After reading the thread here I bet on Labour holding Batley and Spen, but I pulled out of the market after I woke up this morning to the headline news that the Education Select Committee believes schools have long neglected white children. This is how the Tories win - by playing the race card. The race card is a trump card. (See what I did there.) Most likely the Tories will gain Batley and Spen and they are value at 1.45. Thumping away with this kind of story - what is essentially a call for "white rights" - could increase the Tories' Commons majority at the next GE too.
Time to emigrate?
What rubbish. There is clearly an issue with underachievement in this demographic, and there has been for a while, and addressing it is exactly what is needed to stop people playing the race card.
Or would you prefer this sector of society was allowed to keep falling behind as long as your comfy worldview wasn’t challenged ?
I just don't understand what their race has to do with this. They're not getting treated badly at school because they're white. In fact I doubt they're getting treated badly at school at all, except to the extent that all state school kids in this country are let down by a lack of money and focus from the government and the establishment, who mostly go private and so have very little skin in the game. Their problems come from a lack of engagement in education, often rooted in their parents' experiences of school, sometimes compounded by other issues that their parents have. Plus poverty, which makes everything harder. (BTW before anyone accuses me of being an out of touch elitist, I went to a comprehensive school that was almost entirely white so the so-called white working class is not some kind of unknown exotic species to me).
I disagree with that and I think a lot has to do with the attitude of teachers. As @RochdalePioneers so helpfully demonstrated a few days back, there is a view on the left, especially amongst let's say the more educated parts including the teaching profession, that WWC kids are essentially thick, racist and therefore not worth saving, and the problems they have in their lives are the faults of them and their ghastly parents. Therefore, why bother trying to do anything with them. That then leads to teachers who view their place as going through the motions rather than trying to inspire or change.
That is the Right's view of the view of the Left. The real one is that our education system is elitist and old fashioned and underfunded and warped by the propensity of the affluent to opt out and purchase advantage via the private sector.
We demand better. We want a more egalitarian approach that will deliver a similar (and high) quality education to everyone regardless of parental bank balance. Increase participation in state schools, proper funding, a real prioritizing of disadvantaged areas.
The biggest beneficiary of such an approach? Yep - white working class children.
But oh no, too difficult. Too disruptive of the status quo that so many are secretly comfortable with. So let's produce this report instead. Let's avoid the hard choices about class and money and push some culture war buttons. Let's waffle on about the term "white privilege". Has sweet FA to do with the problem but let's pretend that it does. Let's stoke some grievance!
I see you, Tories, and Middle England. I see you.
So are you saying Tories invented the term "white privilege"?
I would back 1/3 that in a random conversation on here where it drifts onto white privilege it is a Tory voter who first uses the phrase here, and be a comfortable winner in the long run.
I would also back at odds on, that if someone starts a conversation about increasing education spending, they did not vote Tory at the last election.
I think the phrase is tactically unhelpful to the point of being counter productive, but does exist to an extent, as do many other privileges especially class and in many societies gender.
If a Tory voter on here quotes someone who uses the term (and means it), like Charles in his example above, then is that a leftwinger initiating that or a right winger?
You seem to think that the far left ought to be able to say whatever they want in a safe space and never be quoted or responded to.
If the phrase is unhelpful to the point of being counter productive then don't use it and condemn those who do.
I would never initiate a conversation about it so only use it when it is already being discussed anyway.
Like most of wokeism, it is a tiny minority on the left who probably do start it, but a much bigger minority on the right who amplify, publicise and politicise it into the mainstream.
In which case its the left that started it, not the right. Publicising what your opponents are up to is just politics and quite right to do.
If you find the left embarrassing then you can join in with the right in rejecting it and criticising it yourself. In which case it loses all potency.
All of which is irrelevant drivel in getting to grips with problems in education, which is the job of the select committee. What you write just confirms that it's engaged in petty politicking.
The original poster's comment on this thread was the irrelevant drivel. The person on Breakfast this morning was Robert Halfon (who I think is the Chair of the committee?) and he is hardly on the right of the Tory Party. His comments were perfectly rational. WWC kids are underperforming compared to their peers.
I went to a very poor ex-secondary modern comprehensive school. I am sure nowadays it would have ended up in special measures. The teachers at that school were almost without exception very left wing and had no problem expressing their far left political views. During the Falklands War one was so "woke" that he referred to the Falklands as "The Malvinas"! Most of these teachers were actually middle class, and some seemed to revel in the fact that most of the kids left with no qualifications, and I am quite sure looked down on them as uneducable. With the exception of one or two most were incompetent and lazy. Most should have been sacked.
There is an essential problem with the middle class educated left: they are often intellectual and cultural snobs and they would like the WWC to know their place. The reason for poor performance in many schools is not just the lack of resources. It is a lack of expectation and ambition. This takes outstanding teachers, many of whom gravitate, understandably, to the better schools, thereby exacerbating the problem. I am not sure what the answer is. As I was fortunate enough to become quite successful I chose to privately educate my kids. It is a decision I have never regretted.
So your analysis of the current state system is based on your experience of four decades back ? No one is arguing that white British kids from poor backgrounds aren't underperforming. And if you think current teachers revel in that fact, then you are a fool.
Indeed. I think it's actually pretty insulting to a lot of hard working teachers that really do want the best for the kids they teach. Unfortunately the problems here start much earlier than that with parental and establishment expectations. Just as the Met sees a black person and sees potential criminal or an Asian person and sees a potential terrorist, the education establishment sees a young white boy or young black boy and sees troublemakers and treats them as such. If anything there are teachers all across the country who are fighting against that system of low expectations.
You're right, but that's a battle that's been fought for at least twenty years now, and the 'goodies' are winning. There's very few teachers now who stereotype pupils as black = troublemaker, or white disadvantaged = no hoper, and those who do are older and on their way out.
How many teachers will push a bright black kid to go to a Russell Group university?
I can't quantify that, of course, but the vast majority. Most teachers nowadays get a lot of kudos for getting black kids, and working class kids, into Oxbridge as well as Russell Group universities. A lot of schools and colleges have programmes designed to do exactly that, through extra help with personal statements, interviews etc.
After reading the thread here I bet on Labour holding Batley and Spen, but I pulled out of the market after I woke up this morning to the headline news that the Education Select Committee believes schools have long neglected white children. This is how the Tories win - by playing the race card. The race card is a trump card. (See what I did there.) Most likely the Tories will gain Batley and Spen and they are value at 1.45. Thumping away with this kind of story - what is essentially a call for "white rights" - could increase the Tories' Commons majority at the next GE too.
Time to emigrate?
What rubbish. There is clearly an issue with underachievement in this demographic, and there has been for a while, and addressing it is exactly what is needed to stop people playing the race card.
Or would you prefer this sector of society was allowed to keep falling behind as long as your comfy worldview wasn’t challenged ?
I just don't understand what their race has to do with this. They're not getting treated badly at school because they're white. In fact I doubt they're getting treated badly at school at all, except to the extent that all state school kids in this country are let down by a lack of money and focus from the government and the establishment, who mostly go private and so have very little skin in the game. Their problems come from a lack of engagement in education, often rooted in their parents' experiences of school, sometimes compounded by other issues that their parents have. Plus poverty, which makes everything harder. (BTW before anyone accuses me of being an out of touch elitist, I went to a comprehensive school that was almost entirely white so the so-called white working class is not some kind of unknown exotic species to me).
I disagree with that and I think a lot has to do with the attitude of teachers. As @RochdalePioneers so helpfully demonstrated a few days back, there is a view on the left, especially amongst let's say the more educated parts including the teaching profession, that WWC kids are essentially thick, racist and therefore not worth saving, and the problems they have in their lives are the faults of them and their ghastly parents. Therefore, why bother trying to do anything with them. That then leads to teachers who view their place as going through the motions rather than trying to inspire or change.
That is the Right's view of the view of the Left. The real one is that our education system is elitist and old fashioned and underfunded and warped by the propensity of the affluent to opt out and purchase advantage via the private sector.
We demand better. We want a more egalitarian approach that will deliver a similar (and high) quality education to everyone regardless of parental bank balance. Increase participation in state schools, proper funding, a real prioritizing of disadvantaged areas.
The biggest beneficiary of such an approach? Yep - white working class children.
But oh no, too difficult. Too disruptive of the status quo that so many are secretly comfortable with. So let's produce this report instead. Let's avoid the hard choices about class and money and push some culture war buttons. Let's waffle on about the term "white privilege". Has sweet FA to do with the problem but let's pretend that it does. Let's stoke some grievance!
I see you, Tories, and Middle England. I see you.
So are you saying Tories invented the term "white privilege"?
No course not. What I'm saying is that it looks like a tag on here to generate some culture war spat and divert the responsibility for a problem in schools to that oh so convenient amorphous blob which is to blame for all the defects of 11 years of Tory government - the woke left.
It's getting stale. It's getting very stale indeed.
1. It’s only just begun
2. It works
Probably correct. In which case the relative economic prospects of the white working class will not improve.
It will if more focus is placed into those areas.
Blair's education policies focused very much on improving the performance of state schools in London in particular and, 20 years on, huge progress has been made there. However, the rest of the country was relegated in importance, with the possible exception of some of the cities.
It might help the left in general if their reaction to reports such as the Education Committee was a bit more introspection and a lot less lashing out and blaming everyone else for how you are perceived. The left's behaviour when anyone brings up issues such as the WWC in schools is starting to look very Trumpian in its manner.
Let's see some real focus on improving the schools in disadvantaged white working class areas then. It's been eleven long years but there's still time.
Actually, I would argue you have to split the Tory years into groups. Cameron didn't give a f*ck about the WWC, and neither did the likes of Clegg and Osborne, all coming from well-off backgrounds, going to the best private schools and caring most about what the Notting Hill set thought. Theresa May was much better but, in her usual way, stumbling along. With BJ, I would expect action.
That's quite a last sentence. Many have been there.
But, ok, so I have 2 hopes:
(1) That you're right. Johnson demonstrates he's deadly serious about reducing class inequality in England.
(2) When it turns out he's not, the Cons shed English working class votes by the truckload.
What I really hope doesn't happen is a number (3). He and his government do nothing of substance to improve the relative economic condition of the white working class but continue to successfully deflect people from this onto bogeymen targets such as the "antiracism industry" and "middle class wokery" and "metropolitan elites".
(3) all the way.
We shall see - I hope not. Because as it stands it is impossible for a white working class lad to work hard, excel, get a great job (several of them, in fact), finally leave behind his white working class surroundings, and make good.
Things people will do to satisfy their pecadillo's
As we're also talking about grammar, Malc, what's that apostrophe doing there?
It is there to annoy grammar pedants, you are first in the trap.
Boris Johnson’s net approval rating: -32 Rishi Sunak’s net approval rating: -3 Government’s Net Competency Rating: -36 Keir Starmer's net approval rating: -16
If you lot want better scores then the solution is hardly beyond the wit of man: offer Scottish voters some intelligent, pleasant, hard-working, competent and sympathetic politicians. Boris, Rishi, Keir, Anas and Douglas just don’t cut it.
Wouldn't make a difference to anything. The fundamental problem with Scotland is that it simultaneously wants to break away but a crucial group of middle class voters won't vote for it because they're afraid it will be expensive. That leaves the more committed nationalists feeling permanently thwarted and angry, and the waverers loathing their choices because, deep down, they know that they are dependent on handouts for being kept in the manner to which they have become accustomed.
Selling the Union and being popular are, therefore, two mutually exclusive propositions. How could it be otherwise?
You really are an ignorant arse, you know nothing about Scotland but constantly pontificate your trash opinions on it, no doubt foaming at the mouth as you punch it out on the keyboard. Go and take a good look at your sorry jingoistic right wing nutjob attitude. Methinks you are projecting your own thwarted and angry nationalistic tendencies on Scotland.
My point is (I) there is enough evidence to justify doing the work to analyse it properly and (II) £250m is a rounding error in government spending
Almost everything is a rounding error in government spending - it's a lazy argument used to promote any number of vaguely desirable projects, some of which would also produce impressive hypothetical returns one day. It's unlikely that a new yacht would feature prominently on most voters' list of priorities. To govern is to choose, unless one believes in the magic money tree, as this government does to an extent which would have made John McDonnell blush.
After reading the thread here I bet on Labour holding Batley and Spen, but I pulled out of the market after I woke up this morning to the headline news that the Education Select Committee believes schools have long neglected white children. This is how the Tories win - by playing the race card. The race card is a trump card. (See what I did there.) Most likely the Tories will gain Batley and Spen and they are value at 1.45. Thumping away with this kind of story - what is essentially a call for "white rights" - could increase the Tories' Commons majority at the next GE too.
Time to emigrate?
What rubbish. There is clearly an issue with underachievement in this demographic, and there has been for a while, and addressing it is exactly what is needed to stop people playing the race card.
Or would you prefer this sector of society was allowed to keep falling behind as long as your comfy worldview wasn’t challenged ?
I just don't understand what their race has to do with this. They're not getting treated badly at school because they're white. In fact I doubt they're getting treated badly at school at all, except to the extent that all state school kids in this country are let down by a lack of money and focus from the government and the establishment, who mostly go private and so have very little skin in the game. Their problems come from a lack of engagement in education, often rooted in their parents' experiences of school, sometimes compounded by other issues that their parents have. Plus poverty, which makes everything harder. (BTW before anyone accuses me of being an out of touch elitist, I went to a comprehensive school that was almost entirely white so the so-called white working class is not some kind of unknown exotic species to me).
I disagree with that and I think a lot has to do with the attitude of teachers. As @RochdalePioneers so helpfully demonstrated a few days back, there is a view on the left, especially amongst let's say the more educated parts including the teaching profession, that WWC kids are essentially thick, racist and therefore not worth saving, and the problems they have in their lives are the faults of them and their ghastly parents. Therefore, why bother trying to do anything with them. That then leads to teachers who view their place as going through the motions rather than trying to inspire or change.
That is the Right's view of the view of the Left. The real one is that our education system is elitist and old fashioned and underfunded and warped by the propensity of the affluent to opt out and purchase advantage via the private sector.
We demand better. We want a more egalitarian approach that will deliver a similar (and high) quality education to everyone regardless of parental bank balance. Increase participation in state schools, proper funding, a real prioritizing of disadvantaged areas.
The biggest beneficiary of such an approach? Yep - white working class children.
But oh no, too difficult. Too disruptive of the status quo that so many are secretly comfortable with. So let's produce this report instead. Let's avoid the hard choices about class and money and push some culture war buttons. Let's waffle on about the term "white privilege". Has sweet FA to do with the problem but let's pretend that it does. Let's stoke some grievance!
I see you, Tories, and Middle England. I see you.
So are you saying Tories invented the term "white privilege"?
The Tories have latched onto it because they have figured out that it is a way of stoking resentment and dividing working class people. White Privilege is a term that is used to describe the advantages in many situations that white people enjoy on account of being the majority group. I'm sorry, but it describes something real, something that I personally have observed, and so I am not going to be bullied into not using it in that specific context. Of course, many white people don't feel very privileged, and so the term grates with them. But I doubt they have ever not had their CV looked at on account of their name, or been racially profiled by the police. White Privilege does not mean that all white people are more privileged than all non-White people.
It would only be a way of stoking resentment if there is a reason for resentment to be stoked.
If you believe that "white privilege" is real then stand up loud and proud and explain why poor white kids struggling at school are privileged. Otherwise maybe your term is flawed and you should stop using it and use something else instead.
We aren't America incidentally. I'd imagine many young white teenagers in hoodies have been profiled by the Police here.
Your poor white kids aren't struggling because they're white, they are struggling because they're poor, and the education system is under-funded by the government you vote for, and perhaps in some cases because of aspects of their upbringing, in many cases linked to their poverty. I've just given you two examples of how they don't face some similar barriers that non-White people do. And I'm not sure there are many places where a white kid in a hoodie will get hassled by the police more than a black kid in a hoodie, but please share statistics to the contrary if you have them.
It’s divisive and unhelpful as it perpetrates the perception that people are homogenous blocs based on skin colour.
They’re not. People are people.
So why should it be, that some of them should get along so awfully? - That's the million dollar question.
Some are shits. Others are venal. There are bullies and thugs. The majority of people are none of these things.
Telling people that “you are worse off because you are black” (which is fundamentally what “white privilege” is about) is actively harmful as it creates a reason for people to give up
Sorry, Charles, I was joking with that. Depeche Mode song - People Are People. Big hit for them.
Re the serious point, you're doing here what many do, confusing macro analysis with individual pep talk.
So, if you're talking to (say) a black teenager from a tough background you do NOT say, "Oh yeah, it's all rigged against you in this country. You're poor. You're black. You got no chance. Just give the fuck up on all that school and uni shit and go deal."
That would be crass and not necessarily true for the person you're actually talking to. You'd also sound like a bit of a dick who thinks he's Samuel L Jackson.
No, you'd be constructive and positive. Talk about opportunities. Focus on the bright side. Course you would.
But does this mean that when discussing the big picture, you have to pretend that black people in the UK do not face serious specific barriers? You have to pretend that we have racism well and truly licked?
No way. To extend pep talk to macro analysis is a nonsense. And a common one too. It's very common on the ra ra right. It's a strand of anti-intellectualism. Which isn't always a bad thing but it is here. It's a very bad thing because it hampers debate and obscures the truth.
After reading the thread here I bet on Labour holding Batley and Spen, but I pulled out of the market after I woke up this morning to the headline news that the Education Select Committee believes schools have long neglected white children. This is how the Tories win - by playing the race card. The race card is a trump card. (See what I did there.) Most likely the Tories will gain Batley and Spen and they are value at 1.45. Thumping away with this kind of story - what is essentially a call for "white rights" - could increase the Tories' Commons majority at the next GE too.
Time to emigrate?
What rubbish. There is clearly an issue with underachievement in this demographic, and there has been for a while, and addressing it is exactly what is needed to stop people playing the race card.
Or would you prefer this sector of society was allowed to keep falling behind as long as your comfy worldview wasn’t challenged ?
I just don't understand what their race has to do with this. They're not getting treated badly at school because they're white. In fact I doubt they're getting treated badly at school at all, except to the extent that all state school kids in this country are let down by a lack of money and focus from the government and the establishment, who mostly go private and so have very little skin in the game. Their problems come from a lack of engagement in education, often rooted in their parents' experiences of school, sometimes compounded by other issues that their parents have. Plus poverty, which makes everything harder. (BTW before anyone accuses me of being an out of touch elitist, I went to a comprehensive school that was almost entirely white so the so-called white working class is not some kind of unknown exotic species to me).
I disagree with that and I think a lot has to do with the attitude of teachers. As @RochdalePioneers so helpfully demonstrated a few days back, there is a view on the left, especially amongst let's say the more educated parts including the teaching profession, that WWC kids are essentially thick, racist and therefore not worth saving, and the problems they have in their lives are the faults of them and their ghastly parents. Therefore, why bother trying to do anything with them. That then leads to teachers who view their place as going through the motions rather than trying to inspire or change.
That is the Right's view of the view of the Left. The real one is that our education system is elitist and old fashioned and underfunded and warped by the propensity of the affluent to opt out and purchase advantage via the private sector.
We demand better. We want a more egalitarian approach that will deliver a similar (and high) quality education to everyone regardless of parental bank balance. Increase participation in state schools, proper funding, a real prioritizing of disadvantaged areas.
The biggest beneficiary of such an approach? Yep - white working class children.
But oh no, too difficult. Too disruptive of the status quo that so many are secretly comfortable with. So let's produce this report instead. Let's avoid the hard choices about class and money and push some culture war buttons. Let's waffle on about the term "white privilege". Has sweet FA to do with the problem but let's pretend that it does. Let's stoke some grievance!
I see you, Tories, and Middle England. I see you.
So are you saying Tories invented the term "white privilege"?
The Tories have latched onto it because they have figured out that it is a way of stoking resentment and dividing working class people. White Privilege is a term that is used to describe the advantages in many situations that white people enjoy on account of being the majority group. I'm sorry, but it describes something real, something that I personally have observed, and so I am not going to be bullied into not using it in that specific context. Of course, many white people don't feel very privileged, and so the term grates with them. But I doubt they have ever not had their CV looked at on account of their name, or been racially profiled by the police. White Privilege does not mean that all white people are more privileged than all non-White people.
It would only be a way of stoking resentment if there is a reason for resentment to be stoked.
If you believe that "white privilege" is real then stand up loud and proud and explain why poor white kids struggling at school are privileged. Otherwise maybe your term is flawed and you should stop using it and use something else instead.
We aren't America incidentally. I'd imagine many young white teenagers in hoodies have been profiled by the Police here.
Your poor white kids aren't struggling because they're white, they are struggling because they're poor, and the education system is under-funded by the government you vote for, and perhaps in some cases because of aspects of their upbringing, in many cases linked to their poverty. I've just given you two examples of how they don't face some similar barriers that non-White people do. And I'm not sure there are many places where a white kid in a hoodie will get hassled by the police more than a black kid in a hoodie, but please share statistics to the contrary if you have them.
It’s divisive and unhelpful as it perpetrates the perception that people are homogenous blocs based on skin colour.
They’re not. People are people.
So why should it be, that some of them should get along so awfully? - That's the million dollar question.
Some are shits. Others are venal. There are bullies and thugs. The majority of people are none of these things.
Telling people that “you are worse off because you are black” (which is fundamentally what “white privilege” is about) is actively harmful as it creates a reason for people to give up
Sorry, Charles, I was joking with that. Depeche Mode song - People Are People. Big hit for them.
Re the serious point, you're doing here what many do, confusing macro analysis with individual pep talk.
So, if you're talking to (say) a black teenager from a tough background you do NOT say, "Oh yeah, it's all rigged against you in this country. You're poor. You're black. You got no chance. Just give the fuck up on all that school and uni shit and go deal."
That would be crass and not necessarily true for the person you're actually talking to. You'd also sound like a bit of a dick who thinks he's Samuel L Jackson.
No, you'd be constructive and positive. Talk about opportunities. Focus on the bright side. Course you would.
But does this mean that when discussing the big picture, you have to pretend that black people in the UK do not face serious specific barriers? You have to pretend that we have racism well and truly licked?
No way. To extend pep talk to macro analysis is a nonsense. And a common one too. It's very common on the ra ra right. It's a strand of anti-intellectualism. Which isn't always a bad thing but it is here. It's a very bad thing because it hampers debate and obscures the truth.
Boris Johnson’s net approval rating: -32 Rishi Sunak’s net approval rating: -3 Government’s Net Competency Rating: -36 Keir Starmer's net approval rating: -16
If you lot want better scores then the solution is hardly beyond the wit of man: offer Scottish voters some intelligent, pleasant, hard-working, competent and sympathetic politicians. Boris, Rishi, Keir, Anas and Douglas just don’t cut it.
Wouldn't make a difference to anything. The fundamental problem with Scotland is that it simultaneously wants to break away but a crucial group of middle class voters won't vote for it because they're afraid it will be expensive. That leaves the more committed nationalists feeling permanently thwarted and angry, and the waverers loathing their choices because, deep down, they know that they are dependent on handouts for being kept in the manner to which they have become accustomed.
Selling the Union and being popular are, therefore, two mutually exclusive propositions. How could it be otherwise?
You really are an ignorant arse, you know nothing about Scotland but constantly pontificate your trash opinions on it, no doubt foaming at the mouth as you punch it out on the keyboard. Go and take a good look at your sorry jingoistic right wing nutjob attitude. Methinks you are projecting your own thwarted and angry nationalistic tendencies on Scotland.
You must be the nice Scot Nat that @Stuart_Dickson was talking about earlier
A psychologist would have a field day studying "Malc" as someone with persistent psychological projection, though it does seem to have become more symptomatic for him recently. The interesting examples we have in this post are "Ignorant arse", "trash opinions", "jingoistic" (hilarious-he is a nationalist lol), and best of all "angry nationalistic tendencies" .
I wonder whether all of this has got worse since he realised he is the only person still in love with Alex Salmond? Or perhaps it was since Salmond was described as a "bully and a sex pest" by his own QC? Maybe Malc thinks the latter is a compliment?
After reading the thread here I bet on Labour holding Batley and Spen, but I pulled out of the market after I woke up this morning to the headline news that the Education Select Committee believes schools have long neglected white children. This is how the Tories win - by playing the race card. The race card is a trump card. (See what I did there.) Most likely the Tories will gain Batley and Spen and they are value at 1.45. Thumping away with this kind of story - what is essentially a call for "white rights" - could increase the Tories' Commons majority at the next GE too.
Time to emigrate?
What rubbish. There is clearly an issue with underachievement in this demographic, and there has been for a while, and addressing it is exactly what is needed to stop people playing the race card.
Or would you prefer this sector of society was allowed to keep falling behind as long as your comfy worldview wasn’t challenged ?
I just don't understand what their race has to do with this. They're not getting treated badly at school because they're white. In fact I doubt they're getting treated badly at school at all, except to the extent that all state school kids in this country are let down by a lack of money and focus from the government and the establishment, who mostly go private and so have very little skin in the game. Their problems come from a lack of engagement in education, often rooted in their parents' experiences of school, sometimes compounded by other issues that their parents have. Plus poverty, which makes everything harder. (BTW before anyone accuses me of being an out of touch elitist, I went to a comprehensive school that was almost entirely white so the so-called white working class is not some kind of unknown exotic species to me).
I disagree with that and I think a lot has to do with the attitude of teachers. As @RochdalePioneers so helpfully demonstrated a few days back, there is a view on the left, especially amongst let's say the more educated parts including the teaching profession, that WWC kids are essentially thick, racist and therefore not worth saving, and the problems they have in their lives are the faults of them and their ghastly parents. Therefore, why bother trying to do anything with them. That then leads to teachers who view their place as going through the motions rather than trying to inspire or change.
That is the Right's view of the view of the Left. The real one is that our education system is elitist and old fashioned and underfunded and warped by the propensity of the affluent to opt out and purchase advantage via the private sector.
We demand better. We want a more egalitarian approach that will deliver a similar (and high) quality education to everyone regardless of parental bank balance. Increase participation in state schools, proper funding, a real prioritizing of disadvantaged areas.
The biggest beneficiary of such an approach? Yep - white working class children.
But oh no, too difficult. Too disruptive of the status quo that so many are secretly comfortable with. So let's produce this report instead. Let's avoid the hard choices about class and money and push some culture war buttons. Let's waffle on about the term "white privilege". Has sweet FA to do with the problem but let's pretend that it does. Let's stoke some grievance!
I see you, Tories, and Middle England. I see you.
So are you saying Tories invented the term "white privilege"?
The Tories have latched onto it because they have figured out that it is a way of stoking resentment and dividing working class people. White Privilege is a term that is used to describe the advantages in many situations that white people enjoy on account of being the majority group. I'm sorry, but it describes something real, something that I personally have observed, and so I am not going to be bullied into not using it in that specific context. Of course, many white people don't feel very privileged, and so the term grates with them. But I doubt they have ever not had their CV looked at on account of their name, or been racially profiled by the police. White Privilege does not mean that all white people are more privileged than all non-White people.
It would only be a way of stoking resentment if there is a reason for resentment to be stoked.
If you believe that "white privilege" is real then stand up loud and proud and explain why poor white kids struggling at school are privileged. Otherwise maybe your term is flawed and you should stop using it and use something else instead.
We aren't America incidentally. I'd imagine many young white teenagers in hoodies have been profiled by the Police here.
Your poor white kids aren't struggling because they're white, they are struggling because they're poor, and the education system is under-funded by the government you vote for, and perhaps in some cases because of aspects of their upbringing, in many cases linked to their poverty. I've just given you two examples of how they don't face some similar barriers that non-White people do. And I'm not sure there are many places where a white kid in a hoodie will get hassled by the police more than a black kid in a hoodie, but please share statistics to the contrary if you have them.
It’s divisive and unhelpful as it perpetrates the perception that people are homogenous blocs based on skin colour.
They’re not. People are people.
So why should it be, that some of them should get along so awfully? - That's the million dollar question.
Some are shits. Others are venal. There are bullies and thugs. The majority of people are none of these things.
Telling people that “you are worse off because you are black” (which is fundamentally what “white privilege” is about) is actively harmful as it creates a reason for people to give up
Sorry, Charles, I was joking with that. Depeche Mode song - People Are People. Big hit for them.
Re the serious point, you're doing here what many do, confusing macro analysis with individual pep talk.
So, if you're talking to (say) a black teenager from a tough background you do NOT say, "Oh yeah, it's all rigged against you in this country. You're poor. You're black. You got no chance. Just give the fuck up on all that school and uni shit and go deal."
That would be crass and not necessarily true for the person you're actually talking to. You'd also sound like a bit of a dick who thinks he's Samuel L Jackson.
No, you'd be constructive and positive. Talk about opportunities. Focus on the bright side. Course you would.
But does this mean that when discussing the big picture, you have to pretend that black people in the UK do not face serious specific barriers? You have to pretend that we have racism well and truly licked?
No way. To extend pep talk to macro analysis is a nonsense. And a common one too. It's very common on the ra ra right. It's a strand of anti-intellectualism. Which isn't always a bad thing but it is here. It's a very bad thing because it hampers debate and obscures the truth.
I think it was Bruce Schneier who pointed out, that for all the security theatre at airports, the one method not used (in the US - and it isn't used here) was the profiling techniques used by the Israelis. Essentially, spot likely individuals, engaged them in a conversation, and rapidly determine the probability of their mental state using carefully designed questions.
This was rejected. Because it would be racist. By the TSA. Who instead strip search black people lots......
The Israelis don't give a damn about looking politcally correct when it comes to security, and happily target who they want for their interrogators to give a grilling. They learnt the hard way and now probably have the safest airlines and airports as a result.
I don't think we'd want to police the UK like that.
Yes I quite agree. The last thing we’d want to do is use policing tactics that improve public safety.
I thought you were one of these "if you trade a bit of liberty for some extra security you deserve neither liberty nor security" merchants?
Or is that only when it's about wearing masks to Tescos?
I think it was Bruce Schneier who pointed out, that for all the security theatre at airports, the one method not used (in the US - and it isn't used here) was the profiling techniques used by the Israelis. Essentially, spot likely individuals, engaged them in a conversation, and rapidly determine the probability of their mental state using carefully designed questions.
This was rejected. Because it would be racist. By the TSA. Who instead strip search black people lots......
It is used here. Extensively. Ever come back on the Eurostar (remember that?) and noticed a dozen customs officers staring at you as you walk down the ramp to get your taxi, for example?
Once, a long time ago, while still in the FCO and travelling on official business from Geneva to New York via Heathrow, I decided to see what would happen if I acted shifty walking through the Customs green channel. I got pulled over. The fact that I laughed did not help my case much when I told the officer what I was doing.
Cavity search ?
Nah. Talked my way out of it, but he was NOT a happy bunny. Never tried that stupid trick again. Now I do confidently striding while clearly thinking of something other than customs agents.
I think it was Bruce Schneier who pointed out, that for all the security theatre at airports, the one method not used (in the US - and it isn't used here) was the profiling techniques used by the Israelis. Essentially, spot likely individuals, engaged them in a conversation, and rapidly determine the probability of their mental state using carefully designed questions.
This was rejected. Because it would be racist. By the TSA. Who instead strip search black people lots......
It is used here. Extensively. Ever come back on the Eurostar (remember that?) and noticed a dozen customs officers staring at you as you walk down the ramp to get your taxi, for example?
Once, a long time ago, while still in the FCO and travelling on official business from Geneva to New York via Heathrow, I decided to see what would happen if I acted shifty walking through the Customs green channel. I got pulled over. The fact that I laughed did not help my case much when I told the officer what I was doing.
Cavity search ?
Nah. Talked my way out of it, but he was NOT a happy bunny. Never tried that stupid trick again. Now I do confidently striding while clearly thinking of something other than customs agents.
There is no appropriate facial expression to adopt when walking through customs. It just can't be done.
Boris Johnson’s net approval rating: -32 Rishi Sunak’s net approval rating: -3 Government’s Net Competency Rating: -36 Keir Starmer's net approval rating: -16
If you lot want better scores then the solution is hardly beyond the wit of man: offer Scottish voters some intelligent, pleasant, hard-working, competent and sympathetic politicians. Boris, Rishi, Keir, Anas and Douglas just don’t cut it.
Wouldn't make a difference to anything. The fundamental problem with Scotland is that it simultaneously wants to break away but a crucial group of middle class voters won't vote for it because they're afraid it will be expensive. That leaves the more committed nationalists feeling permanently thwarted and angry, and the waverers loathing their choices because, deep down, they know that they are dependent on handouts for being kept in the manner to which they have become accustomed.
Selling the Union and being popular are, therefore, two mutually exclusive propositions. How could it be otherwise?
You really are an ignorant arse, you know nothing about Scotland but constantly pontificate your trash opinions on it, no doubt foaming at the mouth as you punch it out on the keyboard. Go and take a good look at your sorry jingoistic right wing nutjob attitude. Methinks you are projecting your own thwarted and angry nationalistic tendencies on Scotland.
Yawn.
You recognised yourself then.
Ouch! Cutting 😂
Malc is at the top of his game in the rapier wit department.
I think it was Bruce Schneier who pointed out, that for all the security theatre at airports, the one method not used (in the US - and it isn't used here) was the profiling techniques used by the Israelis. Essentially, spot likely individuals, engaged them in a conversation, and rapidly determine the probability of their mental state using carefully designed questions.
This was rejected. Because it would be racist. By the TSA. Who instead strip search black people lots......
The Israelis don't give a damn about looking politcally correct when it comes to security, and happily target who they want for their interrogators to give a grilling. They learnt the hard way and now probably have the safest airlines and airports as a result.
I don't think we'd want to police the UK like that.
It works though. Israel suffered a spate of bombings, hijackings, and terrorist attacks at airports, but they got on top of the problem by taking strong security measures, rather than the "security theatre" nonsense that the likes of the TSA engages in.
Yes, but Israel is on permanent red alert. We don't want to be living like that unless it's necessary, which I wouldn't think it is.
I've just skimmed through the Education SC Report, and read the conclusions/recommendations (pps 56-64) carefully. It really is all over the place. There are so many recommendations that it will be virtually impossible to check accountability for implementation, and there's a complete lack of focus. Surely a small number of measurable and achievable recommendations would have been better? I'll make two brief comments:
1. If all the recommendations are implemented, it would cost a huge amount of money. So it won't happen.
2. Interestingly, there's a strong focus on the importance of early years, joined-up services, parental involvement and suchlike. It's hilarious, because what the Committee is really advocating is something indistinguishable from Labour's Sure Start programme which, as we all know, the Tories have cut so much since 2010 that it doesn't really exist any more.
Did you read it before or after I asked whether you read it?
Before. As you've read it yourself, I'm sure you'll have noticed that the reference to "white privilege" is completely out of kilter with everything else in the report and is utterly irrelevant. It's almost as if a few SC members were determined to get this red herring in for culture war reasons. A pity, because of course this is what hits the headlines and distracts from the report and its findings.
I've just skimmed through the Education SC Report, and read the conclusions/recommendations (pps 56-64) carefully. It really is all over the place. There are so many recommendations that it will be virtually impossible to check accountability for implementation, and there's a complete lack of focus. Surely a small number of measurable and achievable recommendations would have been better? I'll make two brief comments:
1. If all the recommendations are implemented, it would cost a huge amount of money. So it won't happen.
2. Interestingly, there's a strong focus on the importance of early years, joined-up services, parental involvement and suchlike. It's hilarious, because what the Committee is really advocating is something indistinguishable from Labour's Sure Start programme which, as we all know, the Tories have cut so much since 2010 that it doesn't really exist any more.
Did you read it before or after I asked whether you read it?
Before. As you've read it yourself, I'm sure you'll have noticed that the reference to "white privilege" is completely out of kilter with everything else in the report and is utterly irrelevant. It's almost as if a few SC members were determined to get this red herring in for culture war reasons. A pity, because of course this is what hits the headlines and distracts from the report and its findings.
Let me quote you what they say on White Privilege:
"Schools should consider whether the promotion of politically controversial terminology, including White Privilege, is consistent with their duties under the Equality Act 2010. The Department should take steps to ensure that young people are not inadvertently being inducted into political movements when what is required is balanced, age-appropriate discussion and a curriculum that equips young people to thrive in diverse and multi-cultural communities throughout their lives and work."
The report makes clear at the state, and states it ad infinitum that they recognise that other minorities face prejudices and have challenges, and that more needs to be done to address these but, however, the aim of this specific report was to focus on WWC.
There seems to be a visceral view on the left that, if you bring up any example of how the race-baiting agenda being pursued by certain groups might not be borne by the data, it should be jumped upon and discredited as quickly as possible, regardless of merits.
Boris Johnson’s net approval rating: -32 Rishi Sunak’s net approval rating: -3 Government’s Net Competency Rating: -36 Keir Starmer's net approval rating: -16
If you lot want better scores then the solution is hardly beyond the wit of man: offer Scottish voters some intelligent, pleasant, hard-working, competent and sympathetic politicians. Boris, Rishi, Keir, Anas and Douglas just don’t cut it.
Wouldn't make a difference to anything. The fundamental problem with Scotland is that it simultaneously wants to break away but a crucial group of middle class voters won't vote for it because they're afraid it will be expensive. That leaves the more committed nationalists feeling permanently thwarted and angry, and the waverers loathing their choices because, deep down, they know that they are dependent on handouts for being kept in the manner to which they have become accustomed.
Selling the Union and being popular are, therefore, two mutually exclusive propositions. How could it be otherwise?
You really are an ignorant arse, you know nothing about Scotland but constantly pontificate your trash opinions on it, no doubt foaming at the mouth as you punch it out on the keyboard. Go and take a good look at your sorry jingoistic right wing nutjob attitude. Methinks you are projecting your own thwarted and angry nationalistic tendencies on Scotland.
Yawn.
You recognised yourself then.
Ouch! Cutting 😂
Malc is at the top of his game in the rapier wit department.
After reading the thread here I bet on Labour holding Batley and Spen, but I pulled out of the market after I woke up this morning to the headline news that the Education Select Committee believes schools have long neglected white children. This is how the Tories win - by playing the race card. The race card is a trump card. (See what I did there.) Most likely the Tories will gain Batley and Spen and they are value at 1.45. Thumping away with this kind of story - what is essentially a call for "white rights" - could increase the Tories' Commons majority at the next GE too.
Time to emigrate?
What rubbish. There is clearly an issue with underachievement in this demographic, and there has been for a while, and addressing it is exactly what is needed to stop people playing the race card.
Or would you prefer this sector of society was allowed to keep falling behind as long as your comfy worldview wasn’t challenged ?
I just don't understand what their race has to do with this. They're not getting treated badly at school because they're white. In fact I doubt they're getting treated badly at school at all, except to the extent that all state school kids in this country are let down by a lack of money and focus from the government and the establishment, who mostly go private and so have very little skin in the game. Their problems come from a lack of engagement in education, often rooted in their parents' experiences of school, sometimes compounded by other issues that their parents have. Plus poverty, which makes everything harder. (BTW before anyone accuses me of being an out of touch elitist, I went to a comprehensive school that was almost entirely white so the so-called white working class is not some kind of unknown exotic species to me).
I disagree with that and I think a lot has to do with the attitude of teachers. As @RochdalePioneers so helpfully demonstrated a few days back, there is a view on the left, especially amongst let's say the more educated parts including the teaching profession, that WWC kids are essentially thick, racist and therefore not worth saving, and the problems they have in their lives are the faults of them and their ghastly parents. Therefore, why bother trying to do anything with them. That then leads to teachers who view their place as going through the motions rather than trying to inspire or change.
That is the Right's view of the view of the Left. The real one is that our education system is elitist and old fashioned and underfunded and warped by the propensity of the affluent to opt out and purchase advantage via the private sector.
We demand better. We want a more egalitarian approach that will deliver a similar (and high) quality education to everyone regardless of parental bank balance. Increase participation in state schools, proper funding, a real prioritizing of disadvantaged areas.
The biggest beneficiary of such an approach? Yep - white working class children.
But oh no, too difficult. Too disruptive of the status quo that so many are secretly comfortable with. So let's produce this report instead. Let's avoid the hard choices about class and money and push some culture war buttons. Let's waffle on about the term "white privilege". Has sweet FA to do with the problem but let's pretend that it does. Let's stoke some grievance!
I see you, Tories, and Middle England. I see you.
So are you saying Tories invented the term "white privilege"?
No course not. What I'm saying is that it looks like a tag on here to generate some culture war spat and divert the responsibility for a problem in schools to that oh so convenient amorphous blob which is to blame for all the defects of 11 years of Tory government - the woke left.
It's getting stale. It's getting very stale indeed.
1. It’s only just begun
2. It works
Probably correct. In which case the relative economic prospects of the white working class will not improve.
It will if more focus is placed into those areas.
Blair's education policies focused very much on improving the performance of state schools in London in particular and, 20 years on, huge progress has been made there. However, the rest of the country was relegated in importance, with the possible exception of some of the cities.
It might help the left in general if their reaction to reports such as the Education Committee was a bit more introspection and a lot less lashing out and blaming everyone else for how you are perceived. The left's behaviour when anyone brings up issues such as the WWC in schools is starting to look very Trumpian in its manner.
Let's see some real focus on improving the schools in disadvantaged white working class areas then. It's been eleven long years but there's still time.
Actually, I would argue you have to split the Tory years into groups. Cameron didn't give a f*ck about the WWC, and neither did the likes of Clegg and Osborne, all coming from well-off backgrounds, going to the best private schools and caring most about what the Notting Hill set thought. Theresa May was much better but, in her usual way, stumbling along. With BJ, I would expect action.
BJ, as you call him, went to what kind of school? Titter.
Indeed, I did laugh when I typed it. But my point is not that BJ gives a sh1t about the WWC but that he knows he has to do something about it, hence the word 'action'. Cameron et al didn't, so their (not so) latent snobbery, combined with the perceived lack of electoral need, meant they did nothing.
Your faith in Mr Johnson and his ability as a man of action is touching . By the way, I don't have a problem with where he went to school, no problem at all. I do have a problem with the fact that he is a lying little c**t.
All - successful - politicians favour the groups that they recognise are important to their success. I'm not disagreeing he is a liar, I am saying he will do what it takes to promote his success.
I've just skimmed through the Education SC Report, and read the conclusions/recommendations (pps 56-64) carefully. It really is all over the place. There are so many recommendations that it will be virtually impossible to check accountability for implementation, and there's a complete lack of focus. Surely a small number of measurable and achievable recommendations would have been better? I'll make two brief comments:
1. If all the recommendations are implemented, it would cost a huge amount of money. So it won't happen.
2. Interestingly, there's a strong focus on the importance of early years, joined-up services, parental involvement and suchlike. It's hilarious, because what the Committee is really advocating is something indistinguishable from Labour's Sure Start programme which, as we all know, the Tories have cut so much since 2010 that it doesn't really exist any more.
Did you read it before or after I asked whether you read it?
Before. As you've read it yourself, I'm sure you'll have noticed that the reference to "white privilege" is completely out of kilter with everything else in the report and is utterly irrelevant. It's almost as if a few SC members were determined to get this red herring in for culture war reasons. A pity, because of course this is what hits the headlines and distracts from the report and its findings.
That's exactly it. It's a little grenade tossed in there apropos of nothing to set up a 'cw' skirmish.
Didn't work on here, though, did it? We've all just ignored that aspect, haven't we? Oh yes.
Highest rate in Scotland in Dundee. Second highest rate in Ayrshire, haunt of @malcolmg . Is there a PB factor here?
I wonder if there is a statistical correlation between the number of posts on PB and the number of infections? I think Warwick should get right on it.
@DavidL All these English tourists bringing it up here David
You sure it isn't Scottish tourists bringing it back?
I have a theory that malcolmg is actually the alter ego of a rather sweet old lady called Moira who runs a B&B on the Ayrshire Coast. Friendly, welcoming, accommodating - the sort of B&B proprietor who has found her vocation in a job which enables her to serve tea and cake to all and sundry, not the sort who has taken on the job in order to better enjoy her hobby of despising people. Moira is broadly a unionist because that was the world she was brought up in and, for her business interests because many of her guests are English, but she thinks politics in general is a bit silly. She is Church of Scotland as a matter of national identity rather than being any sort of religious statement. And she bakes more scones per week than any sane village could consume. Her hour a day or so looking in here as malcolmg on here enable her to be all sweetness and light for the other 23.
The "rules" are being applied in a capricious and arbitrary manner, of course. Why it's specifically Mount and Chilwell and not anybody else (the whole Scotland team; both teams; or even both teams and the officials) that are being dragged off into self-isolation isn't really adequately explained. The best conclusion is that a token performance has been arranged, intending to demonstrate that the "rules" are being taken seriously but without causing material disruption to the tournament (which would be unpopular and cost money.) See also: the exemption for 2,500 UEFA bureaucrats to come to London for the final without quarantine. It's all made up as they go along, according to whatever course of action is deemed most expedient at the time.
I think it was Bruce Schneier who pointed out, that for all the security theatre at airports, the one method not used (in the US - and it isn't used here) was the profiling techniques used by the Israelis. Essentially, spot likely individuals, engaged them in a conversation, and rapidly determine the probability of their mental state using carefully designed questions.
This was rejected. Because it would be racist. By the TSA. Who instead strip search black people lots......
The Israelis don't give a damn about looking politcally correct when it comes to security, and happily target who they want for their interrogators to give a grilling. They learnt the hard way and now probably have the safest airlines and airports as a result.
I don't think we'd want to police the UK like that.
It works though. Israel suffered a spate of bombings, hijackings, and terrorist attacks at airports, but they got on top of the problem by taking strong security measures, rather than the "security theatre" nonsense that the likes of the TSA engages in.
Yes, but Israel is on permanent red alert. We don't want to be living like that unless it's necessary, which I wouldn't think it is.
The ironic bit is that it is far less racist than the American TSA - which seems awfully good at abusing Black and Hispanic people.
Interestingly, I had the Isreali method used on me by a City of London policeman. I was standing on the Millenium Bridge approach, doing some architectural photos. I probably stood out because I wasn't a Japanese or Chinese tourist. It was during one of the terrorist alerts a while back.
He casually wondered up and asked me a series of questions about my camera, which gently led into why I was photographing and what. All straight out of the Isreali manual. Since I had read that, it was all I could do not to giggle.
Satisfied, he wandered off. The whole ting took about 2 minutes, and was very non confrontational. If I hadn't been aware that I was being checked out, it would have just been a cop with an interest in my photography being politely interested.
I think it was Bruce Schneier who pointed out, that for all the security theatre at airports, the one method not used (in the US - and it isn't used here) was the profiling techniques used by the Israelis. Essentially, spot likely individuals, engaged them in a conversation, and rapidly determine the probability of their mental state using carefully designed questions.
This was rejected. Because it would be racist. By the TSA. Who instead strip search black people lots......
The Israelis don't give a damn about looking politcally correct when it comes to security, and happily target who they want for their interrogators to give a grilling. They learnt the hard way and now probably have the safest airlines and airports as a result.
I don't think we'd want to police the UK like that.
Yes I quite agree. The last thing we’d want to do is use policing tactics that improve public safety.
I thought you were one of these "if you trade a bit of liberty for some extra security you deserve neither liberty nor security" merchants?
Or is that only when it's about wearing masks to Tescos?
I don’t tend to go to Tesco’s.
Grown ups should be able to continually balance security and liberty and not take static positions.
At the height of a pandemic of a fast spreading novel virus with an IFR of about 0.5%, wearing a mask in public was a low impact intervention that probably did some net good. Now we are at 86% of the adult population with immunity (biased towards those with higher IFRs) the balance has almost certainly shifted away and probably did some time ago.
For policing of borders, it really depends on whether you care about cross border serious crime, illegal immigration and international terrorism. Or being nice.
Highest rate in Scotland in Dundee. Second highest rate in Ayrshire, haunt of @malcolmg . Is there a PB factor here?
I wonder if there is a statistical correlation between the number of posts on PB and the number of infections? I think Warwick should get right on it.
@DavidL All these English tourists bringing it up here David
You sure it isn't Scottish tourists bringing it back?
I have a theory that malcolmg is actually the alter ego of a rather sweet old lady called Moira who runs a B&B on the Ayrshire Coast. Friendly, welcoming, accommodating - the sort of B&B proprietor who has found her vocation in a job which enables her to serve tea and cake to all and sundry, not the sort who has taken on the job in order to better enjoy her hobby of despising people. Moira is broadly a unionist because that was the world she was brought up in and, for her business interests because many of her guests are English, but she thinks politics in general is a bit silly. She is Church of Scotland as a matter of national identity rather than being any sort of religious statement. And she bakes more scones per week than any sane village could consume. Her hour a day or so looking in here as malcolmg on here enable her to be all sweetness and light for the other 23.
That would - if true - be quite an achievement. It'd be up there with Sue Townsend and Adrian Mole.
The "rules" are being applied in a capricious and arbitrary manner, of course. Why it's specifically Mount and Chilwell and not anybody else (the whole Scotland team; both teams; or even both teams and the officials) that are being dragged off into self-isolation isn't really adequately explained. The best conclusion is that a token performance has been arranged, intending to demonstrate that the "rules" are being taken seriously but without causing material disruption to the tournament (which would be unpopular and cost money.) See also: the exemption for 2,500 UEFA bureaucrats to come to London for the final without quarantine. It's all made up as they go along, according to whatever course of action is deemed most expedient at the time.
As always, it is one rule for the English and another for everyone else. Scotland are claiming none of their players have been exposed to Gilmour, which is clearly ridiculous. I hope the dirty cheats go out.
Highest rate in Scotland in Dundee. Second highest rate in Ayrshire, haunt of @malcolmg . Is there a PB factor here?
I wonder if there is a statistical correlation between the number of posts on PB and the number of infections? I think Warwick should get right on it.
@DavidL All these English tourists bringing it up here David
You sure it isn't Scottish tourists bringing it back?
I have a theory that malcolmg is actually the alter ego of a rather sweet old lady called Moira who runs a B&B on the Ayrshire Coast. Friendly, welcoming, accommodating - the sort of B&B proprietor who has found her vocation in a job which enables her to serve tea and cake to all and sundry, not the sort who has taken on the job in order to better enjoy her hobby of despising people. Moira is broadly a unionist because that was the world she was brought up in and, for her business interests because many of her guests are English, but she thinks politics in general is a bit silly. She is Church of Scotland as a matter of national identity rather than being any sort of religious statement. And she bakes more scones per week than any sane village could consume. Her hour a day or so looking in here as malcolmg on here enable her to be all sweetness and light for the other 23.
I think it was Bruce Schneier who pointed out, that for all the security theatre at airports, the one method not used (in the US - and it isn't used here) was the profiling techniques used by the Israelis. Essentially, spot likely individuals, engaged them in a conversation, and rapidly determine the probability of their mental state using carefully designed questions.
This was rejected. Because it would be racist. By the TSA. Who instead strip search black people lots......
The Israelis don't give a damn about looking politcally correct when it comes to security, and happily target who they want for their interrogators to give a grilling. They learnt the hard way and now probably have the safest airlines and airports as a result.
I don't think we'd want to police the UK like that.
Yes I quite agree. The last thing we’d want to do is use policing tactics that improve public safety.
I thought you were one of these "if you trade a bit of liberty for some extra security you deserve neither liberty nor security" merchants?
Or is that only when it's about wearing masks to Tescos?
I'm not sure that argument is relevant here - I don't think less, or even more security is being advocated - simply better targeted.
On which subject, my father in law - who is a scientist, and travels all over the world - was frequently stopped at airport security until he took the decision to start wearing a jacket and tie. No more issues at airports after that, even if he did continue to look like a ginger Lemmy from Motorhead, only wearing a tie. And similarly, I bet if you're brown-skinned, heavily bearded and wear traditional Asian clothing you will be stopped more often than if your white skinned, dress in the style of a conventional westerner and clean shaven. Even if we don't say we target, I bet we do, a bit.
I think it was Bruce Schneier who pointed out, that for all the security theatre at airports, the one method not used (in the US - and it isn't used here) was the profiling techniques used by the Israelis. Essentially, spot likely individuals, engaged them in a conversation, and rapidly determine the probability of their mental state using carefully designed questions.
This was rejected. Because it would be racist. By the TSA. Who instead strip search black people lots......
It is used here. Extensively. Ever come back on the Eurostar (remember that?) and noticed a dozen customs officers staring at you as you walk down the ramp to get your taxi, for example?
Once, a long time ago, while still in the FCO and travelling on official business from Geneva to New York via Heathrow, I decided to see what would happen if I acted shifty walking through the Customs green channel. I got pulled over. The fact that I laughed did not help my case much when I told the officer what I was doing.
Cavity search ?
Nah. Talked my way out of it, but he was NOT a happy bunny. Never tried that stupid trick again. Now I do confidently striding while clearly thinking of something other than customs agents.
There is no appropriate facial expression to adopt when walking through customs. It just can't be done.
What about a "smug affluent leftist" one? - Taut cheeks, slightly pursed lips, ironic glint in the eye.
That's what I use and (apart from just the one harrowing time in Belgium) it's always worked.
The "rules" are being applied in a capricious and arbitrary manner, of course. Why it's specifically Mount and Chilwell and not anybody else (the whole Scotland team; both teams; or even both teams and the officials) that are being dragged off into self-isolation isn't really adequately explained. The best conclusion is that a token performance has been arranged, intending to demonstrate that the "rules" are being taken seriously but without causing material disruption to the tournament (which would be unpopular and cost money.) See also: the exemption for 2,500 UEFA bureaucrats to come to London for the final without quarantine. It's all made up as they go along, according to whatever course of action is deemed most expedient at the time.
As always, it is one rule for the English and another for everyone else. Scotland are claiming none of their players have been exposed to Gilmour, which is clearly ridiculous. I hope the dirty cheats go out.
You created an account just get that off your chest?
Never let it be said that PB doesn't do care in the community.
To the Scottish Nationalists who claim that the Scottish stamp on Westminster parties and don't have any independent thought, have a look at these two diametrically opposed Labour Tweets sent just a few hours apart.
Clearly the Scottish Labour Party doesn't think what the UK Labour Party is thinking. Not unless Labour is just a bunch of self-serving hypocrites who don't have any consistent principles at all.
Blimey that Scotland COVID figure is big.. makes me worry for England’s numbers
Maybe Andy Burnham should arbitrarily ban people from Greater Manchester from visiting Scotland without the ability to enforce it. Would be a popular decision.....
Highest rate in Scotland in Dundee. Second highest rate in Ayrshire, haunt of @malcolmg . Is there a PB factor here?
I wonder if there is a statistical correlation between the number of posts on PB and the number of infections? I think Warwick should get right on it.
@DavidL All these English tourists bringing it up here David
You sure it isn't Scottish tourists bringing it back?
I have a theory that malcolmg is actually the alter ego of a rather sweet old lady called Moira who runs a B&B on the Ayrshire Coast. Friendly, welcoming, accommodating - the sort of B&B proprietor who has found her vocation in a job which enables her to serve tea and cake to all and sundry, not the sort who has taken on the job in order to better enjoy her hobby of despising people. Moira is broadly a unionist because that was the world she was brought up in and, for her business interests because many of her guests are English, but she thinks politics in general is a bit silly. She is Church of Scotland as a matter of national identity rather than being any sort of religious statement. And she bakes more scones per week than any sane village could consume. Her hour a day or so looking in here as malcolmg on here enable her to be all sweetness and light for the other 23.
The "rules" are being applied in a capricious and arbitrary manner, of course. Why it's specifically Mount and Chilwell and not anybody else (the whole Scotland team; both teams; or even both teams and the officials) that are being dragged off into self-isolation isn't really adequately explained. The best conclusion is that a token performance has been arranged, intending to demonstrate that the "rules" are being taken seriously but without causing material disruption to the tournament (which would be unpopular and cost money.) See also: the exemption for 2,500 UEFA bureaucrats to come to London for the final without quarantine. It's all made up as they go along, according to whatever course of action is deemed most expedient at the time.
After reading the thread here I bet on Labour holding Batley and Spen, but I pulled out of the market after I woke up this morning to the headline news that the Education Select Committee believes schools have long neglected white children. This is how the Tories win - by playing the race card. The race card is a trump card. (See what I did there.) Most likely the Tories will gain Batley and Spen and they are value at 1.45. Thumping away with this kind of story - what is essentially a call for "white rights" - could increase the Tories' Commons majority at the next GE too.
Time to emigrate?
What rubbish. There is clearly an issue with underachievement in this demographic, and there has been for a while, and addressing it is exactly what is needed to stop people playing the race card.
Or would you prefer this sector of society was allowed to keep falling behind as long as your comfy worldview wasn’t challenged ?
I just don't understand what their race has to do with this. They're not getting treated badly at school because they're white. In fact I doubt they're getting treated badly at school at all, except to the extent that all state school kids in this country are let down by a lack of money and focus from the government and the establishment, who mostly go private and so have very little skin in the game. Their problems come from a lack of engagement in education, often rooted in their parents' experiences of school, sometimes compounded by other issues that their parents have. Plus poverty, which makes everything harder. (BTW before anyone accuses me of being an out of touch elitist, I went to a comprehensive school that was almost entirely white so the so-called white working class is not some kind of unknown exotic species to me).
I disagree with that and I think a lot has to do with the attitude of teachers. As @RochdalePioneers so helpfully demonstrated a few days back, there is a view on the left, especially amongst let's say the more educated parts including the teaching profession, that WWC kids are essentially thick, racist and therefore not worth saving, and the problems they have in their lives are the faults of them and their ghastly parents. Therefore, why bother trying to do anything with them. That then leads to teachers who view their place as going through the motions rather than trying to inspire or change.
That is the Right's view of the view of the Left. The real one is that our education system is elitist and old fashioned and underfunded and warped by the propensity of the affluent to opt out and purchase advantage via the private sector.
We demand better. We want a more egalitarian approach that will deliver a similar (and high) quality education to everyone regardless of parental bank balance. Increase participation in state schools, proper funding, a real prioritizing of disadvantaged areas.
The biggest beneficiary of such an approach? Yep - white working class children.
But oh no, too difficult. Too disruptive of the status quo that so many are secretly comfortable with. So let's produce this report instead. Let's avoid the hard choices about class and money and push some culture war buttons. Let's waffle on about the term "white privilege". Has sweet FA to do with the problem but let's pretend that it does. Let's stoke some grievance!
I see you, Tories, and Middle England. I see you.
So are you saying Tories invented the term "white privilege"?
No course not. What I'm saying is that it looks like a tag on here to generate some culture war spat and divert the responsibility for a problem in schools to that oh so convenient amorphous blob which is to blame for all the defects of 11 years of Tory government - the woke left.
It's getting stale. It's getting very stale indeed.
1. It’s only just begun
2. It works
Probably correct. In which case the relative economic prospects of the white working class will not improve.
It will if more focus is placed into those areas.
Blair's education policies focused very much on improving the performance of state schools in London in particular and, 20 years on, huge progress has been made there. However, the rest of the country was relegated in importance, with the possible exception of some of the cities.
It might help the left in general if their reaction to reports such as the Education Committee was a bit more introspection and a lot less lashing out and blaming everyone else for how you are perceived. The left's behaviour when anyone brings up issues such as the WWC in schools is starting to look very Trumpian in its manner.
Let's see some real focus on improving the schools in disadvantaged white working class areas then. It's been eleven long years but there's still time.
Actually, I would argue you have to split the Tory years into groups. Cameron didn't give a f*ck about the WWC, and neither did the likes of Clegg and Osborne, all coming from well-off backgrounds, going to the best private schools and caring most about what the Notting Hill set thought. Theresa May was much better but, in her usual way, stumbling along. With BJ, I would expect action.
That's quite a last sentence. Many have been there.
But, ok, so I have 2 hopes:
(1) That you're right. Johnson demonstrates he's deadly serious about reducing class inequality in England.
(2) When it turns out he's not, the Cons shed English working class votes by the truckload.
What I really hope doesn't happen is a number (3). He and his government do nothing of substance to improve the relative economic condition of the white working class but continue to successfully deflect people from this onto bogeymen targets such as the "antiracism industry" and "middle class wokery" and "metropolitan elites".
(3) all the way.
We shall see - I hope not. Because as it stands it is impossible for a white working class lad to work hard, excel, get a great job (several of them, in fact), finally leave behind his white working class surroundings, and make good.
It's hard for working class people of all colours, which is a tragedy for them and for the country. Far too often the job goes to some well-spoken non-entity. But it would also be nice if working class life wasn't something that had to be escaped.
Absolutely. I couldn't agree more. It would be nice if people didn't feel they had to escape, come to London, make good, etc.
But sadly and sadly for them of course, they so often do.
Long ago there was a guy from Gloucestershire called Whittington, wasn't there.
After reading the thread here I bet on Labour holding Batley and Spen, but I pulled out of the market after I woke up this morning to the headline news that the Education Select Committee believes schools have long neglected white children. This is how the Tories win - by playing the race card. The race card is a trump card. (See what I did there.) Most likely the Tories will gain Batley and Spen and they are value at 1.45. Thumping away with this kind of story - what is essentially a call for "white rights" - could increase the Tories' Commons majority at the next GE too.
Time to emigrate?
What rubbish. There is clearly an issue with underachievement in this demographic, and there has been for a while, and addressing it is exactly what is needed to stop people playing the race card.
Or would you prefer this sector of society was allowed to keep falling behind as long as your comfy worldview wasn’t challenged ?
I just don't understand what their race has to do with this. They're not getting treated badly at school because they're white. In fact I doubt they're getting treated badly at school at all, except to the extent that all state school kids in this country are let down by a lack of money and focus from the government and the establishment, who mostly go private and so have very little skin in the game. Their problems come from a lack of engagement in education, often rooted in their parents' experiences of school, sometimes compounded by other issues that their parents have. Plus poverty, which makes everything harder. (BTW before anyone accuses me of being an out of touch elitist, I went to a comprehensive school that was almost entirely white so the so-called white working class is not some kind of unknown exotic species to me).
I disagree with that and I think a lot has to do with the attitude of teachers. As @RochdalePioneers so helpfully demonstrated a few days back, there is a view on the left, especially amongst let's say the more educated parts including the teaching profession, that WWC kids are essentially thick, racist and therefore not worth saving, and the problems they have in their lives are the faults of them and their ghastly parents. Therefore, why bother trying to do anything with them. That then leads to teachers who view their place as going through the motions rather than trying to inspire or change.
That is the Right's view of the view of the Left. The real one is that our education system is elitist and old fashioned and underfunded and warped by the propensity of the affluent to opt out and purchase advantage via the private sector.
We demand better. We want a more egalitarian approach that will deliver a similar (and high) quality education to everyone regardless of parental bank balance. Increase participation in state schools, proper funding, a real prioritizing of disadvantaged areas.
The biggest beneficiary of such an approach? Yep - white working class children.
But oh no, too difficult. Too disruptive of the status quo that so many are secretly comfortable with. So let's produce this report instead. Let's avoid the hard choices about class and money and push some culture war buttons. Let's waffle on about the term "white privilege". Has sweet FA to do with the problem but let's pretend that it does. Let's stoke some grievance!
I see you, Tories, and Middle England. I see you.
So are you saying Tories invented the term "white privilege"?
No course not. What I'm saying is that it looks like a tag on here to generate some culture war spat and divert the responsibility for a problem in schools to that oh so convenient amorphous blob which is to blame for all the defects of 11 years of Tory government - the woke left.
It's getting stale. It's getting very stale indeed.
1. It’s only just begun
2. It works
Probably correct. In which case the relative economic prospects of the white working class will not improve.
It will if more focus is placed into those areas.
Blair's education policies focused very much on improving the performance of state schools in London in particular and, 20 years on, huge progress has been made there. However, the rest of the country was relegated in importance, with the possible exception of some of the cities.
It might help the left in general if their reaction to reports such as the Education Committee was a bit more introspection and a lot less lashing out and blaming everyone else for how you are perceived. The left's behaviour when anyone brings up issues such as the WWC in schools is starting to look very Trumpian in its manner.
Let's see some real focus on improving the schools in disadvantaged white working class areas then. It's been eleven long years but there's still time.
Actually, I would argue you have to split the Tory years into groups. Cameron didn't give a f*ck about the WWC, and neither did the likes of Clegg and Osborne, all coming from well-off backgrounds, going to the best private schools and caring most about what the Notting Hill set thought. Theresa May was much better but, in her usual way, stumbling along. With BJ, I would expect action.
BJ, as you call him, went to what kind of school? Titter.
Indeed, I did laugh when I typed it. But my point is not that BJ gives a sh1t about the WWC but that he knows he has to do something about it, hence the word 'action'. Cameron et al didn't, so their (not so) latent snobbery, combined with the perceived lack of electoral need, meant they did nothing.
Your faith in Mr Johnson and his ability as a man of action is touching . By the way, I don't have a problem with where he went to school, no problem at all. I do have a problem with the fact that he is a lying little c**t.
All - successful - politicians favour the groups that they recognise are important to their success. I'm not disagreeing he is a liar, I am saying he will do what it takes to promote his success.
But what if he can get enough votes by yacking on about 'traditional' values and flags and ships and 'Global Britain' rather than actually effecting an irreversible shift in the balance of power and wealth in favour of working people?
"Airports Heathrow slips from 1st to 17th Gatwick drops from 10th to 106th Astonishing: the more people get vaccinated in the UK, the lower passenger numbers sink. In December, when jabs started, Heathrow was 6th in Europe. It has dropped every month since."
"Airports Heathrow slips from 1st to 17th Gatwick drops from 10th to 106th Astonishing: the more people get vaccinated in the UK, the lower passenger numbers sink. In December, when jabs started, Heathrow was 6th in Europe. It has dropped every month since."
Yes it's just a few stores but these are all in prime-ish sites selling expensive tat to children.
Disney+ provides a treasure of information on their customers. They haven’t (yet) started monetising that data stream but direct marketing for merchandise tie in’s can’t be far away surely.
Yes it's just a few stores but these are all in prime-ish sites selling expensive tat to children.
That's sad. We went to the Disney Store in the Trafford Centre the other day, first time going to Trafford since the pandemic began and the kids loved it - though my youngest went to school the next day and told her friends and Reception teacher that she'd been to Disneyland - didn't realise the difference. 😂
"Airports Heathrow slips from 1st to 17th Gatwick drops from 10th to 106th Astonishing: the more people get vaccinated in the UK, the lower passenger numbers sink. In December, when jabs started, Heathrow was 6th in Europe. It has dropped every month since."
There is a good chance a major London airport will close for good. Gatwick, Luton or Stansted.
Anything else happen since December?
Yes, Boris Johnson left the Indian border open, allowing in 20,000 potential carriers of the Delta variant, meaning we blew our vaccine advantage and now we face economic ruin in our big cities. That happened
"Airports Heathrow slips from 1st to 17th Gatwick drops from 10th to 106th Astonishing: the more people get vaccinated in the UK, the lower passenger numbers sink. In December, when jabs started, Heathrow was 6th in Europe. It has dropped every month since."
There is a good chance a major London airport will close for good. Gatwick, Luton or Stansted.
Anything else happen since December?
Yes, Boris Johnson left the Indian border open, allowing in 20,000 potential carriers of the Delta variant, meaning we blew our vaccine advantage and now we face economic ruin in our big cities. That happened
I suspect that might have something to do with the subsequent fall in passenger numbers. Certainly more impactful than vaccines.
Yes it's just a few stores but these are all in prime-ish sites selling expensive tat to children.
That's sad. We went to the Disney Store in the Trafford Centre the other day, first time going to Trafford since the pandemic began and the kids loved it - though my youngest went to school the next day and told her friends and Reception teacher that she'd been to Disneyland - didn't realise the difference. 😂
Yet you were telling me last night that the end of foreign travel until 2023 was no biggie, and we would replace all the foreign tourists with locals going to London to see The Mousetrap, again and again
THIS is what "no tourism" actually means: thousands of shops and businesses closing down forever, with incalculable ripple effects
It's interesting that a lot of the Brexiteers do seem now to be acknowledging, if only implicitly, that it's turning out badly.
As I just tweeted in response to the latest nonsense from John Redwood, they are moving to the position that Brexit would have been a great success if only the EU hadn't unexpectedly and unreasonably refused to change its rules to give us all the benefits of membership with none of the obligations.
After reading the thread here I bet on Labour holding Batley and Spen, but I pulled out of the market after I woke up this morning to the headline news that the Education Select Committee believes schools have long neglected white children. This is how the Tories win - by playing the race card. The race card is a trump card. (See what I did there.) Most likely the Tories will gain Batley and Spen and they are value at 1.45. Thumping away with this kind of story - what is essentially a call for "white rights" - could increase the Tories' Commons majority at the next GE too.
Time to emigrate?
What rubbish. There is clearly an issue with underachievement in this demographic, and there has been for a while, and addressing it is exactly what is needed to stop people playing the race card.
Or would you prefer this sector of society was allowed to keep falling behind as long as your comfy worldview wasn’t challenged ?
I just don't understand what their race has to do with this. They're not getting treated badly at school because they're white. In fact I doubt they're getting treated badly at school at all, except to the extent that all state school kids in this country are let down by a lack of money and focus from the government and the establishment, who mostly go private and so have very little skin in the game. Their problems come from a lack of engagement in education, often rooted in their parents' experiences of school, sometimes compounded by other issues that their parents have. Plus poverty, which makes everything harder. (BTW before anyone accuses me of being an out of touch elitist, I went to a comprehensive school that was almost entirely white so the so-called white working class is not some kind of unknown exotic species to me).
I disagree with that and I think a lot has to do with the attitude of teachers. As @RochdalePioneers so helpfully demonstrated a few days back, there is a view on the left, especially amongst let's say the more educated parts including the teaching profession, that WWC kids are essentially thick, racist and therefore not worth saving, and the problems they have in their lives are the faults of them and their ghastly parents. Therefore, why bother trying to do anything with them. That then leads to teachers who view their place as going through the motions rather than trying to inspire or change.
That is the Right's view of the view of the Left. The real one is that our education system is elitist and old fashioned and underfunded and warped by the propensity of the affluent to opt out and purchase advantage via the private sector.
We demand better. We want a more egalitarian approach that will deliver a similar (and high) quality education to everyone regardless of parental bank balance. Increase participation in state schools, proper funding, a real prioritizing of disadvantaged areas.
The biggest beneficiary of such an approach? Yep - white working class children.
But oh no, too difficult. Too disruptive of the status quo that so many are secretly comfortable with. So let's produce this report instead. Let's avoid the hard choices about class and money and push some culture war buttons. Let's waffle on about the term "white privilege". Has sweet FA to do with the problem but let's pretend that it does. Let's stoke some grievance!
I see you, Tories, and Middle England. I see you.
So are you saying Tories invented the term "white privilege"?
The Tories have latched onto it because they have figured out that it is a way of stoking resentment and dividing working class people. White Privilege is a term that is used to describe the advantages in many situations that white people enjoy on account of being the majority group. I'm sorry, but it describes something real, something that I personally have observed, and so I am not going to be bullied into not using it in that specific context. Of course, many white people don't feel very privileged, and so the term grates with them. But I doubt they have ever not had their CV looked at on account of their name, or been racially profiled by the police. White Privilege does not mean that all white people are more privileged than all non-White people.
It would only be a way of stoking resentment if there is a reason for resentment to be stoked.
If you believe that "white privilege" is real then stand up loud and proud and explain why poor white kids struggling at school are privileged. Otherwise maybe your term is flawed and you should stop using it and use something else instead.
We aren't America incidentally. I'd imagine many young white teenagers in hoodies have been profiled by the Police here.
Your poor white kids aren't struggling because they're white, they are struggling because they're poor, and the education system is under-funded by the government you vote for, and perhaps in some cases because of aspects of their upbringing, in many cases linked to their poverty. I've just given you two examples of how they don't face some similar barriers that non-White people do. And I'm not sure there are many places where a white kid in a hoodie will get hassled by the police more than a black kid in a hoodie, but please share statistics to the contrary if you have them.
It’s divisive and unhelpful as it perpetrates the perception that people are homogenous blocs based on skin colour.
They’re not. People are people.
So why should it be, that some of them should get along so awfully? - That's the million dollar question.
Some are shits. Others are venal. There are bullies and thugs. The majority of people are none of these things.
Telling people that “you are worse off because you are black” (which is fundamentally what “white privilege” is about) is actively harmful as it creates a reason for people to give up
Sorry, Charles, I was joking with that. Depeche Mode song - People Are People. Big hit for them.
Highest rate in Scotland in Dundee. Second highest rate in Ayrshire, haunt of @malcolmg . Is there a PB factor here?
I wonder if there is a statistical correlation between the number of posts on PB and the number of infections? I think Warwick should get right on it.
@DavidL All these English tourists bringing it up here David
You sure it isn't Scottish tourists bringing it back?
I have a theory that malcolmg is actually the alter ego of a rather sweet old lady called Moira who runs a B&B on the Ayrshire Coast. Friendly, welcoming, accommodating - the sort of B&B proprietor who has found her vocation in a job which enables her to serve tea and cake to all and sundry, not the sort who has taken on the job in order to better enjoy her hobby of despising people. Moira is broadly a unionist because that was the world she was brought up in and, for her business interests because many of her guests are English, but she thinks politics in general is a bit silly. She is Church of Scotland as a matter of national identity rather than being any sort of religious statement. And she bakes more scones per week than any sane village could consume. Her hour a day or so looking in here as malcolmg on here enable her to be all sweetness and light for the other 23.
Does this mean that Leon is actually a very strict West African nun, with hardline Liberation Theology views?
Blimey that Scotland COVID figure is big.. makes me worry for England’s numbers
I'd try not to. We know that cases were always predicted to climb as society opened up, even without Delta.
In crude terms, so long as the hospital numbers don't get too bad then the cases don't matter so much; if they spike very significantly then you might start to have trouble with mass-scale self-isolation, but if push comes to shove the Government will probably just exempt the double jabbed from that requirement so as to lighten the load.
With a bit of luck we'll see good data from hospitals for the next couple of weeks, the Government will stop making excuses and unlock in July, and we can get the worst of the exit wave out of the way before the school's come back again. I'm not at all confident that the catastrophist modellers won't succeed in frightening ministers into dragging the whole thing out even longer, but one can but hope.
Yes it's just a few stores but these are all in prime-ish sites selling expensive tat to children.
That's sad. We went to the Disney Store in the Trafford Centre the other day, first time going to Trafford since the pandemic began and the kids loved it - though my youngest went to school the next day and told her friends and Reception teacher that she'd been to Disneyland - didn't realise the difference. 😂
Yet you were telling me last night that the end of foreign travel until 2023 was no biggie, and we would replace all the foreign tourists with locals going to London to see The Mousetrap, again and again
THIS is what "no tourism" actually means: thousands of shops and businesses closing down forever, with incalculable ripple effects
The high street has been dying for years. This has nothing to do with tourism - there's a reason the London store is being kept open while the Trafford, Liverpool One and other stores are getting axed.
Realistically people are shopping more on Amazon nowadays and stores are dying. Its a shame to see this one go, but its not a surprise.
To the Scottish Nationalists who claim that the Scottish stamp on Westminster parties and don't have any independent thought, have a look at these two diametrically opposed Labour Tweets sent just a few hours apart.
Clearly the Scottish Labour Party doesn't think what the UK Labour Party is thinking. Not unless Labour is just a bunch of self-serving hypocrites who don't have any consistent principles at all.
Oh ...
I don't know how much the Tory party are paying you to post on here 24/7 but however much it is it isn't enough.
The amount of extra work you must be doing do to find these obscure tweets -and that's apart from your usual output-puts the Russian Bots to shame.
And I bet they have you working without staff? Tight buggers! Seriously I wouldn't take the Pugin wallpaper for Carrie's bedroom as an excuse
Yes it's just a few stores but these are all in prime-ish sites selling expensive tat to children.
That's sad. We went to the Disney Store in the Trafford Centre the other day, first time going to Trafford since the pandemic began and the kids loved it - though my youngest went to school the next day and told her friends and Reception teacher that she'd been to Disneyland - didn't realise the difference. 😂
Yet you were telling me last night that the end of foreign travel until 2023 was no biggie, and we would replace all the foreign tourists with locals going to London to see The Mousetrap, again and again
THIS is what "no tourism" actually means: thousands of shops and businesses closing down forever, with incalculable ripple effects
Well, up to a point. Some places do very well, some do very badly. And I certainly agree that we should be looking to open up ASAP. But I don't think the Disney stores' market was tourist dominated. Certainly not the Trafford Centre one. I think it's the inevitable response to increasing onlinification of our consumption of tat.
Where lockdown does come into it is that while we're still happy to shop in Tesco's - i.e. shopping to stay alive - lockdown is having a hit on shopping-as-leisure. Any leisure activity where you have to wear a mask is going to look a lot less appealing than, say, sitting on your sofa or in your garden or going for a walk.
Yes it's just a few stores but these are all in prime-ish sites selling expensive tat to children.
That's sad. We went to the Disney Store in the Trafford Centre the other day, first time going to Trafford since the pandemic began and the kids loved it - though my youngest went to school the next day and told her friends and Reception teacher that she'd been to Disneyland - didn't realise the difference. 😂
Yet you were telling me last night that the end of foreign travel until 2023 was no biggie, and we would replace all the foreign tourists with locals going to London to see The Mousetrap, again and again
THIS is what "no tourism" actually means: thousands of shops and businesses closing down forever, with incalculable ripple effects
The high street has been dying for years. This has nothing to do with tourism - there's a reason the London store is being kept open while the Trafford, Liverpool One and other stores are getting axed.
Realistically people are shopping more on Amazon nowadays and stores are dying. Its a shame to see this one go, but its not a surprise.
Yes, the death of Disney retail has "nothing to do with tourism".
Eesh
I am properly fearful now. Not of the pandemic - I think it is dying - but the economic sequelae.
We face a potential chain reaction of closures and bankruptcies, which will start in central London (and the centres of other big cities) but spread from there like some horrible tree disease - like ash die back. It is impossible to tell how bad it might be, because it is sui generis, but it could be really bad. We are an open trading economy dependent on the free flow of people and cash, and London is the main engine that turns the motor.
Yes it's just a few stores but these are all in prime-ish sites selling expensive tat to children.
Quite alot of people I know avoid (as in avoiding the children seeing) the Disney Store at Westfield - because it sells insanely priced tat. Bit like the Lego store - which seems to sell only themed kits at demented prices.
Yes it's just a few stores but these are all in prime-ish sites selling expensive tat to children.
That's sad. We went to the Disney Store in the Trafford Centre the other day, first time going to Trafford since the pandemic began and the kids loved it - though my youngest went to school the next day and told her friends and Reception teacher that she'd been to Disneyland - didn't realise the difference. 😂
Yet you were telling me last night that the end of foreign travel until 2023 was no biggie, and we would replace all the foreign tourists with locals going to London to see The Mousetrap, again and again
THIS is what "no tourism" actually means: thousands of shops and businesses closing down forever, with incalculable ripple effects
The high street has been dying for years. This has nothing to do with tourism - there's a reason the London store is being kept open while the Trafford, Liverpool One and other stores are getting axed.
Realistically people are shopping more on Amazon nowadays and stores are dying. Its a shame to see this one go, but its not a surprise.
Yes, the death of Disney retail has "nothing to do with tourism".
Eesh
I am properly fearful now. Not of the pandemic - I think it is dying - but the economic sequelae.
We face a potential chain reaction of closures and bankruptcies, which will start in central London (and the centres of other big cities) but spread from there like some horrible tree disease - like ash die back. It is impossible to tell how bad it might be, because it is sui generis, but it could be really bad. We are an open trading economy dependent on the free flow of people and cash, and London is the main engine that turns the motor.
I think it was Bruce Schneier who pointed out, that for all the security theatre at airports, the one method not used (in the US - and it isn't used here) was the profiling techniques used by the Israelis. Essentially, spot likely individuals, engaged them in a conversation, and rapidly determine the probability of their mental state using carefully designed questions.
This was rejected. Because it would be racist. By the TSA. Who instead strip search black people lots......
The Israelis don't give a damn about looking politcally correct when it comes to security, and happily target who they want for their interrogators to give a grilling. They learnt the hard way and now probably have the safest airlines and airports as a result.
I don't think we'd want to police the UK like that.
Yes I quite agree. The last thing we’d want to do is use policing tactics that improve public safety.
I thought you were one of these "if you trade a bit of liberty for some extra security you deserve neither liberty nor security" merchants?
Or is that only when it's about wearing masks to Tescos?
I don’t tend to go to Tesco’s.
Grown ups should be able to continually balance security and liberty and not take static positions.
At the height of a pandemic of a fast spreading novel virus with an IFR of about 0.5%, wearing a mask in public was a low impact intervention that probably did some net good. Now we are at 86% of the adult population with immunity (biased towards those with higher IFRs) the balance has almost certainly shifted away and probably did some time ago.
For policing of borders, it really depends on whether you care about cross border serious crime, illegal immigration and international terrorism. Or being nice.
Yep, contrary to the notorious quote, security vs liberty can be a valid trade off. Although people will not all agree on where the right balance is.
As for our border police, I don't see why they have to be nasty to be effective. I've noticed a certain widespread male admiration for hardball tactics from security forces (eg like the Israelis are famous for) but I don't really share it. I wonder if it's vicarious in some cases?
Yes it's just a few stores but these are all in prime-ish sites selling expensive tat to children.
That's sad. We went to the Disney Store in the Trafford Centre the other day, first time going to Trafford since the pandemic began and the kids loved it - though my youngest went to school the next day and told her friends and Reception teacher that she'd been to Disneyland - didn't realise the difference. 😂
Yet you were telling me last night that the end of foreign travel until 2023 was no biggie, and we would replace all the foreign tourists with locals going to London to see The Mousetrap, again and again
THIS is what "no tourism" actually means: thousands of shops and businesses closing down forever, with incalculable ripple effects
The high street has been dying for years. This has nothing to do with tourism - there's a reason the London store is being kept open while the Trafford, Liverpool One and other stores are getting axed.
Realistically people are shopping more on Amazon nowadays and stores are dying. Its a shame to see this one go, but its not a surprise.
Yes, the death of Disney retail has "nothing to do with tourism".
Eesh
I am properly fearful now. Not of the pandemic - I think it is dying - but the economic sequelae.
We face a potential chain reaction of closures and bankruptcies, which will start in central London (and the centres of other big cities) but spread from there like some horrible tree disease - like ash die back. It is impossible to tell how bad it might be, because it is sui generis, but it could be really bad. We are an open trading economy dependent on the free flow of people and cash, and London is the main engine that turns the motor.
If it seizes up, help
Why would the closure of retail stores everywhere except a tourist hotspot be due to the restrictions on tourism?
As opposed to the long and ongoing death of retail and the fact that the stores have not been contributing much to Disney's bottom line for years and they've been closing stores around the world rather than expanding for years now?
Oh and the fact that the pandemic has escalated the switch to online ordering.
Yes it's just a few stores but these are all in prime-ish sites selling expensive tat to children.
That's sad. We went to the Disney Store in the Trafford Centre the other day, first time going to Trafford since the pandemic began and the kids loved it - though my youngest went to school the next day and told her friends and Reception teacher that she'd been to Disneyland - didn't realise the difference. 😂
Yet you were telling me last night that the end of foreign travel until 2023 was no biggie, and we would replace all the foreign tourists with locals going to London to see The Mousetrap, again and again
THIS is what "no tourism" actually means: thousands of shops and businesses closing down forever, with incalculable ripple effects
The high street has been dying for years. This has nothing to do with tourism - there's a reason the London store is being kept open while the Trafford, Liverpool One and other stores are getting axed.
Realistically people are shopping more on Amazon nowadays and stores are dying. Its a shame to see this one go, but its not a surprise.
Yes, the death of Disney retail has "nothing to do with tourism".
Eesh
I am properly fearful now. Not of the pandemic - I think it is dying - but the economic sequelae.
We face a potential chain reaction of closures and bankruptcies, which will start in central London (and the centres of other big cities) but spread from there like some horrible tree disease - like ash die back. It is impossible to tell how bad it might be, because it is sui generis, but it could be really bad. We are an open trading economy dependent on the free flow of people and cash, and London is the main engine that turns the motor.
If it seizes up, help
Come on Leon, just a bit of creative destruction!
Indeed.
Let's hope the aliens are big spenders and like Burberry. They might save Bond Street
“The number of new coronavirus cases [in Scotland] reported stands at 2,167 which is 9.1% of all tests carried out”
Is that 9.1% positivity?!!!
Disaster
I hope I’ve read it wrong
Yes that's bad. The rule of thumb is that anything over 5% means you aren't doing enough tests to stay on top of things, 9.1% across the whole country is really poor.
“The number of new coronavirus cases reported stands at 2,167 which is 9.1% of all tests carried out”
Is that 9.1% positivity?!!!
Disaster
I hope I’ve read it wrong
PCR positivity from yesterday - sadly haven't got the Scottish equivalent data - but shows what can happen in an area....
Well some of these areas are pretty high, yes. But none of our regions equivalent in population to Scotland are anywhere close to 9% positivity overall. Not even the North West.
So two options: - Scotland is not testing as much as England, and the position in Scotland is actually much worse than that in England, to a much greater extent than the bald figures of positive tests reveal; or - the BBC report is innumerate nonsense.
The latter strikes me as slightly more plausible. But if anyone can confirm the data I'm happy to be corrected.
Incidentally when we went to the Disneystore last week absolutely everything we looked at had a discount price sticker on it. 30% to 70% off everything.
Figured that was just because the store had been closed for so long that they had lots of stock to clear, but perhaps its an unofficial closing down sale?
We are an open trading economy dependent on the free flow of people and cash
You voted to restrict that
We would have coped with Brexit alone just fine. Yes, there would have been pain but there would have been swift bounceback
The combo of Brexit AND Covid is tragically unfortunate. We must pray that my pessimism today is unjustified, and my previous reports on the animal spirits of London are more accurate
Yes it's just a few stores but these are all in prime-ish sites selling expensive tat to children.
That's sad. We went to the Disney Store in the Trafford Centre the other day, first time going to Trafford since the pandemic began and the kids loved it - though my youngest went to school the next day and told her friends and Reception teacher that she'd been to Disneyland - didn't realise the difference. 😂
Yet you were telling me last night that the end of foreign travel until 2023 was no biggie, and we would replace all the foreign tourists with locals going to London to see The Mousetrap, again and again
THIS is what "no tourism" actually means: thousands of shops and businesses closing down forever, with incalculable ripple effects
The high street has been dying for years. This has nothing to do with tourism - there's a reason the London store is being kept open while the Trafford, Liverpool One and other stores are getting axed.
Realistically people are shopping more on Amazon nowadays and stores are dying. Its a shame to see this one go, but its not a surprise.
Yes, the death of Disney retail has "nothing to do with tourism".
Eesh
I am properly fearful now. Not of the pandemic - I think it is dying - but the economic sequelae.
We face a potential chain reaction of closures and bankruptcies, which will start in central London (and the centres of other big cities) but spread from there like some horrible tree disease - like ash die back. It is impossible to tell how bad it might be, because it is sui generis, but it could be really bad. We are an open trading economy dependent on the free flow of people and cash, and London is the main engine that turns the motor.
If it seizes up, help
Meanwhile, in the economy as a whole, inflation is picking up, as the predicted tsunami of savings accumulated during the pandemic is unleashed onto the economy as people are vaccinated and feel safe to go out and spend again.
The economy will change, but it's not going to simply seize up. Lots more money will be spent in some places and a bit less in others.
I overheard part of a conversation when out the other day where someone was saying they'd sold a record number of season tickets. So must have been for one of the Edinburgh sports teams I guess. They said they thought people were extra eager to get out and be part of events.
This is not the sign of an economy on the brink of collapse. Just one that will be different.
“The number of new coronavirus cases reported stands at 2,167 which is 9.1% of all tests carried out”
Is that 9.1% positivity?!!!
Disaster
I hope I’ve read it wrong
PCR positivity from yesterday - sadly haven't got the Scottish equivalent data - but shows what can happen in an area....
Well some of these areas are pretty high, yes. But none of our regions equivalent in population to Scotland are anywhere close to 9% positivity overall. Not even the North West.
So two options: - Scotland is not testing as much as England, and the position in Scotland is actually much worse than that in England, to a much greater extent than the bald figures of positive tests reveal; or - the BBC report is innumerate nonsense.
The latter strikes me as slightly more plausible. But if anyone can confirm the data I'm happy to be corrected.
Scottish test positivity have almost always been higher than England.
Scotland haven't invested as much in widespread community testing as England has.
Besides the content, check the language on this Dutch tweet. There is so much English in it, she is basically speaking English
I’ve seen the same in Sweden and Denmark. I wonder if these smaller European languages will survive for much longer. The urge to talk - certainly online - in plain English, and finally abandon Dutch, must be intense. You instantly get a vastly bigger audience, and you’re already halfway there
‘Peter Daszak, lid vh WHO-team dat in China herkomst coronavirus onderzocht, heeft nu fuller disclosure gegeven over financiering door non-profit waarvan hij president is en dat eerder onderzoek van het Wuhanlab financieerde, recent onthuld door Vanity Fair.’
Swedish will extinct within a hundred years. The propensity to gleefully abandon perfectly good Swedish words and phrases for English (sometimes pseudo-English) ones is astonishing. Anyone who objects is ridiculed as a fuddy duddy who’s not down with the kids. It is part of the infamous “opinion corridor”.
I read an article a while back saying that in Italian not just English words but actually English grammar is starting to make an appearance. Quite bizarre.
Rich young Arabs - from the Lebanon or UAE - also speak a kind of ‘Arablish’. They move seamlessly between the two languages, Arabic and English, sometimes in the same sentence. It must drive linguistic purists mad, especially as Arabic is such a beautiful, liquid language, if spoken well (it can also be harsh)
Ditto Germany. Maybe even German will disappear eventually
Very true. The private schools in Arabia teach other subjects in English, whereas the state schools teach English as a language and subjects in Arabic. The private school local kids speak mostly English to each other, and Arabic with their parents!
It’s said that within 50 years the whole world will speak at least one of English and Chinese, that’s probably not far off. Spanish and Russian will stick around for a while though.
“The number of new coronavirus cases reported stands at 2,167 which is 9.1% of all tests carried out”
Is that 9.1% positivity?!!!
Disaster
I hope I’ve read it wrong
PCR positivity from yesterday - sadly haven't got the Scottish equivalent data - but shows what can happen in an area....
Well some of these areas are pretty high, yes. But none of our regions equivalent in population to Scotland are anywhere close to 9% positivity overall. Not even the North West.
So two options: - Scotland is not testing as much as England, and the position in Scotland is actually much worse than that in England, to a much greater extent than the bald figures of positive tests reveal; or - the BBC report is innumerate nonsense.
The latter strikes me as slightly more plausible. But if anyone can confirm the data I'm happy to be corrected.
The 9.1% figure is on the Scotland government page. It's genuine. Scotland have consistently done a bit less testing than England, and had higher positivity values.
Highest rate in Scotland in Dundee. Second highest rate in Ayrshire, haunt of @malcolmg . Is there a PB factor here?
I wonder if there is a statistical correlation between the number of posts on PB and the number of infections? I think Warwick should get right on it.
@DavidL All these English tourists bringing it up here David
You sure it isn't Scottish tourists bringing it back?
I have a theory that malcolmg is actually the alter ego of a rather sweet old lady called Moira who runs a B&B on the Ayrshire Coast. Friendly, welcoming, accommodating - the sort of B&B proprietor who has found her vocation in a job which enables her to serve tea and cake to all and sundry, not the sort who has taken on the job in order to better enjoy her hobby of despising people. Moira is broadly a unionist because that was the world she was brought up in and, for her business interests because many of her guests are English, but she thinks politics in general is a bit silly. She is Church of Scotland as a matter of national identity rather than being any sort of religious statement. And she bakes more scones per week than any sane village could consume. Her hour a day or so looking in here as malcolmg on here enable her to be all sweetness and light for the other 23.
Does this mean that Leon is actually a very strict West African nun, with hardline Liberation Theology views?
I think that Leon is Noel Gallagher. He's notoriously shy of sharing his views in public, so would obviously hide behind a pseudonym in a forum like this. This helps to explain why he is so in touch with the views of the northern working class, too. I mean, he's virtually their tribune, with his tireless and never boring dispatches from the front line of the culture wars. The final piece of the puzzle: read "Leon" backwards.
I think it was Bruce Schneier who pointed out, that for all the security theatre at airports, the one method not used (in the US - and it isn't used here) was the profiling techniques used by the Israelis. Essentially, spot likely individuals, engaged them in a conversation, and rapidly determine the probability of their mental state using carefully designed questions.
This was rejected. Because it would be racist. By the TSA. Who instead strip search black people lots......
The Israelis don't give a damn about looking politcally correct when it comes to security, and happily target who they want for their interrogators to give a grilling. They learnt the hard way and now probably have the safest airlines and airports as a result.
I don't think we'd want to police the UK like that.
Yes I quite agree. The last thing we’d want to do is use policing tactics that improve public safety.
I thought you were one of these "if you trade a bit of liberty for some extra security you deserve neither liberty nor security" merchants?
Or is that only when it's about wearing masks to Tescos?
I don’t tend to go to Tesco’s.
Grown ups should be able to continually balance security and liberty and not take static positions.
At the height of a pandemic of a fast spreading novel virus with an IFR of about 0.5%, wearing a mask in public was a low impact intervention that probably did some net good. Now we are at 86% of the adult population with immunity (biased towards those with higher IFRs) the balance has almost certainly shifted away and probably did some time ago.
For policing of borders, it really depends on whether you care about cross border serious crime, illegal immigration and international terrorism. Or being nice.
Yep, contrary to the notorious quote, security vs liberty can be a valid trade off. Although people will not all agree on where the right balance is.
As for our border police, I don't see why they have to be nasty to be effective. I've noticed a certain widespread male admiration for hardball tactics from security forces (eg like the Israelis are famous for) but I don't really share it. I wonder if it's vicarious in some cases?
The Israeli approach, in this case, is the reverse of "hard ball".
It goes like this -
1) Profile for certain signs, visually at a distance. 2) Speech to the subject in an apparently casual manner, using a series of questions to get information on his/her mind state. 3) If they seem like a threat, then the person in question gets a serious interrogation (which is very rare).
This is far more effective than strip searching all the black people. Or demanding that everyone takes off their shoes..
After reading the thread here I bet on Labour holding Batley and Spen, but I pulled out of the market after I woke up this morning to the headline news that the Education Select Committee believes schools have long neglected white children. This is how the Tories win - by playing the race card. The race card is a trump card. (See what I did there.) Most likely the Tories will gain Batley and Spen and they are value at 1.45. Thumping away with this kind of story - what is essentially a call for "white rights" - could increase the Tories' Commons majority at the next GE too.
Time to emigrate?
What rubbish. There is clearly an issue with underachievement in this demographic, and there has been for a while, and addressing it is exactly what is needed to stop people playing the race card.
Or would you prefer this sector of society was allowed to keep falling behind as long as your comfy worldview wasn’t challenged ?
I just don't understand what their race has to do with this. They're not getting treated badly at school because they're white. In fact I doubt they're getting treated badly at school at all, except to the extent that all state school kids in this country are let down by a lack of money and focus from the government and the establishment, who mostly go private and so have very little skin in the game. Their problems come from a lack of engagement in education, often rooted in their parents' experiences of school, sometimes compounded by other issues that their parents have. Plus poverty, which makes everything harder. (BTW before anyone accuses me of being an out of touch elitist, I went to a comprehensive school that was almost entirely white so the so-called white working class is not some kind of unknown exotic species to me).
I disagree with that and I think a lot has to do with the attitude of teachers. As @RochdalePioneers so helpfully demonstrated a few days back, there is a view on the left, especially amongst let's say the more educated parts including the teaching profession, that WWC kids are essentially thick, racist and therefore not worth saving, and the problems they have in their lives are the faults of them and their ghastly parents. Therefore, why bother trying to do anything with them. That then leads to teachers who view their place as going through the motions rather than trying to inspire or change.
That is the Right's view of the view of the Left. The real one is that our education system is elitist and old fashioned and underfunded and warped by the propensity of the affluent to opt out and purchase advantage via the private sector.
We demand better. We want a more egalitarian approach that will deliver a similar (and high) quality education to everyone regardless of parental bank balance. Increase participation in state schools, proper funding, a real prioritizing of disadvantaged areas.
The biggest beneficiary of such an approach? Yep - white working class children.
But oh no, too difficult. Too disruptive of the status quo that so many are secretly comfortable with. So let's produce this report instead. Let's avoid the hard choices about class and money and push some culture war buttons. Let's waffle on about the term "white privilege". Has sweet FA to do with the problem but let's pretend that it does. Let's stoke some grievance!
I see you, Tories, and Middle England. I see you.
So are you saying Tories invented the term "white privilege"?
I would back 1/3 that in a random conversation on here where it drifts onto white privilege it is a Tory voter who first uses the phrase here, and be a comfortable winner in the long run.
I would also back at odds on, that if someone starts a conversation about increasing education spending, they did not vote Tory at the last election.
I think the phrase is tactically unhelpful to the point of being counter productive, but does exist to an extent, as do many other privileges especially class and in many societies gender.
If a Tory voter on here quotes someone who uses the term (and means it), like Charles in his example above, then is that a leftwinger initiating that or a right winger?
You seem to think that the far left ought to be able to say whatever they want in a safe space and never be quoted or responded to.
If the phrase is unhelpful to the point of being counter productive then don't use it and condemn those who do.
I would never initiate a conversation about it so only use it when it is already being discussed anyway.
Like most of wokeism, it is a tiny minority on the left who probably do start it, but a much bigger minority on the right who amplify, publicise and politicise it into the mainstream.
In which case its the left that started it, not the right. Publicising what your opponents are up to is just politics and quite right to do.
If you find the left embarrassing then you can join in with the right in rejecting it and criticising it yourself. In which case it loses all potency.
All of which is irrelevant drivel in getting to grips with problems in education, which is the job of the select committee. What you write just confirms that it's engaged in petty politicking.
The original poster's comment on this thread was the irrelevant drivel. The person on Breakfast this morning was Robert Halfon (who I think is the Chair of the committee?) and he is hardly on the right of the Tory Party. His comments were perfectly rational. WWC kids are underperforming compared to their peers.
I went to a very poor ex-secondary modern comprehensive school. I am sure nowadays it would have ended up in special measures. The teachers at that school were almost without exception very left wing and had no problem expressing their far left political views. During the Falklands War one was so "woke" that he referred to the Falklands as "The Malvinas"! Most of these teachers were actually middle class, and some seemed to revel in the fact that most of the kids left with no qualifications, and I am quite sure looked down on them as uneducable. With the exception of one or two most were incompetent and lazy. Most should have been sacked.
There is an essential problem with the middle class educated left: they are often intellectual and cultural snobs and they would like the WWC to know their place. The reason for poor performance in many schools is not just the lack of resources. It is a lack of expectation and ambition. This takes outstanding teachers, many of whom gravitate, understandably, to the better schools, thereby exacerbating the problem. I am not sure what the answer is. As I was fortunate enough to become quite successful I chose to privately educate my kids. It is a decision I have never regretted.
So your analysis of the current state system is based on your experience of four decades back ? No one is arguing that white British kids from poor backgrounds aren't underperforming. And if you think current teachers revel in that fact, then you are a fool.
Indeed. I think it's actually pretty insulting to a lot of hard working teachers that really do want the best for the kids they teach. Unfortunately the problems here start much earlier than that with parental and establishment expectations. Just as the Met sees a black person and sees potential criminal or an Asian person and sees a potential terrorist, the education establishment sees a young white boy or young black boy and sees troublemakers and treats them as such. If anything there are teachers all across the country who are fighting against that system of low expectations.
You're right, but that's a battle that's been fought for at least twenty years now, and the 'goodies' are winning. There's very few teachers now who stereotype pupils as black = troublemaker, or white disadvantaged = no hoper, and those who do are older and on their way out.
How many teachers will push a bright black kid to go to a Russell Group university?
Plenty of bright black kids go to Russell Group universities from my kids' school every year.
But not in areas like Brent, for example, where there is chronic under provision of sixth form academic education and a poverty of expectations
The "rules" are being applied in a capricious and arbitrary manner, of course. Why it's specifically Mount and Chilwell and not anybody else (the whole Scotland team; both teams; or even both teams and the officials) that are being dragged off into self-isolation isn't really adequately explained. The best conclusion is that a token performance has been arranged, intending to demonstrate that the "rules" are being taken seriously but without causing material disruption to the tournament (which would be unpopular and cost money.) See also: the exemption for 2,500 UEFA bureaucrats to come to London for the final without quarantine. It's all made up as they go along, according to whatever course of action is deemed most expedient at the time.
As always, it is one rule for the English and another for everyone else. Scotland are claiming none of their players have been exposed to Gilmour, which is clearly ridiculous. I hope the dirty cheats go out.
That's silly. There's one set of rules for everyone. It's just that the discretion used in their application (though only when applied to people like celebrity footballers, not ordinary plebs) is so broad that it may as well not exist.
Gilmour realistically had to be isolated because he tested positive, and locking up the two England players was then the best political option because it was meant to show (a) that all the rules about close contacts were supposedly being followed and (b) the Scots weren't being exclusively picked on by the English authorities.
The action taken was chosen because it was intended to demonstrate that something was being done about the Plague without letting off a political neutron bomb by wrecking the tournament. It was all about public relations and nothing to do with suppressing the wretched virus.
After reading the thread here I bet on Labour holding Batley and Spen, but I pulled out of the market after I woke up this morning to the headline news that the Education Select Committee believes schools have long neglected white children. This is how the Tories win - by playing the race card. The race card is a trump card. (See what I did there.) Most likely the Tories will gain Batley and Spen and they are value at 1.45. Thumping away with this kind of story - what is essentially a call for "white rights" - could increase the Tories' Commons majority at the next GE too.
Time to emigrate?
What rubbish. There is clearly an issue with underachievement in this demographic, and there has been for a while, and addressing it is exactly what is needed to stop people playing the race card.
Or would you prefer this sector of society was allowed to keep falling behind as long as your comfy worldview wasn’t challenged ?
I just don't understand what their race has to do with this. They're not getting treated badly at school because they're white. In fact I doubt they're getting treated badly at school at all, except to the extent that all state school kids in this country are let down by a lack of money and focus from the government and the establishment, who mostly go private and so have very little skin in the game. Their problems come from a lack of engagement in education, often rooted in their parents' experiences of school, sometimes compounded by other issues that their parents have. Plus poverty, which makes everything harder. (BTW before anyone accuses me of being an out of touch elitist, I went to a comprehensive school that was almost entirely white so the so-called white working class is not some kind of unknown exotic species to me).
I disagree with that and I think a lot has to do with the attitude of teachers. As @RochdalePioneers so helpfully demonstrated a few days back, there is a view on the left, especially amongst let's say the more educated parts including the teaching profession, that WWC kids are essentially thick, racist and therefore not worth saving, and the problems they have in their lives are the faults of them and their ghastly parents. Therefore, why bother trying to do anything with them. That then leads to teachers who view their place as going through the motions rather than trying to inspire or change.
That is the Right's view of the view of the Left. The real one is that our education system is elitist and old fashioned and underfunded and warped by the propensity of the affluent to opt out and purchase advantage via the private sector.
We demand better. We want a more egalitarian approach that will deliver a similar (and high) quality education to everyone regardless of parental bank balance. Increase participation in state schools, proper funding, a real prioritizing of disadvantaged areas.
The biggest beneficiary of such an approach? Yep - white working class children.
But oh no, too difficult. Too disruptive of the status quo that so many are secretly comfortable with. So let's produce this report instead. Let's avoid the hard choices about class and money and push some culture war buttons. Let's waffle on about the term "white privilege". Has sweet FA to do with the problem but let's pretend that it does. Let's stoke some grievance!
I see you, Tories, and Middle England. I see you.
So are you saying Tories invented the term "white privilege"?
I would back 1/3 that in a random conversation on here where it drifts onto white privilege it is a Tory voter who first uses the phrase here, and be a comfortable winner in the long run.
I would also back at odds on, that if someone starts a conversation about increasing education spending, they did not vote Tory at the last election.
I think the phrase is tactically unhelpful to the point of being counter productive, but does exist to an extent, as do many other privileges especially class and in many societies gender.
If a Tory voter on here quotes someone who uses the term (and means it), like Charles in his example above, then is that a leftwinger initiating that or a right winger?
You seem to think that the far left ought to be able to say whatever they want in a safe space and never be quoted or responded to.
If the phrase is unhelpful to the point of being counter productive then don't use it and condemn those who do.
I would never initiate a conversation about it so only use it when it is already being discussed anyway.
Like most of wokeism, it is a tiny minority on the left who probably do start it, but a much bigger minority on the right who amplify, publicise and politicise it into the mainstream.
In which case its the left that started it, not the right. Publicising what your opponents are up to is just politics and quite right to do.
If you find the left embarrassing then you can join in with the right in rejecting it and criticising it yourself. In which case it loses all potency.
All of which is irrelevant drivel in getting to grips with problems in education, which is the job of the select committee. What you write just confirms that it's engaged in petty politicking.
The original poster's comment on this thread was the irrelevant drivel. The person on Breakfast this morning was Robert Halfon (who I think is the Chair of the committee?) and he is hardly on the right of the Tory Party. His comments were perfectly rational. WWC kids are underperforming compared to their peers.
I went to a very poor ex-secondary modern comprehensive school. I am sure nowadays it would have ended up in special measures. The teachers at that school were almost without exception very left wing and had no problem expressing their far left political views. During the Falklands War one was so "woke" that he referred to the Falklands as "The Malvinas"! Most of these teachers were actually middle class, and some seemed to revel in the fact that most of the kids left with no qualifications, and I am quite sure looked down on them as uneducable. With the exception of one or two most were incompetent and lazy. Most should have been sacked.
There is an essential problem with the middle class educated left: they are often intellectual and cultural snobs and they would like the WWC to know their place. The reason for poor performance in many schools is not just the lack of resources. It is a lack of expectation and ambition. This takes outstanding teachers, many of whom gravitate, understandably, to the better schools, thereby exacerbating the problem. I am not sure what the answer is. As I was fortunate enough to become quite successful I chose to privately educate my kids. It is a decision I have never regretted.
So your analysis of the current state system is based on your experience of four decades back ? No one is arguing that white British kids from poor backgrounds aren't underperforming. And if you think current teachers revel in that fact, then you are a fool.
Indeed. I think it's actually pretty insulting to a lot of hard working teachers that really do want the best for the kids they teach. Unfortunately the problems here start much earlier than that with parental and establishment expectations. Just as the Met sees a black person and sees potential criminal or an Asian person and sees a potential terrorist, the education establishment sees a young white boy or young black boy and sees troublemakers and treats them as such. If anything there are teachers all across the country who are fighting against that system of low expectations.
You're right, but that's a battle that's been fought for at least twenty years now, and the 'goodies' are winning. There's very few teachers now who stereotype pupils as black = troublemaker, or white disadvantaged = no hoper, and those who do are older and on their way out.
How many teachers will push a bright black kid to go to a Russell Group university?
I hope you're asking that question because the answer is all of them?
Sadly there are many that do not. It’s why programmes like Step-Up are so important
“The number of new coronavirus cases reported stands at 2,167 which is 9.1% of all tests carried out”
Is that 9.1% positivity?!!!
Disaster
I hope I’ve read it wrong
PCR positivity from yesterday - sadly haven't got the Scottish equivalent data - but shows what can happen in an area....
Well some of these areas are pretty high, yes. But none of our regions equivalent in population to Scotland are anywhere close to 9% positivity overall. Not even the North West.
So two options: - Scotland is not testing as much as England, and the position in Scotland is actually much worse than that in England, to a much greater extent than the bald figures of positive tests reveal; or - the BBC report is innumerate nonsense.
The latter strikes me as slightly more plausible. But if anyone can confirm the data I'm happy to be corrected.
The 9.1% figure is on the Scotland government page. It's genuine. Scotland have consistently done a bit less testing than England, and had higher positivity values.
“The number of new coronavirus cases reported stands at 2,167 which is 9.1% of all tests carried out”
Is that 9.1% positivity?!!!
Disaster
I hope I’ve read it wrong
PCR positivity from yesterday - sadly haven't got the Scottish equivalent data - but shows what can happen in an area....
Well some of these areas are pretty high, yes. But none of our regions equivalent in population to Scotland are anywhere close to 9% positivity overall. Not even the North West.
So two options: - Scotland is not testing as much as England, and the position in Scotland is actually much worse than that in England, to a much greater extent than the bald figures of positive tests reveal; or - the BBC report is innumerate nonsense.
The latter strikes me as slightly more plausible. But if anyone can confirm the data I'm happy to be corrected.
Scottish test positivity have almost always been higher than England.
Scotland haven't invested as much in widespread community testing as England has.
Do you have the stats for that Philip? I have only really (courtesy of @Malmesbury )been keeping abreast of overall positivity in England. If Scotland as a whole has positivity of that sort of level, that implies significantly higher levels in Scotland compared to England than is perceived to be the case.
I think it was Bruce Schneier who pointed out, that for all the security theatre at airports, the one method not used (in the US - and it isn't used here) was the profiling techniques used by the Israelis. Essentially, spot likely individuals, engaged them in a conversation, and rapidly determine the probability of their mental state using carefully designed questions.
This was rejected. Because it would be racist. By the TSA. Who instead strip search black people lots......
The Israelis don't give a damn about looking politcally correct when it comes to security, and happily target who they want for their interrogators to give a grilling. They learnt the hard way and now probably have the safest airlines and airports as a result.
I don't think we'd want to police the UK like that.
Yes I quite agree. The last thing we’d want to do is use policing tactics that improve public safety.
I thought you were one of these "if you trade a bit of liberty for some extra security you deserve neither liberty nor security" merchants?
Or is that only when it's about wearing masks to Tescos?
I'm not sure that argument is relevant here - I don't think less, or even more security is being advocated - simply better targeted.
On which subject, my father in law - who is a scientist, and travels all over the world - was frequently stopped at airport security until he took the decision to start wearing a jacket and tie. No more issues at airports after that, even if he did continue to look like a ginger Lemmy from Motorhead, only wearing a tie. And similarly, I bet if you're brown-skinned, heavily bearded and wear traditional Asian clothing you will be stopped more often than if your white skinned, dress in the style of a conventional westerner and clean shaven. Even if we don't say we target, I bet we do, a bit.
I'd imagine we do, yes. As for liberty v security, I'd say airports are quite a pure example of it. You must submit yourself to various checks if you wish to fly somewhere. You're giving up some liberty there in exchange for a (hopefully) smaller chance of (eg) being blown up.
“The number of new coronavirus cases reported stands at 2,167 which is 9.1% of all tests carried out”
Is that 9.1% positivity?!!!
Disaster
I hope I’ve read it wrong
PCR positivity from yesterday - sadly haven't got the Scottish equivalent data - but shows what can happen in an area....
Well some of these areas are pretty high, yes. But none of our regions equivalent in population to Scotland are anywhere close to 9% positivity overall. Not even the North West.
So two options: - Scotland is not testing as much as England, and the position in Scotland is actually much worse than that in England, to a much greater extent than the bald figures of positive tests reveal; or - the BBC report is innumerate nonsense.
The latter strikes me as slightly more plausible. But if anyone can confirm the data I'm happy to be corrected.
Scottish test positivity have almost always been higher than England.
Scotland haven't invested as much in widespread community testing as England has.
Do you have the stats for that Philip? I have only really (courtesy of @Malmesbury )been keeping abreast of overall positivity in England. If Scotland as a whole has positivity of that sort of level, that implies significantly higher levels in Scotland compared to England than is perceived to be the case.
Malmesbury's data has fairly consistently shown a higher test positivity rate in Scotland.
After reading the thread here I bet on Labour holding Batley and Spen, but I pulled out of the market after I woke up this morning to the headline news that the Education Select Committee believes schools have long neglected white children. This is how the Tories win - by playing the race card. The race card is a trump card. (See what I did there.) Most likely the Tories will gain Batley and Spen and they are value at 1.45. Thumping away with this kind of story - what is essentially a call for "white rights" - could increase the Tories' Commons majority at the next GE too.
Time to emigrate?
What rubbish. There is clearly an issue with underachievement in this demographic, and there has been for a while, and addressing it is exactly what is needed to stop people playing the race card.
Or would you prefer this sector of society was allowed to keep falling behind as long as your comfy worldview wasn’t challenged ?
I just don't understand what their race has to do with this. They're not getting treated badly at school because they're white. In fact I doubt they're getting treated badly at school at all, except to the extent that all state school kids in this country are let down by a lack of money and focus from the government and the establishment, who mostly go private and so have very little skin in the game. Their problems come from a lack of engagement in education, often rooted in their parents' experiences of school, sometimes compounded by other issues that their parents have. Plus poverty, which makes everything harder. (BTW before anyone accuses me of being an out of touch elitist, I went to a comprehensive school that was almost entirely white so the so-called white working class is not some kind of unknown exotic species to me).
I disagree with that and I think a lot has to do with the attitude of teachers. As @RochdalePioneers so helpfully demonstrated a few days back, there is a view on the left, especially amongst let's say the more educated parts including the teaching profession, that WWC kids are essentially thick, racist and therefore not worth saving, and the problems they have in their lives are the faults of them and their ghastly parents. Therefore, why bother trying to do anything with them. That then leads to teachers who view their place as going through the motions rather than trying to inspire or change.
That is the Right's view of the view of the Left. The real one is that our education system is elitist and old fashioned and underfunded and warped by the propensity of the affluent to opt out and purchase advantage via the private sector.
We demand better. We want a more egalitarian approach that will deliver a similar (and high) quality education to everyone regardless of parental bank balance. Increase participation in state schools, proper funding, a real prioritizing of disadvantaged areas.
The biggest beneficiary of such an approach? Yep - white working class children.
But oh no, too difficult. Too disruptive of the status quo that so many are secretly comfortable with. So let's produce this report instead. Let's avoid the hard choices about class and money and push some culture war buttons. Let's waffle on about the term "white privilege". Has sweet FA to do with the problem but let's pretend that it does. Let's stoke some grievance!
I see you, Tories, and Middle England. I see you.
So are you saying Tories invented the term "white privilege"?
No course not. What I'm saying is that it looks like a tag on here to generate some culture war spat and divert the responsibility for a problem in schools to that oh so convenient amorphous blob which is to blame for all the defects of 11 years of Tory government - the woke left.
It's getting stale. It's getting very stale indeed.
1. It’s only just begun
2. It works
Probably correct. In which case the relative economic prospects of the white working class will not improve.
It will if more focus is placed into those areas.
Blair's education policies focused very much on improving the performance of state schools in London in particular and, 20 years on, huge progress has been made there. However, the rest of the country was relegated in importance, with the possible exception of some of the cities.
It might help the left in general if their reaction to reports such as the Education Committee was a bit more introspection and a lot less lashing out and blaming everyone else for how you are perceived. The left's behaviour when anyone brings up issues such as the WWC in schools is starting to look very Trumpian in its manner.
Let's see some real focus on improving the schools in disadvantaged white working class areas then. It's been eleven long years but there's still time.
Actually, I would argue you have to split the Tory years into groups. Cameron didn't give a f*ck about the WWC, and neither did the likes of Clegg and Osborne, all coming from well-off backgrounds, going to the best private schools and caring most about what the Notting Hill set thought. Theresa May was much better but, in her usual way, stumbling along. With BJ, I would expect action.
BJ, as you call him, went to what kind of school? Titter.
It always amazes me how we were forever hearing about Cameron and the 'infamous' Bullingdon picture. Yet with Boris - who was not only in the same club but in the same bleeding picture - it's never mentioned. Boris makes you believe about him what you want to believe.
Another factor I believe is that permission to reproduce the famous Bullingdon photo has been withdrawn by the copyright holder, under pressure from some of the people in it, presumably. So you won't see it in the press. Apologies if this is fake news, but I remember reading that somewhere.
“The number of new coronavirus cases reported stands at 2,167 which is 9.1% of all tests carried out”
Is that 9.1% positivity?!!!
Disaster
I hope I’ve read it wrong
PCR positivity from yesterday - sadly haven't got the Scottish equivalent data - but shows what can happen in an area....
Well some of these areas are pretty high, yes. But none of our regions equivalent in population to Scotland are anywhere close to 9% positivity overall. Not even the North West.
So two options: - Scotland is not testing as much as England, and the position in Scotland is actually much worse than that in England, to a much greater extent than the bald figures of positive tests reveal; or - the BBC report is innumerate nonsense.
The latter strikes me as slightly more plausible. But if anyone can confirm the data I'm happy to be corrected.
Scottish test positivity have almost always been higher than England.
Scotland haven't invested as much in widespread community testing as England has.
Do you have the stats for that Philip? I have only really (courtesy of @Malmesbury )been keeping abreast of overall positivity in England. If Scotland as a whole has positivity of that sort of level, that implies significantly higher levels in Scotland compared to England than is perceived to be the case.
I seem to recall it was - for a while I was looking at positivity at national level....
I' actually tracking positivity at UK level, currently
Besides the content, check the language on this Dutch tweet. There is so much English in it, she is basically speaking English
I’ve seen the same in Sweden and Denmark. I wonder if these smaller European languages will survive for much longer. The urge to talk - certainly online - in plain English, and finally abandon Dutch, must be intense. You instantly get a vastly bigger audience, and you’re already halfway there
‘Peter Daszak, lid vh WHO-team dat in China herkomst coronavirus onderzocht, heeft nu fuller disclosure gegeven over financiering door non-profit waarvan hij president is en dat eerder onderzoek van het Wuhanlab financieerde, recent onthuld door Vanity Fair.’
Swedish will extinct within a hundred years. The propensity to gleefully abandon perfectly good Swedish words and phrases for English (sometimes pseudo-English) ones is astonishing. Anyone who objects is ridiculed as a fuddy duddy who’s not down with the kids. It is part of the infamous “opinion corridor”.
I read an article a while back saying that in Italian not just English words but actually English grammar is starting to make an appearance. Quite bizarre.
Rich young Arabs - from the Lebanon or UAE - also speak a kind of ‘Arablish’. They move seamlessly between the two languages, Arabic and English, sometimes in the same sentence. It must drive linguistic purists mad, especially as Arabic is such a beautiful, liquid language, if spoken well (it can also be harsh)
Ditto Germany. Maybe even German will disappear eventually
Very true. The private schools in Arabia teach other subjects in English, whereas the state schools teach English as a language and subjects in Arabic. The private school local kids speak mostly English to each other, and Arabic with their parents!
It’s said that within 50 years the whole world will speak at least one of English and Chinese, that’s probably not far off. Spanish and Russian will stick around for a while though.
1) I enjoy hearing Dutch. It sounds like English, but with made-up words. It's probably the most comfortingly familiar language.
I think it was Bruce Schneier who pointed out, that for all the security theatre at airports, the one method not used (in the US - and it isn't used here) was the profiling techniques used by the Israelis. Essentially, spot likely individuals, engaged them in a conversation, and rapidly determine the probability of their mental state using carefully designed questions.
This was rejected. Because it would be racist. By the TSA. Who instead strip search black people lots......
The Israelis don't give a damn about looking politcally correct when it comes to security, and happily target who they want for their interrogators to give a grilling. They learnt the hard way and now probably have the safest airlines and airports as a result.
I don't think we'd want to police the UK like that.
Yes I quite agree. The last thing we’d want to do is use policing tactics that improve public safety.
I thought you were one of these "if you trade a bit of liberty for some extra security you deserve neither liberty nor security" merchants?
Or is that only when it's about wearing masks to Tescos?
I don’t tend to go to Tesco’s.
Grown ups should be able to continually balance security and liberty and not take static positions.
At the height of a pandemic of a fast spreading novel virus with an IFR of about 0.5%, wearing a mask in public was a low impact intervention that probably did some net good. Now we are at 86% of the adult population with immunity (biased towards those with higher IFRs) the balance has almost certainly shifted away and probably did some time ago.
For policing of borders, it really depends on whether you care about cross border serious crime, illegal immigration and international terrorism. Or being nice.
Yep, contrary to the notorious quote, security vs liberty can be a valid trade off. Although people will not all agree on where the right balance is.
As for our border police, I don't see why they have to be nasty to be effective. I've noticed a certain widespread male admiration for hardball tactics from security forces (eg like the Israelis are famous for) but I don't really share it. I wonder if it's vicarious in some cases?
The Israeli approach, in this case, is the reverse of "hard ball".
It goes like this -
1) Profile for certain signs, visually at a distance. 2) Speech to the subject in an apparently casual manner, using a series of questions to get information on his/her mind state. 3) If they seem like a threat, then the person in question gets a serious interrogation (which is very rare).
This is far more effective than strip searching all the black people. Or demanding that everyone takes off their shoes..
Ok, I see. Take your word for it but it all sounds a bit Alan Partridge to me.
Highest rate in Scotland in Dundee. Second highest rate in Ayrshire, haunt of @malcolmg . Is there a PB factor here?
I wonder if there is a statistical correlation between the number of posts on PB and the number of infections? I think Warwick should get right on it.
@DavidL All these English tourists bringing it up here David
You sure it isn't Scottish tourists bringing it back?
I have a theory that malcolmg is actually the alter ego of a rather sweet old lady called Moira who runs a B&B on the Ayrshire Coast. Friendly, welcoming, accommodating - the sort of B&B proprietor who has found her vocation in a job which enables her to serve tea and cake to all and sundry, not the sort who has taken on the job in order to better enjoy her hobby of despising people. Moira is broadly a unionist because that was the world she was brought up in and, for her business interests because many of her guests are English, but she thinks politics in general is a bit silly. She is Church of Scotland as a matter of national identity rather than being any sort of religious statement. And she bakes more scones per week than any sane village could consume. Her hour a day or so looking in here as malcolmg on here enable her to be all sweetness and light for the other 23.
Does this mean that Leon is actually a very strict West African nun, with hardline Liberation Theology views?
Comments
Blair priority for upper class/ middle class/ working class was clearly
£education/ education/ ejakashun
Re the serious point, you're doing here what many do, confusing macro analysis with individual pep talk.
So, if you're talking to (say) a black teenager from a tough background you do NOT say, "Oh yeah, it's all rigged against you in this country. You're poor. You're black. You got no chance. Just give the fuck up on all that school and uni shit and go deal."
That would be crass and not necessarily true for the person you're actually talking to. You'd also sound like a bit of a dick who thinks he's Samuel L Jackson.
No, you'd be constructive and positive. Talk about opportunities. Focus on the bright side. Course you would.
But does this mean that when discussing the big picture, you have to pretend that black people in the UK do not face serious specific barriers? You have to pretend that we have racism well and truly licked?
No way. To extend pep talk to macro analysis is a nonsense. And a common one too. It's very common on the ra ra right. It's a strand of anti-intellectualism. Which isn't always a bad thing but it is here. It's a very bad thing because it hampers debate and obscures the truth.
Opposition, opposition, opposition.
Sometimes you need to more than stand up.
I wonder whether all of this has got worse since he realised he is the only person still in love with Alex Salmond? Or perhaps it was since Salmond was described as a "bully and a sex pest" by his own QC? Maybe Malc thinks the latter is a compliment?
Or is that only when it's about wearing masks to Tescos?
https://www.bbc.com/sport/live/football/57564093
"Schools should consider whether the promotion of politically controversial terminology, including White Privilege, is consistent with their duties under the Equality Act 2010. The Department should take steps to ensure that young people are not inadvertently being inducted into political movements when what is required is balanced, age-appropriate discussion and a curriculum that equips young people to thrive in diverse and multi-cultural communities throughout their lives and work."
The report makes clear at the state, and states it ad infinitum that they recognise that other minorities face prejudices and have challenges, and that more needs to be done to address these but, however, the aim of this specific report was to focus on WWC.
There seems to be a visceral view on the left that, if you bring up any example of how the race-baiting agenda being pursued by certain groups might not be borne by the data, it should be jumped upon and discredited as quickly as possible, regardless of merits.
Didn't work on here, though, did it? We've all just ignored that aspect, haven't we? Oh yes.
She is Church of Scotland as a matter of national identity rather than being any sort of religious statement. And she bakes more scones per week than any sane village could consume.
Her hour a day or so looking in here as malcolmg on here enable her to be all sweetness and light for the other 23.
Interestingly, I had the Isreali method used on me by a City of London policeman. I was standing on the Millenium Bridge approach, doing some architectural photos. I probably stood out because I wasn't a Japanese or Chinese tourist. It was during one of the terrorist alerts a while back.
He casually wondered up and asked me a series of questions about my camera, which gently led into why I was photographing and what. All straight out of the Isreali manual. Since I had read that, it was all I could do not to giggle.
Satisfied, he wandered off. The whole ting took about 2 minutes, and was very non confrontational. If I hadn't been aware that I was being checked out, it would have just been a cop with an interest in my photography being politely interested.
Grown ups should be able to continually balance security and liberty and not take static positions.
At the height of a pandemic of a fast spreading novel virus with an IFR of about 0.5%, wearing a mask in public was a low impact intervention that probably did some net good. Now we are at 86% of the adult population with immunity (biased towards those with higher IFRs) the balance has almost certainly shifted away and probably did some time ago.
For policing of borders, it really depends on whether you care about cross border serious crime, illegal immigration and international terrorism. Or being nice.
On which subject, my father in law - who is a scientist, and travels all over the world - was frequently stopped at airport security until he took the decision to start wearing a jacket and tie. No more issues at airports after that, even if he did continue to look like a ginger Lemmy from Motorhead, only wearing a tie.
And similarly, I bet if you're brown-skinned, heavily bearded and wear traditional Asian clothing you will be stopped more often than if your white skinned, dress in the style of a conventional westerner and clean shaven. Even if we don't say we target, I bet we do, a bit.
That's what I use and (apart from just the one harrowing time in Belgium) it's always worked.
Never let it be said that PB doesn't do care in the community.
UK Labour: https://twitter.com/UKLabour/status/1406947513857462276
Scottish Labour: https://twitter.com/ScottishLabour/status/1406894363494518784
Clearly the Scottish Labour Party doesn't think what the UK Labour Party is thinking. Not unless Labour is just a bunch of self-serving hypocrites who don't have any consistent principles at all.
Oh ...
Yes it's just a few stores but these are all in prime-ish sites selling expensive tat to children.
Wow!! David Frost says govt had not realised it would be more difficult to negotiate with EU as “a third party”
After all those warnings that UK would throw away its best card by getting out without sorting out future terms….ending in current debacle
What a mea culpa #Brexit
https://twitter.com/Rob_Merrick/status/1407289982738481165
"Airports
Heathrow slips from 1st to 17th
Gatwick drops from 10th to 106th
Astonishing: the more people get vaccinated in the UK, the lower passenger numbers sink.
In December, when jabs started, Heathrow was 6th in Europe. It has dropped every month since."
https://twitter.com/SimonCalder/status/1407272793817948166?s=20
There is a good chance a major London airport will close for good. Gatwick, Luton or Stansted.
Q. Who is the Belgian footy team's favourite Star Trek character?
A. Romulan Lukaku!
( I thank you!)
THIS is what "no tourism" actually means: thousands of shops and businesses closing down forever, with incalculable ripple effects
As I just tweeted in response to the latest nonsense from John Redwood, they are moving to the position that Brexit would have been a great success if only the EU hadn't unexpectedly and unreasonably refused to change its rules to give us all the benefits of membership with none of the obligations.
“The number of new coronavirus cases [in Scotland] reported stands at 2,167 which is 9.1% of all tests carried out”
Is that 9.1% positivity?!!!
Disaster
I hope I’ve read it wrong
In crude terms, so long as the hospital numbers don't get too bad then the cases don't matter so much; if they spike very significantly then you might start to have trouble with mass-scale self-isolation, but if push comes to shove the Government will probably just exempt the double jabbed from that requirement so as to lighten the load.
With a bit of luck we'll see good data from hospitals for the next couple of weeks, the Government will stop making excuses and unlock in July, and we can get the worst of the exit wave out of the way before the school's come back again. I'm not at all confident that the catastrophist modellers won't succeed in frightening ministers into dragging the whole thing out even longer, but one can but hope.
Realistically people are shopping more on Amazon nowadays and stores are dying. Its a shame to see this one go, but its not a surprise.
The amount of extra work you must be doing do to find these obscure tweets -and that's apart from your usual output-puts the Russian Bots to shame.
And I bet they have you working without staff? Tight buggers! Seriously I wouldn't take the Pugin wallpaper for Carrie's bedroom as an excuse
And I certainly agree that we should be looking to open up ASAP.
But I don't think the Disney stores' market was tourist dominated. Certainly not the Trafford Centre one. I think it's the inevitable response to increasing onlinification of our consumption of tat.
Where lockdown does come into it is that while we're still happy to shop in Tesco's - i.e. shopping to stay alive - lockdown is having a hit on shopping-as-leisure. Any leisure activity where you have to wear a mask is going to look a lot less appealing than, say, sitting on your sofa or in your garden or going for a walk.
Eesh
I am properly fearful now. Not of the pandemic - I think it is dying - but the economic sequelae.
We face a potential chain reaction of closures and bankruptcies, which will start in central London (and the centres of other big cities) but spread from there like some horrible tree disease - like ash die back. It is impossible to tell how bad it might be, because it is sui generis, but it could be really bad. We are an open trading economy dependent on the free flow of people and cash, and London is the main engine that turns the motor.
If it seizes up, help
If we didn’t have the vaccines, we’d be screwed right now.
Let’s hope they work.
As for our border police, I don't see why they have to be nasty to be effective. I've noticed a certain widespread male admiration for hardball tactics from security forces (eg like the Israelis are famous for) but I don't really share it. I wonder if it's vicarious in some cases?
As opposed to the long and ongoing death of retail and the fact that the stores have not been contributing much to Disney's bottom line for years and they've been closing stores around the world rather than expanding for years now?
Oh and the fact that the pandemic has escalated the switch to online ordering.
Let's hope the aliens are big spenders and like Burberry. They might save Bond Street
So two options:
- Scotland is not testing as much as England, and the position in Scotland is actually much worse than that in England, to a much greater extent than the bald figures of positive tests reveal; or
- the BBC report is innumerate nonsense.
The latter strikes me as slightly more plausible. But if anyone can confirm the data I'm happy to be corrected.
Figured that was just because the store had been closed for so long that they had lots of stock to clear, but perhaps its an unofficial closing down sale?
The combo of Brexit AND Covid is tragically unfortunate. We must pray that my pessimism today is unjustified, and my previous reports on the animal spirits of London are more accurate
The economy will change, but it's not going to simply seize up. Lots more money will be spent in some places and a bit less in others.
I overheard part of a conversation when out the other day where someone was saying they'd sold a record number of season tickets. So must have been for one of the Edinburgh sports teams I guess. They said they thought people were extra eager to get out and be part of events.
This is not the sign of an economy on the brink of collapse. Just one that will be different.
Plus we watched as the elderly moved from top of the admissions stats to the bottom, as the vaccines were give out through the various cohorts.
We even had a "CROSSOVER!!!" moment for that.
Hence the graph looks like this now -
Scotland haven't invested as much in widespread community testing as England has.
It’s said that within 50 years the whole world will speak at least one of English and Chinese, that’s probably not far off. Spanish and Russian will stick around for a while though.
It goes like this -
1) Profile for certain signs, visually at a distance.
2) Speech to the subject in an apparently casual manner, using a series of questions to get information on his/her mind state.
3) If they seem like a threat, then the person in question gets a serious interrogation (which is very rare).
This is far more effective than strip searching all the black people. Or demanding that everyone takes off their shoes..
Gilmour realistically had to be isolated because he tested positive, and locking up the two England players was then the best political option because it was meant to show (a) that all the rules about close contacts were supposedly being followed and (b) the Scots weren't being exclusively picked on by the English authorities.
The action taken was chosen because it was intended to demonstrate that something was being done about the Plague without letting off a political neutron bomb by wrecking the tournament. It was all about public relations and nothing to do with suppressing the wretched virus.
I' actually tracking positivity at UK level, currently
2) Someone may have posted this the other day - it may even have been me, I honestly can't remember where I came across it - but I was tickled to discover that 'Dundee', or, more completely, 'Dundee United' is slang in Nigeria for 'idiot'. Stems from football, obviously, but then Nigerians who don't have detailed knowledge of Scottish football are highly tickled to find out that there is a Scottish team called 'Dundee United', or, more broadly, that there is a city called Dundee, or a university called Dundee university.
https://www.theguardian.com/football/2021/mar/11/the-unlikely-story-of-how-dundee-united-became-an-insult-in-nigeria#:~:text=But for any Scottish football,about, for a United fan.
https://thefederalist.com/2021/06/21/democrat-sen-whitehouse-says-his-exclusive-beach-clubs-all-white-membership-is-simply-tradition/