potatospade.bsky.social
Father of a legend. Teacher of small humans. The world is quiet here.
50 posts
13 followers
48 following
Active Commenter
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…an awfully hateful place and it doesn’t easily allow for proper human to human discourse. Sometimes in the heat of discussion it is easy to forget our mutual humanity and to show love to one another. Thank you for sharing your thoughts and explaining them to me so I can better understand.
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… even if we may disagree exactly where on the political spectrum Labour lie. It sounds like you have an awful lot that troubles you and I genuinely hope you find solace in those around you. I also hope that you feel I respect you and your beliefs, even if I do not share them. The internet is…2/
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I hear you. I’m not going to try and justify anything or defend anyone. I can see this is something you feel really strongly about and clearly there is a lot that has happened which affects you personally. I suspect there are many areas where we could find some mutual agreement…1/
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Thanks for your graph and explanation. I think perhaps my idea of where the centre line is differs to yours. It looks to me that although I would consider myself to be somewhere left of centre, you would probably consider me more on the right.
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I was trying to publicly recognise that I don’t have a cause I feel particularly strongly about and acknowledging that this affects my views. I don’t see it as an simple issue and I don’t sit on one side of the argument. I’m a very on the fence kind of person. Some people really don’t like that.
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It’s a great poem and I feel challenged by your comments. As a cisgender white male I’m not going to pretend that I understand the depth of feeling that more marginalised people feel about these big issues. That’s why I said what I said…
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I’m not saying Labour are the least bad of a bunch. I’ve been troubled by some of what I have heard this week. I just don’t think putting them in the same category as Reform is fair. I’m not sure we have a shared understanding of what constitutes ‘Far Right’. I’m keen to understand what you mean.
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It’s incredibly frustrating not to have the report published and to still have no idea about funding. We just approved our federation’s school budgets and are having to make 2 teaching assistants redundant in one school and 5 in another. We have an extremely high number of SEND pupils. It’s awful.
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Sadly this is unsurprising news. A decline in parenting skills and lack of parental responsibility along with the use of technology as a baby sitter has an awful lot to answer for - a gross oversimplification of course. It’s clearly more complex but it’s a huge issue nonetheless.
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My son said he actually enjoyed it which is really saying something because he’s not overly keen on reading (total maths geek 🤓.) It helped for him that part of it was about chess which he likes. My Y6 colleagues seemed to think it was pretty fair, but were surprised there was still no poetry.
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Perhaps it’s always been there? It’s certainly large enough. Maybe I sat on it one day after eating all the pies. 🤷🏻♂️
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I didn’t say that. I think everyone has the right to vote for whoever they believe in, however abhorrent I think their views are. Personally I think preferential voting would be good so we’d end up with a coalition of the least hated people running things but then that’s probably problematic too. 🙃
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I get it. I wouldn’t personally say they’re evil but then I don’t have a cause I feel particularly strongly about. Not trying to defend any of their decisions, just can’t imagine them taking any joy in upsetting others. They seem like decent people to me, trying their best in a difficult situation.
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While I may agree that some of what Labour has done may not appear to be very compassionate, they are surely better than the far right. My biggest fear is that with a progressive centrist and left leaning vote divided between Labour, Lib Dem and Green, Reform could have a clear path to victory.
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She won the Maidstone South East division by 1143 votes. Turnout was 23% meaning that 10,906 in her division didn’t vote. Make of that what you will.
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This Linden Kemkaran?
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She sounds delightful. 😳 www.theguardian.com/politics/201...
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Agreed. I honestly think they have some good, well-meaning people in their team, as do Lib Dems and Greens. But belief in Farage and Reform, much like Trump and MAGA is disturbingly quasi-religious. Any malaise or voter apathy at the next general election could be catastrophic.
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I just hope that Reform end up being ineffectual and their voters begin to see it, and that meanwhile Labour manage to make enough positive change that people feel better off. Some kind of progressive centre left coalition could be fantastic for the country if those elected truly wanted it to work.
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I’d be fascinated to know how it affected things. I would imagine it would probably work out quite well for Lib Dems and Greens but if for some heinous reason it ended up working out well for Reform then at least those of us who abhor them would know where we stand. Then I’d emigrate to Finland.
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My worry is Reform Ltd. could end up winning, especially if they can persuade some people who don’t normally vote. Maybe a preferential vote would help stop this because presumably anyone left of centre would rank them in last place. The least disliked candidate would win in each constituency.
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Reform are a marmite party. You either love them or hate them. My biggest concern is that the centre and left of centre vote is split between Labour, Lib Dem and Green. They’re broadly on the same page but just disagree about the priorities and how to go about it. Time for preferential voting?
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The struggle is real.
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My God, that’s literally what he would say.
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Far be it from me to suggest that there is any kind of collusion going on between Putin and Trump but it seems almost as if the plan all along was to embarrass or deride Zelenskyy in front of the press to try and turn Ukrainians against him by making them think he blew the one good chance he had.
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That’d be the old filling up the bath for your child then realising it’s way too hot and you have to drain a bit out. Boiling children is generally frowned upon.
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Well for what it’s worth, I think it’s bloody marvellous and anyone who reckons they can do better can jolly well try and do it for themselves. Keep being awesome.
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Yup, I also came here to say this. From the old English verb līhtan meaning “to come down off something or out of the air”. Love a bit of Etymology. 🤓
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FOMO I guess? Perhaps I'm old fashioned but I honestly do still trust them as my number one source of news. Both left and right often accuse them of bias which to me means they're probably offending each side about equally. I'd rather they didn't platform people like Farage quite so much though.
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I've definitely noticed that their headlines seem to be a lot more 'attention grabby' of late. I presume this is to compete for clicks?
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Having just read the amendment, it is clearly almost entirely about a disagreement over educational policy with the grooming gang thing tagged onto the end. News sources and indeed MPs really ought to make this sort of thing more clear as I doubt many members of the public actually understand this.
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I wish I had the words to say something more poignant about the sheer admiration and respect I have for you and your vital work. The bile and vitriol you endure astounds me. I don’t know how you do it, but by God am I glad that it doesn’t stop you from fighting for the most vulnerable. Stay strong.
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Your tracker is a really clear way to see how they are doing. Thank you.
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Me too. I can only presume that @lewisgoodall.com didn’t hear it because of the “hyperbolic”accusations of him being a rape apologist. Would be interested to hear his thoughts on the exchange if he sees this.
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Yesterday Richard Tice was on LBC talking about the “white girls” who were victims of rape. Why did Tice choose to single out the colour of their skin? What about non-white children? What does Farage intend to do about Tice’s comments given that he claims there is no place for racism in his party?
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Thank you for the time stamp. It saved me from having to listen to the rest of that abomination. *inwardly shudders*
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I agree with you that there are men in the world who seem to think this kind of behaviour is ok, or indeed may have normalised it in their minds. I just disagree that this is ‘most’ men, which is what your post seems to assert and what I think many people would take issue with.
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I’m a man. I wouldn’t. And to the best of my knowledge, neither would any of the men I know. I agree that there are probably a much larger number of men out there who might than perhaps we feel comfortable with, but from my experience I would argue most men have been appalled by what happened.
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I’m not at all saying I’m a fan of hers or her interviewing technique (far from it). I too was rather taken aback by this but to be fair to her, she did then go on to use the exact same “we’ll never know” line against the Conservative shadow minister that she had on afterwards.
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Could it be that there may have been a larger pool of left leaning guests with each individual left leaning guest just appearing fewer times each, essentially balancing it out? So certain frequent right leaning guests just seem to be on more often, creating a perception of bias that may not exist?
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There's so much that needs sorting out and lots of it pretty urgently. In December I will begin to feel the small benefit of my teacher pay being a little bit closer in real terms to what it was back in 2010. I hope you and others will also begin to feel some benefits - sooner rather than later.
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This is excellent news and I hope you find it useful and enlightening. I’m sure you’ve already thought about it but may I suggest you visit a range of schools funded in different ways - local authority, multi-academy trust etc. funding levels differ vastly along with how the money is spent.
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I think your face said what most of us were thinking! 🤣 I also loved your comment about AI. Building a load of green energy powered data centres that the rest of world then make use of seems like an absolute no brainer to me.
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As someone who has worked as a primary school teacher for over 20 years, I am not surprised to hear this at all. Children are our future and from my experience I reckon it’s going to be in pretty safe hands.
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I think it’s good to have a healthy mixture of opposing views on this platform, so long as we can have intelligent conversations and everyone can refrain from unedifying name calling, however tempting it is. Perhaps that’s too much to expect from the internet though. 😂
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I came here this morning because the place which shall not be named has become a cesspit and looked for sound people to follow. I discovered that a journalist I admire and respect is also a superb pianist. Thank you for making my day so much the better. 😁
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As a new user I love searching for people to follow and discovering that other people are looking after their usernames for them incase they join! It’s much friendlier here than the place which shall not be named. 😁