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Post by barbara on Dec 6, 2023 8:17:15 GMT
This time of year however I am always drawn back to my seasonal favourite films, A Wonderful Life never ages for me and Alistair Sim will always be my favourite portrayal of Ebenezer Scrooge. I caught the end of 'It's a Wonderful Life' on Film 4 earlier. A bit too long in the build up to my mind, but the last hour has some of the most memorable moments that exist on film. Jimmy Stewart is nothing short of astonishing and a big shout out for Henry Travers as Clarence, his guardian angel, who is also brilliant. As for Alastair Sim, you're preaching to the choir there. One of my all time favourite actors. The Green Man and Hue Cry are classics.
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Danny
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Post by Danny on Dec 6, 2023 8:20:33 GMT
Another completely separate teacher from a different London school I was talking to about their relative success at least with discipline suggested they had come to an agreement with the local street gang which operates in their part of London. The gang rather approved of their members being educated, and so was at least cooperative in maintaining discipline within the school. Sounds very like Whoopi Goldberg in Sister Act đ you'll be referencing To Sir with Love next ! Is what you are really saying that the reality of UK education has descended to the imaginings of fiction? You are right that people who do not look into what is really happening in schools would not believe it. And I make a serious post about the collapse of the education system which causes 9 posts chatting about films? I see education is another issue politicians are scared of!
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steve
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Post by steve on Dec 6, 2023 8:38:37 GMT
barbaraCan I recommend the sequel to the brilliant in the heat of the night. " They call me Mr Tibbs" Great thriller and has the bonus of the wonderful Martin Landau as a deranged racist preacher.
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Danny
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Post by Danny on Dec 6, 2023 8:42:20 GMT
The private school system spews out socially ignorant, opinionated, arrogant, self-important sociopaths like the crew that have been running the country the last 13 years. Assisted by those who suck up to and seek to emulate the aforementioned socially ignorant, opinionated, arrogant, self-import sociopaths. Private schooling is profoundly harmful to the overall wellbeing of the nation and is a key underlying cause of our decline relative to other nations; it turns out people who are spectacularly bad at managing organisations, privileges them in acquiring jobs managing organisations and the country, and as a side-benefit ensures that the talents and abilities of the other 93% of the population are underused. Delivering a "good education" to a small elite was tolerably effective for running Empire and the labour-intensive industries of the 19th century but is no good for the 21st. Following your apparently serious suggestion that we should concentrate state education spending on those attending a few grammar schools and let the rest rot would be a guarantee of national collapse. Our best chance of reversing the trajectory we are on would be to abolish the private/state divide so the wealthy and powerful can't run off and hide in an education system separate from everyone else. Levers to effect this could be: - The Finnish approach of prohibiting charging fees for all "basic education" that leads to a qualification.
- Assigning places at schools in an area by lot.
- Offering places at elite universities (Oxbridge, Russell Group) pro rata to schools by size.
- Requiring universities to take 93% of entrants from the state sector.
You seem to me missing my point entirely. You rather agree with me that those educated in private schools out perform in later life those from state schools. They get a better education. Parents would not pay the fees if they werent, to get a result which is no better than the state. My point is what they really do is show up how bad is the state education sytem. I have no problem at all with a campaign to level up the state system so it out performs the private one, and therefore private education dies out. I have every objection to destroying the private education system BECAUSE it does a better job of educating people. Thats insane. Why dont we apply the same reasoning to bring back publicly owned british leyland and throw out BMW from the Uk car industry?
Oh, and I think if oxbridge were required to assign places simply per capita of number of children in a school, then our university education system would collapse. By and large they really do give places to the best performing kids, and they need to do that to maintain their reputation for quality graduates. Its very likely kids from private schools are way over represented, because at the point of entering univerity they out perform state rivals because they have been better educated. In many respects, not just their paper qualifications.
If you want to democratise government, then its isnt schools you need to look at but inherited patronage. Think of Heath and Thtcher, both grammar school kids at a point in time state education could rival the private sector with it own elite schools. The grand scheme to improve education by abolishing grammars merely served to dumb down the entire state system and see a renewal of politicians coming from private schools.
Do you recall the fuss Diane Abbot got into for sending her own kids to elite schools, despite her very left wing stance? Parents should have a right to assist their own kids all they can. Its the states job to provide education to match the private sector, or not if chooses not to. Well, it has chosen not to match what could be done.
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Post by crossbat11 on Dec 6, 2023 8:56:25 GMT
Three great films, hard to pick my favourite but if I has to I would say In the Heat of the Night. In The Heat of the Night smashes it! The great Rod Steiger. A brilliant screen actor whose career, rather mysteriously, petered out.
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Danny
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Post by Danny on Dec 6, 2023 8:57:31 GMT
Danny - "An alternative explanation would be the failing GP service, which is not detecting illness early enough in these groups. That seems very likely to me, because younger people are not obvious candidates for such disease, and will be low prioritised by receptionists screening who gets to see a GP." This is actually a sensible point. Very refreshing for a change. There will be some of this for sure, but the central point, which is obvious from a cursory look at the figures, is that the mortality crisis in this age group really started in 2022/23, after we had entered the phase of ceasing to attempt to control covid in any meaningful way. No. I pointd out that under the conservative administration pre covid there was a steady trend of 5000 extra deaths every year they were in power. Certainly covid has disrupted this trend, but there is no reason to think it would have changed absent covid. The real benchmark for current deaths is not the mean value for 2014-2019, but that mean value projected to what we would have expected it to be with annual rises. On this basis, there are no excess deaths apart from covid, and indeed some of those should be discounted on an excess deaths basis because even though they are being recorded as covid they would have happened anyway. We do not. We have a small increased risk in people who have had severe covid. Its not significant for the population as a whole. Better to tell people not to eat so much, it would do much more good. I pointed out that on the basis of the change in death trends when con came to power, funding cuts have caused half a milion excess deaths while they have been in office, and covid only half that number. Its a political choice how much to spend on health care and therefore whether we push the deaths rate up or down. (though obviously remembering its realy only delaying deaths, not preventing them. The more resources you invest the lower the return, as was illustrated in the covid epidemic itself)
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Danny
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Post by Danny on Dec 6, 2023 9:03:25 GMT
The power and attraction of unevidenced anecdotes! I seem to remember you actually worked in this sector. Sure these are anecdotes but they are common experience for teachers, and have been for a very long time. The issue is that politicians seem to have agreed to ignore the evidence of failing schools. There seems to be a truce that they cannot afford to do anything about it so pretend it doesnt exist. The economic benefits from improved education are way beyond one parliamentary term, it only makes sense as campaign slogans and such would have a huge price tag. Whereas the last labour government reckoned the economy could afford to improve education, this one seems to think 14 years of conservative rule have so crippled the country it is now impossible. Or maybe, labour in 97 chose education as their slogan campaign and route to power so the cost was justified.
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c-a-r-f-r-e-w
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Post by c-a-r-f-r-e-w on Dec 6, 2023 9:08:30 GMT
The private school system spews out socially ignorant, opinionated, arrogant, self-important sociopaths like the crew that have been running the country the last 13 years. Assisted by those who suck up to and seek to emulate the aforementioned socially ignorant, opinionated, arrogant, self-import sociopaths. Private schooling is profoundly harmful to the overall wellbeing of the nation and is a key underlying cause of our decline relative to other nations; it turns out people who are spectacularly bad at managing organisations, privileges them in acquiring jobs managing organisations and the country, and as a side-benefit ensures that the talents and abilities of the other 93% of the population are underused. Delivering a "good education" to a small elite was tolerably effective for running Empire and the labour-intensive industries of the 19th century but is no good for the 21st. Following your apparently serious suggestion that we should concentrate state education spending on those attending a few grammar schools and let the rest rot would be a guarantee of national collapse. Our best chance of reversing the trajectory we are on would be to abolish the private/state divide so the wealthy and powerful can't run off and hide in an education system separate from everyone else. Levers to effect this could be: - The Finnish approach of prohibiting charging fees for all "basic education" that leads to a qualification.
- Assigning places at schools in an area by lot.
- Offering places at elite universities (Oxbridge, Russell Group) pro rata to schools by size.
- Requiring universities to take 93% of entrants from the state sector.
You seem to me missing my point entirely. You rather agree with me that those educated in private schools out perform in later life those from state schools. They get a better education. Parents would not pay the fees if they werent, to get a result which is no better than the state. My point is what they really do is show up how bad is the state education sytem. I have no problem at all with a campaign to level up the state system so it out performs the private one, and therefore private education dies out. Well I think richardstamperâs point might be that people from private schools can be artificially elevated despite not being that good? Which is the case, but the problem is that this can also happen outside of private schools, because the education system tends to favour some abilities over others. In particular it favours those good at language and/or following procedures, as opposed to those good at systems, at being more creative, at problem-solving and making things. And some of those latter skills tend to be quite useful in terms of managing the organisations Richard is on about. The reason people like Boris arenât ideal at managing organisations isnât all to do with going to private school, but also that writing classics essays isnât necessarily the best way to evaluate someoneâs management potential, nor the best way to help develop it. The same can apply to many other subjects, including the way science can tend to be taught. Because in practice even science education can quite often be about learning and regurgitating procedures.
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neilj
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Post by neilj on Dec 6, 2023 9:11:45 GMT
Besides the embarrassment of losing the vote that ÂŁ20 billion spending commitment is going to seriously limit his ability for further tax cuts. Taken with the likely effects of limits om immigration has on growing the economy he will have no headroom at all Most of all though good news for the victims Seems this was indeed the reason why they tried to delay compensating people
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neilj
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Post by neilj on Dec 6, 2023 9:16:29 GMT
More in common
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Danny
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Post by Danny on Dec 6, 2023 9:26:11 GMT
The reason people like Boris arenât ideal at managing organisations isnât all to do with going to private school, but also that writing classics essays isnât the best way to evaluate someoneâs management potential, nor the best way to help develop it. Funny thing, the news mentioned BJs forthcoming appearance at the covid enquiry, and highligted him apparently veering from one side of an argument to the other. Only...I was reminded of the technique used by lawyers to exact truth, by taking different stances in argument to test how someone reacts. It might make perfect sense for BJ to interrogate Whitty from the stance of doing nothing while Whitty was proposing to do everything. And then in the next meeting interrogate Heneghan from the perspective of doing everything when Heneghan was arguing for doing less. However, Johnson was also perfect to be PM in the sense he had the poise and confidence imparted by a private education. That is a requirment above all for the job as a party representative. It still would be if there were no private schools.
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Mr Poppy
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Post by Mr Poppy on Dec 6, 2023 9:28:28 GMT
Only saw one YG daily question on immigration policy changes* but a brief follow-up covering the expected polling implications from 3 leading pollsters. "(In)Ability to deliver" has been the issue for a long time and comments on how/why they are likely to continue to fail to deliver (or have data lagging so far that people won't see the change in time**) covered previously. So an 'event' that is unlikely to change polling and back to more interesting forums of debate pour moi. Tories wonât get boost from voters because of migration crackdown, pollsters warninews.co.uk/news/politics/tories-wont-get-boost-voters-migration-crackdown-pollsters-warn-2793112#* I would expect that, like the Autumn Statement, folks will like/support most/all of the individual measures (noting some of the press seem unable to have actually read the policies) but the 'perception' will be too little/too late and that the Rwanda scheme (which now seems to be specifically tied to that one country rather than being a '3rd country' scheme) isn't going to happen - see my previous comments on the technical aspects, cracks within CON MP factions and (for polling perspective) Chris Hopkins comments in above link. ** With LAB stating they'll continue the policies (arguably coming out with some of them first) then LAB will likely inherit reducing immigration numbers and perhaps we do end up settling around 200,000 per year (which IIRC was a number some LAB chappie said was reasonable and a number I supplied 'maths' for some time ago)
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wb61
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Post by wb61 on Dec 6, 2023 9:32:23 GMT
In The Heat of the Night smashes it! The great Rod Steiger. A brilliant screen actor whose career, rather mysteriously, petered out. On The Waterfront as Charlie, superb but I think his choice to appear in The Illustrated Man probably led to his career faltering. He played a great part but the film was too much for the mainstream audience and his popularity. He apparently turned down the lead in Patton because of his experience in the military in WWII and didn't want to glorify war.
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Danny
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Post by Danny on Dec 6, 2023 9:36:35 GMT
I would expect that, like the Autumn Statement, folks will like/support most/all of the individual measures (noting some of the press seem unable to have actually read the policies) but the 'perception' will be too little/too late and that the Rwanda scheme (which now seems to be specifically tied to that one country rather than being a '3rd country' scheme) isn't going to happen - see my previous comments on the technical aspects, cracks within CON MP factions and (for polling perspective) Chris Hopkins comments in above link. It has seemed for a long time the Rwanda scheme will eventually fail. The whole point has been to not let it fail before the next election, so it can be used as a campaign issue. Thus all these step by step measures each expected to fail, as Braverman pointed out as her reason for resigning. Because Sunak refused to actually go all out to implement it and see whether it really works or not. Because if it worked it would no longer be a campaign issue, and if it didnt he would not have any other plan to replace it. His goal is boosting election chances, not cutting immigration.
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wb61
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Post by wb61 on Dec 6, 2023 9:37:29 GMT
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Post by alec on Dec 6, 2023 9:53:18 GMT
Danny - "We do not." Yes we do. Or at least, the cardiovascular experts do. You don't, but that's just you. "We have a small increased risk in people who have had severe covid. Its not significant for the population as a whole." Wrong and wrong. There is a huge increase in risk (we're looking here at risk elevation after 'mild covid' in the region of 50%+ extending at least a year after infection). This is so settled even the professional covid minimizers have given up denying it. There is a huge body of data tat confirms this, and it's the main reason why cardiovascular deaths are surging worldwide.
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pjw1961
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Post by pjw1961 on Dec 6, 2023 9:57:06 GMT
The great Rod Steiger. A brilliant screen actor whose career, rather mysteriously, petered out. On The Waterfront as Charlie, superb but I think his choice to appear in The Illustrated Man probably led to his career faltering. He played a great part but the film was too much for the mainstream audience and his popularity. He apparently turned down the lead in Patton because of his experience in the military in WWII and didn't want to glorify war. I'm not sure "Patton" glorifies war. It portrays him (correctly) as something of a nut job. It does have a number of historical inaccuracies that annoy the historian in me (especially the imaginary artillery victory over attacking Germans in North Africa). I haven't dared go and see the new Napoleon film as I know I would be chucking things at the screen. And don't get me started on Braveheart
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neilj
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Post by neilj on Dec 6, 2023 10:12:24 GMT
On The Waterfront as Charlie, superb but I think his choice to appear in The Illustrated Man probably led to his career faltering. He played a great part but the film was too much for the mainstream audience and his popularity. He apparently turned down the lead in Patton because of his experience in the military in WWII and didn't want to glorify war. I'm not sure "Patton" glorifies war. It portrays him (correctly) as something of a nut job. It does have a number of historical inaccuracies that annoy the historian in me (especially the imaginary artillery victory over attacking Germans in North Africa). I haven't dared go and see the new Napoleon film as I know I would be chucking things at the screen. And don't get me started on Braveheart George C Scott was brilliant in Patton
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wb61
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Post by wb61 on Dec 6, 2023 10:14:02 GMT
--- historical inaccuracies that annoy the historian in me --- I believe one of the most historically accurate war films is Tora Tora Tora I understand both American and Japanese researchers were involved and the film portrays both sides not just one.
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wb61
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Post by wb61 on Dec 6, 2023 10:16:53 GMT
George C Scott was brilliant in Patton Agreed but I believe his best performance ever was in Twelve Angry Men
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Post by thylacine on Dec 6, 2023 10:19:31 GMT
On The Waterfront as Charlie, superb but I think his choice to appear in The Illustrated Man probably led to his career faltering. He played a great part but the film was too much for the mainstream audience and his popularity. He apparently turned down the lead in Patton because of his experience in the military in WWII and didn't want to glorify war. I'm not sure "Patton" glorifies war. It portrays him (correctly) as something of a nut job. It does have a number of historical inaccuracies that annoy the historian in me (especially the imaginary artillery victory over attacking Germans in North Africa). I haven't dared go and see the new Napoleon film as I know I would be chucking things at the screen. And don't get me started on Braveheart That's just your anti SNP sensibilities đ
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neilj
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Post by neilj on Dec 6, 2023 10:19:48 GMT
--- historical inaccuracies that annoy the historian in me --- I believe one of the most historically accurate war films is Tora Tora Tora I understand both American and Japanese researchers were involved and the film portrays both sides not just one. Das Boot was also very realistic
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neilj
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Post by neilj on Dec 6, 2023 10:24:54 GMT
Savanta
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Post by graham on Dec 6, 2023 10:27:40 GMT
LAB: 43% (-1) CON: 28% (+2) LDM: 11% (=) RFM: 7% (=) SNP: 3% (=) GRN: 3% (-2)
Via @savanta_UK, 1-3 Dec. Changes w/ 24-26 Nov.
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Post by Deleted on Dec 6, 2023 10:30:07 GMT
George C Scott was brilliant in Patton Agreed but I believe his best performance ever was in Twelve Angry MenI think you may be confusing him with Lee J Cobb, who was indeed excellent in Twelve Angry Men
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c-a-r-f-r-e-w
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Post by c-a-r-f-r-e-w on Dec 6, 2023 10:40:22 GMT
The reason people like Boris arenât ideal at managing organisations isnât all to do with going to private school, but also that writing classics essays isnât the best way to evaluate someoneâs management potential, nor the best way to help develop it. Funny thing, the news mentioned BJs forthcoming appearance at the covid enquiry, and highligted him apparently veering from one side of an argument to the other. Only...I was reminded of the technique used by lawyers to exact truth, by taking different stances in argument to test how someone reacts. It might make perfect sense for BJ to interrogate Whitty from the stance of doing nothing while Whitty was proposing to do everything. And then in the next meeting interrogate Heneghan from the perspective of doing everything when Heneghan was arguing for doing less. However, Johnson was also perfect to be PM in the sense he had the poise and confidence imparted by a private education. That is a requirment above all for the job as a party representative. It still would be if there were no private schools. Funnily enough, I did something similar at Oxford, for example when I needed to get up to speed quickly on economics: go to a Labour friend doing PPE to ask about inflation, then take what he said and go to a Tory friend and ask what he thought of that and so on. In the end though, you have to see that itâs limited by who you are asking. The people Johnson had around him had not seen that the pandemic plan wasnât really much of a plan, and werenât necessarily equipped to handle it. Hancock writing reports at the Bank of England was hardly good prep, because it is way too fault-tolerant an activity. In the end BJ saw he needed to bring in people like Bingham, people who can actually handle complex activities as opposed to writing about them, but it needed to be earlier really and not just for the vaccines. Regarding the âconfidenceâ issue, Iâm not sure how much itâs to do with private school as opposed to going to boarding school from a young age. (If it doesnât break you). Regarding another part of your education argument that doesnât get much attention: the behaviour issue. Behaviour might be âbetterâ* at private schools but then they can easily exclude people who donât toe the line.** (People like me danced on the line for a while and after a bit kept moving the line, rather like moving an Overton window of allowed behaviourâŚ). Itâs harder at a state school where you might be less able to exclude and you donât want to exclude anyway because of the detrimental effects it can have. (There is rather more to this aspect but I need to figure out how best to express it). * whether it really is better, might be open to question ** also pupils know their parents are paying and may feel a consequent obligation. Looking back I can see that my behaviour worsened (or improved, depending on your POV) once my parents got ill and the school covered all the fees
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Post by isa on Dec 6, 2023 11:00:30 GMT
Agreed but I believe his best performance ever was in Twelve Angry MenI think you may be confusing him with Lee J Cobb, who was indeed excellent in Twelve Angry Men My initial thought, too. But he did appear in a 1997 TV version, which I admit I haven't seen. Ironically, he played the Lee J Cobb character in that. The 1957 version with Henry Fonda is another of my all time favourites. Superb film.
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neilj
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Post by neilj on Dec 6, 2023 11:02:33 GMT
Yes, private schools on average do better than state schools, the question is why? The answer isn't difficult, private schools costs on average twice as much as state ones To level up the state sector spending would need to double from ÂŁ105b to ÂŁ210b. As much as I would like this to happen it won't in the short to medium term But we mustn't let the perfect be the enemy of the good. For example Labourâs plan on ending the VAT exemption for private school fees will go a little way in helping to redress the balance
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Danny
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Post by Danny on Dec 6, 2023 11:19:42 GMT
Yes, private schools on average do better than state schools, the question is why? The answer isn't difficult, private schools costs on average twice as much as state ones To level up the state sector spending would need to double from ÂŁ105b to ÂŁ210b. As much as I would like this to happen it won't in the short to medium term But we mustn't let the perfect be the enemy of the good. For example Labourâs plan on ending the VAT exemption for private school fees will go a little way in helping to redress the balance How? It will not raise anything like the necessary amount of money. All it is doing is taxing pople who make use of private education. Which is deeply unfair. Google suggest expenditure is about ÂŁ7000 per pupil by the state, so every child privately educated is saving the state that amount. They should be getting a subsidy of that amount towards their private education.
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Danny
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Post by Danny on Dec 6, 2023 11:29:58 GMT
Funnily enough, I did something similar at Oxford, for example when I needed to get up to speed quickly on economics: go to a Labour friend doing PPE to ask about inflation, then take what he said and go to a Tory friend and ask what he thought of that and so on. In the end though, you have to see that itâs limited by who you are asking. The people Johnson had around him had not seen that the pandemic plan wasnât really much of a plan, and werenât necessarily equipped to handle it. Hancock writing reports at the Bank of England was hardly good prep, because it is way too fault-tolerant an activity. In the end BJ saw he needed to bring in people like Bingham, people who can actually handle complex activities as opposed to writing about them, but it needed to be earlier really and not just for the vaccines. Its not really Johnson's fault he was surrounded by ncompetents, if he was. We seem to agree his methodology as good, he seems to have arranged a september meeting on 'the rule of six', if Im getting this right. Get in six people with publicly known different positions and ask each of them what to do. This seems to have infuriated Whitty and Mclean who were the insider advisors. The state system currently pays for kids who are uncontrollable in state schools to be educated in private schools. Probably not eton, who probably wouldnt be interested anyway. But they do send kids to private schools not because the behaviour is better, but because the ability to control the kids is better, which of course results in better behaviour. Part of thats is smaller classes, smaller schools and much more staff attention per pupil. It inherent in teenagers to misbehave whether they are rich or poor. Oh dear...private school chappie talking about the techniques he learnt to get good information. Hardly an attack on incompetent elites but the exact opposite.
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