Pb should just accept on private schools it’s like the only remotely popular thing the government has done. Let it go.
Why?
It's a terrible policy that's going to damage the education sector overall, raise costs for taxpayers and damage our ability to train our future workforce.
Populism can take place at any part on the political spectrum, and that's what this is.
Having said that, I wouldn't have done this policy and made state schools so good, private schools would close down.
This doesn't work. What private schools sell is not primarily education, it is social polish and access to privilege.
Utter rubbish.
Sorry but the one thing a private school will give you from the age of 13 onwards is a set of contacts (friends from school and parents of those friends) that could well set you up for life..
Yup. It’s definitely set me up for life and there’s no point denying it.
There is, because it isn't true.
I have no contacts or friends from my school or parents of those friends who have "set me up for life".
The closest I can think of is a few close friends from university (state school, as it happens) who've helped me out a few times.
This old school tie thing is a myth that hasn't been true for decades. If then.
It is more subtle than "the old school tie", it is about converting Economic Capital into Social Capital, Cultural Capital and Symbolic Capital as described in the works of Pierre Bordieu.
In particular Social Class in the UK is defined more by Cultural Capital than anything else. A lot comes from family background, but also from education.
Pb should just accept on private schools it’s like the only remotely popular thing the government has done. Let it go.
Why?
It's a terrible policy that's going to damage the education sector overall, raise costs for taxpayers and damage our ability to train our future workforce.
Populism can take place at any part on the political spectrum, and that's what this is.
Having said that, I wouldn't have done this policy and made state schools so good, private schools would close down.
This doesn't work. What private schools sell is not primarily education, it is social polish and access to privilege.
Utter rubbish.
Why do you say that is rubbish? It is obviously true and I say that as someone who sent his son to RGS. It provides both in abundance.
It isn't obviously true, and it hasn't been my experience or that of anyone else I know.
The Gestapo marched hundreds of thousands of innocent people to their deaths.
I've ended private schools' tax breaks to invest in state schools.
No responsible leader makes vile comparisons like this. Kemi Badenoch is not fit to be Prime Minister.
My ending VAT relief on private schools she has actually just reduced choice in education by forcing some smaller private schools to close and made the remaining private schools more exclusive by reducing the number of scholarships and bursaries they provide
'My ending' !! We'll have you for this! Banged to rights!
Smaller private schools and larger private schools have closed due to poor management, poor financial controls and an inability to survive in the real world.
The Gestapo marched hundreds of thousands of innocent people to their deaths.
I've ended private schools' tax breaks to invest in state schools.
No responsible leader makes vile comparisons like this. Kemi Badenoch is not fit to be Prime Minister.
My ending VAT relief on private schools she has actually just reduced choice in education by forcing some smaller private schools to close and made the remaining private schools more exclusive by reducing the number of scholarships and bursaries they provide
Even if you accept that, comparing them to Hitler's secret police, who rounded people up and sent them to their deaths is a bit tasteless and OTT?
Pb should just accept on private schools it’s like the only remotely popular thing the government has done. Let it go.
Why?
It's a terrible policy that's going to damage the education sector overall, raise costs for taxpayers and damage our ability to train our future workforce.
Populism can take place at any part on the political spectrum, and that's what this is.
Having said that, I wouldn't have done this policy and made state schools so good, private schools would close down.
This doesn't work. What private schools sell is not primarily education, it is social polish and access to privilege.
Utter rubbish.
Sorry but the one thing a private school will give you from the age of 13 onwards is a set of contacts (friends from school and parents of those friends) that could well set you up for life..
Utter rubbish.
So normal disadvanted poor destitute, thick state school kids have no friends.
Pb should just accept on private schools it’s like the only remotely popular thing the government has done. Let it go.
Why?
It's a terrible policy that's going to damage the education sector overall, raise costs for taxpayers and damage our ability to train our future workforce.
Populism can take place at any part on the political spectrum, and that's what this is.
Having said that, I wouldn't have done this policy and made state schools so good, private schools would close down.
This doesn't work. What private schools sell is not primarily education, it is social polish and access to privilege.
Pb should just accept on private schools it’s like the only remotely popular thing the government has done. Let it go.
Why?
It's a terrible policy that's going to damage the education sector overall, raise costs for taxpayers and damage our ability to train our future workforce.
Populism can take place at any part on the political spectrum, and that's what this is.
Having said that, I wouldn't have done this policy and made state schools so good, private schools would close down.
This doesn't work. What private schools sell is not primarily education, it is social polish and access to privilege.
That’s a very sneering view. I’d argue that they offer excellent education, small group teaching, allowing pupils to greater attainment than they would likely get at the local state school AND social polish and access to privilege.
It accurately represents prejudices about private schools and class in the UK though, which is a very British problem.
Most other countries have an independent school sector, which is encouraged.
And given that an increasing percentage of the population were born abroad, banging on about private schools as the source of a two-tier society seems very last century. What about people with the privilege of being educated in a country with a rigorous education system?
With regard to George going to Eton, why would you send your children to boarding school if you didn't have to. I appreciate for some eg military it is unavoidable, but you have them for such a short period of time why would you offload them? When our children left to go to University it was a real wrench and I still miss them not being here even though it has freed up our lives.
Prince William went to Eton so presumably liked it enough to sign George up (or put him down or whatever it is you do for Eton).
Why can’t he go to a state school? Serious question.
Tbh I'd not given HRH's schooling any thought until seeing it brought up here a few minutes ago.
I would think a probable future king should have the best education possible tbh so Eton is an obvious choice
The Gestapo marched hundreds of thousands of innocent people to their deaths.
I've ended private schools' tax breaks to invest in state schools.
No responsible leader makes vile comparisons like this. Kemi Badenoch is not fit to be Prime Minister.
My ending VAT relief on private schools she has actually just reduced choice in education by forcing some smaller private schools to close and made the remaining private schools more exclusive by reducing the number of scholarships and bursaries they provide
'My ending' !! We'll have you for this! Banged to rights!
Smaller private schools and larger private schools have closed due to poor management, poor financial controls and an inability to survive in the real world.
Yes, that's capitalism. Smaller private schools and larger private schools have thrived too due to good managment.
I think it's your inability to thrive in the real world that you're fighting against.
Meanwhile in other news, if world war three breaks out down my way, you’ll hear it here first:
Sailors on a Russian warship fired a warning shot at a yacht that came near it in the English Channel off the Isle of Wight, the Press Association has reported.
Listened to Al Carns resignation speech and he was very impressive and took aim at the persecution of our soldiers from the Irish troubles
I would just say that if Starmer refuses to go, a fight between Starmer, Burnham, Streeting and Carns would be quite an event
I'm a very long way from convinced that Carns is yet PM material. But at least he's displaying an awareness of some of the MoD bullshit that the rest of the defence ministers seem captured by.
He's resigned over MOD spending being limited despite acknowledging that the MOD are incredibly wasteful. Surely the first step on that path is to limit the money going to the MOD? Not unlike Thames Water wanting desalination plants because their pipes leak.
We've effectively tried that approach over the last two decades, and it didn't work.
Literally everything the MoD does is underfunded. The only solution to that is to cut entire programs or capabilities and concentrate on the absolutely essential.
As we have the 6th highest military budget in the world, if everything is underfunded then there are really only a few possibilities:
1) our military is massively inefficient by being both spendthrift and on a shoestring.
2) everyone else is underfunded and incapable too.
If 2) we shouldn't worry too much. If 1) we should sort that out before chucking good money after bad.
Yes, but bear in mind that ever since Osborne, our military budget is bigger on paper after the Treasury added new line items to hide reductions in spending on things that go bang, principally the nuclear deterrent, pensions, and most recently intelligence services. ETA similarly the overseas aid budget is now spent on British 4-star hotels.
Yep, the defence budget is stuffed with things not related to the ability of the armed forces to break things and kill people. Add the cost of the nuclear deterrent and the money available to fund the conventional military isn't generous.
Isn't it true of most countries that military budgets are largely wasted on bloated prestige arms and cosy if not corrupt relationships between military and suppliers? It is a great British tradition too to send ships to sea with rotten biscuits and rancid meat.
The exceptions are mostly those countries actually fighting for their existence like Ukraine or Israel.
I think it highly likely that any increased funds will be spaffed up the wall exactly the same way. Same old, same old.
When Britain had a larger defence budget - at the end of the Cold War, say, it had a large navy, army and air force. The budget was cut and capability shrank. I see no reason to think that capability would not expand if the budget was increased.
Meanwhile, deep in an undersea bunker, 007 has just broken the neck of a henchman, put on his uniform and is heading along the metal upper concourse towards “Elon Musk’s” (such a classic villain name) control room.
Meanwhile in other news, if world war three breaks out down my way, you’ll hear it here first:
Sailors on a Russian warship fired a warning shot at a yacht that came near it in the English Channel off the Isle of Wight, the Press Association has reported.
I am sailing out of Bembridge next week so shall keep a watch out. I am armed with flares and a boathook...
The Gestapo marched hundreds of thousands of innocent people to their deaths.
I've ended private schools' tax breaks to invest in state schools.
No responsible leader makes vile comparisons like this. Kemi Badenoch is not fit to be Prime Minister.
Good grief, the comments on Phillipson's tweet!
E.g.: "I'd applaud if they rounded up you, and all of your ilk, and sent you off on a death march."
"Private schools never had tax breaks. Private schools already pay hundreds of thousands in tax. You added another tax on top of existing taxes. Further, Badenoch is being polite. You support putting people in prison for jokes. The Gestapo never went that far. You are worse."
"The party screaming NAZI at everyone else. The party bringing back the final Solution. The party of Goebles propaganda The party taking away free speech. The party experimenting on our kids.. The party of tiered Justice.. The Fascist Labour party... yuk"
Pb should just accept on private schools it’s like the only remotely popular thing the government has done. Let it go.
Why?
It's a terrible policy that's going to damage the education sector overall, raise costs for taxpayers and damage our ability to train our future workforce.
Populism can take place at any part on the political spectrum, and that's what this is.
Having said that, I wouldn't have done this policy and made state schools so good, private schools would close down.
This doesn't work. What private schools sell is not primarily education, it is social polish and access to privilege.
Utter rubbish.
Why do you say that is rubbish? It is obviously true and I say that as someone who sent his son to RGS. It provides both in abundance.
It isn't obviously true, and it hasn't been my experience or that of anyone else I know.
Well we will have to disagree on that but it is certainly true of RGS pupils. Maybe it depends upon which school you went to.
Oh and my sluggish night train from Sofia has just unaccountably picked up to almost WCML like speed levels on the plain west of Plovdiv after chuntering through the mountains at donkey pace.
The first of a series of night trains coming up. This is the only one with border guards coming in asking for papers please in the early hours though.
The Russians push and push and push until you push back. It's how they assess weakness. They've always done it. If they are now escalating to gunfire it's because they have assessed us to be too weak to respond, and they have a point.
The Gestapo marched hundreds of thousands of innocent people to their deaths.
I've ended private schools' tax breaks to invest in state schools.
No responsible leader makes vile comparisons like this. Kemi Badenoch is not fit to be Prime Minister.
My ending VAT relief on private schools she has actually just reduced choice in education by forcing some smaller private schools to close and made the remaining private schools more exclusive by reducing the number of scholarships and bursaries they provide
'My ending' !! We'll have you for this! Banged to rights!
Smaller private schools and larger private schools have closed due to poor management, poor financial controls and an inability to survive in the real world.
Listened to Al Carns resignation speech and he was very impressive and took aim at the persecution of our soldiers from the Irish troubles
I would just say that if Starmer refuses to go, a fight between Starmer, Burnham, Streeting and Carns would be quite an event
I'm a very long way from convinced that Carns is yet PM material. But at least he's displaying an awareness of some of the MoD bullshit that the rest of the defence ministers seem captured by.
He's resigned over MOD spending being limited despite acknowledging that the MOD are incredibly wasteful. Surely the first step on that path is to limit the money going to the MOD? Not unlike Thames Water wanting desalination plants because their pipes leak.
We've effectively tried that approach over the last two decades, and it didn't work.
Literally everything the MoD does is underfunded. The only solution to that is to cut entire programs or capabilities and concentrate on the absolutely essential.
As we have the 6th highest military budget in the world, if everything is underfunded then there are really only a few possibilities:
1) our military is massively inefficient by being both spendthrift and on a shoestring.
2) everyone else is underfunded and incapable too.
If 2) we shouldn't worry too much. If 1) we should sort that out before chucking good money after bad.
Yes, but bear in mind that ever since Osborne, our military budget is bigger on paper after the Treasury added new line items to hide reductions in spending on things that go bang, principally the nuclear deterrent, pensions, and most recently intelligence services. ETA similarly the overseas aid budget is now spent on British 4-star hotels.
Yep, the defence budget is stuffed with things not related to the ability of the armed forces to break things and kill people. Add the cost of the nuclear deterrent and the money available to fund the conventional military isn't generous.
Isn't it true of most countries that military budgets are largely wasted on bloated prestige arms and cosy if not corrupt relationships between military and suppliers? It is a great British tradition too to send ships to sea with rotten biscuits and rancid meat.
The exceptions are mostly those countries actually fighting for their existence like Ukraine or Israel.
I think it highly likely that any increased funds will be spaffed up the wall exactly the same way. Same old, same old.
When Britain had a larger defence budget - at the end of the Cold War, say, it had a large navy, army and air force. The budget was cut and capability shrank. I see no reason to think that capability would not expand if the budget was increased.
I think the trouble is that the places that funding then went into, slightly lower taxes, more NHS and welfare spending, is bloody hard to row back from.
It's much easier to cut defence in the first place than put it back again.
The Gestapo marched hundreds of thousands of innocent people to their deaths.
I've ended private schools' tax breaks to invest in state schools.
No responsible leader makes vile comparisons like this. Kemi Badenoch is not fit to be Prime Minister.
Good grief, the comments on Phillipson's tweet!
E.g.: "I'd applaud if they rounded up you, and all of your ilk, and sent you off on a death march."
"Private schools never had tax breaks. Private schools already pay hundreds of thousands in tax. You added another tax on top of existing taxes. Further, Badenoch is being polite. You support putting people in prison for jokes. The Gestapo never went that far. You are worse."
"The party screaming NAZI at everyone else. The party bringing back the final Solution. The party of Goebles propaganda The party taking away free speech. The party experimenting on our kids.. The party of tiered Justice.. The Fascist Labour party... yuk"
Most these days are US-funded bots, though a disturbing number of the rest aren’t.
Pb should just accept on private schools it’s like the only remotely popular thing the government has done. Let it go.
Why?
It's a terrible policy that's going to damage the education sector overall, raise costs for taxpayers and damage our ability to train our future workforce.
Populism can take place at any part on the political spectrum, and that's what this is.
Having said that, I wouldn't have done this policy and made state schools so good, private schools would close down.
This doesn't work. What private schools sell is not primarily education, it is social polish and access to privilege.
Utter rubbish.
Sorry but the one thing a private school will give you from the age of 13 onwards is a set of contacts (friends from school and parents of those friends) that could well set you up for life..
Utter rubbish.
So normal disadvanted poor destitute, thick state school kids have no friends.
That would have applied to you whichever school you attended, sadly.
Pb should just accept on private schools it’s like the only remotely popular thing the government has done. Let it go.
Why?
It's a terrible policy that's going to damage the education sector overall, raise costs for taxpayers and damage our ability to train our future workforce.
Populism can take place at any part on the political spectrum, and that's what this is.
Having said that, I wouldn't have done this policy and made state schools so good, private schools would close down.
This doesn't work. What private schools sell is not primarily education, it is social polish and access to privilege.
Utter rubbish.
Sorry but the one thing a private school will give you from the age of 13 onwards is a set of contacts (friends from school and parents of those friends) that could well set you up for life..
Yup. It’s definitely set me up for life and there’s no point denying it.
There is, because it isn't true.
I have no contacts or friends from my school or parents of those friends who have "set me up for life".
The closest I can think of is a few close friends from university (state school, as it happens) who've helped me out a few times.
This old school tie thing is a myth that hasn't been true for decades. If then.
It is more subtle than "the old school tie", it is about converting Economic Capital into Social Capital, Cultural Capital and Symbolic Capital as described in the works of Pierre Bordieu.
In particular Social Class in the UK is defined more by Cultural Capital than anything else. A lot comes from family background, but also from education.
So having realised you have no evidence for that, you've decided to respond with a lot of wank.
Pb should just accept on private schools it’s like the only remotely popular thing the government has done. Let it go.
Why?
It's a terrible policy that's going to damage the education sector overall, raise costs for taxpayers and damage our ability to train our future workforce.
Populism can take place at any part on the political spectrum, and that's what this is.
Having said that, I wouldn't have done this policy and made state schools so good, private schools would close down.
This doesn't work. What private schools sell is not primarily education, it is social polish and access to privilege.
Utter rubbish.
Why do you say that is rubbish? It is obviously true and I say that as someone who sent his son to RGS. It provides both in abundance.
Yeah, what you are really paying for is social capital. It was definitely a help to me early in my career, such as it was, but it seems to matter less in the armed forces after the first couple of promotions and drafts.
Listened to Al Carns resignation speech and he was very impressive and took aim at the persecution of our soldiers from the Irish troubles
I would just say that if Starmer refuses to go, a fight between Starmer, Burnham, Streeting and Carns would be quite an event
I'm a very long way from convinced that Carns is yet PM material. But at least he's displaying an awareness of some of the MoD bullshit that the rest of the defence ministers seem captured by.
He's resigned over MOD spending being limited despite acknowledging that the MOD are incredibly wasteful. Surely the first step on that path is to limit the money going to the MOD? Not unlike Thames Water wanting desalination plants because their pipes leak.
We've effectively tried that approach over the last two decades, and it didn't work.
Literally everything the MoD does is underfunded. The only solution to that is to cut entire programs or capabilities and concentrate on the absolutely essential.
As we have the 6th highest military budget in the world, if everything is underfunded then there are really only a few possibilities:
1) our military is massively inefficient by being both spendthrift and on a shoestring.
2) everyone else is underfunded and incapable too.
If 2) we shouldn't worry too much. If 1) we should sort that out before chucking good money after bad.
Yes, but bear in mind that ever since Osborne, our military budget is bigger on paper after the Treasury added new line items to hide reductions in spending on things that go bang, principally the nuclear deterrent, pensions, and most recently intelligence services. ETA similarly the overseas aid budget is now spent on British 4-star hotels.
Yep, the defence budget is stuffed with things not related to the ability of the armed forces to break things and kill people. Add the cost of the nuclear deterrent and the money available to fund the conventional military isn't generous.
Isn't it true of most countries that military budgets are largely wasted on bloated prestige arms and cosy if not corrupt relationships between military and suppliers? It is a great British tradition too to send ships to sea with rotten biscuits and rancid meat.
The exceptions are mostly those countries actually fighting for their existence like Ukraine or Israel.
I think it highly likely that any increased funds will be spaffed up the wall exactly the same way. Same old, same old.
When Britain had a larger defence budget - at the end of the Cold War, say, it had a large navy, army and air force. The budget was cut and capability shrank. I see no reason to think that capability would not expand if the budget was increased.
I think the trouble is that the places that funding then went into, slightly lower taxes, more NHS and welfare spending, is bloody hard to row back from.
It's much easier to cut defence in the first place than put it back again.
Shooting back at the Russians doesn’t actually cost that much. It just takes a bit of backbone.
Listened to Al Carns resignation speech and he was very impressive and took aim at the persecution of our soldiers from the Irish troubles
I would just say that if Starmer refuses to go, a fight between Starmer, Burnham, Streeting and Carns would be quite an event
I'm a very long way from convinced that Carns is yet PM material. But at least he's displaying an awareness of some of the MoD bullshit that the rest of the defence ministers seem captured by.
He's resigned over MOD spending being limited despite acknowledging that the MOD are incredibly wasteful. Surely the first step on that path is to limit the money going to the MOD? Not unlike Thames Water wanting desalination plants because their pipes leak.
We've effectively tried that approach over the last two decades, and it didn't work.
Literally everything the MoD does is underfunded. The only solution to that is to cut entire programs or capabilities and concentrate on the absolutely essential.
As we have the 6th highest military budget in the world, if everything is underfunded then there are really only a few possibilities:
1) our military is massively inefficient by being both spendthrift and on a shoestring.
2) everyone else is underfunded and incapable too.
If 2) we shouldn't worry too much. If 1) we should sort that out before chucking good money after bad.
Yes, but bear in mind that ever since Osborne, our military budget is bigger on paper after the Treasury added new line items to hide reductions in spending on things that go bang, principally the nuclear deterrent, pensions, and most recently intelligence services. ETA similarly the overseas aid budget is now spent on British 4-star hotels.
Yep, the defence budget is stuffed with things not related to the ability of the armed forces to break things and kill people. Add the cost of the nuclear deterrent and the money available to fund the conventional military isn't generous.
Isn't it true of most countries that military budgets are largely wasted on bloated prestige arms and cosy if not corrupt relationships between military and suppliers? It is a great British tradition too to send ships to sea with rotten biscuits and rancid meat.
The exceptions are mostly those countries actually fighting for their existence like Ukraine or Israel.
I think it highly likely that any increased funds will be spaffed up the wall exactly the same way. Same old, same old.
When Britain had a larger defence budget - at the end of the Cold War, say, it had a large navy, army and air force. The budget was cut and capability shrank. I see no reason to think that capability would not expand if the budget was increased.
I think the trouble is that the places that funding then went into, slightly lower taxes, more NHS and welfare spending, is bloody hard to row back from.
It's much easier to cut defence in the first place than put it back again.
The ghost of Stanley Baldwin is nodding in agreement.
Pb should just accept on private schools it’s like the only remotely popular thing the government has done. Let it go.
Why?
It's a terrible policy that's going to damage the education sector overall, raise costs for taxpayers and damage our ability to train our future workforce.
Populism can take place at any part on the political spectrum, and that's what this is.
Having said that, I wouldn't have done this policy and made state schools so good, private schools would close down.
This doesn't work. What private schools sell is not primarily education, it is social polish and access to privilege.
Utter rubbish.
Sorry but the one thing a private school will give you from the age of 13 onwards is a set of contacts (friends from school and parents of those friends) that could well set you up for life..
Yup. It’s definitely set me up for life and there’s no point denying it.
There is, because it isn't true.
I have no contacts or friends from my school or parents of those friends who have "set me up for life".
The closest I can think of is a few close friends from university (state school, as it happens) who've helped me out a few times.
This old school tie thing is a myth that hasn't been true for decades. If then.
Pb should just accept on private schools it’s like the only remotely popular thing the government has done. Let it go.
Why?
It's a terrible policy that's going to damage the education sector overall, raise costs for taxpayers and damage our ability to train our future workforce.
Populism can take place at any part on the political spectrum, and that's what this is.
Having said that, I wouldn't have done this policy and made state schools so good, private schools would close down.
This doesn't work. What private schools sell is not primarily education, it is social polish and access to privilege.
Utter rubbish.
Sorry but the one thing a private school will give you from the age of 13 onwards is a set of contacts (friends from school and parents of those friends) that could well set you up for life..
Yup. It’s definitely set me up for life and there’s no point denying it.
There is, because it isn't true.
I have no contacts or friends from my school or parents of those friends who have "set me up for life".
The closest I can think of is a few close friends from university (state school, as it happens) who've helped me out a few times.
This old school tie thing is a myth that hasn't been true for decades. If then.
It is more subtle than "the old school tie", it is about converting Economic Capital into Social Capital, Cultural Capital and Symbolic Capital as described in the works of Pierre Bordieu.
In particular Social Class in the UK is defined more by Cultural Capital than anything else. A lot comes from family background, but also from education.
So having realised you have no evidence for that, you've decided to respond with a lot of wank.
Got it.
Well clearly your private education was wasted if the best that you can come up with in response to serious academic work is foul mouthed abuse.
Pb should just accept on private schools it’s like the only remotely popular thing the government has done. Let it go.
Why?
It's a terrible policy that's going to damage the education sector overall, raise costs for taxpayers and damage our ability to train our future workforce.
Populism can take place at any part on the political spectrum, and that's what this is.
Having said that, I wouldn't have done this policy and made state schools so good, private schools would close down.
This doesn't work. What private schools sell is not primarily education, it is social polish and access to privilege.
Utter rubbish.
Why do you say that is rubbish? It is obviously true and I say that as someone who sent his son to RGS. It provides both in abundance.
It isn't obviously true, and it hasn't been my experience or that of anyone else I know.
Well we will have to disagree on that but it is certainly true of RGS pupils. Maybe it depends upon which school you went to.
I suspect the networks of Eton or St Paul's are more useful than the networks of say, Chase Grammar School or Christ Church College Brecon.
On tonights fixture, France is joint favourite with Spain, but I think too short. Senegal are a decent team and AFCON finalists. Draws are all the fashion these last days.
The Gestapo marched hundreds of thousands of innocent people to their deaths.
I've ended private schools' tax breaks to invest in state schools.
No responsible leader makes vile comparisons like this. Kemi Badenoch is not fit to be Prime Minister.
Good grief, the comments on Phillipson's tweet!
E.g.: "I'd applaud if they rounded up you, and all of your ilk, and sent you off on a death march."
"Private schools never had tax breaks. Private schools already pay hundreds of thousands in tax. You added another tax on top of existing taxes. Further, Badenoch is being polite. You support putting people in prison for jokes. The Gestapo never went that far. You are worse."
"The party screaming NAZI at everyone else. The party bringing back the final Solution. The party of Goebles propaganda The party taking away free speech. The party experimenting on our kids.. The party of tiered Justice.. The Fascist Labour party... yuk"
I hate to find myself defending that idiot Phillipson, but that is untrue in both ways. With all her many and egregious faults the stupid old fool has never proposed putting people in prison for jokes as far as I know. The Gestapo certainly did not merely put people in prison but actually had them executed for telling jokes.
Pb should just accept on private schools it’s like the only remotely popular thing the government has done. Let it go.
Why?
It's a terrible policy that's going to damage the education sector overall, raise costs for taxpayers and damage our ability to train our future workforce.
Populism can take place at any part on the political spectrum, and that's what this is.
Having said that, I wouldn't have done this policy and made state schools so good, private schools would close down.
This doesn't work. What private schools sell is not primarily education, it is social polish and access to privilege.
Utter rubbish.
Why do you say that is rubbish? It is obviously true and I say that as someone who sent his son to RGS. It provides both in abundance.
Yeah, what you are really paying for is social capital. It was definitely a help to me early in my career, such as it was, but it seems to matter less in the armed forces after the first couple of promotions and drafts.
My eldest went to private school (amusingly, the amla mater of James Cleverley). On the surface no obvious old school tie or brimming social ease and confidence. Just the usual slightly gauche teenage boy. But he’s just finished 3 months going around Central Asia, largely on his own or with newfound travel friends, including a parent-kittening 12 days in Afghanistan, and I’m not sure he’d have embraced that quite so lackadaisically if he’d gone to a state school.
Listened to Al Carns resignation speech and he was very impressive and took aim at the persecution of our soldiers from the Irish troubles
I would just say that if Starmer refuses to go, a fight between Starmer, Burnham, Streeting and Carns would be quite an event
I'm a very long way from convinced that Carns is yet PM material. But at least he's displaying an awareness of some of the MoD bullshit that the rest of the defence ministers seem captured by.
He's resigned over MOD spending being limited despite acknowledging that the MOD are incredibly wasteful. Surely the first step on that path is to limit the money going to the MOD? Not unlike Thames Water wanting desalination plants because their pipes leak.
Thames Water must be the best argument against private sector efficiency
Or against inept regulators
Both, but profit maximisation doesn't sit well with the provision of clean water and sewage treatment. There's no argument that the private owners didn't extract £bns from Thames Water by borrowing against the assets and cash flow that could have been spent on investment or not borrowed.
It should also be noted two years ago - long after this highly illegal behaviour had come to light - Macquarie acquired 100% of the National Grid, where it is clearly planning to do exactly the same thing.
Previously, it had owned 80%, which was bad enough.
Why is it we as a nation are not learning from very basic mistakes?
(Unless it was a highly Machiavellian plot to keep large sums of Macquarie's assets in the country so they could be seized to make up for previous frauds, but candidly that seems unlikely.)
Macquarie’s behaviour at Thames wasn’t “highly illegal”. It was blessed by the regulator. It wa just unethical
Pb should just accept on private schools it’s like the only remotely popular thing the government has done. Let it go.
Why?
It's a terrible policy that's going to damage the education sector overall, raise costs for taxpayers and damage our ability to train our future workforce.
Populism can take place at any part on the political spectrum, and that's what this is.
Having said that, I wouldn't have done this policy and made state schools so good, private schools would close down.
This doesn't work. What private schools sell is not primarily education, it is social polish and access to privilege.
Utter rubbish.
Why do you say that is rubbish? It is obviously true and I say that as someone who sent his son to RGS. It provides both in abundance.
It isn't obviously true, and it hasn't been my experience or that of anyone else I know.
Well we will have to disagree on that but it is certainly true of RGS pupils. Maybe it depends upon which school you went to.
I suspect the networks of Eton or St Paul's are more useful than the networks of say, Chase Grammar School or Christ Church College Brecon.
My Hereford Cathedral School network might have been more helpful if I’d opted for a career in the SAS rather than tax consulting and viticulture.
Most likely we could sink the offending ship. And it is offending.
But that'd use up the RN's operational missile. Another operational missile won't likely be commissioned until 2028. There are plenty of sailors standing about on the carrier decks of the tethered to the dock RN that question this sort of trhing.
The Royal Navy had two ships watching the Russian frigate. HMS Mersey and HMS Tyne. Both river class offshore patrol vessels. Main armament is a 20mm cannon. Even most of the Irish Navy ships have bigger guns - 76mm.
The Russian frigate has a 100mm gun, 8 cells for cruise or anti-ship missiles, 24 cells for surface to air missiles, a couple of torpedo tubes, and various other weaponry.
I think it would take a while for the Navy to scrounge up the capability to take the frigate out, because it's been salami-sliced to such an extent that there's no spare capability. All the ships are deployed elsewhere. I don't know whether the RAF have the right weapons for targeting a ship.
Britain has underspent for so many years on its defence, while stretching the remaining resources incredibly thinly to cover all of the commitments to NATO, overseas territories, and allies elsewhere. There's a huge amount of capability debt built up due to running existing assets into the ground and it will take a lot of money to catch up on deferred procurement.
People are in denial that this can somehow be fixed by not wasting money.
Pb should just accept on private schools it’s like the only remotely popular thing the government has done. Let it go.
Why?
It's a terrible policy that's going to damage the education sector overall, raise costs for taxpayers and damage our ability to train our future workforce.
Populism can take place at any part on the political spectrum, and that's what this is.
Having said that, I wouldn't have done this policy and made state schools so good, private schools would close down.
This doesn't work. What private schools sell is not primarily education, it is social polish and access to privilege.
Utter rubbish.
Sorry but the one thing a private school will give you from the age of 13 onwards is a set of contacts (friends from school and parents of those friends) that could well set you up for life..
Yup. It’s definitely set me up for life and there’s no point denying it.
There is, because it isn't true.
I have no contacts or friends from my school or parents of those friends who have "set me up for life".
The closest I can think of is a few close friends from university (state school, as it happens) who've helped me out a few times.
This old school tie thing is a myth that hasn't been true for decades. If then.
It is more subtle than "the old school tie", it is about converting Economic Capital into Social Capital, Cultural Capital and Symbolic Capital as described in the works of Pierre Bordieu.
In particular Social Class in the UK is defined more by Cultural Capital than anything else. A lot comes from family background, but also from education.
So having realised you have no evidence for that, you've decided to respond with a lot of wank.
Got it.
Well clearly your private education was wasted if the best that you can come up with in response to serious academic work is foul mouthed abuse.
Pb should just accept on private schools it’s like the only remotely popular thing the government has done. Let it go.
Why?
It's a terrible policy that's going to damage the education sector overall, raise costs for taxpayers and damage our ability to train our future workforce.
Populism can take place at any part on the political spectrum, and that's what this is.
Having said that, I wouldn't have done this policy and made state schools so good, private schools would close down.
This doesn't work. What private schools sell is not primarily education, it is social polish and access to privilege.
Utter rubbish.
Why do you say that is rubbish? It is obviously true and I say that as someone who sent his son to RGS. It provides both in abundance.
Yeah, what you are really paying for is social capital. It was definitely a help to me early in my career, such as it was, but it seems to matter less in the armed forces after the first couple of promotions and drafts.
My eldest went to private school (amusingly, the amls mater of James Cleverley). On the surface no obvious old school tie or brimming social ease and confidence. Just the usual slightly gauche teenage boy. But he’s just finished 3 months going around Central Asia, largely on his own or with newfound travel friends, including a parent-kittening 12 days in Afghanistan, and I’m not sure he’d have embraced that quite so lackadaisically if he’d gone to a state school.
I did come away with a degree of social poise and confidence but, frankly, that's been more use when buying and selling cars than any other aspect of my life.
Pb should just accept on private schools it’s like the only remotely popular thing the government has done. Let it go.
Why?
It's a terrible policy that's going to damage the education sector overall, raise costs for taxpayers and damage our ability to train our future workforce.
Populism can take place at any part on the political spectrum, and that's what this is.
Having said that, I wouldn't have done this policy and made state schools so good, private schools would close down.
This doesn't work. What private schools sell is not primarily education, it is social polish and access to privilege.
Utter rubbish.
Why do you say that is rubbish? It is obviously true and I say that as someone who sent his son to RGS. It provides both in abundance.
Yeah, what you are really paying for is social capital. It was definitely a help to me early in my career, such as it was, but it seems to matter less in the armed forces after the first couple of promotions and drafts.
My eldest went to private school (amusingly, the amla mater of James Cleverley). On the surface no obvious old school tie or brimming social ease and confidence. Just the usual slightly gauche teenage boy. But he’s just finished 3 months going around Central Asia, largely on his own or with newfound travel friends, including a parent-kittening 12 days in Afghanistan, and I’m not sure he’d have embraced that quite so lackadaisically if he’d gone to a state school.
I agree it gives you confidence and broadens your horizons.
It's the cut-glass accent, old school tie, secret handshake and lifelong contacts stuff I think is bollocks.
Pb should just accept on private schools it’s like the only remotely popular thing the government has done. Let it go.
Why?
It's a terrible policy that's going to damage the education sector overall, raise costs for taxpayers and damage our ability to train our future workforce.
Populism can take place at any part on the political spectrum, and that's what this is.
Having said that, I wouldn't have done this policy and made state schools so good, private schools would close down.
This doesn't work. What private schools sell is not primarily education, it is social polish and access to privilege.
Utter rubbish.
Why do you say that is rubbish? It is obviously true and I say that as someone who sent his son to RGS. It provides both in abundance.
Yeah, what you are really paying for is social capital. It was definitely a help to me early in my career, such as it was, but it seems to matter less in the armed forces after the first couple of promotions and drafts.
Yes, like any job, getting started is the toughest bit. Once in then fresher and more job specific Social and Cultural Capital are acquired alongside the technical competencies.
Pb should just accept on private schools it’s like the only remotely popular thing the government has done. Let it go.
Why?
It's a terrible policy that's going to damage the education sector overall, raise costs for taxpayers and damage our ability to train our future workforce.
Populism can take place at any part on the political spectrum, and that's what this is.
Having said that, I wouldn't have done this policy and made state schools so good, private schools would close down.
This doesn't work. What private schools sell is not primarily education, it is social polish and access to privilege.
Utter rubbish.
Why do you say that is rubbish? It is obviously true and I say that as someone who sent his son to RGS. It provides both in abundance.
Most likely we could sink the offending ship. And it is offending.
But that'd use up the RN's operational missile. Another operational missile won't likely be commissioned until 2028. There are plenty of sailors standing about on the carrier decks of the tethered to the dock RN that question this sort of trhing.
The Royal Navy had two ships watching the Russian frigate. HMS Mersey and HMS Tyne. Both river class offshore patrol vessels. Main armament is a 20mm cannon. Even most of the Irish Navy ships have bigger guns - 76mm.
The Russian frigate has a 100mm gun, 8 cells for cruise or anti-ship missiles, 24 cells for surface to air missiles, a couple of torpedo tubes, and various other weaponry.
I think it would take a while for the Navy to scrounge up the capability to take the frigate out, because it's been salami-sliced to such an extent that there's no spare capability. All the ships are deployed elsewhere. I don't know whether the RAF have the right weapons for targeting a ship.
Britain has underspent for so many years on its defence, while stretching the remaining resources incredibly thinly to cover all of the commitments to NATO, overseas territories, and allies elsewhere. There's a huge amount of capability debt built up due to running existing assets into the ground and it will take a lot of money to catch up on deferred procurement.
People are in denial that this can somehow be fixed by not wasting money.
Yes. And it's a 10 year plus project.
A realistic target is having us fit and capable by 2040.
Meanwhile in other news, if world war three breaks out down my way, you’ll hear it here first:
Sailors on a Russian warship fired a warning shot at a yacht that came near it in the English Channel off the Isle of Wight, the Press Association has reported.
I am sailing out of Bembridge next week so shall keep a watch out. I am armed with flares and a boathook...
I hope you enjoy admirable kismet fox.
EDIT: Damn, wrong ship, but I'll not waste the pun.
Pb should just accept on private schools it’s like the only remotely popular thing the government has done. Let it go.
Why?
It's a terrible policy that's going to damage the education sector overall, raise costs for taxpayers and damage our ability to train our future workforce.
Populism can take place at any part on the political spectrum, and that's what this is.
Having said that, I wouldn't have done this policy and made state schools so good, private schools would close down.
This doesn't work. What private schools sell is not primarily education, it is social polish and access to privilege.
Utter rubbish.
Why do you say that is rubbish? It is obviously true and I say that as someone who sent his son to RGS. It provides both in abundance.
Yeah, what you are really paying for is social capital. It was definitely a help to me early in my career, such as it was, but it seems to matter less in the armed forces after the first couple of promotions and drafts.
My eldest went to private school (amusingly, the amla mater of James Cleverley). On the surface no obvious old school tie or brimming social ease and confidence. Just the usual slightly gauche teenage boy. But he’s just finished 3 months going around Central Asia, largely on his own or with newfound travel friends, including a parent-kittening 12 days in Afghanistan, and I’m not sure he’d have embraced that quite so lackadaisically if he’d gone to a state school.
I agree it gives you confidence and broadens your horizons.
It's the cut-glass accent, old school tie, secret handshake and lifelong contacts stuff I think is bollocks.
It's a mixture of myth and conspiracy theory.
Well I’m afraid I disagree. I’ve got lifelong contacts, a pretty posh accent, an old tie. No secret handshake though.
I don’t see how you can sit here and tell me my own experience is wrong.
The Gestapo marched hundreds of thousands of innocent people to their deaths.
I've ended private schools' tax breaks to invest in state schools.
No responsible leader makes vile comparisons like this. Kemi Badenoch is not fit to be Prime Minister.
Good grief, the comments on Phillipson's tweet!
E.g.: "I'd applaud if they rounded up you, and all of your ilk, and sent you off on a death march."
"Private schools never had tax breaks. Private schools already pay hundreds of thousands in tax. You added another tax on top of existing taxes. Further, Badenoch is being polite. You support putting people in prison for jokes. The Gestapo never went that far. You are worse."
"The party screaming NAZI at everyone else. The party bringing back the final Solution. The party of Goebles propaganda The party taking away free speech. The party experimenting on our kids.. The party of tiered Justice.. The Fascist Labour party... yuk"
It's an incredibly offensive and crass comparison.
I mean Lord knows the Gestapo weren't warm and cuddly, but I don't think even they'd have admitted Phillipson.
Rather sadly, the job you achieve in life (barring things like ill-health, accidents and wrongful imprisonment) is largely down to your own efforts and character: character is destiny and a' that. So the public school debate is a non-sequitur.
What is the problem, and it's going to get much worse when the boomers die, is the money and inheritance that wealthy parents gift their children. You can be very, very stupid but if you had wealthy parents you are not going to die in a council house, even if you deserve it.
So if Labour really wanted to increase class mobility, they'd tax houses not public schools.
If Kemi Badenoch wanted a clean break with the past, plus royally pissing off Phillipson, she should compare her to Amanda Spielman.
On the grounds that she's a failure, a bully, an idiot who knows nothing about education and a tool of the DfE.
Now in other ways that would still be a somewhat unfair comparison. So far Phillipson's catastrophes are at the design stage, whereas Spielman has pretty much devastated the state sector with her appallingly mismanaged reforms at both OFQUAL and OFSTED.
Listened to Al Carns resignation speech and he was very impressive and took aim at the persecution of our soldiers from the Irish troubles
I would just say that if Starmer refuses to go, a fight between Starmer, Burnham, Streeting and Carns would be quite an event
I'm a very long way from convinced that Carns is yet PM material. But at least he's displaying an awareness of some of the MoD bullshit that the rest of the defence ministers seem captured by.
He's resigned over MOD spending being limited despite acknowledging that the MOD are incredibly wasteful. Surely the first step on that path is to limit the money going to the MOD? Not unlike Thames Water wanting desalination plants because their pipes leak.
We've effectively tried that approach over the last two decades, and it didn't work.
Literally everything the MoD does is underfunded. The only solution to that is to cut entire programs or capabilities and concentrate on the absolutely essential.
As we have the 6th highest military budget in the world, if everything is underfunded then there are really only a few possibilities:
1) our military is massively inefficient by being both spendthrift and on a shoestring.
2) everyone else is underfunded and incapable too.
If 2) we shouldn't worry too much. If 1) we should sort that out before chucking good money after bad.
Yes, but bear in mind that ever since Osborne, our military budget is bigger on paper after the Treasury added new line items to hide reductions in spending on things that go bang, principally the nuclear deterrent, pensions, and most recently intelligence services. ETA similarly the overseas aid budget is now spent on British 4-star hotels.
Yep, the defence budget is stuffed with things not related to the ability of the armed forces to break things and kill people. Add the cost of the nuclear deterrent and the money available to fund the conventional military isn't generous.
Isn't it true of most countries that military budgets are largely wasted on bloated prestige arms and cosy if not corrupt relationships between military and suppliers? It is a great British tradition too to send ships to sea with rotten biscuits and rancid meat.
The exceptions are mostly those countries actually fighting for their existence like Ukraine or Israel.
I think it highly likely that any increased funds will be spaffed up the wall exactly the same way. Same old, same old.
When Britain had a larger defence budget - at the end of the Cold War, say, it had a large navy, army and air force. The budget was cut and capability shrank. I see no reason to think that capability would not expand if the budget was increased.
I think the trouble is that the places that funding then went into, slightly lower taxes, more NHS and welfare spending, is bloody hard to row back from.
It's much easier to cut defence in the first place than put it back again.
If you can persuade people that it is necessary then a way can be found to make what is necessary happen.
But we see a lot of resistance to agreeing that it is necessary. A Russian warship firing at a British yacht in the channel and the Navy massively outgunned, and people think the defence budget is just fine.
The Gestapo marched hundreds of thousands of innocent people to their deaths.
I've ended private schools' tax breaks to invest in state schools.
No responsible leader makes vile comparisons like this. Kemi Badenoch is not fit to be Prime Minister.
Good grief, the comments on Phillipson's tweet!
E.g.: "I'd applaud if they rounded up you, and all of your ilk, and sent you off on a death march."
"Private schools never had tax breaks. Private schools already pay hundreds of thousands in tax. You added another tax on top of existing taxes. Further, Badenoch is being polite. You support putting people in prison for jokes. The Gestapo never went that far. You are worse."
"The party screaming NAZI at everyone else. The party bringing back the final Solution. The party of Goebles propaganda The party taking away free speech. The party experimenting on our kids.. The party of tiered Justice.. The Fascist Labour party... yuk"
Most these days are US-funded bots, though a disturbing number of the rest aren’t.
Indeed. A lot of people spend a lot of time on Twitter responding to anything and everything in the rudest and most forceful way, with no sense of proportion, and earn a good living from it. I know I keep banging on about banning algorithmic feeds, but we really should be doing it.
Listened to Al Carns resignation speech and he was very impressive and took aim at the persecution of our soldiers from the Irish troubles
I would just say that if Starmer refuses to go, a fight between Starmer, Burnham, Streeting and Carns would be quite an event
I'm a very long way from convinced that Carns is yet PM material. But at least he's displaying an awareness of some of the MoD bullshit that the rest of the defence ministers seem captured by.
He's resigned over MOD spending being limited despite acknowledging that the MOD are incredibly wasteful. Surely the first step on that path is to limit the money going to the MOD? Not unlike Thames Water wanting desalination plants because their pipes leak.
We've effectively tried that approach over the last two decades, and it didn't work.
Literally everything the MoD does is underfunded. The only solution to that is to cut entire programs or capabilities and concentrate on the absolutely essential.
As we have the 6th highest military budget in the world, if everything is underfunded then there are really only a few possibilities:
1) our military is massively inefficient by being both spendthrift and on a shoestring.
2) everyone else is underfunded and incapable too.
If 2) we shouldn't worry too much. If 1) we should sort that out before chucking good money after bad.
Yes, but bear in mind that ever since Osborne, our military budget is bigger on paper after the Treasury added new line items to hide reductions in spending on things that go bang, principally the nuclear deterrent, pensions, and most recently intelligence services. ETA similarly the overseas aid budget is now spent on British 4-star hotels.
Yep, the defence budget is stuffed with things not related to the ability of the armed forces to break things and kill people. Add the cost of the nuclear deterrent and the money available to fund the conventional military isn't generous.
Isn't it true of most countries that military budgets are largely wasted on bloated prestige arms and cosy if not corrupt relationships between military and suppliers? It is a great British tradition too to send ships to sea with rotten biscuits and rancid meat.
The exceptions are mostly those countries actually fighting for their existence like Ukraine or Israel.
I think it highly likely that any increased funds will be spaffed up the wall exactly the same way. Same old, same old.
When Britain had a larger defence budget - at the end of the Cold War, say, it had a large navy, army and air force. The budget was cut and capability shrank. I see no reason to think that capability would not expand if the budget was increased.
I think the trouble is that the places that funding then went into, slightly lower taxes, more NHS and welfare spending, is bloody hard to row back from.
It's much easier to cut defence in the first place than put it back again.
Shooting back at the Russians doesn’t actually cost that much. It just takes a bit of backbone.
The Gestapo marched hundreds of thousands of innocent people to their deaths.
I've ended private schools' tax breaks to invest in state schools.
No responsible leader makes vile comparisons like this. Kemi Badenoch is not fit to be Prime Minister.
Good grief, the comments on Phillipson's tweet!
E.g.: "I'd applaud if they rounded up you, and all of your ilk, and sent you off on a death march."
"Private schools never had tax breaks. Private schools already pay hundreds of thousands in tax. You added another tax on top of existing taxes. Further, Badenoch is being polite. You support putting people in prison for jokes. The Gestapo never went that far. You are worse."
"The party screaming NAZI at everyone else. The party bringing back the final Solution. The party of Goebles propaganda The party taking away free speech. The party experimenting on our kids.. The party of tiered Justice.. The Fascist Labour party... yuk"
It's an incredibly offensive and crass comparison.
I mean Lord knows the Gestapo weren't warm and cuddly, but I don't think even they'd have admitted Phillipson.
Sometimes attempts at humour fall a bit flat... and sometimes they completely and deservedly bomb, don't they.
The Gestapo marched hundreds of thousands of innocent people to their deaths.
I've ended private schools' tax breaks to invest in state schools.
No responsible leader makes vile comparisons like this. Kemi Badenoch is not fit to be Prime Minister.
Good grief, the comments on Phillipson's tweet!
E.g.: "I'd applaud if they rounded up you, and all of your ilk, and sent you off on a death march."
"Private schools never had tax breaks. Private schools already pay hundreds of thousands in tax. You added another tax on top of existing taxes. Further, Badenoch is being polite. You support putting people in prison for jokes. The Gestapo never went that far. You are worse."
"The party screaming NAZI at everyone else. The party bringing back the final Solution. The party of Goebles propaganda The party taking away free speech. The party experimenting on our kids.. The party of tiered Justice.. The Fascist Labour party... yuk"
It's an incredibly offensive and crass comparison.
I mean Lord knows the Gestapo weren't warm and cuddly, but I don't think even they'd have admitted Phillipson.
Sometimes attempts at humour fall a bit flat... and sometimes they completely and deservedly bomb, don't they.
Rather sadly, the job you achieve in life (barring things like ill-health, accidents and wrongful imprisonment) is largely down to your own efforts and character: character is destiny and a' that. So the public school debate is a non-sequitur.
What is the problem, and it's going to get much worse when the boomers die, is the money and inheritance that wealthy parents gift their children. You can be very, very stupid but if you had wealthy parents you are not going to die in a council house, even if you deserve it.
So if Labour really wanted to increase class mobility, they'd tax houses not public schools.
If you die in a council house nowadays you've won the lottery given how hard it is to get social (council / housing association) housing. If you had wealthy parents.
Heck I look at the people trying to trade a central London Peasbody flat and wish I could trade with them.
The Gestapo marched hundreds of thousands of innocent people to their deaths.
I've ended private schools' tax breaks to invest in state schools.
No responsible leader makes vile comparisons like this. Kemi Badenoch is not fit to be Prime Minister.
Good grief, the comments on Phillipson's tweet!
E.g.: "I'd applaud if they rounded up you, and all of your ilk, and sent you off on a death march."
"Private schools never had tax breaks. Private schools already pay hundreds of thousands in tax. You added another tax on top of existing taxes. Further, Badenoch is being polite. You support putting people in prison for jokes. The Gestapo never went that far. You are worse."
"The party screaming NAZI at everyone else. The party bringing back the final Solution. The party of Goebles propaganda The party taking away free speech. The party experimenting on our kids.. The party of tiered Justice.. The Fascist Labour party... yuk"
It's an incredibly offensive and crass comparison.
I mean Lord knows the Gestapo weren't warm and cuddly, but I don't think even they'd have admitted Phillipson.
Sometimes attempts at humour fall a bit flat... and sometimes they completely and deservedly bomb, don't they.
The Gestapo marched hundreds of thousands of innocent people to their deaths.
I've ended private schools' tax breaks to invest in state schools.
No responsible leader makes vile comparisons like this. Kemi Badenoch is not fit to be Prime Minister.
Good grief, the comments on Phillipson's tweet!
E.g.: "I'd applaud if they rounded up you, and all of your ilk, and sent you off on a death march."
"Private schools never had tax breaks. Private schools already pay hundreds of thousands in tax. You added another tax on top of existing taxes. Further, Badenoch is being polite. You support putting people in prison for jokes. The Gestapo never went that far. You are worse."
"The party screaming NAZI at everyone else. The party bringing back the final Solution. The party of Goebles propaganda The party taking away free speech. The party experimenting on our kids.. The party of tiered Justice.. The Fascist Labour party... yuk"
It's an incredibly offensive and crass comparison.
I mean Lord knows the Gestapo weren't warm and cuddly, but I don't think even they'd have admitted Phillipson.
Sometimes attempts at humour fall a bit flat... and sometimes they completely and deservedly bomb, don't they.
Listened to Al Carns resignation speech and he was very impressive and took aim at the persecution of our soldiers from the Irish troubles
I would just say that if Starmer refuses to go, a fight between Starmer, Burnham, Streeting and Carns would be quite an event
I'm a very long way from convinced that Carns is yet PM material. But at least he's displaying an awareness of some of the MoD bullshit that the rest of the defence ministers seem captured by.
He's resigned over MOD spending being limited despite acknowledging that the MOD are incredibly wasteful. Surely the first step on that path is to limit the money going to the MOD? Not unlike Thames Water wanting desalination plants because their pipes leak.
We've effectively tried that approach over the last two decades, and it didn't work.
Literally everything the MoD does is underfunded. The only solution to that is to cut entire programs or capabilities and concentrate on the absolutely essential.
As we have the 6th highest military budget in the world, if everything is underfunded then there are really only a few possibilities:
1) our military is massively inefficient by being both spendthrift and on a shoestring.
2) everyone else is underfunded and incapable too.
If 2) we shouldn't worry too much. If 1) we should sort that out before chucking good money after bad.
Yes, but bear in mind that ever since Osborne, our military budget is bigger on paper after the Treasury added new line items to hide reductions in spending on things that go bang, principally the nuclear deterrent, pensions, and most recently intelligence services. ETA similarly the overseas aid budget is now spent on British 4-star hotels.
Yep, the defence budget is stuffed with things not related to the ability of the armed forces to break things and kill people. Add the cost of the nuclear deterrent and the money available to fund the conventional military isn't generous.
Isn't it true of most countries that military budgets are largely wasted on bloated prestige arms and cosy if not corrupt relationships between military and suppliers? It is a great British tradition too to send ships to sea with rotten biscuits and rancid meat.
The exceptions are mostly those countries actually fighting for their existence like Ukraine or Israel.
I think it highly likely that any increased funds will be spaffed up the wall exactly the same way. Same old, same old.
When Britain had a larger defence budget - at the end of the Cold War, say, it had a large navy, army and air force. The budget was cut and capability shrank. I see no reason to think that capability would not expand if the budget was increased.
I think the trouble is that the places that funding then went into, slightly lower taxes, more NHS and welfare spending, is bloody hard to row back from.
It's much easier to cut defence in the first place than put it back again.
If you can persuade people that it is necessary then a way can be found to make what is necessary happen.
But we see a lot of resistance to agreeing that it is necessary. A Russian warship firing at a British yacht in the channel and the Navy massively outgunned, and people think the defence budget is just fine.
Well, if we wanted to start WW3 over this highly convenient incident the we could just plaster the Grigorovich with Paveway IVs from Coningsby Typhoons. The MoD don't need 1p more to defend the UK, they need to be less institutionally fucked and stop running defence procurement as an industrial GOSPLAN.
Listened to Al Carns resignation speech and he was very impressive and took aim at the persecution of our soldiers from the Irish troubles
I would just say that if Starmer refuses to go, a fight between Starmer, Burnham, Streeting and Carns would be quite an event
I'm a very long way from convinced that Carns is yet PM material. But at least he's displaying an awareness of some of the MoD bullshit that the rest of the defence ministers seem captured by.
He's resigned over MOD spending being limited despite acknowledging that the MOD are incredibly wasteful. Surely the first step on that path is to limit the money going to the MOD? Not unlike Thames Water wanting desalination plants because their pipes leak.
We've effectively tried that approach over the last two decades, and it didn't work.
Literally everything the MoD does is underfunded. The only solution to that is to cut entire programs or capabilities and concentrate on the absolutely essential.
As we have the 6th highest military budget in the world, if everything is underfunded then there are really only a few possibilities:
1) our military is massively inefficient by being both spendthrift and on a shoestring.
2) everyone else is underfunded and incapable too.
If 2) we shouldn't worry too much. If 1) we should sort that out before chucking good money after bad.
Yes, but bear in mind that ever since Osborne, our military budget is bigger on paper after the Treasury added new line items to hide reductions in spending on things that go bang, principally the nuclear deterrent, pensions, and most recently intelligence services. ETA similarly the overseas aid budget is now spent on British 4-star hotels.
Yep, the defence budget is stuffed with things not related to the ability of the armed forces to break things and kill people. Add the cost of the nuclear deterrent and the money available to fund the conventional military isn't generous.
Isn't it true of most countries that military budgets are largely wasted on bloated prestige arms and cosy if not corrupt relationships between military and suppliers? It is a great British tradition too to send ships to sea with rotten biscuits and rancid meat.
The exceptions are mostly those countries actually fighting for their existence like Ukraine or Israel.
I think it highly likely that any increased funds will be spaffed up the wall exactly the same way. Same old, same old.
When Britain had a larger defence budget - at the end of the Cold War, say, it had a large navy, army and air force. The budget was cut and capability shrank. I see no reason to think that capability would not expand if the budget was increased.
I think the trouble is that the places that funding then went into, slightly lower taxes, more NHS and welfare spending, is bloody hard to row back from.
It's much easier to cut defence in the first place than put it back again.
Shooting back at the Russians doesn’t actually cost that much. It just takes a bit of backbone.
What are you shooting back with? HMS Mersey?
Literally just firing back a warning shot. You said yourself they push and push until they find weakness. In this instance that doesn’t take much. In fact a well targeted implausibly deniable poisoning, or cyber attack, as they’ve shown, is enough.
Goodness knows most of the extremely poor countries that have felt Russian attempted bullying in recent years have managed something.
Listened to Al Carns resignation speech and he was very impressive and took aim at the persecution of our soldiers from the Irish troubles
I would just say that if Starmer refuses to go, a fight between Starmer, Burnham, Streeting and Carns would be quite an event
I'm a very long way from convinced that Carns is yet PM material. But at least he's displaying an awareness of some of the MoD bullshit that the rest of the defence ministers seem captured by.
He's resigned over MOD spending being limited despite acknowledging that the MOD are incredibly wasteful. Surely the first step on that path is to limit the money going to the MOD? Not unlike Thames Water wanting desalination plants because their pipes leak.
We've effectively tried that approach over the last two decades, and it didn't work.
Literally everything the MoD does is underfunded. The only solution to that is to cut entire programs or capabilities and concentrate on the absolutely essential.
As we have the 6th highest military budget in the world, if everything is underfunded then there are really only a few possibilities:
1) our military is massively inefficient by being both spendthrift and on a shoestring.
2) everyone else is underfunded and incapable too.
If 2) we shouldn't worry too much. If 1) we should sort that out before chucking good money after bad.
Yes, but bear in mind that ever since Osborne, our military budget is bigger on paper after the Treasury added new line items to hide reductions in spending on things that go bang, principally the nuclear deterrent, pensions, and most recently intelligence services. ETA similarly the overseas aid budget is now spent on British 4-star hotels.
Yep, the defence budget is stuffed with things not related to the ability of the armed forces to break things and kill people. Add the cost of the nuclear deterrent and the money available to fund the conventional military isn't generous.
Isn't it true of most countries that military budgets are largely wasted on bloated prestige arms and cosy if not corrupt relationships between military and suppliers? It is a great British tradition too to send ships to sea with rotten biscuits and rancid meat.
The exceptions are mostly those countries actually fighting for their existence like Ukraine or Israel.
I think it highly likely that any increased funds will be spaffed up the wall exactly the same way. Same old, same old.
When Britain had a larger defence budget - at the end of the Cold War, say, it had a large navy, army and air force. The budget was cut and capability shrank. I see no reason to think that capability would not expand if the budget was increased.
I think the trouble is that the places that funding then went into, slightly lower taxes, more NHS and welfare spending, is bloody hard to row back from.
It's much easier to cut defence in the first place than put it back again.
Shooting back at the Russians doesn’t actually cost that much. It just takes a bit of backbone.
France’s novel approach to starting a game, kicking the ball straight off the side of the pitch
What are the statistics for recovering the ball after hoofing it out of play somewhere near the corner flag, and would anyone be cynical enough to try it as a strategy?
The Gestapo marched hundreds of thousands of innocent people to their deaths.
I've ended private schools' tax breaks to invest in state schools.
No responsible leader makes vile comparisons like this. Kemi Badenoch is not fit to be Prime Minister.
Good grief, the comments on Phillipson's tweet!
E.g.: "I'd applaud if they rounded up you, and all of your ilk, and sent you off on a death march."
"Private schools never had tax breaks. Private schools already pay hundreds of thousands in tax. You added another tax on top of existing taxes. Further, Badenoch is being polite. You support putting people in prison for jokes. The Gestapo never went that far. You are worse."
"The party screaming NAZI at everyone else. The party bringing back the final Solution. The party of Goebles propaganda The party taking away free speech. The party experimenting on our kids.. The party of tiered Justice.. The Fascist Labour party... yuk"
It's an incredibly offensive and crass comparison.
I mean Lord knows the Gestapo weren't warm and cuddly, but I don't think even they'd have admitted Phillipson.
Sometimes attempts at humour fall a bit flat... and sometimes they completely and deservedly bomb, don't they.
That was the Luftwaffe, not the Gestapo.
Since we were doing I'm Sorry I Haven't A Clue recently...
But it's not just the Luftwaffe who have experience of bombing in Coventry... let's meet the teams.
Listened to Al Carns resignation speech and he was very impressive and took aim at the persecution of our soldiers from the Irish troubles
I would just say that if Starmer refuses to go, a fight between Starmer, Burnham, Streeting and Carns would be quite an event
I'm a very long way from convinced that Carns is yet PM material. But at least he's displaying an awareness of some of the MoD bullshit that the rest of the defence ministers seem captured by.
He's resigned over MOD spending being limited despite acknowledging that the MOD are incredibly wasteful. Surely the first step on that path is to limit the money going to the MOD? Not unlike Thames Water wanting desalination plants because their pipes leak.
We've effectively tried that approach over the last two decades, and it didn't work.
Literally everything the MoD does is underfunded. The only solution to that is to cut entire programs or capabilities and concentrate on the absolutely essential.
As we have the 6th highest military budget in the world, if everything is underfunded then there are really only a few possibilities:
1) our military is massively inefficient by being both spendthrift and on a shoestring.
2) everyone else is underfunded and incapable too.
If 2) we shouldn't worry too much. If 1) we should sort that out before chucking good money after bad.
Yes, but bear in mind that ever since Osborne, our military budget is bigger on paper after the Treasury added new line items to hide reductions in spending on things that go bang, principally the nuclear deterrent, pensions, and most recently intelligence services. ETA similarly the overseas aid budget is now spent on British 4-star hotels.
Yep, the defence budget is stuffed with things not related to the ability of the armed forces to break things and kill people. Add the cost of the nuclear deterrent and the money available to fund the conventional military isn't generous.
Isn't it true of most countries that military budgets are largely wasted on bloated prestige arms and cosy if not corrupt relationships between military and suppliers? It is a great British tradition too to send ships to sea with rotten biscuits and rancid meat.
The exceptions are mostly those countries actually fighting for their existence like Ukraine or Israel.
I think it highly likely that any increased funds will be spaffed up the wall exactly the same way. Same old, same old.
When Britain had a larger defence budget - at the end of the Cold War, say, it had a large navy, army and air force. The budget was cut and capability shrank. I see no reason to think that capability would not expand if the budget was increased.
I think the trouble is that the places that funding then went into, slightly lower taxes, more NHS and welfare spending, is bloody hard to row back from.
It's much easier to cut defence in the first place than put it back again.
If you can persuade people that it is necessary then a way can be found to make what is necessary happen.
But we see a lot of resistance to agreeing that it is necessary. A Russian warship firing at a British yacht in the channel and the Navy massively outgunned, and people think the defence budget is just fine.
No-one wants their freebies taken away, or to make any sacrifice.
Individualism and atomisation has gone far too far.
The Gestapo marched hundreds of thousands of innocent people to their deaths.
I've ended private schools' tax breaks to invest in state schools.
No responsible leader makes vile comparisons like this. Kemi Badenoch is not fit to be Prime Minister.
Good grief, the comments on Phillipson's tweet!
E.g.: "I'd applaud if they rounded up you, and all of your ilk, and sent you off on a death march."
"Private schools never had tax breaks. Private schools already pay hundreds of thousands in tax. You added another tax on top of existing taxes. Further, Badenoch is being polite. You support putting people in prison for jokes. The Gestapo never went that far. You are worse."
"The party screaming NAZI at everyone else. The party bringing back the final Solution. The party of Goebles propaganda The party taking away free speech. The party experimenting on our kids.. The party of tiered Justice.. The Fascist Labour party... yuk"
It's an incredibly offensive and crass comparison.
I mean Lord knows the Gestapo weren't warm and cuddly, but I don't think even they'd have admitted Phillipson.
Sometimes attempts at humour fall a bit flat... and sometimes they completely and deservedly bomb, don't they.
The Gestapo marched hundreds of thousands of innocent people to their deaths.
I've ended private schools' tax breaks to invest in state schools.
No responsible leader makes vile comparisons like this. Kemi Badenoch is not fit to be Prime Minister.
Good grief, the comments on Phillipson's tweet!
E.g.: "I'd applaud if they rounded up you, and all of your ilk, and sent you off on a death march."
"Private schools never had tax breaks. Private schools already pay hundreds of thousands in tax. You added another tax on top of existing taxes. Further, Badenoch is being polite. You support putting people in prison for jokes. The Gestapo never went that far. You are worse."
"The party screaming NAZI at everyone else. The party bringing back the final Solution. The party of Goebles propaganda The party taking away free speech. The party experimenting on our kids.. The party of tiered Justice.. The Fascist Labour party... yuk"
Most these days are US-funded bots, though a disturbing number of the rest aren’t.
Indeed. A lot of people spend a lot of time on Twitter responding to anything and everything in the rudest and most forceful way, with no sense of proportion, and earn a good living from it. I know I keep banging on about banning algorithmic feeds, but we really should be doing it.
I’ve accidentally, for various reasons - work, family, trip planning, loss of novelty - been out of touch with most social media (including here) in recent weeks and I’ve found myself starting to think somewhat more warmly about my fellow human beings and given much less time to fearful prognostications of WW3. The world really needs a detox.
Rather sadly, the job you achieve in life (barring things like ill-health, accidents and wrongful imprisonment) is largely down to your own efforts and character: character is destiny and a' that. So the public school debate is a non-sequitur.
What is the problem, and it's going to get much worse when the boomers die, is the money and inheritance that wealthy parents gift their children. You can be very, very stupid but if you had wealthy parents you are not going to die in a council house, even if you deserve it.
So if Labour really wanted to increase class mobility, they'd tax houses not public schools.
Have you read any of Bourdieu's work? You might find it interesting. Some is a little dated such as the tastes of the French middle class in the 70's and 80's but the underlying concepts remain sound.
It is why so many of the top tier of our society come from private education. They are not smarter or harder working than their state school rivals but they do have more Social and Cultural Capital.
The other aspect to any hypothetical Battle of the Isle of Wight is that the UK would never dare decide to sink a Russian warship without checking in with Fox News Male Grooming correspondent Hegseth. Whose sanction for the action may or may not be forthcoming.
I also suspect, on the basis of zero evidence, that the Russians were more than slightly concerned that the yacht might have been loaded to the gunwales with explosives and Ukronazis. USS Cole, etc.
The other aspect to any hypothetical Battle of the Isle of Wight is that the UK would never dare decide to sink a Russian warship without checking in with Fox News Male Grooming correspondent Hegseth. Whose sanction for the action may or may not be forthcoming.
I also suspect, on the basis of zero evidence, that the Russians were more than slightly concerned that the yacht might have been loaded to the gunwales with explosives and Ukronazis. USS Cole, etc.
If we want to really put the willies up Ivan the sailor, we should get the Ukranians to do some sea trials of their sea drones off the Wight. The Ukranian Navy does have two (ex-RN) ships based in the Solent.
The other aspect to any hypothetical Battle of the Isle of Wight is that the UK would never dare decide to sink a Russian warship without checking in with Fox News Male Grooming correspondent Hegseth. Whose sanction for the action may or may not be forthcoming.
I also suspect, on the basis of zero evidence, that the Russians were more than slightly concerned that the yacht might have been loaded to the gunwales with explosives and Ukronazis. USS Cole, etc.
It was reportedly a bit foggy. Perhaps their foghorn was in need of repair.
The other aspect to any hypothetical Battle of the Isle of Wight is that the UK would never dare decide to sink a Russian warship without checking in with Fox News Male Grooming correspondent Hegseth. Whose sanction for the action may or may not be forthcoming.
I also suspect, on the basis of zero evidence, that the Russians were more than slightly concerned that the yacht might have been loaded to the gunwales with explosives and Ukronazis. USS Cole, etc.
If we want to really put the willies up Ivan the sailor, we should get the Ukranians to do some sea trials of their sea drones off the Wight. The Ukranian Navy does have two (ex-RN) ships based in the Solent.
Yes, nothing could possibly go wrong with testing hastily cobbled together semi-autonomous weapons systems in one of the busiest shipping lanes in the world.
Farage shakes up social media team to deal with the challenge from Rupert Lowe
“I’m afraid Mr Tice your nice idea of pivoting from race war to banning the windmills, while appealing to many of us here, just didn’t really capture the imagination of the focus groups, so it’s time to get back to an unrelenting focus on the core message: race war.”
The other aspect to any hypothetical Battle of the Isle of Wight is that the UK would never dare decide to sink a Russian warship without checking in with Fox News Male Grooming correspondent Hegseth. Whose sanction for the action may or may not be forthcoming.
I also suspect, on the basis of zero evidence, that the Russians were more than slightly concerned that the yacht might have been loaded to the gunwales with explosives and Ukronazis. USS Cole, etc.
If we want to really put the willies up Ivan the sailor, we should get the Ukranians to do some sea trials of their sea drones off the Wight. The Ukranian Navy does have two (ex-RN) ships based in the Solent.
Yes, nothing could possibly go wrong with testing hastily cobbled together semi-autonomous weapons systems in one of the busiest shipping lanes in the world.
Rather sadly, the job you achieve in life (barring things like ill-health, accidents and wrongful imprisonment) is largely down to your own efforts and character: character is destiny and a' that. So the public school debate is a non-sequitur.
What is the problem, and it's going to get much worse when the boomers die, is the money and inheritance that wealthy parents gift their children. You can be very, very stupid but if you had wealthy parents you are not going to die in a council house, even if you deserve it.
So if Labour really wanted to increase class mobility, they'd tax houses not public schools.
Have you read any of Bourdieu's work? You might find it interesting. Some is a little dated such as the tastes of the French middle class in the 70's and 80's but the underlying concepts remain sound.
It is why so many of the top tier of our society come from private education. They are not smarter or harder working than their state school rivals but they do have more Social and Cultural Capital.
It's also about geography. It's much easier to accumulate cultural capital and make connections if you start out in or near a great city than if the nearest town with a bank branch is an hour away by bus. It's possible to overcome that disadvantage, but it's not as easy as not having to. The social capital private schools undobtedly provide is of a similar nature- nether essential to suceed, nor a guarantee of success, but it surely helps a lot.
And whilst effort, character and ability are important in achieving life aims, I prefered it when John Major acknowledged the role of luck- even if it's just being in the right place at the right time. And whilst all of us are (to an extent) lucky to be in Britain in 2026, some of us are luckier than others.
Ah, one of those sensory borders. South East of Plovdiv the crickets start chirping more noisily and the night air smells of spicy dry earth. Not quite Mediterranean, but on the way.
Rather sadly, the job you achieve in life (barring things like ill-health, accidents and wrongful imprisonment) is largely down to your own efforts and character: character is destiny and a' that. So the public school debate is a non-sequitur.
What is the problem, and it's going to get much worse when the boomers die, is the money and inheritance that wealthy parents gift their children. You can be very, very stupid but if you had wealthy parents you are not going to die in a council house, even if you deserve it.
So if Labour really wanted to increase class mobility, they'd tax houses not public schools.
No, as May discovered that is political suicide as far more voters own houses or have parents who own houses than attend public schools.
The biggest increases in social mobility in the last 100 years (bar the expansion of white collar office jobs after WW2) arguably came from Thatcher's sale of council homes so more could own their own homes and grammar schools, Labour of course opposed both
Rather sadly, the job you achieve in life (barring things like ill-health, accidents and wrongful imprisonment) is largely down to your own efforts and character: character is destiny and a' that. So the public school debate is a non-sequitur.
What is the problem, and it's going to get much worse when the boomers die, is the money and inheritance that wealthy parents gift their children. You can be very, very stupid but if you had wealthy parents you are not going to die in a council house, even if you deserve it.
So if Labour really wanted to increase class mobility, they'd tax houses not public schools.
No, as May discovered that is political suicide as far more voters own houses or have parents who own houses than attend public schools.
The biggest increases in social mobility in the last 100 years (bar the expansion of white collar office jobs after WW2) arguably came from Thatcher's sale of council homes so more could own their own homes and grammar schools, Labour of course opposed both
The Gestapo marched hundreds of thousands of innocent people to their deaths.
I've ended private schools' tax breaks to invest in state schools.
No responsible leader makes vile comparisons like this. Kemi Badenoch is not fit to be Prime Minister.
Good grief, the comments on Phillipson's tweet!
E.g.: "I'd applaud if they rounded up you, and all of your ilk, and sent you off on a death march."
"Private schools never had tax breaks. Private schools already pay hundreds of thousands in tax. You added another tax on top of existing taxes. Further, Badenoch is being polite. You support putting people in prison for jokes. The Gestapo never went that far. You are worse."
"The party screaming NAZI at everyone else. The party bringing back the final Solution. The party of Goebles propaganda The party taking away free speech. The party experimenting on our kids.. The party of tiered Justice.. The Fascist Labour party... yuk"
It's an incredibly offensive and crass comparison.
I mean Lord knows the Gestapo weren't warm and cuddly, but I don't think even they'd have admitted Phillipson.
Sometimes attempts at humour fall a bit flat... and sometimes they completely and deservedly bomb, don't they.
Rather sadly, the job you achieve in life (barring things like ill-health, accidents and wrongful imprisonment) is largely down to your own efforts and character: character is destiny and a' that. So the public school debate is a non-sequitur.
What is the problem, and it's going to get much worse when the boomers die, is the money and inheritance that wealthy parents gift their children. You can be very, very stupid but if you had wealthy parents you are not going to die in a council house, even if you deserve it.
So if Labour really wanted to increase class mobility, they'd tax houses not public schools.
Have you read any of Bourdieu's work? You might find it interesting. Some is a little dated such as the tastes of the French middle class in the 70's and 80's but the underlying concepts remain sound.
It is why so many of the top tier of our society come from private education. They are not smarter or harder working than their state school rivals but they do have more Social and Cultural Capital.
It's also about geography. It's much easier to accumulate cultural capital and make connections if you start out in or near a great city than if the nearest town with a bank branch is an hour away by bus. It's possible to overcome that disadvantage, but it's not as easy as not having to. The social capital private schools undobtedly provide is of a similar nature- nether essential to suceed, nor a guarantee of success, but it surely helps a lot.
And whilst effort, character and ability are important in achieving life aims, I prefered it when John Major acknowledged the role of luck- even if it's just being in the right place at the right time. And whilst all of us are (to an extent) lucky to be in Britain in 2026, some of us are luckier than others.
I agree. Indeed your point on geography is very pertinent to places like Makerfield. Opportunity in Britain is based around London and a few few other cosmopolitan metro areas. This causes a lot of resentment when those living in the cities get the opportunities while they feel excluded, particularly when those getting the breaks are of immigrant heritage.
Rather sadly, the job you achieve in life (barring things like ill-health, accidents and wrongful imprisonment) is largely down to your own efforts and character: character is destiny and a' that. So the public school debate is a non-sequitur.
What is the problem, and it's going to get much worse when the boomers die, is the money and inheritance that wealthy parents gift their children. You can be very, very stupid but if you had wealthy parents you are not going to die in a council house, even if you deserve it.
So if Labour really wanted to increase class mobility, they'd tax houses not public schools.
No, as May discovered that is political suicide as far more voters own houses or have parents who own houses than attend public schools.
The biggest increases in social mobility in the last 100 years (bar the expansion of white collar office jobs after WW2) arguably came from Thatcher's sale of council homes so more could own their own homes and grammar schools, Labour of course opposed both
Parents could own their own grammar schools?
Impressive.
Grammar schools were and still are where they exist the only state schools which really tend to challenge the top private schools on Oxbridge entry and admission to the top professions like law and medicine
Who, apart from a narcissist, would take on the role of sorting out the mess of high debt, high interest charges, declining and aging population and slow growth. Burnham hasn't explained how he would change this,. Just that he's not SKS.
Idiocy of the highest order.
Sure, but there is some benefit to be had if leadership can make people feel a little better and more confident, even if it is unearned.
Rather sadly, the job you achieve in life (barring things like ill-health, accidents and wrongful imprisonment) is largely down to your own efforts and character: character is destiny and a' that. So the public school debate is a non-sequitur.
What is the problem, and it's going to get much worse when the boomers die, is the money and inheritance that wealthy parents gift their children. You can be very, very stupid but if you had wealthy parents you are not going to die in a council house, even if you deserve it.
So if Labour really wanted to increase class mobility, they'd tax houses not public schools.
No, as May discovered that is political suicide as far more voters own houses or have parents who own houses than attend public schools.
That's true, if unfortunate. May's problem was honesty, in that she thought she was far enough ahead that she could be straight up about it rather than be vague and then announce the plan after the election, which is the usual winning strategy.
Possibly a sign of how being concerned with seeking 'mandate' for a policy can be destructive. When if the public like you enough/dislike your opponents enough, they won't care if something was in the manifesto or not, and the Lords can generally be talked down (unless it is about assisted suicide).
Rather sadly, the job you achieve in life (barring things like ill-health, accidents and wrongful imprisonment) is largely down to your own efforts and character: character is destiny and a' that. So the public school debate is a non-sequitur.
What is the problem, and it's going to get much worse when the boomers die, is the money and inheritance that wealthy parents gift their children. You can be very, very stupid but if you had wealthy parents you are not going to die in a council house, even if you deserve it.
So if Labour really wanted to increase class mobility, they'd tax houses not public schools.
Have you read any of Bourdieu's work? You might find it interesting. Some is a little dated such as the tastes of the French middle class in the 70's and 80's but the underlying concepts remain sound.
It is why so many of the top tier of our society come from private education. They are not smarter or harder working than their state school rivals but they do have more Social and Cultural Capital.
It's also about geography. It's much easier to accumulate cultural capital and make connections if you start out in or near a great city than if the nearest town with a bank branch is an hour away by bus. It's possible to overcome that disadvantage, but it's not as easy as not having to. The social capital private schools undobtedly provide is of a similar nature- nether essential to suceed, nor a guarantee of success, but it surely helps a lot.
And whilst effort, character and ability are important in achieving life aims, I prefered it when John Major acknowledged the role of luck- even if it's just being in the right place at the right time. And whilst all of us are (to an extent) lucky to be in Britain in 2026, some of us are luckier than others.
I agree. Indeed your point on geography is very pertinent to places like Makerfield. Opportunity in Britain is based around London and a few few other cosmopolitan metro areas. This causes a lot of resentment when those living in the cities get the opportunities while they feel excluded, particularly when those getting the breaks are of immigrant heritage.
Not just people of immigrant heritage but foreign nationals. Part of the story of London's demographic transformation has been the suppression of domestic migration away from left-behind areas.
A section of my garden - ca 24 metres by 13.5 - has yet to be cultivated. It is wild land with all sorts of weeds, brambles, helps of sand, stones etc on it. Anyway, yesterday I did a preliminary design for the planting beds, fruit trees etc - pencil and paper and all to scale - and gave it to my waller to price up the capping stones (cocks and hens stonework), turf for the paths etc.
This morning he came back to me and said that his wife, who works in the nature field, took one look at it and said "permaculture".
Apparently that is what my design is. I confess I know very little about it and had zero idea that there are principles of permaculture design. But I seem to have stumbled upon them. Which is either serendipity or I have absorbed more than I realise.
Anyway now I had better go off and learn a bit more about it.
Rather sadly, the job you achieve in life (barring things like ill-health, accidents and wrongful imprisonment) is largely down to your own efforts and character: character is destiny and a' that. So the public school debate is a non-sequitur.
What is the problem, and it's going to get much worse when the boomers die, is the money and inheritance that wealthy parents gift their children. You can be very, very stupid but if you had wealthy parents you are not going to die in a council house, even if you deserve it.
So if Labour really wanted to increase class mobility, they'd tax houses not public schools.
No, as May discovered that is political suicide as far more voters own houses or have parents who own houses than attend public schools.
The biggest increases in social mobility in the last 100 years (bar the expansion of white collar office jobs after WW2) arguably came from Thatcher's sale of council homes so more could own their own homes and grammar schools, Labour of course opposed both
Parents could own their own grammar schools?
Impressive.
Grammar schools were and still are where they exist the only state schools which really tend to challenge the top private schools on Oxbridge entry and admission to the top professions like law and medicine
That is unsurprising as they are selective. If you only let in the most academically gifted students then you will tend to have a lot going on to top universities and academically challenging courses. It doesn't necessarily tell you anything about the quality of the school.
Comments
In particular Social Class in the UK is defined more by Cultural Capital than anything else. A lot comes from family background, but also from education.
Israel asked the US to see the text of the Iran agreement and was rejected, an Israeli source tells CNN
SpaceX has agreed to acquire Cursor, the world's fastest growing software startup, for $60 billion in an all stock deal.
Cursor has over 1 million paying customers, more than $2 billion in annualized revenue, and is projected to hit $6 billion by end of 2026.
At $60 billion, this is the largest software acquisition in history, paying 20 to 30 times Cursor's current revenue.
The deal is subject to regulatory approval and expected to close in Q3 2026.
SpaceX now owns the rockets, the satellites, the AI models, the chips, and is about to own the tool every developer on earth uses to write code.
https://x.com/BullTheoryio/status/2066836174249852977
“Where is Vader today?”
“He’s paying the Rebel Alliance $300 billion dollars after defeating them completely, every day for the last four months, sir.”
I think it's your inability to thrive in the real world that you're fighting against.
Sailors on a Russian warship fired a warning shot at a yacht that came near it in the English Channel off the Isle of Wight, the Press Association has reported.
E.g.:
"I'd applaud if they rounded up you, and all of your ilk, and sent you off on a death march."
"Private schools never had tax breaks. Private schools already pay hundreds of thousands in tax. You added another tax on top of existing taxes. Further, Badenoch is being polite. You support putting people in prison for jokes. The Gestapo never went that far. You are worse."
"The party screaming NAZI at everyone else.
The party bringing back the final Solution.
The party of Goebles propaganda
The party taking away free speech.
The party experimenting on our kids..
The party of tiered Justice..
The Fascist Labour party... yuk"
The first of a series of night trains coming up. This is the only one with border guards coming in asking for papers please in the early hours though.
It's much easier to cut defence in the first place than put it back again.
Got it.
I hope your children do better with theirs.
The Russian frigate has a 100mm gun, 8 cells for cruise or anti-ship missiles, 24 cells for surface to air missiles, a couple of torpedo tubes, and various other weaponry.
I think it would take a while for the Navy to scrounge up the capability to take the frigate out, because it's been salami-sliced to such an extent that there's no spare capability. All the ships are deployed elsewhere. I don't know whether the RAF have the right weapons for targeting a ship.
Britain has underspent for so many years on its defence, while stretching the remaining resources incredibly thinly to cover all of the commitments to NATO, overseas territories, and allies elsewhere. There's a huge amount of capability debt built up due to running existing assets into the ground and it will take a lot of money to catch up on deferred procurement.
People are in denial that this can somehow be fixed by not wasting money.
Susan Collins is 73.
Running again.
Is it that name recognition matters so much in big electoral areas like a state?
It's the cut-glass accent, old school tie, secret handshake and lifelong contacts stuff I think is bollocks.
It's a mixture of myth and conspiracy theory.
https://x.com/ProudElephant/status/1857531369188106587
A realistic target is having us fit and capable by 2040.
EDIT: Damn, wrong ship, but I'll not waste the pun.
I don’t see how you can sit here and tell me my own experience is wrong.
I mean Lord knows the Gestapo weren't warm and cuddly, but I don't think even they'd have admitted Phillipson.
What is the problem, and it's going to get much worse when the boomers die, is the money and inheritance that wealthy parents gift their children. You can be very, very stupid but if you had wealthy parents you are not going to die in a council house, even if you deserve it.
So if Labour really wanted to increase class mobility, they'd tax houses not public schools.
On the grounds that she's a failure, a bully, an idiot who knows nothing about education and a tool of the DfE.
Now in other ways that would still be a somewhat unfair comparison. So far Phillipson's catastrophes are at the design stage, whereas Spielman has pretty much devastated the state sector with her appallingly mismanaged reforms at both OFQUAL and OFSTED.
But it would be much fairer than the Gestapo.
But we see a lot of resistance to agreeing that it is necessary. A Russian warship firing at a British yacht in the channel and the Navy massively outgunned, and people think the defence budget is just fine.
No. Me neither.
Heck I look at the people trying to trade a central London Peasbody flat and wish I could trade with them.
Goodness knows most of the extremely poor countries that have felt Russian attempted bullying in recent years have managed something.
Insider trading isn't just for wars and the oil market.
But it's not just the Luftwaffe who have experience of bombing in Coventry... let's meet the teams.
Individualism and atomisation has gone far too far.
Farage shakes up social media team to deal with the challenge from Rupert Lowe
It is why so many of the top tier of our society come from private education. They are not smarter or harder working than their state school rivals but they do have more Social and Cultural Capital.
I also suspect, on the basis of zero evidence, that the Russians were more than slightly concerned that the yacht might have been loaded to the gunwales with explosives and Ukronazis. USS Cole, etc.
https://bsky.app/profile/captainfubar.bsky.social/post/3mogj6krysc27
Trump starts wandering off in the wrong direction after a G7 photo and world leaders have to step in and redirect him
https://bsky.app/profile/meidastouch.com/post/3mogjbxa5ps2p
And whilst effort, character and ability are important in achieving life aims, I prefered it when John Major acknowledged the role of luck- even if it's just being in the right place at the right time. And whilst all of us are (to an extent) lucky to be in Britain in 2026, some of us are luckier than others.
Shame Trump did not.
The biggest increases in social mobility in the last 100 years (bar the expansion of white collar office jobs after WW2) arguably came from Thatcher's sale of council homes so more could own their own homes and grammar schools, Labour of course opposed both
Impressive.
Possibly a sign of how being concerned with seeking 'mandate' for a policy can be destructive. When if the public like you enough/dislike your opponents enough, they won't care if something was in the manifesto or not, and the Lords can generally be talked down (unless it is about assisted suicide).
A section of my garden - ca 24 metres by 13.5 - has yet to be cultivated. It is wild land with all sorts of weeds, brambles, helps of sand, stones etc on it. Anyway, yesterday I did a preliminary design for the planting beds, fruit trees etc - pencil and paper and all to scale - and gave it to my waller to price up the capping stones (cocks and hens stonework), turf for the paths etc.
This morning he came back to me and said that his wife, who works in the nature field, took one look at it and said "permaculture".
Apparently that is what my design is. I confess I know very little about it and had zero idea that there are principles of permaculture design. But I seem to have stumbled upon them. Which is either serendipity or I have absorbed more than I realise.
Anyway now I had better go off and learn a bit more about it.