Best Of

The U.K. delegation was a huge collection of hangers on. They went away and sent back a vast document for all the changes they wanted. According to my friend, they ranged from the idiotic to the harmful. Many were obviously from people who had no clue about electronics or the function of the box of tricks.

That sounds depressingly familiar. It's always been a problem in the UK that people who make decisions all to often have scant knowledge if the subject matter, there seems to be a bizarre culture of putting unknowledgable managers and administrators in these positions rather than someone who actually knows what's what.

Years ago I worked for an IT organisation that landed a contract with a UK government department - three months of dealing with civil servants, who knew with implacable confidence that someone with 20 years experience in the field was less capable than themselves, and I walked out and vowed never to deal with that kind of idiot again if remotely possible.

A cool headed administrator who is not an expert can work well in plenty of situations, especially since someone being an expert and a good administrator is probably rare.

But we seem instead almost suspicious of people who do know things. Like the junior civil servant in Yes Minister lamenting he will rise no higher because 'alas, I'm an expert'.

I left to set up my own company over 20 years ago not to make money but to be able to work in an organisation where my engineering capability was respected. My business is now the largest UK owned company in our sector and we employ over 70 staff mostly engineers and microbiologists. The technical competence of decision makers in the UK Government has rapidly declined over the last 20 years. Political antenna used to be important at the top of the Civil Service but this has now spread across the NHS, councils and a myriad of Quangos. At the same time those who have technical expertise are leaving in droves.

This point is completely missed by our politicians who believe that the issue of failure to execute is money. I am now of the belief that money is the worst solution as it prevents the need for reform and strengthens the power of those with political connections.

Anyone wondering why Britain has fallen behind the world in SMRs may wish to consider the questions asked in the "Great British Nuclear SMR competition".

Bidders are asked to:


Total gender parity is required not only within the bidder's own workforce but that of their suppliers.

Not only that:



This shitshow has cost £22million so far.

https://www.spectator.co.uk/article/why-is-britain-trying-to-make-our-nuclear-reactors-woke/

Even PB's wokiest of wokesters must surely acknowledge that this shit needs to be removed from British public life.

I was eating at a hotel in Greece when, upon learning I was British, the nice Belgian lady next to me immediately asked if i had supported Brexit, despite us not exchanging words until that moment. I thought such things only happened in obviously made up twitter stories.

Maybe all those Albanian taxi driver 'testimonials' weren't bullsh*t after all?

I'm in Italy every few weeks and no one has ever asked me this.

Hence my complete surprise.

I tried to swerve the question but they seemed insistent so i took the coward's way out and just implied I'd been against ftom the start and chuckled appreciatively at a joke about angry Brits and passport lines.

I think that eventually no one would admit to voting for Brexit was a bit of a meme..

A hundred years from now, I doubt we'll be able to find person who would admit to being a Brexit voter.

At least one poster (actually several) who definitely voted for Brexit will have their consciousness uploaded to AI, and will still be posting about it. Constantly.

My hypocrimometer just made a strange smashing noise.

I was eating at a hotel in Greece when, upon learning I was British, the nice Belgian lady next to me immediately asked if i had supported Brexit, despite us not exchanging words until that moment. I thought such things only happened in obviously made up twitter stories.

Maybe all those Albanian taxi driver 'testimonials' weren't bullsh*t after all?

I'm in Italy every few weeks and no one has ever asked me this.

Hence my complete surprise.

I tried to swerve the question but they seemed insistent so i took the coward's way out and just implied I'd been against ftom the start and chuckled appreciatively at a joke about angry Brits and passport lines.

I think that eventually no one would admit to voting for Brexit was a bit of a meme..

A hundred years from now, I doubt we'll be able to find person who would admit to being a Brexit voter.

Don't tell my pension company but I was planning on living forever, actually.

I was eating at a hotel in Greece when, upon learning I was British, the nice Belgian lady next to me immediately asked if i had supported Brexit, despite us not exchanging words until that moment. I thought such things only happened in obviously made up twitter stories.

Maybe all those Albanian taxi driver 'testimonials' weren't bullsh*t after all?

I'm in Italy every few weeks and no one has ever asked me this.

Hence my complete surprise.

I tried to swerve the question but they seemed insistent so i took the coward's way out and just implied I'd been against ftom the start and chuckled appreciatively at a joke about angry Brits and passport lines.

I think that eventually no one would admit to voting for Brexit was a bit of a meme..

A hundred years from now, I doubt we'll be able to find person who would admit to being a Brexit voter.

Anyone wondering why Britain has fallen behind the world in SMRs may wish to consider the questions asked in the "Great British Nuclear SMR competition".

Bidders are asked to:

‘Tackle workforce inequality across characteristics such as gender, ethnic diversity, race, religious belief, sexual orientation, physical ability and marital status, and achieve 50 per cent gender balance by 2030 for the workforce employed on this TP Contract within the Contractor and its supply chain.’

Total gender parity is required not only within the bidder's own workforce but that of their suppliers.

Not only that:

At one point, the full question asks about employing ‘people seeking asylum’. This is a strange and, fundamentally, unachievable request: British law bans asylum seekers from working.

The asylum seeker requirement is straightforwardly impossible.

This shitshow has cost £22million so far.

https://www.spectator.co.uk/article/why-is-britain-trying-to-make-our-nuclear-reactors-woke/

Even PB's wokiest of wokesters must surely acknowledge that this shit needs to be removed from British public life.

Yeah, we did this earlier in the week and the conclusion was, rightly, it was the Tories fault. Will Sir Drear change it. Don’t put your mortgage on it.

I worked for a few companies that bid for public contracts. It was very time consuming and, consequently, alot of cost to bear when the work isn’t guaranteed.

If bidding stays this onerous why bother bidding ?

Red tape long predates 'woke'.
This is just more of the same problem that's afflicted government since forever.

It’s the generation of ever more bullshit requirements by people who have no fucking clue.

A uni friend ended up working in California in the defence industry. His company made an interesting box of electronic tricks that was several orders of magnitude cheaper than the traditional approach.

US military saw it, loved it, spec’s it. Bought it.

A couple of blokes from upside down land turned up and looked at it. After drinking most of the beer in the local bars, they wrote a recommendation and an order followed,

Other US allies did similar.

The U.K. delegation was a huge collection of hangers on. They went away and sent back a vast document for all the changes they wanted. According to my friend, they ranged from the idiotic to the harmful. Many were obviously from people who had no clue about electronics or the function of the box of tricks.

After discussion with his bosses, they decided not to go forward with the suggested contract. Too much work, risk of overruns in cost, creating a bad product, a scandal and a failure.

Their contact in London was startled - couldn’t believe that people would turn their nose up at the money.

'far superior D'Hondt system'?!?

Fuck the fuck off. Right off. D'Hondt is possibly the worst electoral system ever devised.

It creates arbitrary cliff-edges and almost always relies on fixed lists that can make it impossible to elect a candidate you like without also electing one you don't like, and the vote for the one you like risks electing the one you don't like but not the one you like!

Awful, awful, horrible manky system! It completely devalues the individual candidate; sacrificed upon the altar of party machine and pisses and shits upon all that is good about politics.

(And it's not even particularly proportional - in the last UK Euro-elections, the LibDems got twice as many votes as the Tories but four times as many seats under D'Hondt.)

I like Milei a lot, but I'd like him even more if he spared the poor Argentinians the abject nonsense of this apology for an electoral system.