Word of the day

Amusia – the inability to recognise musical tones or to reproduce them; a condition marked by inability to produce music; a musical disorder that appears mainly as a defect in processing pitch but also encompasses musical memory and recognition; tone deafness.

Thatcher thinks

I do not want this country to remain a place where taxation is wielded as a punishment for effort and success, and where envy and spite displace charity and compassion as our national ideals. pic.twitter.com/8ZlrTeLQl4

— Margaret Thatcher (@MrsMThatcher) February 26, 2024

Who proposes?

Today is Leap Day when tradition allowed women to propose to men.

According to an old Irish legend, or possibly history, St Brigid struck a deal with St Patrick to allow women to propose to men – and not just the other way around – every four years.

This is believed to have been introduced to balance the traditional roles of men and women in a similar way to how leap day balances the calendar.

12 Pairs of Gloves

In some places, leap day has been known as “Bachelors’ Day” for the same reason. A man was expected to pay a penalty, such as a gown or money, if he refused a marriage proposal from a woman on Leap Day.

In many European countries, especially in the upper classes of society, tradition dictates that any man who refuses a woman’s proposal on February 29 has to buy her 12 pairs of gloves. The intention is that the woman can wear the gloves to hide the embarrassment of not having an engagement ring. During the middle ages there were laws governing this tradition. . . 

Did many women took up the once in four years opportunity?

Did many women propose on other days?

Who is more likely to propose now – a man or a woman?

Too much & too little

Kerre Woodham highlights another example of Labour’s spending too much and too little:

And then further to the Ministry of Education and further around the education portfolio, there’s a story from BusinessDesk this morning showing that the Ministry of Education’s consulting bills surged by 450% since 2019. 450% in five years (really four years). They went to the top-tier consultancy firms, ones like Beca that picked up $15 million over 5 years, PwC, $13 million, KPMG $7.7 million.   . . 

So they’re consulting up for buildings, they’re consulting out for what you would imagine a ministry exists for, which is creating and developing a curriculum for schools. And the other thing that really grinds my gears is when you look at that, so they’re contracting out for curriculum, which is what you’d imagine the ministry would do, so there’d be fewer staff at the Ministry of Education wouldn’t there? Because if they’re not doing what you would imagine they exist to do, there wouldn’t be many staff. The number of teachers employed by state schools rose by just over 5 per cent from 2017 to 2022. By the same period, the number of full-time staff employed at the Ministry of Education ballooned by 55 per cent.  

So not only are they contracting out everything, they’re employing more staff. Like loads more stuff. 1700 more staff than was employed in 2016. What are they doing? Coming up with new ways to spend money, new inventive ways to spend money. How on earth can you justify farming out your curriculum? While taking on 55% more staff?    . . 

Far too much was spent on consultants and bureaucrats and far too little was spent on teachers, support staff and the buildings in which they teach.

This is another example of Labour, and the Ministries for which is was responsible, getting their priorities wrong and spending far too much in the wrong places at the expense of services and the people who deliver them.