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Why would the Tory leader want to get rid of a degree which helps students to critically analyse written texts? Oh, I see....

And it was the subject taught to colonial administrators to bolster their sense of national culture and identity, so even in terms of her supposed politics it's a stupid thing to say.

They are stuck in a nativist neocon bubble. They've failed to realise that the coming technology will require at least as many creative people as those with good science and tech. We need to boost both.

Very easily. You just need to have not learnt critical thinking, have no integrity, but instead have a lot of hypocrisy and arrogance.

Very easily if you are ignorant and rather stupid and self-important and stubborn and very very cross with everyone and a tory "leader".

Well put. So true.

exactly this

All learning, is worthwhile. Degrees offer not only specific subject knowledge and expertise but transferable skills. Learning at higher levels involves critical thinking, analysis and evidence based conclusions. It is these higher-order skills that right-wing media and politicians fear.

It was Badenoch! That explains everything. Somehow I don't think Badenoch believes one should go to university to expand one's mind. It is quite obvious that learning is a concept that has passed her by. People like her get 'qualifications'. Plebs get trained.

Brilliant. It taught me how to think and how to read properly rather than skim. It made me want to learn more. All of which is what university should teach you. Added to that I had a tremendous social life and made lifelong friends one of whom I married.

Studying English not only teaches the nuances of our language, but also the writing and the culture that makes us who we are. A so-called patriot should be all for it, but no.. This merely shows she prefers to have a nation of ignorance and ignorants, who believe her knees-jerk racist bollox

Germany has degrees in German, France has degrees in French, Italy in Italian etc etc.

More populist soundbites. It's never-ending!

The land of Shakespeare

Hubby had MS-EE/CS +30. He always valued my education. It made me a good writer and a critical thinker. I was a tech writer when we met (I tried to unionize my association.) I later became an aty. Liberal arts degrees make good generalists.

I talk good english and dont need no dang collage degree for it

The Tories fear an electorate capable of independent reading and the clear expression of thought.

Recall my uni study of drama and lit. criticism enabled my first city jobs (fin. sector) because, “degree proves you’ve been taught how to think.” A debatable accusation, but still…I hated all those jobs and wrote a novel about a bank clerk trying to die, whose guardian angel kept saving him. Still.

It’s quite an accusation: it damns not only students for being foolish about the courses they choose, but also universities for being fraudulent in the courses they deliver.

A great compliment in their reality.

Seems like the natural endpoint of the general "STEM über alles" tenor of education policy over the last couple of decades.

🤦🏻‍♀️

Badenoch

Well, that's why they want to close libraries as well. Keep people uneducated.

One thing I've always found true: People who glorify STEM degrees over liberal arts degrees generally don't do well in either discipline...

Especially when she can’t spell ‘Britain’. 🙄

Well said.

It won't be their kids who are denied access to such degrees. It's kids like my 17,yr old working his socks off with an AuDHD brain that affects every moment of his day. Another thee not me.

From the party that spells Britain Britiain...

Been hearing this about a number of humanities subjects since the 90s when I started uni and it is SO boring and SO wrong.

They want to make the country stupid. Because the stupid votes for them. The US is a case in point.

ironically being creative with language is the reason she thinks shes an engineer and somehow special

My degree was in English. I was searching for the words to express how I feel about this execrable statement from the awful Badenoch but you’ve said it perfectly. Thanks.

I wouldn't argue with that.

Because she’s beyond stupid.

We Agree

Good stuff. If Kemi valued it, I'd be questioning my own judgement.

Also wrong on its own terms given importance of arts to UK economy.

CompSci at Cambridge? We were taught stuff that five people in the world needed to know. I was not one of them.

I see a Fahrenheit 451 scenario in play here. Where citizens don't read but just look at pictures. When I read all those books in 70's and 80's, it was Science Fiction, not a planning guide for rich folks to keep citizens ignorant while they take over everything & enslave us for no/low wages.

Serfs don't need educating on things that could make them see the riches they shall never have. Born, work, die. The master holds the whip. The blindfold too.

English literature! Britains greatest gift to the world and these flag shaggers think its aload of useless buff!!!

Doctorate on Chemistry here who couldn't agree with you more

A D in maths, I wonder what the grade boundaries were that year?

Crackdown on rip-off university degrees - GOV.UK share.google/gnA4dg9jZpMR...

What did 'Slow Horse' Badenoch do with her degrees.

I'm a maths graduate, and even I recognise the ignorance and barbarism behind Badenoch's remark.

Dear god, so depressing, she’s simply aping Trump, Hegseth et al finding anything she considers woke to be a target for attack

bsky.app/profile/did:...

Kemi Badenoch‘s No Culture Revolution.

I think she's just having another sly pop at Bob 'History and Political Science' Jenrick.

They never stopped.

They’ll just change the history.

So many of our so call indigenous population have de-educated themselves, they could not be bothered to get an education, and for many their racism is really about jealously, they are jealous of the immigrants that came here, got a good education and a well paid job.

Is this really what Conservativism stands for? Are others in the party okay with this cultural vandalism? Badenoch is once again contradicting herself and the values of her party 3/3

Yet they want migrants to have a comprehension of English.

The clasical education system in one

The constant attack on absolutely everything that Britain might be considered world-leading at (higher education and the arts spring immediately to mind) is part of the contemporary conservative brand. They are not patriots; they hate this country.

Ian, her whole team’s minds

English a rip off degree - really 🤔 - did she follow that with a Nazi salute ..this is the woman who denies she is from Nigeria .. proud about getting people expelled .. she’s working class after doing a few shifts in McDonald’s .. like previous Tory leaders .. an ignorant arrogant vain mess 👎

Yer. That’s what he says.

They do not want anyone to think, there is no "as if" about it.

👏👏👏👏

They’d have had literally everyone studying coding 3 years ago. Now totally screwed by AI

People do it with history and law too. Assholes all of em.

Don't think I've ever heard a more beautiful argument

Well said Ian. What a bereft mind she has. I am Clive Rutland. Dean’s dad.

IYKYK

Especially when you can’t even spell Britain

Any degree in any language develops high level skills essential to the economy.

In the next sentence they’ll be laying it on thick about how much they love the England of Shakespeare and Milton….

Why Top Tech CEOs Want Employees With Liberal Arts ... Fast Company www.fastcompany.com › Tech

Cool. My son chose Psychology because it is the most transportable degree. Meaning that most careers will accept it as being relevant to nearly any job. He is actually in a career in leadership training and his company paid for his Masters, too.

The one thing you cannot replace with AI is creative human thinking. The intuitive leaps we make because of life experiences that inform our intellectual learnings.

Alas, I think that that philosophy is gathering dust judging by the latest OS26 releases.

They don't want people to be able to think for themselves and have the ability to have empathy. They want commodities to be exploited.

Let me also add Ed Davey to the list above (History, French and German) who also is an emotionally powerful commentator 👏

English/the Arts are so powerful that even if you’re a politician who some have referred to as poisonous - like Gove- you still know how to sell your message. Of course, bureaucrats and ppl without EQ don’t understand the power of these subjects. (The Arts = that earn the U.K. millions)

And their lot are almost all PPE from Oxford (boo hiss), apart from Boris who did Classics - and if he got a first in Greats without help I'm an Indian chef with a coriander allergy.

Exactly! Clueless. An emotional vacuum who only values power and money. How can that harness the imagination of anyone who isn’t greedy, a CEO or clueless? No one with transformative or altruistic aspirations for a country would vote for such a person.

Dis you read why he changed his name? Perfectly legitimate and understandable .

I work in software development. Since the advent of generative AI, much of my work has changed from coding in programming languages to sculpting and manipulating software through expression in English. English has never been more important.

It is though. People should not go into debt for a degree with no practical use. Take night classes at a community college if you want to major in English. Don't go $250,000 in debt for it.

Wonder how many of her MPs have English degrees?

'These violent passions will have violent ends.' - Shakespeare. Speaking as a Brown man whose ancestors were subjected to the full range of white supremacist colonialist violence for daring to resist & then found themselves fighting Fascism, we've seen this movie before bsky.app/profile/azur...

I picked up a load of these St George's cross flags from the Conservative Party conference. I'll be tying them to lampposts all over my area this weekend.

🎯

👏🏻👏🏻👏🏻

CoMiN oVa ErE nOT SpeekIN InGlish.

almost like it was written by someone who came here from abroad and failed to integrate

How dare you besmirch the name of Britian.

🎯

Unbelievable

The same people then kick off when the biggest books, film, and TV shows in the UK are cultural exports from another country.

They could have used someone who could spell Britain as well!