Former Scottish Tory MSP Adam Tomkins: "What is to stop all 31 Scottish Conservative MSPs resigning from the Conservative Party and saying they have a new whip, and it's called the liberal unionist whip? What's to stop that? That could happen overnight." https://twitter.com/alistairkgrant/status/1481898099421462533
Douglas Ross is in a bind if Johnson does cling on. The Conservative and Unionist Party may have lots of parties but there won't be any union. (within the Party)
In truth, there aren't many serious contenders for an immediate post-Johnson Conservative Party leadership election.
In the absence of a Heseltine-type figure, you are looking at the three main offices of state so Sunak, Truss and Patel (all five letter surnames but that was true of Blair, Brown and of course Major as well as Heath).
The more intriguing question is what would a future Sunak or Truss Cabinet look like? Who would be in line for promotion or demotion if the current Chancellor or Foreign State successfully navigated the sea of electoral hazard and prevailed?
You'd imagine the winner would want his/her main opponent in a senior position because you keep your friends close and your enemies closer. Who would be Sunak's CoE for example - Trevelyan or Zahawi? I can't see Javid wanting the job again and the likes of Raab and Gove are already looking like yesterday's news.
Could Ben Wallace move to the Foreign Office in a Truss-led Government?
That's the thing about politics - the unexpected opportunity for advancement - could we see Michelle Donelan for example move up the Ministerial order somewhat?
Or Deputy PM Raab.
He could end up the candidate in the final 2 put forward by MPs alongside Sunak, not Truss or Patel
He is also the likeliest candidate for any Howard or Brown style coronation
Benevolent dictatorship works when you have a competent benevolent dictator.
The problem is that one day you'll end up with an average leader, and then another day you'll end up with a dreadful one, and no way of removing them.
And there's no way to get around that. China had competent dictators based around 10 year terms. (Maybe 'benevolent' is a little generous, but still...)
And then along came Xi and ripped that up and made himself President (sorry General Secretary) for life. Oh yeah, and also started acting belligerently to the rest of the world. If the Chinese people don't like this, there is exactly nothing they can do about it.
How many stable benevolent dictatorships have there been over time?
Very soon the same commentators who told you that Johnson was a political genius are going to tell you that Truss is a reincarnation of Margaret Thatcher. Every word they write will be vacuous bollocks.
The one thing Big Dom gets right and provable from the COVID coverage, the political media know the square root of f##k all about anything but gossip and scandal within Westminster.
" the political media know the square root of f##k all about anything but gossip and scandal within Westminster."
Fixed that for you.
No credit where credit is due, they are good when a scandal erupts of how to skewer lying politicians.
It sounds pompous, but it’s the total disrespect for the office. You are working in Downing St ffs. For the actual prime minister. Get dressed properly and do some bloody work.
Instead it’s all skinny jeans and trainers and shitposting and vanity photographers and piss-up.
In 17 years in Westminster, I mostly had the idea that people working in government were largely trying their best (even the useless ones), were daunted by that black door, were grown ups running the country.
Now it’s all wine o’clock and who gets a spin on Carrie’s lazy susan
My benefit of the doubt. My assumption of a degree of competence. My willingness not to assume the worst of the British public. My determination not to be an anti-Tory rent-a-gob. All of that means trying to deny a gut feeling that he is appallingly unfit to be PM
He degrades everything, all of the unwritten and written rules that make the system work; a thin-skinned, pathetic, lonely, underwhelming, unimaginative, disloyal, friendless narcissist.
This isn’t an anti-Tory rant. Every Tory should be ashamed of what’s been done in their name
Benevolent dictatorship works when you have a competent benevolent dictator.
The problem is that one day you'll end up with an average leader, and then another day you'll end up with a dreadful one, and no way of removing them.
And there's no way to get around that. China had competent dictators based around 10 year terms. (Maybe 'benevolent' is a little generous, but still...)
And then along came Xi and ripped that up and made himself President (sorry General Secretary) for life. Oh yeah, and also started acting belligerently to the rest of the world. If the Chinese people don't like this, there is exactly nothing they can do about it.
How many stable benevolent dictatorships have there been over time?
The point of democracy is that we can have a palace coup, minus the civil war and death, every 4-5 years.
Part of the reason for the nastiness of many dictatorships is the Tiger Problem. When you are riding a tiger, the problem is what happens when you get off.
As the philosopher said, "Remember, you are only President... for Life".
I've got a horrid theory that China will make a move at the same time. Perhaps against Taiwan, perhaps something else.
The rest of the world could deal with Russia against Ukraine, if we want. Trying to deal with China at the same time would be impossible by any conventional means.
Both would get away with it, in the short and medium term.
Is there any reason why the next PM couldn’t be a member of the Lords?
A question for Lord Frost, I think.
Do you have a feeling he wants it?
I do. I think he should be serious outside candidate in betting as one the brexiteers would trust and get behind.
The Lord thing easily put on suspension.
I'm sure he does want it, and (to go back to the self-awareness theme) he's probably deluded enough to think he has a chance. Certainly he seems to be on manoeuvres. But the practical obstacles are overwhelming, ain't gonna happen.
As you say, let’s get real here. There is absolutely no way that a Peer will become PM. It would now unconstitutional - there is a reason why the last one was 120 years ago. And before Lord Home is mentioned, he immediately sought election to the Commons. If Frost agreed to renounce his peerage (can he?) to become an MP, then he might just conceivably be a candidate if Tory MPs put him on the ballot for members.
Yes, no chance. No chance of Ruthie either, unfortunately.
Given the length and uncertainty of that process (imagine if such a candidate had renounced their peerage for ultra-safe, er, North Shropshire!), and presumption that any working peer has already chosen once to accept patronage rather going through it, I'd say the chances are pretty remote.
Lord Frost becomes Tory leader & Prime Minister in the middle July, the day after Parliament goes into recess for two months.
He's got two months to get elected.
I'm not sure even the most ardent headbangers in the PCP would think the solution to replacing an old Etonian who's lost his magic touch with the working classes would be a life peer whose last electoral success was becoming a liveryman of the Distillers' Company.. on the working assumption they could engineer him a safe seat while everyone's on holiday. I stand by "pretty remote"
Extinction Rebellion: Jury clears protesters dragged off train roof
Last month, the Anglican priest admitted she was "surprised" to avoid jail for blocking the M25. She was one of seven members of Insulate Britain who were handed suspended sentences for breaching an injunction and being in contempt of court.
So we can't even claim well it was just one of those things she got a bit carried away. She already guilty of blocking motorways and has a suspended sentence against her. Clear pattern of behaviour.
Perhaps jury trial, like democracy, has had its day
I’m semi-serious. That’s another implication from Cummings’ blog. Democracy may be dying. If it is proved that other systems are better at delivering prosperity, peace and happiness is democracy intrinsically worry pursuing? Hence his (and my) fascination with Singapore
And yes I get the irony that I voted Leavd ‘because democracy’ but the world is full of complex ironies
FWIW I think democracy definitely IS finished, in the long term, thanks to AI. GPT37 will make decisions which are so much smarter and more strategic and less emotional than any politician - or Eurocrat, or CCP apparatchik - we will hand over all our governance to the machines
Now take your sentence - "FWIW I think democracy definitely IS finished, in the long term, thanks to AI. GPT37 will make decisions"
And let's see how it does at producing something sensible:
"FWIW I think democracy definitely IS finished, in the long term, thanks to AI. GPT37 will make decisions on the basis of the best interests of the people . I think it 's 's a a time good good good good good to to to to to for for have"
Kinda good to the end of the sentence... And then utter gibberish.
All these GPT "AIs" are just pattern matchers: they don't have any ability to reason.
The difference between GPT2 and GPT3 is dumbfounding. The latter is so much “smarter”. After five or ten more iterations what will they be capable of achieving? The argument as to whether they are “intelligent” will be reduced to theology, they will certainly appear EXTREMELY intelligent, more so than us
And it’s not “pattern matching” - it’s autocomplete, which is somewhat different
Autocomplete works by pattern matching.
Ok as we’re talking about AI and war and UFOs - kinda - a young female friend of mine in Tooting has just seen THIS
She wears it is ten times bigger than a plane and it is going STRAIGHT UP. Like a space rocket or a missile. There’s a short video as well, which proves this.
Wtf is that? Do we have a secret space base in Tooting?
I’m pleasantly flummoxed. Any ideas? Optical illusion? Plane seen at a weird angle?
Extinction Rebellion: Jury clears protesters dragged off train roof
Last month, the Anglican priest admitted she was "surprised" to avoid jail for blocking the M25. She was one of seven members of Insulate Britain who were handed suspended sentences for breaching an injunction and being in contempt of court.
So we can't even claim well it was just one of those things she got a bit carried away. She already guilty of blocking motorways and has a suspended sentence against her. Clear pattern of behaviour.
Perhaps jury trial, like democracy, has had its day
I’m semi-serious. That’s another implication from Cummings’ blog. Democracy may be dying. If it is proved that other systems are better at delivering prosperity, peace and happiness is democracy intrinsically worry pursuing? Hence his (and my) fascination with Singapore
And yes I get the irony that I voted Leavd ‘because democracy’ but the world is full of complex ironies
FWIW I think democracy definitely IS finished, in the long term, thanks to AI. GPT37 will make decisions which are so much smarter and more strategic and less emotional than any politician - or Eurocrat, or CCP apparatchik - we will hand over all our governance to the machines
Erm, isn't Singapore a democracy? Even if the same side always wins.
Not as we know it.....
Ranks below Philippines, Indonesia and Malaysia in SE Asia:
It is also far richer than any of those, indeed it is one of the richest countries on the planet
And it has zero crime
I’ve said this before on PB: 90% of people, if offered a choice between life in rich, crime-free, not-very-democratic Singapore, or life in a less rich, more dangerous, properly democratic alternative, would choose Singapore
Which is why Singapore is a challenge to liberal democracies (and liberalism) and why democracy is entirely doomed, long term. The super-computers will be the Singapore government on steroids. Cold, calculating, but phenomenally efficient at producing results
Which is strange. Because Taiwan has quite a population of Singaporeans who have moved precisely cos they like a bit of dirt, danger, surprise and adventure in their life.
In truth, there aren't many serious contenders for an immediate post-Johnson Conservative Party leadership election.
In the absence of a Heseltine-type figure, you are looking at the three main offices of state so Sunak, Truss and Patel (all five letter surnames but that was true of Blair, Brown and of course Major as well as Heath).
The more intriguing question is what would a future Sunak or Truss Cabinet look like? Who would be in line for promotion or demotion if the current Chancellor or Foreign State successfully navigated the sea of electoral hazard and prevailed?
You'd imagine the winner would want his/her main opponent in a senior position because you keep your friends close and your enemies closer. Who would be Sunak's CoE for example - Trevelyan or Zahawi? I can't see Javid wanting the job again and the likes of Raab and Gove are already looking like yesterday's news.
Could Ben Wallace move to the Foreign Office in a Truss-led Government?
That's the thing about politics - the unexpected opportunity for advancement - could we see Michelle Donelan for example move up the Ministerial order somewhat?
Or Deputy PM Raab.
He could end up the candidate in the final 2 put forward by MPs alongside Sunak, not Truss or Patel
He is also the likeliest candidate for any Howard or Brown style coronation
It sounds pompous, but it’s the total disrespect for the office. You are working in Downing St ffs. For the actual prime minister. Get dressed properly and do some bloody work.
Instead it’s all skinny jeans and trainers and shitposting and vanity photographers and piss-up.
In 17 years in Westminster, I mostly had the idea that people working in government were largely trying their best (even the useless ones), were daunted by that black door, were grown ups running the country.
Now it’s all wine o’clock and who gets a spin on Carrie’s lazy susan
My benefit of the doubt. My assumption of a degree of competence. My willingness not to assume the worst of the British public. My determination not to be an anti-Tory rent-a-gob. All of that means trying to deny a gut feeling that he is appallingly unfit to be PM
He degrades everything, all of the unwritten and written rules that make the system work; a thin-skinned, pathetic, lonely, underwhelming, unimaginative, disloyal, friendless narcissist.
This isn’t an anti-Tory rant. Every Tory should be ashamed of what’s been done in their name
A commentator who seems to think that wearing a suit equates to competence. I think we all know messy devils who are brilliant at their job (especially in tech...), and people dressed smartly in suits who are just image.
Former Scottish Tory MSP Adam Tomkins: "What is to stop all 31 Scottish Conservative MSPs resigning from the Conservative Party and saying they have a new whip, and it's called the liberal unionist whip? What's to stop that? That could happen overnight." https://twitter.com/alistairkgrant/status/1481898099421462533
Douglas Ross is in a bind if Johnson does cling on. The Conservative and Unionist Party may have lots of parties but there won't be any union. (within the Party)
Like the rustic Tories pretending to be Independents in local gmt and interchanging with the Tory Party and its whip in reality, however, will anyone believe that?
Also, if the MSPs do what Prof T suggests that leaves the MPs in a bind. If they join the MSPs, they'll lose not only the Party funds and facilities at Westminster and (I assume) in Scotland; but, at Westminster, the Short Money as well (IIRC that only goes to the bigger parties, and the No Surrender Party will get £0). And getting the southern party to give them some facilities at pubvlic cost or at party cost is dodgy for accounting reasons (Electoral Commission, etc.)
But if the MPs don't follow the MSPs then the Scons will be split on geographical and legislature lines - handing a second propaganda triumph to the SNP.
Extinction Rebellion: Jury clears protesters dragged off train roof
Last month, the Anglican priest admitted she was "surprised" to avoid jail for blocking the M25. She was one of seven members of Insulate Britain who were handed suspended sentences for breaching an injunction and being in contempt of court.
So we can't even claim well it was just one of those things she got a bit carried away. She already guilty of blocking motorways and has a suspended sentence against her. Clear pattern of behaviour.
Perhaps jury trial, like democracy, has had its day
I’m semi-serious. That’s another implication from Cummings’ blog. Democracy may be dying. If it is proved that other systems are better at delivering prosperity, peace and happiness is democracy intrinsically worry pursuing? Hence his (and my) fascination with Singapore
And yes I get the irony that I voted Leavd ‘because democracy’ but the world is full of complex ironies
FWIW I think democracy definitely IS finished, in the long term, thanks to AI. GPT37 will make decisions which are so much smarter and more strategic and less emotional than any politician - or Eurocrat, or CCP apparatchik - we will hand over all our governance to the machines
Now take your sentence - "FWIW I think democracy definitely IS finished, in the long term, thanks to AI. GPT37 will make decisions"
And let's see how it does at producing something sensible:
"FWIW I think democracy definitely IS finished, in the long term, thanks to AI. GPT37 will make decisions on the basis of the best interests of the people . I think it 's 's a a time good good good good good to to to to to for for have"
Kinda good to the end of the sentence... And then utter gibberish.
All these GPT "AIs" are just pattern matchers: they don't have any ability to reason.
The difference between GPT2 and GPT3 is dumbfounding. The latter is so much “smarter”. After five or ten more iterations what will they be capable of achieving? The argument as to whether they are “intelligent” will be reduced to theology, they will certainly appear EXTREMELY intelligent, more so than us
And it’s not “pattern matching” - it’s autocomplete, which is somewhat different
Autocomplete works by pattern matching.
Ok as we’re talking about AI and war and UFOs - kinda - a young female friend of mine in Tooting has just seen THIS
She wears it is ten times bigger than a plane and it is going STRAIGHT UP. Like a space rocket or a missile. There’s a short video as well, which proves this.
Wtf is that? Do we have a secret space base in Tooting?
I’m pleasantly flummoxed. Any ideas? Optical illusion? Plane seen at a weird angle?
Sigh. Among other things, military jets are often design to climb quite rapidly...
Are we past the days of having peers as PMs, in the sense of it being even legally possible? Though Lord Home got himself a safe seat as a MP pdq if I recall the recent discussion here. I'm sure someone could be persuaded to apply to the Chiltern Hundreds if need be, in a nice safe seat.
Nothing that legally says the PM cannot be in the Lords - although I imagine that there would be no such thing as a safe seat for a by-election these days, if a party tried to force one in such circumstances.
Halifax turned down PMship in 1940 on account of being a Lord
Is that so? I'd always assumed Labour wouldn't support him.
I read a couple of articles that had it as his for taking, but bottled it. He didn’t fancy being a war leader. Didn’t think we could win. Didn’t want to fight. The recent film of Churchill portrayed it like this? Is this revisionist history? It’s been revised and is more accurate?
Labour wanted Halifax and that was the general consensus of the Commons. The King wanted Halifax and was a bit upset when Halifax raised the objection of being a peer and so not able to operate effectively in the House.
That’s where I disagree with you Rottenborough. I can’t do it because I am a Lord buries the truth and distorts true history which needs to be revised, therefore your favourite history books on your shelf you always thought was history are lying to you and you need to get new ones. The truth being “havn’t slept for a week thinking I have to be war PM, I think we should make deal with Germans anyway.”
Halifax accepted that there was no constitutional bar on him being PM in the Lords; he turned the job down primarily because he didn't want to do it and recognised that Churchill would overshadow him, whatever their official statuses.
By 1940, it wasn't even accepted that a PM couldn't sit in the Lords. It was only 38 years then since it had last happened (the equivalent of 1984 from now), and Curzon had been seriously considered as a PM candidate in the early 1920s.
While it was certainly seen as unhelpful that a PM might sit in a House where the main opposition had barely any representation, it wasn't an absolute bar.
In any case, there were provisions that could have been made to ease the difficulty. One was to amend the HoC standing orders, to allow a non-MP PM to be able to address MPs from within the chamber; IIRC, another would have been for the king to put Halifax's peerage into abeyance.
Either way, you don't lose a world war for a point of minor constitutional principle which wasn't even convention at that stage. Had Halifax been the MP and Churchill the peer (far from impossible), it's very likely that the latter would still have become PM.
Awesome post.
Opening bit
“ Halifax accepted that there was no constitutional bar on him being PM in the Lords; he turned the job down primarily because he didn't want to do it and recognised that Churchill would overshadow him, whatever their official statuses. “.
Absolutely spot on as the history as I know it. But does raise questions as, not without skills and merit was Halifax nonetheless not leadership material crucially in his own mind? And how history books would wrongly copy each other as the reason for the decision as something else?
One of the weaknesses of history books and historians is how so much of it just copies each other? Especially now in the internet age, it’s not so many sources as it appears if all says same thing with so few alternative perspectives.
Indeed - going back to primary sources often reveals interesting things.
A very good recent example was "Shattered Sword: The Untold Story of the Battle of Midway" which pointed out that much of the layers of scholarship on the battle was wrong. Among other things, the Japanese carriers had physical limitations which meant that various things couldn't be true. And a major Japanese source had been proved to be less than accurate y historians in Japan....
From my reading of the period, Halifax saw himself as the wrong man to be PM - in a World War*. I think he would have jumped at the job, if it had been a matter of managing the continuing recovery of the economy, dealing with social issues and a bit of diplomacy.
*I seem to recall a story, that one of the pacifist types in the Labour party asked Atlee why he was serving under that "ghastly warmonger and warlover, Churchill?". Atlee is supposed to have replied that the country needed a warmonger.
I think what you have added to what David posted nails it now.
“ Halifax accepted that there was no constitutional bar on him being PM in the Lords; he turned the job down primarily because he didn't want to do it and recognised that Churchill would overshadow him, whatever their official statuses. “.
+
“ Halifax saw himself as the wrong man to be PM in a war “
= pretty much the true history of what happened. 👍🏻
Though still probably some questions around prevalence of “sign a truce rather than attempt a war” feeling? Like you said, go back to original sources, that would be a view of it from the other side of the war, without knowing that we won, without full or any awareness of the horrors of the concentration camps, and likely so many other ways where the view would be different, than the view of the same spot in history post war.
Halifax hated Hitler. His position *before* the fall of France was that no peace was possible with Germany, if Hitler was still in charge. We know this because he said this (and it was documented as being said) to an intermediary* with the German government.
It was after the French defeat that he suggested the old WWI plan of an armistice with Germany if the BEF was pushed out of France and France fell.
Basically - "Shit, the Germans have won. What do we do now?"
*Swedish chap, IIRC.
Oh we are carrying on over here. Nice.
So the next question would be, were we all that concerned with Germans Partying victory in Paris… in 1871? Historically we sided with other people against the French. The rise of German Empire in the Second Reich (I understand is German for rich - the Holy Roman Empire being the first rich) complicates things leaves Britain uncertain about a German Empire controlling or dominating mainland Europe in upstart crow of an Empire to rival our own? That is then thinking as we go into First World War, and into the 20th century… yet, there is still all these books and TV programmes about how close UK upper classes were to the Germans in the thirties? You see what I mean?
The continental policy of the UK was to try and prevent one power taking over the whole thing. If they did, they could then amass enough naval power to overwhelm us.
Until 1870, that was France. Bismarck was very careful to manoeuvre France into declaring war in 1870 - which meant we stayed neutral. Because he was about to construct a bigger power than France and wanted no interruptions.
WWI was largely about this, for the UK.
After WWI, many people believed in Anything But That, Ever Again. This was taken by many to mean friendship with Germany. Since it was believed that the rhetoric in the run up to WWI had been part of the problem....
The rise of Hitler then split politics into four groups - Hitler = War (Churchill etc), Appeasement, The Pacifists No Matter What* and a small group who actually like Hitler.
*Who believed in Disarmament as a cure for everything.
Wasn't Bismarck's dictum 'always be in the 3 of 5', which he then himself breached?
Strategy Bismarck copied from Talleyrand. Who copied it from?
Extinction Rebellion: Jury clears protesters dragged off train roof
Last month, the Anglican priest admitted she was "surprised" to avoid jail for blocking the M25. She was one of seven members of Insulate Britain who were handed suspended sentences for breaching an injunction and being in contempt of court.
So we can't even claim well it was just one of those things she got a bit carried away. She already guilty of blocking motorways and has a suspended sentence against her. Clear pattern of behaviour.
Perhaps jury trial, like democracy, has had its day
I’m semi-serious. That’s another implication from Cummings’ blog. Democracy may be dying. If it is proved that other systems are better at delivering prosperity, peace and happiness is democracy intrinsically worry pursuing? Hence his (and my) fascination with Singapore
And yes I get the irony that I voted Leavd ‘because democracy’ but the world is full of complex ironies
FWIW I think democracy definitely IS finished, in the long term, thanks to AI. GPT37 will make decisions which are so much smarter and more strategic and less emotional than any politician - or Eurocrat, or CCP apparatchik - we will hand over all our governance to the machines
Now take your sentence - "FWIW I think democracy definitely IS finished, in the long term, thanks to AI. GPT37 will make decisions"
And let's see how it does at producing something sensible:
"FWIW I think democracy definitely IS finished, in the long term, thanks to AI. GPT37 will make decisions on the basis of the best interests of the people . I think it 's 's a a time good good good good good to to to to to for for have"
Kinda good to the end of the sentence... And then utter gibberish.
All these GPT "AIs" are just pattern matchers: they don't have any ability to reason.
The difference between GPT2 and GPT3 is dumbfounding. The latter is so much “smarter”. After five or ten more iterations what will they be capable of achieving? The argument as to whether they are “intelligent” will be reduced to theology, they will certainly appear EXTREMELY intelligent, more so than us
And it’s not “pattern matching” - it’s autocomplete, which is somewhat different
Autocomplete works by pattern matching.
Ok as we’re talking about AI and war and UFOs - kinda - a young female friend of mine in Tooting has just seen THIS
She wears it is ten times bigger than a plane and it is going STRAIGHT UP. Like a space rocket or a missile. There’s a short video as well, which proves this.
Wtf is that? Do we have a secret space base in Tooting?
I’m pleasantly flummoxed. Any ideas? Optical illusion? Plane seen at a weird angle?
How do you think your alien friends are getting back home?
Benevolent dictatorship works when you have a competent benevolent dictator.
The problem is that one day you'll end up with an average leader, and then another day you'll end up with a dreadful one, and no way of removing them.
And there's no way to get around that. China had competent dictators based around 10 year terms. (Maybe 'benevolent' is a little generous, but still...)
And then along came Xi and ripped that up and made himself President (sorry General Secretary) for life. Oh yeah, and also started acting belligerently to the rest of the world. If the Chinese people don't like this, there is exactly nothing they can do about it.
How many stable benevolent dictatorships have there been over time?
Plenty of the Chinese elite see the problem of the Xi dictatorship but are unable or unwilling to do anything about it. As a class they are seen by the public as very corrupt and Xi plays on that.
It sounds pompous, but it’s the total disrespect for the office. You are working in Downing St ffs. For the actual prime minister. Get dressed properly and do some bloody work.
Instead it’s all skinny jeans and trainers and shitposting and vanity photographers and piss-up.
In 17 years in Westminster, I mostly had the idea that people working in government were largely trying their best (even the useless ones), were daunted by that black door, were grown ups running the country.
Now it’s all wine o’clock and who gets a spin on Carrie’s lazy susan
My benefit of the doubt. My assumption of a degree of competence. My willingness not to assume the worst of the British public. My determination not to be an anti-Tory rent-a-gob. All of that means trying to deny a gut feeling that he is appallingly unfit to be PM
He degrades everything, all of the unwritten and written rules that make the system work; a thin-skinned, pathetic, lonely, underwhelming, unimaginative, disloyal, friendless narcissist.
This isn’t an anti-Tory rant. Every Tory should be ashamed of what’s been done in their name
A commentator who seems to think that wearing a suit equates to competence. I think we all know messy devils who are brilliant at their job (especially in tech...), and people dressed smartly in suits who are just image.
Many year ago, I worked for a tech start-up which was run by a man with a green mohawk and who wouldn't even wear a suit for his own wedding. But a quite brilliant individual.
Kate Josephs, the former head of the Government unit responsible for drawing covid-19 restrictions, was given a leaving do in the Cabinet Office on December 17 2020 - the day before the Number 10 Xmas Party
Kate Josephs, the former head of the Government unit responsible for drawing covid-19 restrictions, was given a leaving do in the Cabinet Office on December 17 2020 - the day before the Number 10 Xmas Party
Kate Josephs, the former head of the Government unit responsible for drawing covid-19 restrictions, was given a leaving do in the Cabinet Office on December 17 2020 - the day before the Number 10 Xmas Party
Kate Josephs, the former head of the Government unit responsible for drawing covid-19 restrictions, was given a leaving do in the Cabinet Office on December 17 2020 - the day before the Number 10 Xmas Party
Maybe the DT are so keen to see the return of their top columnist that they are helping him through the window.
Surely Boris's value as a columnist is in tatters. His whole shtick was based upon 'I'm a lad, cut through the crap and have better solutions than all the stuffed shirts who run things.' Who would read his pontifications now with anything other than a rasping cackle or a disillusioned sigh?
So are you saying the public no longer see "the Emperor's New Clothes" just a naked overweight charlatan?
No, post PM Boris will still be marketable. Hugely. He still writes well, he still speaks idiosyncratically. His failings have been human ones. He has been brought down by being Falstaff.
Competence as a PM is no prerequisite for success as a post-PM.
It confirms that Cummings is infuriatingly clever and cunning - if you are his enemy
This is superbly bang-on:
“Cummings thinks remainers are invariably fools, above all the better-educated ones, because they are incapable of accepting that they might be wrong. His shorthand for these people is Jolyons (after the remainer lawyer Jolyon Maugham) or, as he says of Keir Starmer, the ones who can’t resist giving “the London idiot answer” to any difficult question because they daren’t think for themselves. When Starmer got himself tangled up over the question of whether “only women have a cervix”, it was, Cummings says, because “he’s a dead player working off a script” – and the voters can smell that a mile off.”
Remainers are invariably fools, ESPECIALLY the posher ones. Absolutely right
The article also contains the brilliant revelation that the only reason Cummings and Boris prorogued parliament was to drive their opponents crazy (it worked), get them to talk about nothing else, until they eventually went so mad they provoked an election
I guess Cummings could be lying, but if it’s true it’s genius. It all went wrong for Boris when he lost this guy
Na, it is just that he like you, wants to rebut the idea that Leavers are generally thick, so it remains an obsession of his, like it is yours. It is OK @Leon, you aren't all thick. Obsessed about a trivial and pointless thing, yes, but not all of you are stupid. That feel better now?
He's got a point about some remainers not being able to think independently of the consensus liberal London view. It's the whole argument I've had loads of times with a few people on here about wages at the lower end, there's loads of studies saying it wasn't impacted by A10 migration but then we've had loads of real world evidence of wage rises for those people since Brexit because of low skilled labour shortages. It's like those same people who can't see beyond the phrase "follow the science" on the pandemic. Sometimes the consensus view is wrong and it's been difficult to get some more ardent remainers to see that, whether that's on wages for the lower skilled or on the correct post-vaccine pandemic response.
It's almost as if the consensus is there to exist and not be challenged, which we know is a recipe for disaster in the long term.
Yes. I think it’s essentially the religious module in the human brain, which is at work here, the bit of our mind wired for faith. Except god is replaced by secular atheist faith in this or that liberal piety. In this case, the secular faith is EU membership
The mad posh Remainers confronted by Brexit are like hardcore Catholics confronted by “heresy”. They cannot understand how or why anyone would believe this, Brexit is evil and wrong and can never be right.
You know, I get everything you’re saying. I can see what you mean about posh Remainers.
From my decidedly non-posh standpoint, I think what appals me most about Brexit is that Red Wall people have been promised that we will Take Back Control. And we will.
But I fear, and nothing has happened to disabuse me of this notion, in fact things like that Leeds leg of HS2 being cancelled reinforce it, is that Red Wallers have been persuaded to hand back control to a system that, more often than not, elects Conservative governments that, more often than not, screw the north, the people I love and the communities I am part of.
The EU, or EEC as it was then, handed over big bucks through coalfield regeneration funding, which did help. Now I might be wrong, but I suspect a Conservative government wouldn’t have done such a thing.
Yes, we’re free to spend our own money now how we want. The point being the country very often chooses to elect a government that chooses to spend a disproportionate amount in the South East and London.
I suspect that Boris is now expendable. He got the Red Wallers vote, he sang the siren song on levelling up. Will it last or will the Tory Party revert to type? I suspect the latter.
Yes, wages have gone up for some unskilled people. Will it last? Will they be eaten up by inflation?
Red Wallers were convinced, I think, to vote to hand control from one remote bureaucracy, the EU, that at least had their interests at heart to some extent, though no doubt many will disagree, and give that control to another remote bureaucracy, in Westminster, that very often doesn’t give a rat’s arse about the north and the Midlands.
That's the con trick that really pisses me off.
Maybe I’ll be proved wrong. But I think Boris being flushed away will see levelling up go with him and the party return to type. Belt-tightening, inflation, post-pandemic austerity. Red Wallers will be no better off.
If you're a right-winger and you're wanting the market to run free, Britannia Unleashed, all that kind of thing, then fair enough, my wailing above probably doesn't touch you one bit. But, from what I can gather, when people up here ticked Leave in 2016, that's not what they thought they were going to get.
I agree with much of this diagnosis
Just two points: I don’t believe the Tories will return to ‘austerity’ for quite a while (unless forced by circumstances like a looming default). Big debt is with us for the medium term, as the global economy recovers from Covid (ins’allah)
Also, it’s not true to say Brexit has replaced one remote bureaucracy with another. We are now properly democratic. If the Red Wallers are angry at the Tory government’s betrayal (and fair enough, it’s not looking good) they can have the electoral satisfaction of sweeping them out of office, in humiliating style. Not something they can do to the EU Commission
And that, for me, was pretty much the whole point of Brexit
They won't be daft enough to call it austerity, but a rose by any other name, and all that.
There is that potential electoral satisfaction, yes you're right. And I get what you're saying about the EU Commission. It's a perfectly valid point. For you Brexit's the greater good, we've reverted to the better system. Fine. I just disagree. For me the lesser evil, in terms of the north, was being in the EU. But that battle's been lost. Ah well.
I really don’t see what the EU ‘did for the north’. They just took British taxpayers’ money and randomly gave SOME back to poorer parts of the UK, but most of our money went to Eastern Europe. How is that a ‘good deal’ for the North of England?
And the idea that fat Eurocrats in Strasbourg brasseries spent their time worrying about ‘voters in Stoke’ is worthy of a cartoon
What they did for the north was spend money making things better. Money not spent by UK governments before or after.
I'm happy to agree that its not remotely an efficient way to allocate the funds. But it did happen - and now it isn't. We already have regions begging this government to replace the EU development money and being told no. The "towns fund" is a threadbare sticking plaster of a replacement.
This is just bollocks. The UK had a Labour government from 1997-2010 which spunked public money like King Dong on Cialis. Much of this was bukkake’d all over the happy upturned faces of northern voters. Anything done by the EU was a tiny vinegar stroke in comparison.
The argument is unsound, to put it politely
At the time you may have been under the influence of expensive mind-bending narcotics, but during the 1980s and 90s those of us who remained compos mentis noted that EU social fund money was hosed all over the former industrial regions of England, Scotland and Wales. This took the form of incentives to new technology industries, which it is true all upped sticks and left Eastwards on the accession of the former Soviet countries, and finance for infrastructure projects. It was our fault that we invested this money on cobblestones for the High Street instead of building our own Millau Viaducts.
ISTR Liverpool City Council had an explicit objective to continue to qualify for objective 1 funding - that is, to continue to be poor enough. EU funding created perverse incentives which may have led to a lot of public spending but didn't result in Liverpool becoming less poor.
To an extent I see your point, having stayed in Liverpool three times in the last twelve months I became aware of much of the City's resemblance to a third world slum. Now I have spent much of my life in post-industrial shitholes, I live not twenty miles from the Rhonnda Valley and I work from Port Talbot, I worked out of Bowling Hall in Bradford for years which now resembles something out of Mad Max, and I grew up in 1970s derelict Birmingham, but nothing had prepared me for Bootle.
I blame the insane Corbynite Council. I don't blame the EU.
Extinction Rebellion: Jury clears protesters dragged off train roof
Last month, the Anglican priest admitted she was "surprised" to avoid jail for blocking the M25. She was one of seven members of Insulate Britain who were handed suspended sentences for breaching an injunction and being in contempt of court.
So we can't even claim well it was just one of those things she got a bit carried away. She already guilty of blocking motorways and has a suspended sentence against her. Clear pattern of behaviour.
Perhaps jury trial, like democracy, has had its day
I’m semi-serious. That’s another implication from Cummings’ blog. Democracy may be dying. If it is proved that other systems are better at delivering prosperity, peace and happiness is democracy intrinsically worry pursuing? Hence his (and my) fascination with Singapore
And yes I get the irony that I voted Leavd ‘because democracy’ but the world is full of complex ironies
FWIW I think democracy definitely IS finished, in the long term, thanks to AI. GPT37 will make decisions which are so much smarter and more strategic and less emotional than any politician - or Eurocrat, or CCP apparatchik - we will hand over all our governance to the machines
Now take your sentence - "FWIW I think democracy definitely IS finished, in the long term, thanks to AI. GPT37 will make decisions"
And let's see how it does at producing something sensible:
"FWIW I think democracy definitely IS finished, in the long term, thanks to AI. GPT37 will make decisions on the basis of the best interests of the people . I think it 's 's a a time good good good good good to to to to to for for have"
Kinda good to the end of the sentence... And then utter gibberish.
All these GPT "AIs" are just pattern matchers: they don't have any ability to reason.
The difference between GPT2 and GPT3 is dumbfounding. The latter is so much “smarter”. After five or ten more iterations what will they be capable of achieving? The argument as to whether they are “intelligent” will be reduced to theology, they will certainly appear EXTREMELY intelligent, more so than us
And it’s not “pattern matching” - it’s autocomplete, which is somewhat different
Autocomplete works by pattern matching.
Ok as we’re talking about AI and war and UFOs - kinda - a young female friend of mine in Tooting has just seen THIS
She wears it is ten times bigger than a plane and it is going STRAIGHT UP. Like a space rocket or a missile. There’s a short video as well, which proves this.
Wtf is that? Do we have a secret space base in Tooting?
I’m pleasantly flummoxed. Any ideas? Optical illusion? Plane seen at a weird angle?
They've combed the galaxy looking for the ideal government? Just messaged. Mission successful. The opposite of this.
As a rich liberal remainer, grateful for some advice. Rather than getting my coffee made by a Romanian, I made eight cups of tea today for the working class English people building something for me in the garden. And two cheese toasties. I also failed to tell them to work harder, as they seem to be working fairly hard without my input. Am I doing this wrong?
Yes. Should have been eight cheese toasties.
Miserable git indeed, a quarter of a cheese toastie per head
Extinction Rebellion: Jury clears protesters dragged off train roof
Last month, the Anglican priest admitted she was "surprised" to avoid jail for blocking the M25. She was one of seven members of Insulate Britain who were handed suspended sentences for breaching an injunction and being in contempt of court.
So we can't even claim well it was just one of those things she got a bit carried away. She already guilty of blocking motorways and has a suspended sentence against her. Clear pattern of behaviour.
Perhaps jury trial, like democracy, has had its day
I’m semi-serious. That’s another implication from Cummings’ blog. Democracy may be dying. If it is proved that other systems are better at delivering prosperity, peace and happiness is democracy intrinsically worry pursuing? Hence his (and my) fascination with Singapore
And yes I get the irony that I voted Leavd ‘because democracy’ but the world is full of complex ironies
FWIW I think democracy definitely IS finished, in the long term, thanks to AI. GPT37 will make decisions which are so much smarter and more strategic and less emotional than any politician - or Eurocrat, or CCP apparatchik - we will hand over all our governance to the machines
Now take your sentence - "FWIW I think democracy definitely IS finished, in the long term, thanks to AI. GPT37 will make decisions"
And let's see how it does at producing something sensible:
"FWIW I think democracy definitely IS finished, in the long term, thanks to AI. GPT37 will make decisions on the basis of the best interests of the people . I think it 's 's a a time good good good good good to to to to to for for have"
Kinda good to the end of the sentence... And then utter gibberish.
All these GPT "AIs" are just pattern matchers: they don't have any ability to reason.
The difference between GPT2 and GPT3 is dumbfounding. The latter is so much “smarter”. After five or ten more iterations what will they be capable of achieving? The argument as to whether they are “intelligent” will be reduced to theology, they will certainly appear EXTREMELY intelligent, more so than us
And it’s not “pattern matching” - it’s autocomplete, which is somewhat different
Autocomplete works by pattern matching.
Ok as we’re talking about AI and war and UFOs - kinda - a young female friend of mine in Tooting has just seen THIS
She wears it is ten times bigger than a plane and it is going STRAIGHT UP. Like a space rocket or a missile. There’s a short video as well, which proves this.
Wtf is that? Do we have a secret space base in Tooting?
I’m pleasantly flummoxed. Any ideas? Optical illusion? Plane seen at a weird angle?
Sigh. Among other things, military jets are often design to climb quite rapidly...
Why the condescending “sigh”?
I didn’t run around screaming OMG ITS DEM ALIENS, I politely inquired of a knowledgeable forum
The video really doesn’t look like a military jet. But it IS far away and hard to tell
And she is sure the size is enormous - “ten times bigger than an airliner” - but of course eye witnesses are unreliable
We do have military air fields near south london IIRC
In truth, there aren't many serious contenders for an immediate post-Johnson Conservative Party leadership election.
In the absence of a Heseltine-type figure, you are looking at the three main offices of state so Sunak, Truss and Patel (all five letter surnames but that was true of Blair, Brown and of course Major as well as Heath).
The more intriguing question is what would a future Sunak or Truss Cabinet look like? Who would be in line for promotion or demotion if the current Chancellor or Foreign State successfully navigated the sea of electoral hazard and prevailed?
You'd imagine the winner would want his/her main opponent in a senior position because you keep your friends close and your enemies closer. Who would be Sunak's CoE for example - Trevelyan or Zahawi? I can't see Javid wanting the job again and the likes of Raab and Gove are already looking like yesterday's news.
Could Ben Wallace move to the Foreign Office in a Truss-led Government?
That's the thing about politics - the unexpected opportunity for advancement - could we see Michelle Donelan for example move up the Ministerial order somewhat?
Or Deputy PM Raab.
He could end up the candidate in the final 2 put forward by MPs alongside Sunak, not Truss or Patel
He is also the likeliest candidate for any Howard or Brown style coronation
Raab - you cannot be serious
Mind you, you rarely are
If MPs picked Sunak and Raab as the final 2 to go to party members, certainly possible, then Raab could win it.
It confirms that Cummings is infuriatingly clever and cunning - if you are his enemy
This is superbly bang-on:
“Cummings thinks remainers are invariably fools, above all the better-educated ones, because they are incapable of accepting that they might be wrong. His shorthand for these people is Jolyons (after the remainer lawyer Jolyon Maugham) or, as he says of Keir Starmer, the ones who can’t resist giving “the London idiot answer” to any difficult question because they daren’t think for themselves. When Starmer got himself tangled up over the question of whether “only women have a cervix”, it was, Cummings says, because “he’s a dead player working off a script” – and the voters can smell that a mile off.”
Remainers are invariably fools, ESPECIALLY the posher ones. Absolutely right
The article also contains the brilliant revelation that the only reason Cummings and Boris prorogued parliament was to drive their opponents crazy (it worked), get them to talk about nothing else, until they eventually went so mad they provoked an election
I guess Cummings could be lying, but if it’s true it’s genius. It all went wrong for Boris when he lost this guy
Na, it is just that he like you, wants to rebut the idea that Leavers are generally thick, so it remains an obsession of his, like it is yours. It is OK @Leon, you aren't all thick. Obsessed about a trivial and pointless thing, yes, but not all of you are stupid. That feel better now?
He's got a point about some remainers not being able to think independently of the consensus liberal London view. It's the whole argument I've had loads of times with a few people on here about wages at the lower end, there's loads of studies saying it wasn't impacted by A10 migration but then we've had loads of real world evidence of wage rises for those people since Brexit because of low skilled labour shortages. It's like those same people who can't see beyond the phrase "follow the science" on the pandemic. Sometimes the consensus view is wrong and it's been difficult to get some more ardent remainers to see that, whether that's on wages for the lower skilled or on the correct post-vaccine pandemic response.
It's almost as if the consensus is there to exist and not be challenged, which we know is a recipe for disaster in the long term.
Yes. I think it’s essentially the religious module in the human brain, which is at work here, the bit of our mind wired for faith. Except god is replaced by secular atheist faith in this or that liberal piety. In this case, the secular faith is EU membership
The mad posh Remainers confronted by Brexit are like hardcore Catholics confronted by “heresy”. They cannot understand how or why anyone would believe this, Brexit is evil and wrong and can never be right.
You know, I get everything you’re saying. I can see what you mean about posh Remainers.
From my decidedly non-posh standpoint, I think what appals me most about Brexit is that Red Wall people have been promised that we will Take Back Control. And we will.
But I fear, and nothing has happened to disabuse me of this notion, in fact things like that Leeds leg of HS2 being cancelled reinforce it, is that Red Wallers have been persuaded to hand back control to a system that, more often than not, elects Conservative governments that, more often than not, screw the north, the people I love and the communities I am part of.
The EU, or EEC as it was then, handed over big bucks through coalfield regeneration funding, which did help. Now I might be wrong, but I suspect a Conservative government wouldn’t have done such a thing.
Yes, we’re free to spend our own money now how we want. The point being the country very often chooses to elect a government that chooses to spend a disproportionate amount in the South East and London.
I suspect that Boris is now expendable. He got the Red Wallers vote, he sang the siren song on levelling up. Will it last or will the Tory Party revert to type? I suspect the latter.
Yes, wages have gone up for some unskilled people. Will it last? Will they be eaten up by inflation?
Red Wallers were convinced, I think, to vote to hand control from one remote bureaucracy, the EU, that at least had their interests at heart to some extent, though no doubt many will disagree, and give that control to another remote bureaucracy, in Westminster, that very often doesn’t give a rat’s arse about the north and the Midlands.
That's the con trick that really pisses me off.
Maybe I’ll be proved wrong. But I think Boris being flushed away will see levelling up go with him and the party return to type. Belt-tightening, inflation, post-pandemic austerity. Red Wallers will be no better off.
If you're a right-winger and you're wanting the market to run free, Britannia Unleashed, all that kind of thing, then fair enough, my wailing above probably doesn't touch you one bit. But, from what I can gather, when people up here ticked Leave in 2016, that's not what they thought they were going to get.
I agree with much of this diagnosis
Just two points: I don’t believe the Tories will return to ‘austerity’ for quite a while (unless forced by circumstances like a looming default). Big debt is with us for the medium term, as the global economy recovers from Covid (ins’allah)
Also, it’s not true to say Brexit has replaced one remote bureaucracy with another. We are now properly democratic. If the Red Wallers are angry at the Tory government’s betrayal (and fair enough, it’s not looking good) they can have the electoral satisfaction of sweeping them out of office, in humiliating style. Not something they can do to the EU Commission
And that, for me, was pretty much the whole point of Brexit
They won't be daft enough to call it austerity, but a rose by any other name, and all that.
There is that potential electoral satisfaction, yes you're right. And I get what you're saying about the EU Commission. It's a perfectly valid point. For you Brexit's the greater good, we've reverted to the better system. Fine. I just disagree. For me the lesser evil, in terms of the north, was being in the EU. But that battle's been lost. Ah well.
I really don’t see what the EU ‘did for the north’. They just took British taxpayers’ money and randomly gave SOME back to poorer parts of the UK, but most of our money went to Eastern Europe. How is that a ‘good deal’ for the North of England?
And the idea that fat Eurocrats in Strasbourg brasseries spent their time worrying about ‘voters in Stoke’ is worthy of a cartoon
What they did for the north was spend money making things better. Money not spent by UK governments before or after.
I'm happy to agree that its not remotely an efficient way to allocate the funds. But it did happen - and now it isn't. We already have regions begging this government to replace the EU development money and being told no. The "towns fund" is a threadbare sticking plaster of a replacement.
This is just bollocks. The UK had a Labour government from 1997-2010 which spunked public money like King Dong on Cialis. Much of this was bukkake’d all over the happy upturned faces of northern voters. Anything done by the EU was a tiny vinegar stroke in comparison.
The argument is unsound, to put it politely
At the time you may have been under the influence of expensive mind-bending narcotics, but during the 1980s and 90s those of us who remained compos mentis noted that EU social fund money was hosed all over the former industrial regions of England, Scotland and Wales. This took the form of incentives to new technology industries, which it is true all upped sticks and left Eastwards on the accession of the former Soviet countries, and finance for infrastructure projects. It was our fault that we invested this money on cobblestones for the High Street instead of building our own Millau Viaducts.
ISTR Liverpool City Council had an explicit objective to continue to qualify for objective 1 funding - that is, to continue to be poor enough. EU funding created perverse incentives which may have led to a lot of public spending but didn't result in Liverpool becoming less poor.
To an extent I see your point, having stayed in Liverpool three times in the last twelve months I became aware of much of the City's resemblance to a third world slum. Now I have spent much of my life in post-industrial shitholes, I live not twenty miles from the Rhonnda Valley and I work from Port Talbot, I worked out of Bowling Hall in Bradford for years which now resembles something out of Mad Max, and I grew up in 1970s derelict Birmingham, but nothing had prepared me for Bootle.
I blame the insane Corbynite Council. I don't blame the EU.
Oh, absolutely, I don't blame the EU. It just doesn't help as much as its proponents think it does. All it needed to be was a free trade bloc.
Extinction Rebellion: Jury clears protesters dragged off train roof
Last month, the Anglican priest admitted she was "surprised" to avoid jail for blocking the M25. She was one of seven members of Insulate Britain who were handed suspended sentences for breaching an injunction and being in contempt of court.
So we can't even claim well it was just one of those things she got a bit carried away. She already guilty of blocking motorways and has a suspended sentence against her. Clear pattern of behaviour.
Perhaps jury trial, like democracy, has had its day
I’m semi-serious. That’s another implication from Cummings’ blog. Democracy may be dying. If it is proved that other systems are better at delivering prosperity, peace and happiness is democracy intrinsically worry pursuing? Hence his (and my) fascination with Singapore
And yes I get the irony that I voted Leavd ‘because democracy’ but the world is full of complex ironies
FWIW I think democracy definitely IS finished, in the long term, thanks to AI. GPT37 will make decisions which are so much smarter and more strategic and less emotional than any politician - or Eurocrat, or CCP apparatchik - we will hand over all our governance to the machines
Now take your sentence - "FWIW I think democracy definitely IS finished, in the long term, thanks to AI. GPT37 will make decisions"
And let's see how it does at producing something sensible:
"FWIW I think democracy definitely IS finished, in the long term, thanks to AI. GPT37 will make decisions on the basis of the best interests of the people . I think it 's 's a a time good good good good good to to to to to for for have"
Kinda good to the end of the sentence... And then utter gibberish.
All these GPT "AIs" are just pattern matchers: they don't have any ability to reason.
The difference between GPT2 and GPT3 is dumbfounding. The latter is so much “smarter”. After five or ten more iterations what will they be capable of achieving? The argument as to whether they are “intelligent” will be reduced to theology, they will certainly appear EXTREMELY intelligent, more so than us
And it’s not “pattern matching” - it’s autocomplete, which is somewhat different
Autocomplete works by pattern matching.
Ok as we’re talking about AI and war and UFOs - kinda - a young female friend of mine in Tooting has just seen THIS
She wears it is ten times bigger than a plane and it is going STRAIGHT UP. Like a space rocket or a missile. There’s a short video as well, which proves this.
Wtf is that? Do we have a secret space base in Tooting?
I’m pleasantly flummoxed. Any ideas? Optical illusion? Plane seen at a weird angle?
Could be anything; angles can be very hard to discern in the sky, especially with a low sun. One thing it won't be is an alien taking an intense interest in Tooting.
It confirms that Cummings is infuriatingly clever and cunning - if you are his enemy
This is superbly bang-on:
“Cummings thinks remainers are invariably fools, above all the better-educated ones, because they are incapable of accepting that they might be wrong. His shorthand for these people is Jolyons (after the remainer lawyer Jolyon Maugham) or, as he says of Keir Starmer, the ones who can’t resist giving “the London idiot answer” to any difficult question because they daren’t think for themselves. When Starmer got himself tangled up over the question of whether “only women have a cervix”, it was, Cummings says, because “he’s a dead player working off a script” – and the voters can smell that a mile off.”
Remainers are invariably fools, ESPECIALLY the posher ones. Absolutely right
The article also contains the brilliant revelation that the only reason Cummings and Boris prorogued parliament was to drive their opponents crazy (it worked), get them to talk about nothing else, until they eventually went so mad they provoked an election
I guess Cummings could be lying, but if it’s true it’s genius. It all went wrong for Boris when he lost this guy
Na, it is just that he like you, wants to rebut the idea that Leavers are generally thick, so it remains an obsession of his, like it is yours. It is OK @Leon, you aren't all thick. Obsessed about a trivial and pointless thing, yes, but not all of you are stupid. That feel better now?
He's got a point about some remainers not being able to think independently of the consensus liberal London view. It's the whole argument I've had loads of times with a few people on here about wages at the lower end, there's loads of studies saying it wasn't impacted by A10 migration but then we've had loads of real world evidence of wage rises for those people since Brexit because of low skilled labour shortages. It's like those same people who can't see beyond the phrase "follow the science" on the pandemic. Sometimes the consensus view is wrong and it's been difficult to get some more ardent remainers to see that, whether that's on wages for the lower skilled or on the correct post-vaccine pandemic response.
It's almost as if the consensus is there to exist and not be challenged, which we know is a recipe for disaster in the long term.
Yes. I think it’s essentially the religious module in the human brain, which is at work here, the bit of our mind wired for faith. Except god is replaced by secular atheist faith in this or that liberal piety. In this case, the secular faith is EU membership
The mad posh Remainers confronted by Brexit are like hardcore Catholics confronted by “heresy”. They cannot understand how or why anyone would believe this, Brexit is evil and wrong and can never be right.
You know, I get everything you’re saying. I can see what you mean about posh Remainers.
From my decidedly non-posh standpoint, I think what appals me most about Brexit is that Red Wall people have been promised that we will Take Back Control. And we will.
But I fear, and nothing has happened to disabuse me of this notion, in fact things like that Leeds leg of HS2 being cancelled reinforce it, is that Red Wallers have been persuaded to hand back control to a system that, more often than not, elects Conservative governments that, more often than not, screw the north, the people I love and the communities I am part of.
The EU, or EEC as it was then, handed over big bucks through coalfield regeneration funding, which did help. Now I might be wrong, but I suspect a Conservative government wouldn’t have done such a thing.
Yes, we’re free to spend our own money now how we want. The point being the country very often chooses to elect a government that chooses to spend a disproportionate amount in the South East and London.
I suspect that Boris is now expendable. He got the Red Wallers vote, he sang the siren song on levelling up. Will it last or will the Tory Party revert to type? I suspect the latter.
Yes, wages have gone up for some unskilled people. Will it last? Will they be eaten up by inflation?
Red Wallers were convinced, I think, to vote to hand control from one remote bureaucracy, the EU, that at least had their interests at heart to some extent, though no doubt many will disagree, and give that control to another remote bureaucracy, in Westminster, that very often doesn’t give a rat’s arse about the north and the Midlands.
That's the con trick that really pisses me off.
Maybe I’ll be proved wrong. But I think Boris being flushed away will see levelling up go with him and the party return to type. Belt-tightening, inflation, post-pandemic austerity. Red Wallers will be no better off.
If you're a right-winger and you're wanting the market to run free, Britannia Unleashed, all that kind of thing, then fair enough, my wailing above probably doesn't touch you one bit. But, from what I can gather, when people up here ticked Leave in 2016, that's not what they thought they were going to get.
I agree with much of this diagnosis
Just two points: I don’t believe the Tories will return to ‘austerity’ for quite a while (unless forced by circumstances like a looming default). Big debt is with us for the medium term, as the global economy recovers from Covid (ins’allah)
Also, it’s not true to say Brexit has replaced one remote bureaucracy with another. We are now properly democratic. If the Red Wallers are angry at the Tory government’s betrayal (and fair enough, it’s not looking good) they can have the electoral satisfaction of sweeping them out of office, in humiliating style. Not something they can do to the EU Commission
And that, for me, was pretty much the whole point of Brexit
They won't be daft enough to call it austerity, but a rose by any other name, and all that.
There is that potential electoral satisfaction, yes you're right. And I get what you're saying about the EU Commission. It's a perfectly valid point. For you Brexit's the greater good, we've reverted to the better system. Fine. I just disagree. For me the lesser evil, in terms of the north, was being in the EU. But that battle's been lost. Ah well.
I really don’t see what the EU ‘did for the north’. They just took British taxpayers’ money and randomly gave SOME back to poorer parts of the UK, but most of our money went to Eastern Europe. How is that a ‘good deal’ for the North of England?
And the idea that fat Eurocrats in Strasbourg brasseries spent their time worrying about ‘voters in Stoke’ is worthy of a cartoon
What they did for the north was spend money making things better. Money not spent by UK governments before or after.
I'm happy to agree that its not remotely an efficient way to allocate the funds. But it did happen - and now it isn't. We already have regions begging this government to replace the EU development money and being told no. The "towns fund" is a threadbare sticking plaster of a replacement.
This is just bollocks. The UK had a Labour government from 1997-2010 which spunked public money like King Dong on Cialis. Much of this was bukkake’d all over the happy upturned faces of northern voters. Anything done by the EU was a tiny vinegar stroke in comparison.
The argument is unsound, to put it politely
At the time you may have been under the influence of expensive mind-bending narcotics, but during the 1980s and 90s those of us who remained compos mentis noted that EU social fund money was hosed all over the former industrial regions of England, Scotland and Wales. This took the form of incentives to new technology industries, which it is true all upped sticks and left Eastwards on the accession of the former Soviet countries, and finance for infrastructure projects. It was our fault that we invested this money on cobblestones for the High Street instead of building our own Millau Viaducts.
ISTR Liverpool City Council had an explicit objective to continue to qualify for objective 1 funding - that is, to continue to be poor enough. EU funding created perverse incentives which may have led to a lot of public spending but didn't result in Liverpool becoming less poor.
To an extent I see your point, having stayed in Liverpool three times in the last twelve months I became aware of much of the City's resemblance to a third world slum. Now I have spent much of my life in post-industrial shitholes, I live not twenty miles from the Rhonnda Valley and I work from Port Talbot, I worked out of Bowling Hall in Bradford for years which now resembles something out of Mad Max, and I grew up in 1970s derelict Birmingham, but nothing had prepared me for Bootle.
I blame the insane Corbynite Council. I don't blame the EU.
Oh, absolutely, I don't blame the EU. It just doesn't help as much as its proponents think it does. All it needed to be was a free trade bloc.
Edit - though note Bootle is actually Sefton Council.
Former Scottish Tory MSP Adam Tomkins: "What is to stop all 31 Scottish Conservative MSPs resigning from the Conservative Party and saying they have a new whip, and it's called the liberal unionist whip? What's to stop that? That could happen overnight." https://twitter.com/alistairkgrant/status/1481898099421462533
Douglas Ross is in a bind if Johnson does cling on. The Conservative and Unionist Party may have lots of parties but there won't be any union. (within the Party)
One other interesting point is the list vote. What happens if a MSP resigns from the list? Does some other Scon former candidate step up? I think that only happens on death; if a MSP simply abandons the whip the MSP has AFAIK stayed on, though it's an anomaly. But a mass of them at the same time is pushing it.
Some of GPT3 output is very good, much improved on GPT2.
I asked it for a poem titled "I would rather die"....
I would rather die than live a life that is less than true. I would rather die than be a voice in the crowd. I would rather die than never be heard at all. I would rather die to be the one who stands apart, who dares to take a stand, who dares to say, this is what I think and this is what I feel. But I hope that I can find another way Because I don't want to die today. I want to live a long and happy life And when its time for me to go, well then let me go, but not today. Not just yet Not now.
But it ain't running the government...
That is really quite good. In a “written by a talented 14 year old” kind of way. Clever use of slightly random rhyme
GPT5 will be able to write like Byron
It is quite scary. Anyone who isn’t scared by AI hasn’t read enough about it
There is a somewhat obscure 70s sci-fi film called 'Colossus: The Forbin Project' which I'm very fond of. Goes down the route of 'we've built a computer to look after our nukes and keep us safe from the Russians!' to 'oh, that wasn't quite the plan...'. Well, worth a watch.
Former Scottish Tory MSP Adam Tomkins: "What is to stop all 31 Scottish Conservative MSPs resigning from the Conservative Party and saying they have a new whip, and it's called the liberal unionist whip? What's to stop that? That could happen overnight." https://twitter.com/alistairkgrant/status/1481898099421462533
Douglas Ross is in a bind if Johnson does cling on. The Conservative and Unionist Party may have lots of parties but there won't be any union. (within the Party)
Like the rustic Tories pretending to be Independents in local gmt and interchanging with the Tory Party and its whip in reality, however, will anyone believe that?
Also, if the MSPs do what Prof T suggests that leaves the MPs in a bind. If they join the MSPs, they'll lose not only the Party funds and facilities at Westminster and (I assume) in Scotland; but, at Westminster, the Short Money as well (IIRC that only goes to the bigger parties, and the No Surrender Party will get £0). And getting the southern party to give them some facilities at pubvlic cost or at party cost is dodgy for accounting reasons (Electoral Commission, etc.)
But if the MPs don't follow the MSPs then the Scons will be split on geographical and legislature lines - handing a second propaganda triumph to the SNP.
While winning their propaganda triumph the SNP can still do sod all about indyref2 and thus leak even more to Alba
Is there any reason why the next PM couldn’t be a member of the Lords?
NOT FROSTY??? ARGH!!!
Yes frosty. The heir of Brexit done. The only one entitled to say, make Brexit work. Instantly unites all brexiteers to him. Swallows up all other votes and bets as being a fresh pair of hands. The perfect long shot winner in hindsight there was never anything to stop him, should have been odds-on.
This is happening folks.
Good job we Brexited to rid ourselves of those unelected bureaucrats.
As a rich liberal remainer, grateful for some advice. Rather than getting my coffee made by a Romanian, I made eight cups of tea today for the working class English people building something for me in the garden. And two cheese toasties. I also failed to tell them to work harder, as they seem to be working fairly hard without my input. Am I doing this wrong?
Yes. Should have been eight cheese toasties.
Miserable git indeed, a quarter of a cheese toastie per head
Malcolm there were two guys. I made them a cheese toastie each. They also had a caramel wafer and a packet of crisps!
It confirms that Cummings is infuriatingly clever and cunning - if you are his enemy
This is superbly bang-on:
“Cummings thinks remainers are invariably fools, above all the better-educated ones, because they are incapable of accepting that they might be wrong. His shorthand for these people is Jolyons (after the remainer lawyer Jolyon Maugham) or, as he says of Keir Starmer, the ones who can’t resist giving “the London idiot answer” to any difficult question because they daren’t think for themselves. When Starmer got himself tangled up over the question of whether “only women have a cervix”, it was, Cummings says, because “he’s a dead player working off a script” – and the voters can smell that a mile off.”
Remainers are invariably fools, ESPECIALLY the posher ones. Absolutely right
The article also contains the brilliant revelation that the only reason Cummings and Boris prorogued parliament was to drive their opponents crazy (it worked), get them to talk about nothing else, until they eventually went so mad they provoked an election
I guess Cummings could be lying, but if it’s true it’s genius. It all went wrong for Boris when he lost this guy
Na, it is just that he like you, wants to rebut the idea that Leavers are generally thick, so it remains an obsession of his, like it is yours. It is OK @Leon, you aren't all thick. Obsessed about a trivial and pointless thing, yes, but not all of you are stupid. That feel better now?
He's got a point about some remainers not being able to think independently of the consensus liberal London view. It's the whole argument I've had loads of times with a few people on here about wages at the lower end, there's loads of studies saying it wasn't impacted by A10 migration but then we've had loads of real world evidence of wage rises for those people since Brexit because of low skilled labour shortages. It's like those same people who can't see beyond the phrase "follow the science" on the pandemic. Sometimes the consensus view is wrong and it's been difficult to get some more ardent remainers to see that, whether that's on wages for the lower skilled or on the correct post-vaccine pandemic response.
It's almost as if the consensus is there to exist and not be challenged, which we know is a recipe for disaster in the long term.
Yes. I think it’s essentially the religious module in the human brain, which is at work here, the bit of our mind wired for faith. Except god is replaced by secular atheist faith in this or that liberal piety. In this case, the secular faith is EU membership
The mad posh Remainers confronted by Brexit are like hardcore Catholics confronted by “heresy”. They cannot understand how or why anyone would believe this, Brexit is evil and wrong and can never be right.
You know, I get everything you’re saying. I can see what you mean about posh Remainers.
From my decidedly non-posh standpoint, I think what appals me most about Brexit is that Red Wall people have been promised that we will Take Back Control. And we will.
But I fear, and nothing has happened to disabuse me of this notion, in fact things like that Leeds leg of HS2 being cancelled reinforce it, is that Red Wallers have been persuaded to hand back control to a system that, more often than not, elects Conservative governments that, more often than not, screw the north, the people I love and the communities I am part of.
The EU, or EEC as it was then, handed over big bucks through coalfield regeneration funding, which did help. Now I might be wrong, but I suspect a Conservative government wouldn’t have done such a thing.
Yes, we’re free to spend our own money now how we want. The point being the country very often chooses to elect a government that chooses to spend a disproportionate amount in the South East and London.
I suspect that Boris is now expendable. He got the Red Wallers vote, he sang the siren song on levelling up. Will it last or will the Tory Party revert to type? I suspect the latter.
Yes, wages have gone up for some unskilled people. Will it last? Will they be eaten up by inflation?
Red Wallers were convinced, I think, to vote to hand control from one remote bureaucracy, the EU, that at least had their interests at heart to some extent, though no doubt many will disagree, and give that control to another remote bureaucracy, in Westminster, that very often doesn’t give a rat’s arse about the north and the Midlands.
That's the con trick that really pisses me off.
Maybe I’ll be proved wrong. But I think Boris being flushed away will see levelling up go with him and the party return to type. Belt-tightening, inflation, post-pandemic austerity. Red Wallers will be no better off.
If you're a right-winger and you're wanting the market to run free, Britannia Unleashed, all that kind of thing, then fair enough, my wailing above probably doesn't touch you one bit. But, from what I can gather, when people up here ticked Leave in 2016, that's not what they thought they were going to get.
I agree with much of this diagnosis
Just two points: I don’t believe the Tories will return to ‘austerity’ for quite a while (unless forced by circumstances like a looming default). Big debt is with us for the medium term, as the global economy recovers from Covid (ins’allah)
Also, it’s not true to say Brexit has replaced one remote bureaucracy with another. We are now properly democratic. If the Red Wallers are angry at the Tory government’s betrayal (and fair enough, it’s not looking good) they can have the electoral satisfaction of sweeping them out of office, in humiliating style. Not something they can do to the EU Commission
And that, for me, was pretty much the whole point of Brexit
They won't be daft enough to call it austerity, but a rose by any other name, and all that.
There is that potential electoral satisfaction, yes you're right. And I get what you're saying about the EU Commission. It's a perfectly valid point. For you Brexit's the greater good, we've reverted to the better system. Fine. I just disagree. For me the lesser evil, in terms of the north, was being in the EU. But that battle's been lost. Ah well.
I really don’t see what the EU ‘did for the north’. They just took British taxpayers’ money and randomly gave SOME back to poorer parts of the UK, but most of our money went to Eastern Europe. How is that a ‘good deal’ for the North of England?
And the idea that fat Eurocrats in Strasbourg brasseries spent their time worrying about ‘voters in Stoke’ is worthy of a cartoon
What they did for the north was spend money making things better. Money not spent by UK governments before or after.
I'm happy to agree that its not remotely an efficient way to allocate the funds. But it did happen - and now it isn't. We already have regions begging this government to replace the EU development money and being told no. The "towns fund" is a threadbare sticking plaster of a replacement.
This is just bollocks. The UK had a Labour government from 1997-2010 which spunked public money like King Dong on Cialis. Much of this was bukkake’d all over the happy upturned faces of northern voters. Anything done by the EU was a tiny vinegar stroke in comparison.
The argument is unsound, to put it politely
At the time you may have been under the influence of expensive mind-bending narcotics, but during the 1980s and 90s those of us who remained compos mentis noted that EU social fund money was hosed all over the former industrial regions of England, Scotland and Wales. This took the form of incentives to new technology industries, which it is true all upped sticks and left Eastwards on the accession of the former Soviet countries, and finance for infrastructure projects. It was our fault that we invested this money on cobblestones for the High Street instead of building our own Millau Viaducts.
ISTR Liverpool City Council had an explicit objective to continue to qualify for objective 1 funding - that is, to continue to be poor enough. EU funding created perverse incentives which may have led to a lot of public spending but didn't result in Liverpool becoming less poor.
To an extent I see your point, having stayed in Liverpool three times in the last twelve months I became aware of much of the City's resemblance to a third world slum. Now I have spent much of my life in post-industrial shitholes, I live not twenty miles from the Rhonnda Valley and I work from Port Talbot, I worked out of Bowling Hall in Bradford for years which now resembles something out of Mad Max, and I grew up in 1970s derelict Birmingham, but nothing had prepared me for Bootle.
I blame the insane Corbynite Council. I don't blame the EU.
Oh, absolutely, I don't blame the EU. It just doesn't help as much as its proponents think it does. All it needed to be was a free trade bloc.
Edit - though note Bootle is actually Sefton Council.
Which also contains Southport and Formby. Which are, by any standards, quite nice places to live.
Kate Josephs, the former head of the Government unit responsible for drawing covid-19 restrictions, was given a leaving do in the Cabinet Office on December 17 2020 - the day before the Number 10 Xmas Party
Kate Josephs, the former head of the Government unit responsible for drawing covid-19 restrictions, was given a leaving do in the Cabinet Office on December 17 2020 - the day before the Number 10 Xmas Party
Kate Josephs, the former head of the Government unit responsible for drawing covid-19 restrictions, was given a leaving do in the Cabinet Office on December 17 2020 - the day before the Number 10 Xmas Party
Maybe the DT are so keen to see the return of their top columnist that they are helping him through the window.
Surely Boris's value as a columnist is in tatters. His whole shtick was based upon 'I'm a lad, cut through the crap and have better solutions than all the stuffed shirts who run things.' Who would read his pontifications now with anything other than a rasping cackle or a disillusioned sigh?
So are you saying the public no longer see "the Emperor's New Clothes" just a naked overweight charlatan?
No, post PM Boris will still be marketable. Hugely. He still writes well, he still speaks idiosyncratically. His failings have been human ones. He has been brought down by being Falstaff.
Competence as a PM is no prerequisite for success as a post-PM.
His writing style and his speeches are part of the Emperor's New Clothes. His anti- Brussels fictional nonsense which undermined EU harmonised standards (straight bananas and pink sausages) and his Kermit the Frog and Peppa Pig speeches make my point.
I have no doubt people will pay good money for this garbage, and good luck to them. I can't help feeling they will have been short changed.
Extinction Rebellion: Jury clears protesters dragged off train roof
Last month, the Anglican priest admitted she was "surprised" to avoid jail for blocking the M25. She was one of seven members of Insulate Britain who were handed suspended sentences for breaching an injunction and being in contempt of court.
So we can't even claim well it was just one of those things she got a bit carried away. She already guilty of blocking motorways and has a suspended sentence against her. Clear pattern of behaviour.
Perhaps jury trial, like democracy, has had its day
I’m semi-serious. That’s another implication from Cummings’ blog. Democracy may be dying. If it is proved that other systems are better at delivering prosperity, peace and happiness is democracy intrinsically worry pursuing? Hence his (and my) fascination with Singapore
And yes I get the irony that I voted Leavd ‘because democracy’ but the world is full of complex ironies
FWIW I think democracy definitely IS finished, in the long term, thanks to AI. GPT37 will make decisions which are so much smarter and more strategic and less emotional than any politician - or Eurocrat, or CCP apparatchik - we will hand over all our governance to the machines
Erm, isn't Singapore a democracy? Even if the same side always wins.
Not as we know it.....
Ranks below Philippines, Indonesia and Malaysia in SE Asia:
It is also far richer than any of those, indeed it is one of the richest countries on the planet
And it has zero crime
I’ve said this before on PB: 90% of people, if offered a choice between life in rich, crime-free, not-very-democratic Singapore, or life in a less rich, more dangerous, properly democratic alternative, would choose Singapore
Which is why Singapore is a challenge to liberal democracies (and liberalism) and why democracy is entirely doomed, long term. The super-computers will be the Singapore government on steroids. Cold, calculating, but phenomenally efficient at producing results
Which is strange. Because Taiwan has quite a population of Singaporeans who have moved precisely cos they like a bit of dirt, danger, surprise and adventure in their life.
Indeed: would I rather live in Singapore or Somalia? Obviously Singapore. But as long as a reasonable base level of not-being-a-shithole is achieved, there are diminishing returns from increasing levels of cleanliness, order and wealth.
Extinction Rebellion: Jury clears protesters dragged off train roof
Last month, the Anglican priest admitted she was "surprised" to avoid jail for blocking the M25. She was one of seven members of Insulate Britain who were handed suspended sentences for breaching an injunction and being in contempt of court.
So we can't even claim well it was just one of those things she got a bit carried away. She already guilty of blocking motorways and has a suspended sentence against her. Clear pattern of behaviour.
Perhaps jury trial, like democracy, has had its day
I’m semi-serious. That’s another implication from Cummings’ blog. Democracy may be dying. If it is proved that other systems are better at delivering prosperity, peace and happiness is democracy intrinsically worry pursuing? Hence his (and my) fascination with Singapore
And yes I get the irony that I voted Leavd ‘because democracy’ but the world is full of complex ironies
FWIW I think democracy definitely IS finished, in the long term, thanks to AI. GPT37 will make decisions which are so much smarter and more strategic and less emotional than any politician - or Eurocrat, or CCP apparatchik - we will hand over all our governance to the machines
Now take your sentence - "FWIW I think democracy definitely IS finished, in the long term, thanks to AI. GPT37 will make decisions"
And let's see how it does at producing something sensible:
"FWIW I think democracy definitely IS finished, in the long term, thanks to AI. GPT37 will make decisions on the basis of the best interests of the people . I think it 's 's a a time good good good good good to to to to to for for have"
Kinda good to the end of the sentence... And then utter gibberish.
All these GPT "AIs" are just pattern matchers: they don't have any ability to reason.
The difference between GPT2 and GPT3 is dumbfounding. The latter is so much “smarter”. After five or ten more iterations what will they be capable of achieving? The argument as to whether they are “intelligent” will be reduced to theology, they will certainly appear EXTREMELY intelligent, more so than us
And it’s not “pattern matching” - it’s autocomplete, which is somewhat different
Autocomplete works by pattern matching.
Ok as we’re talking about AI and war and UFOs - kinda - a young female friend of mine in Tooting has just seen THIS
She wears it is ten times bigger than a plane and it is going STRAIGHT UP. Like a space rocket or a missile. There’s a short video as well, which proves this.
Wtf is that? Do we have a secret space base in Tooting?
I’m pleasantly flummoxed. Any ideas? Optical illusion? Plane seen at a weird angle?
Sigh. Among other things, military jets are often design to climb quite rapidly...
Why the condescending “sigh”?
I didn’t run around screaming OMG ITS DEM ALIENS, I politely inquired of a knowledgeable forum
The video really doesn’t look like a military jet. But it IS far away and hard to tell
And she is sure the size is enormous - “ten times bigger than an airliner” - but of course eye witnesses are unreliable
We do have military air fields near south london IIRC
Extinction Rebellion: Jury clears protesters dragged off train roof
Last month, the Anglican priest admitted she was "surprised" to avoid jail for blocking the M25. She was one of seven members of Insulate Britain who were handed suspended sentences for breaching an injunction and being in contempt of court.
So we can't even claim well it was just one of those things she got a bit carried away. She already guilty of blocking motorways and has a suspended sentence against her. Clear pattern of behaviour.
Perhaps jury trial, like democracy, has had its day
I’m semi-serious. That’s another implication from Cummings’ blog. Democracy may be dying. If it is proved that other systems are better at delivering prosperity, peace and happiness is democracy intrinsically worry pursuing? Hence his (and my) fascination with Singapore
And yes I get the irony that I voted Leavd ‘because democracy’ but the world is full of complex ironies
FWIW I think democracy definitely IS finished, in the long term, thanks to AI. GPT37 will make decisions which are so much smarter and more strategic and less emotional than any politician - or Eurocrat, or CCP apparatchik - we will hand over all our governance to the machines
Erm, isn't Singapore a democracy? Even if the same side always wins.
Not as we know it.....
Ranks below Philippines, Indonesia and Malaysia in SE Asia:
It is also far richer than any of those, indeed it is one of the richest countries on the planet
And it has zero crime
I’ve said this before on PB: 90% of people, if offered a choice between life in rich, crime-free, not-very-democratic Singapore, or life in a less rich, more dangerous, properly democratic alternative, would choose Singapore
Which is why Singapore is a challenge to liberal democracies (and liberalism) and why democracy is entirely doomed, long term. The super-computers will be the Singapore government on steroids. Cold, calculating, but phenomenally efficient at producing results
It's a city state. Not really an option for most of the world.
That's a very good point.
Firstly, city states are just richer (see Hanseatic League onwards...)
Secondly, city states probably have fewer competing interests (no town v country), which make the job of the benevolent dictator easier.
The Duke of York is bracing himself to find out in the coming days whether his ex-wife and daughters will face questioning from Virginia Giuffre’s lawyers.
Prince Andrew’s legal team are expecting to discover, possibly as early as this weekend, which members of his family will be asked to give evidence under oath, The Times can reveal.
David Boies, Giuffre’s lawyer who has been nicknamed the “great inquisitor” because of his skill at interviewing witnesses under oath, has already suggested he might question the Duchess of York and their daughters Princesses Beatrice and Eugenie.
They will likely be asked about Andrew’s alibi for the night in 2001 when Giuffre says she first had sex with the duke in Ghislaine Maxwell’s London home after dancing together at the nightclub Tramp.
In his Newsnight interview in 2019, Andrew said that he was with the children that day and remembered taking Beatrice to a party at the Pizza Express in Woking.
Very soon the same commentators who told you that Johnson was a political genius are going to tell you that Truss is a reincarnation of Margaret Thatcher. Every word they write will be vacuous bollocks.
The one thing Big Dom gets right and provable from the COVID coverage, the political media know the square root of f##k all about anything but gossip and scandal within Westminster.
" the political media know the square root of f##k all about anything but gossip and scandal within Westminster."
Fixed that for you.
No credit where credit is due, they are good when a scandal erupts of how to skewer lying politicians.
Yes, but it's their job to cause the scandal to erupt, not leave it to Dom a year later
Some of GPT3 output is very good, much improved on GPT2.
I asked it for a poem titled "I would rather die"....
I would rather die than live a life that is less than true. I would rather die than be a voice in the crowd. I would rather die than never be heard at all. I would rather die to be the one who stands apart, who dares to take a stand, who dares to say, this is what I think and this is what I feel. But I hope that I can find another way Because I don't want to die today. I want to live a long and happy life And when its time for me to go, well then let me go, but not today. Not just yet Not now.
But it ain't running the government...
That is really quite good. In a “written by a talented 14 year old” kind of way. Clever use of slightly random rhyme
GPT5 will be able to write like Byron
It is quite scary. Anyone who isn’t scared by AI hasn’t read enough about it
There is a somewhat obscure 70s sci-fi film called 'Colossus: The Forbin Project' which I'm very fond of. Goes down the route of 'we've built a computer to look after our nukes and keep us safe from the Russians!' to 'oh, that wasn't quite the plan...'. Well, worth a watch.
It confirms that Cummings is infuriatingly clever and cunning - if you are his enemy
This is superbly bang-on:
“Cummings thinks remainers are invariably fools, above all the better-educated ones, because they are incapable of accepting that they might be wrong. His shorthand for these people is Jolyons (after the remainer lawyer Jolyon Maugham) or, as he says of Keir Starmer, the ones who can’t resist giving “the London idiot answer” to any difficult question because they daren’t think for themselves. When Starmer got himself tangled up over the question of whether “only women have a cervix”, it was, Cummings says, because “he’s a dead player working off a script” – and the voters can smell that a mile off.”
Remainers are invariably fools, ESPECIALLY the posher ones. Absolutely right
The article also contains the brilliant revelation that the only reason Cummings and Boris prorogued parliament was to drive their opponents crazy (it worked), get them to talk about nothing else, until they eventually went so mad they provoked an election
I guess Cummings could be lying, but if it’s true it’s genius. It all went wrong for Boris when he lost this guy
Na, it is just that he like you, wants to rebut the idea that Leavers are generally thick, so it remains an obsession of his, like it is yours. It is OK @Leon, you aren't all thick. Obsessed about a trivial and pointless thing, yes, but not all of you are stupid. That feel better now?
He's got a point about some remainers not being able to think independently of the consensus liberal London view. It's the whole argument I've had loads of times with a few people on here about wages at the lower end, there's loads of studies saying it wasn't impacted by A10 migration but then we've had loads of real world evidence of wage rises for those people since Brexit because of low skilled labour shortages. It's like those same people who can't see beyond the phrase "follow the science" on the pandemic. Sometimes the consensus view is wrong and it's been difficult to get some more ardent remainers to see that, whether that's on wages for the lower skilled or on the correct post-vaccine pandemic response.
It's almost as if the consensus is there to exist and not be challenged, which we know is a recipe for disaster in the long term.
Yes. I think it’s essentially the religious module in the human brain, which is at work here, the bit of our mind wired for faith. Except god is replaced by secular atheist faith in this or that liberal piety. In this case, the secular faith is EU membership
The mad posh Remainers confronted by Brexit are like hardcore Catholics confronted by “heresy”. They cannot understand how or why anyone would believe this, Brexit is evil and wrong and can never be right.
You know, I get everything you’re saying. I can see what you mean about posh Remainers.
From my decidedly non-posh standpoint, I think what appals me most about Brexit is that Red Wall people have been promised that we will Take Back Control. And we will.
But I fear, and nothing has happened to disabuse me of this notion, in fact things like that Leeds leg of HS2 being cancelled reinforce it, is that Red Wallers have been persuaded to hand back control to a system that, more often than not, elects Conservative governments that, more often than not, screw the north, the people I love and the communities I am part of.
The EU, or EEC as it was then, handed over big bucks through coalfield regeneration funding, which did help. Now I might be wrong, but I suspect a Conservative government wouldn’t have done such a thing.
Yes, we’re free to spend our own money now how we want. The point being the country very often chooses to elect a government that chooses to spend a disproportionate amount in the South East and London.
I suspect that Boris is now expendable. He got the Red Wallers vote, he sang the siren song on levelling up. Will it last or will the Tory Party revert to type? I suspect the latter.
Yes, wages have gone up for some unskilled people. Will it last? Will they be eaten up by inflation?
Red Wallers were convinced, I think, to vote to hand control from one remote bureaucracy, the EU, that at least had their interests at heart to some extent, though no doubt many will disagree, and give that control to another remote bureaucracy, in Westminster, that very often doesn’t give a rat’s arse about the north and the Midlands.
That's the con trick that really pisses me off.
Maybe I’ll be proved wrong. But I think Boris being flushed away will see levelling up go with him and the party return to type. Belt-tightening, inflation, post-pandemic austerity. Red Wallers will be no better off.
If you're a right-winger and you're wanting the market to run free, Britannia Unleashed, all that kind of thing, then fair enough, my wailing above probably doesn't touch you one bit. But, from what I can gather, when people up here ticked Leave in 2016, that's not what they thought they were going to get.
I agree with much of this diagnosis
Just two points: I don’t believe the Tories will return to ‘austerity’ for quite a while (unless forced by circumstances like a looming default). Big debt is with us for the medium term, as the global economy recovers from Covid (ins’allah)
Also, it’s not true to say Brexit has replaced one remote bureaucracy with another. We are now properly democratic. If the Red Wallers are angry at the Tory government’s betrayal (and fair enough, it’s not looking good) they can have the electoral satisfaction of sweeping them out of office, in humiliating style. Not something they can do to the EU Commission
And that, for me, was pretty much the whole point of Brexit
They won't be daft enough to call it austerity, but a rose by any other name, and all that.
There is that potential electoral satisfaction, yes you're right. And I get what you're saying about the EU Commission. It's a perfectly valid point. For you Brexit's the greater good, we've reverted to the better system. Fine. I just disagree. For me the lesser evil, in terms of the north, was being in the EU. But that battle's been lost. Ah well.
I really don’t see what the EU ‘did for the north’. They just took British taxpayers’ money and randomly gave SOME back to poorer parts of the UK, but most of our money went to Eastern Europe. How is that a ‘good deal’ for the North of England?
And the idea that fat Eurocrats in Strasbourg brasseries spent their time worrying about ‘voters in Stoke’ is worthy of a cartoon
What they did for the north was spend money making things better. Money not spent by UK governments before or after.
I'm happy to agree that its not remotely an efficient way to allocate the funds. But it did happen - and now it isn't. We already have regions begging this government to replace the EU development money and being told no. The "towns fund" is a threadbare sticking plaster of a replacement.
This is just bollocks. The UK had a Labour government from 1997-2010 which spunked public money like King Dong on Cialis. Much of this was bukkake’d all over the happy upturned faces of northern voters. Anything done by the EU was a tiny vinegar stroke in comparison.
The argument is unsound, to put it politely
At the time you may have been under the influence of expensive mind-bending narcotics, but during the 1980s and 90s those of us who remained compos mentis noted that EU social fund money was hosed all over the former industrial regions of England, Scotland and Wales. This took the form of incentives to new technology industries, which it is true all upped sticks and left Eastwards on the accession of the former Soviet countries, and finance for infrastructure projects. It was our fault that we invested this money on cobblestones for the High Street instead of building our own Millau Viaducts.
ISTR Liverpool City Council had an explicit objective to continue to qualify for objective 1 funding - that is, to continue to be poor enough. EU funding created perverse incentives which may have led to a lot of public spending but didn't result in Liverpool becoming less poor.
To an extent I see your point, having stayed in Liverpool three times in the last twelve months I became aware of much of the City's resemblance to a third world slum. Now I have spent much of my life in post-industrial shitholes, I live not twenty miles from the Rhonnda Valley and I work from Port Talbot, I worked out of Bowling Hall in Bradford for years which now resembles something out of Mad Max, and I grew up in 1970s derelict Birmingham, but nothing had prepared me for Bootle.
I blame the insane Corbynite Council. I don't blame the EU.
Oh, absolutely, I don't blame the EU. It just doesn't help as much as its proponents think it does. All it needed to be was a free trade bloc.
As an arch- Remainer I don't disagree that the EU is a bit s***. It is just that the alternative appeared and appears considerably worse.
It confirms that Cummings is infuriatingly clever and cunning - if you are his enemy
This is superbly bang-on:
“Cummings thinks remainers are invariably fools, above all the better-educated ones, because they are incapable of accepting that they might be wrong. His shorthand for these people is Jolyons (after the remainer lawyer Jolyon Maugham) or, as he says of Keir Starmer, the ones who can’t resist giving “the London idiot answer” to any difficult question because they daren’t think for themselves. When Starmer got himself tangled up over the question of whether “only women have a cervix”, it was, Cummings says, because “he’s a dead player working off a script” – and the voters can smell that a mile off.”
Remainers are invariably fools, ESPECIALLY the posher ones. Absolutely right
The article also contains the brilliant revelation that the only reason Cummings and Boris prorogued parliament was to drive their opponents crazy (it worked), get them to talk about nothing else, until they eventually went so mad they provoked an election
I guess Cummings could be lying, but if it’s true it’s genius. It all went wrong for Boris when he lost this guy
Na, it is just that he like you, wants to rebut the idea that Leavers are generally thick, so it remains an obsession of his, like it is yours. It is OK @Leon, you aren't all thick. Obsessed about a trivial and pointless thing, yes, but not all of you are stupid. That feel better now?
He's got a point about some remainers not being able to think independently of the consensus liberal London view. It's the whole argument I've had loads of times with a few people on here about wages at the lower end, there's loads of studies saying it wasn't impacted by A10 migration but then we've had loads of real world evidence of wage rises for those people since Brexit because of low skilled labour shortages. It's like those same people who can't see beyond the phrase "follow the science" on the pandemic. Sometimes the consensus view is wrong and it's been difficult to get some more ardent remainers to see that, whether that's on wages for the lower skilled or on the correct post-vaccine pandemic response.
It's almost as if the consensus is there to exist and not be challenged, which we know is a recipe for disaster in the long term.
Yes. I think it’s essentially the religious module in the human brain, which is at work here, the bit of our mind wired for faith. Except god is replaced by secular atheist faith in this or that liberal piety. In this case, the secular faith is EU membership
The mad posh Remainers confronted by Brexit are like hardcore Catholics confronted by “heresy”. They cannot understand how or why anyone would believe this, Brexit is evil and wrong and can never be right.
You know, I get everything you’re saying. I can see what you mean about posh Remainers.
From my decidedly non-posh standpoint, I think what appals me most about Brexit is that Red Wall people have been promised that we will Take Back Control. And we will.
But I fear, and nothing has happened to disabuse me of this notion, in fact things like that Leeds leg of HS2 being cancelled reinforce it, is that Red Wallers have been persuaded to hand back control to a system that, more often than not, elects Conservative governments that, more often than not, screw the north, the people I love and the communities I am part of.
The EU, or EEC as it was then, handed over big bucks through coalfield regeneration funding, which did help. Now I might be wrong, but I suspect a Conservative government wouldn’t have done such a thing.
Yes, we’re free to spend our own money now how we want. The point being the country very often chooses to elect a government that chooses to spend a disproportionate amount in the South East and London.
I suspect that Boris is now expendable. He got the Red Wallers vote, he sang the siren song on levelling up. Will it last or will the Tory Party revert to type? I suspect the latter.
Yes, wages have gone up for some unskilled people. Will it last? Will they be eaten up by inflation?
Red Wallers were convinced, I think, to vote to hand control from one remote bureaucracy, the EU, that at least had their interests at heart to some extent, though no doubt many will disagree, and give that control to another remote bureaucracy, in Westminster, that very often doesn’t give a rat’s arse about the north and the Midlands.
That's the con trick that really pisses me off.
Maybe I’ll be proved wrong. But I think Boris being flushed away will see levelling up go with him and the party return to type. Belt-tightening, inflation, post-pandemic austerity. Red Wallers will be no better off.
If you're a right-winger and you're wanting the market to run free, Britannia Unleashed, all that kind of thing, then fair enough, my wailing above probably doesn't touch you one bit. But, from what I can gather, when people up here ticked Leave in 2016, that's not what they thought they were going to get.
I agree with much of this diagnosis
Just two points: I don’t believe the Tories will return to ‘austerity’ for quite a while (unless forced by circumstances like a looming default). Big debt is with us for the medium term, as the global economy recovers from Covid (ins’allah)
Also, it’s not true to say Brexit has replaced one remote bureaucracy with another. We are now properly democratic. If the Red Wallers are angry at the Tory government’s betrayal (and fair enough, it’s not looking good) they can have the electoral satisfaction of sweeping them out of office, in humiliating style. Not something they can do to the EU Commission
And that, for me, was pretty much the whole point of Brexit
They won't be daft enough to call it austerity, but a rose by any other name, and all that.
There is that potential electoral satisfaction, yes you're right. And I get what you're saying about the EU Commission. It's a perfectly valid point. For you Brexit's the greater good, we've reverted to the better system. Fine. I just disagree. For me the lesser evil, in terms of the north, was being in the EU. But that battle's been lost. Ah well.
I really don’t see what the EU ‘did for the north’. They just took British taxpayers’ money and randomly gave SOME back to poorer parts of the UK, but most of our money went to Eastern Europe. How is that a ‘good deal’ for the North of England?
And the idea that fat Eurocrats in Strasbourg brasseries spent their time worrying about ‘voters in Stoke’ is worthy of a cartoon
What they did for the north was spend money making things better. Money not spent by UK governments before or after.
I'm happy to agree that its not remotely an efficient way to allocate the funds. But it did happen - and now it isn't. We already have regions begging this government to replace the EU development money and being told no. The "towns fund" is a threadbare sticking plaster of a replacement.
This is just bollocks. The UK had a Labour government from 1997-2010 which spunked public money like King Dong on Cialis. Much of this was bukkake’d all over the happy upturned faces of northern voters. Anything done by the EU was a tiny vinegar stroke in comparison.
The argument is unsound, to put it politely
At the time you may have been under the influence of expensive mind-bending narcotics, but during the 1980s and 90s those of us who remained compos mentis noted that EU social fund money was hosed all over the former industrial regions of England, Scotland and Wales. This took the form of incentives to new technology industries, which it is true all upped sticks and left Eastwards on the accession of the former Soviet countries, and finance for infrastructure projects. It was our fault that we invested this money on cobblestones for the High Street instead of building our own Millau Viaducts.
ISTR Liverpool City Council had an explicit objective to continue to qualify for objective 1 funding - that is, to continue to be poor enough. EU funding created perverse incentives which may have led to a lot of public spending but didn't result in Liverpool becoming less poor.
To an extent I see your point, having stayed in Liverpool three times in the last twelve months I became aware of much of the City's resemblance to a third world slum. Now I have spent much of my life in post-industrial shitholes, I live not twenty miles from the Rhonnda Valley and I work from Port Talbot, I worked out of Bowling Hall in Bradford for years which now resembles something out of Mad Max, and I grew up in 1970s derelict Birmingham, but nothing had prepared me for Bootle.
I blame the insane Corbynite Council. I don't blame the EU.
Oh, absolutely, I don't blame the EU. It just doesn't help as much as its proponents think it does. All it needed to be was a free trade bloc.
So you leavers spent a generation moaning on about how you only wanted a trade bloc, then as soon as you get the chance, you leave the trade bloc as well, without having told us that you would.
In truth, there aren't many serious contenders for an immediate post-Johnson Conservative Party leadership election.
In the absence of a Heseltine-type figure, you are looking at the three main offices of state so Sunak, Truss and Patel (all five letter surnames but that was true of Blair, Brown and of course Major as well as Heath).
The more intriguing question is what would a future Sunak or Truss Cabinet look like? Who would be in line for promotion or demotion if the current Chancellor or Foreign State successfully navigated the sea of electoral hazard and prevailed?
You'd imagine the winner would want his/her main opponent in a senior position because you keep your friends close and your enemies closer. Who would be Sunak's CoE for example - Trevelyan or Zahawi? I can't see Javid wanting the job again and the likes of Raab and Gove are already looking like yesterday's news.
Could Ben Wallace move to the Foreign Office in a Truss-led Government?
That's the thing about politics - the unexpected opportunity for advancement - could we see Michelle Donelan for example move up the Ministerial order somewhat?
Or Deputy PM Raab.
He could end up the candidate in the final 2 put forward by MPs alongside Sunak, not Truss or Patel
He is also the likeliest candidate for any Howard or Brown style coronation
Er, didn't he go to the party? Or a party. I've lost count.
Sky have just said she is a senior civil servant and the concern now is that the drinks culture is widespread across the civil service
As I suggested earlier I expect changes to employment rules to follow relating to drinking in the workplace
It sounds like the clown has transported workplace culture inside government straight back to the early 1980s?
I am bemused. That seems the likeliest explanation but I don't see how it spread so quickily in less than 3 years. Adults just don't behave like this FFS.
It seems pretty clear - from various first hand reports - that number ten under Johnson has turned into the equivalent of what happens if you leave your teenage son in charge of the house for a week.
I find it very hard to believe that it was like that under the austere Theresa.
It is the sheer studenty incompetence of it. Grown ups arrange for those nice chaps at BB&R to send some nice plain cardboard boxes round, in advance
Indeed. 1991, when at University, I phoned up the local Oddbins, got a quote, and told the other students on my floor of the hall, that if we order over £100 of booze, jointly, a nice man would deliver it to us (gratis), within half an hour, on a hand truck all the way to the fridge....
Is it part of the problem with/for HM's current govt, that the Bullingtonians and other chinless wonders always relied on nanny, Jeeves or other sub-aristo to fetch, carry, etc., etc.?
Thus they are well equipped for trashing a fine restaurant or government department, but ill-equipped for the rigors of ordinary life, let alone the challenges of basic administration OR leadership?
On the subject of next Tory leader - I keep having the delicious thought of a triumphant PM Theresa May standing at the door of No.10 as Boris slopes off in a van.
Panic is over isn't it, people can see that omicron is 'nothing to worry about' and besides we've done christmas, so if you get it now its a week off/isolating/wfh...
It does feel that way. Certainly my fear of the virus is less these days. In the early days of the pandemic I actually used to hold my breath if I got near anybody. Now as we approach the end of it I still try and keep my distance but there's none of that. I breath normally.
Apart from wearing a mask on public transport and in shops which remains a legal requirement until, I suspect, the next review, I am living an entirely normal existence. I was working at home a lot before it became fashionable and I don't miss trudging up to a cold tube station before dawn on a winter morning.
Is there any point continuing with Plan B now, I suspect it will be binned on 26 Jan, but why wait? The WFH mandate is really problematic for new biz / client relationships. People can and should WFH when convenient but the mandate seems pointless now given the numbers.
Extinction Rebellion: Jury clears protesters dragged off train roof
Last month, the Anglican priest admitted she was "surprised" to avoid jail for blocking the M25. She was one of seven members of Insulate Britain who were handed suspended sentences for breaching an injunction and being in contempt of court.
So we can't even claim well it was just one of those things she got a bit carried away. She already guilty of blocking motorways and has a suspended sentence against her. Clear pattern of behaviour.
Perhaps jury trial, like democracy, has had its day
I’m semi-serious. That’s another implication from Cummings’ blog. Democracy may be dying. If it is proved that other systems are better at delivering prosperity, peace and happiness is democracy intrinsically worry pursuing? Hence his (and my) fascination with Singapore
And yes I get the irony that I voted Leavd ‘because democracy’ but the world is full of complex ironies
FWIW I think democracy definitely IS finished, in the long term, thanks to AI. GPT37 will make decisions which are so much smarter and more strategic and less emotional than any politician - or Eurocrat, or CCP apparatchik - we will hand over all our governance to the machines
Now take your sentence - "FWIW I think democracy definitely IS finished, in the long term, thanks to AI. GPT37 will make decisions"
And let's see how it does at producing something sensible:
"FWIW I think democracy definitely IS finished, in the long term, thanks to AI. GPT37 will make decisions on the basis of the best interests of the people . I think it 's 's a a time good good good good good to to to to to for for have"
Kinda good to the end of the sentence... And then utter gibberish.
All these GPT "AIs" are just pattern matchers: they don't have any ability to reason.
The difference between GPT2 and GPT3 is dumbfounding. The latter is so much “smarter”. After five or ten more iterations what will they be capable of achieving? The argument as to whether they are “intelligent” will be reduced to theology, they will certainly appear EXTREMELY intelligent, more so than us
And it’s not “pattern matching” - it’s autocomplete, which is somewhat different
Autocomplete works by pattern matching.
Ok as we’re talking about AI and war and UFOs - kinda - a young female friend of mine in Tooting has just seen THIS
She wears it is ten times bigger than a plane and it is going STRAIGHT UP. Like a space rocket or a missile. There’s a short video as well, which proves this.
Wtf is that? Do we have a secret space base in Tooting?
I’m pleasantly flummoxed. Any ideas? Optical illusion? Plane seen at a weird angle?
Sigh. Among other things, military jets are often design to climb quite rapidly...
Why the condescending “sigh”?
I didn’t run around screaming OMG ITS DEM ALIENS, I politely inquired of a knowledgeable forum
The video really doesn’t look like a military jet. But it IS far away and hard to tell
And she is sure the size is enormous - “ten times bigger than an airliner” - but of course eye witnesses are unreliable
We do have military air fields near south london IIRC
Extinction Rebellion: Jury clears protesters dragged off train roof
Last month, the Anglican priest admitted she was "surprised" to avoid jail for blocking the M25. She was one of seven members of Insulate Britain who were handed suspended sentences for breaching an injunction and being in contempt of court.
So we can't even claim well it was just one of those things she got a bit carried away. She already guilty of blocking motorways and has a suspended sentence against her. Clear pattern of behaviour.
Perhaps jury trial, like democracy, has had its day
I’m semi-serious. That’s another implication from Cummings’ blog. Democracy may be dying. If it is proved that other systems are better at delivering prosperity, peace and happiness is democracy intrinsically worry pursuing? Hence his (and my) fascination with Singapore
And yes I get the irony that I voted Leavd ‘because democracy’ but the world is full of complex ironies
FWIW I think democracy definitely IS finished, in the long term, thanks to AI. GPT37 will make decisions which are so much smarter and more strategic and less emotional than any politician - or Eurocrat, or CCP apparatchik - we will hand over all our governance to the machines
Erm, isn't Singapore a democracy? Even if the same side always wins.
Not as we know it.....
Ranks below Philippines, Indonesia and Malaysia in SE Asia:
It is also far richer than any of those, indeed it is one of the richest countries on the planet
And it has zero crime
I’ve said this before on PB: 90% of people, if offered a choice between life in rich, crime-free, not-very-democratic Singapore, or life in a less rich, more dangerous, properly democratic alternative, would choose Singapore
Which is why Singapore is a challenge to liberal democracies (and liberalism) and why democracy is entirely doomed, long term. The super-computers will be the Singapore government on steroids. Cold, calculating, but phenomenally efficient at producing results
Which is strange. Because Taiwan has quite a population of Singaporeans who have moved precisely cos they like a bit of dirt, danger, surprise and adventure in their life.
Indeed: would I rather live in Singapore or Somalia? Obviously Singapore. But as long as a reasonable base level of not-being-a-shithole is achieved, there are diminishing returns from increasing levels of cleanliness, order and wealth.
Extinction Rebellion: Jury clears protesters dragged off train roof
Last month, the Anglican priest admitted she was "surprised" to avoid jail for blocking the M25. She was one of seven members of Insulate Britain who were handed suspended sentences for breaching an injunction and being in contempt of court.
So we can't even claim well it was just one of those things she got a bit carried away. She already guilty of blocking motorways and has a suspended sentence against her. Clear pattern of behaviour.
Perhaps jury trial, like democracy, has had its day
I’m semi-serious. That’s another implication from Cummings’ blog. Democracy may be dying. If it is proved that other systems are better at delivering prosperity, peace and happiness is democracy intrinsically worry pursuing? Hence his (and my) fascination with Singapore
And yes I get the irony that I voted Leavd ‘because democracy’ but the world is full of complex ironies
FWIW I think democracy definitely IS finished, in the long term, thanks to AI. GPT37 will make decisions which are so much smarter and more strategic and less emotional than any politician - or Eurocrat, or CCP apparatchik - we will hand over all our governance to the machines
Erm, isn't Singapore a democracy? Even if the same side always wins.
Not as we know it.....
Ranks below Philippines, Indonesia and Malaysia in SE Asia:
It is also far richer than any of those, indeed it is one of the richest countries on the planet
And it has zero crime
I’ve said this before on PB: 90% of people, if offered a choice between life in rich, crime-free, not-very-democratic Singapore, or life in a less rich, more dangerous, properly democratic alternative, would choose Singapore
Which is why Singapore is a challenge to liberal democracies (and liberalism) and why democracy is entirely doomed, long term. The super-computers will be the Singapore government on steroids. Cold, calculating, but phenomenally efficient at producing results
Which is strange. Because Taiwan has quite a population of Singaporeans who have moved precisely cos they like a bit of dirt, danger, surprise and adventure in their life.
Indeed: would I rather live in Singapore or Somalia? Obviously Singapore. But as long as a reasonable base level of not-being-a-shithole is achieved, there are diminishing returns from increasing levels of cleanliness, order and wealth.
A Singaporean friend described it thus. It's clean, green and very good for you. Like a diet of boiled cabbage. No doubt it's great if you are wealthy and set in your ways.
It confirms that Cummings is infuriatingly clever and cunning - if you are his enemy
This is superbly bang-on:
“Cummings thinks remainers are invariably fools, above all the better-educated ones, because they are incapable of accepting that they might be wrong. His shorthand for these people is Jolyons (after the remainer lawyer Jolyon Maugham) or, as he says of Keir Starmer, the ones who can’t resist giving “the London idiot answer” to any difficult question because they daren’t think for themselves. When Starmer got himself tangled up over the question of whether “only women have a cervix”, it was, Cummings says, because “he’s a dead player working off a script” – and the voters can smell that a mile off.”
Remainers are invariably fools, ESPECIALLY the posher ones. Absolutely right
The article also contains the brilliant revelation that the only reason Cummings and Boris prorogued parliament was to drive their opponents crazy (it worked), get them to talk about nothing else, until they eventually went so mad they provoked an election
I guess Cummings could be lying, but if it’s true it’s genius. It all went wrong for Boris when he lost this guy
Na, it is just that he like you, wants to rebut the idea that Leavers are generally thick, so it remains an obsession of his, like it is yours. It is OK @Leon, you aren't all thick. Obsessed about a trivial and pointless thing, yes, but not all of you are stupid. That feel better now?
He's got a point about some remainers not being able to think independently of the consensus liberal London view. It's the whole argument I've had loads of times with a few people on here about wages at the lower end, there's loads of studies saying it wasn't impacted by A10 migration but then we've had loads of real world evidence of wage rises for those people since Brexit because of low skilled labour shortages. It's like those same people who can't see beyond the phrase "follow the science" on the pandemic. Sometimes the consensus view is wrong and it's been difficult to get some more ardent remainers to see that, whether that's on wages for the lower skilled or on the correct post-vaccine pandemic response.
It's almost as if the consensus is there to exist and not be challenged, which we know is a recipe for disaster in the long term.
Yes. I think it’s essentially the religious module in the human brain, which is at work here, the bit of our mind wired for faith. Except god is replaced by secular atheist faith in this or that liberal piety. In this case, the secular faith is EU membership
The mad posh Remainers confronted by Brexit are like hardcore Catholics confronted by “heresy”. They cannot understand how or why anyone would believe this, Brexit is evil and wrong and can never be right.
You know, I get everything you’re saying. I can see what you mean about posh Remainers.
From my decidedly non-posh standpoint, I think what appals me most about Brexit is that Red Wall people have been promised that we will Take Back Control. And we will.
But I fear, and nothing has happened to disabuse me of this notion, in fact things like that Leeds leg of HS2 being cancelled reinforce it, is that Red Wallers have been persuaded to hand back control to a system that, more often than not, elects Conservative governments that, more often than not, screw the north, the people I love and the communities I am part of.
The EU, or EEC as it was then, handed over big bucks through coalfield regeneration funding, which did help. Now I might be wrong, but I suspect a Conservative government wouldn’t have done such a thing.
Yes, we’re free to spend our own money now how we want. The point being the country very often chooses to elect a government that chooses to spend a disproportionate amount in the South East and London.
I suspect that Boris is now expendable. He got the Red Wallers vote, he sang the siren song on levelling up. Will it last or will the Tory Party revert to type? I suspect the latter.
Yes, wages have gone up for some unskilled people. Will it last? Will they be eaten up by inflation?
Red Wallers were convinced, I think, to vote to hand control from one remote bureaucracy, the EU, that at least had their interests at heart to some extent, though no doubt many will disagree, and give that control to another remote bureaucracy, in Westminster, that very often doesn’t give a rat’s arse about the north and the Midlands.
That's the con trick that really pisses me off.
Maybe I’ll be proved wrong. But I think Boris being flushed away will see levelling up go with him and the party return to type. Belt-tightening, inflation, post-pandemic austerity. Red Wallers will be no better off.
If you're a right-winger and you're wanting the market to run free, Britannia Unleashed, all that kind of thing, then fair enough, my wailing above probably doesn't touch you one bit. But, from what I can gather, when people up here ticked Leave in 2016, that's not what they thought they were going to get.
I agree with much of this diagnosis
Just two points: I don’t believe the Tories will return to ‘austerity’ for quite a while (unless forced by circumstances like a looming default). Big debt is with us for the medium term, as the global economy recovers from Covid (ins’allah)
Also, it’s not true to say Brexit has replaced one remote bureaucracy with another. We are now properly democratic. If the Red Wallers are angry at the Tory government’s betrayal (and fair enough, it’s not looking good) they can have the electoral satisfaction of sweeping them out of office, in humiliating style. Not something they can do to the EU Commission
And that, for me, was pretty much the whole point of Brexit
They won't be daft enough to call it austerity, but a rose by any other name, and all that.
There is that potential electoral satisfaction, yes you're right. And I get what you're saying about the EU Commission. It's a perfectly valid point. For you Brexit's the greater good, we've reverted to the better system. Fine. I just disagree. For me the lesser evil, in terms of the north, was being in the EU. But that battle's been lost. Ah well.
I really don’t see what the EU ‘did for the north’. They just took British taxpayers’ money and randomly gave SOME back to poorer parts of the UK, but most of our money went to Eastern Europe. How is that a ‘good deal’ for the North of England?
And the idea that fat Eurocrats in Strasbourg brasseries spent their time worrying about ‘voters in Stoke’ is worthy of a cartoon
What they did for the north was spend money making things better. Money not spent by UK governments before or after.
I'm happy to agree that its not remotely an efficient way to allocate the funds. But it did happen - and now it isn't. We already have regions begging this government to replace the EU development money and being told no. The "towns fund" is a threadbare sticking plaster of a replacement.
This is just bollocks. The UK had a Labour government from 1997-2010 which spunked public money like King Dong on Cialis. Much of this was bukkake’d all over the happy upturned faces of northern voters. Anything done by the EU was a tiny vinegar stroke in comparison.
The argument is unsound, to put it politely
At the time you may have been under the influence of expensive mind-bending narcotics, but during the 1980s and 90s those of us who remained compos mentis noted that EU social fund money was hosed all over the former industrial regions of England, Scotland and Wales. This took the form of incentives to new technology industries, which it is true all upped sticks and left Eastwards on the accession of the former Soviet countries, and finance for infrastructure projects. It was our fault that we invested this money on cobblestones for the High Street instead of building our own Millau Viaducts.
ISTR Liverpool City Council had an explicit objective to continue to qualify for objective 1 funding - that is, to continue to be poor enough. EU funding created perverse incentives which may have led to a lot of public spending but didn't result in Liverpool becoming less poor.
To an extent I see your point, having stayed in Liverpool three times in the last twelve months I became aware of much of the City's resemblance to a third world slum. Now I have spent much of my life in post-industrial shitholes, I live not twenty miles from the Rhonnda Valley and I work from Port Talbot, I worked out of Bowling Hall in Bradford for years which now resembles something out of Mad Max, and I grew up in 1970s derelict Birmingham, but nothing had prepared me for Bootle.
I blame the insane Corbynite Council. I don't blame the EU.
Oh, absolutely, I don't blame the EU. It just doesn't help as much as its proponents think it does. All it needed to be was a free trade bloc.
Edit - though note Bootle is actually Sefton Council.
Which also contains Southport and Formby. Which are, by any standards, quite nice places to live.
I love Southport because I passed my driving test there.
When some people said they didn't attend some of these parties, I reckon it was probably because they were still too hungover from other ones or double booked for another party happening at the same time.
On the subject of next Tory leader - I keep having the delicious thought of a triumphant PM Theresa May standing at the door of No.10 as Boris slopes off in a van.
Theresa May back in Number 10 with her new chief of staff, Dominic Cummings.
Some of GPT3 output is very good, much improved on GPT2.
I asked it for a poem titled "I would rather die"....
I would rather die than live a life that is less than true. I would rather die than be a voice in the crowd. I would rather die than never be heard at all. I would rather die to be the one who stands apart, who dares to take a stand, who dares to say, this is what I think and this is what I feel. But I hope that I can find another way Because I don't want to die today. I want to live a long and happy life And when its time for me to go, well then let me go, but not today. Not just yet Not now.
But it ain't running the government...
That is really quite good. In a “written by a talented 14 year old” kind of way. Clever use of slightly random rhyme
GPT5 will be able to write like Byron
It is quite scary. Anyone who isn’t scared by AI hasn’t read enough about it
There is a somewhat obscure 70s sci-fi film called 'Colossus: The Forbin Project' which I'm very fond of. Goes down the route of 'we've built a computer to look after our nukes and keep us safe from the Russians!' to 'oh, that wasn't quite the plan...'. Well, worth a watch.
There is another system.
Ha! Yes! There was a rumour of a re-make by the guy who directed by (I think) the guy who made 'Nutty Professor II: The Klumps'. Which wasn't exactly a thrilling prospect.
It really doesn’t look like a military jet in the video. It looks like exactly like a shiny silver missile or space rocket. Over Tooting
It looks like a firework, if we can get past your friend's estimate that it was ten times bigger than a plane.
It’s definitely not a firework. It’s a rocket (or a jet) of some kind. With a vapour trail.
I would post the video but I’ve told her I’ll try and sell it to the daily mail for £50 first. If I fail I will post it here for the group opinion. A genuine mystery (tho I don’t think it is aliens)
Extinction Rebellion: Jury clears protesters dragged off train roof
Last month, the Anglican priest admitted she was "surprised" to avoid jail for blocking the M25. She was one of seven members of Insulate Britain who were handed suspended sentences for breaching an injunction and being in contempt of court.
So we can't even claim well it was just one of those things she got a bit carried away. She already guilty of blocking motorways and has a suspended sentence against her. Clear pattern of behaviour.
Perhaps jury trial, like democracy, has had its day
I’m semi-serious. That’s another implication from Cummings’ blog. Democracy may be dying. If it is proved that other systems are better at delivering prosperity, peace and happiness is democracy intrinsically worry pursuing? Hence his (and my) fascination with Singapore
And yes I get the irony that I voted Leavd ‘because democracy’ but the world is full of complex ironies
FWIW I think democracy definitely IS finished, in the long term, thanks to AI. GPT37 will make decisions which are so much smarter and more strategic and less emotional than any politician - or Eurocrat, or CCP apparatchik - we will hand over all our governance to the machines
Erm, isn't Singapore a democracy? Even if the same side always wins.
Not as we know it.....
Ranks below Philippines, Indonesia and Malaysia in SE Asia:
It is also far richer than any of those, indeed it is one of the richest countries on the planet
And it has zero crime
I’ve said this before on PB: 90% of people, if offered a choice between life in rich, crime-free, not-very-democratic Singapore, or life in a less rich, more dangerous, properly democratic alternative, would choose Singapore
Which is why Singapore is a challenge to liberal democracies (and liberalism) and why democracy is entirely doomed, long term. The super-computers will be the Singapore government on steroids. Cold, calculating, but phenomenally efficient at producing results
It's a city state. Not really an option for most of the world.
That's a very good point.
Firstly, city states are just richer (see Hanseatic League onwards...)
Secondly, city states probably have fewer competing interests (no town v country), which make the job of the benevolent dictator easier.
It's like saying Stow on the Wold is running a budget surplus and there are no potholes so it's a good political model for Ukraine.
Its an interesting question. What is it about Patel that makes the dislike of her so visceral. She's a hanger and flogger without an ounce of compassion but that just makes her a Tory. She's been sacked twice for dishonesty but that's on the low side.
In truth, there aren't many serious contenders for an immediate post-Johnson Conservative Party leadership election.
In the absence of a Heseltine-type figure, you are looking at the three main offices of state so Sunak, Truss and Patel (all five letter surnames but that was true of Blair, Brown and of course Major as well as Heath).
The more intriguing question is what would a future Sunak or Truss Cabinet look like? Who would be in line for promotion or demotion if the current Chancellor or Foreign State successfully navigated the sea of electoral hazard and prevailed?
You'd imagine the winner would want his/her main opponent in a senior position because you keep your friends close and your enemies closer. Who would be Sunak's CoE for example - Trevelyan or Zahawi? I can't see Javid wanting the job again and the likes of Raab and Gove are already looking like yesterday's news.
Could Ben Wallace move to the Foreign Office in a Truss-led Government?
That's the thing about politics - the unexpected opportunity for advancement - could we see Michelle Donelan for example move up the Ministerial order somewhat?
Or Deputy PM Raab.
He could end up the candidate in the final 2 put forward by MPs alongside Sunak, not Truss or Patel
He is also the likeliest candidate for any Howard or Brown style coronation
Er, didn't he go to the party? Or a party. I've lost count.
He certainly went on holiday when he should have been at his desk
Extinction Rebellion: Jury clears protesters dragged off train roof
Last month, the Anglican priest admitted she was "surprised" to avoid jail for blocking the M25. She was one of seven members of Insulate Britain who were handed suspended sentences for breaching an injunction and being in contempt of court.
So we can't even claim well it was just one of those things she got a bit carried away. She already guilty of blocking motorways and has a suspended sentence against her. Clear pattern of behaviour.
Perhaps jury trial, like democracy, has had its day
I’m semi-serious. That’s another implication from Cummings’ blog. Democracy may be dying. If it is proved that other systems are better at delivering prosperity, peace and happiness is democracy intrinsically worry pursuing? Hence his (and my) fascination with Singapore
And yes I get the irony that I voted Leavd ‘because democracy’ but the world is full of complex ironies
FWIW I think democracy definitely IS finished, in the long term, thanks to AI. GPT37 will make decisions which are so much smarter and more strategic and less emotional than any politician - or Eurocrat, or CCP apparatchik - we will hand over all our governance to the machines
Erm, isn't Singapore a democracy? Even if the same side always wins.
Not as we know it.....
Ranks below Philippines, Indonesia and Malaysia in SE Asia:
It is also far richer than any of those, indeed it is one of the richest countries on the planet
And it has zero crime
I’ve said this before on PB: 90% of people, if offered a choice between life in rich, crime-free, not-very-democratic Singapore, or life in a less rich, more dangerous, properly democratic alternative, would choose Singapore
Which is why Singapore is a challenge to liberal democracies (and liberalism) and why democracy is entirely doomed, long term. The super-computers will be the Singapore government on steroids. Cold, calculating, but phenomenally efficient at producing results
Which is strange. Because Taiwan has quite a population of Singaporeans who have moved precisely cos they like a bit of dirt, danger, surprise and adventure in their life.
Indeed: would I rather live in Singapore or Somalia? Obviously Singapore. But as long as a reasonable base level of not-being-a-shithole is achieved, there are diminishing returns from increasing levels of cleanliness, order and wealth.
Arguably negative returns in terms of the stuff that matters. Singapore is dull AF and even if it weren't the unique circumstances that gave rise to it mean that its "success" is hard to replicate. Many countries have tried, and failed. I'm sure there are things we could learn from it, as we could learn from lots of places. But I doubt that copying it wholesale is either desirable or feasible.
Re latest revelations one Tory Mp tells me “it’s been terminal now for some days”, another says it makes things “very much worse” and will “bring things forward”. They think MPs chatting to constituents this weekend will be left in no doubt about how bad things are. https://twitter.com/AnushkaAsthana/status/1482038565777326081
I think there's a good chance now that everywhere Johnson goes he is actually going to be boo-ed by the public. Or worse.
I cannot imagine how he is going to front a GE campaign in 2024. Unless hiding for the five weeks counts as 'fronting'.
The history books will note that the collapse began the day he starting wibbling about Peppa pig rather than business rates and training.
The collapse began with Paterson. The Peppa Pig was the first time he tried that schtick afterwards. And suddenly it wasn't eccentric and amusing. Even the dim fawners could see it for its cretinous stupidity. Though some were keen to point to its outstanding genius at the time ISTR. Because reasons. Own the Libs at the CBI or some such.
It really doesn’t look like a military jet in the video. It looks like exactly like a shiny silver missile or space rocket. Over Tooting
It looks like a firework, if we can get past your friend's estimate that it was ten times bigger than a plane.
It’s definitely not a firework. It’s a rocket (or a jet) of some kind. With a vapour trail.
I would post the video but I’ve told her I’ll try and sell it to the daily mail for £50 first. If I fail I will post it here for the group opinion. A genuine mystery (tho I don’t think it is aliens)
I think an intelligent race has evolved in parallel with us in the deep oceans (where submarines fairly often see ultra fast moving inexplicable things). Probably.
It really doesn’t look like a military jet in the video. It looks like exactly like a shiny silver missile or space rocket. Over Tooting
It looks like a firework, if we can get past your friend's estimate that it was ten times bigger than a plane.
It’s definitely not a firework. It’s a rocket (or a jet) of some kind. With a vapour trail.
I would post the video but I’ve told her I’ll try and sell it to the daily mail for £50 first. If I fail I will post it here for the group opinion. A genuine mystery (tho I don’t think it is aliens)
It confirms that Cummings is infuriatingly clever and cunning - if you are his enemy
This is superbly bang-on:
“Cummings thinks remainers are invariably fools, above all the better-educated ones, because they are incapable of accepting that they might be wrong. His shorthand for these people is Jolyons (after the remainer lawyer Jolyon Maugham) or, as he says of Keir Starmer, the ones who can’t resist giving “the London idiot answer” to any difficult question because they daren’t think for themselves. When Starmer got himself tangled up over the question of whether “only women have a cervix”, it was, Cummings says, because “he’s a dead player working off a script” – and the voters can smell that a mile off.”
Remainers are invariably fools, ESPECIALLY the posher ones. Absolutely right
The article also contains the brilliant revelation that the only reason Cummings and Boris prorogued parliament was to drive their opponents crazy (it worked), get them to talk about nothing else, until they eventually went so mad they provoked an election
I guess Cummings could be lying, but if it’s true it’s genius. It all went wrong for Boris when he lost this guy
Na, it is just that he like you, wants to rebut the idea that Leavers are generally thick, so it remains an obsession of his, like it is yours. It is OK @Leon, you aren't all thick. Obsessed about a trivial and pointless thing, yes, but not all of you are stupid. That feel better now?
He's got a point about some remainers not being able to think independently of the consensus liberal London view. It's the whole argument I've had loads of times with a few people on here about wages at the lower end, there's loads of studies saying it wasn't impacted by A10 migration but then we've had loads of real world evidence of wage rises for those people since Brexit because of low skilled labour shortages. It's like those same people who can't see beyond the phrase "follow the science" on the pandemic. Sometimes the consensus view is wrong and it's been difficult to get some more ardent remainers to see that, whether that's on wages for the lower skilled or on the correct post-vaccine pandemic response.
It's almost as if the consensus is there to exist and not be challenged, which we know is a recipe for disaster in the long term.
Yes. I think it’s essentially the religious module in the human brain, which is at work here, the bit of our mind wired for faith. Except god is replaced by secular atheist faith in this or that liberal piety. In this case, the secular faith is EU membership
The mad posh Remainers confronted by Brexit are like hardcore Catholics confronted by “heresy”. They cannot understand how or why anyone would believe this, Brexit is evil and wrong and can never be right.
You know, I get everything you’re saying. I can see what you mean about posh Remainers.
From my decidedly non-posh standpoint, I think what appals me most about Brexit is that Red Wall people have been promised that we will Take Back Control. And we will.
But I fear, and nothing has happened to disabuse me of this notion, in fact things like that Leeds leg of HS2 being cancelled reinforce it, is that Red Wallers have been persuaded to hand back control to a system that, more often than not, elects Conservative governments that, more often than not, screw the north, the people I love and the communities I am part of.
The EU, or EEC as it was then, handed over big bucks through coalfield regeneration funding, which did help. Now I might be wrong, but I suspect a Conservative government wouldn’t have done such a thing.
Yes, we’re free to spend our own money now how we want. The point being the country very often chooses to elect a government that chooses to spend a disproportionate amount in the South East and London.
I suspect that Boris is now expendable. He got the Red Wallers vote, he sang the siren song on levelling up. Will it last or will the Tory Party revert to type? I suspect the latter.
Yes, wages have gone up for some unskilled people. Will it last? Will they be eaten up by inflation?
Red Wallers were convinced, I think, to vote to hand control from one remote bureaucracy, the EU, that at least had their interests at heart to some extent, though no doubt many will disagree, and give that control to another remote bureaucracy, in Westminster, that very often doesn’t give a rat’s arse about the north and the Midlands.
That's the con trick that really pisses me off.
Maybe I’ll be proved wrong. But I think Boris being flushed away will see levelling up go with him and the party return to type. Belt-tightening, inflation, post-pandemic austerity. Red Wallers will be no better off.
If you're a right-winger and you're wanting the market to run free, Britannia Unleashed, all that kind of thing, then fair enough, my wailing above probably doesn't touch you one bit. But, from what I can gather, when people up here ticked Leave in 2016, that's not what they thought they were going to get.
I agree with much of this diagnosis
Just two points: I don’t believe the Tories will return to ‘austerity’ for quite a while (unless forced by circumstances like a looming default). Big debt is with us for the medium term, as the global economy recovers from Covid (ins’allah)
Also, it’s not true to say Brexit has replaced one remote bureaucracy with another. We are now properly democratic. If the Red Wallers are angry at the Tory government’s betrayal (and fair enough, it’s not looking good) they can have the electoral satisfaction of sweeping them out of office, in humiliating style. Not something they can do to the EU Commission
And that, for me, was pretty much the whole point of Brexit
They won't be daft enough to call it austerity, but a rose by any other name, and all that.
There is that potential electoral satisfaction, yes you're right. And I get what you're saying about the EU Commission. It's a perfectly valid point. For you Brexit's the greater good, we've reverted to the better system. Fine. I just disagree. For me the lesser evil, in terms of the north, was being in the EU. But that battle's been lost. Ah well.
I really don’t see what the EU ‘did for the north’. They just took British taxpayers’ money and randomly gave SOME back to poorer parts of the UK, but most of our money went to Eastern Europe. How is that a ‘good deal’ for the North of England?
And the idea that fat Eurocrats in Strasbourg brasseries spent their time worrying about ‘voters in Stoke’ is worthy of a cartoon
What they did for the north was spend money making things better. Money not spent by UK governments before or after.
I'm happy to agree that its not remotely an efficient way to allocate the funds. But it did happen - and now it isn't. We already have regions begging this government to replace the EU development money and being told no. The "towns fund" is a threadbare sticking plaster of a replacement.
This is just bollocks. The UK had a Labour government from 1997-2010 which spunked public money like King Dong on Cialis. Much of this was bukkake’d all over the happy upturned faces of northern voters. Anything done by the EU was a tiny vinegar stroke in comparison.
The argument is unsound, to put it politely
At the time you may have been under the influence of expensive mind-bending narcotics, but during the 1980s and 90s those of us who remained compos mentis noted that EU social fund money was hosed all over the former industrial regions of England, Scotland and Wales. This took the form of incentives to new technology industries, which it is true all upped sticks and left Eastwards on the accession of the former Soviet countries, and finance for infrastructure projects. It was our fault that we invested this money on cobblestones for the High Street instead of building our own Millau Viaducts.
ISTR Liverpool City Council had an explicit objective to continue to qualify for objective 1 funding - that is, to continue to be poor enough. EU funding created perverse incentives which may have led to a lot of public spending but didn't result in Liverpool becoming less poor.
To an extent I see your point, having stayed in Liverpool three times in the last twelve months I became aware of much of the City's resemblance to a third world slum. Now I have spent much of my life in post-industrial shitholes, I live not twenty miles from the Rhonnda Valley and I work from Port Talbot, I worked out of Bowling Hall in Bradford for years which now resembles something out of Mad Max, and I grew up in 1970s derelict Birmingham, but nothing had prepared me for Bootle.
I blame the insane Corbynite Council. I don't blame the EU.
Oh, absolutely, I don't blame the EU. It just doesn't help as much as its proponents think it does. All it needed to be was a free trade bloc.
Edit - though note Bootle is actually Sefton Council.
Which also contains Southport and Formby. Which are, by any standards, quite nice places to live.
I love Southport because I passed my driving test there.
Extinction Rebellion: Jury clears protesters dragged off train roof
Last month, the Anglican priest admitted she was "surprised" to avoid jail for blocking the M25. She was one of seven members of Insulate Britain who were handed suspended sentences for breaching an injunction and being in contempt of court.
So we can't even claim well it was just one of those things she got a bit carried away. She already guilty of blocking motorways and has a suspended sentence against her. Clear pattern of behaviour.
Perhaps jury trial, like democracy, has had its day
I’m semi-serious. That’s another implication from Cummings’ blog. Democracy may be dying. If it is proved that other systems are better at delivering prosperity, peace and happiness is democracy intrinsically worry pursuing? Hence his (and my) fascination with Singapore
And yes I get the irony that I voted Leavd ‘because democracy’ but the world is full of complex ironies
FWIW I think democracy definitely IS finished, in the long term, thanks to AI. GPT37 will make decisions which are so much smarter and more strategic and less emotional than any politician - or Eurocrat, or CCP apparatchik - we will hand over all our governance to the machines
Erm, isn't Singapore a democracy? Even if the same side always wins.
Not as we know it.....
Ranks below Philippines, Indonesia and Malaysia in SE Asia:
It is also far richer than any of those, indeed it is one of the richest countries on the planet
And it has zero crime
I’ve said this before on PB: 90% of people, if offered a choice between life in rich, crime-free, not-very-democratic Singapore, or life in a less rich, more dangerous, properly democratic alternative, would choose Singapore
Which is why Singapore is a challenge to liberal democracies (and liberalism) and why democracy is entirely doomed, long term. The super-computers will be the Singapore government on steroids. Cold, calculating, but phenomenally efficient at producing results
It's a city state. Not really an option for most of the world.
That's a very good point.
Firstly, city states are just richer (see Hanseatic League onwards...)
Secondly, city states probably have fewer competing interests (no town v country), which make the job of the benevolent dictator easier.
Given the antipathy towards London from much of the rest of the country how much do we have to pay to get independence? My one red line, is that despite its proximity to the m25 Eton is definitely yours.
It really doesn’t look like a military jet in the video. It looks like exactly like a shiny silver missile or space rocket. Over Tooting
It looks like a firework, if we can get past your friend's estimate that it was ten times bigger than a plane.
The friend knows what a gullible mug SLeon is, and has spent a fun hour on Photoshop?
That, or they are the only person in London who happened to notice the massive alien spaceship rising above Tooting.
She has reassured me it’s not a wind up. The video is much more convincingly mysterious. She hasn’t got the tech skills to fake it
OTOH she has just claimed the “air outside smells of sulphur dioxide” and she’s linked this to the government telling us all to stay indoors today BECAUSE THEY KNOW SOMETHING IS GOING ON
On the subject of next Tory leader - I keep having the delicious thought of a triumphant PM Theresa May standing at the door of No.10 as Boris slopes off in a van.
Theresa May back in Number 10 with her new chief of staff, Dominic Cummings.
Excellent thought. I wonder if Johnson has to leave suddenly whether an interim PM that the Tory MPs can trust to leave office after a few months following a leadership election might not be a bad idea. I think a sudden departure is becoming more likely.
"Exclusive: Head of government Covid rules unit held ‘boozy’ party during Christmas restrictions The Telegraph learns that 'dozens' of officials from the Cabinet Office’s Covid taskforce attended the event to mark Kate Josephs' departure By Harry Yorke"
At the moment it looks pretty certain that the final 3 in the MPs vote will be Sunak, Truss and Hunt.
Hunt's support from what's left of the sane part of the parliamentary party is probably enough to get him to the final two, where he'll lose in the members' vote. So the interesting bit is whether Steve Baker and his disciplined band of ultras will want Sunak or Truss. My guess is that they'll be suspicious of both, but more so of Truss.
It is entirely possible, surely, that they elevate one of their own. And that isn't necessarily a cabinet minister.
Benevolent dictatorship works when you have a competent benevolent dictator.
The problem is that one day you'll end up with an average leader, and then another day you'll end up with a dreadful one, and no way of removing them.
And there's no way to get around that. China had competent dictators based around 10 year terms. (Maybe 'benevolent' is a little generous, but still...)
And then along came Xi and ripped that up and made himself President (sorry General Secretary) for life. Oh yeah, and also started acting belligerently to the rest of the world. If the Chinese people don't like this, there is exactly nothing they can do about it.
How many stable benevolent dictatorships have there been over time?
The point of democracy is that we can have a palace coup, minus the civil war and death, every 4-5 years.
Part of the reason for the nastiness of many dictatorships is the Tiger Problem. When you are riding a tiger, the problem is what happens when you get off.
As the philosopher said, "Remember, you are only President... for Life".
Yes, exactly. Mind you, we shouldn't delude ourselves that we have a smoothly functioning democracy in which we all have equal influence. I remember a few years ago giving a talk about the British system to a Chinese academic delegation (no, I wasn't paid £300,000 - £500 was the going rate), who listened politely to my explanation of the advantages of multi-party choice (I was slightly surprised they were even willing to pay to listen to it). One asked, "If we asked average British citizens whether they felt they had a meaningful impact on government at any level?" I admitted "Only to a very limited extent" and asked him how the average Chinese citizen would respond. He smiled wryly and shrugged without replying.
We are clearly more democratic than China and have more choice and far less retaliation against organised dissent. But it's so moderated by biased media, lack of serious information and £££ that it only really works in the sense that you say - to correct obvious disasters.
It really doesn’t look like a military jet in the video. It looks like exactly like a shiny silver missile or space rocket. Over Tooting
It looks like a firework, if we can get past your friend's estimate that it was ten times bigger than a plane.
It’s definitely not a firework. It’s a rocket (or a jet) of some kind. With a vapour trail.
I would post the video but I’ve told her I’ll try and sell it to the daily mail for £50 first. If I fail I will post it here for the group opinion. A genuine mystery (tho I don’t think it is aliens)
I think an intelligent race has evolved in parallel with us in the deep oceans (where submarines fairly often see ultra fast moving inexplicable things). Probably.
Sea devils, shortly to be seen in the next dr who ‘special’...
Invite them all round for a sit down to discuss it, perhaps in the garden when the weather improves, and bring some wine, maybe some upbeat music to cheer them up.
I think there's a good chance now that everywhere Johnson goes he is actually going to be boo-ed by the public. Or worse.
I cannot imagine how he is going to front a GE campaign in 2024. Unless hiding for the five weeks counts as 'fronting'.
The history books will note that the collapse began the day he starting wibbling about Peppa pig rather than business rates and training.
The collapse began with Paterson. The Peppa Pig was the first time he tried that schtick afterwards. And suddenly it wasn't eccentric and amusing. Even the dim fawners could see it for its cretinous stupidity. Though some were keen to point to its outstanding genius at the time ISTR. Because reasons. Own the Libs at the CBI or some such.
Polling follows its own patterns sometimes, but Paterson was a real tipping point I think for a lot of people even irrespective of polling. There was just no reason to do what he did without sinister motivation, since the late u-turn and apology for getting things wrong rings insincere since they rejected the criticisms about it beforehand. It was a genuinely troubling action demonstrative of dislike of accountability, so blatant it caused a political blowback and setting of a storm with their own backbenchers.
Two men's arrogance to do whatever they wanted, Paterson and Boris, causing tremendous harm.
It really doesn’t look like a military jet in the video. It looks like exactly like a shiny silver missile or space rocket. Over Tooting
It looks like a firework, if we can get past your friend's estimate that it was ten times bigger than a plane.
It’s definitely not a firework. It’s a rocket (or a jet) of some kind. With a vapour trail.
I would post the video but I’ve told her I’ll try and sell it to the daily mail for £50 first. If I fail I will post it here for the group opinion. A genuine mystery (tho I don’t think it is aliens)
I think an intelligent race has evolved in parallel with us in the deep oceans (where submarines fairly often see ultra fast moving inexplicable things). Probably.
Sea devils, shortly to be seen in the next dr who ‘special’...
Benevolent dictatorship works when you have a competent benevolent dictator.
The problem is that one day you'll end up with an average leader, and then another day you'll end up with a dreadful one, and no way of removing them.
And there's no way to get around that. China had competent dictators based around 10 year terms. (Maybe 'benevolent' is a little generous, but still...)
And then along came Xi and ripped that up and made himself President (sorry General Secretary) for life. Oh yeah, and also started acting belligerently to the rest of the world. If the Chinese people don't like this, there is exactly nothing they can do about it.
How many stable benevolent dictatorships have there been over time?
The point of democracy is that we can have a palace coup, minus the civil war and death, every 4-5 years.
Part of the reason for the nastiness of many dictatorships is the Tiger Problem. When you are riding a tiger, the problem is what happens when you get off.
As the philosopher said, "Remember, you are only President... for Life".
Yes, exactly. Mind you, we shouldn't delude ourselves that we have a smoothly functioning democracy in which we all have equal influence. I remember a few years ago giving a talk about the British system to a Chinese academic delegation (no, I wasn't paid £300,000 - £500 was the going rate), who listened politely to my explanation of the advantages of multi-party choice (I was slightly surprised they were even willing to pay to listen to it). One asked, "If we asked average British citizens whether they felt they had a meaningful impact on government at any level?" I admitted "Only to a very limited extent" and asked him how the average Chinese citizen would respond. He smiled wryly and shrugged without replying.
We are clearly more democratic than China and have more choice and far less retaliation against organised dissent. But it's so moderated by biased media, lack of serious information and £££ that it only really works in the sense that you say - to correct obvious disasters.
When you say biased media are you talking about Socialist Worker or the Daily Mail.
It really doesn’t look like a military jet in the video. It looks like exactly like a shiny silver missile or space rocket. Over Tooting
It looks like a firework, if we can get past your friend's estimate that it was ten times bigger than a plane.
The friend knows what a gullible mug SLeon is, and has spent a fun hour on Photoshop?
That, or they are the only person in London who happened to notice the massive alien spaceship rising above Tooting.
She has reassured me it’s not a wind up. The video is much more convincingly mysterious. She hasn’t got the tech skills to fake it
OTOH she has just claimed the “air outside smells of sulphur dioxide” and she’s linked this to the government telling us all to stay indoors today BECAUSE THEY KNOW SOMETHING IS GOING ON
Please God, don't let this be anything actually, you know, real... We'll never hear the end of it from our favourite flint knapper!
Comments
He could end up the candidate in the final 2 put forward by MPs alongside Sunak, not Truss or Patel
He is also the likeliest candidate for any Howard or Brown style coronation
Instead it’s all skinny jeans and trainers and shitposting and vanity photographers and piss-up.
In 17 years in Westminster, I mostly had the idea that people working in government were largely trying their best (even the useless ones), were daunted by that black door, were grown ups running the country.
Now it’s all wine o’clock and who gets a spin on Carrie’s lazy susan
My benefit of the doubt. My assumption of a degree of competence. My willingness not to assume the worst of the British public. My determination not to be an anti-Tory rent-a-gob. All of that means trying to deny a gut feeling that he is appallingly unfit to be PM
He degrades everything, all of the unwritten and written rules that make the system work; a thin-skinned, pathetic, lonely, underwhelming, unimaginative, disloyal, friendless narcissist.
This isn’t an anti-Tory rant. Every Tory should be ashamed of what’s been done in their name
https://twitter.com/MattChorley/status/1482031520336519173
Part of the reason for the nastiness of many dictatorships is the Tiger Problem. When you are riding a tiger, the problem is what happens when you get off.
As the philosopher said, "Remember, you are only President... for Life".
The rest of the world could deal with Russia against Ukraine, if we want. Trying to deal with China at the same time would be impossible by any conventional means.
Both would get away with it, in the short and medium term.
She wears it is ten times bigger than a plane and it is going STRAIGHT UP. Like a space rocket or a missile. There’s a short video as well, which proves this.
Wtf is that? Do we have a secret space base in Tooting?
I’m pleasantly flummoxed. Any ideas? Optical illusion? Plane seen at a weird angle?
Of the candidates of the right of the party however Raab has the highest favourables with Yougov
Because Taiwan has quite a population of Singaporeans who have moved precisely cos they like a bit of dirt, danger, surprise and adventure in their life.
Mind you, you rarely are
Also, if the MSPs do what Prof T suggests that leaves the MPs in a bind. If they join the MSPs, they'll lose not only the Party funds and facilities at Westminster and (I assume) in Scotland; but, at Westminster, the Short Money as well (IIRC that only goes to the bigger parties, and the No Surrender Party will get £0). And getting the southern party to give them some facilities at pubvlic cost or at party cost is dodgy for accounting reasons (Electoral Commission, etc.)
But if the MPs don't follow the MSPs then the Scons will be split on geographical and legislature lines - handing a second propaganda triumph to the SNP.
Competence as a PM is no prerequisite for success as a post-PM.
I blame the insane Corbynite Council. I don't blame the EU.
Just messaged. Mission successful.
The opposite of this.
I didn’t run around screaming OMG ITS DEM ALIENS, I politely inquired of a knowledgeable forum
The video really doesn’t look like a military jet. But it IS far away and hard to tell
And she is sure the size is enormous - “ten times bigger than an airliner” - but of course eye witnesses are unreliable
We do have military air fields near south london IIRC
All it needed to be was a free trade bloc.
Can you remember the Norwegian spirals in the sky?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J5_8MVctp30
As an aside, have you checked your stocks? Might it be a hand-crated flint object that's trying to escape its ultimate destiny in deep, dark holes?
Which are, by any standards, quite nice places to live.
I have no doubt people will pay good money for this garbage, and good luck to them. I can't help feeling they will have been short changed.
https://www.yourlocalguardian.co.uk/news/4563431.was-a-ufo-spotted-in-tooting-and-streatham/
Seriously, even now, London isn't exactly empty. Where are all the twitter videos and blog posts from others who saw it?
Firstly, city states are just richer (see Hanseatic League onwards...)
Secondly, city states probably have fewer competing interests (no town v country), which make the job of the benevolent dictator easier.
The Duke of York is bracing himself to find out in the coming days whether his ex-wife and daughters will face questioning from Virginia Giuffre’s lawyers.
Prince Andrew’s legal team are expecting to discover, possibly as early as this weekend, which members of his family will be asked to give evidence under oath, The Times can reveal.
David Boies, Giuffre’s lawyer who has been nicknamed the “great inquisitor” because of his skill at interviewing witnesses under oath, has already suggested he might question the Duchess of York and their daughters Princesses Beatrice and Eugenie.
They will likely be asked about Andrew’s alibi for the night in 2001 when Giuffre says she first had sex with the duke in Ghislaine Maxwell’s London home after dancing together at the nightclub Tramp.
In his Newsnight interview in 2019, Andrew said that he was with the children that day and remembered taking Beatrice to a party at the Pizza Express in Woking.
https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/prince-andrew-waits-to-see-if-family-will-be-questioned-by-lawyers-for-virginia-giuffre-n0pwbhl0j
I cannot imagine how he is going to front a GE campaign in 2024. Unless hiding for the five weeks counts as 'fronting'.
The history books will note that the collapse began the day he starting wibbling about Peppa pig rather than business rates and training.
Thus they are well equipped for trashing a fine restaurant or government department, but ill-equipped for the rigors of ordinary life, let alone the challenges of basic administration OR leadership?
https://www.standard.co.uk/news/crime/prince-philip-downing-street-hackney-party-lockdown-covid-rules-b976690.html
from the Standard, which is why Partygate has a massive way to run. £12,000 fine for idiotic partying behaviour the day after the No 10 bash.
No doubt it's great if you are wealthy and set in your ways.
I would post the video but I’ve told her I’ll try and sell it to the daily mail for £50 first. If I fail I will post it here for the group opinion. A genuine mystery (tho I don’t think it is aliens)
That, or they are the only person in London who happened to notice the massive alien spaceship rising above Tooting.
So what are you left with.............
https://twitter.com/AnushkaAsthana/status/1482038565777326081
Even the dim fawners could see it for its cretinous stupidity.
Though some were keen to point to its outstanding genius at the time ISTR. Because reasons. Own the Libs at the CBI or some such.
OTOH she has just claimed the “air outside smells of sulphur dioxide” and she’s linked this to the government telling us all to stay indoors today BECAUSE THEY KNOW SOMETHING IS GOING ON
The Telegraph learns that 'dozens' of officials from the Cabinet Office’s Covid taskforce attended the event to mark Kate Josephs' departure
By Harry Yorke"
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/politics/2022/01/14/former-government-head-responsible-covid-rules-held-boozy-leaving/
It is wrong to assume that a slogan that works against one target will automatically be as effective against its opponent.
https://twitter.com/Coldwar_Steve/status/1481990851572154369
We are clearly more democratic than China and have more choice and far less retaliation against organised dissent. But it's so moderated by biased media, lack of serious information and £££ that it only really works in the sense that you say - to correct obvious disasters.
Two men's arrogance to do whatever they wanted, Paterson and Boris, causing tremendous harm.