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Reposted by Daniel Bundred 🦡

Daisy Christodoulou @daisychristo.bsky.social · 7h

There's a lot of talk about whether we can trust PISA scores or not. PISA is not the only international test. TIMSS & PIRLS test reading, maths, science too. England is the only country outside East Asia to come in the top 10 on them. More here. substack.nomoremarking.com/p/what-is-go...

substack.nomoremarking.com

What is going on in education in England?

Always count on the English to snatch defeat from the jaws of victory

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Daniel Bundred 🦡 @danielbundred.bsky.social · 03/10/2026

The British public have no consensus on what they want the penalty to be though. So the smart politics is in getting Man City to accept the verdict, convince the public that their penalty is severe when it's really quite minor, and convince the UAE that this really is the best deal going.

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Daniel Bundred 🦡 @danielbundred.bsky.social · 02/10/2026

It's bizarre isn't it? It's just not a part of the discourse in the civilised world. I think there's a really interesting element in how Americans morally reason that is unique to Americans when explaining why they still have the death penalty. I think Americans struggle with principles.

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Daniel Bundred 🦡 @danielbundred.bsky.social · 02/10/2026

I wrote that entire thing out with female pronouns, then thought I was incorrect to assume the gender of the parent and replaced the pronouns. I've now looked again and feel silly.

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Daniel Bundred 🦡 @danielbundred.bsky.social · 02/10/2026

I think they already know when it's time to consider meds. They crossed that threshold a while ago. They're seeking reassurance, and I understand that. There is a wariness around all psychiatric medication in that it deals with the intangible and incurable. I'm sure they'll make the right call.

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Reposted by Daniel Bundred 🦡

The North Bank: An Arsenal Podcast @northbankpod.bsky.social · 01/10/2026

🎼"They've been to PSG, And Napoli, Real Madrid And Rome... Now they're off to Rotherham, And Crawley Town at hooome, Crawley Town at home."🎶 [Tune: Rotterdam by Beautiful South]

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Daniel Bundred 🦡 @danielbundred.bsky.social · 01/10/2026

Tom Harwood seems to be the first ever possessor of a world map with distances shown on a logarithmic scale.

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Daniel Bundred 🦡 @danielbundred.bsky.social · 30/09/2026

In the immediate term that's true, but the point of strategic reserves is that they're not for the immediate term. We have no idea how long he's going to continue pursuing his mad campaign against Iran; and so no idea when - if ever - those reserves could be restored if depleted now.

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Daniel Bundred 🦡 @danielbundred.bsky.social · 28/09/2026

Kills two birds with one stone. Why they, in addition to all the time they spend not in lessons, also have unallocated free time on their timetables is a mystery to leave to leadership

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Daniel Bundred 🦡 @danielbundred.bsky.social · 27/09/2026

Yeah, but nobody puts sugar in bread either, that's cake.

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Daniel Bundred 🦡 @danielbundred.bsky.social · 27/09/2026

Tbh I think that you could probably reduce the need for some of the screening by not putting high fructose corn syrup in every single thing sold in your grocery stores. The last time I was in New York I saw a loaf of bread announcing it was HFCS free; why would there ever be HFCS in bread?

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Daniel Bundred 🦡 @danielbundred.bsky.social · 27/09/2026

I've got the NHS, the NHS is superb. But the NHS is a universal good standard of healthcare free at point of use for everyone, it often goes above and beyond and is worthy of celebration when it does. But it doesn't preclude occasional private healthcare for convenience.

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Daniel Bundred 🦡 @danielbundred.bsky.social · 27/09/2026

I haven't visited my GP for over five years because I've had no need to. I had a skin tag on my back a few months ago that I wanted removed, I went private. It didn't cost much and it wasn't worth burdening the NHS with.

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Daniel Bundred 🦡 @danielbundred.bsky.social · 27/09/2026

He's a moron. It's perfectly possible to be alive and existing and have not visited a doctor in the last decade because you had no need to, it's also perfectly possible to have visited a doctor and paid yourself because the cost is minor and there's no need to involve an insurer.

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Daniel Bundred 🦡 @danielbundred.bsky.social · 27/09/2026

I wonder whether this is a cultural thing created by the US for-profit health industry. I think rich Americans might see GPs when they have no complaints; 'annual check ups' is not a concept here if you don't have an ongoing illness that needs to be monitored.

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Daniel Bundred 🦡 @danielbundred.bsky.social · 27/09/2026

I haven't crashed a car in the last decade and my flat has never burned down either; the only sensible conclusion is that I don't exist.

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Reposted by Daniel Bundred 🦡

Max B 💙 🔶 🇺🇦 🇬🇧 🇪🇺 @maxbrockbank.com · 26/09/2026

Manchester City should ask the electorate of Clacton if they are guilty or not.

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Daniel Bundred 🦡 @danielbundred.bsky.social · 27/09/2026

I have no economic concerns that would prevent me visiting a doctor. I'm a UK citizen and we have free healthcare. I haven't visited a doctor in well over five years, I haven't had the need.

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Daniel Bundred 🦡 @danielbundred.bsky.social · 27/09/2026

If insurance is only legitimate if a claim is made then the economically pragmatic thing to do is to eliminate insurance entirely. There's an administrative cost to providing insurance and he seems to think that the policy holders only have insurance if they extract their expenditure.

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Daniel Bundred 🦡 @danielbundred.bsky.social · 27/09/2026

He's utterly mystified by the concept of insurance, it's not just health insurance, he simply doesn't understand insurance as a concept. I haven't visited a doctor in years either. I have the NHS. I just haven't needed to visit a doctor.

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Daniel Bundred 🦡 @danielbundred.bsky.social · 27/09/2026

She wasn't so much 'elected' as just there when the last government collapsed.

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Daniel Bundred 🦡 @danielbundred.bsky.social · 27/09/2026

Never mind literally all forms of insurance. The greatest fraud in America might be gym membership.

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Daniel Bundred 🦡 @danielbundred.bsky.social · 27/09/2026

It's a statistical impossibility that 80% of people with car insurance have never once made a claim for crashing their car. Total fraud!

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Daniel Bundred 🦡 @danielbundred.bsky.social · 27/09/2026

Fraud is famously when you pay for something that you don't use but might use in future.

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Daniel Bundred 🦡 @danielbundred.bsky.social · 27/09/2026

My car insurance is clearly fraudulent because I've never crashed my car.

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Daniel Bundred 🦡 @danielbundred.bsky.social · 27/09/2026

What was the totally independent panel investigating, and why?

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Daniel Bundred 🦡 @danielbundred.bsky.social · 27/09/2026

I agree that 'an independent judicial body in England' would be better description than 'an English court.' But I'd note that I'm not alone in viewing the judicial body as an English court, as evidenced in much of the reporting.

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Daniel Bundred 🦡 @danielbundred.bsky.social · 27/09/2026

It's not whataboutery at all; Manchester City were tried by the Premier League, under the Premier League rulebook. I was simply responding to another claim by pointing out the irreverence of the notion that teams in other countries and subject to different jurisdiction also cheated.

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Daniel Bundred 🦡 @danielbundred.bsky.social · 27/09/2026

Man City has been found guilty in an English court for violating the rules of our national sport governing body in 114 instances; our courts can't adjudicate on whether French, German or Spanish teams have violated our rules. He didn't name another English team that he thought was guilty.

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Daniel Bundred 🦡 @danielbundred.bsky.social · 27/09/2026

Technically the FFP rules are UEFA rules adopted by the Premier League. But given that Man City were prosecuted for violation of Premier League FFP rules, I thought that it was very weird to point out that we hadn't prosecuted PSG, Real Madrid, or Bayern Munich for such violations.

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Daniel Bundred 🦡 @danielbundred.bsky.social · 26/09/2026

If any team had spent that money unaccountably violating the league rules, eyelids would be blinked. The evidence that they would be is found in the verdict, the evidence that Man City knew they would be is found in their use of fraudulent accounting to disguise their cheating.

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Daniel Bundred 🦡 @danielbundred.bsky.social · 26/09/2026

I understand the cynicism that would lead one, especially an American, to conclude this. But I don't agree and I don't think it's a healthy way of viewing the world. The court that found Man City guilty on all counts but one weren't corrupt, nor is the organisation that identified the corruption.

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Daniel Bundred 🦡 @danielbundred.bsky.social · 26/09/2026

The French, Spanish and Germans seem to have no respect whatsoever for the rules of the English football leagues!

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Daniel Bundred 🦡 @danielbundred.bsky.social · 26/09/2026

If the company that owns the ball can't keep the ball under control then we should confiscate the ball.

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Daniel Bundred 🦡 @danielbundred.bsky.social · 26/09/2026

I think that's a very reassuring way of failing to address the reality that the electorate are just bloody terrible people.

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Daniel Bundred 🦡 @danielbundred.bsky.social · 26/09/2026

I think that a country with the death penalty can be a democracy, a democracy can engage in ridiculous wars of aggression. I wouldn't argue that Japan isn't a democracy. A democracy can also be profoundly uncivilised, and the US certainly is.

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Daniel Bundred 🦡 @danielbundred.bsky.social · 26/09/2026

To be fair that would equally apply in any water he committed an act of piracy in. The thing about international maritime law, is it's international. I'm surprised the law he's being charged with is criminal damage rather than the 2025 endangering life at sea which feels like it was written for him.

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Daniel Bundred 🦡 @danielbundred.bsky.social · 24/09/2026

'the full force of the law on anyone found to have...' It's not a difficult phrasing to master...

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Daniel Bundred 🦡 @danielbundred.bsky.social · 24/09/2026

And I don't think that lefty Americans really understand the implications of Trump's sabre rattling foreign policy with Europe. We do take this seriously. Americans aren't considering casualties. If the US enacts aggression across the Atlantic, we'll send American servicemen back in body bags

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Daniel Bundred 🦡 @danielbundred.bsky.social · 24/09/2026

You can't go to war with soldiers who wouldn't willingly die for their cause. The history of US engagements in the second half of the twentieth century has been one of continual defeat because US soldiers have not had a cause worth dying for, and the enemy often has

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Daniel Bundred 🦡 @danielbundred.bsky.social · 24/09/2026

That was on the Lincoln, the second doomed aircraft carrier on that deployment. They both had very rough rides but the Lincoln didn't have it's living quarters burned out (although the reports might indicate some sailors would have relished purging flames in the toilets and showers)

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Daniel Bundred 🦡 @danielbundred.bsky.social · 24/09/2026

There's also a possibility that all of the official accounts are true. There was no sabotage, no deliberate negligence, nothing untoward. Every now and then on a washer-dryer cycle, the most advanced and largest aircraft carrier in the world sets itself on fire, and there's nothing that can be done.

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Daniel Bundred 🦡 @danielbundred.bsky.social · 24/09/2026

Again, I agree with you that it wasn't hit by an Iranian strike - they would have claimed responsibility - but also the crew set their ship on fire with no fire control from the laundry room.

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Daniel Bundred 🦡 @danielbundred.bsky.social · 24/09/2026

I don't believe it was hit by a drone either. I believe that the crew set fire to it.

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Daniel Bundred 🦡 @danielbundred.bsky.social · 24/09/2026

And you're OK with the idea that failure to clean out laundry lint leads to the destruction of the living quarters and and ship being crippled for 18 months? Rather than a bloke with a fire extinguisher and some ruined uniforms and smalls?

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Daniel Bundred 🦡 @danielbundred.bsky.social · 24/09/2026

E ither version of why there was a fire, there feels like there's a serious question about why the fire could cripple a ship of that size. Why that fire was allowed to spread? Because small fires aboard a big ship are common, they don't usually lead to 18 months repairs. Did the crew sabotage it?

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Daniel Bundred 🦡 @danielbundred.bsky.social · 24/09/2026

The first one in the region seems simple. It's an aircraft carrier that had a fire on board. The result of that fire is that it will take 18 months to refit. The pertinent question is 'why?' Some crew say they were hit by a drone. The official reason is a laundry fire. It destroyed 1000 berths.

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Daniel Bundred 🦡 @danielbundred.bsky.social · 24/09/2026

You're completely correct, and it's at the heart of the most interesting story about US force projection right now. There are supposedly 11 US aircraft carriers in deployment, two were deployed to this conflict; the Gerald Ford and the Lincoln. Both stories are missing major elements.

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