Best Of

Oh dear. What a pity. Nevermind...

https://x.com/e_casalicchio/status/1904105476133879950

Notable on that tweet the ease with which journalists describe Italy’s government as far right, in contrast to the painful contortions they go through to avoid labelling the US government in the same way.

To my eyes Trump and his administration are significantly further to the right than Meloni’s party. Certainly in the conspiracy theory / pro-Russian foreign policy / anti vax / rule of law space.

I'm finding Starmer's latest formulation on Trump quite concerning.

I've supported his diplomacy so far, and he's managed to exert a lot of influence between Trump and Ukraine so far, but to make a public show of saying he "likes him", with the stakes as they are currently for Europe and Canada, is the wrong tone to strike.

He shoukd have jusf issued the usual, more neutral boilerplate, about having a good working relationship", while buttering him in more personal terms in private, which seems to have been working well.

Trump is not generally someone who is "liked" by foreign leaders, except for autucrats, nor does he usually seek that. It makes Starmer sound even more of a butler than is necessary, and won't go down at all well with those other democratic leaders.

Taken together with the mooted talk of Starrne also offering special tax concessions to U.S. Big Tech, and there are the first concerning signs about Starmer's direction of travel on this topic.

Meanwhile, I see Reeves has adopted the right wing term ‘tax and spend’ is looking to keep President Trump happy by excluding American tech companies from a tax on American tech companies (as warned on pb).

UK mulls big tech tax changes to avoid US tariffs
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/c8j0dgym8w1o

This is inept - it's a pure protection racket. She's feeding sausages to an American Bully XL in the hope that it won't bite her after it has eaten the sausages. And the negotiation is starting from the USA's position, not ours.

Where's the £900m of lost revenue going to be recovered from?

What did Lord Mandelbrot advise? He had two stints as Business Secretary and 5 years as European Trade Commissioner, so has relevant background.

It can't be said "we have an agreement with Mr Trump", because Mr Trump's history is to piss on every agreement he has ever made, unless there is a metaphorical gun to his head.

How in the name of holy chuffing buggery do Thames Water not have a fixed asset register?

Fresh doubt has been cast over the race to find a white knight buyer for Thames Water as it struggles to provide details of its labyrinthine network of pipes, sewage works and reservoirs.

Thames Water has stepped up the hunt for new investors willing to pump in billions of pounds of emergency capital after the Court of Appeal approved a £3bn emergency debt bailout from its existing creditors.

However, prospective suitors fear the search will be held up by the company’s failure to keep an accurate record of the mountain of assets that it has accumulated over the decades.

Thames Water has just weeks to hammer out a deal or one of the country’s most vital utilities faces a prolonged hand-to-mouth existence in which lenders drip-feed the company enough money every month to pay its bills.

“The board has to advance to the due diligence quickly but this makes that much harder. How do you put a value on the company if you don’t know what it owns?” a source close to the talks said.

https://www.telegraph.co.uk/business/2025/03/23/thames-water-rescue-deal-threatened-by-missing-assets/

Put them into administration, and fire everyone at Ofwat who had any executive responsibility,

Water privatisation is a four decade saga of taking the piss.

You only have to walk around any British town centre mid-week to unearth how many people simply aren't working.

I thinknyou are taking a 1950s idea of work and projecting it into 2025.

Let me give you an example. I am a researcher. Most of my stuff is theoretical, but I do the odd empirical paper. My mode of working would be unrecognizable. Spend enormous time alone in front of a white board. Do naps and walk the dog, fiddle around in the garden mulling ideas over. Then time on long zoom converstions with coauthors followed by intense bursts of writing on my lap top in various public locations. All this leads up to submission. Put me in my office (where I do for meetings and work in the organization) my research pipeline would die. I couldn't have a single research idea there. My teaching is from September to January where I am in the auditorium.... the value I create is just not compatible with a factory or survellied office environment. So you could come across me in the middle of the day walking around with a far away look in my eye... that is me working 🤣🤣🤣

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/c3w10816en3o

UKTV industry apparently in crisis, although from the article it is the Beeb and itv.

The solution to this non problem is, of course, more money from taxpayers rather than finding new streams of income, nice timing too given the current debate on future funding of the BBC.

The BBC seems to favour a sliding scale with wealthier homes paying more than less well off homes.

It’s time to get rid of the license fee, fund the network from general taxation, and let the BBC seek its funding in the open market.

That would be really short sighted. The BBC is one of the best institutions in this country and has been responsible for nurturing some extraorinary talent. The media is one area where the UK punches well above it's weight and much of this is down to the BBC. Holywood is full of talent originally nurtured by the BBC The Scott brothers to name but two but if you add those lower down the scale the British expertise and influence thanks to the BBC is everywhere

But the license fee is becoming less and less tenable. Why should I pay £15 a month to fund it when the majority goes to the BBC just for the privilege of receiving live TV signals.
An institution I rarely watch and don’t really value. If the change to license fee comes and wealthier homes have to pay more, as some beeboid has suggested, how is that fair ?

Pay for the distribution system from general taxation but let the BBC compete for its funds.

By all means use taxpayers money to subsidise apprenticeships and trainee schemes that helps people. As they do in other industries. I’ve never heard of the Scott Brothers but good luck to them.

Ridley and Tony

Thanks, I have heard of Ridley Scott and enjoyed his work. Over many years.

His filmography is insane

Two all time top 100 movies: Alien and Blade Runner. Possibly Top 20

Gladiator might also make that list

Plus

The Duellists
Thelma and Louise
Black Hawk Down
The Martian

I really enjoyed Napoleon, as well

In the list of all time movie directors, he must himself be in the top 10, up there with the likes of Scorsese and Spielberg

You enjoyed Napoleon?

Man, you must have been wasted.

Three tramadol and two xanax on a long haul flight to Colombia. So, maybe

I also think the anti-hype helped. Everyone told me it was terrible, so I found it surprisingly enjoyable, skilful, well-crafted

It's not a GREAT movie, but it is good and very watchable

It's not a great movie. It's not even a very good movie. It's ok. It's fine. It's well shot.

The acting is decent.

But ultimately, it took a fascinating story and made it quite boring.

Waterloo, from 1970, is better.

Here's a plan for our political leaders bereft of ideas:
Douglas Carswell, My plan to get Britain back on track
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/gift/411db5f531869295
(it's free to view)

Not read all yet, but Milestone 2 caught my attention.

He want to deport the "estimated 500,000 to 1 million illegal immigrants believed to be residing in the UK".

First thing that jumps to mind, is that if you don't even know whether there are 500k or 1m, then arranging to deport them might be quite tricky.

The fact we simply don't know how many illegals are in the UK rather SUPPORTS his thesis that we have lost control of borders and migration, not the opposite

The civil service has a long-term plan to re-introduce the exit controls we binned in the 80s, but in a low-impact way by scanning faces as they walk through a corridor at an airport or port. Combined with info from airlines. It is because of our lack of exit controls that we have little data. We do surveys only.

It's not enough. Britain's decline is frightening and accelerating. Like, how come this isn't headline news? A mob of fifty kids with knives and machetes invades a function at a primary school in Essex? Last night?

BREAKING Two teens stabbed at primary school event 'gatecrashed by youths with knives'

https://mirror.co.uk/news/uk-news/breaking-elm-park-incident-two-34914501?utm_source=linkCopy&utm_medium=social&utm_campaign=sharebar

https://x.com/MISSXBUTTERFLYX/status/1903915162349736277

I went to a teen birthday disco at a youth centre in late 70s birmingham and a local gang of mad skinheads attacked the place smashing all the windows and breaking in the, by then locked, front door and proceeded to threaten and beat people and smash up furniture.

They were a well-known local gang who spent their time marauding the neighbourhood randomly beating up other teenagers for no reason.

Late 70s UK was pretty fucking violent, as I recall, at least in urban areas. The NF were everywhere in my area.

It is total cods that we are suddenly and frighteningly declining.

Is it now? Total bollocks? Let’s have a look at the rape statistics shall we

Oh

Recorded.

Rottenborough is right, the 70s were a near continuous reporting of organised crime, riots, violent strikes, violent demonstrations, football hooliganism and terrorism.

The big difference is social media. There's currently a gang war going on in Edinburgh with shootings, arson etc, with some of it quite close to where I live.

Looking at Facebook, you'd think the city was descending into mayhem. There are calls for a curfew. For armed cops outside schools. Hundreds of likes for people saying they are scared to walk to Scotmid.

The murder rate in Scotland has fallen by 60% since 2004. We're living in a perpetual mass hysteria induced by the algorithm.