PB seems to be dominated by successful men who work in IT, business, law, science and other similar professions. So I feel very lonely in advocating the continuing merits of a liberal education, of learning for learning's sake, and of the huge value of a higher education in history, philosophy, social sciences (including politics), literature, classics, languages, art history, media studies, and so on. Such subjects enhance us as individuals, but also enhance our collective culture in a huge number of intangible ways. And, despite the naysayers, the skills acquired in such subjects are hugely transferable and make such graduates, who can learn specific skills on the job, highly employable. So, there's my advocacy for the humanities.
Part of this is down to what is seen as success in life, which has now atrophied to the point of being considered exclusively in monetary terms. There is little perceived value any more in a sense of vocation, of being well read, in intelligent conversation or in understanding of culture and history let alone a sense of purpose.
Both my boys were enriched by their time at university before entering the world of work, even if Fox jr uses little of that in his day job as an AI developer.
And so the central problem remains.
If increasing computing power makes a lot of human jobs redundant, what are we all going to do all day?
"Learn a trade" some people say. But we can't all go round maintaining each others' pipework. And plenty of those trades look as vulnerable to mechanisation, factory production etc as everything else.
Historically, lots of jobs have disappeared with technological advances – your school no longer teaches boys technical drawing or girls typing and shorthand, for instance, like it did 50 or 60 years ago. Coal mines have closed; men no longer wear hats. Yes, we are at the start of a huge shake-up but we've been here, or somewhere like here, before.
Drawing several strands together we need to have a conversation about what education is for? And what does it consist of? At the moment nothing other than academic learning is valued till the age of 18. Then folk are astonished that those who thrived under such a regimen want to go to University rather than learn a trade. And that those who didn't aren't somehow incredibly motivated to learn summat different. But instead utterly disillusioned.
But what if you get a child who doesn't know if they should use an integral or differential to solve for the area under a curve?
They'll probably be able to tell you that you can't start a sentence with a coordinating conjunction, Mr Roberts. So that's all right.
Unlikely given there’s no ‘innit’ or ‘know what I mean’ in the response.
The whole story is absurd. Never mind that Long Haul Lindsay should maybe have thought twice about going to the British Virgin Islands given his nickname rhymes with Air Miles Andy, surely we have an extradition treaty with them. Surely the clue is in the name.
I'm calling for everyone to resign.
Just because a country have an extradition treaty with the U.K. doesn’t make going there anymore or less doing a runner.
I get that some of Mandy’s friends are upset that he is being treated just like everyone else. Rather than arrest-by-appointment when he decides to return from holiday.
As I recall, in government, Mandy backed the policy of taking passports from fathers who had family court judgements against them, relating to divorce.
And now Mandelson has been arrested, the government is using this as an excuse for delaying the release of documents. Turned out nice again!
This farce does not diminish my suspicion that the police used the power of arrest needlessly in the cases of both Andrew Mountbatten-Windsor and Mandelson. John Rentoul, Independent email.
The story I heard was that they had to arrest Mandy, in order to give him bail conditions that prevented him from leaving the country.
I’m sure both men could have gone with their lawyers to a police station by appointment though, rather than police turning up to their homes. Neither was going to put up a physical fight.
The cynic in me says that the ‘authorities’ wanted the publicity of the two arrests.
good enough for the creeps, they should have been huckled the first day as the great unwashed would have been. They do not get the pleasure of arranging appointments weeks/months ahead to discuss their crimes. Just another example of crooked politician's and why this country is such a shithole. Amazing they have not started growing bananas.
While becoming a doctor, a surgeon, a lawyer, a teacher, an academic, a vicar even a nurse or senior police officer requires a degree universities will not be doomed. Even the likes of Goldman Sachs have student only internships.
Her article states 54% of graduates still immediately enter the workforce.
The graduate earnings premium may have declined but is still there:
Subtract the 9% loan repayments, and they are a whopping 2% better off.
Assuming (fairly reasonably) that the university intake trends towards being the brigher/more motivated 50% of the population, you'd kind of expect them to average more than 2% higher earnings than the other half of the population whether they went to uni or not - indeed I wouldn't be shocked if the whole 11% differential would have existed between the two groups had none of them gone to university.
(I personally am probably ancidata that points to this - I had offers from several reputable universities to do STEM subjects, including a full fees paid scholarship to Aberystwyth for physics, turned them all down and didn't go to university at all. I've done just fine for myself without wasting three years of my life on a degree, thank you very much.)
This all points to the root problem. For the average uni student on an average course, there is simply no value added - it's an utter waste of time and money.
I'm an employer. My experience is that university degrees below the exceptional (a 1st in Maths from Oxford is still worth something) are completely worthless. Nothing has been learned, no useful abilities have been gained, no meaningful hard or soft skills acquired. It's just £50k and three of the best years of life burnt to start at a place no better than people who roll up to work with me with decent STEM focused A levels at 18.
Top 5-10% of the population should be going to really tough elite grade universities and doing STEM subjects. The rest of them should be joining the workforce at 16 or 18.
Had you gone to uni, you might have escaped the proletariat
Yes, a large part of why the populist right is so anti-university is because they do not want a population that thinks critically and challenges authority. If any one is to go at all it is for technical skills or to do Business Studies.
They have no souls.
The PB massiv seem to be keen on returning university education to the wealthiest 7%.
Keep the scumbag filth down where they belong. Keep social mobility in its box.
I don't know whether I'm in the bloc you mention but far from being anti-university I'm anti young people getting into huge debt with no prospects to make it worthwhile.
In that case Anne changed the funding mechanism to something more realistic. The interest rates for example, particularly for the post 2023 cohort is absurd and unsustainable)I am all for paid sandwich degrees and proper ( non-Mickey Mouse apprenticeships to compliment full time degrees. If a student wants to attend university to give themselves an opportunity to widen their reading, mix with networks from different social and geographical circles to their own is just marvellous.
Posters like HYUFD are keen to see (eventually tax payer funded) university courses provided to the wealthiest circa 10%. It doesn't matter that the university sector is a huge industry of itself and the stupidest event since Brexit is making attendance of British universities impossible for fee paying foreign students to keep immigration numbers down, at huge expense to the sustainability of universities and the Exchequer.
It's all about making the university experience exclusive to the deserving rich. The ludicrous funding (and yes the funding is ludicrous) argument has been manufactured to justify preventing a meritocratic* society.
* Yes, yes I realise that notion is flawed.
Evidence? More for the most academic 10% maybe but there are plenty of offspring of the wealthiest 10% who are not in that group and I have more focused on just linking fees to graduate earnings premium of course.
Leon has been more anti mass university than me and saying it will just be a finishing school for the rich's children
While becoming a doctor, a surgeon, a lawyer, a teacher, an academic, a vicar even a nurse or senior police officer requires a degree universities will not be doomed. Even the likes of Goldman Sachs have student only internships.
Her article states 54% of graduates still immediately enter the workforce.
The graduate earnings premium may have declined but is still there:
50 years ago you did not need a degree to become a nurse, you trained on the job
@HYUFD That’s historically correct. But what is your point? You have not expressed a view as to whether or not, or why, you think it is a good thing that nurses now need to be graduates.
One of the reasons that nursing became a graduate job, is because on the job training is less safe and more expensive than having dedicated classroom studies away from the hospital wards. NHS trusts do not have the budget to teach their own staff and they cannot spare staff away from front line roles in any event. The same is true of apprentices- the cost of a full on apprenticeship is high, whereas the students themselves largely bear the costs of training in colleges and Universities, even if they are sandwich courses with work placements. That is a no brainer for most companies.
AI is about to disrupt the White collar world of work in ways that could lead to the wholesale nationalisation of the means of production, with the capital generated by AI businesses being used to fund state and social businesses. The skill set for tradesmen will remain in demand, as will people jobs, such as teaching or social work... Accountants, lawyers and travel agents, not so much. We probably need more poets than book keepers anyway- though good poets are not often graduates and few, if any get pensions or even payment for their work. I guess we are going to need to think about what is valuable for the good of general society pretty soon.
Credit is due to both of them for actually discussing issues that matter to people, in detail rather than the abstract.
Lewis has communicated directly with Politians of ALL Parties face to face for years. Particularly Jeremy Hunt, the difference was he (and others) did not turn it in to a photo shop!
Bit then again they were not faced with Lewis interrupting an interview live on TV. Lewis behaved disgracefully. Kemi gold star.
He’s high on his own supply, as someone said this week.
We must not become a country where our race or religion determines how we vote, where segregated communities live parallel lives and despise each other, where our liberal elites, out of cowardice or suicidal empathy, pretend not to notice. We cannot sleepwalk into becoming a Lebanon-on-Thames. This is an emergency, a last warning, and we must act now.
We should start by calling out the Greens for what they have become: a hateful, despicable, extremist party that has identified an entrepreneurial opportunity in weaponising tribalism, division, stagnant living standards, misinformation and envy. Their behaviour in Gorton and Denton has been abominable.
Following a playbook pioneered by far-Left parties worldwide, the Greens, now led by Zack Polanski, are targeting a red-green coalition of white, woke “progressives” and the reactionary subset of the Muslim electorate. These two groups may appear culturally incompatible, but they can be united not just by their support for socialism but also their often virulent Israelophobia, an atavistic prejudice that the Greens unashamedly pander to.
Can I stop you at Allister Heath?
This one isn't simply an unhinged headline rather an unhinged article.
PB seems to be dominated by successful men who work in IT, business, law, science and other similar professions. So I feel very lonely in advocating the continuing merits of a liberal education, of learning for learning's sake, and of the huge value of a higher education in history, philosophy, social sciences (including politics), literature, classics, languages, art history, media studies, and so on. Such subjects enhance us as individuals, but also enhance our collective culture in a huge number of intangible ways. And, despite the naysayers, the skills acquired in such subjects are hugely transferable and make such graduates, who can learn specific skills on the job, highly employable. So, there's my advocacy for the humanities.
Part of this is down to what is seen as success in life, which has now atrophied to the point of being considered exclusively in monetary terms. There is little perceived value any more in a sense of vocation, of being well read, in intelligent conversation or in understanding of culture and history let alone a sense of purpose.
Both my boys were enriched by their time at university before entering the world of work, even if Fox jr uses little of that in his day job as an AI developer.
All this university is shite chat is making me feel a bit weird. You mean you can go to art school for the best looking, coolest, most stylish people, lots of sex, be in a band, gain a sense of style & a hinterland AND it’s a comparatively wise career choice? Strange times.
How is it a comparatively wise career choice? Art isn't.
For what it's worth, I got wildly wasted at university (pretty regularly) and went to clubs- not pubs - and parties a lot, but it was far skimpier on the sex. And virtually no-one was in a band.
My experience of those few guys who were on arts courses dominated by women was that they were totally unnumbered and branded as the "nice guy", and not the lothario who cleaned up.
Being male heterosexual at art college was one long shagfest according to my best man, a graphic designer.
We must not become a country where our race or religion determines how we vote, where segregated communities live parallel lives and despise each other, where our liberal elites, out of cowardice or suicidal empathy, pretend not to notice. We cannot sleepwalk into becoming a Lebanon-on-Thames. This is an emergency, a last warning, and we must act now.
We should start by calling out the Greens for what they have become: a hateful, despicable, extremist party that has identified an entrepreneurial opportunity in weaponising tribalism, division, stagnant living standards, misinformation and envy. Their behaviour in Gorton and Denton has been abominable.
Following a playbook pioneered by far-Left parties worldwide, the Greens, now led by Zack Polanski, are targeting a red-green coalition of white, woke “progressives” and the reactionary subset of the Muslim electorate. These two groups may appear culturally incompatible, but they can be united not just by their support for socialism but also their often virulent Israelophobia, an atavistic prejudice that the Greens unashamedly pander to.
We must not become a nation where race skin colour or religion determines how we vote.
Agreed but that is Reforms agenda not the Greens.
Telegraph starting to panic aren't they.
Seems only one type of patriotic racism is allowed in Heath’s world.
There are lots of historic communities such as Irish, Polish, Chinese, Jewish after each surge of immigration and refugees. It’s what communities do and they vote for their own people and interests
Sounds like perfect justification for ALL communities to do the same. I clouding thosecwho opt for Reform.
PB seems to be dominated by successful men who work in IT, business, law, science and other similar professions. So I feel very lonely in advocating the continuing merits of a liberal education, of learning for learning's sake, and of the huge value of a higher education in history, philosophy, social sciences (including politics), literature, classics, languages, art history, media studies, and so on. Such subjects enhance us as individuals, but also enhance our collective culture in a huge number of intangible ways. And, despite the naysayers, the skills acquired in such subjects are hugely transferable and make such graduates, who can learn specific skills on the job, highly employable. So, there's my advocacy for the humanities.
Part of this is down to what is seen as success in life, which has now atrophied to the point of being considered exclusively in monetary terms. There is little perceived value any more in a sense of vocation, of being well read, in intelligent conversation or in understanding of culture and history let alone a sense of purpose.
Both my boys were enriched by their time at university before entering the world of work, even if Fox jr uses little of that in his day job as an AI developer.
Though I didn't go to university I have always appreciated that the extra years of education has led to the vast majority who did not turning into racists Leavers Faragists or Sun readers. And for that it was worth every penny of extra taxation those of us working were asked to pay
While becoming a doctor, a surgeon, a lawyer, a teacher, an academic, a vicar even a nurse or senior police officer requires a degree universities will not be doomed. Even the likes of Goldman Sachs have student only internships.
Her article states 54% of graduates still immediately enter the workforce.
The graduate earnings premium may have declined but is still there:
Subtract the 9% loan repayments, and they are a whopping 2% better off.
Assuming (fairly reasonably) that the university intake trends towards being the brigher/more motivated 50% of the population, you'd kind of expect them to average more than 2% higher earnings than the other half of the population whether they went to uni or not - indeed I wouldn't be shocked if the whole 11% differential would have existed between the two groups had none of them gone to university.
(I personally am probably ancidata that points to this - I had offers from several reputable universities to do STEM subjects, including a full fees paid scholarship to Aberystwyth for physics, turned them all down and didn't go to university at all. I've done just fine for myself without wasting three years of my life on a degree, thank you very much.)
This all points to the root problem. For the average uni student on an average course, there is simply no value added - it's an utter waste of time and money.
I'm an employer. My experience is that university degrees below the exceptional (a 1st in Maths from Oxford is still worth something) are completely worthless. Nothing has been learned, no useful abilities have been gained, no meaningful hard or soft skills acquired. It's just £50k and three of the best years of life burnt to start at a place no better than people who roll up to work with me with decent STEM focused A levels at 18.
Top 5-10% of the population should be going to really tough elite grade universities and doing STEM subjects. The rest of them should be joining the workforce at 16 or 18.
Had you gone to uni, you might have escaped the proletariat
Yes, a large part of why the populist right is so anti-university is because they do not want a population that thinks critically and challenges authority. If any one is to go at all it is for technical skills or to do Business Studies.
They have no souls.
The PB massiv seem to be keen on returning university education to the wealthiest 7%.
Keep the scumbag filth down where they belong. Keep social mobility in its box.
Brightest, not wealthiest.
Select on merit. Probably fund it with loans similar to now - possibly even with grants.
The hardest part of the problem is probably designing ways of testing for ability / brightness which can't be gamed by the private school sector, but without resorting to crude measures like quotas.
As for socal mobility, how does it help the (litterally) average kid to go and spend three years (and ~£50k) on death by PowerPoint doing Tiddlywinks Studies at Nowhereshire University (formerly Dumpofatown Pollytechnic) before resuming their career stacking shelves in their local supermarket?
If universities actually produced graduates capable of critical thinking or people willing to challenge authority, I might be more sympathetic, but the reality is that most of them just churn out brainless sheeple. I know of what I speak - I employ some victims of modern uni, and have interviewed plenty more, and I've yet to meet one where they wouldn't have been better off in terms of both cash and knowledge by skipping uni and working for me straight from school.
The state of Texas has a system whereby if you are in the top 5% of your high school class you get automatic admission to the University of Texas in Austin and in top 10% get automatic admission for any other Texas university sponsored by the state. So it puts a student from the roughest part of Houston on the same footing as a student from a upmarket suburb. Whatever school you are in you have to be top of the class. Helped social mobility as well and targeted the clever kids.
Of course if we and Texas had more grammar schools that would not need to be done, there are a few grammar type schools in NY but not Texas as far as I am aware
Trump administration welcomes Tommy Robinson to Washington
The hard-right agitator said he was ‘making alliances and friendships’, including during a meeting at the State Department in Washington
The Trump administration has hosted Tommy Robinson, the British hard-right extremist, for a meeting at the State Department in Washington.
Robinson, whose real name is Stephen Yaxley-Lennon, said he was in America “making alliances and friendships”.
The former football hooligan, who has convictions for assault, using a fake passport, mortgage fraud and contempt of court, was hosted by Joe Rittenhouse, a senior adviser at the State Department.
“Honoured to have free speech warrior @TRobinsonNewEra at Department of State today,” Rittenhouse wrote on X. “The world and the West is a better place when we fight for freedom of speech and no one has been on the front lines more than Tommy. Good to see you my friend!”
The Speaker should invite Stormy Daniels. She could speak to both sides of parliament and give her thoughts on adultury with the President and cover-ups.
If you're going to have an affair then covering up is probably the safest option.
Definitionally, surely it’s only an affair *if* you’re covering it up. If you’re open about it, it’s just a relationship.
PB seems to be dominated by successful men who work in IT, business, law, science and other similar professions. So I feel very lonely in advocating the continuing merits of a liberal education, of learning for learning's sake, and of the huge value of a higher education in history, philosophy, social sciences (including politics), literature, classics, languages, art history, media studies, and so on. Such subjects enhance us as individuals, but also enhance our collective culture in a huge number of intangible ways. And, despite the naysayers, the skills acquired in such subjects are hugely transferable and make such graduates, who can learn specific skills on the job, highly employable. So, there's my advocacy for the humanities.
Part of this is down to what is seen as success in life, which has now atrophied to the point of being considered exclusively in monetary terms. There is little perceived value any more in a sense of vocation, of being well read, in intelligent conversation or in understanding of culture and history let alone a sense of purpose.
Both my boys were enriched by their time at university before entering the world of work, even if Fox jr uses little of that in his day job as an AI developer.
And so the central problem remains.
If increasing computing power makes a lot of human jobs redundant, what are we all going to do all day?
"Learn a trade" some people say. But we can't all go round maintaining each others' pipework. And plenty of those trades look as vulnerable to mechanisation, factory production etc as everything else.
There will also be new trades, in robotics assembly, servicing, and repairs, and in maintaining all these data centres.
Also in the mining and power supply industry. We need to increase our power output not try to manage it downwards as the eco nutters and defrowth cranks want.
I think what’s gone under the radar somewhat is what happened to the turnout between 2019 and 2024, although we saw some boundary changes .
The large drop in a normally strong Labour seat probably because of the polling showing an easy Labour win. The non- voter pool would therefore be more Labour leaning .
I think a higher turnout than expected would be bad news for Reform and good for the Greens and Labour .
PB seems to be dominated by successful men who work in IT, business, law, science and other similar professions. So I feel very lonely in advocating the continuing merits of a liberal education, of learning for learning's sake, and of the huge value of a higher education in history, philosophy, social sciences (including politics), literature, classics, languages, art history, media studies, and so on. Such subjects enhance us as individuals, but also enhance our collective culture in a huge number of intangible ways. And, despite the naysayers, the skills acquired in such subjects are hugely transferable and make such graduates, who can learn specific skills on the job, highly employable. So, there's my advocacy for the humanities.
Part of this is down to what is seen as success in life, which has now atrophied to the point of being considered exclusively in monetary terms. There is little perceived value any more in a sense of vocation, of being well read, in intelligent conversation or in understanding of culture and history let alone a sense of purpose.
Both my boys were enriched by their time at university before entering the world of work, even if Fox jr uses little of that in his day job as an AI developer.
And so the central problem remains.
If increasing computing power makes a lot of human jobs redundant, what are we all going to <</b>i class="Italic">do all day?
"Learn a trade" some people say. But we can't all go round maintaining each others' pipework. And plenty of those trades look as vulnerable to mechanisation, factory production etc as everything else.
It’s not a concern many had when it was working class manufacturing jobs going !
However there will be shelf stacking, warehouse work, cleaning jobs, call centre.
The whole story is absurd. Never mind that Long Haul Lindsay should maybe have thought twice about going to the British Virgin Islands given his nickname rhymes with Air Miles Andy, surely we have an extradition treaty with them. Surely the clue is in the name.
I'm calling for everyone to resign.
Just because a country have an extradition treaty with the U.K. doesn’t make going there anymore or less doing a runner.
I get that some of Mandy’s friends are upset that he is being treated just like everyone else. Rather than arrest-by-appointment when he decides to return from holiday.
As I recall, in government, Mandy backed the policy of taking passports from fathers who had family court judgements against them, relating to divorce.
And now Mandelson has been arrested, the government is using this as an excuse for delaying the release of documents. Turned out nice again!
This farce does not diminish my suspicion that the police used the power of arrest needlessly in the cases of both Andrew Mountbatten-Windsor and Mandelson. John Rentoul, Independent email.
What a bitter hack. People wanted action and he would be the first to complain about delay. Gutter journalism at its finest
The arrests are being used by the government to delay the release of documents related to Epstein, Andy and Mandy. Is this what the people want?
If there hadn’t been any arrests, you’d be complaining that the government didn’t dare arrest Mandy and Andy because they feared more bad news coming out from the investigations.
I don’t see any evidence that the arrests were dictated by government rather than the police.
The Greens are now the favourites in the betting markets and the polls. Though Labour have a better GOTV and canvass data operation I suspect and more postal votes in the bag most likely and Reform could also win with a split left of centre vote
I suspect that like in most rock-solid seats, the canvass data is patchy at best. Since when has there been a need here to GOTV? Not until this by-election.
Labour in particular has been canvassing hard all campaign
Remember many moons ago on pb after the Crewe byelection, Nick Palmer explaining how he was horrified that Labour didn't have any historic canvas records at all as Gwyneth Dunwoody had always won easily. They had lots of volunteers canvassing that byelection, but no history to know who was reliable, how solid they were etc so the value of the canvassing was very much reduced. Enthusiasm doesn't make up for a lack of historical data.
That said I doubt the Greens or Reform in Gorton have that much in the way of historic constituency wide canvas data either so all in the same boat.
Many moons ago Labour weren't as good as the Tories in terms of systems and processes.
Over the years things improved rapidly.
The one this McSweeney was good at was setting up the best digital and process driven campaigning opeation the UK has seen. They will combine data with boots on the ground and if they don't win it won't be for lack of effort or attention to detail.
The 2024 GE win was masterpiece in optimising every vote in the right places.
The only thing missing is giving people a positive reason to vote Labour.
PB seems to be dominated by successful men who work in IT, business, law, science and other similar professions. So I feel very lonely in advocating the continuing merits of a liberal education, of learning for learning's sake, and of the huge value of a higher education in history, philosophy, social sciences (including politics), literature, classics, languages, art history, media studies, and so on. Such subjects enhance us as individuals, but also enhance our collective culture in a huge number of intangible ways. And, despite the naysayers, the skills acquired in such subjects are hugely transferable and make such graduates, who can learn specific skills on the job, highly employable. So, there's my advocacy for the humanities.
Part of this is down to what is seen as success in life, which has now atrophied to the point of being considered exclusively in monetary terms. There is little perceived value any more in a sense of vocation, of being well read, in intelligent conversation or in understanding of culture and history let alone a sense of purpose.
Both my boys were enriched by their time at university before entering the world of work, even if Fox jr uses little of that in his day job as an AI developer.
And so the central problem remains.
If increasing computing power makes a lot of human jobs redundant, what are we all going to do all day?
"Learn a trade" some people say. But we can't all go round maintaining each others' pipework. And plenty of those trades look as vulnerable to mechanisation, factory production etc as everything else.
There will also be new trades, in robotics assembly, servicing, and repairs, and in maintaining all these data centres.
Also in the mining and power supply industry. We need to increase our power output not try to manage it downwards as the eco nutters and defrowth cranks want.
Very true. A nuclear industry that knocks out SMRs at one a week on a production line, is going to be employing thousands of skilled workers.
PB seems to be dominated by successful men who work in IT, business, law, science and other similar professions. So I feel very lonely in advocating the continuing merits of a liberal education, of learning for learning's sake, and of the huge value of a higher education in history, philosophy, social sciences (including politics), literature, classics, languages, art history, media studies, and so on. Such subjects enhance us as individuals, but also enhance our collective culture in a huge number of intangible ways. And, despite the naysayers, the skills acquired in such subjects are hugely transferable and make such graduates, who can learn specific skills on the job, highly employable. So, there's my advocacy for the humanities.
Part of this is down to what is seen as success in life, which has now atrophied to the point of being considered exclusively in monetary terms. There is little perceived value any more in a sense of vocation, of being well read, in intelligent conversation or in understanding of culture and history let alone a sense of purpose.
Both my boys were enriched by their time at university before entering the world of work, even if Fox jr uses little of that in his day job as an AI developer.
And so the central problem remains.
If increasing computing power makes a lot of human jobs redundant, what are we all going to <</b>i class="Italic">do all day?
"Learn a trade" some people say. But we can't all go round maintaining each others' pipework. And plenty of those trades look as vulnerable to mechanisation, factory production etc as everything else.
It’s not a concern many had when it was working class manufacturing jobs going !
However there will be shelf stacking, warehouse work, cleaning jobs, call centre.
The world is their lobster.
The competition for those jobs will be immense and wages and conditions will be poor as a result. The future isn’t bright for anyone of working age
PB seems to be dominated by successful men who work in IT, business, law, science and other similar professions. So I feel very lonely in advocating the continuing merits of a liberal education, of learning for learning's sake, and of the huge value of a higher education in history, philosophy, social sciences (including politics), literature, classics, languages, art history, media studies, and so on. Such subjects enhance us as individuals, but also enhance our collective culture in a huge number of intangible ways. And, despite the naysayers, the skills acquired in such subjects are hugely transferable and make such graduates, who can learn specific skills on the job, highly employable. So, there's my advocacy for the humanities.
Part of this is down to what is seen as success in life, which has now atrophied to the point of being considered exclusively in monetary terms. There is little perceived value any more in a sense of vocation, of being well read, in intelligent conversation or in understanding of culture and history let alone a sense of purpose.
Both my boys were enriched by their time at university before entering the world of work, even if Fox jr uses little of that in his day job as an AI developer.
And so the central problem remains.
If increasing computing power makes a lot of human jobs redundant, what are we all going to do all day?
"Learn a trade" some people say. But we can't all go round maintaining each others' pipework. And plenty of those trades look as vulnerable to mechanisation, factory production etc as everything else.
you obviously have not tried to get tradesman recently , it is almost impossible. Hard to get a robot to install your new boiler , lay a floor , plaster walls , etc.
We must not become a country where our race or religion determines how we vote, where segregated communities live parallel lives and despise each other, where our liberal elites, out of cowardice or suicidal empathy, pretend not to notice. We cannot sleepwalk into becoming a Lebanon-on-Thames. This is an emergency, a last warning, and we must act now.
We should start by calling out the Greens for what they have become: a hateful, despicable, extremist party that has identified an entrepreneurial opportunity in weaponising tribalism, division, stagnant living standards, misinformation and envy. Their behaviour in Gorton and Denton has been abominable.
Following a playbook pioneered by far-Left parties worldwide, the Greens, now led by Zack Polanski, are targeting a red-green coalition of white, woke “progressives” and the reactionary subset of the Muslim electorate. These two groups may appear culturally incompatible, but they can be united not just by their support for socialism but also their often virulent Israelophobia, an atavistic prejudice that the Greens unashamedly pander to.
We must not become a nation where race skin colour or religion determines how we vote.
Agreed but that is Reforms agenda not the Greens.
Telegraph starting to panic aren't they.
You've got your head in the sand.
Parties and candidates targeting the Islamic "block vote" are doing very well for themselves.
We're going to see plenty of that in Bradford in May.
PB seems to be dominated by successful men who work in IT, business, law, science and other similar professions. So I feel very lonely in advocating the continuing merits of a liberal education, of learning for learning's sake, and of the huge value of a higher education in history, philosophy, social sciences (including politics), literature, classics, languages, art history, media studies, and so on. Such subjects enhance us as individuals, but also enhance our collective culture in a huge number of intangible ways. And, despite the naysayers, the skills acquired in such subjects are hugely transferable and make such graduates, who can learn specific skills on the job, highly employable. So, there's my advocacy for the humanities.
Part of this is down to what is seen as success in life, which has now atrophied to the point of being considered exclusively in monetary terms. There is little perceived value any more in a sense of vocation, of being well read, in intelligent conversation or in understanding of culture and history let alone a sense of purpose.
Both my boys were enriched by their time at university before entering the world of work, even if Fox jr uses little of that in his day job as an AI developer.
And so the central problem remains.
If increasing computing power makes a lot of human jobs redundant, what are we all going to do all day?
"Learn a trade" some people say. But we can't all go round maintaining each others' pipework. And plenty of those trades look as vulnerable to mechanisation, factory production etc as everything else.
There will also be new trades, in robotics assembly, servicing, and repairs, and in maintaining all these data centres.
Also in the mining and power supply industry. We need to increase our power output not try to manage it downwards as the eco nutters and defrowth cranks want.
Very true. A nuclear industry that knocks out SMRs at one a week on a production line, is going to be employing thousands of skilled workers.
Why?
Isn't it more likely that such an industry will employ a mall number of people to monitor the robots doing the actual work?
PB seems to be dominated by successful men who work in IT, business, law, science and other similar professions. So I feel very lonely in advocating the continuing merits of a liberal education, of learning for learning's sake, and of the huge value of a higher education in history, philosophy, social sciences (including politics), literature, classics, languages, art history, media studies, and so on. Such subjects enhance us as individuals, but also enhance our collective culture in a huge number of intangible ways. And, despite the naysayers, the skills acquired in such subjects are hugely transferable and make such graduates, who can learn specific skills on the job, highly employable. So, there's my advocacy for the humanities.
Part of this is down to what is seen as success in life, which has now atrophied to the point of being considered exclusively in monetary terms. There is little perceived value any more in a sense of vocation, of being well read, in intelligent conversation or in understanding of culture and history let alone a sense of purpose.
Both my boys were enriched by their time at university before entering the world of work, even if Fox jr uses little of that in his day job as an AI developer.
And so the central problem remains.
If increasing computing power makes a lot of human jobs redundant, what are we all going to do all day?
"Learn a trade" some people say. But we can't all go round maintaining each others' pipework. And plenty of those trades look as vulnerable to mechanisation, factory production etc as everything else.
you obviously have not tried to get tradesman recently , it is almost impossible. Hard to get a robot to install your new boiler , lay a floor , plaster walls , etc.
If the “middle class” knowledge jobs collapse then everyone will want to learn a trade. More competition will increase availability but depress prices and therefore earnings. Great if you’re retired with plenty of capital, not great otherwise
It wasn't that long ago when this was seen as a normal thing to do:
James, 23 and from Great Stukeley, was educated at pounds 4,500-a-year Kimbolton School, near Peterborough. He left with three A-levels to become a management trainee at Marks & Spencer.
Bonus point for anyone who can guess who James is.
PB seems to be dominated by successful men who work in IT, business, law, science and other similar professions. So I feel very lonely in advocating the continuing merits of a liberal education, of learning for learning's sake, and of the huge value of a higher education in history, philosophy, social sciences (including politics), literature, classics, languages, art history, media studies, and so on. Such subjects enhance us as individuals, but also enhance our collective culture in a huge number of intangible ways. And, despite the naysayers, the skills acquired in such subjects are hugely transferable and make such graduates, who can learn specific skills on the job, highly employable. So, there's my advocacy for the humanities.
PB seems to be dominated by successful men who work in IT, business, law, science and other similar professions. So I feel very lonely in advocating the continuing merits of a liberal education, of learning for learning's sake, and of the huge value of a higher education in history, philosophy, social sciences (including politics), literature, classics, languages, art history, media studies, and so on. Such subjects enhance us as individuals, but also enhance our collective culture in a huge number of intangible ways. And, despite the naysayers, the skills acquired in such subjects are hugely transferable and make such graduates, who can learn specific skills on the job, highly employable. So, there's my advocacy for the humanities.
Part of this is down to what is seen as success in life, which has now atrophied to the point of being considered exclusively in monetary terms. There is little perceived value any more in a sense of vocation, of being well read, in intelligent conversation or in understanding of culture and history let alone a sense of purpose.
Both my boys were enriched by their time at university before entering the world of work, even if Fox jr uses little of that in his day job as an AI developer.
And so the central problem remains.
If increasing computing power makes a lot of human jobs redundant, what are we all going to <</b>i class="Italic">do all day?
"Learn a trade" some people say. But we can't all go round maintaining each others' pipework. And plenty of those trades look as vulnerable to mechanisation, factory production etc as everything else.
It’s not a concern many had when it was working class manufacturing jobs going !
However there will be shelf stacking, warehouse work, cleaning jobs, call centre.
The world is their lobster.
The competition for those jobs will be immense and wages and conditions will be poor as a result. The future isn’t bright for anyone of working age
Other jobs will emerge. It’s all ‘smash the spinning Jenny’ at the moment. As they did in the late eighties.
I left school in 82 when we had Maggies millions on the dole. I could myself extremely lucky to have got an apprenticeship at Lucas and it was Not just companies closing but automation too destroying jobs.
Young people assume only they have it tough, everyone else has led the life of Riley and it is a new phenomenon. It isn’t.
PB seems to be dominated by successful men who work in IT, business, law, science and other similar professions. So I feel very lonely in advocating the continuing merits of a liberal education, of learning for learning's sake, and of the huge value of a higher education in history, philosophy, social sciences (including politics), literature, classics, languages, art history, media studies, and so on. Such subjects enhance us as individuals, but also enhance our collective culture in a huge number of intangible ways. And, despite the naysayers, the skills acquired in such subjects are hugely transferable and make such graduates, who can learn specific skills on the job, highly employable. So, there's my advocacy for the humanities.
Part of this is down to what is seen as success in life, which has now atrophied to the point of being considered exclusively in monetary terms. There is little perceived value any more in a sense of vocation, of being well read, in intelligent conversation or in understanding of culture and history let alone a sense of purpose.
Both my boys were enriched by their time at university before entering the world of work, even if Fox jr uses little of that in his day job as an AI developer.
And so the central problem remains.
If increasing computing power makes a lot of human jobs redundant, what are we all going to do all day?
"Learn a trade" some people say. But we can't all go round maintaining each others' pipework. And plenty of those trades look as vulnerable to mechanisation, factory production etc as everything else.
you obviously have not tried to get tradesman recently , it is almost impossible. Hard to get a robot to install your new boiler , lay a floor , plaster walls , etc.
If the “middle class” knowledge jobs collapse then everyone will want to learn a trade. More competition will increase availability but depress prices and therefore earnings. Great if you’re retired with plenty of capital, not great otherwise
Good news for all here. Supply increases so short term Prices go down, demand goes up, as demand increases then supply has already increased so prices will go up.
One of this morning’s news stories is that a small geothermal power station has opened in Cornwall.
It’s been “almost 20 years in the making”. Almost 20 years. That got me wondering how long it is supposed to take to sink a small well into the ground. But of course, when you look beneath the headlines, it becomes clear. Nearly 20 years of planning studies and argument with government. Then a couple of years to build.
Not necessarily true. My company supplied components for the test wells quite some time ago. There were significant geological, temperature and pressure issues. Suggesting you just drill a hole and drop down a few pipes is somewhat simplistic.
Comments
Leon has been more anti mass university than me and saying it will just be a finishing school for the rich's children
AI is about to disrupt the White collar world of work in ways that could lead to the wholesale nationalisation of the means of production, with the capital generated by AI businesses being used to fund state and social businesses. The skill set for tradesmen will remain in demand, as will people jobs, such as teaching or social work... Accountants, lawyers and travel agents, not so much. We probably need more poets than book keepers anyway- though good poets are not often graduates and few, if any get pensions or even payment for their work. I guess we are going to need to think about what is valuable for the good of general society pretty soon.
Green 1.54
Reform 4.7
Labour 6.6
NEW THREAD
https://x.com/owenjonesjourno/status/2026761524308496643?s=61
This by-election has been comedy gold. The three main candidates are all pretty poor.
On balance I’d like a labour win for the laughs.
However whatever the result all parties will make it fit their own narrative.
https://ukandeu.ac.uk/gorton-and-denton-a-three-cornered-fight-in-a-seat-of-two-halves/
I think what’s gone under the radar somewhat is what happened to the turnout between 2019 and 2024, although we saw some boundary changes .
The large drop in a normally strong Labour seat probably because of the polling showing an easy Labour win. The non- voter pool would therefore be more Labour leaning .
I think a higher turnout than expected would be bad news for Reform and good for the Greens and Labour .
However there will be shelf stacking, warehouse work, cleaning jobs, call centre.
The world is their lobster.
I don’t see any evidence that the arrests were dictated by government rather than the police.
Parties and candidates targeting the Islamic "block vote" are doing very well for themselves.
We're going to see plenty of that in Bradford in May.
Isn't it more likely that such an industry will employ a mall number of people to monitor the robots doing the actual work?
And he got to marry a glamour model, briefly.
I left school in 82 when we had Maggies millions on the dole. I could myself extremely lucky to have got an apprenticeship at Lucas and it was Not just companies closing but automation too destroying jobs.
Young people assume only they have it tough, everyone else has led the life of Riley and it is a new phenomenon. It isn’t.
Den near farmstead.
Question is what’s in the den?