National News Sir Keir Starmer

[Wandering Yellow]

If Labour only do a fraction of what they achieved last time they were in power it will still be better than the past 14 years of ripping off the country.

Here's a reminder

View attachment 17780

You are Alistair Campbell and I claim my £5

 

[MC Yellow]

I agree, but Bicester is very different now and there is real chance of change. I was surprised to see that the old Bicester and Banbury constituency has only had 3 MP's since 1959, all Tories obviously. All votes will make a difference this year.

I think it’s a shame that having asked you twice, you can’t answer the question.

What changes will a new constituency likely to become Lib Dem make to the bigger picture?

 

[Scotchegg]

I think it’s a shame that having asked you twice, you can’t answer the question.

What changes will a new constituency likely to become Lib Dem make to the bigger picture?

Sorry, I thought I'd spend the day with my son rather than educate you on politics!!!

Bicester and Woodstock is evenly balanced between all three major parties so no guarantees that Lib Dems will win. However, a Tory defeat in a consituency area where they have been the sitting MP for over a 100 years will indicate that their support has crumbled.

As for making a change nationally, then I think anyone coming in will have more integrity than 90% of the Tories already in power. Even that is a change worth making.

 

[MC Yellow]

I

Sorry, I thought I'd spend the day with my son rather than educate you on politics!!!

Bicester and Woodstock is evenly balanced between all three major parties so no guarantees that Lib Dems will win. However, a Tory defeat in a consituency area where they have been the sitting MP for over a 100 years will indicate that their support has crumbled.

As for making a change nationally, then I think anyone coming in will have more integrity than 90% of the Tories already in power. Even that is a change worth making.

I asked you yesterday…

But glad you felt the need to pull away from your son today to educate me on politics!!!!!

If ever I want to be educated in becoming a belittling t**t, I’ll be sure to come and ask.

 

[Scotchegg]

I

I asked you yesterday…

But glad you felt the need to pull away from your son today to educate me on politics!!!!!

If ever I want to be educated in becoming a belittling t**t, I’ll be sure to come and ask.

Looks like you're doing pretty well in that already. For someone not bothering to vote, you seem to get pretty wound up by it all. But maybe like so many these days, it's easier to moan about things rather than doing anything about it.

 

[MC Yellow]

Looks like you're doing pretty well in that already. For someone not bothering to vote, you seem to get pretty wound up by it all. But maybe like so many these days, it's easier to moan about things rather than doing anything about it.

Haven’t you got a son to get back to ?

Not wound up at all… it makes no odds to me. If you bothered to read my previous comments you’ll understand that I couldn’t care who gets in next, but a change will be best.

 

[QR]

Haven’t you got a son to get back to ?

Not wound up at all… it makes no odds to me. If you bothered to read my previous comments you’ll understand that I couldn’t care who gets in next, but a change will be best.

If only for the sake of further generations you should vote.

Do you remember Blair's 'education, education, education' mantra or are you too young?

Teachers facing redundancy as record number of English schools fall into deficit

Heads warn of ‘broken system’ as staff are laid off or not replaced to balance the books

www.theguardian.com

 

[Essexyellows]

If Labour only do a fraction of what they achieved last time they were in power it will still be better than the past 14 years of ripping off the country.

Here's a reminder

View attachment 17780

Tripled NHS spending............. didn`t check how it would be spent, fecked up with PFI`s that most of the money was spent on getting out of.

Hunting Act - populist move that has made diddly difference except to the UK fox population crashing. Prime Minister Tony Blair went along with it but in his autobiography six years later, he revealed that the Hunting Act of 2004 was “one of the domestic legislative measures I most regret.” Before the ban hunts removed the weakest and dispersed foxs from sensitive areas. Now the legal methods can`t do the same so healthy foxes get shot or trapped leaving a weakened pool. It was nothing more than "attack the (perceived) "posh" people.

Smoking ban - 2007 - 2015 7,000 pubs closed. In terms of kids etc not smoking it was a good thing, but they are all vaping now.

There are plenty things on that list that became abject failures but a list looks good eh?

 

[MC Yellow]

If only for the sake of further generations you should vote.

Do you remember Blair's 'education, education, education' mantra or are you too young?

Teachers facing redundancy as record number of English schools fall into deficit

Heads warn of ‘broken system’ as staff are laid off or not replaced to balance the books

www.theguardian.com

After my time. I’m probably closer to becoming too old to remember rather than too young.

No question that policy spawned real improvements. The article below is interesting.

BBC NEWS | UK | Education | 'Education, education, education'

news.bbc.co.uk

But it did sound as though the test test test and league table regime become tiresome and certain things still couldn’t be changed in terms of those that still left school below par, the truancy problem and the stark gap that still existed between affluent and deprived regions. It also created the drive for private sector investment, which I expect wouldn’t always have sat well when we look now at the fallout of some sectors becoming privatised, or the NHS being privatised by the back door.

I am not for one minute criticising the policy, the results mentioned in that article speak for themselves, but it does show that no matter how much money can be thrown at something, there will always be a shortfall/ failure of some sort that will always be open to criticism from the opposition benches, but that’s politics.

I also found the table below showing teacher numbers and student/teacher ratios. I have to admit, I was surprised that it is as low as 15 compared to 17 back then, unless I am reading it completely wrong

Public and private elementary and secondary teachers, enrollment, pupil/teacher ratios, and new teacher hires: Selected years, fall 1955 through fall 2026

The primary purpose of the Digest of Education Statistics is to provide a compilation of statistical information covering the broad field of American education from prekindergarten through graduate school. The Digest includes a selection of data from many sources, both government and private...

nces.ed.gov

 

[SteMerritt]

Tripled NHS spending............. didn`t check how it would be spent, fecked up with PFI`s that most of the money was spent on getting out of.

Hunting Act - populist move that has made diddly difference except to the UK fox population crashing. Prime Minister Tony Blair went along with it but in his autobiography six years later, he revealed that the Hunting Act of 2004 was “one of the domestic legislative measures I most regret.” Before the ban hunts removed the weakest and dispersed foxs from sensitive areas. Now the legal methods can`t do the same so healthy foxes get shot or trapped leaving a weakened pool. It was nothing more than "attack the (perceived) "posh" people.

Smoking ban - 2007 - 2015 7,000 pubs closed. In terms of kids etc not smoking it was a good thing, but they are all vaping now.

There are plenty things on that list that became abject failures but a list looks good eh?

I'm not sure you can put the smoking ban on a list of failures, I'd say it was, and is, a massive success. Yes a lot of pubs closed, but that is a combination of things, I'd suggest that the big economic crash that happened around the same time had quite an impact. Changes in drinking habits with the younger generation more likely to 'pre-load' with cheap supermarket drink before going out has played a large part also.

 

[MC Yellow]

I'm not sure you can put the smoking ban on a list of failures, I'd say it was, and is, a massive success. Yes a lot of pubs closed, but that is a combination of things, I'd suggest that the big economic crash that happened around the same time had quite an impact. Changes in drinking habits with the younger generation more likely to 'pre-load' with cheap supermarket drink before going out has played a large part also.

Have to say, the smoking ban was a Stellar piece of legislation.

 

[holdsteady]

If only for the sake of further generations you should vote.

Do you remember Blair's 'education, education, education' mantra or are you too young?

Teachers facing redundancy as record number of English schools fall into deficit

Heads warn of ‘broken system’ as staff are laid off or not replaced to balance the books

www.theguardian.com

That would be the same Tony Blair who believed so much in education that when it was pointed out to him that one of Harold Wilson’s sons had been a school teacher turned his nose up at it and said he hoped his kids would do better. Ironically one of his was briefly a teacher before settling into the family trade of solicitor/spiv.

I voted for Blair but I think you have to concede that he was and is a lying bastard.

 

[tonyw]

I voted for Blair but I think you have to concede that he was and is a lying bastard.

Yes, he was a lying bastard, and his foreign policy was an utter disaster.....

.....but domestically, he oversaw a decade of economic growth and relative prosperity which his government coupled with increased public sector spending and improved social equality.

Yes, he got lucky in timing his exit (nothing anyone could have done in Britain about the 2007 crash, which had its roots in the US) but domestically, he was the best PM of my (45 year) lifetime......and it's not particularly close.

 

[Sutton Yellow]

I'm not sure you can put the smoking ban on a list of failures, I'd say it was, and is, a massive success. Yes a lot of pubs closed, but that is a combination of things, I'd suggest that the big economic crash that happened around the same time had quite an impact. Changes in drinking habits with the younger generation more likely to 'pre-load' with cheap supermarket drink before going out has played a large part also.

It would also be rather obtuse for a conservative person who, presumably believes in consumer driven free market economics, to bemoan the loss of pubs due to a smoking ban. Smokers have represented a dwindling proportion of consumers for years (though we are now into diminishing returns when it comes to reducing smoking further). Pubs, like any offering, have to diversify or die.

The issue now with vaping is different and requires a different regulatory response. We do not yet have research evidence on long term effects, but there is evidence of the direct marketing appeal to the young, mirroring past cigarettes marketing.

 

[Essexyellows]

It would also be rather obtuse for a conservative person who, presumably believes in consumer driven free market economics, to bemoan the loss of pubs due to a smoking ban. Smokers have represented a dwindling proportion of consumers for years (though we are now into diminishing returns when it comes to reducing smoking further). Pubs, like any offering, have to diversify or die.

The issue now with vaping is different and requires a different regulatory response. We do not yet have research evidence on long term effects, but there is evidence of the direct marketing appeal to the young, mirroring past cigarettes marketing.

If people wish to partake in a habit that is in conducive to good health then letting them is "free market".

So replacing one known harmful habit with another slightly less harmful habit is equally "free market".

So regulation has only really impacted on "second-hand smokers" who worked or frequented such environments before they closed.

I'm not sure you can put the smoking ban on a list of failures, I'd say it was, and is, a massive success. Yes a lot of pubs closed, but that is a combination of things, I'd suggest that the big economic crash that happened around the same time had quite an impact. Changes in drinking habits with the younger generation more likely to 'pre-load' with cheap supermarket drink before going out has played a large part also.

Which leads to far more social issues than there ever used to be. Having seen youngsters that can barely walk heading into town you do wonder how much excess consumption (and I like a drink!) is storing up issues for the future.

 

[holdsteady]

If people wish to partake in a habit that is in conducive to good health then letting them is "free market".

So replacing one known harmful habit with another slightly less harmful habit is equally "free market".

So regulation has only really impacted on "second-hand smokers" who worked or frequented such environments before they closed.



Which leads to far more social issues than there ever used to be. Having seen youngsters that can barely walk heading into town you do wonder how much excess consumption (and I like a drink!) is storing up issues for the future.

Youngsters drink less now than in my younger days, people in general as well. Pubs are not shutting because of pre drinking, just that less people use them.

 

[mooro]

A poster created by Labour.

I’m sure Conservatives have one of these too.

Joking aside, it would actually be interesting to see a serious Tory version

 

[Essexyellows]

Youngsters drink less now than in my younger days, people in general as well. Pubs are not shutting because of pre drinking, just that less people use them.

I guess that depends where you sit on the age spectrum and who you think are "youngsters". I mean coppers look about 12 these days.

Oddly enough overall consumption has dropped marginally since 2000 from 11.8 ltrs to 9,7 according to Statista.

 

[MC Yellow]

Joking aside, it would actually be interesting to see a serious Tory version

Delivering for You

Delivering for you on the cost of living, making our streets safer, boosting our NHS and delivering world-class education to level up and deliver social progress.

www.conservatives.com

Managed to find this . Feel free to rip it apart.

There is a donation tab at the bottom, if anyone feels inclined

 

[LowerSouth]

Have to say, the smoking ban was a Stellar piece of legislation.

Of course it was and to suggest otherwise is a denial of the absolute fact.
But of all the large gatherings I attend, it is still more noticeably prevalent (pre-event )amongst football fans.