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The banker loving, baby-eating Tory party thread (regenerated)


blandy

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1 hour ago, Xann said:

Independent

... and they're so keen to know what we're up to?

The Indie are a bit late to the party (though it looks like there's additional info about FoI requests); yer man over on the Jack of Kent blog (he also blogs at the FT) has been on this for a while (link from 12th Oct):

Quote

“Exclusive” – the Home Office has a MoU with Saudi Arabia about which it is keeping quiet.

In researching around the Ministry of Justice’s Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) with the Saudis, I came across a curious piece of information.

(ADD, 3rd October 2015: A “Memorandum of Understanding” is a formal agreement, but usually one that is not intended to be contractual binding.)

According to a 2015 Foreign and Commonwealth Office report, the Home Office signed a Memorandum of Understanding with the Saudi interior ministry in March 2014:

“In March, the Home Secretary, Theresa May, signed a MoU with her Saudi counterpart to help modernise the Ministry of the Interior, which draws on UK expertise in the wider security and policing arena. This will complement work going on between the College of Policing and a range of Saudi security bodies.”

The remarkable thing is that – other than this mention on the FCO website (and that is in an fairly obscure report) – there appears to be no public mention by the government at all of this document.

It may well be that the FCO mention is a fortuitous-sort-of-accident and that the MoU was never intended to be known about publicly.

But the MoU is an important document: the UK Home Office is formally assisting the police in one of the most repressive regimes in the world.

As this blog has previously set out: the Saudi regime is, without any exaggeration, barbaric.  Criminal offences are not defined; there is no recognisable due process for defendants; and the punishments are savage. And this description is not just some hyperbole of a breathless human rights lawyer: it is what the UK embassy in Riyadh itself says in its chilling Information Pack for British Prisoners in Saudi Arabia.  On punishments, the guide says:

“Criminal law punishments in Saudi Arabia include public beheading, stoning, amputation and lashings. Serious criminal offences include not only internationally recognized crimes such as murder, rape, theft and robbery, but also apostasy, adultery, witchcraft and sorcery. In addition to the regular police force, Saudi Arabia has a secret police, the Mabahith, and “religious” police, the Mutawa. The Saudi courts impose a number of severe physical punishments. The death penalty can be imposed for a wide range of offences including murder, rape, armed robbery, repeated drug use, apostasy, adultery, witchcraft and sorcery and can be carried out by beheading with a sword, stoning or firing squad, followed by crucifixion.”

That is the regime our Home Office is formally assisting.

But it seems the Home Office do not want you to know about the Memorandum of Understanding whatsoever; it is nowhere on the Home Office site, and so far as I can see, it is not mentioned anywhere else.

(If this is wrong, please add links in the Comments below.)

*

I asked the Home Office press office about this MoU today, and their answers were as follows:

Q: Can you confirm whether the FCO statement is correct?

A: “The information on the FCO website is accurate.”

 Q: Can you confirm whether the Home Office-Saudi MoU is still in force?

A: “The Home Office does have an MoU with the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia. The MoU remains in effect.”

 Q: Is it possible to get a general statement on the MoU?

A: “There is nothing to add regarding this MoU beyond the information already available on the Gov.uk website.”

On the last answer, I asked as a follow-on:

The third answer is ambiguous: is there information on the Gov.UK website on the MoU other than at that FCO link?  If so, may I have links to that publicly available information?

To which the response was:

A: “…just to be clear; I was referring to the information you have already highlighted.”

*

So:

– there is a Memorandum of Understanding between the UK Home Office and Saudi Arabia;

– the Memorandum of Understanding covers serious matters;

– the Memorandum of Understanding means UK policing expertise is given so as to assist the police in a notoriously repressive regime; and

– the Memorandum of Understanding remains in force.

But left to the Home Office you would not even know it existed.

He's also posted stuff about the MoJ contract (through their commercial arm - JSi) with the Saudis.

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Turns out that Old Etonian and current Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster Oliver Letwin had some interesting racist views whilst in Thatcher's government in the 1980's. Who'd have thought it!

However, I'm sure that since the 80's and since having claimed over £2,000 on parliamentary expenses to repair his private tennis court and since saying that public sector workers needed more 'fear' he's probably moved on and matured.

Can't have too much of a go at people for things they thought 30 or so years ago. My guess is he would not say anything or write anything down these days that could be seen as patently racist.

 

 

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I read  The Government, in the person of Nicky Morgan, want school children to learn their 'times tables'. Whilst trying not to agree with anything this lot impose on Education, (as the father of a teacher) , I reckon this might be a good idea. When I worked in Prison Education , I discovered that the majority of the prisoners, who were 18 to 23, did not know their 'tables' and thus had difficulty completing the Numeracy exams in the time allowed. When I suggested to my 'boss'  - a woman who looked very much like Meatloaf - that we held classes for learning tables she scoffed at the idea saying that they wouldn't have the concentration span. I would be interested to know what other VTers think - did you help your children with tables for example ?

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The bit I picked up from it was that Ms Morgan confirming teachers as well as pupils will be judged on this. So there is the usual risk that we will now see schools teaching 10 and 11 year old children how to pass a times tables exam.

It's like most everything, difficult to disagree with the overall principle, let's see the detail and unforeseen consequences.

@Veloman, you mention you've worked in Prison Ed. How did you find the level of english language reading and writing amongst offenders? 

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When did they stop teaching the times tables? I learned them during primary school in the 90s.

My daughters (in their 20s) don't seem to know them. I see them struggling to calculate something, I say "Well, seven eights are fifty-six...". They say "How can you just KNOW that?" I say "How can you NOT know that?"

But it's a storm in a teacup. As usual, government ministers focusing on trivia rather than addressing the serious problems in education - but I'm equally unimpressed by the hysterical response. How it's going to 'traumatise' children, how it's not about understanding, it's 'just' memorising. Well, memory training is useful, it's an adjunct to comprehension, not an alternative.

Sure, I didn't actually enjoy learning tables, but that was the least of my problems with maths phobia. And at least I can do quick calculations today!

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I'm not sure it's the teaching of the times tables that teachers are concerned about - it's the testing and more importantly the monitored, published scoring of those tests that concern them. I think it's a good idea to teach tables, I think it's a good idea to test kids on them, I don't think it should be a part of how those schools are judged from outside.

 

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I'm not sure it's the teaching of the times tables that teachers are concerned about - it's the testing and more importantly the monitored, published scoring of those tests that concern them. I think it's a good idea to teach tables, I think it's a good idea to test kids on them, I don't think it should be a part of how those schools are judged from outside.

 

Yeah, agree on that.

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14 hours ago, chrisp65 said:

@Veloman, you mention you've worked in Prison Ed. How did you find the level of english language reading and writing amongst offenders? 

Well the YOI I worked in followed the OCR Literacy/Numeracy Levels 1 and 2; all I did was organise (or try to) the sitting of the exams, invigilating and distribution of certificates if they passed. My 'unprofessional' opinion is that it was pretty good and the teachers in Literacy particularly did a damn good job. We did have a large number of ESOL (English as a Second Language ) prisoners and they, unsurprisingly, found 'numbers' as they called Numeracy, much easier. The level 2 Literacy did cause them problems though as it required what I would call 'Comprehension'.

 

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17 hours ago, mjmooney said:

...But it's a storm in a teacup. As usual, government ministers focusing on trivia rather than addressing the serious problems in education - but I'm equally unimpressed by the hysterical response. How it's going to 'traumatise' children, how it's not about understanding, it's 'just' memorising. Well, memory training is useful, it's an adjunct to comprehension, not an alternative.

It's kind of ridiculous and kind of indicative of the tories. You get recital (by all politicians) of stuff like "education is a good thing" - just platitudes, but the tories take it on a step further "we need to teach toddlers to walk", "we need to teach our children to eat food", "we need everyone to breathe air". It's basically what UKIPs do as well - a kind of trigger memory for "how things used to be when everything was lovely and there were no foreigners and no crime and the environment hadn't been made up by lefties and the Yurpeens and Britain ruled the waves"

On the actual detail, I think learning by memory is not really a good way of teaching stuff. In some few things it's essential - learning morse code, perhaps (not that most people need ever know it or use it). As far as maths goes, people need to be taught how to work something out, not just a series of answers. Though I confess times tables are/could be kind of useful for everyday shopping or whatever, for people too busy or distracted to think..

I was taught times tables, but I don't really use them (and I work in engineering). I use the technique of multiplication frequently, though. That's what people should perhaps be taught? - how to. It applies to a lot of stuff.

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11 hours ago, blandy said:

I was taught times tables, but I don't really use them (and I work in engineering). I use the technique of multiplication frequently, though. That's what people should perhaps be taught? - how to. It applies to a lot of stuff.

Have heaps of 'I agree'. :thumb:

 

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12 hours ago, Xann said:

The Canary

Vile scum.

Don't forget, all those assets, especially the great utilities sold off by Thatcher, were vastly undervalued, Interesting that many of those assets are now once again state owned, ie Water and railways, it just happens to be foreign states that own them.The Tories, ripping off the British people is what they live for.

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On 1/3/2016 at 18:49, chrisp65 said:

The bit I picked up from it was that Ms Morgan confirming teachers as well as pupils will be judged on this. So there is the usual risk that we will now see schools teaching 10 and 11 year old children how to pass a times tables exam.

It's like most everything, difficult to disagree with the overall principle, let's see the detail and unforeseen consequences.

@Veloman, you mention you've worked in Prison Ed. How did you find the level of english language reading and writing amongst offenders? 

I think it's a bit of a soundbite. Yes, being able to count is very important, but really, it's more abstract ideas and problem solving (mathematical) skills that need to be instilled into young people, and not putting the focus on being bean counters, as that won't get you much further than the counter at McDonalds. 

Edited by Dr_Pangloss
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On 1/5/2016 at 09:52, Xann said:

The Canary

Vile scum.

Fire sale to the private sector is designed only to benefit their own 'kind'. The Tories will continue to asset strip this country and when they are eventually voted out we will be a lot more impoverished with significantly less leverage as a nation and even more prone to private sector capture.  

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19 minutes ago, Dr_Pangloss said:

Fire sale to the private sector is designed only to benefit their own 'kind'. The Tories will continue to asset strip this country and when they are eventually voted out we will be a lot more impoverished with significantly less leverage as a nation and even more prone to private sector capture.  

..and anyone suggesting anything is taken back into our ownership will be described as a dangerous nutter from a bygone failed age and probably a threat to our security and our children.

 

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On ‎06‎/‎01‎/‎2016 at 12:47, chrisp65 said:

..and anyone suggesting anything is taken back into our ownership will be described as a dangerous nutter from a bygone failed age and probably a threat to our security and our children.

 

if he can plant a tree that grows the  £185bn to buy back the utility companies alone then good luck to him and plant some more trees whilst you are at it  Jeremy   ...more so as doing so would be incompatible ( or even illegal ? )  under current EU law so his buy back means we have told Europe to Jog on and gone it alone

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