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GreatAlbatross , in Golden age of English universities could be over, says head of watchdog
@GreatAlbatross@feddit.uk avatar

I look at the fees charged nowadays, and I’m convinced that if I had just finished my A-levels, I’d just go and train as a paramedic.
You still get a degree, except as it’s also an apprenticeship you get paid.

Kaboom , in Outrage as librarians reveal schools banning LGBT+ books after parents’ complaints

Well, what kind of books? Are we talking about normal lgbtq books, or are talking ban-bait books like gender queer?

Warl0k3 ,

Does it matter?

Kaboom ,

Yes. Some will include explicit pictures of sexual acts, so when they get discovered and removed, the author can cry censorship and get free advertising.

flamingos ,

Literally the fourth paragraph of the article:

The responses revealed that specific titles removed from school libraries included This Book Is Gay, by Juno Dawson, a memoir about a young person discovering their sexual identity; Julián is a Mermaid, by Jessica Love, a picture book about a gender non-conforming boy who dreams of being a mermaid; and the alphabet book ABC Pride, by Louie Stowell, Elly Barnes and Amy Phelps, which introduces young readers to the alphabet while they learn more about the LGBT+ community.

DJDarren ,

So no Chuck Tingle books then?

Emperor OP ,
@Emperor@feddit.uk avatar

Bigfoot Pirates Haunt My Balls is safe, for now.

anytimesoon ,

What about pounded in the butt by my own butt?!

ProfessorOwl_PhD , in Golden age of English universities could be over, says head of watchdog
@ProfessorOwl_PhD@hexbear.net avatar

domestic undergraduate fees remaining frozen since 2012

Not untrue, but they like tripled or quadrupled fees a few years before then, so I’m pretty sure it still accounts for inflation.

HumanPenguin ,
@HumanPenguin@feddit.uk avatar

Yep but those increases in UK student fees rarely resulted in increases to uni funding. As it was matched with government funding drops/ Ala austerity.

ProfessorOwl_PhD ,
@ProfessorOwl_PhD@hexbear.net avatar

Right, so uni fees don’t need raising, they need funding given back.

HumanPenguin ,
@HumanPenguin@feddit.uk avatar

Yep that was the point I was making.

I’d add fees need reducing or removing. Not entirely for the unis. More for the value to our nation. Fees leave in debt students who find it harder so avoid future academic progression.

This leaves the nation with only the children of more wealthy parents moving into advanced education. Removing a huge potential from lower classes.

This of course removes potential for invention and discovery within the UK.

MrNesser , in Intervention as one in four school starters in nappies

My son started reception in pull ups and we transitioned to underpants later in the year.

He is autistic and has had some trouble.

Calling out parents for this is not fair and has more to do with social breakdowns and lack of help forthcoming from local government resources.

wewbull ,

If it’s becoming the norm, then yes it needs calling out. This isnt about the kid that isn’t developing at the same rate because of their own unique challenges.

I suspect this has more to do with lockdown and lack of socialising in early years, so it’s been less of an issue if a kid isn’t toilet trained. That plus first time parents not having other children around as much to have reference development rates.

HumanPenguin ,
@HumanPenguin@feddit.uk avatar

I’d add the guess. First time parents being older or more to the point the reasons they wait.

Part of the desire to leave child raising until people are more fiscally secure. (hardly something we can blame younger couples for over the 2020s). Will be that the cost of nappies was often a huge motivator to young, less stable couples in the past. Now it hardly seems like the big cost compared to housing etc nowadays. Back in the 90s when I was at that point. Rent etc seemed high as an expense. But compared to income today, it really represented a much smaller % of every day costs. So other things were more influential.

Looking on Amazon. Nappies actually seem cheaper inflation adjusted then in the 90s.

Dkarma ,

Your kid has a disability.

That’s not what the article is about.

GetOffMyLan ,

This is about neuro typical children tbf

homesweethomeMrL , in Drunken woman defecated on police officer who tried to put her in handcuffs

Alcohol is a helluva drug

CommunistBear , in Drunken woman defecated on police officer who tried to put her in handcuffs

Chicks rock

sneak100 , in UK economy continues recovery with 0.6% growth

I suppose the bosses and managers can breathe a sigh of relief for the moment, but I highly doubt this will translate into an increase in living standard for those actually struggling with the “cost of living” (what a cynical phrase)

mannycalavera ,
@mannycalavera@feddit.uk avatar

Out of interest, what GDP increase figures would lead to an increase in living standards?🤔

sneak100 ,

None (unless we’re talking about billionaires). GDP is a dogshit predictor of living standards, but gets presented as such by media pundits, who try to make the everyday person empathise with the ultra-rich

mannycalavera ,
@mannycalavera@feddit.uk avatar

What is a good indicator if not GDP?

Flyberius , (edited )
@Flyberius@hexbear.net avatar

I suppose you could create one based on the average wage and the average cost of living. I’m sure something like that does exist. Buying power or disposable income or whatever.

GDP is useless because it counts things like all the money proles are forced to pay to their landlords. And the amount they fork over to energy and utility companies. It counts the hugely inflated value of property markets. It’s not very indicative of how us small folk actually live.

hitmyspot ,

Wage rises in excess of cpi, generally. Gdp increases can be meaningless on an individual basis. For instance, Australia has had years of gdp rises, which are just due to increased population size. The average person has less money as population rising faster than gdp. It’s a per capita recession, but not a technical recession.

SubArcticTundra ,
@SubArcticTundra@lemmy.ml avatar

I imagine it would only be relevant if the average person owned index stocks

Glasgow , in ‘Two-tier justice’ in Britain is real – but it’s not what the right says it is

The right does not hate Jews anymore. I work in a right space and it’s amazing how they all became zionists overnight. You still get anti semites of course but they are fringe.

Tommy Robinson said he’d fight in a war for Israel and has strong connections to Israel. United over a common enemy.

KryptonNerd ,

It’s conditional support though. As soon as the right doesn’t consider Jews useful, we will become a target again. As you say, it’s because the western right wing and Israel have a common enemy.

Glasgow ,

Common goals too. They both want Jews to go to Israel.

I don’t forsee a situation where there’s no more Islamaphobia but still Antisemitism tbh.

Emperor OP , in What's gone wrong at Asda?
@Emperor@feddit.uk avatar

I imagine Aldi and Lidl have taken a chunk of their budget-focused customers - I now do the Big Shop at Aldi and pick up a few bits at Asda (Aldi expanded their range into brown rice and tins of pulses which pretty much took away the bulk of the items I was still buying at Asda).

However, despite this:

In the meantime, Asda’s high borrowing has weighed on it, something which did not go un-noticed by the Competition and Markets Authority which, in an investigation last year into whether motorists were being over-charged for fuel, singled out a loss of competitiveness at Asda - previously seen as the industry leader when it came to cutting petrol and diesel prices.

I still buy my petrol from them as it’s the cheapest in the area.

I also noticed that they introduced a rewards card, which seemed like a desperate measure at the time, moreso now.

Streamwave , (edited ) in The trouble with England – why rioting in the UK has not spread to Scotland and Wales

One obvious reason the author doesn’t explore is that neither Wales nor Scotland has ever experienced mass immigration nor profound demographic changes in their population.

Scotland remains 92.87% white (2022), Wales 94.2% (2021), compared to England at 81% (2021).

In Scotland, 2.2% identity as Muslim, 0.4% as Hindu, 0.1% as Jewish.

In England, 6.7% identify as Muslim, 1.8% as Hindu, 0.5% as Jewish.

Scotland and Wales are therefore much more homogenous as populations. They’re whiter, less religious, and from similar backgrounds. They’re not as diverse as England is and therefore don’t have the challenges of community cohesion and social solidarity that England does.

It therefore doesn’t have the levels of intra- and inter-communal diversity which can provoke the kinds of tensions we’ve seen playing out in the streets of England over recent years, whether in Hindutva-Muslim ethnoreligious violence in Leicester or these anti-Islam and racist riots in recent weeks.

Scotland’s sense of its national identity has also not been challenged to the same extent as in England. Nor has a patriotic attitude towards Scottishness been derided as hateful, bigoted or xenophobic, as it has in England. (This sometimes leads to highly funny events, though, like when ScotNats try to claim they were victims of the British Empire.)

derGottesknecht ,

Racism is mostly unrelated to actual immigration. In Germany the east has comparable immigration percentages to Scotland but leads the nation in fascist poll numbers by a huge margin. Economic factors are orders of magnitude more important

Noodle07 ,

The least they see different people the more they fear them.

derGottesknecht ,

Yeah if they would meet more immigrants in person and not only in the fear mongering of social media or the right wing press there would be less racism.

Noodle07 ,

Even just brits who came from immigration generations ago it would help

Glasgow ,

Economic factors don’t correlate either. It’s tied directly to mentions in the media.

Glasgow ,

Glasgow is only 78% white and more diverse than many of the towns that rioted.

Town/City % White Population
Belfast 96.7%
Tamworth 95.3%
Blackpool 94.6%
Plymouth 93.1%
Rotherham 90.7%
Hull 89.7%
Liverpool 84.8%
Glasgow 78.6%
Bristol 78.1%
Manchester 66.3%
Birmingham 57.9%

It also takes on more asylum seekers than any other council, and Scotland as a whole takes on more refugees per capita.

“However, across the whole of the UK, only 1,960 refugees were brought to Britain through the scheme during 2020 and 2021 – meaning Scotland’s share totalled 13 per cent, well above the population share of 8.15 per cent.”

www.gov.scot/publications/…/14/#:~:text=As of 11 ….

“As of 11 July 2022 a total of 21,256 visas have been issued naming a Scottish sponsor – more than 20% of the UK total, and the highest number per head of population in the UK. Scotland is currently providing sanctuary for over 7,000 people, two-thirds of whom applied under the Scottish super sponsor scheme. This exceeds the 3,000 the Scottish Government committed to welcome when the scheme launched in March.”

HelixDab2 , in They encouraged us to insulate our home. Now it’s unmortgageable

I am not a construction expert, so check your sources on this.

My understanding is that, for new construction, spray foam is most often used in areas that aren’t likely going to be damaged by condensation, such as against concrete, or metal. I had looked into spray foam for my home, because my home was built in the early 80s–before building codes existed in my area–and there’s no cladding on the house and just fiberglass bats between the studs. Because there’s no cladding, there’s much more air incursion through the bats, esp. since the interior walls are lapped wood paneling rather than wall board. Spray foam would have been a total air barrier, but it would end up being applied directly to the inside of the exterior siding, which would be a nightmare when siding needs to be replaced, and would probably cause moisture issues.

The best solution appears to be to use 3" EPS foam cut to fit between the studs, and then use spray foam to fill any gap between the studs and the EPS. That still allows an air gap between the foam and the exterior siding so that moisture can evaporate.

In the case that’s being cited here, I’m not sure why they opted for spray foam over EPS or fiberglass bats. If their home is well sealed, then bats should have been perfectly sufficient, although they have a lower R-value per inch than EPS. Oh, and the difference between polyisocyanurate and EPS/XPS is about R1.5/inch, but that difference drops to about R.25/inch after a decade. That meanst that you don’t gain much in the long term when you use faced polyisocyanurate board. I’m not sure what blowing agents are used for polyiso; it might be more environmentally friendly to manufacture.

mannycalavera , in Inflation set to rise back above 2% Bank of England target this week
@mannycalavera@feddit.uk avatar

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

Very interesting analysis. Thanks 👍.

wewbull ,

That all suggests that everything apart from energy is still inflating really quickly.

mannycalavera ,
@mannycalavera@feddit.uk avatar

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.

wewbull ,

Excluding energy AND food takes away the area I’ve personally perceived as rising. Food.

tal ,
@tal@lemmy.today avatar

really quickly

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.

hand , in Cannabis: Drug production booming in UK's empty high streets
@hand@lemmy.studio avatar

Hmmmm.

We’re losing out on money by keeping it illegal (taxation) and using taxpayer money trying to stop it?

In our two party system both Cons and Labour don’t want sensible drug reform either… Somebody make it make sense?

jabjoe ,
@jabjoe@feddit.uk avatar

It is worse still. Gifting such a lucrative market to the criminal underground, funnels a lot of money to organized crime. Wouldn’t surprise if they are influencing to keep the status quo.

HumanPenguin ,
@HumanPenguin@feddit.uk avatar

Worth remembering the UK is one of the worlds largest legal cannabis exporters.

And a number of MPs are known to be part ofbthe industory.

So legalising recreational in the UK would also make it easyier for small competitiltors to compete with those larger companies.

Like much of the restricted product industory. The complexity of licencingbmakes it advantagouse to the wealthy.

Lifebandit666 , in Thames, Yorkshire and Northumbrian Water face £168m fines for sewage spills

When they tell you a number is so you go “HOW MUCH? WOW” when they should be telling you the number as a percentage of profits.

0.5% of yearly profits doesn’t sound as big does it? I mean I’ve made that number up, but the point stands.

InsanelyCrewed ,

It says in the article the proposed fine for Thames is 9%, but doesn’t mention Northumbria or Yorkshire.

Lifebandit666 ,

…can you tell I didn’t read it? Thanks for that. 9% is fuck all really innit?

InsanelyCrewed ,

Aye still a joke, especially when they’re wanting to charge us more, government should force the bosses to give back their bonuses but that’s never gonna happen.

hellothere , in Thames, Yorkshire and Northumbrian Water face £168m fines for sewage spills

Is that it?

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