Westministenders: Hey Hey we're the Monkies.

[RedToothBrush]

Welcome to the Listening Parliament.

Have you noticed it yet?

The Three Monkeys of See No Evil, Hear No Evil and Speak No Evil have been in a bit of a fight with didn’t fair well. Its funny how politicians of all shades and levels are desperate to prove just how good they at listening and how they see the problems.

Its quite incredible to think that officials elected to serve the public are even in this position where they are having suddenly think about how they show they are listening. It rather shows up that they have been accustomed to telling the public what to think and what to believe.

What they are still to work out, is that in saying they are listening, they also have to demonstrate they are listening and be credible.

The trouble is, that even though some of the monkeys have been killed off, we still have a lot of monkeys in parliament. 'Monkey say, Monkey do' actions still lurk. Politicians who imitate others without understanding the consequences.

There is no point in listening if you are only listening to one group and don’t understand the consequences of simply repeating the words of others.

Politicians saying they are listening when you can find dozens of incidents where they have said completely the opposition, without having the gumption to explain they have changed their position and without having the grace to explain the evidence that has lead them to change that position rather undermines the idea they are listening.

U-Turns are not a bad thing. U-Turns can show that you were making an error but were wise enough to admit that and why you were wrong. U-Turns are bad when you fail to acknowledge your failings and only do it to chase votes. This is where cynicism creeps in and lack of trust in politicians occurs.

Listening also requires actions to reflect words. There is no good in saying one thing, if your actions don’t reflect that. This is where the Listening Parliament is already failing. And I’m sure we will see it more.

Above all, listening is only part of a conversation. A politician is supposed to be accountable. They are supposed to have their eyes open to evil, not deaf to it and not unwilling to speak inconvenient truths where they recognise the evil.

Any politician who tells you they listen needs to back it up somehow. They need to demonstrate and justify their positions accurately. If they don’t they aren’t listening properly.

Isn’t it funny how it was in Hartlepool that the monkey got hung for being a Frenchman? No one was there to explain differently.

There is always an audience for 'stabbed in the back' theories. Sadly, they give life to future campaigns.

Maybe Leavers could learn the word: "Putsch"

I think it is very clear that the EU will hold the UK to an all-in or all-out decision. It remains to be seen whether May will insist on the all-out and adrift in the world scenario, or the entire Leave movement collapses (cue fury about backstabbing on the part of the swivel eyed and a huge private sigh of relief by many others).

I do not think TM has a political future anyway, and wonder if she would therefore do the necessary U-turn and lead a sheepish return to the EU, or if she is stupid enough or vain enough to stay on track.

Like I said, it is my observation in my own time. I think we really need to do a thorough analysis of this topic. That research should include the effect of higher education as a long term investment, specially considering we have a lot of academic and STEM talent from EU feeling awful about Brexit issues. we need hard facts and figures to understand this. On the face of it, I would love to see this generation saving every penny they can. My fellows used to save every penny they could because of the high cost of rent to live near their work so they could be productive and competitive. There were some genuine horror stories there. I can that things have only got worse in that aspect over the last few years.
As for the international students, I think we again need a thoroughly scientific analysis on whenther the sort of set up we had on some very prestigious scholorships was worth paying for getting the best STEM talent or not from around the world of not. It is not political. We need to analyse it right from the very start of research and tech paradigm. From PhD onwards. A huge amount of labor is done in these labs by PhD students and that can change over time. I know plenty people who advised STEM students to go to EU countries rather than UK. I am not talking about small numbers either. I think we need a thorough scientific analysis on this issue and rather urgently now. If such data exists, we need to see how updated it is and then bring it in mainstream media.

I do not think TM has a political future anyway, and wonder if she would therefore do the necessary U-turn and lead a sheepish return to the EU, or if she is stupid enough or vain enough to stay on track.

(tinfoil hat)

Maybe she has been chosen as the patsy who has to turn around to the UK and say "Sorry, I failed, we can't leave the EU" just before she resigns falls on her sword

Because that would leave BrexitII with a pretty clean slate.

Anyone know the origin of the word "scapegoat"

Valentine I agree with you. There's been large drop in MPhil and PhD applications from EU students, at least at Cambridge. It's a massive problem. There is lots of lobbying by the universities, but the government don't want to know (beyond saying that they are aware of the problem and it will be ok in the end, etc).

In the current situation, in my field of work at least, we had a huge advantage of staying in EU. It pays to have established research set ups and large labs already in place and then have highly skilled people to work in them from across a whole continent. Theresa May has taken some horrid steps in her time as home minister that made it very difficult to source talent from countries outside EU. I still remember my professors seething on not being able to get some seriously great researcher just because the layers introduced by May et al were restrictive and discouraging, not to mention time cosuming. Like I said, we saw that talent going elsewhere.
We really do need a thorough scientific analysis of all of this because anything less than that won't be enough to convince this angry and frustrated youth.

Valentine is right. We need joined up thinking but as I understand it EU applicants, who do of course currently get equivalent loans, for STEM course at elite universities, engineering, maths, economics etc have made it incredibly hard for even the brightest UK students to get on them, along with the overseas students seeking the names. The LSE just got a bronze (worst) rating in the teaching excellence framework, but its economics course (highest application statistics in the UK) would be able to compete with David Beckham on awareness in the hinterland of of Asia, let alone Europe. The issue about Brexit for me is that we are deterring students.

I am not sure people appreciate the way it works in practise.

Tuition fees are not new. In the 70s they were £3k pa (which probably is more comparable than not with 9k now) and the grant for those and for maintenance was means tested on parents income. I certainly went to university with people who were from not particularly affluent middle class backgrounds backgrounds, middle managers, who were having to work every spare moment (the oil companies made a particular point of employing them in the holidays on generous salaries to do the number crunching and a few I knew went off to Berlin to work as builders and cleaners every Summer) because their parents would not pay, especially for girls. I have heard people of my parents generation expressing their disgust at "parents today" not paying fees if they can afford it, and if you had to rely on your parents then loans sound empowering. I don't know how that evolved in between then and now, I had my mind on other things , and I am not holding it up as a model but it does explain where current Conservative thinking originates in the past as always

The maintenance loan now though is not set at a level you can live on unless you are that rare creature an 18 year old that is parsimonious and incredibly good at budgeting, whereas then it covered rent, food and essentials and a fair amount of booze and curry. I knew people who saved even with a full social life. It assumes a parental contribution. Otherwise even with a scholarship for the tuition fees and a small bursary of 3k (which one of my DD's university give to all who qualified for the max maintenance grant / loan) you have to work at least casually. If not, and if parents cannot / will not contribute you have to work more and regular hours. Mr Weatherspoon does well out of that and definitely does not pay generously. It is why I argue that London universities are actually a good option for disadvantaged students, there is plenty of casual well paid work, other than being exploited by Mr Weatherspoon, and a good empowering network that businesses know it is sensible to exploit with good money and flexibility just like the oil companies in the 70s .

On some courses, especially STEM, that is simply not possible, so we already have a social divider.

I am incredibly proud, in a vicarious parenting way of some of DDs' friends, who went for it anyway, and still are going for what they want in life. They do because their schools have encouraged the bright ones to have aspirations and have helped them get to the best universities and on the best courses.

Which is why my priority is liveable grants for the disadvantaged and school funding

Yes I've wondered that LH. Remember how uncontaminated she was in the referendum campaign by staying out of it. And Boris' speech where he said he wouldn't stand, a pastiche of her leadership pledge.
Perhaps the Tories always had a contingency plan, which was to fuck it up so badly it didn't happen. Perhaps that's what BoJo, Gove and Osborne were planning when they all went quiet in the days after the election

YouGov poll

Lab 46%
Con 38
Roughly 8 seat majority.

www.thesun.co.uk/news/3964529/tories-plot-to-topple-three-legged-horse-theresa-may-with-a-coup-of-mass-resignations-this-autumn/
Tories plot to topple ‘three-legged horse’ Theresa May with a coup of mass resignations this Autumn
Mrs May accepted responsibility for the snap election disaster during the Tories's summer party

The growing disquiet amongst the junior ranks came after the Cabinet ruled out challenging the wounded premier for at least two years.

Now a secret circle of lower-rung ministers are weighing up whether to try dethrone the PM by stepping down before the party’s conference in October.

And one senior minister told The Sun they were considering resigning to spark a challenge before the party’s annual gathering scheduled to open in Manchester in three months time.

A government source said they were fed up of seeing the “ragdoll” PM “pushed around” on issues like public sector pay by the “self-indulgent” Cabinet “clearly just positioning for a contest in two years’ time.”

The source added: “Selfish cabinet ministers are simply putting their own ambition before the country — it’s self-indulgence and there is going to be backlash.”

Congrats to your baby dragon and to you for producing such a bright baby dragon! 🎉

Well done mother that is absolutely fantastic...goodness knows we could do with some good news around here

Well done your DS!

Yes, well done mother! You must be thrilled.

Faisal Islam‏Verified account
@faisalislam

So @yougov have Labour on 46%. That would be double where they had Labour 12 weeks ago 23%, just before PM called snap election. Volatile.

Good point made in comments that, since methodology has changed, May may never really have had a 20 point lead at all. Interesting.

whatwould
It is incredibly hard to live even in a shared home with the sort of stipends our funding offers to the brightest minds here and abroad. You will find so many students doing commute (shock horror to my professors) to save money on sky high rents. That's a major burden. What's more, there is absolutely no way you could work AND do good quality research work in a lab in STEM so that is highly discouraged in academia anyway and rightly so too. What I really don't understand is how Nick Clegg et al didn't understand this sort of lack of solid research and data on this topic that they could convince the youth with. Now I understand a bit may be. There is a general lack of competence and Brexit has highlighted it 100x.

Lurking
Conspiracy theories anyone?
I said that same thing when May came along and hired the three stooges promptly. It is general incompetence though I think. Lack of leadership to take tough decisions is also incompetence.

Education at all levels and good quality child care should be regarded as infrastructure.

Congratulations to baby dragon!!

Oxford is very well set up with additional funds to help students as they're not allowed to work in term time (in practice, a lot do but very few hours because the workloads ad is so high).

The thing is with loans, they reckons that 3/4 of people will not be able to repay them. That people will still be paying them back when they are in their 40s/50s with some of them being lumbered with high interest rates etc...

Unlike before where people might have got a grant (or a loan) for their £3k fees, the students nowdays will start their working life in debt and will stay in that position all for the 'opportunity' to go to University for an even lower starting wage than before.
At least, before people who had managed to go to Uni would know they would have a good income and a nice job. Not anymore (see nurses for example)

.

The sky high rents are a problem in London and Oxbridge valentine, but not so much in the rest of the uk. If you want a more affordable time at uni there are plenty of good universities in affordable cities in the midlands, The north and Wales. It's why I'm always a bit puzzled that the research funding bodies are so obsessed with sending all the money to the southeast at the expense of the rUK, it makes life very expensive for scientists that aren't paid particularly well and is a bit unhealthy imho. That's a rant topic for another thread though

Congratulations to baby dragon! Celebrate with a nice bottle of port

www.theguardian.com/politics/2017/jul/06/uk-business-leaders-to-call-for-indefinite-delay-in-leaving-single-market

So is it all a question of pride now then? Businesses want to remain, academics want to remain, scientists want to remain, and the youth vote (ie most under 45) want to remain. At what point is the display of pride going to fracture, enabling politicians to have a sensible discussion with the country about remaining?

Agree bolshy. I went to Brum and had a great time. It was (then) populated by people from London who couldn't afford London!

Congratulations mother of four dragons you must be so proud! Well done to your D's and well done to you!