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

It depends, my daughter's holiday in Majorca is fucked because her and my ex can't not quarantine in good conscience

A grand total of three people were fined in the first seven weeks of restrictions being imposed.

aiui, you give them a phone number when you land and there's an extremely remote possibility that someone might call you up to ask you where you currently are.

So basically as long as you aren't at a railway station or anywhere else with a tannoy announcement you're basically fine?

Unless they've devised a more sophisticated system since, i would guess so.

I think it was in Thailand where the tracking app isn't optional and they have stiff penalties for those that break quarantine, but they pay you to stay at home. That sounds like a functional system at least.

You and Aaronovitch are the reason I first bought a Times subscription all those years ago and the column I read religiously (even where the sermon has been hard to hear!). Gutted.

— Wes Streeting MP (@wesstreeting) August 14, 2020

Jesus

Jee

sus

Can you imagine reading Aaronovitch and thinking "this is my guru?"

Ffmffs

Making the sign of the cross at that tweet.

More details of our legal challenge to the A Level tragi-shambles (which compliments that brought by our friends, the brilliant @Foxglovelegal) follow. THREAD

— Jo Maugham QC (@JolyonMaugham) August 14, 2020

if i were a young person adversely affected by my exam grades i would simply choose to become a hereditary peer

I fluffed my A-levels. Taught me how to hustle. First to get a place in Univeristy. And haven’t stopped ever since. Grades are great, but grit and perseverance win every time. 🚀

— Lord Bethell (@JimBethell) August 13, 2020

SV knows more than me but most of this outrage is predicated on bullshit

xp He's the Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Innovation at the Department of Health and Social Care, you can't say he doesn't know the hustle!

I wish one of these cliched rugged rich pricks that fucked up their a levels would shame the devil and admit that a healthy dose of nepotism got them up the first few wrungs on their irresistible rise to the top.

Will read this depressing piece later.

For @LRB I wrote about the migrant situation and how the winner in all of this is, once again, Nigel Farage https://t.co/ubMaaHduCa

— Your Mum says Black Lives Matter (@judeinlondon2) August 14, 2020

xps There's no 'good' way of doing it but the methodology OFQUAL used was worked out after extensive discussion with exam boards on how to make the results as consistent as possible with recent years, and it has been broadly successful in doing that. The major statistical outlier in the number of A-grades awarded to private schools is because a higher proportion of their classes have too few candidates to fit into the statistical model.

It's inevitably going to lead to unfair outcomes for some students but going just on teacher assessments would as well. The assumption that 'all working class students were marked down by 12%' assumes that they were all marked up by 12% in the first place. What you'll have had is a group of kids whose marks were either too low, or more commonly, too high, and another group whose marks were basically accurate. Not applying any kind of model to account for this would have meant that, on average, the more accurate your teacher is, the bigger the disadvantage.

The problem with Windmill QC challenging on the right to appeal is that there is nothing uniform to evidence an appeal with. Mock grades will apparently be allowed but again, this just privileges learners who had the opportunity to do them or who had generous teachers. In the absence of mock grades, how are you meant to prove that you deserved a higher end result? Cohort appeals, where schools can evidence reasons why a group of students had been predicted substantially higher grades than previous year groups, are allowed but they're restricted on fairly narrow grounds otherwise everyone would try it.

It's also worth noting that regression models and statistical analysis based on prior cohort achievement also forms a part of how exams are always awarded, to ensure comparability across different years.

imo, the fairest way to do it would be to defer university intake until January and let everyone take exams in October or write the whole year off and have everyone restart but neither of those was considered practical. It sucks but if you've missed out on grades you were confident you'd get, you can still take exams in October and start university in 2021.

I don't have anything to do with UK qualifications and am not involved in the technical side of exams so am not an 'expert'. I have no particular dog in this horse but, absent of a better way of doing things, idk whether people who understand about 10% of what they'd need to in order to have an informed opinion telling state-educated kids that their grades are worthless is a particularly helpful move.

I'd add that if you are looking to solve educational inequality in a hypothetical rounding error and not in the underlying conditions that mean you're twice as likely to get A grades if your parents pay for your school than if you go to a state comp, you're looking in the wrong direction.

That's a general 'you', not anyone here obvs,

imo, the fairest way to do it would be to defer university intake until January and let everyone take exams in October or write the whole year off and have everyone restart but neither of those was considered practical.

Yeah, aiui, the outcome (grades in August) was determined by Williamson and OFQUAL was tasked with finding the fairest way to make it happen. Financially, i can see why deferring wouldn't have been viable for universities, though.

I have no particular dog in this horse

words and expressions that make you irrationally delighted

https://i.ytimg.com/vi/AOLMr5HPb5I/maxresdefault.jpg

living the dream!

TV news on boats gawping at travellers over the last few weeks has indeed made Farage look ahead of the game again but anyone who acts like a few thousand asylum seekers a year - or yeah just the movements of PoC in general - is the biggest scandal will always be able to make hay.

Hats off to @WorcCollegeOx for placing all the students to whom they offered places this year - irrespective of their scores in the government's A level debacle. THIS is how you do it guys. Come on everyone, please follow suit 👏👏👏 pic.twitter.com/Dvdh7szC10

— Rachel Clarke (@doctor_oxford) August 14, 2020

I suspect that’ll end up happening at most places that haven’t massively over-offered.

This is great.

https://www.theguardian.com/society/2020/aug/14/it-hasnt-sank-in-residents-win-60-rent-reduction-in-london-council-flats

ho ho ho. rhyming kitemark with shitemark shows such quickness of mind and devastating wit I'm genuinely pissing my pants - she's done it again

I suspect that’ll end up happening at most places that haven’t massively over-offered.

― Scampo di tutti i Scampi (ShariVari), Friday, August 14, 2020 12:56 PM (one hour ago) bookmarkflaglink

i thought pretty much everywhere except oxford and cambridge over-offers though?

Given the number of students who are likely to try and defer by a year I'm not sure it'll make much difference except at the most popular universities.

Given the level of coverage there's been around schools reopening we've barely heard about what's happening with universities at all. I'm assuming they aren't packing students into halls but who even knows any more.

I think a lot are playing it by ear but several have said that there will be no in-person lectures already.

There is another lever the government could pull, which is lifting the hard cap on numbers. You could have a larger U.K. cohort at oversubscribed universities to offset any decline in overseas students if they were allowed to.

That’s a fantastic story SV. I found this detail incredible: The management company in its defence said that it “spent £400,000 annually on repairs to the properties”. Spread out among 250 flats in condemnable nick! Fucking jackals.

On thing that’s not been said is the lack of international students - I presume almost all unis are begging anyone and any money they can get.

In theory yes but they can only legally recruit around 5% more English students than last year or face huge penalties. It’s something the government could relax if they wanted to and is one of the least painful ‘fixes’.

I can see why the kicking it got last time would cause the government to give notice of the French quarantine, but has anyone had at them on the fact that medically it's nonsense? Not to mention the effect of U.K. holidaymakers piling into the ports to get back in a hurry.

Westminster Voting Intention:

CON: 43% (=)
LAB: 36% (-2)
LDM: 9% (+2)
GRN: 4% (=)

Via @RedfieldWilton, 12 Aug.*
Changes w/ 29 Jul.

*pre results fiasco

— Election Maps UK (@ElectionMapsUK) August 14, 2020

should be bejlihjfeilje points ahead!

Luke Akehurst’s just lost at his own clp’s nomination meeting 👁👄👁

— Sarah 🤝 (@Sarah_Cundy) August 14, 2020

What a delightful way to end the week.

👍👍👍

Tells you everything you need to know about @PhilipJCollins1’s ejection from The Times https://t.co/NneavSNAM5

— James Schneider (@schneiderhome) August 15, 2020

you might not be able to hurry love but you sure can hurry a p45 these days

There's a whole generation of columnists who have spent five or 10 years willingly playing the useful idiot for the right wing press who are suddenly finding themselves surplus to requirements. It's one of the few silver linings from the last few months. But it's as likely to be the fact that, without anything else to do, he's been unacceptably critical of the government recently.

https://www.reuters.com/article/us-brazil-politics/brazils-bolsonaro-gains-more-popular-approval-says-datafolha-poll-idUSKCN25A1JX

Meanwhile this bounce in Bolsonaro's poll ratings probably says a lot about our own situation as well. You can lead, through a combination of mendacity, incompetence and stupidity, a disastrous pandemic response that kills tens of thousands of your own people and hammers your economy, but as long as you keep throwing cash at voters they'll support you.

Datafolha has a history of minimizing left wing ratings and inflating right wing ratings ftr.

I wasn't aware of that - do you mean in the same way as our pollsters do or in the sense of being outright shifty and unreliable? How is this comparing to other polls?

Doesn't mean that the phenomenon I described doesn't apply though. As long as people are still having money put in their pocket they're more likely to take the "they're doing the best they can" line.

I'd have to check if there were any other recent polls.

Mostly same way as UK pollsters - leading questions and the like. Also a history of minimizing numbers for left-wing protests. They're not pro-Bolsonaro to be clear, more traditional Brazilian right. But the sheer scale of human disaster in Brazil, which comes closer to the US than the UK imo, makes me somewhat skeptical.

this “not supporting modi/hindutva is anti-hindu/anti-indian racism” thing seems to be picking up more traction now. wonder where they got the idea from

from the comments it’s clear no one has the foggiest clue what this is all about but they’re clearly delighted to have another anti-racist sounding talking point to defend their racism with

On this #IndiaIndependenceDay and after 20 years of service, I have resigned from @UKLabour – an institutionally racist, anti-Indian party.

I realise now that socialism is a toxic, hateful ideology and I believe Labour has been damaged beyond repair.https://t.co/bVTANB2cDB pic.twitter.com/Kl5Kp3bT3u

— Sundip Meghani (@Sundip) August 15, 2020

how long has the “thin blue line butchers apron” design been a thing in UK fascist circles? hope he enjoys his new base

https://pbs.twimg.com/media/EffZT73XkAIX90m?format=jpg&name=large

if the slack bastards were serious about political assignation they'd have come to me for stabby murder tips!