Curious challenge for Starmer today. How should he play it? Boris will come out swinging, desperately looking for a win. A dead, forward defensive shot, bat might be the right thing to do. Somber questions about Ukraine, deaths and the detail about the cost of living, anything to deny Boris oxygen. Finish one or two short to avoid Boris getting his sound bites in?
If I were Starmer I would try and craft a “when did you last beat your wife” type question on Parties and then switch the rest of the questions to really detailed technical questions re inflation.
The first question gets Boris tied up with excuses and maybe hangs himself re parties. By then changing to really detailed technical questions re inflation it should unbalance Boris as I imagine he would be prepped for Parties but then useless at detail re inflation/economy etc and show that not only is he in a mess with Parties but also doesn’t have a clue about technical detail that’s crucial to most of the country - so shifty AND useless.
That’s presuming Starmer wants him gone….
I'm not sure he does now, but the Tory leadership isn't really in his hands.
I'd make the theme "while the Conservatives are consumed in their own civil war, hard-working families face rising costs".
I'd also get some jabs in at key Tory leadership contenders. If Sunak isn't there, that's an open goal, if he is then "nice to see the Chancellor turning up this time..." For Truss, "Surprised to see the Foreign Secretary here. Hasn't she got a 'fizz with Liz' party - or work event as the PM calls them - to organise?"
Yes, I agree - very tempting to keep hammering away at parties, but I think the public boredom threshold has been reached and there are points to be won on the theme "While the Tories squabble about lies and parties, the economy is burning".
I note the Guardian quote today from an anti-Johnson MP: "there are about 20 letters, “some sent, some in draft”. That doesn't sound as though the ballot will be triggered before Sue Gray's report, if it's coming as soon as Friday, as some predict.
I work in IT, and use about 500MB/month of data on average.
The big divide is between between people who download video on the go and those who use Wifi at home to per-download.
There's also a big divide between those in long distance relationships and those who have younger children and those who do not.
A lot of my data usage is facetiming/video calling to see the people I love.
I say that as someone who pre plague used 500GB a month in data.
My wife's family is mostly in Peru - so lots of WhatsApp* and other forms of video calls.
She does them only from WifI/hardline internet connections - the idea of doing it on mobile data simply seems wrong to her. When she (and I) started using mobile data, it was extremely limited and expensive.
The children on the other hand, use mobile data until they run out....
*Trying to convert her over to Signal
I worry just how much data my eldest would use if he wasn't required to keep his mobile in his locker for most of the school day.
On the subject of an acting/caretaker/interim PM, this is interesting and useful from Wikipedia.
Despite refusing "...to discuss a hypothetical situation" with BBC News in 2011,[15] the Cabinet Office is said to have said in 2006:[16]
There is no single protocol setting out all of the possible implications. However, the general constitutional position is as set out below. There can be no automatic assumption about who The Queen would ask to act as caretaker Prime Minister in the event of the death of the Prime Minister. The decision is for her under the Royal Prerogative. However, there are some key guiding principles. The Queen would probably be looking for a very senior member of the Government (not necessarily a Commons Minister since this would be a short-term appointment). If there was a recognised deputy to the Prime Minister, used to acting on his behalf in his absences, this could be an important factor. Also important would be the question of who was likely to be in contention to take over long-term as Prime Minister. If the most senior member of the Government was him or herself a contender for the role of Prime Minister, it might be that The Queen would invite a slightly less senior non-contender. In these circumstances, her private secretary would probably take soundings, via the Cabinet Secretary, of members of the Cabinet, to ensure that The Queen invited someone who would be acceptable to the Cabinet to act as their chair during the caretaker period. Once the Party had elected a new leader, that person would, of course, be invited to take over as Prime Minister.
So looking for the most senior non contenders. Doesnt rule out many, would be much easier to find a no mark contender.
The issue isn't protest. Or at least it shouldn't be. The issue ought to be disruption. We can all be high-minded about rights to free expression and assembly but extinction rebellion and insulate Britain DID cause major disruption i.e harm. People have a right to be angry about that. The Supreme Court might have exploded a legal grenade with its verdict that a certain level of disruption had to be tolerated in a free society. Well what does that mean exactly?
Many liberty lovers would have applauded that but what if the consequence is the government introducing more draconian laws as a counter measure? Activists judges might actually be their own worst enemy in this. Of course I don't have any confidence in Patel who seems like a minister playing to the gallery in search of favourable tabloid headlines. But one has to understand why she has found such fertile territory.
We already have plenty of laws to deal with disruption and public order offences.
I remember an interesting situation.
Way back in the 80s, the police and intelligence services used their infiltration of the NI terrorist groups and various criminal gangs to cultivate "Supergrasses" - people who who would give evidence against the really big fish in open court. Basically the American system - "You are looking at life. What have you got to say to help yourself".
A bunch of noble, brilliant QCs fought desperately against such a terrible system. They managed to get it stuck down with rulings that the evidence was inadmissible.
So the police, instead of catching armed robbers *before* their "jobs", lay in wait for them. And shot them dead.
The Intelligence services did the same to the IRA - it was called "shoot to kill'.
The noble, brilliant QCs complained about that, IIRC.
But they never seemed to admit that there was a connection to their actions.
The problem with constructing a constitution by legal/judicial activism* is Democracy.
We have had centuries of telling people that voting is the ultimate power, that their elected representatives in Parliament can do *anything*.
Something will have to give.....
*The creation, in effect, of new law, via judicial judgement, of new meanings in old laws
Is a very good book which it sounds like you have read (or perhaps you wrote it...)
Explains a lot also about 14 Int and FRU whatever the hell they were.
I a just a fool who reads too much. And remembers everything except things that would make me rich. If I could photocopy law books into my brain the way I can remember obscure details of 19th Cent ship construction...
Anyway... Yes. A brilliant example of state adaption to legal challenge. The Government lawyers were horrified by the earlier suggestions by the security services to handle it as an intelligence war. Hence the super grass efforts. When that was er... shot down, they went ahead
Due to bugs and other technical intelligence, the security services turned a number of very high ranking terrorists. Since they couldn't be used for trials, they were used to plant more bugs - simply getting them to report on what they knew of upcoming attacks would have got them caught very quickly.
So the question became - what do you do with this pile of intelligence? The answer was simple, really. You act on *some* of it. Deliberately framing particular people who *aren't* your agents - you act on what only the "framed" person would know. Eventually the internal security mob in the terrorist organisation catches on, and murders your fall guy. It helps when the internal intelligence outfit is being run by one of your agents....
The interesting wrinkle was towards the end of the conflict. The people "framed" as being British agents turned out, curiously often, to be hardliners against the proposed peace process.......
By the end it was easier to work out who wasn't an agent of some type.
Indeed - which may or may not have been part of the plan - it caused many of the terrorists to become disillusioned with terrorism.
Join up to fight the Evul Brits or the Evul Catholics, great. Join up to murder your own side in a never ending series of hunt-the-tout, with the added fun of being accused of being a tout... not so much.
Looks like outdoor winter sports will be pretty much non-existent by the end of this century. Swedish meteorological research shows that most Scandinavian resorts, training facilities and competition venues will be pretty much unusable by 2100.
The Alps and Scotland can forget it.
Alps gone by 2050 apparently, Scotland has been fucked since about 1990
I know people my age always perceive the world going to hell in a handcraft but this time it really is
Disagree. Scotland has had some tremendous winters in recent years, but when the time comes for current infrastructure (lifts etc) to be replaced, it is profoundly unlikely that the finance boffins will judge it to be a wise use of capital.
It was fun while it lasted. All my children and my sister’s children are great skiers, but I suspect that the next generation are going to have to get there kicks elsewhere, eg windsurfing.
But that time has come and gone, I think the rail thingy at Aviemore/Cairngorm was decommissioned decades ago, no?
Reliable cold and snow is the key.
There is a heck of a lot more sport infrastructure in the Scottish hills than just the rail thingy. There are 5 resorts with extensive lift and slope networks. As long as the infrastructure lasts, fine. But I cannot see it being replaced or extended.
On the subject of an acting/caretaker/interim PM, this is interesting and useful from Wikipedia.
Despite refusing "...to discuss a hypothetical situation" with BBC News in 2011,[15] the Cabinet Office is said to have said in 2006:[16]
There is no single protocol setting out all of the possible implications. However, the general constitutional position is as set out below. There can be no automatic assumption about who The Queen would ask to act as caretaker Prime Minister in the event of the death of the Prime Minister. The decision is for her under the Royal Prerogative. However, there are some key guiding principles. The Queen would probably be looking for a very senior member of the Government (not necessarily a Commons Minister since this would be a short-term appointment). If there was a recognised deputy to the Prime Minister, used to acting on his behalf in his absences, this could be an important factor. Also important would be the question of who was likely to be in contention to take over long-term as Prime Minister. If the most senior member of the Government was him or herself a contender for the role of Prime Minister, it might be that The Queen would invite a slightly less senior non-contender. In these circumstances, her private secretary would probably take soundings, via the Cabinet Secretary, of members of the Cabinet, to ensure that The Queen invited someone who would be acceptable to the Cabinet to act as their chair during the caretaker period. Once the Party had elected a new leader, that person would, of course, be invited to take over as Prime Minister.
So looking for the most senior non contenders. Doesnt rule out many, would be much easier to find a no mark contender.
Will it be Dorries or Shapps!?
That wiki article looks a good summary of what I was posting yesterday about how the Palace has dealt with this in the past when it looked like it might be an issue.
Raab is not a shoe-in just because he is deputy PM.
I work in IT, and use about 500MB/month of data on average.
Yeah it's gaming and HD movies that cost. Work is text and spreadsheets which use next to nothing
Fwiw I use about 100GB a month spread across phone, tablet and (mainly) desktop and laptop. For those who use their phone for all internet activity, as many people do, 2GB of data is indeed "nowt".
Not that surprising given London, especially Inner London, was Remain central. The only reason most Tory MPs in Remain seats in London in 2019 held their seats was to keep out Corbyn, wealthy Remainers see Starmer as much less of a threat.
Tories doing a bit better in Outer London though were a few areas like Hillingdon, Bexley and Havering voted Leave on 25% than Inner London, where every borough voted Remain and the Tories are on just 18%. That suggests the Tories could not only lose Wandsworth and Barnet in May but even lose Westminster and Kensington and Chelsea on a really bad night
Last Starmer interview I read said that there was no question of Rejoining in his mind. We were OUT, end of.
What that suggests is that, in his mind, apart from a few committed Europeans like myself banging on about it, he doesn't expect the EU to be an issue at the next, and indeed next but one election.
So whether an area was Leave or Remain in 2016 will be immaterial. The issue will be the Governments overall competence.
For Remainers the best policy is to sit tight for a while. The economy is clearly on a lower growth path post-Brexit and people will increasingly notice. Wait for about five years and there will be a clear majority for rejoin, or at least for EEA membership. That's the time to organise a vote to make it happen. In the meantime, just sit back and let Brexit fail on its own. Don't create a stabbed in the back myth for Brexiteers by hastening its end.
Yes, pretty soon we will see that the lying bunch of chancers weren't suddenly competent at trade and foreign policy, but screwed that up too.
Lib Dems will push for SM membership, but not Rejoin in the short term. The SNP, PC and SF will be for their nations to Rejoin as independent states.
Ultimately the biggest obstacle to Rejoin will be the break up of the UK. Without Scotland and NI the hurdle to Rejoin gets a lot higher.
For the avoidance of doubt can I make it absolutely clear that my desire for a change of leadership has nothing to do with my 250/1 bet on PM Sunak with Ladbrokes
Looks like outdoor winter sports will be pretty much non-existent by the end of this century. Swedish meteorological research shows that most Scandinavian resorts, training facilities and competition venues will be pretty much unusable by 2100.
The Alps and Scotland can forget it.
We'll have vineyards in Scotland instead.
We've had them in Roman times in the south, hence e.g. 'Vine Street'.
The Scottish resorts have had great seasons recently because of fronts from the north-west leaving Scotland on the north side of the Polar Front Jet. This actually produces great winter conditions in the Scottish Highlands with considerable snowfall.
This season hasn't been so great because with this high pressure stuck over southern Britain, the jet is running north of the UK.
Thanks for the explanation! Didn’t know that.
All I do know is that the bairns have had some terrific winters in the Scottish hills in recent years.
Whereas previously we, the 2019 intake of Conservative MPS PB Tories, were united in thinking that Boris Johnson was a breath of fresh air, a true leader, an incisive thinker, and someone who can cut through the fog of Westminster politics and deliver real benefits to the country, we now appreciate that he is a useless no hoper with no vision, ideas, or moral compass and we thoroughly reject his leadership.
There you go, I fixed your typo....
I think you have taken a couple of years off the site, haven't you? And failed, in a Johnson like fashion, to do your homework about what changes occurred in your absence. The vast majority of pb tories were equivocal to hostile to Johnson even in 2019 and the only remaining one, HYUFD, has never applauded Johnson, only polls showing a Johnson lead
Problem is, as @Theuniondivvie points out with some justification, "PB Tory" is similar to "Metropolitan Elite" which cannot be shed it just is, regardless of the detail.
For example, @kinabalu I'm sure likes champagne (who doesn't) and is a socialist (by his own admission). But even if his favourite tipple was mild & bitter he would nevertheless be a Champagne Socialist, perhaps to his chagrin.
.
I think I would grudgingly accept the term Champagne Socialist being applied to me even though I don't like Champagne.
I’m a bench made shoe Bolshevik..
Lobbs?
Och no, beyond my pay grade. Mainly Trickers and R.M.Williams (I think their boots still qualify).
This F...ing Tory Party are completely shameless. On Newsnight ... 'He didn't know it was against the rules that he himself had announced that week!!' These shameless sycophants are not even funny anymore
The ones that bother me are the ones that claim to have only just noticed that Boris is unfit to be prime minister. He has always been dodgy and done a lot of harm.
The problem we have is that so far this century, each PM has been worse than the last. Goodness knows who comes next.
Funny you should say that.
‘Boris Johnson's replacement will likely be worse’
In the meantime, Johnson will attempt to save his skin with a raft of right-wing populist policies designed to appeal to the pro-Brexit readers of the frothing Mail and Express who make up the Conservatives' core support. Just as happened with Brexit, everyone in the UK will have to suffer the consequences of the Conservatives acting as though the interests of the state are subordinate to the interests of the Conservative party, which is precisely what passes for a constitution in the UK allows them to do.
We are in for further restrictions on the right to protest, the continuing demonisation of migrants and asylum seekers as convenient scapegoats, and yet more attacks upon any remaining institutions in the UK which are capable of restraining the wilder excesses of the Conservatives. The next Tory leader is likely to be even worse, he or she will embrace a full-throated Thatcherism, and emboldened by a surge in public support in England during their honeymoon period, will seek a snap election which could entrench Tory rule for decades to come.
There’s a lot of wild extrapolation in there. Particularly the “surge in public support in England” and “snap election” bit. Doesn’t seem quite right.
CON MAJ is just 2/1. Perfectly feasible. If it hits 3/1 a lot of people will be eager buyers.
On Betfair a Tory majority government is the favourite at 15/8 according to Oddschecker. Lab minority look value at 3/1.
Exactly. Scots cannot simply discount Con Maj and another decade of being ruled by the Tories, despite them losing every election in our country since the 1950s.
Sure. That’s what drives support for independence and rightly so. However the take by the National is designed to reinforce those fears rather than reflect reality. They may well win the next election but they won’t go early. After 2017 there is no way a new Tory leader would risk an 80 seat majority (even just denting it) with an early election - esp before the boundary changes. That’s the proposition you approvingly posted - and it’s bollocks.
Incidentally, it's not just the cost of food. It's also the quality. I've really noticed some rubbish especially in fruit and veg.
Like many people I take evasive action to avoid some of the creeping increases - some ready meals (my staple fare) remain cheap, but you have to avoid lazily sticking to what you usually get as the price nudges upwards. I do notice some sneaky unadvertised cuts in quantity, though tbh it's probably healthy to eat a bit less.
Not that surprising given London, especially Inner London, was Remain central. The only reason most Tory MPs in Remain seats in London in 2019 held their seats was to keep out Corbyn, wealthy Remainers see Starmer as much less of a threat.
Tories doing a bit better in Outer London though were a few areas like Hillingdon, Bexley and Havering voted Leave on 25% than Inner London, where every borough voted Remain and the Tories are on just 18%. That suggests the Tories could not only lose Wandsworth and Barnet in May but even lose Westminster and Kensington and Chelsea on a really bad night
Not that surprising? Its literally weeks since you and other Peppa apologists were banging on about actually how awful Khan is and actually Labour are really unpopular in London because he's just bankrupted the tube and allowed knife murder to go unchecked and actually he is the boss of Dick so her failings are his etc etc etc
I’ve been critical of Sadiq, but he’s got a lot of mojo back recently. The Ulez looks like a real triumph. Given the lack of news about it, it seems to be working. Really forward thinking policy. Now he’s talking about mile-by-mile road pricing to clear up congestion and encouraging walking and cycling as quicker modes. I appreciate that as a both a keen cyclist and a keen motorist.
I also like the idea of border charges to drive into Greater London. The idea of having a sign on the edge of Epping Forest saying: “Welcome to London, Zero Carbon City” along with a charge strikes me as a strong statement of intent for the world’s greatest city.
(Also, he’s been vocal in getting the WFH mandate removed - that has been really bad for business as companies have banned their staff from meeting in person)
I still think the strangest thing about Johnson is the fact that so many people insisted he was a clever man pretending to be a stupid man, rather than a stupid man pretending to be a clever man pretending to be a stupid man.
He’s a lazy man who thinks he’s pretending to be lazy. Extraordinarily poor self-awareness is his key personality trait.
Curious challenge for Starmer today. How should he play it? Boris will come out swinging, desperately looking for a win. A dead, forward defensive shot, bat might be the right thing to do. Somber questions about Ukraine, deaths and the detail about the cost of living, anything to deny Boris oxygen. Finish one or two short to avoid Boris getting his sound bites in?
If I were Starmer I would try and craft a “when did you last beat your wife” type question on Parties and then switch the rest of the questions to really detailed technical questions re inflation.
The first question gets Boris tied up with excuses and maybe hangs himself re parties. By then changing to really detailed technical questions re inflation it should unbalance Boris as I imagine he would be prepped for Parties but then useless at detail re inflation/economy etc and show that not only is he in a mess with Parties but also doesn’t have a clue about technical detail that’s crucial to most of the country - so shifty AND useless.
That’s presuming Starmer wants him gone….
I'm not sure he does now, but the Tory leadership isn't really in his hands.
I'd make the theme "while the Conservatives are consumed in their own civil war, hard-working families face rising costs".
I'd also get some jabs in at key Tory leadership contenders. If Sunak isn't there, that's an open goal, if he is then "nice to see the Chancellor turning up this time..." For Truss, "Surprised to see the Foreign Secretary here. Hasn't she got a 'fizz with Liz' party - or work event as the PM calls them - to organise?"
Yes, I agree - very tempting to keep hammering away at parties, but I think the public boredom threshold has been reached and there are points to be won on the theme "While the Tories squabble about lies and parties, the economy is burning".
I note the Guardian quote today from an anti-Johnson MP: "there are about 20 letters, “some sent, some in draft”. That doesn't sound as though the ballot will be triggered before Sue Gray's report, if it's coming as soon as Friday, as some predict.
Another round of headmasterly disappointment might be a bit boring, certainly. Inaction while inflation rises isn't a bad theme, but won't cause Johnson any discomfort because for it to do so he would have to have a sense of responsibility for governing the country - you can see the problem.
An interesting approach that might fit Starmer's prosecutor style would be to read out some of the criminal cases that are being reported on from May 2020 where people were fined for breaching covid rules despite professing ignorance (of the rules, of whether there was a gathering, and so on), and inviting the PM to comment on whether the court was right or wrong to convict despite the defence of "not knowing".
A very strange time to decide to take on the BBC-the most respected news organisation in the country. Most likely just ham fistedness by Johnson and his backers but it's great to see the BBC's bite returning. They've been cowed by this government for too long and as a result were becoming insipid.
The BBC is not just a news organisation.
The license fee is not popular. Far from it.
It may not be popular but it's the easiest way of raising the money it needs.
Literally the only thing I would be changing at the moment would be:
1) remove the threat of jail for licence fee dodging 2) start a proper debate on how the BBC should work going forward 3) fix the licence fee but from 2025 or 2026 onwards so that the BBC has money for the next 2 years and time to plot its future.
The lack of an increase in 2022/23/24 means that the BBC will adopt a red arrows approach and bin popular things for point scoring reasons. Radio 5 live and then BBC 4 followed by BBC 2 seem to be the planned cuts.
I work in IT, and use about 500MB/month of data on average.
Yeah but I bet you don’t watch Tik Tok or YouTube for hours a day.
... while not in range of a wifi you can use.
Who the hell needs to do that in this day and age?
My girlfriend uses many gigabytes a day listening to Spotify at work because they’re not allowed to have personal devices on WiFi
Does she not know there’s a download button on Spotify?
You can’t download the entire Spotify catalogue
I stream it through Chrome on my desktop when I’m at work. They gave us these stupid call centre type headphones to use with Teams and I’ll be arsed if I’m not going to make full use of them.
For those who still care about UK/EU relations, the EU side admits to being “charmed” by @trussliz last week. She will now meet @MarosSefcovic in Bxl next Monday. Despite - or because of - the madness in Westminster, things are looking up for UK/EU 1/
This F...ing Tory Party are completely shameless. On Newsnight ... 'He didn't know it was against the rules that he himself had announced that week!!' These shameless sycophants are not even funny anymore
The ones that bother me are the ones that claim to have only just noticed that Boris is unfit to be prime minister. He has always been dodgy and done a lot of harm.
The problem we have is that so far this century, each PM has been worse than the last. Goodness knows who comes next.
Funny you should say that.
‘Boris Johnson's replacement will likely be worse’
In the meantime, Johnson will attempt to save his skin with a raft of right-wing populist policies designed to appeal to the pro-Brexit readers of the frothing Mail and Express who make up the Conservatives' core support. Just as happened with Brexit, everyone in the UK will have to suffer the consequences of the Conservatives acting as though the interests of the state are subordinate to the interests of the Conservative party, which is precisely what passes for a constitution in the UK allows them to do.
We are in for further restrictions on the right to protest, the continuing demonisation of migrants and asylum seekers as convenient scapegoats, and yet more attacks upon any remaining institutions in the UK which are capable of restraining the wilder excesses of the Conservatives. The next Tory leader is likely to be even worse, he or she will embrace a full-throated Thatcherism, and emboldened by a surge in public support in England during their honeymoon period, will seek a snap election which could entrench Tory rule for decades to come.
There’s a lot of wild extrapolation in there. Particularly the “surge in public support in England” and “snap election” bit. Doesn’t seem quite right.
CON MAJ is just 2/1. Perfectly feasible. If it hits 3/1 a lot of people will be eager buyers.
On Betfair a Tory majority government is the favourite at 15/8 according to Oddschecker. Lab minority look value at 3/1.
Exactly. Scots cannot simply discount Con Maj and another decade of being ruled by the Tories, despite them losing every election in our country since the 1950s.
Sure. That’s what drives support for independence and rightly so. However the take by the National is designed to reinforce those fears rather than reflect reality. They may well win the next election but they won’t go early. After 2017 there is no way a new Tory leader would risk an 80 seat majority (even just denting it) with an early election - esp before the boundary changes. That’s the proposition you approvingly posted - and it’s bollocks.
The take by the Express is designed to reinforce fears rather than reflect reality. The take by the Mail is designed to reinforce fears rather than reflect reality. The take by the Telegraph is designed to reinforce fears rather than reflect reality.
It’s what newspapers do.
If the National publishes “bollocks” then boo hoo.
(Incidentally, the strongest part of Wee Ginger Dug’s piece was not the bit I copy n pasted. But then you lot are hardly the intended audience.)
I work in IT, and use about 500MB/month of data on average.
Yeah but I bet you don’t watch Tik Tok or YouTube for hours a day.
... while not in range of a wifi you can use.
Who the hell needs to do that in this day and age?
My girlfriend uses many gigabytes a day listening to Spotify at work because they’re not allowed to have personal devices on WiFi
That seems like an expensive way to listen to music compared to owning copies of the stuff and storing that on a phone, but if she thinks it's worth the expense then it's not my place to argue.
This F...ing Tory Party are completely shameless. On Newsnight ... 'He didn't know it was against the rules that he himself had announced that week!!' These shameless sycophants are not even funny anymore
The ones that bother me are the ones that claim to have only just noticed that Boris is unfit to be prime minister. He has always been dodgy and done a lot of harm.
The problem we have is that so far this century, each PM has been worse than the last. Goodness knows who comes next.
Funny you should say that.
‘Boris Johnson's replacement will likely be worse’
In the meantime, Johnson will attempt to save his skin with a raft of right-wing populist policies designed to appeal to the pro-Brexit readers of the frothing Mail and Express who make up the Conservatives' core support. Just as happened with Brexit, everyone in the UK will have to suffer the consequences of the Conservatives acting as though the interests of the state are subordinate to the interests of the Conservative party, which is precisely what passes for a constitution in the UK allows them to do.
We are in for further restrictions on the right to protest, the continuing demonisation of migrants and asylum seekers as convenient scapegoats, and yet more attacks upon any remaining institutions in the UK which are capable of restraining the wilder excesses of the Conservatives. The next Tory leader is likely to be even worse, he or she will embrace a full-throated Thatcherism, and emboldened by a surge in public support in England during their honeymoon period, will seek a snap election which could entrench Tory rule for decades to come.
There’s a lot of wild extrapolation in there. Particularly the “surge in public support in England” and “snap election” bit. Doesn’t seem quite right.
CON MAJ is just 2/1. Perfectly feasible. If it hits 3/1 a lot of people will be eager buyers.
On Betfair a Tory majority government is the favourite at 15/8 according to Oddschecker. Lab minority look value at 3/1.
Exactly. Scots cannot simply discount Con Maj and another decade of being ruled by the Tories, despite them losing every election in our country since the 1950s.
This is true. If you want big time constitutional change you have to take your chance when it comes.
Not that surprising given London, especially Inner London, was Remain central. The only reason most Tory MPs in Remain seats in London in 2019 held their seats was to keep out Corbyn, wealthy Remainers see Starmer as much less of a threat.
Tories doing a bit better in Outer London though were a few areas like Hillingdon, Bexley and Havering voted Leave on 25% than Inner London, where every borough voted Remain and the Tories are on just 18%. That suggests the Tories could not only lose Wandsworth and Barnet in May but even lose Westminster and Kensington and Chelsea on a really bad night
Last Starmer interview I read said that there was no question of Rejoining in his mind. We were OUT, end of.
What that suggests is that, in his mind, apart from a few committed Europeans like myself banging on about it, he doesn't expect the EU to be an issue at the next, and indeed next but one election.
So whether an area was Leave or Remain in 2016 will be immaterial. The issue will be the Governments overall competence.
For Remainers the best policy is to sit tight for a while. The economy is clearly on a lower growth path post-Brexit and people will increasingly notice. Wait for about five years and there will be a clear majority for rejoin, or at least for EEA membership. That's the time to organise a vote to make it happen. In the meantime, just sit back and let Brexit fail on its own. Don't create a stabbed in the back myth for Brexiteers by hastening its end.
Yes, pretty soon we will see that the lying bunch of chancers weren't suddenly competent at trade and foreign policy, but screwed that up too.
Lib Dems will push for SM membership, but not Rejoin in the short term. The SNP, PC and SF will be for their nations to Rejoin as independent states.
Ultimately the biggest obstacle to Rejoin will be the break up of the UK. Without Scotland and NI the hurdle to Rejoin gets a lot higher.
Or being completely surrounded by EU states may change the calculation for a lot of people.
I work in IT, and use about 500MB/month of data on average.
Yeah but I bet you don’t watch Tik Tok or YouTube for hours a day.
... while not in range of a wifi you can use.
Who the hell needs to do that in this day and age?
My girlfriend uses many gigabytes a day listening to Spotify at work because they’re not allowed to have personal devices on WiFi
Wise policy by employer. Information security is a huge problem for all organisations.
It's not difficult to set up a secondary WiFi system for other devices. Most places do it.
No employer I’ve ever worked for (quite a few now) has ever allowed personal devices to connect to WiFi
The distinction is blurred now by WFH. Are employees only using work-issued kit to connect from home to their work network? And are all employees using dedicated work-only home networks or are they just on their domestic wifi shared with two teenagers and using a router whose firmware has not been updated since the old king died and that still has the default admin password?
I still think the strangest thing about Johnson is the fact that so many people insisted he was a clever man pretending to be a stupid man, rather than a stupid man pretending to be a clever man pretending to be a stupid man.
He’s a lazy man who thinks he’s pretending to be lazy. Extraordinarily poor self-awareness is his key personality trait.
The Guardian long read on Cummings and his feud with Johnson was interesting on this. It basically said that Johnson is stupid and lacking in self awareness most of the time, but occasionally when his interests are threatened he focuses and becomes intelligent and self aware. Cummings is the opposite - forensic and reflective most of the time, but prone to occasional bouts of stupidity under pressure. Of course I wish the fate of the country wasn't tied up in the tiresome soggy biscuit game that these two over-privileged wankers are engaged in.
I work in IT, and use about 500MB/month of data on average.
Yeah but I bet you don’t watch Tik Tok or YouTube for hours a day.
... while not in range of a wifi you can use.
Who the hell needs to do that in this day and age?
My girlfriend uses many gigabytes a day listening to Spotify at work because they’re not allowed to have personal devices on WiFi
Does she not know there’s a download button on Spotify?
You can’t download the entire Spotify catalogue
I have a hundred hours or so of playlists downloaded, for commuting and office listening over a couple of weeks.
This is fascinating, today’s youngsters have apparently never known mobile data scarcity, so they are running through hundreds of gigs of data a month.
How much energy could we save, if they all stop doing that? And the crypto mining of course.
Not that surprising given London, especially Inner London, was Remain central. The only reason most Tory MPs in Remain seats in London in 2019 held their seats was to keep out Corbyn, wealthy Remainers see Starmer as much less of a threat.
Tories doing a bit better in Outer London though were a few areas like Hillingdon, Bexley and Havering voted Leave on 25% than Inner London, where every borough voted Remain and the Tories are on just 18%. That suggests the Tories could not only lose Wandsworth and Barnet in May but even lose Westminster and Kensington and Chelsea on a really bad night
Last Starmer interview I read said that there was no question of Rejoining in his mind. We were OUT, end of.
What that suggests is that, in his mind, apart from a few committed Europeans like myself banging on about it, he doesn't expect the EU to be an issue at the next, and indeed next but one election.
So whether an area was Leave or Remain in 2016 will be immaterial. The issue will be the Governments overall competence.
For Remainers the best policy is to sit tight for a while. The economy is clearly on a lower growth path post-Brexit and people will increasingly notice. Wait for about five years and there will be a clear majority for rejoin, or at least for EEA membership. That's the time to organise a vote to make it happen. In the meantime, just sit back and let Brexit fail on its own. Don't create a stabbed in the back myth for Brexiteers by hastening its end.
Yes, pretty soon we will see that the lying bunch of chancers weren't suddenly competent at trade and foreign policy, but screwed that up too.
Lib Dems will push for SM membership, but not Rejoin in the short term. The SNP, PC and SF will be for their nations to Rejoin as independent states.
Ultimately the biggest obstacle to Rejoin will be the break up of the UK. Without Scotland and NI the hurdle to Rejoin gets a lot higher.
Or being completely surrounded by EU states may change the calculation for a lot of people.
The opening credits to Dad's Army come to mind for some reason.
Land enough blows on Johnson and more letters will go in.
Or does he row back, hoping they keep the man who will shortly be the most unpopular PM since polling began?
He needs to pulverise him with wit. Not his forte unfortunately.
Today Starmer needs to demonstrate faux outrage at all those sitting behind Johnson. He can direct his ire at them via Johnson. Johnson is already covered in ordure, Starmer needs to spread it around a little.
Conservative MPs' indecision, inertia, inaction, acceptance of law breaking, of laughing at the little people, condoning parties whilst the Queen cried alone in Windsor Chapel. Johnson is already exposed enough, time to focus on the Party that enabled him.
Land enough blows on Johnson and more letters will go in.
Or does he row back, hoping they keep the man who will shortly be the most unpopular PM since polling began?
He needs to pulverise him with wit. Not his forte unfortunately.
That’s reading the public mood exactly wrong. They’re not laughing at this. Furthermore Starmer is ahead right now by not being Johnson. Trying to be Johnson is exactly the wrong approach.
Land enough blows on Johnson and more letters will go in.
Or does he row back, hoping they keep the man who will shortly be the most unpopular PM since polling began?
He needs to pulverise him with wit. Not his forte unfortunately.
Why? I'm fucking sick of comedians in politics. Give me sensible people like Starmer or Hunt.
Yes. A big part of the problem with today's politics is that we voters judge our politicians by criteria that are (at best) peripheral to actually doing a decent job.
Incidentally, it's not just the cost of food. It's also the quality. I've really noticed some rubbish especially in fruit and veg.
Like many people I take evasive action to avoid some of the creeping increases - some ready meals (my staple fare) remain cheap, but you have to avoid lazily sticking to what you usually get as the price nudges upwards. I do notice some sneaky unadvertised cuts in quantity, though tbh it's probably healthy to eat a bit less.
Nick I think PB should club together to buy you a cook book.
I work in IT, and use about 500MB/month of data on average.
Yeah but I bet you don’t watch Tik Tok or YouTube for hours a day.
... while not in range of a wifi you can use.
Who the hell needs to do that in this day and age?
My girlfriend uses many gigabytes a day listening to Spotify at work because they’re not allowed to have personal devices on WiFi
Does she not know there’s a download button on Spotify?
You can’t download the entire Spotify catalogue
I have a hundred hours or so of playlists downloaded, for commuting and office listening over a couple of weeks.
This is fascinating, today’s youngsters have apparently never known mobile data scarcity, so they are running through hundreds of gigs of data a month.
How much energy could we save, if they all stop doing that? And the crypto mining of course.
I’m 30 in a few weeks. Data hasn’t been scarce for at least 5+ years. Its there to be used.
I work in IT, and use about 500MB/month of data on average.
Yeah but I bet you don’t watch Tik Tok or YouTube for hours a day.
... while not in range of a wifi you can use.
Who the hell needs to do that in this day and age?
My girlfriend uses many gigabytes a day listening to Spotify at work because they’re not allowed to have personal devices on WiFi
Wise policy by employer. Information security is a huge problem for all organisations.
It's not difficult to set up a secondary WiFi system for other devices. Most places do it.
No employer I’ve ever worked for (quite a few now) has ever allowed personal devices to connect to WiFi
The distinction is blurred now by WFH. Are employees only using work-issued kit to connect from home to their work network? And are all employees using dedicated work-only home networks or are they just on their domestic wifi shared with two teenagers and using a router whose firmware has not been updated since the old king died and that still has the default admin password?
It’s a big employment law issue. From simple things like not shredding papers, through lawyers from different firms in small flats unable to have confidential client calls, up to sophisticated data breaches, WFH is taking up a lot of my time.
For those who still care about UK/EU relations, the EU side admits to being “charmed” by @trussliz last week. She will now meet @MarosSefcovic in Bxl next Monday. Despite - or because of - the madness in Westminster, things are looking up for UK/EU 1/
An interesting thread. A bit more realism in the Brexit process would be welcome; delivering the outcome will be a real test of her political skills however.
Incidentally, it's not just the cost of food. It's also the quality. I've really noticed some rubbish especially in fruit and veg.
Like many people I take evasive action to avoid some of the creeping increases - some ready meals (my staple fare) remain cheap, but you have to avoid lazily sticking to what you usually get as the price nudges upwards. I do notice some sneaky unadvertised cuts in quantity, though tbh it's probably healthy to eat a bit less.
Nick I think PB should club together to buy you a cook book.
I work in IT, and use about 500MB/month of data on average.
Yeah but I bet you don’t watch Tik Tok or YouTube for hours a day.
Don't know about Tik Tok but you can watch YouTube all day for free on a PC or smart tv.
A rise in mobile phone costs might hit the mobile obsessives (predominantly the young ?) hard but will not be noticed by millions of others.
This is so out of touch with how people consume content these days. Not even just the “young”.
Possibly. But the costs of providing that much bandwidth is far from negligible. Like anything in life, if you use it, then someone has to pay for it. If using 100GB a month costs you too much, the obvious answer is to use slightly less data.
Land enough blows on Johnson and more letters will go in.
Or does he row back, hoping they keep the man who will shortly be the most unpopular PM since polling began?
He needs to pulverise him with wit. Not his forte unfortunately.
Why? I'm fucking sick of comedians in politics. Give me sensible people like Starmer or Hunt.
The killer line can destroy in a way nothing else can and wit makes a line more memorable. People don't enjoy watching someone being beaten up.
During the first Starmer attack dog PMQ's his most memorable effective and oft repeated line was one about Ant and Dec. Not even particularly funny but the only one that stays in the memory and the laughter brought everyone on side
So James Heappey thinks it is the fault of the Civil Servants who ‘put it (20/5/20) in the PM’s diary’. Sorry, I thought we’d established the PM did not know this was a pre-arranged event until he saw the invite last week. Can we see the PM’s diary then please? #BBCBreakfast https://twitter.com/SixVpf/status/1483708639626080258
I expect they'll say that Boris Johnson relied on other people to read his diary for him.
He's got us there, as I suspect that is quite likely.
Land enough blows on Johnson and more letters will go in.
Or does he row back, hoping they keep the man who will shortly be the most unpopular PM since polling began?
He needs to pulverise him with wit. Not his forte unfortunately.
Why? I'm fucking sick of comedians in politics. Give me sensible people like Starmer or Hunt.
The killer line can destroy in a way nothing else can and wit makes a line more memorable. People don't enjoy watching someone being beaten up.
During the first Starmer attack dog PMQ's his most memorable effective and oft repeated line was one about Ant and Dec. Not even particularly funny but the only one that stays in the memory and the laughter brought everyone on side
Not at the moment though. He needs to be the adult in the room compared to Johnson’s man-child.
I work in IT, and use about 500MB/month of data on average.
Yeah but I bet you don’t watch Tik Tok or YouTube for hours a day.
... while not in range of a wifi you can use.
Who the hell needs to do that in this day and age?
My girlfriend uses many gigabytes a day listening to Spotify at work because they’re not allowed to have personal devices on WiFi
Does she not know there’s a download button on Spotify?
You can’t download the entire Spotify catalogue
I have a hundred hours or so of playlists downloaded, for commuting and office listening over a couple of weeks.
This is fascinating, today’s youngsters have apparently never known mobile data scarcity, so they are running through hundreds of gigs of data a month.
How much energy could we save, if they all stop doing that? And the crypto mining of course.
I’m 30 in a few weeks. Data hasn’t been scarce for at least 5+ years. Its there to be used.
I’m 44, and remember when GPRS was a new thing, and Blackberry made millions from their data compression algorithms and corporate device management software so that people could check their emails.
I use the mobile data for Signal, iMessage, email, sat nav, google and occasionally PB.
Edit: to be fair, Mr Eagles is the same age as me, and he’s in terabits per month territory!
Incidentally, it's not just the cost of food. It's also the quality. I've really noticed some rubbish especially in fruit and veg.
Like many people I take evasive action to avoid some of the creeping increases - some ready meals (my staple fare) remain cheap, but you have to avoid lazily sticking to what you usually get as the price nudges upwards. I do notice some sneaky unadvertised cuts in quantity, though tbh it's probably healthy to eat a bit less.
Nick I think PB should club together to buy you a cook book.
I find it baffling - and inordinately annoying - that a super-bright open-minded guy like Nick can’t be bothered to teach himself to cook. Ready meals are full of shit, and cooking should be something we all learn.
I’d be up for making a donation to the Nick Cook Book Fund.
Incidentally, it's not just the cost of food. It's also the quality. I've really noticed some rubbish especially in fruit and veg.
You have to be careful about that because often it's a consequence of a poor growing season for a particular vegetable.
For example, the onions in our veg box, where most of the produce is grown in East Lothian, have been very small this winter, which we think must be due to a poor summer.
Have the wasters, nonentities and no-marks in the PCP got their 54 letters in yet? This is getting boring.
What's your problem?
November 1990 was so exciting because it went on for so long - the Howe sacking, the resignation speech, would Heseltine go for it? If this place had existed then....
While I would much prefer the voters giving Johnson the denouement he so richly deserves with at the same time the helpful by-product of condemning the Conservative Party to an extended period of Opposition, MPs seeing their majorities and career prospects evaporating in front of them may well decide out of motivated self-interest the man who got them elected now has to go.
Stretching this farrago out over several days will provide useful entertainment.
Land enough blows on Johnson and more letters will go in.
Or does he row back, hoping they keep the man who will shortly be the most unpopular PM since polling began?
He needs to pulverise him with wit. Not his forte unfortunately.
Why? I'm fucking sick of comedians in politics. Give me sensible people like Starmer or Hunt.
The killer line can destroy in a way nothing else can and wit makes a line more memorable. People don't enjoy watching someone being beaten up.
“He was the future once”
“From Stalin to Mr Bean”
“It’s rather like sending our opening batsmen to the crease only for them to find that before the first ball is bowled, their bats have been broken by the team captain.”
This F...ing Tory Party are completely shameless. On Newsnight ... 'He didn't know it was against the rules that he himself had announced that week!!' These shameless sycophants are not even funny anymore
The ones that bother me are the ones that claim to have only just noticed that Boris is unfit to be prime minister. He has always been dodgy and done a lot of harm.
The problem we have is that so far this century, each PM has been worse than the last. Goodness knows who comes next.
Funny you should say that.
‘Boris Johnson's replacement will likely be worse’
In the meantime, Johnson will attempt to save his skin with a raft of right-wing populist policies designed to appeal to the pro-Brexit readers of the frothing Mail and Express who make up the Conservatives' core support. Just as happened with Brexit, everyone in the UK will have to suffer the consequences of the Conservatives acting as though the interests of the state are subordinate to the interests of the Conservative party, which is precisely what passes for a constitution in the UK allows them to do.
We are in for further restrictions on the right to protest, the continuing demonisation of migrants and asylum seekers as convenient scapegoats, and yet more attacks upon any remaining institutions in the UK which are capable of restraining the wilder excesses of the Conservatives. The next Tory leader is likely to be even worse, he or she will embrace a full-throated Thatcherism, and emboldened by a surge in public support in England during their honeymoon period, will seek a snap election which could entrench Tory rule for decades to come.
There’s a lot of wild extrapolation in there. Particularly the “surge in public support in England” and “snap election” bit. Doesn’t seem quite right.
CON MAJ is just 2/1. Perfectly feasible. If it hits 3/1 a lot of people will be eager buyers.
On Betfair a Tory majority government is the favourite at 15/8 according to Oddschecker. Lab minority look value at 3/1.
Exactly. Scots cannot simply discount Con Maj and another decade of being ruled by the Tories, despite them losing every election in our country since the 1950s.
This is true. If you want big time constitutional change you have to take your chance when it comes.
Whereas previously we, the 2019 intake of Conservative MPS PB Tories, were united in thinking that Boris Johnson was a breath of fresh air, a true leader, an incisive thinker, and someone who can cut through the fog of Westminster politics and deliver real benefits to the country, we now appreciate that he is a useless no hoper with no vision, ideas, or moral compass and we thoroughly reject his leadership.
There you go, I fixed your typo....
I think you have taken a couple of years off the site, haven't you? And failed, in a Johnson like fashion, to do your homework about what changes occurred in your absence. The vast majority of pb tories were equivocal to hostile to Johnson even in 2019 and the only remaining one, HYUFD, has never applauded Johnson, only polls showing a Johnson lead
Problem is, as @Theuniondivvie points out with some justification, "PB Tory" is similar to "Metropolitan Elite" which cannot be shed it just is, regardless of the detail.
For example, @kinabalu I'm sure likes champagne (who doesn't) and is a socialist (by his own admission). But even if his favourite tipple was mild & bitter he would nevertheless be a Champagne Socialist, perhaps to his chagrin.
.
I think I would grudgingly accept the term Champagne Socialist being applied to me even though I don't like Champagne.
I’m a bench made shoe Bolshevik..
Lobbs?
Och no, beyond my pay grade. Mainly Trickers and R.M.Williams (I think their boots still qualify).
I work in IT, and use about 500MB/month of data on average.
Yeah but I bet you don’t watch Tik Tok or YouTube for hours a day.
... while not in range of a wifi you can use.
Who the hell needs to do that in this day and age?
My girlfriend uses many gigabytes a day listening to Spotify at work because they’re not allowed to have personal devices on WiFi
Does she not know there’s a download button on Spotify?
You can’t download the entire Spotify catalogue
I have a hundred hours or so of playlists downloaded, for commuting and office listening over a couple of weeks.
This is fascinating, today’s youngsters have apparently never known mobile data scarcity, so they are running through hundreds of gigs of data a month.
How much energy could we save, if they all stop doing that? And the crypto mining of course.
I’m 30 in a few weeks. Data hasn’t been scarce for at least 5+ years. Its there to be used.
I’m 44, and remember when GPRS was a new thing, and Blackberry made millions from their data compression algorithms and corporate device management software so that people could check their emails.
I use the mobile data for Signal, iMessage, email, sat nav, google and occasionally PB.
Acorn (well, Pace at that time...) had a project to make a fax compressor. You attach the unit to your fax machine, and it would compress the data before sending, to allow another unit to decompress it at the other end.
We were doing the work for a client, but AIUI there was an argument over patents (not at our end), and by the time that was nearly resolved, faxes had gone right out of fashion.
I've a working unit in the garage. Not a prototype; a fully boxed unit with manual.
It's surprising how fast tech can go out of fashion.
Incidentally, it's not just the cost of food. It's also the quality. I've really noticed some rubbish especially in fruit and veg.
Like many people I take evasive action to avoid some of the creeping increases - some ready meals (my staple fare) remain cheap, but you have to avoid lazily sticking to what you usually get as the price nudges upwards. I do notice some sneaky unadvertised cuts in quantity, though tbh it's probably healthy to eat a bit less.
Nick I think PB should club together to buy you a cook book.
I find it baffling - and inordinately annoying - that a super-bright open-minded guy like Nick can’t be bothered to teach himself to cook. Ready meals are full of shit, and cooking should be something we all learn.
I’d be up for making a donation to the Nick Cook Book Fund.
Just me, but living on ready meals (even though they might have generally improved) would feel like purgatory. A precursor to one of those dystopian visions from the future where we will just survive on a tablet a day.
Whereas previously we, the 2019 intake of Conservative MPS PB Tories, were united in thinking that Boris Johnson was a breath of fresh air, a true leader, an incisive thinker, and someone who can cut through the fog of Westminster politics and deliver real benefits to the country, we now appreciate that he is a useless no hoper with no vision, ideas, or moral compass and we thoroughly reject his leadership.
There you go, I fixed your typo....
I think you have taken a couple of years off the site, haven't you? And failed, in a Johnson like fashion, to do your homework about what changes occurred in your absence. The vast majority of pb tories were equivocal to hostile to Johnson even in 2019 and the only remaining one, HYUFD, has never applauded Johnson, only polls showing a Johnson lead
Problem is, as @Theuniondivvie points out with some justification, "PB Tory" is similar to "Metropolitan Elite" which cannot be shed it just is, regardless of the detail.
For example, @kinabalu I'm sure likes champagne (who doesn't) and is a socialist (by his own admission). But even if his favourite tipple was mild & bitter he would nevertheless be a Champagne Socialist, perhaps to his chagrin.
.
I think I would grudgingly accept the term Champagne Socialist being applied to me even though I don't like Champagne.
I do like champagne, in fact, but I like socialism even more. Choice between a chilled bottle of top dollar fizz, early summers evening on the terrace with the one I love, and a new economic model based on common ownership of the means of production & exchange, and it's an absolute no-brainer.
"My round, I think. What do you want, Kuntibula?"
"Cheers. Same again. A new economic model based on ..."
Land enough blows on Johnson and more letters will go in.
Or does he row back, hoping they keep the man who will shortly be the most unpopular PM since polling began?
He needs to pulverise him with wit. Not his forte unfortunately.
Why? I'm fucking sick of comedians in politics. Give me sensible people like Starmer or Hunt.
The killer line can destroy in a way nothing else can and wit makes a line more memorable. People don't enjoy watching someone being beaten up.
During the first Starmer attack dog PMQ's his most memorable effective and oft repeated line was one about Ant and Dec. Not even particularly funny but the only one that stays in the memory and the laughter brought everyone on side
It’s tricky if you’re not a natural wit, jokes just end up sounding like they were designed by your team rather than actual off the cuff zingers. My problem with Starmer’s wallpaper stunt was that it was obviously thought up by someone else and it was cringey as fuck, not its hilarity quotient.
Thatcher was a stranger to humour and it didn’t do her much harm, until she went off the deep end.
The issue isn't protest. Or at least it shouldn't be. The issue ought to be disruption. We can all be high-minded about rights to free expression and assembly but extinction rebellion and insulate Britain DID cause major disruption i.e harm. People have a right to be angry about that. The Supreme Court might have exploded a legal grenade with its verdict that a certain level of disruption had to be tolerated in a free society. Well what does that mean exactly?
Many liberty lovers would have applauded that but what if the consequence is the government introducing more draconian laws as a counter measure? Activists judges might actually be their own worst enemy in this. Of course I don't have any confidence in Patel who seems like a minister playing to the gallery in search of favourable tabloid headlines. But one has to understand why she has found such fertile territory.
We already have plenty of laws to deal with disruption and public order offences.
I remember an interesting situation.
Way back in the 80s, the police and intelligence services used their infiltration of the NI terrorist groups and various criminal gangs to cultivate "Supergrasses" - people who who would give evidence against the really big fish in open court. Basically the American system - "You are looking at life. What have you got to say to help yourself".
A bunch of noble, brilliant QCs fought desperately against such a terrible system. They managed to get it stuck down with rulings that the evidence was inadmissible.
So the police, instead of catching armed robbers *before* their "jobs", lay in wait for them. And shot them dead.
The Intelligence services did the same to the IRA - it was called "shoot to kill'.
The noble, brilliant QCs complained about that, IIRC.
But they never seemed to admit that there was a connection to their actions.
The problem with constructing a constitution by legal/judicial activism* is Democracy.
We have had centuries of telling people that voting is the ultimate power, that their elected representatives in Parliament can do *anything*.
Something will have to give.....
*The creation, in effect, of new law, via judicial judgement, of new meanings in old laws
Is a very good book which it sounds like you have read (or perhaps you wrote it...)
Explains a lot also about 14 Int and FRU whatever the hell they were.
I a just a fool who reads too much. And remembers everything except things that would make me rich. If I could photocopy law books into my brain the way I can remember obscure details of 19th Cent ship construction...
Anyway... Yes. A brilliant example of state adaption to legal challenge. The Government lawyers were horrified by the earlier suggestions by the security services to handle it as an intelligence war. Hence the super grass efforts. When that was er... shot down, they went ahead
Due to bugs and other technical intelligence, the security services turned a number of very high ranking terrorists. Since they couldn't be used for trials, they were used to plant more bugs - simply getting them to report on what they knew of upcoming attacks would have got them caught very quickly.
So the question became - what do you do with this pile of intelligence? The answer was simple, really. You act on *some* of it. Deliberately framing particular people who *aren't* your agents - you act on what only the "framed" person would know. Eventually the internal security mob in the terrorist organisation catches on, and murders your fall guy. It helps when the internal intelligence outfit is being run by one of your agents....
The interesting wrinkle was towards the end of the conflict. The people "framed" as being British agents turned out, curiously often, to be hardliners against the proposed peace process.......
By the end it was easier to work out who wasn't an agent of some type.
Indeed - which may or may not have been part of the plan - it caused many of the terrorists to become disillusioned with terrorism.
Join up to fight the Evul Brits or the Evul Catholics, great. Join up to murder your own side in a never ending series of hunt-the-tout, with the added fun of being accused of being a tout... not so much.
It always seems ironic to me that the IRA killed roughly the same numbers of Catholics and Protestants.
On the use of intelligence, it's interesting comparing how the UK Govt did it in WW1 vs WW2, in both cases where enemy codes were extensively broken. At Jutland for example the Admiralty shot themselves in the foot by keeping the codebreakers too close to the detail, such that when the Admiralty was asking stupid questions the codebreakers did not have enough context to be able to tell.
On shoot-to-kill, I've never fully understood the phrase, other than as political anti-marketing. What is the alternative when facing a terrorist with a gun - shoot-to-not-kill?
There are questions around rules of engagement, perhaps - which is a different issue imo.
Not that surprising given London, especially Inner London, was Remain central. The only reason most Tory MPs in Remain seats in London in 2019 held their seats was to keep out Corbyn, wealthy Remainers see Starmer as much less of a threat.
Tories doing a bit better in Outer London though were a few areas like Hillingdon, Bexley and Havering voted Leave on 25% than Inner London, where every borough voted Remain and the Tories are on just 18%. That suggests the Tories could not only lose Wandsworth and Barnet in May but even lose Westminster and Kensington and Chelsea on a really bad night
Last Starmer interview I read said that there was no question of Rejoining in his mind. We were OUT, end of.
What that suggests is that, in his mind, apart from a few committed Europeans like myself banging on about it, he doesn't expect the EU to be an issue at the next, and indeed next but one election.
So whether an area was Leave or Remain in 2016 will be immaterial. The issue will be the Governments overall competence.
For Remainers the best policy is to sit tight for a while. The economy is clearly on a lower growth path post-Brexit and people will increasingly notice. Wait for about five years and there will be a clear majority for rejoin, or at least for EEA membership. That's the time to organise a vote to make it happen. In the meantime, just sit back and let Brexit fail on its own. Don't create a stabbed in the back myth for Brexiteers by hastening its end.
Yes, pretty soon we will see that the lying bunch of chancers weren't suddenly competent at trade and foreign policy, but screwed that up too.
Lib Dems will push for SM membership, but not Rejoin in the short term. The SNP, PC and SF will be for their nations to Rejoin as independent states.
Ultimately the biggest obstacle to Rejoin will be the break up of the UK. Without Scotland and NI the hurdle to Rejoin gets a lot higher.
Or being completely surrounded by EU states may change the calculation for a lot of people.
I work in IT, and use about 500MB/month of data on average.
Yeah but I bet you don’t watch Tik Tok or YouTube for hours a day.
... while not in range of a wifi you can use.
Who the hell needs to do that in this day and age?
My girlfriend uses many gigabytes a day listening to Spotify at work because they’re not allowed to have personal devices on WiFi
Does she not know there’s a download button on Spotify?
You can’t download the entire Spotify catalogue
I have a hundred hours or so of playlists downloaded, for commuting and office listening over a couple of weeks.
This is fascinating, today’s youngsters have apparently never known mobile data scarcity, so they are running through hundreds of gigs of data a month.
How much energy could we save, if they all stop doing that? And the crypto mining of course.
I’m 30 in a few weeks. Data hasn’t been scarce for at least 5+ years. Its there to be used.
I’m 44, and remember when GPRS was a new thing, and Blackberry made millions from their data compression algorithms and corporate device management software so that people could check their emails.
I use the mobile data for Signal, iMessage, email, sat nav, google and occasionally PB.
Acorn (well, Pace at that time...) had a project to make a fax compressor. You attach the unit to your fax machine, and it would compress the data before sending, to allow another unit to decompress it at the other end.
We were doing the work for a client, but AIUI there was an argument over patents (not at our end), and by the time that was nearly resolved, faxes had gone right out of fashion.
I've a working unit in the garage. Not a prototype; a fully boxed unit with manual.
It's surprising how fast tech can go out of fashion.
I work in IT, and use about 500MB/month of data on average.
Yeah but I bet you don’t watch Tik Tok or YouTube for hours a day.
... while not in range of a wifi you can use.
Who the hell needs to do that in this day and age?
My girlfriend uses many gigabytes a day listening to Spotify at work because they’re not allowed to have personal devices on WiFi
Does she not know there’s a download button on Spotify?
You can’t download the entire Spotify catalogue
I have a hundred hours or so of playlists downloaded, for commuting and office listening over a couple of weeks.
This is fascinating, today’s youngsters have apparently never known mobile data scarcity, so they are running through hundreds of gigs of data a month.
How much energy could we save, if they all stop doing that? And the crypto mining of course.
I’m 30 in a few weeks. Data hasn’t been scarce for at least 5+ years. Its there to be used.
I’m 44, and remember when GPRS was a new thing, and Blackberry made millions from their data compression algorithms and corporate device management software so that people could check their emails.
I use the mobile data for Signal, iMessage, email, sat nav, google and occasionally PB.
Acorn (well, Pace at that time...) had a project to make a fax compressor. You attach the unit to your fax machine, and it would compress the data before sending, to allow another unit to decompress it at the other end.
We were doing the work for a client, but AIUI there was an argument over patents (not at our end), and by the time that was nearly resolved, faxes had gone right out of fashion.
I've a working unit in the garage. Not a prototype; a fully boxed unit with manual.
It's surprising how fast tech can go out of fashion.
I work in IT, and use about 500MB/month of data on average.
Yeah but I bet you don’t watch Tik Tok or YouTube for hours a day.
... while not in range of a wifi you can use.
Who the hell needs to do that in this day and age?
My girlfriend uses many gigabytes a day listening to Spotify at work because they’re not allowed to have personal devices on WiFi
Wise policy by employer. Information security is a huge problem for all organisations.
It's not difficult to set up a secondary WiFi system for other devices. Most places do it.
No employer I’ve ever worked for (quite a few now) has ever allowed personal devices to connect to WiFi
Every (recent) employer I have known have two WiFi networks. One for the work laptops to use and the other a free public WiFi for visitors, personal phones etc. I pay £6/month for 3GB of data but as I am entirely WFH I rarely get through half of that as I am on my home broadband. My 12yo daughter I recently upgraded to 10GB for £8/month as she got through the 3GB with her bus journeys to get to school.
As for how much people spend on phones for me it seems crazy. The reason so many people have iPhone 13 Pro Max Plus 1TBs is that they are not paying up-front for them but instead spending large amounts each month. I spend around £150 to £200 every 2 years for a new Android phone probably equivalent in capability to a year or two old flagship iPhone.
My daughter's birthday is approaching and she is very keen to get an iPhone for her birthday (she has a 2 year old Android but still pretty decent). I personally detest all Apple devices due to their vast overpricing. I've set a budget for it for her which is probably only enough for a rather tired second hand X or 11 which is of course, not what she wants. She can have a very decent brand new Android for the same price. Up to her now what she wants to do!
Not that surprising given London, especially Inner London, was Remain central. The only reason most Tory MPs in Remain seats in London in 2019 held their seats was to keep out Corbyn, wealthy Remainers see Starmer as much less of a threat.
Tories doing a bit better in Outer London though were a few areas like Hillingdon, Bexley and Havering voted Leave on 25% than Inner London, where every borough voted Remain and the Tories are on just 18%. That suggests the Tories could not only lose Wandsworth and Barnet in May but even lose Westminster and Kensington and Chelsea on a really bad night
Last Starmer interview I read said that there was no question of Rejoining in his mind. We were OUT, end of.
What that suggests is that, in his mind, apart from a few committed Europeans like myself banging on about it, he doesn't expect the EU to be an issue at the next, and indeed next but one election.
So whether an area was Leave or Remain in 2016 will be immaterial. The issue will be the Governments overall competence.
For Remainers the best policy is to sit tight for a while. The economy is clearly on a lower growth path post-Brexit and people will increasingly notice. Wait for about five years and there will be a clear majority for rejoin, or at least for EEA membership. That's the time to organise a vote to make it happen. In the meantime, just sit back and let Brexit fail on its own. Don't create a stabbed in the back myth for Brexiteers by hastening its end.
Yes, pretty soon we will see that the lying bunch of chancers weren't suddenly competent at trade and foreign policy, but screwed that up too.
Lib Dems will push for SM membership, but not Rejoin in the short term. The SNP, PC and SF will be for their nations to Rejoin as independent states.
Ultimately the biggest obstacle to Rejoin will be the break up of the UK. Without Scotland and NI the hurdle to Rejoin gets a lot higher.
Or being completely surrounded by EU states may change the calculation for a lot of people.
I still think the strangest thing about Johnson is the fact that so many people insisted he was a clever man pretending to be a stupid man, rather than a stupid man pretending to be a clever man pretending to be a stupid man.
He’s a lazy man who thinks he’s pretending to be lazy. Extraordinarily poor self-awareness is his key personality trait.
The Guardian long read on Cummings and his feud with Johnson was interesting on this. It basically said that Johnson is stupid and lacking in self awareness most of the time, but occasionally when his interests are threatened he focuses and becomes intelligent and self aware. Cummings is the opposite - forensic and reflective most of the time, but prone to occasional bouts of stupidity under pressure. Of course I wish the fate of the country wasn't tied up in the tiresome soggy biscuit game that these two over-privileged wankers are engaged in.
It is a weakness of the British state that such unsuitable characters gain unfettered power on a minority of the vote, and the consent of only 1 out of the 4 member countries.
I work in IT, and use about 500MB/month of data on average.
Yeah but I bet you don’t watch Tik Tok or YouTube for hours a day.
... while not in range of a wifi you can use.
Who the hell needs to do that in this day and age?
My girlfriend uses many gigabytes a day listening to Spotify at work because they’re not allowed to have personal devices on WiFi
Does she not know there’s a download button on Spotify?
You can’t download the entire Spotify catalogue
I have a hundred hours or so of playlists downloaded, for commuting and office listening over a couple of weeks.
This is fascinating, today’s youngsters have apparently never known mobile data scarcity, so they are running through hundreds of gigs of data a month.
How much energy could we save, if they all stop doing that? And the crypto mining of course.
I’m 30 in a few weeks. Data hasn’t been scarce for at least 5+ years. Its there to be used.
I’m 44, and remember when GPRS was a new thing, and Blackberry made millions from their data compression algorithms and corporate device management software so that people could check their emails.
I use the mobile data for Signal, iMessage, email, sat nav, google and occasionally PB.
Acorn (well, Pace at that time...) had a project to make a fax compressor. You attach the unit to your fax machine, and it would compress the data before sending, to allow another unit to decompress it at the other end.
We were doing the work for a client, but AIUI there was an argument over patents (not at our end), and by the time that was nearly resolved, faxes had gone right out of fashion.
I've a working unit in the garage. Not a prototype; a fully boxed unit with manual.
It's surprising how fast tech can go out of fashion.
Incidentally, it's not just the cost of food. It's also the quality. I've really noticed some rubbish especially in fruit and veg.
Like many people I take evasive action to avoid some of the creeping increases - some ready meals (my staple fare) remain cheap, but you have to avoid lazily sticking to what you usually get as the price nudges upwards. I do notice some sneaky unadvertised cuts in quantity, though tbh it's probably healthy to eat a bit less.
Nick I think PB should club together to buy you a cook book.
I find it baffling - and inordinately annoying - that a super-bright open-minded guy like Nick can’t be bothered to teach himself to cook. Ready meals are full of shit, and cooking should be something we all learn.
I’d be up for making a donation to the Nick Cook Book Fund.
There are good quality ready meals available from a supermarket near you. It's not just cheap meat, salt and sugar any more.
I work in IT, and use about 500MB/month of data on average.
Yeah but I bet you don’t watch Tik Tok or YouTube for hours a day.
... while not in range of a wifi you can use.
Who the hell needs to do that in this day and age?
My girlfriend uses many gigabytes a day listening to Spotify at work because they’re not allowed to have personal devices on WiFi
Does she not know there’s a download button on Spotify?
You can’t download the entire Spotify catalogue
I have a hundred hours or so of playlists downloaded, for commuting and office listening over a couple of weeks.
This is fascinating, today’s youngsters have apparently never known mobile data scarcity, so they are running through hundreds of gigs of data a month.
How much energy could we save, if they all stop doing that? And the crypto mining of course.
I’m 30 in a few weeks. Data hasn’t been scarce for at least 5+ years. Its there to be used.
I’m 44, and remember when GPRS was a new thing, and Blackberry made millions from their data compression algorithms and corporate device management software so that people could check their emails.
I use the mobile data for Signal, iMessage, email, sat nav, google and occasionally PB.
Acorn (well, Pace at that time...) had a project to make a fax compressor. You attach the unit to your fax machine, and it would compress the data before sending, to allow another unit to decompress it at the other end.
We were doing the work for a client, but AIUI there was an argument over patents (not at our end), and by the time that was nearly resolved, faxes had gone right out of fashion.
I've a working unit in the garage. Not a prototype; a fully boxed unit with manual.
It's surprising how fast tech can go out of fashion.
Very cool. Today’s kids can I guess add a modem handshaking noise, to the long list of things they won’t ever have heard.
I wasn't on that project, but it had a really complex state machine at its core (for its day). It also had a really cute graphics involving a waving fax machine. I might get it out of the garage and see if it works...
The attached article that details the patent issues shows how people can lose millions in tech, and the way many really good ideas never pay off..
Incidentally, it's not just the cost of food. It's also the quality. I've really noticed some rubbish especially in fruit and veg.
Like many people I take evasive action to avoid some of the creeping increases - some ready meals (my staple fare) remain cheap, but you have to avoid lazily sticking to what you usually get as the price nudges upwards. I do notice some sneaky unadvertised cuts in quantity, though tbh it's probably healthy to eat a bit less.
Nick I think PB should club together to buy you a cook book.
I find it baffling - and inordinately annoying - that a super-bright open-minded guy like Nick can’t be bothered to teach himself to cook. Ready meals are full of shit, and cooking should be something we all learn.
I’d be up for making a donation to the Nick Cook Book Fund.
There are good quality ready meals available from a supermarket near you. It's not just cheap meat, salt and sugar any more.
Yup. And for me, a really useful tool for counting calories and keeping portion size down. Whenever I cook I end up eating enough for three people.
Focus on claim Bojo tried to go and see queenie while infectious and Dom C stopped him. NOT a party claim so not vulnerable to the Wait for S Gray to report counter.
I work in IT, and use about 500MB/month of data on average.
Yeah but I bet you don’t watch Tik Tok or YouTube for hours a day.
... while not in range of a wifi you can use.
Who the hell needs to do that in this day and age?
My girlfriend uses many gigabytes a day listening to Spotify at work because they’re not allowed to have personal devices on WiFi
Wise policy by employer. Information security is a huge problem for all organisations.
It's not difficult to set up a secondary WiFi system for other devices. Most places do it.
No employer I’ve ever worked for (quite a few now) has ever allowed personal devices to connect to WiFi
Every (recent) employer I have known have two WiFi networks. One for the work laptops to use and the other a free public WiFi for visitors, personal phones etc. I pay £6/month for 3GB of data but as I am entirely WFH I rarely get through half of that as I am on my home broadband. My 12yo daughter I recently upgraded to 10GB for £8/month as she got through the 3GB with her bus journeys to get to school.
As for how much people spend on phones for me it seems crazy. The reason so many people have iPhone 13 Pro Max Plus 1TBs is that they are not paying up-front for them but instead spending large amounts each month. I spend around £150 to £200 every 2 years for a new Android phone probably equivalent in capability to a year or two old flagship iPhone.
My daughter's birthday is approaching and she is very keen to get an iPhone for her birthday (she has a 2 year old Android but still pretty decent). I personally detest all Apple devices due to their vast overpricing. I've set a budget for it for her which is probably only enough for a rather tired second hand X or 11 which is of course, not what she wants. She can have a very decent brand new Android for the same price. Up to her now what she wants to do!
The cheapest new iPhone is the SE2 which, at £389, is cheaper than the £499 first iPhone was back in 2007.
I work in IT, and use about 500MB/month of data on average.
Yeah but I bet you don’t watch Tik Tok or YouTube for hours a day.
... while not in range of a wifi you can use.
Who the hell needs to do that in this day and age?
My girlfriend uses many gigabytes a day listening to Spotify at work because they’re not allowed to have personal devices on WiFi
Does she not know there’s a download button on Spotify?
You can’t download the entire Spotify catalogue
I have a hundred hours or so of playlists downloaded, for commuting and office listening over a couple of weeks.
This is fascinating, today’s youngsters have apparently never known mobile data scarcity, so they are running through hundreds of gigs of data a month.
How much energy could we save, if they all stop doing that? And the crypto mining of course.
I’m 30 in a few weeks. Data hasn’t been scarce for at least 5+ years. Its there to be used.
I’m 44, and remember when GPRS was a new thing, and Blackberry made millions from their data compression algorithms and corporate device management software so that people could check their emails.
I use the mobile data for Signal, iMessage, email, sat nav, google and occasionally PB.
Acorn (well, Pace at that time...) had a project to make a fax compressor. You attach the unit to your fax machine, and it would compress the data before sending, to allow another unit to decompress it at the other end.
We were doing the work for a client, but AIUI there was an argument over patents (not at our end), and by the time that was nearly resolved, faxes had gone right out of fashion.
I've a working unit in the garage. Not a prototype; a fully boxed unit with manual.
It's surprising how fast tech can go out of fashion.
I work in IT, and use about 500MB/month of data on average.
I rarely get over 1GB/month, and that's only if I watch YouTube whilst out and about. It just shows how people can have very different use cases for their devices
A friends gf (now ex...) got through over £100 of texts per month in the early 2000s. Some months it was much more.
Last month I got through 290GB. The plan rolls over on the 3rd of each month and as of this morning I am up to 171GB
Wow. I didn't think that would even be possible with how much wifi there is available.
Not all wifi is of usable quality and sometimes the procedures for registering on networks can be a right pain. I find it simpler just to leave mobile data on all the time and keep wifi switched off. I have an unlimited plan so it does not cost any more than not using it
I still think the strangest thing about Johnson is the fact that so many people insisted he was a clever man pretending to be a stupid man, rather than a stupid man pretending to be a clever man pretending to be a stupid man.
He’s a lazy man who thinks he’s pretending to be lazy. Extraordinarily poor self-awareness is his key personality trait.
The Guardian long read on Cummings and his feud with Johnson was interesting on this. It basically said that Johnson is stupid and lacking in self awareness most of the time, but occasionally when his interests are threatened he focuses and becomes intelligent and self aware. Cummings is the opposite - forensic and reflective most of the time, but prone to occasional bouts of stupidity under pressure. Of course I wish the fate of the country wasn't tied up in the tiresome soggy biscuit game that these two over-privileged wankers are engaged in.
I don't think that is true of Cummings. He reads extensively, he is good at identifying problems, but terrible at producing workable solutions and totally lacking in self awareness that his approach is pissing everybody off around him, such that they won't go along with his plans, in fact they dig in against his ideas.
This solution seems to always be, well if we could blow everything up and start again with me in charge, it would work. Which for many problems in politics you can't start a fresh e.g. you can't just shut the NHS and start again, or switch off the benefits system for a year while you pivot to a better approach like some silicon valley VC backed start-up.
Comments
I note the Guardian quote today from an anti-Johnson MP: "there are about 20 letters, “some sent, some in draft”. That doesn't sound as though the ballot will be triggered before Sue Gray's report, if it's coming as soon as Friday, as some predict.
Land enough blows on Johnson and more letters will go in.
Or does he row back, hoping they keep the man who will shortly be the most unpopular PM since polling began?
Will it be Dorries or Shapps!?
Join up to fight the Evul Brits or the Evul Catholics, great. Join up to murder your own side in a never ending series of hunt-the-tout, with the added fun of being accused of being a tout... not so much.
Raab is not a shoe-in just because he is deputy PM.
Lib Dems will push for SM membership, but not Rejoin in the short term. The SNP, PC and SF will be for their nations to Rejoin as independent states.
Ultimately the biggest obstacle to Rejoin will be the break up of the UK. Without Scotland and NI the hurdle to Rejoin gets a lot higher.
Didn’t know that.
All I do know is that the bairns have had some terrific winters in the Scottish hills in recent years.
I also like the idea of border charges to drive into Greater London. The idea of having a sign on the edge of Epping Forest saying: “Welcome to London, Zero Carbon City” along with a charge strikes me as a strong statement of intent for the world’s greatest city.
(Also, he’s been vocal in getting the WFH mandate removed - that has been really bad for business as companies have banned their staff from meeting in person)
Extraordinarily poor self-awareness is his key personality trait.
An interesting approach that might fit Starmer's prosecutor style would be to read out some of the criminal cases that are being reported on from May 2020 where people were fined for breaching covid rules despite professing ignorance (of the rules, of whether there was a gathering, and so on), and inviting the PM to comment on whether the court was right or wrong to convict despite the defence of "not knowing".
Literally the only thing I would be changing at the moment would be:
1) remove the threat of jail for licence fee dodging
2) start a proper debate on how the BBC should work going forward
3) fix the licence fee but from 2025 or 2026 onwards so that the BBC has money for the next 2 years and time to plot its future.
The lack of an increase in 2022/23/24 means that the BBC will adopt a red arrows approach and bin popular things for point scoring reasons. Radio 5 live and then BBC 4 followed by BBC 2 seem to be the planned cuts.
Its a lot cheaper and means you're seeing the world through a 24+ inch screen not a 3 inch.
Nor do you get withdrawal symptoms if you're not constantly tapping into a mobile.
🇬🇧All adults
Would 30%
Would not 56%
🌳2019 Con
Would 42%
Would not 43%
2,166 UK adults, 14-16 Jan https://twitter.com/SavantaComRes/status/1483732212965163008/photo/1
For those who still care about UK/EU relations, the EU side admits to being “charmed” by @trussliz last week. She will now meet @MarosSefcovic in Bxl next Monday. Despite - or because of - the madness in Westminster, things are looking up for UK/EU 1/
https://twitter.com/mij_europe/status/1483731805626904585?s=21
The take by the Mail is designed to reinforce fears rather than reflect reality.
The take by the Telegraph is designed to reinforce fears rather than reflect reality.
It’s what newspapers do.
If the National publishes “bollocks” then boo hoo.
(Incidentally, the strongest part of Wee Ginger Dug’s piece was not the bit I copy n pasted. But then you lot are hardly the intended audience.)
(One of Sturgeon’s greatest strengths is that she lacks the common compulsion to crack jokes all the time.)
Of course I wish the fate of the country wasn't tied up in the tiresome soggy biscuit game that these two over-privileged wankers are engaged in.
This is fascinating, today’s youngsters have apparently never known mobile data scarcity, so they are running through hundreds of gigs of data a month.
How much energy could we save, if they all stop doing that? And the crypto mining of course.
Conservative MPs' indecision, inertia, inaction, acceptance of law breaking, of laughing at the little people, condoning parties whilst the Queen cried alone in Windsor Chapel. Johnson is already exposed enough, time to focus on the Party that enabled him.
The risk of reinfection was 16 times higher in the Omicron-dominant period compared to the Delta-dominant period http://ow.ly/iO2w50HxGA2
https://twitter.com/ONS/status/1483733905635258372?s=20
Wonder if there will be an evening postbag.
During the first Starmer attack dog PMQ's his most memorable effective and oft repeated line was one about Ant and Dec. Not even particularly funny but the only one that stays in the memory and the laughter brought everyone on side
I use the mobile data for Signal, iMessage, email, sat nav, google and occasionally PB.
Edit: to be fair, Mr Eagles is the same age as me, and he’s in terabits per month territory!
I’d be up for making a donation to the Nick Cook Book Fund.
For example, the onions in our veg box, where most of the produce is grown in East Lothian, have been very small this winter, which we think must be due to a poor summer.
November 1990 was so exciting because it went on for so long - the Howe sacking, the resignation speech, would Heseltine go for it? If this place had existed then....
While I would much prefer the voters giving Johnson the denouement he so richly deserves with at the same time the helpful by-product of condemning the Conservative Party to an extended period of Opposition, MPs seeing their majorities and career prospects evaporating in front of them may well decide out of motivated self-interest the man who got them elected now has to go.
Stretching this farrago out over several days will provide useful entertainment.
2022: 38% (+10)
2023: 17% (-5)
Sum 2024: 29% (+4)
DK: 16% (-9)
2,166 UK adults, 14-16 Jan (chng. from 12-14 Nov)
*2024 figure relates to on or before 2nd May https://twitter.com/SavantaComRes/status/1483736960107745281/photo/1
“From Stalin to Mr Bean”
“It’s rather like sending our opening batsmen to the crease only for them to find that before the first ball is bowled, their bats have been broken by the team captain.”
We were doing the work for a client, but AIUI there was an argument over patents (not at our end), and by the time that was nearly resolved, faxes had gone right out of fashion.
I've a working unit in the garage. Not a prototype; a fully boxed unit with manual.
It's surprising how fast tech can go out of fashion.
Edit: this is it: http://www.computinghistory.org.uk/det/46352/Daytona-Netfax-NFX101/ Oddly, I know who the donor of that unit is from his description.
"My round, I think. What do you want, Kuntibula?"
"Cheers. Same again. A new economic model based on ..."
"Ok, got it."
Thatcher was a stranger to humour and it didn’t do her much harm, until she went off the deep end.
On the use of intelligence, it's interesting comparing how the UK Govt did it in WW1 vs WW2, in both cases where enemy codes were extensively broken. At Jutland for example the Admiralty shot themselves in the foot by keeping the codebreakers too close to the detail, such that when the Admiralty was asking stupid questions the codebreakers did not have enough context to be able to tell.
On shoot-to-kill, I've never fully understood the phrase, other than as political anti-marketing. What is the alternative when facing a terrorist with a gun - shoot-to-not-kill?
There are questions around rules of engagement, perhaps - which is a different issue imo.
Perhaps the definition of an effective stunt
As for how much people spend on phones for me it seems crazy. The reason so many people have iPhone 13 Pro Max Plus 1TBs is that they are not paying up-front for them but instead spending large amounts each month. I spend around £150 to £200 every 2 years for a new Android phone probably equivalent in capability to a year or two old flagship iPhone.
My daughter's birthday is approaching and she is very keen to get an iPhone for her birthday (she has a 2 year old Android but still pretty decent). I personally detest all Apple devices due to their vast overpricing. I've set a budget for it for her which is probably only enough for a rather tired second hand X or 11 which is of course, not what she wants. She can have a very decent brand new Android for the same price. Up to her now what she wants to do!
The attached article that details the patent issues shows how people can lose millions in tech, and the way many really good ideas never pay off..
If it lingers its backfired.
Focus on claim Bojo tried to go and see queenie while infectious and Dom C stopped him. NOT a party claim so not vulnerable to the Wait for S Gray to report counter.
That really would kill him stone dead
This solution seems to always be, well if we could blow everything up and start again with me in charge, it would work. Which for many problems in politics you can't start a fresh e.g. you can't just shut the NHS and start again, or switch off the benefits system for a year while you pivot to a better approach like some silicon valley VC backed start-up.
Or the clack-clack of a typing pool with manual typewriters (I am just about old enough to have heard that.)