Opportunity Knocking

I’ve just had my first door-knocking of the general election campaign, and have to admit that the activist’s introductory claim to be "getting out and about before people got sick of election/campaigning/etc" did elicit a more favourable response than cold callers normally receive on Saturday mornings.

Anyway, as I live in an area where the sitting Labour MP has a marginal majority and favoured Remain in last year’s referendum, but with a local electorate which voted to Leave, the Liberal Democrats appear to have identified an opportunity to position themselves as the natural opposition to the sitting government on the subject of Brexit, or at least that’s what my visitor was trying to claim anyway.

Admittedly, as just less than half of the national electorate voted Remain in last year’s referendum, it is very plausible that a significant proportion of them could well be attracted by a party proposing a clear and coherent alternative to the government’s plans for leaving the European Union, however, as my doorstep conversation confirmed: the Liberal Democrats don’t actually have one.

It’s not a particularly challenging analytical exercise to conclude that the Labour Party’s policy over Brexit is so convoluted that very few, if any, of their MPs appear to understand what it is. Tim Farron’s representatives (this one at least), on the other hand, are up-front in their desire for a second referendum, but when I asked "on what exactly", our conversation got a little more interesting.

Now I don’t know whether the obfuscation is deliberate party policy, or whether someone has decided that a lack of clarity will help to generate local votes, but it turns out that the second referendum promise is not based on whether Britain should leave the EU: it would be on whatever deal the British government eventually strikes. Or in other words, some sort of decision on whether the UK should take the Brexit terms agreed by the government, or remain in the EU until there’s an arrangement in place that the electorate can accept.

I also don’t know (and neither did the person canvassing for my support) whether Article 50 can actually be revoked now our PM has triggered it, and so can’t say if it’s even possible that any popular rejection of a future deal could involve Britain staying in the EU, but if staying is a possibility, what incentive does the EU have to offer any sort of acceptable deal if it wants to keep the UK?

Theoretically, the Liberal Democrats are well-placed to exploit the chaotic "leadership" of the Labour Party, not least with regards to the desires of Remainers, but they really need to rethink their stance on EU membership...

Lives, Damned Lives and Statistics

The number of people living in unhappy relationships has more than doubled in five years, to over 1 million, according to an article in today's Mail Online which references some research by the Office for National Statistics.

Until just now, I didn't realise that the ONS asked any of us about misery, but it's made me start to wonder whether any of those questioned were required to put down exactly what it is about their partner that makes them so unhappy or if not, how can the researchers be sure that a respondent isn't just a miserable person who happens to be in a relationship?

And also: have the ONS extrapolated each response on the assumption that if one half of a relationship is dissatisfied with life, then it must follow that their other half is also, or is there some sort of leeway for the person in despair to have a spouse who thinks that everything’s fine?

All of which means that the figures quoted can't be considered as accurate, as it could be higher or lower, but there seems little to disprove the assertion that the actual number of unhappy adults in the country is increasing, And this, in a leap of statistical correlation somewhat along the lines of Henderson's Somali pirates and global warming, has been taken by some as proof that it is a financial recovery, rather than a recession, that chips away at marital bliss.

I'm not disagreeing with their assertion (only the statistical basis), but it might be that we were just as unhappy five years ago, but are now a little more honest when anonymously surveyed about our feelings, or that we are simply becoming less accepting of our current situations in an ever-shrinking world.

Blowing things up out of all proportion

On the way back from London yesterday I picked up a copy of the free paper to read on the train home, and in it was an article about the new Mayor banning adverts like this one from the Underground System.

It includes several quotes from Mr Khan about his parenting, demeaning images, and:

“Nobody should feel pressurised, while they travel on the Tube ..... and I want to send a clear message to the advertising industry about this.”

Now I realise that he's not been in the job very long, but surely one of his staff could have briefed him that it's not a pneumatic tube running under the streets of our capital city....?

No Defence

The Aston Villa defender Joleon Lescott has infuriated already-upset Aston Villa fans by Tweeting a picture of a £121,000+ Mercedes-AGM S 63 Coupe just after a 6-0 home defeat by Liverpool less than 15 minutes after the final whistle.

We all know a car like that is well within a Barclays Premier League player's price range, but to advertise the fact directly after a heavy defeat?

More than a little insensitive, as the resulting on-line fans fury is testament to, but the ex-England international has surely made it worse by trying to claim that "the tweet sent out from my account involving a picture of a car was totally accidental. It happened whilst driving and my phone was in my pocket."

Now in addition to the suggestion of contempt for the ordinary fan, he either thinks that the world is full of gullible idiots or is arrogantly confessing to a serious traffic offence. So as someone who spends a lot of time driving in the West Midlands, I'm hoping that he's lying about the accidental Tweet as Lescott's phone would have had to perform the following all by itself...

• Phone unlocked
• Twitter app opened
• Icon to send tweet selected and pressed
• Add image icon selected and pressed
• Image from album selected and pressed
• Click to upload image into tweet selected
• Tweet sent

Not very likely is it?

Animal Crackers

Here in London, where I'm staying prior to a Westminster meeting on the future of the DELHE, the free paper has an article about an advertisement for a Masters graduate to help run a conservation project for pangolins.

Apparently there's a "job" at Regent's Park zoo for someone willing to trade their four+ years in higher education for £5 a day and a Travelcard.

Yes, that's right, they're offering free bus travel and the equivalent of a budget meal deal (you don't get much in the capital for a fiver) in return for the skills, abilities, dedication and knowledge of a science graduate.

Apparently, not only is there no such thing as a minimum wage for "vacancies" like this, if charities want to throw all kinds of social, ethical and humanitarian considerations out of the window they can "employ" volunteers.

Or in other words, only the offspring of very wealthy parents need apply.

Seems to me that if our government is serious about wanting social mobility and an increase in the percentage of 18 year-olds studying at level four and up, this sort of "unpaid internship" ought to be made illegal as matter of priority.

Tomorrow's not in any way the correct forum for me to bring that bit up, but it might be one where some Special Advisors get something to think about when we discuss the post-qualification salary questions.

Going Green with Envy

Since the Green Paper was released last week, I've found that it required so much careful reading that getting a full understanding of the Teaching Excellence Framework proposals it contains is taking up way too much of my time due to, and this is me being kind, the document being as poorly thought out as some of the content.

Fortunately the considerate types at WonkHE have far more patience than I do (hence the post title) and have put together a visual interpretation of the TEF with inputs, processing, and outputs, and associating each set of components with different rules and conditions, most which I've put here for my future reference, but if you want to read the whole thing it's at http://wonkhe.com/blogs/the-incredible-machine-our-visual-guide-to-the-tef

Reproduced from WonkHE

KEY (with references to the Green Paper in parentheses)

The inputs:

a. In 2016-17, a satisfactory quality assurance review from QAA, ISI for course designation or equivalent, in place by February 2016, will lead directly to a TEF Level 1 award (Chapter 1, Paras. 26,27). Candidacy for these awards will not go to the Independent Panel, as far as we can tell.

b. Applications for higher TEF awards will be subject to three ‘pre-conditions’ that will be assessed by the Independent Panel: •The provider will need an Access Agreement or similar device (C1, P19) •The provider will need to show it is compliant with ‘market practice’ guidelines set out by the Competition and Markets Authority (C2, P3) •The provider will need to state whether or not they use a Grade Point Average assessment system (C1, P40); but note the requirement is only to state their position, and actual use of such a system is not to be a ‘prerequisite’ for higher TEF awards

c. Applications for higher TEF awards will be informed by ‘common metrics’ initially drawn from a set of three (C3, P12) to include measures of employment and earnings (starting with DLHE but going on to use data from the HMRC data match), retention and continuation (from HESA’s performance indicators), and student satisfaction (derived from the NSS). These metrics will change over time; in particular, note the NSS is itself under review and several suggestions for others have been put forward (C3, P14). As metrics will presumably change every year, and providers will be on different assessment cycles (no ‘gathered field’ as in the REF; C2, P6) then they will routinely be judged using differently constructed common metrics depending on when they are assessed or re-assessed – they are therefore not really ‘common’ metrics at the point of use.

d. Providers will be able to supplement these metrics with additional evidence, both quantitative and qualitative (C3, Ps. 13, 17), of various types.

e. Reporting of metrics will be dis-aggregated by student background (C3, P4) to show performance in the context of student profile differences.

The processor:
f. Applications for higher TEF levels will be conducted by an Independent Panel, comprised of ‘academic experts in learning and teaching, student representatives, and employer/professional representatives’ (C2, P9); note, there is no proposal to include provider representatives on this panel. The assessment framework will include •teaching quality; •learning environment; •student outcomes and learning gain;

…and various sub-factors are also sketched (C3, Ps. 5,7,8,9). Re-assessments are envisaged to take place on a 3-5 cycle, with trigger events for sooner re-assessment (C2, P5).

The outputs:
g. TEF award level one might best be described as ‘baseline quality assured’, as it is dependent only on the QA review input module. The Independent Panel will make higher TEF awards at either two or three additional levels. Levels 2 and 3 are not further defined, but are indicated to be ‘differentiation levels’ (C2, P15). Level 4 is further defined as ‘requiring performance significantly above expectations’ and/or ‘compelling evidence of excellence’ (C2, P15). This implies that providers can win the ultimate TEF prize by being “better than they really ought to be – if you know what we mean”, and that any provider who doesn’t get to Level 4 may be deemed “excellent alright, but not quite compellingly so – if you know what we mean”. The problem is that we don’t know what they mean.

h. Presumably, it will also be possible to fail a panel assessment and get pushed back out with a Level 1 award, though this isn’t explicitly stated.

i. At some point it is envisaged that these award levels may be given differentially for different subject areas within all providers and that these would then be aggregated to form an award for the provider as a whole (C1, P23); multiple independent panels would then be formed, presumably feeding into a ‘lead panel’ of some kind – needless to say, we haven’t even tried to put any of this in the diagram.

Eva had the feeling that ....

The best that can be said of the Football Association's handling of Jose Mourinho's row with his medical staff, is that they did not take sides. They were not on his side, nor were they on the side of the former Chelsea club doctor, Eva Carneiro, a stance which sets them apart from the pressure group Women In Football who submitted a complaint to the FA and were subsequently "appalled" at the governing body's decision not to pursue the matter, adding that it was "A damning example of the FA failing to tackle discrimination".

The implication of this is clear: WIF are convinced that Mourinho was guilty of discrimination but has gotten away with it. True, the FA's process — failing to interview either Dr Carneiro or Mourinho — was hardly stringent, but as an independent translator attested that the manager had not used the feminine version of his Portuguese expletive, and that he hadn't directed anything at anyone in particular, there really wasn't anywhere for the case to go.

Now Women In Football also used the services of a translator, who claimed Mourinho did direct his comments at Carneiro but this is hardly independent is it? I don't doubt that WIF were sincere, but if the FA's translator had backed WIF's allegation, then surely Mourinho would have been charged?

Carneiro certainly has a right to feel aggrieved about sexist crowd abuse — she cites instances at West Ham, in particular — but Mourinho's crime here seems to be what Greg Dyke called "a failure of personal judgment and public behaviour" for which he should have apologised.

And now onto Dr Carneiro's probable wrongful dismissal case because Mourinho's behaviour as good as made her position untenable, although if the evidence is going to include the inference that Mourinho referred to her as a secretary, it is hard to see how that will stand up either.

Only a few days ago, Mary O'Rourke QC spoke about the issue, focussing specifically on Mourinho's assertion that, "Even if you are a kit man, a doctor or a secretary on the bench, you have to understand the game."

"Ninety-five per cent of secretaries are women", O'Rourke said, "Everyone listening to that would have taken it as a comment that women don't know anything about football. If you put that statement to 100 people, 99 of them would interpret it that way." All very true, but those 99 could be wrong. Mourinho specifically mentioned doctors and Eva Carneiro as is a doctor, so why would she then automatically become the secretary in his rant? Equally, what kind of secretary is meant or inferred by the use of the term? Someone who provides administrative support in an office or for example the second most powerful employee at FIFA, UEFA or the FA who all hold the title of general secretary.

Mourinho was wrong and my sympathies are with Dr Carneiro, but with any allegation that she was personally abused dismissed, adding that he derided her with the blanket term "secretary" is equally flawed.

Surely it should be enough that the manager of Chelsea FC completely undermined Dr Carneiro's ability to execute her duties as a medical professional and go from there?