The proponents of grammar schools could usefully ask themselves a simple question. Why haven't the Tories, who have been in power since 2010, done anything to bring them back - and the 2019 government hasn't even mentioned them (as far as I know)?
The answer is dead simple. They've seen the actual evidence. That evidence shows that grammar schools are a brake on social mobility, not an accelerant to it. And the kids who go to grammar schools (currently and previously) do just as well if they go to comprehensive schools. If the evidence was there that grammar schools were the answer, don't you think Cameron, May and Johnson would have agreed with you and set about restoring them?
While normally I claim no authority on anything whatsoever, on this one I know what I'm talking about, having had a career largely based on studying the complexity of educational outcomes.
Great post, enjoy your well-deserved pint. I suspect the other reason the Tories haven't gone for it is that actually expanding the numbers of secondary moderns isn't popular. Most parents want better schools all round, not further division into good schools and bad ones with the massive pall of worry, and quite possibly expense, cast by the 11-plus.
Yes - we settled in Trafford because good schools - and both tiers of schools ARE good - but your last point is pertinent, it is a massive pain in the arse doing tutoring for two years and then worrying. If we had our time again we'd probably have chosen another place to settle. That said, our oldest daughter is getting an education far better than she'd get at a comprehensive. So one out of three is going to do very well out of our decision. We didn't know at the time she'd be a bloody genius though!
Covid is a Corbynista's dream to control everyone's lives and perfect for that close friend of Jeremy Corbyn, Mark Drakeford
I understand the precautionary principle on this variant but I think we need to take a step back and reflect a bit.
We have no solid evidence that this is going to cause us a significant issue, though there is a chance. Strong guidance to give the Government/NHS/SAGE time to react seems sensible, and people have taken that on board.
Fining people for expressing basic freedoms over a 'maybe' is too far. At this point in the pandemic there has to be some red lines which you cross only when you're 90% sure.
I know it’s an unpopular view, but the UK government are really to be commended on the way they’ve handled the imposition of what are pretty much unprecedented restrictions.
Elsewhere in the world, governments have submitted to civil service authoritarianism, with papers required to go to the shops, and a lack of support for businesses affected by the restrictions. Many places will never give up on the tracking apps, for as long as they can get away with it.
It boggles the mind that more than seven years after Russia annexed Crimea and fought in eastern Ukraine that so little has been done to free central and eastern Europe from a dependence on Russian gas.
It’s worse than just that. Led by the Germans shutting nuclear plants down, they’ve actively increased their reliance on Russian gas in the past few years.
Wait until January, when Putin goes into Ukraine properly - while simultaneously threatening Europe with cutting the gas supply if they retaliate.
That was probably the most bizarre reaction of the Fukushima disaster. Germany, renowned for its earthquakes and tidal waves.
Yes, I don't know why Angela Merkel gets such a good press. She made more than her fair share of completely dumb errors. That one was a corker.
I had someone unexpectedly ask me whether I thought Merkel had been a good leader for Europe. I blurted out "No. She was terrible for Europe" before engaging any conscious thought. I then had to consider supporting evidence for that obviously deeply help emotional opinion. It did not take too long.
The proponents of grammar schools could usefully ask themselves a simple question. Why haven't the Tories, who have been in power since 2010, done anything to bring them back - and the 2019 government hasn't even mentioned them (as far as I know)?
The answer is dead simple. They've seen the actual evidence. That evidence shows that grammar schools are a brake on social mobility, not an accelerant to it. And the kids who go to grammar schools (currently and previously) do just as well if they go to comprehensive schools. If the evidence was there that grammar schools were the answer, don't you think Cameron, May and Johnson would have agreed with you and set about restoring them?
While normally I claim no authority on anything whatsoever, on this one I know what I'm talking about, having had a career largely based on studying the complexity of educational outcomes.
Had May won a majority in 2017 then she would have expanded grammars as she promised in her manifesto to do.
Almost all the remaining grammars eg in Lincolnshire, Kent, Bucks, Trafford etc are in Tory controlled local authorities or at most LD controlled like Chelmsford, not Labour controlled
At least if the dreaded Covid hits me now, I can still say I've done the equivalent of one run a day this year...
Nice. I assume that means more than one run on some days. Any particular reason for that?
I prefer to do one long run and get it over with. But I did do a handful of multiple days.
On one day I did three runs. I did a ten-miler in the dark one Sunday this autumn, then got home for breakfast. Mrs J was feeling unwell, so I did the junior Parkrun with the little 'un. Whilst there, I met Mrs J's friend. They were meant to be running together, and she asked me to run instead. So I did another four miles after the Parkrun with her. Three runs in a morning: 10 miles, 1.2 miles, and 4 miles.
But I didn't count the park run in my official stats. It was too short...
What distance is the long run?
How many miles/KM are you running a week?
FX: checks...
I think that I've run at least one 10K run every day since the end of June. Aside from one 1-miler, the shortest run I've recorded this year is 3.5 miles.
(There are some runs I do not record; I've just done a 2K with the little 'un; I don't record those on the 'sheet.)
I don't have weekly figures (I'd need to alter my Excel spreadsheet...), but my highest month was July, at 302 miles, or a smidgen ten miles a day.
The proponents of grammar schools could usefully ask themselves a simple question. Why haven't the Tories, who have been in power since 2010, done anything to bring them back - and the 2019 government hasn't even mentioned them (as far as I know)?
The answer is dead simple. They've seen the actual evidence. That evidence shows that grammar schools are a brake on social mobility, not an accelerant to it. And the kids who go to grammar schools (currently and previously) do just as well if they go to comprehensive schools. If the evidence was there that grammar schools were the answer, don't you think Cameron, May and Johnson would have agreed with you and set about restoring them?
While normally I claim no authority on anything whatsoever, on this one I know what I'm talking about, having had a career largely based on studying the complexity of educational outcomes.
Had May won a majority in 2017 then she would have expanded grammars as she promised in her manifesto to do.
Almost all the remaining grammars eg in Lincolnshire, Kent, Bucks, Trafford etc are in Tory controlled local authorities or at most LD controlled like Chelmsford, not Labour controlled
I wonder where we would be now if May had won a 100+ seat majority.
Is anybody going to stick there neck out and predict todays UK Case numbers?
The case numbers will make headlines, but it's the London hospital numbers that will make destiny.
I wonder what the threshold for action they've set on the London hospital admissions. We expect them to continue up, but how high would they conclude was problematic?
And how closely are they able to separate out the 'with' covid vs 'because' covid which is what really matters? I know that they publish this data weekly, but daily observation of this and (when available) length of stay are the really critical pieces of information as I see it.
Covid is a Corbynista's dream to control everyone's lives and perfect for that close friend of Jeremy Corbyn, Mark Drakeford
I understand the precautionary principle on this variant but I think we need to take a step back and reflect a bit.
We have no solid evidence that this is going to cause us a significant issue, though there is a chance. Strong guidance to give the Government/NHS/SAGE time to react seems sensible, and people have taken that on board.
Fining people for expressing basic freedoms over a 'maybe' is too far. At this point in the pandemic there has to be some red lines which you cross only when you're 90% sure.
I know it’s an unpopular view, but the UK government are really to be commended on the way they’ve handled the imposition of what are pretty much unprecedented restrictions.
Elsewhere in the world, governments have submitted to civil service authoritarianism, with papers required to go to the shops, and a lack of support for businesses affected by the restrictions. Many places will never give up on the tracking apps, for as long as they can get away with it.
Yes - the UK government (and specifically that part of it which relates to England) have been significantly less awful than almost everywhere else in the developed world.
When you order online you get that cold shudder when you see its going to be Hermes that will be throwing your parcel down the driveway hours after it should have arrived, or as they apparently call it, delivery....
At least if the dreaded Covid hits me now, I can still say I've done the equivalent of one run a day this year...
Nice. I assume that means more than one run on some days. Any particular reason for that?
I prefer to do one long run and get it over with. But I did do a handful of multiple days.
On one day I did three runs. I did a ten-miler in the dark one Sunday this autumn, then got home for breakfast. Mrs J was feeling unwell, so I did the junior Parkrun with the little 'un. Whilst there, I met Mrs J's friend. They were meant to be running together, and she asked me to run instead. So I did another four miles after the Parkrun with her. Three runs in a morning: 10 miles, 1.2 miles, and 4 miles.
But I didn't count the park run in my official stats. It was too short...
What distance is the long run?
How many miles/KM are you running a week?
FX: checks...
I think that I've run at least one 10K run every day since the end of June. Aside from one 1-miler, the shortest run I've recorded this year is 3.5 miles.
(There are some runs I do not record; I've just done a 2K with the little 'un; I don't record those on the 'sheet.)
I don't have weekly figures (I'd need to alter my Excel spreadsheet...), but my highest month was July, at 302 miles, or a smidgen ten miles a day.
Bloody hell! Some of us are just happy when we get our 10,000 steps in.
He is there for two purposes: 1) To Get Brexit Done. That's done. Tick. Leave the details to someone else. 2) Keep Corbyn out. Tick. done.
Following that, there's levelling up. But that's rather more complex, and somewhat tricky for a man who doesn't like detail. So Boris has said 'levelling up' many times and even appointed a minister for it. So that's done. Tick.
A moving, modern reimagining of the nativity scene occurring round here as three wise men from hermes, yodel and amazon all arrive simultaneously.
Definitely a myth, Hermes never turn up on time....
And Yodel tend to fling the delivery in random hiding places. My worst ever was a delivery of 5 cases of wine. Unfortunately, they all arrived separately. One was delivered to my neighbour, one was left on my neighbour's drive, one was actually delivered (damaged) to us, one to another house some way away, and - best of all - one was left on the grass verge of the track leading down to our house, in the rain. Luckily we came back from shopping soon enough to be able to extract the bottles safely from the rapidly disintegrating cardboard box.
Some excellent post on the last thread guys. I mean really good.
Re poor Comprehensives in deprived areas I agree, but this is probably a lot more to do with the issues of the area than anything else. The answer certainly isn't going back to Secondary Moderns.
I see @HYUFD is continuing to compare stats on Grammar schools to Comprehensives and ignoring the samples are completely different because the Grammar has selected.
If you lived in a deprived area 50 years ago you could go to a grammar school if intelligent.
Now your only choice would be a comprehensive likely to be a secondary modern in all but name if you do not have wealthy parents who can send you to private school
That doesn't answer the point.
It does. Unless you live in a wealthy suburb or rural area (or go to a comprehensive or academy where admission is based on church attendance) comprehensives are often just renamed secondary moderns effectively.
@MikeSmithson is correct. It doesn't answer the point. As usual you just raise another point and don't address the point raised. It is a moving target.
Re your point on living in a poor area and being able to go to a grammar, this is very naïve. What actually happens is the middle class and well off in surrounding areas get tutored for the test and fill the spaces. The bright kids in the poor areas don't and they still don't get in by and large.
I lived in a relatively poor large village with 2 primary schools. Only one boy got into the boys grammar school and no girls to the girls grammar school. And that boy dropped out. I have no memory of even taking a test let alone getting tutored. After O levels a whole bunch of replaced those that had dropped out. The system is crap at selection and selecting at 11 is far too soon.
There are limits on how much you can tutor for 11+ and 13+ tests which are designed to test raw iq not subject knowledge as such. Indeed very often even a few bright kids from council estates got into grammar schools even without tutors and then onto Oxbridge or other top universities and professional careers. That path is not open to them to the same extent now if they live in a deprived area and just get sent to the local very average, if that, comp.
If you were well off and had a kid who was not so bright and would not pass the 11 or 13+ you could still send them private however and still do. Most wealthy parents did not send their children to secondary moderns and do not send their children to comprehensives and certainly not comprehensives or academies which are any less than Outstanding. So the rich generally don't use comprehensives anyway while the bright but poor no longer have the opportunities grammars provided. Most grammars of course also have entries at sixth form level too
a) You can tutor for IQ tests very easily. Not sure where you got it that it was difficult. There are lots of techniques.
b) In between our posts I have been chopping wood and did a rough mental calculation of how many should have got into the grammar school from my village all other things being equal (I know how many classes there were, the size of them, the fact that our village was a 3 member ward and how many councillors there were in the borough). The answer is about 25. There was 1 and he dropped out. If that doesn't give you an idea of the disparity between poor and middle class areas nothing will.
c) If you think the well off don't send their children to Comprehensives you live in a different world. I live in a well off area now. I am wealthy by most peoples measure as are most of the people I know. Nearly all use the local comprehensive, which I grant you is good, but that is not what you were saying.
d) Moving to a Grammar at sixth form is too late. The damage has been done. Many won't go who should. Many who were at the Grammar who shouldn't have been have dropped out.
Select by subject on an ongoing basis throughout the child's education.
a) You can't. IQ test results are in part based on genetics, they are difficult to tutor for unlike subject knowledge based exams.
b) And all of them would likely have gone to a sink comprehensive otherwise, at least 1 still got to a grammar.
c) If the wealthy send their kids to a comp it will only be an Outstanding comp they have bought their kids admission to by buying a house in its catchment area, meaning there are well above average house prices for that catchment area. You buy a place at an Outstanding comp or academy much like you buy a place at private school effectively or else you go to church more regularly to get a vicar's reference for a top church school. I notice you did not send your kids to a sink school the bright but poor have little choice but to go to!
d) Sixth form entry for A levels and top university is fine for late developers
I am absolutely minted and our kids go to the local comp (it is an academy but most secondaries in London are). Rated good not outstanding. Plenty of other parents similar to us, judging from how posh some of our kids' friends talk. House prices are high it's true but that's more because they're nice houses. But half the housing in the catchment, I'm guessing, is social housing so it's far from true that most of the kids at the school have bought their way in somehow. Proportion of minorities and with English as an additional language much higher than average; those on pupil premium broadly average. If actual GCSE grades match the predictions after my eldest's mocks I'll be very happy, but let's see in June.
So still a good school not a crap school even then. If however you live on a council estate and your local comp is inadequate or requires improvement you would have no choice but to attend it even if you were bright enough to get into a grammar school.
Middle class parents however would move to the catchment area of a Good or Outstanding school even if more expensive. Or else start going to church more regularly to gets their children into an Outstanding church school
Most comps are rated good or outstanding. Those that aren't need to be improved. Most gifted working class kids didn't pass the 11 plus when we had grammars, plenty of average middle class kids did. Secondary moderns, where most working class kids went, were often dreadful schools. Very few parents want to see them brought back. Let's focus on improving standards and find a way of breaking the culture of low expectations that affects too many kids, not try to resurrect the failed, divisive policies of the past. I think I'm done on this subject, my substandard comprehensive-schooled brain is growing weary!
Covid is a Corbynista's dream to control everyone's lives and perfect for that close friend of Jeremy Corbyn, Mark Drakeford
I understand the precautionary principle on this variant but I think we need to take a step back and reflect a bit.
We have no solid evidence that this is going to cause us a significant issue, though there is a chance. Strong guidance to give the Government/NHS/SAGE time to react seems sensible, and people have taken that on board.
Fining people for expressing basic freedoms over a 'maybe' is too far. At this point in the pandemic there has to be some red lines which you cross only when you're 90% sure.
I know it’s an unpopular view, but the UK government are really to be commended on the way they’ve handled the imposition of what are pretty much unprecedented restrictions.
Elsewhere in the world, governments have submitted to civil service authoritarianism, with papers required to go to the shops, and a lack of support for businesses affected by the restrictions. Many places will never give up on the tracking apps, for as long as they can get away with it.
Yes - the UK government (and specifically that part of it which relates to England) have been significantly less awful than almost everywhere else in the developed world.
Yes, it’s been awful everywhere, it’s a damn pandemic, and those with experience only of the UK/England system often won’t realise just how much worse things are elsewhere.
Covid is a Corbynista's dream to control everyone's lives and perfect for that close friend of Jeremy Corbyn, Mark Drakeford
I understand the precautionary principle on this variant but I think we need to take a step back and reflect a bit.
We have no solid evidence that this is going to cause us a significant issue, though there is a chance. Strong guidance to give the Government/NHS/SAGE time to react seems sensible, and people have taken that on board.
Fining people for expressing basic freedoms over a 'maybe' is too far. At this point in the pandemic there has to be some red lines which you cross only when you're 90% sure.
I know it’s an unpopular view, but the UK government are really to be commended on the way they’ve handled the imposition of what are pretty much unprecedented restrictions.
Elsewhere in the world, governments have submitted to civil service authoritarianism, with papers required to go to the shops, and a lack of support for businesses affected by the restrictions. Many places will never give up on the tracking apps, for as long as they can get away with it.
I've mentioned this before, but during WWII the government imposed unprecedented restrictions on the population. In fact, one proposed measure (I *think* it was on internment) was defeated in parliament. Most, if not all, of those restrictions were removed, some very quickly. The biggest long-standing one was perhaps rationing, lasting until the mid-1950s.
On topic, when the ratings go this negative then there is usually no comeback.
I suspect Boris Johnson will be safe until May's elections, the last time they were held it was a tie between Labour and the Tories, Any Lab lead in NESV should lead to Tory losses, the bigger the lead, the more losses.
I suspect the Lib Dems may also help create a carnage for the blue meanies.
Haven't you just rejoined the party you are calling meanies?
I've been calling them the Blue Meanies for years, as a joke at the expense of lefties who think Tories are evil and that Labour have a higher moral purpose.
ooh, have you rejoined the Tories Eagles? Presumably because you have a view on Boris's successor - who do you favour?
Tories Eagles sounds like the rejected pilot version of Charlie's Angels...
The proponents of grammar schools could usefully ask themselves a simple question. Why haven't the Tories, who have been in power since 2010, done anything to bring them back - and the 2019 government hasn't even mentioned them (as far as I know)?
The answer is dead simple. They've seen the actual evidence. That evidence shows that grammar schools are a brake on social mobility, not an accelerant to it. And the kids who go to grammar schools (currently and previously) do just as well if they go to comprehensive schools. If the evidence was there that grammar schools were the answer, don't you think Cameron, May and Johnson would have agreed with you and set about restoring them?
While normally I claim no authority on anything whatsoever, on this one I know what I'm talking about, having had a career largely based on studying the complexity of educational outcomes.
Had May won a majority in 2017 then she would have expanded grammars as she promised in her manifesto to do.
Almost all the remaining grammars eg in Lincolnshire, Kent, Bucks, Trafford etc are in Tory controlled local authorities or at most LD controlled like Chelmsford, not Labour controlled
I wonder where we would be now if May had won a 100+ seat majority.
I think the key thing is that they were authorities in which Labour were kept out of power in the 80s and 90s. Trafford is Labour today, but the Labour bogeyman in Greater Manchester has gone away - modern GM Labour tend not to be massively ideological on this (or anything else, really - if national Labour were GM Labour I'd look at the Labour party very differently.)
Hospital admissions rise still looks more in line with growing incidentals rather than a real increase - have to wait to Thursday to confirm but just not rising anywhere near quick enough.
The proponents of grammar schools could usefully ask themselves a simple question. Why haven't the Tories, who have been in power since 2010, done anything to bring them back - and the 2019 government hasn't even mentioned them (as far as I know)?
The answer is dead simple. They've seen the actual evidence. That evidence shows that grammar schools are a brake on social mobility, not an accelerant to it. And the kids who go to grammar schools (currently and previously) do just as well if they go to comprehensive schools. If the evidence was there that grammar schools were the answer, don't you think Cameron, May and Johnson would have agreed with you and set about restoring them?
While normally I claim no authority on anything whatsoever, on this one I know what I'm talking about, having had a career largely based on studying the complexity of educational outcomes.
Had May won a majority in 2017 then she would have expanded grammars as she promised in her manifesto to do.
Almost all the remaining grammars eg in Lincolnshire, Kent, Bucks, Trafford etc are in Tory controlled local authorities or at most LD controlled like Chelmsford, not Labour controlled
I wonder where we would be now if May had won a 100+ seat majority.
Brexit still done, even if only on third reading, more grammars and probably a more diligent approach to tackling Covid from the start.
Don't blame me, I campaigned and voted for Theresa!
90,629 positive cases 172 deaths 847 admissions and 6,094 in hospital
Pretty positive result I think.
I don't think 172 deaths is anything to call "pretty positive" in all honesty but the rate of increase in case number seems to be slowing.
It looks as though the decision of large numbers of the population to get the booster vaccination and reduce social contact voluntarily may yet succeed.
The good sense of the British public has prevailed - no need to praise Boris Johnson for that of course.
Bit of take off in the London hospitalisations but no take off in patients on ventilation at all which could be a sign that a lot of the additional London admissions are incidental. I think that report comes out every Thursday and will be very, very key in knowing what kind of danger Omicron presents.
On topic, when the ratings go this negative then there is usually no comeback.
I suspect Boris Johnson will be safe until May's elections, the last time they were held it was a tie between Labour and the Tories, Any Lab lead in NESV should lead to Tory losses, the bigger the lead, the more losses.
I suspect the Lib Dems may also help create a carnage for the blue meanies.
Haven't you just rejoined the party you are calling meanies?
I've been calling them the Blue Meanies for years, as a joke at the expense of lefties who think Tories are evil and that Labour have a higher moral purpose.
ooh, have you rejoined the Tories Eagles? Presumably because you have a view on Boris's successor - who do you favour?
London hospital occupancy up 41% week on week. Given how many regular admissions are likely to be flagged as covid once the mandatory testing is done, quite surprisingly low.
On topic, when the ratings go this negative then there is usually no comeback.
I suspect Boris Johnson will be safe until May's elections, the last time they were held it was a tie between Labour and the Tories, Any Lab lead in NESV should lead to Tory losses, the bigger the lead, the more losses.
I suspect the Lib Dems may also help create a carnage for the blue meanies.
Haven't you just rejoined the party you are calling meanies?
I've been calling them the Blue Meanies for years, as a joke at the expense of lefties who think Tories are evil and that Labour have a higher moral purpose.
ooh, have you rejoined the Tories Eagles? Presumably because you have a view on Boris's successor - who do you favour?
Has to be Hunt once more.
Doubt he'll make the final two. I have it down as Rishi vs the CRG candidate.
The proponents of grammar schools could usefully ask themselves a simple question. Why haven't the Tories, who have been in power since 2010, done anything to bring them back - and the 2019 government hasn't even mentioned them (as far as I know)?
The answer is dead simple. They've seen the actual evidence. That evidence shows that grammar schools are a brake on social mobility, not an accelerant to it. And the kids who go to grammar schools (currently and previously) do just as well if they go to comprehensive schools. If the evidence was there that grammar schools were the answer, don't you think Cameron, May and Johnson would have agreed with you and set about restoring them?
While normally I claim no authority on anything whatsoever, on this one I know what I'm talking about, having had a career largely based on studying the complexity of educational outcomes.
Had May won a majority in 2017 then she would have expanded grammars as she promised in her manifesto to do.
Almost all the remaining grammars eg in Lincolnshire, Kent, Bucks, Trafford etc are in Tory controlled local authorities or at most LD controlled like Chelmsford, not Labour controlled
I wonder where we would be now if May had won a 100+ seat majority.
Brexit still done, even if only on third reading, more grammars and probably a more diligent approach to tackling Covid from the start.
Don't blame me, I campaigned and voted for Theresa!
How many times do I have to tell you Grammar Schools are the work of Satan. I know I went to one.
On topic, when the ratings go this negative then there is usually no comeback.
I suspect Boris Johnson will be safe until May's elections, the last time they were held it was a tie between Labour and the Tories, Any Lab lead in NESV should lead to Tory losses, the bigger the lead, the more losses.
I suspect the Lib Dems may also help create a carnage for the blue meanies.
Haven't you just rejoined the party you are calling meanies?
I've been calling them the Blue Meanies for years, as a joke at the expense of lefties who think Tories are evil and that Labour have a higher moral purpose.
ooh, have you rejoined the Tories Eagles? Presumably because you have a view on Boris's successor - who do you favour?
Has to be Hunt once more.
The guy who commissioned the pandemic preparedness exercise, then ignored its recommendations? Can’t see that coming up during the campaign…
Bit of take off in the London hospitalisations but no take off in patients on ventilation at all which could be a sign that a lot of the additional London admissions are incidental. I think that report comes out every Thursday and will be very, very key in knowing what kind of danger Omicron presents.
On topic, when the ratings go this negative then there is usually no comeback.
I suspect Boris Johnson will be safe until May's elections, the last time they were held it was a tie between Labour and the Tories, Any Lab lead in NESV should lead to Tory losses, the bigger the lead, the more losses.
I suspect the Lib Dems may also help create a carnage for the blue meanies.
Haven't you just rejoined the party you are calling meanies?
I've been calling them the Blue Meanies for years, as a joke at the expense of lefties who think Tories are evil and that Labour have a higher moral purpose.
ooh, have you rejoined the Tories Eagles? Presumably because you have a view on Boris's successor - who do you favour?
Has to be Hunt once more.
Doubt he'll make the final two. I have it down as Rishi vs the CRG candidate.
I think there's very little chance of Hunt making it. He's far too sensible and competent, the party is not ready for that yet.
On topic, when the ratings go this negative then there is usually no comeback.
I suspect Boris Johnson will be safe until May's elections, the last time they were held it was a tie between Labour and the Tories, Any Lab lead in NESV should lead to Tory losses, the bigger the lead, the more losses.
I suspect the Lib Dems may also help create a carnage for the blue meanies.
Haven't you just rejoined the party you are calling meanies?
I've been calling them the Blue Meanies for years, as a joke at the expense of lefties who think Tories are evil and that Labour have a higher moral purpose.
ooh, have you rejoined the Tories Eagles? Presumably because you have a view on Boris's successor - who do you favour?
Has to be Hunt once more.
Doubt he'll make the final two. I have it down as Rishi vs the CRG candidate.
We won't know until tomorrow and Thursday case number, we're still backfilling Sunday, when we start backfilling weekdays we'll have a much better idea from London and national data what the case growth looks like.
Some excellent post on the last thread guys. I mean really good.
Re poor Comprehensives in deprived areas I agree, but this is probably a lot more to do with the issues of the area than anything else. The answer certainly isn't going back to Secondary Moderns.
I see @HYUFD is continuing to compare stats on Grammar schools to Comprehensives and ignoring the samples are completely different because the Grammar has selected.
If you lived in a deprived area 50 years ago you could go to a grammar school if intelligent.
Now your only choice would be a comprehensive likely to be a secondary modern in all but name if you do not have wealthy parents who can send you to private school
That doesn't answer the point.
It does. Unless you live in a wealthy suburb or rural area (or go to a comprehensive or academy where admission is based on church attendance) comprehensives are often just renamed secondary moderns effectively.
@MikeSmithson is correct. It doesn't answer the point. As usual you just raise another point and don't address the point raised. It is a moving target.
Re your point on living in a poor area and being able to go to a grammar, this is very naïve. What actually happens is the middle class and well off in surrounding areas get tutored for the test and fill the spaces. The bright kids in the poor areas don't and they still don't get in by and large.
I lived in a relatively poor large village with 2 primary schools. Only one boy got into the boys grammar school and no girls to the girls grammar school. And that boy dropped out. I have no memory of even taking a test let alone getting tutored. After O levels a whole bunch of replaced those that had dropped out. The system is crap at selection and selecting at 11 is far too soon.
There are limits on how much you can tutor for 11+ and 13+ tests which are designed to test raw iq not subject knowledge as such. Indeed very often even a few bright kids from council estates got into grammar schools even without tutors and then onto Oxbridge or other top universities and professional careers. That path is not open to them to the same extent now if they live in a deprived area and just get sent to the local very average, if that, comp.
If you were well off and had a kid who was not so bright and would not pass the 11 or 13+ you could still send them private however and still do. Most wealthy parents did not send their children to secondary moderns and do not send their children to comprehensives and certainly not comprehensives or academies which are any less than Outstanding. So the rich generally don't use comprehensives anyway while the bright but poor no longer have the opportunities grammars provided. Most grammars of course also have entries at sixth form level too
a) You can tutor for IQ tests very easily. Not sure where you got it that it was difficult. There are lots of techniques.
b) In between our posts I have been chopping wood and did a rough mental calculation of how many should have got into the grammar school from my village all other things being equal (I know how many classes there were, the size of them, the fact that our village was a 3 member ward and how many councillors there were in the borough). The answer is about 25. There was 1 and he dropped out. If that doesn't give you an idea of the disparity between poor and middle class areas nothing will.
c) If you think the well off don't send their children to Comprehensives you live in a different world. I live in a well off area now. I am wealthy by most peoples measure as are most of the people I know. Nearly all use the local comprehensive, which I grant you is good, but that is not what you were saying.
d) Moving to a Grammar at sixth form is too late. The damage has been done. Many won't go who should. Many who were at the Grammar who shouldn't have been have dropped out.
Select by subject on an ongoing basis throughout the child's education.
a) You can't. IQ test results are in part based on genetics, they are difficult to tutor for unlike subject knowledge based exams.
b) And all of them would likely have gone to a sink comprehensive otherwise, at least 1 still got to a grammar.
c) If the wealthy send their kids to a comp it will only be an Outstanding comp they have bought their kids admission to by buying a house in its catchment area, meaning there are well above average house prices for that catchment area. You buy a place at an Outstanding comp or academy much like you buy a place at private school effectively or else you go to church more regularly to get a vicar's reference for a top church school. I notice you did not send your kids to a sink school the bright but poor have little choice but to go to!
d) Sixth form entry for A levels and top university is fine for late developers
I am absolutely minted and our kids go to the local comp (it is an academy but most secondaries in London are). Rated good not outstanding. Plenty of other parents similar to us, judging from how posh some of our kids' friends talk. House prices are high it's true but that's more because they're nice houses. But half the housing in the catchment, I'm guessing, is social housing so it's far from true that most of the kids at the school have bought their way in somehow. Proportion of minorities and with English as an additional language much higher than average; those on pupil premium broadly average. If actual GCSE grades match the predictions after my eldest's mocks I'll be very happy, but let's see in June.
So still a good school not a crap school even then. If however you live on a council estate and your local comp is inadequate or requires improvement you would have no choice but to attend it even if you were bright enough to get into a grammar school.
Middle class parents however would move to the catchment area of a Good or Outstanding school even if more expensive. Or else start going to church more regularly to gets their children into an Outstanding church school
Most comps are rated good or outstanding. Those that aren't need to be improved. Most gifted working class kids didn't pass the 11 plus when we had grammars, plenty of average middle class kids did. Secondary moderns, where most working class kids went, were often dreadful schools. Very few parents want to see them brought back. Let's focus on improving standards and find a way of breaking the culture of low expectations that affects too many kids, not try to resurrect the failed, divisive policies of the past. I think I'm done on this subject, my substandard comprehensive-schooled brain is growing weary!
No, most gifted working class kids with high IQs easily passed the 11 plus, a few average middle class pupils may also have scraped a pass but that did not hold back high iq working class pupils.
Now if you are poor but high IQ avoiding a requires improvement or inadequate school is a lottery dependent on where your parents live. You would almost certainly have got into a grammar though whereever you lived.
If you are middle class though your parents will buy your education either via private schools or the catchment area of good or outstanding schools. Or they will go to church more regularly for a vicar's reference for a top church school
On topic, when the ratings go this negative then there is usually no comeback.
I suspect Boris Johnson will be safe until May's elections, the last time they were held it was a tie between Labour and the Tories, Any Lab lead in NESV should lead to Tory losses, the bigger the lead, the more losses.
I suspect the Lib Dems may also help create a carnage for the blue meanies.
Haven't you just rejoined the party you are calling meanies?
I've been calling them the Blue Meanies for years, as a joke at the expense of lefties who think Tories are evil and that Labour have a higher moral purpose.
ooh, have you rejoined the Tories Eagles? Presumably because you have a view on Boris's successor - who do you favour?
Has to be Hunt once more.
Fair enough. Though my guess is that he won't be one of the last two which goes to members.
Bit of take off in the London hospitalisations but no take off in patients on ventilation at all which could be a sign that a lot of the additional London admissions are incidental. I think that report comes out every Thursday and will be very, very key in knowing what kind of danger Omicron presents.
Don't think we are at the point where the extra admissions would have need ventilation yet. As with everything at the moment we need another couple of days of data.
Which isn't a problem here as I really don't think omicron is the issue it was feared to be.
At least if the dreaded Covid hits me now, I can still say I've done the equivalent of one run a day this year...
Nice. I assume that means more than one run on some days. Any particular reason for that?
I prefer to do one long run and get it over with. But I did do a handful of multiple days.
On one day I did three runs. I did a ten-miler in the dark one Sunday this autumn, then got home for breakfast. Mrs J was feeling unwell, so I did the junior Parkrun with the little 'un. Whilst there, I met Mrs J's friend. They were meant to be running together, and she asked me to run instead. So I did another four miles after the Parkrun with her. Three runs in a morning: 10 miles, 1.2 miles, and 4 miles.
But I didn't count the park run in my official stats. It was too short...
What distance is the long run?
How many miles/KM are you running a week?
FX: checks...
I think that I've run at least one 10K run every day since the end of June. Aside from one 1-miler, the shortest run I've recorded this year is 3.5 miles.
(There are some runs I do not record; I've just done a 2K with the little 'un; I don't record those on the 'sheet.)
I don't have weekly figures (I'd need to alter my Excel spreadsheet...), but my highest month was July, at 302 miles, or a smidgen ten miles a day.
Very impressive. Well done, perhaps get a marathon or a half on the calendar for next year?
On topic, when the ratings go this negative then there is usually no comeback.
I suspect Boris Johnson will be safe until May's elections, the last time they were held it was a tie between Labour and the Tories, Any Lab lead in NESV should lead to Tory losses, the bigger the lead, the more losses.
I suspect the Lib Dems may also help create a carnage for the blue meanies.
Haven't you just rejoined the party you are calling meanies?
I've been calling them the Blue Meanies for years, as a joke at the expense of lefties who think Tories are evil and that Labour have a higher moral purpose.
ooh, have you rejoined the Tories Eagles? Presumably because you have a view on Boris's successor - who do you favour?
Has to be Hunt once more.
Doubt he'll make the final two. I have it down as Rishi vs the CRG candidate.
Rishi is going to fall short.
That's interesting information, Liz Truss stolen his base?
On topic, when the ratings go this negative then there is usually no comeback.
I suspect Boris Johnson will be safe until May's elections, the last time they were held it was a tie between Labour and the Tories, Any Lab lead in NESV should lead to Tory losses, the bigger the lead, the more losses.
I suspect the Lib Dems may also help create a carnage for the blue meanies.
Haven't you just rejoined the party you are calling meanies?
I've been calling them the Blue Meanies for years, as a joke at the expense of lefties who think Tories are evil and that Labour have a higher moral purpose.
ooh, have you rejoined the Tories Eagles? Presumably because you have a view on Boris's successor - who do you favour?
Has to be Hunt once more.
The guy who commissioned the pandemic preparedness exercise, then ignored its recommendations? Can’t see that coming up during the campaign…
It'll be fine.
Being the antithesis of Boris Johnson will see him through.
I've heard on the grapevine that Hunt has started to get his campaign team back together,.
Some excellent post on the last thread guys. I mean really good.
Re poor Comprehensives in deprived areas I agree, but this is probably a lot more to do with the issues of the area than anything else. The answer certainly isn't going back to Secondary Moderns.
I see @HYUFD is continuing to compare stats on Grammar schools to Comprehensives and ignoring the samples are completely different because the Grammar has selected.
If you lived in a deprived area 50 years ago you could go to a grammar school if intelligent.
Now your only choice would be a comprehensive likely to be a secondary modern in all but name if you do not have wealthy parents who can send you to private school
That doesn't answer the point.
It does. Unless you live in a wealthy suburb or rural area (or go to a comprehensive or academy where admission is based on church attendance) comprehensives are often just renamed secondary moderns effectively.
@MikeSmithson is correct. It doesn't answer the point. As usual you just raise another point and don't address the point raised. It is a moving target.
Re your point on living in a poor area and being able to go to a grammar, this is very naïve. What actually happens is the middle class and well off in surrounding areas get tutored for the test and fill the spaces. The bright kids in the poor areas don't and they still don't get in by and large.
I lived in a relatively poor large village with 2 primary schools. Only one boy got into the boys grammar school and no girls to the girls grammar school. And that boy dropped out. I have no memory of even taking a test let alone getting tutored. After O levels a whole bunch of replaced those that had dropped out. The system is crap at selection and selecting at 11 is far too soon.
There are limits on how much you can tutor for 11+ and 13+ tests which are designed to test raw iq not subject knowledge as such. Indeed very often even a few bright kids from council estates got into grammar schools even without tutors and then onto Oxbridge or other top universities and professional careers. That path is not open to them to the same extent now if they live in a deprived area and just get sent to the local very average, if that, comp.
If you were well off and had a kid who was not so bright and would not pass the 11 or 13+ you could still send them private however and still do. Most wealthy parents did not send their children to secondary moderns and do not send their children to comprehensives and certainly not comprehensives or academies which are any less than Outstanding. So the rich generally don't use comprehensives anyway while the bright but poor no longer have the opportunities grammars provided. Most grammars of course also have entries at sixth form level too
a) You can tutor for IQ tests very easily. Not sure where you got it that it was difficult. There are lots of techniques.
b) In between our posts I have been chopping wood and did a rough mental calculation of how many should have got into the grammar school from my village all other things being equal (I know how many classes there were, the size of them, the fact that our village was a 3 member ward and how many councillors there were in the borough). The answer is about 25. There was 1 and he dropped out. If that doesn't give you an idea of the disparity between poor and middle class areas nothing will.
c) If you think the well off don't send their children to Comprehensives you live in a different world. I live in a well off area now. I am wealthy by most peoples measure as are most of the people I know. Nearly all use the local comprehensive, which I grant you is good, but that is not what you were saying.
d) Moving to a Grammar at sixth form is too late. The damage has been done. Many won't go who should. Many who were at the Grammar who shouldn't have been have dropped out.
Select by subject on an ongoing basis throughout the child's education.
a) You can't. IQ test results are in part based on genetics, they are difficult to tutor for unlike subject knowledge based exams.
b) And all of them would likely have gone to a sink comprehensive otherwise, at least 1 still got to a grammar.
c) If the wealthy send their kids to a comp it will only be an Outstanding comp they have bought their kids admission to by buying a house in its catchment area, meaning there are well above average house prices for that catchment area. You buy a place at an Outstanding comp or academy much like you buy a place at private school effectively or else you go to church more regularly to get a vicar's reference for a top church school. I notice you did not send your kids to a sink school the bright but poor have little choice but to go to!
d) Sixth form entry for A levels and top university is fine for late developers
I am absolutely minted and our kids go to the local comp (it is an academy but most secondaries in London are). Rated good not outstanding. Plenty of other parents similar to us, judging from how posh some of our kids' friends talk. House prices are high it's true but that's more because they're nice houses. But half the housing in the catchment, I'm guessing, is social housing so it's far from true that most of the kids at the school have bought their way in somehow. Proportion of minorities and with English as an additional language much higher than average; those on pupil premium broadly average. If actual GCSE grades match the predictions after my eldest's mocks I'll be very happy, but let's see in June.
So still a good school not a crap school even then. If however you live on a council estate and your local comp is inadequate or requires improvement you would have no choice but to attend it even if you were bright enough to get into a grammar school.
Middle class parents however would move to the catchment area of a Good or Outstanding school even if more expensive. Or else start going to church more regularly to gets their children into an Outstanding church school
Most comps are rated good or outstanding. Those that aren't need to be improved. Most gifted working class kids didn't pass the 11 plus when we had grammars, plenty of average middle class kids did. Secondary moderns, where most working class kids went, were often dreadful schools. Very few parents want to see them brought back. Let's focus on improving standards and find a way of breaking the culture of low expectations that affects too many kids, not try to resurrect the failed, divisive policies of the past. I think I'm done on this subject, my substandard comprehensive-schooled brain is growing weary!
No, most gifted working class kids with high IQs easily passed the 11 plus, a few average middle class pupils may also have scraped a pass but that did not hold back high iq working class pupils.
Now if you are poor but high IQ avoiding a requires improvement or inadequate school is a lottery dependent on where your parents live. You would almost certainly have got into a grammar though whereever you lived.
If you are middle class though your parents will buy your education either via private schools or the catchment area of good or outstanding schools. Or they will go to church more regularly for a vicar's reference for a top church school
Why are you continuing to post bullshit without any evidence to back it up when multiple posters have provided examples that show your ideas to be completely and utterly incorrect?
On topic, when the ratings go this negative then there is usually no comeback.
I suspect Boris Johnson will be safe until May's elections, the last time they were held it was a tie between Labour and the Tories, Any Lab lead in NESV should lead to Tory losses, the bigger the lead, the more losses.
I suspect the Lib Dems may also help create a carnage for the blue meanies.
Haven't you just rejoined the party you are calling meanies?
I've been calling them the Blue Meanies for years, as a joke at the expense of lefties who think Tories are evil and that Labour have a higher moral purpose.
ooh, have you rejoined the Tories Eagles? Presumably because you have a view on Boris's successor - who do you favour?
Tories Eagles sounds like the rejected pilot version of Charlie's Angels...
Wouldn’t that make Hague a Bald Headed Eagle?
Raab or Williamson the [All at] Sea Eagles. May (and perhaps shortly Johnson) the Booted [out] Eagles. Johnson the [former] Golden Eagle.
Bit of take off in the London hospitalisations but no take off in patients on ventilation at all which could be a sign that a lot of the additional London admissions are incidental. I think that report comes out every Thursday and will be very, very key in knowing what kind of danger Omicron presents.
Don't think we are at the point where the extra admissions would have need ventilation yet. As with everything at the moment we need another couple of days of data.
Which isn't a problem here as I really don't think omicron is the issue it was feared to be.
Not necessarily, there will be some patients who require it immediately on arriving at hospital, that we haven't seen those is why I'm hopeful that a big bulk of the increased admissions are incidental.
Some excellent post on the last thread guys. I mean really good.
Re poor Comprehensives in deprived areas I agree, but this is probably a lot more to do with the issues of the area than anything else. The answer certainly isn't going back to Secondary Moderns.
I see @HYUFD is continuing to compare stats on Grammar schools to Comprehensives and ignoring the samples are completely different because the Grammar has selected.
If you lived in a deprived area 50 years ago you could go to a grammar school if intelligent.
Now your only choice would be a comprehensive likely to be a secondary modern in all but name if you do not have wealthy parents who can send you to private school
That doesn't answer the point.
It does. Unless you live in a wealthy suburb or rural area (or go to a comprehensive or academy where admission is based on church attendance) comprehensives are often just renamed secondary moderns effectively.
@MikeSmithson is correct. It doesn't answer the point. As usual you just raise another point and don't address the point raised. It is a moving target.
Re your point on living in a poor area and being able to go to a grammar, this is very naïve. What actually happens is the middle class and well off in surrounding areas get tutored for the test and fill the spaces. The bright kids in the poor areas don't and they still don't get in by and large.
I lived in a relatively poor large village with 2 primary schools. Only one boy got into the boys grammar school and no girls to the girls grammar school. And that boy dropped out. I have no memory of even taking a test let alone getting tutored. After O levels a whole bunch of replaced those that had dropped out. The system is crap at selection and selecting at 11 is far too soon.
There are limits on how much you can tutor for 11+ and 13+ tests which are designed to test raw iq not subject knowledge as such. Indeed very often even a few bright kids from council estates got into grammar schools even without tutors and then onto Oxbridge or other top universities and professional careers. That path is not open to them to the same extent now if they live in a deprived area and just get sent to the local very average, if that, comp.
If you were well off and had a kid who was not so bright and would not pass the 11 or 13+ you could still send them private however and still do. Most wealthy parents did not send their children to secondary moderns and do not send their children to comprehensives and certainly not comprehensives or academies which are any less than Outstanding. So the rich generally don't use comprehensives anyway while the bright but poor no longer have the opportunities grammars provided. Most grammars of course also have entries at sixth form level too
a) You can tutor for IQ tests very easily. Not sure where you got it that it was difficult. There are lots of techniques.
b) In between our posts I have been chopping wood and did a rough mental calculation of how many should have got into the grammar school from my village all other things being equal (I know how many classes there were, the size of them, the fact that our village was a 3 member ward and how many councillors there were in the borough). The answer is about 25. There was 1 and he dropped out. If that doesn't give you an idea of the disparity between poor and middle class areas nothing will.
c) If you think the well off don't send their children to Comprehensives you live in a different world. I live in a well off area now. I am wealthy by most peoples measure as are most of the people I know. Nearly all use the local comprehensive, which I grant you is good, but that is not what you were saying.
d) Moving to a Grammar at sixth form is too late. The damage has been done. Many won't go who should. Many who were at the Grammar who shouldn't have been have dropped out.
Select by subject on an ongoing basis throughout the child's education.
a) You can't. IQ test results are in part based on genetics, they are difficult to tutor for unlike subject knowledge based exams.
b) And all of them would likely have gone to a sink comprehensive otherwise, at least 1 still got to a grammar.
c) If the wealthy send their kids to a comp it will only be an Outstanding comp they have bought their kids admission to by buying a house in its catchment area, meaning there are well above average house prices for that catchment area. You buy a place at an Outstanding comp or academy much like you buy a place at private school effectively or else you go to church more regularly to get a vicar's reference for a top church school. I notice you did not send your kids to a sink school the bright but poor have little choice but to go to!
d) Sixth form entry for A levels and top university is fine for late developers
I am absolutely minted and our kids go to the local comp (it is an academy but most secondaries in London are). Rated good not outstanding. Plenty of other parents similar to us, judging from how posh some of our kids' friends talk. House prices are high it's true but that's more because they're nice houses. But half the housing in the catchment, I'm guessing, is social housing so it's far from true that most of the kids at the school have bought their way in somehow. Proportion of minorities and with English as an additional language much higher than average; those on pupil premium broadly average. If actual GCSE grades match the predictions after my eldest's mocks I'll be very happy, but let's see in June.
So still a good school not a crap school even then. If however you live on a council estate and your local comp is inadequate or requires improvement you would have no choice but to attend it even if you were bright enough to get into a grammar school.
Middle class parents however would move to the catchment area of a Good or Outstanding school even if more expensive. Or else start going to church more regularly to gets their children into an Outstanding church school
Most comps are rated good or outstanding. Those that aren't need to be improved. Most gifted working class kids didn't pass the 11 plus when we had grammars, plenty of average middle class kids did. Secondary moderns, where most working class kids went, were often dreadful schools. Very few parents want to see them brought back. Let's focus on improving standards and find a way of breaking the culture of low expectations that affects too many kids, not try to resurrect the failed, divisive policies of the past. I think I'm done on this subject, my substandard comprehensive-schooled brain is growing weary!
No, most gifted working class kids with high IQs easily passed the 11 plus, a few average middle class pupils may also have scraped a pass but that did not hold back high iq working class pupils.
Now if you are poor but high IQ avoiding a requires improvement or inadequate school is a lottery dependent on where your parents live. You would almost certainly have got into a grammar though whereever you lived.
If you are middle class though your parents will buy your education either via private schools or the catchment area of good or outstanding schools. Or they will go to church more regularly for a vicar's reference for a top church school
Why are you continuing to post bullshit without any evidence to back it up when multiple posters have provided examples that show your ideas to be completely and utterly incorrect?
They haven't, they have just used ideological anecdote which I ideologically disagree with.
Plenty on here like Richard Tyndall and Pagan agree with me on grammars
On topic, when the ratings go this negative then there is usually no comeback.
I suspect Boris Johnson will be safe until May's elections, the last time they were held it was a tie between Labour and the Tories, Any Lab lead in NESV should lead to Tory losses, the bigger the lead, the more losses.
I suspect the Lib Dems may also help create a carnage for the blue meanies.
Haven't you just rejoined the party you are calling meanies?
I've been calling them the Blue Meanies for years, as a joke at the expense of lefties who think Tories are evil and that Labour have a higher moral purpose.
ooh, have you rejoined the Tories Eagles? Presumably because you have a view on Boris's successor - who do you favour?
Has to be Hunt once more.
Doubt he'll make the final two. I have it down as Rishi vs the CRG candidate.
Rishi is going to fall short.
That's interesting information, Liz Truss stolen his base?
My expectation is that the leadership contest will be preceded by a cost of living crisis which is going to tarnish Sunak's popularity.
On topic, when the ratings go this negative then there is usually no comeback.
I suspect Boris Johnson will be safe until May's elections, the last time they were held it was a tie between Labour and the Tories, Any Lab lead in NESV should lead to Tory losses, the bigger the lead, the more losses.
I suspect the Lib Dems may also help create a carnage for the blue meanies.
Haven't you just rejoined the party you are calling meanies?
I've been calling them the Blue Meanies for years, as a joke at the expense of lefties who think Tories are evil and that Labour have a higher moral purpose.
ooh, have you rejoined the Tories Eagles? Presumably because you have a view on Boris's successor - who do you favour?
Has to be Hunt once more.
Doubt he'll make the final two. I have it down as Rishi vs the CRG candidate.
Rishi is going to fall short.
That's interesting information, Liz Truss stolen his base?
My expectation is that the leadership contest will be preceded by a cost of living crisis which is going to tarnish Sunak's popularity.
His numbers have been on the down for ages, he will be drawing level with Starmer shortly.
I think Labour form the next government regardless but will be good to have some competence on the Tory side back
Covid is a Corbynista's dream to control everyone's lives and perfect for that close friend of Jeremy Corbyn, Mark Drakeford
I understand the precautionary principle on this variant but I think we need to take a step back and reflect a bit.
We have no solid evidence that this is going to cause us a significant issue, though there is a chance. Strong guidance to give the Government/NHS/SAGE time to react seems sensible, and people have taken that on board.
Fining people for expressing basic freedoms over a 'maybe' is too far. At this point in the pandemic there has to be some red lines which you cross only when you're 90% sure.
Imagine you're 22, triple-vaxxed, just starting your career, and you escape your 5 bed shared flat so you can get some tricky coding done that supports critical SAGE modelling.
Drakeford fines you.
Meanwhile, a bunch of anti-vaxxer 50 year olds hold a house party, clogging up the local ICU while you granddad gets his cancer appointment postponed.
90,629 positive cases 172 deaths 847 admissions and 6,094 in hospital
Pretty positive result I think.
I don't think 172 deaths is anything to call "pretty positive" in all honesty but the rate of increase in case number seems to be slowing.
It looks as though the decision of large numbers of the population to get the booster vaccination and reduce social contact voluntarily may yet succeed.
The good sense of the British public has prevailed - no need to praise Boris Johnson for that of course.
Well I'd say deaths is positive in that trend of deaths by date of death continues downwards (99.9 per day - should drop again tomorrow). And pretty positive compared to our neighbours at the moment, though of course we had the deaths over summer that they're having now. So yes - I'd say given the context, pretty positive.
And to be fair Boris gets some credit for the boosters - again, we're ahead of Europe, because his government's one inarguable success has been vaccine procurement. It could have been better of course, as MaxPB often points out - but again, it's been rather better than our neighbours.
He may be a knob, but let's not pretend there aren't some credits as well as debits.
What Boris doesn't get credit for is avoiding lockdown, because if we are to be believed he has been prevented from imposing that by the rest of the cabinet.
On topic, when the ratings go this negative then there is usually no comeback.
I suspect Boris Johnson will be safe until May's elections, the last time they were held it was a tie between Labour and the Tories, Any Lab lead in NESV should lead to Tory losses, the bigger the lead, the more losses.
I suspect the Lib Dems may also help create a carnage for the blue meanies.
Haven't you just rejoined the party you are calling meanies?
I've been calling them the Blue Meanies for years, as a joke at the expense of lefties who think Tories are evil and that Labour have a higher moral purpose.
ooh, have you rejoined the Tories Eagles? Presumably because you have a view on Boris's successor - who do you favour?
Has to be Hunt once more.
Doubt he'll make the final two. I have it down as Rishi vs the CRG candidate.
Rishi is going to fall short.
That's interesting information, Liz Truss stolen his base?
My expectation is that the leadership contest will be preceded by a cost of living crisis which is going to tarnish Sunak's popularity.
His numbers have been on the down for ages, he will be drawing level with Starmer shortly.
I think Labour form the next government regardless but will be good to have some competence on the Tory side back
Have you ever thought that Labour would not form the next government?
Bit of take off in the London hospitalisations but no take off in patients on ventilation at all which could be a sign that a lot of the additional London admissions are incidental. I think that report comes out every Thursday and will be very, very key in knowing what kind of danger Omicron presents.
Don't think we are at the point where the extra admissions would have need ventilation yet. As with everything at the moment we need another couple of days of data.
Which isn't a problem here as I really don't think omicron is the issue it was feared to be.
Not necessarily, there will be some patients who require it immediately on arriving at hospital, that we haven't seen those is why I'm hopeful that a big bulk of the increased admissions are incidental.
With omicron which starts at the throat and only hits the lungs (if it does later).
I wouldn't want to make the assumption that what happened with hospital admissions for Delta is true for Omicron.
Everything is hinting that omicron is very infectious but mild for vaccinated people but we don't 100% know that yet.
On topic, when the ratings go this negative then there is usually no comeback.
I suspect Boris Johnson will be safe until May's elections, the last time they were held it was a tie between Labour and the Tories, Any Lab lead in NESV should lead to Tory losses, the bigger the lead, the more losses.
I suspect the Lib Dems may also help create a carnage for the blue meanies.
Haven't you just rejoined the party you are calling meanies?
I've been calling them the Blue Meanies for years, as a joke at the expense of lefties who think Tories are evil and that Labour have a higher moral purpose.
ooh, have you rejoined the Tories Eagles? Presumably because you have a view on Boris's successor - who do you favour?
Has to be Hunt once more.
Doubt he'll make the final two. I have it down as Rishi vs the CRG candidate.
Rishi is going to fall short.
That's interesting information, Liz Truss stolen his base?
My expectation is that the leadership contest will be preceded by a cost of living crisis which is going to tarnish Sunak's popularity.
I thought you were just dissing his height with your comment!
Economic woes are not likely to favour the chancellor, it's true.
Covid is a Corbynista's dream to control everyone's lives and perfect for that close friend of Jeremy Corbyn, Mark Drakeford
I understand the precautionary principle on this variant but I think we need to take a step back and reflect a bit.
We have no solid evidence that this is going to cause us a significant issue, though there is a chance. Strong guidance to give the Government/NHS/SAGE time to react seems sensible, and people have taken that on board.
Fining people for expressing basic freedoms over a 'maybe' is too far. At this point in the pandemic there has to be some red lines which you cross only when you're 90% sure.
I know it’s an unpopular view, but the UK government are really to be commended on the way they’ve handled the imposition of what are pretty much unprecedented restrictions.
Elsewhere in the world, governments have submitted to civil service authoritarianism, with papers required to go to the shops, and a lack of support for businesses affected by the restrictions. Many places will never give up on the tracking apps, for as long as they can get away with it.
Yes - the UK government (and specifically that part of it which relates to England) have been significantly less awful than almost everywhere else in the developed world.
Yes, it’s been awful everywhere, it’s a damn pandemic, and those with experience only of the UK/England system often won’t realise just how much worse things are elsewhere.
On the other hand, they also don't seem to realise how much more draconian measures have been in the UK than in a lot of other places.
How exactly do they decide whether or not someone should be working from home? Seems very subjective.
Utterly ludicrous/outrageous. Have they somehow written that into the law? (Always been guidance in England I think - but obviously something most who could have taken advantage of)
Covid is a Corbynista's dream to control everyone's lives and perfect for that close friend of Jeremy Corbyn, Mark Drakeford
I understand the precautionary principle on this variant but I think we need to take a step back and reflect a bit.
We have no solid evidence that this is going to cause us a significant issue, though there is a chance. Strong guidance to give the Government/NHS/SAGE time to react seems sensible, and people have taken that on board.
Fining people for expressing basic freedoms over a 'maybe' is too far. At this point in the pandemic there has to be some red lines which you cross only when you're 90% sure.
I know it’s an unpopular view, but the UK government are really to be commended on the way they’ve handled the imposition of what are pretty much unprecedented restrictions.
Elsewhere in the world, governments have submitted to civil service authoritarianism, with papers required to go to the shops, and a lack of support for businesses affected by the restrictions. Many places will never give up on the tracking apps, for as long as they can get away with it.
Yes - the UK government (and specifically that part of it which relates to England) have been significantly less awful than almost everywhere else in the developed world.
Yes, it’s been awful everywhere, it’s a damn pandemic, and those with experience only of the UK/England system often won’t realise just how much worse things are elsewhere.
On the other hand, they also don't seem to realise how much more draconian measures have been in the UK than in a lot of other places.
No, the UK's measures have not been draconian (relatively speaking).
On topic, when the ratings go this negative then there is usually no comeback.
I suspect Boris Johnson will be safe until May's elections, the last time they were held it was a tie between Labour and the Tories, Any Lab lead in NESV should lead to Tory losses, the bigger the lead, the more losses.
I suspect the Lib Dems may also help create a carnage for the blue meanies.
Haven't you just rejoined the party you are calling meanies?
I've been calling them the Blue Meanies for years, as a joke at the expense of lefties who think Tories are evil and that Labour have a higher moral purpose.
ooh, have you rejoined the Tories Eagles? Presumably because you have a view on Boris's successor - who do you favour?
Has to be Hunt once more.
Doubt he'll make the final two. I have it down as Rishi vs the CRG candidate.
Rishi is going to fall short.
That's interesting information, Liz Truss stolen his base?
My expectation is that the leadership contest will be preceded by a cost of living crisis which is going to tarnish Sunak's popularity.
His numbers have been on the down for ages, he will be drawing level with Starmer shortly.
I think Labour form the next government regardless but will be good to have some competence on the Tory side back
Have you ever thought that Labour would not form the next government?
Yes, quite a few times this year, including and when I said Starmer had a year to turn it around
On topic, when the ratings go this negative then there is usually no comeback.
I suspect Boris Johnson will be safe until May's elections, the last time they were held it was a tie between Labour and the Tories, Any Lab lead in NESV should lead to Tory losses, the bigger the lead, the more losses.
I suspect the Lib Dems may also help create a carnage for the blue meanies.
Haven't you just rejoined the party you are calling meanies?
I've been calling them the Blue Meanies for years, as a joke at the expense of lefties who think Tories are evil and that Labour have a higher moral purpose.
ooh, have you rejoined the Tories Eagles? Presumably because you have a view on Boris's successor - who do you favour?
Has to be Hunt once more.
Doubt he'll make the final two. I have it down as Rishi vs the CRG candidate.
Rishi is going to fall short.
That's interesting information, Liz Truss stolen his base?
My expectation is that the leadership contest will be preceded by a cost of living crisis which is going to tarnish Sunak's popularity.
I thought you were just dissing his height with your comment!
Economic woes are not likely to favour the chancellor, it's true.
Bit of take off in the London hospitalisations but no take off in patients on ventilation at all which could be a sign that a lot of the additional London admissions are incidental. I think that report comes out every Thursday and will be very, very key in knowing what kind of danger Omicron presents.
Don't think we are at the point where the extra admissions would have need ventilation yet. As with everything at the moment we need another couple of days of data.
Which isn't a problem here as I really don't think omicron is the issue it was feared to be.
Not necessarily, there will be some patients who require it immediately on arriving at hospital, that we haven't seen those is why I'm hopeful that a big bulk of the increased admissions are incidental.
With omicron which starts at the throat and only hits the lungs (if it does later).
I wouldn't want to make the assumption that what happened with hospital admissions for Delta is true for Omicron.
Everything is hinting that omicron is very infectious but mild for vaccinated people but we don't 100% know that yet.
Well yes, hence the reason for being hopeful. If we saw that immediate small rise in ventilator use we'd have some proof that it may not be mild.
At least if the dreaded Covid hits me now, I can still say I've done the equivalent of one run a day this year...
Nice. I assume that means more than one run on some days. Any particular reason for that?
I prefer to do one long run and get it over with. But I did do a handful of multiple days.
On one day I did three runs. I did a ten-miler in the dark one Sunday this autumn, then got home for breakfast. Mrs J was feeling unwell, so I did the junior Parkrun with the little 'un. Whilst there, I met Mrs J's friend. They were meant to be running together, and she asked me to run instead. So I did another four miles after the Parkrun with her. Three runs in a morning: 10 miles, 1.2 miles, and 4 miles.
But I didn't count the park run in my official stats. It was too short...
What distance is the long run?
How many miles/KM are you running a week?
FX: checks...
I think that I've run at least one 10K run every day since the end of June. Aside from one 1-miler, the shortest run I've recorded this year is 3.5 miles.
(There are some runs I do not record; I've just done a 2K with the little 'un; I don't record those on the 'sheet.)
I don't have weekly figures (I'd need to alter my Excel spreadsheet...), but my highest month was July, at 302 miles, or a smidgen ten miles a day.
Very impressive. Well done, perhaps get a marathon or a half on the calendar for next year?
You should get onto Strava friend
I've uploaded the runs on Strava (unpaid for), just so I can find places other people run in my area of interest using their groovy heatmaps. If you'd like to see the madness, PM me.
I use Garmin for my main data storage and munging.
Some excellent post on the last thread guys. I mean really good.
Re poor Comprehensives in deprived areas I agree, but this is probably a lot more to do with the issues of the area than anything else. The answer certainly isn't going back to Secondary Moderns.
I see @HYUFD is continuing to compare stats on Grammar schools to Comprehensives and ignoring the samples are completely different because the Grammar has selected.
If you lived in a deprived area 50 years ago you could go to a grammar school if intelligent.
Now your only choice would be a comprehensive likely to be a secondary modern in all but name if you do not have wealthy parents who can send you to private school
That doesn't answer the point.
It does. Unless you live in a wealthy suburb or rural area (or go to a comprehensive or academy where admission is based on church attendance) comprehensives are often just renamed secondary moderns effectively.
@MikeSmithson is correct. It doesn't answer the point. As usual you just raise another point and don't address the point raised. It is a moving target.
Re your point on living in a poor area and being able to go to a grammar, this is very naïve. What actually happens is the middle class and well off in surrounding areas get tutored for the test and fill the spaces. The bright kids in the poor areas don't and they still don't get in by and large.
I lived in a relatively poor large village with 2 primary schools. Only one boy got into the boys grammar school and no girls to the girls grammar school. And that boy dropped out. I have no memory of even taking a test let alone getting tutored. After O levels a whole bunch of replaced those that had dropped out. The system is crap at selection and selecting at 11 is far too soon.
There are limits on how much you can tutor for 11+ and 13+ tests which are designed to test raw iq not subject knowledge as such. Indeed very often even a few bright kids from council estates got into grammar schools even without tutors and then onto Oxbridge or other top universities and professional careers. That path is not open to them to the same extent now if they live in a deprived area and just get sent to the local very average, if that, comp.
If you were well off and had a kid who was not so bright and would not pass the 11 or 13+ you could still send them private however and still do. Most wealthy parents did not send their children to secondary moderns and do not send their children to comprehensives and certainly not comprehensives or academies which are any less than Outstanding. So the rich generally don't use comprehensives anyway while the bright but poor no longer have the opportunities grammars provided. Most grammars of course also have entries at sixth form level too
a) You can tutor for IQ tests very easily. Not sure where you got it that it was difficult. There are lots of techniques.
b) In between our posts I have been chopping wood and did a rough mental calculation of how many should have got into the grammar school from my village all other things being equal (I know how many classes there were, the size of them, the fact that our village was a 3 member ward and how many councillors there were in the borough). The answer is about 25. There was 1 and he dropped out. If that doesn't give you an idea of the disparity between poor and middle class areas nothing will.
c) If you think the well off don't send their children to Comprehensives you live in a different world. I live in a well off area now. I am wealthy by most peoples measure as are most of the people I know. Nearly all use the local comprehensive, which I grant you is good, but that is not what you were saying.
d) Moving to a Grammar at sixth form is too late. The damage has been done. Many won't go who should. Many who were at the Grammar who shouldn't have been have dropped out.
Select by subject on an ongoing basis throughout the child's education.
a) You can't. IQ test results are in part based on genetics, they are difficult to tutor for unlike subject knowledge based exams.
b) And all of them would likely have gone to a sink comprehensive otherwise, at least 1 still got to a grammar.
c) If the wealthy send their kids to a comp it will only be an Outstanding comp they have bought their kids admission to by buying a house in its catchment area, meaning there are well above average house prices for that catchment area. You buy a place at an Outstanding comp or academy much like you buy a place at private school effectively or else you go to church more regularly to get a vicar's reference for a top church school. I notice you did not send your kids to a sink school the bright but poor have little choice but to go to!
d) Sixth form entry for A levels and top university is fine for late developers
I am absolutely minted and our kids go to the local comp (it is an academy but most secondaries in London are). Rated good not outstanding. Plenty of other parents similar to us, judging from how posh some of our kids' friends talk. House prices are high it's true but that's more because they're nice houses. But half the housing in the catchment, I'm guessing, is social housing so it's far from true that most of the kids at the school have bought their way in somehow. Proportion of minorities and with English as an additional language much higher than average; those on pupil premium broadly average. If actual GCSE grades match the predictions after my eldest's mocks I'll be very happy, but let's see in June.
So still a good school not a crap school even then. If however you live on a council estate and your local comp is inadequate or requires improvement you would have no choice but to attend it even if you were bright enough to get into a grammar school.
Middle class parents however would move to the catchment area of a Good or Outstanding school even if more expensive. Or else start going to church more regularly to gets their children into an Outstanding church school
Most comps are rated good or outstanding. Those that aren't need to be improved. Most gifted working class kids didn't pass the 11 plus when we had grammars, plenty of average middle class kids did. Secondary moderns, where most working class kids went, were often dreadful schools. Very few parents want to see them brought back. Let's focus on improving standards and find a way of breaking the culture of low expectations that affects too many kids, not try to resurrect the failed, divisive policies of the past. I think I'm done on this subject, my substandard comprehensive-schooled brain is growing weary!
No, most gifted working class kids with high IQs easily passed the 11 plus, a few average middle class pupils may also have scraped a pass but that did not hold back high iq working class pupils.
Now if you are poor but high IQ avoiding a requires improvement or inadequate school is a lottery dependent on where your parents live. You would almost certainly have got into a grammar though whereever you lived.
If you are middle class though your parents will buy your education either via private schools or the catchment area of good or outstanding schools. Or they will go to church more regularly for a vicar's reference for a top church school
Why are you continuing to post bullshit without any evidence to back it up when multiple posters have provided examples that show your ideas to be completely and utterly incorrect?
They haven't, they have just used ideological anecdote which I ideologically disagree with.
Plenty on here like Richard Tyndall and Pagan agree with me on grammars
Nope Richard Tyndall posted something that Cookie then showed to be completely regional as I had already argued.
On topic, when the ratings go this negative then there is usually no comeback.
I suspect Boris Johnson will be safe until May's elections, the last time they were held it was a tie between Labour and the Tories, Any Lab lead in NESV should lead to Tory losses, the bigger the lead, the more losses.
I suspect the Lib Dems may also help create a carnage for the blue meanies.
Haven't you just rejoined the party you are calling meanies?
I've been calling them the Blue Meanies for years, as a joke at the expense of lefties who think Tories are evil and that Labour have a higher moral purpose.
ooh, have you rejoined the Tories Eagles? Presumably because you have a view on Boris's successor - who do you favour?
Has to be Hunt once more.
Doubt he'll make the final two. I have it down as Rishi vs the CRG candidate.
Rishi is going to fall short.
That's interesting information, Liz Truss stolen his base?
My expectation is that the leadership contest will be preceded by a cost of living crisis which is going to tarnish Sunak's popularity.
His numbers have been on the down for ages, he will be drawing level with Starmer shortly.
I think Labour form the next government regardless but will be good to have some competence on the Tory side back
Have you ever thought that Labour would not form the next government?
Yes, quite a few times this year, including and when I said Starmer had a year to turn it around
So why not make it a condition of supporting the government's plan b measures? I mean Labour could literally have claimed £2bn for businesses as their measure, the government would simply have had to agree given the scope of rebellion in their own party.
Perhaps, but different issue. I merely intended to point out the laziness of so many on here in asserting that Labour has been quiet on the issue of support for businesses (and individuals who have to isolate). They haven't. It's fake news.
Honestly, a letter is window dressing compared to the opportunity to force the government into supporting their amendment for support cash. It was an error for Starmer to wave through the plan b measures without getting money for businesses in return and now the chancellor is able to take credit for it. Just as Boris is a bit useless, I think Labour are as well. Blair would never have let an opportunity like that go to waste. He'd have got the money and had the media dub it "Labour's Christmas Bonus" or something like that.
I think not. What would have happened - and this is why Starmer refrained - is the government would have refused to play ball, said the 2 issues shouldn't be coupled, and tabled Plan B. Labour would then have been faced with a choice of caving and backing it (weak) or voting it down, in which case - "Labour playing politics with people's lives!"
Starmer is playing Covid well and has done from the onset. He's pissed off some libertarian types and antilockdowners, most of whom aren't going to vote Labour in any event, but the core project is to convince a critical mass of the apolitical floating voters of England that Labour are a solid, trustworthy proposition. He's getting there with this, helped enormously by Johnson's implosion.
How exactly do they decide whether or not someone should be working from home? Seems very subjective.
Utterly ludicrous/outrageous. Have they somehow written that into the law? (Always been guidance in England I think - but obviously something most who could have taken advantage of)
Covid is a Corbynista's dream to control everyone's lives and perfect for that close friend of Jeremy Corbyn, Mark Drakeford
I understand the precautionary principle on this variant but I think we need to take a step back and reflect a bit.
We have no solid evidence that this is going to cause us a significant issue, though there is a chance. Strong guidance to give the Government/NHS/SAGE time to react seems sensible, and people have taken that on board.
Fining people for expressing basic freedoms over a 'maybe' is too far. At this point in the pandemic there has to be some red lines which you cross only when you're 90% sure.
I know it’s an unpopular view, but the UK government are really to be commended on the way they’ve handled the imposition of what are pretty much unprecedented restrictions.
Elsewhere in the world, governments have submitted to civil service authoritarianism, with papers required to go to the shops, and a lack of support for businesses affected by the restrictions. Many places will never give up on the tracking apps, for as long as they can get away with it.
Yes - the UK government (and specifically that part of it which relates to England) have been significantly less awful than almost everywhere else in the developed world.
Yes, it’s been awful everywhere, it’s a damn pandemic, and those with experience only of the UK/England system often won’t realise just how much worse things are elsewhere.
On the other hand, they also don't seem to realise how much more draconian measures have been in the UK than in a lot of other places.
Since July that hasn't been the case. Sadly Boris bottled it on plan b, but hopefully the Cabinet has forced the situation and pushed back hard on another lockdown.
Bit of take off in the London hospitalisations but no take off in patients on ventilation at all which could be a sign that a lot of the additional London admissions are incidental. I think that report comes out every Thursday and will be very, very key in knowing what kind of danger Omicron presents.
Be interesting to see what happens with average hospital stay duration for Omicron admissions
At least if the dreaded Covid hits me now, I can still say I've done the equivalent of one run a day this year...
Nice. I assume that means more than one run on some days. Any particular reason for that?
I prefer to do one long run and get it over with. But I did do a handful of multiple days.
On one day I did three runs. I did a ten-miler in the dark one Sunday this autumn, then got home for breakfast. Mrs J was feeling unwell, so I did the junior Parkrun with the little 'un. Whilst there, I met Mrs J's friend. They were meant to be running together, and she asked me to run instead. So I did another four miles after the Parkrun with her. Three runs in a morning: 10 miles, 1.2 miles, and 4 miles.
But I didn't count the park run in my official stats. It was too short...
What distance is the long run?
How many miles/KM are you running a week?
FX: checks...
I think that I've run at least one 10K run every day since the end of June. Aside from one 1-miler, the shortest run I've recorded this year is 3.5 miles.
(There are some runs I do not record; I've just done a 2K with the little 'un; I don't record those on the 'sheet.)
I don't have weekly figures (I'd need to alter my Excel spreadsheet...), but my highest month was July, at 302 miles, or a smidgen ten miles a day.
Very impressive. Well done, perhaps get a marathon or a half on the calendar for next year?
You should get onto Strava friend
I've uploaded the runs on Strava (unpaid for), just so I can find places other people run in my area of interest using their groovy heatmaps. If you'd like to see the madness, PM me.
I use Garmin for my main data storage and munging.
On topic, when the ratings go this negative then there is usually no comeback.
I suspect Boris Johnson will be safe until May's elections, the last time they were held it was a tie between Labour and the Tories, Any Lab lead in NESV should lead to Tory losses, the bigger the lead, the more losses.
I suspect the Lib Dems may also help create a carnage for the blue meanies.
Haven't you just rejoined the party you are calling meanies?
I've been calling them the Blue Meanies for years, as a joke at the expense of lefties who think Tories are evil and that Labour have a higher moral purpose.
ooh, have you rejoined the Tories Eagles? Presumably because you have a view on Boris's successor - who do you favour?
Has to be Hunt once more.
Doubt he'll make the final two. I have it down as Rishi vs the CRG candidate.
Rishi is going to fall short.
That's interesting information, Liz Truss stolen his base?
My expectation is that the leadership contest will be preceded by a cost of living crisis which is going to tarnish Sunak's popularity.
I thought you were just dissing his height with your comment!
Economic woes are not likely to favour the chancellor, it's true.
On topic, when the ratings go this negative then there is usually no comeback.
I suspect Boris Johnson will be safe until May's elections, the last time they were held it was a tie between Labour and the Tories, Any Lab lead in NESV should lead to Tory losses, the bigger the lead, the more losses.
I suspect the Lib Dems may also help create a carnage for the blue meanies.
Haven't you just rejoined the party you are calling meanies?
I've been calling them the Blue Meanies for years, as a joke at the expense of lefties who think Tories are evil and that Labour have a higher moral purpose.
ooh, have you rejoined the Tories Eagles? Presumably because you have a view on Boris's successor - who do you favour?
Has to be Hunt once more.
Doubt he'll make the final two. I have it down as Rishi vs the CRG candidate.
Rishi is going to fall short.
That's interesting information, Liz Truss stolen his base?
My expectation is that the leadership contest will be preceded by a cost of living crisis which is going to tarnish Sunak's popularity.
I wonder why we are getting all these leaks of photos from "the treasury" at the moment.
It's as if Rishi knows that unless things kick off now, by the time the leadership election comes he won't be in prime position.
So why not make it a condition of supporting the government's plan b measures? I mean Labour could literally have claimed £2bn for businesses as their measure, the government would simply have had to agree given the scope of rebellion in their own party.
Perhaps, but different issue. I merely intended to point out the laziness of so many on here in asserting that Labour has been quiet on the issue of support for businesses (and individuals who have to isolate). They haven't. It's fake news.
Honestly, a letter is window dressing compared to the opportunity to force the government into supporting their amendment for support cash. It was an error for Starmer to wave through the plan b measures without getting money for businesses in return and now the chancellor is able to take credit for it. Just as Boris is a bit useless, I think Labour are as well. Blair would never have let an opportunity like that go to waste. He'd have got the money and had the media dub it "Labour's Christmas Bonus" or something like that.
I think not. What would have happened - and this is why Starmer refrained - is the government would have refused to play ball, said the 2 issues shouldn't be coupled, and tabled Plan B. Labour would then have been faced with a choice of caving and backing it (weak) or voting it down, in which case - "Labour playing politics with people's lives!"
Starmer is playing Covid well and has done from the onset. He's pissed off some libertarian types and antilockdowners, most of whom aren't going to vote Labour in any event, but the core project is to convince a critical mass of the apolitical floating voters of England that Labour are a solid, trustworthy proposition. He's getting there with this, helped enormously by Johnson's implosion.
No, the government would have caved. Plain and simple. They were far too invested in plan b by the time it got to a vote and the scale of the Tory rebellion was known to be larger than the Tory majority. The money was there for the taking and coupling it to plan b made a lot of sense, especially since it's happened anyway.
"We can only support a plan b that has a plan b for British hospitality" lovely soundbite.
Covid is a Corbynista's dream to control everyone's lives and perfect for that close friend of Jeremy Corbyn, Mark Drakeford
I understand the precautionary principle on this variant but I think we need to take a step back and reflect a bit.
We have no solid evidence that this is going to cause us a significant issue, though there is a chance. Strong guidance to give the Government/NHS/SAGE time to react seems sensible, and people have taken that on board.
Fining people for expressing basic freedoms over a 'maybe' is too far. At this point in the pandemic there has to be some red lines which you cross only when you're 90% sure.
I know it’s an unpopular view, but the UK government are really to be commended on the way they’ve handled the imposition of what are pretty much unprecedented restrictions.
Elsewhere in the world, governments have submitted to civil service authoritarianism, with papers required to go to the shops, and a lack of support for businesses affected by the restrictions. Many places will never give up on the tracking apps, for as long as they can get away with it.
Yes - the UK government (and specifically that part of it which relates to England) have been significantly less awful than almost everywhere else in the developed world.
Yes, it’s been awful everywhere, it’s a damn pandemic, and those with experience only of the UK/England system often won’t realise just how much worse things are elsewhere.
On the other hand, they also don't seem to realise how much more draconian measures have been in the UK than in a lot of other places.
Since July that hasn't been the case. Sadly Boris bottled it on plan b, but hopefully the Cabinet has forced the situation and pushed back hard on another lockdown.
Indeed, the reason I so vehemently opposed Plan B was in no small part because it was bloody useless and once that step was taken people would be immediately demanding more, which is precisely what happened. People who claim "oh its only ..." keep salami slicing away our freedoms. Well no more.
Covid is a Corbynista's dream to control everyone's lives and perfect for that close friend of Jeremy Corbyn, Mark Drakeford
I understand the precautionary principle on this variant but I think we need to take a step back and reflect a bit.
We have no solid evidence that this is going to cause us a significant issue, though there is a chance. Strong guidance to give the Government/NHS/SAGE time to react seems sensible, and people have taken that on board.
Fining people for expressing basic freedoms over a 'maybe' is too far. At this point in the pandemic there has to be some red lines which you cross only when you're 90% sure.
I know it’s an unpopular view, but the UK government are really to be commended on the way they’ve handled the imposition of what are pretty much unprecedented restrictions.
Elsewhere in the world, governments have submitted to civil service authoritarianism, with papers required to go to the shops, and a lack of support for businesses affected by the restrictions. Many places will never give up on the tracking apps, for as long as they can get away with it.
Yes - the UK government (and specifically that part of it which relates to England) have been significantly less awful than almost everywhere else in the developed world.
Yes, it’s been awful everywhere, it’s a damn pandemic, and those with experience only of the UK/England system often won’t realise just how much worse things are elsewhere.
On the other hand, they also don't seem to realise how much more draconian measures have been in the UK than in a lot of other places.
No, the UK's measures have not been draconian (relatively speaking).
It was actually argued the UK weren't been strict enough...remember places like France it was "papers please" if you wanted to leave home (and this was allowed only under very strict criteria, food and medicine basically) and there was no travel outside a very small area. Lots of countries you couldn't even go out to exercise.
On topic, when the ratings go this negative then there is usually no comeback.
I suspect Boris Johnson will be safe until May's elections, the last time they were held it was a tie between Labour and the Tories, Any Lab lead in NESV should lead to Tory losses, the bigger the lead, the more losses.
I suspect the Lib Dems may also help create a carnage for the blue meanies.
Haven't you just rejoined the party you are calling meanies?
I've been calling them the Blue Meanies for years, as a joke at the expense of lefties who think Tories are evil and that Labour have a higher moral purpose.
ooh, have you rejoined the Tories Eagles? Presumably because you have a view on Boris's successor - who do you favour?
Has to be Hunt once more.
Doubt he'll make the final two. I have it down as Rishi vs the CRG candidate.
Rishi is going to fall short.
That's interesting information, Liz Truss stolen his base?
This does seem to be an era of short politicians.
Sunak is tiny, although he towers over Patel. Starmer looks far taller than he is. Boris is small too.
In France they seem to have wanted leaders that can look up to Merkel.
The only recent notable tall leader Trump always seemed much, much shorter than he was.
Some excellent post on the last thread guys. I mean really good.
Re poor Comprehensives in deprived areas I agree, but this is probably a lot more to do with the issues of the area than anything else. The answer certainly isn't going back to Secondary Moderns.
I see @HYUFD is continuing to compare stats on Grammar schools to Comprehensives and ignoring the samples are completely different because the Grammar has selected.
If you lived in a deprived area 50 years ago you could go to a grammar school if intelligent.
Now your only choice would be a comprehensive likely to be a secondary modern in all but name if you do not have wealthy parents who can send you to private school
That doesn't answer the point.
It does. Unless you live in a wealthy suburb or rural area (or go to a comprehensive or academy where admission is based on church attendance) comprehensives are often just renamed secondary moderns effectively.
@MikeSmithson is correct. It doesn't answer the point. As usual you just raise another point and don't address the point raised. It is a moving target.
Re your point on living in a poor area and being able to go to a grammar, this is very naïve. What actually happens is the middle class and well off in surrounding areas get tutored for the test and fill the spaces. The bright kids in the poor areas don't and they still don't get in by and large.
I lived in a relatively poor large village with 2 primary schools. Only one boy got into the boys grammar school and no girls to the girls grammar school. And that boy dropped out. I have no memory of even taking a test let alone getting tutored. After O levels a whole bunch of replaced those that had dropped out. The system is crap at selection and selecting at 11 is far too soon.
There are limits on how much you can tutor for 11+ and 13+ tests which are designed to test raw iq not subject knowledge as such. Indeed very often even a few bright kids from council estates got into grammar schools even without tutors and then onto Oxbridge or other top universities and professional careers. That path is not open to them to the same extent now if they live in a deprived area and just get sent to the local very average, if that, comp.
If you were well off and had a kid who was not so bright and would not pass the 11 or 13+ you could still send them private however and still do. Most wealthy parents did not send their children to secondary moderns and do not send their children to comprehensives and certainly not comprehensives or academies which are any less than Outstanding. So the rich generally don't use comprehensives anyway while the bright but poor no longer have the opportunities grammars provided. Most grammars of course also have entries at sixth form level too
a) You can tutor for IQ tests very easily. Not sure where you got it that it was difficult. There are lots of techniques.
b) In between our posts I have been chopping wood and did a rough mental calculation of how many should have got into the grammar school from my village all other things being equal (I know how many classes there were, the size of them, the fact that our village was a 3 member ward and how many councillors there were in the borough). The answer is about 25. There was 1 and he dropped out. If that doesn't give you an idea of the disparity between poor and middle class areas nothing will.
c) If you think the well off don't send their children to Comprehensives you live in a different world. I live in a well off area now. I am wealthy by most peoples measure as are most of the people I know. Nearly all use the local comprehensive, which I grant you is good, but that is not what you were saying.
d) Moving to a Grammar at sixth form is too late. The damage has been done. Many won't go who should. Many who were at the Grammar who shouldn't have been have dropped out.
Select by subject on an ongoing basis throughout the child's education.
a) You can't. IQ test results are in part based on genetics, they are difficult to tutor for unlike subject knowledge based exams.
b) And all of them would likely have gone to a sink comprehensive otherwise, at least 1 still got to a grammar.
c) If the wealthy send their kids to a comp it will only be an Outstanding comp they have bought their kids admission to by buying a house in its catchment area, meaning there are well above average house prices for that catchment area. You buy a place at an Outstanding comp or academy much like you buy a place at private school effectively or else you go to church more regularly to get a vicar's reference for a top church school. I notice you did not send your kids to a sink school the bright but poor have little choice but to go to!
d) Sixth form entry for A levels and top university is fine for late developers
I am absolutely minted and our kids go to the local comp (it is an academy but most secondaries in London are). Rated good not outstanding. Plenty of other parents similar to us, judging from how posh some of our kids' friends talk. House prices are high it's true but that's more because they're nice houses. But half the housing in the catchment, I'm guessing, is social housing so it's far from true that most of the kids at the school have bought their way in somehow. Proportion of minorities and with English as an additional language much higher than average; those on pupil premium broadly average. If actual GCSE grades match the predictions after my eldest's mocks I'll be very happy, but let's see in June.
So still a good school not a crap school even then. If however you live on a council estate and your local comp is inadequate or requires improvement you would have no choice but to attend it even if you were bright enough to get into a grammar school.
Middle class parents however would move to the catchment area of a Good or Outstanding school even if more expensive. Or else start going to church more regularly to gets their children into an Outstanding church school
Most comps are rated good or outstanding. Those that aren't need to be improved. Most gifted working class kids didn't pass the 11 plus when we had grammars, plenty of average middle class kids did. Secondary moderns, where most working class kids went, were often dreadful schools. Very few parents want to see them brought back. Let's focus on improving standards and find a way of breaking the culture of low expectations that affects too many kids, not try to resurrect the failed, divisive policies of the past. I think I'm done on this subject, my substandard comprehensive-schooled brain is growing weary!
No, most gifted working class kids with high IQs easily passed the 11 plus, a few average middle class pupils may also have scraped a pass but that did not hold back high iq working class pupils.
Now if you are poor but high IQ avoiding a requires improvement or inadequate school is a lottery dependent on where your parents live. You would almost certainly have got into a grammar though whereever you lived.
If you are middle class though your parents will buy your education either via private schools or the catchment area of good or outstanding schools. Or they will go to church more regularly for a vicar's reference for a top church school
Why are you continuing to post bullshit without any evidence to back it up when multiple posters have provided examples that show your ideas to be completely and utterly incorrect?
They haven't, they have just used ideological anecdote which I ideologically disagree with.
Plenty on here like Richard Tyndall and Pagan agree with me on grammars
Nope Richard Tyndall posted something that Cookie then showed to be completely regional as I had already argued.
You were making the absurd argument that selective grammars should not select on exam result but solely on catchment area.
In which case they become no different to the best comprehensives which select mainly on house price anyway
At least if the dreaded Covid hits me now, I can still say I've done the equivalent of one run a day this year...
Nice. I assume that means more than one run on some days. Any particular reason for that?
I prefer to do one long run and get it over with. But I did do a handful of multiple days.
On one day I did three runs. I did a ten-miler in the dark one Sunday this autumn, then got home for breakfast. Mrs J was feeling unwell, so I did the junior Parkrun with the little 'un. Whilst there, I met Mrs J's friend. They were meant to be running together, and she asked me to run instead. So I did another four miles after the Parkrun with her. Three runs in a morning: 10 miles, 1.2 miles, and 4 miles.
But I didn't count the park run in my official stats. It was too short...
What distance is the long run?
How many miles/KM are you running a week?
FX: checks...
I think that I've run at least one 10K run every day since the end of June. Aside from one 1-miler, the shortest run I've recorded this year is 3.5 miles.
(There are some runs I do not record; I've just done a 2K with the little 'un; I don't record those on the 'sheet.)
I don't have weekly figures (I'd need to alter my Excel spreadsheet...), but my highest month was July, at 302 miles, or a smidgen ten miles a day.
Very impressive. Well done, perhaps get a marathon or a half on the calendar for next year?
You should get onto Strava friend
I've uploaded the runs on Strava (unpaid for), just so I can find places other people run in my area of interest using their groovy heatmaps. If you'd like to see the madness, PM me.
I use Garmin for my main data storage and munging.
Another Garmin fan, I love my Fenix 6X
I find the Garmin Connect data extracts deeply frustrating. Even the one you can request from the website is rubbish.
I just want daily stats on steps, calories, max/rhr so I can make some nice graphs in R.
Comments
That said, our oldest daughter is getting an education far better than she'd get at a comprehensive. So one out of three is going to do very well out of our decision. We didn't know at the time she'd be a bloody genius though!
Elsewhere in the world, governments have submitted to civil service authoritarianism, with papers required to go to the shops, and a lack of support for businesses affected by the restrictions. Many places will never give up on the tracking apps, for as long as they can get away with it.
Almost all the remaining grammars eg in Lincolnshire, Kent, Bucks, Trafford etc are in Tory controlled local authorities or at most LD controlled like Chelmsford, not Labour controlled
I think that I've run at least one 10K run every day since the end of June. Aside from one 1-miler, the shortest run I've recorded this year is 3.5 miles.
(There are some runs I do not record; I've just done a 2K with the little 'un; I don't record those on the 'sheet.)
I don't have weekly figures (I'd need to alter my Excel spreadsheet...), but my highest month was July, at 302 miles, or a smidgen ten miles a day.
Except it was Wilfred's baby shower.
172 deaths
847 admissions and 6,094 in hospital
Pretty positive result I think.
Let's focus on improving standards and find a way of breaking the culture of low expectations that affects too many kids, not try to resurrect the failed, divisive policies of the past.
I think I'm done on this subject, my substandard comprehensive-schooled brain is growing weary!
...I'll get my coat.
Don't blame me, I campaigned and voted for Theresa!
I was pretty close on cases (I went 88k) but way out on deaths (I went 145).
It looks as though the decision of large numbers of the population to get the booster vaccination and reduce social contact voluntarily may yet succeed.
The good sense of the British public has prevailed - no need to praise Boris Johnson for that of course.
Oh and you missed out Warwickshire.
Boosters reported today: 897,979
Highest Boosters to date: 940,606 (19/12)
Nearest estimate: @Andy_JS (930,000)
Next nearest: @Northern_Al(`963,451)
Eliminated entries:
@Endillion 525,600
@MightyAlex 700,000
@Cyclefree 723,527
@Eabhal 825,000
@carnyx 854,217
@Richard_Nabavi 896,322
@Nigelb 925,001
Now if you are poor but high IQ avoiding a requires improvement or inadequate school is a lottery dependent on where your parents live. You would almost certainly have got into a grammar though whereever you lived.
If you are middle class though your parents will buy your education either via private schools or the catchment area of good or outstanding schools. Or they will go to church more regularly for a vicar's reference for a top church school
Which isn't a problem here as I really don't think omicron is the issue it was feared to be.
You should get onto Strava friend
I will take 10 please.
Being the antithesis of Boris Johnson will see him through.
I've heard on the grapevine that Hunt has started to get his campaign team back together,.
Plenty on here like Richard Tyndall and Pagan agree with me on grammars
I think Labour form the next government regardless but will be good to have some competence on the Tory side back
Drakeford fines you.
Meanwhile, a bunch of anti-vaxxer 50 year olds hold a house party, clogging up the local ICU while you granddad gets his cancer appointment postponed.
And to be fair Boris gets some credit for the boosters - again, we're ahead of Europe, because his government's one inarguable success has been vaccine procurement. It could have been better of course, as MaxPB often points out - but again, it's been rather better than our neighbours.
He may be a knob, but let's not pretend there aren't some credits as well as debits.
What Boris doesn't get credit for is avoiding lockdown, because if we are to be believed he has been prevented from imposing that by the rest of the cabinet.
I wouldn't want to make the assumption that what happened with hospital admissions for Delta is true for Omicron.
Everything is hinting that omicron is very infectious but mild for vaccinated people but we don't 100% know that yet.
Economic woes are not likely to favour the chancellor, it's true.
https://www2.politicalbetting.com/index.php/archives/2021/06/13/rishi-sunak-looks-like-a-homunculus-this-may-stymie-his-leadership-ambitions/
I use Garmin for my main data storage and munging.
Starmer is playing Covid well and has done from the onset. He's pissed off some libertarian types and antilockdowners, most of whom aren't going to vote Labour in any event, but the core project is to convince a critical mass of the apolitical floating voters of England that Labour are a solid, trustworthy proposition. He's getting there with this, helped enormously by Johnson's implosion.
It's as if Rishi knows that unless things kick off now, by the time the leadership election comes he won't be in prime position.
"We can only support a plan b that has a plan b for British hospitality" lovely soundbite.
Sunak is tiny, although he towers over Patel. Starmer looks far taller than he is. Boris is small too.
In France they seem to have wanted leaders that can look up to Merkel.
The only recent notable tall leader Trump always seemed much, much shorter than he was.
In which case they become no different to the best comprehensives which select mainly on house price anyway
I just want daily stats on steps, calories, max/rhr so I can make some nice graphs in R.
Scroll down to the daily data and download.
London latest day hospital admissions - 245, up 35 on prior day
And the number if you exclude people testing positive more than 7 days after admission... 168, up 11 on prior day.
We don't need to wait for Thursday - can already confirm the hospital rise is incidental cases, not extra bed demand for NHS.