Be Excellent To Each Other

That is Germaine Blueberry, or something. She's a C-list celeb apparently.

That is Mali. He's dressed like Angelina Jolie.

I'm seeing Mali in a whole new light.

With the right money, you can see me in a lot less light .

I'm starting to miss Gaywood's snarking.

It's tiresome and BS for exactly that reason. I had a quick look at corbyns return however and if it is wrong on the employment income line, then the tax bill would be higher, as he should be in the 45% band and lose his personal allowance. To which blaming the accountants isn't a legitimate argument.

If you're going to make some big deal about transparency and honesty etc. by publicly showing off your personal tax return, then at least make sure it isn't wrong - in a most fundamental, basic respect if I understand correctly. The phrase 'own goal' doesn't even begin to cover it - it's just hilariously bad.

Still, I can see how if you disregard the fact that it's complete bollocks, and yet another entirely avoidable epic fail, you could believe he was doing a good job.

Rayner was bloody awful on R4 this morning talking about grammar schools. Totally inept. Check it out!

https://twitter.com/BBCr4today/status/8 ... 9603713024

Shadow secretary of state for education @AngelaRayner says grammar schools are a "vanity project" https://t.co/FGDxtWNxTI #r4today pic.twitter.com/99LZXMGxJb

— BBC Radio 4 Today (@BBCr4today) March 7, 2017

Crikey, even Prof. Stephen Hawking is saying Corbyn cannot extricate himself from the supermassive black hole of stupidity he's built for himself and his hapless Party...

I believe it doesn't so much have properties of "spin", more "swivel".

Did you see her on QT last week? Car crash TV; close all private schools, let alone grammars; that sort of thing (because Labour's one size fits all comprehensives have been such a resounding success... oh no, that's right, we're now lagging behind Vietnam in the league tables). One assumes it's some kind of politics of envy type of thing?

But there again, don't let empirical facts get in the way of dumbass ideology...

We're in our seventh year of Conservative Party government.

True! They are now starting to attract culpability also (IMO) - but not for the basic ideology and philosophy of comprehensive schools. That's 60s Labour, Shirley Williams et al.

I've been saying bring back (much better funded, more equitable) streamed and tripartite schools since forever, as even you would hopefully concede, for the precise reason that we do need far more upwards mobility among socially disadvantaged kids.

Yes we do. How will grammar schools help fix this?

Grammar schools are shown to statistically favour richer families and to discriminate against poor people, in the main. The Tories are following an ideological path proven not to work for the socially disadvantaged kids.

It's fine to say get them better funded and more equitable, but that simply won't happen and is not in the Tory plans. The billions of pounds sunk into the failed Free Schools experiment whilst they cut comprehensive education funding is an absolute scandal, and aimed squarely at profit and benefiting the middle classes at the direct cost of the less well off.

I think Corbyn is a twat and that Labour's answers are probably shit (I have not examined them), but the current plans are a travesty.

Corbyns plan: Nationalise it.

This is the answer to any problem.

No, QT is on too late, and makes me angry.

viewtopic.php?style=26&p=833698#p833698

Did we cover it?

Not exactly.

Or even slightly

I'm not reading two pages.

I can't speak for the Tories' plans, I don't even know what they are; I'm talking about the basic principle of grammar schools - their (imperfect) ability, distinctly as compared to comprehensive schools in poor, disadvantaged areas - to provide upward mobility to intelligent, yet disadvantaged kids.

Of course, I'm not suggesting (nor have ever suggested) that grammar schools are not unfair; of course these still favour rich, educated parents who can provide their own time and/or money for extensive, extra-curricular tuition for the entry exams etc. But consider this: an intelligent child with none of these advantages still has SOME chance of success, whereas that same intelligent child whose parents live in a poor area with terrible State school as the only possible outcome has NO chance.

So really, it all comes down to some chance > no chance.

Politically, it's possible to work on the inequities of entry requirements, such as positively weighting poor kids' results and suchlike (which, btw, I'd be in favour of). Comprehensive schooling, for all its fine egalitarian ideals and good intentions which we can ALL sign up to, just hasn't worked. Because human nature and societal realities (see also: failure of Socialism for pretty much the same reasons/realities).

Why not? This is a party you vote for and are an active supporter of. I don't understand this.

Is this for the same reason when I question you about their social policies and get no response - you don't know and simply have no interest in anything else except for how well the economy is supposedly doing on a graph?

No wonder you think the Tories are so great.

You're ignoring the harm to non-grammar schools. If grammar schools can skim off the lucky smart kids, the unlucky smart kids risk having a worse time at the sink schools they end up in.

Jesus fucking Christ, Myp.

What? It's not unreasonable to expect someone who is "so clued up" on politics to actually know the policies of their party.

I'm sorry, where did I say I was "so clued up" on politics - or that I was a member of the Tory Party for that matter? ("my party"....? WTF? I've even told you, in fucking person, that the very thought of their accepting the likes of me at one of their gatherings is laugh of the century stuff, and you agreed? Fuck's sake Myp, what are you on?)

Ok I'll stop now. I guess the shoe didn't like being on the other foot.

Except we've established I haven't done that and you weren't able to give any examples when politely asked.

We'll have to agree to disagree.

Driver Moshin Amin denies firearms charges after passenger Mohammed Yasser Yaqub shot dead in M62 slip road police operation

Has the investigation into the shooting finished?

Arguing about grammar schools is like arguing about young Earth creationism. We know what there's evidence for, but that won't stop rigidly ideological people from trying to claim that black is white and vice versa.

Besides the evidence, it makes no sense at all to bring back a system that was for a world when occupations (and often jobs) were for life and most of population only needed a basic level of literacy and numeracy. These days people have multiple occupations and careers across their working lifespan, and need to be flexible, developing as many advanced level skills as possible. Branding all but a top elite proportion of kids as donkey workers for life at age 11 is such an unbelievably backwards idea, it's incredible that any people still advocate it.

Maybe it is good the private sector can step in and offer a selective system?

I love the way that people (entirely wrongly - and bizarrely) assume that wanting Grammar schools - with positive weighting for kids from disadvantaged backgrounds - somehow means you don't give a hoot about the kids who go to secondary moderns (or their modern-day equivalents). Even when you expressly state you want a significantly enhanced, more heavily funded system than 1950s real-term values. (We already have the latter of course).

Good grammar and secondary school education, as tailored to true needs and abilities, are far from mutually exclusive. This whole presumption of malign intent is incomprehensible and irrational IMO.

For the avoidance of any doubt, I'd like our kids to be in the Top 3 in world ranked standards of state education, which they so richly deserve and the rest of us are paying for, as opposed to 25th or whatever it is, behind third world countries with a tiny, tiny fraction of both our total sum resources, and specific per-capita resources spent on education.

In short: we need to do better, and to do that we need to acknowledge that the current, tired models just don't deliver optimal results, as proven. I don't even care *how* we do it, within reason; if someone's got a better idea that gets the results, that's just fine with me.

Well it's hardly surprising if people are discussing what actually seems to be on the cards rather than some other idea that nobody in charge appears to be proposing.

But I've already said I don't even *know* what the Tories are specifically proposing, so I'm hardly defending it? I'm giving *my* opinion in the matter.

https://www.google.co.uk/amp/s/amp.theg ... -primaries

It seems that streaming does help the clever kids, and having them in with the less able holds them back. But the less able do better with the clever kids about. So, I guess the clever disadvantaged kids get held back by the hoipolloi, and the more well off kids get sent to private school, where they can excel.

Fair enough. Well I think what they're proposing is making some big noises about grammar schools whilst actually schools across the board are facing cuts. Even the amount of money announced for the new schools, some of which might be grammars, seems like a piffling amount in the scheme of things and especially when compared to the many tens of billions which they're setting aside to pay for their Brexit shambles.

Oh man alive. Really?

Christ.

PMQs tomorrow should be entertaining. I hope May calls him Ed all the way through.

During the budget too. Hammond may be a generally dull bastard but he pulled some good zingers in November.

I've always thought that voting was so, so important - it was a hard earned right and as such should be valued highly and not taken for granted. But yet, I feel so overwhelmed by the complexity of everything (yet somewhat contradictorily frustrated that things get oversimplified to an often inaccurate point) and frankly disillusioned by pretty much everything. If I vote, is it properly informed? If it isn't properly informed, is it a waste or somehow improper? Yet how can I start to make sense of all this tangled stuff without being overcome by despair? How many others feel this way? Probably a fucking load. I don't feel like any one party or person represents me either.

As someone living overseas I both care for two countries, yet also can't be bothered investing effort in matters involving either. Feels like bunch of contradictions wrapped in an overpowering blanket of ennui.

Democracy sucks.

True story.

(Polite cough)

I'll happily accept you as a benevolent dictator, I just need you to prove yourself. Take over a province like Cornwall for a bit and we can then roll out nationally.

The intrinsic genius of the system, of course, is not so much getting people in, but kicking the buggers out peacefully. That's what really matters.

The current situation must be akin to the early 1980s when Mrs Thatcher was at the height of power and the opposition were divided and leaderless.

All armed forces to wear flasher macs as part of their uniform. Joy Beechwood's face is placed over the middle of the Union flag. Malificent cosplay becomes incredibly popular. All beer is awful