Pulpstar said:

ydoethur said:

kinabalu said:

ydoethur said:

DecrepiterJohnL said:

kinabalu said:

ydoethur said:

kinabalu said:

ydoethur said:

Stocky said:

ydoethur said:

Stocky said:

Philip_Thompson said:

Pulpstar said:

One thing that changes outside of a block like the EU is the raw size of your economy in relation to global leverage.
Inside it doesn't matter so much, a small nation like Slovenia or Ireland has the same relationship with China that Germany or France does. Outside, well an economy of a hundred million people has (ceteris paribus) more clout than that of 50 million.
One of the reasons I voted to remain in.

I disagree.

Your logic only works if the the larger bloc is united and focused with a common purpose. If it's not then the smaller and more focused nation will have more power on its own.

This is true in any walk of life. A broom handle is much bigger than a dagger, but while I'd rather not be attacked with either if I am I'd rather be hit with the broom than stabbed with the dagger.

Focus matters more than brute size.

A car is bigger than a broom but I`d rather be hit by a broom.

We could go on like this for ages.

Are you giving him the brush-off?

Oh jeez, look what I`ve done.

I can’t just watch Gloucestershire all afternoon having spent all morning working.

I must have some interest in life.

Although I hope to have the chance to play with my organ a bit later.

I thought your particular pleasure was the horn?

The horn is on my organ.

Full swell is an 8 foot golden horn.

Exactly as I thought.

A thought on the exam grades - they will forever be tainted due to being estimated rather than sat and so imo it is not a terrible thing if those estimates are on the generous side.

Exam grades won't "forever be tainted". Once university places are confirmed, A-levels (and Scottish Highers) will be forgotten, as they are every year.

I’ve had to fill in A-levels on every job application I’ve ever done, including lecturing posts.

I think they are deemed a better measure of academic intelligence than degree grade. Depending on subject and circumstances obviously.

I would have said A-levels are harder than degrees, having taught both and studied both.

Not with maths.

Carnyx said:

ydoethur said:

tlg86 said:

eek said:

tlg86 said:

eek said:

BannedinnParis said:

CarlottaVance said:

Swinney withdraws all downgraded awards. All to be based on teacher assessments. Quite the climb down. Also increased grades left in place.

PRIZES FOR ALL

(dear lord that's a catastrophic call ... )

Yep - and it's going to cause problems if England doesn't do the same...

For university admissions? They already do different exams, so it might just come down to the universities themselves applying a model of their own.

You missed the bit earlier today where Universities have been told to keep places open for inevitable appeals.

Was that all UK universities or just Scottish ones?

Either way, it is going to be carnage.

This is going to be a motorway pileup that undermined a mainline bridge, causing four trains to plummet to destruction on the wreckage, before a Boeing 747 crashed on the confusion, topped off by a series of nuclear tipped tomahawk missiles.

It is going to be awful beyond belief.

But if the U turn has happened there seems to be less need for appeals anyway? Or am I missing something?

DavidL said:

Theuniondivvie said:

DavidL said:

CarlottaVance said:

Swinney withdraws all downgraded awards. All to be based on teacher assessments. Quite the climb down. Also increased grades left in place.

Pass rates will now increase by up to 15%, devaluing every award for every child with frankly ridiculous grade inflation. This was justified on the basis that the cohort of 2020 had suffered in their education. So the logic is that you compensate people for getting less education by giving them higher marks!

It is an absolute disgrace.

As a matter of interest what was your solution to this year's exam situation? If I missed it amongst all the sound and the fury, apologies.

The point of an external exam system is to have some form of external, objective assessment. That is what the exams usually achieve. What was required for each student was their prelim plus, say, a maximum of 2 pieces of course work that someone could look at externally and assess. Had they done that then the marking would have focused on the child, not on the system.

By using the algorithm, and now by using the unmediated teacher assessments, there is no external assessment at all. The exam results are therefore as credible as the HNC and HND "results" now handed out by colleges.

ydoethur said:

kinabalu said:

ydoethur said:

DecrepiterJohnL said:

kinabalu said:

ydoethur said:

kinabalu said:

ydoethur said:

Stocky said:

ydoethur said:

Stocky said:

Philip_Thompson said:

Pulpstar said:

One thing that changes outside of a block like the EU is the raw size of your economy in relation to global leverage.
Inside it doesn't matter so much, a small nation like Slovenia or Ireland has the same relationship with China that Germany or France does. Outside, well an economy of a hundred million people has (ceteris paribus) more clout than that of 50 million.
One of the reasons I voted to remain in.

I disagree.

Your logic only works if the the larger bloc is united and focused with a common purpose. If it's not then the smaller and more focused nation will have more power on its own.

This is true in any walk of life. A broom handle is much bigger than a dagger, but while I'd rather not be attacked with either if I am I'd rather be hit with the broom than stabbed with the dagger.

Focus matters more than brute size.

A car is bigger than a broom but I`d rather be hit by a broom.

We could go on like this for ages.

Are you giving him the brush-off?

Oh jeez, look what I`ve done.

I can’t just watch Gloucestershire all afternoon having spent all morning working.

I must have some interest in life.

Although I hope to have the chance to play with my organ a bit later.

I thought your particular pleasure was the horn?

The horn is on my organ.

Full swell is an 8 foot golden horn.

Exactly as I thought.

A thought on the exam grades - they will forever be tainted due to being estimated rather than sat and so imo it is not a terrible thing if those estimates are on the generous side.

Exam grades won't "forever be tainted". Once university places are confirmed, A-levels (and Scottish Highers) will be forgotten, as they are every year.

I’ve had to fill in A-levels on every job application I’ve ever done, including lecturing posts.

I think they are deemed a better measure of academic intelligence than degree grade. Depending on subject and circumstances obviously.

I would have said A-levels are harder than degrees, having taught both and studied both.

Gallowgate said:

I did my A Levels in 2010 and my mechanical engineering degree was much harder.

No_Offence_Alan said:

ukpaul said:

Malmesbury said:

TOPPING said:

tlg86 said:

SirNorfolkPassmore said:

contrarian said:

CorrectHorseBattery said:

contrarian said:

The Migrants from France live in a country of peace, freedom and relative prosperity.

Migrants from Hong Kong don't. They are under a yoke of oppression that gets heavier by the day and we are partly responsible because they were once our colony.

Our duty to them far outweighs our duty to those who love in peace and freedom in France.

We should do all we can to help both groups.

I don't think we have any obligation to people who live in foreign countries that are peaceful, free and prosperous. None whatsoever.

I've not got a huge problem with the principle that the country of first safe arrival should process the asylum application.

But I would say that coming from Britain due to the advantageous geography. Were I from Turkey, I'd have a massive problem with it as, I am sure, would you. And indeed Turkey gets many, many times the applications we do.

However, the false claim is that the asylum seeker himself is acting unlawfully by putting in an application in a country other than the one in which he first sets foot. That's simply a lie put about by people who should know better.

What is required is more effective agreements between states, which presumably would come at a cost to geographically advantaged countries like the UK, Ireland, and Denmark, as there is little incentive for countries on the Med in playing ball with the UK dumping people back wherever they reckon they might have passed through.

Imagine a world where asylum seekers are pooled and redistributed irrespective of where they made the claim. You’d be fucked off royally to end up in Iceland!

But I do agree with your general point. It’s why I fully support the 0.7% foreign aid budget, even if I might not always agree with how it is spent.

Iceland is one step up from St. Helena, which was the proposal (later said to be a joke but for all the world reading like it was deadly serious) from one contributor here.

Iceland is very far from being St Helena. It's a small country but very economically developed etc.

The proposal to pool refugees and take them from camps near the conflict zones is a good one. A pity that it was not done.

The people crossing the channel are mostly economic migrants. "Mostly" because such things are not black and white (ha). Many are leaving a fucked up country, where they could stay....

Iceland is a jackpot for anyone seeking a new country. For one thing, they have enough geothermal energy to keep heating costs low and enough left over to heat the pavements in downtown Reykjavik! Lots of lovely space if you want it, stunning scenery, decent entertainment options and you can easily get by with speaking English.

But the food? I have never seen an Icelandic restaurant.