Good things about the new government

[Gentleman Jim]

Why the f.ck do people get sooooooooooo hung up on whether ideas are left or right. They are ideas, not sentient beings
Surely ideas are either "good" or "bad". Now we can argue til the cows come home about what ones are good/bad but "good" doesnt mean left OR right

[GeenDienst]

It's the sentient beings you have to worry about.

And if this is going to go down to an argument about whether "left" and "right" exist can it be split off and put somewhere out of sight please?

[plodder]

Oh sorry, I thought the sarcasm was coming across quite well. Johnson isn’t “far right”, and one of the good things about his majority is the “pretty right wing people who nonetheless aren’t even close to supporting beating up minorities in the streets” (say, Mark Francois) are far, far less influential now.

Perhaps by far-right you mean “opposed to government interference in trade”, people like Steve Baker?

[plodder]

As for splitting the thread, your misdefinition of “bad things about the government” seems germain enough to me.

[GeenDienst]

This is way too boring to get bogged down in.

[Bird on a Fire]

Why the f.ck do people get sooooooooooo hung up on whether ideas are left or right. They are ideas, not sentient beings
Surely ideas are either "good" or "bad". Now we can argue til the cows come home about what ones are good/bad but "good" doesnt mean left OR right

Good does mean left though, all of the right's ideas are sh.t

[plodder]

Concession accepted. One of the other big positives is that Cummings appears to be very pro-science and very intolerant of misinformed protest groups, so you never know but we might see some useful movement on GMOs as well.

[Little waster]

So it begins:-

The chancellor has pledged that the national living wage will increase, reaching two-thirds of median earnings within five years (projected to be around £10.50 an hour in 2024), provided economic conditions allow.

Should probably stick this in a new thread "Boriswatch" or something.

[Little waster]

Concession accepted. One of the other big positives is that Cummings appears to be very pro-science and very intolerant of misinformed protest groups, so you never know but we might see some useful movement on GMOs as well.

As was well-established in t'other place, Cummings is a full-on cargo-cultist.

He likes science just as long as he thinks it supports his prejudice. His time at the DoE stands testimony to that; the Teachers' Standards make repeated reference to teachers keeping their subject pedagogy up to date with reference to educational research while at the same time insisting all teachers must solely use phonics to teach literacy.

Disclaimer: IANaprimaryschoolteacher and the topic always bored me to tears however despite the fact there was no expectation that I was ever to get within a 100m of a primary school literacy lesson I was still expected to be aware of the topic.

The tl;dr version of phonics is that phonics is merely a single tool in a teachers toolkit and its use should be tailored to individual students, classes and ability groups. IIRC the research shows that on average using phonics to teach a set wordlist works better than using a more general approach to teach general literacy but only to the extent that the students can parrot back the wordlist without any evidence that the students can then transfer this knowledge to help them spell words not on the wordlist.

"Synthetic phonics" (the charging of a fee to gain access to a proprietary list of nonsense words) on the other hand doesn't even manage that and just seems a get rich quick scam for various charlatans, taking advantage of the dodgy budget management of the academy system.

The problem is some phonics-zealot must have buttonholed Gove/Cummings once about the wonders of phonics and ever since it has become the single centrally-mandated state-sanctioned method of teaching literacy, because that's clearly what the Tories/Coalition policy of "educational localism" is supposed to achieve. Unsurprisingly this nonsense was rubberstamped by their LDs partners.

[Little waster]

So it begins:-

The chancellor has pledged that the national living wage will increase, reaching two-thirds of median earnings within five years (projected to be around £10.50 an hour in 2024), provided economic conditions allow.

Should probably stick this in a new thread "Boriswatch" or something.

And now Corbyn finds his voice to call the spaffer out on his b.llsh.t.

And he mocks the proposal for an NHS funding bill. He says the last Labour government did not need to pass legislation to force itself to invest in the NHS.

He criticises Boris Johnson’s claim to be delivering 50,000 new nurses and 40 new hospitals. There are only 30,000 new nurses, he says, and only six new hospitals.

Where was that fire when it was needed?

[raven]

IIRC the research shows that on average using phonics to teach a set wordlist works better than using a more general approach to teach general literacy but only to the extent that the students can parrot back the wordlist without any evidence that the students can then transfer this knowledge to help them spell words not on the wordlist.

I thought phonics helped with reading not spelling. 'Cos English isn't phonetically transparent as it is a bastard language with a mishmash of spelling rules.*

It's a while since I was volunteer reading at the local school and keeping up with this stuff, but I remember Gordon Brown threw £10million at Reading Recovery, so it's not just Gove/Cummings being swayed by a pushy sales pitch. Reading Recovery seemed to work by providing more one-on-one, adult listening to kid reading. Which was the sort of thing I was doing for free. Iirc, RR was non-phonics, basically a sight-reading programme so the phonics proponents were up in arms about it. This was back when the Clackmannanshire study was new and synthetic phonics was being touted as the answer, but I guess the evidence base has moved on since then?

*This is probably why teachers need to use more than one approach.

[sTeamTraen]

Here is an interesting blog post by the ever-readable Dorothy Bishop about a meeting at 10 Downing Street between scientists and Dominic Cummings.

[Herainestold]

So it begins:-

The chancellor has pledged that the national living wage will increase, reaching two-thirds of median earnings within five years (projected to be around £10.50 an hour in 2024), provided economic conditions allow.

Should probably stick this in a new thread "Boriswatch" or something.

And now Corbyn finds his voice to call the spaffer out on his b.llsh.t.

And he mocks the proposal for an NHS funding bill. He says the last Labour government did not need to pass legislation to force itself to invest in the NHS.

He criticises Boris Johnson’s claim to be delivering 50,000 new nurses and 40 new hospitals. There are only 30,000 new nurses, he says, and only six new hospitals.

Where was that fire when it was needed?

Once Boris sells the NHS to the Americans, there will be 40 new hospitals but no ordinary working class person will be able to afford to go to them.

[purplehaze]

Worker's rights to be diminished. Finally!

What's not to like about this?

Immigrant children no longer can set roots in England. Yay!

It's what Brexit is all about.

And those pesky unions can f.ck right off!

No one really gives a sh.t about the nurses in Northern Ireland. After all, the DUP is now redundant. The Irish can starve for all we care.

[P.J. Denyer]

Good things about the new government? Well, it makes that episode in season 1 of Nu Who with farting aliens wearing politician's skins seem like something to be wished rather than a just sh.t episode I suppose.... Hhhhmmm, iirc correctly they prefered a Boris-like fit.

[jimbob]

Good things about the new government? Well, it makes that episode in season 1 of Nu Who with farting aliens wearing politician's skins seem like something to be wished rather than a just sh.t episode I suppose.... Hhhhmmm, iirc correctly they prefered a Boris-like fit.

I had mentioned that quite a few Tories resembled Slitheen - including in ethics.

Mark Francois, and Eric Pickles spring to mind with agility and alacrity.

[P.J. Denyer]

Good things about the new government? Well, it makes that episode in season 1 of Nu Who with farting aliens wearing politician's skins seem like something to be wished rather than a just sh.t episode I suppose.... Hhhhmmm, iirc correctly they prefered a Boris-like fit.

I had mentioned that quite a few Tories resembled Slitheen - including in ethics.

Mark Francois, and Eric Pickles spring to mind with agility and alacrity.

For Francois they'd have to cut their legs off at the knees. But there'd be space for the chopped of bits from Francois in Pickles, plus a second Slitheen... and a picnic basket.


Or two.

[plodder]

Rewilding Britain is broadly supportive of the new Agriculture Bill which seeks to significantly reform farm subsidies.

https://www.rewildingbritain.org.uk/blo ... lture-bill

[sheldrake]

So it begins:-



Should probably stick this in a new thread "Boriswatch" or something.

And now Corbyn finds his voice to call the spaffer out on his b.llsh.t.

And he mocks the proposal for an NHS funding bill. He says the last Labour government did not need to pass legislation to force itself to invest in the NHS.

He criticises Boris Johnson’s claim to be delivering 50,000 new nurses and 40 new hospitals. There are only 30,000 new nurses, he says, and only six new hospitals.

Where was that fire when it was needed?

Once Boris sells the NHS to the Americans, there will be 40 new hospitals but no ordinary working class person will be able to afford to go to them.

This thing about the tories selling the NHS gets rolled out at every election by Labour. They usually lose. It still hasn't been sold.

[plodder]

There is actually a lot of privatised services within the NHS, but I think that was mainly prompted by Labour. We've got experts here who will no doubt be along in a minute with chapter and verse.

[murmur]

Rewilding Britain is broadly supportive of the new Agriculture Bill which seeks to significantly reform farm subsidies.

https://www.rewildingbritain.org.uk/blo ... lture-bill

If they can put something in that which stops the f.ckers from flailing hedges to buggery, like what is happening for little good reason to many round here)...

[P.J. Denyer]

Rewilding Britain is broadly supportive of the new Agriculture Bill which seeks to significantly reform farm subsidies.

https://www.rewildingbritain.org.uk/blo ... lture-bill

If they can put something in that which stops the f.ckers from flailing hedges to buggery, like what is happening for little good reason to many round here)...

Bet they won't. (Same round here, just before the sloes, bullaces and crab apples were about to come in).

[rockdoctor]

In other news, Jared Kushner has taken on the task of sorting out peace in the Middle East.

Nonsense, Tony Blair already dealt with that ages ago

[plodder]

Well, this one is certainly fun:

https://www.theguardian.com/politics/20 ... of-england

[plodder]

You lot are no fun.

Here's another interesting one that very much cuts both ways:

https://www.fwi.co.uk/business/payments ... or-farmers

me? I think the UK's land management needs a radical overhaul and subsidising the status quo is a blocker. So very interested to see how this plays out.