Rumour has it, some remainers are a little glum.....

[Carolinesbeanies]

So in the spirit of sharing our deluded brexiteer cheerfulness, heres a round up of some of this weeks good news.

http://www.thisismoney.co.uk/money/markets/article-5040279/UK-exports-booming-outside-Europe.html

http://www.londonlovesbusiness.com/business-news/london-news/big-boost-world-bank-ranks-uk-seventh-in-its-doing-business-report/18554.article

https://global.handelsblatt.com/politics/world-trade-makes-a-comeback-845798/amp

https://uk.reuters.com/article/uk-britain-eu-volkswagen/vw-explores-uk-banking-licence-ahead-of-brexit-idUKKBN1D22KR

The government have 'found' £60billion to put is a slush fund for brexit.

https://amp.ft.com/content/f3271ac7-7439-319f-ba90-9252f59aafee

And in the week that saw the interest rate rise, the Bank of England said gloomily "as migration tightens, we will see wage growth". Note the 'we will'.

Excellent. All this whilst the media obsess over impotent politicians as Britain works.

🤣

Ive just got home. Clause 25 rejected. Clause 58 rejected. Still ongoing.

Howabout, thats brilliant. At least we know how they decide these things. “horrific use of English” and “pro-Russian posture”.

Sensible piece by Brendan O'Niell this evening re the Ruskies.

http://www.spiked-online.com/newsite/article/russia-and-brexit-a-chattering-class-conspiracy-theory/20542

Everything he says in that article has been played out on the long-running Remainer thread on MN.
Definitely agree with the Veruca Salt parallel

That article is spot on👌👍 and as Faith says, you can see it playing out right here on good old MN.

Last votes of the day. New clause 30 rejected. New clause 67 rejected. Amendment 70 rejected. So withdrawal bill has survived its first 2 days. Yay. I really dont get why theres any objection to transposing current EU directives over. If theyre that shit, why didnt anyone complain earlier?

6 more days of debate to go, but theyve not been scheduled yet, so we have to wait for the 'exit date' showdown.

FT shed a little light on why we need proper data today, which we absolutely do. IMO, Im hopefull that not only does Brexit bring the obvious changes in EU/UK policy making, but it also gives us a momentum to challenge stuff weve put up with, 'just because' thats how its done.

Lots of stuff doesnt work, including the politicising of treasury reports. Hopefully with the spotlight having been shone so directly on the ridiculous flaws in our current systems, economists, constitutional and government lawyers, politicians, can think innovatively and come up with better UK Governance 2.1 Everyone needs reliable data and weve spent too long allowing VI's spoonfeeding us rubbish. This hits the cheery scale under the 'emperor has no clothes' category.

https://amp.ft.com/content/b4a4e236-c084-11e7-9836-b25f8adaa111

Sky have drilled into the ONS stats. Record number of EU workers now in the UK new stats show. Im cheery about this for 3 reasons. 1, the utter bollocks peddled about a mass exodus, 2, it quite rightly reflects the fact the UK actually isnt a mass of raging racist neanderthals, and 3, Im hopeful sensible people have indeed taken onboard TMs assurances.

https://news.sky.com/story/amp/record-numbers-of-eu-workers-in-uk-since-brexit-11127835

And whilst this is old data, its only old because there hasnt been an independant survey done since! Theres much to be proud of in dear ol blighty.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/10061025/Worlds-most-racially-intolerant-countries-mapped.html

New Bond Street is europes most exclusive shopping street, and indeed is only behind 5th Avenue and Causeway Bay. Nice.

http://www.cityam.com/275788/new-bond-street-overtakes-champs-elysees-become-europes

Not so cheery news for scots today, new 'minimum pricing' on alchohol will come into force. I mention it though, as itll be interesting to see how this pans out as a 'border' issue.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2017/11/15/scottish-booze-cruises-england-predicted-minimum-pricing-introduced/amp/

And the Brugesgroup published a mathematicians view of 'no-deal'. Many have said a no-deal is pretty much inevitable, but heres the maths that supports the logic. Government absolutely right to be ploughing on with the withdrawal bill, trade bill, customs bill etc (I think customs bill due tomorrow). Itd be madness to rely on EU agreement.

http://www.brugesgroup.com/blog/how-likely-is-a-no-deal-for-brexit

And heres my cheery pic of the day.....

Love a bit of sums to start the day, even if I can't get over my deep seated presumption that philisophicaly the answer is always 1/2.

mathwithbaddrawings.com/2017/09/20/the-state-of-being-stuck/

Course some people would say it's all relative.

(Any excuse to highly recommend Valdo and the Uni of Yoker, free to allcomers on the youtube).

Off to M&S cos restricted times on selling alcohol in Scotland mean I can get my treat shopping done before everyone waiting for their cheap alcohol with the meal deal. Bring on the minimum pricing cos I stick to single malts and artisan beer anyhoo.

Loving JRM ripping into the Treasury and gravity models this week.

Caroline Newsnight did an interesting piece on Mark Zuckerberg yesterday touching on the fine line between philanthropy and political interference and undue influence - comes back to what we were discussing earlier.

Still cannae spell "philosophically"

LOL, I need sub titles for the you tube vid howabout

Ill go back to it in a mo, but wanted to send you shopping with an extra spring in your step this morning.

Standard and Poor have revised their ratings on the UK banking sector.

http://www.cityam.com/275844/credit-rating-giant-sp-says-uk-banks-now-better-placed-deal/amp

www.forbes.com/sites/karstenstrauss/2017/09/20/the-worlds-top-universities-in-2017/#274aefd12ba1

this article shows how the university rankings are evaluated.

Teaching (the learning environment)
Research (volume, income and reputation)
Citations (research influence)
International Outlook (staff, students and research)
Industry Income (knowledge transfer)

So, Oxford has a huge mark on research and citations. Indeed, because of funding and research participation things may change in in this respect vis a vis the UK and EU in the case of Brexit.

It is interesting how some 'better universities' are a quite a bit lower on the teaching mark than 'worse' ones. Also interesting case to see how it progresses or regresses if the research aspect is affected.

1. The University of Oxford

Overall Score: 94.3

Teaching: 86.7
Research: 99.5
Citations: 99.1
Industry Income: 63.7
Int'l Outlook: 95.0

The research aspect is interesting - I’m currently at uni and the biggest gripe amongst my fellow students wrt (some) lecturers is that they’re only there/in it for their research possibilities.

There are a notable few lecturers who are utterly shit & completely unengaged with inspiring the new generation, but a quick snoop shows they’ve been published countless times and are considered kudos appointments as far as the uni PR machine is concerned.

Cailleach, I wanted to look back to see how the rankings have been impacted over the decades, but unfortunately the data isnt there. Its a relatively new thing, so impossible to find comparisons. What I do know (and Im plucking these numbers rather than going off to check) but in the early 90's we had something like 50 UK Unis, whereas today we have something nearer 150. That alone skews the 'education' debate and specifically, the economic cost of say the 'free tuition' bun fight. (Theres an intergenerational war going on over this).

But the breakdowns interesting. Part of me isnt surprised at the 'Teaching' score. We do appear to have a far higher 'political' element in all our higher ed institutions. (Dare I mention the Cecil Rhodes statue). Just taking politics to student unis is going to cause division. Im one of those who tbh, believes even students of politics should have an utterly open mind, never mind questioning the significance of politics on Applied Landscape Archeology. But hey ho, we cant change everything overnight

Actually.......looking toward Czechoslovakia, we nearly can. They managed it over a weekend

I went to uni in the early 90s Caroline (dropped out in 2nd year though to get a job as I was sick of being skint!) and I’m back now in my early 40s - it’s completely different to how I remember it.
There’s zero debate & opposing opinion in the seminars - it’s just an extension of the lecture. The ‘accepted discourse’ surrounding various topics is told to us with limited opposing views explored.
If you try to play devils advocate you get eye rolls from the lecturer.

(I have to stress though, it’s not all lecturers - some are amazing & clearly love & live their area of expertise & are excellent teachers).

That’s part of the reason that I massively eyeroll at “people who have been to university/have higher qualifications are taught to apply critical thought” etc.

They’re not - they’re mostly just drones on the accepted treadmill of ‘university is what you do after 6th form’

People who want a professional job tend to need to go to uni but I understand this is brexit Britain we don’t need experts.

Good to see banking sorting itself out. Also good to see Manfred Weber starting to allow for the possibility of something other than 100% doom and gloom.

Couple of interesting BBC articles on Uni access today. First on whether a degree is necessary for a career and questioning widening participation. Second on the Oxford college with 90% State school intake.

www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-42003418

www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-oxfordshire-41829685

People who want a professional job tend to need to go to uni

Can you define ‘professional job’?

An educator or a scientist, doctor etc - yes, a degree is necessary.

But what other ‘professional jobs’ are you talking about?

The much maligned Sir Richard didn't go to Uni. Jim McColl left school at 16 before apprenticing and heading to Uni at a much much later date. Sir James Dyson has a degree from the Royal College of Art, not engineering, ( This was a bit of a surprise to DD2 who took apart one of his iconic vacuum cleaners as part of primary school science club, courtesy of his Foundation).

Chartered accountants like me don't need to be graduates, even within the Big 4. #nowrongpath #canyoutellIhaveangstyteenagers

Ok,

Just had very nice 3 course lunch with John Redwood MP, was very good intellectually, I got to pick his brains over Trump, Global Growth, North Korea, China, Asia Pacific stability, Brexit, US foreign policy, electric cars and infrastructure.

Re Brexit, it appears that the two things we have to do is send the letter re article 50 and repeal the 1972 communities act, everything else is up for discussion.

The EU are refusing to discuss the whole thing as a package which is unhelpful as some of the things they want to agree may be obsolete and irrelevant once the rest of the discussions are underway.

For example if we allow access to each other’s markets the the NI issue goes away.

There are also many things attributed to Brexit, both positives and negative that more or less would have happened anyway and the nonsense about about a cliff edge and flights to London stopping in the event of an unsatisfactory deal being rejected are just that, nonsense .

The default would be the WTO arrangement which both us and the EU are already subscribed to.

There is also nothing stopping us leaving before 29th March 2019 if we all agree a satisfactory deal so it seems the main this stopping meaningful progress is the rather arbitrary EU timetable.

Why should the EU do it the way we want to do it.
Naive to think they would agree to our fairy story approach.

For example if we allow access to each other’s markets the the NI issue goes away.

It does? How do you propose to check people crossing from RoI to NI?

Why should the EU do it the way we want to do it.
Naive to think they would agree to our fairy story approach.

Posted to quick!

Why should the EU do it the way we want to do it.
Naive to think they would agree to our fairy story approach.

Why shouldn’t they want to partake in a grown up mutually beneficial trade arrangement?

For example if we allow access to each other’s markets the the NI issue goes away.

It does? How do you propose to check people crossing from RoI to NI?

Soft tech border will do it, if trade if access to each other’s markets are agreed then this is fine, no one wants a hard border that destabilises GFA.