Everybody knew this, but now the Commission said it: Brussels won’t approve the Polish and Hungarian recovery plan this year, meaning the two countries will miss out on billions of advance payments under the bloc’s pandemic recovery instrument. Story (€)
Just looking at the Wiki entry for North Shropshire.
At Peak Corbyn (2017 GE), Labour got 17,287 votes. The LibDems got 2,948.
Seems extraordinary that Labour have thrown in the towel and handed the campaign over to Sir Ed Davey's mob. What a lack of ambition.
Can't make it Keir!
(blast from the past )
We know Labour would prefer a Conservative hold than a Lib Dem gain and that's pretty obvious politics which doesn't need any more explanation.
To paraphrase, as far as Labour are concerned, the Conservatives are simply the opposition, the Lib Dems (and Greens and SNP) are the enemy. Oddly enough, with only a little juxtaposition, you have the Conservative position. The two parties enjoy a symbiotic relationship and as we see in Scotland, when faced with an existential threat to them both, the Conservative and Labour parties find they have much more that unites them rather than divides them.
I don't agree with that, as a Labour person. I, and others I know, would much prefer a LD win to a Tory win. Our dislike of the Tories is much, much stronger than any dislike of the LDs, which is generally mild. And we don't really see the LDs as a serious opponent, except in by-elections.
Just looking at the Wiki entry for North Shropshire.
At Peak Corbyn (2017 GE), Labour got 17,287 votes. The LibDems got 2,948.
Seems extraordinary that Labour have thrown in the towel and handed the campaign over to Sir Ed Davey's mob. What a lack of ambition.
Can't make it Keir!
(blast from the past )
We know Labour would prefer a Conservative hold than a Lib Dem gain and that's pretty obvious politics which doesn't need any more explanation.
To paraphrase, as far as Labour are concerned, the Conservatives are simply the opposition, the Lib Dems (and Greens and SNP) are the enemy. Oddly enough, with only a little juxtaposition, you have the Conservative position. The two parties enjoy a symbiotic relationship and as we see in Scotland, when faced with an existential threat to them both, the Conservative and Labour parties find they have much more that unites them rather than divides them.
I don't agree with that, as a Labour person. I, and others I know, would much prefer a LD win to a Tory win. Our dislike of the Tories is much, much stronger than any dislike of the LDs, which is generally mild. And we don't really see the LDs as a serious opponent, except in by-elections.
What do you mean you don't see us as a serious opponent? Come over here and say that.
Alicia Kearns saying never mind the time the whistleblower was on his own, there were 2 night sessions where no one at all turned out. FO bods say they will have to check and come back.
Surely it was obvious that the committee would be asking how many people were working and when?
This seems to be very similar to the huge problems that my company now has dealing with people working from home for Local Authorities etc. All previous protocals & procedures that were in place have all disappeared. It is impossible to get hold of anyone and there are huge delays in everything. WFH in the Public Sector simply does not work.
If you are talking planning - every planner my wife knows has close to double their usual workload at the moment. The number of applications everywhere is utterly insane.
No, Local Authority Building/Maintenance Work. As I have mentioned before it now takes 6 months to get paid rather than the previous 10 days as no one can be bothered to do anything.
LAs used to be our Blue Chip clients, we don't bother quoting to them at the moment as they are such a nightmare
Anecdotally there does seem to be a link between pandemic/WFH and payment regimens. I suspect it’s practicality - when everyone was in the office, Accounts would simply stand over the signatories until they had collected the necessary autographs to clear the payment, send the money, and spike the bill. Job done. Now they have to send an email, which inevitably gets ignored by the higher-ups, then they have to chase and chase when they get clients on the phone saying: “um, your fees are 15 days late…”
The change has been truly staggering. For cash flow it was great working for a LA as you knew they would pay on time, now they are a disaster. For example we finished a £200,000.00 lighting project at the end of August. We still have not been paid a penny and have had to start legal proceedings against the LA involved. The delay is all due to WFH.
If the LA ends incurring additional expenditure - i.e. your legal fees - on top of the original invoice sum you should report this to your local MP and the media. Those responsible for this delay, who doubtless earn a big wedge, should be held to account.
I really dont think there can be much doubt that Omicron is milder, I know its early, but it spreads much quicker, and the situation in South Africa seems very calm. For the 2nd biggest hospital in South Africa to have zero covid patients in their ICU or HDU 4-6 weeks into the outbreak really does demonstrate this. Compare Italy in late February 2020.
I think the BBC should be a public good (no license fee), but I appreciate that would make it difficult to retain independence from Gov.
Also strip out all the stuff that would work for a commercial channel (like strictly).
There is no reason for Strictly to be on the BBC. It is probably the most commercially viable programme in the country.
The BBC should be there for programmes which would not be commercially viable. I think the quality of documentaries on the BBC has declined quite dramatically. For example there used to be a constant stream of decent historical documentaries, C4 and C5 now both have better content. If I had more time I would get a subscription to HistoryHit.
Remove the likes of Strictly and its most popular programmes then the BBC would be the equivalent of PBS in the US. An entirely license fee or tax funded broadcaster making highbrow programmes with a fraction of its current audience but still no adverts which would help fund the likes of Strictly license or taxpayer free
Yes, and once the audience starts to decline there will be the usual calls to scrap it because no one watches it anymore. It's a vicious circle. The BBC took a hell of a chance building on a moribund product from the 50s called "Come Dancing" I suspect none of the commercial channels would have touched it.
It was, of course, entirely open to any commercial channel to have launched a celebrity ballroom dance show on Saturday nights at any time. Or indeed an amateur baking competition. They chose not to. Free choice.
It's not a case of being "free" to make TV programmes. I'm not sure of why your comment is relevant. The BBC has a history of trying out new concepts or TV series/comedies etc. They are able to do it because the commercial channels wouldn't or couldn't afford it. The likes of Only Fools.., and Have I got news for you, and Strictly or The Voice, or Who do you think you are to name but a few started at the BBC and wouldn't have flown on the commercial channels. The Voice, and Bake Off jumped channels after showing their success. I can't imagine Bake Off starting off on Channel 5.
Are you familiar with Blown Away? A Netflix contest about eccentric people seeing who can blow glass the best? Originally commissioned by a Canadian pay tv station. If there’s a market for things, they’ll get made. This is triply true these days where Silicon Valley money is chasing original content. Don’t need the bbc for that.
What the BBC needs to do, partly, is to rediscover a way to make more demanding dramas and documentaries popular ; it learnt this over many decades. If it rediscovers its distinctiveness, it can easily still do well, even against Netflixes, Amazon Plays, Apple TV's of today.
It lost a huge amount of accumulated knowledge during the mid-to-late -90s, as large numbers of peoples, structures and expertise honed since the 1960's were unceremoniously thrown out, at the whim of a solely management philosophy, but that's not insurmountable - expertise can be regained.
The problem is that dramas and documentaries are popular, but the BBC is no good at them.
Hence why I can watch a quality drama or documentary on Netflix or Disney while the BBC broadcasts it's latest edition of Celebrity Dance Sew Chef Bake Would I Lie To You.
Nah. Some of the top dramas on Netflix were made for the BBC.
Were being the operative word.
It may be false recall but the BBC seemed to be much better at making original dramas and documentaries in the past and less obsessed with serial Celebrity Luvvie Crap.
The BBCs share of new quality output is going down the drain, fast.
I am always intrigued by the argument that the BBC shouldn't have anything popular or profitable on it. Suppose that was mandatory. What if they accidentally commissioned a roaring, worldwide success? Would that be grounds for all concerned to be dismissed?
Don’t be intrigued.
The argument is a mendacious attempt to close down the BBC because some people don’t want to pay taxes for it. But rather than say that, they try various specious side arguments.
If it was funded by taxes and open to all it would actually be a public good.
It isn't though. Its a corporation that is only legally allowed to be watch via its subscribers, but people are legally obliged to subscribe to it even if they want to only watch other subscriptions like Sky Sports.
The license fee ought to be replaced by funding from central taxation - on that I agree with you. The chances of the Tories doing that are close to nil.
Sigh...can the BBC ever make any program these days without having to change it to include identity politics / evils of imperialism etc?
A new BBC One adaptation of Around the World in 80 Days will highlight the “alarming” nature of the British Empire, according to its star.
David Tennant said the eight-part drama, which begins on Boxing Day and is aimed at a family audience, will explore “the racial and sexual politics” of Victorian England.
I get tired of this tedious BBC-bashing. Get a life.
I get tired of paying a licence fee towards BBC shite.
As soon as the BBC stops taxing those of us who don't watch their shit, they can produce whatever they feel like as far as I'm concerned. I couldn't care less what they produce, so long as I'm not expected to pay for it.
You should stop paying your taxes, too. You clearly benefit very little from government spend.
Taxes should be for public goods, not entertainment.
If you want to watch Eastenders or Strictly or any of that stuff then why not pay voluntarily for it?
Public service broadcasting is a public good.
The BBC literally isn't a public good, it fails to meet the definition.
In economics, a public good is a good that is both non-excludable and non-rivalrous.
Since watching the BBC is illegal without a licence fee it is excludable and therefore not a public good.
You claim to be an economist, but Jesus Christ, where the fuck did you study? Mr Blobby world?
Resorting to cheap insults is always a good sign someone doesn't have an argument left.
No, but I have low tolerance for bad faith bullshit.
He is entirely correct on the definition of a public good.
On the definition yes. However he is 100% wrong in his additional claim.
I get he doesn’t like the BBC, but he can’t just make stuff up.
Not making anything up. It is against the law to watch the BBC without paying the licence fee, therefore its not a public good, since it is legally excludable.
Plenty of countries have genuine public service broadcasters which are non-excludable and non-rivalrous. The UK does not. The BBC is not a public service broadcaster however much it might like to claim to be one.
The BBC is a public service broadcaster, by textbook definition and indeed by charter.
I’m sorry you are willing to lie on here because you don’t like Strictly.
You are conflating a public service with a public good.
I’m really not.
The text book definition of a public good is that it is non-excludable and non-rivalrous, and the classic example given is public service broadcasting (presuming that broadcasting is free to air).
If the BBC ever went to a subscription only service it would no longer be a public good.
I agree with you on your definition, but not the example (cos license fee).
At uni I was given stuff like parks, clean air, as best examples.
If you think of the LF as a tax this objection falls away. And it is pretty close to being a tax.
But its not a tax. If it was a tax that all had to pay, then it would be a public good, I agree on that, but it isn't so its not.
If you don't have a licence fee you are legally excluded from watching the BBC's TV therefore by definition the BBC's TV is not a public good since it is legally excludable. That is the definition.
If its to be a subscription service paid for by a fee, then it should be a voluntary fee not related to unrelated services like Sky Sports. If its to be a tax, make the case for that, but that's not what we have.
I said it's pretty close to being a tax. Why does everything have to be 0 or 1 with you. This isn't a 0 or 1 matter. As it happens I'd be happy to see the LF abolished and the BBC funded from general taxation. You could pay to not watch it whenever you like then. Just as I paid to not use the M62 this year.
BBC is entertainment
Why should I be forced to pay for your entertainement I dont ask you to fund mine, so what makes you think its fair to demand I fund yours. No don't have a tv licence and havent in almost 20 years
So we can stick with the LF. Both of us happy. What I don't want is tv and radio going 100% profit motive. That will lead to a loss of something important and valuable. Only market absolutists wish to see that, which isn't me.
We have already lost almost everything that is good about the BBC. If we were talking about the BBC of 1990 - where, as we have seen, we got Wales v Barbarians with Bill McLaren and Only Fools and Horses for our license fee - I would be with you: it's worthwhile. But at the moment, the BBC is hanging on to its credibility through Only Connect and Only Connect alone.
Sigh...can the BBC ever make any program these days without having to change it to include identity politics / evils of imperialism etc?
A new BBC One adaptation of Around the World in 80 Days will highlight the “alarming” nature of the British Empire, according to its star.
David Tennant said the eight-part drama, which begins on Boxing Day and is aimed at a family audience, will explore “the racial and sexual politics” of Victorian England.
I get tired of this tedious BBC-bashing. Get a life.
I get tired of paying a licence fee towards BBC shite.
As soon as the BBC stops taxing those of us who don't watch their shit, they can produce whatever they feel like as far as I'm concerned. I couldn't care less what they produce, so long as I'm not expected to pay for it.
You should stop paying your taxes, too. You clearly benefit very little from government spend.
Taxes should be for public goods, not entertainment.
If you want to watch Eastenders or Strictly or any of that stuff then why not pay voluntarily for it?
Public service broadcasting is a public good.
The BBC literally isn't a public good, it fails to meet the definition.
In economics, a public good is a good that is both non-excludable and non-rivalrous.
Since watching the BBC is illegal without a licence fee it is excludable and therefore not a public good.
You claim to be an economist, but Jesus Christ, where the fuck did you study? Mr Blobby world?
Resorting to cheap insults is always a good sign someone doesn't have an argument left.
No, but I have low tolerance for bad faith bullshit.
He is entirely correct on the definition of a public good.
On the definition yes. However he is 100% wrong in his additional claim.
I get he doesn’t like the BBC, but he can’t just make stuff up.
Not making anything up. It is against the law to watch the BBC without paying the licence fee, therefore its not a public good, since it is legally excludable.
Plenty of countries have genuine public service broadcasters which are non-excludable and non-rivalrous. The UK does not. The BBC is not a public service broadcaster however much it might like to claim to be one.
The BBC is a public service broadcaster, by textbook definition and indeed by charter.
I’m sorry you are willing to lie on here because you don’t like Strictly.
You are conflating a public service with a public good.
I’m really not.
The text book definition of a public good is that it is non-excludable and non-rivalrous, and the classic example given is public service broadcasting (presuming that broadcasting is free to air).
If the BBC ever went to a subscription only service it would no longer be a public good.
I agree with you on your definition, but not the example (cos license fee).
At uni I was given stuff like parks, clean air, as best examples.
If you think of the LF as a tax this objection falls away. And it is pretty close to being a tax.
But its not a tax. If it was a tax that all had to pay, then it would be a public good, I agree on that, but it isn't so its not.
If you don't have a licence fee you are legally excluded from watching the BBC's TV therefore by definition the BBC's TV is not a public good since it is legally excludable. That is the definition.
If its to be a subscription service paid for by a fee, then it should be a voluntary fee not related to unrelated services like Sky Sports. If its to be a tax, make the case for that, but that's not what we have.
I said it's pretty close to being a tax. Why does everything have to be 0 or 1 with you. This isn't a 0 or 1 matter. As it happens I'd be happy to see the LF abolished and the BBC funded from general taxation. You could pay to not watch it whenever you like then. Just as I paid to not use the M62 this year.
BBC is entertainment
Why should I be forced to pay for your entertainement I dont ask you to fund mine, so what makes you think its fair to demand I fund yours. No don't have a tv licence and havent in almost 20 years
So we can stick with the LF. Both of us happy. What I don't want is tv and radio going 100% profit motive. That will lead to a loss of something important and valuable. Only market absolutists wish to see that, which isn't me.
Doesn't affect me the lf so welcome to keep it but doesnt change the fact you are going to lose it anyway as more and more people turn their back on broadcast tv over next 20 years
Many people have gripes about the Daily Mail. My biggest gripe is their insistence on almost randomly capitalising one word in its URLs. They always do it and it goes through me like a Donald Trump Tweet.
Capital letters in the URL show the words in the headline that appear in bold. I think it's how they do the markup on the page.
Alicia Kearns saying never mind the time the whistleblower was on his own, there were 2 night sessions where no one at all turned out. FO bods say they will have to check and come back.
Apparently Philip Barton, the top civil servant (Permanent Under-Secretary) in the FCDO, has admitted to the Committee that he was on holiday at the time and only returned to work 11 days after Kabul fell. That's astonishing. Remind me, who was his boss?
Foreign Affairs select Committee hearing on Afghanistan live now on Sky
Worth watching - brutal. I doubt they'll enjoy reading the Committee's report.
Sir Philip Barton, top civil servant at the FO, is having a car crash
They already had the car crash. This is the reckoning.
You would have thought the FO would have spent the morning reading the report and preparing answers for the obvious questions - but clearly not.
You would have thought the FO would have spent five minutes thinking through the likely consequences of a unilateral military withdrawal from Afghanistan but that was clearly beyond them too.
I am beginning to understand why Cummings and Spielman look like intellectuals to these people.
Alicia Kearns saying never mind the time the whistleblower was on his own, there were 2 night sessions where no one at all turned out. FO bods say they will have to check and come back.
Surely it was obvious that the committee would be asking how many people were working and when?
This seems to be very similar to the huge problems that my company now has dealing with people working from home for Local Authorities etc. All previous protocals & procedures that were in place have all disappeared. It is impossible to get hold of anyone and there are huge delays in everything. WFH in the Public Sector simply does not work.
If you are talking planning - every planner my wife knows has close to double their usual workload at the moment. The number of applications everywhere is utterly insane.
No, Local Authority Building/Maintenance Work. As I have mentioned before it now takes 6 months to get paid rather than the previous 10 days as no one can be bothered to do anything.
LAs used to be our Blue Chip clients, we don't bother quoting to them at the moment as they are such a nightmare
Anecdotally there does seem to be a link between pandemic/WFH and payment regimens. I suspect it’s practicality - when everyone was in the office, Accounts would simply stand over the signatories until they had collected the necessary autographs to clear the payment, send the money, and spike the bill. Job done. Now they have to send an email, which inevitably gets ignored by the higher-ups, then they have to chase and chase when they get clients on the phone saying: “um, your fees are 15 days late…”
The change has been truly staggering. For cash flow it was great working for a LA as you knew they would pay on time, now they are a disaster. For example we finished a £200,000.00 lighting project at the end of August. We still have not been paid a penny and have had to start legal proceedings against the LA involved. The delay is all due to WFH.
If the LA ends incurring additional expenditure - i.e. your legal fees - on top of the original invoice sum you should report this to your local MP and the media. Those responsible for this delay, who doubtless earn a big wedge, should be held to account.
I have got the CE and the Cllr responsible for Finance involved. They admit they have failed and that it is embarrasing but they don't seem to be able to process the payment.
The big dilemma with the BBC at the moment is they ultimately need to be commercial to compete with Netflix, Disney, etc, and are doing so quietly e.g. BBC Studios, but any suggestion of going commercial and the pearl clutching comes out.
Even adverts...their foreign facing website has ads, and they fully own UKTV Media Limited i.e. Dave etc, which is a commercial ad revenue business.
But we can't have ads on the BBC...we must stick to our totally unenforceable and outdated telly tax.
The BBC owns UKTV? I honestly don't know what to make of that. I watch five times more UKTV than BBC.
Alicia Kearns saying never mind the time the whistleblower was on his own, there were 2 night sessions where no one at all turned out. FO bods say they will have to check and come back.
Apparently Philip Barton, the top civil servant (Permanent Under-Secretary) in the FCDO, has admitted to the Committee that he was on holiday at the time and only returned to work 11 days after Kabul fell. That's astonishing. Remind me, who was his boss?
I am always intrigued by the argument that the BBC shouldn't have anything popular or profitable on it. Suppose that was mandatory. What if they accidentally commissioned a roaring, worldwide success? Would that be grounds for all concerned to be dismissed?
Don’t be intrigued.
The argument is a mendacious attempt to close down the BBC because some people don’t want to pay taxes for it. But rather than say that, they try various specious side arguments.
If it was funded by taxes and open to all it would actually be a public good.
It isn't though. Its a corporation that is only legally allowed to be watch via its subscribers, but people are legally obliged to subscribe to it even if they want to only watch other subscriptions like Sky Sports.
The license fee ought to be replaced by funding from central taxation - on that I agree with you. The chances of the Tories doing that are close to nil.
As long as you are happy for my gig tickets to be funded from central taxation as well. Otherwise why should I have to pay for your entertainment?
Another Tory (Royston Smith) putting the boot in "who prioritised animals over people"?
Bartons response was that the evacuation of the animals occurred after all other evacuations had taken place, and only the UK and US military were left and it was not a UK military flight out
That is also addressed in some detail in the whistleblower's report. The issue was not flight capacities, but the capacity of UK forces to get individuals to the airport. Disingenuous civil service spin.
As for "all other evacuations", yes, except for the many thousands we left behind.
Alicia Kearns saying never mind the time the whistleblower was on his own, there were 2 night sessions where no one at all turned out. FO bods say they will have to check and come back.
Apparently Philip Barton, the top civil servant (Permanent Under-Secretary) in the FCDO, has admitted to the Committee that he was on holiday at the time and only returned to work 11 days after Kabul fell. That's astonishing. Remind me, who was his boss?
The one whose example he was following ?
That is the point being made, that it should be one or the other not both.
I think the BBC could raise more cash from abroad. Ex pat PBers - is iPlayer a pay to play subscription service from outside the UK (Yes yes I know about VPNs but they're not free either)
They don’t let you pay, even if you want to, unless you have paid a licence fee on a UK address.
They could raise a small fortune from it, given the number of people using various ‘other’ ways of watching BBC content.
Ridiculous, that's a massive source of monetisation going completely AWOL. Loads of people abroad love the BBC and would happily pay for iPlayer.
They can't. They don't have the rights for it.
If they have shows broadcast on the BBC that aren't licenced to the BBC in other nations then what can they do?
Even many BBC shows they don't own the rights to. Let alone imported ones.
They are slowly improving on that front. It used to be that
1) The BBC would commission a program and pay for it. 2) They would get the UK rights. 3) The company commissioned would get the international rights
A chap I know works at the BBC and has helped crack down on this nonsense - they were using the BBC name to print money.
Netflix have managed to very quickly turn local and regional media rights markets into a global market, and many of the established players have been caught sleeping and stuck in contracts that now make little sense.
Yes - until a few years ago (surprisingly few) no-one gave the overseas rights a second thought.
If the worldwide market for BBC programs was properly exploited, the BBC could be paid for entirely by foreign subscriptions. Wouldn't that be a cool pitch?
I think the BBC could raise more cash from abroad. Ex pat PBers - is iPlayer a pay to play subscription service from outside the UK (Yes yes I know about VPNs but they're not free either)
It's really difficult for them to do that because in 9/10 cases the BBC has sold the international broadcast and streaming rights already.
The big dilemma with the BBC at the moment is they ultimately need to be commercial to compete with Netflix, Disney, etc, and are doing so quietly e.g. BBC Studios, but any suggestion of going commercial and the pearl clutching comes out.
Even adverts...their foreign facing website has ads, and they fully own UKTV Media Limited i.e. Dave etc, which is a commercial ad revenue business.
But we can't have ads on the BBC...we must stick to our totally unenforceable and outdated telly tax.
The BBC owns UKTV? I honestly don't know what to make of that. I watch five times more UKTV than BBC.
Yeap. It was joint venture for many years between BBC and Thames TV, more recently Discovery and BBC, but past couple of years ago Discovery said they wanted to split off and keep Good Food, Home, and Really channels and the rest is UKTV wholly owned and operated by the BBC Studios.
I am always intrigued by the argument that the BBC shouldn't have anything popular or profitable on it. Suppose that was mandatory. What if they accidentally commissioned a roaring, worldwide success? Would that be grounds for all concerned to be dismissed?
Don’t be intrigued.
The argument is a mendacious attempt to close down the BBC because some people don’t want to pay taxes for it. But rather than say that, they try various specious side arguments.
If it was funded by taxes and open to all it would actually be a public good.
It isn't though. Its a corporation that is only legally allowed to be watch via its subscribers, but people are legally obliged to subscribe to it even if they want to only watch other subscriptions like Sky Sports.
The license fee ought to be replaced by funding from central taxation - on that I agree with you. The chances of the Tories doing that are close to nil.
As long as you are happy for my gig tickets to be funded from central taxation as well. Otherwise why should I have to pay for your entertainment?
Lol. And all that government money wasted on sport.
Many people have gripes about the Daily Mail. My biggest gripe is their insistence on almost randomly capitalising one word in its URLs. They always do it and it goes through me like a Donald Trump Tweet.
Capital letters in the URL show the words in the headline that appear in bold. I think it's how they do the markup on the page.
Shows how many URLs I see compared to actual headlines then! But that just replaces one gripe with another. I shall decide for myself which word in your headline is most relevant, thank you very much, Daily Mail. Don't go shouting random words at me.
Many people have gripes about the Daily Mail. My biggest gripe is their insistence on almost randomly capitalising one word in its URLs. They always do it and it goes through me like a Donald Trump Tweet.
It's the one thing those Daily Mail headline generators seem to fail to nail.
On that particular story, the full, extremely detailed headline: All 120 partygoers who caught Omicron super-strain from ONE PERSON at Norwegian Xmas work night out have MILD symptoms nearly two weeks later and none are very ill - boosting hopes mutant is weaker than Delta does at least mean there's no need to read the story.
Many people have gripes about the Daily Mail. My biggest gripe is their insistence on almost randomly capitalising one word in its URLs. They always do it and it goes through me like a Donald Trump Tweet.
Capital letters in the URL show the words in the headline that appear in bold. I think it's how they do the markup on the page.
Shows how many URLs I see compared to actual headlines then! But that just replaces one gripe with another. I shall decide for myself which word in your headline is most relevant, thank you very much, Daily Mail. Don't go shouting random words at me.
Best stay away from PB evening-times, then, when OUR Sean is on the prowl.
I am always intrigued by the argument that the BBC shouldn't have anything popular or profitable on it. Suppose that was mandatory. What if they accidentally commissioned a roaring, worldwide success? Would that be grounds for all concerned to be dismissed?
Don’t be intrigued.
The argument is a mendacious attempt to close down the BBC because some people don’t want to pay taxes for it. But rather than say that, they try various specious side arguments.
If it was funded by taxes and open to all it would actually be a public good.
It isn't though. Its a corporation that is only legally allowed to be watch via its subscribers, but people are legally obliged to subscribe to it even if they want to only watch other subscriptions like Sky Sports.
The license fee ought to be replaced by funding from central taxation - on that I agree with you. The chances of the Tories doing that are close to nil.
As long as you are happy for my gig tickets to be funded from central taxation as well. Otherwise why should I have to pay for your entertainment?
Lol. And all that government money wasted on sport.
Agree totally with that....they only fund sport the elite like anyway just like all the art and culture crap.....dont fund sports or art and culture the hoi polloi like on the whole and instead spend it on things like ballet and opera etc
Just looking at the Wiki entry for North Shropshire.
At Peak Corbyn (2017 GE), Labour got 17,287 votes. The LibDems got 2,948.
Seems extraordinary that Labour have thrown in the towel and handed the campaign over to Sir Ed Davey's mob. What a lack of ambition.
Can't make it Keir!
(blast from the past )
We know Labour would prefer a Conservative hold than a Lib Dem gain and that's pretty obvious politics which doesn't need any more explanation.
To paraphrase, as far as Labour are concerned, the Conservatives are simply the opposition, the Lib Dems (and Greens and SNP) are the enemy. Oddly enough, with only a little juxtaposition, you have the Conservative position. The two parties enjoy a symbiotic relationship and as we see in Scotland, when faced with an existential threat to them both, the Conservative and Labour parties find they have much more that unites them rather than divides them.
I don't agree with that, as a Labour person. I, and others I know, would much prefer a LD win to a Tory win. Our dislike of the Tories is much, much stronger than any dislike of the LDs, which is generally mild. And we don't really see the LDs as a serious opponent, except in by-elections.
Same. I'm rooting for a Lib Dem gain here and I'll be rooting for them to win a bunch of seats off the Cons at the general. Johnson out is the priority. It has to be.
I am hoping for a LD win, and a subsequent weak Labour win by Lab at the GE, not because I want a Labour government but because I want the Conservatives to rid themselves of the parasitic Johnson populism virus. That is unless they get rid of him and his acolytes like Nadine Dorries and Rees-Mogg before the GE which is sadly unlikely
Many people have gripes about the Daily Mail. My biggest gripe is their insistence on almost randomly capitalising one word in its URLs. They always do it and it goes through me like a Donald Trump Tweet.
It's the one thing those Daily Mail headline generators seem to fail to nail.
On that particular story, the full, extremely detailed headline: All 120 partygoers who caught Omicron super-strain from ONE PERSON at Norwegian Xmas work night out have MILD symptoms nearly two weeks later and none are very ill - boosting hopes mutant is weaker than Delta does at least mean there's no need to read the story.
Which is a blessing, as navigating a story on the Mail's website among adverts, illustrations (some of which appear to be for other stories entirely) and other links is harder and more exhausting than dressing an uncooperative toddler.
I think the BBC could raise more cash from abroad. Ex pat PBers - is iPlayer a pay to play subscription service from outside the UK (Yes yes I know about VPNs but they're not free either)
It's really difficult for them to do that because in 9/10 cases the BBC has sold the international broadcast and streaming rights already.
For shows produced for the BBC rather than by the BBC, the BBC now only buys the UK rights in the first place.
Many people have gripes about the Daily Mail. My biggest gripe is their insistence on almost randomly capitalising one word in its URLs. They always do it and it goes through me like a Donald Trump Tweet.
Great post. If you don't mind me saying you could perhaps have improved it further thus:
My BIGGEST gripe is their insistence on ALMOST randomly capitalising one word IN its URLs
Lol looks like Omicron has already mutated to evade PCRs:
9m ago 16:15 Scientists find ‘stealth’ version of Omicron not identifiable with PCR test
Does that mean it actually evades PCRs and gives a negative result, or just that the PCR test is insufficient to distinguish between Omicron and Delta/other variants?
The latter. PCR tests are designed to detect only a few of the viral genes (and details of different PCR tests will vary). Various mutations will have some of those genes which are sufficiently different to evade the test (but AFAIK, none evade the test for all of those genes). Strictly speaking, they're distinguishing between virus with and without the S-gene deletion - which applies to several variants, but for now Delta is by far and away the most common, which made it easy to track the rise of Omicron without full sequencing. Confirming this stuff is why a minimum target for full sequencing, which is more expensive and takes longer, is necessary. We exceed that target several times over, so it's not so much of a problem; quite a number of other countries fall way below it.
This is obviously a direct effect from her victory in the primary but it will be huge for Pecresse's credibility to unite the right behind her. And if she does... Total left: 24 / Centre 23 / Total right 51
Mr. Farooq, it's not the passing of comments, it's the subversion of a cohesive story and interesting characters for the sake of promoting nonsense (women are great led to Rey being a plank of wood and Kylo Ren being utterly feeble compared to Vader).
It also buggered up the last season of Game of Thrones (Snow/Night King) although I suspect that may have been due to rampant incompetence rather than gender ideology. Hard to say.
How do you like your women in the swords-n-sorcery space then, Morris?
Great, always great. Never making mistakes. Unlike those nasty, miserable men.
Preferably non-white though. White women are complacent in spreading racism through their white tears and privileged position.
There is no-one but no-one more into identity politics than you, Ed. It's your world, isn't it?
Not really. If it was, I'd be on here far more of the time, writing pieces etc. I would imagine my output on the matter is far less than yours.
What I do find amusing though is your view that woke-ism is all fake news. If there was a similar movement on the Right that cancelled speakers who promoted trans rights, bullied corporates into promoting a 1950s view of the family etc, you would be up in arms.
No, I'm not in the 'woke = fake news' camp. For all the overreaches and absurdities I support the woke movement on balance and on the whole. I consider its essence to be the facing up to uncomfortable truths, that it adds valuable insights to how we view our history and society, that it promotes progressive change, and that the outraged opposition to it is largely about people shying away from those truths and those insights and that change.
Lol looks like Omicron has already mutated to evade PCRs:
9m ago 16:15 Scientists find ‘stealth’ version of Omicron not identifiable with PCR test
Oh goodie...the COVID now has an invisibility cloak.
So what? You either get poorly or you don’t.
I don’t understand why it’s necessary to know what brand of covid one is wearing - it’s not bloody fancy perfume.
It is if you want to work out if a new variant is more or less deadly - which in the case of Omicron is very important if we're not to overreact/underreact, given how infectious it is.
I am always intrigued by the argument that the BBC shouldn't have anything popular or profitable on it. Suppose that was mandatory. What if they accidentally commissioned a roaring, worldwide success? Would that be grounds for all concerned to be dismissed?
Don’t be intrigued.
The argument is a mendacious attempt to close down the BBC because some people don’t want to pay taxes for it. But rather than say that, they try various specious side arguments.
If it was funded by taxes and open to all it would actually be a public good.
It isn't though. Its a corporation that is only legally allowed to be watch via its subscribers, but people are legally obliged to subscribe to it even if they want to only watch other subscriptions like Sky Sports.
The license fee ought to be replaced by funding from central taxation - on that I agree with you. The chances of the Tories doing that are close to nil.
As long as you are happy for my gig tickets to be funded from central taxation as well. Otherwise why should I have to pay for your entertainment?
Lol. And all that government money wasted on sport.
Yea, and the arts. It would be terrible if government concerned itself with subsidising culture wouldn't it?
Many people have gripes about the Daily Mail. My biggest gripe is their insistence on almost randomly capitalising one word in its URLs. They always do it and it goes through me like a Donald Trump Tweet.
Great post. If you don't mind me saying you could perhaps have improved it further thus:
My BIGGEST gripe is their insistence on ALMOSt randomly capitalising one word IN its URLs
I am always intrigued by the argument that the BBC shouldn't have anything popular or profitable on it. Suppose that was mandatory. What if they accidentally commissioned a roaring, worldwide success? Would that be grounds for all concerned to be dismissed?
Don’t be intrigued.
The argument is a mendacious attempt to close down the BBC because some people don’t want to pay taxes for it. But rather than say that, they try various specious side arguments.
If it was funded by taxes and open to all it would actually be a public good.
It isn't though. Its a corporation that is only legally allowed to be watch via its subscribers, but people are legally obliged to subscribe to it even if they want to only watch other subscriptions like Sky Sports.
The license fee ought to be replaced by funding from central taxation - on that I agree with you. The chances of the Tories doing that are close to nil.
For the record I think it should be funded via voluntary subscription.
But yes if it were to be a so-called 'public good' then it should come from general taxation. But its not, its the worst of both worlds at the minute.
I think the BBC could raise more cash from abroad. Ex pat PBers - is iPlayer a pay to play subscription service from outside the UK (Yes yes I know about VPNs but they're not free either)
They don’t let you pay, even if you want to, unless you have paid a licence fee on a UK address.
They could raise a small fortune from it, given the number of people using various ‘other’ ways of watching BBC content.
Ridiculous, that's a massive source of monetisation going completely AWOL. Loads of people abroad love the BBC and would happily pay for iPlayer.
They can't. They don't have the rights for it.
If they have shows broadcast on the BBC that aren't licenced to the BBC in other nations then what can they do?
Even many BBC shows they don't own the rights to. Let alone imported ones.
They are slowly improving on that front. It used to be that
1) The BBC would commission a program and pay for it. 2) They would get the UK rights. 3) The company commissioned would get the international rights
A chap I know works at the BBC and has helped crack down on this nonsense - they were using the BBC name to print money.
Netflix have managed to very quickly turn local and regional media rights markets into a global market, and many of the established players have been caught sleeping and stuck in contracts that now make little sense.
They are also a quasi monopoly, who are already having a significant effect on eroding what is distinctive about those local media markets.
Another poll this morning had the same trend but at a lower level for Pecresse. IFOP for Le Figaro Macron 25 (=) Pecresse 17 (+7) Le Pen 17(-2.5) Zemmour 13 (-2) Melenchon 9 (+0.5) Jadot 6 (-0.5) Hidalgo 5 (-1) Others 8 (-2)
I am always intrigued by the argument that the BBC shouldn't have anything popular or profitable on it. Suppose that was mandatory. What if they accidentally commissioned a roaring, worldwide success? Would that be grounds for all concerned to be dismissed?
Don’t be intrigued.
The argument is a mendacious attempt to close down the BBC because some people don’t want to pay taxes for it. But rather than say that, they try various specious side arguments.
If it was funded by taxes and open to all it would actually be a public good.
It isn't though. Its a corporation that is only legally allowed to be watch via its subscribers, but people are legally obliged to subscribe to it even if they want to only watch other subscriptions like Sky Sports.
The license fee ought to be replaced by funding from central taxation - on that I agree with you. The chances of the Tories doing that are close to nil.
As long as you are happy for my gig tickets to be funded from central taxation as well. Otherwise why should I have to pay for your entertainment?
Lol. And all that government money wasted on sport.
Yea, and the arts. It would be terrible if government concerned itself with subsidising culture wouldn't it?
Every essential thing, NHS, Justice,Social care, defence, Welfare we are constantly being told is underfunded. Frankly Arts culture and sport are non essential things that should be able to sink or swim on their own. If opera for example can't thrive without government subsidy because hardly anyone values it then tough shit. They can charge the people who actually want to go more or shut up shop and the vast majority of the country would say nothing of value was lost.
Everybody knew this, but now the Commission said it: Brussels won’t approve the Polish and Hungarian recovery plan this year, meaning the two countries will miss out on billions of advance payments under the bloc’s pandemic recovery instrument. Story (€)
I think the BBC should be a public good (no license fee), but I appreciate that would make it difficult to retain independence from Gov.
Also strip out all the stuff that would work for a commercial channel (like strictly).
There is no reason for Strictly to be on the BBC. It is probably the most commercially viable programme in the country.
The BBC should be there for programmes which would not be commercially viable. I think the quality of documentaries on the BBC has declined quite dramatically. For example there used to be a constant stream of decent historical documentaries, C4 and C5 now both have better content. If I had more time I would get a subscription to HistoryHit.
Remove the likes of Strictly and its most popular programmes then the BBC would be the equivalent of PBS in the US. An entirely license fee or tax funded broadcaster making highbrow programmes with a fraction of its current audience but still no adverts which would help fund the likes of Strictly license or taxpayer free
Yes, and once the audience starts to decline there will be the usual calls to scrap it because no one watches it anymore. It's a vicious circle. The BBC took a hell of a chance building on a moribund product from the 50s called "Come Dancing" I suspect none of the commercial channels would have touched it.
It was, of course, entirely open to any commercial channel to have launched a celebrity ballroom dance show on Saturday nights at any time. Or indeed an amateur baking competition. They chose not to. Free choice.
It's not a case of being "free" to make TV programmes. I'm not sure of why your comment is relevant. The BBC has a history of trying out new concepts or TV series/comedies etc. They are able to do it because the commercial channels wouldn't or couldn't afford it. The likes of Only Fools.., and Have I got news for you, and Strictly or The Voice, or Who do you think you are to name but a few started at the BBC and wouldn't have flown on the commercial channels. The Voice, and Bake Off jumped channels after showing their success. I can't imagine Bake Off starting off on Channel 5.
Are you familiar with Blown Away? A Netflix contest about eccentric people seeing who can blow glass the best? Originally commissioned by a Canadian pay tv station. If there’s a market for things, they’ll get made. This is triply true these days where Silicon Valley money is chasing original content. Don’t need the bbc for that.
What the BBC needs to do, partly, is to rediscover a way to make more demanding dramas and documentaries popular ; it learnt this over many decades. If it rediscovers its distinctiveness, it can easily still do well, even against Netflixes, Amazon Plays, Apple TV's of today.
It lost a huge amount of accumulated knowledge during the mid-to-late -90s, as large numbers of peoples, structures and expertise honed since the 1960's were unceremoniously thrown out, at the whim of a solely management philosophy, but that's not insurmountable - expertise can be regained.
The problem is that dramas and documentaries are popular, but the BBC is no good at them.
Hence why I can watch a quality drama or documentary on Netflix or Disney while the BBC broadcasts it's latest edition of Celebrity Dance Sew Chef Bake Would I Lie To You.
Nah. Some of the top dramas on Netflix were made for the BBC.
You see the same effect elsewhere - Netflix made at least 10x, perhaps 20x what the Koreans made out of Squid Game.
Many people have gripes about the Daily Mail. My biggest gripe is their insistence on almost randomly capitalising one word in its URLs. They always do it and it goes through me like a Donald Trump Tweet.
Great post. If you don't mind me saying you could perhaps have improved it further thus:
My BIGGEST gripe is their insistence on ALMOSt randomly capitalising one word IN its URLs
FTFY
As one of the airmen in Monty Python once said "I am not sure I follow your banter, old man". Qu'est-ce que c'est, le FTFY?
Many people have gripes about the Daily Mail. My biggest gripe is their insistence on almost randomly capitalising one word in its URLs. They always do it and it goes through me like a Donald Trump Tweet.
Great post. If you don't mind me saying you could perhaps have improved it further thus:
My BIGGEST gripe is their insistence on ALMOSt randomly capitalising one word IN its URLs
FTFY
As one of the airmen in Monty Python once said "I am not sure I follow your banter, old man". Qu'est-ce que c'est, le FTFY?
Lol looks like Omicron has already mutated to evade PCRs:
9m ago 16:15 Scientists find ‘stealth’ version of Omicron not identifiable with PCR test
Oh goodie...the COVID now has an invisibility cloak.
So what? You either get poorly or you don’t.
I don’t understand why it’s necessary to know what brand of covid one is wearing - it’s not bloody fancy perfume.
It is if you want to work out if a new variant is more or less deadly - which in the case of Omicron is very important if we're not to overreact/underreact, given how infectious it is.
That doesn't make any sense. There will people getting ill on a trajectory. If that is steep or flat what does it matter which variant it is. The govt will take action based upon the trajectory.
Sigh...can the BBC ever make any program these days without having to change it to include identity politics / evils of imperialism etc?
A new BBC One adaptation of Around the World in 80 Days will highlight the “alarming” nature of the British Empire, according to its star.
David Tennant said the eight-part drama, which begins on Boxing Day and is aimed at a family audience, will explore “the racial and sexual politics” of Victorian England.
I get tired of this tedious BBC-bashing. Get a life.
I get tired of paying a licence fee towards BBC shite.
As soon as the BBC stops taxing those of us who don't watch their shit, they can produce whatever they feel like as far as I'm concerned. I couldn't care less what they produce, so long as I'm not expected to pay for it.
You should stop paying your taxes, too. You clearly benefit very little from government spend.
Taxes should be for public goods, not entertainment.
If you want to watch Eastenders or Strictly or any of that stuff then why not pay voluntarily for it?
Public service broadcasting is a public good.
The BBC literally isn't a public good, it fails to meet the definition.
In economics, a public good is a good that is both non-excludable and non-rivalrous.
Since watching the BBC is illegal without a licence fee it is excludable and therefore not a public good.
You claim to be an economist, but Jesus Christ, where the fuck did you study? Mr Blobby world?
Resorting to cheap insults is always a good sign someone doesn't have an argument left.
No, but I have low tolerance for bad faith bullshit.
He is entirely correct on the definition of a public good.
On the definition yes. However he is 100% wrong in his additional claim.
I get he doesn’t like the BBC, but he can’t just make stuff up.
Not making anything up. It is against the law to watch the BBC without paying the licence fee, therefore its not a public good, since it is legally excludable.
Plenty of countries have genuine public service broadcasters which are non-excludable and non-rivalrous. The UK does not. The BBC is not a public service broadcaster however much it might like to claim to be one.
The BBC is a public service broadcaster, by textbook definition and indeed by charter.
I’m sorry you are willing to lie on here because you don’t like Strictly.
You are conflating a public service with a public good.
I’m really not.
The text book definition of a public good is that it is non-excludable and non-rivalrous, and the classic example given is public service broadcasting (presuming that broadcasting is free to air).
If the BBC ever went to a subscription only service it would no longer be a public good.
I agree with you on your definition, but not the example (cos license fee).
At uni I was given stuff like parks, clean air, as best examples.
If you think of the LF as a tax this objection falls away. And it is pretty close to being a tax.
But its not a tax. If it was a tax that all had to pay, then it would be a public good, I agree on that, but it isn't so its not.
If you don't have a licence fee you are legally excluded from watching the BBC's TV therefore by definition the BBC's TV is not a public good since it is legally excludable. That is the definition.
If its to be a subscription service paid for by a fee, then it should be a voluntary fee not related to unrelated services like Sky Sports. If its to be a tax, make the case for that, but that's not what we have.
I said it's pretty close to being a tax. Why does everything have to be 0 or 1 with you. This isn't a 0 or 1 matter. As it happens I'd be happy to see the LF abolished and the BBC funded from general taxation. You could pay to not watch it whenever you like then. Just as I paid to not use the M62 this year.
BBC is entertainment
Why should I be forced to pay for your entertainement I dont ask you to fund mine, so what makes you think its fair to demand I fund yours. No don't have a tv licence and havent in almost 20 years
So we can stick with the LF. Both of us happy. What I don't want is tv and radio going 100% profit motive. That will lead to a loss of something important and valuable. Only market absolutists wish to see that, which isn't me.
We have already lost almost everything that is good about the BBC. If we were talking about the BBC of 1990 - where, as we have seen, we got Wales v Barbarians with Bill McLaren and Only Fools and Horses for our license fee - I would be with you: it's worthwhile. But at the moment, the BBC is hanging on to its credibility through Only Connect and Only Connect alone.
I just don't see that. Beeb tv and radio provides such a lot to me and I can barely believe I get it for £3 a week. I'd certainly pay more if it went sub. Course I have gripes but for me it's an example of public beating private hands down.
Just looking at the Wiki entry for North Shropshire.
At Peak Corbyn (2017 GE), Labour got 17,287 votes. The LibDems got 2,948.
Seems extraordinary that Labour have thrown in the towel and handed the campaign over to Sir Ed Davey's mob. What a lack of ambition.
Can't make it Keir!
(blast from the past )
We know Labour would prefer a Conservative hold than a Lib Dem gain and that's pretty obvious politics which doesn't need any more explanation.
To paraphrase, as far as Labour are concerned, the Conservatives are simply the opposition, the Lib Dems (and Greens and SNP) are the enemy. Oddly enough, with only a little juxtaposition, you have the Conservative position. The two parties enjoy a symbiotic relationship and as we see in Scotland, when faced with an existential threat to them both, the Conservative and Labour parties find they have much more that unites them rather than divides them.
That's not exactly true. If we had perfect foreknowledge and could see that with a pact (explicit or implicit) we would form a government with LD support and without it we wouldn't, then I think the overwhelming majority of Labour at all levels would favour it. Apart from BigJ (perhaps) nobody on the left really wants the Tories to win again.
The problem is the process from here to there. Say the LibDems do win NS, and naturally get a polling bounce, some of it at Labour's expense, so the polls move from approx 36/36/7 to, say, 35/31/13. Does it become easier or harder to win a Con/Lab marginal with a substantial LibDem vote? Probably harder, because the candidate will say "my party's on the up, only I can beat the Tories" (that's exactly what the LibDems did in Broxtowe when they were on 16%).
The answer is a proper pact where it's agreed not to do that, and conversely not to get in the LD way in seats they could well win. We are seeing at the moment the difficulty of an unspoken understanding.
God, Boris is such a lying charlatan. I so want to vote against him but Labour are just useless on immigration, which matters so much more long term. If they just pledged to keep immigration down, I would vote for them in an instant.
Everybody knew this, but now the Commission said it: Brussels won’t approve the Polish and Hungarian recovery plan this year, meaning the two countries will miss out on billions of advance payments under the bloc’s pandemic recovery instrument. Story (€)
Everybody knew this, but now the Commission said it: Brussels won’t approve the Polish and Hungarian recovery plan this year, meaning the two countries will miss out on billions of advance payments under the bloc’s pandemic recovery instrument. Story (€)
Comments
https://twitter.com/paola_tamma/status/1468260213249789957?s=20
Only joking.
It may be false recall but the BBC seemed to be much better at making original dramas and documentaries in the past and less obsessed with serial Celebrity Luvvie Crap.
The BBCs share of new quality output is going down the drain, fast.
The chances of the Tories doing that are close to nil.
If we were talking about the BBC of 1990 - where, as we have seen, we got Wales v Barbarians with Bill McLaren and Only Fools and Horses for our license fee - I would be with you: it's worthwhile. But at the moment, the BBC is hanging on to its credibility through Only Connect and Only Connect alone.
I am beginning to understand why Cummings and Spielman look like intellectuals to these people.
This type of delay is just normal now for LAs.
Tackling county lines drug gangs and crime is integral to levelling up aspirations.
And like much else about Boris Johnson's government, the policy is about reversing the last decade of austerity.
Latest @FinancialTimes column
https://twitter.com/SebastianEPayne/status/1468265799962050564?s=20
The issue was not flight capacities, but the capacity of UK forces to get individuals to the airport. Disingenuous civil service spin.
As for "all other evacuations", yes, except for the many thousands we left behind.
If the worldwide market for BBC programs was properly exploited, the BBC could be paid for entirely by foreign subscriptions. Wouldn't that be a cool pitch?
My latest cartoon for tomorrow's @Telegraph
Subscribe to my weekly newsletter to receive my unseen cartoons: https://www.telegraph.co.uk/premium/matt/?WT.mc_id=tmgoff_tw_author-account-matt-cartoon_newsletter-signup-Matt-Cartoon&utm_source=tmgoff&utm_medium=tmgoff_tw&utm_content=author-account-matt-cartoon_newsletter-signup&utm_campaign=tmgoff_tw_author-account-matt-cartoon_newsletter-signup-Matt-Cartoon https://twitter.com/MattCartoonist/status/1468270294414540802/photo/1
On that particular story, the full, extremely detailed headline:
All 120 partygoers who caught Omicron super-strain from ONE PERSON at Norwegian Xmas work night out have MILD symptoms nearly two weeks later and none are very ill - boosting hopes mutant is weaker than Delta
does at least mean there's no need to read the story.
My BIGGEST gripe is their insistence on ALMOST randomly capitalising one word IN its URLs
PCR tests are designed to detect only a few of the viral genes (and details of different PCR tests will vary). Various mutations will have some of those genes which are sufficiently different to evade the test (but AFAIK, none evade the test for all of those genes).
Strictly speaking, they're distinguishing between virus with and without the S-gene deletion - which applies to several variants, but for now Delta is by far and away the most common, which made it easy to track the rise of Omicron without full sequencing.
Confirming this stuff is why a minimum target for full sequencing, which is more expensive and takes longer, is necessary. We exceed that target several times over, so it's not so much of a problem; quite a number of other countries fall way below it.
For those interested, the new Elabe for BFM-TV
First Round
Macron 23 (-2)
Pecresse 20 (+11!!)
Le Pen 15 (-5)
Zemmour 14 (+1)
Melenchon 8 (-1)
Jadot 7 (-1)
Hidalgo 3 (-1)
Others : 10 -> Poutou 2 (=) Montebourg 2 (=) Lassalle 2 (=) Dupont Aignan 2 (-1)
Arthaud 1 (=) Roussel 1 (=) Asselineau, Thouy and Philippot <1
Second round
Pecresse 52
Macron 48
This is obviously a direct effect from her victory in the primary but it will be huge for Pecresse's credibility to unite the right behind her. And if she does...
Total left: 24 / Centre 23 / Total right 51
But yes if it were to be a so-called 'public good' then it should come from general taxation. But its not, its the worst of both worlds at the minute.
IFOP for Le Figaro
Macron 25 (=)
Pecresse 17 (+7)
Le Pen 17(-2.5)
Zemmour 13 (-2)
Melenchon 9 (+0.5)
Jadot 6 (-0.5)
Hidalgo 5 (-1)
Others 8 (-2)
2nd round Macron 52 / Pecresse 48
NEW THREAD
The EU must be a democratic club, or it will ultimately perish.
Welcome and thank you for that. I managed to get 5.1 (bf) which I know is not as good as others have got.
The problem is the process from here to there. Say the LibDems do win NS, and naturally get a polling bounce, some of it at Labour's expense, so the polls move from approx 36/36/7 to, say, 35/31/13. Does it become easier or harder to win a Con/Lab marginal with a substantial LibDem vote? Probably harder, because the candidate will say "my party's on the up, only I can beat the Tories" (that's exactly what the LibDems did in Broxtowe when they were on 16%).
The answer is a proper pact where it's agreed not to do that, and conversely not to get in the LD way in seats they could well win. We are seeing at the moment the difficulty of an unspoken understanding.
Otherwise the office would compete with the democratically elected nation state leaders.