That an *English Literature graduate* of Bedfordshire Uni required *an interpreter* should trigger an immediate revocation of Bedfordshire's right to grant visas - and a wider investigation into its degree standards.
It won't though, because we're no longer a serious country.
Iain Mansfield
12.7K posts
Current affairs, politics, education and miscellany. All views my own.
- Whenever I speak to people in their 20s, it is striking how in every financial area - rent, ability to buy a flat, student loan repayments, pensions - their situation is incomparably worse than mine was at the same age.
- "And in our next King's Speech, we will be introducing legislation to repeal the First Law of Thermodynamics."
00:04Did you know a heat pump is 3x more efficient than a gas boiler? Meaning it generates 3 times more energy than it consumes. Check if a heat pump could be suitable for your home gov.uk/check-heat-pump #HeatPumpWeek - Brexit didn't guarantee we'd have better leaders, or make better choices. And we often haven't. But it did ensure that they were our leaders, our choices - and we can kick them out when they disappoint. That's why it was, and always will be, worth it.
- This is an absurdity. Employers must be free to pay different wages for *entirely different jobs*. A situation where judges can declare that different jobs are of 'equal value' is a perversion of equal pay law - and should have no place in a free market economy.
- Superb news - and a full vindication of @Docstockk. I hope the level of fine shows other unis they cannot silence gender critical or other lawful views. Yet the response from Sussex shows how much cultural change is still required in the HE sector. 1/3
- Well done, Britain. We've just banned the advertising of porridge 'and other oat-based cereals' because it is 'less healthy'. But growth is our number 1 priority!
- Bam! And that, my friends, is how you deregulate. No endless consultations, no turgid white papers, no 'stakeholderism', no imperceptibly nuanced changes that in practice means nothing changes. Just sweep it away. Build, baby, build!
- Congratulations to Sir @NickGibbUK! He left millions of children more able to read, better educated and with a richer and deeper knowledge of the world. Over his 10 years as Schools Minister, England rose from: - 10th to 4th in the world in Reading. - 27th to 11th in Maths.
- While in DfE I personally saw an attempt by officials to remove an external adviser for expressing gender critical views. The attempt was less sophisticated than the 'hit job' against Falkner, but used very similar means and language. Thread.
- Erasmus+ is the quintessential ‘Anywhere’ policy. £150m a year to fund jollies for middle-class kids to study in the most accessible continent in the world. At a time when tough decisions are being made on welfare, winter fuel and public services, it leaves a bad taste.
- There must be a reckoning with the widespread discriminatory admissions policies in place at British universities. In the US they call it 'affirmative action'. Here they call it 'contextual admissions'. Regardless of the euphemism, it needs to be ruthlessly stamped out.Another question, how on earth did he get into Oxford PPE with ABB? I know people with A*A*A who got rejected.
- Where's the vaunted 'soft power' we gave up the Chagos Islands to obtain? Are Mauritius - or other members of the 'Global South' - siding with the UK? Or is the truth simply that we gave up the islands for nothing - and having shown weakness, will be treated as weak? Thread.
- This is the most fundamental legal problem with the Chagos deal. No-one has ever - at any point - been able to set out by what mechanism the advisory opinion would 'become a legally binding judgement.' And so the entire rationale falls.













