What about the Sanity Clause?

Having spent most of yesterday waiting in King's Cross station for some semblance of information as to when a train was going to travel North, I was struck by how little anybody seemed to care about the cold, the lack of anything to sit on or even how much of a wasted afternoon hundreds of people were having. What seemed to be the most irksome aspect of the experience was generally agreed to be the lack of information: the horrible waiting without knowing when it would end, certain only that when it did, there would be some sort of mad priority scramble where the winners got to be packed like erect sardines for the next 2 hours sweating & exchanging viruses, while the losers waited on the concourse for the next melee to take place.

Deep down, we were all aware that the next service wasn't going to sneak off without any of us noticing, but information, any kind of information, would've given us the illusion of control without having any effect at all on how long we were going to be stuck there. Is too much to ask that "damage to overhead lines at Huntington" had been accompanied by some sort of estimated repair time, even one possibly met ahead of schedule? This would not only have made those inconvenienced by the delays feel a little better, but the subsequent dispersal of the expectant throng (for what turned out to be 5 hours) would have made the station far less crowded, and therefore more comfortable for the non-East Coast Main Line travellers.
Or is that just madness on my part?

With a reverential nod to 1935's "A Night at the Opera"
Groucho: It's all right. That's, that's in every contract. That's, that's what they call a sanity clause.
Chico: Ha-ha-ha-ha-ha! You can't fool me. There ain't no Sanity Clause!

Figuratively speaking...

The Home Office has just (yesterday) launched what it laughably claims to be a "consultation exercise" (the quote marks are there to emphasise how inaccurate the term actually is) on its plans to tighten up visa requirements for foreign students.

The questionnaire on which this "consultation" is based invites the public and interested parties to "Contribute your views to our consultation into how we can best reduce the number of students who can come to the UK". However, it's either been very badly put together (rather ironically for something do with education as it highlights that somebody somewhere needs educating about questionnaire design), or it's been deliberately formulated to preclude dissenting opinions. I'll leave you to decide....

Example:
Q2. Do you think that only Highly Trusted Sponsors (HTS) should be permitted to offer study below degree level (at NQF levels 3, 4 and 5 / SCQF levels 6, 7 and 8) in the Tier 4 (General) category?

• Yes – only HTS should be able to offer these sub-degree level courses
• No – all sub-degree level study should be prohibited under Tier 4 (General)
• No – study at NQF level 3 should be prohibited, even where the sponsor is a HTS
• Don't know

So if you happen to think that sub-degree level courses should be available from a wider range of providers you have no box to tick, nor can you tick a box to show that you think that the system as it is ought to be maintained. Only if you believe that the Home Office proposals are insufficiently draconian can you enter an alternative.

Now regardless of whether or not these proposals are desirable, proportionate or in the interests of our educational system, highly biased "consultations" like this not only have no statistical credibility, they're a disgraceful way of canvassing public opinion.