The Labour Government

Brewster's millions said:
That’s a ridiculous take - making sure that we get the best candidates by only accepting interns from a subset of the population. It defies any logic.

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Welcome to how this country has been ruled for the last couple of centuries. A ‘subset of the population’ where one school - just one fucking school - has provided us with twenty Prime Ministers and five since 1945.

One. Fucking. School.
 
metalblue said:
No words for this sort of shit. Imagine the outcry if working class were excluded from the roles. Can’t see this being legal.

www.bbc.co.uk

Civil service interns must all be working class, government says

Internships will only go to students from poorer families in a push to make Whitehall more working class.
www.bbc.co.uk www.bbc.co.uk
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That's absolutely outrageous. I am seriously appalled. I thought we had very long ago realised that there is not such thing as positive discrimination, only discrimination. I wonder if it's even legal?
 
I'd expect this sort of shite from Corbyn but we keep being told we now have adults in the room. What a joke.
 
metalblue said:
That’s a totally different problem though.
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Which no one talks about. Yet, one small nudge on internships, not actual jobs mind, in an attempt to address that problem, and everyone starts yelling.

We are conditioned to accept an educated elite, drawn from a small subset of the population, to represent us in our political, judiciary and media class. That is our ‘norm’. Attempts to redress that ‘norm’ are resisted by people who are excluded from that ‘norm’.
 
metalblue said:
So when 25% of people are actually working class how does making 100% of the interns working class better represent society? Making them 25% of interns would.

Why am I so animated about this? I have a strong belief in work ethic and fairness - core working class values some might say. I’d hate the idea of, having managed to do well enough at school to go on to 6th form/college and then to do well enough there to get in to university only to be given a pat on the head by old Pat McFadden saying there there you poor old lamb let’s keep those nasty non-working class people away from you and give you a free swing at this internship would be a bit, you know, patronising and unfair. I’m more than capable of standing up for myself ta Pat ya meddling old ****.
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Because the people on this intern scheme are NOT the sum total of people who will go on to work in the civil service.

The aim isn't to make a small internship programme representative - it's to ensure that very clever people from poorer backgrounds are represented throughout the application process. Just making the internships representative would make almost no difference.

I do admire your confidence that so long as you work hard, you'll get all the opportunities in life that the middle and upper classes get, but I'd suggest that the evidence points in the opposite direction.
 
metalblue said:
Mate it’s beyond bonkers, you have the audacity to become a nurse and your kids are excluded from applying.
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They're not prevented from applying for jobs in the civil service.

Even at fast stream level there are about 1000 jobs a year (and there are plenty more at just below that level). Over the last few years, applications have been between 45000 and 65000 for those 1000 jobs.

This internship is for about 200 people for 6-8 weeks each.

Even if they all applied for the fast stream, they'd make up 1 in 250 of the applicants. Plenty of room left for the sons and daughters of nurses.
 
bluenova said:
I think you've misunderstood.

The best candidates comment is for the actual jobs. This is a Summer internship which will be used to encourage some of the best working class candidates in a position to apply for the actual jobs.

It's making the selection pool bigger, and both the internships, and the actual jobs will still be decided via a highly competitive process. More clever people ultimately applying for the jobs is why this will hopefully result in a better result.
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No, I think you’ve misunderstood actually.

The article makes it clear that people on the internship will be fast tracked into the final stages of the application process, so it’s completely disingenuous to suggest that this only relates to encouraging applications, and that it makes the selection pool bigger.

What it actually does is reduce the pool of people who will ultimately be successful in their applications, and give people from a chosen subset of the population a much better chance of success than the majority of the population. Clearly, that’s discriminatory behaviour and it won’t ensure that the best people are employed.

Also, the question around implementation remains. How do you check whether somebody was in a working class job six or seven years ago? It’s a nonsensical idea.
 
bluenova said:
Because the people on this intern scheme are NOT the sum total of people who will go on to work in the civil service.

The aim isn't to make a small internship programme representative - it's to ensure that very clever people from poorer backgrounds are represented throughout the application process. Just making the internships representative would make almost no difference.

I do admire your confidence that so long as you work hard, you'll get all the opportunities in life that the middle and upper classes get, but I'd suggest that the evidence points in the opposite direction.
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Going on an internship isn’t a free mess about. You get practical experience, bring skills you’d learned in the classroom to life, two people coming out of uni broadly level pegged going for the same job but one has had previous experience …. You’re not stupid enough to think that doesn’t make a difference.

If they said “we are excluding people who had a private education” from applying I’d at least see it as being a bit of a leveller even if I disagreed with it but they aren’t, they are excluding at least 75% of kids from applying.

I can only speak from my own experiences in life, I’ve never had owt given to me, grew up in a council house with ice on the inside of the windows in winter, shit state school, pretty average student, didn’t go to university but the one thing my parents could give me was a belief that if I worked hard and never gave in I’d do alright….and I have. It’s the one trait of mine I’m proud my kids have.
 
bluenova said:
They're not prevented from applying for jobs in the civil service.

Even at fast stream level there are about 1000 jobs a year (and there are plenty more at just below that level). Over the last few years, applications have been between 45000 and 65000 for those 1000 jobs.

This internship is for about 200 people for 6-8 weeks each.

Even if they all applied for the fast stream, they'd make up 1 in 250 of the applicants. Plenty of room left for the sons and daughters of nurses.
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How would you feel if they excluded working class kids from applying for the internships?
 
metalblue said:
Going on an internship isn’t a free mess about. You get practical experience, bring skills you’d learned in the classroom to life, two people coming out of uni broadly level pegged going for the same job but one has had previous experience …. You’re not stupid enough to think that doesn’t make a difference.

If they said “we are excluding people who had a private education” from applying I’d at least see it as being a bit of a leveller even if I disagreed with it but they aren’t, they are excluding at least 75% of kids from applying.

I can only speak from my own experiences in life, I’ve never had owt given to me, grew up in a council house with ice on the inside of the windows in winter, shit state school, pretty average student, didn’t go to university but the one thing my parents could give me was a belief that if I worked hard and never gave in I’d do alright….and I have. It’s the one trait of mine I’m proud my kids have.
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I'm a bit confused by that first paragraph. The whole point is that it makes a difference. It's not about giving kids from poor backgrounds an advantage over other kids from poor backgrounds - it's about recognising that they're at a disadvantage to start with, compared to everyone else, and this will level the playing field a little.

I applaud that you've done well in life, and that your kids have a good work ethic. It doesn't mean that all doors are open to everyone, and I'm certain you know that.
 
metalblue said:
Do you need one? It’s a point of principle.
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I would, yes.

Excluding a group, that most people would agree, already have less opportunities in life, is very different to giving them more opportunity (not a guaranteed job - just an opportunity that helps you apply for that job).

Bear in mind, that it's really, really hard to get one of these internships, and really, really hard to get a fast stream job. Nobody underqualified is going to get through the whole process due to this.
 
bluenova said:
I'm a bit confused by that first paragraph. The whole point is that it makes a difference. It's not about giving kids from poor backgrounds an advantage over other kids from poor backgrounds - it's about recognising that they're at a disadvantage to start with, compared to everyone else, and this will level the playing field a little.

I applaud that you've done well in life, and that your kids have a good work ethic. It doesn't mean that all doors are open to everyone, and I'm certain you know that.
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How disadvantaged are they? The main barrier is getting there in the first place.
 
bluenova said:
I would, yes.

Excluding a group, that most people would agree, already have less opportunities in life, is very different to giving them more opportunity (not a guaranteed job - just an opportunity that helps you apply for that job).

Bear in mind, that it's really, really hard to get one of these internships, and really, really hard to get a fast stream job. Nobody underqualified is going to get through the whole process due to this.
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Ok so taken at face value you only support this policy because you agree with the logic that the state should help a specific disadvantaged section of society… but what about other disadvantaged groups, the disabled, non-white, autistic kids, etc etc? If you think they should all be included then you can’t support the policy.

I really don’t care how hard it is to get one of these internships, that’s really not relevant.
 
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