One must admire the tenacity of Miss Phillipson. Raised in Tyne and Wear between a disused railway and a flattened chemical plant, she has evidently decided that her childhood hardships constitute a permanent shield against arithmetic.
How quaint.
Miss Phillipson promised 6,500 teachers, funded by her spiteful little VAT raid on private schools. She has delivered, by her own creative accounting, 4,654. One might almost congratulate her, were one not possessed of a calculator and the ability to read footnotes.
The 4,654 includes further education lecturers and special school staff. The actual increase in secondary teachers? Nine hundred and seventy-eight. Not 6,500. Not close. She has not moved goalposts; she has relocated the entire pitch to another sport.
Meanwhile, the National Education Union reports that zero percent of her profession considers her work "very good." Seventy-four percent consider it poor. One imagines even the flattened chemical plant of her youth achieved higher approval ratings.
The private school VAT has displaced thousands of children, damaged the sector, and produced precisely the opposite of her stated intent. But then, one does not become Education Secretary to educate. One becomes Education Secretary to settle scores dressed as social justice.
Miss Phillipson did not escape poverty to improve schools. She escaped to become precisely the sort of politician who uses her past as immunity from scrutiny while dismantling the ladders she climbed.
VERDICT: Statistical fraud in working-class costume. A revolutionary who destroys the ladder, then charges admission to view the wreckage.
@Jalopnik 2003 Subaru Legacy. Faultless until it passed 100,000 miles. Then it broke regularly and expensively until I finally lost patience and sold it.
@CharlotteCGill He looks like one of those chaps who works at a phone repair kiosk on the concourse of a past-its-best shopping centre - the difference being they offer a useful service.
@TheSimonEvansX Go watch your local team. It doesnโt matter at what level - pub, village, town. The drama can play out on a village green or in a purpose built arena. The venue is immaterial. But the passion is the same. And the absence of commercialism a blessing.
Polestar is exiting the U.S. market.
The company announced on Thursday that its time in the U.S. will come to an unceremonious end after the 2027 model year. Polestar will continue to sell its existing stock and will support Polestar owners in the U.S. after departing the market.
The decision comes as a result of the Connected Vehicle Rule, a U.S. Department of Commerce policy that restricts the sale of "connected vehicles by connected vehicle manufacturers owned by, controlled by, or subject to the jurisdiction or direction of China or Russia."
The SNP's newest recruit Lara Bird set tongues wagging almost as much as her head as she was sworn into parliament this week & she has plenty to say about it! #parody
@sharrond62 Alas itโs not โinsanityโ because they are cognisant of what they are doing. Itโs deliberate, ruthless destruction. Our beautiful, amazing country is a cornerstone of western civilisation and so, for them, this is why it has to go.
Dear @EnvAgency.
In February this year, after 4 years of asking you to look after the Aldersbrook, I led a team of volunteers to do your job for you & clean out tonnes of silt & leaves, as well as hundreds of bags of rubbish. Through the effort of community volunteers & donations, & at zero cost to the taxpayer, we turned a forgotten silted up ditch back into a river again.
Last nights intense rain storm showed why our actions are the very definition of โstrengthening water resilienceโ. A huge amount of rain fell in a short time, but the restored section of the Aldersbrook has been able to hold 100โs of thousands of litres more water, stopping this water running into the Roding, & thereby *reducing* local flood risk. The first photograph below is of the Aldersbrook after the rains this morning- a big contrast to the area before we did the work.
Perhaps more importantly, this water, instead of running straight off into the Roding & hence the sea is now being held in the Aldersbrook & gradually released so it can be used by nature. It is feeding marshes, trees & wildlife, topping up groundwater & helping to reduce our flood/drought cycle. If you want to strengthen water resilience, we need thousands more projects like the Aldersbrook around the country.
So the question I ask you, Environment Agency, is why you are threatening me with two years imprisonment, rather than offering to meet & discuss how we can work together to restore the Roding & its tributaries, which could become a blueprint for you cooperating with local river guardians nationwide?
@CarverEmily Maybe these parents could balance it out a little. For example, for every chapter they read their kiddies they could show them how to steal a bottle of Buckfast from a corner shop? Or show them how to smash up a bus stop? No?