[davidjay]

Going back to being pushed, I was doing well until A levels. Then, suddenly having to work after having it easy all your school life can be made or break. That and discovering football and loud punky music.

[Youngian]

The woman Michael Gove believed would be a bulls eye for Conservative fortunes if made leader. A 21st century face that would win back all those southern seats from the LDs.

[Tubby Isaacs]

Also:

I was a straight A student, until A levels...

A levels are harder love, the're designed like that.

Your party continually whines about dumbing down.
But not dumb enough for Kemi

Ha ha.

She didn't do badly at all, probably towards the top of her cohort. It was an FE College in Morden, not a highly selective school in Buckinghamshire. There are plenty of narratives that a politician could build on that experience to which most people would be sympathetic. Off the top of my head, "I did OK at A level, could have done better, but only really achieved my potential at university and in work. I think that's true of lots of people, and I think we have to recognize that". There you go.

Instead we get "I was a straight A student let down by Labour who didn't make the teachers push me hard enough to get better A levels". Which is pathetic, not least because it was John Major's education system, and her government's weren't exactly marked by their concern for FE colleges.

[Tubby Isaacs]

The woman Michael Gove believed would be a bulls eye for Conservative fortunes if made leader. A 21st century face that would win back all those southern seats from the LDs.

Oh my God. Yaxley-Lennon pleaded apologetically guilty. He's got a rap sheet the length of Joel Garner's arm.

I've lost track with the Tory voting university friends I had, but God knows what they make of this. I think one bailed out in 2005 over Howard's election campaign. One other was a Tory member in Battersea, and they were very fortunate to have her. I'd guess she's long bailed too.

[Crabcakes]

On occasions like this, I always reach for cricket metaphors. Kemi as the tail end slogger who charges down the pitch to a wily spinner and gets stumped. Or perhaps she doesn't move her feet at all and skies it straight to mid off, with that priceless tail ender's raising of the head and look of horror.

I'm reaching for a metaphor of Kemi as a bowler and can't quite find one. Charging in and dropping it a short outside off stump, to be met with a Robin Smith square cut? Perhaps, but that doesn't seem adequate.

2 hours after the end of the test, Kemi is the bitter groundskeeper who thought he had a bit of talent but never got picked (because of the stupidity of the coach, who had it in for him), who picks up a discarded bat and gets his long-suffering assistant to bowl at him to show he can do it as well as the first team, and who then misses entirely, smashes himself in the face with the bat and then immediately shits themselves from the pain. And then blames the bowler.

[Tubby Isaacs]

Ha ha. That's fair.

In other news.

Gabriel Milland
‪@gabrielmilland.bsky.social‬
British-Pakistanis are upwardly mobile. They go to university at a very high rate. They may be socially quite conservative. Many run small businesses. They're increasingly suspicious of Labour.

But now they know the Tories think it would have been better if they had never come.
January 8, 2025 at 12:44 PM

See also Bangladeshi school results. If there's any group that typifies the "we never had any money, but Mum and Dad made sure we got our heads down and did our schoolwork", it's them.

I'd be very surprised if Elmo Musk had any idea about ethnic minority school achievement in Britain. He probably thinks Tower Hamlets is like West Baltimore, except with more rapists.

[Tubby Isaacs]

Kemi Badenoch was wrong to claim that a cross-party group of MPs included “talking about sex groomers” in its definition of Islamophobia, the group has said.

Good God. As you'd expect, the definition was, as Sarah Owen has responded, that using groomers as a trope to attack all Muslims was Islamophobic.

Did Kemi say that Starmer called people who want an inquiry "far right" as well? Would be about her standard.

[Tubby Isaacs]

Kemi did apparently say "be a leader not a lawyer".

I can't match Crabcakes on cricket metaphors, but this is a half volley on leg stump, to an offside field. Starmer was the actual leader at the CPS when prosecutions were stepped up. Does Real World Kemi have anything like that outside politics? How about the time she updated Windows at the Spectator?

[Tubby Isaacs]

Oh dear.

https://www.mirror.co.uk/news/politics/ ... t-34442557

Kemi Badenoch hasn't actually met any grooming gang survivors - and doesn't think she needs to
The Tory leader's spokesman said she didn't need to meet with victims, because she's read all about it in the media - and had no current plans to meet with anyone - but denied she was jumping on an Elon Musk-fuelled bandwagon

I can see why a politician might think "Hmm, Labour councils, there could be a good angle for us here". But at least do the groundwork.

[Killer Whale]

So much for 'this is about the victims'.

Never was. Never will be.

Fancy being led by the nose into supporting a race war by the British far right, who consist mainly, remember, of coked up football hooligans too off their heads to do a proper riot.

[Tubby Isaacs]

Going back to being pushed, I was doing well until A levels. Then, suddenly having to work after having it easy all your school life can be made or break. That and discovering football and loud punky music.

And I think A Level was genuinely a big step up, certainly in my day. GCSE was a school leaving exam (which is why lots of people think we don't need it now that hardly anyone leaves education at 16). A Levels were a way of gate keeping university access.

I can remember a friend of mine who got an A in GCSE German telling me how hard he was finding German A Level. In time, he did well in university and his career (way better than me, who found A Level French fairly easy), but there was clearly an adjustment to a different level that he didn't find easy. Haven't seen him for a while but I'm sure he's not sat about chuntering about how he wasn't pushed hard enough.

[Tubby Isaacs]

So much for 'this is about the victims'.

Never was. Never will be.

Fancy being led by the nose into supporting a race war by the British far right, who consist mainly, remember, of coked up football hooligans too off their heads to do a proper riot.

Be fair it's not just the far right, it's also.... the new administration at Oldham Borough Council who want a national inquiry. When local government speaks up, Westminster invariably does what it says. As witnessed by the complete lack of cuts to local government since 2010.

[Tubby Isaacs]

Interesting to read that not many Tories bothered with Badenoch's call for a new inquiry in the debate on the schools and safeguarding bill. Sounds like more focus on the changes to academies. Perhaps the Full Jenrick-Badenoch isn't the inevitable future for the Tories. It's easy to overlook how many in the South only survived last time because the Lib Dems didn't know their seats were in play. Had Davey written off Jeremy Hunt's seat, he could have won a few more with the extra activists.

[Youngian]

A seat Labour didn't contest

[kreuzberger]

She just doesn't understand this being in-opposition malarkey, does she? As evidenced by her A-Levels where others get to make the decisions.

[Tubby Isaacs]

In 2001, Labour did pick up a couple of seats like Dorset South (which they won in 2024 too), but I think it'll be a stretch to pick up Badenoch's seat because they'll be on the hook for (genuinely) difficult decisions they made.

The Lib Dems won't have that problem. Labour got quite a few votes in some of their near misses too, like North Cotswolds which I'd have thought was a better seat to contest than Tewkesbury next door (where the Lib Dems romped home). Then again, who am I to criticize Lib Dem election strategists?

[Tubby Isaacs]

She just doesn't understand this being in-opposition malarkey, does she? As evidenced by her A-Levels where others get to make the decisions.

I wonder if she's seriously worried about Jenrick deposing her. She can't be this bad, surely.

[The Weeping Angel]

Kemi did apparently say "be a leader not a lawyer".

I can't match Crabcakes on cricket metaphors, but this is a half volley on leg stump, to an offside field. Starmer was the actual leader at the CPS when prosecutions were stepped up. Does Real World Kemi have anything like that outside politics? How about the time she updated Windows at the Spectator?

Or the time she hacked Harriet Harman's website.

[Tubby Isaacs]

What a day she's had.

Badenoch refuses to restore whip to Warsi despite clearing her of wrongdoing over Sunak ‘coconut’ tweet
Exclusive: Tory leader refuses to reinstate UK’s first Muslim cabinet member less than 24 hours after backing Robert Jenrick for railing against ‘alien cultures with medieval attitudes’

https://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/p ... 75714.html

[davidjay]

What a day she's had.

Badenoch refuses to restore whip to Warsi despite clearing her of wrongdoing over Sunak ‘coconut’ tweet
Exclusive: Tory leader refuses to reinstate UK’s first Muslim cabinet member less than 24 hours after backing Robert Jenrick for railing against ‘alien cultures with medieval attitudes’

https://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/p ... 75714.html

I don't think that's anything so much to do with Warsi's religion as that her usefulness has been outlived and they'd rather pretend she doesn't exist.