FlyTheNest

Julian Lewis, the new chair of parliament’s intelligence and security committee (ISC), has demanded that ministers prevent Dominic Cummings and other special advisers from politicising its future inquiries.

The independent MP told a Commons debate on the Russia report on Wednesday that he had been warned by a journalist that “some people within government” had tried to sack the committee’s civil service secretariat and “make political appointments” instead.

Schools Week understands that Will Bickford Smith will take up the role of schools policy adviser with Rory Gribbell leaving to become head of education at the No 10 policy unit.

Like Gribbell, Bickford Smith is a Teach First graduate. After being placed at Hatch End High School, in Harrow, Bickford Smith taught government and politics for two years up to August 2016 at Wellington College, before leaving the profession for a short stint as a management consultant.

He joined the Department for Education as a policy adviser on T levels in 2017, and most recently led on overseeing the well-received teacher recruitment and retention strategy.

Britain’s upper-middle-class professionals cannot believe their luck. They have, once again, emerged as the great winners from a crisis: ensconced in spare rooms, they are coping so well with the Zoom economy that they want to make it the new normal....

But our Ed system won’t teach history chronologically, won’t give kids a schema on which to hang more knowledge and don’t have memory as part of their goal

John Dickens
@JohndickensSW
While the DfE names and shames academy trusts for not submitting accounts on time, and looking to do the same for councils, it's own record on transparency needs highlighting: The DfE last published its own board minutes in February 2018!! ...
12:36 PM · Jul 23, 2020·TweetDeck

Panorama quoted Formby’s stated intention to challenge the party’s national constitutional committee (NCC) “on the panel for the Jackie Walker case”. It did not quote the second half of the sentence in which she explained the reason for her intended challenge: “in view of what I was told by Sam Matthews in relation to the deliberate decision to delay [the hearing] by over a year — a delay for which Jeremy has of course had to bear the blame.”

AnatolyKasparov wrote:Alternatively, there is the tweet that RoT also posted last night to consider.

Political parties very rarely choose to have their dirty linen exposed for all to see in a courtroom, if they can possibly avoid it.

gilsey wrote:And it could have gone on for years, providing handy squirrels for the tories.


I'm uncomfortable with Starmer's action but on balance think it was right. I'd like to think he's uncomfortable with it too.


The programme shouldn't have been aired in the first place, the BBC are a disgrace.

GetYou wrote:

AnatolyKasparov wrote:Alternatively, there is the tweet that RoT also posted last night to consider.

Political parties very rarely choose to have their dirty linen exposed for all to see in a courtroom, if they can possibly avoid it.

I understand, and I can see why the decisions were made, but if you have to dump (some of) your principles overboard to make yourself electable, we are entitled to ask "what do you actually stand for?"

GetYou wrote: I understand, and I can see why the decisions were made, but if you have to dump (some of) your principles overboard to make yourself electable, we are entitled to ask "what do you actually stand for?"

The problem Labour has, even though polling shows the voters like Keir Starmer so far and prefer him to Johnson, is he and Labour aren't selling anything. More worryingly his flat footed treatment of Black Lives Matter, the reticence to say a cross word about the government, and distance put between him and Labour's platforms of 2017 and 2019 runs the risk of losing its already existing support. Thanks to the collapse of the old institutions, family relationships, and workplace organisation that used to inculcate the spirit of collectivism and class consciousness, the rising class of immaterial workers are predisposed to Labour precisely because it offered a programme complementary to their interests. Their support was conditional on this, and if Keir retreats too far from these positions they won't bother. Staying home on polling day or giving the Greens or LibDems a punt is more than possible.

gilsey wrote:

GetYou wrote: I understand, and I can see why the decisions were made, but if you have to dump (some of) your principles overboard to make yourself electable, we are entitled to ask "what do you actually stand for?"

Phil BC thinks so too.

https://averypublicsociologist.blogspot.com/" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

The problem Labour has, even though polling shows the voters like Keir Starmer so far and prefer him to Johnson, is he and Labour aren't selling anything. More worryingly his flat footed treatment of Black Lives Matter, the reticence to say a cross word about the government, and distance put between him and Labour's platforms of 2017 and 2019 runs the risk of losing its already existing support. Thanks to the collapse of the old institutions, family relationships, and workplace organisation that used to inculcate the spirit of collectivism and class consciousness, the rising class of immaterial workers are predisposed to Labour precisely because it offered a programme complementary to their interests. Their support was conditional on this, and if Keir retreats too far from these positions they won't bother. Staying home on polling day or giving the Greens or LibDems a punt is more than possible.

RogerOThornhill wrote:I don't actually get what principles are involved here - it's either try and defend a libel trial which you'll almost certainly lose and in the meantime have legal teams crawling all over you unearthing all kinds of stuff...or simply pay up and move on.

The sooner the party gets to put this behind them the better.

GetYou wrote:
https://averypublicsociologist.blogspot.com/" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

The problem Labour has, even though polling shows the voters like Keir Starmer so far and prefer him to Johnson, is he and Labour aren't selling anything. More worryingly his flat footed treatment of Black Lives Matter, the reticence to say a cross word about the government, and distance put between him and Labour's platforms of 2017 and 2019 runs the risk of losing its already existing support. Thanks to the collapse of the old institutions, family relationships, and workplace organisation that used to inculcate the spirit of collectivism and class consciousness, the rising class of immaterial workers are predisposed to Labour precisely because it offered a programme complementary to their interests. Their support was conditional on this, and if Keir retreats too far from these positions they won't bother. Staying home on polling day or giving the Greens or LibDems a punt is more than possible.

PorFavor wrote:

GetYou wrote:
https://averypublicsociologist.blogspot.com/" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

The problem Labour has, even though polling shows the voters like Keir Starmer so far and prefer him to Johnson, is he and Labour aren't selling anything. More worryingly his flat footed treatment of Black Lives Matter, the reticence to say a cross word about the government, and distance put between him and Labour's platforms of 2017 and 2019 runs the risk of losing its already existing support. Thanks to the collapse of the old institutions, family relationships, and workplace organisation that used to inculcate the spirit of collectivism and class consciousness, the rising class of immaterial workers are predisposed to Labour precisely because it offered a programme complementary to their interests. Their support was conditional on this, and if Keir retreats too far from these positions they won't bother. Staying home on polling day or giving the Greens or LibDems a punt is more than possible.

The paragraph, quoted above, outlines much of what worries me, too.