Scottish case details are out, with some surprises. Among the worst affected now are Dumfries&Galloway and the Borders with case rates in the 400s and 500s. They had dropped to level 1 a couple weeks before Christmas ...
I disagree with you on Dodds. She is intellectually brilliant. I agree that isn`t everything but it`s a start. Raynor doesn`t even get past the starting pistol in my view.
Dodds would certainly be far more capable of doing the job of PM than Rayner is, as would Thomas Symonds or virtually any other Labour frontbencher
Both Dodds and Thomas Symonds are held in the highest regard by Starmer I heard. Either possible successors.
I heard that Thomas-Symonds was/is a highly regarded barrister.
Angela Rayner is a success story the Labour Party should make more of. Left school at 16 with no GCSEs and a baby, became a carer then into the Labour Party via the union route. She talks northern, understands what its like to have nothing but responsibilities and no money. She could cut through to the ex-red wall.
But too many in the party hate her for saying Tony Blair changed her life.
Fair enough but you can walk down any housing estate in the country and find someone who left school at 16 with no GCSEs and had a baby, you can use them in an election broadcast, you do not need to make them your candidate to be PM!
How many do you find in the House of Commons, though ?
And if we're being disparaging, there are plenty of slavish Tory loyalists on the backbenches already...
Though given their average IQ, not quite so many intellectual snobs.
Being of limited ability doesn´t stop them from being snobs though, does it?
Rayner is very bright and quick, no question. She also conveys genuine warmth, which is a rare quality and invaluable among politicians.
Re; a post on Brexit below, the Tory lead will continue for now ; but only if there aren't too many days with these kinds of stories in the media, or if they fade after February/March.
"A growing number of retailers in the EU have decided they won’t deliver to Britain because of the new costs involved in sending packages after Brexit. Companies have said they are unwilling to register for VAT in the UK, with one Dutch firm calling the red tape “ludicrous”.
It comes as problems emerged with the first lorries to cross from Great Britain into Northern Ireland. Some food shipments did not have the correct paperwork, with waits of 10 hours at new border posts. Disruption means Sainsbury’s has reportedly lost around 700 product lines in NI – and the giant has been forced to stock goods from Spar."
Spar NI not having the same problems as Spar ROI dominates operations on the island...
This could be a very early intimation of economic and possibly political processes to come on the island of Ireland.
I can tell you for a fact that @HYUFD's obsession with qualifications and dismissal of life experience would go down like a bucket of cold sick on the doorsteps in the red wall.
Most voters the Tories won over in the RedWall would at least have had GCSEs or O Levels unlike Rayner
Like I said, your attitude would go down like a bucket of cold sick.
No it wouldn't, it may do with class warfare obsessed Corbyn voters there filled with inverse snobbery but they would never vote Tory anyway
It really would. "Vote for me, I'm considerably cleverer than you and look at these certificates if you don't believe me" just isn't a good look among ANY part of the electorate.
That's not to say a keen intellect isn't an asset. But the way you've expressed it on this thread - implying that an Oxbridge degree is proof of that, and that folk without formal qualifications can't be sharp as a tack - is both wrong in fact and politically poisonous as a message.
I did not say an Oxbridge degree was a prerequisite, I had no problem with Callaghan or Major being PM but they at least had some qualifications, Rayner left school with none at all
Please keep alienating vast swathes of your own voters. Thank you.
The vast majority of Tory voters have more GCSEs than Rayner has
Demonstrably false, since the majority of Tory voters are over retirement age, and I will leave you to look up the date when GCSEs were introduced.
I can tell you for a fact that @HYUFD's obsession with qualifications and dismissal of life experience would go down like a bucket of cold sick on the doorsteps in the red wall.
Most voters the Tories won over in the RedWall would at least have had GCSEs or O Levels unlike Rayner
Like I said, your attitude would go down like a bucket of cold sick.
No it wouldn't, it may do with class warfare obsessed Corbyn voters there filled with inverse snobbery but they would never vote Tory anyway
It really would. "Vote for me, I'm considerably cleverer than you and look at these certificates if you don't believe me" just isn't a good look among ANY part of the electorate.
That's not to say a keen intellect isn't an asset. But the way you've expressed it on this thread - implying that an Oxbridge degree is proof of that, and that folk without formal qualifications can't be sharp as a tack - is both wrong in fact and politically poisonous as a message.
I did not say an Oxbridge degree was a prerequisite, I had no problem with Callaghan or Major being PM but they at least had some qualifications, Rayner left school with none at all
Please keep alienating vast swathes of your own voters. Thank you.
The vast majority of Tory voters have more GCSEs than Rayner has
Demonstrably false, since the majority of Tory voters are over retirement age, and I will leave you to look up the date when GCSEs were introduced.
Or O Level equivalent and your point is also wrong, the age at which you were more likely to vote Tory than Labour was 39 in 2019
But like Boris Johnson she's read PPE at Oxford, so she must be very intelligent as per the Boris fanbois.
She even obtained a first, so she's much more intelligent Boris Johnson, amIright?
Boris did not read PPE, as mentioned earlier he read literae humaniores
But it is an Oxford degree, I mean I thought about reading Greats at Oxford but I said no because I wanted to do a hard degree with a career pathway at the end of it.
Greats is a hard degree even if it most likely leads to academia unless you subsequently qualify in something else or as with Boris make writing your living as a journalist
It is but competition is Public schoolboys only? V. few state schools teach Ancient Greek.
Compare with Natural Sciences at Cambridge. Phalanxes of pimply, bespectacled youths from the old grammar schools/academies/frees and better comps. All with four As. At least.
I can tell you for a fact that @HYUFD's obsession with qualifications and dismissal of life experience would go down like a bucket of cold sick on the doorsteps in the red wall.
Most voters the Tories won over in the RedWall would at least have had GCSEs or O Levels unlike Rayner
Like I said, your attitude would go down like a bucket of cold sick.
No it wouldn't, it may do with class warfare obsessed Corbyn voters there filled with inverse snobbery but they would never vote Tory anyway
It really would. "Vote for me, I'm considerably cleverer than you and look at these certificates if you don't believe me" just isn't a good look among ANY part of the electorate.
That's not to say a keen intellect isn't an asset. But the way you've expressed it on this thread - implying that an Oxbridge degree is proof of that, and that folk without formal qualifications can't be sharp as a tack - is both wrong in fact and politically poisonous as a message.
I did not say an Oxbridge degree was a prerequisite, I had no problem with Callaghan or Major being PM but they at least had some qualifications, Rayner left school with none at all
Please keep alienating vast swathes of your own voters. Thank you.
The vast majority of Tory voters have more GCSEs than Rayner has
How many is a vast majority? 90%?
At least and they would all be more qualified to be PM than Rayner
I can tell you for a fact that @HYUFD's obsession with qualifications and dismissal of life experience would go down like a bucket of cold sick on the doorsteps in the red wall.
Most voters the Tories won over in the RedWall would at least have had GCSEs or O Levels unlike Rayner
Like I said, your attitude would go down like a bucket of cold sick.
No it wouldn't, it may do with class warfare obsessed Corbyn voters there filled with inverse snobbery but they would never vote Tory anyway
It really would. "Vote for me, I'm considerably cleverer than you and look at these certificates if you don't believe me" just isn't a good look among ANY part of the electorate.
That's not to say a keen intellect isn't an asset. But the way you've expressed it on this thread - implying that an Oxbridge degree is proof of that, and that folk without formal qualifications can't be sharp as a tack - is both wrong in fact and politically poisonous as a message.
I did not say an Oxbridge degree was a prerequisite, I had no problem with Callaghan or Major being PM but they at least had some qualifications, Rayner left school with none at all
Please keep alienating vast swathes of your own voters. Thank you.
The vast majority of Tory voters have more GCSEs than Rayner has
Demonstrably false, since the majority of Tory voters are over retirement age, and I will leave you to look up the date when GCSEs were introduced.
He said 90% at least have more GCSEs than Ms Rayner.
I leave it to the mathematicians and philosophers, as my maths and mechanics A level is only Grade A, but certainly on the number line from say minus 1 to plus 20, you would place Ms Rayner at exactly the same point as the vast majority of Tory voters, i.e. the one with the round circle above it.
I've run the numbers on Georgia. I took the six counties with the largest vote margin for each candidate (using NYTimes): - Fulton, DeKalb and Richmond for the Dems - Forsyth, Hall and Cherokee for the Republicans
I then used electproject.github.io and looked at early voting turnout in 2020 and in 2021, to see where the biggest changes were.
Here you go:
Result 2020 2000 2001 Change Fulton D +46 57.9 42.4 -27% DeKalb D +67 60.8 46.6 -23% Forsyth R +33 73.2 47.9 -35% Hall R +43 61.3 37.6 -39% Richmond D +37 51.6 33.9 -34% Cherokee R +39 61.9 37.2 -40%
Averaging it out, early voting turnout in Democrat areas fell 28% relative to November, and 38% in Republican areas. (And the most Democratic the county is, the smaller early voting turnout seems to be down.)
I think that makes the Democrats favourites to win both Senate seats.
oh there you are - re the 40,000 deaths a day. You were asking "who's the Cult".
But like Boris Johnson she's read PPE at Oxford, so she must be very intelligent as per the Boris fanbois.
She even obtained a first, so she's much more intelligent Boris Johnson, amIright?
Boris did not read PPE, as mentioned earlier he read literae humaniores
But it is an Oxford degree, I mean I thought about reading Greats at Oxford but I said no because I wanted to do a hard degree with a career pathway at the end of it.
Greats is a hard degree even if it most likely leads to academia unless you subsequently qualify in something else or as with Boris make writing your living as a journalist
It is but competition is Public schoolboys only? V. few state schools teach Ancient Greek.
Compare with Natural Sciences at Cambridge. Phalanxes of pimply, bespectacled youths from the old grammar schools/academies/frees and better comps. All with four As. At least.
Let's be fair. Schoolgirls also. A very good friend of mine was a Somerville classicist, both intelligent and - I stress however - hard-working. IIRC she and her chums acted in a performance of Aristophanes' Frogs in the original Greek.
I can tell you for a fact that @HYUFD's obsession with qualifications and dismissal of life experience would go down like a bucket of cold sick on the doorsteps in the red wall.
Most voters the Tories won over in the RedWall would at least have had GCSEs or O Levels unlike Rayner
Like I said, your attitude would go down like a bucket of cold sick.
No it wouldn't, it may do with class warfare obsessed Corbyn voters there filled with inverse snobbery but they would never vote Tory anyway
It really would. "Vote for me, I'm considerably cleverer than you and look at these certificates if you don't believe me" just isn't a good look among ANY part of the electorate.
That's not to say a keen intellect isn't an asset. But the way you've expressed it on this thread - implying that an Oxbridge degree is proof of that, and that folk without formal qualifications can't be sharp as a tack - is both wrong in fact and politically poisonous as a message.
I did not say an Oxbridge degree was a prerequisite, I had no problem with Callaghan or Major being PM but they at least had some qualifications, Rayner left school with none at all
Please keep alienating vast swathes of your own voters. Thank you.
The vast majority of Tory voters have more GCSEs than Rayner has
Demonstrably false, since the majority of Tory voters are over retirement age, and I will leave you to look up the date when GCSEs were introduced.
Or O Level equivalent and your point is also wrong, the age at which you were more likely to vote Tory than Labour was 39 in 2019
But you aqre claiming that 90% of Tory voters have GCSEs?!
IMO there are three things that determine current polling.
1) We are are still in the middle of a crisis, the govt gets the benefit of the doubt and 'rallying round' support. When the crisis ends, the reckoning will begin and questions will be asked about what comes next. Until then politics is suspended.
2) Labour were a loooooong way back in 2019 and the party is still dealing with the aftermath. There is a lot of ground to recover both internally and externally.
3) We are three years from a general election, after two recent elections and a chaotic period there is not yet a huge appetite from change.
I wish you were right. I fear it's more simple than that. I'd say there are two reasons for the current polling
1. 55% of the country feel sour about Brexit. Labour have now totally capitulated. Is there a single ex Labour voter who will be impressed by Starmer's damascene conversion? The man who fought this scourge for four years now appears to be it's most wholehearted supporter. If it's worth doing now why wasn't it when Mrs May suggested it? We could have avoided Johnson.
2. An invisible shadow cabinet. A shadow chancellor who has been given the chance of a lifetime is completely out of her depth and invisible. It all feeds in to the idea that Starmer lacks judgement.
He's got time but he needs advice badly. He could do a lot worse than getting Tony back on board or at least the brighter Milliband.
I'm agree with some of this, but I think it's Ed Miliband who's in fact marginally the brighter Miliband. He demolished Johnson in the Commons a couple of months ago, in the kind of Commons performance his brother didn't put on. His brother is also very bright for a politician and an excellent organiser and motivator, but Ed is probably the more innovative policymaker.
I mentioned David because the only Labour figures I can remember making an impression in the last year have been Blair T and Milliband D. I have a lot of time for Ed's backroom abilities but the public aren't aware of them or him. Labour has become a one man band and a pretty unimpressive one of late. I don't think Starmer gets it. He can be wrong but he has to impress.
For me, Labour must stop pulling punches. The Tories were ruthless in pinning the consequences of the Global Financial Crisis on the presiding Labour government. There is no reason not to return the favour now. The virus is not of this government's making but many aspects of their response have been a disgrace. The latest debacle - schools - yet again showcases the astonishing level of incompetence and lack of consideration. It's an unforgivable carry on. Impossible to defend. Trouble is, they are not really having to. Not from Labour anyway.
If Labour had called for schools not to reopen, and for the government to plan for this inevitability rather than leave it until they had already gone back for a day, they would be in a position to make hay. But they didn't, so they're not. I hope when the next shambles comes - as it surely will - this mistake is not repeated. Forget "national consensus" and "softly softly" we need a New Labour ready and willing to stick it to these bozos whenever the many chances arise.
Time to sharpen up the politics with some new and brutal talking points. Covid shambles = TORY shambles. Johnson can't hack it and he doesn't give a tinker's. Thousands of deaths in this country directly attributable to the mishandling of this crisis. The culprits mustn't get away with it. If we tolerate this god knows what will be next. Blood on their hands. Blood on HIS hands. C'mon. It's the truth so let's not be squeamish about saying it.
The difference is that Brown screwing up and over-spending before the financial crisis hit meaning that there was still a mammoth structural deficit to be fixed a couple of years after the crisis had finished was absolutely accurate and truthful.
Labourites like you want to pretend the deficit was all the recession's fault while ignoring the fact we weren't in recession when Brown caused his pre-recession deficit - nor were we in recession when the 2010 election happened.
The Tories are simply right now just dealing with a global pandemic during the pandemic not years after it right now.
The Tories were supportive of Labour spending right up until it went pop and were for lower taxes. They were happy with a bigger deficit than the one subsequently rebranded as the root of all evil. But they made it stick. This is the point. Labour must take a leaf.
In doing so they have one advantage and one disadvantage here with this crisis c.f. the global crash.
The disadvantage is it's easier for the public to relate to a new virus than a malfunction in the wholesale financial markets. This makes it almost impossible to blame the government for the originating event and have it believed.
The advantage is that whilst the Labour government reacted well to the crash, the government's response to this crisis has been palpably poor in many areas - and this can be objectively demonstrated.
Another tightening of restrictions in Valencia Bars and restaurants to close at 5pm, No more than four to a table No more than 6 in family groups inside or out Traveling outside community extended to 31/1 Plus a few more, ICU occupation with covid is at 30% so action being taken in good time similar restrictions in other Communities.
But like Boris Johnson she's read PPE at Oxford, so she must be very intelligent as per the Boris fanbois.
She even obtained a first, so she's much more intelligent Boris Johnson, amIright?
Boris did not read PPE, as mentioned earlier he read literae humaniores
But it is an Oxford degree, I mean I thought about reading Greats at Oxford but I said no because I wanted to do a hard degree with a career pathway at the end of it.
Greats is a hard degree even if it most likely leads to academia unless you subsequently qualify in something else or as with Boris make writing your living as a journalist
It is but competition is Public schoolboys only? V. few state schools teach Ancient Greek.
Compare with Natural Sciences at Cambridge. Phalanxes of pimply, bespectacled youths from the old grammar schools/academies/frees and better comps. All with four As. At least.
Let's be fair. Schoolgirls also. A very good friend of mine was a Somerville classicist, both intelligent and - I stress however - hard-working. IIRC she and her chums acted in a performance of Aristophanes' Frogs in the original Greek.
Fair enough. V little ancient Greek in state schools when I was a lad, some Latin though.
I can tell you for a fact that @HYUFD's obsession with qualifications and dismissal of life experience would go down like a bucket of cold sick on the doorsteps in the red wall.
Most voters the Tories won over in the RedWall would at least have had GCSEs or O Levels unlike Rayner
Like I said, your attitude would go down like a bucket of cold sick.
No it wouldn't, it may do with class warfare obsessed Corbyn voters there filled with inverse snobbery but they would never vote Tory anyway
It really would. "Vote for me, I'm considerably cleverer than you and look at these certificates if you don't believe me" just isn't a good look among ANY part of the electorate.
That's not to say a keen intellect isn't an asset. But the way you've expressed it on this thread - implying that an Oxbridge degree is proof of that, and that folk without formal qualifications can't be sharp as a tack - is both wrong in fact and politically poisonous as a message.
I did not say an Oxbridge degree was a prerequisite, I had no problem with Callaghan or Major being PM but they at least had some qualifications, Rayner left school with none at all
Please keep alienating vast swathes of your own voters. Thank you.
The vast majority of Tory voters have more GCSEs than Rayner has
Demonstrably false, since the majority of Tory voters are over retirement age, and I will leave you to look up the date when GCSEs were introduced.
Or O Level equivalent and your point is also wrong, the age at which you were more likely to vote Tory than Labour was 39 in 2019
But you aqre claiming that 90% of Tory voters have GCSEs?!
HYUFD is like the Pope and never wrong, he's infallible.
They have do have some differences though one believes in a deity than can do no wrong, whilst the other is the Pope.
IMO there are three things that determine current polling.
1) We are are still in the middle of a crisis, the govt gets the benefit of the doubt and 'rallying round' support. When the crisis ends, the reckoning will begin and questions will be asked about what comes next. Until then politics is suspended.
2) Labour were a loooooong way back in 2019 and the party is still dealing with the aftermath. There is a lot of ground to recover both internally and externally.
3) We are three years from a general election, after two recent elections and a chaotic period there is not yet a huge appetite from change.
I wish you were right. I fear it's more simple than that. I'd say there are two reasons for the current polling
1. 55% of the country feel sour about Brexit. Labour have now totally capitulated. Is there a single ex Labour voter who will be impressed by Starmer's damascene conversion? The man who fought this scourge for four years now appears to be it's most wholehearted supporter. If it's worth doing now why wasn't it when Mrs May suggested it? We could have avoided Johnson.
2. An invisible shadow cabinet. A shadow chancellor who has been given the chance of a lifetime is completely out of her depth and invisible. It all feeds in to the idea that Starmer lacks judgement.
He's got time but he needs advice badly. He could do a lot worse than getting Tony back on board or at least the brighter Milliband.
I'm agree with some of this, but I think it's Ed Miliband who's in fact marginally the brighter Miliband. He demolished Johnson in the Commons a couple of months ago, in the kind of Commons performance his brother didn't put on. His brother is also very bright for a politician and an excellent organiser and motivator, but Ed is probably the more innovative policymaker.
I mentioned David because the only Labour figures I can remember making an impression in the last year have been Blair T and Milliband D. I have a lot of time for Ed's backroom abilities but the public aren't aware of them or him. Labour has become a one man band and a pretty unimpressive one of late. I don't think Starmer gets it. He can be wrong but he has to impress.
For me, Labour must stop pulling punches. The Tories were ruthless in pinning the consequences of the Global Financial Crisis on the presiding Labour government. There is no reason not to return the favour now. The virus is not of this government's making but many aspects of their response have been a disgrace. The latest debacle - schools - yet again showcases the astonishing level of incompetence and lack of consideration. It's an unforgivable carry on. Impossible to defend. Trouble is, they are not really having to. Not from Labour anyway.
If Labour had called for schools not to reopen, and for the government to plan for this inevitability rather than leave it until they had already gone back for a day, they would be in a position to make hay. But they didn't, so they're not. I hope when the next shambles comes - as it surely will - this mistake is not repeated. Forget "national consensus" and "softly softly" we need a New Labour ready and willing to stick it to these bozos whenever the many chances arise.
Time to sharpen up the politics with some new and brutal talking points. Covid shambles = TORY shambles. Johnson can't hack it and he doesn't give a tinker's. Thousands of deaths in this country directly attributable to the mishandling of this crisis. The culprits mustn't get away with it. If we tolerate this god knows what will be next. Blood on their hands. Blood on HIS hands. C'mon. It's the truth so let's not be squeamish about saying it.
The difference is that Brown screwing up and over-spending before the financial crisis hit meaning that there was still a mammoth structural deficit to be fixed a couple of years after the crisis had finished was absolutely accurate and truthful.
Labourites like you want to pretend the deficit was all the recession's fault while ignoring the fact we weren't in recession when Brown caused his pre-recession deficit - nor were we in recession when the 2010 election happened.
The Tories are simply right now just dealing with a global pandemic during the pandemic not years after it right now.
The Tories were supportive of Labour spending right up until it went pop and were for lower taxes. They were happy with a bigger deficit than the one subsequently rebranded as the root of all evil. But they made it stick. This is the point. Labour must take a leaf.
In doing so they have one advantage and one disadvantage here with this crisis c.f. the global crash.
The disadvantage is it's easier for the public to relate to a new virus than a malfunction in the wholesale financial markets. This makes it almost impossible to blame the government for the originating event and have it believed.
The advantage is that whilst the Labour government reacted well to the crash, the government's response to this crisis has been palpably poor in many areas - and this can be objectively demonstrated.
Lab was spending far too much in the run up to the GFC. It was the era of self-certifying mortgages and @kinabalu -type City bonuses where fiscal receipts were through the roof.
That was the problem. As most grown up Lab supporters who study these things appreciate.
I also get that given your stated Lab position you would be unable to admit this in a public forum but we both know you appreciate it also.
Scottish case details are out, with some surprises. Among the worst affected now are Dumfries&Galloway and the Borders with case rates in the 400s and 500s. They had dropped to level 1 a couple weeks before Christmas ...
But like Boris Johnson she's read PPE at Oxford, so she must be very intelligent as per the Boris fanbois.
She even obtained a first, so she's much more intelligent Boris Johnson, amIright?
Boris did not read PPE, as mentioned earlier he read literae humaniores
But it is an Oxford degree, I mean I thought about reading Greats at Oxford but I said no because I wanted to do a hard degree with a career pathway at the end of it.
Greats is a hard degree even if it most likely leads to academia unless you subsequently qualify in something else or as with Boris make writing your living as a journalist
It is but competition is Public schoolboys only? V. few state schools teach Ancient Greek.
Compare with Natural Sciences at Cambridge. Phalanxes of pimply, bespectacled youths from the old grammar schools/academies/frees and better comps. All with four As. At least.
Classics is well known to be an easy route into Oxbridge for public school duffers.
IMO there are three things that determine current polling.
1) We are are still in the middle of a crisis, the govt gets the benefit of the doubt and 'rallying round' support. When the crisis ends, the reckoning will begin and questions will be asked about what comes next. Until then politics is suspended.
2) Labour were a loooooong way back in 2019 and the party is still dealing with the aftermath. There is a lot of ground to recover both internally and externally.
3) We are three years from a general election, after two recent elections and a chaotic period there is not yet a huge appetite from change.
I wish you were right. I fear it's more simple than that. I'd say there are two reasons for the current polling
1. 55% of the country feel sour about Brexit. Labour have now totally capitulated. Is there a single ex Labour voter who will be impressed by Starmer's damascene conversion? The man who fought this scourge for four years now appears to be it's most wholehearted supporter. If it's worth doing now why wasn't it when Mrs May suggested it? We could have avoided Johnson.
2. An invisible shadow cabinet. A shadow chancellor who has been given the chance of a lifetime is completely out of her depth and invisible. It all feeds in to the idea that Starmer lacks judgement.
He's got time but he needs advice badly. He could do a lot worse than getting Tony back on board or at least the brighter Milliband.
I'm agree with some of this, but I think it's Ed Miliband who's in fact marginally the brighter Miliband. He demolished Johnson in the Commons a couple of months ago, in the kind of Commons performance his brother didn't put on. His brother is also very bright for a politician and an excellent organiser and motivator, but Ed is probably the more innovative policymaker.
I mentioned David because the only Labour figures I can remember making an impression in the last year have been Blair T and Milliband D. I have a lot of time for Ed's backroom abilities but the public aren't aware of them or him. Labour has become a one man band and a pretty unimpressive one of late. I don't think Starmer gets it. He can be wrong but he has to impress.
For me, Labour must stop pulling punches. The Tories were ruthless in pinning the consequences of the Global Financial Crisis on the presiding Labour government. There is no reason not to return the favour now. The virus is not of this government's making but many aspects of their response have been a disgrace. The latest debacle - schools - yet again showcases the astonishing level of incompetence and lack of consideration. It's an unforgivable carry on. Impossible to defend. Trouble is, they are not really having to. Not from Labour anyway.
If Labour had called for schools not to reopen, and for the government to plan for this inevitability rather than leave it until they had already gone back for a day, they would be in a position to make hay. But they didn't, so they're not. I hope when the next shambles comes - as it surely will - this mistake is not repeated. Forget "national consensus" and "softly softly" we need a New Labour ready and willing to stick it to these bozos whenever the many chances arise.
Time to sharpen up the politics with some new and brutal talking points. Covid shambles = TORY shambles. Johnson can't hack it and he doesn't give a tinker's. Thousands of deaths in this country directly attributable to the mishandling of this crisis. The culprits mustn't get away with it. If we tolerate this god knows what will be next. Blood on their hands. Blood on HIS hands. C'mon. It's the truth so let's not be squeamish about saying it.
Agreed 100%. We're too bloody nice, that's our problem!
I know. When they go low we go "oh alright then."
But not any more. Or certainly not with me today. I'm craving cigarettes and fired up even further by a particularly high octane OJ video.
I can tell you for a fact that @HYUFD's obsession with qualifications and dismissal of life experience would go down like a bucket of cold sick on the doorsteps in the red wall.
Most voters the Tories won over in the RedWall would at least have had GCSEs or O Levels unlike Rayner
Like I said, your attitude would go down like a bucket of cold sick.
No it wouldn't, it may do with class warfare obsessed Corbyn voters there filled with inverse snobbery but they would never vote Tory anyway
It really would. "Vote for me, I'm considerably cleverer than you and look at these certificates if you don't believe me" just isn't a good look among ANY part of the electorate.
That's not to say a keen intellect isn't an asset. But the way you've expressed it on this thread - implying that an Oxbridge degree is proof of that, and that folk without formal qualifications can't be sharp as a tack - is both wrong in fact and politically poisonous as a message.
I did not say an Oxbridge degree was a prerequisite, I had no problem with Callaghan or Major being PM but they at least had some qualifications, Rayner left school with none at all
Please keep alienating vast swathes of your own voters. Thank you.
The vast majority of Tory voters have more GCSEs than Rayner has
How many is a vast majority? 90%?
At least and they would all be more qualified to be PM than Rayner
I can tell you for a fact that @HYUFD's obsession with qualifications and dismissal of life experience would go down like a bucket of cold sick on the doorsteps in the red wall.
Most voters the Tories won over in the RedWall would at least have had GCSEs or O Levels unlike Rayner
Like I said, your attitude would go down like a bucket of cold sick.
No it wouldn't, it may do with class warfare obsessed Corbyn voters there filled with inverse snobbery but they would never vote Tory anyway
It really would. "Vote for me, I'm considerably cleverer than you and look at these certificates if you don't believe me" just isn't a good look among ANY part of the electorate.
That's not to say a keen intellect isn't an asset. But the way you've expressed it on this thread - implying that an Oxbridge degree is proof of that, and that folk without formal qualifications can't be sharp as a tack - is both wrong in fact and politically poisonous as a message.
I did not say an Oxbridge degree was a prerequisite, I had no problem with Callaghan or Major being PM but they at least had some qualifications, Rayner left school with none at all
Please keep alienating vast swathes of your own voters. Thank you.
The vast majority of Tory voters have more GCSEs than Rayner has
Demonstrably false, since the majority of Tory voters are over retirement age, and I will leave you to look up the date when GCSEs were introduced.
He said 90% at least have more GCSEs than Ms Rayner.
I leave it to the mathematicians and philosophers, as my maths and mechanics A level is only Grade A, but certainly on the number line from say minus 1 to plus 20, you would place Ms Rayner at exactly the same point as the vast majority of Tory voters, i.e. the one with the round circle above it.
I would suggest the vast majority of Tory voters have at least 1 GCSE or O Level or CSE equivalent, even at grade G, Rayner as I understand it has 0
I can tell you for a fact that @HYUFD's obsession with qualifications and dismissal of life experience would go down like a bucket of cold sick on the doorsteps in the red wall.
Most voters the Tories won over in the RedWall would at least have had GCSEs or O Levels unlike Rayner
Like I said, your attitude would go down like a bucket of cold sick.
No it wouldn't, it may do with class warfare obsessed Corbyn voters there filled with inverse snobbery but they would never vote Tory anyway
It really would. "Vote for me, I'm considerably cleverer than you and look at these certificates if you don't believe me" just isn't a good look among ANY part of the electorate.
That's not to say a keen intellect isn't an asset. But the way you've expressed it on this thread - implying that an Oxbridge degree is proof of that, and that folk without formal qualifications can't be sharp as a tack - is both wrong in fact and politically poisonous as a message.
I did not say an Oxbridge degree was a prerequisite, I had no problem with Callaghan or Major being PM but they at least had some qualifications, Rayner left school with none at all
That is outrageously out-dated, not to say irrelevant.
It isn't, the UK PM should have educational qualifications
But like Boris Johnson she's read PPE at Oxford, so she must be very intelligent as per the Boris fanbois.
She even obtained a first, so she's much more intelligent Boris Johnson, amIright?
Boris did not read PPE, as mentioned earlier he read literae humaniores
But it is an Oxford degree, I mean I thought about reading Greats at Oxford but I said no because I wanted to do a hard degree with a career pathway at the end of it.
Greats is a hard degree even if it most likely leads to academia unless you subsequently qualify in something else or as with Boris make writing your living as a journalist
It is but competition is Public schoolboys only? V. few state schools teach Ancient Greek.
Compare with Natural Sciences at Cambridge. Phalanxes of pimply, bespectacled youths from the old grammar schools/academies/frees and better comps. All with four As. At least.
But like Boris Johnson she's read PPE at Oxford, so she must be very intelligent as per the Boris fanbois.
She even obtained a first, so she's much more intelligent Boris Johnson, amIright?
Boris did not read PPE, as mentioned earlier he read literae humaniores
But it is an Oxford degree, I mean I thought about reading Greats at Oxford but I said no because I wanted to do a hard degree with a career pathway at the end of it.
Greats is a hard degree even if it most likely leads to academia unless you subsequently qualify in something else or as with Boris make writing your living as a journalist
It is but competition is Public schoolboys only? V. few state schools teach Ancient Greek.
Compare with Natural Sciences at Cambridge. Phalanxes of pimply, bespectacled youths from the old grammar schools/academies/frees and better comps. All with four As. At least.
Classics is well known to be an easy route into Oxbridge for public school duffers.
Might explain Johnson's inability to master detail on any topic he addresses?
I can tell you for a fact that @HYUFD's obsession with qualifications and dismissal of life experience would go down like a bucket of cold sick on the doorsteps in the red wall.
Most voters the Tories won over in the RedWall would at least have had GCSEs or O Levels unlike Rayner
Like I said, your attitude would go down like a bucket of cold sick.
No it wouldn't, it may do with class warfare obsessed Corbyn voters there filled with inverse snobbery but they would never vote Tory anyway
It really would. "Vote for me, I'm considerably cleverer than you and look at these certificates if you don't believe me" just isn't a good look among ANY part of the electorate.
That's not to say a keen intellect isn't an asset. But the way you've expressed it on this thread - implying that an Oxbridge degree is proof of that, and that folk without formal qualifications can't be sharp as a tack - is both wrong in fact and politically poisonous as a message.
I did not say an Oxbridge degree was a prerequisite, I had no problem with Callaghan or Major being PM but they at least had some qualifications, Rayner left school with none at all
That is outrageously out-dated, not to say irrelevant.
It isn't, the UK PM should have educational qualifications
Really? What qualifications do you need?
@HYUFD has conveniently drew the line at having GCSEs or equivalent.
IMO there are three things that determine current polling.
1) We are are still in the middle of a crisis, the govt gets the benefit of the doubt and 'rallying round' support. When the crisis ends, the reckoning will begin and questions will be asked about what comes next. Until then politics is suspended.
2) Labour were a loooooong way back in 2019 and the party is still dealing with the aftermath. There is a lot of ground to recover both internally and externally.
3) We are three years from a general election, after two recent elections and a chaotic period there is not yet a huge appetite from change.
I wish you were right. I fear it's more simple than that. I'd say there are two reasons for the current polling
1. 55% of the country feel sour about Brexit. Labour have now totally capitulated. Is there a single ex Labour voter who will be impressed by Starmer's damascene conversion? The man who fought this scourge for four years now appears to be it's most wholehearted supporter. If it's worth doing now why wasn't it when Mrs May suggested it? We could have avoided Johnson.
2. An invisible shadow cabinet. A shadow chancellor who has been given the chance of a lifetime is completely out of her depth and invisible. It all feeds in to the idea that Starmer lacks judgement.
He's got time but he needs advice badly. He could do a lot worse than getting Tony back on board or at least the brighter Milliband.
I'm agree with some of this, but I think it's Ed Miliband who's in fact marginally the brighter Miliband. He demolished Johnson in the Commons a couple of months ago, in the kind of Commons performance his brother didn't put on. His brother is also very bright for a politician and an excellent organiser and motivator, but Ed is probably the more innovative policymaker.
I mentioned David because the only Labour figures I can remember making an impression in the last year have been Blair T and Milliband D. I have a lot of time for Ed's backroom abilities but the public aren't aware of them or him. Labour has become a one man band and a pretty unimpressive one of late. I don't think Starmer gets it. He can be wrong but he has to impress.
For me, Labour must stop pulling punches. The Tories were ruthless in pinning the consequences of the Global Financial Crisis on the presiding Labour government. There is no reason not to return the favour now. The virus is not of this government's making but many aspects of their response have been a disgrace. The latest debacle - schools - yet again showcases the astonishing level of incompetence and lack of consideration. It's an unforgivable carry on. Impossible to defend. Trouble is, they are not really having to. Not from Labour anyway.
If Labour had called for schools not to reopen, and for the government to plan for this inevitability rather than leave it until they had already gone back for a day, they would be in a position to make hay. But they didn't, so they're not. I hope when the next shambles comes - as it surely will - this mistake is not repeated. Forget "national consensus" and "softly softly" we need a New Labour ready and willing to stick it to these bozos whenever the many chances arise.
Time to sharpen up the politics with some new and brutal talking points. Covid shambles = TORY shambles. Johnson can't hack it and he doesn't give a tinker's. Thousands of deaths in this country directly attributable to the mishandling of this crisis. The culprits mustn't get away with it. If we tolerate this god knows what will be next. Blood on their hands. Blood on HIS hands. C'mon. It's the truth so let's not be squeamish about saying it.
Agreed 100%. We're too bloody nice, that's our problem!
I know. When they go low we go "oh alright then."
But not any more. Or certainly not with me today. I'm craving cigarettes and fired up even further by a particularly high octane OJ video.
Is there any other nation more obsessed with class than the British?
I find it a bit weird, even my Scottish boss said there's plenty of classism in Scotland, although that's more of an Edinburgh/Glasgow rivalry.
I don't know, nobody would claim that Bearsden was lower class than Wester Hailes. And the Byres Road is every bit as twee as Broughton Street or Newington. It's a geographical thing , like the States - East and West Coast separated by the great plains and arid deserts of West Lothian and Linlithgowshire, inhabited by pink sheep and giant water horses.
The problem with Classics degrees for above-average but not hugely so students like Boris Johnson, is often that they can provide an excellent grounding in important facets of our culture - and his speeches are still far better than Trump's , as a result ; but without qualifying cultural knowledge on what has changed since about the mid-nineteenth century , they can tend to lead to a somewhat smugly, arrogantly ahistorical perspective. Arguably this was the problem of the entire British ruling class for many years.
I can tell you for a fact that @HYUFD's obsession with qualifications and dismissal of life experience would go down like a bucket of cold sick on the doorsteps in the red wall.
Most voters the Tories won over in the RedWall would at least have had GCSEs or O Levels unlike Rayner
Like I said, your attitude would go down like a bucket of cold sick.
No it wouldn't, it may do with class warfare obsessed Corbyn voters there filled with inverse snobbery but they would never vote Tory anyway
It really would. "Vote for me, I'm considerably cleverer than you and look at these certificates if you don't believe me" just isn't a good look among ANY part of the electorate.
That's not to say a keen intellect isn't an asset. But the way you've expressed it on this thread - implying that an Oxbridge degree is proof of that, and that folk without formal qualifications can't be sharp as a tack - is both wrong in fact and politically poisonous as a message.
I did not say an Oxbridge degree was a prerequisite, I had no problem with Callaghan or Major being PM but they at least had some qualifications, Rayner left school with none at all
That is outrageously out-dated, not to say irrelevant.
It isn't, the UK PM should have educational qualifications
Angela Rayner is a success story the Labour Party should make more of. Left school at 16 with no GCSEs and a baby, became a carer then into the Labour Party via the union route. She talks northern, understands what its like to have nothing but responsibilities and no money. She could cut through to the ex-red wall.
But too many in the party hate her for saying Tony Blair changed her life.
Fair enough but you can walk down any housing estate in the country and find someone who left school at 16 with no GCSEs and had a baby, you can use them in an election broadcast, you do not need to make them your candidate to be PM!
You are really quite the university and qualifications snob aren't you?
Well I would like the PM of the UK representing the country on the world stage and taking difficult decisions to at least have a few GCSEs and A Levels and ideally a degree as well and I would hope most sensible people would too, otherwise you may as well just pick the PM by lottery from people in the street
Well, not everyone in the UK gets those qualifications. Some get Highers, some get Int Bac ... but perhaps those don't count.
They are still qualifications so obviously count, Rayner left school with no qualifications at all
Why don't you celebrate the fact that despite a challenging start she has rolled her sleeves up, got on with it and achieved plenty? Isn't that what Tories tell us all to do?
Yes but we do not make them PM otherwise you would give everyone walking down the street a go, Rayner has achieved no more than the average person on Epping High Street educationally and professionally
She earns at least double the median salary. That's pretty good going for someone with no qualifications. I need to take a leaf out of her book.
The only qualification you need to be an MP is to win an election that does not mean you should automatically lead the country
That's literally why you think Boris should be Prime Minister. Because he wins elections.
And he has an Oxford degree
Obsessed by Oxford. Might mean you have one form of intelligence that meets their needs but it clearly lacks teaching any skills in planning and organizing, skilled understandable communications, leadership and common sense, but so what he went to Oxford.,
International arrivals to Britain will have to present a negative coronavirus test as the government tries keep out new strains of the virus.
Passengers will be required to show a negative result obtained no more than 72 hours before departure, although measures could be even tighter and include a second test on arrival. Hauliers will be exempt from the restriction.
At present arrivals are required only to complete a passenger locator form and undergo quarantine if arriving from a country not on the government’s “travel corridor” list.
I can tell you for a fact that @HYUFD's obsession with qualifications and dismissal of life experience would go down like a bucket of cold sick on the doorsteps in the red wall.
Most voters the Tories won over in the RedWall would at least have had GCSEs or O Levels unlike Rayner
Like I said, your attitude would go down like a bucket of cold sick.
No it wouldn't, it may do with class warfare obsessed Corbyn voters there filled with inverse snobbery but they would never vote Tory anyway
It really would. "Vote for me, I'm considerably cleverer than you and look at these certificates if you don't believe me" just isn't a good look among ANY part of the electorate.
That's not to say a keen intellect isn't an asset. But the way you've expressed it on this thread - implying that an Oxbridge degree is proof of that, and that folk without formal qualifications can't be sharp as a tack - is both wrong in fact and politically poisonous as a message.
I did not say an Oxbridge degree was a prerequisite, I had no problem with Callaghan or Major being PM but they at least had some qualifications, Rayner left school with none at all
That is outrageously out-dated, not to say irrelevant.
It isn't, the UK PM should have educational qualifications
Really? What qualifications do you need?
@HYUFD has conveniently drew the line at having GCSEs or equivalent.
But like Boris Johnson she's read PPE at Oxford, so she must be very intelligent as per the Boris fanbois.
She even obtained a first, so she's much more intelligent Boris Johnson, amIright?
Boris did not read PPE, as mentioned earlier he read literae humaniores
But it is an Oxford degree, I mean I thought about reading Greats at Oxford but I said no because I wanted to do a hard degree with a career pathway at the end of it.
Greats is a hard degree even if it most likely leads to academia unless you subsequently qualify in something else or as with Boris make writing your living as a journalist
It is but competition is Public schoolboys only? V. few state schools teach Ancient Greek.
Compare with Natural Sciences at Cambridge. Phalanxes of pimply, bespectacled youths from the old grammar schools/academies/frees and better comps. All with four As. At least.
Classics is well known to be an easy route into Oxbridge for public school duffers.
When I was at Cambridge, it was Divinity that was considered the easy route in. (Divinity also had the advantage of having its faculty building right in the middle of town - much better than having to slog out to the Raised Faculty Building on Grange Road.)
Angela Rayner is a success story the Labour Party should make more of. Left school at 16 with no GCSEs and a baby, became a carer then into the Labour Party via the union route. She talks northern, understands what its like to have nothing but responsibilities and no money. She could cut through to the ex-red wall.
But too many in the party hate her for saying Tony Blair changed her life.
Fair enough but you can walk down any housing estate in the country and find someone who left school at 16 with no GCSEs and had a baby, you can use them in an election broadcast, you do not need to make them your candidate to be PM!
You are really quite the university and qualifications snob aren't you?
Well I would like the PM of the UK representing the country on the world stage and taking difficult decisions to at least have a few GCSEs and A Levels and ideally a degree as well and I would hope most sensible people would too, otherwise you may as well just pick the PM by lottery from people in the street
Well, not everyone in the UK gets those qualifications. Some get Highers, some get Int Bac ... but perhaps those don't count.
They are still qualifications so obviously count, Rayner left school with no qualifications at all
Why don't you celebrate the fact that despite a challenging start she has rolled her sleeves up, got on with it and achieved plenty? Isn't that what Tories tell us all to do?
Yes but we do not make them PM otherwise you would give everyone walking down the street a go, Rayner has achieved no more than the average person on Epping High Street educationally and professionally
Given that she as leader would be a gift for the Tories over Starmer I would have thought you`d be championing her HYUFD.
She most likely would but no election is certain and we cannot afford the risk of having her as PM
I can tell you for a fact that @HYUFD's obsession with qualifications and dismissal of life experience would go down like a bucket of cold sick on the doorsteps in the red wall.
Most voters the Tories won over in the RedWall would at least have had GCSEs or O Levels unlike Rayner
Like I said, your attitude would go down like a bucket of cold sick.
No it wouldn't, it may do with class warfare obsessed Corbyn voters there filled with inverse snobbery but they would never vote Tory anyway
It really would. "Vote for me, I'm considerably cleverer than you and look at these certificates if you don't believe me" just isn't a good look among ANY part of the electorate.
That's not to say a keen intellect isn't an asset. But the way you've expressed it on this thread - implying that an Oxbridge degree is proof of that, and that folk without formal qualifications can't be sharp as a tack - is both wrong in fact and politically poisonous as a message.
I did not say an Oxbridge degree was a prerequisite, I had no problem with Callaghan or Major being PM but they at least had some qualifications, Rayner left school with none at all
That is outrageously out-dated, not to say irrelevant.
It isn't, the UK PM should have educational qualifications
Really? What qualifications do you need?
The ones Churchill had.
But Churchill went to Harrow, Harrow's a dump, they let in anyone if their parents are rich enough.
I can tell you for a fact that @HYUFD's obsession with qualifications and dismissal of life experience would go down like a bucket of cold sick on the doorsteps in the red wall.
Most voters the Tories won over in the RedWall would at least have had GCSEs or O Levels unlike Rayner
Like I said, your attitude would go down like a bucket of cold sick.
No it wouldn't, it may do with class warfare obsessed Corbyn voters there filled with inverse snobbery but they would never vote Tory anyway
It really would. "Vote for me, I'm considerably cleverer than you and look at these certificates if you don't believe me" just isn't a good look among ANY part of the electorate.
That's not to say a keen intellect isn't an asset. But the way you've expressed it on this thread - implying that an Oxbridge degree is proof of that, and that folk without formal qualifications can't be sharp as a tack - is both wrong in fact and politically poisonous as a message.
I did not say an Oxbridge degree was a prerequisite, I had no problem with Callaghan or Major being PM but they at least had some qualifications, Rayner left school with none at all
That is outrageously out-dated, not to say irrelevant.
It isn't, the UK PM should have educational qualifications
Really? What qualifications do you need?
The ones Churchill had.
Churchill passed Harrow and Sandhurst entrance exams and won prizes for History at the former
But like Boris Johnson she's read PPE at Oxford, so she must be very intelligent as per the Boris fanbois.
She even obtained a first, so she's much more intelligent Boris Johnson, amIright?
Boris did not read PPE, as mentioned earlier he read literae humaniores
But it is an Oxford degree, I mean I thought about reading Greats at Oxford but I said no because I wanted to do a hard degree with a career pathway at the end of it.
Greats is a hard degree even if it most likely leads to academia unless you subsequently qualify in something else or as with Boris make writing your living as a journalist
It is but competition is Public schoolboys only? V. few state schools teach Ancient Greek.
Compare with Natural Sciences at Cambridge. Phalanxes of pimply, bespectacled youths from the old grammar schools/academies/frees and better comps. All with four As. At least.
Classics is well known to be an easy route into Oxbridge for public school duffers.
When I was at Cambridge, it was Divinity that was considered the easy route in. (Divinity also had the advantage of having its faculty building right in the middle of town - much better than having to slog out to the Raised Faculty Building on Grange Road.)
But like Boris Johnson she's read PPE at Oxford, so she must be very intelligent as per the Boris fanbois.
She even obtained a first, so she's much more intelligent Boris Johnson, amIright?
Boris did not read PPE, as mentioned earlier he read literae humaniores
But it is an Oxford degree, I mean I thought about reading Greats at Oxford but I said no because I wanted to do a hard degree with a career pathway at the end of it.
Greats is a hard degree even if it most likely leads to academia unless you subsequently qualify in something else or as with Boris make writing your living as a journalist
It is but competition is Public schoolboys only? V. few state schools teach Ancient Greek.
Compare with Natural Sciences at Cambridge. Phalanxes of pimply, bespectacled youths from the old grammar schools/academies/frees and better comps. All with four As. At least.
Classics is well known to be an easy route into Oxbridge for public school duffers.
When I was at Cambridge, it was Divinity that was considered the easy route in. (Divinity also had the advantage of having its faculty building right in the middle of town - much better than having to slog out to the Raised Faculty Building on Grange Road.)
I used to like modern artchitecture but that was a new one to me - it's so long ago since I explored the Uni buildings when visiting my chums there that I had to look it up. Amazingly that is not a typo. It really is called that because it is raised on concrete stilts. Apologies for doubting the accuracy of your typing.
I can tell you for a fact that @HYUFD's obsession with qualifications and dismissal of life experience would go down like a bucket of cold sick on the doorsteps in the red wall.
Most voters the Tories won over in the RedWall would at least have had GCSEs or O Levels unlike Rayner
Like I said, your attitude would go down like a bucket of cold sick.
No it wouldn't, it may do with class warfare obsessed Corbyn voters there filled with inverse snobbery but they would never vote Tory anyway
It really would. "Vote for me, I'm considerably cleverer than you and look at these certificates if you don't believe me" just isn't a good look among ANY part of the electorate.
That's not to say a keen intellect isn't an asset. But the way you've expressed it on this thread - implying that an Oxbridge degree is proof of that, and that folk without formal qualifications can't be sharp as a tack - is both wrong in fact and politically poisonous as a message.
I did not say an Oxbridge degree was a prerequisite, I had no problem with Callaghan or Major being PM but they at least had some qualifications, Rayner left school with none at all
That is outrageously out-dated, not to say irrelevant.
It isn't, the UK PM should have educational qualifications
Really? What qualifications do you need?
@HYUFD has conveniently drew the line at having GCSEs or equivalent.
But like Boris Johnson she's read PPE at Oxford, so she must be very intelligent as per the Boris fanbois.
She even obtained a first, so she's much more intelligent Boris Johnson, amIright?
Boris did not read PPE, as mentioned earlier he read literae humaniores
But it is an Oxford degree, I mean I thought about reading Greats at Oxford but I said no because I wanted to do a hard degree with a career pathway at the end of it.
Greats is a hard degree even if it most likely leads to academia unless you subsequently qualify in something else or as with Boris make writing your living as a journalist
It is but competition is Public schoolboys only? V. few state schools teach Ancient Greek.
Compare with Natural Sciences at Cambridge. Phalanxes of pimply, bespectacled youths from the old grammar schools/academies/frees and better comps. All with four As. At least.
Classics is well known to be an easy route into Oxbridge for public school duffers.
When I was at Cambridge, it was Divinity that was considered the easy route in. (Divinity also had the advantage of having its faculty building right in the middle of town - much better than having to slog out to the Raised Faculty Building on Grange Road.)
Surely Land Economy....??
Land Management was indeed always known as a related Tim-Nice-But-Dim classic.
Is there any other nation more obsessed with class than the British?
I find it a bit weird, even my Scottish boss said there's plenty of classism in Scotland, although that's more of an Edinburgh/Glasgow rivalry.
I don't know, nobody would claim that Bearsden was lower class than Wester Hailes. And the Byres Road is every bit as twee as Broughton Street or Newington. It's a geographical thing , like the States - East and West Coast separated by the great plains and arid deserts of West Lothian and Linlithgowshire, inhabited by pink sheep and giant water horses.
My boss is an Posh Jock as he's from Edinburgh, home of classy places like the Caley, the fringe, and the castle.
I can tell you for a fact that @HYUFD's obsession with qualifications and dismissal of life experience would go down like a bucket of cold sick on the doorsteps in the red wall.
Most voters the Tories won over in the RedWall would at least have had GCSEs or O Levels unlike Rayner
Like I said, your attitude would go down like a bucket of cold sick.
No it wouldn't, it may do with class warfare obsessed Corbyn voters there filled with inverse snobbery but they would never vote Tory anyway
It really would. "Vote for me, I'm considerably cleverer than you and look at these certificates if you don't believe me" just isn't a good look among ANY part of the electorate.
That's not to say a keen intellect isn't an asset. But the way you've expressed it on this thread - implying that an Oxbridge degree is proof of that, and that folk without formal qualifications can't be sharp as a tack - is both wrong in fact and politically poisonous as a message.
I did not say an Oxbridge degree was a prerequisite, I had no problem with Callaghan or Major being PM but they at least had some qualifications, Rayner left school with none at all
That is outrageously out-dated, not to say irrelevant.
It isn't, the UK PM should have educational qualifications
Really? What qualifications do you need?
The ones Churchill had.
But Churchill went to Harrow, Harrow's a dump, they let in anyone if their parents are rich enough.
My father went to Harrow, you still have to pass an entrance exam, even if it is not Winchester it is not Stowe either
I can tell you for a fact that @HYUFD's obsession with qualifications and dismissal of life experience would go down like a bucket of cold sick on the doorsteps in the red wall.
Most voters the Tories won over in the RedWall would at least have had GCSEs or O Levels unlike Rayner
Like I said, your attitude would go down like a bucket of cold sick.
No it wouldn't, it may do with class warfare obsessed Corbyn voters there filled with inverse snobbery but they would never vote Tory anyway
It really would. "Vote for me, I'm considerably cleverer than you and look at these certificates if you don't believe me" just isn't a good look among ANY part of the electorate.
That's not to say a keen intellect isn't an asset. But the way you've expressed it on this thread - implying that an Oxbridge degree is proof of that, and that folk without formal qualifications can't be sharp as a tack - is both wrong in fact and politically poisonous as a message.
I did not say an Oxbridge degree was a prerequisite, I had no problem with Callaghan or Major being PM but they at least had some qualifications, Rayner left school with none at all
That is outrageously out-dated, not to say irrelevant.
It isn't, the UK PM should have educational qualifications
Really? What qualifications do you need?
The ones Churchill had.
But Churchill went to Harrow, Harrow's a dump, they let in anyone if their parents are rich enough.
My father went to Harrow, you still have to pass an entrance exam even if it is not Winchester it is not Stowe either
I can tell you for a fact that @HYUFD's obsession with qualifications and dismissal of life experience would go down like a bucket of cold sick on the doorsteps in the red wall.
Most voters the Tories won over in the RedWall would at least have had GCSEs or O Levels unlike Rayner
Like I said, your attitude would go down like a bucket of cold sick.
No it wouldn't, it may do with class warfare obsessed Corbyn voters there filled with inverse snobbery but they would never vote Tory anyway
It really would. "Vote for me, I'm considerably cleverer than you and look at these certificates if you don't believe me" just isn't a good look among ANY part of the electorate.
That's not to say a keen intellect isn't an asset. But the way you've expressed it on this thread - implying that an Oxbridge degree is proof of that, and that folk without formal qualifications can't be sharp as a tack - is both wrong in fact and politically poisonous as a message.
I did not say an Oxbridge degree was a prerequisite, I had no problem with Callaghan or Major being PM but they at least had some qualifications, Rayner left school with none at all
That is outrageously out-dated, not to say irrelevant.
It isn't, the UK PM should have educational qualifications
Really? What qualifications do you need?
@HYUFD has conveniently drew the line at having GCSEs or equivalent.
Does a Blue Peter badge count?
Duke of Edinburgh's?
Nope. The ones Valerie et al on BBC TV used to send out to deserving children and may still do.
But like Boris Johnson she's read PPE at Oxford, so she must be very intelligent as per the Boris fanbois.
She even obtained a first, so she's much more intelligent Boris Johnson, amIright?
Boris did not read PPE, as mentioned earlier he read literae humaniores
But it is an Oxford degree, I mean I thought about reading Greats at Oxford but I said no because I wanted to do a hard degree with a career pathway at the end of it.
Greats is a hard degree even if it most likely leads to academia unless you subsequently qualify in something else or as with Boris make writing your living as a journalist
It is but competition is Public schoolboys only? V. few state schools teach Ancient Greek.
Compare with Natural Sciences at Cambridge. Phalanxes of pimply, bespectacled youths from the old grammar schools/academies/frees and better comps. All with four As. At least.
Classics is well known to be an easy route into Oxbridge for public school duffers.
When I was at Cambridge, it was Divinity that was considered the easy route in. (Divinity also had the advantage of having its faculty building right in the middle of town - much better than having to slog out to the Raised Faculty Building on Grange Road.)
Surely Land Economy....??
You needed big lungs, arms and legs for Land Management.
But like Boris Johnson she's read PPE at Oxford, so she must be very intelligent as per the Boris fanbois.
She even obtained a first, so she's much more intelligent Boris Johnson, amIright?
Boris did not read PPE, as mentioned earlier he read literae humaniores
But it is an Oxford degree, I mean I thought about reading Greats at Oxford but I said no because I wanted to do a hard degree with a career pathway at the end of it.
Greats is a hard degree even if it most likely leads to academia unless you subsequently qualify in something else or as with Boris make writing your living as a journalist
It is but competition is Public schoolboys only? V. few state schools teach Ancient Greek.
Compare with Natural Sciences at Cambridge. Phalanxes of pimply, bespectacled youths from the old grammar schools/academies/frees and better comps. All with four As. At least.
Classics is well known to be an easy route into Oxbridge for public school duffers.
When I was at Cambridge, it was Divinity that was considered the easy route in. (Divinity also had the advantage of having its faculty building right in the middle of town - much better than having to slog out to the Raised Faculty Building on Grange Road.)
Surely Land Economy....??
Land Management was indeed always known as a related Tim-Nice-But-Dim classic.
One of the most intelligent and successful businessman I know read Economics & Land Economy at Sidney.
But like Boris Johnson she's read PPE at Oxford, so she must be very intelligent as per the Boris fanbois.
She even obtained a first, so she's much more intelligent Boris Johnson, amIright?
Boris did not read PPE, as mentioned earlier he read literae humaniores
But it is an Oxford degree, I mean I thought about reading Greats at Oxford but I said no because I wanted to do a hard degree with a career pathway at the end of it.
Greats is a hard degree even if it most likely leads to academia unless you subsequently qualify in something else or as with Boris make writing your living as a journalist
It is but competition is Public schoolboys only? V. few state schools teach Ancient Greek.
Compare with Natural Sciences at Cambridge. Phalanxes of pimply, bespectacled youths from the old grammar schools/academies/frees and better comps. All with four As. At least.
Classics is well known to be an easy route into Oxbridge for public school duffers.
When I was at Cambridge, it was Divinity that was considered the easy route in. (Divinity also had the advantage of having its faculty building right in the middle of town - much better than having to slog out to the Raised Faculty Building on Grange Road.)
Surely Land Economy....??
Land Management was indeed always known as a related Tim-Nice-But-Dim classic.
Is there any other nation more obsessed with class than the British?
I find it a bit weird, even my Scottish boss said there's plenty of classism in Scotland, although that's more of an Edinburgh/Glasgow rivalry.
I don't know, nobody would claim that Bearsden was lower class than Wester Hailes. And the Byres Road is every bit as twee as Broughton Street or Newington. It's a geographical thing , like the States - East and West Coast separated by the great plains and arid deserts of West Lothian and Linlithgowshire, inhabited by pink sheep and giant water horses.
My boss is an Posh Jock as he's from Edinburgh, home of classy places like the Caley, the fringe, and the castle.
Glasgow has places like Gorbals and Govan.
You ought to ask him about Craigmillar and Wester Hailes!
Angela Rayner is a success story the Labour Party should make more of. Left school at 16 with no GCSEs and a baby, became a carer then into the Labour Party via the union route. She talks northern, understands what its like to have nothing but responsibilities and no money. She could cut through to the ex-red wall.
But too many in the party hate her for saying Tony Blair changed her life.
Fair enough but you can walk down any housing estate in the country and find someone who left school at 16 with no GCSEs and had a baby, you can use them in an election broadcast, you do not need to make them your candidate to be PM!
You are really quite the university and qualifications snob aren't you?
For me it is an imperative that the PM of ANY country is very well educated, well qualified and of high intellect. Is that controversial?
Trying for all three may be unrealistic.
I have no issue holding our MPs to a higher standard as they collectively have power over us, and it's not unreasonable to have even higher expectations for someone seeking to be PM. They should be exceptional people.
If they are very young or old or lacking in formal education or relevant qualification or experience (whatever that means in this context) I dont think it unreasonable to require, in our minds, a bit of proof that they are up to the task.
However that doesn't preclude someone young, ancient or lacking in experience if I feel they demonstrate sufficient quality despite any lack, nor that someone who seems to fit on paper may not demonstrate that they are not good enough for it.
Someone may have left formal education at a young age but proven that their intellect, ability and judgement are sound and sufficient for the job.
In short, I think wariness is reasonable, but dont rule someone out.
Is there any other nation more obsessed with class than the British?
I find it a bit weird, even my Scottish boss said there's plenty of classism in Scotland, although that's more of an Edinburgh/Glasgow rivalry.
I don't know, nobody would claim that Bearsden was lower class than Wester Hailes. And the Byres Road is every bit as twee as Broughton Street or Newington. It's a geographical thing , like the States - East and West Coast separated by the great plains and arid deserts of West Lothian and Linlithgowshire, inhabited by pink sheep and giant water horses.
My boss is an Posh Jock as he's from Edinburgh, home of classy places like the Caley, the fringe, and the castle.
Glasgow has places like Gorbals and Govan.
You ought to ask him about Craigmillar and Wester Hailes!
I've just texted him that, his reply 'The worst bits of Edinburgh are better than the best bits of Glasgow.'
IMO there are three things that determine current polling.
1) We are are still in the middle of a crisis, the govt gets the benefit of the doubt and 'rallying round' support. When the crisis ends, the reckoning will begin and questions will be asked about what comes next. Until then politics is suspended.
2) Labour were a loooooong way back in 2019 and the party is still dealing with the aftermath. There is a lot of ground to recover both internally and externally.
3) We are three years from a general election, after two recent elections and a chaotic period there is not yet a huge appetite from change.
I wish you were right. I fear it's more simple than that. I'd say there are two reasons for the current polling
1. 55% of the country feel sour about Brexit. Labour have now totally capitulated. Is there a single ex Labour voter who will be impressed by Starmer's damascene conversion? The man who fought this scourge for four years now appears to be it's most wholehearted supporter. If it's worth doing now why wasn't it when Mrs May suggested it? We could have avoided Johnson.
2. An invisible shadow cabinet. A shadow chancellor who has been given the chance of a lifetime is completely out of her depth and invisible. It all feeds in to the idea that Starmer lacks judgement.
He's got time but he needs advice badly. He could do a lot worse than getting Tony back on board or at least the brighter Milliband.
I'm agree with some of this, but I think it's Ed Miliband who's in fact marginally the brighter Miliband. He demolished Johnson in the Commons a couple of months ago, in the kind of Commons performance his brother didn't put on. His brother is also very bright for a politician and an excellent organiser and motivator, but Ed is probably the more innovative policymaker.
I mentioned David because the only Labour figures I can remember making an impression in the last year have been Blair T and Milliband D. I have a lot of time for Ed's backroom abilities but the public aren't aware of them or him. Labour has become a one man band and a pretty unimpressive one of late. I don't think Starmer gets it. He can be wrong but he has to impress.
For me, Labour must stop pulling punches. The Tories were ruthless in pinning the consequences of the Global Financial Crisis on the presiding Labour government. There is no reason not to return the favour now. The virus is not of this government's making but many aspects of their response have been a disgrace. The latest debacle - schools - yet again showcases the astonishing level of incompetence and lack of consideration. It's an unforgivable carry on. Impossible to defend. Trouble is, they are not really having to. Not from Labour anyway.
If Labour had called for schools not to reopen, and for the government to plan for this inevitability rather than leave it until they had already gone back for a day, they would be in a position to make hay. But they didn't, so they're not. I hope when the next shambles comes - as it surely will - this mistake is not repeated. Forget "national consensus" and "softly softly" we need a New Labour ready and willing to stick it to these bozos whenever the many chances arise.
Time to sharpen up the politics with some new and brutal talking points. Covid shambles = TORY shambles. Johnson can't hack it and he doesn't give a tinker's. Thousands of deaths in this country directly attributable to the mishandling of this crisis. The culprits mustn't get away with it. If we tolerate this god knows what will be next. Blood on their hands. Blood on HIS hands. C'mon. It's the truth so let's not be squeamish about saying it.
It works with those who already have the "Never Kissed A Tory " T-shirt.
Parents with school-age kids see a Labour Party as dysfunctional as the Government. All over the shop on school closures, from Starmer down.
The rest just see granny getting the jab and think "fair does".
I think there's a lucrative market if it's pitched right -
"What sort of Prime Minister do we have? I'll tell you. We have one who knew 2 weeks ago that schools could not safely reopen. Knew this for a fact. Yet instead of communicating this and planning for it he chose to sow chaos and confusion for parents, teachers and children alike by forcing them to open for one day only as if it were the Boxing Day sales. And he did this purely to try to dupe parents into believing he was fighting for their children's education. Oh and why were teachers ignored? Because they don't vote Tory. That's why. This is an absolute scandal and the man responsible, the man opposite, must resign."
If Labour had made a clear and early call for schools to close we could have had something like this from Starmer at PMQs.
Is there any other nation more obsessed with class than the British?
I find it a bit weird, even my Scottish boss said there's plenty of classism in Scotland, although that's more of an Edinburgh/Glasgow rivalry.
I don't know, nobody would claim that Bearsden was lower class than Wester Hailes. And the Byres Road is every bit as twee as Broughton Street or Newington. It's a geographical thing , like the States - East and West Coast separated by the great plains and arid deserts of West Lothian and Linlithgowshire, inhabited by pink sheep and giant water horses.
My boss is an Posh Jock as he's from Edinburgh, home of classy places like the Caley, the fringe, and the castle.
Glasgow has places like Gorbals and Govan.
You ought to ask him about Craigmillar and Wester Hailes!
I've just texted him that, his reply 'The worst bits of Edinburgh are better than the best bits of Glasgow.'
Is there anywhere in either worse than Cumbernauld? Because I wouldn't want to go there.
IMO there are three things that determine current polling.
1) We are are still in the middle of a crisis, the govt gets the benefit of the doubt and 'rallying round' support. When the crisis ends, the reckoning will begin and questions will be asked about what comes next. Until then politics is suspended.
2) Labour were a loooooong way back in 2019 and the party is still dealing with the aftermath. There is a lot of ground to recover both internally and externally.
3) We are three years from a general election, after two recent elections and a chaotic period there is not yet a huge appetite from change.
I wish you were right. I fear it's more simple than that. I'd say there are two reasons for the current polling
1. 55% of the country feel sour about Brexit. Labour have now totally capitulated. Is there a single ex Labour voter who will be impressed by Starmer's damascene conversion? The man who fought this scourge for four years now appears to be it's most wholehearted supporter. If it's worth doing now why wasn't it when Mrs May suggested it? We could have avoided Johnson.
2. An invisible shadow cabinet. A shadow chancellor who has been given the chance of a lifetime is completely out of her depth and invisible. It all feeds in to the idea that Starmer lacks judgement.
He's got time but he needs advice badly. He could do a lot worse than getting Tony back on board or at least the brighter Milliband.
I'm agree with some of this, but I think it's Ed Miliband who's in fact marginally the brighter Miliband. He demolished Johnson in the Commons a couple of months ago, in the kind of Commons performance his brother didn't put on. His brother is also very bright for a politician and an excellent organiser and motivator, but Ed is probably the more innovative policymaker.
I mentioned David because the only Labour figures I can remember making an impression in the last year have been Blair T and Milliband D. I have a lot of time for Ed's backroom abilities but the public aren't aware of them or him. Labour has become a one man band and a pretty unimpressive one of late. I don't think Starmer gets it. He can be wrong but he has to impress.
For me, Labour must stop pulling punches. The Tories were ruthless in pinning the consequences of the Global Financial Crisis on the presiding Labour government. There is no reason not to return the favour now. The virus is not of this government's making but many aspects of their response have been a disgrace. The latest debacle - schools - yet again showcases the astonishing level of incompetence and lack of consideration. It's an unforgivable carry on. Impossible to defend. Trouble is, they are not really having to. Not from Labour anyway.
If Labour had called for schools not to reopen, and for the government to plan for this inevitability rather than leave it until they had already gone back for a day, they would be in a position to make hay. But they didn't, so they're not. I hope when the next shambles comes - as it surely will - this mistake is not repeated. Forget "national consensus" and "softly softly" we need a New Labour ready and willing to stick it to these bozos whenever the many chances arise.
Time to sharpen up the politics with some new and brutal talking points. Covid shambles = TORY shambles. Johnson can't hack it and he doesn't give a tinker's. Thousands of deaths in this country directly attributable to the mishandling of this crisis. The culprits mustn't get away with it. If we tolerate this god knows what will be next. Blood on their hands. Blood on HIS hands. C'mon. It's the truth so let's not be squeamish about saying it.
It works with those who already have the "Never Kissed A Tory " T-shirt.
Parents with school-age kids see a Labour Party as dysfunctional as the Government. All over the shop on school closures, from Starmer down.
The rest just see granny getting the jab and think "fair does".
No, I think there's a lucrative market if it's pitched right -
"What sort of Prime Minister do we have? I'll tell you. We have one who knew 2 weeks ago that schools could not safely reopen. Knew this for a fact. Yet instead of communicating this and planning for it he chose to sow chaos and confusion for parents, teachers and children alike by forcing them to open for one day only. And he did this purely to try to dupe parents into believing he was fighting for their children's education. Oh and why were teachers ignored? Because they don't vote Tory. That's why. This is an absolute scandal and the man responsible, the man opposite, must resign."
If Labour had made a clear and early call for schools to close we could have had something like this from Starmer at PMQs.
Yeah. Johnson's a fucking twat but if Starmer can't find a way to oppose him meaningfully then why is he bothering. Every criticism will be countered with the fact that he supported the government. Time and again.
Is there any other nation more obsessed with class than the British?
I find it a bit weird, even my Scottish boss said there's plenty of classism in Scotland, although that's more of an Edinburgh/Glasgow rivalry.
I don't know, nobody would claim that Bearsden was lower class than Wester Hailes. And the Byres Road is every bit as twee as Broughton Street or Newington. It's a geographical thing , like the States - East and West Coast separated by the great plains and arid deserts of West Lothian and Linlithgowshire, inhabited by pink sheep and giant water horses.
My boss is an Posh Jock as he's from Edinburgh, home of classy places like the Caley, the fringe, and the castle.
Glasgow has places like Gorbals and Govan.
You ought to ask him about Craigmillar and Wester Hailes!
I've just texted him that, his reply 'The worst bits of Edinburgh are better than the best bits of Glasgow.'
Is there anywhere in either worse than Cumbernauld? Because I wouldn't want to go there.
Gorbals, before they flattened it a decade or so ago.
Angela Rayner obtained three fewer GCSEs/O Levels than John Major, just saying.
Plus Major passed complex banking exams too to add to his 3 O Levels
Rayner passed exams on British Sign Language at a college and also to become a qualified social worker.
She still has not obtained any GCSEs though as far as I can see, I am sure she would make a good sign language interpreter or carer, just not UK PM
BSL is not easy to do well and accurately if one is not born to it - it's logically equivalent to translating to and from ideogrammatic Chinese on the spot in real time with the added need to modify it emotively and kinematically. An interesting accomplishment for a politician, and by no means obviously inferior to being able to quote, say, Aristophanes.
He added: 'I do present this defendant as someone who is exceptional in his generosity of spirit. In his abandonment of profit and winning friends and bringing them into his home for their special benefit.
'His benevolence and his accepted skill in managing to source drugs wholesale and hold those sex parties for the pleasure of his friends, means the pleasure is the profit.
I feel the need to remind everyone that I did a PPE degree ***in my spare time***
Even better. I have a healthy respect for people who achieved that as well as working for a living. I can't imagine doing that myself. Much better than wasting your time trying to game the Oxford Union elections.
IMO there are three things that determine current polling.
1) We are are still in the middle of a crisis, the govt gets the benefit of the doubt and 'rallying round' support. When the crisis ends, the reckoning will begin and questions will be asked about what comes next. Until then politics is suspended.
2) Labour were a loooooong way back in 2019 and the party is still dealing with the aftermath. There is a lot of ground to recover both internally and externally.
3) We are three years from a general election, after two recent elections and a chaotic period there is not yet a huge appetite from change.
I wish you were right. I fear it's more simple than that. I'd say there are two reasons for the current polling
1. 55% of the country feel sour about Brexit. Labour have now totally capitulated. Is there a single ex Labour voter who will be impressed by Starmer's damascene conversion? The man who fought this scourge for four years now appears to be it's most wholehearted supporter. If it's worth doing now why wasn't it when Mrs May suggested it? We could have avoided Johnson.
2. An invisible shadow cabinet. A shadow chancellor who has been given the chance of a lifetime is completely out of her depth and invisible. It all feeds in to the idea that Starmer lacks judgement.
He's got time but he needs advice badly. He could do a lot worse than getting Tony back on board or at least the brighter Milliband.
I'm agree with some of this, but I think it's Ed Miliband who's in fact marginally the brighter Miliband. He demolished Johnson in the Commons a couple of months ago, in the kind of Commons performance his brother didn't put on. His brother is also very bright for a politician and an excellent organiser and motivator, but Ed is probably the more innovative policymaker.
I mentioned David because the only Labour figures I can remember making an impression in the last year have been Blair T and Milliband D. I have a lot of time for Ed's backroom abilities but the public aren't aware of them or him. Labour has become a one man band and a pretty unimpressive one of late. I don't think Starmer gets it. He can be wrong but he has to impress.
For me, Labour must stop pulling punches. The Tories were ruthless in pinning the consequences of the Global Financial Crisis on the presiding Labour government. There is no reason not to return the favour now. The virus is not of this government's making but many aspects of their response have been a disgrace. The latest debacle - schools - yet again showcases the astonishing level of incompetence and lack of consideration. It's an unforgivable carry on. Impossible to defend. Trouble is, they are not really having to. Not from Labour anyway.
If Labour had called for schools not to reopen, and for the government to plan for this inevitability rather than leave it until they had already gone back for a day, they would be in a position to make hay. But they didn't, so they're not. I hope when the next shambles comes - as it surely will - this mistake is not repeated. Forget "national consensus" and "softly softly" we need a New Labour ready and willing to stick it to these bozos whenever the many chances arise.
Time to sharpen up the politics with some new and brutal talking points. Covid shambles = TORY shambles. Johnson can't hack it and he doesn't give a tinker's. Thousands of deaths in this country directly attributable to the mishandling of this crisis. The culprits mustn't get away with it. If we tolerate this god knows what will be next. Blood on their hands. Blood on HIS hands. C'mon. It's the truth so let's not be squeamish about saying it.
Agreed 100%. We're too bloody nice, that's our problem!
I know. When they go low we go "oh alright then."
But not any more. Or certainly not with me today. I'm craving cigarettes and fired up even further by a particularly high octane OJ video.
Ha. No, this one below. The last 12 mins in particular. Funnily enough he is making essentially the same point you made a while ago. Labour should stop supporting this shambolic Tory government. https://twitter.com/OwenJones84/status/1346192470133018625
But like Boris Johnson she's read PPE at Oxford, so she must be very intelligent as per the Boris fanbois.
She even obtained a first, so she's much more intelligent Boris Johnson, amIright?
Boris did not read PPE, as mentioned earlier he read literae humaniores
But it is an Oxford degree, I mean I thought about reading Greats at Oxford but I said no because I wanted to do a hard degree with a career pathway at the end of it.
Greats is a hard degree even if it most likely leads to academia unless you subsequently qualify in something else or as with Boris make writing your living as a journalist
It is but competition is Public schoolboys only? V. few state schools teach Ancient Greek.
Compare with Natural Sciences at Cambridge. Phalanxes of pimply, bespectacled youths from the old grammar schools/academies/frees and better comps. All with four As. At least.
Classics is well known to be an easy route into Oxbridge for public school duffers.
When I was at Cambridge, it was Divinity that was considered the easy route in. (Divinity also had the advantage of having its faculty building right in the middle of town - much better than having to slog out to the Raised Faculty Building on Grange Road.)
Surely Land Economy....??
Land Management was indeed always known as a related Tim-Nice-But-Dim classic.
Or Tim rather-good-at-rugby.
There was a lad in the year above me at Brum who got a place on a Masters at Oxford for some reason - Victor Ubogo.
Angela Rayner obtained three fewer GCSEs/O Levels than John Major, just saying.
Plus Major passed complex banking exams too to add to his 3 O Levels
Rayner passed exams on British Sign Language at a college and also to become a qualified social worker.
She still has not obtained any GCSEs though as far as I can see, I am sure she would make a good sign language interpreter or carer, just not UK PM
BSL is not easy to do well and accurately if one is not born to it - it's logically equivalent to translating to and from ideogrammatic Chinese on the spot in real time with the added need to modify it emotively and kinematically. An interesting accomplishment for a politician, and by no means obviously inferior to being able to quote, say, Aristophanes.
In the US, the Americans With Disabilities Act mandates a sign language interpreter at any public event or performance.
This lady, Holly Maniatty, presumably spent an awful lot of time practising to be able to do sign language for Eminem! https://youtube.com/watch?v=VFRXaif1ewc
IMO there are three things that determine current polling.
1) We are are still in the middle of a crisis, the govt gets the benefit of the doubt and 'rallying round' support. When the crisis ends, the reckoning will begin and questions will be asked about what comes next. Until then politics is suspended.
2) Labour were a loooooong way back in 2019 and the party is still dealing with the aftermath. There is a lot of ground to recover both internally and externally.
3) We are three years from a general election, after two recent elections and a chaotic period there is not yet a huge appetite from change.
I wish you were right. I fear it's more simple than that. I'd say there are two reasons for the current polling
1. 55% of the country feel sour about Brexit. Labour have now totally capitulated. Is there a single ex Labour voter who will be impressed by Starmer's damascene conversion? The man who fought this scourge for four years now appears to be it's most wholehearted supporter. If it's worth doing now why wasn't it when Mrs May suggested it? We could have avoided Johnson.
2. An invisible shadow cabinet. A shadow chancellor who has been given the chance of a lifetime is completely out of her depth and invisible. It all feeds in to the idea that Starmer lacks judgement.
He's got time but he needs advice badly. He could do a lot worse than getting Tony back on board or at least the brighter Milliband.
I'm agree with some of this, but I think it's Ed Miliband who's in fact marginally the brighter Miliband. He demolished Johnson in the Commons a couple of months ago, in the kind of Commons performance his brother didn't put on. His brother is also very bright for a politician and an excellent organiser and motivator, but Ed is probably the more innovative policymaker.
I mentioned David because the only Labour figures I can remember making an impression in the last year have been Blair T and Milliband D. I have a lot of time for Ed's backroom abilities but the public aren't aware of them or him. Labour has become a one man band and a pretty unimpressive one of late. I don't think Starmer gets it. He can be wrong but he has to impress.
For me, Labour must stop pulling punches. The Tories were ruthless in pinning the consequences of the Global Financial Crisis on the presiding Labour government. There is no reason not to return the favour now. The virus is not of this government's making but many aspects of their response have been a disgrace. The latest debacle - schools - yet again showcases the astonishing level of incompetence and lack of consideration. It's an unforgivable carry on. Impossible to defend. Trouble is, they are not really having to. Not from Labour anyway.
If Labour had called for schools not to reopen, and for the government to plan for this inevitability rather than leave it until they had already gone back for a day, they would be in a position to make hay. But they didn't, so they're not. I hope when the next shambles comes - as it surely will - this mistake is not repeated. Forget "national consensus" and "softly softly" we need a New Labour ready and willing to stick it to these bozos whenever the many chances arise.
Time to sharpen up the politics with some new and brutal talking points. Covid shambles = TORY shambles. Johnson can't hack it and he doesn't give a tinker's. Thousands of deaths in this country directly attributable to the mishandling of this crisis. The culprits mustn't get away with it. If we tolerate this god knows what will be next. Blood on their hands. Blood on HIS hands. C'mon. It's the truth so let's not be squeamish about saying it.
The difference is that Brown screwing up and over-spending before the financial crisis hit meaning that there was still a mammoth structural deficit to be fixed a couple of years after the crisis had finished was absolutely accurate and truthful.
Labourites like you want to pretend the deficit was all the recession's fault while ignoring the fact we weren't in recession when Brown caused his pre-recession deficit - nor were we in recession when the 2010 election happened.
The Tories are simply right now just dealing with a global pandemic during the pandemic not years after it right now.
The Tories were supportive of Labour spending right up until it went pop and were for lower taxes. They were happy with a bigger deficit than the one subsequently rebranded as the root of all evil. But they made it stick. This is the point. Labour must take a leaf.
In doing so they have one advantage and one disadvantage here with this crisis c.f. the global crash.
The disadvantage is it's easier for the public to relate to a new virus than a malfunction in the wholesale financial markets. This makes it almost impossible to blame the government for the originating event and have it believed.
The advantage is that whilst the Labour government reacted well to the crash, the government's response to this crisis has been palpably poor in many areas - and this can be objectively demonstrated.
Lab was spending far too much in the run up to the GFC. It was the era of self-certifying mortgages and @kinabalu -type City bonuses where fiscal receipts were through the roof.
That was the problem. As most grown up Lab supporters who study these things appreciate.
I also get that given your stated Lab position you would be unable to admit this in a public forum but we both know you appreciate it also.
Labour's spending was fine (even the Tories thought so) but they were not taxing enough.
Wonder if the Tories would have addressed that? Taxed more. Guess they might.
I can tell you for a fact that @HYUFD's obsession with qualifications and dismissal of life experience would go down like a bucket of cold sick on the doorsteps in the red wall.
Most voters the Tories won over in the RedWall would at least have had GCSEs or O Levels unlike Rayner
Like I said, your attitude would go down like a bucket of cold sick.
No it wouldn't, it may do with class warfare obsessed Corbyn voters there filled with inverse snobbery but they would never vote Tory anyway
It really would. "Vote for me, I'm considerably cleverer than you and look at these certificates if you don't believe me" just isn't a good look among ANY part of the electorate.
That's not to say a keen intellect isn't an asset. But the way you've expressed it on this thread - implying that an Oxbridge degree is proof of that, and that folk without formal qualifications can't be sharp as a tack - is both wrong in fact and politically poisonous as a message.
I did not say an Oxbridge degree was a prerequisite, I had no problem with Callaghan or Major being PM but they at least had some qualifications, Rayner left school with none at all
That is outrageously out-dated, not to say irrelevant.
It isn't, the UK PM should have educational qualifications
Really? What qualifications do you need?
Extreme arrogance, no conscience, willingness to lie, good at evading responsibility. On reflection, HYUFD is right, Oxbridge prepares them perfectly.
IMO there are three things that determine current polling.
1) We are are still in the middle of a crisis, the govt gets the benefit of the doubt and 'rallying round' support. When the crisis ends, the reckoning will begin and questions will be asked about what comes next. Until then politics is suspended.
2) Labour were a loooooong way back in 2019 and the party is still dealing with the aftermath. There is a lot of ground to recover both internally and externally.
3) We are three years from a general election, after two recent elections and a chaotic period there is not yet a huge appetite from change.
I wish you were right. I fear it's more simple than that. I'd say there are two reasons for the current polling
1. 55% of the country feel sour about Brexit. Labour have now totally capitulated. Is there a single ex Labour voter who will be impressed by Starmer's damascene conversion? The man who fought this scourge for four years now appears to be it's most wholehearted supporter. If it's worth doing now why wasn't it when Mrs May suggested it? We could have avoided Johnson.
2. An invisible shadow cabinet. A shadow chancellor who has been given the chance of a lifetime is completely out of her depth and invisible. It all feeds in to the idea that Starmer lacks judgement.
He's got time but he needs advice badly. He could do a lot worse than getting Tony back on board or at least the brighter Milliband.
I'm agree with some of this, but I think it's Ed Miliband who's in fact marginally the brighter Miliband. He demolished Johnson in the Commons a couple of months ago, in the kind of Commons performance his brother didn't put on. His brother is also very bright for a politician and an excellent organiser and motivator, but Ed is probably the more innovative policymaker.
I mentioned David because the only Labour figures I can remember making an impression in the last year have been Blair T and Milliband D. I have a lot of time for Ed's backroom abilities but the public aren't aware of them or him. Labour has become a one man band and a pretty unimpressive one of late. I don't think Starmer gets it. He can be wrong but he has to impress.
For me, Labour must stop pulling punches. The Tories were ruthless in pinning the consequences of the Global Financial Crisis on the presiding Labour government. There is no reason not to return the favour now. The virus is not of this government's making but many aspects of their response have been a disgrace. The latest debacle - schools - yet again showcases the astonishing level of incompetence and lack of consideration. It's an unforgivable carry on. Impossible to defend. Trouble is, they are not really having to. Not from Labour anyway.
If Labour had called for schools not to reopen, and for the government to plan for this inevitability rather than leave it until they had already gone back for a day, they would be in a position to make hay. But they didn't, so they're not. I hope when the next shambles comes - as it surely will - this mistake is not repeated. Forget "national consensus" and "softly softly" we need a New Labour ready and willing to stick it to these bozos whenever the many chances arise.
Time to sharpen up the politics with some new and brutal talking points. Covid shambles = TORY shambles. Johnson can't hack it and he doesn't give a tinker's. Thousands of deaths in this country directly attributable to the mishandling of this crisis. The culprits mustn't get away with it. If we tolerate this god knows what will be next. Blood on their hands. Blood on HIS hands. C'mon. It's the truth so let's not be squeamish about saying it.
Agreed 100%. We're too bloody nice, that's our problem!
I know. When they go low we go "oh alright then."
But not any more. Or certainly not with me today. I'm craving cigarettes and fired up even further by a particularly high octane OJ video.
Ha. No, this one below. The last 12 mins in particular. Funnily enough he is making essentially the same point you made a while ago. Labour should stop supporting this shambolic Tory government. https://twitter.com/OwenJones84/status/1346192470133018625
Surely the premise for the Opposition should be that everything you would do is better than anything the government has done or is planning.
Yes. I was quite distressed to see that as of some time ago the claim was made that the UK had vaccinated nearly 900,000 people and several days if not a week or two later the claim was made that the UK had vaccinated just over 1m people. ie no real increase in a substantial time period.
My 90-yr old mother vaccination adventures update: today received a text saying 2nd jab postponed (had been due on 19th Jan) and someone would be in touch to confirm a new date.
Interesting move from Pence if true, although the indication is that Grassley has immediately back-tracked (whether because he was misquoted or let the cat out of the bag too early is unclear).
IMO there are three things that determine current polling.
1) We are are still in the middle of a crisis, the govt gets the benefit of the doubt and 'rallying round' support. When the crisis ends, the reckoning will begin and questions will be asked about what comes next. Until then politics is suspended.
2) Labour were a loooooong way back in 2019 and the party is still dealing with the aftermath. There is a lot of ground to recover both internally and externally.
3) We are three years from a general election, after two recent elections and a chaotic period there is not yet a huge appetite from change.
I wish you were right. I fear it's more simple than that. I'd say there are two reasons for the current polling
1. 55% of the country feel sour about Brexit. Labour have now totally capitulated. Is there a single ex Labour voter who will be impressed by Starmer's damascene conversion? The man who fought this scourge for four years now appears to be it's most wholehearted supporter. If it's worth doing now why wasn't it when Mrs May suggested it? We could have avoided Johnson.
2. An invisible shadow cabinet. A shadow chancellor who has been given the chance of a lifetime is completely out of her depth and invisible. It all feeds in to the idea that Starmer lacks judgement.
He's got time but he needs advice badly. He could do a lot worse than getting Tony back on board or at least the brighter Milliband.
I'm agree with some of this, but I think it's Ed Miliband who's in fact marginally the brighter Miliband. He demolished Johnson in the Commons a couple of months ago, in the kind of Commons performance his brother didn't put on. His brother is also very bright for a politician and an excellent organiser and motivator, but Ed is probably the more innovative policymaker.
I mentioned David because the only Labour figures I can remember making an impression in the last year have been Blair T and Milliband D. I have a lot of time for Ed's backroom abilities but the public aren't aware of them or him. Labour has become a one man band and a pretty unimpressive one of late. I don't think Starmer gets it. He can be wrong but he has to impress.
For me, Labour must stop pulling punches. The Tories were ruthless in pinning the consequences of the Global Financial Crisis on the presiding Labour government. There is no reason not to return the favour now. The virus is not of this government's making but many aspects of their response have been a disgrace. The latest debacle - schools - yet again showcases the astonishing level of incompetence and lack of consideration. It's an unforgivable carry on. Impossible to defend. Trouble is, they are not really having to. Not from Labour anyway.
If Labour had called for schools not to reopen, and for the government to plan for this inevitability rather than leave it until they had already gone back for a day, they would be in a position to make hay. But they didn't, so they're not. I hope when the next shambles comes - as it surely will - this mistake is not repeated. Forget "national consensus" and "softly softly" we need a New Labour ready and willing to stick it to these bozos whenever the many chances arise.
Time to sharpen up the politics with some new and brutal talking points. Covid shambles = TORY shambles. Johnson can't hack it and he doesn't give a tinker's. Thousands of deaths in this country directly attributable to the mishandling of this crisis. The culprits mustn't get away with it. If we tolerate this god knows what will be next. Blood on their hands. Blood on HIS hands. C'mon. It's the truth so let's not be squeamish about saying it.
Agreed 100%. We're too bloody nice, that's our problem!
I know. When they go low we go "oh alright then."
But not any more. Or certainly not with me today. I'm craving cigarettes and fired up even further by a particularly high octane OJ video.
Ha. No, this one below. The last 12 mins in particular. Funnily enough he is making essentially the same point you made a while ago. Labour should stop supporting this shambolic Tory government. https://twitter.com/OwenJones84/status/1346192470133018625
Surely the premise for the Opposition should be that everything you would do is better than anything the government has done or is planning.
Even JC got that.
Since Ive been able to vote there have only been two oppositions that won power, under Blair and Cameron. Both accepted large chunks of the incumbent govts policies and platform as a price for gaining power to the disappointment of their party loyalists.
What evidence is there that opposing everything works? I think that history shows that to be a big mistake.
IMO there are three things that determine current polling.
1) We are are still in the middle of a crisis, the govt gets the benefit of the doubt and 'rallying round' support. When the crisis ends, the reckoning will begin and questions will be asked about what comes next. Until then politics is suspended.
2) Labour were a loooooong way back in 2019 and the party is still dealing with the aftermath. There is a lot of ground to recover both internally and externally.
3) We are three years from a general election, after two recent elections and a chaotic period there is not yet a huge appetite from change.
I wish you were right. I fear it's more simple than that. I'd say there are two reasons for the current polling
1. 55% of the country feel sour about Brexit. Labour have now totally capitulated. Is there a single ex Labour voter who will be impressed by Starmer's damascene conversion? The man who fought this scourge for four years now appears to be it's most wholehearted supporter. If it's worth doing now why wasn't it when Mrs May suggested it? We could have avoided Johnson.
2. An invisible shadow cabinet. A shadow chancellor who has been given the chance of a lifetime is completely out of her depth and invisible. It all feeds in to the idea that Starmer lacks judgement.
He's got time but he needs advice badly. He could do a lot worse than getting Tony back on board or at least the brighter Milliband.
I'm agree with some of this, but I think it's Ed Miliband who's in fact marginally the brighter Miliband. He demolished Johnson in the Commons a couple of months ago, in the kind of Commons performance his brother didn't put on. His brother is also very bright for a politician and an excellent organiser and motivator, but Ed is probably the more innovative policymaker.
I mentioned David because the only Labour figures I can remember making an impression in the last year have been Blair T and Milliband D. I have a lot of time for Ed's backroom abilities but the public aren't aware of them or him. Labour has become a one man band and a pretty unimpressive one of late. I don't think Starmer gets it. He can be wrong but he has to impress.
For me, Labour must stop pulling punches. The Tories were ruthless in pinning the consequences of the Global Financial Crisis on the presiding Labour government. There is no reason not to return the favour now. The virus is not of this government's making but many aspects of their response have been a disgrace. The latest debacle - schools - yet again showcases the astonishing level of incompetence and lack of consideration. It's an unforgivable carry on. Impossible to defend. Trouble is, they are not really having to. Not from Labour anyway.
If Labour had called for schools not to reopen, and for the government to plan for this inevitability rather than leave it until they had already gone back for a day, they would be in a position to make hay. But they didn't, so they're not. I hope when the next shambles comes - as it surely will - this mistake is not repeated. Forget "national consensus" and "softly softly" we need a New Labour ready and willing to stick it to these bozos whenever the many chances arise.
Time to sharpen up the politics with some new and brutal talking points. Covid shambles = TORY shambles. Johnson can't hack it and he doesn't give a tinker's. Thousands of deaths in this country directly attributable to the mishandling of this crisis. The culprits mustn't get away with it. If we tolerate this god knows what will be next. Blood on their hands. Blood on HIS hands. C'mon. It's the truth so let's not be squeamish about saying it.
Politicising a pandemic might go down well with the Canary-reading Corbyn fan club, but it will go down like a cup of cold sick with the other 99% of the population who are happy we have vaccines coming, and think the government did everything they could to avoid closing the schools.
So the public need to open their eyes then - and Labour must help them do it. I'd say it's a duty. Presiding over this mess should not translate to a lead in the polls. Something is not right there. Something is rotten in the state of Denmark. Very dangerous for our democracy if there is no penalty for callous incompetence in government.
Maybe what is rotten is Labour's ability to look coherent.
I mean, if you can't get a 24-carat, diamond-encrusted win on education, something's wrong. Against Gavin Williamson? Somebody REALLY isn't doing their job if that challenge is a no-score draw....
I'm agreeing. Something is wrong and I'm giving a view of what it might be - Labour must sharpen up.
IMO there are three things that determine current polling.
1) We are are still in the middle of a crisis, the govt gets the benefit of the doubt and 'rallying round' support. When the crisis ends, the reckoning will begin and questions will be asked about what comes next. Until then politics is suspended.
2) Labour were a loooooong way back in 2019 and the party is still dealing with the aftermath. There is a lot of ground to recover both internally and externally.
3) We are three years from a general election, after two recent elections and a chaotic period there is not yet a huge appetite from change.
I wish you were right. I fear it's more simple than that. I'd say there are two reasons for the current polling
1. 55% of the country feel sour about Brexit. Labour have now totally capitulated. Is there a single ex Labour voter who will be impressed by Starmer's damascene conversion? The man who fought this scourge for four years now appears to be it's most wholehearted supporter. If it's worth doing now why wasn't it when Mrs May suggested it? We could have avoided Johnson.
2. An invisible shadow cabinet. A shadow chancellor who has been given the chance of a lifetime is completely out of her depth and invisible. It all feeds in to the idea that Starmer lacks judgement.
He's got time but he needs advice badly. He could do a lot worse than getting Tony back on board or at least the brighter Milliband.
I'm agree with some of this, but I think it's Ed Miliband who's in fact marginally the brighter Miliband. He demolished Johnson in the Commons a couple of months ago, in the kind of Commons performance his brother didn't put on. His brother is also very bright for a politician and an excellent organiser and motivator, but Ed is probably the more innovative policymaker.
I mentioned David because the only Labour figures I can remember making an impression in the last year have been Blair T and Milliband D. I have a lot of time for Ed's backroom abilities but the public aren't aware of them or him. Labour has become a one man band and a pretty unimpressive one of late. I don't think Starmer gets it. He can be wrong but he has to impress.
For me, Labour must stop pulling punches. The Tories were ruthless in pinning the consequences of the Global Financial Crisis on the presiding Labour government. There is no reason not to return the favour now. The virus is not of this government's making but many aspects of their response have been a disgrace. The latest debacle - schools - yet again showcases the astonishing level of incompetence and lack of consideration. It's an unforgivable carry on. Impossible to defend. Trouble is, they are not really having to. Not from Labour anyway.
If Labour had called for schools not to reopen, and for the government to plan for this inevitability rather than leave it until they had already gone back for a day, they would be in a position to make hay. But they didn't, so they're not. I hope when the next shambles comes - as it surely will - this mistake is not repeated. Forget "national consensus" and "softly softly" we need a New Labour ready and willing to stick it to these bozos whenever the many chances arise.
Time to sharpen up the politics with some new and brutal talking points. Covid shambles = TORY shambles. Johnson can't hack it and he doesn't give a tinker's. Thousands of deaths in this country directly attributable to the mishandling of this crisis. The culprits mustn't get away with it. If we tolerate this god knows what will be next. Blood on their hands. Blood on HIS hands. C'mon. It's the truth so let's not be squeamish about saying it.
The difference is that Brown screwing up and over-spending before the financial crisis hit meaning that there was still a mammoth structural deficit to be fixed a couple of years after the crisis had finished was absolutely accurate and truthful.
Labourites like you want to pretend the deficit was all the recession's fault while ignoring the fact we weren't in recession when Brown caused his pre-recession deficit - nor were we in recession when the 2010 election happened.
The Tories are simply right now just dealing with a global pandemic during the pandemic not years after it right now.
The Tories were supportive of Labour spending right up until it went pop and were for lower taxes. They were happy with a bigger deficit than the one subsequently rebranded as the root of all evil. But they made it stick. This is the point. Labour must take a leaf.
In doing so they have one advantage and one disadvantage here with this crisis c.f. the global crash.
The disadvantage is it's easier for the public to relate to a new virus than a malfunction in the wholesale financial markets. This makes it almost impossible to blame the government for the originating event and have it believed.
The advantage is that whilst the Labour government reacted well to the crash, the government's response to this crisis has been palpably poor in many areas - and this can be objectively demonstrated.
Lab was spending far too much in the run up to the GFC. It was the era of self-certifying mortgages and @kinabalu -type City bonuses where fiscal receipts were through the roof.
That was the problem. As most grown up Lab supporters who study these things appreciate.
I also get that given your stated Lab position you would be unable to admit this in a public forum but we both know you appreciate it also.
Labour's spending was fine (even the Tories thought so) but they were not taxing enough.
Wonder if the Tories would have addressed that? Taxed more. Guess they might.
I do appreciate that you can't confirm it on this forum but we'll take it as understood. No need to say anything more about it, totally understand.
I never watch it, but aren't the "controversial" anti-lockdown guests they had on the same faces we have seen on BBC and Sky numerous times?
Broadcast regulation does not address who appears, but what they say and how it is contextualised.
There is absolutely no problem having David Icke on TV - the problem is if he is allowed to expound his conspiracy theories with no push back or context.
Angela Rayner is a success story the Labour Party should make more of. Left school at 16 with no GCSEs and a baby, became a carer then into the Labour Party via the union route. She talks northern, understands what its like to have nothing but responsibilities and no money. She could cut through to the ex-red wall.
But too many in the party hate her for saying Tony Blair changed her life.
Fair enough but you can walk down any housing estate in the country and find someone who left school at 16 with no GCSEs and had a baby, you can use them in an election broadcast, you do not need to make them your candidate to be PM!
You are really quite the university and qualifications snob aren't you?
For me it is an imperative that the PM of ANY country is very well educated, well qualified and of high intellect. Is that controversial?
Nobody who is very well educated, well qualified and of high intellect is going to be remotely interested in being PM.
First, there are way more interesting things to do. Whether you seek rewards in monetary terms, in terms of intellectual endeavour or in terms of helping people, there are just much, much more attractive & satisfying careers.
Secondly, to actually get to be PM, you would need the membership of the Labour Party or the Tory party to choose you in the first place. In other words, you'd need to appeal to people like HYUFD or Gabble, the brain-dead or nearly so.
Thirdly, the job involves such intrusions into family or personal live that no-one remotely normal will be interested. Who wants 24 hour rolling news pouring over every detail of your life -- and your partner's and your children's -- in real-time?
The job of PM is reserved for people of very modest intelligence with severe personality disorders.
I never watch it, but aren't the "controversial" anti-lockdown guests they had on the same faces we have seen on BBC and Sky numerous times?
Broadcast regulation does not address who appears, but what they say and how it is contextualised.
There is absolutely no problem having David Icke on TV - the problem is if he is allowed to expound his conspiracy theories with no push back or context.
This is why GB News is probably hoping for changes in broadcasting regulation that were vaguely briefed to the Press during the Cummings era ; I don't know if these are still in the Government's plans.
A previous round of broadcasting regulation changes in 1990, largely, but not totally, down to Thatcher's relationship with Murdoch, were very important in dumbing down our public culture.
Comments
Compare with Natural Sciences at Cambridge. Phalanxes of pimply, bespectacled youths from the old grammar schools/academies/frees and better comps. All with four As. At least.
I leave it to the mathematicians and philosophers, as my maths and mechanics A level is only Grade A, but certainly on the number line from say minus 1 to plus 20, you would place Ms Rayner at exactly the same point as the vast majority of Tory voters, i.e. the one with the round circle above it.
WHO'S THE CULT???
Dear god man.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PVn6b9QQZeM
In doing so they have one advantage and one disadvantage here with this crisis c.f. the global crash.
The disadvantage is it's easier for the public to relate to a new virus than a malfunction in the wholesale financial markets. This makes it almost impossible to blame the government for the originating event and have it believed.
The advantage is that whilst the Labour government reacted well to the crash, the government's response to this crisis has been palpably poor in many areas - and this can be objectively demonstrated.
Bars and restaurants to close at 5pm,
No more than four to a table
No more than 6 in family groups inside or out
Traveling outside community extended to 31/1
Plus a few more, ICU occupation with covid is at 30% so action being taken in good time similar restrictions in other Communities.
I find it a bit weird, even my Scottish boss said there's plenty of classism in Scotland, although that's more of an Edinburgh/Glasgow rivalry.
They have do have some differences though one believes in a deity than can do no wrong, whilst the other is the Pope.
That was the problem. As most grown up Lab supporters who study these things appreciate.
I also get that given your stated Lab position you would be unable to admit this in a public forum but we both know you appreciate it also.
https://twitter.com/YvetteCooperMP/status/1346462319686127618
But not any more. Or certainly not with me today. I'm craving cigarettes and fired up even further by a particularly high octane OJ video.
I went to a sixth form college.
International arrivals to Britain will have to present a negative coronavirus test as the government tries keep out new strains of the virus.
Passengers will be required to show a negative result obtained no more than 72 hours before departure, although measures could be even tighter and include a second test on arrival. Hauliers will be exempt from the restriction.
At present arrivals are required only to complete a passenger locator form and undergo quarantine if arriving from a country not on the government’s “travel corridor” list.
What time does the PB Zoom Party start?
Glasgow has places like Gorbals and Govan.
I have no issue holding our MPs to a higher standard as they collectively have power over us, and it's not unreasonable to have even higher expectations for someone seeking to be PM. They should be exceptional people.
If they are very young or old or lacking in formal education or relevant qualification or experience (whatever that means in this context) I dont think it unreasonable to require, in our minds, a bit of proof that they are up to the task.
However that doesn't preclude someone young, ancient or lacking in experience if I feel they demonstrate sufficient quality despite any lack, nor that someone who seems to fit on paper may not demonstrate that they are not good enough for it.
Someone may have left formal education at a young age but proven that their intellect, ability and judgement are sound and sufficient for the job.
In short, I think wariness is reasonable, but dont rule someone out.
"What sort of Prime Minister do we have? I'll tell you. We have one who knew 2 weeks ago that schools could not safely reopen. Knew this for a fact. Yet instead of communicating this and planning for it he chose to sow chaos and confusion for parents, teachers and children alike by forcing them to open for one day only as if it were the Boxing Day sales. And he did this purely to try to dupe parents into believing he was fighting for their children's education. Oh and why were teachers ignored? Because they don't vote Tory. That's why. This is an absolute scandal and the man responsible, the man opposite, must resign."
If Labour had made a clear and early call for schools to close we could have had something like this from Starmer at PMQs.
He added: 'I do present this defendant as someone who is exceptional in his generosity of spirit. In his abandonment of profit and winning friends and bringing them into his home for their special benefit.
'His benevolence and his accepted skill in managing to source drugs wholesale and hold those sex parties for the pleasure of his friends, means the pleasure is the profit.
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-9114727/Former-BBC-producer-45-invited-friends-chemsex-parties.html
https://twitter.com/OwenJones84/status/1346192470133018625
But it's a fair point in any discussion of how qualified one is and to judge that one has to judge how one uses one's educational opportunities.
This lady, Holly Maniatty, presumably spent an awful lot of time practising to be able to do sign language for Eminem!
https://youtube.com/watch?v=VFRXaif1ewc
Wonder if the Tories would have addressed that? Taxed more. Guess they might.
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-55544205
I never watch it, but aren't the "controversial" anti-lockdown guests they had on the same faces we have seen on BBC and Sky numerous times?
Even JC got that.
My 90-yr old mother vaccination adventures update: today received a text saying 2nd jab postponed (had been due on 19th Jan) and someone would be in touch to confirm a new date.
Oh wait....
What evidence is there that opposing everything works? I think that history shows that to be a big mistake.
Broadcast regulation does not address who appears, but what they say and how it is contextualised.
There is absolutely no problem having David Icke on TV - the problem is if he is allowed to expound his conspiracy theories with no push back or context.
First, there are way more interesting things to do. Whether you seek rewards in monetary terms, in terms of intellectual endeavour or in terms of helping people, there are just much, much more attractive & satisfying careers.
Secondly, to actually get to be PM, you would need the membership of the Labour Party or the Tory party to choose you in the first place. In other words, you'd need to appeal to people like HYUFD or Gabble, the brain-dead or nearly so.
Thirdly, the job involves such intrusions into family or personal live that no-one remotely normal will be interested. Who wants 24 hour rolling news pouring over every detail of your life -- and your partner's and your children's -- in real-time?
The job of PM is reserved for people of very modest intelligence with severe personality disorders.
A previous round of broadcasting regulation changes in 1990, largely, but not totally, down to Thatcher's relationship with Murdoch, were very important in dumbing down our public culture.