IntenseDebate - sagitariouse

3 years ago @ http://www.conservativ... - Our survey. Johnson's ... · 1 reply · +1 points

Henry V ... hmm ... not sure that invading France is a good idea ... He was saved by the rain at Agincourt. The "high tech" enemy crossbowmen were unable to shoot down the obsolete Welsh archers as expected. As for the massacre of the prisoners ... A better comparison might be Henry VIII and his relationships with his advisors.

3 years ago @ http://www.conservativ... - George Crivelli: Conse... · 0 replies · +1 points

London Grid for Learning (A Community Interest Company jointly "owned" by the London Boroughs) is currently procuring another 2 million devices at massive discount, provided the purchase is routed through a local authority or schools. Equally important, however, is the broadband access. Millions of children are still trying to get on-line via their (or their parents) mobile phones. The result can be hideously expensive because inner city wifi is now seriously "contended" (i.e. overload and interfered with by the systems in the flat next door, above or below). There is a need to Ofcom to ALLOW the mobile operators to "distort" Internet access by exempting the main educational services (e.g. those accessed via the Grids for Learning or the Joint Academic Network) from data charges - not just Oak Academy and BBC Bitesize. .

3 years ago @ http://www.conservativ... - Robert Halfon: I'm not... · 1 reply · +1 points

It is also probable that inner city children meeting up away from adult supervision during their "exercise" breaks spread Covid and faster between households than if they met up in school. Until lockdown the BAME communities in Lambeth organised street patrols to try to keep their youngsters out of trouble. These were misrepresented by the Press but viewed by their communities as essential support, particularly for vulnerable single parents in no position to control their offspring. The patrols have not been restarted as "an essential service".

The one "certainty" from global data is that the main vector of transmission is direct contact in closed spaces (e.g. homes) between households and families - whether support, social, cultural, religious.

Do children and adolescents engaged in "unsupervised exercise" spread Covid faster and further than those supervised in school? Is this one of the reasons (alongside vitamin D deficiencies) why incidence and death is higher in BAME communities?

Has anyone unpacked the statistics? Or is this too politically incorrect? Do black lives really matter to the woke?

3 years ago @ http://www.conservativ... - Time for a Coffey break · 4 replies · +1 points

As the only research scientist in the cabinet she was muzzled after a cautious comment (early in the first lockdown) about the meaning of "scientific evidence". That has left her to get on with her job. You might similarly ask why Kemi Badenoch (degree in systems engineering and decade of professional practice in software quality control, evaluation and acceptance testing), as well as strong views on the links between poverty of expectation and equality of opportunity, is similarly muzzled. Across most of the southern hemisphere the village/family is run by the women while the men posture. The same is true across many of our BAME inner city communities. As a representative from Head Office I remember being told to be polite to the men but to listen to the women. I apply the same practice in Lambeth.

3 years ago @ http://www.conservativ... - Julian Brazier: A sing... · 0 replies · +1 points

There are a raft of other, simpler, means of changing incentives - beginning by exempting accommodation for live-in or overnight carers from taxation as a benefit in kind. The elderly should also be able to discriminate in favour of those they feel comfortable with as carer/lodgers - e.g. sex, faith, culture, dog or cat lover etc.

3 years ago @ http://www.conservativ... - Disraeli's Two Nations... · 0 replies · +1 points

The other great divide is between those working round the clock, including on-line while looking after children competing for access to school or entertainment, and those in enforced idleness, with time for dreams and nightmares.

3 years ago @ http://www.conservativ... - The campaign to oppose... · 1 reply · +1 points

Given that one of the main causes of deprivation is war/civil war and given that our armed forces are commonly among the first on the scene in the event of natural disaster, does it require legislation, as opposed to administrative action, to count all or part of the cost of those based outside the North Atlantic (plus the rapid reaction "brigade") against the 0.7%.

3 years ago @ http://www.conservativ... - Judy Terry: Proposal f... · 0 replies · +1 points

Currently only 25% of Felixistowe's freight travels by rail and the main limiting factor is the Ely bottleneck https://www.railfreight.com/railfreight/2020/12/1...
Sorting this priority would do more to improve traffic flows on the A14 than any amount of road works. But Tony from Torquay is correct. The railways were built to carry freight. Passengers came later. In planning for a Post Covid world, broadband and the main rail freight routes should come before HS2 and many, but not all, road improvements.

3 years ago @ http://www.conservativ... - Judy Terry: Proposal f... · 3 replies · +1 points

Improving the freight rail service from Felixstowe to Birmingham (and beyond) should have priority over HS2.

3 years ago @ http://www.conservativ... - Covid, schools and vac... · 0 replies · +1 points

The story of schools in the first year of the pandemic is the first play in a trilogy which sees our centrally planned and controlled education systems overwhelmed by the greatest set of changes since the dissolution of the monasteries.

The next play "begins" with the Head teachers call for GCSEs and A Levels to be cancelled this summer. These are now more likely to be replaced by supervised on-line assessment than to be restored in their previous form.

Meanwhile the change to university student experience means many more school-leavers will sign up to overseas (on-line) universities in preference to incurring student debt via UCAS.

The final play, beginning in 2020 will see ???

There is an attempt to make sense of what is happening and look at constructive ways forward here: https://www.computerweekly.com/blog/When-IT-Meets...

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