Freedom day appears to have been watered down so far as to be nearly meaningless for my purposes. "We're going to take away the law that you have to wear masks - but if you don't carry on wearing them we'll reintroduce it."
If we are asking "if not now, when?", the answer therefore appears to be "never".
The BBC, the Labour Party, isage etc - have won. Again.
I think it's more the case that restrictions are being removed more incrementally. And while that's annoying, the reality is that case numbers are going to start declining again, and those restrictions will be removed.
If we aren't getting rid of masks now, we never will. There will always be a reason to keep them.
I never really expected freedom day to happen. Just as I never expected England to win last night. But it not happening is still a massive kick in the nuts.
As I said earlier today, Johnson has had his head turned again. When is our "leader" to speak today?
So last night I mentioned a friend of mine left Wembley at half time because of the unsafe atmosphere.
He said the people who stormed in (and the people outside trying to get in) justified it on the grounds that there were 25,000 spare seats so it wouldn't be another Hillsborough.
Fortunately I don't think we'll see such idiocy at Premier League grounds if grounds are at 75% capacity.
I hope.
Those scenes of fans with tickets beating those storming in was very strange. In the past, more often the police and stewards are trying to stop those with tickets helping those without to get in.
It was a case of the stewards acting like 'I don't get paid enough to deal with this shit', he said it was a complete failure on the stewarding and police front.
As with these things he said you cannot help wonder what would have happened last night if ISIS or Al Qaeda affiliated terrorists had tried something.
The authorities don't really have any excuse, they can hardly say they didn't expect it....wasn't exactly like some demo that turned out to be much more widely attended.
i have never understood how this country gets into such a mess with school meals.
The taxpayer rightly funds a free education until 18 including the huge expense of teachers, facilities , equipment, books ,IT etc yet for some reason stops short of funding a universal free meal during the school day . I mean why ? It cannot be but a very small fraction of the overall education cost so it is on the face of it extremely petty but also would solve the bullying some kids get fro having free meals and also give all kids a better diet.
Really odd the position on school meals to me that we have had for years
I've already answered that - some families are so dysfunctional that the children need to be fed, but not so dysfunctional that the children need to be taken into care (for that costs real money)..
I think what state_go_away meant was - why not simply provide meals for free, for all pupils, in all state schools?
Way too expensive and when it was trialled it didn't provide many benefits.
is it that expensive ? If the government can fund everything else to do with a kids educuation it seems odd this is left out
WTF is the point of having parents and families at all?
wow - a bit aggressive ! i am sure parents are invented for kids to do more than prepare a packed lunch
The idea is for them to raise a family with all the easy and not so easy stuff included. There is no compulsion to rear children if you lack the means to do so. You seem to forget that all this money has to be provided by someone. Taxpayers would generally like to keep some of thier earnings for themselves. Paying for other people's kids to be fed is not part of the deal in my book. Sorry if you find that aggressive. 33 years in the classroom taught me that most parents expect to provide for their children's needs even when sacrifices are needed to do so. Mine certainly were.
Unfortunately such sensible talk as this post does not apply anymore. It is now the Governments responsibilty to feed all children , not the parents.
There's a reason why free school meals exist. Some parents aren't as attentive as others. They'd rather spend what little money they have on themselves rather than on their children.
There is quite a lot of research out of the US that free school meals programs result in better health and academic outcomes for poorer kids.
The only question, really, is how important to you is improving the life chances of the disadvantaged?
You missed the argument - he wanted free school meals for everyone, not just the poor. Then you add in breakfast, tea and supper and we're in Aldous Huxley territory.
I think there's a good argument for that too - both breakfast and for all.
Firstly, free school meals come with a stigma attached. Do you not remember being at school? Getting a free school meal marked you out for derision as it marked your parents as poor. Kids would beg their (poor) parents to get shitty packed lunches rather than suffer from the stigma of being a free school means kid.
Secondly, you know what... all the evidence is that free breakfasts boost academic and health outcomes more than lunch.
Here's a simple solution. Let's pick two council areas with roughly similar demographics and academic outcomes. In one, let's take money away from teachers and sports facilities, and instead use that money to give food to kids at breakfast and lunch.
And then let's compare the academic and health outcomes of the two council areas. Will the free school meals have been better at improving results than spending the money on teachers.
I really don't know that answer to that question, by the way. But I do think the right way to answer it is with data, not with bringing up the spectre of Aldous Huxley.
No no no. Parents choose to have children. In doing so they must accept the responsibility to rear them. The great majority can afford to do so. Happy to help where there is genuine need - not happy to give breakfast to kids with affluent parents. Take some responsibility.
The job of schools is to educate children in the most cost effective manner possible, right?
If it turned out that a particular policy improved educational outcomes at a lower cost, we shouldn't do it because it offends you.
I just want to confirm that's your view.
Yes. You want poor people to pay for your kids' breakfasts right? I just want to confirm your view?
I want to maximise the educational achievements of kids, particularly those from lower incomes, as cost efficiently as possible.
All I'm saying is let's test it and see what achieves the best educational outcome. If it turns out that spending money on meals does it, then hell yes, poor people's taxes should be spent on it. Why shouldn't their taxes be spent in the most cost effective manner possible?
You do realise that an extra £2.50 a day for a school meal (and I'm ignoring the capital cost here) is a roughly 10% rise in the cost of education? £5000 a year for the 200 teaching days of the school year (these number are about right) is £25 a day.
The ingredients cost of meals is much smaller than the cost of the staff to serve and prepare. The marginal cost of adding meals is going to be well below £2.50.
So let's say £1.25 per pupil? Now we are looking at just a 5% increase in the cost of education (and again we are ignoring the massive capital costs).
What's going off in the Northeast, the PCR positivity seems to have headed up to over 20% in south tyneside, higher than the NW max of ~ 15% or so. Is it a new variant or just Covid out and about at the Bigg Market with the youngsters ?
i have never understood how this country gets into such a mess with school meals.
The taxpayer rightly funds a free education until 18 including the huge expense of teachers, facilities , equipment, books ,IT etc yet for some reason stops short of funding a universal free meal during the school day . I mean why ? It cannot be but a very small fraction of the overall education cost so it is on the face of it extremely petty but also would solve the bullying some kids get fro having free meals and also give all kids a better diet.
Really odd the position on school meals to me that we have had for years
I've already answered that - some families are so dysfunctional that the children need to be fed, but not so dysfunctional that the children need to be taken into care (for that costs real money)..
I think what state_go_away meant was - why not simply provide meals for free, for all pupils, in all state schools?
Way too expensive and when it was trialled it didn't provide many benefits.
is it that expensive ? If the government can fund everything else to do with a kids educuation it seems odd this is left out
WTF is the point of having parents and families at all?
wow - a bit aggressive ! i am sure parents are invented for kids to do more than prepare a packed lunch
The idea is for them to raise a family with all the easy and not so easy stuff included. There is no compulsion to rear children if you lack the means to do so. You seem to forget that all this money has to be provided by someone. Taxpayers would generally like to keep some of thier earnings for themselves. Paying for other people's kids to be fed is not part of the deal in my book. Sorry if you find that aggressive. 33 years in the classroom taught me that most parents expect to provide for their children's needs even when sacrifices are needed to do so. Mine certainly were.
Unfortunately such sensible talk as this post does not apply anymore. It is now the Governments responsibilty to feed all children , not the parents.
There's a reason why free school meals exist. Some parents aren't as attentive as others. They'd rather spend what little money they have on themselves rather than on their children.
There is quite a lot of research out of the US that free school meals programs result in better health and academic outcomes for poorer kids.
The only question, really, is how important to you is improving the life chances of the disadvantaged?
You missed the argument - he wanted free school meals for everyone, not just the poor. Then you add in breakfast, tea and supper and we're in Aldous Huxley territory.
I think there's a good argument for that too - both breakfast and for all.
Firstly, free school meals come with a stigma attached. Do you not remember being at school? Getting a free school meal marked you out for derision as it marked your parents as poor. Kids would beg their (poor) parents to get shitty packed lunches rather than suffer from the stigma of being a free school means kid.
Secondly, you know what... all the evidence is that free breakfasts boost academic and health outcomes more than lunch.
Here's a simple solution. Let's pick two council areas with roughly similar demographics and academic outcomes. In one, let's take money away from teachers and sports facilities, and instead use that money to give food to kids at breakfast and lunch.
And then let's compare the academic and health outcomes of the two council areas. Will the free school meals have been better at improving results than spending the money on teachers.
I really don't know that answer to that question, by the way. But I do think the right way to answer it is with data, not with bringing up the spectre of Aldous Huxley.
No no no. Parents choose to have children. In doing so they must accept the responsibility to rear them. The great majority can afford to do so. Happy to help where there is genuine need - not happy to give breakfast to kids with affluent parents. Take some responsibility.
The job of schools is to educate children in the most cost effective manner possible, right?
If it turned out that a particular policy improved educational outcomes at a lower cost, we shouldn't do it because it offends you.
I just want to confirm that's your view.
Yes. You want poor people to pay for your kids' breakfasts right? I just want to confirm your view?
I want to maximise the educational achievements of kids, particularly those from lower incomes, as cost efficiently as possible.
All I'm saying is let's test it and see what achieves the best educational outcome. If it turns out that spending money on meals does it, then hell yes, poor people's taxes should be spent on it. Why shouldn't their taxes be spent in the most cost effective manner possible?
You do realise that an extra £2.50 a day for a school meal (and I'm ignoring the capital cost here) is a roughly 10% rise in the cost of education? £5000 a year for the 200 teaching days of the school year (these number are about right) is £25 a day.
The ingredients cost of meals is much smaller than the cost of the staff to serve and prepare. The marginal cost of adding meals is going to be well below £2.50.
It is a basic rule of any kind of catering that the food cost is generally the smallest part of the overall cost.
Go to a restaurant and you are paying for the table, the building, the service. The food is thrown in, almost...
The classic of this genre is coffee shops - the coffee itself costs pennies. Literally. The rest is paying for the coffee shop & staff. The profit isn't a vast percentage.
What's going off in the Northeast, the PCR positivity seems to have headed up to over 20% in south tyneside, higher than the NW max of ~ 15% or so. Is it a new variant or just Covid out and about at the Bigg Market with the youngsters ?
It's South Tyneside - apart from a few pubs on the sea front I've not a clue how it's being spread so fast...
Well that's starting to look more encouraging again.
Although the "percentage change in recent 7-day case rates by specimen date" is showing a slowing down of the rate of decline in rate of increase (third derivative? Fourth?). Which is less encouraging.
Errr.. this one?
What this shows in the day to increases (or decreases) in cases. Such data is always lumpy. and seems to be cyclic as well. So you get periodic ups and downs as well as trends.
What we certainly can say is that in the longer terms (weeks) the rate of increase is slowing.
There's only been a couple of days over which the rate of decrease of increase has slowed, and there's no especially good reason why it shouldn't speed up again.
No.10 "totally rejects" claim by @GNev2 after Euro2020 that @BorisJohnson has himself “promoted” racist abuse with language like Muslim women looking like letterboxes.
Always find it interesting how much abuse Boris gets for that specific passage, despite being lifted directly from a Guardian article, both of which were making very similar points.
Well that's starting to look more encouraging again.
Although the "percentage change in recent 7-day case rates by specimen date" is showing a slowing down of the rate of decline in rate of increase (third derivative? Fourth?). Which is less encouraging.
Errr.. this one?
What this shows in the day to increases (or decreases) in cases. Such data is always lumpy. and seems to be cyclic as well. So you get periodic ups and downs as well as trends.
What we certainly can say is that in the longer terms (weeks) the rate of increase is slowing.
There's only been a couple of days over which the rate of decrease of increase has slowed, and there's no especially good reason why it shouldn't speed up again.
What I'm doing is taking the seven day average and the seven day average from the day before and looking at the percentage change. Which I think gives a finer grained look at what is happening.
From that, it looks as if we have been seeing a sustained slowing down of the rate of increase - we shall see as the days go by.....
The afternoon after the night before - I don't think anyone says that (well, I just have).
Reflections - first, the positives. Backing the draw at 19/10 was another winner - of the seven matches from the quarter-finals onward, I backed the draw at 90 minutes in all of them and won four times so a nice little profit - not obviously in the league of those on here who bet thousands on every move of equities, commodities or two flies up a wall.
Now, the not quite so positives.
In terms of the match, not a classic by any stretch. I do wonder if the early goal was the last thing England needed - we either had to go hard for a second to finish it or park the bus and hope for a goal on the counter. Someone mentioned this morning the disadvantage of playing in front of the home crowd at Wembley.
It's a paradox - most clubs would argue the support of the fans can be like a twelfth player on the pitch but Wembley can also be a cauldron - would it have been easier in an empty stadium?
The greatest irony if there's one man who should be aware of the pressure of taking a penalty in a vital match at Wembley it's Gareth Southgate. I can only presume he prepared - perhaps over-thought and over-prepared - the penalty shoot-out which can be the crucial part of the game. He will have known, more than anyone else, the nature of the pressure each and every player would have faced. It is quite literally a career-defining moment and most people's lives don't turn on such moments.
It's a truth some people can handle pressure and others can't but the nature of what was happening last evening would have tested anyone's mental strength to the limit.
Looking ahead, this isn't the first team we've heard the "they're a young team, give them time, they'll improve" line. We heard it back in the days of the "golden generation" for example. The 2022 World Cup looks wide open - Paddy go 5/1 France 11/2 Brazil, 6/1 Germany, 15/2 Italy, Spain and England.
I certainly agree there's very little between Italy, Spain and England on Euro 2020 evidence - I'd throw in Argentina and Brazil and say the next World Cup winner is one of those five.
But the 'Golden Generation' did bugger all. This team has got to a Euro final (first time ever) and a World Cup semi (last done when I was at school and I'm 50 this year). So I think it's a bit churlish to be labelling them typical English underachievers.
Freedom day appears to have been watered down so far as to be nearly meaningless for my purposes. "We're going to take away the law that you have to wear masks - but if you don't carry on wearing them we'll reintroduce it."
If we are asking "if not now, when?", the answer therefore appears to be "never".
The BBC, the Labour Party, isage etc - have won. Again.
Strange how a Conservative government in power for 11 years with a majority of 80 is cruelly bullied and pushed from pillar to post by a heartless BBC, Labour and scientists. The bastards.
Strong minded and principled this government is not. The slightest hint of opposition and it keels over.
Freedom day appears to have been watered down so far as to be nearly meaningless for my purposes. "We're going to take away the law that you have to wear masks - but if you don't carry on wearing them we'll reintroduce it."
If we are asking "if not now, when?", the answer therefore appears to be "never".
The BBC, the Labour Party, isage etc - have won. Again.
Strange how a Conservative government in power for 11 years with a majority of 80 is cruelly bullied and pushed from pillar to post by a heartless BBC, Labour and scientists. The bastards.
Strong minded and principled this government is not. The slightest hint of opposition and it keels over.
How has it keeled over?
The lifting of lockdown is going ahead.
The mask mandate with force of law is going.
Putting it in people's hands to choose to do the right thing or not is exactly the right thing to do.
Its like saying "yes you can drink a bottle of vodka every night, but no we don't recommend you do it".
Well that's starting to look more encouraging again.
Although the "percentage change in recent 7-day case rates by specimen date" is showing a slowing down of the rate of decline in rate of increase (third derivative? Fourth?). Which is less encouraging.
Errr.. this one?
What this shows in the day to increases (or decreases) in cases. Such data is always lumpy. and seems to be cyclic as well. So you get periodic ups and downs as well as trends.
What we certainly can say is that in the longer terms (weeks) the rate of increase is slowing.
There's only been a couple of days over which the rate of decrease of increase has slowed, and there's no especially good reason why it shouldn't speed up again.
What I'm doing is taking the seven day average and the seven day average from the day before and looking at the percentage change. Which I think gives a finer grained look at what is happening.
From that, it looks as if we have been seeing a sustained slowing down of the rate of increase - we shall see as the days go by.....
But I think the rate at which the rate of increase is decreasing, is decreasing.
The families of England’s players were forced to run from hundreds of ticketless yobs who stormed Wembley in the build-up to the European Championship final.
As Gareth Southgate’s squad were preparing for yesterday’s showdown with Italy, loved ones were left fearing for their safety during a nightmarish ordeal as hooligans smashed their way into the ground and caused chaos.
It is understood that a number of players’ families were inadvertently caught up in the mayhem after a metal door was forced open at about 6.30pm at Entrance G, close to the Bobby Moore statue.
The mob charged inside, punching and kicking Wembley stewards, who were hopelessly outnumbered, before heading for seats that were already allocated to the families. The son of the Italy head coach, Roberto Mancini, was also affected and spent the first half watching the game while sitting on steps in the arena.
“It was chaotic, uncontrolled and very scary,” one eyewitness said.....
...Family members were left feeling threatened and intimidated when they asked the intruders to sit elsewhere. Some were abusive before eventually moving to other free seats in the stadium, which was under capacity because of Covid-19 restrictions, or taking refuge in aisles.
Chris Whitty strikingly doubtful about whether the Govt's 3rd test to move to Step 4 (are hospital cases threatening to exceed NHS capacity) has been passed. "We cannot be as confident as the others". Capacity will not be threatened in coming weeks only "if all goes well". https://twitter.com/tnewtondunn/status/1414619361722175494
The families of England’s players were forced to run from hundreds of ticketless yobs who stormed Wembley in the build-up to the European Championship final.
As Gareth Southgate’s squad were preparing for yesterday’s showdown with Italy, loved ones were left fearing for their safety during a nightmarish ordeal as hooligans smashed their way into the ground and caused chaos.
It is understood that a number of players’ families were inadvertently caught up in the mayhem after a metal door was forced open at about 6.30pm at Entrance G, close to the Bobby Moore statue.
The mob charged inside, punching and kicking Wembley stewards, who were hopelessly outnumbered, before heading for seats that were already allocated to the families. The son of the Italy head coach, Roberto Mancini, was also affected and spent the first half watching the game while sitting on steps in the arena.
“It was chaotic, uncontrolled and very scary,” one eyewitness said.....
...Family members were left feeling threatened and intimidated when they asked the intruders to sit elsewhere. Some were abusive before eventually moving to other free seats in the stadium, which was under capacity because of Covid-19 restrictions, or taking refuge in aisles.
The police completely fucked up last night. I know someone who had tickets last night and he said it was chaos going in and out. Fights breaking out, phones being targeted because of the UEFA app no presence at the end of the match meaning thugs who were waiting outside without tickets were fighting Italian supporters and legitimate England fans were having to step in and protect them as they tried to get to the tube station.
We're so used to premier league policing in the UK with clubs that have worked really hard to weed out the hooligan element. The FA needs to hang its head in shame this morning and so do the police.
If this is the level of policing we're going to provide to tournament matches involving England then we're never, ever going to get an international tournament. The police needed to be there cracking heads and arresting the bastards.
The families of England’s players were forced to run from hundreds of ticketless yobs who stormed Wembley in the build-up to the European Championship final.
As Gareth Southgate’s squad were preparing for yesterday’s showdown with Italy, loved ones were left fearing for their safety during a nightmarish ordeal as hooligans smashed their way into the ground and caused chaos.
It is understood that a number of players’ families were inadvertently caught up in the mayhem after a metal door was forced open at about 6.30pm at Entrance G, close to the Bobby Moore statue.
The mob charged inside, punching and kicking Wembley stewards, who were hopelessly outnumbered, before heading for seats that were already allocated to the families. The son of the Italy head coach, Roberto Mancini, was also affected and spent the first half watching the game while sitting on steps in the arena.
“It was chaotic, uncontrolled and very scary,” one eyewitness said.....
...Family members were left feeling threatened and intimidated when they asked the intruders to sit elsewhere. Some were abusive before eventually moving to other free seats in the stadium, which was under capacity because of Covid-19 restrictions, or taking refuge in aisles.
i have never understood how this country gets into such a mess with school meals.
The taxpayer rightly funds a free education until 18 including the huge expense of teachers, facilities , equipment, books ,IT etc yet for some reason stops short of funding a universal free meal during the school day . I mean why ? It cannot be but a very small fraction of the overall education cost so it is on the face of it extremely petty but also would solve the bullying some kids get fro having free meals and also give all kids a better diet.
Really odd the position on school meals to me that we have had for years
I've already answered that - some families are so dysfunctional that the children need to be fed, but not so dysfunctional that the children need to be taken into care (for that costs real money)..
I think what state_go_away meant was - why not simply provide meals for free, for all pupils, in all state schools?
Way too expensive and when it was trialled it didn't provide many benefits.
is it that expensive ? If the government can fund everything else to do with a kids educuation it seems odd this is left out
WTF is the point of having parents and families at all?
wow - a bit aggressive ! i am sure parents are invented for kids to do more than prepare a packed lunch
The idea is for them to raise a family with all the easy and not so easy stuff included. There is no compulsion to rear children if you lack the means to do so. You seem to forget that all this money has to be provided by someone. Taxpayers would generally like to keep some of thier earnings for themselves. Paying for other people's kids to be fed is not part of the deal in my book. Sorry if you find that aggressive. 33 years in the classroom taught me that most parents expect to provide for their children's needs even when sacrifices are needed to do so. Mine certainly were.
Unfortunately such sensible talk as this post does not apply anymore. It is now the Governments responsibilty to feed all children , not the parents.
There's a reason why free school meals exist. Some parents aren't as attentive as others. They'd rather spend what little money they have on themselves rather than on their children.
There is quite a lot of research out of the US that free school meals programs result in better health and academic outcomes for poorer kids.
The only question, really, is how important to you is improving the life chances of the disadvantaged?
You missed the argument - he wanted free school meals for everyone, not just the poor. Then you add in breakfast, tea and supper and we're in Aldous Huxley territory.
I think there's a good argument for that too - both breakfast and for all.
Firstly, free school meals come with a stigma attached. Do you not remember being at school? Getting a free school meal marked you out for derision as it marked your parents as poor. Kids would beg their (poor) parents to get shitty packed lunches rather than suffer from the stigma of being a free school means kid.
Secondly, you know what... all the evidence is that free breakfasts boost academic and health outcomes more than lunch.
Here's a simple solution. Let's pick two council areas with roughly similar demographics and academic outcomes. In one, let's take money away from teachers and sports facilities, and instead use that money to give food to kids at breakfast and lunch.
And then let's compare the academic and health outcomes of the two council areas. Will the free school meals have been better at improving results than spending the money on teachers.
I really don't know that answer to that question, by the way. But I do think the right way to answer it is with data, not with bringing up the spectre of Aldous Huxley.
No no no. Parents choose to have children. In doing so they must accept the responsibility to rear them. The great majority can afford to do so. Happy to help where there is genuine need - not happy to give breakfast to kids with affluent parents. Take some responsibility.
The job of schools is to educate children in the most cost effective manner possible, right?
If it turned out that a particular policy improved educational outcomes at a lower cost, we shouldn't do it because it offends you.
I just want to confirm that's your view.
Yes. You want poor people to pay for your kids' breakfasts right? I just want to confirm your view?
I want to maximise the educational achievements of kids, particularly those from lower incomes, as cost efficiently as possible.
All I'm saying is let's test it and see what achieves the best educational outcome. If it turns out that spending money on meals does it, then hell yes, poor people's taxes should be spent on it. Why shouldn't their taxes be spent in the most cost effective manner possible?
You do realise that an extra £2.50 a day for a school meal (and I'm ignoring the capital cost here) is a roughly 10% rise in the cost of education? £5000 a year for the 200 teaching days of the school year (these number are about right) is £25 a day.
The ingredients cost of meals is much smaller than the cost of the staff to serve and prepare. The marginal cost of adding meals is going to be well below £2.50.
So let's say £1.25 per pupil? Now we are looking at just a 5% increase in the cost of education (and again we are ignoring the massive capital costs).
Nah - it's nowhere near £1.25.
The reality is that we deliver school meals very badly, with a bizarre obsession with "hot". There's really no reason to have kitchens at schools with lots of catering staff, rather than just bringing food in. It really wouldn't be hard to get a decent lunch for comfortably under £1.25. Heck, Pret's gross margins are around 70% which and they're not exactly scraping the bottom on the barrel quality wise.
School meals would be better off delivered like airline food (which, in economy, comes out at around £1/passenger) and delivered five hundred meals at a time.
I find it interesting to see how the infection rates appear to be steady. Last week I caught the covid virus and I'll share just how easy it was to do so. I was sitting at Birmingham New St, station waiting for a southbound train. A young lady wearing a mask and using two crutches hobbled past me and a minute later returned to ask if this was the right platform for Suffolk. I thought, well yes and no, but who gives Suffolk as a destination so I asked where was she going? Suffolk was all I could hear and I must have looked either blank, confused or both. She lowered her mask and at a distance of 1m I heard her say Stafford! The railway staff must have also misheard because she was on the wrong platform. With her facemask now back on (and of course I was wearing mine all the time whilst on the station) I escourted her to the lift and helped her over to the correct platform via the station lifts. I left her there and went on my way. Five days later I was struck down with what is thankfully a relatively mild flu with visible symptons lasting two days but with effects still lingering a week later as I have no active taste or smell. I tested positive for covid and am now in isolation for the rest of this week. (FWIW I am 65+, overweight with a double jab). I noticed whilst we were in the lift that her forehead was sweating profusely but put that down to the effort it takes to use crutches on a warm day. That was all it took for me to get enough of the virus to fall sick but I suspect, even had I known what the outcome would be, I would do the same again. She needed help to get to her train and was on her way to Stafford Royal Infirmary to have one of her legs amputated below the knee.
Thank you, very illuminating (and a shining example of how valuable the right kind of anecdotal evidence can be).
I find it interesting to see how the infection rates appear to be steady. Last week I caught the covid virus and I'll share just how easy it was to do so. I was sitting at Birmingham New St, station waiting for a southbound train. A young lady wearing a mask and using two crutches hobbled past me and a minute later returned to ask if this was the right platform for Suffolk. I thought, well yes and no, but who gives Suffolk as a destination so I asked where was she going? Suffolk was all I could hear and I must have looked either blank, confused or both. She lowered her mask and at a distance of 1m I heard her say Stafford! The railway staff must have also misheard because she was on the wrong platform. With her facemask now back on (and of course I was wearing mine all the time whilst on the station) I escourted her to the lift and helped her over to the correct platform via the station lifts. I left her there and went on my way. Five days later I was struck down with what is thankfully a relatively mild flu with visible symptons lasting two days but with effects still lingering a week later as I have no active taste or smell. I tested positive for covid and am now in isolation for the rest of this week. (FWIW I am 65+, overweight with a double jab). I noticed whilst we were in the lift that her forehead was sweating profusely but put that down to the effort it takes to use crutches on a warm day. That was all it took for me to get enough of the virus to fall sick but I suspect, even had I known what the outcome would be, I would do the same again. She needed help to get to her train and was on her way to Stafford Royal Infirmary to have one of her legs amputated below the knee.
There is no way you can be certain she infected you. It could have been someone else quite easily.
LDs up on their 2019 voteshare for the first time, 12% would be their highest voteshare at any general election since 2010 with the Tories slightly down.
The Labour vote though almost unchanged from the last general election
But the 'Golden Generation' did bugger all. This team has got to a Euro final (first time ever) and a World Cup semi (last done when I was at school and I'm 50 this year). So I think it's a bit churlish to be labelling them typical English underachievers.
I haven't labelled them underachievers at all and I'm not quite sure how you could infer that.
The mantra "we've got a young team and they'll get better" has been said many times before whether you've remembered it or not.
"The future is bright and full of hope" - in 2018. We say the same now (it would seem).
To be more critical - we had a team good enough to get close to a World Cup Final in 2018, we had home advantage for all bar one match, luck put us in the weaker half of the draw and yet, and yet, we couldn't get the job done.
I've argued some of the factors we thought favoured us might not have worked to our advantage - in Qatar there will be other factors at work and this experience will hopefully put us in a better place for that tournament.
I've also argued we are one of the top three sides in Europe (alongside Italy and Spain). Whether the Latin American sides are better or worse, only time will tell.
If you want to call a bit of objective comment "churlish", that's fine. I'm a punter - I've won money on this tournament, I call it as I see it. We could win the World Cup in 2022 - I think we are one of five sides who are in that position currently.
Chris Whitty strikingly doubtful about whether the Govt's 3rd test to move to Step 4 (are hospital cases threatening to exceed NHS capacity) has been passed. "We cannot be as confident as the others". Capacity will not be threatened in coming weeks only "if all goes well". https://twitter.com/tnewtondunn/status/1414619361722175494
Its worth noting that on the latest dashboard data its taken 19 days for the in-hospital figures to double. It would taken nearly three more doublings to reach the October peak and four doublings to reach the January peak and that isn't really plausible.
UK government has announced it will give MPs a vote on its £4bn cuts to overseas aid. 3 hour debate & vote tomorrow. Ministers say vote is meaningful & if government is defeated, the UK will return to spending 0.7% GNI on ODA from January next year. https://twitter.com/BBCJLandale/status/1414621175016271874
i have never understood how this country gets into such a mess with school meals.
The taxpayer rightly funds a free education until 18 including the huge expense of teachers, facilities , equipment, books ,IT etc yet for some reason stops short of funding a universal free meal during the school day . I mean why ? It cannot be but a very small fraction of the overall education cost so it is on the face of it extremely petty but also would solve the bullying some kids get fro having free meals and also give all kids a better diet.
Really odd the position on school meals to me that we have had for years
I've already answered that - some families are so dysfunctional that the children need to be fed, but not so dysfunctional that the children need to be taken into care (for that costs real money)..
I think what state_go_away meant was - why not simply provide meals for free, for all pupils, in all state schools?
Way too expensive and when it was trialled it didn't provide many benefits.
is it that expensive ? If the government can fund everything else to do with a kids educuation it seems odd this is left out
WTF is the point of having parents and families at all?
wow - a bit aggressive ! i am sure parents are invented for kids to do more than prepare a packed lunch
The idea is for them to raise a family with all the easy and not so easy stuff included. There is no compulsion to rear children if you lack the means to do so. You seem to forget that all this money has to be provided by someone. Taxpayers would generally like to keep some of thier earnings for themselves. Paying for other people's kids to be fed is not part of the deal in my book. Sorry if you find that aggressive. 33 years in the classroom taught me that most parents expect to provide for their children's needs even when sacrifices are needed to do so. Mine certainly were.
Unfortunately such sensible talk as this post does not apply anymore. It is now the Governments responsibilty to feed all children , not the parents.
There's a reason why free school meals exist. Some parents aren't as attentive as others. They'd rather spend what little money they have on themselves rather than on their children.
There is quite a lot of research out of the US that free school meals programs result in better health and academic outcomes for poorer kids.
The only question, really, is how important to you is improving the life chances of the disadvantaged?
You missed the argument - he wanted free school meals for everyone, not just the poor. Then you add in breakfast, tea and supper and we're in Aldous Huxley territory.
I think there's a good argument for that too - both breakfast and for all.
Firstly, free school meals come with a stigma attached. Do you not remember being at school? Getting a free school meal marked you out for derision as it marked your parents as poor. Kids would beg their (poor) parents to get shitty packed lunches rather than suffer from the stigma of being a free school means kid.
Secondly, you know what... all the evidence is that free breakfasts boost academic and health outcomes more than lunch.
Here's a simple solution. Let's pick two council areas with roughly similar demographics and academic outcomes. In one, let's take money away from teachers and sports facilities, and instead use that money to give food to kids at breakfast and lunch.
And then let's compare the academic and health outcomes of the two council areas. Will the free school meals have been better at improving results than spending the money on teachers.
I really don't know that answer to that question, by the way. But I do think the right way to answer it is with data, not with bringing up the spectre of Aldous Huxley.
No no no. Parents choose to have children. In doing so they must accept the responsibility to rear them. The great majority can afford to do so. Happy to help where there is genuine need - not happy to give breakfast to kids with affluent parents. Take some responsibility.
The job of schools is to educate children in the most cost effective manner possible, right?
If it turned out that a particular policy improved educational outcomes at a lower cost, we shouldn't do it because it offends you.
I just want to confirm that's your view.
Yes. You want poor people to pay for your kids' breakfasts right? I just want to confirm your view?
I want to maximise the educational achievements of kids, particularly those from lower incomes, as cost efficiently as possible.
All I'm saying is let's test it and see what achieves the best educational outcome. If it turns out that spending money on meals does it, then hell yes, poor people's taxes should be spent on it. Why shouldn't their taxes be spent in the most cost effective manner possible?
You do realise that an extra £2.50 a day for a school meal (and I'm ignoring the capital cost here) is a roughly 10% rise in the cost of education? £5000 a year for the 200 teaching days of the school year (these number are about right) is £25 a day.
The ingredients cost of meals is much smaller than the cost of the staff to serve and prepare. The marginal cost of adding meals is going to be well below £2.50.
So let's say £1.25 per pupil? Now we are looking at just a 5% increase in the cost of education (and again we are ignoring the massive capital costs).
Nah - it's nowhere near £1.25.
The reality is that we deliver school meals very badly, with a bizarre obsession with "hot". There's really no reason to have kitchens at schools with lots of catering staff, rather than just bringing food in. It really wouldn't be hard to get a decent lunch for comfortably under £1.25. Heck, Pret's gross margins are around 70% which and they're not exactly scraping the bottom on the barrel quality wise.
School meals would be better off delivered like airline food (which, in economy, comes out at around £1/passenger) and delivered five hundred meals at a time.
Well said.
Options like salad are healthy and extremely viable.
I never cease to be amazed at the expertise on PB. This afternoon, the armchair epidemiologists who know better than the government's own scientific experts have become armchair football managers who know better than the England one appointed by the FA and his (over) large team. Impressive.
(PS - Kalvin Phillips of Leeds should have taken a penalty).
People opine on things on the internet? Whatever next?
I notice it's about "scientific and medical opinion".
I hope that included mental health professionals.
They're no longer able to present their modelled data as fact. Javid has got them all on the run and you can see how depressed it's made the scientists to lose their prized control over everyone.
I genuinely have no idea if I'm going to continue wearing a mask in shops post 19th July tbh.
I think, as I am a herd creature, I’ll take my cue from others. If most stop wearing them in shops, and the shops are not asking me to, I will probably not bother. The reverse is also true.
i have never understood how this country gets into such a mess with school meals.
The taxpayer rightly funds a free education until 18 including the huge expense of teachers, facilities , equipment, books ,IT etc yet for some reason stops short of funding a universal free meal during the school day . I mean why ? It cannot be but a very small fraction of the overall education cost so it is on the face of it extremely petty but also would solve the bullying some kids get fro having free meals and also give all kids a better diet.
Really odd the position on school meals to me that we have had for years
I've already answered that - some families are so dysfunctional that the children need to be fed, but not so dysfunctional that the children need to be taken into care (for that costs real money)..
I think what state_go_away meant was - why not simply provide meals for free, for all pupils, in all state schools?
Way too expensive and when it was trialled it didn't provide many benefits.
is it that expensive ? If the government can fund everything else to do with a kids educuation it seems odd this is left out
WTF is the point of having parents and families at all?
wow - a bit aggressive ! i am sure parents are invented for kids to do more than prepare a packed lunch
The idea is for them to raise a family with all the easy and not so easy stuff included. There is no compulsion to rear children if you lack the means to do so. You seem to forget that all this money has to be provided by someone. Taxpayers would generally like to keep some of thier earnings for themselves. Paying for other people's kids to be fed is not part of the deal in my book. Sorry if you find that aggressive. 33 years in the classroom taught me that most parents expect to provide for their children's needs even when sacrifices are needed to do so. Mine certainly were.
Unfortunately such sensible talk as this post does not apply anymore. It is now the Governments responsibilty to feed all children , not the parents.
There's a reason why free school meals exist. Some parents aren't as attentive as others. They'd rather spend what little money they have on themselves rather than on their children.
There is quite a lot of research out of the US that free school meals programs result in better health and academic outcomes for poorer kids.
The only question, really, is how important to you is improving the life chances of the disadvantaged?
You missed the argument - he wanted free school meals for everyone, not just the poor. Then you add in breakfast, tea and supper and we're in Aldous Huxley territory.
I think there's a good argument for that too - both breakfast and for all.
Firstly, free school meals come with a stigma attached. Do you not remember being at school? Getting a free school meal marked you out for derision as it marked your parents as poor. Kids would beg their (poor) parents to get shitty packed lunches rather than suffer from the stigma of being a free school means kid.
Secondly, you know what... all the evidence is that free breakfasts boost academic and health outcomes more than lunch.
Here's a simple solution. Let's pick two council areas with roughly similar demographics and academic outcomes. In one, let's take money away from teachers and sports facilities, and instead use that money to give food to kids at breakfast and lunch.
And then let's compare the academic and health outcomes of the two council areas. Will the free school meals have been better at improving results than spending the money on teachers.
I really don't know that answer to that question, by the way. But I do think the right way to answer it is with data, not with bringing up the spectre of Aldous Huxley.
At my school no one now knows if one gets free school meals except the parents and (possibly) the pupil: payments are all electronic using a finger scanner. This has the added benefit that pupils don't bring in cash on a regular basis.
i have never understood how this country gets into such a mess with school meals.
The taxpayer rightly funds a free education until 18 including the huge expense of teachers, facilities , equipment, books ,IT etc yet for some reason stops short of funding a universal free meal during the school day . I mean why ? It cannot be but a very small fraction of the overall education cost so it is on the face of it extremely petty but also would solve the bullying some kids get fro having free meals and also give all kids a better diet.
Really odd the position on school meals to me that we have had for years
I've already answered that - some families are so dysfunctional that the children need to be fed, but not so dysfunctional that the children need to be taken into care (for that costs real money)..
I think what state_go_away meant was - why not simply provide meals for free, for all pupils, in all state schools?
Way too expensive and when it was trialled it didn't provide many benefits.
is it that expensive ? If the government can fund everything else to do with a kids educuation it seems odd this is left out
WTF is the point of having parents and families at all?
wow - a bit aggressive ! i am sure parents are invented for kids to do more than prepare a packed lunch
The idea is for them to raise a family with all the easy and not so easy stuff included. There is no compulsion to rear children if you lack the means to do so. You seem to forget that all this money has to be provided by someone. Taxpayers would generally like to keep some of thier earnings for themselves. Paying for other people's kids to be fed is not part of the deal in my book. Sorry if you find that aggressive. 33 years in the classroom taught me that most parents expect to provide for their children's needs even when sacrifices are needed to do so. Mine certainly were.
Unfortunately such sensible talk as this post does not apply anymore. It is now the Governments responsibilty to feed all children , not the parents.
There's a reason why free school meals exist. Some parents aren't as attentive as others. They'd rather spend what little money they have on themselves rather than on their children.
There is quite a lot of research out of the US that free school meals programs result in better health and academic outcomes for poorer kids.
The only question, really, is how important to you is improving the life chances of the disadvantaged?
You missed the argument - he wanted free school meals for everyone, not just the poor. Then you add in breakfast, tea and supper and we're in Aldous Huxley territory.
I think there's a good argument for that too - both breakfast and for all.
Firstly, free school meals come with a stigma attached. Do you not remember being at school? Getting a free school meal marked you out for derision as it marked your parents as poor. Kids would beg their (poor) parents to get shitty packed lunches rather than suffer from the stigma of being a free school means kid.
Secondly, you know what... all the evidence is that free breakfasts boost academic and health outcomes more than lunch.
Here's a simple solution. Let's pick two council areas with roughly similar demographics and academic outcomes. In one, let's take money away from teachers and sports facilities, and instead use that money to give food to kids at breakfast and lunch.
And then let's compare the academic and health outcomes of the two council areas. Will the free school meals have been better at improving results than spending the money on teachers.
I really don't know that answer to that question, by the way. But I do think the right way to answer it is with data, not with bringing up the spectre of Aldous Huxley.
No no no. Parents choose to have children. In doing so they must accept the responsibility to rear them. The great majority can afford to do so. Happy to help where there is genuine need - not happy to give breakfast to kids with affluent parents. Take some responsibility.
The job of schools is to educate children in the most cost effective manner possible, right?
If it turned out that a particular policy improved educational outcomes at a lower cost, we shouldn't do it because it offends you.
I just want to confirm that's your view.
Yes. You want poor people to pay for your kids' breakfasts right? I just want to confirm your view?
I want to maximise the educational achievements of kids, particularly those from lower incomes, as cost efficiently as possible.
All I'm saying is let's test it and see what achieves the best educational outcome. If it turns out that spending money on meals does it, then hell yes, poor people's taxes should be spent on it. Why shouldn't their taxes be spent in the most cost effective manner possible?
And all I'm saying is that most people who advance these sorts of views don't mind sacrificing a few extra pennies of their very large incomes to get more freebies for themselves. The calculation for those of us on ,lower or more modest incomes is somewhat more complicated. You also seem heappy to ignore the idea of personal responsibility for actions because the state knows best. Again somehow or other, the wealthy always seem to avoid the true costs. Comprehensive education - no probs, Tarquin will be privately tutored. NHS - no probs, we'll pay to jump the queue. And all this while lecturing the rest of us on morality. Excuse me if I seem less than convinced. Maybe because I was brought up on a council estate by parents willing to do without to support ands encourage us rather than rely on freebies.
Freedom day appears to have been watered down so far as to be nearly meaningless for my purposes. "We're going to take away the law that you have to wear masks - but if you don't carry on wearing them we'll reintroduce it."
If we are asking "if not now, when?", the answer therefore appears to be "never".
The BBC, the Labour Party, isage etc - have won. Again.
Strange how a Conservative government in power for 11 years with a majority of 80 is cruelly bullied and pushed from pillar to post by a heartless BBC, Labour and scientists. The bastards.
Strong minded and principled this government is not. The slightest hint of opposition and it keels over.
How has it keeled over?
The lifting of lockdown is going ahead.
The mask mandate with force of law is going.
Putting it in people's hands to choose to do the right thing or not is exactly the right thing to do.
Its like saying "yes you can drink a bottle of vodka every night, but no we don't recommend you do it".
No, it is like saying people can drive after drinking the vodka but this is not recommended. The difference between drinking and drink-driving is that the former might damage oneself but the latter endangers other people. Same with masks.
I notice it's about "scientific and medical opinion".
I hope that included mental health professionals.
They're no longer able to present their modelled data as fact. Javid has got them all on the run and you can see how depressed it's made the scientists to lose their prized control over everyone.
Interesting that Boris is now talking about protecting the public, rather than protecting the NHS.
No.10 "totally rejects" claim by @GNev2 after Euro2020 that @BorisJohnson has himself “promoted” racist abuse with language like Muslim women looking like letterboxes.
Always find it interesting how much abuse Boris gets for that specific passage, despite being lifted directly from a Guardian article, both of which were making very similar points.
I find it interesting how he is allowed to brush it off. A young cricketer has had his life put on hold and probably career finished for comments he made as a very young man on twitter that were not much worse.
Freedom day appears to have been watered down so far as to be nearly meaningless for my purposes. "We're going to take away the law that you have to wear masks - but if you don't carry on wearing them we'll reintroduce it."
If we are asking "if not now, when?", the answer therefore appears to be "never".
The BBC, the Labour Party, isage etc - have won. Again.
Strange how a Conservative government in power for 11 years with a majority of 80 is cruelly bullied and pushed from pillar to post by a heartless BBC, Labour and scientists. The bastards.
Strong minded and principled this government is not. The slightest hint of opposition and it keels over.
That is populism for you. Government by opinion poll.
I notice it's about "scientific and medical opinion".
I hope that included mental health professionals.
They're no longer able to present their modelled data as fact. Javid has got them all on the run and you can see how depressed it's made the scientists to lose their prized control over everyone.
Interesting that Boris is now talking about protecting the public, rather than protecting the NHS.
Which is what it should have been from the outset.
i have never understood how this country gets into such a mess with school meals.
The taxpayer rightly funds a free education until 18 including the huge expense of teachers, facilities , equipment, books ,IT etc yet for some reason stops short of funding a universal free meal during the school day . I mean why ? It cannot be but a very small fraction of the overall education cost so it is on the face of it extremely petty but also would solve the bullying some kids get fro having free meals and also give all kids a better diet.
Really odd the position on school meals to me that we have had for years
I've already answered that - some families are so dysfunctional that the children need to be fed, but not so dysfunctional that the children need to be taken into care (for that costs real money)..
I think what state_go_away meant was - why not simply provide meals for free, for all pupils, in all state schools?
Way too expensive and when it was trialled it didn't provide many benefits.
is it that expensive ? If the government can fund everything else to do with a kids educuation it seems odd this is left out
WTF is the point of having parents and families at all?
wow - a bit aggressive ! i am sure parents are invented for kids to do more than prepare a packed lunch
The idea is for them to raise a family with all the easy and not so easy stuff included. There is no compulsion to rear children if you lack the means to do so. You seem to forget that all this money has to be provided by someone. Taxpayers would generally like to keep some of thier earnings for themselves. Paying for other people's kids to be fed is not part of the deal in my book. Sorry if you find that aggressive. 33 years in the classroom taught me that most parents expect to provide for their children's needs even when sacrifices are needed to do so. Mine certainly were.
Unfortunately such sensible talk as this post does not apply anymore. It is now the Governments responsibilty to feed all children , not the parents.
There's a reason why free school meals exist. Some parents aren't as attentive as others. They'd rather spend what little money they have on themselves rather than on their children.
There is quite a lot of research out of the US that free school meals programs result in better health and academic outcomes for poorer kids.
The only question, really, is how important to you is improving the life chances of the disadvantaged?
You missed the argument - he wanted free school meals for everyone, not just the poor. Then you add in breakfast, tea and supper and we're in Aldous Huxley territory.
I think there's a good argument for that too - both breakfast and for all.
Firstly, free school meals come with a stigma attached. Do you not remember being at school? Getting a free school meal marked you out for derision as it marked your parents as poor. Kids would beg their (poor) parents to get shitty packed lunches rather than suffer from the stigma of being a free school means kid.
Secondly, you know what... all the evidence is that free breakfasts boost academic and health outcomes more than lunch.
Here's a simple solution. Let's pick two council areas with roughly similar demographics and academic outcomes. In one, let's take money away from teachers and sports facilities, and instead use that money to give food to kids at breakfast and lunch.
And then let's compare the academic and health outcomes of the two council areas. Will the free school meals have been better at improving results than spending the money on teachers.
I really don't know that answer to that question, by the way. But I do think the right way to answer it is with data, not with bringing up the spectre of Aldous Huxley.
No no no. Parents choose to have children. In doing so they must accept the responsibility to rear them. The great majority can afford to do so. Happy to help where there is genuine need - not happy to give breakfast to kids with affluent parents. Take some responsibility.
The job of schools is to educate children in the most cost effective manner possible, right?
If it turned out that a particular policy improved educational outcomes at a lower cost, we shouldn't do it because it offends you.
I just want to confirm that's your view.
Yes. You want poor people to pay for your kids' breakfasts right? I just want to confirm your view?
I want to maximise the educational achievements of kids, particularly those from lower incomes, as cost efficiently as possible.
All I'm saying is let's test it and see what achieves the best educational outcome. If it turns out that spending money on meals does it, then hell yes, poor people's taxes should be spent on it. Why shouldn't their taxes be spent in the most cost effective manner possible?
You do realise that an extra £2.50 a day for a school meal (and I'm ignoring the capital cost here) is a roughly 10% rise in the cost of education? £5000 a year for the 200 teaching days of the school year (these number are about right) is £25 a day.
The ingredients cost of meals is much smaller than the cost of the staff to serve and prepare. The marginal cost of adding meals is going to be well below £2.50.
So let's say £1.25 per pupil? Now we are looking at just a 5% increase in the cost of education (and again we are ignoring the massive capital costs).
Nah - it's nowhere near £1.25.
The reality is that we deliver school meals very badly, with a bizarre obsession with "hot". There's really no reason to have kitchens at schools with lots of catering staff, rather than just bringing food in. It really wouldn't be hard to get a decent lunch for comfortably under £1.25. Heck, Pret's gross margins are around 70% which and they're not exactly scraping the bottom on the barrel quality wise.
School meals would be better off delivered like airline food (which, in economy, comes out at around £1/passenger) and delivered five hundred meals at a time.
- Does the £1 per passenger include the cost of the staff to deliver it? - £1 per meal is not exactly a huge amount less than the £1.25 I was suggesting. - If the point of the exercise is to make sure that all pupils have one decent meal a day then airline food is not going to cut it. - If the food is that bad then the only people who will get it will be those whose parents are too poor to provide a better alternative and we are back to picking on those with poor parents.
Can I ask when was the last time you were in a school canteen? Your assumptions about what teenagers will and will not eat seem a bit unrealistic.
I notice it's about "scientific and medical opinion".
I hope that included mental health professionals.
They're no longer able to present their modelled data as fact. Javid has got them all on the run and you can see how depressed it's made the scientists to lose their prized control over everyone.
Interesting that Boris is now talking about protecting the public, rather than protecting the NHS.
Yeah, Javid has completely changed the narrative. As I said this afternoon there's a lot of concern in the NHS that Javid has basically torn down the whole "protect the NHS" stance of the DoH.
The Met seem to be taking a very "light touch" approach to policing potential disturbances. They seem to be relying on CCTV and mobile photos to get some perpetrators at a later date. Recipe for disaster. Policing sometimes has to project physical power to deter and contain.
i have never understood how this country gets into such a mess with school meals.
The taxpayer rightly funds a free education until 18 including the huge expense of teachers, facilities , equipment, books ,IT etc yet for some reason stops short of funding a universal free meal during the school day . I mean why ? It cannot be but a very small fraction of the overall education cost so it is on the face of it extremely petty but also would solve the bullying some kids get fro having free meals and also give all kids a better diet.
Really odd the position on school meals to me that we have had for years
I've already answered that - some families are so dysfunctional that the children need to be fed, but not so dysfunctional that the children need to be taken into care (for that costs real money)..
I think what state_go_away meant was - why not simply provide meals for free, for all pupils, in all state schools?
Way too expensive and when it was trialled it didn't provide many benefits.
is it that expensive ? If the government can fund everything else to do with a kids educuation it seems odd this is left out
WTF is the point of having parents and families at all?
wow - a bit aggressive ! i am sure parents are invented for kids to do more than prepare a packed lunch
The idea is for them to raise a family with all the easy and not so easy stuff included. There is no compulsion to rear children if you lack the means to do so. You seem to forget that all this money has to be provided by someone. Taxpayers would generally like to keep some of thier earnings for themselves. Paying for other people's kids to be fed is not part of the deal in my book. Sorry if you find that aggressive. 33 years in the classroom taught me that most parents expect to provide for their children's needs even when sacrifices are needed to do so. Mine certainly were.
Unfortunately such sensible talk as this post does not apply anymore. It is now the Governments responsibilty to feed all children , not the parents.
There's a reason why free school meals exist. Some parents aren't as attentive as others. They'd rather spend what little money they have on themselves rather than on their children.
There is quite a lot of research out of the US that free school meals programs result in better health and academic outcomes for poorer kids.
The only question, really, is how important to you is improving the life chances of the disadvantaged?
You missed the argument - he wanted free school meals for everyone, not just the poor. Then you add in breakfast, tea and supper and we're in Aldous Huxley territory.
I think there's a good argument for that too - both breakfast and for all.
Firstly, free school meals come with a stigma attached. Do you not remember being at school? Getting a free school meal marked you out for derision as it marked your parents as poor. Kids would beg their (poor) parents to get shitty packed lunches rather than suffer from the stigma of being a free school means kid.
Secondly, you know what... all the evidence is that free breakfasts boost academic and health outcomes more than lunch.
Here's a simple solution. Let's pick two council areas with roughly similar demographics and academic outcomes. In one, let's take money away from teachers and sports facilities, and instead use that money to give food to kids at breakfast and lunch.
And then let's compare the academic and health outcomes of the two council areas. Will the free school meals have been better at improving results than spending the money on teachers.
I really don't know that answer to that question, by the way. But I do think the right way to answer it is with data, not with bringing up the spectre of Aldous Huxley.
No no no. Parents choose to have children. In doing so they must accept the responsibility to rear them. The great majority can afford to do so. Happy to help where there is genuine need - not happy to give breakfast to kids with affluent parents. Take some responsibility.
The job of schools is to educate children in the most cost effective manner possible, right?
If it turned out that a particular policy improved educational outcomes at a lower cost, we shouldn't do it because it offends you.
I just want to confirm that's your view.
Yes. You want poor people to pay for your kids' breakfasts right? I just want to confirm your view?
I want to maximise the educational achievements of kids, particularly those from lower incomes, as cost efficiently as possible.
All I'm saying is let's test it and see what achieves the best educational outcome. If it turns out that spending money on meals does it, then hell yes, poor people's taxes should be spent on it. Why shouldn't their taxes be spent in the most cost effective manner possible?
You do realise that an extra £2.50 a day for a school meal (and I'm ignoring the capital cost here) is a roughly 10% rise in the cost of education? £5000 a year for the 200 teaching days of the school year (these number are about right) is £25 a day.
The ingredients cost of meals is much smaller than the cost of the staff to serve and prepare. The marginal cost of adding meals is going to be well below £2.50.
So let's say £1.25 per pupil? Now we are looking at just a 5% increase in the cost of education (and again we are ignoring the massive capital costs).
Nah - it's nowhere near £1.25.
The reality is that we deliver school meals very badly, with a bizarre obsession with "hot". There's really no reason to have kitchens at schools with lots of catering staff, rather than just bringing food in. It really wouldn't be hard to get a decent lunch for comfortably under £1.25. Heck, Pret's gross margins are around 70% which and they're not exactly scraping the bottom on the barrel quality wise.
School meals would be better off delivered like airline food (which, in economy, comes out at around £1/passenger) and delivered five hundred meals at a time.
Well said.
Options like salad are healthy and extremely viable.
I thought the whole point was to make sure that they were getting at least one good meal a day?
A growing teenager needs a bit more than a salad for their main meal.
i have never understood how this country gets into such a mess with school meals.
The taxpayer rightly funds a free education until 18 including the huge expense of teachers, facilities , equipment, books ,IT etc yet for some reason stops short of funding a universal free meal during the school day . I mean why ? It cannot be but a very small fraction of the overall education cost so it is on the face of it extremely petty but also would solve the bullying some kids get fro having free meals and also give all kids a better diet.
Really odd the position on school meals to me that we have had for years
I've already answered that - some families are so dysfunctional that the children need to be fed, but not so dysfunctional that the children need to be taken into care (for that costs real money)..
I think what state_go_away meant was - why not simply provide meals for free, for all pupils, in all state schools?
Way too expensive and when it was trialled it didn't provide many benefits.
is it that expensive ? If the government can fund everything else to do with a kids educuation it seems odd this is left out
WTF is the point of having parents and families at all?
wow - a bit aggressive ! i am sure parents are invented for kids to do more than prepare a packed lunch
The idea is for them to raise a family with all the easy and not so easy stuff included. There is no compulsion to rear children if you lack the means to do so. You seem to forget that all this money has to be provided by someone. Taxpayers would generally like to keep some of thier earnings for themselves. Paying for other people's kids to be fed is not part of the deal in my book. Sorry if you find that aggressive. 33 years in the classroom taught me that most parents expect to provide for their children's needs even when sacrifices are needed to do so. Mine certainly were.
Unfortunately such sensible talk as this post does not apply anymore. It is now the Governments responsibilty to feed all children , not the parents.
There's a reason why free school meals exist. Some parents aren't as attentive as others. They'd rather spend what little money they have on themselves rather than on their children.
There is quite a lot of research out of the US that free school meals programs result in better health and academic outcomes for poorer kids.
The only question, really, is how important to you is improving the life chances of the disadvantaged?
You missed the argument - he wanted free school meals for everyone, not just the poor. Then you add in breakfast, tea and supper and we're in Aldous Huxley territory.
I think there's a good argument for that too - both breakfast and for all.
Firstly, free school meals come with a stigma attached. Do you not remember being at school? Getting a free school meal marked you out for derision as it marked your parents as poor. Kids would beg their (poor) parents to get shitty packed lunches rather than suffer from the stigma of being a free school means kid.
Secondly, you know what... all the evidence is that free breakfasts boost academic and health outcomes more than lunch.
Here's a simple solution. Let's pick two council areas with roughly similar demographics and academic outcomes. In one, let's take money away from teachers and sports facilities, and instead use that money to give food to kids at breakfast and lunch.
And then let's compare the academic and health outcomes of the two council areas. Will the free school meals have been better at improving results than spending the money on teachers.
I really don't know that answer to that question, by the way. But I do think the right way to answer it is with data, not with bringing up the spectre of Aldous Huxley.
At my school no one now knows if one gets free school meals except the parents and (possibly) the pupil: payments are all electronic using a finger scanner. This has the added benefit that pupils don't bring in cash on a regular basis.
Also quite a lot more efficient.
Apart from needing to disinfect the finger scanner after each pupil, as I am sure all schools have been doing.
i have never understood how this country gets into such a mess with school meals.
The taxpayer rightly funds a free education until 18 including the huge expense of teachers, facilities , equipment, books ,IT etc yet for some reason stops short of funding a universal free meal during the school day . I mean why ? It cannot be but a very small fraction of the overall education cost so it is on the face of it extremely petty but also would solve the bullying some kids get fro having free meals and also give all kids a better diet.
Really odd the position on school meals to me that we have had for years
I've already answered that - some families are so dysfunctional that the children need to be fed, but not so dysfunctional that the children need to be taken into care (for that costs real money)..
I think what state_go_away meant was - why not simply provide meals for free, for all pupils, in all state schools?
Way too expensive and when it was trialled it didn't provide many benefits.
is it that expensive ? If the government can fund everything else to do with a kids educuation it seems odd this is left out
WTF is the point of having parents and families at all?
wow - a bit aggressive ! i am sure parents are invented for kids to do more than prepare a packed lunch
The idea is for them to raise a family with all the easy and not so easy stuff included. There is no compulsion to rear children if you lack the means to do so. You seem to forget that all this money has to be provided by someone. Taxpayers would generally like to keep some of thier earnings for themselves. Paying for other people's kids to be fed is not part of the deal in my book. Sorry if you find that aggressive. 33 years in the classroom taught me that most parents expect to provide for their children's needs even when sacrifices are needed to do so. Mine certainly were.
Unfortunately such sensible talk as this post does not apply anymore. It is now the Governments responsibilty to feed all children , not the parents.
There's a reason why free school meals exist. Some parents aren't as attentive as others. They'd rather spend what little money they have on themselves rather than on their children.
There is quite a lot of research out of the US that free school meals programs result in better health and academic outcomes for poorer kids.
The only question, really, is how important to you is improving the life chances of the disadvantaged?
You missed the argument - he wanted free school meals for everyone, not just the poor. Then you add in breakfast, tea and supper and we're in Aldous Huxley territory.
I think there's a good argument for that too - both breakfast and for all.
Firstly, free school meals come with a stigma attached. Do you not remember being at school? Getting a free school meal marked you out for derision as it marked your parents as poor. Kids would beg their (poor) parents to get shitty packed lunches rather than suffer from the stigma of being a free school means kid.
Secondly, you know what... all the evidence is that free breakfasts boost academic and health outcomes more than lunch.
Here's a simple solution. Let's pick two council areas with roughly similar demographics and academic outcomes. In one, let's take money away from teachers and sports facilities, and instead use that money to give food to kids at breakfast and lunch.
And then let's compare the academic and health outcomes of the two council areas. Will the free school meals have been better at improving results than spending the money on teachers.
I really don't know that answer to that question, by the way. But I do think the right way to answer it is with data, not with bringing up the spectre of Aldous Huxley.
No no no. Parents choose to have children. In doing so they must accept the responsibility to rear them. The great majority can afford to do so. Happy to help where there is genuine need - not happy to give breakfast to kids with affluent parents. Take some responsibility.
The job of schools is to educate children in the most cost effective manner possible, right?
If it turned out that a particular policy improved educational outcomes at a lower cost, we shouldn't do it because it offends you.
I just want to confirm that's your view.
Yes. You want poor people to pay for your kids' breakfasts right? I just want to confirm your view?
I want to maximise the educational achievements of kids, particularly those from lower incomes, as cost efficiently as possible.
All I'm saying is let's test it and see what achieves the best educational outcome. If it turns out that spending money on meals does it, then hell yes, poor people's taxes should be spent on it. Why shouldn't their taxes be spent in the most cost effective manner possible?
You do realise that an extra £2.50 a day for a school meal (and I'm ignoring the capital cost here) is a roughly 10% rise in the cost of education? £5000 a year for the 200 teaching days of the school year (these number are about right) is £25 a day.
The ingredients cost of meals is much smaller than the cost of the staff to serve and prepare. The marginal cost of adding meals is going to be well below £2.50.
So let's say £1.25 per pupil? Now we are looking at just a 5% increase in the cost of education (and again we are ignoring the massive capital costs).
Nah - it's nowhere near £1.25.
The reality is that we deliver school meals very badly, with a bizarre obsession with "hot". There's really no reason to have kitchens at schools with lots of catering staff, rather than just bringing food in. It really wouldn't be hard to get a decent lunch for comfortably under £1.25. Heck, Pret's gross margins are around 70% which and they're not exactly scraping the bottom on the barrel quality wise.
School meals would be better off delivered like airline food (which, in economy, comes out at around £1/passenger) and delivered five hundred meals at a time.
Well said.
Options like salad are healthy and extremely viable.
I thought the whole point was to make sure that they were getting at least one good meal a day?
A growing teenager needs a bit more than a salad for their main meal.
Depends what protein is served with the salad surely?
i have never understood how this country gets into such a mess with school meals.
The taxpayer rightly funds a free education until 18 including the huge expense of teachers, facilities , equipment, books ,IT etc yet for some reason stops short of funding a universal free meal during the school day . I mean why ? It cannot be but a very small fraction of the overall education cost so it is on the face of it extremely petty but also would solve the bullying some kids get fro having free meals and also give all kids a better diet.
Really odd the position on school meals to me that we have had for years
I've already answered that - some families are so dysfunctional that the children need to be fed, but not so dysfunctional that the children need to be taken into care (for that costs real money)..
I think what state_go_away meant was - why not simply provide meals for free, for all pupils, in all state schools?
Way too expensive and when it was trialled it didn't provide many benefits.
is it that expensive ? If the government can fund everything else to do with a kids educuation it seems odd this is left out
WTF is the point of having parents and families at all?
wow - a bit aggressive ! i am sure parents are invented for kids to do more than prepare a packed lunch
The idea is for them to raise a family with all the easy and not so easy stuff included. There is no compulsion to rear children if you lack the means to do so. You seem to forget that all this money has to be provided by someone. Taxpayers would generally like to keep some of thier earnings for themselves. Paying for other people's kids to be fed is not part of the deal in my book. Sorry if you find that aggressive. 33 years in the classroom taught me that most parents expect to provide for their children's needs even when sacrifices are needed to do so. Mine certainly were.
Unfortunately such sensible talk as this post does not apply anymore. It is now the Governments responsibilty to feed all children , not the parents.
There's a reason why free school meals exist. Some parents aren't as attentive as others. They'd rather spend what little money they have on themselves rather than on their children.
There is quite a lot of research out of the US that free school meals programs result in better health and academic outcomes for poorer kids.
The only question, really, is how important to you is improving the life chances of the disadvantaged?
You missed the argument - he wanted free school meals for everyone, not just the poor. Then you add in breakfast, tea and supper and we're in Aldous Huxley territory.
I think there's a good argument for that too - both breakfast and for all.
Firstly, free school meals come with a stigma attached. Do you not remember being at school? Getting a free school meal marked you out for derision as it marked your parents as poor. Kids would beg their (poor) parents to get shitty packed lunches rather than suffer from the stigma of being a free school means kid.
Secondly, you know what... all the evidence is that free breakfasts boost academic and health outcomes more than lunch.
Here's a simple solution. Let's pick two council areas with roughly similar demographics and academic outcomes. In one, let's take money away from teachers and sports facilities, and instead use that money to give food to kids at breakfast and lunch.
And then let's compare the academic and health outcomes of the two council areas. Will the free school meals have been better at improving results than spending the money on teachers.
I really don't know that answer to that question, by the way. But I do think the right way to answer it is with data, not with bringing up the spectre of Aldous Huxley.
At my school no one now knows if one gets free school meals except the parents and (possibly) the pupil: payments are all electronic using a finger scanner. This has the added benefit that pupils don't bring in cash on a regular basis.
Also quite a lot more efficient.
Apart from needing to disinfect the finger scanner after each pupil, as I am sure all schools have been doing.
I can't speak for all schools, but ours have, yes.
I suspect there is little difference for businesses between mandating restrictions rather than guidance as the key will be the attitude of their insurers
Indeed guidance applies mainly to foreign travel and it to has an effect on whether travel insurance is available
No doubt those involved in the law and insurance issues will have a better view on this than myself
No.10 "totally rejects" claim by @GNev2 after Euro2020 that @BorisJohnson has himself “promoted” racist abuse with language like Muslim women looking like letterboxes.
Always find it interesting how much abuse Boris gets for that specific passage, despite being lifted directly from a Guardian article, both of which were making very similar points.
I find it interesting how he is allowed to brush it off. A young cricketer has had his life put on hold and probably career finished for comments he made as a very young man on twitter that were not much worse.
Eight match ban, as of now free to resume international cricket, I believe ? So career very probably not finished.
i have never understood how this country gets into such a mess with school meals.
The taxpayer rightly funds a free education until 18 including the huge expense of teachers, facilities , equipment, books ,IT etc yet for some reason stops short of funding a universal free meal during the school day . I mean why ? It cannot be but a very small fraction of the overall education cost so it is on the face of it extremely petty but also would solve the bullying some kids get fro having free meals and also give all kids a better diet.
Really odd the position on school meals to me that we have had for years
I've already answered that - some families are so dysfunctional that the children need to be fed, but not so dysfunctional that the children need to be taken into care (for that costs real money)..
I think what state_go_away meant was - why not simply provide meals for free, for all pupils, in all state schools?
Way too expensive and when it was trialled it didn't provide many benefits.
is it that expensive ? If the government can fund everything else to do with a kids educuation it seems odd this is left out
WTF is the point of having parents and families at all?
wow - a bit aggressive ! i am sure parents are invented for kids to do more than prepare a packed lunch
The idea is for them to raise a family with all the easy and not so easy stuff included. There is no compulsion to rear children if you lack the means to do so. You seem to forget that all this money has to be provided by someone. Taxpayers would generally like to keep some of thier earnings for themselves. Paying for other people's kids to be fed is not part of the deal in my book. Sorry if you find that aggressive. 33 years in the classroom taught me that most parents expect to provide for their children's needs even when sacrifices are needed to do so. Mine certainly were.
Unfortunately such sensible talk as this post does not apply anymore. It is now the Governments responsibilty to feed all children , not the parents.
There's a reason why free school meals exist. Some parents aren't as attentive as others. They'd rather spend what little money they have on themselves rather than on their children.
There is quite a lot of research out of the US that free school meals programs result in better health and academic outcomes for poorer kids.
The only question, really, is how important to you is improving the life chances of the disadvantaged?
You missed the argument - he wanted free school meals for everyone, not just the poor. Then you add in breakfast, tea and supper and we're in Aldous Huxley territory.
I think there's a good argument for that too - both breakfast and for all.
Firstly, free school meals come with a stigma attached. Do you not remember being at school? Getting a free school meal marked you out for derision as it marked your parents as poor. Kids would beg their (poor) parents to get shitty packed lunches rather than suffer from the stigma of being a free school means kid.
Secondly, you know what... all the evidence is that free breakfasts boost academic and health outcomes more than lunch.
Here's a simple solution. Let's pick two council areas with roughly similar demographics and academic outcomes. In one, let's take money away from teachers and sports facilities, and instead use that money to give food to kids at breakfast and lunch.
And then let's compare the academic and health outcomes of the two council areas. Will the free school meals have been better at improving results than spending the money on teachers.
I really don't know that answer to that question, by the way. But I do think the right way to answer it is with data, not with bringing up the spectre of Aldous Huxley.
No no no. Parents choose to have children. In doing so they must accept the responsibility to rear them. The great majority can afford to do so. Happy to help where there is genuine need - not happy to give breakfast to kids with affluent parents. Take some responsibility.
The job of schools is to educate children in the most cost effective manner possible, right?
If it turned out that a particular policy improved educational outcomes at a lower cost, we shouldn't do it because it offends you.
I just want to confirm that's your view.
Yes. You want poor people to pay for your kids' breakfasts right? I just want to confirm your view?
I want to maximise the educational achievements of kids, particularly those from lower incomes, as cost efficiently as possible.
All I'm saying is let's test it and see what achieves the best educational outcome. If it turns out that spending money on meals does it, then hell yes, poor people's taxes should be spent on it. Why shouldn't their taxes be spent in the most cost effective manner possible?
You do realise that an extra £2.50 a day for a school meal (and I'm ignoring the capital cost here) is a roughly 10% rise in the cost of education? £5000 a year for the 200 teaching days of the school year (these number are about right) is £25 a day.
The ingredients cost of meals is much smaller than the cost of the staff to serve and prepare. The marginal cost of adding meals is going to be well below £2.50.
So let's say £1.25 per pupil? Now we are looking at just a 5% increase in the cost of education (and again we are ignoring the massive capital costs).
Nah - it's nowhere near £1.25.
The reality is that we deliver school meals very badly, with a bizarre obsession with "hot". There's really no reason to have kitchens at schools with lots of catering staff, rather than just bringing food in. It really wouldn't be hard to get a decent lunch for comfortably under £1.25. Heck, Pret's gross margins are around 70% which and they're not exactly scraping the bottom on the barrel quality wise.
School meals would be better off delivered like airline food (which, in economy, comes out at around £1/passenger) and delivered five hundred meals at a time.
Well said.
Options like salad are healthy and extremely viable.
I thought the whole point was to make sure that they were getting at least one good meal a day?
A growing teenager needs a bit more than a salad for their main meal.
Depends what protein is served with the salad surely?
We had a salad bar in the canteen. It was shut because the only people using it were teachers.
Right. I've got a week to calibrate my behaviour to slowly and steadily.
A "Slow and steadily" message whilst having nightclubs open is an 'interesting' err congruence. We're opening them but don't head out to them ?!
Do you think everyone in the nation is going to head to them?
I'm not planning to, but then its over a decade since I last went to one and I have little intention of ever going to one again.
I expect many of those who do intend to go to one, have also probably been much more likely to have house parties and other crowded events on existing regulations anyway, so it will be less of a step for them to go to one now.
No.10 "totally rejects" claim by @GNev2 after Euro2020 that @BorisJohnson has himself “promoted” racist abuse with language like Muslim women looking like letterboxes.
Always find it interesting how much abuse Boris gets for that specific passage, despite being lifted directly from a Guardian article, both of which were making very similar points.
I find it interesting how he is allowed to brush it off. A young cricketer has had his life put on hold and probably career finished for comments he made as a very young man on twitter that were not much worse.
Eight match ban, as of now free to resume international cricket, I believe ? So career very probably not finished.
Thanks for update. More sanction than our PM had then?
i have never understood how this country gets into such a mess with school meals.
The taxpayer rightly funds a free education until 18 including the huge expense of teachers, facilities , equipment, books ,IT etc yet for some reason stops short of funding a universal free meal during the school day . I mean why ? It cannot be but a very small fraction of the overall education cost so it is on the face of it extremely petty but also would solve the bullying some kids get fro having free meals and also give all kids a better diet.
Really odd the position on school meals to me that we have had for years
I've already answered that - some families are so dysfunctional that the children need to be fed, but not so dysfunctional that the children need to be taken into care (for that costs real money)..
I think what state_go_away meant was - why not simply provide meals for free, for all pupils, in all state schools?
Way too expensive and when it was trialled it didn't provide many benefits.
is it that expensive ? If the government can fund everything else to do with a kids educuation it seems odd this is left out
WTF is the point of having parents and families at all?
wow - a bit aggressive ! i am sure parents are invented for kids to do more than prepare a packed lunch
The idea is for them to raise a family with all the easy and not so easy stuff included. There is no compulsion to rear children if you lack the means to do so. You seem to forget that all this money has to be provided by someone. Taxpayers would generally like to keep some of thier earnings for themselves. Paying for other people's kids to be fed is not part of the deal in my book. Sorry if you find that aggressive. 33 years in the classroom taught me that most parents expect to provide for their children's needs even when sacrifices are needed to do so. Mine certainly were.
Unfortunately such sensible talk as this post does not apply anymore. It is now the Governments responsibilty to feed all children , not the parents.
There's a reason why free school meals exist. Some parents aren't as attentive as others. They'd rather spend what little money they have on themselves rather than on their children.
There is quite a lot of research out of the US that free school meals programs result in better health and academic outcomes for poorer kids.
The only question, really, is how important to you is improving the life chances of the disadvantaged?
You missed the argument - he wanted free school meals for everyone, not just the poor. Then you add in breakfast, tea and supper and we're in Aldous Huxley territory.
I think there's a good argument for that too - both breakfast and for all.
Firstly, free school meals come with a stigma attached. Do you not remember being at school? Getting a free school meal marked you out for derision as it marked your parents as poor. Kids would beg their (poor) parents to get shitty packed lunches rather than suffer from the stigma of being a free school means kid.
Secondly, you know what... all the evidence is that free breakfasts boost academic and health outcomes more than lunch.
Here's a simple solution. Let's pick two council areas with roughly similar demographics and academic outcomes. In one, let's take money away from teachers and sports facilities, and instead use that money to give food to kids at breakfast and lunch.
And then let's compare the academic and health outcomes of the two council areas. Will the free school meals have been better at improving results than spending the money on teachers.
I really don't know that answer to that question, by the way. But I do think the right way to answer it is with data, not with bringing up the spectre of Aldous Huxley.
No no no. Parents choose to have children. In doing so they must accept the responsibility to rear them. The great majority can afford to do so. Happy to help where there is genuine need - not happy to give breakfast to kids with affluent parents. Take some responsibility.
The job of schools is to educate children in the most cost effective manner possible, right?
If it turned out that a particular policy improved educational outcomes at a lower cost, we shouldn't do it because it offends you.
I just want to confirm that's your view.
Yes. You want poor people to pay for your kids' breakfasts right? I just want to confirm your view?
I want to maximise the educational achievements of kids, particularly those from lower incomes, as cost efficiently as possible.
All I'm saying is let's test it and see what achieves the best educational outcome. If it turns out that spending money on meals does it, then hell yes, poor people's taxes should be spent on it. Why shouldn't their taxes be spent in the most cost effective manner possible?
You do realise that an extra £2.50 a day for a school meal (and I'm ignoring the capital cost here) is a roughly 10% rise in the cost of education? £5000 a year for the 200 teaching days of the school year (these number are about right) is £25 a day.
The ingredients cost of meals is much smaller than the cost of the staff to serve and prepare. The marginal cost of adding meals is going to be well below £2.50.
So let's say £1.25 per pupil? Now we are looking at just a 5% increase in the cost of education (and again we are ignoring the massive capital costs).
Nah - it's nowhere near £1.25.
The reality is that we deliver school meals very badly, with a bizarre obsession with "hot". There's really no reason to have kitchens at schools with lots of catering staff, rather than just bringing food in. It really wouldn't be hard to get a decent lunch for comfortably under £1.25. Heck, Pret's gross margins are around 70% which and they're not exactly scraping the bottom on the barrel quality wise.
School meals would be better off delivered like airline food (which, in economy, comes out at around £1/passenger) and delivered five hundred meals at a time.
Well said.
Options like salad are healthy and extremely viable.
I thought the whole point was to make sure that they were getting at least one good meal a day?
A growing teenager needs a bit more than a salad for their main meal.
Depends what protein is served with the salad surely?
We had a salad bar in the canteen. It was shut because the only people using it were teachers.
I'm going to hazard a guess that's because of popularity, not because it was less nutritious than other options?
No.10 "totally rejects" claim by @GNev2 after Euro2020 that @BorisJohnson has himself “promoted” racist abuse with language like Muslim women looking like letterboxes.
Always find it interesting how much abuse Boris gets for that specific passage, despite being lifted directly from a Guardian article, both of which were making very similar points.
I find it interesting how he is allowed to brush it off. A young cricketer has had his life put on hold and probably career finished for comments he made as a very young man on twitter that were not much worse.
Eight match ban, as of now free to resume international cricket, I believe ? So career very probably not finished.
Thanks for update. More sanction than our PM had then?
He hasn't played cricket for England since he posted it...
Freedom day appears to have been watered down so far as to be nearly meaningless for my purposes. "We're going to take away the law that you have to wear masks - but if you don't carry on wearing them we'll reintroduce it."
If we are asking "if not now, when?", the answer therefore appears to be "never".
The BBC, the Labour Party, isage etc - have won. Again.
Strange how a Conservative government in power for 11 years with a majority of 80 is cruelly bullied and pushed from pillar to post by a heartless BBC, Labour and scientists. The bastards.
Strong minded and principled this government is not. The slightest hint of opposition and it keels over.
How has it keeled over?
The lifting of lockdown is going ahead.
The mask mandate with force of law is going.
Putting it in people's hands to choose to do the right thing or not is exactly the right thing to do.
Its like saying "yes you can drink a bottle of vodka every night, but no we don't recommend you do it".
Well if that's how it pays out I will be mollified. But it looks to me like we will be changing a 'law' that we wear masks with a 'requirement' that we wear masks - which to me is no change at all. Still no happy circulation around a pub. Still no pleasant shopping around a garden centre. Still no charge around a museum with the kids. In fact, far more restrictions than there were a year ago before we had vaccines.
This is why the vaccine bounce is over. People don't want vaccinations for the sheer joy of being jabbed in the arm with a sharp object. They want them for the hope that life might return to normal. But it's now looking further away than ever.
No.10 "totally rejects" claim by @GNev2 after Euro2020 that @BorisJohnson has himself “promoted” racist abuse with language like Muslim women looking like letterboxes.
Always find it interesting how much abuse Boris gets for that specific passage, despite being lifted directly from a Guardian article, both of which were making very similar points.
I find it interesting how he is allowed to brush it off. A young cricketer has had his life put on hold and probably career finished for comments he made as a very young man on twitter that were not much worse.
Eight match ban, as of now free to resume international cricket, I believe ? So career very probably not finished.
Thanks for update. More sanction than our PM had then?
Yes but when her own party in government has done what he demanded and then honoured the guy with a MBE then shouldn't she be focusing her ire at her own front benches rather than Rashford?
Freedom day appears to have been watered down so far as to be nearly meaningless for my purposes. "We're going to take away the law that you have to wear masks - but if you don't carry on wearing them we'll reintroduce it."
If we are asking "if not now, when?", the answer therefore appears to be "never".
The BBC, the Labour Party, isage etc - have won. Again.
Strange how a Conservative government in power for 11 years with a majority of 80 is cruelly bullied and pushed from pillar to post by a heartless BBC, Labour and scientists. The bastards.
Strong minded and principled this government is not. The slightest hint of opposition and it keels over.
How has it keeled over?
The lifting of lockdown is going ahead.
The mask mandate with force of law is going.
Putting it in people's hands to choose to do the right thing or not is exactly the right thing to do.
Its like saying "yes you can drink a bottle of vodka every night, but no we don't recommend you do it".
Well if that's how it pays out I will be mollified. But it looks to me like we will be changing a 'law' that we wear masks with a 'requirement' that we wear masks - which to me is no change at all. Still no happy circulation around a pub. Still no pleasant shopping around a garden centre. Still no charge around a museum with the kids. In fact, far more restrictions than there were a year ago before we had vaccines.
This is why the vaccine bounce is over. People don't want vaccinations for the sheer joy of being jabbed in the arm with a sharp object. They want them for the hope that life might return to normal. But it's now looking further away than ever.
Isn't not catching Covid and dying agonisingly a more important motivation? It was for me.
Freedom day appears to have been watered down so far as to be nearly meaningless for my purposes. "We're going to take away the law that you have to wear masks - but if you don't carry on wearing them we'll reintroduce it."
If we are asking "if not now, when?", the answer therefore appears to be "never".
The BBC, the Labour Party, isage etc - have won. Again.
Strange how a Conservative government in power for 11 years with a majority of 80 is cruelly bullied and pushed from pillar to post by a heartless BBC, Labour and scientists. The bastards.
Strong minded and principled this government is not. The slightest hint of opposition and it keels over.
How has it keeled over?
The lifting of lockdown is going ahead.
The mask mandate with force of law is going.
Putting it in people's hands to choose to do the right thing or not is exactly the right thing to do.
Its like saying "yes you can drink a bottle of vodka every night, but no we don't recommend you do it".
Well if that's how it pays out I will be mollified. But it looks to me like we will be changing a 'law' that we wear masks with a 'requirement' that we wear masks - which to me is no change at all. Still no happy circulation around a pub. Still no pleasant shopping around a garden centre. Still no charge around a museum with the kids. In fact, far more restrictions than there were a year ago before we had vaccines.
This is why the vaccine bounce is over. People don't want vaccinations for the sheer joy of being jabbed in the arm with a sharp object. They want them for the hope that life might return to normal. But it's now looking further away than ever.
As the press conference showed double vaccination drastically reduces the risk of hospitalisation and death from Covid which is the main thing
i have never understood how this country gets into such a mess with school meals.
The taxpayer rightly funds a free education until 18 including the huge expense of teachers, facilities , equipment, books ,IT etc yet for some reason stops short of funding a universal free meal during the school day . I mean why ? It cannot be but a very small fraction of the overall education cost so it is on the face of it extremely petty but also would solve the bullying some kids get fro having free meals and also give all kids a better diet.
Really odd the position on school meals to me that we have had for years
I've already answered that - some families are so dysfunctional that the children need to be fed, but not so dysfunctional that the children need to be taken into care (for that costs real money)..
I think what state_go_away meant was - why not simply provide meals for free, for all pupils, in all state schools?
Way too expensive and when it was trialled it didn't provide many benefits.
is it that expensive ? If the government can fund everything else to do with a kids educuation it seems odd this is left out
WTF is the point of having parents and families at all?
wow - a bit aggressive ! i am sure parents are invented for kids to do more than prepare a packed lunch
The idea is for them to raise a family with all the easy and not so easy stuff included. There is no compulsion to rear children if you lack the means to do so. You seem to forget that all this money has to be provided by someone. Taxpayers would generally like to keep some of thier earnings for themselves. Paying for other people's kids to be fed is not part of the deal in my book. Sorry if you find that aggressive. 33 years in the classroom taught me that most parents expect to provide for their children's needs even when sacrifices are needed to do so. Mine certainly were.
Unfortunately such sensible talk as this post does not apply anymore. It is now the Governments responsibilty to feed all children , not the parents.
There's a reason why free school meals exist. Some parents aren't as attentive as others. They'd rather spend what little money they have on themselves rather than on their children.
There is quite a lot of research out of the US that free school meals programs result in better health and academic outcomes for poorer kids.
The only question, really, is how important to you is improving the life chances of the disadvantaged?
You missed the argument - he wanted free school meals for everyone, not just the poor. Then you add in breakfast, tea and supper and we're in Aldous Huxley territory.
I think there's a good argument for that too - both breakfast and for all.
Firstly, free school meals come with a stigma attached. Do you not remember being at school? Getting a free school meal marked you out for derision as it marked your parents as poor. Kids would beg their (poor) parents to get shitty packed lunches rather than suffer from the stigma of being a free school means kid.
Secondly, you know what... all the evidence is that free breakfasts boost academic and health outcomes more than lunch.
Here's a simple solution. Let's pick two council areas with roughly similar demographics and academic outcomes. In one, let's take money away from teachers and sports facilities, and instead use that money to give food to kids at breakfast and lunch.
And then let's compare the academic and health outcomes of the two council areas. Will the free school meals have been better at improving results than spending the money on teachers.
I really don't know that answer to that question, by the way. But I do think the right way to answer it is with data, not with bringing up the spectre of Aldous Huxley.
No no no. Parents choose to have children. In doing so they must accept the responsibility to rear them. The great majority can afford to do so. Happy to help where there is genuine need - not happy to give breakfast to kids with affluent parents. Take some responsibility.
The job of schools is to educate children in the most cost effective manner possible, right?
If it turned out that a particular policy improved educational outcomes at a lower cost, we shouldn't do it because it offends you.
I just want to confirm that's your view.
Yes. You want poor people to pay for your kids' breakfasts right? I just want to confirm your view?
I want to maximise the educational achievements of kids, particularly those from lower incomes, as cost efficiently as possible.
All I'm saying is let's test it and see what achieves the best educational outcome. If it turns out that spending money on meals does it, then hell yes, poor people's taxes should be spent on it. Why shouldn't their taxes be spent in the most cost effective manner possible?
You do realise that an extra £2.50 a day for a school meal (and I'm ignoring the capital cost here) is a roughly 10% rise in the cost of education? £5000 a year for the 200 teaching days of the school year (these number are about right) is £25 a day.
The ingredients cost of meals is much smaller than the cost of the staff to serve and prepare. The marginal cost of adding meals is going to be well below £2.50.
So let's say £1.25 per pupil? Now we are looking at just a 5% increase in the cost of education (and again we are ignoring the massive capital costs).
Nah - it's nowhere near £1.25.
The reality is that we deliver school meals very badly, with a bizarre obsession with "hot". There's really no reason to have kitchens at schools with lots of catering staff, rather than just bringing food in. It really wouldn't be hard to get a decent lunch for comfortably under £1.25. Heck, Pret's gross margins are around 70% which and they're not exactly scraping the bottom on the barrel quality wise.
School meals would be better off delivered like airline food (which, in economy, comes out at around £1/passenger) and delivered five hundred meals at a time.
Well said.
Options like salad are healthy and extremely viable.
I thought the whole point was to make sure that they were getting at least one good meal a day?
A growing teenager needs a bit more than a salad for their main meal.
Depends what protein is served with the salad surely?
We had a salad bar in the canteen. It was shut because the only people using it were teachers.
I'm going to hazard a guess that's because of popularity, not because it was less nutritious than other options?
Yes, that is sort of my point. Do we want food that teenagers want to eat (and there are already a number of nutritional rules restricting what can be sold) or are we going for what we think they ought to like? I think a lot of people posting on here have forgotten what it is like to be a teenager or younger, and how much food means when you are that age. If all that is available is food they don't want to eat then we are making things worse, not better.
Yes but when her own party in government has done what he demanded and then honoured the guy with a MBE then shouldn't she be focusing her ire at her own front benches rather than Rashford?
Boris caved because while more Tories opposed Rashford's campaign than backed it, voters as a whole backed Rashford so yes you have a point
I suspect there is little difference for businesses between mandating restrictions rather than guidance as the key will be the attitude of their insurers
Indeed guidance applies mainly to foreign travel and it to has an effect on whether travel insurance is available
No doubt those involved in the law and insurance issues will have a better view on this than myself
That's potentially the key issue, and shows the limits of "let the people use common sense to decide".
It would be very Johnsonian to act in a way that ensures restrictions are largely maintained whilst giving him plausible deniability about his responsibility for them.
There won't be one, I am a Tory and will not apologise for saying something most of my party's voters agree with.
Elphicke only apologised to get the leftwing twitterati off her back, she would not have said it in the first place if she did not agree with it.
Yes the penalty miss jibe may have been a cheap shot but that is all I will apologise for, I am not going to apologise for disagreeing with what Rashford was campaigning for
I suspect there is little difference for businesses between mandating restrictions rather than guidance as the key will be the attitude of their insurers
Indeed guidance applies mainly to foreign travel and it to has an effect on whether travel insurance is available
No doubt those involved in the law and insurance issues will have a better view on this than myself
That's potentially the key issue, and shows the limits of "let the people use common sense to decide".
It would be very Johnsonian to act in a way that ensures restrictions are largely maintained whilst giving him plausible deniability about his responsibility for them.
Surely no-one is going to go clubbing wearing a facemask?
I suspect there is little difference for businesses between mandating restrictions rather than guidance as the key will be the attitude of their insurers
Indeed guidance applies mainly to foreign travel and it to has an effect on whether travel insurance is available
No doubt those involved in the law and insurance issues will have a better view on this than myself
That's potentially the key issue, and shows the limits of "let the people use common sense to decide".
It would be very Johnsonian to act in a way that ensures restrictions are largely maintained whilst giving him plausible deniability about his responsibility for them.
Surely no-one is going to go clubbing wearing a facemask?
Freedom day appears to have been watered down so far as to be nearly meaningless for my purposes. "We're going to take away the law that you have to wear masks - but if you don't carry on wearing them we'll reintroduce it."
If we are asking "if not now, when?", the answer therefore appears to be "never".
The BBC, the Labour Party, isage etc - have won. Again.
Strange how a Conservative government in power for 11 years with a majority of 80 is cruelly bullied and pushed from pillar to post by a heartless BBC, Labour and scientists. The bastards.
Strong minded and principled this government is not. The slightest hint of opposition and it keels over.
How has it keeled over?
The lifting of lockdown is going ahead.
The mask mandate with force of law is going.
Putting it in people's hands to choose to do the right thing or not is exactly the right thing to do.
Its like saying "yes you can drink a bottle of vodka every night, but no we don't recommend you do it".
Well if that's how it pays out I will be mollified. But it looks to me like we will be changing a 'law' that we wear masks with a 'requirement' that we wear masks - which to me is no change at all. Still no happy circulation around a pub. Still no pleasant shopping around a garden centre. Still no charge around a museum with the kids. In fact, far more restrictions than there were a year ago before we had vaccines.
This is why the vaccine bounce is over. People don't want vaccinations for the sheer joy of being jabbed in the arm with a sharp object. They want them for the hope that life might return to normal. But it's now looking further away than ever.
Isn't not catching Covid and dying agonisingly a more important motivation? It was for me.
Frankly, no. Though I'm pleased to be at less risk, I am more worried about life never returning and being stuck in this stupid half-life than I was about death.
There won't be one, I am a Tory and will not apologise for saying something most of my party's voters agree with.
Elphicke only apologised to get the leftwing twitterati off her back, she would not have said it in the first place if she did not agree with it.
Yes the penalty miss jibe may have been a cheap shot but that is all I will apologise for, I am not going to apologise for disagreeing with what Rashford was campaigning for
You twist and turn digging a bigger hole at the same time
At least Elphicke knows the decent way to apologise
I suspect there is little difference for businesses between mandating restrictions rather than guidance as the key will be the attitude of their insurers
Indeed guidance applies mainly to foreign travel and it to has an effect on whether travel insurance is available
No doubt those involved in the law and insurance issues will have a better view on this than myself
That's potentially the key issue, and shows the limits of "let the people use common sense to decide".
It would be very Johnsonian to act in a way that ensures restrictions are largely maintained whilst giving him plausible deniability about his responsibility for them.
Surely no-one is going to go clubbing wearing a facemask?
Some punters might at Slimes, but I don't think this is what Whitty et al are getting at in general.
Back where we were last March. Of course, it was serious enough we did then need to mandate. Question is if it is so serious now, which yes people disagree on , but it's not confusing on the whole - at the precise level there will always be some, you cannot account for everything.
I will not be doing it because it would be doxxing you but I guarantee that if I were to call the news desks of some national newspapers right now they would run the Party Chair says Elphicke is Lying story.
Comments
Edit: looks like any time now.
Is it a new variant or just Covid out and about at the Bigg Market with the youngsters ?
Go to a restaurant and you are paying for the table, the building, the service. The food is thrown in, almost...
The classic of this genre is coffee shops - the coffee itself costs pennies. Literally. The rest is paying for the coffee shop & staff. The profit isn't a vast percentage.
https://coronavirus.data.gov.uk/details/cases
Which is maybe smoothed by seven day averages.
There's only been a couple of days over which the rate of decrease of increase has slowed, and there's no especially good reason why it shouldn't speed up again.
I just broke a rib laughing at that.
From that, it looks as if we have been seeing a sustained slowing down of the rate of increase - we shall see as the days go by.....
https://twitter.com/RedfieldWilton/status/1414616111874777088?s=19
The lifting of lockdown is going ahead.
The mask mandate with force of law is going.
Putting it in people's hands to choose to do the right thing or not is exactly the right thing to do.
Its like saying "yes you can drink a bottle of vodka every night, but no we don't recommend you do it".
Still going in the right direction though.
As Gareth Southgate’s squad were preparing for yesterday’s showdown with Italy, loved ones were left fearing for their safety during a nightmarish ordeal as hooligans smashed their way into the ground and caused chaos.
It is understood that a number of players’ families were inadvertently caught up in the mayhem after a metal door was forced open at about 6.30pm at Entrance G, close to the Bobby Moore statue.
The mob charged inside, punching and kicking Wembley stewards, who were hopelessly outnumbered, before heading for seats that were already allocated to the families. The son of the Italy head coach, Roberto Mancini, was also affected and spent the first half watching the game while sitting on steps in the arena.
“It was chaotic, uncontrolled and very scary,” one eyewitness said.....
...Family members were left feeling threatened and intimidated when they asked the intruders to sit elsewhere. Some were abusive before eventually moving to other free seats in the stadium, which was under capacity because of Covid-19 restrictions, or taking refuge in aisles.
https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/england-players-families-caught-up-in-wembley-chaos-bq9dp9v9z
https://twitter.com/tnewtondunn/status/1414619361722175494
We're so used to premier league policing in the UK with clubs that have worked really hard to weed out the hooligan element. The FA needs to hang its head in shame this morning and so do the police.
If this is the level of policing we're going to provide to tournament matches involving England then we're never, ever going to get an international tournament. The police needed to be there cracking heads and arresting the bastards.
The reality is that we deliver school meals very badly, with a bizarre obsession with "hot". There's really no reason to have kitchens at schools with lots of catering staff, rather than just bringing food in. It really wouldn't be hard to get a decent lunch for comfortably under £1.25. Heck, Pret's gross margins are around 70% which and they're not exactly scraping the bottom on the barrel quality wise.
School meals would be better off delivered like airline food (which, in economy, comes out at around £1/passenger) and delivered five hundred meals at a time.
The Labour vote though almost unchanged from the last general election
Marcus Rashford: Dover MP Natalie Elphicke apologises over penalty comments
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-kent-57807264
The mantra "we've got a young team and they'll get better" has been said many times before whether you've remembered it or not.
https://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/football/44706648
"The future is bright and full of hope" - in 2018. We say the same now (it would seem).
To be more critical - we had a team good enough to get close to a World Cup Final in 2018, we had home advantage for all bar one match, luck put us in the weaker half of the draw and yet, and yet, we couldn't get the job done.
I've argued some of the factors we thought favoured us might not have worked to our advantage - in Qatar there will be other factors at work and this experience will hopefully put us in a better place for that tournament.
I've also argued we are one of the top three sides in Europe (alongside Italy and Spain). Whether the Latin American sides are better or worse, only time will tell.
If you want to call a bit of objective comment "churlish", that's fine. I'm a punter - I've won money on this tournament, I call it as I see it. We could win the World Cup in 2022 - I think we are one of five sides who are in that position currently.
https://twitter.com/BBCJLandale/status/1414621175016271874
Step 4 is a step change.
How can it "go slowly" ?
Options like salad are healthy and extremely viable.
Some of us may go whooping; others (talking to you @SandyRentool ) not so much.
I hope that included mental health professionals.
Tres Leones Togae.
https://twitter.com/cjwardy/status/1414618909412446208
- £1 per meal is not exactly a huge amount less than the £1.25 I was suggesting.
- If the point of the exercise is to make sure that all pupils have one decent meal a day then airline food is not going to cut it.
- If the food is that bad then the only people who will get it will be those whose parents are too poor to provide a better alternative and we are back to picking on those with poor parents.
Can I ask when was the last time you were in a school canteen? Your assumptions about what teenagers will and will not eat seem a bit unrealistic.
A growing teenager needs a bit more than a salad for their main meal.
Indeed guidance applies mainly to foreign travel and it to has an effect on whether travel insurance is available
No doubt those involved in the law and insurance issues will have a better view on this than myself
So career very probably not finished.
Some cars look actually swept down the road and the gardens flooded, at my family member's house at the other end of town.
I'm not planning to, but then its over a decade since I last went to one and I have little intention of ever going to one again.
I expect many of those who do intend to go to one, have also probably been much more likely to have house parties and other crowded events on existing regulations anyway, so it will be less of a step for them to go to one now.
https://twitter.com/davieclegg/status/1414613917330984969?s=20
No MDMA or speed.
Clouds of ganja?
This is why the vaccine bounce is over. People don't want vaccinations for the sheer joy of being jabbed in the arm with a sharp object. They want them for the hope that life might return to normal. But it's now looking further away than ever.
https://twitter.com/YouGov/status/1317126424587833344?s=20
As predictable as night follows day
Read the guidance and take a decision based on the guidance.
Maybe I’m old fashioned.
https://twitter.com/thatryanchap/status/1414625341738569730?s=21
It was for me.
I think a lot of people posting on here have forgotten what it is like to be a teenager or younger, and how much food means when you are that age. If all that is available is food they don't want to eat then we are making things worse, not better.
It would be very Johnsonian to act in a way that ensures restrictions are largely maintained whilst giving him plausible deniability about his responsibility for them.
Elphicke only apologised to get the leftwing twitterati off her back, she would not have said it in the first place if she did not agree with it.
Yes the penalty miss jibe may have been a cheap shot but that is all I will apologise for, I am not going to apologise for disagreeing with what Rashford was campaigning for
So now we know.
We know that he is a feckwit.
Elphicke apologised because it is the right thing to do
You shame your position in the party with your response
I can see that in headlines in several papers.
https://twitter.com/YouGov/status/1317126424587833344?s=20
Though I'm pleased to be at less risk,
I am more worried about life never returning and being stuck in this stupid half-life than I was about death.
At least Elphicke knows the decent way to apologise
And decency seems beyond you on this one