graham
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Post by graham on Feb 10, 2024 11:46:14 GMT
Turnout at the Wellingborough by election held in early December 1969 was over 75%. I confidently predict that turnout next week will be very well short of that!
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carlton43
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Post by carlton43 on Feb 10, 2024 13:05:07 GMT
Turnout at the Wellingborough by election held in early December 1969 was over 75%. I confidently predict that turnout next week will be very well short of that! That was my period of Political activity when the electorate was far less well educated but far more civic minded and responsible. Read into that what you may! |
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Post by doktorb🏳️🌈🏳️⚧️ on Feb 10, 2024 13:10:14 GMT
Turnout at the Wellingborough by election held in early December 1969 was over 75%. I confidently predict that turnout next week will be very well short of that! Turnout prediction competition? |
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Post by batman on Feb 10, 2024 16:02:36 GMT
That Wellingborough by-election was won by Peter Fry (C) who went on to represent the seat for not much short of 30 years before losing to Paul Stinchcombe (Lab). I read that Mr Fry was married in the crypt of the House of Commons to a woman, another Helen as it happens, who was far younger than him. Mr Speaker Thomas was taking a party of overseas parliamentarians for a tour of the Houses of Parliament, saw the ceremony & was heard to say "Isn't it lovely to see a father giving away his daughter like that?".
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graham
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Post by graham on Feb 10, 2024 16:36:45 GMT
Turnout at the Wellingborough by election held in early December 1969 was over 75%. I confidently predict that turnout next week will be very well short of that! That was my period of Political activity when the electorate was far less well educated but far more civic minded and responsible. Read into that what you may! How less educated was the electorate by the end of the 1960s? The benefits of the 1944 Education Act had percolated through much of society by that time , and the qualifications awarded - whether O Levels , A Levels or Degrees - were far more meaningful than their present day equivalents. Of course, we have many more people now sitting A Levels and taking Degrees, but massive grade inflation has taken away much of their value. |
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carlton43
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Post by carlton43 on Feb 10, 2024 16:45:16 GMT
That was my period of Political activity when the electorate was far less well educated but far more civic minded and responsible. Read into that what you may! How less educated was the electorate by the end of the 1960s? The benefits of the 1944 Education Act had percolated through much of society by that time , and the qualifications awarded - whether O Levels , A Levels or Degrees - were far more meaningful than their present day equivalents. Of course, we have many more people now sitting A Levels and taking Degrees, but massive grade inflation has taken away much of their value. I agree with you to an extent but have no evidence as to the inflation or the 'quality of the product'. I do know that I meet youngish people with A Levels and a Degree who do not seem to be either very bright or at all well educated under my definition of what it means to be 'educated'. My original post was to make the rather more terse point that widespread degree-level education has had a deleterious effect on turnout and on civic responsibility and commitment. |
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graham
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Post by graham on Feb 10, 2024 18:58:18 GMT
How less educated was the electorate by the end of the 1960s? The benefits of the 1944 Education Act had percolated through much of society by that time , and the qualifications awarded - whether O Levels , A Levels or Degrees - were far more meaningful than their present day equivalents. Of course, we have many more people now sitting A Levels and taking Degrees, but massive grade inflation has taken away much of their value. I agree with you to an extent but have no evidence as to the inflation or the 'quality of the product'. I do know that I meet youngish people with A Levels and a Degree who do not seem to be either very bright or at all well educated under my definition of what it means to be 'educated'. My original post was to make the rather more terse point that widespread degree-level education has had a deleterious effect on turnout and on civic responsibility and commitment. The evidence of grade inflation is pretty overwhelming - and is openly admitted by many who work in the academic world. To take A Levels as an example , until 1988/89 these exams were assessed on a Relative Marking basis whereby the top 10% were awarded A grades and the next 15% were given B grades - so that only the top 25% received grades A or B. It was also the case that only 70% managed to pass the exam at all - ie to achieve even the lowest pass grade - an E. Thus, 30% sitting the papers failed to obtain the A level and were given either an O Level pass or failed outright. Since the late 1980s a system of Absolute Marking has been used which means that - in theory- there is no limit to the number of candidates who can achieve the top grades. We now see A and A* grades being given to 27%/28% of pupils. Including B grades takes the number awarded top grades to circa 50% - and fewer than 2% of pupils fail to gain an E grade. Significant incourse assessment has been included and candidates are now able to resit papers to obtain a higher grade. At university , back in the 1960s and 1970s most students graduated with a 2.2 - but for over 30 years the normal degree has become a 2.1 with an explosion in the number of 1st class degrees given. I recall reading an article in the Independent - written n 1999 - which was titled 'Whatever happened to the Oxbridge Third?'. It pointed out that in 1960 some 30% of students had emerged with 3rd class honours - yet by 1999 that was only true of 5%! More recently the Norrington Table published by Oxford for 2021/2022 revealed that 42% of students gained a 1st - 54% received a 2.1 - 4% ended up with a 2.2 whilst only 0.4% had to make do with a 3rd.Massive changes have clearly taken place there over the years!
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Post by uthacalthing on Feb 10, 2024 19:10:48 GMT
The above post nails it. I say this as someone who has just received a degree for writing down my long-standing thoughts on things of passing interest to me and then looking up references to justify them. My degree and most of those awarded alongside mine are academically worthless and so are a significant minority if not a majority of those awarded in the last decade.
Particularly memorable was my module on feminist studies which was largely populated by middle-aged women who claimed to have fled domestic violence or controlling behaviour and who were using the academic system as therapy. Although the module on statistical analysis where I frankly took the piss and was awarded a pass for arguing that people with Long Covid, bad backs and depression could be predicted because we all know who the piss takers are may be my own annus mirabilis
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Post by greenhert on Feb 10, 2024 19:30:07 GMT
We must also consider the factor of information accessibility-the internet did not exist in the 1960s and searching for information through physical books for revision purposes takes considerably longer than browsing websites for the same information.
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graham
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Post by graham on Feb 10, 2024 19:42:36 GMT
We must also consider the factor of information accessibility-the internet did not exist in the 1960s and searching for information through physical books for revision purposes takes considerably longer than browsing websites for the same information. But the internet did not really become a significant study aid until the end of the 1990s and by that time grade inflation had already become rampant. |
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Post by uthacalthing on Feb 10, 2024 19:53:30 GMT
Grade inflation is a product of democracy. The electorate wish to be told that they and their children are clever and successful and will reward any government that tells them so and will punish any government that tells them that their kids should be tradesmen, especially if they themselves look down on tradesmen
My wife took her useless stupid mongrel* to puppy training classes and they told her he was really clever and she signed on for more. He is the most stupid dog I have ever met. But being told your dog is stupid does not sell product.
* he is a hybrid. An expensive word for mongrel. Don't make me analyze the concept of Biracialism. You don't like me when I mock your values.
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maxque
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Post by maxque on Feb 10, 2024 20:45:18 GMT
Is it grade inflation now or was it grades being artificially lowered in the past, through? Or a bit of both?
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graham
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Post by graham on Feb 10, 2024 20:55:26 GMT
Is it grade inflation now or was it grades being artificially lowered in the past, through? Or a bit of both? What it does mean is that grades awarded under one system of assessment are very difficult to compare with those awarded under another system. Jus t a few years ago on another Blog quite a few disparaging comments were being made about Jeremy Corbyn's A Level grades. Apparently he obtained two E grades in scientific subjects. I am not a Corbynite , but I felt obliged to intervene to point out that his grades were awarded in 1967 /68 - and that E grades from that era would at the very least equate to C grades today. Still not exactly brilliant , but it did not make him the 'thicko' which some youngish commentators were seeking to imply! |
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Post by batman on Feb 10, 2024 21:59:56 GMT
Nevertheless, I do not see him as a person of high intelligence, and even when I supported him I still did not.
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CatholicLeft
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Post by CatholicLeft on Feb 10, 2024 22:07:47 GMT
As a Labour person, I am very loathe to predict a victory at the election, as a psephologist, even an amateur one, reports like this support the belief, if I wasn't party-aligned, that the Tories are going down to a disastrous defeat at the oncoming General Election. Even if the Tories just hold on in one, or both, seats, their inabilty to run a campaign is shocking. I believed Labour were set to gain Kingswood, I am now convinced they will gain Wellingborough too. www.theguardian.com/politics/2024/feb/10/tories-conservative-byelection-defeats-sunak-leadership-death-spiral |
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graham
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Post by graham on Feb 11, 2024 0:45:15 GMT
As a Labour person, I am very loathe to predict a victory at the election, as a psephologist, even an amateur one, reports like this support the belief, if I wasn't party-aligned, that the Tories are going down to a disastrous defeat at the oncoming General Election. Even if the Tories just hold on in one, or both, seats, their inabilty to run a campaign is shocking. I believed Labour were set to gain Kingswood, I am now convinced they will gain Wellingborough too. www.theguardian.com/politics/2024/feb/10/tories-conservative-byelection-defeats-sunak-leadership-death-spiralLabour should win Wellingborough - having held the seat 1945 - 1959 , 1964 - 1969 and 1997 - 2005. |
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Post by John Chanin on Feb 11, 2024 7:12:49 GMT
As a Labour person, I am very loathe to predict a victory at the election, as a psephologist, even an amateur one, reports like this support the belief, if I wasn't party-aligned, that the Tories are going down to a disastrous defeat at the oncoming General Election. Even if the Tories just hold on in one, or both, seats, their inabilty to run a campaign is shocking. I believed Labour were set to gain Kingswood, I am now convinced they will gain Wellingborough too. www.theguardian.com/politics/2024/feb/10/tories-conservative-byelection-defeats-sunak-leadership-death-spiralLabour should win Wellingborough - having held the seat 1945 - 1959 , 1964 - 1969 and 1997 - 2005. But they only won it by a handful of votes in 1997 landslide conditions, and deindustrialization has changed the situation entirely from the post war period. The Northamptonshire shoemaking industry which created much prosperity, has long gone. Wellingborough and Rushden are bastions of working class conservatism, epitomes of depressed and depressing former industrial towns which have rejected Labour right across the Midlands, and although I entirely expect Labour to win the by-election, it will be a struggle to repeat the feat at the General Election, despite slightly favourable boundary changes. |
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Post by batman on Feb 11, 2024 7:47:30 GMT
Rushden is particularly so. It doesn’t look like a Tory town when you go there but it almost always is now. Higham Ferrers next door looks more like a Tory town, and it certainly is.
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The Bishop
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Post by The Bishop on Feb 11, 2024 10:16:09 GMT
They *were* Tory bastions for some time until the 2019 GE, yes. The question is whether they still are going forward, at least for a while.
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graham
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Post by graham on Feb 11, 2024 11:37:39 GMT
Labour should win Wellingborough - having held the seat 1945 - 1959 , 1964 - 1969 and 1997 - 2005. But they only won it by a handful of votes in 1997 landslide conditions, and deindustrialization has changed the situation entirely from the post war period. The Northamptonshire shoemaking industry which created much prosperity, has long gone. Wellingborough and Rushden are bastions of working class conservatism, epitomes of depressed and depressing former industrial towns which have rejected Labour right across the Midlands, and although I entirely expect Labour to win the by-election, it will be a struggle to repeat the feat at the General Election, despite slightly favourable boundary changes. Labour only lost narrowly here in 2005 when the party's GB lead was just 3%. |
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