politicalbetting.com » Blog Archive » MPs’ proxy voting can and should go further

"It’s not unreasonable, however, for the voters to expect their voice to be heard in Westminster."

Not for some Remainers. And Brexit happens when they ignore that voice. Do I win the competition to get Brexit into the thread?

How much of a problem has it been in practice though, with "pairing" having been part of the Westminster wallpaper as long as I can recall?

IanB2 said:

Second?

One MP voting for another is clearly not ideal and potentially open to abuse. It would have been better to leave the MP responsible for their own decision and allow them an absentee vote (which is effectively what is happening anyway, aside from the transfer in responsibility).

Agreed. The example of O'Mara is an interesting one. If a member is to ashamed to show their face in Parliament, their party should not be able to rely on their vote via a proxy.

First ... to go off-topic. There's been a coup at the BBC's news site and the Hinds education story has been removed from the front page in the last few minutes.

Ed Sec Hinds was recently given a big up by JRM, according to one pb poster.

The education secretary will promise to cut teachers' workload in an attempt to resolve a recruitment crisis in England's schools.

Damian Hinds will tell head teachers that there will be no more new changes to primary tests, GCSEs or A-levels.

For five successive years, recruitment targets for teaching have been missed

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/education-43345857

We did try to tell Gove's pb fan club that while he was arguing about the history syllabus with actual historians, he'd taken his eye off the ball. No-one was doing the day job so he left behind a shortage of teachers and a shortage of school places.

I think absentee voting for health reasons certified by a doctor would be widely accepted as reasonable. The MP could watch the debate from home if desired, and frankly MPs can't watch most debates that they vote on anyway. Havbing a deputy seems to me more risky, unless specifically elected in that capacity - i.e. people would stand as a team.

DecrepitJohnL said:

First ... to go off-topic. There's been a coup at the BBC's news site and the Hinds education story has been removed from the front page in the last few minutes.

Ed Sec Hinds was recently given a big up by JRM, according to one pb poster.

The education secretary will promise to cut teachers' workload in an attempt to resolve a recruitment crisis in England's schools.

Damian Hinds will tell head teachers that there will be no more new changes to primary tests, GCSEs or A-levels.

For five successive years, recruitment targets for teaching have been missed

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/education-43345857

We did try to tell Gove's pb fan club that while he was arguing about the history syllabus with actual historians, he'd taken his eye off the ball. No-one was doing the day job so he left behind a shortage of teachers and a shortage of school places.

Mr L, I can still access that story.

Morris_Dancer said:

Good morning, everyone.

Interesting article, Mr. Herdson, but I vehemently disagree with one implication. The notion a parliament should be demographically representative of the electorate is daft. Do we want half of our legislators to have below average intelligence? Are there sufficient numbers of the obese to accurately represent modern Britain?

No, obviously not - but there should be some. Not all intelligence is intellectual and it's likely that people with a lower-than-average intelligence will have had a very different life-story from an Oxbridge-educated lawyer. They might not be a great legislative draftsman (or woman) but parliament employs people to help out with that sort of thing. Sometimes, people like that are the ones who cut through to the nub of an argument and don't get tied down with the details or hung up on ironing out logical inconsistencies in what is an imperfect and illogical world.

There is a considerable benefit to having a parliament that includes many voices from people with many different experiences. While we shouldn't fetishise, for example, a 50/50 male-female split, nor would it be healthy to have it 80/20, say.

NickPalmer said:

I think absentee voting for health reasons certified by a doctor would be widely accepted as reasonable. The MP could watch the debate from home if desired, and frankly MPs can't watch most debates that they vote on anyway. Havbing a deputy seems to me more risky, unless specifically elected in that capacity - i.e. people would stand as a team.

But as you know Nick, there's a lot more to an MPs job than voting.

I agree that appointing a deputy would be an inherently risky thing: there'd need to be clear and robust safeguards. That's why I suggested a confirmatory vote in the Commons and time-limits. But I've not given those things deep thought and I'm sure the safeguards could be improved upon.

DecrepitJohnL said:

We did try to tell Gove's pb fan club that while he was arguing about the history syllabus with actual historians, he'd taken his eye off the ball. No-one was doing the day job so he left behind a shortage of teachers and a shortage of school places.

And perhaps if he had listened to these people rather than assuming he was right and everyone else was wrong the exams would not be the monumental clusterfuck they have turned into.

Maybe two months before the exams start I would have the marking criteria, for example. Instead we have OFQUAL frantically rewriting it after they realised that their former chief was so thick she had actually made it easier to get a top grade than a pass.

And the thickhead in question is now head of OFSTED - a non-teacher and cataclysmically incompetent administrator. What could possibly go wrong?

An interesting development, and a thought-provoking thread as usual from David on a Saturday morning.

A more general leave-of-absence rule is likely to be one of those things that sounds like a good idea in theory, but could work differently in practice as party management get involved in things. How would an independent MP be replaced, for example?

TGOHF said:

Look at these utter crackpots - Mr Palmer must surely be embarrassed by this Ludditery ? Wait until Corbyn sees an amazon warehouse...

https://twitter.com/sunpolitics/status/972366511229886464?s=21

Microsoft founder Bill Gates floated the idea of taxing robots, which is probably where Corbyn heard it.

DecrepitJohnL said:

TGOHF said:

Look at these utter crackpots - Mr Palmer must surely be embarrassed by this Ludditery ? Wait until Corbyn sees an amazon warehouse...

https://twitter.com/sunpolitics/status/972366511229886464?s=21

Microsoft founder Bill Gates floated the idea of taxing robots, which is probably where Corbyn heard it.

Indeed, it's not as silly as you think, especially when you consider that humans are taxed for the same job and that warps the market.

Elliot said:

TGOHF said:

Look at these utter crackpots - Mr Palmer must surely be embarrassed by this Ludditery ? Wait until Corbyn sees an amazon warehouse...

https://twitter.com/sunpolitics/status/972366511229886464?s=21

Has he considered taxing looms to restore work to the weavers? Or cash machines to return employment to bank clerks?

Surely he should simply urge all his supporters not to use them?

Elliot said:

TGOHF said:

Look at these utter crackpots - Mr Palmer must surely be embarrassed by this Ludditery ? Wait until Corbyn sees an amazon warehouse...

https://twitter.com/sunpolitics/status/972366511229886464?s=21

Has he considered taxing looms to restore work to the weavers? Or cash machines to return employment to bank clerks?

To be fair to Corbyn....

This was a motion passed by St Ives CLP and will be “put to the leadership”

‪Just been watching Macron in India. He has both Tricolour and EU flag behind him. Good visual demo of how EU membership enhances a country's international status.‬

At a time when employment levels are at record highs but productivity languishes, encouraging inefficiencies by taxing the use of labour-saving machinery looks very odd.

Instead, Britain needs to give much greater incentives for employers to train staff, particularly those with lower levels of education. Governments of all stripes have tried solving inequality by bunging money at the poorest - and that’s no bad thing - but the best long term fix for the poorest is to make them more valuable. Helping them get more valuable skills would assist with that.

Charles said:

Recidivist said:

‪Just been watching Macron in India. He has both Tricolour and EU flag behind him. Good visual demo of how EU membership enhances a country's international status.‬

I’ve got lots of cool flags you can use if you put that much store by them

It’s what they symbolise that matters. Any European country that does not have the self-confidence to fly the EU flag is making a choice to diminish itself.

welshowl said:

Jonathan said:

DecrepitJohnL said:

TGOHF said:

Look at these utter crackpots - Mr Palmer must surely be embarrassed by this Ludditery ? Wait until Corbyn sees an amazon warehouse...

https://twitter.com/sunpolitics/status/972366511229886464?s=21

Microsoft founder Bill Gates floated the idea of taxing robots, which is probably where Corbyn heard it.

Indeed, it's not as silly as you think, especially when you consider that humans are taxed for the same job and that warps the market.

You don’t know how silly I think it is. Very very very is the answer. He’d have banned electric trains because it put the firemen out of a job, or the bloke with a red flag walking in front of cars, the list is endless.

It’s crackpottery pure and simple.

Firstly, Corbyn has nothing to do with this, as Charles said it's a motion from a single CLP.
Secondly, some very clever people are talking about this idea wrt AI.

It's more interesting that you think.

Jonathan said:

welshowl said:

Jonathan said:

DecrepitJohnL said:

TGOHF said:

Look at these utter crackpots - Mr Palmer must surely be embarrassed by this Ludditery ? Wait until Corbyn sees an amazon warehouse...

https://twitter.com/sunpolitics/status/972366511229886464?s=21

Microsoft founder Bill Gates floated the idea of taxing robots, which is probably where Corbyn heard it.

Indeed, it's not as silly as you think, especially when you consider that humans are taxed for the same job and that warps the market.

You don’t know how silly I think it is. Very very very is the answer. He’d have banned electric trains because it put the firemen out of a job, or the bloke with a red flag walking in front of cars, the list is endless.

It’s crackpottery pure and simple.

Firstly, Corbyn has nothing to do with this, as Charles said it's a motion from a single CLP.
Secondly, some very clever people are talking about this idea wrt AI.

It's more interesting that you think.

There might be something in the idea if there were mass unemployment. There isn’t, at least not in Britain.

williamglenn said:

Charles said:

Recidivist said:

‪Just been watching Macron in India. He has both Tricolour and EU flag behind him. Good visual demo of how EU membership enhances a country's international status.‬

I’ve got lots of cool flags you can use if you put that much store by them

It’s what they symbolise that matters. Any European country that does not have the self-confidence to fly the EU flag is making a choice to diminish itself.

Why?

Countries belonging to Nato don’t routinely put up a flag or Nato sign next to their national flag. Does that diminish them?

If the EU made a rule that only the EU flag could be flown when a member state’s PM went abroad, do you think that (a) countries like France would agree and (b) having the EU flag only would diminish or enhance a country’s stature?

AlastairMeeks said:

At a time when employment levels are at record highs but productivity languishes, encouraging inefficiencies by taxing the use of labour-saving machinery looks very odd.

I agree, there are many areas of the economy that need to be more efficient. Agriculture for one.

Elliot said:

Just to be clear, it's the same people arguing we need to continue high unskilled immigration to fill shortages in jobs Brits won't do that are proposing automation taxes to stop mass unemployment in a migrant filled profession?

No. It isn’t.

Sandpit said:

Elliot said:

TGOHF said:

Look at these utter crackpots - Mr Palmer must surely be embarrassed by this Ludditery ? Wait until Corbyn sees an amazon warehouse...

https://twitter.com/sunpolitics/status/972366511229886464?s=21

Has he considered taxing looms to restore work to the weavers? Or cash machines to return employment to bank clerks?

Taxing self service tills will simply speed up the development of the next generation technology that makes them redundant. Amazon just opened an experimental store with no tills at all.
http://money.cnn.com/2018/01/26/technology/amazon-go-store/index.html

Leaving aside the personnel issues that Labour are concentrating on, there are significant issues with such automation.

For one thing, they are hardly infallible. Our local store has them (admittedly, it's a Morrisons), and tills are often out-of-order - very annoying when there's a queue. Or if you are buying a bottle of wine, and you have to wait for the one member of staff dealing with eight tills to come and do an age-check. Or worse, if it's alcohol or something else with a security tab that has to be taken away to be removed.

For another, it can make fraud and shoplifting easier.

And another: in our local store, it actually takes longer to purchase things early in the morning (say before 07.30) as they often do not have any non self-service tills open, and that makes things difficult if you are not just buying a pack of sandwiches and crisps.

Going into the personnel issues: AIUI staff are already fairly flexible; they do not always work on tills, and are often stocking shelves, moving baskets, dealing with customers etc at slack times. reducing the amount of staff reduces the amount available to do these tasks.

Some of these are implementation issues; however most are fundamental to such automated systems. This does not mean that they cannot be made to work; just that it is not simple, and often not to the customers' advantage.

(As an aside, a shop assistant in a local co-op told me that the most shoplifted items are alcohol and baby formula, often at the same time. I can only hope that they do not mix them.)

Elliot said:

Jonathan said:

welshowl said:

Jonathan said:

DecrepitJohnL said:

TGOHF said:

Look at these utter crackpots - Mr Palmer must surely be embarrassed by this Ludditery ? Wait until Corbyn sees an amazon warehouse...

https://twitter.com/sunpolitics/status/972366511229886464?s=21

Microsoft founder Bill Gates floated the idea of taxing robots, which is probably where Corbyn heard it.

Indeed, it's not as silly as you think, especially when you consider that humans are taxed for the same job and that warps the market.

You don’t know how silly I think it is. Very very very is the answer. He’d have banned electric trains because it put the firemen out of a job, or the bloke with a red flag walking in front of cars, the list is endless.

It’s crackpottery pure and simple.

Firstly, Corbyn has nothing to do with this, as Charles said it's a motion from a single CLP.
Secondly, some very clever people are talking about this idea wrt AI.

It's more interesting that you think.

We should probably be limiting email use to protect postal workers. And banning JCBs to help hole diggers.

The proposal is not to ban robots but to tax them. It is quite different. We tax sedan chair carrier robots (cars). We tax electricity, which drives robots.

But if we do not tax robots, should we subsidise them instead?

Morris_Dancer said:

Mr. Herdson, other demographics are iffy too. The notion of all-women shortlists (or the mooted all-black shortlists) are discriminatory against one group and patronising towards another. It's why gender quotas for boards are a dumb idea, because then you'd never know which women were there on merit and which because they'd ticked the right demographic box.

I absolutely do not buy the concept that demographic representation is good or bad in and of itself, and it is not something we should aim for. Merit should be the only factor. Politically correct box-ticking leads to idiots like Sayeeda "militant secularists" Warsi getting promoted beyond reason.

If it's done in the wrong way, then yes. But I think you're underplaying the structural barriers to some demographics being represented - and (a timely argument given the women's vote centenary), where a group is not represented, there's a good chance that its interests will not be advanced. The right way to deal with the problem is to aim to remove the barriers and to ensure that the quality candidates not currently coming forward are able to do so.

Jonathan said:

welshowl said:

Jonathan said:

DecrepitJohnL said:

TGOHF said:

Look at these utter crackpots - Mr Palmer must surely be embarrassed by this Ludditery ? Wait until Corbyn sees an amazon warehouse...

https://twitter.com/sunpolitics/status/972366511229886464?s=21

Microsoft founder Bill Gates floated the idea of taxing robots, which is probably where Corbyn heard it.

Indeed, it's not as silly as you think, especially when you consider that humans are taxed for the same job and that warps the market.

You don’t know how silly I think it is. Very very very is the answer. He’d have banned electric trains because it put the firemen out of a job, or the bloke with a red flag walking in front of cars, the list is endless.

It’s crackpottery pure and simple.

Firstly, Corbyn has nothing to do with this, as Charles said it's a motion from a single CLP.
Secondly, some very clever people are talking about this idea wrt AI.

It's more interesting that you think.

What’s most interesting is Labour’s knee jerk reaction is to tax.

Technological shifts and the impact on employment are clearly an issue that needs consideration. Increasing the running cost of (presumably) more productive capital is rarely the right answer

Elliot said:

TGOHF said:

Look at these utter crackpots - Mr Palmer must surely be embarrassed by this Ludditery ? Wait until Corbyn sees an amazon warehouse...

https://twitter.com/sunpolitics/status/972366511229886464?s=21

Has he considered taxing looms to restore work to the weavers? Or cash machines to return employment to bank clerks?

So, let's see now, a CLP puts forward a motion to be discussed at Conference, which may or may not be discussed (but has interesting consequences for other technologies and outcomes), which the leadership can cheerfully ignore, and the Scum tries to infer that is a policy of Corbyn. Hm! Wonder why the natural readership of the paper no longer reads or buys the newspaper, sales of which is in steep decline. Perhaps Murdoch will be taking a look at the editorial line and management of the paper soon to try and get the readers, and advertisers back, or not... .

I don't like this suggestion at all. If I vote for an MP, I expect that MP to attend the Commons and vote.

Sean_F said:

I don't like this suggestion at all. If I vote for an MP, I expect that MP to attend the Commons and vote.

Yep agreed.

TGOHF said:

Look at these utter crackpots - Mr Palmer must surely be embarrassed by this Ludditery ? Wait until Corbyn sees an amazon warehouse...

https://twitter.com/sunpolitics/status/972366511229886464?s=21

What a bunch of losers, what next ATM's carwashes, coffee machines

Sandpit said:

malcolmg said:

TGOHF said:

Look at these utter crackpots - Mr Palmer must surely be embarrassed by this Ludditery ? Wait until Corbyn sees an amazon warehouse...

https://twitter.com/sunpolitics/status/972366511229886464?s=21

What a bunch of losers, what next ATM's carwashes, coffee machines

Don’t give them ideas!

Those Corbyn "ATM"s:

1. Insert card.

2. You are asked in the voice of an adenoidal teenager "How much?"

3. Hand appears out of "machine", proffering the amount required.

Vote winner!

Charles said:

Jonathan said:

welshowl said:

Jonathan said:

DecrepitJohnL said:

TGOHF said:

Look at these utter crackpots - Mr Palmer must surely be embarrassed by this Ludditery ? Wait until Corbyn sees an amazon warehouse...

https://twitter.com/sunpolitics/status/972366511229886464?s=21

Microsoft founder Bill Gates floated the idea of taxing robots, which is probably where Corbyn heard it.

Indeed, it's not as silly as you think, especially when you consider that humans are taxed for the same job and that warps the market.

You don’t know how silly I think it is. Very very very is the answer. He’d have banned electric trains because it put the firemen out of a job, or the bloke with a red flag walking in front of cars, the list is endless.

It’s crackpottery pure and simple.

Firstly, Corbyn has nothing to do with this, as Charles said it's a motion from a single CLP.
Secondly, some very clever people are talking about this idea wrt AI.

It's more interesting that you think.

What’s most interesting is Labour’s knee jerk reaction is to tax.

Technological shifts and the impact on employment are clearly an issue that needs consideration. Increasing the running cost of (presumably) more productive capital is rarely the right answer

It is not just the impact on employment that is the problem, but also on the government's finances. People are taxed: their income is taxed; their spending is taxed; their jobs are taxed. Who will pay for schools and lampposts?

It's kind-of nuts how the British are into doing things by proxy when they could just let the person cast their own vote remotely.

When I used to have a vote (I was disenfranchized by the Labour Party because they suspected people like me might vote Tory) I had a proxy vote because risked taking too long to snail-mail my ballot to me in Japan. So the ballot would go to my brother, who would scan it and email it to me, and I'd make whatever mark on the ballot paper I wanted and email it back, and he'd attempt to reproduce it and return it. This was functionally identical to me sending a scan of the ballot directly back to the returning officer, except for the fallback position if I failed to return it, which would have been a no-vote, as opposed to the paper being returned marked in some way by a small child with a crayon.

I know there are a bunch of potential security issues about voting over a communications channel, but having a proxy still preserves all the same security issues, because you have to communicate the vote over the channel to the proxy, plus you have the extra trust issue with the proxy.

Just let the MPs vote online already.

Rare that I get wound up by posts here... but @Big_G_NorthWales got me going in the overnight thread. Suggesting that the long term interests of the South Wales steelwork are best served by (1) colluding with Trump to dismantle rules based international trade and (2) demonstrating at this critical phase that we will breach our EU Treaty obligations at will... seems to me to be just wrong. Or am I missing something?

Edited for typo.

edmundintokyo said:

It's kind-of nuts how the British are into doing things by proxy when they could just let the person cast their own vote remotely.

When I used to have a vote (I was disenfranchized by the Labour Party because they suspected people like me might vote Tory) I had a proxy vote because risked taking too long to snail-mail my ballot to me in Japan. So the ballot would go to my brother, who would scan it and email it to me, and I'd make whatever mark on the ballot paper I wanted and email it back, and he'd attempt to reproduce it and return it. This was functionally identical to me sending a scan of the ballot directly back to the returning officer, except for the fallback position if I failed to return it, which would have been a no-vote, as opposed to the paper being returned marked in some way by a small child with a crayon.

I know there are a bunch of potential security issues about voting over a communications channel, but having a proxy still preserves all the same security issues, because you have to communicate the vote over the channel to the proxy, plus you have the extra trust issue with the proxy.

Just let the MPs vote online already.

That's a dangerous step to wondering why we need MPs at all....

Rexel56 said:

Rare that I get wound up by posts here... but @Big_G_NorthWales got me going in the overnight thread. Suggesting that the long term interests of the South Wales steelwork are best served by (1) colluding with Trump to dismantle rules based international trade and (2) demonstrating at this critical phase that we will breach our EU Treaty obligations at will... seems to me to be just wrong. Or am I missing something?

Edited for typo.

No, you're not.

Slackbladder said:

The entire concept of how we operate our food shopping is inefficient. We go to the shop, we walk around the shop putting stuff in our trolley, we walk to the checkout, we unpack our trolley, someone scans it all individually, we re=pack it, we put it in the car, we drive home, we unpack it, we put it away......sign.

No wonder self-scan and the like are becoming more common, ;et alone internet shopping and delivery. It's a stupid outdated way of running our lives.

The self-scan is probably temporary situation. Supermarket giants are already trialling technology that allows shoppers to just pick stuff and walk out of the store. RFID tags have been mooted for years, but iirc the individual cost is too high so far. But others are experimenting with video of shoppers in action with sufficient AI to work out what they have taken from shelves.

Slackbladder said:

edmundintokyo said:

It's kind-of nuts how the British are into doing things by proxy when they could just let the person cast their own vote remotely.

When I used to have a vote (I was disenfranchized by the Labour Party because they suspected people like me might vote Tory) I had a proxy vote because risked taking too long to snail-mail my ballot to me in Japan. So the ballot would go to my brother, who would scan it and email it to me, and I'd make whatever mark on the ballot paper I wanted and email it back, and he'd attempt to reproduce it and return it. This was functionally identical to me sending a scan of the ballot directly back to the returning officer, except for the fallback position if I failed to return it, which would have been a no-vote, as opposed to the paper being returned marked in some way by a small child with a crayon.

I know there are a bunch of potential security issues about voting over a communications channel, but having a proxy still preserves all the same security issues, because you have to communicate the vote over the channel to the proxy, plus you have the extra trust issue with the proxy.

Just let the MPs vote online already.

That's a dangerous step to wondering why we need MPs at all....

Well, conventionally the point of the MPs is to consider issues more deeply than the voters would have time to and do something more sensible than we would if we voted directly on everything.

I think there's obviously something in that - as we know, when you poll voters on specific issues they're quite susceptible to how questions are phrased and easily swayed by obvious lies, so there's clearly a strong case for having some indirection.

I quite like the idea of replacing that role with Liquid Democracy where people own their own votes until they delegate them to somebody else, so if you end up with someone representing a lot of people as MPs do it emerges from people's preferences rather than being something the system forces on them. But I think it needs to be proved in practice at other levels before you start experimenting with it for nation states.

DecrepitJohnL said:

Elliot said:

Jonathan said:

welshowl said:

Jonathan said:

DecrepitJohnL said:

TGOHF said:

Look at these utter crackpots - Mr Palmer must surely be embarrassed by this Ludditery ? Wait until Corbyn sees an amazon warehouse...

https://twitter.com/sunpolitics/status/972366511229886464?s=21

Microsoft founder Bill Gates floated the idea of taxing robots, which is probably where Corbyn heard it.

Indeed, it's not as silly as you think, especially when you consider that humans are taxed for the same job and that warps the market.

You don’t know how silly I think it is. Very very very is the answer. He’d have banned electric trains because it put the firemen out of a job, or the bloke with a red flag walking in front of cars, the list is endless.

It’s crackpottery pure and simple.

Firstly, Corbyn has nothing to do with this, as Charles said it's a motion from a single CLP.
Secondly, some very clever people are talking about this idea wrt AI.

It's more interesting that you think.

We should probably be limiting email use to protect postal workers. And banning JCBs to help hole diggers.

The proposal is not to ban robots but to tax them. It is quite different. We tax sedan chair carrier robots (cars). We tax electricity, which drives robots.

But if we do not tax robots, should we subsidise them instead?

At the moment with just 4% unemployment there is no need for it, longer term if unemployment starts to rise because of AI and robots and machines and work becomes sporadic and low paid and short term contract based for most bar the most creative and tech savvy a robot tax to fund a universal basic income becomes inevitable

Rexel56 said:

Rare that I get wound up by posts here... but @Big_G_NorthWales got me going in the overnight thread. Suggesting that the long term interests of the South Wales steelwork are best served by (1) colluding with Trump to dismantle rules based international trade and (2) demonstrating at this critical phase that we will breach our EU Treaty obligations at will... seems to me to be just wrong. Or am I missing something?

Edited for typo.

I think several people got hold of the very wrong end of the stick last night.

Nigelb said:

Regarding the Damian Hinds story which was supposed to have disappeared, but hasn't, just what does he mean by 'red tape' in this context ?
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/education-43345857

I think “red tape” is being used as shorthand for administration which doesn’t improve teaching and learning. Having a child who qualified as a Physics teacher last year, I can underline the impact of administration on workload, especially during the training and “newly qualified teacher” years when lesson planning has to be done in tremendous detail using elaborate forms that are never used again once qualified.

At the heart of the problem is the OFSTED based accountability regime which makes school managements paranoid about being caught out with inadequate quality control processes. As a result, too many schools have burdensome target setting, monitoring and reporting systems but with non-existetent analytical skills with which to drive meaningful improvement.

Plenty of work has been done in this area, both by The DfE (Teachers Workload Challenge) and the Headteachers’ Roundtable:

https://headteachersroundtable.wordpress.com/alternative-green-paper-2016/

It just needs OFSTED to issue a very simple inspection guideline to the effect that any school found not to be implementing effectively a workload reduction programme will be rated as “needs improvement”.

Nigelb said:

Regarding the Damian Hinds story which was supposed to have disappeared, but hasn't, just what does he mean by 'red tape' in this context ?
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/education-43345857

I'm married to a teacher (HoF: English). They appear to be measured not only on outcomes (which is what I've been used to, both in the public and private sector) but on process compliance. It ain't just what you do, it's the way that you do it.

The result is system gaming of epic proportions, and I say that having 22 years of sales experience .

Let's replace MPs with robots controlled by their constituents.

As each vote takes place the robot electronically seeks constituents views and votes accordingly. True democracy enabled by technology. Vorsprung Durch Technik. Government by the people, for the people.

F1: post-testing thoughts on 2018:
http://enormo-haddock.blogspot.co.uk/2018/03/after-testing-thoughts-for-2018-season.html

ydoethur said:

Rexel56 said:

Nigelb said:

Regarding the Damian Hinds story which was supposed to have disappeared, but hasn't, just what does he mean by 'red tape' in this context ?
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/education-43345857

I think “red tape” is being used as shorthand for administration which doesn’t improve teaching and learning. Having a child who qualified as a Physics teacher last year, I can underline the impact of administration on workload, especially during the training and “newly qualified teacher” years when lesson planning has to be done in tremendous detail using elaborate forms that are never used again once qualified.

At the heart of the problem is the OFSTED based accountability regime which makes school managements paranoid about being caught out with inadequate quality control processes. As a result, too many schools have burdensome target setting, monitoring and reporting systems but with non-existetent analytical skills with which to drive meaningful improvement.

Plenty of work has been done in this area, both by The DfE (Teachers Workload Challenge) and the Headteachers’ Roundtable:

https://headteachersroundtable.wordpress.com/alternative-green-paper-2016/

It just needs OFSTED to issue a very simple inspection guideline to the effect that any school found not to be implementing effectively a workload reduction programme will be rated as “needs improvement”.

Or, in an easier, neater and cheaper solution, abolish OFSTED which has long ceased to be a help in raising standards - if it ever was - and is rapidly becoming a significant barrier to good teaching simply by the vats and unnecessary workload it imposes.

The problem with your suggestion on OFSTED issuing new guidelines is that it doesn't follow its own guidelines. For example it said it didn't need to see lesson plans - and then criticised any teacher who failed to produce them.

(Lest this sounds like sour grapes, I should point out I was inspected last year and was rated Outstanding for every one of the three mentions I had in the report.)

Well, yes. Perhaps one is being naive expecting OFSTED to follow its guidelines. As a Governor, I get tired listening to the so called SLT quoting yet another OFSTED report as justifying yet another addition to teachers’ workload “just in case they look for the same thing here.”

And I agree that replacing OFSTED with a system whereby best practices are spread under the auspices of a teachers’ professional body is an interesting idea (as suggested in the Headteachers’ Roundtable paper).

Mr. Sandpit, agree with that and would add that Mercedes have some doubts over how well they'll do on the softer compounds, which, of course, are more in use at street circuits. Australia won't be a full-blown outlier like Monaco/Singapore, but it may well suit Mercedes' rivals. It's also the sort of track where McLaren have to do well if they're going to achieve anything this year.

What is the point of MPs having a debate? Seriously. How often do you see a Labour MP vote against the party after hearing a good argument from the other side. Or a Conservative MP do likewise?

It's all window dressing for the voters. And how often do you hear of voters actually listening intently and saying "I'm convinced, I'm going to tear up my Socialist Worker card and vote for this Rees-Mogg fella."

It's a variety show. An audition for the top job. Mrs May never shone in any debate I've ever heard, so it shows how important parliamentary debates are. Michael Foot was a good debater, but it meant little - his scruffy clothes were more telling.

Morris_Dancer said:

Mr. Sandpit, agree with that and would add that Mercedes have some doubts over how well they'll do on the softer compounds, which, of course, are more in use at street circuits. Australia won't be a full-blown outlier like Monaco/Singapore, but it may well suit Mercedes' rivals. It's also the sort of track where McLaren have to do well if they're going to achieve anything this year.

Yes, McLaren seem to have had a few teething problems with the integration of the new Renault PU, but hopefully they’ve worked through them now. Australia is somewhere they’ve traditionally done quite well. Note that the Mercedes wheelbase is slightly shorter this year, and Ferrari slightly longer, so Monaco and Singapore might not be the massive outliers they were in the past - although of course Lewis came in at 22/1 to win in Singapore last year

If the Mercs win comfortably in Australia, then it’s going to be 2014 all over again this year.