Wednesday 25th February 2015

[HindleA]

Oops.

[citizenJA]

John Leech Welcomes NHS Devolution

South Manchester Liberal Democrat MP John Leech has today questioned the Prime Minister David Cameron about the welcome announcement that £6bn of NHS spending is to be devolved to Greater Manchester Councils by April 2016.

John supports further devolution and welcomed the announcement, and contrasted the devolution of powers by this coalition Government with the last Labour one, who talked about devolution whilst closing local services like Withington Hospital.

John Leech said today,

“I believe that decisions are best made locally, and today’s £6bn health budget announcement is great news, and further proof that this government has delivered to Greater Manchester on extra local powers”

John added,

“All this is in stark contrast to the last Labour government, who talked warmly about devolving powers, but preferred to keep national control and shut down local services like Withington hospital.”

http://manchestergazette.co.uk/30141/jo ... devolution

So, what's this LibDem up to, then?

[Tubby Isaacs]

John Leech Welcomes NHS Devolution

South Manchester Liberal Democrat MP John Leech has today questioned the Prime Minister David Cameron about the welcome announcement that £6bn of NHS spending is to be devolved to Greater Manchester Councils by April 2016.

John supports further devolution and welcomed the announcement, and contrasted the devolution of powers by this coalition Government with the last Labour one, who talked about devolution whilst closing local services like Withington Hospital.

John Leech said today,

“I believe that decisions are best made locally, and today’s £6bn health budget announcement is great news, and further proof that this government has delivered to Greater Manchester on extra local powers”

John added,

“All this is in stark contrast to the last Labour government, who talked warmly about devolving powers, but preferred to keep national control and shut down local services like Withington hospital.”

http://manchestergazette.co.uk/30141/jo ... devolution

So, what's this LibDem up to, then?

Not looking terribly far past trying to hold his seat.

[citizenJA]

I do not care for his tone.

[Tubby Isaacs]

Duncan Hothersall ‏@dhothersall 50m50 minutes ago
Glad to see Wings getting his just deserts, for once, for yet another personal smear and mob abuse campaign. http://www.dailyrecord.co.uk/news/scott ... ed-5232409" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false; …

I've found him a girlfriend.

Pauline ‏@PaulineinAlba 11 mins11 minutes ago View translation
@Tubby_Isaacs @PaulineinAlba bye Labtory paedo protecting lapdog.

She was very keen on pictures of "Labour liars". I told her that on reflection I'd go with Paul Krugman on independence.

[Tubby Isaacs]

I do not care for his tone.

They're the party of every local campaign ever. Might be some resonance in his constituency. But not going to outweigh going in the Coalition after playing the lefty for his student voters.

[Tubby Isaacs]

tracey snelling ‏@traceyk9 4m4 minutes ago
Even more crisis in the prison service! But I can't say.....Yet! ....@RebeccaHerber44 please be on stand by

[rebeccariots2]

Duncan Hothersall ‏@dhothersall 50m50 minutes ago
Glad to see Wings getting his just deserts, for once, for yet another personal smear and mob abuse campaign. http://www.dailyrecord.co.uk/news/scott ... ed-5232409" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false; …

I've found him a girlfriend.

Pauline ‏@PaulineinAlba 11 mins11 minutes ago View translation
@Tubby_Isaacs @PaulineinAlba bye Labtory paedo protecting lapdog.

She was very keen on pictures of "Labour liars". I told her that on reflection I'd go with Paul Krugman on independence.

That is a vile tweet. Did we have twitter abuse like this around the 2010 election - or has it only gathered apace since then?

[Tubby Isaacs]

She bravely blocked me after sending that.

I only went on Twitter to defend Pat Glass and Nicky Morgan v Durham Free School stuff. They aren't going quietly.

[citizenJA]

goodnight, people
love
JA

[HindleA]

Apparently,doing the job you were elected to do to is being a vacuous functionary and by joining a union and ticking a box I have Ed Miliband in hock.Things I have learnt today.

[TheGrimSqueaker]

She bravely blocked me after sending that.

I only went on Twitter to defend Pat Glass and Nicky Morgan v Durham Free School stuff. They aren't going quietly.

Another cult member, by the look of her timeline. Every Nat cliche in the book.

Night all.

[Tubby Isaacs]

Night all!

[ErnstRemarx]

Ivan Lewis ‏@IvanLewis_MP 30m30 minutes ago
Mixed feelings watching Bury Councils Budget meeting from public gallery.Fond memories of 8yrs as Bury Cllr.Scale of Tory cuts devastating.

Thinking of Ernst.

Thanks, but don't waste your energy on me! Again, very sad for your loss.

On a brighter note, the Bury Tories were, yet again, risibly awful tonight. It was our budget council meeting, so really they should take it seriously, but they were so fucking bad that I began to wonder if they'd been chosen as Tory council candidates in an attempt to completely discredit the electoral system as a concept.

Rents and council tax have all been frozen under the budget, and the cost of energy in sheltered housing reduced by 5%, but the Tory amendment wanted a 2-3% increase (this is the Housing and Revenue Account budget, BTW) and us bunging £2m into some other scheme that we've already got funding for. It made no sense whatsoever, and a sensible Tory group leader would have realised that and withdrawn it. They didn't. They persisted, and of course, we voted their silly amendment down. The attempt by legal counsel to say that it could be composited with the Labour amendment got the bum's rush PDQ, as there are plenty of Labour and trade union people who know how to composite and it would have been a complete farce, so we voted on the Tory proposal. Sorry, that came before the vote. And then we voted it down.

The main business was the overall budget for the borough, and whilst they tried hard, bless them, to lay a glove on the council, the various freezes and investments - given that we've just had £15,000,000 of cuts foisted upon us (thanks Dave, Gideon and Jabba) - they had to resort to anti union speeches and measures in their counter proposal. It got ridiculous, and they raided the council's reserves (hint: they're there for a reason, you numpties) for about another £2m for 'roadmending', wanting to do away with giving councillors free meals on certain committees (Planning - I'm on it and it's a full day's work. A bite to eat is not a massive recompense) which save the fiscal equivalent of squeezing one more drop of piss out at the end of a long and enjoyable slash.

Then it just got plain silly, and they announced completely cutting council support for Unison (which is simply insane, as those reps would go back to their jobs anyway yet provide none of the vital service they do), again, another drop in the ocean when faced with £15m of cuts. MsRemarx got up and gave them both barrels, as did various others of our side and still they persisted: we're anti-democratic and tyrranical (apparently), whilst their kindly suggestion to outsource sizeable chunks of council work was supposed to be the thinking of a serious political grouping. As for the idea of pooling resources with other councils - I simply despaired. We have the lowest unit costs of any AGMA authority (because we've always been underfunded), and those cockends think the answer is to increase them by sharing our resources??

As I say, it was pathetic, populist and seemingly the work of a 12 year old who'd just been given his first calculator and a suit.

Their nonsense was voted down, so Bury now has a realistic budget for this coming year, and one that still does the job. Not bad when you've had 54% hacked out of your controllable spend by the lunatics running this country.

PS edited to add - ran into Ivan in the bar afterwards. A nice bloke and a politician to his fingertips. Stands his round though.

[RogerOThornhill]

Making It Up As They Go Along pt 35

The story so far...the National Curriculum review recommended getting rid of assessment levels - the 2A, 4B etc that get reported to parents about their kid's performance in English, Maths etc.

The trouble is that the league tables at primary level have a bit on pupil progress between KS1 and KS2 which says that all pupils should be making 2 levels of progress between 1 and 2. So if you get rid of levels then that doesn't really work any longer.

So...they announce the end of levels...but replaced with...er...well...no-one#'s quite sure. Performance descriptors? Sound a bit like levels under a new name.

And so today...

Commission created to help schools assess without levels

https://news.tes.co.uk/b/news/2015/02/2 ... evels.aspx

Teachers will no longer be expected to tell parents whether their child is working at a similar level to others at the same age, according to schools minister Nick Gibb.

Speaking exclusively to TES, Mr Gibb said assessments carried out for the vast majority of children’s schooling will only need to show how a child is performing against that school’s curriculum – not whether that performance is similar to others around the country.

Ah...in which case looking at league tables becomes a nightmare because all schools will be doing their own thing and inter-school comparisons are simply invalid.

Wonder when someone in the DfE will realise?

[Tubby Isaacs]

And staying with the most intelligent man in politics:

Defeatist East Durham latest.

http://schoolsimprovement.net/the-schoo ... ove-wrong/" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

Mr Gove caused outrage when he said the Easington Village school was one of several in East Durham where is was possible to “smell the sense of defeatism”.

However, the academy, which proved itself one of the region’s top performing schools in the last set of GCSE results, has been chosen as a National Support School, helping others working in challenging circumstances.

[Tubby Isaacs]

Making It Up As They Go Along pt 35

The story so far...the National Curriculum review recommended getting rid of assessment levels - the 2A, 4B etc that get reported to parents about their kid's performance in English, Maths etc.

The trouble is that the league tables at primary level have a bit on pupil progress between KS1 and KS2 which says that all pupils should be making 2 levels of progress between 1 and 2. So if you get rid of levels then that doesn't really work any longer.

So...they announce the end of levels...but replaced with...er...well...no-one#'s quite sure. Performance descriptors? Sound a bit like levels under a new name.

And so today...

Commission created to help schools assess without levels

https://news.tes.co.uk/b/news/2015/02/2 ... evels.aspx

Teachers will no longer be expected to tell parents whether their child is working at a similar level to others at the same age, according to schools minister Nick Gibb.

Speaking exclusively to TES, Mr Gibb said assessments carried out for the vast majority of children’s schooling will only need to show how a child is performing against that school’s curriculum – not whether that performance is similar to others around the country.

Ah...in which case looking at league tables becomes a nightmare because all schools will be doing their own thing and inter-school comparisons are simply invalid.

Wonder when someone in the DfE will realise?

Could they actually be liberalizing and drawing back from so much national comparison?

No.

[RogerOThornhill]

Talking of Twitter I noticed old Tobes retweeting some bunch called CampaignWatch which had a spectacularly wrong post about PMQs.

Toby Young retweeted
Campaign Watch @CampaignWatchUK · 2h 2 hours ago
David Cameron exposes Miliband's hypocrisy over the second jobs ban during #pmqs earlier today " onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;
YouTube

The video showed Cameron talking about David Miliband's earnings - quite how that is hypocrisy unless Ed relally is his brother's keeper...

Anyhow...CampaignWatch...who? A quick look at the website and...

About

Campaign Watch is an irreverent, right-of-centre blog about the general election campaign. If you have any stories please send them to us using the form on the Contact Us page.

Contributors

Gareth Baines
Patrick Corden
Mark Edwards
Josh Jordon
Harry Phibbs
Toby Young

Editor
Benjamin Mear


Ah right...one of those ones where you're not sure whether they're neutral or not as the name doesn't say and then you find out they're anything but.

[Tubby Isaacs]

Nice lefty sounding name though!

[RogerOThornhill]

Making It Up As They Go Along pt 35

The story so far...the National Curriculum review recommended getting rid of assessment levels - the 2A, 4B etc that get reported to parents about their kid's performance in English, Maths etc.

The trouble is that the league tables at primary level have a bit on pupil progress between KS1 and KS2 which says that all pupils should be making 2 levels of progress between 1 and 2. So if you get rid of levels then that doesn't really work any longer.

So...they announce the end of levels...but replaced with...er...well...no-one#'s quite sure. Performance descriptors? Sound a bit like levels under a new name.

And so today...

Commission created to help schools assess without levels

https://news.tes.co.uk/b/news/2015/02/2 ... evels.aspx

Teachers will no longer be expected to tell parents whether their child is working at a similar level to others at the same age, according to schools minister Nick Gibb.

Speaking exclusively to TES, Mr Gibb said assessments carried out for the vast majority of children’s schooling will only need to show how a child is performing against that school’s curriculum – not whether that performance is similar to others around the country.

Ah...in which case looking at league tables becomes a nightmare because all schools will be doing their own thing and inter-school comparisons are simply invalid.

Wonder when someone in the DfE will realise?

Could they actually be liberalizing and drawing back from so much national comparison?

No.

No, just clueless numpties. The link between levels and league tables was made ages ago and it hasn't sunk in yet.

Interestingly I don't think too much has been made of the KS2 exams will be only one exam and not a potential separate exam for those who can aspire to L6 - the ones which show the gifted and talented. Bit of a shame that.

[RogerOThornhill]

Nice lefty sounding name though!

Yep.

You can see on their website that they're not really interested in any Tory stories. Funny that...

[Tubby Isaacs]

No, just clueless numpties. The link between levels and league tables was made ages ago and it hasn't sunk in yet.

Interestingly I don't think too much has been made of the KS2 exams will be only one exam and not a potential separate exam for those who can aspire to L6 - the ones which show the gifted and talented. Bit of a shame that.

That's not really fitting in with their "stretching the brightest" narrative, is it?

Wonder where that came from. Is there some "reducing tests" target they have in mind?

[RogerOThornhill]

No, just clueless numpties. The link between levels and league tables was made ages ago and it hasn't sunk in yet.

Interestingly I don't think too much has been made of the KS2 exams will be only one exam and not a potential separate exam for those who can aspire to L6 - the ones which show the gifted and talented. Bit of a shame that.

That's not really fitting in with their "stretching the brightest" narrative, is it?

Wonder where that came from. Is there some "reducing tests" target they have in mind?

I really have no idea...it's a shame - we have some really bright kids that like to be tested (oddly enough) and love showing what they can do. Taking the L6 test away (if I'm right and they are) seems a retrograde step.

[HindleA]

Podcast by J.Portes re.welfare reform


http://sticerd.lse.ac.uk/case/_new/even ... sp?id=4810" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

[Tubby Isaacs]

Nice lefty sounding name though!

Yep.

You can see on their website that they're not really interested in any Tory stories. Funny that...

People see this sort of stuff a mile off now. Waste of time.

I wonder if they even expect people to click on the links.

[ErnstRemarx]

Ernst
If you at the council meeting please tell them this resident does not want 800k spending on changing bins! I'm happy with how they are. (Assuming you checking in on phone)

Well, thanks, I'd have said that had my phone the capability to do FTN in meetings! The Tory proposal was simply ridiculous and would lower our recycling rate - which we have to up or else face financial penalties. The Tory amendments weren't serious, they were merely electioneering. Despite what the Tories claim, I've yet to have anyone moan at me on the doorstep about the 3 weekly bin thing. People aren't stupid. They know why we have to save money and get our rates up. It's not rocket science. The fact that the Tory proposal to follow the Trafford route omitted the £1.5m they'd have to spend on new 140l bins as opposed to the current 240l wasn't addressed by them. It's almost like they make it up on the back of a fag packet and then defiantly present it to us, expecting us not to laugh. I couldn't. I did laugh. They think they're up to the job of running a metroploitan borough? Fuck off.

Did you watch it online? Oh, you poor sod. It's bad enough having to turn up in person; you must have felt like reaching for the Wilkinson's Swords surely.

[ErnstRemarx]

Duncan Hothersall ‏@dhothersall 50m50 minutes ago
Glad to see Wings getting his just deserts, for once, for yet another personal smear and mob abuse campaign. http://www.dailyrecord.co.uk/news/scott ... ed-5232409" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false; …

Wings (or is it wankers) over Scotland is a pretty vile business run, ironically, from Somerset by some tinterweb nutjob. That people even follow that site makes me wonder about their sanity, as clearly some of the cybernats have gone well beyond reasoned argument and will try any argument they think might stick. With, apparently, supporting evidence from a pro Scottish independence website run by a bloke near Bath.

If it wasn't actively harming people, you'd laugh. But it is, and it should be stood on hard, and as soon as possible. Full marks to the Daily Record.

[ErnstRemarx]

Ivan Lewis ‏@IvanLewis_MP 30m30 minutes ago
Mixed feelings watching Bury Councils Budget meeting from public gallery.Fond memories of 8yrs as Bury Cllr.Scale of Tory cuts devastating.

Thinking of Ernst.

Thanks, but don't waste your energy on me! Again, very sad for your loss.

On a brighter note, the Bury Tories were, yet again, risibly awful tonight. It was our budget council meeting, so really they should take it seriously, but they were so fucking bad that I began to wonder if they'd been chosen as Tory council candidates in an attempt to completely discredit the electoral system as a concept.

Rents and council tax have all been frozen under the budget, and the cost of energy in sheltered housing reduced by 5%, but the Tory amendment wanted a 2-3% increase (this is the Housing and Revenue Account budget, BTW) and us bunging £2m into some other scheme that we've already got funding for. It made no sense whatsoever, and a sensible Tory group leader would have realised that and withdrawn it. They didn't. They persisted, and of course, we voted their silly amendment down. The attempt by legal counsel to say that it could be composited with the Labour amendment got the bum's rush PDQ, as there are plenty of Labour and trade union people who know how to composite and it would have been a complete farce, so we voted on the Tory proposal. Sorry, that came before the vote. And then we voted it down.

The main business was the overall budget for the borough, and whilst they tried hard, bless them, to lay a glove on the council, the various freezes and investments - given that we've just had £15,000,000 of cuts foisted upon us (thanks Dave, Gideon and Jabba) - they had to resort to anti union speeches and measures in their counter proposal. It got ridiculous, and they raided the council's reserves (hint: they're there for a reason, you numpties) for about another £2m for 'roadmending', wanting to do away with giving councillors free meals on certain committees (Planning - I'm on it and it's a full day's work. A bite to eat is not a massive recompense) which save the fiscal equivalent of squeezing one more drop of piss out at the end of a long and enjoyable slash.

Then it just got plain silly, and they announced completely cutting council support for Unison (which is simply insane, as those reps would go back to their jobs anyway yet provide none of the vital service they do), again, another drop in the ocean when faced with £15m of cuts. MsRemarx got up and gave them both barrels, as did various others of our side and still they persisted: we're anti-democratic and tyrranical (apparently), whilst their kindly suggestion to outsource sizeable chunks of council work was supposed to be the thinking of a serious political grouping. As for the idea of pooling resources with other councils - I simply despaired. We have the lowest unit costs of any AGMA authority (because we've always been underfunded), and those cockends think the answer is to increase them by sharing our resources??

As I say, it was pathetic, populist and seemingly the work of a 12 year old who'd just been given his first calculator and a suit.

Their nonsense was voted down, so Bury now has a realistic budget for this coming year, and one that still does the job. Not bad when you've had 54% hacked out of your controllable spend by the lunatics running this country.

PS edited to add - ran into Ivan in the bar afterwards. A nice bloke and a politician to his fingertips. Stands his round though.

Weird. I report back a council meeting the same night and so few people comment on it.

[HindleA]

@ErnstRemarx

Thanks for info.