love* in the time of plague (and by love* i mean brexit* and other dreary matters of uk politics)

Gavin Williamson on inflating A-level grades: “The danger is that pupils will be over-promoted into jobs that are beyond their competence"

...

everybody's enjoying the irony of that one and it's very lol, but putting that to one side it's an amazingly thick-headed and wrong thing to say, it's like Williamson has no idea how the world works

All those people who move from doing A-Levels straight into surgery or bomb disposal?

not even sure what an A-level entry job would look like in 2020 but i am pretty sure that no interview panel comes to a decision primarily based on some exam results, even when there isn't a massive surplus of applicants for every job going

Also if you turn up to do a job at the age of 18-22 and turn out not to be able to do it then you get fired or moved into something else, unless you're benefiting from nepotism or entrenched social biases, both of which the Tories appear quite fond of.

I've seen highly educated people absolutely fuck up entry level work and I've seen people with significantly fewer qualifications do much better at the same job. But no one is making that call on the basis of A-Level results.

Williamson not understanding how life beyond nepotism works was my main thought

Also assuming most of these kids bother to go to university they'll be graduating into either a post-covid boom or a post-Brexit depression, and in either case whether you've had an A-Level nudged up one level is going to be neither here nor there. (Also it's irrelevant because once you've got a degree no one gives a toss what A-Levels you got).

i'm sure that whichever journalist he gave the comment to pointed out all this stuff at the time

Is that Williamson quote made up? It’s not in the Telegraph article or in the one linked to here, as far as I can see:

"The danger is that pupils will be over-promoted
into jobs that are beyond their competence"
(Gavin Williamson)

... one of many @Conservatives ministers
promoted way beyond their competence

... one of many #Tory ministers
promoted rather than sacked for multiple failures https://t.co/S3jE5UGd1r

— Source at No.10 (@10_source) August 13, 2020

Plus claims that it’s made up:

No fan of Williamson but it still irritates seeing people who get on their high horse about fake news sharing a made up quote. https://t.co/V81JfglxNj

— Sam Freedman (@Samfr) August 13, 2020

I cannot source it either so humbly accept Williamson's reputation should return to its previous level.

There is a Williamson op-ed further into the Telegraph that is also paywalled so it might be in there. I perhaps naively assumed that a member of the Economist editorial team might have checked that before posting it (although, significantly, he didn't put it in quotation marks).

afaict, it's not a quote, it's an interpretation of his statement on potential unfairness across year groups.

I first saw it tweeted by an Oxford politics lecturer so what was not to trust eh

There is a Williamson op-ed further into the Telegraph that is also paywalled so it might be in there. I perhaps naively assumed that a member of the Economist editorial team might have checked that before posting it (although, significantly, he didn't put it in quotation marks).

I saw he'd done an interview with Times Radio (lol) and thought that might be the source but made up seems the most likely explanation

it seems so plausible because it fits with the way they're acting, like society is this inflexible thing that determines your entire life based on your exact grade and that none of it will adapt to the pandemic, so the only thing that matters is getting the grading precisely correct. Or just using mocks, because fuck it why not

I'm losing my marbs here:

The Government needs to urgently rethink.

We need to guarantee the right to individual appeals, the fee for appeals waived and nothing to be ruled out, including the u-turn that was forced on the Scottish Government last week.

— Keir Starmer (@Keir_Starmer) August 13, 2020

The right to individual appeals comes in with the use of mocks, which he was correctly identifying as a disaster yesterday. The phrasing "nothing ruled out" is classic Starmer, in that it doesn't actually call for something to happen but doesn't call for it not to happen either. Lost in this is the point that Scotland has a completely separate system, a separate regulator making separate rules and is using a different algorithm less weighted towards individual achievement.

Is this what life is like for the rest of ye who work in fields people pay attention to on the other 364 days of the year?

I promise i'll stop and go and listen to the new Taylor Swift album in a darkened room but this is journalistic malfeasance:

This is so fucked pic.twitter.com/bQmuwUH3xY

— Wow someone actually (@TribuneoDaPlebs) August 13, 2020

What OFQUAL actually said:

When consulting on this summer’s arrangements, we considered carefully opportunities for a student to challenge their centre assessment grades and position in their centre’s rank order. On balance, we decided it would not be in the interests of students or the fairness of the arrangements overall. Any appeal would have to be undertaken by someone better placed than the student’s teachers to judge their likely grade if exams had taken place – in the unique circumstances of this summer, we do not believe there is any such person. In addition, because of the role of the rank order in grading this year, such an appeal would have implications for other students in the cohort: if one student successfully appealed against their position in the rank order, it would have negative implications for other students who would, in turn, need to be given an opportunity to appeal.

ffs

Hunch: these stories will be dripped out across the papers all weekend. Then, in the middle of next week, Williamson will change the system again. https://t.co/7eRhMNnAuI

— Aditya Chakrabortty (@chakrabortty) August 13, 2020

Aruba.

Data shows we need to remove France, the Netherlands, Monaco, Malta, Turks & Caicos & Aruba from our list of #coronavirus Travel Corridors to keep infection rates DOWN. If you arrive in the UK after 0400 Saturday from these destinations, you will need to self-isolate for 14 days.

— Rt Hon Grant Shapps MP (@grantshapps) August 13, 2020

Turks and Caicos has had fewer cases since the pandemic started than the 300 who tested positive at the M&S sandwich factory in Northampton this week but I’m sure there’s a logic to it somewhere.

Turks and Caicos unlucky to get drawn from the tombola, oh no sorry I mean data.

pic.twitter.com/xkUMMOQapc

— Rosewood Shoehorn (@apiarism) August 13, 2020

I'm interested in how many of those sandwich factory workers will turn out to be completely asymptomatic, if it's as large a proportion as I suspect then there are major implications. If nothing else it underlines the sense that we aren't going to genuinely get a grip on this until the country is able to routinely test large numbers of people with zero symptoms.

I know a lot of kids will be disappointed by their A Level results today, but just remember: the BBC are always looking for people your age to come on and say things that are extremely right-wing.

— Tom Whyman (@HealthUntoDeath) August 13, 2020

sic posted this on climate change thread:

The Brittleness Bubble is far, far bigger than we're acknowledging.

A staggering percentage of the world's critical infrastructure is now entering a world where climate conditions routinely exceed the tolerances for which that infrastructure was designed. https://t.co/chIOcoZ4Gw

— Alex Steffen (@AlexSteffen) August 13, 2020

I mean these are random 'climate' type events to look out for.

Flooding and landslides as well. The Aberdeen crash is being linked to a landslide, something similar happened in Kent last night (though the train didn't derail) and one of the main London-Kent routes was knocked out for weeks last year.

think of the opportunities for jobs and development this creates tho, and who better to take advantage of this prima facie case for a green new deal than

oh

We'll end up with income support sanctions if you don't take a zero-hours job spreading your arms out and trying to physically hold back the mud at railway sidings instead.

looking forward to that post getting revived in 3 years as sarcastic optimism

Can't wait to see some of these shitty newbuild homes that have been banged up willy nilly getting washed away in the monsoon season, just a week after they've been handed over.

if The Greens can't capitalise on how useless the 2 main billionaire-donor driven parties are when major parts of UK infrastructure starts falling to pieces, then they never will.

idk man there's a lot of kneejerk tankies and Maoists out there who will never trust them

can't see anyone to the left of them now nor who are serious about the challenges of climate change, so if i can be arsed voting they have mine. Even though Bartley is a bit of a prick and don't get me started on imago's hero!

There's a germ of possibility in there, just need a good purge

when I say *challenges of climate change* what I really meant was the impending mass die off and civilisational collapse lol

A useful but grim thread:

A brief thread:

I’m going to be taking a step back from here (again). Not because I want to, but because if I don’t, I worry that I’ll lose my job. And I have a family to support.

And the people driving that are not on the Left. They’re on the Right.

— Daniel Sugarman (@Daniel_Sugarman) August 12, 2020

(Public Affairs Officer for the Board of Deputies)

As ever the replies are best avoided

when the Greens make Magid Magid leader that'll be the signal for a mass influx tbh

Then the Right, those people who mock the idea of “cancel culture”, trip over themselves to write to my employers demanding that I be punished, or sacked, for what I have said.

there we have it, it's fine when it suits them and the ones that moan the loudest never actually get "cancelled" if anything they a higher profile out of it. Like who the fuck cares what Prick Knave has to say, yet yesterday he was everywhere.

"How you doing tonight Cleveland?"

How we all feeling in the Red Wall tonight? Private school kids marked up, working class kids marked down - the clue was in the word Tory when you voted for them 👇🏽 https://t.co/LJKU4GsIsW

— Paul Mason (@paulmasonnews) August 13, 2020

since when did school age kids get on the electoral register in the North? he needs to cut down on the spice

if there's one thing angry parents want right now it's smug condescension from the president of stoya's fan club

Conspiracyish take on the travel corridor thing I heard yesterday is that it's designed to exclude countries that compete for British tourism (so said tourists will vacation within the country instead and boost the economy), is that mad?

Surely no one will actually abide by the quarantine anyway?

It is me, I'm the mug who will.

But I reckogn if you have a steady job and just dance up there after yr vacation someone might grass on you, no?