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.

This appeared near us.

I guess there's no pubs named The C*nt

I think ridicule is probably the best way to bring Johnson down, but we have to be careful what we wish for! I thought Cameron was bad, May was worse, and Johnson, well I knew he would be bad, but he's excelled himself.

for squid.

We are in the same position with school bubbles. I am getting around it by cutting back my clients (self employed), working from home and scooting/cycling everywhere. I am one of the lucky ones. The whole set up is based on a parent at home and if both need to work a standard day, you are screwed.

In the meantime, see if you can get an au pair, or with team up with a friend to organise pick ups?

Seems an appropriate time to re-post the ear worm Boris Johnson is a cunt - although it does a disservice to cunts

Thanks guys. I should not complain for myself, I have secure employment unlike so many, I feel fortunate personally but I am hardcore grieving for the country I loved

I'm just tired, and so angry, and so confused as to why everyone isn't as angry as me - I find this thread a little bit of sanity when I have the time to read it

Yeah I used to share the school run with neighbours, but they work too and now we are all in separate bubbles and at different times arrrgh.

We will work it out i'm sure...

I'm just tired, and so angry, and so confused as to why everyone isn't as angry as me

I am angry too. Growing up in the 1950s and 60s we felt that things were getting better, that we were improving things for future generations. Maybe that was youthful naivety, but now I see things being slammed into reverse: the rich like Boris and chums effectively stealing public money by putting contracts out to friends, health services being wrecked, education being wrecked, decent housing being beyond the reach of ordinary working families - all things that we thought we had said goodbye to.

But enough people voted for these people - God knows what made them do that, although I suspect they didn't realise just how bad Johnson would be, and did not realise the malign influence of Cummings.

I find it so frustrating that many of my friends, degree educated professionals, have absolutely no interest in politics at all. Even when they work in Health or Education. They just don't follow the news and ignore it all. If they vote, I don't think many vote Tory but I can imagine a lot of them not bothering because "it doesn't affect me". As I say, full of rage and frustration.

Excuse whilst I go find a void to scream in to.

Western countries had a "golden period" from about 1950 - mid-1970s in which welfare & educations systems were created,
which helped ordinary people to have opportunities that previous generations had never experienced,
to rise up the social scale, buy homes, enjoy a very comfortable standard of living

In the USA it started as soon from about 1946 and was known as the American Dream

There was far less difference between the pay of CEOs and ordinary workers;
Taxes on the rich were high, reaching an effective rate of 90% for some - but contrary to all the low tax propoganda, it didn't stop them working productively

Then came automation, globalisation and exporting jobs
The rich everywhere gained, so did the poor in developing countries, but ordinary people in the West suffered

• which is what has eventually resulted in the rise of far right populism, to recapture that golden period

The collapse of the USSR removed the fear of communism from the ultra-wealthy, so they have had ever fewer constraints since then

Note how things kept getting worse, from what seemed a benign starting point with the naive LDems:

Cameron in LDem coalition ==> Cameron alone ==> May a prisoner of the ERG ==> BJ a prisoner of Cummings ==> ? Cummings & Gove rampant ?

I think squid that you probably spend most of your working day acting very professionally and help save and improve many lives. I also suspect that, as the very good writer, poet, diarist that you are; you might sometimes regret that you didn't pursue these 'talents' instead.

The young, reliant DC stage is hard no matter what your career/life choices are and there will come a time when you'll have more time to pursue your other interests.

Meanwhile, there's a few problems with quite a few School Staff who aren't happy with going back to their professional work - which has a knock-on effect on you and many others which you articulated well in your post above.

As someone who worked frontline throughout the worst we have yet seen with CV19, it could be really helpful if you used your excellent writing skills to describe how you faced, and beat down, your daily fears as you carried on with your work.

It might help the most 'fearful' of School Staff back to their work and, meanwhile, it might help you, and those like you, continue their work without even more stress too.

It isn't nervous teachers that are causing Squid so much stress and pain - which started long before COVID

Our schools expect instant pick up of sick children even if that's a small cut. Not everyone can do that. I can think of at least 3 of my DDs friends who's parents are not in that position, yet still can't rely on elderly childcare etc. If the rules allowed I'd grab the child and hold onto them until a parent could get them but I'm not allowed to. I appreciate I'm lucky enough to be in the position to be able to, and they're not in the position to be able to not work. There's going to be some absolute carnage and it's going to hit mums more than anything.

Quite glad I don't work in a school though, I'd be turfed out quickly for just masking and gloving and patching a child up.

I have a few friends dereging now because they feel their child is effectively going to be excluded for large periods and it'd be worse to send them in than not. Tbh I'm almost at that point with dd - DS isn't a massive concern but I'm sure he will prove me wrong!

Yeah squid you're still just about upright in your own job, so you must have have some spare energy to help teachers!

I'm almost speechless reading that post HateIsNotGood , what the fuck planet are you on?

Difficult ethical issue, if there would not be enough care homes, but my instincts are nearly always to publish

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2020/aug/27/data-covid-care-home-deaths-kept-secret-protect-commercial-interests

Covid-19 death tolls at individual care homes are being kept secret by regulators in part to protect providers’ commercial interests before a possible second coronavirus surge
.....
England’s Care Quality Commission (CQC) and the Care Inspectorate in Scotland are refusing to make public which homes or providers recorded the most fatalities
amid fears it could undermine the UK’s care system, which relies on private operators.

In response to freedom of information requests, the regulators said they were worried that the supply of beds and standards of care could be threatened if customers left badly affected operators.

Picking up on an innocuous statement by a poster and using it disingenuously to stir up hate isn’t good either.

As someone who worked frontline throughout the worst we have yet seen with CV19, it could be really helpful if you used your excellent writing skills to describe how you faced, and beat down, your daily fears as you carried on with your work.

It might help the most 'fearful' of School Staff back to their work and, meanwhile, it might help you, and those like you, continue their work without even more stress too.

The difference between squid's work and the work of the school secretary is....?
Hint, it's not just that medical services are essential to save lives, while schools are only incidental to the reopening of business and industry. Hospital staff are often (but shamefully not always) provided with adequate PPE, and they work with other well trained professionals who understand and comply with covid regulations.

@HateIsNotGood, schools are being forced to reopen despite the impossibility of establishing social distancing and the strange refusal to mandate masks for everyone everywhere or provide alternative large venues for education where safe distancing might be possible.

You are implying that school staff are malingerers, nervous for no reason whatsoever about gathering in small, enclosed spaces without masks or the means to sanitise their environment. School staff are not stupid.

squid sending you un-MN hugs.
I'm not surprised you're angry; like you, I'm surprised more people aren't.

I am full of admiration for what you manage to do in such crap circumstances.

I hope you can find a solution for the school bubbles. flowers

@BigChocFrenzy

Note how things kept getting worse, from what seemed a benign starting point with the naive LDems:

Cameron in LDem coalition ==> Cameron alone ==> May a prisoner of the ERG ==> BJ a prisoner of Cummings ==> ? Cummings & Gove rampant ?

Blair bringing a smiling trendy face to centre right policies ==> Cameron in LDem coalition

Thats where I think it started, after the death of Smith, I remember that Clegg and Cameron where the 'trendy' options in comparison to Brown

hmm. Nice flowers, there, Auld.

Sorry I meant neo-liberal centre right, I think the distinction is an important one

I voted centre-right in Germany mainly for a higher level of competence and leadership

• I'm glad I did in the light of the current crisis !

However, the moderate CDU conservatives here, despite being fiscally prudent - so can afford massive spending now - are far from neoliberal.

They interpret their "Christian" part as maintaining a good level of public services, a good safety net and no truck with racism or batty nationalist ideology.
They are socially conservative too, which I'm not, but then no party will have every policy I want.

💐 for Squid and for any teachers too
The government has treated you all shamefully and tried to blame you for their cockups
I hope most people come to realise this

www.mumsnet.com/Talk/eu_referendum_2016_/4007909-Westminstenders-Run-Forrest-Run?watched=1

Hate's post is a classic 'shift the blame onto the individual' for their concerns, worries, anger for a situation (any situation) rather than stepping back to see the wider context.

More importantly to acknowledge the active roles of our political and economic elite in creating the context. You want to know who benefits? Follow the money.

Otherwise, as if we needed to be told....

www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/2020/aug/28/fear-of-failure-giving-uk-children-lowest-happiness-levels-in-europe

The stratification / class divide of education in this country never ceases to amaze me as does the bewildering number of educational options to navigate.