The 2024 UK General Election - news, speculation and updates

[SpookyFrank]

I can't believe the voting public has so little empathy for the plight of poor little Tsarina.

An upper class twit calling his daughter 'Tsarina' with no clue about the irony of that is the best thing I've seen in a while.

 

[JimW]

See my local in Stroud is doing a two hours hustings in the pub, very civilised. Looks to have all the candidates attending.

 

[RevolutionSound]

I read a good article talking to teachers about the rise in 'persistent absence' and how they think some parents' attitude to school has changed after the pandemic. they see it as optional and/or more likely to let them stay at home if they just don't want to go. think it's a fair point there to say something has changed in terms of parents and school. if I could find the article it would be good - but you can find lots about the rise in persistent absence.

That article was nonsense iirc and did not go into the effect of lockdown on the mental health of SEN kids, school trauma on SEN kids caused by Gove's reforms and the woeful lack of SEN and CAMHS provision. It's not that parents don't think school is important, it's that school is often traumatising and doesn't meet kids needs.

 

[Wilf]

 

[Wilf]

I think it's really misleading to conflate wealth and parental engagement in school/education.

Parents of any social class can be really engaged.

Equally, parents of any social class can be utterly disengaged.

Nothing to do with money in either direction.

Sending your kids to live in a private school is probably something you do when you are a bit sick of them.

 

[The39thStep]

The Guardian has just found what we are looking for

 

[Wilf]

The Guardian has just found what we are looking for

View attachment 428772

And somehow managed all of that while peering out of the same Overton Window.

 

[Smangus]

 

[pbsmooth]

The Guardian has just found what we are looking for

View attachment 428772

does he think you have to vote for someone different every time?!

 

[skyscraper101]

Heh. This was my first thought when I saw the backdrop last night. I was waiting for someone to point it out.

 

[Wilf]

does he think you have to vote for someone different every time?!

Probably like that blind man and the elephantt poem. All part of the same lumbering beast.

 

[MickiQ]

Yea tbh Parental engagement in most things seems lacking in pretty much all areas of society these days, increasingly it seems the care, safety and nurturing of their children is someone elses reponsibility while they either go to work or catch up on their social meeja feeds

As the husband of a teacher getting involved in the activities of the school tends to be expected (regardless of what I think) and this is not my observation at all. The majority of parents seem to be engaged in their children's education and a significant minority will put their hands in their pocket when the tin is rattled. Clearly schools like my wife's which is in a nice area where the parents just have more money to spare have an advantage over those in more deprived areas. That's why I am in favour of this scheme, the quality of a child's education either positively or negatively shouldn't depend on the parents income.

 

[maomao]

Rattling the tin might buy a few books or some gym equipment but it won't train and pay new teachers. IME even schools like mine are happy to piss money up the wall on stuff they could get by without but what they lack is staff.

 

[bemused]

I don't understand Sunak's aversion to admitting he was beneficial of private education. As I understand it his parents were first-generation immigrants, who built a successful business and used some of that money to send him to a top-flight private school from which he benefited. Most people I know would think good for him, this stuff about Sky TV etc is just silly, the truth is easy to understand.

 

[Pickman's model]

I don't understand Sunak's aversion to admitting he was beneficial of private education. As I understand it his parents were first-generation immigrants, who built a successful business and used some of that money to send him to a top-flight private school from which he benefited. Most people I know would think good for him, this stuff about Sky TV etc is just silly, the truth is easy to understand.

it's even stranger when it's in his Wikipedia article

 

[brogdale]

I don't understand Sunak's aversion to admitting he was beneficial of private education. As I understand it his parents were first-generation immigrants, who built a successful business and used some of that money to send him to a top-flight private school from which he benefited. Most people I know would think good for him, this stuff about Sky TV etc is just silly, the truth is easy to understand.

I wasn't aware of this; has he ever demonstrated any reluctance to talk about his privileged schooling?

 

[bemused]

I wasn't aware of this; has he ever demonstrated any reluctance to talk about his privileged schooling?

He tries to avoid talking about his background because he attended Winchester, Oxford and Standford and doesn't want to seem too posh - when simply attending Winchester makes you pretty posh. But, that was his parents' choice and they put in the miles to send him.

 

[PR1Berske]

"I think voters are noticing this time that their Tory communication comes with the pizza leaflets.”

Conservative grassroots campaign in ‘disarray’, say insiders and opponents

Tories struggling in some areas from chronic lack of supporters to canvass and deliver leaflets, say sources

www.theguardian.com

 

[Monkeygrinder's Organ]

"I think voters are noticing this time that their Tory communication comes with the pizza leaflets.”

Bet the pizza place owners aren't too happy.

 

[planetgeli]

See my local in Stroud is doing a two hours hustings in the pub, very civilised. Looks to have all the candidates attending.

Worth popping back for Jim? See which one persuades you?

 

[Puddy_Tat]

had an election communication from the vermin today.

all about 'a bright new future'

umm - who's been in office for the last 14 years?

and 'keir starmer needs you to vote lib dem' along with some bullshit about labour is going to increase taxes, put national insurance contributions on pensions, introduce a national ULEZ scheme, and force through Angela Rayner's French style union laws'

wtf?

at least she's got the name of the constituency right this time...

 

[tommers]

What even is a tool maker? Like I get that they make tools but fifty years ago even that wasn't done by some bloke sat in a workshop, it was done in a factory. So did he work in a factory? Or did he own the factory? I feel like I know both too much about his dad and also not enough. Schrodinger's tool maker.

 

[Chz]

What even is a tool maker? Like I get that they make tools but fifty years ago even that wasn't done by some bloke sat in a workshop, it was done in a factory. So did he work in a factory? Or did he own the factory? I feel like I know both too much about his dad and also not enough. Schrodinger's tool maker.

That's the part that makes it weird. A toolmaker isn't a salt of the earth sort of thing as he'd like you to think. It's engineering. Specialist stuff, it's what keeps everything else in a factory working. I'd think mentioning his mum was a nurse is more sympathetic.

 

[Funky_monks]

And somehow managed all of that while peering out of the same Overton Window.

UKIP appealed briefly to my dad, a lifelong socialist and trade uinionist early on (possibly before that), because he genuinley thought they were a single issue party and he was was eurosceptic in a sort of "Bob Crow" kind of way.

It didn't take long for him to come to his senses, but maybe that's the reason for the weird guardian bloke liking them?

 

[Artaxerxes]

What even is a tool maker? Like I get that they make tools but fifty years ago even that wasn't done by some bloke sat in a workshop, it was done in a factory. So did he work in a factory? Or did he own the factory? I feel like I know both too much about his dad and also not enough. Schrodinger's tool maker.

Specialist bits for factory machines

 

[brogdale]

Can't be that many factories that employed tool-makers within normal commuting range of Oxted. It's pretty much surrounded by rolling countryside and 'stockbroker-belt' villages

 

[Cerv]

What even is a tool maker? Like I get that they make tools but fifty years ago even that wasn't done by some bloke sat in a workshop, it was done in a factory. So did he work in a factory? Or did he own the factory? I feel like I know both too much about his dad and also not enough. Schrodinger's tool maker.

if I remember correctly, from when this comes up every election.
Rodney Starmer worked as a toolmaker. employed, like you say, to work in a factory. skilled manual labour that's now largely left the UK for cheaper places overseas.
later, after Kier was born, started his own business as a sole trader. The Oxted Tool Co. operated out of rented premises. a workshop on an industrial estate. so never actually owned a factory.
wasn't ever turned into a ltd co so there's companies house records full of juicy gossip.

 

[tommers]

Tbh I don't even know why I care. It doesn't matter what his dad did, he just keeps banging on about it.

 

[brogdale]

if I remember correctly, from when this comes up every election.
Rodney Starmer worked as a toolmaker. employed, like you say, to work in a factory. skilled manual labour that's now largely left the UK for cheaper places overseas.
later, after Kier was born, started his own business as a sole trader. The Oxted Tool Co. operated out of rented premises. a workshop on an industrial estate. so never actually owned a factory.
wasn't ever turned into a ltd co so there's companies house records full of juicy gossip.

Are those details in the public domain?

 

[Funky_monks]

Are those details in the public domain?

Not if he was a sole trader/in a partnership.

The business' tax bill would be his, personal tax bill.

It's only when you become incorporated (in this case become a limited company) that you have to register with companies house.