Author Archives: GovWorldMag

It is encouraging that the European Commission has recommended sufficient progress in the Brexit negotiations – Keir Starmer

Keir Starmer MP, Labour’s Shadow Brexit Secretary, responding to the European Commission’s announcement that sufficient progress has been made in the first phase of the Brexit talks, said:

“Despite being two months later than originally planned, it is encouraging that the European Commission has recommended sufficient progress in the Brexit negotiations.

“The priority for both sides now must be to agree transitional arrangements on the same basic terms as we have now. That means staying in the single market and a customs union for a time-limited period. We will also need to know the political price of the deal struck and the impact any compromise that has been agreed will have on our future relationship with the EU.

“As the talks now move on to a discussion about Britain’s future relationship with the European Union, Theresa May must seriously reflect on her approach to the negotiations so far. We cannot have another year of chaos and confusion or the farcical scenes we saw earlier on in the week that put jobs and the economy at risk.”

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Labour •

On Growth & Form 100 – Creative Coding workshops

From the Curator of Museum Services at the University of Dundee :

Creative Coding : Animats, Animation and Artificial Life 
Designing and Coding Workshops by Genetic Moo

Saturday 9th December, 10am – 12.30pm and 2pm – 4.30pm
D’Arcy Thompson Zoology Museum, Carnelley Building, University of Dundee

Create your own virtual organisms in these special workshops by computer art duo Genetic Moo, part of our exciting programme of events marking the centenary of D’Arcy Thompson’s On Growth and Form. Using design and creative coding, in the first part of the workshop you will learn how to design your creatures digitally, experimenting with different body parts, muscles and sensors. 

In the second part, find out how to program simple animating backgrounds which will trigger your creatures into action. At the end of this stimulating workshop we will bring some of the ‘created’ creatures together into a virtual world, while observing how they behave. Coding will be done using the free and open source Processing Language. 

After the workshop, we will email participants with the resulting programs and will explain how you can carry on your exciting coding experiments at home.

The workshop will run twice – a family-friendly version in the morning (10am-12.30pm) and one for adults in the afternoon (2pm-4.30pm).

Please note –

Workshops will be 2.5 hours long with a short break in the middle.  All equipment will be provided.

The workshops will be run by Nicola Schauerman and Tim Pickup who make up the digital art group Genetic Moo and have ten years of experience creating interactive creatures for events and exhibitions up and down the country.    They filled a shop full of digital beasties at Dundee’s Wellgate Centre for NEoN Digital Arts Festival 2016.

The morning workshop is intended for children aged 10 and upwards. Children must be accompanied by one or two adults.   You only need to book one place per child as you will be sharing a netbook computer.    It is great fun to work together with your kids and see who can code, or you can sit back and let the kids get on with it. 

The afternoon workshop is intended for adults aged 18 and upwards.

There is a fee of £10 per person for the afternoon workshop or £10 per child for the morning workshop (accompanying adults may attend free). Please pay in cash on the day – you will not be asked to pay when registering.

Places are limited so booking through Eventbrite is required :

Family Workshop – here.
Adult Workshop – here.  
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Fraser Macpherson

Deal or no deal?

The government is trying to secure a deal to trigger trade talks with the EU. Today we learn that the EU is now prepared to talk about trade and the future relationship as well as the three special subjects it singled out for discussion so far. That is welcome, and means there can now be serious negotiations about a future Agreement. It was never possible to settle the Northern Ireland border issue without knowing the basis for future trade, for example.

We need to remember that leaving on the WTO option means no additional payments to the EU, whilst taking back control of our borders, our laws and our money. A good deal has to be better than this, otherwise the government’s mantra that No deal is better than a bad deal should apply.

Everyone needs to remember that this agreement is not the Agreement on the UK leaving the EU. It is an agreement to talk about all matters, and is still governed by the crucial principle that nothing is agreed until everything is agreed.

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John Redwood MP •

Improving reading in UK schools

This week came the good news that English schools have done well in boosting reading standards in recent years.
The Coalition government spread the teaching of reading by synthetic phonics throughout England’s schools. They introduced the Phonics Screening check at 6 to see how well pupils were doing. In 2012 just 58% of pupils aged 6 met the required standard. The most recent tests show 81% of 6 year olds meeting it, with a better figure again for 7 year olds. There are 154,000 more 6 year olds fluent at reading than in 2012.
As a result of this improvement England now ranks 8th out of 50 countries at reading, compared to being 19th out of 45 in 2006. The improvement in reading standards has been fastest for the lower performing pupils, which is also good news.

There are now 1.9m more children in good or outstanding schools as assessed by Ofsted than in 2010. Raising reading standards is an important part of raising educational standards, as so much learning rests on reading and understanding the written word. This is a good base for later educational achievement, as the Uk seeks to ensure people achieve more at school so they can get access to better paid and more interesting jobs later.

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John Redwood MP •

Search, Rescue and Rehabilitation post OCKHI

Southern Naval Command continued to undertake Search and Rescue (SAR) operations and providing Humanitarian assistance and disaster relief (HADR) material support, over Southeast Arabian Sea and L& M islands in the aftermath of Very Severe Cyclonic Storm ‘OCKHI’ for the … read more

India