Not unexpected it would seem, but also probably a reason why the election was rushed through. Inflation down to 2% is a better slogan than down to 2.3%, or 2.75%
The major reason for this is that inflation is measured based on the growth in prices over the past year, so a large part of the figure is based on what prices were 12 months ago.
In April, the energy price cap – the maximum most households pay for each unit of gas or electricity used – was cut by the regulator Ofgem. In April 2023, the amount people were paying for their energy was at the highest level on record, but the cap fell in July 2023.
So while energy prices deflated dramatically in the 12 months leading up to April to June 2024, dragging the headline inflation figure down, the deflation is less dramatic in July.
And also
It predicted at the beginning of August that inflation will rise to 2.75 per cent by the end of 2024 and stay high for the foreseeable future before dropping to below 2 per cent again in the summer of 2026
Yeah it’s higher than energy, correct. But not stupidly high.
Forecasters expect core CPI, which excludes energy and food prices, to stay at around 3.5 per cent and services CPI, which measures items such as rail tickets and hospitality costs, to drop a little, with Deutsche Bank and Pantheon Macroeconomics saying it could go from 5.7 to 5.5 per cent.
“Positive base effects, mainly from energy prices, will likely push headline inflation higher through the second half of 2024. But there is good news. Services inflation, we expect, should continue its descent – albeit gradually,” said Sanjay Raja of Deutsche Bank Research.
Unless there are some factors that I am not aware of affecting the UK, I don’t think that inflation will reach particularly high levels – like, of the COVID-19 sort – in the near future. And inflation normally does bounce around a bit.
This is actually a very minimal change to the already existing curriculum - the (compulsory) English Language GCSE is 50% “Critical reading and comprehension”
Gov UK states all specifications must include:
“identifying bias and misuse of evidence, including distinguishing between statements that are supported by evidence and those that are not; reflecting critically and evaluatively on text”
Most people presumably… “forgot”? but this has been in the curriculum for decades
For me at least, most of that was just identifying rhetorical devices used by the writer and summarising what they wrote, not looking at the legitimacy of what’s being said (it’d be hard to do that in an exam context anyway).
Yeah, there’s definitely a difference between curricula, what’s focussed on in classrooms, and exam assessment criteria, but they’re supposed to be cohesive.
I remember one of my big pieces of coursework was “writing from the perspective of an advertiser,” and we had loads of lessons on identifying bias. I was taught in school that “red top magazines” are “less honest and more emotive” than “broadsheet newspapers.”
Presumably not everyone had the same experience though: I mentioned this offhand and my friend told me “surely that’s illegal to teach in a classroom?!”
I think a lot of what people are missing is around spoken techniques.
Recognising ad hominem attacks.
Recognising straw-man arguments.
Recognising circular reasoning.
Spotting embedded assumptions or premises in points.
Being numerically literate enough so that big numbers have context.
Yes, these things apply to texts also, but they can fly past you when somebody is speaking. You can’t take 30 seconds to notice that somebody is arguing against something which wasn’t said by the opposition. It has to be a reflexive “hang on a minute! That’s BS”.
Though I’m not British, I have an interest in your education system because I went to a school that taught, up until year 11, the British education system. Years 10 and 11 were IGCSE, which is an international variant of the GCSE.
But in years 12 and 13 I took the International Baccalaureate. Which I have a lot of praise for in general, but particularly in regards to this aspect. One of the core components of IB that everyone has to take is Theory of Knowledge. It’s essentially an introduction to epistemology, including learning about logical arguments…and logical fallacies. It’s one of the most broadly useful things you can learn, and I think it should be in every high school curriculum.
As I was going to St Ives, I met a man with seven wives, Each wife had seven sacks, Each sack had seven cats, Each cat had seven kits: Kits, cats, sacks, and wives, How many were there going to St Ives?
This is good, but they could really do with running these for older people too.
Here’s one I heard this week for example:
“My friend down at the bowls club said on Facebook that they’re not even real immigrants, but they’re special forces soldiers from the secret UN Army and they’re bringing them over here to take over the British and they’ve all got really good shoes and mobile phones you see, that’s how you can tell and they’re all of fighting age aren’t they?”
As always, things will focus more on vibes and credentialism than critical thinking, because conspiracy theories are a mainstay of all the ‘serious’ papers and conspiracy itself is just how power has functioned for the last few centuries
What my Dad always called “the elastic curriculum” - some politician gets a bug up their ass and demand schools teach it (eg BoJo and Latin). At least this weaves through different subjects so could be made to work. Still, it must be a bit difficult to teach critical thinking in religious schools.
Mine did, too. Hell, I had a 4th grade teacher that taught the class how to meditate during the last 5-10 minutes of class. She would turn off the lights, have us put our heads down on our desk and would put on a CD with new age bell/chime/gong meditation music, and she would talk us through guided meditations; simple visualization and relaxation. She also taught us to stand up and speak out when we saw someone doing something bad: “You are doing the wrong thing!”
My evangelical school did a “classical education” and made the mistake of actually having some critical thinking after all the indoctrination. I’m a pagan leftist transgender homosexual now.
“Sweep” might be a stronger term.than I’d use but it’s not unreasonable given the number of riots.
And, for the general reader (which Lemmy users tend not to be) they’d consider Telegram to be fringe compared to the big players in social media, if they’ve heard of it at all.
They did the same thing with Blackberry Messenger and the last set of riots. They made it sound like the rioting was everywhere, but I was in a pub in Manchester and there was maybe a couple of hundred of nobheads outside who kept running past the other way whenever someone saw the plod coming
Also someone set fire to a bin near my house - that was about the high watermark of the downfall of civilisation that time.
I was living in SW London then, I even joined Twitter hoping to get news on local trouble more quickly. I did see a few very dodgy looking chaps hanging around in twos and threes but nothing happened.
Oh except a shop front glass got smashed over in New Malden high street. It was big news until the reports confirmed it was the owners had an accident.
It’s not like the old days when we could have a proper riot like in Brixton or Toxteth. Ah those were the days…
As awful as this was, the fact she said “if this is true” and deleting it within an hour, I tend to believe her that it was in fact a really stupid mistake. Although maybe it could serve a lesson to other people not to make a really stupid mistake
Although with her anti lockdown antics, I can also see a good doubt for that.
I'm sure they quoted one instance of a holiday home owner donating all surplus food at the end of their stay.
Even so, some visitors donate. Wallis says a Swiss couple give £500 each year. People ring and ask him to collect excess food from their holiday cottage when they leave.
“overtourism” is such a good word. Summer in London is unbearable and the thousands of party lad homophobes coming down to Brighton every Saturday in the summer to culture clash with the natives don’t help there either.
unitedkingdom
Newest
This magazine is from a federated server and may be incomplete. Browse more on the original instance.