Kemi elected leader of the Tory party

[cariadlet]

Let's hope she really holds Labour to account about women's rights and the dangers of gender ideology.

I'm not an expert, and I'm unsure which is the bigger issue. But I do have a bit of a thing about the use of statistics, because they are so often misleading. I don't have any knowledge of other countries's retirement ages and working patterns, but for the UK I think that a cutoff at 65 in a comparison between numbers of people working and numbers of people retired tends to exaggerate the ratio of retired to working people. There is at least one political issue there, and it needs to be looked at as accurately as possible or we increase the chance of poorly informed policy decisions.

There is an apocryphal story about the Czech Republic when the Iron Curtain dissolved and they found themselves to be a democracy. Naturally, they turned to Accenture to advise them on tax and social policy. Accenture's advice was to half tobacco tax. The increased take-up of consumption would mean no loss of revenue and all the smokers would die at the point that they ceased to be contributers to the economy.

The economic advantages - which is to say, services - and protections for kids with a diagnosis is one of the reasons parents often pursue going through all the hoops of getting one.

Surely that's no secret? People talk about this all the time, parents are advised sometimes to seek a diagnosis just in case they find they need to have it to access services later.

It's also why kids are kept in classrooms where they are negatively affecting other children - there is an obligation to go to significant lengths to do so, but no obligation to preserve the learning environment for the other students.

It's not kids having access to services that's the problem, it's disparities around access.

I imagine that was an age range where they could had the data available for a lot of different countries.

Changing it to 65 or even 67 isn't going to change what it shows, which is that a huge proportion of the population of many countries is now outside of the most common working age range.

And it is an approximate range by it's very nature. Retirement might be 65 - some retire earlier because they can, or because they have to, and some later. But that represents the bulk of the most productive people in terms of paid employment.

Plus in some countries, like the UK, there is an increasing number of people who are working age, but not working. Again - it's usual to have some people like that, but the fact that they are increasing so much is a real concern.

A small number of working people cannot support that number of non-workers in the way we seem to expect, and it's happening in many, many countries.

That's why I asked if you read the article.

Although technically most of us who have been able to work have contributed to our pension, at the time it is paid to pentioners, the money flowing into the Government to pay out pensions comes from those currently working.

So if the number of pensioners or the amount of money due to them, exceeds the number of people working to make those payments possible there is a problem.

In a way its the same as if you paid insurance and then at the point you make a valid claim the insurance company goes, oh sorry about that, we've paid out we've got to claimants who got there first.

I dont by the way see this as a generational battle, because it happens that the first pensions paid out went to people who had never contributed a penny ie before NI. Nobody complained because of agreeing the principle of paying a minimum pension remains the same.

But Governments haven't sat down to think about things like changes in number of people in different age ranges.

Should they have set aside all money paid as NI into some huge savings account where it got interest and only paid money out of it to pensioners?

I dont know, but obviously the current system is based on there being enough people to make payments to pensioners who are entitled to a pension because they kept their side of the bargain. Paying NI.

That's why our birth rate is important.

And at the moment in many western countries the birth rate is falling below even replacing existing numbers. ie if 2 people only have less than 2 children, then there is an issue.

Portugal has been aware of this issue for quite some time

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2013/jul/02/portugal-low-birthrate-eurozone-crisis

the post Salazar generations have had educational opportunities open to them and access to extremely good health care however wages in Portugal are very low. The cities where the jobs are are very expensive to live and so many of the younger ppl moved to other countries or as is increasingly the case here decided they simply couldn’t afford children.

at the other end they have a high life expectancy. Health care is good, there are lots of clubs for older ppl to socialise & be together, age is valued, pensions aren’t the best but definitely not the worst

The middle ground is the home of compromise and thwarted ideals. It is where you go when all you have left is pragmatism shorn of vision. Kier Starmer doesn't know what he stands for now - and neither do many in his own party. People voted Labour thinking they were going to feel better, but all they get is chiding and being told to take their medicine. Isn't that what George Osborne did, but better ?

The best that Kemi Badenoch can do is outline a clear vision and set of values ( and then begin to fill it in with more detailed plans and policies) that set her party apart from Labour.

@Shortshriftandlethal

The middle ground is the home of compromise and thwarted ideals. It is where you go when all you have left is pragmatism shorn of vision.

Yes, it can be. Or, you can look at it as the place where ideals meet the possible and constructively engage with it.

Politics shouldn't be the place where the Blues and the Reds, the Ghegs and the Tosks, the Montagues and the Capulets (or the Sharks and the Jets) meet up to fight it out and get manorial rights. It should be where debate and discussion lead to an agreed way forward. That's what Kemi needs to show she can do. If she can, she could be a great leader.

I don't think Starmer has no vision. I think he's just too reluctant to clearly articulate it because ... Ming vase.

What do you think his vision is?

Services are not "economic advantages".

There is no "advantage" to a child being given speech therapy to help them communicate, or support in the classroom to help then learn. If they are given the right support when young, there is much more chance that they will be able to achieve their potential and go on to lead productive lives, rather than fail at every hurdle and need state support for the rest of their lives. This benefits everyone, including other children in the classroom now, and when they are tax payers in the future.

You, and Kemi, really have no idea.

It's not kids having access to services that's the problem, it's disparities around access.
I don't understand your point here.

I don't agree with her stance on trans issues, but it's a hugely disingenuous straw man to pretend that's the only reaspn someone might oppose her

(⬆️ Italics added by me).

I was suggesting that this is likely to be the reason someone might agree with her. Therefore this might be a way in which she was representative of the poster to whom I was responding.

This was the comment to which I was responding (italics added by me):

I don't live in her constituency and she's the leader of the opposition, not in government. I have no time for her and her politics, and she in no way represents me.

And from your list....

I also don't agree with her stance on immigration, on kids with SEN, on worker's rights, on human rights, on maternity pay - on pretty much every issue.

I'm not sure I fully know her position on immigration but I'm unlikely to agree with it as I'm pro-immigration. For one thing, we have a falling birth rate and it's a good way to get a working population in. We need sensible policies on how economic migrants (perhaps a points system) and where (based on infrastructure and facilities, similar to new houses being built) immigrants are accepted. We also need a decent approach to asylum. I don't think this one is easy at all but I would like to see tighter rules which discourage people setting off on dangerous boat journeys in the first place and which stop economic migrants from being able to identify as asylum seekers.

Kids with SEN: I disagree with Kemi.

Workers' rights: I don't fully know her position on this, but as she's a fan of Thatcher, I'm unlikely to agree with her. I'm a supporter of the unions..... well, in principle. I'm not a supporter of how many unions are currently pushing through motions on behalf of their membership to force everyone to accept that "we all have a gender identity" is a fact.

Human rights: she sounds like she cares about humans in a humane way. Was there something specific that you disagree with?

She's a hard right Tory, celebrating her appointment as some kind of feminist victory is absurd. You might as well claim Trump is a feminist, afterall he opposes trans people too.

I've got no idea if it's a "feminist victory". It's a victory for having a decent opposition, to hold the government to account on a range of issues. She doesn't "oppose trans people", she opposes the enforcement of gender identity belief as a truth in law, education and healthcare. That's like saying an atheist is anti-Islamic if they oppose having a Shari'a law court in the UK.

(Yes, there is one. And yes, I'm opposed to it. It has no official legal standing but I fully expect that there is a strong pressure from within its "system" for its rulings to be received as legal and very few routes available to anyone who challenges these)

Edited for clarity.

Her very clear implication was that kids with an autism diagnosis have a positive advantage over other kids.
The reality is that kids with autism need support and resources so they're not disadvantaged compared to other kids.

A sensible, pragmatic conservative would have been the strongest opposition. Not an ideological, extreme right and divisive figure like KB.

Her only opponent at the end was Robert Jenrick, who's even more right-wing than she is, so from that point of view she was definitely the better option. Obviously Cleverly has more moderate views and might have been a better choice if he had managed to stay in the race and not been sabotaged by his own supporters.

I think Kemi is going to be interesting, to say the least. She went on tv yesterday and one of the first things she did was to attack Rachel Reeves, trying to minimise her achievement in becoming the first female chancellor. That seems very unwise to me - the senior Labour leadership graciously congratulated her on her achievement in becoming the first black, female political leader so the least she could have done was to return the compliment. But it looks as if she intends going on the attack from the outset, and we'll have to see how that pans out for her as a strategy.

Agreed.

However, reasonable adjustments (that are made to support autistic children) do need to be reasonable. If bad decisions are made on this, other children are impacted in a way that becomes unfair to them. I say that as a parent of an autistic daughter, for whom I had to go to mediation to get her EHCP agreed. I fully support autistic children having reasonable adjustments, accompanied by the provisions that are funded in EHCPs to help them develop skills through speech and language therapy (SALT), and other interventions, to navigate the world. Some children's needs can't be met in mainstream school, but many can with this additional support.

As an example of reasonable v unreasonable adjustments, my (non-autistic) daughter told me about a test recently where everyone started 15 mins later than planned. An autistic girl in the class already had extra time to complete the test. This is a reasonable adjustment. However, when this girl got agitated about the whole class getting 15 minutes less, meaning that her extra time was adjusted too, she had a negative reaction. The teacher was a sub and made a decision on the spot to award her extra points in compensation for this.... announced in front of the class. Ideally, the teacher should have said that she understood why the girl was upset and would speak to the teacher who had set the test, to understand what could be done for everyone. She "solved" the immediate problem of the autistic girl starting to have a meltdown to the disadvantage of everyone else.

Maybe I'm reading it wrong but I think she was implicitly comparing Labour with their first female Chancellor to the Tories, who've had two female Prime Ministers.

Sorry, three female Prime Ministers, I forgot about Liz Truss.

She was, but it's still an achievement to be the first female chancellor, isn't it?

I think it would be more respectful to refer to her by her surname, like we generally do for male politicians.

Understandable.... 😂

Although I will always give her credit for her anti-genderwoo stance.

Like Boris you mean?

I hear you, but I think use of KB's first name is affectionate, rather than disrespectful.

I prefer Johnson for Alexander de Pfeffel Johnson, Boris is his comedy persona and I couldn't be indulging him with that.

There is an economic advantage when a service is free that otherwise you would have had to pay for.

Many children struggle one way or another in school, or in life, whether there is some kind of diagnosis or assessment that outlines what these struggles are. Some of these things, like medical care, are accessible to all.

In others, like education, only certain kids are given access to help.

Your vision of education isn't real child centered. where the needs and development of all children and families matter equally. A child with severe autism might, quite sensibly, get access to a special school. A different child who would best thrive at a school with provision for very academic students, or who is suffering because the state school environment is too chaotic, isn't going to get private education paid for - not even help with transportation to a more suitable school. (In fact now the parents will pay tax for the "privilege" of paying their own money to send their child to a school that meets their child's particular needs, when the state won't.)

You seem to think that because one child has a need of one kind, that need is more important than the needs of other children. Parents who, for all kinds of reasons, see their children in an unsuitable environment or struggling however don't see it that way.

And this is the underlying issue.

Education isn't about advantage. It's not about trying to educate each child according to need, ability, temperament, etc.

In your vision, if Johhny is autistic, he gets extra supports in order to try and get him to a similar level as some (average) person or child. Jenny, on the other hand, who is an extremely talented at math but needs a quiet room to focus on her work, will still be ok left in a noisy classroom without anything extra to nurture her talent - at least average. If her parents can afford to send her to a special school, great, if not, she'll be average, or possibly an underachiever who gets frustrated with school and doesn't do much. That is fair in your view, because although they spent way more money on filling one set of needs, justice is served by that.

This is not a child centered way of thinking, nor is it education centered.

No, we are talking about disabled children getting support to be able to access an education. The basics. Not the education that suits them best. Disabled children are given crumbs when it comes to support. They are certainly not advantaged above others.

And Kemi wants to strip them of even this.