For those curious about the PB Prediction Competition, the full list of entries can be found in this spreadsheet. PB Prediction Competition 2025 – Entries Most of the questions won’t be settled until the end of the year, although we do have one which should be answered very soon: Question 7. Number of seats won by the AfD in the 2025 German Federal Election. For Question 7. we have a low entry of 88 AfD seats, a high of 200,…
It is only a little over a week since the inauguration of Donald Trump as 47th President of the USA. He has had a busy time of it with a flurry of Executive Orders on a wide range of issues, in line with his agenda. He certainly wasted little time, and this instant impact is a sharp contrast to the lethargic start of the Starmer government in Blighty. Perhaps a 3 month transition has its merits. Historically Executive orders were…
It’s time to get your entries in for the 2025 PB Predictions Competition if you haven’t already. All entries must be in by midnight tonight on Friday 31st January! To enter you simply need to post your answers to the following 14 questions before the end of January 2025, to this or whichever thread is currently open. If you can put the word ‘competition’ in your post it will help me collate entries. Alternatively you can PM me your entries…
Misinformation online has become commonplace. It has fuelled riots and disorder and maybe propelled a few people into office. But is misinformation just a random process, or is it driven by particular actors? Is it seen on both the left and right of politics? Petter Törnberg and Juliana Chueri sought to answer this in a research paper just published in The International Journal of Press/Politics. They analysed 32 million tweets from parliamentarians in 26 different countries (including the UK, US, Ireland, France,…
It’s time to get your entries in for the 2025 PB Predictions Competition if you haven’t already. All entries must be in by midnight on Friday 31st January! To enter you simply need to post your answers to the following 14 questions before the end of January 2025, to this or whichever thread is currently open. If you can put the word ‘competition’ in your post it will help me collate entries. Alternatively you can PM me your entries (but…
Let me start this article with a question. What is this building in the picture above’s age? The answer depends on your perspective. The building is called The House of the Blackheads and is in Riga, Latvia. It was originally built in 1334 as a warehouse, while Riga was part of the Hanseatic League. During WW2, Latvia was first invaded by the Soviets after the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact, then by the Germans and finally by the Soviets again. This led to…
Many years ago the late Charles Stallard, father of the current Bishop of Llandaff and much the wisest man I have ever known, said to me that while a loyal Liberal Democrat he would probably vote for any party that agreed to do nothing in education or health for ten years. His logic was that every time you meddle, you create work, waste time and lose money. It would be better to have a prolonged period of calm to allow…
In my previous header, I referred to teacher shortages, and noted they are about to get much worse. This is an explanation of that remark and why I think it’s Phillipson’s fault. At this moment, the National Curriculum is an optional thing for academy schools and trusts. This is actually good news. The reason I say that is because the last review of the curriculum was so content-heavy that it was literally impossible to deliver it properly, as I noted…