Westministers: May Shares the Cake

[RedToothBrush]

May's Speech Abbreviated:

We still have nfi how we are going to do this. EU this is your fault. You sort it out. We are too lazy, workshy and fighting like high school children to work it out ourselves. Be our whipping boy.

I support democracy as long as I get to do whatever I like
I support human rights as long as I can ignore them when I like.
I support the rule of law except when it doesn't suit my agenda.

Waffle waffle.

"Creative", "Dynamic" PR for my Premiership.

Waffle waffle

We really need policing cooperation, PLEASE keep it with us. I know I threatened to withdraw this, but I'm sorry, I was wrong and a bit of a dick about this.

Gets to the point FINALLY.

"2 year transition period"

(With another time bomb lock which is still too short for IT departments. Nothing to do with the next general election, honest).

RULE BRITANNIA!

Polite Applause.

Elements - schools will do what small village schools already have to do, combine year groups. Sometimes it works well enough, Reception, Years 1 & 2, 3 & 4, 5 & 6. Sometimes it's a bit of a mish mash of e.g. year 6 and older ones of year 5, and younger ones of year 5 plus year 4.

The article rtb referred to also pointed out that there are areas where there is still an undersupply of places compared to demands. It's never been as simple as EU citizens taking all the places despite brexiteer claims. And unless people are willing to be moved to areas with spaces, like enforced movement for jobs, then getting rid of those pesky forrin folk isn't the solution.

RTB yes you are totally right about Brits who will struggle to prove who they are.
I know a few people who do not have a passport and some don't even have a driving licence for example.

Elements It is the job of the LEA to ensure provision of sufficient school places (though without the power to establish new schools without finding sponsors to pursue the free school process unless you have a Catholic Leader of the Council who is prepared to go to Judicial Review to establish the route with Gove's support to establish an exclusive Catholic School in the best site for a community school at a time when there is a projected shortage of school places for the whole community, thankfully a unique aligning of entitled privilege ) and support schools in managing their budgets.

If a local one form entry school can only fill half its places then the Council has a certain amount of leeway to get the governors at neighbouring schools to either reduce their intake and offer those parents not able to get in there places at the one form entry school, or expand their entry and close (or merge) the school, depending on which option was most cost effective. I suspect that what has happened here is a reduction in demand across the board but they have taken the option of dropping a class in certain large schools as the most cost effective. In practise in London, especially where faith schools with faith selection criteria can account for such a large proportion of places and school sites hard to come by they would not let a school close because it would exacerbate the problem of parents not getting places in local schools.

I know a few people who do not have a passport and some don't even have a driving licence for example.

If you have followed the threads where ID (or ID cards) is/are discussed, you'll know that these people are probably up to no good anyway. Remember, we should all carry ID even if there's no law saying so.

It's the demonisation of "other" again. Creating a stigma around perfectly legal behaviour.

If you are very careful with your rhetoric, it's amazing how many people will agree that tattooed ID would be a Good Idea Maybe under the armpit ?

The sixth form can't stay open as they can't subsidise it from the rest of the school,

School 6th forms are a very endangered species in non private schools.
Fortunately there are so many great online A level programmes, because I don't think they'll be available to most British kids in British state schools and colleges.

Already it is very difficult to complete a full A level course in an English state school unless you are on track for very high grades, If not, teens get their results and are kicked out, at the end of Year 12.

V little A level provision in FE and many 6th form colleges 'unsustainable'

@faisalislam

Shadow Foreign sec Emily Thornberry jokes Boris Johnson is trying to deny Brexit paternity, should take a test and pay £350m/week upkeep

wow

School 6th forms are a very endangered species in non private schools.

I was lucky enough to go to a dedicated 6th form - completely different vibe from friends I met at Uni who went to a school. It seemed such a good system, I was surprised it was so niche.

But one thing no one ever accused Harrow of, was dodgy state education. As I subsequently learned, we weren't normal ...

Oh! Do you have any info on online a level courses...might be something ds1 has to look at - I live in a town that has recently had 2500 homes built with no more school/Dr/other provision...

There is a thread running atm from someone whose birth certificate is incorrect. Its an interesting example. Sounds like she likes the normal paperwork that is required to correct it.

There is this blindness to the fact that people might lack ID etc which is particularly middle class - and the system is run and created by people within that bubble without thought to those outside those norms.

Nick Cohen has a piece this week which is along these lines which I thought worth a read:

amp.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2017/sep/23/universal-credit-shambles-because-pooor-are-ignored
Universal credit is a shambles because the poor are ignored

Its basically about how if you are poor you aren't consulted or thought about in terms of how things run and the effects and impact that might have, largely because of this blindness to possible negative side effects.

Brexit to my mind is the baby of people who have particularly large blind spots and should carry political white sticks.

woman Sixth form provision is very much a postcode lottery. Around here the state schools have opened sixth forms and the sixth form college has effectively become the sixth form of a new 5 form entry secondary school. They have kept the diversity of subjects (17 A levels offered) by setting up partnerships between the schools. There was investment from the Council but the sixth forms are all oversubscribed and doing well academically without any apparent budgetary threats to their existence. However that is in a middle class area where most pupils are expected to be university bound.

Just down the road in a less affluent area though with only pockets of true deprivation three sixth forms have closed through lack of demand and poor results. Even when they were open they offered very narrow A level offerings with a wider range of Btec (by no means necessarily a bad thing if not packaged up in strange vocational streams dreamt up in the Headmasters imagination without reference to any actual employers ). The ability of the former sixth form college to offer vocational courses has been compromised by now being part of a new secondary school with strategies aiming at academic rather than vocational strengths. It is basically mirroring what has been happening at pre 16 level but even more devisive.....

Its basically about how if you are poor you aren't consulted or thought about in terms of how things run and the effects and impact that might have, largely because of this blindness to possible negative side effects.

s/poor/disabled/

It's soul destroying to go somewhere with MrsLH, and note just how unconsidered the less-able are. Especially people with mobility issues, and especially when the remedy is usually so easy.

Even more upsetting, is the feeling that things are regressing, not progressing.

Goodness, thank you everyone for the school places explanations.

We've had personal and infuriating experience with inadequate provision of school places in our LEA, who basically did a big ^^ when we moved to the area with our school-aged DC.

Whilst I'd never believed that problems with availability of school places was the fault of EU immigrants flooding in, until now I had naively thought that if pupils were to leave for whatever reason, that would simply free up those places, full stop. So if I understand correctly, if a handful of children leave, then yes there are now those places available; if a high proportion of children leave, then that whole class/year group could be at risk of closure?

It's such a bloody mess.

www.huffingtonpost.co.uk/entry/grenfell-foodbanks-emma_uk_59c8ee4ce4b06ddf45f93ca2?
Grenfell Survivors Forced To Use Foodbanks As Council Accused Of ‘Unprecedented Incompetence’
One disabled survivor sat in her own excrement when she was ‘completely forgotten’ by her carer

Here's a timely article on Grenfell and blindness.

Fourteen years ago now I helped someone who had a visa to come and settle here to open a bank account. They had been to several banks who had put up all manner of bureaucratic hurdles which they hadn't the ability /knowledge to overcome. The main hurdle was that they had had six (bricks and mortar) addresses in two other Asian countries in the previous three years. Even with me accomplished at battling the bureaucracy we could only get HSBC with whom they had banked before to open an account. The implicit racism was appalling. I am quite surprised that so many people here illegally could have actually managed to open an account in the first place especially if their previous addresses were in refugee camps.....

Because the UK doesn't have an ID card scheme

anymore. We did have a stab .

The whole thing was as crap as you'd expect. For me, the funniest thing was the fact that once you had got an ID card, you were subject to a raft of obligations (such as notification of change of address) under pain of prison.

news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk_politics/7742619.stm

Women who change their name after marriage could face fines of up to £1,000 if they fail to tell the government, under new proposals.
Anyone with a biometric passport or ID card will be required to notify the National Identity Register of changes to the personal data it holds.

(contd)

Flashes from the archive of oblivion :

Sunday, 11 September 2005, 12:57 GMT 13:57 UK

news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk_politics/4235086.stm

'Charm tour' to promote ID cards
Ministers are being sent on a "charm offensive" tour to educate the public about the technology behind planned ID cards, the Home Office has said.
Home Office minister Andy Burnham opens the seven-date "biometric roadshow" tour at Manchester airport on Monday.

He hopes the tour will help persuade people identity cards would protect their "personal data and privacy".

Civil rights group Liberty called it "yet another desperate attempt to sell Tony Blair's £10bn white elephant".

Director Shami Chakrabarti said: "In this world, black is white, night is day, and Mr Burnham says ID cards will protect our civil liberties.

"Enough is enough.

“ I'm one of the staunchest supporters of ID cards yet I wouldn't pay £300 for one ”
Home Office minister Andy Burnham
"This money should be reallocated to policing and national security."

Mr Burnham said the government was working hard to keep down the cost of the cards.

He denied reports the price of a card had spiralled to £300.

"I'm one of the staunchest supporters of ID cards yet I wouldn't pay £300 for one," he told the News of the World newspaper.

"And if the cards were to cost £100, as some claim, my Lancashire constituents in Leigh would have a few choice words for me."

The fact it will not be compulsory to carry them should calm fears the cards would create a "Big Brother" state, Mr Burnham added.

Subtle claims

"Our plans for biometric ID cards are controversial to some.

"They have whipped up fears that ID cards will create a police state.

"These myths are easy to knock down.

"But we have been slower to respond to more subtle claims that ID cards weaken the privacy of the individual against the state.

Proud statement

"In fact, the exact opposite is true.

"It may sound like a bold claim but our ID card system will protect personal data and privacy."

A Home Office spokeswoman told BBC News it would initially become compulsory to register for the planned cards when applying for "designated documents", including passports.

A card would also be a "recognised travel document" allowing travellers to go anywhere within the EU without their passports, she added.

The planned cards would contain a microchip carrying biometric information - a person's fingerprints or iris or facial scans, which are unique to the individual.

The biometric details are designed to make the cards more difficult to forge but critics say they are not foolproof and may be more difficult for some groups, such as disabled people, to use.

Mr Burnham also hopes the cards will display a Union Jack as a "proud statement" of British identity.

LH

Don't forget how David Davis was opposed to ID cards.

Shadow home secretary Dominic Grieve, for the Conservatives, said the consultation document showed the ID scheme is "truly the worst of all worlds - expensive, intrusive and unworkable".

Like Brexit proposals?

It's worth remembering that the reason the Labour government made such a fist of ID cards (apart from staggering, but unsurprising incompetence) was the insistence on keeping a database behind them (as alluded to in the piece I posted).

ID cards are neither here nor there ... as many people point out we pretty much carry ID as a matter of course without thinking.

It was this "National Register" (which reminds this LH of the National Housewives Register my DM was a keen member of) database. Which we were assured would always be 100% accurate, 100% up to date, 100% secure, and 100% trustworthy. Oh yeah ? And my arse plays the banjo.

We've all seen "Brazil"

Thank you - just caught up!

Going back a few posts to the points about leavers protecting their privilege, it has been striking me very strongly after a weekend baking, that many of them will be protecting their privilege from pesky working women who do not spend days doing laundry, and preserving and baking etc but MUST.

Very like the AfD manifesto.

The was for the choc samples, lh
So sorry that MrsLH & others are being socially excluded, thought not worth bothering about

Iirc, one of the justifications for the price of a passport going up so much was because of the requirements of proposed ID card system.