Best Of

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Another mess

https://x.com/Steven_Swinford/status/1981748229357047911?s=19

He's still to explain, as far as I'm aware, why that's relevant when the alleged offences were committed before Starmer was in government.

Anyone ?

Because the issue isn't that offences were committed, but the reason why the prosecution collapsed.

He says prosecutors were asking 'not what the then Government was prepared to do, or did, say in public about China (whether framed as its policy or otherwise, and whether as a matter of fact true or not), but rather whether China was - as a matter of fact - an active threat to national security'

The statements provided to them were quite clear about China being a threat to national security.

I don't understand why the DPP hasn't resigned. They've completely fucked this up and they're desperately trying to blame the government for it, but the witness statements are available to read and they seem pretty clear to me - China is a threat to Britain.

If you actually read the law they were being prosecuted under, it literally says that giving secrets to *anyone* is illegal.

So if you gave secrets to your maiden aunt in Tunbridge Wells, you’ve broken the Official Secrets Act.

So, you support the resignation of the DPP?

Not sure *who* should resign.

But the “enemies” thing is bollocks.

Or have all these Too Lawyers not actually read the two sentences of the law?

1 1) If any person for any purpose prejudicial to the safety or interests of the State—

(c) obtains or communicates to any other person any sketch, plan, model, article, or note, or other document or information which is calculated to be or might be or is intended to be directly or indirectly useful to an enemy ;

My bold

Added my bold.

You need to demonstrate that the information would be useful to an enemy. The easiest way to do that is to”they supplied it to China therefore they must have believed it would be useful to China… is China an enemy?”

The issue is the information - that we know - they supplied was low grade political gossip. So it’s not a slam dunk that it was useful.

If it was (and you are) covered by the Official Secrets Act, it doesn't matter how far the gossip may have spread. You yourself don't discuss it.

Sure. But that’s not the same as a prosecutable case

You are trying to make your partisan narrative fit the frame.

The CPS could prosecute a case without a Government summary of China's espionage capability.

I would suggest in diplomatic terms annoying China is sub optimal. Do you want your MG or BYD ECU switched off remotely at 70 mph on the M4?

I am only half joking. We are so immersed into Chinese tech, as is our power and communications infrastructure that the Chinese have us by the nuts.

I don’t have a partisan narrative. Either the DPP is lying (and should be sacked) or Starmer has misled the House (and should correct the record). I don’t know which one it is and don’t particularly care.

Of course there is downside to annoying China. There is also downside in not slapping their wrist when they are caught spying on us.

Trump plans to name his $300million ballroom after himself after demolishing the entire East Wing of the White House. Officials are referring to the grandiose building as The President Donald J Trump Ballroom, according to ABC News. Trump is set to keep the name when construction is finished.

I suppose is slightly better than the Sofi Manscaped Harley Davison Prime Energy Donald J Trump Ballrom brought to you in asociation with our official webhosting Squarespace, VPN provider NordVPN....

He should enjoy while he can. The next Democrat President will almost certainly remodel again to some extent and wlll rename the ballroom after someone Trump would hate.

'The Letitia James Integrity Ballroom' has a certain ring to it.

Chicken Wing

...with a TACO on the side. The West side.

Another mess

https://x.com/Steven_Swinford/status/1981748229357047911?s=19

He's still to explain, as far as I'm aware, why that's relevant when the alleged offences were committed before Starmer was in government.

Anyone ?

Because the issue isn't that offences were committed, but the reason why the prosecution collapsed.

He says prosecutors were asking 'not what the then Government was prepared to do, or did, say in public about China (whether framed as its policy or otherwise, and whether as a matter of fact true or not), but rather whether China was - as a matter of fact - an active threat to national security'

The statements provided to them were quite clear about China being a threat to national security.

I don't understand why the DPP hasn't resigned. They've completely fucked this up and they're desperately trying to blame the government for it, but the witness statements are available to read and they seem pretty clear to me - China is a threat to Britain.

If you actually read the law they were being prosecuted under, it literally says that giving secrets to *anyone* is illegal.

So if you gave secrets to your maiden aunt in Tunbridge Wells, you’ve broken the Official Secrets Act.

So, you support the resignation of the DPP?

Not sure *who* should resign.

But the “enemies” thing is bollocks.

Or have all these Too Lawyers not actually read the two sentences of the law?

1 1) If any person for any purpose prejudicial to the safety or interests of the State—

(c) obtains or communicates to any other person any sketch, plan, model, article, or note, or other document or information which is calculated to be or might be or is intended to be directly or indirectly useful to an enemy ;

My bold

Common sense ought to be enough. Person A tells person B who isn't an enemy. Person B tells someone else. Eventually Person B, C, X etc tells someone who is an enemy.

Who's at fault?

If you have told your maiden aunt in Tunbridge Wells then clearly you have committed an offence, open and shut. If you are a council member and have pink papers strewn about you desk and someone reads them then you have committed an offence. I have no problem with any of that. What I do have a problem with is when officers of an authority demand members take a decision acting on "confidential" information but refuse to disclose to members and members are incurious to ask, who the informant is. That is pretty close to malfeasance and contrary to the Bill of Right. It is also the current basis of planning enforcement.

In more optimistic news, a lot of "please, take this electricity off us" this weekend.

Wonder how frequent such situations have to be for a serious industry to develop to exploit free, but very intermittent, energy?

Not so intermittent up north, of course. And we were discussing the other day that Scots engineer whose approach to high winds was to actually design the wind turbines to cope with anything up to a hurricane.

The issue is, I suspect, as much a matter of local pricing (or lack thereof).

Yes, why set up to take advantage of that free/cheap energy only to be charged full whack for it. Mystifying why the Lab government doesn’t want to make Scotland an extremely attractive destination for business.

Or have pylons built alongside your clachan/burgh.

Also mystifying (yet again) why local pricing isn't a big issue up here for the SNP. And SLDs (for all; that they are Unionists) and SGs. Even if the leccy is absurdly cheap only some of the time, in Orkney or Caithness it should be most of the time and the need to pay full whack for the rest of the time is still a huge improvement. You don't need to switch the factory off on calm days.

Edit: just confirmed the postponement of an outing to have a plowter along the seaside and some rock pools on the Lothian coast. It's a full gale where we were planning to go, and I don't want to be on the clifftop path with the wind blowing offshore.

A few SNP leaflets through my door have made this point.

Ah, interesting. Thanks.

I still don't think they are pushing it hard enough. If I were Swinney I'd be talking about the economic benefits of cheap energy in the run up to the election, as well as fuel poverty in Scotland during a cold snap.

(and, for balance, wind has been highly variable this week - we were using loads of gas earlier on with a spot price north of £150/MWh. )

Temu Goebbels goes full Nazi. Again

https://bsky.app/profile/atrupar.com/post/3m3xpgteqy22a

The below the line comments for The Times "interview" with convicted fraudster and Fascist propagandist Steve Bannon are mildly amusing this morning. Murdoch's promotion of this sinister Cambridge Analytica and Breitbart Svengali is going down very badly indeed with his customers.

After a while one does wonder about the billionaires' agenda. Project 2025 turns out not have been an absurd far right conspiracy after all, more an absurd, far right programme for government. Bannon fully believes that Trump will run again in 2028, so he would, presumably ,want to serve until 2033. He would be 87 then, so quite possibly Bannon thinks that a festering corpse would be an ideal leader for the oligarchy formerly known as the Land of the Free. This bullshit is so ridiculous it is almost laughable, or at least it would be if these people were not so obviously criminal in practice and intent. The symbolism of the demolition a large chunk of the White House, "The People's House", regardless of history, beauty or heritage protection, and its replacement with a vulgar, lopsided, over-blown and unnecessary piece of crap is a a marvelous metaphor for Trump himself. In the end the interview is so weak and the promotion of these evil men so egregious that hundreds of subscribers to *The Times* pour out total fury at the "newspaper" and its geriatric proprietor.

The tide seems to turning against the populist far right both in the UK and the US. It is a shame that the equally loathsome Murdoch will not live to see the undoing of his works and the damnation of his memory.

Another mess

https://x.com/Steven_Swinford/status/1981748229357047911?s=19

He's still to explain, as far as I'm aware, why that's relevant when the alleged offences were committed before Starmer was in government.

Anyone ?

Because the issue isn't that offences were committed, but the reason why the prosecution collapsed.

He says prosecutors were asking 'not what the then Government was prepared to do, or did, say in public about China (whether framed as its policy or otherwise, and whether as a matter of fact true or not), but rather whether China was - as a matter of fact - an active threat to national security'

The statements provided to them were quite clear about China being a threat to national security.

I don't understand why the DPP hasn't resigned. They've completely fucked this up and they're desperately trying to blame the government for it, but the witness statements are available to read and they seem pretty clear to me - China is a threat to Britain.

If you actually read the law they were being prosecuted under, it literally says that giving secrets to *anyone* is illegal.

So if you gave secrets to your maiden aunt in Tunbridge Wells, you’ve broken the Official Secrets Act.

So, you support the resignation of the DPP?

Not sure *who* should resign.

But the “enemies” thing is bollocks.

Or have all these Too Lawyers not actually read the two sentences of the law?

1 1) If any person for any purpose prejudicial to the safety or interests of the State—

(c) obtains or communicates to any other person any sketch, plan, model, article, or note, or other document or information which is calculated to be or might be or is intended to be directly or indirectly useful to an enemy ;

My bold

Added my bold.

You need to demonstrate that the information would be useful to an enemy. The easiest way to do that is to”they supplied it to China therefore they must have believed it would be useful to China… is China an enemy?”

The issue is the information - that we know - they supplied was low grade political gossip. So it’s not a slam dunk that it was useful.

If it was (and you are) covered by the Official Secrets Act, it doesn't matter how far the gossip may have spread. You yourself don't discuss it.

Sure. But that’s not the same as a prosecutable case

In more optimistic news, a lot of "please, take this electricity off us" this weekend.

Wonder how frequent such situations have to be for a serious industry to develop to exploit free, but very intermittent, energy?

Not so intermittent up north, of course. And we were discussing the other day that Scots engineer whose approach to high winds was to actually design the wind turbines to cope with anything up to a hurricane.

The issue is, I suspect, as much a matter of local pricing (or lack thereof).

Yes, why set up to take advantage of that free/cheap energy only to be charged full whack for it. Mystifying why the Lab government doesn’t want to make Scotland an extremely attractive destination for business.

Or have pylons built alongside your clachan/burgh.

Also mystifying (yet again) why local pricing isn't a big issue up here for the SNP. And SLDs (for all; that they are Unionists) and SGs. Even if the leccy is absurdly cheap only some of the time, in Orkney or Caithness it should be most of the time and the need to pay full whack for the rest of the time is still a huge improvement. You don't need to switch the factory off on calm days.

Edit: just confirmed the postponement of an outing to have a plowter along the seaside and some rock pools on the Lothian coast. It's a full gale where we were planning to go, and I don't want to be on the clifftop path with the wind blowing offshore.

In more optimistic news, a lot of "please, take this electricity off us" this weekend.

Wonder how frequent such situations have to be for a serious industry to develop to exploit free, but very intermittent, energy?

Not so intermittent up north, of course. And we were discussing the other day that Scots engineer whose approach to high winds was to actually design the wind turbines to cope with anything up to a hurricane.

The issue is, I suspect, as much a matter of local pricing (or lack thereof).

Yes, why set up to take advantage of that free/cheap energy only to be charged full whack for it. Mystifying why the Lab government doesn’t want to make Scotland an extremely attractive destination for business.

Or have pylons built alongside your clachan/burgh.

Also mystifying (yet again) why local pricing isn't a big issue up here for the SNP. And SLDs (for all; that they are Unionists) and SGs. Even if the leccy is absurdly cheap only some of the time, in Orkney or Caithness it should be most of the time and the need to pay full whack for the rest of the time is still a huge improvement. You don't need to switch the factory off on calm days.

Edit: just confirmed the postponement of an outing to have a plowter along the seaside and some rock pools on the Lothian coast. It's a full gale where we were planning to go, and I don't want to be on the clifftop path with the wind blowing offshore.

A few SNP leaflets through my door have made this point.

No denial that it was a corrupt act.
And btw, the felon pled guilty.

Reporter: On the pardon, Binance has significant business interests with the President’s family’s crypto company. How do you respond to allegations that this is a corrupt act?

Leavitt: The President is exercising his constitutional authority to grant clemency requests. This was an overly prosecuted case by the Biden administration.
https://x.com/Acyn/status/1981417027442266367

I never understood why this power even exists. Its is just open for corruption and has been repeatedly.

It exists in the UK as well. It’s designed to correct gross miscarriages of justice or to reward specific acts (eg the Fishmongers Hall guy was pardoned 9 months before his parole was due to come up for review).

It’s been mildly abused by Presidents since the days of Clinton at least (Marc Rich anyone?) but Trump has taken it to a whole new level

I've found this source of numbers and while it doesn't evaluate the dodginess of each individual pardon, it does suggest that the story is more complicated than that.

https://potus.com/presidential-facts/pardons-commutations/

Clinton, Reagan and the two Bushes all issued pardons at a much lower rate than Eisenhower or Truman. Then Obama and Biden loads of pardons.

The Trump figure doesn't include any from his second term. One assumes he hadn't monetised the process in his first term.

Perhaps, if you were to leave party affiliation out of it, you could conclude the whole US political structure is, in the words of political science, completely f**ked.

It’s all going swimmingly for Reform in Cornwall…… From Cornwall live

Cllr Karen Knight, who was voted in at the May election as the Reform UK councillor for Camborne West & Treswithian, will now represent the division as a Standalone Independent. We have contacted her to ask why she has made the move. Cllr Knight's switch means that Reform - which was voted in as the largest political group on Cornwall Council - now has 26 councillors rather than its original 28. However, we have been told that as many as four more councillors could resign from the party over the next week.

Not that surprising. Councillors have been notorious for changing alliegance when they don't get the Cabinet post they think they rightfully deserve. Many of the Reform councillors have already flounced from one party to get a leg up. When so many of them got elected, the chance for glory was greatly diminished. Plus, they have to be associated with some very hard decisions, like putting up councl tax. As an indy, they can suck air through teeth and say to the voters "Oh, I wouldn't have done that..."

Expect many more, is my assessment.