Westminstenders: PreGrades (Minority Report comes to the UK)

[RedToothBrush]

In Aug 2020, London, DC's prototype 'PreGrades' launched from the education department stops plebs before they go to university, reducing the social mobility rate to zero percent. Social mobility is predicted using specialized mutated humans, called "Teachers", who "predict" grades by marking shit lots of course work and exams over a period of years. Would-be social climbers are knocked down in a computer algorithm which distorts reality and hits the disadvantaged hardest. Central government is on the verge of adopting the controversial program nationwide by applying it in all departments from the DWP, the Home Office, the Department of Health and the Department of Justice to predict benefit fraud, getting sick asylum seeking and crime before it occurs.

DC's vision of the future is based on excellence being genetically ingrained into the elite but he must sell this vision to the unsuspecting public in a series of public votes which rely on the idea of the 'undeserving'. Little do they know that they too will be the victims of this plan until a mysterious bug appears and only the wealthy and well connected are able to get hold of adequate PPE and they are no longer able to buy bog roll nor retire to Spain as they had previously and endless queues for pizza form near Kent.

Thank you :)
I'm delighted for him. He has had such a crappy time.

[quote ListeningQuietly]My day just got better
news.sky.com/story/steve-bannon-former-trump-adviser-in-custody-on-fraud-charge-over-mexico-wall-12053200[/quote]
Is that the bit of wall that Trump whined had been deliberately built badly to make him look silly ?

www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/us-politics/trump-border-wall-texas-twitter-fisher-industries-a9614921.html

Donald Trump has criticised a group of his supporters who privately financed and built a wall along the US-Mexico border in South Texas earlier this year because the wall is already deteriorating from erosion.

The privately-funded wall was "only done to make me look bad," the president tweeted on Sunday - despite the group, “We Build the Wall,” raising $25million in two years to erect it, in a show of support for Mr Trump's immigration and border security initiatives.

(contd)

It's amazing how many contracts have been passed by the Cabinet without scrutiny to their mates and then totally ballsed up. Who would have guessed??!

I am catching up.... a couple of comments
Carrie and Boris - DH read a couple (may have Even been 4) of weeks ago rumours of a split - because she hadn't been seen. I thought that wa sa bit mean as she has a young baby .... may have PND ... etc. My adjustment to being a mum was HARD. Now he's saying there's rumours of a super injunction - which is why there nothing on the papers about holiday etc, only vague comments of where's Boris?....

Re A levels - dear nephew now in Cambridge because of CAGs - but now they are oversubscribed. Also school is providing CAGs because , they are trying to work out how many extras they have.....

Auld - I think it was you having the work crisis.... I feel for you! DH has a massive work crisis - couldn't get much worse. Only problem with working from home - no escape from it ..... and lots of conf calls starting at 11 at night and finishing well into the early hours.....so I hope yours resolved itself.

Squid 💐

Je Suis 🐥 - so pleased.... I hope it continues to bring you hope and joy

Thanks for sympathy over my work crisis. It's my own doing, as I left stuff for too long and now have several deadlines looming at the same time. And the heat is making me dull and slow...

Have just had a quick catch up with an old friend who is a civil servant. He says Boris is around, just hiding while Williamson takes the flak. And that, for all his obvious flaws, Gove is the only one with an good analytical brain in the whole cabinet.

I didn't ask about the rumours of a split, that would have lowered the tone.

Huge congratulations to yoikes DN!!

Gove is the only one with an good analytical brain in the whole cabinet.
THat is the bit I do not get
every school should be above average

Must have done too much coke that day been having an off day.

Maybe it's all relative. Said friend was v gloomy about the competence and general mental wellbeing of UK politicians, NS excepted. Only his point of view, mind.

Even Scottish Tories not toeing the govt line over Williamson:

https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2020/aug/20/scottish-tory-leader-refuses-to-back-gavin-williamson-over-exams-chaos

The new Tory leader in Scotland, Douglas Ross, has increased the pressure on Gavin Williamson to resign over the A-levels fiasco.
....
“I’m not here to say in your report that I think Gavin Williamson has done a great job and he should continue.

I think he has to reflect on what happened to so many pupils in England, students who were concerned for four days,

When Gove is the best of the bunch, you know you’re fucked.

My son did very well at GCSE. I have mixed feelings tbh. He’s lazy and I’m annoyed he managed to avoid his exams.

@ListeningQuietly

Gove is the only one with an good analytical brain in the whole cabinet. THat is the bit I do not get every school should be above average

It's all relative

I'll just add this in here. During the Referendum, David Davis was jabbering on about how the bad EU had tariffs on imported cane sugar. Notwithstanding some few low income countries who had tariff free access for their cane sugar. David David used to work with Tate & Lyle, who import cane sugar (they are now owned by American Sugar Refining). Cane sugar would compete with sugar made from home grown sugar beet. The EU are protectionist about sugar beet for this very reason. European farmers grow sugar beet and it is a very useful rotation crop. Fast forward and here is an article on the adverse impact on British farmers if a proposed zero tariff on cane sugar comes into force in the UK after the transition period.

www.edp24.co.uk/business/farming/nfu-criticises-dit-zero-tariff-raw-sugar-quota-1-6798837

unearthed.greenpeace.org/2020/08/08/brexit-sugar-cane-tate-lyle-sweetheart-conservative/

Must admit, needed to buy some sugar last week and was pissed off that Lidl was selling Tate & Lyle.

Photos of Boris on holiday in Scotland in the fail...... I know I have become cynical..... but do they look staged to you guys.

For those that enjoy a collective shudder...

If Johnson goes before the end of his term, who steps up? Gov is the likely candidate.

www.theguardian.com/society/2020/aug/21/uk-families-bereaved-by-covid-19-lose-eligibility-for-welfare-benefits

Penny pinching bastards.

By which I mean HMG. Not the poor grieving families!!!!!

Love that Goveller Twitter Auld.

We have braved a trip to the UK for a special family occasion. We’re now quarantining in a tiny village in an area of the country where cases are running at 2 per 100,000 under dire threats of fines if we venture out (which we haven’t). Out of curiosity I Looked it up; there have been ten fines so far and Priti Patel Is taking that to claim 99.9% quarantine compliance.

Seems the Tories are gearing up to put more effort and competence into thwarting a fresh Indyref than they ever will into Brexit, or the NHS or schools ...

weegingerdug.wordpress.com/author/weegingerdug/

There is now some certainty in the Scottish political landscape. It’s a certainty that Scotland is now a country where a clear majority of people support independence. It’s a certainty that among people under retirement age that majority becomes substantial. It’s a certainty that among young people that majority is overwhelming. And it’s a certainty that given this knowledge the British nationalists will attempt to pauchle the franchise just as they did in 1979 in order to boost the chances of the result of the next referendum being to their pleasing.

Of course it was entirely predictable that now that support for independence enjoys consistent majority support in Scotland, British nationalists would be demanding that the goalposts be shifted. There’s an unholy alliance on social media with George Galloway and the BBC’s Andrew Neil amongst others tweeting that anyone born in Scotland resident elsewhere in the UK must be allowed a vote in an independence referendum. Michael Gove piped in to remark “interesting question”.

(contd)

What could God be telling his creation in this message ?

(I can see them with their head in their hands going "I sent them the sight of a man saying 'there are no cameras here' in front of a room of cameras. I made a man hide in a fridge in front of a nation. But they still didn't get it.)

Is God running out of mysterious ways ?

www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/politics/brexit-immgration-eu-rejects-asylum-seeker-return-plea-dublin-regulations-michel-barnier-a9680581.html

Britain is set to lose its power to send asylum seekers back to other EU countries after the Brexit transition period ends, throwing the government’s immigration policy into disarray.

EU negotiators have reportedly rejected UK requests for a new agreement to replicate the Dublin Regulation, which binds EU member states to process certain asylum claims at the request of their neighbours.

The provision is used regularly by the UK to turn back refugees arriving on the south coast after travelling overland through France and other European countries.

Michel Barnier, the EU’s chief Brexit negotiator, is expected on Friday to elaborate on the situation, which has moved into the spotlight after an uptick in the number of dinghies landing on the Kent coast in recent months.

Under the current system, certain asylum seekers can be returned to the member state where they first entered the EU even if they claimed asylum in another country such as the UK.

The Guardian reports that this provision, which is continuing through the transition period, is now very unlikely to be extended, with Brussels rejecting demands for a similar agreement to be put in place after Brexit.

(contd)

@SheWranglesRugRats - but the police aren't enforcing it. Friend has a neighbor that has been in Spain , came back , should quarantine- but they haven't. The couple are a mobile hairdresser and plumber so in and out if people's houses.
Back out at work on first day back. A number of neighbors have apparently rung the police - they are not interested.

Now I kind of feel the quarantine on some of these places are window dressing and designed to distract from other stuff.... but when the police are even interested in coming and having a chat with them..... well......

Yes I know, that was kind of my point. Complete waste of time.

It is a waste of time. I think if you come back from a quarantine country you can travel out of this country during your quarantine period. If you go to a country that is not on the quarantine list then you don't have to quarantine when you get back.

It makes no sense

As for Brexit. I am thinking about banging my head against a brick wall.

Meanwhile, in my town, which geographically might as well be in the Bouches du Rhône (red zone, virus actively circulating), the Friday morning market beneath my windows now has a regular announcement, like the ones in airports and stations about not leaving your luggage, saying that masks are obligatory and fines of 135e will be imposed. Gendarmes patrolling and a (pesky and officious) man from the mairie also snapped at someone today - because a lot of the vendors aren't wearing them.
Had coffee with friends and all are CV-weary and saying we just need to get on with life and try and live with the virus and it's too hot for masks.
Well, apart from the one whom I recently learnt is an anti-vaxxer, who thinks people who die of CV do so because they are afraid and that if they die it's because it was their time. I have become quite good at looking enigmatically into the middle distance behind my sunglasses while these comments are aired. I could almost pass for French .