Brexit and the waning days of the United Kingdom

[Tamas]

  I knew this would get you.

[PJL]

I've come to the conclusion that Starmer and the Labour party in general are doing the right thing to get elected to government if they are upsetting people like Josquius. So this is a smart move by Starmer.

[Josquius]

I've come to the conclusion that Starmer and the Labour party in general are doing the right thing to get elected to government if they are upsetting people like Josquius. So this is a smart move by Starmer.

Upsetting the corbynites, yes.
Upsetting the moderates? No.

[garbon]

I've come to the conclusion that Starmer and the Labour party in general are doing the right thing to get elected to government if they are upsetting people like Josquius. So this is a smart move by Starmer.

Upsetting the corbynites, yes.
Upsetting the moderates? No.

I don't know why a moderate would get all that upset. Uncompromising attitudes are the hallmark of the corbynistas.

[Tamas]

I've come to the conclusion that Starmer and the Labour party in general are doing the right thing to get elected to government if they are upsetting people like Josquius. So this is a smart move by Starmer.

Upsetting the corbynites, yes.
Upsetting the moderates? No.

I don't know why a moderate would get all that upset. Uncompromising attitudes are the hallmark of the corbynistas.

There are two things in this country universally sacred to the level of sacral status for near everyone: the NHS and Thatcher.

[PJL]

There is a interesting Youtuber vlog on the article here:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PqucAJPMf_4

Made some valid points about the whole thing and the reaction it got from parts of the left.

PS - like the way he makes a dig at Owen Jones & the Guardian without actually mentioning them.

[crazy canuck]

I've come to the conclusion that Starmer and the Labour party in general are doing the right thing to get elected to government if they are upsetting people like Josquius. So this is a smart move by Starmer.

Pun intended? 

[Sheilbh]

PISA scores out - so the first international comparison of education standards.

Basically the results can be split in the UK with England doing far, far better than Scotland and Wales. This is why I think education is probably the biggest achievement of the last 13 years - and possibly the one most likely to be unwound/least popular.

Across the OECD levels have fallen, particularly for the poor and economically disadvantaged, since the last survey - which is probably largely because of the pandemic. England's have basically fallen in line with the rest of the OECD, while Scotland and Wales have declined far more sharply. Scotland in particular has been flagged by the OECD as particularly worrying and that there may be a boost in their numbers due to sampling issues. This should be a huge alarm for Scotland and an outrage because growing up, Scotland was very proud of its education system which was considerably better than England. Scotland and England have pursued to different approaches to curriculums over the last decade and it feels like they're producing differnt results.

But the maths the numbers for example are particularly striking - up to 11th from 27th in 2009. And one of the highest in mathematical reasoning, so it's not just rote learning. In addition 15% of disadvantaged pupils are in the top performers category (25% overall in England) - which is the highest level in the statistics.

Interestingly the UK is the only country in Europe where second generation immigrants outperform non-immigrant students (and first generation don't do much worse either). On this we are much more like English speaking countries outside Europe (Canada, Australia, New Zealand, particularly - US is a bit different) and quite different from Western Europe. Which is really important because across Europe it looks like the countries that have seen scores decline most are the ones with the biggest gaps between first or second generation immigrant v non-immigrant students. I suspect this is also part of why age and politics interacts differently in the UK v much of Europe - younger voters have had different experiences.

Thing that probably needs to be the feature of the next round of education reform (but probably won't be) is that the UK overall (particularly England) has below average variation between schools, but very high and above average variation within schools. Also aside from education standards the child poverty stats of the UK are an absolute disgrace (especially given how far we'd come by 2010) and there's huge regression there - which points to the rest of the last 13 years.

[Josquius]

I think we talked about this not too long ago. I don't have much respect for those tests. I do suspect they've been prioritised over actual education.

On immigrants doing well - does this control for location? Most immigrants will be in the larger cities, especially London, with better schools whilst a lot more native kids spread out in the forgotten lands.


Unrelated. Found this BBC article interesting.
Seems at first to be typical BBC bias at work but steadily builds up...


BBC News - Is the Rwanda policy a vote winner? One High Street has its say
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-67630766

A woman who was born in the UK but describes her origin as Irish Traveller/Norwegian complains that her doctor's surgery is busy with immigrants.

 "Why is it like this? Why do we have to put up with it? I can't get a doctor's appointment, I'm an English citizen. Why do I have to have an Indian doctor? I should be able to choose to have a female, white doctor."

She says she isn't racist but makes some unfounded claims about immigrants being responsible for a disproportionate level of crime and says she's worried about her daughter being "pestered" by foreign men. She interrupts herself as a woman passes wearing a headscarf and veil.

"That lady over there, that should not be allowed, absolutely not. She's only showing her eyes. I can't wear a balaclava around town so why can she wear that? There's no difference is there?" When I suggest she is from an immigrant background she turns on me, tells me angrily to step away, and threatens to assault me. 

 
Oh yes. I know this woman so well.
I have to suspect the claiming to be Norwegian is bollocks there.

Further down is another seriously shitty smelling bit about an immigrant supposedly going into a shop and asking for bunting to be taken down because it's offensive.... Yeah... That totally happened.
Interesting to see even the surface level shit eaters are really drawing from the playbook of their masters and increasing just making crap up. I have ran into this tonnes in the real world. Is there something that particularly links populist right wing views and seeing lying as good?


Relatedly and worrying. This is the first time I've seen the mainstream media actually address this even in this very subtle way.

So many others refuse to talk about immigration - they fear the possible reaction if they share their view. Time and again I heard "not on camera" and "I can't talk about that".
A local driving instructor who offers lessons in different languages refuses to speak, saying "my tyres would be let down".

Yep.
The righties love to moan how they're not allowed to talk about immigration... But the truth is quite the opposite.

[Sheilbh]

On immigrants doing well - does this control for location? Most immigrants will be in the larger cities, especially London, with better schools whilst a lot more native kids spread out in the forgotten lands.

Why would it control for location?

The idea that big cities, especially London, has very good state schools is really recent. It's only something that's happened in the last 20 years or so. In the 80s, 90s etc big city schools (especially London) did not have a good reputation. It used to be one of the factors driving people out of cities into suburbs and small towns.

A lot of policy ideas have been around how to replicate that success (with mixed results because it's not clear what the causes are). But, as I say, the UK actually has below average variation between schools. It's the variation within schools that's really strong (my instinct is it's because there's too much streaming).

That is definitely part of it though - I think this can even be seen in specific communities. For example the Economist did a piece on British Bangladeshis who are doing really well in schools and have had the largest increase in attainment levels of any ethnic group in the last 20 years:


The British Bangladeshi commuity is overwhelmingly in a few boroughs in London - and this is basically the story of one trust that runs several schools in the area having transformed their results. At the minute British Bangladeshi women are still far less economically active than average, as a community about 50% more than average are receiving benefits - and there is very real poverty.

But the situation in education, especially girls' results, have really changed. They don't just have higher attainment rates at high schools, but now are more likely to go to university and to the best universities. It's early days in seeing the impact, but I suspect in 10-20 years as those students enter the workforce we'll see a shift on the economic activity, poverty rate, benefits etc.

[Admiral Yi]

Does that mean 40% of white Brits get a D or F in English and math? 

[Sheilbh]

Does that mean 40% of white Brits get a D or F in English and math? 

Yes, sort of. It's measuring proportion who get 5 GCSEs A*-C/Grade 4 (they've changed marking in recent years so people of my age no longer understand it ) including English and maths at 16, which is basically a pass. So they might get English and maths but no other GCSEs or fewer than 5 overall.

There are big gaps between boys and girls. Also there are very large gaps between pupils on free school meals and those who aren't - but it is a bigger gap for white Brits. White Brits broadly have one of the lowest attainment rates - Travellers, Black Caribbean and I think mixed white British and Black Caribbean have the lowest.

[Admiral Yi]

That's a hellalot of Ds and Fs by US standards.

[Sheilbh]

So I looked into it and that chart's not super clear it's around 70% and peaked at 75%.

Overall attainment of 5 GCSEs (inc English and maths) is around 75-80%. But it is a little difficult to measure across time now as we've moved from A*-F to a number based system and I'm not sure what it really means - it looks like different statistics are measuring grade 4 and above v grade 5 and above. So it's not totally clear to me where a "pass" is in the new money.

Many will re-sit or move to a slightly separate exam which is "functional literacy and numeracy". 5 GCSEs is generally (but not always) required to carry on in education, so others will go into vocational courses. Some will get apprenticeships which don't typically require GCSEs. But the largest proportion will go straight into work in areas that don't require GCSEs - retail, hospitality, other services, social care etc. And another proportion will fall into the NEETs (not in education, employment or training).

I've mentioned before but that's the path of Labour's Deputy Leader which is one of the reasons I think she tends to have an interesting voice in national politics.

[Gups]

I think we talked about this not too long ago. I don't have much respect for those tests. I do suspect they've been prioritised over actual education.

What do you mean? These are random samples of kids all over the world. They don't (and couldn't) produce school league tables. Why would any school prioritise them?