Westministenders: Don't forget to stockpile. Again.

[RedToothBrush]

The government is telling pharmacists and drug manufactures to stockpile drugs ahead of the end of transition on 31st December.

In the middle of a pandemic.

What could go wrong?

Irrespective of the size of contract 'best endeavours' is a nono - it has the potential to bankrupt a multinational over a 10k contract - though they'd probably pay a few million to make the mistake go away.

Which of course is what de pfeffel will do - throw a few millions around to keep whoever happy/quiet.

Which is why Joe Lycett has his one man crusade against Hugo Boss, and changed his name by deed poll to infuriate them.

It’s more to do with Hugo Boss sending arsey legal letters to any company or organisation using “Boss” in its name.

That was how our in-house legal people put it to me Frankiestein - that if it could be done, even if it cost millions, then "best endeavours" would require it. So such clauses very quickly got taken out of proposed contracts during the negotiation stage.

How the Pandemic Revealed Britain’s National Illness

The situation has been getting worse for decades;
it goes far beyong BJ & this govt - although their incompetence has revealed the state of the nation:

https://www.theatlantic.com/international/archive/2020/08/why-britain-failed-coronavirus-pandemic/615166/?

Boris Johnson has faced his share of blame for the country’s death count.

But the British system was failing long before the coronavirus struck.

imo, if tens of thousands have their whole future ruined because of an unfair algorithm
and obstinate / frightened people in government and Unis refusing to accept CAGS

... then this is where the young withdraw their consent to sacrifice any more for the middle-aged and elderly who currently have the power

The strategy of mass SD and masks only works with mass consent
So this could soon be the end of SD in the UK

If I were a young person who had lost my uni place, apprenticeship or job

• and these qualification are the only ones that about half the kids will have for the workplace -

I would be organising mass protests "no SD, no mask" in multiple cities and towns
to scare the shit out of those with the power to correct this

Or if were too late, then just sheer rage and revenge .....

Dystopian future present, here we come

I guess when it's bucketing down bad news, you need to find shafts of light where you can. Right now I'll take this brief flash of humanity from Thailand as far as I can

www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-53771925

Two men given the death penalty for killing two British backpackers in Thailand have had their sentences commuted to life imprisonment.

The bodies of David Miller, 24, from Jersey, and Hannah Witheridge, 23, from Norfolk, were found on a beach on the Thai island of Koh Tao in 2014.

Burmese nationals Zaw Lin and Wai Phyo were convicted in a Thai court and sentenced to death in December 2015.

Lin and Phyo will serve life sentences instead following a royal decree.

(contd)

I think Boris and Dominic Cummings hey off too lightly in that article BCF.
It does make some interesting points, but it's almost as if they are trying to spread the blame.

@mrslaughan

I think Boris and Dominic Cummings hey off too lightly in that article BCF. It does make some interesting points, but it's almost as if they are trying to spread the blame.

Well there's plenty to go around.

www.theguardian.com/education/2020/aug/15/a-levels-row-oxford-college-to-honour-all-offers-despite-results

Worcester College made 83% of its offers to state schools this year, Ashe said. She added that nearly a quarter of those offer holders had their results downgraded compared with a tenth of those from private schools.

She said: “It was clear that Ofqual felt it had to end up with a grade distribution that looked right. So they did something that made the grade distribution over the whole country look right, but they can’t possibly tell us that they gave the right grades to the right people.”

Meanwhile, more than 8,000 Cambridge and Oxford alumni are estimated to have signed petitions calling on their former universities to make all their 2020 offers unconditional.

“Brilliant pupils from economically disadvantaged schools have seen their dreams dashed – while others from wealthy backgrounds saw their predicted grades confirmed,” reads the petition from Oxford alumni.

“It cannot be right that bright, hard-working young people from poorer backgrounds have been denied their chance to overcome odds that were already stacked against them.”

If falls to universities to make up for the government’s fuck up.

I have no fucking words

Maybe there's something in the water ? After not really doing anything on LinkedIn since whenever, 2 nibbles in 2 weeks. (And I am sure you can all imagine that I'm not the sort of person to ignore a nibble, Mr. Pants ). If DGR should disappear on Monday, don't fret. I like it when they say they're looking to start immediately.

The takeaway message from this should be: what's the point of exams ?

Certainly when recruiting I've made a point of ignoring qualifications. I don't really care what you did. I care what you can do. And exams are fairly useless for that.

I think Boris and Dominic Cummings hey off too lightly in that article BCF. It does make some interesting points, but it's almost as if they are trying to spread the blame.

I thought so too. There was absolutely nothing about how they failed to use local authority public health teams purely for political ideology. There was nothing about how just about everything which has failed has been because the tasks were outsourced on the basis of how much public money could they shovel to their friends, rather than whether the organisation or provider had any expertise.

I'm so fucking angry
I need to start trying to channel it by writing letters/e mails.

Certainly when recruiting I've made a point of ignoring qualifications. I don't really care what you did. I care what you can do. And exams are fairly useless for that.

Up to a point - I wouldn't want to be treated by a doctor who hadn't been to medical school but had just got stuck in and learnt on the job by trial and error.

@Peregrina

I think Boris and Dominic Cummings hey off too lightly in that article BCF. It does make some interesting points, but it's almost as if they are trying to spread the blame.

I thought so too. There was absolutely nothing about how they failed to use local authority public health teams purely for political ideology. There was nothing about how just about everything which has failed has been because the tasks were outsourced on the basis of how much public money could they shovel to their friends, rather than whether the organisation or provider had any expertise.

Yes, nothing about perfectly good existing facilities laying empty as they paid their mates to build from scratch for £££££.

Certainly when recruiting I've made a point of ignoring qualifications. I don't really care what you did. I care what you can do. And exams are fairly useless for that.
If you do not have the letters in my game you cannot sign the forms.
QBE is all well and good
but independent proof of competence has to be the starting point

I am also angry. It is all so utterly shit.

I channelled some anger into starting to build up my stockpile, ready for either a period of isolation or final Brexit

That Atlantic article is interesting but the writer does not realise that he is part of the problem.
He is viewing everything through the distortion of the bubble around Westminster. Everybody he mentions is "cabinet office" or "London".

The UK fucked up because it tried to do everything by command and control from the centre
and did not make use of expertise at a local level
for long standing ideological Tory reasons
and it will continue to fuck things up until it PROPERLY devolves decision making to the correct levels

The Atlantic author also makes no mention of the utterly shite communications emanating from the WM gvmt throughout.

But the British system was failing long before the coronavirus struck.

Nor did the article say because the Tories have spent the last ten years actively trying to smash it.

Who among us voted for NHS contracts to be outsourced, but still with the NHS logo on? Who voted for Multi Academy Trusts for schools? Who voted for Care Homes to be taken out of Local Authority Control and privatised? I could go on.

Peter Foster@pmdfoster
Where @Steven_Swinford interviews @GavinWilliamson who admits the exams algorithm creates individual injustices...It is both Orwellian and un-Tory: faceless Govt algorithm creates individual injustices in the name of central statistical conformity..mad/1

www.thetimes.co.uk/article/gavin-williamson-interview-in-scotland-there-were-no-checks-it-degrades-every-single-exam-result-gwrhx8ztx
Gavin Williamson interview: ‘In Scotland there were no checks . . . it degrades every single exam result’
The education secretary has faced an onslaught of criticism over the A-level results algorithm, but there will be no U-turns, he tells Steven Swinford

So even if there are capacity issues with individual universities having more successful applicants than places because of inflated grades; surely it’s for Unis to address (good @lewis_goodall thread here)...but it’s the politics of this that’s insane/2

thread

All you can say is that the appeals process better be pretty swift and Rolls Royce to iron out these injustices, because otherwise the system is essentially one of collective punishment for “outliers” - aren’t Tories supposed to be about individuals rising above? /3

We all know cases (at least those of us who send our kids to state schools and sixth form colleges do!) of obvious injustice meted out by an algorithm that sees bright “outlier” kids pay for the academic ‘sins’ of their forebears - it’s so manifestly unfair/4

How this political man trap wasn’t spotted 100 miles away beggars belief - be interesting to see how MPs inboxes fill up with this one, as the did with Dom’s Barnard Castle eye test. Injustice/unfairness is a great animator of anger. /5

Mr Williamson @GavinWilliamson says there will be “No U-turn, no change”, so presume he’s got that from The Centre, as perhaps we should call it henceforth, but you can see how the chorus of “outliers” (dismissive word that) will grow and grow. ENDS

Interesting that it is now supposedly Scotland's fault that the exam results have been degraded