave in the Yes Minister sense.
Speaking as someone who is often the smartest person in the room you all need oodles of modesty to go with it, otherwise you end up looking like a prick.
Quite. Absent your legendary modesty, you'd be insufferable.
The biggest mistake really clever people is just that they are brilliant in one field it doesn't mean they are automatically an expert in another field, see Lord Sumption as the perfect example of that.
One of the better pieces of advice my first boss ever gave me was 'don't try and be an expert in something you're not, don't wing it, pass it on to someone who is.'
What if you're not an expert in anything?
You don't need a degree or a masters to be a degree in something, sometimes it can be from life experiences.
It can be a minor discipline, but you can learn more based on your previous experiences.
Reading the tweets of Dominic Cummings today and some of his other pronouncements I realise who he reminds me of.
He's clearly the smartest guy in the room.
In fairness, I suspect that he often is. But he is also an iconoclast. A sociopath. An egoist. Just bloody dangerous to be let loose on anything that is going to be around longer than a campaign. Bringing him into Number 10 was brave in the Yes Minister sense.
Speaking as someone who is often the smartest person in the room you all need oodles of modesty to go with it, otherwise you end up looking like a prick.
My favourite Judge, the late and great Lord Macfadyen, who died far too young, had a lovely phrase. He would think for a moment and then turn to you and say, "Perhaps its me, but...." and then completely demolish your argument with courtesy and charm.
I knew an eminent counsel who first meeting on a case would go like this
'I've only briefly looked at/skim read this case so my initial thoughts are why this case won't succeed are...'
Then spent the next 20 mins finding a hundred reasons for finding why the defence side was rubbish.
Off topic, why does Harry find the first amendment "baffling" ?
Because he's not very bright?
Because he has been convinced all his life that the UK press are a pack of uncontrolled snarling monsters out to exploit him and his family and he now finds that they are extremely controlled by our libel and other laws compared with the press in the US? A shattering of illusions.
If only he had a US wife who could have told him what the US Constitution says ........
He's an embarrassingly stupid man who has no real understanding of just how stupid he is.
As my mother said at the weekend; he got a B and a D at A level…and one of those was in art
Confirms Eton is overcharging parents?
Also, how easy must the entrance exam be? Or has Eton gone all Harrow and let in any kid of rich feckers?
You have to pass an entrance exam to get into Harrow too, Harrow may not be as academic as Eton or Winchester or Westminster but it is not Stowe either (and even Stowe requires 55% average at Common Entrance)
Did not David Cameron once muse that Eton was becoming too academically intensive and it was the thick sons of gentleman farmers and the aristocracy who made the place?
Eton is catching up with Winchester and Westminster, which have always traditionally been the most academically intense of the top rank public schools if slightly less socially exclusive than Eton, with scholarships and highly competitive entrance.
Before Cameron of course went to Eton as befits his class, along with Boris, even if their brains did not perhaps match those of Winchester educated Sunak
The last debating competition my son was in at Durham had 8 teams from Eton, one of which ultimately won. They haven’t given up on teaching future cabinet ministers just yet.
Oxbridge has become very wary of taking Etonians (one per college per year) so for those who miss out Durham, Exeter or St. Andrews remain popular choices. My nephew ended up at Durham.
Plenty of Etonians at Bristol too
Yep and Universities that they might have thought twice about previously such as Newcastle and Leeds. Very rah those now.
Newcastle has always been popular with them: party city!
Newcastle, more specifically Castle Leazes, was full of rahs, including one Princess Eugenie who was a student there at the same time as me, the first time round.
I could have bumped into her in the Sinners trebles bar and never known it.
When he was a student at Exeter, Peter Philips - Princess Anne’s son - tried to seduce my then girlfriend (also a student). He failed. Or so she told me
Ironically, when I look back at old photos I realise that she was a dead ringer for Meghan Markle, except paler and more wistful. An absolute stunner
Sigh
Getting a bit of a 'did a search for her on FB' vibe tbh
Off topic, why does Harry find the first amendment "baffling" ?
Because he's not very bright?
Because he has been convinced all his life that the UK press are a pack of uncontrolled snarling monsters out to exploit him and his family and he now finds that they are extremely controlled by our libel and other laws compared with the press in the US? A shattering of illusions.
If only he had a US wife who could have told him what the US Constitution says ........
He's an embarrassingly stupid man who has no real understanding of just how stupid he is.
As my mother said at the weekend; he got a B and a D at A level…and one of those was in art
Confirms Eton is overcharging parents?
Also, how easy must the entrance exam be? Or has Eton gone all Harrow and let in any kid of rich feckers?
Ludgrove and Eton both recommended he went to a different school. His grandmother (who appoints the Provost of Eton as her personal representative on the board and therefore has some sway) insisted. She wanted him close - this was shortly after Diana’s death - and she had him round to stay at her pad nearby most weekends
Connections eh.
How do we remove this unelected ruler?
It is an insult to millions of working class kids in the country who do not have these connections and cannot improve their lot in life.
Whether Harry went to Eton or Stowe would not have made the slightest difference to their life chances (or indeed his as he would be a multimillionaire through inheritance anyway), it was closing most of the grammar schools that reduced working class kids chances of getting into top universities and the top professions.
Tell that to Ben Houchen.
He's a Northumbria University Law School graduate.
His school was a former grammar school
Aye, that former grammar school got him into that prestigious university and it's done him no harm at all.
Also his school changed from a grammar school into a comprehensive 9 years before he was even born.
Most of the best comprehensives used to be the grammar schools in their area still
Right, but what's your point?
Are you saying that good schools are good schools, regardless of whether they are grammar schools or not? Because it seems like that's what you're saying.
I am saying the best state schools in non selective areas still tend to carry something of the grammar school ethos and reputation they had before eg the best state school in Epping Forest, the Davenant, is a Church of England academy but was a grammar school until 1980
Great — so we agree grammar school status is not required to be a good school. Cool.
No, the best state schools overall with the best exam results are still grammar schools and the best state schools with the best exam results in non selective areas still tend to be ex grammar schools.
Even if you do not have a wholesale return to selection, the uniforms, discipline, house systems, emphasis on excellence of grammars still produces results
Exactly — ex grammar schools. I.e. haven't been grammar schools for over 40 years.
Also "houses" are not unique to grammar schools. All my comprehensive schools had houses. And uniforms. And discipline.
Which is closer to the grammar school model than the model preferred by the left
You don't have a coherent point here.
Surely the "grammar school model" is just selection. Otherwise there's no difference from the comprehensive model.
No, the left oppose uniforms, oppose setting and oppose house systems and are less keen on strict discipline too
Interestingly, school uniforms are extremely unusual in the US, even though it is a significantly more right wing country than the UK.
They are normal at some of the prestigious private schools on the East coast still and of course the setting and discipline argument is also still an issue in the US too.
In any case it is strict disciplinarian Singapore which tops the PISA rankings, not the USA
Off topic, why does Harry find the first amendment "baffling" ?
Because he's not very bright?
Because he has been convinced all his life that the UK press are a pack of uncontrolled snarling monsters out to exploit him and his family and he now finds that they are extremely controlled by our libel and other laws compared with the press in the US? A shattering of illusions.
If only he had a US wife who could have told him what the US Constitution says ........
He's an embarrassingly stupid man who has no real understanding of just how stupid he is.
As my mother said at the weekend; he got a B and a D at A level…and one of those was in art
Confirms Eton is overcharging parents?
Also, how easy must the entrance exam be? Or has Eton gone all Harrow and let in any kid of rich feckers?
You have to pass an entrance exam to get into Harrow too, Harrow may not be as academic as Eton or Winchester or Westminster but it is not Stowe either (and even Stowe requires 55% average at Common Entrance)
Did not David Cameron once muse that Eton was becoming too academically intensive and it was the thick sons of gentleman farmers and the aristocracy who made the place?
Eton is catching up with Winchester and Westminster, which have always traditionally been the most academically intense of the top rank public schools if slightly less socially exclusive than Eton, with scholarships and highly competitive entrance.
Before Cameron of course went to Eton as befits his class, along with Boris, even if their brains did not perhaps match those of Winchester educated Sunak
The last debating competition my son was in at Durham had 8 teams from Eton, one of which ultimately won. They haven’t given up on teaching future cabinet ministers just yet.
Oxbridge has become very wary of taking Etonians (one per college per year) so for those who miss out Durham, Exeter or St. Andrews remain popular choices. My nephew ended up at Durham.
Plenty of Etonians at Bristol too
Yep and Universities that they might have thought twice about previously such as Newcastle and Leeds. Very rah those now.
Newcastle has always been popular with them: party city!
Newcastle, more specifically Castle Leazes, was full of rahs, including one Princess Eugenie who was a student there at the same time as me, the first time round.
I could have bumped into her in the Sinners trebles bar and never known it.
When he was a student at Exeter, Peter Philips - Princess Anne’s son - tried to seduce my then girlfriend (also a student). He failed. Or so she told me
Ironically, when I look back at old photos I realise that she was a dead ringer for Meghan Markle, except paler and more wistful. An absolute stunner
Sigh
Getting a bit of a 'did a search for her on FB' vibe tbh
So the government is considering using force majeure as a means to not implement the NI protocol . So basically an act of God ! More disgraceful behaviour from this cesspit administration. And in other news the U.K. can’t align its food standards to help solve many border issues because it wants to lower them when it decides to throw farmers under a bus when it makes a trade deal with Australia.
Off topic, why does Harry find the first amendment "baffling" ?
Because he's not very bright?
Because he has been convinced all his life that the UK press are a pack of uncontrolled snarling monsters out to exploit him and his family and he now finds that they are extremely controlled by our libel and other laws compared with the press in the US? A shattering of illusions.
If only he had a US wife who could have told him what the US Constitution says ........
He's an embarrassingly stupid man who has no real understanding of just how stupid he is.
As my mother said at the weekend; he got a B and a D at A level…and one of those was in art
Confirms Eton is overcharging parents?
Also, how easy must the entrance exam be? Or has Eton gone all Harrow and let in any kid of rich feckers?
You have to pass an entrance exam to get into Harrow too, Harrow may not be as academic as Eton or Winchester or Westminster but it is not Stowe either (and even Stowe requires 55% average at Common Entrance)
Did not David Cameron once muse that Eton was becoming too academically intensive and it was the thick sons of gentleman farmers and the aristocracy who made the place?
Eton is catching up with Winchester and Westminster, which have always traditionally been the most academically intense of the top rank public schools if slightly less socially exclusive than Eton, with scholarships and highly competitive entrance.
Before Cameron of course went to Eton as befits his class, along with Boris, even if their brains did not perhaps match those of Winchester educated Sunak
The last debating competition my son was in at Durham had 8 teams from Eton, one of which ultimately won. They haven’t given up on teaching future cabinet ministers just yet.
Oxbridge has become very wary of taking Etonians (one per college per year) so for those who miss out Durham, Exeter or St. Andrews remain popular choices. My nephew ended up at Durham.
Plenty of Etonians at Bristol too
Yep and Universities that they might have thought twice about previously such as Newcastle and Leeds. Very rah those now.
Newcastle has always been popular with them: party city!
Newcastle, more specifically Castle Leazes, was full of rahs, including one Princess Eugenie who was a student there at the same time as me, the first time round.
I could have bumped into her in the Sinners trebles bar and never known it.
When he was a student at Exeter, Peter Philips - Princess Anne’s son - tried to seduce my then girlfriend (also a student). He failed. Or so she told me
Ironically, when I look back at old photos I realise that she was a dead ringer for Meghan Markle, except paler and more wistful. An absolute stunner
Sigh
Getting a bit of a 'did a search for her on FB' vibe tbh
Off topic, why does Harry find the first amendment "baffling" ?
Because he's not very bright?
Because he has been convinced all his life that the UK press are a pack of uncontrolled snarling monsters out to exploit him and his family and he now finds that they are extremely controlled by our libel and other laws compared with the press in the US? A shattering of illusions.
If only he had a US wife who could have told him what the US Constitution says ........
He's an embarrassingly stupid man who has no real understanding of just how stupid he is.
As my mother said at the weekend; he got a B and a D at A level…and one of those was in art
Confirms Eton is overcharging parents?
Also, how easy must the entrance exam be? Or has Eton gone all Harrow and let in any kid of rich feckers?
You have to pass an entrance exam to get into Harrow too, Harrow may not be as academic as Eton or Winchester or Westminster but it is not Stowe either (and even Stowe requires 55% average at Common Entrance)
Did not David Cameron once muse that Eton was becoming too academically intensive and it was the thick sons of gentleman farmers and the aristocracy who made the place?
Eton is catching up with Winchester and Westminster, which have always traditionally been the most academically intense of the top rank public schools if slightly less socially exclusive than Eton, with scholarships and highly competitive entrance.
Before Cameron of course went to Eton as befits his class, along with Boris, even if their brains did not perhaps match those of Winchester educated Sunak
The last debating competition my son was in at Durham had 8 teams from Eton, one of which ultimately won. They haven’t given up on teaching future cabinet ministers just yet.
Oxbridge has become very wary of taking Etonians (one per college per year) so for those who miss out Durham, Exeter or St. Andrews remain popular choices. My nephew ended up at Durham.
Plenty of Etonians at Bristol too
Yep and Universities that they might have thought twice about previously such as Newcastle and Leeds. Very rah those now.
Newcastle has always been popular with them: party city!
Newcastle, more specifically Castle Leazes, was full of rahs, including one Princess Eugenie who was a student there at the same time as me, the first time round.
I could have bumped into her in the Sinners trebles bar and never known it.
When he was a student at Exeter, Peter Philips - Princess Anne’s son - tried to seduce my then girlfriend (also a student). He failed. Or so she told me
Ironically, when I look back at old photos I realise that she was a dead ringer for Meghan Markle, except paler and more wistful. An absolute stunner
Sigh
Getting a bit of a 'did a search for her on FB' vibe tbh
So the government is considering using force majeure as a means to not implement the NI protocol . So basically an act of God ! More disgraceful behaviour from this cesspit administration. And in other news the U.K. can’t align its food standards to help solve many border issues because it wants to lower them when it decides to throw farmers under a bus when it makes a trade deal with Australia.
British farmers would also get tariff free access to the Australian market and I am sure Unionists would be very happy if Boris removes the Irish Sea border whatever means he uses to do so
So the government is considering using force majeure as a means to not implement the NI protocol . So basically an act of God ! More disgraceful behaviour from this cesspit administration. And in other news the U.K. can’t align its food standards to help solve many border issues because it wants to lower them when it decides to throw farmers under a bus when it makes a trade deal with Australia.
It is remarkable, though not surprising, that in this era of "food miles" and in a country that can't currently feed itself without imports, the Insane Clown posse are prepared to destroy local sheep farming in favour of importing them from the farthest point on the planet.
Off topic, why does Harry find the first amendment "baffling" ?
Because he's not very bright?
Because he has been convinced all his life that the UK press are a pack of uncontrolled snarling monsters out to exploit him and his family and he now finds that they are extremely controlled by our libel and other laws compared with the press in the US? A shattering of illusions.
If only he had a US wife who could have told him what the US Constitution says ........
He's an embarrassingly stupid man who has no real understanding of just how stupid he is.
As my mother said at the weekend; he got a B and a D at A level…and one of those was in art
Confirms Eton is overcharging parents?
Also, how easy must the entrance exam be? Or has Eton gone all Harrow and let in any kid of rich feckers?
You have to pass an entrance exam to get into Harrow too, Harrow may not be as academic as Eton or Winchester or Westminster but it is not Stowe either (and even Stowe requires 55% average at Common Entrance)
Did not David Cameron once muse that Eton was becoming too academically intensive and it was the thick sons of gentleman farmers and the aristocracy who made the place?
Eton is catching up with Winchester and Westminster, which have always traditionally been the most academically intense of the top rank public schools if slightly less socially exclusive than Eton, with scholarships and highly competitive entrance.
Before Cameron of course went to Eton as befits his class, along with Boris, even if their brains did not perhaps match those of Winchester educated Sunak
The last debating competition my son was in at Durham had 8 teams from Eton, one of which ultimately won. They haven’t given up on teaching future cabinet ministers just yet.
Oxbridge has become very wary of taking Etonians (one per college per year) so for those who miss out Durham, Exeter or St. Andrews remain popular choices. My nephew ended up at Durham.
Plenty of Etonians at Bristol too
Yep and Universities that they might have thought twice about previously such as Newcastle and Leeds. Very rah those now.
Newcastle has always been popular with them: party city!
Newcastle, more specifically Castle Leazes, was full of rahs, including one Princess Eugenie who was a student there at the same time as me, the first time round.
I could have bumped into her in the Sinners trebles bar and never known it.
When he was a student at Exeter, Peter Philips - Princess Anne’s son - tried to seduce my then girlfriend (also a student). He failed. Or so she told me
Ironically, when I look back at old photos I realise that she was a dead ringer for Meghan Markle, except paler and more wistful. An absolute stunner
Sigh
Getting a bit of a 'did a search for her on FB' vibe tbh
She was also the first girl to send me a nude selfie. So it must have happened around the advent of mobile phone cameras, in the early Noughties
I was sitting in a soho club when it pinged, unheralded, onto my phone. It was a huge, sudden jolt of eroticism. Like a minor heart attack
I’ve still got this primordial image stored on my latest phone. Very poor resolution ofc
1922 chairman Sir Graham Brady speaking to me earlier on @SkyNews clear he does not want the government to reverse yesterday’s reopening and must stick to June 21 plan
Off topic, why does Harry find the first amendment "baffling" ?
Because he's not very bright?
Because he has been convinced all his life that the UK press are a pack of uncontrolled snarling monsters out to exploit him and his family and he now finds that they are extremely controlled by our libel and other laws compared with the press in the US? A shattering of illusions.
If only he had a US wife who could have told him what the US Constitution says ........
He's an embarrassingly stupid man who has no real understanding of just how stupid he is.
As my mother said at the weekend; he got a B and a D at A level…and one of those was in art
Confirms Eton is overcharging parents?
Also, how easy must the entrance exam be? Or has Eton gone all Harrow and let in any kid of rich feckers?
You have to pass an entrance exam to get into Harrow too, Harrow may not be as academic as Eton or Winchester or Westminster but it is not Stowe either (and even Stowe requires 55% average at Common Entrance)
Did not David Cameron once muse that Eton was becoming too academically intensive and it was the thick sons of gentleman farmers and the aristocracy who made the place?
Eton is catching up with Winchester and Westminster, which have always traditionally been the most academically intense of the top rank public schools if slightly less socially exclusive than Eton, with scholarships and highly competitive entrance.
Before Cameron of course went to Eton as befits his class, along with Boris, even if their brains did not perhaps match those of Winchester educated Sunak
The last debating competition my son was in at Durham had 8 teams from Eton, one of which ultimately won. They haven’t given up on teaching future cabinet ministers just yet.
Oxbridge has become very wary of taking Etonians (one per college per year) so for those who miss out Durham, Exeter or St. Andrews remain popular choices. My nephew ended up at Durham.
Plenty of Etonians at Bristol too
Yep and Universities that they might have thought twice about previously such as Newcastle and Leeds. Very rah those now.
Newcastle has always been popular with them: party city!
Newcastle, more specifically Castle Leazes, was full of rahs, including one Princess Eugenie who was a student there at the same time as me, the first time round.
I could have bumped into her in the Sinners trebles bar and never known it.
When I was there (and met my wife) Castle Sleazes wasn't rah city - that was Henderson followed by Osbourne Road, Jesmond.
It is now though which is why twin A is looking elsewhere when she heads to Newcastle in September (3rd generation at Kings College, Durham).
Off topic, why does Harry find the first amendment "baffling" ?
Because he's not very bright?
Because he has been convinced all his life that the UK press are a pack of uncontrolled snarling monsters out to exploit him and his family and he now finds that they are extremely controlled by our libel and other laws compared with the press in the US? A shattering of illusions.
If only he had a US wife who could have told him what the US Constitution says ........
He's an embarrassingly stupid man who has no real understanding of just how stupid he is.
As my mother said at the weekend; he got a B and a D at A level…and one of those was in art
Confirms Eton is overcharging parents?
Also, how easy must the entrance exam be? Or has Eton gone all Harrow and let in any kid of rich feckers?
You have to pass an entrance exam to get into Harrow too, Harrow may not be as academic as Eton or Winchester or Westminster but it is not Stowe either (and even Stowe requires 55% average at Common Entrance)
Did not David Cameron once muse that Eton was becoming too academically intensive and it was the thick sons of gentleman farmers and the aristocracy who made the place?
Eton is catching up with Winchester and Westminster, which have always traditionally been the most academically intense of the top rank public schools if slightly less socially exclusive than Eton, with scholarships and highly competitive entrance.
Before Cameron of course went to Eton as befits his class, along with Boris, even if their brains did not perhaps match those of Winchester educated Sunak
The last debating competition my son was in at Durham had 8 teams from Eton, one of which ultimately won. They haven’t given up on teaching future cabinet ministers just yet.
Oxbridge has become very wary of taking Etonians (one per college per year) so for those who miss out Durham, Exeter or St. Andrews remain popular choices. My nephew ended up at Durham.
Plenty of Etonians at Bristol too
Yep and Universities that they might have thought twice about previously such as Newcastle and Leeds. Very rah those now.
Newcastle has always been popular with them: party city!
Newcastle, more specifically Castle Leazes, was full of rahs, including one Princess Eugenie who was a student there at the same time as me, the first time round.
I could have bumped into her in the Sinners trebles bar and never known it.
When he was a student at Exeter, Peter Philips - Princess Anne’s son - tried to seduce my then girlfriend (also a student). He failed. Or so she told me
Ironically, when I look back at old photos I realise that she was a dead ringer for Meghan Markle, except paler and more wistful. An absolute stunner
Sigh
Getting a bit of a 'did a search for her on FB' vibe tbh
She was also the first girl to send me a nude selfie. So it must have happened around the advent of mobile phone cameras, in the early Noughties
I was sitting in a soho club when it pinged, unheralded, onto my phone. It was a huge, sudden jolt of eroticism. Like a minor heart attack
I’ve still got this primordial image stored on my latest phone. Very poor resolution ofc
I still have some life drawings of my first serious girlfriend. Unfortunately melancholy tends to overwhelm the erotic charge.
Off topic, why does Harry find the first amendment "baffling" ?
Because he's not very bright?
Because he has been convinced all his life that the UK press are a pack of uncontrolled snarling monsters out to exploit him and his family and he now finds that they are extremely controlled by our libel and other laws compared with the press in the US? A shattering of illusions.
If only he had a US wife who could have told him what the US Constitution says ........
He's an embarrassingly stupid man who has no real understanding of just how stupid he is.
As my mother said at the weekend; he got a B and a D at A level…and one of those was in art
Confirms Eton is overcharging parents?
Also, how easy must the entrance exam be? Or has Eton gone all Harrow and let in any kid of rich feckers?
You have to pass an entrance exam to get into Harrow too, Harrow may not be as academic as Eton or Winchester or Westminster but it is not Stowe either (and even Stowe requires 55% average at Common Entrance)
Did not David Cameron once muse that Eton was becoming too academically intensive and it was the thick sons of gentleman farmers and the aristocracy who made the place?
Eton is catching up with Winchester and Westminster, which have always traditionally been the most academically intense of the top rank public schools if slightly less socially exclusive than Eton, with scholarships and highly competitive entrance.
Before Cameron of course went to Eton as befits his class, along with Boris, even if their brains did not perhaps match those of Winchester educated Sunak
The last debating competition my son was in at Durham had 8 teams from Eton, one of which ultimately won. They haven’t given up on teaching future cabinet ministers just yet.
Oxbridge has become very wary of taking Etonians (one per college per year) so for those who miss out Durham, Exeter or St. Andrews remain popular choices. My nephew ended up at Durham.
Plenty of Etonians at Bristol too
Yep and Universities that they might have thought twice about previously such as Newcastle and Leeds. Very rah those now.
Newcastle has always been popular with them: party city!
Newcastle, more specifically Castle Leazes, was full of rahs, including one Princess Eugenie who was a student there at the same time as me, the first time round.
I could have bumped into her in the Sinners trebles bar and never known it.
When I was there (and met my wife) Castle Sleazes wasn't rah city - that was Henderson followed by Osbourne Road, Jesmond.
It is now though which is why twin A is looking elsewhere when she heads to Newcastle in September (3rd generation at Kings College, Durham).
Henderson Hall has been demolished now, you'll be happy to know, other than the Old Hall bit. That's where I was in 1st year! Although in the scummy part.
Off topic, why does Harry find the first amendment "baffling" ?
Because he's not very bright?
Because he has been convinced all his life that the UK press are a pack of uncontrolled snarling monsters out to exploit him and his family and he now finds that they are extremely controlled by our libel and other laws compared with the press in the US? A shattering of illusions.
If only he had a US wife who could have told him what the US Constitution says ........
He's an embarrassingly stupid man who has no real understanding of just how stupid he is.
As my mother said at the weekend; he got a B and a D at A level…and one of those was in art
Confirms Eton is overcharging parents?
Also, how easy must the entrance exam be? Or has Eton gone all Harrow and let in any kid of rich feckers?
You have to pass an entrance exam to get into Harrow too, Harrow may not be as academic as Eton or Winchester or Westminster but it is not Stowe either (and even Stowe requires 55% average at Common Entrance)
Did not David Cameron once muse that Eton was becoming too academically intensive and it was the thick sons of gentleman farmers and the aristocracy who made the place?
Eton is catching up with Winchester and Westminster, which have always traditionally been the most academically intense of the top rank public schools if slightly less socially exclusive than Eton, with scholarships and highly competitive entrance.
Before Cameron of course went to Eton as befits his class, along with Boris, even if their brains did not perhaps match those of Winchester educated Sunak
The last debating competition my son was in at Durham had 8 teams from Eton, one of which ultimately won. They haven’t given up on teaching future cabinet ministers just yet.
Oxbridge has become very wary of taking Etonians (one per college per year) so for those who miss out Durham, Exeter or St. Andrews remain popular choices. My nephew ended up at Durham.
Plenty of Etonians at Bristol too
Yep and Universities that they might have thought twice about previously such as Newcastle and Leeds. Very rah those now.
Newcastle has always been popular with them: party city!
Newcastle, more specifically Castle Leazes, was full of rahs, including one Princess Eugenie who was a student there at the same time as me, the first time round.
I could have bumped into her in the Sinners trebles bar and never known it.
When he was a student at Exeter, Peter Philips - Princess Anne’s son - tried to seduce my then girlfriend (also a student). He failed. Or so she told me
Ironically, when I look back at old photos I realise that she was a dead ringer for Meghan Markle, except paler and more wistful. An absolute stunner
Sigh
Getting a bit of a 'did a search for her on FB' vibe tbh
She was also the first girl to send me a nude selfie. So it must have happened around the advent of mobile phone cameras, in the early Noughties
I was sitting in a soho club when it pinged, unheralded, onto my phone. It was a huge, sudden jolt of eroticism. Like a minor heart attack
I’ve still got this primordial image stored on my latest phone. Very poor resolution ofc
I still have some life drawings of my first serious girlfriend. Unfortunately melancholy tends to overwhelm the erotic charge.
Facebook tells me my iconically beautiful, sultry, poetic, Meghan-a-like girlfriend is now a serious mother in her 40s, with a daughter of 12 and her own business and she’s very very different. I empathize with your melancholia
Re header, gosh, terrible for Keir Starmer. He has a year to turn things around and I'd be lying if I said I'm confident he will. But let's see. I'm long of him at 7.6 to be next PM and I'm still expecting to be laying that back at much shorter well before the GE.
Anyway let's park Starmer, because I'd like to say a word about Boris Johnson for a change. It's depressing beyond measure that such a man sits astride English politics but sit astride English politics such a man doth sit. It’s the truth of the matter and it must be faced.
I hear the dissing of him that goes on. He’s lucky. People don’t really like him, it’s all vaccine bounce, or it’s Brexit. Plus the Foremain OGH thesis - ok he wins elections but look at the opponents, a fag end Ken Livingstone, the risible Jeremy Corbyn. Anyone could have beaten them.
I don’t buy this. Red Ken was a London icon and London is a Labour city. Johnson beat him then beat him again. Jeremy Corbyn was such a terrible candidate that in the GE of 2017 he racked up Labour’s best English vote share since the 97 landslide and came within a whisker of number ten. Yes, he’d become a whipping boy by GE19, but does anybody really think if Jeremy Hunt had won the Tory leadership (another Johnson electoral triumph, btw, right there) that he’d have managed anything close to the 80 seat majority that Johnson scored. Not a chance. 30 seats max.
And let’s not forget Johnson’s biggest election win of all, 23 June 2016, 52/48, against a certain David Cameron, super smooth, super confident PM of the time, fresh from a GE triumph of his own the year before, see-er off of the rampant Scots the year before that. DC knew he’d win until he heard Johnson had plumped for the other side. Then he started to worry and he was right to.
So there you go. It’s not a view I enjoy holding but it is my view. Boris Johnson IS the Heineken politician. He DOES reach the people and the parts that other Tories cannot reach. And those people and parts are perfectly situated for turning Tory votes into Tory seats in FPTP general elections.
I’m not as bearish on Labour for the next GE as many seem to be – sense there’s some herd thinking going on – but I confess here and now that I’d fancy their chances a lot more if they were facing any Tory leader bar Boris Johnson. The guy’s a menace.
Who could refuse you at least an ovatio and myrtle crown for that post?
Thank you. It was a task I felt had to be tackled, rather than something I enjoyed, so I'll accept with good grace as my due.
In a nutshell. People of all stripes talk about this politician with fondness as if they know him well. That's electoral gold.
Essential (for sanity) caveat: Things can change and change can be quick.
So the government is considering using force majeure as a means to not implement the NI protocol . So basically an act of God ! More disgraceful behaviour from this cesspit administration. And in other news the U.K. can’t align its food standards to help solve many border issues because it wants to lower them when it decides to throw farmers under a bus when it makes a trade deal with Australia.
It is remarkable, though not surprising, that in this era of "food miles" and in a country that can't currently feed itself without imports, the Insane Clown posse are prepared to destroy local sheep farming in favour of importing them from the farthest point on the planet.
It is fantastic news yes and it's unsurprising that your fervent support of free trade with your beloved EU becomes rampant protectionism and terror the moment we talk about anyone else.
Comments
Also his school changed from a grammar school into a comprehensive 9 years before he was even born.
You're one of these 'herders', David, are you, giving the GE to the Cons already?
One could imagine Benny Hill caught on a zipwire in a hard had waving two union Flags. Hilarious slapstick comedy for those who like that sort of thing. Cooper, however was far more sophisticated.
Absent your legendary modesty, you'd be insufferable.
Lady Diana Spencer
Was not a member of Mensa.
If she’d been brighter,
She wouldn’t have married the blighter.
the First Amendment has mutated into free speech idolatry. Free speech has been placed on so high a pedestal that it is almost automatically privileged over privacy, fair trials, equality and public health, even protecting depictions of animal cruelty and violent video games sold to children. At the same time, dissent is unduly stifled and religious minorities are burdened. The First Amendment benefits the powerful at the expense of the vulnerable. By contrast, other Western democracies provide more reasonable accommodations between free speech and other values though their protections of dissent, and religious minorities are also inadequate.
Harry’s absolutely spot on. I feel embarrassed for the lot of you.
For example the best state school in Epping Forest, the Davenant, was a grammar until 1980 and is now an academy
But I was mainly joking.
They really don't understand how to oppose.
One of the better pieces of advice my first boss ever gave me was 'don't try and be an expert in something you're not, don't wing it, pass it on to someone who is.'
Are you saying that good schools are good schools, regardless of whether they are grammar schools or not? Because it seems like that's what you're saying.
The DCMS has just published its performing arts guidance for stage 3 of the covid restrictions in England.
The restrictions on non-professional groups were expected to be the same as last autumn - rehearsals ok provided everyone socially distanced.
Whilst this guidance remains in general, for singing there is now a specific limit of 6 people indoors (30 outdoors). It is therefore impractical for most amateur choirs to recommence rehearsals in person.
We will now have to cancel tomorrow's rehearsal.
Actually that's not correct - the current EU President is an expert on screwing up in senior governmental jobs. With a proven rack record.
Hmmmm. OFSTED inspector, maybe?
Which means there is a huge area of possible result which the electorate traditionally don't much like: the zone of uncertainty - anything from a UNS (!!) of about 3.3-10 points - exactly the area you would expect a result probably to be.
Which plays, I think, to the advantage of the Tories, who can play every sort of 'better the devil you know' than 'the devil you can't even work out what shape it could be, or if it can run a country at all or get the numbers or find a mandate'.
BTW Mr Poots (a character from Dickens, Trollope, Grossman, Jerome K Jerome and Edmund Gosse all rolled into one) will be keen to tell what he doesn't want. Will be be any keener than his predecessors to propose a workable solution? Thought not.
Recall that Henderson Hall used to be known as Hooray Henderson Hall because of the number of old Etonians who were resident.
Even if you do not have a wholesale return to selection, the uniforms, discipline, house systems, emphasis on excellence of grammars still produces results
I could have bumped into her in the Sinners trebles bar and never known it.
43-30 (59-41) Rest of country said they were
48-27 (64-36) of Red Wallers said so
I first thought the majority were saying different ethnic groups generally get on well, but that is apparently the minority view.
Nobel laureate Michael Levitt, and his interventions on the pandemic, is a case in point.
No problem if you're prepared to start from scratch and put in the hard yards.
Also "houses" are not unique to grammar schools. All my comprehensive schools had houses. And uniforms. And discipline.
The explanation for which was that Trafford's selective status was a result of it giving a shit about education, which wasn't the case elsewhere in GM where rather more 1980s practices had taken hold. That is now starting to unwind as other districts also now tend to give a shit about education.
Point being, selection or otherwise not as important as whether the authority believes education is important.
Surely the "grammar school model" is just selection. Otherwise there's no difference from the comprehensive model.
I see that a lot on here (and online generally) when people comment on my area of expertise.
And I'm sure other people see it when I comment on theirs. But I always try to accept corrections from people who know more about whatever it is than I do.
Q1b would be "how can we help?"
Harrow help 20% of pupils with costs. Scholarships to 25% or Bursaries to 100%.
Not all, but he's by no means a master of nuance.
See here for a blog post about it.....sites like this should be scared
https://www.openrightsgroup.org/blog/online-abuse-why-management-liability-isnt-the-answer/
Just because Twitter hates some of those things doesn't mean the majority of voters do, as you say, even on the "left".
In the 1980s, many schools consciously rejected anything which might smack of elitism (uniform, houses, discipline, actually expecting and aspiring towards something good from its pupils, etc.) These schools, were, by and large, shit.
Most grammar schools stuck with the traditional approach. And remained good schools.
There are examples all over the country of schools which offer a 'grammar-school style' education (see above) without actually being selective, and they tend to be very popular. Some even retain the name 'grammar school'.
I think everyone supports schools which demand a certain level of academic rigour - at least as an option, if not universally (such a school would be right for my oldest, but not necessarily for my second oldest). Whether these schools should select by academic ability is a slightly separate point. The latter are, as you rightly point out, technically 'grammar schools' in a way which the former are not necessarily - we perhaps need another label for the former (or even for the latter).
Told off twice by the speaker and taken apart by Penny Mordaunt
https://twitter.com/GuidoFawkes/status/1394648066804887563?s=19
Weather tomorrow looking ok btw. Just a few drops in the afternoon.
PS I was "Vice Captain", naturally. I was Nick Clegg.
- being confident enough to say it (not feeling the need to 'prove' myself)
- understanding 'that' well enough to know that what I do know about 'that' is not much
- being asked for advice more often and on a wider range of things because people start to think I might actually know things
- losing my faculties and actually knowing less and less
I like to think it's a combination of the first three, but I can't rule out number 4!
When I want to cheer myself up about next GE prospects I imagine getting 15 random English voters in a room. With how it is right now there'll be 6 Tories, 5 Labour, a Lib Dem and a Green, plus a couple of ditzy types who don't know what time it is and don't care to find out.
When you consider it this way - as opposed to 10 pt Con leads in opinion polls - a Labour win doesn't seem such a crazy outcome. Especially since the vote is still ages away.
Ironically, when I look back at old photos I realise that she was a dead ringer for Meghan Markle, except paler and more wistful. An absolute stunner
Sigh
It can be a minor discipline, but you can learn more based on your previous experiences.
'I've only briefly looked at/skim read this case so my initial thoughts are why this case won't succeed are...'
Then spent the next 20 mins finding a hundred reasons for finding why the defence side was rubbish.
In any case it is strict disciplinarian Singapore which tops the PISA rankings, not the USA
Sob.
I was sitting in a soho club when it pinged, unheralded, onto my phone. It was a huge, sudden jolt of eroticism. Like a minor heart attack
I’ve still got this primordial image stored on my latest phone. Very poor resolution ofc
Transcript: https://twitter.com/SamCoatesSky/status/1394660228965322755/photo/1
It is now though which is why twin A is looking elsewhere when she heads to Newcastle in September (3rd generation at Kings College, Durham).
I could auction it off. Get Elon Musk bidding against Bill Gates
Unfortunately melancholy tends to overwhelm the erotic charge.
In a nutshell. People of all stripes talk about this politician with fondness as if they know him well. That's electoral gold.
Essential (for sanity) caveat: Things can change and change can be quick.
Hypocrite.