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Original poster

Westminstenders: PreGrades (Minority Report comes to the UK)

980 replies

RedToothBrush · 15/08/2020 19:54

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.

OP posts:
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Peregrina · 27/08/2020 11:38

Ed Davey wins the LibDem leadership, by a convincing majority.

DGRossetti · 27/08/2020 11:41

@Peregrina

Ed Davey wins the LibDem leadership, by a convincing majority.
I'll be completely honest ... I didn't realise there was a competition for it going on. Seriously.

Doesn't bode well for the future of the LibDems, really ....

DGRossetti · 27/08/2020 11:42

@BigChocFrenzy

That may well reinforce the total lack of desire from German parents for school uniforms, but hardly anywhere in Europe now wishes to put their children in uniforms

The UK is an outlier (but iirc Ireland may still have this uniform hangorver)

I reckon the UK is actually going in the opposite direction.
Peregrina · 27/08/2020 11:45

But as some bright spark has pointed out - Labour is led by a Sir, the Lib Dems are led by a Sir, but Johnson, is plane old Mr.

I have to admit that the Lib Dems are at a low point, in terms of seats, although not membership, but where I live the chances of returning a Labour MP even one in the mould of Starmer is zilch. So if you want to get the Tories out, the LibDems are the one to vote for.

DGRossetti · 27/08/2020 11:54

I have to admit that the Lib Dems are at a low point, in terms of seats, although not membership

When someone like myself - admittedly not a political pundit, but certainly more interested in politics than 80% of the population - wasn't aware the LDs were having a leadership contest (let alone who was standing) then I think "low point" might just be an understatement of all time. They are so low they have fallen through the earth and are currently out beyond Alpha Centauri as far as the electorate is concerned.

Welcome to the UK. The worlds first one-and-a-half party state. And they're both the Tories.

quiteathome · 27/08/2020 11:58

My DD is very indignant that the government think that children are incapable of wearing masks. She has pointed out many adults who can't wear masks properly.

I did not realise that the Lib Dems were having a leadership election. What is the new leader like?

DGRossetti · 27/08/2020 12:02

@quiteathome

My DD is very indignant that the government think that children are incapable of wearing masks. She has pointed out many adults who can't wear masks properly.

I did not realise that the Lib Dems were having a leadership election. What is the new leader like?

Pale and male ...
Peregrina · 27/08/2020 12:05

He's like their old temporary leader, because he's Ed Davey.
His problem I think will be that he is tainted by the Coalition and tuition fees, unless Johnson's exam fuck up is able to partly wipe the slate clean on the latter.

DGRossetti · 27/08/2020 12:11

His problem I think will be that he is tainted by the Coalition and tuition fees

Unless and until we get a grown up electorate, there really is no point.

BigChocFrenzy · 27/08/2020 12:45

I had noticed a few articles before about the leadership contest - but I cba to read any of them !

Maybe even worse wrt lack of inteest in the Ldems
I knew they were choosing their leader, which will likely determine the direction of their party until after the next GE ... but it seemed totally unimportant

borntobequiet · 27/08/2020 13:07

@quiteathome

My DD is very indignant that the government think that children are incapable of wearing masks. She has pointed out many adults who can't wear masks properly.

I did not realise that the Lib Dems were having a leadership election. What is the new leader like?

Ed Dave is unfortunately another politician ignorant of basic biology. Anyone can be a woman if they say so, access women’s spaces, sports and so on. He explicitly told me this in an email. His rather nauseating acceptance speech went on and on about listening to ordinary people, but not women, apparently. I was a member of, supported and worked for the party for many years. I now wouldn’t touch them with a barge pole.
borntobequiet · 27/08/2020 13:08

Davey

TheABC · 27/08/2020 13:19

I got the literature about him as I joined a few years back, to support a local candidate. Really not enthusiastic and I can't see the Lib Dems as a relevant party again for another electoral cycle.

TheABC · 27/08/2020 13:22

Putting it another way...I am more interested in Gov's motives as he is the most likely candidate to lead the country after Johnson goes.

Peregrina · 27/08/2020 14:34

You would hope that there would be enough Tories to oppose Gove if he got on the ballot, but who knows with the current shower.

squid4 · 27/08/2020 15:43

Having a couple of days off after an exhausting busy August. Working too many hours. I am so full of rage so much of the time. I am gentle with each individual patient and I can find compassion in the moment and then at home I am nonstop furious. It is exhausting.

Literally have no idea how we're going to get through next term. We have one car and the kids are now in separatebubbles with separate drop off and pick up times. No breakfast club. No after school club. On foot the working day is now 10-2! DP is talking about quitting his job, we just can't work out how to do it. Trying to find a childminder which will be crazy money and barely worth it. No one is biting anyway.

Had a long talk with DP this morning. He still has some hope for the future, I have very little. Tories remain popular despitehundreds of thousands of avoidable austerity deaths and tens of thousands of avoidable covid deaths. DP believes the absolute car crash of no deal brexit will make people turn on the tories, but I fail to see how when there's been no dip in popularity with all these deaths!

One of the doctors at work is from Myanmar and they've gone into lockdown again. They've had 6 deaths. SIX!! She says everyone there thinks the UK are insane. Incidentally she is in her mid twenties and was off work for nearly a month with covid in April (not hospitalised) and is still breathless and tired working long shifts. She is young. Most of the consultants at work are older and asian and are frankly terrified... I am too tired and angry to be scared. I have no risk factors anyway.

I told my supervisor I'd had some time off this past winter with burnout and he said ... "this winter will be worse..." Yeah...

I used to be a very positive person? Idealistic even. I barely recognise myself. I cry at old photo albums. I have been angry every day since December.

squid4 · 27/08/2020 15:51

Sorry for the rant.

I feel slightly like I'm going mad.

BigChocFrenzy · 27/08/2020 15:52

Squid I'm so sorry Sad

yoikes · 27/08/2020 16:07

Darling squid

I get it. Honestly.

It's in no way comparable to what you do but I run a foodbank and am a chair of trustees at a school.

I have spent most of my time since December oscillating between utter disbelief, rage, fear and exhaustion.

I'm so sorry xxxx

TatianaBis · 27/08/2020 17:16

I’m sorry to hear it squid. I agree with your DH though, car crash Brexit will see off some of the most ardent Tory fans and certainly the red wallers who were only antiCorbyn.

BigChocFrenzy · 27/08/2020 17:52

Pew Poll (DKs removed)
Most Approve of National Response to COVID-19 in 14 Advanced Economies

What amazes me is that 46% of Brits and 47% of Americans could think their country has done well against COVID

https://www.pewresearch.org/global/2020/08/27/most-approve-of-national-response-to-covid-19-in-14-advanced-economies/

These two nations also have high levels of political polarization on views of the government’s handling of this crisis.

In the U.S., 76% of Republicans and independents who lean to the Republican Party say the government has done a good job, while just a quarter of Democrats and Democratic leaners agree, a 51 percentage point difference.

A majority of right-leaning Britons (55%) give a positive rating to their country’s handling of the pandemic, led by Prime Minister Boris Johnson’s Conservative government, but just 26% on the left hold the same opinion.
....
Across all 14 nations included in the survey, those who think their current national economic situation is good are also more likely than those who believe the economy is bad to say their country has done a good job of dealing with the coronavirus outbreak.

Westminstenders: PreGrades (Minority Report comes to the UK)
Westminstenders: PreGrades (Minority Report comes to the UK)
DGRossetti · 27/08/2020 17:55

What amazes me is that 46% of Brits and 47% of Americans could think their country has done well against COVID

I wasn't asked.

Peregrina · 27/08/2020 17:57

Those results don't surprise me - it ties in with the perception that the USA and the UK have made a mess in their dealings with Covid and that Spain, France and Sweden haven't been all that brilliant either.

Original poster
RedToothBrush · 27/08/2020 18:28

Ed Davey's winning speech was all about how he was going to reach out to everyone (meaning Leave voters), how the party wasn't seen as working for the interests of ordinary people (its reputation as 'liberal elite' which hasn't exactly been helped by its Brexit stance which was fanatically anti-democrat at times and lacked any sense of when the moment to grasp the only compromise / soft exit we were going to get was) and how he was going to tour the country and have difficult conversations with people (unlike hes been prepared to do over the homophobic, sexist approach to womens rights clashing with the trans hardliners controlling the party). He has to do all this and forge a new vision for the party whilst also being its only surviving mp who was a member of the coalition government.

I wish him good luck.

As did DH who voted to Davey before he cancelled his direct debit for his membership because hes so fed up of the shower of shit the party has become much to my relief cos ive been nagging him to do so for some time.

And Ed Davey was by far the best candidate available.

The main problem with the party is that in losing all sense of what is liberal and what is democratic it kinda killed its entire purpose. And the party leadership and core officials havent yet grasped this yet. And i don't expect them to for some time.

OP posts:
Peregrina · 27/08/2020 18:55

But what then do you suggest for people who live in a constituency which have zero chance of ever electing even a Labour candidate in the Starmer mould? Roll over and accept that we have whatever flavour of Tory is presented to us? Not that I think Johnson, Patel, Raab do reflect what might be called traditional Tory values, as represented by e.g Grieve, Ken Clarke.