Friday 30th April 2021

[refitman]

Morning all.

[AnatolyKasparov]

Good morefternoon, all.

[RogerOThornhill]

Good morning.

I do like the way this is worded.

[gilsey]

Despair on trade twitter, wondering when govt will stop electioneering and start negotiating. Having got us in to this.

Don't hold your breath.

[AnatolyKasparov]

They will stop electioneering when it stops working for them in popularity terms. Whenever that blessed day might be,

[gilsey]

Governing in the best interests of the country as a whole, at least some of the time, is so last century.

[gilsey]

Seen this AK?

[GetYou]

George Osborne confirming he is still an idiot:

[AnatolyKasparov]

"Carlsen is good" is not really news to me tbf

But yeah, its sometimes a bit humbling to see just *how* good.

[RogerOThornhill]

So, to recap (and I know I've been banging on about this for a long time...)

Back in 2010 the new Tory government had a mission they pursued with great zeal of academization. To this end they bribed a huge number of schools which were already Outstanding and didn't need any great school improvement to become standalone academies.

Move forward to today and...



There are currently 1,219 of these Single Academy Trusts. The DfE stopped letting anyone do this a while back and there have been very few apart from new Free Schools since 2018.

And Dom Cummings was right in the middle of this.

[AnatolyKasparov]

Even by his standards, an utterly "spectacular" take by Ren-tool today.

[RogerOThornhill]

I see my favourite teacher turned right wing commentator/crank is in favour of grammar schools. I did love this exchange...



Oh, you've spent years "contemplating" the issue? Obviously not that hard since the thinktank he works for came out against grammar schools not that long ago...

And the person he's replying to? Why, she's a Professor of Education Policy...

[tinyclanger2]

Evening (ish).
Am sure the yardarm has been passed.

[AnatolyKasparov]

Its going to p*** down all Bank Holiday Monday, apparently

[tinyclanger2]

Thankyou. (My response to receiving a glass of vermouth)

[tinyclanger2]

So. Repair shop?

[tinyclanger2]

(Let's be 'avin' yer).

Sorry that was the vermouth talking.

[tinyclanger2]

Dear Fly the nest,
Have been thinking recently about sofabeds, and am now thinking coherently about ergonomic storage. Is this is phase?

A concerned Clanger.

[tinyclanger2]

(suit yourselves)

[RogerOThornhill]

I know it goes down well with the rabid right but the cuts they are making, for no good reason other than they can, to development aid is appalling. It's not only how much but what they're cutting.

[RogerOThornhill]

And Sam Freedman's response.

[AnatolyKasparov]

Anybody know if Harry Cole has been gleefully tweeting in advance about the latest "agenda busting" Survation poll?

[gilsey]

I know it goes down well with the rabid right but the cuts they are making, for no good reason other than they can, to development aid is appalling. It's not only how much but what they're cutting.

I believe that we have commitments to some parts of the spend, international, multi-year programmes and such, the fall in GDP due to the pandemic means that even sticking to 0.7% would have involved some cuts to the discretionary bits. So sure, let's make it much, much worse.

Cutting the international aid budget, like the UC 2 child limit and Brexit, is popular with the tory base.

[gilsey]

This one?

[RogerOThornhill]

Jeez...Eddie Lister was working for outside companies as well as being in No 10?

This really isn't OK.