Liberal Democrats - they were all remainers
Westminster Politics
- Thread starter altodevil
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Mostly - but under the current UK system they are never going to get elected. There is supposed to be an opposition party in the UK. But there is no opposition except maybe the SNP but unless you live in Scotlland you can't vote for them.
Although people don't want to talk about Brexit, it will be the major influencer of what happens in the UK over the coming years. It's barely begun, only two years into it and it's not going to get better, so instead of trying to ignore the elephant in the room and making out that they can make Brexit work, the opposition should do all in their power to stop the rot because if Labour do get into power under the idea that they're going to make it work , it will be a long time before they're ever in power again.
But Labour need a strong leader and a strong character to do that. Woefully so far from that at the moment.
There's only two ways it could ever work, one is a reunited Ireland and the other is a Norway/Switzerland type deal and TBH I can't see either ever happening
Interested to know if you still believe that this government isn’t very right wing.
It feels like you don’t see unregulated free market capitalism as ‘very right wing’. Or you perhaps see no problem in profit-at-all-costs systems shaping society.
Because record; taxation, public expenditure, and deficits are all bi-products of schools, hospitals, prisons, transport, refuse collection services, et Al, having profit/return gearing systems placed within them.
You simply must know this? Every single social/public service that the Free Market touches, is decimated. None of it ever gets better.
I freely accept that poorly ran sectors operating under unchecked and unaccountable socialism will get bloated and less efficient. But nobody is suggesting we do that.
But nothing in this country works, everything is getting more expensive, and we are all paying more for the privilege of watching it happen. The only reason for that is that plenty of people are still being enriched by it, and the current government is not just enabling it, but has it baked in as a feature.
Tory economic policy is as right wing as they can get away with. I won’t even engage with an idea that their social policies are closer to centrist than facist.
Honestly, just name a few things that are better now than 13 years ago.
Also : Your ‘very few’ judgements are kind of case in point. All those should read ‘Nobody’. Beyond that, all of the ‘very few’… right wing exploitative folks. Every single one of them.
If I smashed all the windows in your house, stole money from you and then bought you new windows, would you truly laud me as a ‘Record investor in broken windows?’
I just don’t get how you see the world.
Yeah but it would be nice to have a fully racist party that got 10% of the vote, rather than have them vote for the same party that decent people voted for no?
The Irish protocol problem is very minor in reality - just exaggerated by the DUP and the ERG. If the EU can trust the UK to not allow prohibited goods into the EU , then the problems are mainly solved. If trust exists most of the problems go away in on the island of Ireland.
A Norway /Swiss deal will not happen and wouldn't solve the problem of the customs union anyway for the rest of the UK. Rejoining the EU is not envisageable either any time soon. What can be stopped is the UK diverging further away from the EU, with the bill on rights, new standards, laws etc but both parties seem to have no appetite for that.
Why would the EU trust the UK?
To do so would open up an argument that any such exception would be allowable elsewhere, can't see it ever happening, especially given that a UK PM basically agreed something and then turned around and said no - I think it is a big deal and it hurts the Britain more than it hurts them.
Exactly, what is the fecking point of this. The country is in crisis, people rotting in A and E and this cnut wants us to do some additions and multiplications. Fecking despise this shower.
You have probably used it a lot more but don't realise it. Not that I advocate this but was discussing this stuff over Christmas with some family and friends and a problem with teaching is that we and the way teaching is a lot of the time means that we aren't actually understanding fully the use of what we are learning or why. It's a lot of the time do this exercise to learn this method but not with the purpose of knowing why it's being taught and how it can be applied in the real world and in more ways than we probably realise.
Sounds like a sensible idea to me. Even if they fully commit that time to hammer in a critical eye for statistics it would be worth it. Anti-math snowflakes need to toughen up.
Because there isn't a massive shortage of teachers and acute underfunding as it is. More soundbite bollocks.
So many young people can’t reach an equivalent C grade in GCSE maths by the time they’re 18, maybe focus on getting the basics right before throwing something like that out there.
I don't think I'd ever disagree with more education as a general idea. I think (free for the student and financially supported for parents) education is great. The more knowledge the better!
That being said, I would rather they teach civics. Far more useful to the general health of a society than advanced mathematics would be for the majority of the populous.
That being said, I would rather they teach civics. Far more useful to the general health of a society than advanced mathematics would be for the majority of the populous.
Because then more of us will ultimately move into finance and other numeric/engineering centric focused career paths, which means a greater understanding of economics and macro economics, which means we'll collectively fail to see the value in supporting people who can't contribute/don't do a job that kicks back to the 'investor', and be fine with the government crushing things like the NHS, education system, postal service etc.
Yeah, nonsense.
There is no downside whatsoever to improving the average level of mathematics in kids. Stupid to pretend there is just because you don't like the voice delivering it.
Are we counting people in NHS corridors and the hours they are left there for maths?
What do you think could be learnt in those two years that couldn’t be learnt in the previous 11?
What can be learnt in the 3 years at University that couldn't be learnt in the previous 13 years of school?
Let's be frank, it's just fecking dumb to suggest we shouldn't increase education levels because of some phantom ulterior motive.
Getting maths / numeracy to a certain level is important but they'd be far better off making sure that the level for 16 year olds is hit for more pupils than forcing advanced maths on every 17 to 18 year-old.
It seems quite ridiculous that for somebody wanting a career path in the arts taking time to learn advanced maths is beneficial, and at the ages being targeted the pupils are concentrating on what they want to do at Uni or for work after school rather than general learning.
The Tories don't give a feck about the 'arts' though which is why they're criminally underfunded, lots of departments in the sector are closing down in universities and they're trying to change the way planning is to circumvent the need for some arts.
Maybe teach kids critical thinking, so that they can disseminate all of the Tory lies every campaign.
University is the choice of the student in a field that interests them, usually because they see it as a career path. The most important thing you learn at Uni though is the soft skills - how to research, critical thinking, time management, networking etc etc.
Day to day life the vast vast majority of people all you need is arithmetic which is taught in primary school. There’s no value in teaching advanced topics of mathematics when it will generally be forgotten a year or two later. Many people just don’t have the capacity to learn it in the first place.
This + media literacy
Both those + basic civics. Shocking how little people understand how governance works in this country.
I doubt the EU does trust the UK but most likely they will come to some agreement where less checks will be made. If the Uk then blows that and prohibited products are found to be in Ireland or elsewhere in the EU that came through Ireland then the problem will intensify.
Up till now the UK are still operating to EU standards. The concern will be if they change standards and start importing Australian meat, for example ,which would be banned in the EU.
How about we keep people fecking alive first by getting them timely treatment in hospitals and go from there?
Disseminate was definitely not the word I was looking for there, complete brain fart
Because there’s more useful things that 16-18 year olds could be spending their time learning. A lot of it will be forgotten about in the space of a few years after learning it anyway, unless they continue to use it for work, which is unlikely for most.
A far better focus would be how we get kids to GCSE level. If the justification for this policy is that we need the general population to analyse data, read graphs, averages, percentages, this is all GCSE level stuff, not A level.
University as a way to a career path is fanciful thinking, the vast majority don't do it for that. Besides, A levels are optional too. You only need continue school past 16 if it interests you.
This exactly.
I did A level maths and I've used it so little since that I barely remember a jot of it (as I've found out while trying to help my own son with his A levels). Put the effort into ensuring a better level of maths is attained at GCSE level than this seemingly vague and hokey plan. I'm all for raising the level of quality achieved during education but I don't see the point in this.
I guess you ignored the bit where I detailed the most important things learnt at Uni. Most people go to Uni to learn a subject they believe will help them in the sort of careers they are interested in. It doesn’t have to be a vocational subject with directly transferable knowledge and skills.
School is mandatory until 18, not 16.
I see Rishi's long term thinking here. Kids doing maths longer = less homeless people and more people in business.
I think it would be pretty great if more people had a clue about statistics, to be honest.
I think we even study basic statistics in GCSE and while it isn't used everyday there are some good uses for it.
I didn't study Maths past 16 and I can't say I have missed out on much because of it.
On the maths point - who is going to teach it?
The Government are turning schools into academies and free schools and you don't need a teaching qualification to work there.
The Government are turning schools into academies and free schools and you don't need a teaching qualification to work there.
They've dropped childcare reform which is a big source of worry for working parents yet going on about maths. Farcical stuff.
Anyone watching the PM saying we need to work harder and then we will have better jobs.
More advanced maths is a good idea, whomever is in govt. We need that to fill tye huge gaps we have in science, engineering, analytics, computer science, etc. We are quite behind the countries we want to compete with in these areas.
Being better educated in any subject is a good thing, but that doesn't mean we should be forcing students over the age of 16 to take maths when they are doing more focused studies on what they're interested in at that age. Even worse, it will actually limit the time they have for the subjects that they have decided are right for their future careers.
No it's just not. The people who want to do 'advanced' maths do it anyway. I willingly chose to do maths at A Level and can safely say I've never needed integration, differentiation, vectors, advanced trigonometry or complex numbers in my life as an adult. If you don't plan on doing STEM for your degree/job then you just don't need anything other than what you learnt in GCSE (and a lot of that is useless too).