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David K Smith Profile picture
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29 Sep, 4 tweets, 1 min read
Entering the lecture room after another department has done their induction lecture to find 150 unmasked Year 1 students crowded round the front desk waiting to collect their course documents. 😱
So that's the air in the room trashed before I even begin.
Reinforces my decision to lecture in an FFP2 mask.
Shout out to my own students - after an email from me setting up the course and explaining how they can protect each other (regular lateral flow tests, stay home if ill, wear masks in crowded spaces in & around lectures), 90% of them then wore masks in the lecture.

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More from @professor_dave

David K Smith Profile picture
30 Sep
To be absolutely clear:
Under £12,570 - tax free.
>£12,570 - 20% tax
>27,000 - 29% tax (if a graduate)
>50,271 - 40% tax (49% if a graduate)
The proposal is to drop £27,000 to £21,000.
This masssively raises taxes for the lowest paid graduates.
A couple, both of whom are graduates and earn around the average UK wage of £29k (e.g. newly qualified teachers), will have to find an extra £1080 a year just to service their student loans.
This is the impact of what the govt is trying to say is 'progressive and fair'.
Meanwhile, the highest earners, will have paid back their full loan in just a few years (sometimes even instantly as a lump sum) and never face having to pay years and years of interest.
The system is not progressive and is not fair.
Read 7 tweets
David K Smith Profile picture
30 Sep
Once again David Willets on #r4today arguing graduates earning £21k-£27k should also repay student loans, at an effective marginal tax rate of 9%. A 9% tax hike for people well below the average UK wage of £29.6k! Why not tax the very wealthiest graduates an extra 1-2% for life?
The problem with student loans is not that they put people off going to uni, but that those on low/medium incomes, who repay them with interest for 30 yrs at a marginal tax rate of 9%, cannot afford houses, holidays or other types of spending the economy (and they) need. #r4today
A pair of graduates who marry, with debt of over £100k and salaries around national average, will repay their loans with interest for almost their whole working lives. Imagine being told basic rate of income tax was rising from 20% to 29%. That's what they experience. #r4today
Read 5 tweets
David K Smith Profile picture
28 Sep
My best biscuit creation was this Tardis cake with a spiced biscuit shell. A light came on inside and it made the Tardis sound. It was a nightmare! But my husband was dying in hospital, it was our son's 6th birthday, and I wanted Sam to know that we would be OK. #GBBO
I took it into hospital to show Sam before taking it to the birthday party. I wanted him to know that I had this - he didn't need to worry. Me and the (now) 8yo were going to be OK. I recorded the story in #TwEatMore, although the cake recipe was FAR too complicated for my books!
This was how I wrote it up in #TwEatMore alongside a very quirky Dr Who themed recipe for 'Fish Fingers & Custard', which the (then) 6yo had for his birthday tea - a moment of lightness for him in dark times.
Read 4 tweets
David K Smith Profile picture
11 Jun
This paper argues against 'politicisation of science'. It's a seductive idea that science has been apolitical and things like decolonisation contaminate it, but it's wrong. Science has always been political - with significant impact on outcomes & culture.
pubs.acs.org/doi/10.1021/ac…
Most importantly, science occurs within a context. The science that gets done is primarily decided by the richest countries in the world. They decide that (e.g.) diseases of ageing deserve more funding that tropical diseases. This changes the way science itself develops.
This also changes the way that technologies emerge from science, impacting on who benefits from fundamental science. We may think modern science is 'neutral' and meritocratic, but western politics sets the technological agenda, and the developing world is often disenfranchised.
Read 15 tweets
David K Smith Profile picture
5 Oct 20
Towards the end of last week, over 15,000 UK coronavirus cases were not entered into the official figures, and none of their contacts were traced. It's time for those in charge of test, track & trace to be held accountable. It's just a complete shambles.
bbc.co.uk/news/uk-544125…
I'm afraid to say, but the government has now lost control of the virus and where it is in the community. Contact tracing is broken and we are getting dangerously close to another situation like March where Covid begins to rip through communities. #r4today
For my own city of York, data on Friday was showing 66 weekly cases per 100,000. Now after a weekend of adjustment, analysing the data in detail shows the true number was actually 125 cases per 100,000. We should actually have had enhanced lockdown measures for the weekend.
Read 4 tweets
David K Smith Profile picture
1 Oct 20
Am sure the 'ship migrants to Ascension Island' story was only leaked so the real 'lock them up on a ferry' story would seem more 'reasonable'. They then say 'Denmark do it', using Denmark as code for tolerance, when in fact, it currently has, like us, a hard right govt. #r4today
You can find a good analysis of Danish politics shift to the right and the increasingly hard-line approach to immigration here: time.com/5504331/denmar…
I should slightly correct that - the restrictive Danish ideas on immigration (and that Time article) date back to early 2019, when the right wing Liberal Party was in power with the far right Danish People's Party in 2nd place. The current Prime Minister is now a Social Democrat.
Read 4 tweets

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