Politics, politics, politics (so long and thanks for all the fish)

[thfcsteff]

There are a lot of depictions of violence in the bible, but mostly in the old testament (the bit shared with jewish and islamic texts). I am not religious but i was brought up as a catholic and taken to Sunday school and mass (in latin) every Sunday until my grand parents died.

The teachings of Jesus are pretty much entirely against violence and "those who live by the sword will die by the sword" was coined in the bible.

I know mate...that was generally my point...

 

[scaramanga]

I


I see the reasoning behind your view on employment, and historically it is hard to argue. I think where Ai will be the most damaging is in the creative/artistic fields, and I fear that TBH.

I agree that 'protected' bricky teachers need to be made redundant and not protected by a vehicle not designed to specifically protect them.

I have not done the numbers, but a 5k tax rebate would not make private education any
more affordable to those who want a better education for their children but find private school too expensive I don't believe? Maybe a tax rebate reflecting 50% of the total fees per year? Bear in mind I am in 'spitball' mode and this could be an awful suggestion for many reasons...

I chose £5k as it cost around £8k a year to educate a child in the state system - there's room for that number to increase, but it would be a good way of proving the point. This is probably enough to tip the balance for a decent number of parents but would leave the state with more money to spend on educating those that remain.

It's such an obvious win/win and could be implemented with almost no admin. In fact, I'd bet the independent schools would do the admin on behalf of the taxman in return for the increased submissions. They'd only have to submit the NI numbers of the parents that have kids in the school.

But, unfortunately, we live in an era where the display of politics is far more important than the efficacy. There are still far too many bitter, envious Labour voters (although Reform probably have them now) for them to put through such a policy. Far too many people would see their own child's education suffer than see others succeed (see the popularity of Reeves's raid on the independent sector).

Edit:
BTW, your "half the annual fees" is pretty much exactly the £8k the government would save, based on the average yearly fees for private education. I think the principle still works, but I think the number has to be smaller to show that for each child entering the independent sector, the govt has more to spend per child in the state sector.

 

[scaramanga]

Don’t disagree with your first point and can see some truth in the second point. For me, though, the biggest problems facing education today are:

1. The prevalence of poor parenting skills, frequently - but not exclusively - linked to technology use, both by pupils at home and their parents. This is also linked to the desire of many parents to be their child’s best friend, rather than their parent.

2. The difficulty for schools in dealing promptly with those who disrupt the learning of others.

3. The hollowing out of state services has led to teachers having to work in areas (such as social care and mental health) in which they receive only the most basic training, and which take up far too much of their focus in lessons.

All of that is very true.

Parents always have been, by far, the biggest indicator in the likely outcomes to a child's life. My wife used to teach in some terrible, sink estate state schools and was always the first person to suggest to A* pupils that college and university were possibilities. I think I'm staying the right side of data protection if I tell you that one kid she taught got a scholarship to an Ivy League university when his parents weren't even considering college. She bumped into a friend of his a few years later and found out he was working, fixing pavements. "Because that's what his dad does and he never needed university"

But even the perfect measures to fix that are, by their nature, a generation away from taking effect. They also need to be combined with some joined up thinking and departmental cooperation () on benefit reform.

Solving the parental issues would go most of the way to sorting the behavioural ones. Some of it can be dealt with by making the curriculum more relevant to those kids too though. That's where the grammar school system worked so well. Those suited to an academic education got one, without disruption from those more suited to learning trades and skills that would benefit their likely career paths. Those teachers who were freed from the pressures of academic education could spend more time focusing on behaviour management.

But the politics of envy will always make such improvement impossible. For the last three decades the focus has been on providing equality by dragging down the top, rather than just giving each child the best education possible and ignoring comparisons.

 

[ricky2tricky4city]

All of that is very true.

Parents always have been, by far, the biggest indicator in the likely outcomes to a child's life. My wife used to teach in some terrible, sink estate state schools and was always the first person to suggest to A* pupils that college and university were possibilities. I think I'm staying the right side of data protection if I tell you that one kid she taught got a scholarship to an Ivy League university when his parents weren't even considering college. She bumped into a friend of his a few years later and found out he was working, fixing pavements. "Because that's what his dad does and he never needed university"

But even the perfect measures to fix that are, by their nature, a generation away from taking effect. They also need to be combined with some joined up thinking and departmental cooperation () on benefit reform.

Solving the parental issues would go most of the way to sorting the behavioural ones. Some of it can be dealt with by making the curriculum more relevant to those kids too though. That's where the grammar school system worked so well. Those suited to an academic education got one, without disruption from those more suited to learning trades and skills that would benefit their likely career paths. Those teachers who were freed from the pressures of academic education could spend more time focusing on behaviour management.

But the politics of envy will always make such improvement impossible. For the last three decades the focus has been on providing equality by dragging down the top, rather than just giving each child the best education possible and ignoring comparisons.

You were doing well......until your last paragraph. Complete nonsense and simplification.

 

[Gutter Boy]

I wonder if there's big Michaelmas celebrations going on round the National Front crew's living rooms today? Tommy Robinson and his gang hosting garden parties to showcase the right kind of Britain?

 

[Silly McSilly Face]

So good ol Rachel has confirmed plans to water down the OBR's influence by providing a single forecast a year, rather than adjusting their forecasts based on an analysis of every government's proposed budget. This effectively "delinks" the OBR's economic forecasts from specific government policy (i.e. the OBR will go from - "because the government are going to do X we think the consequence will by Y" to a generic annual forecast of UK economic performance.

While Labour raged at Truss and Kwarteng "ignoring" OBR analysis what they're effectively doing is removing the transparency tool that allowed the direct linking of the economic melt down to Truss government policy.

I.e. Labour are attempting to hide their incompetence in managing the economy from the public as they know if they allow an OBR analysis per budget over the rest of their term - they're knackered.

 

[Silly McSilly Face]

Rachel Reeves confirms she no longer stands by pledge not to raise taxes | Rachel Reeves | The Guardian https://share.google/i0CjwY5wV6l8pyqYX

"The world has changed"
You made the pledge last year you utter cretins.
Wars: the only wars impacting our economy have been ongoing since February 2022 and October 2023.
Tariffs: Trump was elected in 2024 on an America First mandate that included protectionist international trade policies and his re-election was seen as the most likely outcome since 2023.
Higher borrowing costs: This is a sh*tshow of your own creation as international markets have now reapplied the "idiots in charge" premium they imposed during the Truss debacle but had removed in the wake of Sunak/Hunt policies....

Basically, we will all have to pay for your incompetence.

 

[Gutter Boy]

So good ol Rachel has confirmed plans to water down the OBR's influence by providing a single forecast a year, rather than adjusting their forecasts based on an analysis of every government's proposed budget. This effectively "delinks" the OBR's economic forecasts from specific government policy (i.e. the OBR will go from - "because the government are going to do X we think the consequence will by Y" to a generic annual forecast of UK economic performance.

While Labour raged at Truss and Kwarteng "ignoring" OBR analysis what they're effectively doing is removing the transparency tool that allowed the direct linking of the economic melt down to Truss government policy.

I.e. Labour are attempting to hide their incompetence in managing the economy from the public as they know if they allow an OBR analysis per budget over the rest of their term - they're knackered.

Should abolish it completely. They are just 3 random neo-liberal economist. It's a massive democratic deficit that they can overrule elected government economic policy that deviates from their Reaganomics doctrine. It's existence is George Osborne's great legacy/dirty stain.

 

[Silly McSilly Face]

Should abolish it completely. They are just 3 random neo-liberal economist. It's a massive democratic deficit that they can overrule elected government economic policy that deviates from their Reaganomics doctrine. It's existence is George Osborne's great legacy/dirty stain.

They don't overrule. They simply publish independent analysis forecasts of the impact of government economic policy in the budget.

Making Starmer and Reeves look like total cretins isn't "overruling"

 

[ricky2tricky4city]

So good ol Rachel has confirmed plans to water down the OBR's influence by providing a single forecast a year, rather than adjusting their forecasts based on an analysis of every government's proposed budget. This effectively "delinks" the OBR's economic forecasts from specific government policy (i.e. the OBR will go from - "because the government are going to do X we think the consequence will by Y" to a generic annual forecast of UK economic performance.

While Labour raged at Truss and Kwarteng "ignoring" OBR analysis what they're effectively doing is removing the transparency tool that allowed the direct linking of the economic melt down to Truss government policy.

I.e. Labour are attempting to hide their incompetence in managing the economy from the public as they know if they allow an OBR analysis per budget over the rest of their term - they're knackered.

The downgrade/reassessment (call it what you will) has been a long time coming, and a long time delayed.
Reeves though, should have known this, and the minimal headroom she gave herself was a silly way to proceed.

 

[Silly McSilly Face]

The downgrade/reassessment (call it what you will) has been a long time coming, and a long time delayed.
Reeves though, should have known this, and the minimal headroom she gave herself was a silly way to proceed.

Yep. Its been coming. And all of the geopolitics that have undercut her plans so spextacularly have been in place in terms of direction of travel for years. Hence my rant at roll back on tax pledges. They are getting trashed at next election.

 

[ricky2tricky4city]

On a wider note. The forecast model to drive economic policy/decisions made now, are inherently fraught with inaccuracy. It's too restrictive to the current needs considering most forecasting is a guessing game (of the future) built on hundreds of inputs on a spreadsheet.
You end up squashed in a corner or tinkering around the edges but never facing the vital wants and needs that a blatantly obvious to anyone right NOW
If you're following a MMT (that's not money tree btw) policy in all but name, then people don't mind if services are improved or gov assets are built. It's the waste we hate. (Or alas, the sucking sound upwards)

 

[scaramanga]

You were doing well......until your last paragraph. Complete nonsense and simplification.

So who is it that's stopping it happening and why?

 

[ricky2tricky4city]

So who is it that's stopping it happening and why?

If your starting point is you thinking the last 3 decades has been governments 'dragging down equality from the top' then imo you're mistaken.

For the last two decades inequality has been on the rise, largely because of the government(s), whether that's largely because of incompetence, association, manipulation etc who knows, it's all in the mix.
One outcome is it's put the government (of any colour) on the same side of the fence as many of the complaints we are seeing from the general public about their finances ie the cost of everything/making ends meet/indebted
The government are finding it hard to finance everything and anything. Over those two decades they have made a rod for their own back. They are not the absolute rulers of financial policy anymore.
Any move towards rebalancing will get labelled as 'politics of envy' or 'levelling down'.
In reality they're probably looking for some money (tax) to put into education to improve it. It's as simple as that.

 

[Silly McSilly Face]

On a wider note. The forecast model to drive economic policy/decisions made now, are inherently fraught with inaccuracy. It's too restrictive to the current needs considering most forecasting is a guessing game (of the future) built on hundreds of inputs on a spreadsheet.
You end up squashed in a corner or tinkering around the edges but never facing the vital wants and needs that a blatantly obvious to anyone right NOW
If you're following a MMT (that's not money tree btw) policy in all but name, then people don't mind if services are improved or gov assets are built. It's the waste we hate. (Or alas, the sucking sound upwards)

You've also got to be coherent and focused on driving outcomes. When you come in saying "fiscal rules" and that you've got limited money to spend, if you then:
- Give NHS staff massive pay rise with no conditions (i.e. you are basically just paying far more for the same services)
- Justify this by saying you're decisively ending disruptive pay disputes.
- Only to end up back in dispute with the same people less than a year down the line....
....then people are just going to look at you as a bunch of idiots. And would they be wrong?

 

[markysimmo]

Rachel Reeves confirms she no longer stands by pledge not to raise taxes | Rachel Reeves | The Guardian https://share.google/i0CjwY5wV6l8pyqYX


Basically, we will all have to pay for your incompetence.

and nobody is surprised by this, useless the lot of them

 

[Gutter Boy]

You've also got to be coherent and focused on driving outcomes. When you come in saying "fiscal rules" and that you've got limited money to spend, if you then:
- Give NHS staff massive pay rise with no conditions (i.e. you are basically just paying far more for the same services)
- Justify this by saying you're decisively ending disruptive pay disputes.
- Only to end up back in dispute with the same people less than a year down the line....
....then people are just going to look at you as a bunch of idiots. And would they be wrong?

It's not like managing personal finance. We undervalue our assets massively. We should be factoring in the value we could be extracting from the 6.6 billion acres of royal estates for example.

 

[ricky2tricky4city]

You've also got to be coherent and focused on driving outcomes. When you come in saying "fiscal rules" and that you've got limited money to spend, if you then:
- Give NHS staff massive pay rise with no conditions (i.e. you are basically just paying far more for the same services)
- Justify this by saying you're decisively ending disruptive pay disputes.
- Only to end up back in dispute with the same people less than a year down the line....
....then people are just going to look at you as a bunch of idiots. And would they be wrong?

Depends on the details of the conversation. If it's then justified, acceptable, needed. That's from both sides of the table. People can then make their own mind up.

 

[scaramanga]

If your starting point is you thinking the last 3 decades has been governments 'dragging down equality from the top' then imo you're mistaken.

For the last two decades inequality has been on the rise, largely because of the government(s), whether that's largely because of incompetence, association, manipulation etc who knows, it's all in the mix.
One outcome is it's put the government (of any colour) on the same side of the fence as many of the complaints we are seeing from the general public about their finances ie the cost of everything/making ends meet/indebted
The government are finding it hard to finance everything and anything. Over those two decades they have made a rod for their own back. They are not the absolute rulers of financial policy anymore.
Any move towards rebalancing will get labelled as 'politics of envy' or 'levelling down'.
In reality they're probably looking for some money (tax) to put into education to improve it. It's as simple as that.

I was talking specifically about education.

Talk to any teacher and they'll tell you that most schools focus far more on turning Ds into Cs than they do turning As into A*s.

The most recent solution to education inequality is to make better education affordable to fewer and load more into an already bursting state system.

 

[Gazza]

I was talking specifically about education.

Talk to any teacher and they'll tell you that most schools focus far more on turning Ds into Cs than they do turning As into A*s.

The most recent solution to education inequality is to make better education affordable to fewer and load more into an already bursting state system.

There should be an alternative to education also. Some children will never be good at academia but can go on to doing great things with their skill set. My friend was dyslexic growing up and got teased wrotten, with his confidence shot he left school got working at his uncles car garage and now has a thriving business of his own.