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Re: Wholly Unacceptable Behaviour – politicalbetting.com
On the PO, the scandal gains legs if you think about what sort of people the victims were. Typically in mid to later life, a couple, wanting to work together until retirement in something that was a business but with greatly mitigated risk, and with an element of community value. Not about getting rich, or chasing a buzz, or making a dent in the world, just about finding a fulfilling, adequately remunerated way of making a living. If you'd said to any of them when they started that this career choice would utterly ruin them on every level, put them in jail, cause such despair as to make them not want to carry on living, they simply would not have believed you. I bet they barely can even now.
kinabalu
9
Re: How many Reform MPs on the 31st of December 2025? – politicalbetting.com
Can I talk about AI? I know it’s everyone’s favourite subject.I am deeply suspicious of AI.
Anyway, overnight Grok - the Elon Musk owned AI - called itself “MechaHitler” and referred to “his majesty Adolf Hitler”
Glad that @leon wants us to turn ourselves over to the AI overlords. Seems like a sensible idea
MechaHitler is only the most grotesque manifestation of this. It is infested with more subtle prompts to influence outputs and propagandise the world on behalf of its mega-rich tech-bro owners.
Foxy
5
Re: Wholly Unacceptable Behaviour – politicalbetting.com
Irony is we have many MPs and public figures queuing up to demand compensation for the WASPE women who don’t deserve a penny.
Taz
6
Wholly Unacceptable Behaviour – politicalbetting.com
Wholly Unacceptable Behaviour – politicalbetting.com
'The picture in my report is profoundly disturbing'Chair of the Post Office Horizon IT Inquiry, Sir Wyn Williams, speaks as a public inquiry into the Post Office scandal finds at least 13 postmasters may have taken their own lives.https://t.co/iEfMAYAD1v? Sky 501/YT pic.twitter.com/tnjx0mEiFd
System
6
Re: Wholly Unacceptable Behaviour – politicalbetting.com
It’s all part of the shift from principles-based regulation to a rules-based approach.
Principles-based is hard work. It requires integrity, trust and judgement from both the regulator and the regulated. But when it works it’s so much better.
I remember being told once about the bank of England’s regulatory approach: rock up to a meeting with senior management of a bank every quarter and spend the meeting asking about management’s concerns about their competitors… they believed it gave a much clearer view of systemic risk
Principles-based is hard work. It requires integrity, trust and judgement from both the regulator and the regulated. But when it works it’s so much better.
I remember being told once about the bank of England’s regulatory approach: rock up to a meeting with senior management of a bank every quarter and spend the meeting asking about management’s concerns about their competitors… they believed it gave a much clearer view of systemic risk
Re: Wholly Unacceptable Behaviour – politicalbetting.com
Given how this scandal is so utterly dwarfed by other vaster scandals, I find it hard to get exercised by it. Indeed I have suspicions of those that do. This one is so much easier to take - the villains are nasty managers - so let’s make tv dramas about it and write 5000 word essays about it and ventilate about it endlesslyTalking bollocks again I see.
Rather than focusing on much greater and more troubling problems
In short: this is chaff
I have written quite a few headers on even more serious scandals and there have also been TV dramas about them and they share with this one the same essential elements which cause them to happen, to continue and to involve cruelty to the victims.
What I wrote here could and does apply to every other scandal. I am writing about it today because a report came out and to remind those with goldfish memories that nothing has changed. I have written in my book about Grenfell and blood contamination and many others and if I included every single scandal pointing out the depressing similarities it wouldn't be so much a book as a bloody enormous encyclopaedia - Cyclefree's Big Book of British Scandals.
The people mentioned in the case studies are not chaff. (The last time I heard that word used so dismissively it was by an MP in a Select Committee aimed at Dr David Kelly. He committed suicide shortly after.)
They are people like us. One of them is your age and at about the age you stopped taking drugs and turned your life around, he had a good business, a family and was looking forward to doing even better. Instead, he was wrongly convicted, had his reputation trashed, lost everything and has never been able to find employment again. He lives on charity from his family and friends. His name is Harjinder Butoy.
Don't you fucking dare call him and everyone like him and what happened to them all "chaff".
For shame, @Leon. For shame.
Cyclefree
13
Re: Wholly Unacceptable Behaviour – politicalbetting.com
For those who don't wade through long headers, Cyclefree's last two paragraphs make the essential point of the article.Isn't the not being willing to read something "long" (i.e. takes five minutes instead of one) part of the problem. Read the thing in full, it really won't hurt.
I agree with every word.
Re: Wholly Unacceptable Behaviour – politicalbetting.com
There is only one significant figure who was involved with this scandal who still holds signifcant minor public office. He should consider his position, which is not at all good. His present colleagues need to consider whether they are prepared to work with him. People of honour would not.Has Badenoch adopted new pronouns?
Foxy
5
Re: Wholly Unacceptable Behaviour – politicalbetting.com
Given how this scandal is so utterly dwarfed by other vaster scandals, I find it hard to get exercised by it. Indeed I have suspicions of those that do. This one is so much easier to take - the villains are nasty managers - so let’s make tv dramas about it and write 5000 word essays about it and ventilate about it endlesslyShorter Leon: "why aren't we discussing my hobbyhorse ?"
Rather than focusing on much greater and more troubling problems
In short: this is chaff
Nigelb
11
Re: Wholly Unacceptable Behaviour – politicalbetting.com
Before I book this, I have to ask, how immersive?
