I don’t know why people keep saying Johnson got the big calls right and then go on to mention Covid.
It was a fucking shambles on almost every front save, of course, vaccines.
Nah, it wasn't that bad and the UK is one of the few countries that got the big reopening calls right. Some European countries still have idiotic mask mandates and vaccine passports.
It was that bad, Max, you’ve forgotten. That other countries might be crap doesn’t excuse it.
Let’s just agree that Boris brought the right instinct in late 2021 to opening back up.
Everything before that was terrible. Boris doesn’t read briefings, he doesn’t do effective comms, he doesn’t do organisation, and he doesn’t do crisis management.
He was no better no worse than Sturgeon or Drakeford
They all made various bad calls (in hindsight)
No hindsight necessary. Many of the calls were shit at the time and called out on here.
What is it about Indians that makes them think that they are above the law?
Or is it just that they mi with the wrong sort of people, such as Posh-boy Tories?
Wiki: "Ahmad Khan was born in Pinderfields Hospital, Wakefield, where both his parents worked.[7] His father, Dr Saeed Ahmad Khan, was born in the North-West Frontier Province of British India (modern-day Pakistan), and worked as a consultant dermatologist.[8][9] His English mother was a State Registered Nurse and midwife.[10] His grandmother, Joyce Reynolds, also worked at Pinderfields Hospital as a staff sister.[9] His grandfather was a miner.[9]"
I don’t know why people keep saying Johnson got the big calls right and then go on to mention Covid.
It was a fucking shambles on almost every front save, of course, vaccines.
Personally, I think that is simply wrong. Some things went badly wrong. But not, for all the moaning on here, testing. Or genomics. Or vaccine development, production and roll out. Nor even, in the big picture, public health messaging.
Overall, the UK was not top of the class, but I'd say, observed from a distance, it was better than average, top quartile.
Some people just love to moan about how shite the UK is.
Especially when they have to justify to themselves moving to a country that may well re-elect Donald Trump.
I don’t know why people keep saying Johnson got the big calls right and then go on to mention Covid.
It was a fucking shambles on almost every front save, of course, vaccines.
Nah, it wasn't that bad and the UK is one of the few countries that got the big reopening calls right. Some European countries still have idiotic mask mandates and vaccine passports.
It was that bad, Max, you’ve forgotten. That other countries might be crap doesn’t excuse it.
Let’s just agree that Boris brought the right instinct in late 2021 to opening back up.
Everything before that was terrible. Boris doesn’t read briefings, he doesn’t do effective comms, he doesn’t do organisation, and he doesn’t do crisis management.
He was no better no worse than Sturgeon or Drakeford
They all made various bad calls (in hindsight)
No hindsight necessary. Many of the calls were shit at the time and called out on here.
Certainly Drakeford's 2 week lockdown was a spectacular failure
...everyone agreed that in the most important technology of the 21st century, the EU was not on the map.
The last person on the panel was an entrepreneur.
He noted that the EU had as many AI startups as Israel (a country 1/50th the size) and, btw, two thirds of those were in London that was heading out the door due to Brexit.
So basically the EU had 1/3 the AI startups of Israel (this was a few years ago)
So the panel discussion turned to "What should the EU do?"
And the more or less unanimous conclusion (except for the entrepreneur) was "We are going to build on the success of GDPR and aim to be the REGULATORY LEADER of machine learning"
I literally laughed out loud.
Being the "Regulatory Leader" is NOT A REAL THING.
Imagine it is the early 20th century and imagine that cars were invented and that the USA and China were producing a lot of cars.
The EU of today would say "Building cars looks hard, but we will be the leader in STOP SIGNs"
The idea that Europe can concede the field in these areas to the USA and China and just be the referee saying "You can't do this" and "You can't do that" is a complete joke of a strategy.
Now this is not officially the strategy.
Officially the EU is for all these things, but done under the careful guiding hand of Brussels.
So what you are saying is that the UK because an AI leader DESPITE being a member of the low growth, sclerotic EU.
Your anecdote doesn’t do anything except remind us that bureaucrats of all stripes are shit at facilitating growth.
Yes, and the negotiators are impressively professional - virtually no leaks, polite about each other, noting areas of progress without empty optimism. I think they've reached agreement on a lot of secondary issues and made progress on some primary ones, e.g. "What would neutrality look like?"
I think the problem is that when either side starts making progress militarily, they tell their negotiators to stiffen their stances. You then get politicians saying they need to gain some more ground to improve their position, and so it goes on. You need a period of deadlock.
It's a problem if Ukraine wins back territory?
A problem in getting an agreement if either side is gaining ground. It might be a good thing in itself - but unless one's into Unconditional Surrender territory there needs to come a point where both sides can see they're not getting any further.
That's why we're giving Ukraine any amount of defensive weaponry, but are less keen to provide tanks, planes and mobile artillery. I think the West has got this about right - it's played a major part in protecting Kyiv, without helping to extend the war. Russia will I suspect find it hard to make progress out of Donbas.
We should no more be doing deals with Putin than we should have been with Hitler, nor enabling them. It's not as if Putin will keep to them anyway - he has a vision of a Greater imperial Russia which he sees force as not only valid but necessary to impose, because only force can bring about the Russification needed to bring about that vision.
There may not be another - and certainly not a better - chance to stop Putin than now. His forces need to not only be stopped but driven out of Donbas and Crimea.
At last, a by-election that is winnable for Labour.
Labour would have to do very badly not to win a by-election in Wakefield.
I agree a Conservative hold would rightly be seen as a good Conservative result, and a bad Labour one.
But it's not foregone conclusion territory as a Labour gain. The swing in Birmingham Erdington would only barely be sufficient, while Hartlepool and Batley & Spen were both swings against Labour (albeit things have moved on).
It may well be pretty tight and Labour's campaign team need to do a damned sight better than they have recently.
Labour would clearly be helped if Somerton & Frome had a by-election as the Tories would need to work to defend two. I suspect it won't as Warburton, whilst clearly in huge trouble, can probably draw the process out at least.
Yes, and the negotiators are impressively professional - virtually no leaks, polite about each other, noting areas of progress without empty optimism. I think they've reached agreement on a lot of secondary issues and made progress on some primary ones, e.g. "What would neutrality look like?"
I think the problem is that when either side starts making progress militarily, they tell their negotiators to stiffen their stances. You then get politicians saying they need to gain some more ground to improve their position, and so it goes on. You need a period of deadlock.
It's a problem if Ukraine wins back territory?
A problem in getting an agreement if either side is gaining ground. It might be a good thing in itself - but unless one's into Unconditional Surrender territory there needs to come a point where both sides can see they're not getting any further.
That's why we're giving Ukraine any amount of defensive weaponry, but are less keen to provide tanks, planes and mobile artillery. I think the West has got this about right - it's played a major part in protecting Kyiv, without helping to extend the war. Russia will I suspect find it hard to make progress out of Donbas.
Ukraine needs to drive Russia out of its territory. All weapons can be used either offensively or defensively. I think the reluctance to provide bigger stuff is the fear of escalation rather than some sort of arcane definition of what counts as an offensive weapon. In any case, we don't know what has been given, only what we have said we will provide, or what comms/intel/wargaming/cyber warfare we are giving.
I see this as NATO fighting a proxy war. It must have a war aim. I can't see that is less than some sort of defeat of the Russians.
Surely Labour should be quids in, in any coming by-election"?
If red wall Brexiteers are as racist as people claim, perhaps his name, religion, and ethnicity actually suppressed the maximum the Tory vote in Wakefield?
I don’t know why people keep saying Johnson got the big calls right and then go on to mention Covid.
It was a fucking shambles on almost every front save, of course, vaccines.
Nah, it wasn't that bad and the UK is one of the few countries that got the big reopening calls right. Some European countries still have idiotic mask mandates and vaccine passports.
Yes he was one of the very few leaders in Europe to tell the modellers to f off with their ridiculous deaths projections. And he has been triumphantly vindicated. If anything, he did so much later than he should have done - I wish he'd done so two years ago. We'd doubtless have more educated children, a better economy, a freer society and better mental health.
And, yes, vaccines.
As @Gardenwalker notes you are forgetting living through it (and why wouldn't we all want to).
For me he did much that was right - including his natural anti-restriction instinct which did win out at the end and I will not begrudge that. But for quite some time he delegated government to the Chief Medical Officer, yes and the modellers. In addition do you remember the chaos which lasted for months, typified by the following:
1. AM: Minister comes on R4 to say X will happen. 2. PM: Govt confirms X won't happen; or
1. AM: Minister comes on R4 to say X won't happen. 2. PM: Govt confirms X will happen.
Do you remember those days. For me perhaps more than anything it was such occurrences which illustrated the chaos and indecision that lay at the heart of govt that exacerbated a pretty bad time for us all; it totally f*cked with our heads.
Yes, and the negotiators are impressively professional - virtually no leaks, polite about each other, noting areas of progress without empty optimism. I think they've reached agreement on a lot of secondary issues and made progress on some primary ones, e.g. "What would neutrality look like?"
I think the problem is that when either side starts making progress militarily, they tell their negotiators to stiffen their stances. You then get politicians saying they need to gain some more ground to improve their position, and so it goes on. You need a period of deadlock.
It's a problem if Ukraine wins back territory?
A problem in getting an agreement if either side is gaining ground. It might be a good thing in itself - but unless one's into Unconditional Surrender territory there needs to come a point where both sides can see they're not getting any further.
That's why we're giving Ukraine any amount of defensive weaponry, but are less keen to provide tanks, planes and mobile artillery. I think the West has got this about right - it's played a major part in protecting Kyiv, without helping to extend the war. Russia will I suspect find it hard to make progress out of Donbas.
Ukraine needs to drive Russia out of its territory. All weapons can be used either offensively or defensively. I think the reluctance to provide bigger stuff is the fear of escalation rather than some sort of arcane definition of what counts as an offensive weapon. In any case, we don't know what has been given, only what we have said we will provide, or what comms/intel/wargaming/cyber warfare we are giving.
I see this as NATO fighting a proxy war. It must have a war aim. I can't see that is less than some sort of defeat of the Russians.
Delenda est Russia
Apols, something seems to have gone wrong with the quote attribution on that one.
Yes, and the negotiators are impressively professional - virtually no leaks, polite about each other, noting areas of progress without empty optimism. I think they've reached agreement on a lot of secondary issues and made progress on some primary ones, e.g. "What would neutrality look like?"
I think the problem is that when either side starts making progress militarily, they tell their negotiators to stiffen their stances. You then get politicians saying they need to gain some more ground to improve their position, and so it goes on. You need a period of deadlock.
It's a problem if Ukraine wins back territory?
A problem in getting an agreement if either side is gaining ground. It might be a good thing in itself - but unless one's into Unconditional Surrender territory there needs to come a point where both sides can see they're not getting any further.
That's why we're giving Ukraine any amount of defensive weaponry, but are less keen to provide tanks, planes and mobile artillery. I think the West has got this about right - it's played a major part in protecting Kyiv, without helping to extend the war. Russia will I suspect find it hard to make progress out of Donbas.
Ukraine needs to drive Russia out of its territory. All weapons can be used either offensively or defensively. I think the reluctance to provide bigger stuff is the fear of escalation rather than some sort of arcane definition of what counts as an offensive weapon. In any case, we don't know what has been given, only what we have said we will provide, or what comms/intel/wargaming/cyber warfare we are giving.
I see this as NATO fighting a proxy war. It must have a war aim. I can't see that is less than some sort of defeat of the Russians.
Delenda est Russia
Big words. You are arguing for a near-continuous state of war in Ukraine.
Edit: and yes someone had to sort out the blockquotes. Your welcome.
I don’t know why people keep saying Johnson got the big calls right and then go on to mention Covid.
It was a fucking shambles on almost every front save, of course, vaccines.
Because when he made the wrong decisions, Labour and the media agreed with them.
The media had a SHOCKING Covid.
Labour - and this is true of almost any area - should have outsourced their policy making to the Tony Blair Institute.
So the Tories have had a poor Covid, but Labour have been worse, the majority of governments in the world have been worse, and the media have been awful?
I'd probably agree with that.
But I think what it shows is that pandemics, along with many things, are quite hard to manage. I don't think it's credible that most governments are run and advised by people who are significantly less competent than the denizens of an internet bulletin board, even this one. I think it's probably more likely that making decisions in a hurry that will affect the lives and livelihoods of millions of people is more difficult than we give it credit for.
That said, Susan Michie, for one, should never have been let near the leavers of power.
Ok, you lot, here's a task to put your big brains to use: what on earth happened in the leafy 1st arrondissement of Paris, which traditionally votes for high-income candidates like Macron, Fillon and Bayrou, but where official sources say Mélenchon won, and that the registered voters doubled and now exceed the 2018 population estimate? My prior is data error, but any locals or more fluent French speakers want to chip in?
I wouldn't describe the 1re arrondissement as that leafy: it is the very centre of Paris around the Louvre and Forum les Halles. It does have the Jardin des Tuileries in it, but nobody lives in that bit.
I don’t know why people keep saying Johnson got the big calls right and then go on to mention Covid.
It was a fucking shambles on almost every front save, of course, vaccines.
Nah, it wasn't that bad and the UK is one of the few countries that got the big reopening calls right. Some European countries still have idiotic mask mandates and vaccine passports.
Yes he was one of the very few leaders in Europe to tell the modellers to f off with their ridiculous deaths projections. And he has been triumphantly vindicated. If anything, he did so much later than he should have done - I wish he'd done so two years ago. We'd doubtless have more educated children, a better economy, a freer society and better mental health.
And, yes, vaccines.
As @Gardenwalker notes you are forgetting living through it (and why wouldn't we all want to).
For me he did much that was right - including his natural anti-restriction instinct which did win out at the end and I will not begrudge that. But for quite some time he delegated government to the Chief Medical Officer, yes and the modellers. In addition do you remember the chaos which lasted for months and typified by the following:
1. AM: Minister comes on R4 to say X will happen. 2. PM: Govt confirms X won't happen; or
1. AM: Minister comes on R4 to say X won't happen. 2. PM: Govt confirms X will happen.
Do you remember those days. For me perhaps more than anything it was such occurrences which illustrated the chaos and indecision that lay at the heart of govt that exacerbated a pretty bad time for us all; it totally f*cked with our heads.
Remember the on/off Christmas 2020 and the one-day school term (in January 2021)? That certainly upset a lot of PBers in England at least. I can't remember what allk the other three nations did, though IIRC Scotland had a steadier approach to that sort of choping and changing.
...everyone agreed that in the most important technology of the 21st century, the EU was not on the map.
The last person on the panel was an entrepreneur.
He noted that the EU had as many AI startups as Israel (a country 1/50th the size) and, btw, two thirds of those were in London that was heading out the door due to Brexit.
So basically the EU had 1/3 the AI startups of Israel (this was a few years ago)
So the panel discussion turned to "What should the EU do?"
And the more or less unanimous conclusion (except for the entrepreneur) was "We are going to build on the success of GDPR and aim to be the REGULATORY LEADER of machine learning"
I literally laughed out loud.
Being the "Regulatory Leader" is NOT A REAL THING.
Imagine it is the early 20th century and imagine that cars were invented and that the USA and China were producing a lot of cars.
The EU of today would say "Building cars looks hard, but we will be the leader in STOP SIGNs"
The idea that Europe can concede the field in these areas to the USA and China and just be the referee saying "You can't do this" and "You can't do that" is a complete joke of a strategy.
Now this is not officially the strategy.
Officially the EU is for all these things, but done under the careful guiding hand of Brussels.
So what you are saying is that the UK because an AI leader DESPITE being a member of the low growth, sclerotic EU.
Your anecdote doesn’t do anything except remind us that bureaucrats of all stripes are shit at facilitating growth.
So why shackle yourself to an economic system that is predicated on bureaucratic levelling?
I don’t know why people keep saying Johnson got the big calls right and then go on to mention Covid.
It was a fucking shambles on almost every front save, of course, vaccines.
Personally, I think that is simply wrong. Some things went badly wrong. But not, for all the moaning on here, testing. Or genomics. Or vaccine development, production and roll out. Nor even, in the big picture, public health messaging.
Overall, the UK was not top of the class, but I'd say, observed from a distance, it was better than average, top quartile.
Some people just love to moan about how shite the UK is.
Especially when they have to justify to themselves moving to a country that may well re-elect Donald Trump.
Yes, that’s exactly it. My criticisms of Johnson are based on an insecurity that the US might re-elect Trump. You’ve got me.
No doubt your tidal energy proposals are similarly definitive.
@williamglenn no offence because goodness we're all allowed to change our minds about stuff but just to say that since the "Big Conversion", the reasons for which I'm sure were necessary and relevant for you, I don't believe you have any credibility whatsoever talking about the EU.
Not of course that you should care less but your EU posts are now in the bucket of those I skip on PB (I noticed a long one earlier, which @Gardenwalker has engaged you about).
I don’t know why people keep saying Johnson got the big calls right and then go on to mention Covid.
It was a fucking shambles on almost every front save, of course, vaccines.
As someone who wants Johnson out on his ear preferably yesterday, one of the things that has really fucking annoyed me about Starmer is his hypocrisy over PPE. At the start of the Covid crisis he and every other opposition MP were screaming for the Government to do absolutely anything that was necessary and sod the cost to get any and all PPE they could. They were attacking the Government for not accepting PPE from some sources and were generally making it clear there was no price too high to pay for getting the stuff and that any and all procurement rules and safeguards should be ignored to that end.
And of course now it is over and we are picking up the pieces Starmer is being an utter fuckwit and attacking the Government for having wasted money on PPE that wasn't needed or wasn't fit for purpose. He was on TV a couple of nights ago doing exactly that.
I generally prefer Starmer to Johnson as a prospective PM but if he carries on with this he deserves nothing but scorn and he certainly doesn't deserve to get anywhere near Number 10.
I don’t know why people keep saying Johnson got the big calls right and then go on to mention Covid.
It was a fucking shambles on almost every front save, of course, vaccines.
Nah, it wasn't that bad and the UK is one of the few countries that got the big reopening calls right. Some European countries still have idiotic mask mandates and vaccine passports.
Yes he was one of the very few leaders in Europe to tell the modellers to f off with their ridiculous deaths projections. And he has been triumphantly vindicated. If anything, he did so much later than he should have done - I wish he'd done so two years ago. We'd doubtless have more educated children, a better economy, a freer society and better mental health.
And, yes, vaccines.
As @Gardenwalker notes you are forgetting living through it (and why wouldn't we all want to).
For me he did much that was right - including his natural anti-restriction instinct which did win out at the end and I will not begrudge that. But for quite some time he delegated government to the Chief Medical Officer, yes and the modellers. In addition do you remember the chaos which lasted for months and typified by the following:
1. AM: Minister comes on R4 to say X will happen. 2. PM: Govt confirms X won't happen; or
1. AM: Minister comes on R4 to say X won't happen. 2. PM: Govt confirms X will happen.
Do you remember those days. For me perhaps more than anything it was such occurrences which illustrated the chaos and indecision that lay at the heart of govt that exacerbated a pretty bad time for us all; it totally f*cked with our heads.
Remember the on/off Christmas 2020 and the one-day school term (in January 2021)? That certainly upset a lot of PBers in England at least. I can't remember what allk the other three nations did, though IIRC Scotland had a steadier approach to that sort of choping and changing.
Yep the schools one comes to mind (to say nothing of the do they/don't they spread the disease); to say nothing of the zero regard for the mental health wellbeing and efficiency of both pupils and teachers to have masks in classrooms ffs let alone walking around the school.
And of course just closing schools they will or should be held culpable for for decades as the various associated problems play themselves out with the current school age generation. If I had children I would be more than furios.
...everyone agreed that in the most important technology of the 21st century, the EU was not on the map.
The last person on the panel was an entrepreneur.
He noted that the EU had as many AI startups as Israel (a country 1/50th the size) and, btw, two thirds of those were in London that was heading out the door due to Brexit.
So basically the EU had 1/3 the AI startups of Israel (this was a few years ago)
So the panel discussion turned to "What should the EU do?"
And the more or less unanimous conclusion (except for the entrepreneur) was "We are going to build on the success of GDPR and aim to be the REGULATORY LEADER of machine learning"
I literally laughed out loud.
Being the "Regulatory Leader" is NOT A REAL THING.
Imagine it is the early 20th century and imagine that cars were invented and that the USA and China were producing a lot of cars.
The EU of today would say "Building cars looks hard, but we will be the leader in STOP SIGNs"
The idea that Europe can concede the field in these areas to the USA and China and just be the referee saying "You can't do this" and "You can't do that" is a complete joke of a strategy.
Now this is not officially the strategy.
Officially the EU is for all these things, but done under the careful guiding hand of Brussels.
So what you are saying is that the UK because an AI leader DESPITE being a member of the low growth, sclerotic EU.
Your anecdote doesn’t do anything except remind us that bureaucrats of all stripes are shit at facilitating growth.
So why shackle yourself to an economic system that is predicated on bureaucratic levelling?
Because “shackling” doesn’t mean anything, except that it’s user reads too much Daily Express.
I’ve made it to my hotel in Banyuls and I’m loving France so far. First off, nobody is wearing a mask. I chatted with the receptionist in French for a bit - I can’t believe how much I instinctively remember having not studied it for nearly thirty years and barely using it since. She did switch to English near the end when she could see I was struggling to follow.
When I told her how how far I’d walked to get here, she immediately offered me a drink. I said “Je vais vouler un bier”; she gave me a choice of three and I went for the one I hadn’t heard of. It’s called Cap D’Ona and is brewed in the next town. Its label says it won a World Beer Challenge Gold Medal in 2021. And it’s going down very nicely! (I’ll get on the vin once I’ve rehydrated; I ran out of beer about three miles back!)
My room is really smart and the bed feels good. I’ve got a balcony with a pretty decent view.
The only thing I agree with Orwell (according to wiki) about so far is the wind. I’ve had to hold onto my hat for most of the day, and nearly been blown over a few times.
“George Orwell and his wife Eileen had a holiday in Banyuls-sur-Mer directly after leaving Spain, then in the throes of its civil war, in July 1937. Their holiday was not a success. As he noted, Orwell found the place 'a bore and a disappointment'. It was chilly weather, a persistent wind blew off the sea, the water was dull and choppy....” https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Banyuls-sur-Mer
...everyone agreed that in the most important technology of the 21st century, the EU was not on the map.
The last person on the panel was an entrepreneur.
He noted that the EU had as many AI startups as Israel (a country 1/50th the size) and, btw, two thirds of those were in London that was heading out the door due to Brexit.
So basically the EU had 1/3 the AI startups of Israel (this was a few years ago)
So the panel discussion turned to "What should the EU do?"
And the more or less unanimous conclusion (except for the entrepreneur) was "We are going to build on the success of GDPR and aim to be the REGULATORY LEADER of machine learning"
I literally laughed out loud.
Being the "Regulatory Leader" is NOT A REAL THING.
Imagine it is the early 20th century and imagine that cars were invented and that the USA and China were producing a lot of cars.
The EU of today would say "Building cars looks hard, but we will be the leader in STOP SIGNs"
The idea that Europe can concede the field in these areas to the USA and China and just be the referee saying "You can't do this" and "You can't do that" is a complete joke of a strategy.
Now this is not officially the strategy.
Officially the EU is for all these things, but done under the careful guiding hand of Brussels.
It's pretty much the same in the other field that will dominate future economies (and which will work hand in hand with AI) - synthetic biology. There is a lot of basic research being done in the field in EU countries, particularly Germany. But the commercialization of the technologies and products of it is challenging, given the regulatory environment against GMOs.
...everyone agreed that in the most important technology of the 21st century, the EU was not on the map.
The last person on the panel was an entrepreneur.
He noted that the EU had as many AI startups as Israel (a country 1/50th the size) and, btw, two thirds of those were in London that was heading out the door due to Brexit.
So basically the EU had 1/3 the AI startups of Israel (this was a few years ago)
So the panel discussion turned to "What should the EU do?"
And the more or less unanimous conclusion (except for the entrepreneur) was "We are going to build on the success of GDPR and aim to be the REGULATORY LEADER of machine learning"
I literally laughed out loud.
Being the "Regulatory Leader" is NOT A REAL THING.
Imagine it is the early 20th century and imagine that cars were invented and that the USA and China were producing a lot of cars.
The EU of today would say "Building cars looks hard, but we will be the leader in STOP SIGNs"
The idea that Europe can concede the field in these areas to the USA and China and just be the referee saying "You can't do this" and "You can't do that" is a complete joke of a strategy.
Now this is not officially the strategy.
Officially the EU is for all these things, but done under the careful guiding hand of Brussels.
So what you are saying is that the UK because an AI leader DESPITE being a member of the low growth, sclerotic EU.
Your anecdote doesn’t do anything except remind us that bureaucrats of all stripes are shit at facilitating growth.
So why shackle yourself to an economic system that is predicated on bureaucratic levelling?
Because “shackling” doesn’t mean anything, except that it’s user reads too much Daily Express.
Try shackling yourself back into the real world.
It does in some scenarios, the German courts suggesting that fonts stored on cloud servers based outside of the EU breaks GDPR is completely ridiculous. It's turning the EU into a no-go zone for tech companies.
Ukraine needs to drive Russia out of its territory. All weapons can be used either offensively or defensively. I think the reluctance to provide bigger stuff is the fear of escalation rather than some sort of arcane definition of what counts as an offensive weapon. In any case, we don't know what has been given, only what we have said we will provide, or what comms/intel/wargaming/cyber warfare we are giving.
I see this as NATO fighting a proxy war. It must have a war aim. I can't see that is less than some sort of defeat of the Russians.
Delenda est Russia
Big words. You are arguing for a near-continuous state of war in Ukraine.
No, just for a defeat of the Russian invasion force. They have already been defeated in the north. Any ceasefire favours the invaders, unless Ukraine is at the point of defeat.
I don’t know why people keep saying Johnson got the big calls right and then go on to mention Covid.
It was a fucking shambles on almost every front save, of course, vaccines.
Personally, I think that is simply wrong. Some things went badly wrong. But not, for all the moaning on here, testing. Or genomics. Or vaccine development, production and roll out. Nor even, in the big picture, public health messaging.
Overall, the UK was not top of the class, but I'd say, observed from a distance, it was better than average, top quartile.
Some people just love to moan about how shite the UK is.
Especially when they have to justify to themselves moving to a country that may well re-elect Donald Trump.
Yes, that’s exactly it. My criticisms of Johnson are based on an insecurity that the US might re-elect Trump. You’ve got me.
...everyone agreed that in the most important technology of the 21st century, the EU was not on the map.
The last person on the panel was an entrepreneur.
He noted that the EU had as many AI startups as Israel (a country 1/50th the size) and, btw, two thirds of those were in London that was heading out the door due to Brexit.
So basically the EU had 1/3 the AI startups of Israel (this was a few years ago)
So the panel discussion turned to "What should the EU do?"
And the more or less unanimous conclusion (except for the entrepreneur) was "We are going to build on the success of GDPR and aim to be the REGULATORY LEADER of machine learning"
I literally laughed out loud.
Being the "Regulatory Leader" is NOT A REAL THING.
Imagine it is the early 20th century and imagine that cars were invented and that the USA and China were producing a lot of cars.
The EU of today would say "Building cars looks hard, but we will be the leader in STOP SIGNs"
The idea that Europe can concede the field in these areas to the USA and China and just be the referee saying "You can't do this" and "You can't do that" is a complete joke of a strategy.
Now this is not officially the strategy.
Officially the EU is for all these things, but done under the careful guiding hand of Brussels.
So what you are saying is that the UK because an AI leader DESPITE being a member of the low growth, sclerotic EU.
Your anecdote doesn’t do anything except remind us that bureaucrats of all stripes are shit at facilitating growth.
So why shackle yourself to an economic system that is predicated on bureaucratic levelling?
Because “shackling” doesn’t mean anything, except that it’s user reads too much Daily Express.
Try shackling yourself back into the real world.
It does in some scenarios, the German courts suggesting that fonts stored on cloud servers based outside of the EU breaks GDPR is completely ridiculous. It's turning the EU into a no-go zone for tech companies.
I’m not here to claim that the EU is good for tech. I am here to note that what success the UK (rather London) and perhaps Stockholm and Amsterdam have had in tech has happened despite the EU.
As far as recall, much of the GDPR stuff was led by the UK.
I don’t know why people keep saying Johnson got the big calls right and then go on to mention Covid.
It was a fucking shambles on almost every front save, of course, vaccines.
You realise how dumb that sounds? It's like saying "The defence of Britain in WW2 was a fucking shambles on almost every front save, of course, for the Battle of Britain."
The idea that Boris’s Covid can be compared to the Battle of Britain is so deliriously stupid that only PB’s most dimwitted Tory could have come up with it.
...everyone agreed that in the most important technology of the 21st century, the EU was not on the map.
The last person on the panel was an entrepreneur.
He noted that the EU had as many AI startups as Israel (a country 1/50th the size) and, btw, two thirds of those were in London that was heading out the door due to Brexit.
So basically the EU had 1/3 the AI startups of Israel (this was a few years ago)
So the panel discussion turned to "What should the EU do?"
And the more or less unanimous conclusion (except for the entrepreneur) was "We are going to build on the success of GDPR and aim to be the REGULATORY LEADER of machine learning"
I literally laughed out loud.
Being the "Regulatory Leader" is NOT A REAL THING.
Imagine it is the early 20th century and imagine that cars were invented and that the USA and China were producing a lot of cars.
The EU of today would say "Building cars looks hard, but we will be the leader in STOP SIGNs"
The idea that Europe can concede the field in these areas to the USA and China and just be the referee saying "You can't do this" and "You can't do that" is a complete joke of a strategy.
Now this is not officially the strategy.
Officially the EU is for all these things, but done under the careful guiding hand of Brussels.
So what you are saying is that the UK because an AI leader DESPITE being a member of the low growth, sclerotic EU.
Your anecdote doesn’t do anything except remind us that bureaucrats of all stripes are shit at facilitating growth.
So why shackle yourself to an economic system that is predicated on bureaucratic levelling?
Because “shackling” doesn’t mean anything, except that it’s user reads too much Daily Express.
Try shackling yourself back into the real world.
It does mean something, it means we can't be as nimble at adapting our laws and standards for the modern world.
There's a reason experts of all stripes who actually do things and build things are not rushing to the GDPR loving EU.
If your answer to the problems of the future is GDPR, you've not understood the question.
I don't know. She did not try to discourage the complainant from going to the police. Somewhat the reverse if anything.
The tone could be pretty vital. The then complainant's interpretation of the conversation is obviously compelling so I'mnot in a position to dispute, but you could take the quoted words and the person on the other end argue they thought themselves as being helpful, in identifying there was considered to be proof, and agreeing that going to the police was the best course of action in that case.
I don’t know why people keep saying Johnson got the big calls right and then go on to mention Covid.
It was a fucking shambles on almost every front save, of course, vaccines.
Nah, it wasn't that bad and the UK is one of the few countries that got the big reopening calls right. Some European countries still have idiotic mask mandates and vaccine passports.
Yes he was one of the very few leaders in Europe to tell the modellers to f off with their ridiculous deaths projections. And he has been triumphantly vindicated. If anything, he did so much later than he should have done - I wish he'd done so two years ago. We'd doubtless have more educated children, a better economy, a freer society and better mental health.
And, yes, vaccines.
As @Gardenwalker notes you are forgetting living through it (and why wouldn't we all want to).
For me he did much that was right - including his natural anti-restriction instinct which did win out at the end and I will not begrudge that. But for quite some time he delegated government to the Chief Medical Officer, yes and the modellers. In addition do you remember the chaos which lasted for months, typified by the following:
1. AM: Minister comes on R4 to say X will happen. 2. PM: Govt confirms X won't happen; or
1. AM: Minister comes on R4 to say X won't happen. 2. PM: Govt confirms X will happen.
Do you remember those days. For me perhaps more than anything it was such occurrences which illustrated the chaos and indecision that lay at the heart of govt that exacerbated a pretty bad time for us all; it totally f*cked with our heads.
Yes, generally because he didn't quite have the courage of his convictions enough to trust his own instincts and override much of his own government, expert and popular opinion. Had he done so more often, he'd have been one of the truly great Prime Ministers. As it was, he had the right instincts, but didn't always follow through.
Unlike, say, the Leader of the Opposition, who is supposed to be competent, but made the wrong call just about every time he bothered to oppose the government, which was rarely, and now can't even define 52% of the country.
...everyone agreed that in the most important technology of the 21st century, the EU was not on the map.
The last person on the panel was an entrepreneur.
He noted that the EU had as many AI startups as Israel (a country 1/50th the size) and, btw, two thirds of those were in London that was heading out the door due to Brexit.
So basically the EU had 1/3 the AI startups of Israel (this was a few years ago)
So the panel discussion turned to "What should the EU do?"
And the more or less unanimous conclusion (except for the entrepreneur) was "We are going to build on the success of GDPR and aim to be the REGULATORY LEADER of machine learning"
I literally laughed out loud.
Being the "Regulatory Leader" is NOT A REAL THING.
Imagine it is the early 20th century and imagine that cars were invented and that the USA and China were producing a lot of cars.
The EU of today would say "Building cars looks hard, but we will be the leader in STOP SIGNs"
The idea that Europe can concede the field in these areas to the USA and China and just be the referee saying "You can't do this" and "You can't do that" is a complete joke of a strategy.
Now this is not officially the strategy.
Officially the EU is for all these things, but done under the careful guiding hand of Brussels.
So what you are saying is that the UK because an AI leader DESPITE being a member of the low growth, sclerotic EU.
Your anecdote doesn’t do anything except remind us that bureaucrats of all stripes are shit at facilitating growth.
So why shackle yourself to an economic system that is predicated on bureaucratic levelling?
Because “shackling” doesn’t mean anything, except that it’s user reads too much Daily Express.
Try shackling yourself back into the real world.
It does in some scenarios, the German courts suggesting that fonts stored on cloud servers based outside of the EU breaks GDPR is completely ridiculous. It's turning the EU into a no-go zone for tech companies.
It strikes me that no country on earth is v good at regulating for tech.
The UK should split digital out of Nadine’s grip, and create a special unit under BEIS staffed with secondments from industry who know what the fuck they are doing.
What is it about Indians that makes them think that they are above the law?
Or is it just that they mi with the wrong sort of people, such as Posh-boy Tories?
What??? I suppose you're joking, but it'd be better not to have ethnic generalisations here, even in jest.
Actually, I'm not, at least not entirely. It does seems that all the members of the current cabinet with roots in the Indian subcontinent are wrong'uns. They seem not to have proper English values. If they did, they would resign the moment they were caught out.
...everyone agreed that in the most important technology of the 21st century, the EU was not on the map.
The last person on the panel was an entrepreneur.
He noted that the EU had as many AI startups as Israel (a country 1/50th the size) and, btw, two thirds of those were in London that was heading out the door due to Brexit.
So basically the EU had 1/3 the AI startups of Israel (this was a few years ago)
So the panel discussion turned to "What should the EU do?"
And the more or less unanimous conclusion (except for the entrepreneur) was "We are going to build on the success of GDPR and aim to be the REGULATORY LEADER of machine learning"
I literally laughed out loud.
Being the "Regulatory Leader" is NOT A REAL THING.
Imagine it is the early 20th century and imagine that cars were invented and that the USA and China were producing a lot of cars.
The EU of today would say "Building cars looks hard, but we will be the leader in STOP SIGNs"
The idea that Europe can concede the field in these areas to the USA and China and just be the referee saying "You can't do this" and "You can't do that" is a complete joke of a strategy.
Now this is not officially the strategy.
Officially the EU is for all these things, but done under the careful guiding hand of Brussels.
So what you are saying is that the UK because an AI leader DESPITE being a member of the low growth, sclerotic EU.
Your anecdote doesn’t do anything except remind us that bureaucrats of all stripes are shit at facilitating growth.
So why shackle yourself to an economic system that is predicated on bureaucratic levelling?
Because “shackling” doesn’t mean anything, except that it’s user reads too much Daily Express.
Try shackling yourself back into the real world.
It does in some scenarios, the German courts suggesting that fonts stored on cloud servers based outside of the EU breaks GDPR is completely ridiculous. It's turning the EU into a no-go zone for tech companies.
I’m not here to claim that the EU is good for tech. I am here to note that what success the UK (rather London) and perhaps Stockholm and Amsterdam have had in tech has happened despite the EU.
As far as recall, much of the GDPR stuff was led by the UK.
It seems inconsistent to talk about successes "despite the EU" while also arguing that being in the EU is essential for the UK's growth.
Attributing dysfunctional regulation within the EU system to the UK also doesn't absolve the EU. A UK shorn of the "Brussels effect" mentality will necessarily have to think and act differently.
What is it about Indians that makes them think that they are above the law?
Or is it just that they mi with the wrong sort of people, such as Posh-boy Tories?
What??? I suppose you're joking, but it'd be better not to have ethnic generalisations here, even in jest.
Actually, I'm not, at least not entirely. It does seems that all the members of the current cabinet with roots in the Indian subcontinent are wrong'uns. They seem not to have proper English values. If they did, they would resign the moment they were caught out.
As an Englishman of presumably sound roots (some minor irish and possibly some german in there, but it's tiny) I cannot say I think resigning when caught out is a value we have traditionally displayed such that is is characteristic. Ascribing values to race, well, we have a word for that.
I’ve made it to my hotel in Banyuls and I’m loving France so far. First off, nobody is wearing a mask. I chatted with the receptionist in French for a bit - I can’t believe how much I instinctively remember having not studied it for nearly thirty years and barely using it since. She did switch to English near the end when she could see I was struggling to follow.
When I told her how how far I’d walked to get here, she immediately offered me a drink. I said “Je vais vouler un bier”; she gave me a choice of three and I went for the one I hadn’t heard of. It’s called Cap D’Ona and is brewed in the next town. Its label says it won a World Beer Challenge Gold Medal in 2021. And it’s going down very nicely! (I’ll get on the vin once I’ve rehydrated; I ran out of beer about three miles back!)
My room is really smart and the bed feels good. I’ve got a balcony with a pretty decent view.
The only thing I agree with Orwell (according to wiki) about so far is the wind. I’ve had to hold onto my hat for most of the day, and nearly been blown over a few times.
“George Orwell and his wife Eileen had a holiday in Banyuls-sur-Mer directly after leaving Spain, then in the throes of its civil war, in July 1937. Their holiday was not a success. As he noted, Orwell found the place 'a bore and a disappointment'. It was chilly weather, a persistent wind blew off the sea, the water was dull and choppy....” https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Banyuls-sur-Mer
What a curiously Pooterish little man he was, who else would round off the Spanish civil war by taking Eileen to the seaside and then unfavourably review the sea for having waves, like those people on tripadvisor who go on safari and relate their shock at hearing from the guides that the lions are not completely tame?
I don’t know why people keep saying Johnson got the big calls right and then go on to mention Covid.
It was a fucking shambles on almost every front save, of course, vaccines.
Nah, it wasn't that bad and the UK is one of the few countries that got the big reopening calls right. Some European countries still have idiotic mask mandates and vaccine passports.
Yes he was one of the very few leaders in Europe to tell the modellers to f off with their ridiculous deaths projections. And he has been triumphantly vindicated. If anything, he did so much later than he should have done - I wish he'd done so two years ago. We'd doubtless have more educated children, a better economy, a freer society and better mental health.
And, yes, vaccines.
As @Gardenwalker notes you are forgetting living through it (and why wouldn't we all want to).
For me he did much that was right - including his natural anti-restriction instinct which did win out at the end and I will not begrudge that. But for quite some time he delegated government to the Chief Medical Officer, yes and the modellers. In addition do you remember the chaos which lasted for months, typified by the following:
1. AM: Minister comes on R4 to say X will happen. 2. PM: Govt confirms X won't happen; or
1. AM: Minister comes on R4 to say X won't happen. 2. PM: Govt confirms X will happen.
Do you remember those days. For me perhaps more than anything it was such occurrences which illustrated the chaos and indecision that lay at the heart of govt that exacerbated a pretty bad time for us all; it totally f*cked with our heads.
Yes, generally because he didn't quite have the courage of his convictions enough to trust his own instincts and override much of his own government, expert and popular opinion. Had he done so more often, he'd have been one of the truly great Prime Ministers. As it was, he had the right instincts, but didn't always follow through.
Unlike, say, the Leader of the Opposition, who is supposed to be competent, but made the wrong call just about every time he bothered to oppose the government, which was rarely, and now can't even define 52% of the country.
Well as I posted endlessly on here for me you can't be LotO and support the government in the critical votes of the day each and every time. Your premise has to be that you as the Opposition could do anything and everything better than the current government.
For me coming back from supporting the govt the way he did will be a big challenge. As we are seeing.
I don’t know why people keep saying Johnson got the big calls right and then go on to mention Covid.
It was a fucking shambles on almost every front save, of course, vaccines.
Nah, it wasn't that bad and the UK is one of the few countries that got the big reopening calls right. Some European countries still have idiotic mask mandates and vaccine passports.
Yes he was one of the very few leaders in Europe to tell the modellers to f off with their ridiculous deaths projections. And he has been triumphantly vindicated. If anything, he did so much later than he should have done - I wish he'd done so two years ago. We'd doubtless have more educated children, a better economy, a freer society and better mental health.
And, yes, vaccines.
As @Gardenwalker notes you are forgetting living through it (and why wouldn't we all want to).
For me he did much that was right - including his natural anti-restriction instinct which did win out at the end and I will not begrudge that. But for quite some time he delegated government to the Chief Medical Officer, yes and the modellers. In addition do you remember the chaos which lasted for months and typified by the following:
1. AM: Minister comes on R4 to say X will happen. 2. PM: Govt confirms X won't happen; or
1. AM: Minister comes on R4 to say X won't happen. 2. PM: Govt confirms X will happen.
Do you remember those days. For me perhaps more than anything it was such occurrences which illustrated the chaos and indecision that lay at the heart of govt that exacerbated a pretty bad time for us all; it totally f*cked with our heads.
Remember the on/off Christmas 2020 and the one-day school term (in January 2021)? That certainly upset a lot of PBers in England at least. I can't remember what allk the other three nations did, though IIRC Scotland had a steadier approach to that sort of choping and changing.
Well yes that was poor. But I'd argue that Boris has had a better covid than Nicola, the Drake, or whoever their Northern Irish counterpart is these days. Comparable overall outcomes and far fewer unnecessary restrictions imposed seemingly just to be different from England.
The Boris hero worship is never far from the surface.
His only “instinct” is self-aggrandisement and contempt for the useful idiots who vote for him.
End of.
His Covid shambles started with his speech to the Painted Hall at Greenwich scoffing that Covid meant anything to us in the UK, even as videos dropped on YouTube showing corpses piling up in China…and went downhill from there.
The continued loathing of Boris Johnson almost restores your faith in the British electorate after Brexit
Why would you not have faith in someone just because they disagree with you?
It's surprising how we disparage countries because of their leaders. Trump in America certainly shifted views of Americans and you can hardly hear a good word said about 'Russians' even on here
So, you are making a moral equivalence of Brexit with trying to overturn a democratic election, or with genocide? Is that your point?
Yeah, I get your point now. I can see how I would lose faith in someone who could do that.
Interesting that you think Trump trying to overturn the election is what defined his years in office. I doubt very much that's what non Americans would define it as.
I don't know. She did not try to discourage the complainant from going to the police. Somewhat the reverse if anything.
The tone could be pretty vital. The then complainant's interpretation of the conversation is obviously compelling so I'mnot in a position to dispute, but you could take the quoted words and the person on the other end argue they thought themselves as being helpful, in identifying there was considered to be proof, and agreeing that going to the police was the best course of action in that case.
That bit doesn't seem too bad. The problem on reflection seems to be, rather, that the Tories didn't do anything, ie pull the chap's candidature from the election - but surely withdrawal is impossible a 'few days' before the poll.
One option would have been to suspend him from the party at once while leaving him in the election.
Some questions on Wakefield, as I couldn't find the right bit on Boundary Commission.
There is a Wakefield constituency now, and there is a Wakefield constituency in the proposed boundaries. The half of the constituency within Wakefield is near unchanged, the (currently slightly over) half outwith Wakefield changes totally, from an area South and West of the city now, to an area North of the city on 2024 boundaries.
The question is: is Wakefield the formal successor constituency to Wakefield? Or, because the larger portion goes into Ossett & Denby Dale, is that the formal successor constituency? Certainly, with something like a 10% nominal swing to Labour in '24 for the constituency named Wakefield due to the boundary change, a Tory incumbent would be happier with the latter arrangement, a Labour by-election victor with the former.
Indeed Electoral Calculus has Khan down as the defending MP in Ossett & Denby Dale.
Is Mary Creagh likely to put herself forward for Labour or is this one where there would be a candidate selection for Labour?
LONGVIEW — At a recent evening campaign town hall, Republican candidate Joe Kent rattled off his Day 1 priorities if he’s elected to Congress.
Impeach Joe Biden. Impeach Kamala Harris. Maybe install Donald Trump — or one of his children — as Speaker of the House.
The fantastical scenario played well with the couple of dozen Republicans at the event in a nondescript real estate office meeting room.
Kent admitted the odds of his plan succeeding are slim. But obstruction and revenge are the point. “In a lot of ways the process is the punishment,” he said. “That’s what they did with Trump. We’ll do it to them.”
An ex-Green Beret combat veteran and Gold Star husband, Kent is the Trump-endorsed challenger looking to oust U.S. Rep. Jaime Herrera Beutler in the 2022 midterm election, in retribution for her impeachment vote last year.
The race for Congress in Southwest Washington’s 3rd District — with Kent echoing Trump’s false claims that the 2020 presidential election was stolen and defending people arrested in the Jan. 6 U.S. Capitol assault as “political prisoners” — is among the closely watched contests around the country that will test Trump’s continued hold over the Republican Party.
While the ex-president remains popular with much of the GOP base, there are signs his influence may be fading, with some of his picks faltering in other states. In the 3rd District, a mashup of rural counties and fast-growing suburbs across the river from Portland, Trump’s early endorsement of Kent in September has brought him attention and a fundraiser at Mar-a-Lago.
But Herrera Beutler has retained support from some local Republican leaders. And Trump’s endorsement of Kent so far has failed to clear the field of other GOP challengers running to Herrera Beutler’s right. . . .
A rising star in pro-Trump circles, Kent has become a regular guest on Fox News and other conservative media outlets. He’s been feted at East Coast fundraisers and campaigned with some of the most far-right members of Congress, including Reps. Marjorie Taylor Greene of Georgia and Matt Gaetz of Florida.
Kent is waging an “America First” campaign marked by fealty to Trump and resentment of Democratic and Republican elites. In addition to calling for probes of the 2020 election, he says Congress should investigate Anthony Fauci over COVID-19’s origins. He supports a near-total shutdown of immigration to the U.S. — including barring refugees fleeing Ukraine. Earlier this month, he called Vladimir Putin’s demands that Ukraine cede territory to Russia “very reasonable.” . . .
In the Aug. 2 primary, the two candidates who receive the most votes, regardless of party, will advance to the Nov. 8 general election. . . .
If someone can fix the FOM conundrum, they deserve a Nobel Prize. Or at least, an Order of the Garter.
There is no credible growth path for the UK outside the single market, absent perhaps joining NAFTA 2.0.
Easy, dump non-contributory benefits (including healthcare) and all in working benefits entirely.
Your latter statement is a huge over exaggeration. The idea that the UK has no way of growing GDP because it is less attached to a low growth trading bloc is simply ridiculous.
In the 22 quarters since the Brexit vote the EU27 has grown at an average pace of over 1.4% per year while the UK has averaged less than 1.1%.
OK, I have a few questions:
(1) Are we saying that the UK's annualised growth is 0.4% less (per year) over five years? Or, to put it another way, the EU has outgrown the UK by a staggering... checks... 2% over five years?
(2) When we say EU27, are we looking at the sum total of the EU, or are we looking at economic growth for the median country? (Or is it the simple mean of economic growth)
2% of GDP is £46bn per year or about £900mn per week. I seem to remember a time when £350mn per week was considered a lot of money...
I don’t know why people keep saying Johnson got the big calls right and then go on to mention Covid.
It was a fucking shambles on almost every front save, of course, vaccines.
Nah, it wasn't that bad and the UK is one of the few countries that got the big reopening calls right. Some European countries still have idiotic mask mandates and vaccine passports.
Yes he was one of the very few leaders in Europe to tell the modellers to f off with their ridiculous deaths projections. And he has been triumphantly vindicated. If anything, he did so much later than he should have done - I wish he'd done so two years ago. We'd doubtless have more educated children, a better economy, a freer society and better mental health.
And, yes, vaccines.
As @Gardenwalker notes you are forgetting living through it (and why wouldn't we all want to).
For me he did much that was right - including his natural anti-restriction instinct which did win out at the end and I will not begrudge that. But for quite some time he delegated government to the Chief Medical Officer, yes and the modellers. In addition do you remember the chaos which lasted for months and typified by the following:
1. AM: Minister comes on R4 to say X will happen. 2. PM: Govt confirms X won't happen; or
1. AM: Minister comes on R4 to say X won't happen. 2. PM: Govt confirms X will happen.
Do you remember those days. For me perhaps more than anything it was such occurrences which illustrated the chaos and indecision that lay at the heart of govt that exacerbated a pretty bad time for us all; it totally f*cked with our heads.
Remember the on/off Christmas 2020 and the one-day school term (in January 2021)? That certainly upset a lot of PBers in England at least. I can't remember what allk the other three nations did, though IIRC Scotland had a steadier approach to that sort of choping and changing.
Well yes that was poor. But I'd argue that Boris has had a better covid than Nicola, the Drake, or whoever their Northern Irish counterpart is these days. Comparable overall outcomes and far fewer unnecessary restrictions imposed seemingly just to be different from England.
"just to be different" is exactly what devolution is all about. Different situations, different judgement. Like not opening schools for one day.
What reallky made me wonder about Mr Johnson was -
- in a hospital of covid patients, he shook hands with everyone - when he went down with it, he still wanted to go and see HMtQ
Did the man really understand what he was dealing with?
...everyone agreed that in the most important technology of the 21st century, the EU was not on the map.
The last person on the panel was an entrepreneur.
He noted that the EU had as many AI startups as Israel (a country 1/50th the size) and, btw, two thirds of those were in London that was heading out the door due to Brexit.
So basically the EU had 1/3 the AI startups of Israel (this was a few years ago)
So the panel discussion turned to "What should the EU do?"
And the more or less unanimous conclusion (except for the entrepreneur) was "We are going to build on the success of GDPR and aim to be the REGULATORY LEADER of machine learning"
I literally laughed out loud.
Being the "Regulatory Leader" is NOT A REAL THING.
Imagine it is the early 20th century and imagine that cars were invented and that the USA and China were producing a lot of cars.
The EU of today would say "Building cars looks hard, but we will be the leader in STOP SIGNs"
The idea that Europe can concede the field in these areas to the USA and China and just be the referee saying "You can't do this" and "You can't do that" is a complete joke of a strategy.
Now this is not officially the strategy.
Officially the EU is for all these things, but done under the careful guiding hand of Brussels.
So what you are saying is that the UK because an AI leader DESPITE being a member of the low growth, sclerotic EU.
Your anecdote doesn’t do anything except remind us that bureaucrats of all stripes are shit at facilitating growth.
So why shackle yourself to an economic system that is predicated on bureaucratic levelling?
Because “shackling” doesn’t mean anything, except that it’s user reads too much Daily Express.
Try shackling yourself back into the real world.
It does in some scenarios, the German courts suggesting that fonts stored on cloud servers based outside of the EU breaks GDPR is completely ridiculous. It's turning the EU into a no-go zone for tech companies.
I’m not here to claim that the EU is good for tech. I am here to note that what success the UK (rather London) and perhaps Stockholm and Amsterdam have had in tech has happened despite the EU.
As far as recall, much of the GDPR stuff was led by the UK.
Nah, GDPR was a German initiative that the UK had to fight to make workable. Some of the original drafts would have made it impossible to for websites based out of the EU to operate within the EU, creating an unintended Chinese style firewall.
The stop sign analogy from @williamglenn's post is probably the best one I've seen wrt the EU and tech. In the end the market power of the EU is tiny compared to the US and some Asian countries. Companies will rather avoid doing business in the EU than allow regulatory overreach from the EU to affect their business. I'd probably amend the analogy to say that the EU thinks it can put up stop signs in London, Brooklyn or San Jose and make companies not based in the EU follow their signs. Obviously that's not happening but it is leading to big tech, medium tech, scale ups and start ups putting their lot in with the US and UK.
I remember there was a lot of panic about the UK potentially losing data equivalence with the EU, yet the rules for data sharing have become tougher between the US and EU and all they did was drive Meta, Apple and Google out to the UK.
I don’t know why people keep saying Johnson got the big calls right and then go on to mention Covid.
It was a fucking shambles on almost every front save, of course, vaccines.
Nah, it wasn't that bad and the UK is one of the few countries that got the big reopening calls right. Some European countries still have idiotic mask mandates and vaccine passports.
Yes he was one of the very few leaders in Europe to tell the modellers to f off with their ridiculous deaths projections. And he has been triumphantly vindicated. If anything, he did so much later than he should have done - I wish he'd done so two years ago. We'd doubtless have more educated children, a better economy, a freer society and better mental health.
And, yes, vaccines.
As @Gardenwalker notes you are forgetting living through it (and why wouldn't we all want to).
For me he did much that was right - including his natural anti-restriction instinct which did win out at the end and I will not begrudge that. But for quite some time he delegated government to the Chief Medical Officer, yes and the modellers. In addition do you remember the chaos which lasted for months and typified by the following:
1. AM: Minister comes on R4 to say X will happen. 2. PM: Govt confirms X won't happen; or
1. AM: Minister comes on R4 to say X won't happen. 2. PM: Govt confirms X will happen.
Do you remember those days. For me perhaps more than anything it was such occurrences which illustrated the chaos and indecision that lay at the heart of govt that exacerbated a pretty bad time for us all; it totally f*cked with our heads.
Remember the on/off Christmas 2020 and the one-day school term (in January 2021)? That certainly upset a lot of PBers in England at least. I can't remember what allk the other three nations did, though IIRC Scotland had a steadier approach to that sort of choping and changing.
Christmas 2020 was never off. Relaxations got shortened from five days to one: Christmas Day was retained. And in any case it was mostly his political opponents who pressed for the shortening.
What is it about Indians that makes them think that they are above the law?
Or is it just that they mi with the wrong sort of people, such as Posh-boy Tories?
What??? I suppose you're joking, but it'd be better not to have ethnic generalisations here, even in jest.
Actually, I'm not, at least not entirely. It does seems that all the members of the current cabinet with roots in the Indian subcontinent are wrong'uns. They seem not to have proper English values. If they did, they would resign the moment they were caught out.
Hugely outnumbered by Anglo-Saxon-Celtic wrong'uns who learned their "proper English values" at Eton or god-knows-where.
...everyone agreed that in the most important technology of the 21st century, the EU was not on the map.
The last person on the panel was an entrepreneur.
He noted that the EU had as many AI startups as Israel (a country 1/50th the size) and, btw, two thirds of those were in London that was heading out the door due to Brexit.
So basically the EU had 1/3 the AI startups of Israel (this was a few years ago)
So the panel discussion turned to "What should the EU do?"
And the more or less unanimous conclusion (except for the entrepreneur) was "We are going to build on the success of GDPR and aim to be the REGULATORY LEADER of machine learning"
I literally laughed out loud.
Being the "Regulatory Leader" is NOT A REAL THING.
Imagine it is the early 20th century and imagine that cars were invented and that the USA and China were producing a lot of cars.
The EU of today would say "Building cars looks hard, but we will be the leader in STOP SIGNs"
The idea that Europe can concede the field in these areas to the USA and China and just be the referee saying "You can't do this" and "You can't do that" is a complete joke of a strategy.
Now this is not officially the strategy.
Officially the EU is for all these things, but done under the careful guiding hand of Brussels.
So what you are saying is that the UK because an AI leader DESPITE being a member of the low growth, sclerotic EU.
Your anecdote doesn’t do anything except remind us that bureaucrats of all stripes are shit at facilitating growth.
So why shackle yourself to an economic system that is predicated on bureaucratic levelling?
Because “shackling” doesn’t mean anything, except that it’s user reads too much Daily Express.
Try shackling yourself back into the real world.
It does in some scenarios, the German courts suggesting that fonts stored on cloud servers based outside of the EU breaks GDPR is completely ridiculous. It's turning the EU into a no-go zone for tech companies.
I’m not here to claim that the EU is good for tech. I am here to note that what success the UK (rather London) and perhaps Stockholm and Amsterdam have had in tech has happened despite the EU.
As far as recall, much of the GDPR stuff was led by the UK.
It seems inconsistent to talk about successes "despite the EU" while also arguing that being in the EU is essential for the UK's growth.
Attributing dysfunctional regulation within the EU system to the UK also doesn't absolve the EU. A UK shorn of the "Brussels effect" mentality will necessarily have to think and act differently.
It’s not inconsistent.
It’s a recognition that even inside the EU, the UK’s economic destiny was very largely in the UK’s own hands, and we had the single market to boot.
The idea that EU membership itself mandates a specific economic destiny is magical thinking by Brexiters. It stems, by the way, from the early 90s concerns about “social Europe”.
@williamglenn no offence because goodness we're all allowed to change our minds about stuff but just to say that since the "Big Conversion", the reasons for which I'm sure were necessary and relevant for you, I don't believe you have any credibility whatsoever talking about the EU.
Not of course that you should care less but your EU posts are now in the bucket of those I skip on PB (I noticed a long one earlier, which @Gardenwalker has engaged you about).
Bollocks
@williamglenn posts some of the most insightful, enlightening PB commentary on the EU (and indeed on many other things: including Ukraine), precisely because he has an open mind, and is willing to change that mind, when persuaded
I always look at his comments with interest, because I am never quite sure what he is going to say, but I know what he says can generally be relied upon to teach me something - even if I disagree.
...everyone agreed that in the most important technology of the 21st century, the EU was not on the map.
The last person on the panel was an entrepreneur.
He noted that the EU had as many AI startups as Israel (a country 1/50th the size) and, btw, two thirds of those were in London that was heading out the door due to Brexit.
So basically the EU had 1/3 the AI startups of Israel (this was a few years ago)
So the panel discussion turned to "What should the EU do?"
And the more or less unanimous conclusion (except for the entrepreneur) was "We are going to build on the success of GDPR and aim to be the REGULATORY LEADER of machine learning"
I literally laughed out loud.
Being the "Regulatory Leader" is NOT A REAL THING.
Imagine it is the early 20th century and imagine that cars were invented and that the USA and China were producing a lot of cars.
The EU of today would say "Building cars looks hard, but we will be the leader in STOP SIGNs"
The idea that Europe can concede the field in these areas to the USA and China and just be the referee saying "You can't do this" and "You can't do that" is a complete joke of a strategy.
Now this is not officially the strategy.
Officially the EU is for all these things, but done under the careful guiding hand of Brussels.
So what you are saying is that the UK because an AI leader DESPITE being a member of the low growth, sclerotic EU.
Your anecdote doesn’t do anything except remind us that bureaucrats of all stripes are shit at facilitating growth.
So why shackle yourself to an economic system that is predicated on bureaucratic levelling?
Because “shackling” doesn’t mean anything, except that it’s user reads too much Daily Express.
Try shackling yourself back into the real world.
It does in some scenarios, the German courts suggesting that fonts stored on cloud servers based outside of the EU breaks GDPR is completely ridiculous. It's turning the EU into a no-go zone for tech companies.
It strikes me that no country on earth is v good at regulating for tech.
The UK should split digital out of Nadine’s grip, and create a special unit under BEIS staffed with secondments from industry who know what the fuck they are doing.
Nah, leave it with her. She's clearly too stupid to actually change anything which is exactly what we need. Someone who thinks they know what they're doing is much more dangerous and I can imagine some fool like Gavin Williamson ending up with the brief.
I don’t know why people keep saying Johnson got the big calls right and then go on to mention Covid.
It was a fucking shambles on almost every front save, of course, vaccines.
Nah, it wasn't that bad and the UK is one of the few countries that got the big reopening calls right. Some European countries still have idiotic mask mandates and vaccine passports.
Yes he was one of the very few leaders in Europe to tell the modellers to f off with their ridiculous deaths projections. And he has been triumphantly vindicated. If anything, he did so much later than he should have done - I wish he'd done so two years ago. We'd doubtless have more educated children, a better economy, a freer society and better mental health.
And, yes, vaccines.
As @Gardenwalker notes you are forgetting living through it (and why wouldn't we all want to).
For me he did much that was right - including his natural anti-restriction instinct which did win out at the end and I will not begrudge that. But for quite some time he delegated government to the Chief Medical Officer, yes and the modellers. In addition do you remember the chaos which lasted for months and typified by the following:
1. AM: Minister comes on R4 to say X will happen. 2. PM: Govt confirms X won't happen; or
1. AM: Minister comes on R4 to say X won't happen. 2. PM: Govt confirms X will happen.
Do you remember those days. For me perhaps more than anything it was such occurrences which illustrated the chaos and indecision that lay at the heart of govt that exacerbated a pretty bad time for us all; it totally f*cked with our heads.
Remember the on/off Christmas 2020 and the one-day school term (in January 2021)? That certainly upset a lot of PBers in England at least. I can't remember what allk the other three nations did, though IIRC Scotland had a steadier approach to that sort of choping and changing.
Christmas 2020 was never off. Relaxations got shortened from five days to one: Christmas Day was retained. And in any case it was mostly his political opponents who pressed for the shortening.
That was a pretty savage truncation of 80% ... and to describe scientific and medical advisors as political opponents ...
@williamglenn no offence because goodness we're all allowed to change our minds about stuff but just to say that since the "Big Conversion", the reasons for which I'm sure were necessary and relevant for you, I don't believe you have any credibility whatsoever talking about the EU.
Not of course that you should care less but your EU posts are now in the bucket of those I skip on PB (I noticed a long one earlier, which @Gardenwalker has engaged you about).
Bollocks
@williamglenn posts some of the most insightful, enlightening PB commentary on the EU (and indeed on many other things: including Ukraine), precisely because he has an open mind, and is willing to change that mind, when persuaded
I always look at his comments with interest, because I am never quite sure what he is going to say, but I know what he says can generally be relied upon to teach me something - even if I disagree.
@williamglenn no offence because goodness we're all allowed to change our minds about stuff but just to say that since the "Big Conversion", the reasons for which I'm sure were necessary and relevant for you, I don't believe you have any credibility whatsoever talking about the EU.
Not of course that you should care less but your EU posts are now in the bucket of those I skip on PB (I noticed a long one earlier, which @Gardenwalker has engaged you about).
Bollocks
@williamglenn posts some of the most insightful, enlightening PB commentary on the EU (and indeed on many other things: including Ukraine), precisely because he has an open mind, and is willing to change that mind, when persuaded
I always look at his comments with interest, because I am never quite sure what he is going to say, but I know what he says can generally be relied upon to teach me something - even if I disagree.
@williamglenn no offence because goodness we're all allowed to change our minds about stuff but just to say that since the "Big Conversion", the reasons for which I'm sure were necessary and relevant for you, I don't believe you have any credibility whatsoever talking about the EU.
Not of course that you should care less but your EU posts are now in the bucket of those I skip on PB (I noticed a long one earlier, which @Gardenwalker has engaged you about).
Bollocks
@williamglenn posts some of the most insightful, enlightening PB commentary on the EU (and indeed on many other things: including Ukraine), precisely because he has an open mind, and is willing to change that mind, when persuaded
I always look at his comments with interest, because I am never quite sure what he is going to say, but I know what he says can generally be relied upon to teach me something - even if I disagree.
@williamglenn no offence because goodness we're all allowed to change our minds about stuff but just to say that since the "Big Conversion", the reasons for which I'm sure were necessary and relevant for you, I don't believe you have any credibility whatsoever talking about the EU.
Not of course that you should care less but your EU posts are now in the bucket of those I skip on PB (I noticed a long one earlier, which @Gardenwalker has engaged you about).
Bollocks
@williamglenn posts some of the most insightful, enlightening PB commentary on the EU (and indeed on many other things: including Ukraine), precisely because he has an open mind, and is willing to change that mind, when persuaded
I always look at his comments with interest, because I am never quite sure what he is going to say, but I know what he says can generally be relied upon to teach me something - even if I disagree.
The mark of a fine commenter
I hate you.
No chance, he only changed his mind once.
EDIT: Don't know what is going on with Topping, but that was in response to 'oh no, he's not you as well'
I don’t know why people keep saying Johnson got the big calls right and then go on to mention Covid.
It was a fucking shambles on almost every front save, of course, vaccines.
Nah, it wasn't that bad and the UK is one of the few countries that got the big reopening calls right. Some European countries still have idiotic mask mandates and vaccine passports.
Yes he was one of the very few leaders in Europe to tell the modellers to f off with their ridiculous deaths projections. And he has been triumphantly vindicated. If anything, he did so much later than he should have done - I wish he'd done so two years ago. We'd doubtless have more educated children, a better economy, a freer society and better mental health.
And, yes, vaccines.
As @Gardenwalker notes you are forgetting living through it (and why wouldn't we all want to).
For me he did much that was right - including his natural anti-restriction instinct which did win out at the end and I will not begrudge that. But for quite some time he delegated government to the Chief Medical Officer, yes and the modellers. In addition do you remember the chaos which lasted for months and typified by the following:
1. AM: Minister comes on R4 to say X will happen. 2. PM: Govt confirms X won't happen; or
1. AM: Minister comes on R4 to say X won't happen. 2. PM: Govt confirms X will happen.
Do you remember those days. For me perhaps more than anything it was such occurrences which illustrated the chaos and indecision that lay at the heart of govt that exacerbated a pretty bad time for us all; it totally f*cked with our heads.
Remember the on/off Christmas 2020 and the one-day school term (in January 2021)? That certainly upset a lot of PBers in England at least. I can't remember what allk the other three nations did, though IIRC Scotland had a steadier approach to that sort of choping and changing.
Christmas 2020 was never off. Relaxations got shortened from five days to one: Christmas Day was retained. And in any case it was mostly his political opponents who pressed for the shortening.
That was a pretty savage truncation of 80% ... and to describe scientific and medical advisors as political opponents ...
Sure - but "Christmas is cancelled" was just a lie forwarded by people (LP) who were arguing for Christmas to be cancelled.
What is it about Indians that makes them think that they are above the law?
Or is it just that they mi with the wrong sort of people, such as Posh-boy Tories?
What??? I suppose you're joking, but it'd be better not to have ethnic generalisations here, even in jest.
Actually, I'm not, at least not entirely. It does seems that all the members of the current cabinet with roots in the Indian subcontinent are wrong'uns. They seem not to have proper English values. If they did, they would resign the moment they were caught out.
As an Englishman of presumably sound roots (some minor irish and possibly some german in there, but it's tiny) I cannot say I think resigning when caught out is a value we have traditionally displayed such that is is characteristic. Ascribing values to race, well, we have a word for that.
Don't we call it "culture" or "tradition" or something like that?
On the other point, in the days of long ago, I seem to remember Conservative ministers always resigning when they were caught out. In the days of Macmillan... Yes. In the days of Thatcher... Yes. In the days of Major..... Yes.
@williamglenn no offence because goodness we're all allowed to change our minds about stuff but just to say that since the "Big Conversion", the reasons for which I'm sure were necessary and relevant for you, I don't believe you have any credibility whatsoever talking about the EU.
Not of course that you should care less but your EU posts are now in the bucket of those I skip on PB (I noticed a long one earlier, which @Gardenwalker has engaged you about).
Bollocks
@williamglenn posts some of the most insightful, enlightening PB commentary on the EU (and indeed on many other things: including Ukraine), precisely because he has an open mind, and is willing to change that mind, when persuaded
I always look at his comments with interest, because I am never quite sure what he is going to say, but I know what he says can generally be relied upon to teach me something - even if I disagree.
The mark of a fine commenter
I hate you.
No chance, he only changed his mind once.
Yes now why on earth would @Leon I am a Leaver/Remainer/Leaver/Remainer/Leaver be so fulsome in his praise for someone without the courage of their convictions.
The Boris hero worship is never far from the surface.
His only “instinct” is self-aggrandisement and contempt for the useful idiots who vote for him.
End of.
His Covid shambles started with his speech to the Painted Hall at Greenwich scoffing that Covid meant anything to us in the UK, even as videos dropped on YouTube showing corpses piling up in China…and went downhill from there.
Yeah, but the videos of people dropping dead in the street in China were bollocks - Covid is not like that and never was.
Ok, you lot, here's a task to put your big brains to use: what on earth happened in the leafy 1st arrondissement of Paris, which traditionally votes for high-income candidates like Macron, Fillon and Bayrou, but where official sources say Mélenchon won, and that the registered voters doubled and now exceed the 2018 population estimate? My prior is data error, but any locals or more fluent French speakers want to chip in?
I wouldn't describe the 1re arrondissement as that leafy: it is the very centre of Paris around the Louvre and Forum les Halles. It does have the Jardin des Tuileries in it, but nobody lives in that bit.
Okay, but normally it has 10k voters who choose high-income candidates to a much greater extent than the average person (but comparable to the rest of Paris Centre). This time, the official website says it has 20k voters who put Mélenchon in first place, while the 2nd-4th arrondissements put Macron healthily above Mélenchon. What happened?
The Boris hero worship is never far from the surface.
His only “instinct” is self-aggrandisement and contempt for the useful idiots who vote for him.
End of.
His Covid shambles started with his speech to the Painted Hall at Greenwich scoffing that Covid meant anything to us in the UK, even as videos dropped on YouTube showing corpses piling up in China…and went downhill from there.
Yeah, but the videos of people dropping dead in the street in China were bollocks - Covid is not like that and never was.
But the pictures of Northern Italian hospitals was not bollocks. I get that any government would want to avoid that. Mandatory lockdowns and closing schools I am none too sure were the right answer but some action needed to be taken.
The Boris hero worship is never far from the surface.
His only “instinct” is self-aggrandisement and contempt for the useful idiots who vote for him.
End of.
His Covid shambles started with his speech to the Painted Hall at Greenwich scoffing that Covid meant anything to us in the UK, even as videos dropped on YouTube showing corpses piling up in China…and went downhill from there.
Yeah, but the videos of people dropping dead in the street in China were bollocks - Covid is not like that and never was.
Whatever. It was clear (to PB) that Covid was a thing, and somehow the news hadn’t got to Boris.
See also Carnyx’s notes upthread about his other bizarre antics.
He doesn’t read his briefings, because he fundamentally doesn’t give a shit.
What is it about Indians that makes them think that they are above the law?
Or is it just that they mi with the wrong sort of people, such as Posh-boy Tories?
What??? I suppose you're joking, but it'd be better not to have ethnic generalisations here, even in jest.
Actually, I'm not, at least not entirely. It does seems that all the members of the current cabinet with roots in the Indian subcontinent are wrong'uns. They seem not to have proper English values. If they did, they would resign the moment they were caught out.
Whereas the Anglo Saxons....
Seriously. Best not to think like this at all, but as a poor second try not saying it out loud.
...everyone agreed that in the most important technology of the 21st century, the EU was not on the map.
The last person on the panel was an entrepreneur.
He noted that the EU had as many AI startups as Israel (a country 1/50th the size) and, btw, two thirds of those were in London that was heading out the door due to Brexit.
So basically the EU had 1/3 the AI startups of Israel (this was a few years ago)
So the panel discussion turned to "What should the EU do?"
And the more or less unanimous conclusion (except for the entrepreneur) was "We are going to build on the success of GDPR and aim to be the REGULATORY LEADER of machine learning"
I literally laughed out loud.
Being the "Regulatory Leader" is NOT A REAL THING.
Imagine it is the early 20th century and imagine that cars were invented and that the USA and China were producing a lot of cars.
The EU of today would say "Building cars looks hard, but we will be the leader in STOP SIGNs"
The idea that Europe can concede the field in these areas to the USA and China and just be the referee saying "You can't do this" and "You can't do that" is a complete joke of a strategy.
Now this is not officially the strategy.
Officially the EU is for all these things, but done under the careful guiding hand of Brussels.
So what you are saying is that the UK because an AI leader DESPITE being a member of the low growth, sclerotic EU.
Your anecdote doesn’t do anything except remind us that bureaucrats of all stripes are shit at facilitating growth.
So why shackle yourself to an economic system that is predicated on bureaucratic levelling?
Because “shackling” doesn’t mean anything, except that it’s user reads too much Daily Express.
Try shackling yourself back into the real world.
It does in some scenarios, the German courts suggesting that fonts stored on cloud servers based outside of the EU breaks GDPR is completely ridiculous. It's turning the EU into a no-go zone for tech companies.
I’m not here to claim that the EU is good for tech. I am here to note that what success the UK (rather London) and perhaps Stockholm and Amsterdam have had in tech has happened despite the EU.
As far as recall, much of the GDPR stuff was led by the UK.
It seems inconsistent to talk about successes "despite the EU" while also arguing that being in the EU is essential for the UK's growth.
Attributing dysfunctional regulation within the EU system to the UK also doesn't absolve the EU. A UK shorn of the "Brussels effect" mentality will necessarily have to think and act differently.
It’s not inconsistent.
It’s a recognition that even inside the EU, the UK’s economic destiny was very largely in the UK’s own hands, and we had the single market to boot.
The idea that EU membership itself mandates a specific economic destiny is magical thinking by Brexiters. It stems, by the way, from the early 90s concerns about “social Europe”.
It's a little bit inconsistent. On the one hand the single market is supposed to be the only way we can grow our GDP, yet in the next breath the single market rules are bullshit that stifle growth.
I'm tech industry adjacent and the UK's tech industry is absolutely surging. Not just London either, all across the country tech jobs are sprouting up as people who have an idea take advantage of few to no regulations around internet businesses and get that idea off the ground.
There's a reason whole chunks of Europe's tech industry is looking at the UK enviously and planning accordingly for future hires and relocations. Loads of Dutch people I met in Mexico who were on the nomad trail had already been sounded out for moves to London or another tech city like Cambridge or Manchester by their employers. There's almost no movement in the other direction. 4 years ago PlayStation was moving to Amsterdam wholesale, today there's rumours that chunks of the Amsterdam team are being asked to move to the UK so Sony can consolidate the European business into the UK.
I don’t know why people keep saying Johnson got the big calls right and then go on to mention Covid.
It was a fucking shambles on almost every front save, of course, vaccines.
You realise how dumb that sounds? It's like saying "The defence of Britain in WW2 was a fucking shambles on almost every front save, of course, for the Battle of Britain."
The idea that Boris’s Covid can be compared to the Battle of Britain is so deliriously stupid that only PB’s most dimwitted Tory could have come up with it.
Ironically, once the Battle of Britain had been won, we sacked the two most senior officers responsible for winning it: Hugh Dowding (head of Fighter Command) and Keith Park (head of 11 Group where almost all the fighting took place). And don't start on the 1945 election.
I don’t know why people keep saying Johnson got the big calls right and then go on to mention Covid.
It was a fucking shambles on almost every front save, of course, vaccines.
You realise how dumb that sounds? It's like saying "The defence of Britain in WW2 was a fucking shambles on almost every front save, of course, for the Battle of Britain."
The idea that Boris’s Covid can be compared to the Battle of Britain is so deliriously stupid that only PB’s most dimwitted Tory could have come up with it.
Ironically, once the Battle of Britain had been won, we sacked the two most senior officers responsible for winning it: Hugh Dowding (head of Fighter Command) and Keith Park (head of 11 Group where almost all the fighting took place). And don't start on the 1945 election.
I don’t know why people keep saying Johnson got the big calls right and then go on to mention Covid.
It was a fucking shambles on almost every front save, of course, vaccines.
Nah, it wasn't that bad and the UK is one of the few countries that got the big reopening calls right. Some European countries still have idiotic mask mandates and vaccine passports.
Yes he was one of the very few leaders in Europe to tell the modellers to f off with their ridiculous deaths projections. And he has been triumphantly vindicated. If anything, he did so much later than he should have done - I wish he'd done so two years ago. We'd doubtless have more educated children, a better economy, a freer society and better mental health.
And, yes, vaccines.
As @Gardenwalker notes you are forgetting living through it (and why wouldn't we all want to).
For me he did much that was right - including his natural anti-restriction instinct which did win out at the end and I will not begrudge that. But for quite some time he delegated government to the Chief Medical Officer, yes and the modellers. In addition do you remember the chaos which lasted for months and typified by the following:
1. AM: Minister comes on R4 to say X will happen. 2. PM: Govt confirms X won't happen; or
1. AM: Minister comes on R4 to say X won't happen. 2. PM: Govt confirms X will happen.
Do you remember those days. For me perhaps more than anything it was such occurrences which illustrated the chaos and indecision that lay at the heart of govt that exacerbated a pretty bad time for us all; it totally f*cked with our heads.
Remember the on/off Christmas 2020 and the one-day school term (in January 2021)? That certainly upset a lot of PBers in England at least. I can't remember what allk the other three nations did, though IIRC Scotland had a steadier approach to that sort of choping and changing.
Christmas 2020 was never off. Relaxations got shortened from five days to one: Christmas Day was retained. And in any case it was mostly his political opponents who pressed for the shortening.
That was a pretty savage truncation of 80% ... and to describe scientific and medical advisors as political opponents ...
Did you ever look into the makeup of "Independent" SAGE?
What is it about Indians that makes them think that they are above the law?
Or is it just that they mi with the wrong sort of people, such as Posh-boy Tories?
What??? I suppose you're joking, but it'd be better not to have ethnic generalisations here, even in jest.
Actually, I'm not, at least not entirely. It does seems that all the members of the current cabinet with roots in the Indian subcontinent are wrong'uns. They seem not to have proper English values. If they did, they would resign the moment they were caught out.
As an Englishman of presumably sound roots (some minor irish and possibly some german in there, but it's tiny) I cannot say I think resigning when caught out is a value we have traditionally displayed such that is is characteristic. Ascribing values to race, well, we have a word for that.
Don't we call it "culture" or "tradition" or something like that?
On the other point, in the days of long ago, I seem to remember Conservative ministers always resigning when they were caught out. In the days of Macmillan... Yes. In the days of Thatcher... Yes. In the days of Major..... Yes.
So what is it that has made a difference now?
Heck, there were resignations for being caught out in the days of May. And Cameron.
So what... or who... is it that has made a difference now?
@williamglenn no offence because goodness we're all allowed to change our minds about stuff but just to say that since the "Big Conversion", the reasons for which I'm sure were necessary and relevant for you, I don't believe you have any credibility whatsoever talking about the EU.
Not of course that you should care less but your EU posts are now in the bucket of those I skip on PB (I noticed a long one earlier, which @Gardenwalker has engaged you about).
Bollocks
@williamglenn posts some of the most insightful, enlightening PB commentary on the EU (and indeed on many other things: including Ukraine), precisely because he has an open mind, and is willing to change that mind, when persuaded
I always look at his comments with interest, because I am never quite sure what he is going to say, but I know what he says can generally be relied upon to teach me something - even if I disagree.
The mark of a fine commenter
I hate you.
No chance, he only changed his mind once.
EDIT: Don't know what is going on with Topping, but that was in response to 'oh no, he's not you as well'
...everyone agreed that in the most important technology of the 21st century, the EU was not on the map.
The last person on the panel was an entrepreneur.
He noted that the EU had as many AI startups as Israel (a country 1/50th the size) and, btw, two thirds of those were in London that was heading out the door due to Brexit.
So basically the EU had 1/3 the AI startups of Israel (this was a few years ago)
So the panel discussion turned to "What should the EU do?"
And the more or less unanimous conclusion (except for the entrepreneur) was "We are going to build on the success of GDPR and aim to be the REGULATORY LEADER of machine learning"
I literally laughed out loud.
Being the "Regulatory Leader" is NOT A REAL THING.
Imagine it is the early 20th century and imagine that cars were invented and that the USA and China were producing a lot of cars.
The EU of today would say "Building cars looks hard, but we will be the leader in STOP SIGNs"
The idea that Europe can concede the field in these areas to the USA and China and just be the referee saying "You can't do this" and "You can't do that" is a complete joke of a strategy.
Now this is not officially the strategy.
Officially the EU is for all these things, but done under the careful guiding hand of Brussels.
So what you are saying is that the UK because an AI leader DESPITE being a member of the low growth, sclerotic EU.
Your anecdote doesn’t do anything except remind us that bureaucrats of all stripes are shit at facilitating growth.
So why shackle yourself to an economic system that is predicated on bureaucratic levelling?
Because “shackling” doesn’t mean anything, except that it’s user reads too much Daily Express.
Try shackling yourself back into the real world.
It does in some scenarios, the German courts suggesting that fonts stored on cloud servers based outside of the EU breaks GDPR is completely ridiculous. It's turning the EU into a no-go zone for tech companies.
I’m not here to claim that the EU is good for tech. I am here to note that what success the UK (rather London) and perhaps Stockholm and Amsterdam have had in tech has happened despite the EU.
As far as recall, much of the GDPR stuff was led by the UK.
It seems inconsistent to talk about successes "despite the EU" while also arguing that being in the EU is essential for the UK's growth.
Attributing dysfunctional regulation within the EU system to the UK also doesn't absolve the EU. A UK shorn of the "Brussels effect" mentality will necessarily have to think and act differently.
It’s not inconsistent.
It’s a recognition that even inside the EU, the UK’s economic destiny was very largely in the UK’s own hands, and we had the single market to boot.
The idea that EU membership itself mandates a specific economic destiny is magical thinking by Brexiters. It stems, by the way, from the early 90s concerns about “social Europe”.
It's a little bit inconsistent. On the one hand the single market is supposed to be the only way we can grow our GDP, yet in the next breath the single market rules are bullshit that stifle growth.
I'm tech industry adjacent and the UK's tech industry is absolutely surging. Not just London either, all across the country tech jobs are sprouting up as people who have an idea take advantage of few to no regulations around internet businesses and get that idea off the ground.
There's a reason whole chunks of Europe's tech industry is looking at the UK enviously and planning accordingly for future hires and relocations. Loads of Dutch people I met in Mexico who were on the nomad trail had already been sounded out for moves to London or another tech city like Cambridge or Manchester by their employers. There's almost no movement in the other direction. 4 years ago PlayStation was moving to Amsterdam wholesale, today there's rumours that chunks of the Amsterdam team are being asked to move to the UK so Sony can consolidate the European business into the UK.
What sort of tech industry? Programming, hardware, cloud? Or just startups in internet based industries? (Asking out of interest.)
Mary Walsh @CBSWalsh · 1h U.S. believes the new massive Russian convoy consists of vehicles moving out of Belgorod resupply area; the line of armor is still north of Izium - Senior Defense official
I don’t know why people keep saying Johnson got the big calls right and then go on to mention Covid.
It was a fucking shambles on almost every front save, of course, vaccines.
Nah, it wasn't that bad and the UK is one of the few countries that got the big reopening calls right. Some European countries still have idiotic mask mandates and vaccine passports.
Yes he was one of the very few leaders in Europe to tell the modellers to f off with their ridiculous deaths projections. And he has been triumphantly vindicated. If anything, he did so much later than he should have done - I wish he'd done so two years ago. We'd doubtless have more educated children, a better economy, a freer society and better mental health.
And, yes, vaccines.
As @Gardenwalker notes you are forgetting living through it (and why wouldn't we all want to).
For me he did much that was right - including his natural anti-restriction instinct which did win out at the end and I will not begrudge that. But for quite some time he delegated government to the Chief Medical Officer, yes and the modellers. In addition do you remember the chaos which lasted for months and typified by the following:
1. AM: Minister comes on R4 to say X will happen. 2. PM: Govt confirms X won't happen; or
1. AM: Minister comes on R4 to say X won't happen. 2. PM: Govt confirms X will happen.
Do you remember those days. For me perhaps more than anything it was such occurrences which illustrated the chaos and indecision that lay at the heart of govt that exacerbated a pretty bad time for us all; it totally f*cked with our heads.
Remember the on/off Christmas 2020 and the one-day school term (in January 2021)? That certainly upset a lot of PBers in England at least. I can't remember what allk the other three nations did, though IIRC Scotland had a steadier approach to that sort of choping and changing.
Christmas 2020 was never off. Relaxations got shortened from five days to one: Christmas Day was retained. And in any case it was mostly his political opponents who pressed for the shortening.
That was a pretty savage truncation of 80% ... and to describe scientific and medical advisors as political opponents ...
Sure - but "Christmas is cancelled" was just a lie forwarded by people (LP) who were arguing for Christmas to be cancelled.
It was essentially cancelled for a lot of people. Anyone in tier four couldn't go outside their household or support bubble. In other tiers it was heavily restricted with very strong encouragement not to travel any sort of distance, and a strong discouragement from seeing grandma at all.
To be honest, I enjoyed it. Visited another single friend, had dinner, watched a film, home for an early night. But that says more about me, and it was very difficult for a huge number of people. Re-writing history isn't really the way to go.
What is it about Indians that makes them think that they are above the law?
Or is it just that they mi with the wrong sort of people, such as Posh-boy Tories?
What??? I suppose you're joking, but it'd be better not to have ethnic generalisations here, even in jest.
Actually, I'm not, at least not entirely. It does seems that all the members of the current cabinet with roots in the Indian subcontinent are wrong'uns. They seem not to have proper English values. If they did, they would resign the moment they were caught out.
As an Englishman of presumably sound roots (some minor irish and possibly some german in there, but it's tiny) I cannot say I think resigning when caught out is a value we have traditionally displayed such that is is characteristic. Ascribing values to race, well, we have a word for that.
Don't we call it "culture" or "tradition" or something like that?
On the other point, in the days of long ago, I seem to remember Conservative ministers always resigning when they were caught out. In the days of Macmillan... Yes. In the days of Thatcher... Yes. In the days of Major..... Yes.
So what is it that has made a difference now?
Heck, there were resignations for being caught out in the days of May. And Cameron.
So what... or who... is it that has made a difference now?
Those who claim that the single market is a set of stifling rules need to explain why the UK government keeps looking (Duncan Smith, Lord Frost, now Rees-Mogg) at potential de-regulatory opportunities and can’t really find anything.
Like any “rule-book”, there are surely shit rules in there. But the case needs to be made around specific rules that are hampering growth.
Whereas the economic literature is pretty clear about the upsides to single market membership.
...everyone agreed that in the most important technology of the 21st century, the EU was not on the map.
The last person on the panel was an entrepreneur.
He noted that the EU had as many AI startups as Israel (a country 1/50th the size) and, btw, two thirds of those were in London that was heading out the door due to Brexit.
So basically the EU had 1/3 the AI startups of Israel (this was a few years ago)
So the panel discussion turned to "What should the EU do?"
And the more or less unanimous conclusion (except for the entrepreneur) was "We are going to build on the success of GDPR and aim to be the REGULATORY LEADER of machine learning"
I literally laughed out loud.
Being the "Regulatory Leader" is NOT A REAL THING.
Imagine it is the early 20th century and imagine that cars were invented and that the USA and China were producing a lot of cars.
The EU of today would say "Building cars looks hard, but we will be the leader in STOP SIGNs"
The idea that Europe can concede the field in these areas to the USA and China and just be the referee saying "You can't do this" and "You can't do that" is a complete joke of a strategy.
Now this is not officially the strategy.
Officially the EU is for all these things, but done under the careful guiding hand of Brussels.
So what you are saying is that the UK because an AI leader DESPITE being a member of the low growth, sclerotic EU.
Your anecdote doesn’t do anything except remind us that bureaucrats of all stripes are shit at facilitating growth.
So why shackle yourself to an economic system that is predicated on bureaucratic levelling?
Because “shackling” doesn’t mean anything, except that it’s user reads too much Daily Express.
Try shackling yourself back into the real world.
It does in some scenarios, the German courts suggesting that fonts stored on cloud servers based outside of the EU breaks GDPR is completely ridiculous. It's turning the EU into a no-go zone for tech companies.
I’m not here to claim that the EU is good for tech. I am here to note that what success the UK (rather London) and perhaps Stockholm and Amsterdam have had in tech has happened despite the EU.
As far as recall, much of the GDPR stuff was led by the UK.
It seems inconsistent to talk about successes "despite the EU" while also arguing that being in the EU is essential for the UK's growth.
Attributing dysfunctional regulation within the EU system to the UK also doesn't absolve the EU. A UK shorn of the "Brussels effect" mentality will necessarily have to think and act differently.
It’s not inconsistent.
It’s a recognition that even inside the EU, the UK’s economic destiny was very largely in the UK’s own hands, and we had the single market to boot.
The idea that EU membership itself mandates a specific economic destiny is magical thinking by Brexiters. It stems, by the way, from the early 90s concerns about “social Europe”.
It's a little bit inconsistent. On the one hand the single market is supposed to be the only way we can grow our GDP, yet in the next breath the single market rules are bullshit that stifle growth.
I'm tech industry adjacent and the UK's tech industry is absolutely surging. Not just London either, all across the country tech jobs are sprouting up as people who have an idea take advantage of few to no regulations around internet businesses and get that idea off the ground.
There's a reason whole chunks of Europe's tech industry is looking at the UK enviously and planning accordingly for future hires and relocations. Loads of Dutch people I met in Mexico who were on the nomad trail had already been sounded out for moves to London or another tech city like Cambridge or Manchester by their employers. There's almost no movement in the other direction. 4 years ago PlayStation was moving to Amsterdam wholesale, today there's rumours that chunks of the Amsterdam team are being asked to move to the UK so Sony can consolidate the European business into the UK.
What sort of tech industry? Programming, hardware, cloud? Or just startups in internet based industries? (Asking out of interest.)
Basically everything. It's a real buyer's market for software engineers. I'd say any kind of SaaS based industry is a good bet, e-commerce is one level down but also seeing insane growth, simple Amazon fulfillment businesses are changing hands for millions of pounds.
I don’t know why people keep saying Johnson got the big calls right and then go on to mention Covid.
It was a fucking shambles on almost every front save, of course, vaccines.
Nah, it wasn't that bad and the UK is one of the few countries that got the big reopening calls right. Some European countries still have idiotic mask mandates and vaccine passports.
Yes he was one of the very few leaders in Europe to tell the modellers to f off with their ridiculous deaths projections. And he has been triumphantly vindicated. If anything, he did so much later than he should have done - I wish he'd done so two years ago. We'd doubtless have more educated children, a better economy, a freer society and better mental health.
And, yes, vaccines.
As @Gardenwalker notes you are forgetting living through it (and why wouldn't we all want to).
For me he did much that was right - including his natural anti-restriction instinct which did win out at the end and I will not begrudge that. But for quite some time he delegated government to the Chief Medical Officer, yes and the modellers. In addition do you remember the chaos which lasted for months and typified by the following:
1. AM: Minister comes on R4 to say X will happen. 2. PM: Govt confirms X won't happen; or
1. AM: Minister comes on R4 to say X won't happen. 2. PM: Govt confirms X will happen.
Do you remember those days. For me perhaps more than anything it was such occurrences which illustrated the chaos and indecision that lay at the heart of govt that exacerbated a pretty bad time for us all; it totally f*cked with our heads.
Remember the on/off Christmas 2020 and the one-day school term (in January 2021)? That certainly upset a lot of PBers in England at least. I can't remember what allk the other three nations did, though IIRC Scotland had a steadier approach to that sort of choping and changing.
Christmas 2020 was never off. Relaxations got shortened from five days to one: Christmas Day was retained. And in any case it was mostly his political opponents who pressed for the shortening.
That was a pretty savage truncation of 80% ... and to describe scientific and medical advisors as political opponents ...
Sure - but "Christmas is cancelled" was just a lie forwarded by people (LP) who were arguing for Christmas to be cancelled.
It was essentially cancelled for a lot of people. Anyone in tier four couldn't go outside their household or support bubble. In other tiers it was heavily restricted with very strong encouragement not to travel any sort of distance, and a strong discouragement from seeing grandma at all.
To be honest, I enjoyed it. Visited another single friend, had dinner, watched a film, home for an early night. But that says more about me, and it was very difficult for a huge number of people. Re-writing history isn't really the way to go.
Made worse by the "cancellation" coming at very late notice, after plans and preparation had already started.
Surely Labour should be quids in, in any coming by-election"?
Given it's the North, where Labour seem to have a rather big lead according to the polls, they would have to pick either a pretty crap candidate or run a pretty crap campaign.
...everyone agreed that in the most important technology of the 21st century, the EU was not on the map.
The last person on the panel was an entrepreneur.
He noted that the EU had as many AI startups as Israel (a country 1/50th the size) and, btw, two thirds of those were in London that was heading out the door due to Brexit.
So basically the EU had 1/3 the AI startups of Israel (this was a few years ago)
So the panel discussion turned to "What should the EU do?"
And the more or less unanimous conclusion (except for the entrepreneur) was "We are going to build on the success of GDPR and aim to be the REGULATORY LEADER of machine learning"
I literally laughed out loud.
Being the "Regulatory Leader" is NOT A REAL THING.
Imagine it is the early 20th century and imagine that cars were invented and that the USA and China were producing a lot of cars.
The EU of today would say "Building cars looks hard, but we will be the leader in STOP SIGNs"
The idea that Europe can concede the field in these areas to the USA and China and just be the referee saying "You can't do this" and "You can't do that" is a complete joke of a strategy.
Now this is not officially the strategy.
Officially the EU is for all these things, but done under the careful guiding hand of Brussels.
So what you are saying is that the UK because an AI leader DESPITE being a member of the low growth, sclerotic EU.
Your anecdote doesn’t do anything except remind us that bureaucrats of all stripes are shit at facilitating growth.
So why shackle yourself to an economic system that is predicated on bureaucratic levelling?
Because “shackling” doesn’t mean anything, except that it’s user reads too much Daily Express.
Try shackling yourself back into the real world.
It does in some scenarios, the German courts suggesting that fonts stored on cloud servers based outside of the EU breaks GDPR is completely ridiculous. It's turning the EU into a no-go zone for tech companies.
I’m not here to claim that the EU is good for tech. I am here to note that what success the UK (rather London) and perhaps Stockholm and Amsterdam have had in tech has happened despite the EU.
As far as recall, much of the GDPR stuff was led by the UK.
It seems inconsistent to talk about successes "despite the EU" while also arguing that being in the EU is essential for the UK's growth.
Attributing dysfunctional regulation within the EU system to the UK also doesn't absolve the EU. A UK shorn of the "Brussels effect" mentality will necessarily have to think and act differently.
It’s not inconsistent.
It’s a recognition that even inside the EU, the UK’s economic destiny was very largely in the UK’s own hands, and we had the single market to boot.
The idea that EU membership itself mandates a specific economic destiny is magical thinking by Brexiters. It stems, by the way, from the early 90s concerns about “social Europe”.
It's a little bit inconsistent. On the one hand the single market is supposed to be the only way we can grow our GDP, yet in the next breath the single market rules are bullshit that stifle growth.
I'm tech industry adjacent and the UK's tech industry is absolutely surging. Not just London either, all across the country tech jobs are sprouting up as people who have an idea take advantage of few to no regulations around internet businesses and get that idea off the ground.
There's a reason whole chunks of Europe's tech industry is looking at the UK enviously and planning accordingly for future hires and relocations. Loads of Dutch people I met in Mexico who were on the nomad trail had already been sounded out for moves to London or another tech city like Cambridge or Manchester by their employers. There's almost no movement in the other direction. 4 years ago PlayStation was moving to Amsterdam wholesale, today there's rumours that chunks of the Amsterdam team are being asked to move to the UK so Sony can consolidate the European business into the UK.
What sort of tech industry? Programming, hardware, cloud? Or just startups in internet based industries? (Asking out of interest.)
Basically everything. It's a real buyer's market for software engineers. I'd say any kind of SaaS based industry is a good bet, e-commerce is one level down but also seeing insane growth, simple Amazon fulfillment businesses are changing hands for millions of pounds.
Have been looking at running a business that would be mostly online providing tuition and study resources for A-level and degree level, but that's a bit different from what you're describing.
I don’t know why people keep saying Johnson got the big calls right and then go on to mention Covid.
It was a fucking shambles on almost every front save, of course, vaccines.
Nah, it wasn't that bad and the UK is one of the few countries that got the big reopening calls right. Some European countries still have idiotic mask mandates and vaccine passports.
Yes he was one of the very few leaders in Europe to tell the modellers to f off with their ridiculous deaths projections. And he has been triumphantly vindicated. If anything, he did so much later than he should have done - I wish he'd done so two years ago. We'd doubtless have more educated children, a better economy, a freer society and better mental health.
And, yes, vaccines.
As @Gardenwalker notes you are forgetting living through it (and why wouldn't we all want to).
For me he did much that was right - including his natural anti-restriction instinct which did win out at the end and I will not begrudge that. But for quite some time he delegated government to the Chief Medical Officer, yes and the modellers. In addition do you remember the chaos which lasted for months and typified by the following:
1. AM: Minister comes on R4 to say X will happen. 2. PM: Govt confirms X won't happen; or
1. AM: Minister comes on R4 to say X won't happen. 2. PM: Govt confirms X will happen.
Do you remember those days. For me perhaps more than anything it was such occurrences which illustrated the chaos and indecision that lay at the heart of govt that exacerbated a pretty bad time for us all; it totally f*cked with our heads.
Remember the on/off Christmas 2020 and the one-day school term (in January 2021)? That certainly upset a lot of PBers in England at least. I can't remember what allk the other three nations did, though IIRC Scotland had a steadier approach to that sort of choping and changing.
Christmas 2020 was never off. Relaxations got shortened from five days to one: Christmas Day was retained. And in any case it was mostly his political opponents who pressed for the shortening.
That was a pretty savage truncation of 80% ... and to describe scientific and medical advisors as political opponents ...
Did you ever look into the makeup of "Independent" SAGE?
I don’t know why people keep saying Johnson got the big calls right and then go on to mention Covid.
It was a fucking shambles on almost every front save, of course, vaccines.
Nah, it wasn't that bad and the UK is one of the few countries that got the big reopening calls right. Some European countries still have idiotic mask mandates and vaccine passports.
Yes he was one of the very few leaders in Europe to tell the modellers to f off with their ridiculous deaths projections. And he has been triumphantly vindicated. If anything, he did so much later than he should have done - I wish he'd done so two years ago. We'd doubtless have more educated children, a better economy, a freer society and better mental health.
And, yes, vaccines.
As @Gardenwalker notes you are forgetting living through it (and why wouldn't we all want to).
For me he did much that was right - including his natural anti-restriction instinct which did win out at the end and I will not begrudge that. But for quite some time he delegated government to the Chief Medical Officer, yes and the modellers. In addition do you remember the chaos which lasted for months and typified by the following:
1. AM: Minister comes on R4 to say X will happen. 2. PM: Govt confirms X won't happen; or
1. AM: Minister comes on R4 to say X won't happen. 2. PM: Govt confirms X will happen.
Do you remember those days. For me perhaps more than anything it was such occurrences which illustrated the chaos and indecision that lay at the heart of govt that exacerbated a pretty bad time for us all; it totally f*cked with our heads.
Remember the on/off Christmas 2020 and the one-day school term (in January 2021)? That certainly upset a lot of PBers in England at least. I can't remember what allk the other three nations did, though IIRC Scotland had a steadier approach to that sort of choping and changing.
Christmas 2020 was never off. Relaxations got shortened from five days to one: Christmas Day was retained. And in any case it was mostly his political opponents who pressed for the shortening.
That was a pretty savage truncation of 80% ... and to describe scientific and medical advisors as political opponents ...
Sure - but "Christmas is cancelled" was just a lie forwarded by people (LP) who were arguing for Christmas to be cancelled.
It was essentially cancelled for a lot of people. Anyone in tier four couldn't go outside their household or support bubble. In other tiers it was heavily restricted with very strong encouragement not to travel any sort of distance, and a strong discouragement from seeing grandma at all.
To be honest, I enjoyed it. Visited another single friend, had dinner, watched a film, home for an early night. But that says more about me, and it was very difficult for a huge number of people. Re-writing history isn't really the way to go.
Made worse by the "cancellation" coming at very late notice, after plans and preparation had already started.
And don't get me started* on the 'should we, shouldn't we, may we, we won't until it's right, we will even if half the population dies' dithering and and incompetence on schools.
*unless you want another long rant about how much I hate the DfE, which I'm assuming most of you don't.
Labour 42% (–) Conservative 34% (-2) Liberal Democrat 8% (-1) Green 5% (+1) Scottish National Party 4% (+1) Reform UK 4% (+1) Other 3% (–)
Changes +/- 3 Apr
Tory Chancellor has a meltdown.
Labour don't gain.
Hmmmm.......
Labour 8% ahead = Disaster for Labour
If my washing machine could spin like that the clothes would come out already dry.
Con down 2 on the day the papers all lead with Fatboi Goes To War. Get out of jail free card turns out to be as effective as that new witness who taps up halfway through Shawshank and gets shot dead by the Warden.
I don’t know why people keep saying Johnson got the big calls right and then go on to mention Covid.
It was a fucking shambles on almost every front save, of course, vaccines.
Nah, it wasn't that bad and the UK is one of the few countries that got the big reopening calls right. Some European countries still have idiotic mask mandates and vaccine passports.
Yes he was one of the very few leaders in Europe to tell the modellers to f off with their ridiculous deaths projections. And he has been triumphantly vindicated. If anything, he did so much later than he should have done - I wish he'd done so two years ago. We'd doubtless have more educated children, a better economy, a freer society and better mental health.
And, yes, vaccines.
As @Gardenwalker notes you are forgetting living through it (and why wouldn't we all want to).
For me he did much that was right - including his natural anti-restriction instinct which did win out at the end and I will not begrudge that. But for quite some time he delegated government to the Chief Medical Officer, yes and the modellers. In addition do you remember the chaos which lasted for months and typified by the following:
1. AM: Minister comes on R4 to say X will happen. 2. PM: Govt confirms X won't happen; or
1. AM: Minister comes on R4 to say X won't happen. 2. PM: Govt confirms X will happen.
Do you remember those days. For me perhaps more than anything it was such occurrences which illustrated the chaos and indecision that lay at the heart of govt that exacerbated a pretty bad time for us all; it totally f*cked with our heads.
Remember the on/off Christmas 2020 and the one-day school term (in January 2021)? That certainly upset a lot of PBers in England at least. I can't remember what allk the other three nations did, though IIRC Scotland had a steadier approach to that sort of choping and changing.
Christmas 2020 was never off. Relaxations got shortened from five days to one: Christmas Day was retained. And in any case it was mostly his political opponents who pressed for the shortening.
That was a pretty savage truncation of 80% ... and to describe scientific and medical advisors as political opponents ...
Sure - but "Christmas is cancelled" was just a lie forwarded by people (LP) who were arguing for Christmas to be cancelled.
Oh, indeed, one day of Christmas itself - but it's only a lie if you define Christmas as one day. It does de facto comprise other stuff as well over the holiday period. As others have noted.
I don’t know why people keep saying Johnson got the big calls right and then go on to mention Covid.
It was a fucking shambles on almost every front save, of course, vaccines.
Nah, it wasn't that bad and the UK is one of the few countries that got the big reopening calls right. Some European countries still have idiotic mask mandates and vaccine passports.
Yes he was one of the very few leaders in Europe to tell the modellers to f off with their ridiculous deaths projections. And he has been triumphantly vindicated. If anything, he did so much later than he should have done - I wish he'd done so two years ago. We'd doubtless have more educated children, a better economy, a freer society and better mental health.
And, yes, vaccines.
As @Gardenwalker notes you are forgetting living through it (and why wouldn't we all want to).
For me he did much that was right - including his natural anti-restriction instinct which did win out at the end and I will not begrudge that. But for quite some time he delegated government to the Chief Medical Officer, yes and the modellers. In addition do you remember the chaos which lasted for months and typified by the following:
1. AM: Minister comes on R4 to say X will happen. 2. PM: Govt confirms X won't happen; or
1. AM: Minister comes on R4 to say X won't happen. 2. PM: Govt confirms X will happen.
Do you remember those days. For me perhaps more than anything it was such occurrences which illustrated the chaos and indecision that lay at the heart of govt that exacerbated a pretty bad time for us all; it totally f*cked with our heads.
Remember the on/off Christmas 2020 and the one-day school term (in January 2021)? That certainly upset a lot of PBers in England at least. I can't remember what allk the other three nations did, though IIRC Scotland had a steadier approach to that sort of choping and changing.
Christmas 2020 was never off. Relaxations got shortened from five days to one: Christmas Day was retained. And in any case it was mostly his political opponents who pressed for the shortening.
That was a pretty savage truncation of 80% ... and to describe scientific and medical advisors as political opponents ...
Did you ever look into the makeup of "Independent" SAGE?
I'm thinking of the Government's own advisers.
No SAGE, and they didn't seem to know their onions either.
It's no wonder we couldn't have a proper Christmas. Where's the stuffing to come from?
Labour 42% (–) Conservative 34% (-2) Liberal Democrat 8% (-1) Green 5% (+1) Scottish National Party 4% (+1) Reform UK 4% (+1) Other 3% (–)
Changes +/- 3 Apr
Tory Chancellor has a meltdown.
Labour don't gain.
Hmmmm.......
Hmmmm indeed. Labour were six points ahead and now they're eight.......Curiouser and Curiouser said Alice
The main thing is that poll-to-poll changes don't work like that; unless something really shocking happens that everyone knows about, the change week-to-week is less than the statistical fuzz in the measurement.
The only thing you can look at and hope to get anything is the trend across all the polls;
I don’t know why people keep saying Johnson got the big calls right and then go on to mention Covid.
It was a fucking shambles on almost every front save, of course, vaccines.
Nah, it wasn't that bad and the UK is one of the few countries that got the big reopening calls right. Some European countries still have idiotic mask mandates and vaccine passports.
Yes he was one of the very few leaders in Europe to tell the modellers to f off with their ridiculous deaths projections. And he has been triumphantly vindicated. If anything, he did so much later than he should have done - I wish he'd done so two years ago. We'd doubtless have more educated children, a better economy, a freer society and better mental health.
And, yes, vaccines.
As @Gardenwalker notes you are forgetting living through it (and why wouldn't we all want to).
For me he did much that was right - including his natural anti-restriction instinct which did win out at the end and I will not begrudge that. But for quite some time he delegated government to the Chief Medical Officer, yes and the modellers. In addition do you remember the chaos which lasted for months and typified by the following:
1. AM: Minister comes on R4 to say X will happen. 2. PM: Govt confirms X won't happen; or
1. AM: Minister comes on R4 to say X won't happen. 2. PM: Govt confirms X will happen.
Do you remember those days. For me perhaps more than anything it was such occurrences which illustrated the chaos and indecision that lay at the heart of govt that exacerbated a pretty bad time for us all; it totally f*cked with our heads.
Remember the on/off Christmas 2020 and the one-day school term (in January 2021)? That certainly upset a lot of PBers in England at least. I can't remember what allk the other three nations did, though IIRC Scotland had a steadier approach to that sort of choping and changing.
Christmas 2020 was never off. Relaxations got shortened from five days to one: Christmas Day was retained. And in any case it was mostly his political opponents who pressed for the shortening.
That was a pretty savage truncation of 80% ... and to describe scientific and medical advisors as political opponents ...
Did you ever look into the makeup of "Independent" SAGE?
I'm thinking of the Government's own advisers.
No SAGE, and they didn't seem to know their onions either.
It's no wonder we couldn't have a proper Christmas. Where's the stuffing to come from?
The postings this evening certainly suggest that that particular Christmas hasn't been improved by a good handful of thyme.
Comments
Many of the calls were shit at the time and called out on here.
Especially when they have to justify to themselves moving to a country that may well re-elect Donald Trump.
Your anecdote doesn’t do anything except remind us that bureaucrats of all stripes are shit at facilitating growth.
That's why we're giving Ukraine any amount of defensive weaponry, but are less keen to provide tanks, planes and mobile artillery. I think the West has got this about right - it's played a major part in protecting Kyiv, without helping to extend the war. Russia will I suspect find it hard to make progress out of Donbas.
We should no more be doing deals with Putin than we should have been with Hitler, nor enabling them. It's not as if Putin will keep to them anyway - he has a vision of a Greater imperial Russia which he sees force as not only valid but necessary to impose, because only force can bring about the Russification needed to bring about that vision.
There may not be another - and certainly not a better - chance to stop Putin than now. His forces need to not only be stopped but driven out of Donbas and Crimea.
But it's not foregone conclusion territory as a Labour gain. The swing in Birmingham Erdington would only barely be sufficient, while Hartlepool and Batley & Spen were both swings against Labour (albeit things have moved on).
It may well be pretty tight and Labour's campaign team need to do a damned sight better than they have recently.
Labour would clearly be helped if Somerton & Frome had a by-election as the Tories would need to work to defend two. I suspect it won't as Warburton, whilst clearly in huge trouble, can probably draw the process out at least.
That's why we're giving Ukraine any amount of defensive weaponry, but are less keen to provide tanks, planes and mobile artillery. I think the West has got this about right - it's played a major part in protecting Kyiv, without helping to extend the war. Russia will I suspect find it hard to make progress out of Donbas.
Ukraine needs to drive Russia out of its territory. All weapons can be used either offensively or defensively. I think the reluctance to provide bigger stuff is the fear of escalation rather than some sort of arcane definition of what counts as an offensive weapon. In any case, we don't know what has been given, only what we have said we will provide, or what comms/intel/wargaming/cyber warfare we are giving.
I see this as NATO fighting a proxy war. It must have a war aim. I can't see that is less than some sort of defeat of the Russians.
Delenda est Russia
For me he did much that was right - including his natural anti-restriction instinct which did win out at the end and I will not begrudge that. But for quite some time he delegated government to the Chief Medical Officer, yes and the modellers. In addition do you remember the chaos which lasted for months, typified by the following:
1. AM: Minister comes on R4 to say X will happen.
2. PM: Govt confirms X won't happen; or
1. AM: Minister comes on R4 to say X won't happen.
2. PM: Govt confirms X will happen.
Do you remember those days. For me perhaps more than anything it was such occurrences which illustrated the chaos and indecision that lay at the heart of govt that exacerbated a pretty bad time for us all; it totally f*cked with our heads.
I see this as NATO fighting a proxy war. It must have a war aim. I can't see that is less than some sort of defeat of the Russians.
Delenda est Russia
Apols, something seems to have gone wrong with the quote attribution on that one.
Good to see you posting on here @david_herdson again
Edit: and yes someone had to sort out the blockquotes. Your welcome.
I'd probably agree with that.
But I think what it shows is that pandemics, along with many things, are quite hard to manage. I don't think it's credible that most governments are run and advised by people who are significantly less competent than the denizens of an internet bulletin board, even this one. I think it's probably more likely that making decisions in a hurry that will affect the lives and livelihoods of millions of people is more difficult than we give it credit for.
That said, Susan Michie, for one, should never have been let near the leavers of power.
My criticisms of Johnson are based on an insecurity that the US might re-elect Trump. You’ve got me.
No doubt your tidal energy proposals are similarly definitive.
Not of course that you should care less but your EU posts are now in the bucket of those I skip on PB (I noticed a long one earlier, which @Gardenwalker has engaged you about).
And of course now it is over and we are picking up the pieces Starmer is being an utter fuckwit and attacking the Government for having wasted money on PPE that wasn't needed or wasn't fit for purpose. He was on TV a couple of nights ago doing exactly that.
I generally prefer Starmer to Johnson as a prospective PM but if he carries on with this he deserves nothing but scorn and he certainly doesn't deserve to get anywhere near Number 10.
And of course just closing schools they will or should be held culpable for for decades as the various associated problems play themselves out with the current school age generation. If I had children I would be more than furios.
Try shackling yourself back into the real world.
When I told her how how far I’d walked to get here, she immediately offered me a drink. I said “Je vais vouler un bier”; she gave me a choice of three and I went for the one I hadn’t heard of. It’s called Cap D’Ona and is brewed in the next town. Its label says it won a World Beer Challenge Gold Medal in 2021. And it’s going down very nicely! (I’ll get on the vin once I’ve rehydrated; I ran out of beer about three miles back!)
My room is really smart and the bed feels good. I’ve got a balcony with a pretty decent view.
The only thing I agree with Orwell (according to wiki) about so far is the wind. I’ve had to hold onto my hat for most of the day, and nearly been blown over a few times.
“George Orwell and his wife Eileen had a holiday in Banyuls-sur-Mer directly after leaving Spain, then in the throes of its civil war, in July 1937. Their holiday was not a success. As he noted, Orwell found the place 'a bore and a disappointment'. It was chilly weather, a persistent wind blew off the sea, the water was dull and choppy....”
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Banyuls-sur-Mer
I suppose you're joking, but it'd be better not to have ethnic generalisations here, even in jest.
As far as recall, much of the GDPR stuff was led by the UK.
From PB's most dimwitted multiple ex-pat.
There's a reason experts of all stripes who actually do things and build things are not rushing to the GDPR loving EU.
If your answer to the problems of the future is GDPR, you've not understood the question.
RedfieldWilton
·
Westminster Voting Intention (10 Apr):
Labour 42% (–)
Conservative 34% (-2)
Liberal Democrat 8% (-1)
Green 5% (+1)
Scottish National Party 4% (+1)
Reform UK 4% (+1)
Other 3% (–)
Changes +/- 3 Apr
Unlike, say, the Leader of the Opposition, who is supposed to be competent, but made the wrong call just about every time he bothered to oppose the government, which was rarely, and now can't even define 52% of the country.
The UK should split digital out of Nadine’s grip, and create a special unit under BEIS staffed with secondments from industry who know what the fuck they are doing.
Attributing dysfunctional regulation within the EU system to the UK also doesn't absolve the EU. A UK shorn of the "Brussels effect" mentality will necessarily have to think and act differently.
For me coming back from supporting the govt the way he did will be a big challenge. As we are seeing.
His only “instinct” is self-aggrandisement and contempt for the useful idiots who vote for him.
End of.
His Covid shambles started with his speech to the Painted Hall at Greenwich scoffing that Covid meant anything to us in the UK, even as videos dropped on YouTube showing corpses piling up in China…and went downhill from there.
One option would have been to suspend him from the party at once while leaving him in the election.
There is a Wakefield constituency now, and there is a Wakefield constituency in the proposed boundaries. The half of the constituency within Wakefield is near unchanged, the (currently slightly over) half outwith Wakefield changes totally, from an area South and West of the city now, to an area North of the city on 2024 boundaries.
The question is: is Wakefield the formal successor constituency to Wakefield? Or, because the larger portion goes into Ossett & Denby Dale, is that the formal successor constituency? Certainly, with something like a 10% nominal swing to Labour in '24 for the constituency named Wakefield due to the boundary change, a Tory incumbent would be happier with the latter arrangement, a Labour by-election victor with the former.
Indeed Electoral Calculus has Khan down as the defending MP in Ossett & Denby Dale.
Is Mary Creagh likely to put herself forward for Labour or is this one where there would be a candidate selection for Labour?
https://www.seattletimes.com/seattle-news/politics/in-southwest-wa-a-far-right-clash-tests-power-of-trumps-endorsement-in-race-for-congress/
LONGVIEW — At a recent evening campaign town hall, Republican candidate Joe Kent rattled off his Day 1 priorities if he’s elected to Congress.
Impeach Joe Biden. Impeach Kamala Harris. Maybe install Donald Trump — or one of his children — as Speaker of the House.
The fantastical scenario played well with the couple of dozen Republicans at the event in a nondescript real estate office meeting room.
Kent admitted the odds of his plan succeeding are slim. But obstruction and revenge are the point. “In a lot of ways the process is the punishment,” he said. “That’s what they did with Trump. We’ll do it to them.”
An ex-Green Beret combat veteran and Gold Star husband, Kent is the Trump-endorsed challenger looking to oust U.S. Rep. Jaime Herrera Beutler in the 2022 midterm election, in retribution for her impeachment vote last year.
The race for Congress in Southwest Washington’s 3rd District — with Kent echoing Trump’s false claims that the 2020 presidential election was stolen and defending people arrested in the Jan. 6 U.S. Capitol assault as “political prisoners” — is among the closely watched contests around the country that will test Trump’s continued hold over the Republican Party.
While the ex-president remains popular with much of the GOP base, there are signs his influence may be fading, with some of his picks faltering in other states. In the 3rd District, a mashup of rural counties and fast-growing suburbs across the river from Portland, Trump’s early endorsement of Kent in September has brought him attention and a fundraiser at Mar-a-Lago.
But Herrera Beutler has retained support from some local Republican leaders. And Trump’s endorsement of Kent so far has failed to clear the field of other GOP challengers running to Herrera Beutler’s right. . . .
A rising star in pro-Trump circles, Kent has become a regular guest on Fox News and other conservative media outlets. He’s been feted at East Coast fundraisers and campaigned with some of the most far-right members of Congress, including Reps. Marjorie Taylor Greene of Georgia and Matt Gaetz of Florida.
Kent is waging an “America First” campaign marked by fealty to Trump and resentment of Democratic and Republican elites. In addition to calling for probes of the 2020 election, he says Congress should investigate Anthony Fauci over COVID-19’s origins. He supports a near-total shutdown of immigration to the U.S. — including barring refugees fleeing Ukraine. Earlier this month, he called Vladimir Putin’s demands that Ukraine cede territory to Russia “very reasonable.” . . .
In the Aug. 2 primary, the two candidates who receive the most votes, regardless of party, will advance to the Nov. 8 general election. . . .
Labour don't gain.
Hmmmm.......
What reallky made me wonder about Mr Johnson was -
- in a hospital of covid patients, he shook hands with everyone
- when he went down with it, he still wanted to go and see HMtQ
Did the man really understand what he was dealing with?
The stop sign analogy from @williamglenn's post is probably the best one I've seen wrt the EU and tech. In the end the market power of the EU is tiny compared to the US and some Asian countries. Companies will rather avoid doing business in the EU than allow regulatory overreach from the EU to affect their business. I'd probably amend the analogy to say that the EU thinks it can put up stop signs in London, Brooklyn or San Jose and make companies not based in the EU follow their signs. Obviously that's not happening but it is leading to big tech, medium tech, scale ups and start ups putting their lot in with the US and UK.
I remember there was a lot of panic about the UK potentially losing data equivalence with the EU, yet the rules for data sharing have become tougher between the US and EU and all they did was drive Meta, Apple and Google out to the UK.
It’s a recognition that even inside the EU, the UK’s economic destiny was very largely in the UK’s own hands, and we had the single market to boot.
The idea that EU membership itself mandates a specific economic destiny is magical thinking by Brexiters. It stems, by the way, from the early 90s concerns about “social Europe”.
@williamglenn posts some of the most insightful, enlightening PB commentary on the EU (and indeed on many other things: including Ukraine), precisely because he has an open mind, and is willing to change that mind, when persuaded
I always look at his comments with interest, because I am never quite sure what he is going to say, but I know what he says can generally be relied upon to teach me something - even if I disagree.
The mark of a fine commenter
EDIT: Don't know what is going on with Topping, but that was in response to 'oh no, he's not you as well'
On the other point, in the days of long ago, I seem to remember Conservative ministers always resigning when they were caught out. In the days of Macmillan... Yes. In the days of Thatcher... Yes. In the days of Major..... Yes.
So what is it that has made a difference now?
It was clear (to PB) that Covid was a thing, and somehow the news hadn’t got to Boris.
See also Carnyx’s notes upthread about his other bizarre antics.
He doesn’t read his briefings, because he fundamentally doesn’t give a shit.
Seriously. Best not to think like this at all, but as a poor second try not saying it out loud.
I'm tech industry adjacent and the UK's tech industry is absolutely surging. Not just London either, all across the country tech jobs are sprouting up as people who have an idea take advantage of few to no regulations around internet businesses and get that idea off the ground.
There's a reason whole chunks of Europe's tech industry is looking at the UK enviously and planning accordingly for future hires and relocations. Loads of Dutch people I met in Mexico who were on the nomad trail had already been sounded out for moves to London or another tech city like Cambridge or Manchester by their employers. There's almost no movement in the other direction. 4 years ago PlayStation was moving to Amsterdam wholesale, today there's rumours that chunks of the Amsterdam team are being asked to move to the UK so Sony can consolidate the European business into the UK.
So what... or who... is it that has made a difference now?
But perhaps it is....
@CBSWalsh
·
1h
U.S. believes the new massive Russian convoy consists of vehicles moving out of Belgorod resupply area; the line of armor is still north of Izium - Senior Defense official
https://twitter.com/CBSWalsh/status/1513531520241254415
To be honest, I enjoyed it. Visited another single friend, had dinner, watched a film, home for an early night. But that says more about me, and it was very difficult for a huge number of people. Re-writing history isn't really the way to go.
Like any “rule-book”, there are surely shit rules in there. But the case needs to be made around specific rules that are hampering growth.
Whereas the economic literature is pretty clear about the upsides to single market membership.
If my washing machine could spin like that the clothes would come out already dry.
*unless you want another long rant about how much I hate the DfE, which I'm assuming most of you don't.
It's no wonder we couldn't have a proper Christmas. Where's the stuffing to come from?
There is a new BBC Three documentary on AI's use in recruitment. More details (and the programme) at:
https://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/m0015gvw/computer-says-no
The only thing you can look at and hope to get anything is the trend across all the polls;
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Opinion_polling_for_the_next_United_Kingdom_general_election
and funnily enough, that is starting to show Lab trending up and Con trending down again.