UK General Discussion Thread: mayy lmao

[Phony Moderate]

Jeremy Clarkson has come out in favour of a Remain vote...

[ingemann]

Jeremy Clarkson has come out in favour of a Remain vote...

I'm slightly surprised.

[🦀🎂🦀🎂]

Every school in England will be forced to become an academy by 2020, apparently.

[Okay, maybe Mike Johnson is a competent parliamentarian.]

Every school in England will be forced to become an academy by 2020, apparently.

How do these differ from normal schools?

[Filuwaúrdjan]

The most important difference is that there is no local authority oversight/control (though still oversight/control from the Department of Education).

[🦀🎂🦀🎂]

They are still funded by DofE but run without oversight from local authorities and are free from certain Whitehall obligations like the national curriculum and pay regulations. The employees of schools become employees of the various chains that control acadamy schools. So it's essentially if all public schools in the US were converted to charters.

(Normally as a reward for acadamisation the school gets a reward 10% bump in funding. I don't know whether this will still apply if all schools become acadamies.)

[Phony Moderate]

So it's essentially if all public schools in the US were converted to charters.
[quote]

Cameron would be in the Constitution Party in the US, etc etc.

[Filuwaúrdjan]

Except that they aren't really free of the national curriculum because of a) the way educational publishing and exam boards work and b) the existence of pressure from further/higher education and employers wrt qualifications.

[Silent Hunter]

Every school in England will be forced to become an academy by 2020, apparently.

The consequences of the Labour Party's ability to miss open goals continue.

[Filuwaúrdjan]

Every school in England will be forced to become an academy by 2020, apparently.

The consequences of the Labour Party's ability to miss open goals continue.

THIGMOO is basically the political version of My Sh!t Team sometimes...

[Filuwaúrdjan]

Asa Briggs has died, which is sad. One of the earlier pioneers of urban history, amongst other things (an important educationalist etc). 94 though, so a good innings.

[ChrisDR68]

On This Week last Thursday there was a telling exchange between Andrew Neil and union leader Mark Serwotka.

Here's an excerpt (from about 14 mins 45 secs in):

Neil "If Jeremy Corbyn goes to the country in 2020 on a proper socialist manifesto of the type you approve of and gets thumped like in 1983 would you accept that there is not an appetite for that kind of socialism in Britain?"

Serwotka "What I will say is at that particular point the electorate will have made a particular choice and I'm a great believer that you continue to campaign for what you believe in and hope to convince people and if at first you don't succeed then you keep trying until you do succeed".

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z3XFU1zsyDg

What Serwotka fails to understand is that the sort of platform he and his leader believes in will only mean an extended period of Conservative government just as we had between 1979 and 1997.

Their views are poisonous to the electorate and being stubborn about it won't change that.

[Phony Moderate]

Wouldn't, say, a Tory manifesto in 1966 advocating monetarism have been poisonous to the electorate?

[ChrisDR68]

Wouldn't, say, a Tory manifesto in 1966 advocating monetarism have been poisonous to the electorate?

Ah but the clever thing about the Conservative Party is that they shape their appeal to what they believe the mood currently is of the British people at any given time.

That's why they allowed all those nationalised industries to stay nationalised during their 1951-64 period in power even when they almost certainly didn't agree with them being nationalised.

The only time that wasn't true was during the monetarist experiment by the Thatcher government between 1979-83 (although not surprisingly they didn't spell out their economic policy during the 1979 general election campaign). On that occasion they were bailed out by the ludicrous decision of Labour MP's to elect Michael Foot as leader instead of Denis Healey which ensured their undeserved victory in 1983.

[Phony Moderate]

YouGov:

Lab - 34
Con - 33
UKIP - 16
Lib Dems - 6

Let the history books say that a Jeremy Corbyn-led party led in an opinion poll.

[IceAgeComing]

They were tied in that ICM poll that the company themselves decided to rubbish as soon as they published it - this is admittedly more significant because Yougov has changed their methodology while ICM hasn't quite yet.  Wonder if this is actually a significant move or whether its just noise: we'll have to wait and see.  I'd imagine that most of the field work was pre-budget, although I doubt that's going to be a big impact since most of the press attention on that seems to have been focused on the disability cuts which will probably hurt the government.

[Slow Learner]

Is it me or is the 'run prisons like academies' thing absolutely mental?

[IceAgeComing]

if you look at it from the perspective of creating a good criminal justice system then yes it is.  If you look at it through the eyes of them yet again starting the piecemeal privatisation of a public service then no, it isn't mental, its very obvious what they are trying to do.

[Slow Learner]

In Deep Shyt has resigned, apparently.

[Okay, maybe Mike Johnson is a competent parliamentarian.]

In Deep Shyt has resigned, apparently.

Over disability cuts, apparently. Good to know he has some standards.

[Slow Learner]

In Deep Shyt has resigned, apparently.

Over disability cuts, apparently. Good to know he has some standards.

Err...I think it's because they aren't going far enough.

EDIT: NVM you're right. Wow.

[Phony Moderate]

I recall him expressing skepticism over benefit cuts a few years back. Probably not quite the monster we've made him out to be.

[afleitch]

IDS was never a monster. But Cabinet collective responsibility can only go so far.

[Filuwaúrdjan]

IDS was not (is not) a monster. But he is an idiot (perhaps one of the stupidest people to hold a cabinet post in recent decades: not an easy feat) and he was also grossly incompetent. In a post such as his the difference between that and 'monster' is quite small. It has been clear for a long time that Universal Credit (a foolish attempt to find an administrative 'solution' to policy problems: oh dear) has been an expensive failure and as such he should have resigned ages ago. Of course its worth noting that he was obviously going to be fired the morning after the EU vote anyway...

[YL]

IDS was not (is not) a monster. But he is an idiot (perhaps one of the stupidest people to hold a cabinet post in recent decades: not an easy feat) and he was also grossly incompetent. In a post such as his the difference between that and 'monster' is quite small. It has been clear for a long time that Universal Credit (a foolish attempt to find an administrative 'solution' to policy problems: oh dear) has been an expensive failure and as such he should have resigned ages ago. Of course its worth noting that he was obviously going to be fired the morning after the EU vote anyway...

Basically true, but the hand grenade directed at Osborne in his resignation letter is quite something...