Trying to think of a parallel period in British political history to where we are now in 2022.
1962.
Tories into their third term with their third consecutive PM - an Old Etonian actor manager.
Labour with a relatively new leader.
Two years later the actor-manager PM has been replaced by a new PM, who then loses, narrowly, to Labour in the 1964 General Election.
Anyone find a better match?
Agreed, the next general election will be more 1964 than 1997 if Labour do win.
2022 is unprecedented in multiple ways. We’re emerging (in’s’Allah) from an immense global plague. We face global Cold War, and European Hot War. We are on the cusp of Artificial Intelligence. Etc etc etc. The world is changing at enormous speed, possibly faster than at any time in human history
This is not ‘1964’. It is itself
1964 was just after the Cuban Missile Crisis at the height of the Cold War. There was also the growth of TV and the emergence of the computer and the Space race etc and the cultural revolution of the 1960s
Things moved quite quickly in the 1960s. That does not preclude them moving even faster now. Much faster
AI is much overblown.
This article in the Atlantic is quite interesting on Google Translate. Now don't get me wrong, Google Translate is a great tool, very useful etc. But it's a million miles away from human intelligence.
Which suggests we really are close to proper AI, if not there already
Anybody claiming GPT3 is "proper" AI, is quite frankly an idiot. Its highly impressive, as is DALLE-2, but its not intelligent. They are giant transformers. Yes that means they can create a sentence or a picture never been written or drawn before, but it has no concept of what that sentence means, if it actually makes sense, if it doesn't how to correct it, etc etc etc. They can't adapt to a changing world without total retraining of the whole giant network.
Hence, the Turing Test
You should know this. At some point (very soon, I suspect) the output of Neural Networks like GPT4 will be indistinguishable from human communication and creativity. At that juncture, the question as to whether they are actually ‘intelligent’ will become an abstruse debate for theologians and philosophers. They will appear, seem, act, speak, draw, sing, joke, create and behave as if they are humanly intelligent. They will then be, to all intents and purposes, intelligent
It will get REALLY spooky when they are obviously MORE ‘intelligent’. That’s coming, as well
Will all due respect to Turing, who was clearly a genius, his test is rubbish.
The Benpointer test is much better: AI needs to load and the dishwasher properly. Then unload it and put away all the crockery and cutlery in the right place.
By which mark I am an AI...
By which mark AI is abolished by Ockham, as sensible people have 2 dishwashers and do not need to unload them to intermediate storage.
Environment factoid: a dishwasher uses far less water than normal washing up.
I have no problem with ID cards . In most EU countries you have show them when you vote . The difference is there is no GB ID card . The governments ID requirements to vote are not about fraud but voter suppression in groups that normally do not vote Tory .
Often asserted, never proven.
Yes if only the bill had been called the Voter Suppression Bill, then we would have known for certain. As it is I suppose the government deserve the benefit of the doubt, given their consistent pattern of honest behaviour... Oh, wait.
I mean, some evidence would be nice. Why do you think "groups that normally do not vote Tory" are too stupid to get a free voter ID even if they don't already have some sort of photo ID (which the vast majority of people do)?
Not a question of being stupid. A question of time, effort, organisation. The point is that younger voters and poorer voters are less likely to have either of the two forms of photo ID that most of us have, a passport or driving license, and so these are the people who will have to get a new ID just to be able to vote. Yet these are also the groups already least likely to vote, and so I would imagine that many won't have the motivation to get the ID, even if perhaps on the day they might have been persuaded to vote. Coincidentally they are also the groups least likely to vote Tory. Meanwhile, impersonation (pretending to be someone else when voting) is an almost non-existent problem. So you are creating a much bigger problem (preventing registered voters from voting on a technicality) to solve a much smaller problem, in a way that will advantage the party that is changing the law. It is voter suppression. It stinks.
I don't think younger voters are less likely to have a driving licence, are they? Certainly when I was that age it was standard for everyone to get their provisional licence as early as they could.
Anecdotal, but I have four kids, aged 29-33. They live in a city. Only one of them has a driving licence. They use public transport and Uber. Owning a car would be a) too expensive, and/or b) not worth the hassle.
Don’t they want to hire a car when they explore foreign countries?
I find this rather sad. I’ve seen so much of the world simply because I’ve been able to rent a car and get out there. The USA, where I am now, is virtually impossible to see, properly, if you can’t drive
The next generation must hope we get self-driving cars very soon. They might just be lucky
No. They enjoy the challenge of exploring foreign countries on public transport. The downside is that yes, some places are inaccessible. But the upside is that you can watch stuff and people without having to focus on driving. And you become more immersed in local cultures and meet more people by using buses etc.
Is there a betting market for the name of the National Flegship? Johnson is supposed to reveal the design and name in time for the Diamond Jubilee/Funeral (delete as applicable).
Possibilities...
HMS Duke of Edinburgh (Queen said to be opposed to this I doubt Johnson gives a fuck what she thinks) HMS Britannia (some continuity with the old asbestos ridden floating AA meeting) HMS United Kingdom (very 'on brand' for this government and the favourite I reckon)
Blowing gazillions on a replacement for the Royal Yacht Britannia is surely a symbol of a buoyant economy. A sign that lower taxes/better services are just around the corner?
Boosting spend around the ship yards - I assume its being built in the UK? How it that different from other government stimuli? Pay the workers, who spend money, who pay tax etc etc etc
Anecdote. The other day I bought an Ozark 12-in-1 multi tool from an Alabama Wal-Mart. It’s a really useful pliers, and wire cutter, plus knife, bottle opener, saw, can opener, awl, screwdriver, you name it
It’s highly utilitarian but robust. Steel. Solid. So solid I bought three. Why?
It cost $5
How can such a useful thing cost just $5? Basically nothing. The price of one mildly fancy coffee
It felt to me like Peak Something. Peak Globalised Cheapness? I also felt: this cannot last
I saw this last night. Lady Bra isn’t it. My thought was why would the Tory’s arrest their own people for big fraud right on eve of important election so it’s fresh in voters minds as they vote. Before the minister of fraud resigned unhappy with inaction there didn’t seem any acknowledgement of problem, but they have timed action inappropriately for the elections.
Isn’t the national crime agency, and the police in general, at arms length from the government? So they haven’t timed anything at all.
🤣 . .
You seem in a bit of a tangle here. Ask yourself your own question: if they are in the pocket of the tories why would they do this?
Lady Mone has an awfully Arcuri look about her.
Yeah I admit I have a tangle to untingle today. I was under impression police are in perder ahead of the elections, can’t issue any more Downing St fines until after voting etc so same police raiding homes of Tory politicians on eve of voting sits awkward with that?
Pre-election purdah does not and should not apply to law enforcement.
I saw this last night. Lady Bra isn’t it. My thought was why would the Tory’s arrest their own people for big fraud right on eve of important election so it’s fresh in voters minds as they vote. Before the minister of fraud resigned unhappy with inaction there didn’t seem any acknowledgement of problem, but they have timed action inappropriately for the elections.
Isn’t the national crime agency, and the police in general, at arms length from the government? So they haven’t timed anything at all.
🤣 . .
You seem in a bit of a tangle here. Ask yourself your own question: if they are in the pocket of the tories why would they do this?
Lady Mone has an awfully Arcuri look about her.
Yeah I admit I have a tangle to untingle today. I was under impression police are in perder ahead of the elections, can’t issue any more Downing St fines until after voting etc so same police raiding homes of Tory politicians on eve of voting sits awkward with that?
Yes, the Met Police are claiming that purdah applies to them. Which is a remarkable new interpretation of the law, and which occasioned some, erm, surprise when it was announced.
Its is an interesting decision, and tbh I think it is correct. The events are trivial and in the past. They can all be announced on May 7th or whenever.
Is there a betting market for the name of the National Flegship? Johnson is supposed to reveal the design and name in time for the Diamond Jubilee/Funeral (delete as applicable).
Possibilities...
HMS Duke of Edinburgh (Queen said to be opposed to this I doubt Johnson gives a fuck what she thinks) HMS Britannia (some continuity with the old asbestos ridden floating AA meeting) HMS United Kingdom (very 'on brand' for this government and the favourite I reckon)
Blowing gazillions on a replacement for the Royal Yacht Britannia is surely a symbol of a buoyant economy. A sign that lower taxes/better services are just around the corner?
Boosting spend around the ship yards - I assume its being built in the UK? How it that different from other government stimuli? Pay the workers, who spend money, who pay tax etc etc etc
The end result will be a bit useless unless the RN can find people to crew it though, but yes we still get a boat at the end of it which is probably better than spunking yet another few billion on the NHS or bribing a few old people with yet more money.
I saw this last night. Lady Bra isn’t it. My thought was why would the Tory’s arrest their own people for big fraud right on eve of important election so it’s fresh in voters minds as they vote. Before the minister of fraud resigned unhappy with inaction there didn’t seem any acknowledgement of problem, but they have timed action inappropriately for the elections.
Isn’t the national crime agency, and the police in general, at arms length from the government? So they haven’t timed anything at all.
🤣 . .
You seem in a bit of a tangle here. Ask yourself your own question: if they are in the pocket of the tories why would they do this?
Lady Mone has an awfully Arcuri look about her.
Yeah I admit I have a tangle to untingle today. I was under impression police are in perder ahead of the elections, can’t issue any more Downing St fines until after voting etc so same police raiding homes of Tory politicians on eve of voting sits awkward with that?
Yes, the Met Police are claiming that purdah applies to them. Which is a remarkable new interpretation of the law, and which occasioned some, erm, surprise when it was announced.
Anecdote. The other day I bought an Ozark 12-in-1 multi tool from an Alabama Wal-Mart. It’s a really useful pliers, and wire cutter, plus knife, bottle opener, saw, can opener, awl, screwdriver, you name it
It’s highly utilitarian but robust. Steel. Solid. So solid I bought three. Why?
It cost $5
How can such a useful thing cost just $5? Basically nothing. The price of one mildly fancy coffee
It felt to me like Peak Something. Peak Globalised Cheapness? I also felt: this cannot last
Is there a betting market for the name of the National Flegship? Johnson is supposed to reveal the design and name in time for the Diamond Jubilee/Funeral (delete as applicable).
Possibilities...
HMS Duke of Edinburgh (Queen said to be opposed to this I doubt Johnson gives a fuck what she thinks) HMS Britannia (some continuity with the old asbestos ridden floating AA meeting) HMS United Kingdom (very 'on brand' for this government and the favourite I reckon)
Agree Britannia and DofE should be favourite. If not those, I can see them going for a trade link and looking at Golden Hind or similar.
Agree with the main premise though. It’ll be something “low brow” historical. A name everyone knows that tests well in focus groups.
I have no problem with ID cards . In most EU countries you have show them when you vote . The difference is there is no GB ID card . The governments ID requirements to vote are not about fraud but voter suppression in groups that normally do not vote Tory .
Often asserted, never proven.
Yes if only the bill had been called the Voter Suppression Bill, then we would have known for certain. As it is I suppose the government deserve the benefit of the doubt, given their consistent pattern of honest behaviour... Oh, wait.
I mean, some evidence would be nice. Why do you think "groups that normally do not vote Tory" are too stupid to get a free voter ID even if they don't already have some sort of photo ID (which the vast majority of people do)?
Not a question of being stupid. A question of time, effort, organisation. The point is that younger voters and poorer voters are less likely to have either of the two forms of photo ID that most of us have, a passport or driving license, and so these are the people who will have to get a new ID just to be able to vote. Yet these are also the groups already least likely to vote, and so I would imagine that many won't have the motivation to get the ID, even if perhaps on the day they might have been persuaded to vote. Coincidentally they are also the groups least likely to vote Tory. Meanwhile, impersonation (pretending to be someone else when voting) is an almost non-existent problem. So you are creating a much bigger problem (preventing registered voters from voting on a technicality) to solve a much smaller problem, in a way that will advantage the party that is changing the law. It is voter suppression. It stinks.
I don't think younger voters are less likely to have a driving licence, are they? Certainly when I was that age it was standard for everyone to get their provisional licence as early as they could.
Anecdotal, but I have four kids, aged 29-33. They live in a city. Only one of them has a driving licence. They use public transport and Uber. Owning a car would be a) too expensive, and/or b) not worth the hassle.
Don’t they want to hire a car when they explore foreign countries?
I find this rather sad. I’ve seen so much of the world simply because I’ve been able to rent a car and get out there. The USA, where I am now, is virtually impossible to see, properly, if you can’t drive
The next generation must hope we get self-driving cars very soon. They might just be lucky
No. They enjoy the challenge of exploring foreign countries on public transport. The downside is that yes, some places are inaccessible. But the upside is that you can watch stuff and people without having to focus on driving. And you become more immersed in local cultures and meet more people by using buses etc.
And with all due respect, that’s total bollocks. Not being able to drive is a massive handicap when travelling. And the “not focusing on driving” stuff is ridiculous
I am not having a go at your kids, btw. I strongly suspect mine (mid teens) will be similar. My nephew - 25 - shows no interest in driving
Is there a betting market for the name of the National Flegship? Johnson is supposed to reveal the design and name in time for the Diamond Jubilee/Funeral (delete as applicable).
Possibilities...
HMS Duke of Edinburgh (Queen said to be opposed to this I doubt Johnson gives a fuck what she thinks) HMS Britannia (some continuity with the old asbestos ridden floating AA meeting) HMS United Kingdom (very 'on brand' for this government and the favourite I reckon)
Agree Britannia and DofE should be favourite. If not those, I can see them going for a trade link and looking at Golden Hind or similar.
Agree with the main premise though. It’ll be something “low brow” historical. A name everyone knows that tests well in focus groups.
I saw this last night. Lady Bra isn’t it. My thought was why would the Tory’s arrest their own people for big fraud right on eve of important election so it’s fresh in voters minds as they vote. Before the minister of fraud resigned unhappy with inaction there didn’t seem any acknowledgement of problem, but they have timed action inappropriately for the elections.
Isn’t the national crime agency, and the police in general, at arms length from the government? So they haven’t timed anything at all.
🤣 . .
You seem in a bit of a tangle here. Ask yourself your own question: if they are in the pocket of the tories why would they do this?
Lady Mone has an awfully Arcuri look about her.
Yeah I admit I have a tangle to untingle today. I was under impression police are in perder ahead of the elections, can’t issue any more Downing St fines until after voting etc so same police raiding homes of Tory politicians on eve of voting sits awkward with that?
Pre-election purdah does not and should not apply to law enforcement.
I saw this last night. Lady Bra isn’t it. My thought was why would the Tory’s arrest their own people for big fraud right on eve of important election so it’s fresh in voters minds as they vote. Before the minister of fraud resigned unhappy with inaction there didn’t seem any acknowledgement of problem, but they have timed action inappropriately for the elections.
Isn’t the national crime agency, and the police in general, at arms length from the government? So they haven’t timed anything at all.
🤣 . .
You seem in a bit of a tangle here. Ask yourself your own question: if they are in the pocket of the tories why would they do this?
Lady Mone has an awfully Arcuri look about her.
Yeah I admit I have a tangle to untingle today. I was under impression police are in perder ahead of the elections, can’t issue any more Downing St fines until after voting etc so same police raiding homes of Tory politicians on eve of voting sits awkward with that?
Yes, the Met Police are claiming that purdah applies to them. Which is a remarkable new interpretation of the law, and which occasioned some, erm, surprise when it was announced.
Its is an interesting decision, and tbh I think it is correct. The events are trivial and in the past. They can all be announced on May 7th or whenever.
Beg to differ. We can't have delays in law enforcement, especially when they confirm previous evidence of favouritism (delays; use of email questionnaires). The law has to be enforced without favouritism.
Is there a betting market for the name of the National Flegship? Johnson is supposed to reveal the design and name in time for the Diamond Jubilee/Funeral (delete as applicable).
Possibilities...
HMS Duke of Edinburgh (Queen said to be opposed to this I doubt Johnson gives a fuck what she thinks) HMS Britannia (some continuity with the old asbestos ridden floating AA meeting) HMS United Kingdom (very 'on brand' for this government and the favourite I reckon)
Would they have to take the bow off HMS UK after a Yes Sindy vote?
Anecdote. The other day I bought an Ozark 12-in-1 multi tool from an Alabama Wal-Mart. It’s a really useful pliers, and wire cutter, plus knife, bottle opener, saw, can opener, awl, screwdriver, you name it
It’s highly utilitarian but robust. Steel. Solid. So solid I bought three. Why?
It cost $5
How can such a useful thing cost just $5? Basically nothing. The price of one mildly fancy coffee
It felt to me like Peak Something. Peak Globalised Cheapness? I also felt: this cannot last
Cheap Chinesium, designed to look good in the packaging but lasts about a fortnight.
Ask around for how much the made-in-America Leatherman tool costs, it will be over $100 but last until you forget to take it out of your hand baggage one day forever.
Is there a betting market for the name of the National Flegship? Johnson is supposed to reveal the design and name in time for the Diamond Jubilee/Funeral (delete as applicable).
Possibilities...
HMS Duke of Edinburgh (Queen said to be opposed to this I doubt Johnson gives a fuck what she thinks) HMS Britannia (some continuity with the old asbestos ridden floating AA meeting) HMS United Kingdom (very 'on brand' for this government and the favourite I reckon)
Blowing gazillions on a replacement for the Royal Yacht Britannia is surely a symbol of a buoyant economy. A sign that lower taxes/better services are just around the corner?
The original tender was capped at £150m but Cammell-Laird obviously told the government to get fucked because it's now expected to cost £200-250m and the MoD have been told to find the money to pay for it.
Is there a betting market for the name of the National Flegship? Johnson is supposed to reveal the design and name in time for the Diamond Jubilee/Funeral (delete as applicable).
Possibilities...
HMS Duke of Edinburgh (Queen said to be opposed to this I doubt Johnson gives a fuck what she thinks) HMS Britannia (some continuity with the old asbestos ridden floating AA meeting) HMS United Kingdom (very 'on brand' for this government and the favourite I reckon)
Agree Britannia and DofE should be favourite. If not those, I can see them going for a trade link and looking at Golden Hind or similar.
Agree with the main premise though. It’ll be something “low brow” historical. A name everyone knows that tests well in focus groups.
HMS Spitfire
Wrong service. Can't have the Raff getting even more above themselves. It was Seafires that used to land on my dad's roof when he was in the Navy.
Damn stupid of the MoD to name a frigate after Wellington, btw. Plenty of admirals to choose.
I have no problem with ID cards . In most EU countries you have show them when you vote . The difference is there is no GB ID card . The governments ID requirements to vote are not about fraud but voter suppression in groups that normally do not vote Tory .
Often asserted, never proven.
Yes if only the bill had been called the Voter Suppression Bill, then we would have known for certain. As it is I suppose the government deserve the benefit of the doubt, given their consistent pattern of honest behaviour... Oh, wait.
I mean, some evidence would be nice. Why do you think "groups that normally do not vote Tory" are too stupid to get a free voter ID even if they don't already have some sort of photo ID (which the vast majority of people do)?
Not a question of being stupid. A question of time, effort, organisation. The point is that younger voters and poorer voters are less likely to have either of the two forms of photo ID that most of us have, a passport or driving license, and so these are the people who will have to get a new ID just to be able to vote. Yet these are also the groups already least likely to vote, and so I would imagine that many won't have the motivation to get the ID, even if perhaps on the day they might have been persuaded to vote. Coincidentally they are also the groups least likely to vote Tory. Meanwhile, impersonation (pretending to be someone else when voting) is an almost non-existent problem. So you are creating a much bigger problem (preventing registered voters from voting on a technicality) to solve a much smaller problem, in a way that will advantage the party that is changing the law. It is voter suppression. It stinks.
I don't think younger voters are less likely to have a driving licence, are they? Certainly when I was that age it was standard for everyone to get their provisional licence as early as they could.
Anecdotal, but I have four kids, aged 29-33. They live in a city. Only one of them has a driving licence. They use public transport and Uber. Owning a car would be a) too expensive, and/or b) not worth the hassle.
Don’t they want to hire a car when they explore foreign countries?
I find this rather sad. I’ve seen so much of the world simply because I’ve been able to rent a car and get out there. The USA, where I am now, is virtually impossible to see, properly, if you can’t drive
The next generation must hope we get self-driving cars very soon. They might just be lucky
No. They enjoy the challenge of exploring foreign countries on public transport. The downside is that yes, some places are inaccessible. But the upside is that you can watch stuff and people without having to focus on driving. And you become more immersed in local cultures and meet more people by using buses etc.
And with all due respect, that’s total bollocks. Not being able to drive is a massive handicap when travelling. And the “not focusing on driving” stuff is ridiculous
I am not having a go at your kids, btw. I strongly suspect mine (mid teens) will be similar. My nephew - 25 - shows no interest in driving
They are a less curious generation. More timid
Sad
The majority have less disposable income when compared to previous generations.
Is there a betting market for the name of the National Flegship? Johnson is supposed to reveal the design and name in time for the Diamond Jubilee/Funeral (delete as applicable).
Possibilities...
HMS Duke of Edinburgh (Queen said to be opposed to this I doubt Johnson gives a fuck what she thinks) HMS Britannia (some continuity with the old asbestos ridden floating AA meeting) HMS United Kingdom (very 'on brand' for this government and the favourite I reckon)
Agree Britannia and DofE should be favourite. If not those, I can see them going for a trade link and looking at Golden Hind or similar.
Agree with the main premise though. It’ll be something “low brow” historical. A name everyone knows that tests well in focus groups.
Is there a betting market for the name of the National Flegship? Johnson is supposed to reveal the design and name in time for the Diamond Jubilee/Funeral (delete as applicable).
Possibilities...
HMS Duke of Edinburgh (Queen said to be opposed to this I doubt Johnson gives a fuck what she thinks) HMS Britannia (some continuity with the old asbestos ridden floating AA meeting) HMS United Kingdom (very 'on brand' for this government and the favourite I reckon)
Agree Britannia and DofE should be favourite. If not those, I can see them going for a trade link and looking at Golden Hind or similar.
Agree with the main premise though. It’ll be something “low brow” historical. A name everyone knows that tests well in focus groups.
HMS Spitfire
HMS Winston Churchill, obviously.
There's already an Arleigh Burke Destroyer called that. Its Navigation Officer is one of the few surviving RN/USN exchange posts.
Anecdote. The other day I bought an Ozark 12-in-1 multi tool from an Alabama Wal-Mart. It’s a really useful pliers, and wire cutter, plus knife, bottle opener, saw, can opener, awl, screwdriver, you name it
It’s highly utilitarian but robust. Steel. Solid. So solid I bought three. Why?
It cost $5
How can such a useful thing cost just $5? Basically nothing. The price of one mildly fancy coffee
It felt to me like Peak Something. Peak Globalised Cheapness? I also felt: this cannot last
Cheap Chinesium, designed to look good in the packaging but lasts about a fortnight.
Ask around for how much the made-in-America Leatherman tool costs, it will be over $100 but last until you forget to take it out of your hand baggage one day forever.
And yet Amazon is full of reviews saying “they last for ages”, “I bought six”
Also, they’re so cheap who cares if you lose one, or it gets stolen? Indeed who cares if it DOES break after six months? You could buy 20 for one Leatherman
I saw this last night. Lady Bra isn’t it. My thought was why would the Tory’s arrest their own people for big fraud right on eve of important election so it’s fresh in voters minds as they vote. Before the minister of fraud resigned unhappy with inaction there didn’t seem any acknowledgement of problem, but they have timed action inappropriately for the elections.
Isn’t the national crime agency, and the police in general, at arms length from the government? So they haven’t timed anything at all.
🤣 . .
You seem in a bit of a tangle here. Ask yourself your own question: if they are in the pocket of the tories why would they do this?
Lady Mone has an awfully Arcuri look about her.
Yeah I admit I have a tangle to untingle today. I was under impression police are in perder ahead of the elections, can’t issue any more Downing St fines until after voting etc so same police raiding homes of Tory politicians on eve of voting sits awkward with that?
Pre-election purdah does not and should not apply to law enforcement.
I saw this last night. Lady Bra isn’t it. My thought was why would the Tory’s arrest their own people for big fraud right on eve of important election so it’s fresh in voters minds as they vote. Before the minister of fraud resigned unhappy with inaction there didn’t seem any acknowledgement of problem, but they have timed action inappropriately for the elections.
Isn’t the national crime agency, and the police in general, at arms length from the government? So they haven’t timed anything at all.
🤣 . .
You seem in a bit of a tangle here. Ask yourself your own question: if they are in the pocket of the tories why would they do this?
Lady Mone has an awfully Arcuri look about her.
Yeah I admit I have a tangle to untingle today. I was under impression police are in perder ahead of the elections, can’t issue any more Downing St fines until after voting etc so same police raiding homes of Tory politicians on eve of voting sits awkward with that?
Yes, the Met Police are claiming that purdah applies to them. Which is a remarkable new interpretation of the law, and which occasioned some, erm, surprise when it was announced.
Its is an interesting decision, and tbh I think it is correct. The events are trivial and in the past. They can all be announced on May 7th or whenever.
Beg to differ. We can't have delays in law enforcement, especially when they confirm previous evidence of favouritism (delays; use of email questionnaires). The law has to be enforced without favouritism.
Normally I would entirely agree, but this case is entirely political. Can you name another party or parties being investigeted for a FPN from the lockdown periods? I can't.
I saw this last night. Lady Bra isn’t it. My thought was why would the Tory’s arrest their own people for big fraud right on eve of important election so it’s fresh in voters minds as they vote. Before the minister of fraud resigned unhappy with inaction there didn’t seem any acknowledgement of problem, but they have timed action inappropriately for the elections.
Isn’t the national crime agency, and the police in general, at arms length from the government? So they haven’t timed anything at all.
🤣 . .
You seem in a bit of a tangle here. Ask yourself your own question: if they are in the pocket of the tories why would they do this?
Lady Mone has an awfully Arcuri look about her.
Yeah I admit I have a tangle to untingle today. I was under impression police are in perder ahead of the elections, can’t issue any more Downing St fines until after voting etc so same police raiding homes of Tory politicians on eve of voting sits awkward with that?
Pre-election purdah does not and should not apply to law enforcement.
But as Turbotubb said, the police are not now giving out partygate fines and calling this purdah, and it’s quite right they have stopped you agree because of impact on elections.
So why is it right to stop the fines Nigel, but, where there stories in press of suitcases of fraud cash can it at same time be right to raid lawmakers homes on eve of election with everything that implies? It shouldn’t have happened should it - it can cost Tory votes on eve of election for nothing more than “implication” or unproven crime.
I have no problem with ID cards . In most EU countries you have show them when you vote . The difference is there is no GB ID card . The governments ID requirements to vote are not about fraud but voter suppression in groups that normally do not vote Tory .
Often asserted, never proven.
Yes if only the bill had been called the Voter Suppression Bill, then we would have known for certain. As it is I suppose the government deserve the benefit of the doubt, given their consistent pattern of honest behaviour... Oh, wait.
I mean, some evidence would be nice. Why do you think "groups that normally do not vote Tory" are too stupid to get a free voter ID even if they don't already have some sort of photo ID (which the vast majority of people do)?
Not a question of being stupid. A question of time, effort, organisation. The point is that younger voters and poorer voters are less likely to have either of the two forms of photo ID that most of us have, a passport or driving license, and so these are the people who will have to get a new ID just to be able to vote. Yet these are also the groups already least likely to vote, and so I would imagine that many won't have the motivation to get the ID, even if perhaps on the day they might have been persuaded to vote. Coincidentally they are also the groups least likely to vote Tory. Meanwhile, impersonation (pretending to be someone else when voting) is an almost non-existent problem. So you are creating a much bigger problem (preventing registered voters from voting on a technicality) to solve a much smaller problem, in a way that will advantage the party that is changing the law. It is voter suppression. It stinks.
I don't think younger voters are less likely to have a driving licence, are they? Certainly when I was that age it was standard for everyone to get their provisional licence as early as they could.
Anecdotal, but I have four kids, aged 29-33. They live in a city. Only one of them has a driving licence. They use public transport and Uber. Owning a car would be a) too expensive, and/or b) not worth the hassle.
Don’t they want to hire a car when they explore foreign countries?
I find this rather sad. I’ve seen so much of the world simply because I’ve been able to rent a car and get out there. The USA, where I am now, is virtually impossible to see, properly, if you can’t drive
The next generation must hope we get self-driving cars very soon. They might just be lucky
No. They enjoy the challenge of exploring foreign countries on public transport. The downside is that yes, some places are inaccessible. But the upside is that you can watch stuff and people without having to focus on driving. And you become more immersed in local cultures and meet more people by using buses etc.
And with all due respect, that’s total bollocks. Not being able to drive is a massive handicap when travelling. And the “not focusing on driving” stuff is ridiculous
I am not having a go at your kids, btw. I strongly suspect mine (mid teens) will be similar. My nephew - 25 - shows no interest in driving
They are a less curious generation. More timid
Sad
Presumably all generations before the advent of the private motor car were incurious, then.
Is there a betting market for the name of the National Flegship? Johnson is supposed to reveal the design and name in time for the Diamond Jubilee/Funeral (delete as applicable).
Possibilities...
HMS Duke of Edinburgh (Queen said to be opposed to this I doubt Johnson gives a fuck what she thinks) HMS Britannia (some continuity with the old asbestos ridden floating AA meeting) HMS United Kingdom (very 'on brand' for this government and the favourite I reckon)
Agree Britannia and DofE should be favourite. If not those, I can see them going for a trade link and looking at Golden Hind or similar.
Agree with the main premise though. It’ll be something “low brow” historical. A name everyone knows that tests well in focus groups.
HMS Spitfire
HMS Margaret Thatcher.
The Ironclad Lady
I'd just call the thing Nell Gwyn. The MoD already like to name ships after Charles Stuart's bastards.
Anecdote. The other day I bought an Ozark 12-in-1 multi tool from an Alabama Wal-Mart. It’s a really useful pliers, and wire cutter, plus knife, bottle opener, saw, can opener, awl, screwdriver, you name it
It’s highly utilitarian but robust. Steel. Solid. So solid I bought three. Why?
It cost $5
How can such a useful thing cost just $5? Basically nothing. The price of one mildly fancy coffee
It felt to me like Peak Something. Peak Globalised Cheapness? I also felt: this cannot last
Cheap Chinesium, designed to look good in the packaging but lasts about a fortnight.
Ask around for how much the made-in-America Leatherman tool costs, it will be over $100 but last until you forget to take it out of your hand baggage one day forever.
Three decades ago, my dad and I went to a Sunday market somewhere in the south (Petersfield?). Whilst there he bought a Swiss Army Knife for a few quid - so cheap it was probably fake or stolen. That Christmas, he goes to open a bottle with the corkscrew, and the corkscrew straightened.
He still has that knife; it is his wittling knife, and the main blade has worn down significantly.
Trying to think of a parallel period in British political history to where we are now in 2022.
1962.
Tories into their third term with their third consecutive PM - an Old Etonian actor manager.
Labour with a relatively new leader.
Two years later the actor-manager PM has been replaced by a new PM, who then loses, narrowly, to Labour in the 1964 General Election.
Anyone find a better match?
Agreed, the next general election will be more 1964 than 1997 if Labour do win.
2022 is unprecedented in multiple ways. We’re emerging (in’s’Allah) from an immense global plague. We face global Cold War, and European Hot War. We are on the cusp of Artificial Intelligence. Etc etc etc. The world is changing at enormous speed, possibly faster than at any time in human history
This is not ‘1964’. It is itself
1964 was just after the Cuban Missile Crisis at the height of the Cold War. There was also the growth of TV and the emergence of the computer and the Space race etc and the cultural revolution of the 1960s
Things moved quite quickly in the 1960s. That does not preclude them moving even faster now. Much faster
AI is much overblown.
This article in the Atlantic is quite interesting on Google Translate. Now don't get me wrong, Google Translate is a great tool, very useful etc. But it's a million miles away from human intelligence.
Which suggests we really are close to proper AI, if not there already
Anybody claiming GPT3 is "proper" AI, is quite frankly an idiot. Its highly impressive, as is DALLE-2, but its not intelligent. They are giant transformers. Yes that means they can create a sentence or a picture never been written or drawn before, but it has no concept of what that sentence means, if it actually makes sense, if it doesn't how to correct it, etc etc etc. They can't adapt to a changing world without total retraining of the whole giant network.
Hence, the Turing Test
You should know this. At some point (very soon, I suspect) the output of Neural Networks like GPT4 will be indistinguishable from human communication and creativity. At that juncture, the question as to whether they are actually ‘intelligent’ will become an abstruse debate for theologians and philosophers. They will appear, seem, act, speak, draw, sing, joke, create and behave as if they are humanly intelligent. They will then be, to all intents and purposes, intelligent
It will get REALLY spooky when they are obviously MORE ‘intelligent’. That’s coming, as well
The Turing Test is just a really weak stipulation, not a test (and one which has been passed. I asked an online chat thing with my bank "Are you human?" the other day, quite well in to the chat, because I genuinely couldn't tell). Google Chinese Room to see why.
The Turing test is not a test for what common sense requires for real AI. Real AI requires an inner awareness that you know and feel stuff and are engaged in considering replies with care, correcting mistakes from experience etc. This is possessed by good proportion of PB contributors.
IMHO the Turing test could be passed by something which is a very sophisticated advance but of the same mental properties as paper with writing on it, and much dimmer than the dog.
And, yes, the Chinese Room stuff (John Searle) does the detailed argument well.
Is there a betting market for the name of the National Flegship? Johnson is supposed to reveal the design and name in time for the Diamond Jubilee/Funeral (delete as applicable).
Possibilities...
HMS Duke of Edinburgh (Queen said to be opposed to this I doubt Johnson gives a fuck what she thinks) HMS Britannia (some continuity with the old asbestos ridden floating AA meeting) HMS United Kingdom (very 'on brand' for this government and the favourite I reckon)
HMS Caligula, which was actually a ship of the line in the 1800's, and had the motto "Oderint dum metuant" painted on the side "Let them hate me, so long as they fear me."
Trying to think of a parallel period in British political history to where we are now in 2022.
1962.
Tories into their third term with their third consecutive PM - an Old Etonian actor manager.
Labour with a relatively new leader.
Two years later the actor-manager PM has been replaced by a new PM, who then loses, narrowly, to Labour in the 1964 General Election.
Anyone find a better match?
Agreed, the next general election will be more 1964 than 1997 if Labour do win.
2022 is unprecedented in multiple ways. We’re emerging (in’s’Allah) from an immense global plague. We face global Cold War, and European Hot War. We are on the cusp of Artificial Intelligence. Etc etc etc. The world is changing at enormous speed, possibly faster than at any time in human history
This is not ‘1964’. It is itself
1964 was just after the Cuban Missile Crisis at the height of the Cold War. There was also the growth of TV and the emergence of the computer and the Space race etc and the cultural revolution of the 1960s
Things moved quite quickly in the 1960s. That does not preclude them moving even faster now. Much faster
AI is much overblown.
This article in the Atlantic is quite interesting on Google Translate. Now don't get me wrong, Google Translate is a great tool, very useful etc. But it's a million miles away from human intelligence.
Which suggests we really are close to proper AI, if not there already
Anybody claiming GPT3 is "proper" AI, is quite frankly an idiot. Its highly impressive, as is DALLE-2, but its not intelligent. They are giant transformers. Yes that means they can create a sentence or a picture never been written or drawn before, but it has no concept of what that sentence means, if it actually makes sense, if it doesn't how to correct it, etc etc etc. They can't adapt to a changing world without total retraining of the whole giant network.
Hence, the Turing Test
You should know this. At some point (very soon, I suspect) the output of Neural Networks like GPT4 will be indistinguishable from human communication and creativity. At that juncture, the question as to whether they are actually ‘intelligent’ will become an abstruse debate for theologians and philosophers. They will appear, seem, act, speak, draw, sing, joke, create and behave as if they are humanly intelligent. They will then be, to all intents and purposes, intelligent
It will get REALLY spooky when they are obviously MORE ‘intelligent’. That’s coming, as well
The Turing Test is just a really weak stipulation, not a test (and one which has been passed. I asked an online chat thing with my bank "Are you human?" the other day, quite well in to the chat, because I genuinely couldn't tell). Google Chinese Room to see why.
Yes yes, I know all this.
The principle of the Turing Test is fundamentally sound, and he was prescient. Once we cannot distinguish between AI and human intelligence when we interact with them, then we might as well call them intelligent.
His method - rooms, conversations, etc - has not aged as well. But the insight remains profound
Let’s take an example. You have a Zoom conversation with an online doctor (who is actually a deepfake invented face, powered by GPT5). The doctor listens to your complaints sympathetically, makes a few jokes that lighten the mood, is highly attendant to your symptoms, and asks after your kids (remembering all their names and foibles). Then the same doctor gives you an excellently accurate diagnosis and recommends precisely the right treatment. The doctor is tireless, cheerful and encouraging, throughout
If you weren’t told, you would go away from that consultation thinking ‘wow, I’m so lucky to have such a nice, intelligent doctor’
Computers are just a few years from being able to do that. They will be intelligent
Would such an AI doctor be able to react appropriately to anything that it wasn't trained for?
What if it emerges the patient can't afford to eat properly, or confided about domestic abuse?
If those, or other edge cases, hadn't been loaded into the database, then it would be left floundering. This is the fundamental difference between genuine AI and machine learning.
I have no problem with ID cards . In most EU countries you have show them when you vote . The difference is there is no GB ID card . The governments ID requirements to vote are not about fraud but voter suppression in groups that normally do not vote Tory .
Often asserted, never proven.
Yes if only the bill had been called the Voter Suppression Bill, then we would have known for certain. As it is I suppose the government deserve the benefit of the doubt, given their consistent pattern of honest behaviour... Oh, wait.
I mean, some evidence would be nice. Why do you think "groups that normally do not vote Tory" are too stupid to get a free voter ID even if they don't already have some sort of photo ID (which the vast majority of people do)?
Not a question of being stupid. A question of time, effort, organisation. The point is that younger voters and poorer voters are less likely to have either of the two forms of photo ID that most of us have, a passport or driving license, and so these are the people who will have to get a new ID just to be able to vote. Yet these are also the groups already least likely to vote, and so I would imagine that many won't have the motivation to get the ID, even if perhaps on the day they might have been persuaded to vote. Coincidentally they are also the groups least likely to vote Tory. Meanwhile, impersonation (pretending to be someone else when voting) is an almost non-existent problem. So you are creating a much bigger problem (preventing registered voters from voting on a technicality) to solve a much smaller problem, in a way that will advantage the party that is changing the law. It is voter suppression. It stinks.
I don't think younger voters are less likely to have a driving licence, are they? Certainly when I was that age it was standard for everyone to get their provisional licence as early as they could.
Anecdotal, but I have four kids, aged 29-33. They live in a city. Only one of them has a driving licence. They use public transport and Uber. Owning a car would be a) too expensive, and/or b) not worth the hassle.
Don’t they want to hire a car when they explore foreign countries?
I find this rather sad. I’ve seen so much of the world simply because I’ve been able to rent a car and get out there. The USA, where I am now, is virtually impossible to see, properly, if you can’t drive
The next generation must hope we get self-driving cars very soon. They might just be lucky
No. They enjoy the challenge of exploring foreign countries on public transport. The downside is that yes, some places are inaccessible. But the upside is that you can watch stuff and people without having to focus on driving. And you become more immersed in local cultures and meet more people by using buses etc.
And with all due respect, that’s total bollocks. Not being able to drive is a massive handicap when travelling. And the “not focusing on driving” stuff is ridiculous
I am not having a go at your kids, btw. I strongly suspect mine (mid teens) will be similar. My nephew - 25 - shows no interest in driving
They are a less curious generation. More timid
Sad
Presumably all generations before the advent of the private motor car were incurious, then.
No, the people before cars were UNABLE. This generation is able, but uninterested. They will not travel as we did
Perhaps that is better for the planet but I still mourn the ending of adventure
Trying to think of a parallel period in British political history to where we are now in 2022.
1962.
Tories into their third term with their third consecutive PM - an Old Etonian actor manager.
Labour with a relatively new leader.
Two years later the actor-manager PM has been replaced by a new PM, who then loses, narrowly, to Labour in the 1964 General Election.
Anyone find a better match?
Agreed, the next general election will be more 1964 than 1997 if Labour do win.
2022 is unprecedented in multiple ways. We’re emerging (in’s’Allah) from an immense global plague. We face global Cold War, and European Hot War. We are on the cusp of Artificial Intelligence. Etc etc etc. The world is changing at enormous speed, possibly faster than at any time in human history
This is not ‘1964’. It is itself
1964 was just after the Cuban Missile Crisis at the height of the Cold War. There was also the growth of TV and the emergence of the computer and the Space race etc and the cultural revolution of the 1960s
Things moved quite quickly in the 1960s. That does not preclude them moving even faster now. Much faster
AI is much overblown.
This article in the Atlantic is quite interesting on Google Translate. Now don't get me wrong, Google Translate is a great tool, very useful etc. But it's a million miles away from human intelligence.
Which suggests we really are close to proper AI, if not there already
Anybody claiming GPT3 is "proper" AI, is quite frankly an idiot. Its highly impressive, as is DALLE-2, but its not intelligent. They are giant transformers. Yes that means they can create a sentence or a picture never been written or drawn before, but it has no concept of what that sentence means, if it actually makes sense, if it doesn't how to correct it, etc etc etc. They can't adapt to a changing world without total retraining of the whole giant network.
Hence, the Turing Test
You should know this. At some point (very soon, I suspect) the output of Neural Networks like GPT4 will be indistinguishable from human communication and creativity. At that juncture, the question as to whether they are actually ‘intelligent’ will become an abstruse debate for theologians and philosophers. They will appear, seem, act, speak, draw, sing, joke, create and behave as if they are humanly intelligent. They will then be, to all intents and purposes, intelligent
It will get REALLY spooky when they are obviously MORE ‘intelligent’. That’s coming, as well
The Turing Test is just a really weak stipulation, not a test (and one which has been passed. I asked an online chat thing with my bank "Are you human?" the other day, quite well in to the chat, because I genuinely couldn't tell). Google Chinese Room to see why.
The Turing test is not a test for what common sense requires for real AI. Real AI requires an inner awareness that you know and feel stuff and are engaged in considering replies with care, correcting mistakes from experience etc. This is possessed by good proportion of PB contributors.
IMHO the Turing test could be passed by something which is a very sophisticated advance but of the same mental properties as paper with writing on it, and much dimmer than the dog.
Until an AI steals a whole roast chicken off the sideboard and successfully blames the cat, it is not truly intelligent.
I saw this last night. Lady Bra isn’t it. My thought was why would the Tory’s arrest their own people for big fraud right on eve of important election so it’s fresh in voters minds as they vote. Before the minister of fraud resigned unhappy with inaction there didn’t seem any acknowledgement of problem, but they have timed action inappropriately for the elections.
Isn’t the national crime agency, and the police in general, at arms length from the government? So they haven’t timed anything at all.
🤣 . .
You seem in a bit of a tangle here. Ask yourself your own question: if they are in the pocket of the tories why would they do this?
Lady Mone has an awfully Arcuri look about her.
Yeah I admit I have a tangle to untingle today. I was under impression police are in perder ahead of the elections, can’t issue any more Downing St fines until after voting etc so same police raiding homes of Tory politicians on eve of voting sits awkward with that?
Pre-election purdah does not and should not apply to law enforcement.
I saw this last night. Lady Bra isn’t it. My thought was why would the Tory’s arrest their own people for big fraud right on eve of important election so it’s fresh in voters minds as they vote. Before the minister of fraud resigned unhappy with inaction there didn’t seem any acknowledgement of problem, but they have timed action inappropriately for the elections.
Isn’t the national crime agency, and the police in general, at arms length from the government? So they haven’t timed anything at all.
🤣 . .
You seem in a bit of a tangle here. Ask yourself your own question: if they are in the pocket of the tories why would they do this?
Lady Mone has an awfully Arcuri look about her.
Yeah I admit I have a tangle to untingle today. I was under impression police are in perder ahead of the elections, can’t issue any more Downing St fines until after voting etc so same police raiding homes of Tory politicians on eve of voting sits awkward with that?
Yes, the Met Police are claiming that purdah applies to them. Which is a remarkable new interpretation of the law, and which occasioned some, erm, surprise when it was announced.
Its is an interesting decision, and tbh I think it is correct. The events are trivial and in the past. They can all be announced on May 7th or whenever.
Beg to differ. We can't have delays in law enforcement, especially when they confirm previous evidence of favouritism (delays; use of email questionnaires). The law has to be enforced without favouritism.
Normally I would entirely agree, but this case is entirely political. Can you name another party or parties being investigeted for a FPN from the lockdown periods? I can't.
That argument is actually completely the wrong way round, I'd suggest.
Depends what you mean by party ... if you mean a poilitical party then the ONLY party that has been investigated is Labout (Durham). No 10 is, so far as I am aware, still the seat of GOVERNMENT unless the Tories have taken over even more than I had realised. So it is Government and Civil Service that are being investigated.
I have no problem with ID cards . In most EU countries you have show them when you vote . The difference is there is no GB ID card . The governments ID requirements to vote are not about fraud but voter suppression in groups that normally do not vote Tory .
Often asserted, never proven.
Yes if only the bill had been called the Voter Suppression Bill, then we would have known for certain. As it is I suppose the government deserve the benefit of the doubt, given their consistent pattern of honest behaviour... Oh, wait.
I mean, some evidence would be nice. Why do you think "groups that normally do not vote Tory" are too stupid to get a free voter ID even if they don't already have some sort of photo ID (which the vast majority of people do)?
Not a question of being stupid. A question of time, effort, organisation. The point is that younger voters and poorer voters are less likely to have either of the two forms of photo ID that most of us have, a passport or driving license, and so these are the people who will have to get a new ID just to be able to vote. Yet these are also the groups already least likely to vote, and so I would imagine that many won't have the motivation to get the ID, even if perhaps on the day they might have been persuaded to vote. Coincidentally they are also the groups least likely to vote Tory. Meanwhile, impersonation (pretending to be someone else when voting) is an almost non-existent problem. So you are creating a much bigger problem (preventing registered voters from voting on a technicality) to solve a much smaller problem, in a way that will advantage the party that is changing the law. It is voter suppression. It stinks.
I don't think younger voters are less likely to have a driving licence, are they? Certainly when I was that age it was standard for everyone to get their provisional licence as early as they could.
Anecdotal, but I have four kids, aged 29-33. They live in a city. Only one of them has a driving licence. They use public transport and Uber. Owning a car would be a) too expensive, and/or b) not worth the hassle.
Don’t they want to hire a car when they explore foreign countries?
I find this rather sad. I’ve seen so much of the world simply because I’ve been able to rent a car and get out there. The USA, where I am now, is virtually impossible to see, properly, if you can’t drive
The next generation must hope we get self-driving cars very soon. They might just be lucky
No. They enjoy the challenge of exploring foreign countries on public transport. The downside is that yes, some places are inaccessible. But the upside is that you can watch stuff and people without having to focus on driving. And you become more immersed in local cultures and meet more people by using buses etc.
And with all due respect, that’s total bollocks. Not being able to drive is a massive handicap when travelling. And the “not focusing on driving” stuff is ridiculous
I am not having a go at your kids, btw. I strongly suspect mine (mid teens) will be similar. My nephew - 25 - shows no interest in driving
They are a less curious generation. More timid
Sad
You've got this one hugely wrong. For an addled old git like you of course you need your hire car, bless you.
For youngsters, travelling by planes, trains and automobiles is far more fun and you see far more of the country and its people, have far more adventures, and are far more "in touch" with the country you are visiting.
You have simply forgotten what it is like to be young because certain activities you engaged in at that time have rendered that part of your brain a total blank.
Is there a betting market for the name of the National Flegship? Johnson is supposed to reveal the design and name in time for the Diamond Jubilee/Funeral (delete as applicable).
Possibilities...
HMS Duke of Edinburgh (Queen said to be opposed to this I doubt Johnson gives a fuck what she thinks) HMS Britannia (some continuity with the old asbestos ridden floating AA meeting) HMS United Kingdom (very 'on brand' for this government and the favourite I reckon)
Agree Britannia and DofE should be favourite. If not those, I can see them going for a trade link and looking at Golden Hind or similar.
Agree with the main premise though. It’ll be something “low brow” historical. A name everyone knows that tests well in focus groups.
HMS Spitfire
HMS Winston Churchill, obviously.
There's already an Arleigh Burke Destroyer called that. Its Navigation Officer is one of the few surviving RN/USN exchange posts.
All our ships should be named after PMs
The HMS Charles Watson-Wentworth The HMS William Henry Cavendish Cavendish-Bentinck
They cannot go by title along, since others share that
OT. If we still had them HYUFD would get my Tory poster of the year award by a distance.
1.His posts are unfailingly fact based. 2.They rarely contain tittle tattle. 3.They're better informed than any other Tory poster on here. 4.They present the full picture. 5.He is an encycopedia of political polls. 6.He presents polls without political slant. 7.His posts are always concise. 8.He never allows himself a flight of fancy
Is there a betting market for the name of the National Flegship? Johnson is supposed to reveal the design and name in time for the Diamond Jubilee/Funeral (delete as applicable).
Possibilities...
HMS Duke of Edinburgh (Queen said to be opposed to this I doubt Johnson gives a fuck what she thinks) HMS Britannia (some continuity with the old asbestos ridden floating AA meeting) HMS United Kingdom (very 'on brand' for this government and the favourite I reckon)
HMS Caligula, which was actually a ship of the line in the 1800's, and had the motto "Oderint dum metuant" painted on the side "Let them hate me, so long as they fear me."
Plunder the name of a Flower Class Corvette.
HMS Candytuft? Or perhaps HMS Gloriosa.
Pansy, which was another Flower Corvette name (in the more innocent Great WAr, but not WW2).
Given how close the last judge came to formally labelling him a vexatious litigant, I’m surprised anyone is still funding him.
That said, there are a number of people for whom anti-Brexit is a religion, and they will keep donating to their church.
Many people will assume any allegation is true, and so happy to fund a challenge on that basis. They trust lawyers when they say there is a chance, without specifying if it is a good chance, especially when the lawyer doesn't set expectations.
Is there a betting market for the name of the National Flegship? Johnson is supposed to reveal the design and name in time for the Diamond Jubilee/Funeral (delete as applicable).
Possibilities...
HMS Duke of Edinburgh (Queen said to be opposed to this I doubt Johnson gives a fuck what she thinks) HMS Britannia (some continuity with the old asbestos ridden floating AA meeting) HMS United Kingdom (very 'on brand' for this government and the favourite I reckon)
Agree Britannia and DofE should be favourite. If not those, I can see them going for a trade link and looking at Golden Hind or similar.
Agree with the main premise though. It’ll be something “low brow” historical. A name everyone knows that tests well in focus groups.
HMS Spitfire
HMS Winston Churchill, obviously.
There's already an Arleigh Burke Destroyer called that. Its Navigation Officer is one of the few surviving RN/USN exchange posts.
All our ships should be named after PMs
The HMS Charles Watson-Wentworth The HMS William Henry Cavendish Cavendish-Bentinck
They cannot go by title along, since others share that
But we have a Prince of Wales, for which the same argument applies ...
I know now is not the time for experts but I can tell you that if it's info on warships you want, I have been on HMS Cornwall (pre-disgrace) when it sailed (steamed? powered? shipped?) through the Thames Barrier. There was quite some quiet on the bridge as it did so. And then we had to get off it (just the visitors) down the bleedin' nets on the side of the ship into some tiny boat and me in my pinstripes and brogues.
I saw this last night. Lady Bra isn’t it. My thought was why would the Tory’s arrest their own people for big fraud right on eve of important election so it’s fresh in voters minds as they vote. Before the minister of fraud resigned unhappy with inaction there didn’t seem any acknowledgement of problem, but they have timed action inappropriately for the elections.
Isn’t the national crime agency, and the police in general, at arms length from the government? So they haven’t timed anything at all.
🤣 . .
You seem in a bit of a tangle here. Ask yourself your own question: if they are in the pocket of the tories why would they do this?
Lady Mone has an awfully Arcuri look about her.
Yeah I admit I have a tangle to untingle today. I was under impression police are in perder ahead of the elections, can’t issue any more Downing St fines until after voting etc so same police raiding homes of Tory politicians on eve of voting sits awkward with that?
Pre-election purdah does not and should not apply to law enforcement.
I saw this last night. Lady Bra isn’t it. My thought was why would the Tory’s arrest their own people for big fraud right on eve of important election so it’s fresh in voters minds as they vote. Before the minister of fraud resigned unhappy with inaction there didn’t seem any acknowledgement of problem, but they have timed action inappropriately for the elections.
Isn’t the national crime agency, and the police in general, at arms length from the government? So they haven’t timed anything at all.
🤣 . .
You seem in a bit of a tangle here. Ask yourself your own question: if they are in the pocket of the tories why would they do this?
Lady Mone has an awfully Arcuri look about her.
Yeah I admit I have a tangle to untingle today. I was under impression police are in perder ahead of the elections, can’t issue any more Downing St fines until after voting etc so same police raiding homes of Tory politicians on eve of voting sits awkward with that?
Yes, the Met Police are claiming that purdah applies to them. Which is a remarkable new interpretation of the law, and which occasioned some, erm, surprise when it was announced.
Its is an interesting decision, and tbh I think it is correct. The events are trivial and in the past. They can all be announced on May 7th or whenever.
Beg to differ. We can't have delays in law enforcement, especially when they confirm previous evidence of favouritism (delays; use of email questionnaires). The law has to be enforced without favouritism.
Normally I would entirely agree, but this case is entirely political. Can you name another party or parties being investigeted for a FPN from the lockdown periods? I can't.
That argument is actually completely the wrong way round, I'd suggest.
Depends what you mean by party ... if you mean a poilitical party then the ONLY party that has been investigated is Labout (Durham). No 10 is, so far as I am aware, still the seat of GOVERNMENT unless the Tories have taken over even more than I had realised. So it is Government and Civil Service that are being investigated.
Correction (again) the only party that WAS investigated was the labour party. And the police found that no crime was committed regardless of what the Daily Mail wishes people to believe.
Maybe Boris can relaunch his career as a Ukrainian politician?
The former President of Georgia later served as a Ukrainian Governor, though I don't think it ended well, and a former British MP was until very recently a Governor in Pakistan, so clearly it is possible.
I have no problem with ID cards . In most EU countries you have show them when you vote . The difference is there is no GB ID card . The governments ID requirements to vote are not about fraud but voter suppression in groups that normally do not vote Tory .
Often asserted, never proven.
Yes if only the bill had been called the Voter Suppression Bill, then we would have known for certain. As it is I suppose the government deserve the benefit of the doubt, given their consistent pattern of honest behaviour... Oh, wait.
I mean, some evidence would be nice. Why do you think "groups that normally do not vote Tory" are too stupid to get a free voter ID even if they don't already have some sort of photo ID (which the vast majority of people do)?
Not a question of being stupid. A question of time, effort, organisation. The point is that younger voters and poorer voters are less likely to have either of the two forms of photo ID that most of us have, a passport or driving license, and so these are the people who will have to get a new ID just to be able to vote. Yet these are also the groups already least likely to vote, and so I would imagine that many won't have the motivation to get the ID, even if perhaps on the day they might have been persuaded to vote. Coincidentally they are also the groups least likely to vote Tory. Meanwhile, impersonation (pretending to be someone else when voting) is an almost non-existent problem. So you are creating a much bigger problem (preventing registered voters from voting on a technicality) to solve a much smaller problem, in a way that will advantage the party that is changing the law. It is voter suppression. It stinks.
I don't think younger voters are less likely to have a driving licence, are they? Certainly when I was that age it was standard for everyone to get their provisional licence as early as they could.
Anecdotal, but I have four kids, aged 29-33. They live in a city. Only one of them has a driving licence. They use public transport and Uber. Owning a car would be a) too expensive, and/or b) not worth the hassle.
Don’t they want to hire a car when they explore foreign countries?
I find this rather sad. I’ve seen so much of the world simply because I’ve been able to rent a car and get out there. The USA, where I am now, is virtually impossible to see, properly, if you can’t drive
The next generation must hope we get self-driving cars very soon. They might just be lucky
No. They enjoy the challenge of exploring foreign countries on public transport. The downside is that yes, some places are inaccessible. But the upside is that you can watch stuff and people without having to focus on driving. And you become more immersed in local cultures and meet more people by using buses etc.
And with all due respect, that’s total bollocks. Not being able to drive is a massive handicap when travelling. And the “not focusing on driving” stuff is ridiculous
I am not having a go at your kids, btw. I strongly suspect mine (mid teens) will be similar. My nephew - 25 - shows no interest in driving
They are a less curious generation. More timid
Sad
Presumably all generations before the advent of the private motor car were incurious, then.
They rode. Have you read Darwin Voyage of the Beagle? We wouldn't have had the theory of evolution if he hadn't been able to hire a horse and ride it.
I have no problem with ID cards . In most EU countries you have show them when you vote . The difference is there is no GB ID card . The governments ID requirements to vote are not about fraud but voter suppression in groups that normally do not vote Tory .
Often asserted, never proven.
Yes if only the bill had been called the Voter Suppression Bill, then we would have known for certain. As it is I suppose the government deserve the benefit of the doubt, given their consistent pattern of honest behaviour... Oh, wait.
I mean, some evidence would be nice. Why do you think "groups that normally do not vote Tory" are too stupid to get a free voter ID even if they don't already have some sort of photo ID (which the vast majority of people do)?
Not a question of being stupid. A question of time, effort, organisation. The point is that younger voters and poorer voters are less likely to have either of the two forms of photo ID that most of us have, a passport or driving license, and so these are the people who will have to get a new ID just to be able to vote. Yet these are also the groups already least likely to vote, and so I would imagine that many won't have the motivation to get the ID, even if perhaps on the day they might have been persuaded to vote. Coincidentally they are also the groups least likely to vote Tory. Meanwhile, impersonation (pretending to be someone else when voting) is an almost non-existent problem. So you are creating a much bigger problem (preventing registered voters from voting on a technicality) to solve a much smaller problem, in a way that will advantage the party that is changing the law. It is voter suppression. It stinks.
I don't think younger voters are less likely to have a driving licence, are they? Certainly when I was that age it was standard for everyone to get their provisional licence as early as they could.
Anecdotal, but I have four kids, aged 29-33. They live in a city. Only one of them has a driving licence. They use public transport and Uber. Owning a car would be a) too expensive, and/or b) not worth the hassle.
Don’t they want to hire a car when they explore foreign countries?
I find this rather sad. I’ve seen so much of the world simply because I’ve been able to rent a car and get out there. The USA, where I am now, is virtually impossible to see, properly, if you can’t drive
The next generation must hope we get self-driving cars very soon. They might just be lucky
No. They enjoy the challenge of exploring foreign countries on public transport. The downside is that yes, some places are inaccessible. But the upside is that you can watch stuff and people without having to focus on driving. And you become more immersed in local cultures and meet more people by using buses etc.
And with all due respect, that’s total bollocks. Not being able to drive is a massive handicap when travelling. And the “not focusing on driving” stuff is ridiculous
I am not having a go at your kids, btw. I strongly suspect mine (mid teens) will be similar. My nephew - 25 - shows no interest in driving
They are a less curious generation. More timid
Sad
Presumably all generations before the advent of the private motor car were incurious, then.
Horse and cart was faster than the motor car in London!
Is there a betting market for the name of the National Flegship? Johnson is supposed to reveal the design and name in time for the Diamond Jubilee/Funeral (delete as applicable).
Possibilities...
HMS Duke of Edinburgh (Queen said to be opposed to this I doubt Johnson gives a fuck what she thinks) HMS Britannia (some continuity with the old asbestos ridden floating AA meeting) HMS United Kingdom (very 'on brand' for this government and the favourite I reckon)
Agree Britannia and DofE should be favourite. If not those, I can see them going for a trade link and looking at Golden Hind or similar.
Agree with the main premise though. It’ll be something “low brow” historical. A name everyone knows that tests well in focus groups.
HMS Spitfire
HMS Winston Churchill, obviously.
There's already an Arleigh Burke Destroyer called that. Its Navigation Officer is one of the few surviving RN/USN exchange posts.
All our ships should be named after PMs
The HMS Charles Watson-Wentworth The HMS William Henry Cavendish Cavendish-Bentinck
They cannot go by title along, since others share that
But we have a Prince of Wales, for which the same argument applies ...
Trying to think of a parallel period in British political history to where we are now in 2022.
1962.
Tories into their third term with their third consecutive PM - an Old Etonian actor manager.
Labour with a relatively new leader.
Two years later the actor-manager PM has been replaced by a new PM, who then loses, narrowly, to Labour in the 1964 General Election.
Anyone find a better match?
Agreed, the next general election will be more 1964 than 1997 if Labour do win.
2022 is unprecedented in multiple ways. We’re emerging (in’s’Allah) from an immense global plague. We face global Cold War, and European Hot War. We are on the cusp of Artificial Intelligence. Etc etc etc. The world is changing at enormous speed, possibly faster than at any time in human history
This is not ‘1964’. It is itself
1964 was just after the Cuban Missile Crisis at the height of the Cold War. There was also the growth of TV and the emergence of the computer and the Space race etc and the cultural revolution of the 1960s
Things moved quite quickly in the 1960s. That does not preclude them moving even faster now. Much faster
AI is much overblown.
This article in the Atlantic is quite interesting on Google Translate. Now don't get me wrong, Google Translate is a great tool, very useful etc. But it's a million miles away from human intelligence.
Which suggests we really are close to proper AI, if not there already
Anybody claiming GPT3 is "proper" AI, is quite frankly an idiot. Its highly impressive, as is DALLE-2, but its not intelligent. They are giant transformers. Yes that means they can create a sentence or a picture never been written or drawn before, but it has no concept of what that sentence means, if it actually makes sense, if it doesn't how to correct it, etc etc etc. They can't adapt to a changing world without total retraining of the whole giant network.
Hence, the Turing Test
You should know this. At some point (very soon, I suspect) the output of Neural Networks like GPT4 will be indistinguishable from human communication and creativity. At that juncture, the question as to whether they are actually ‘intelligent’ will become an abstruse debate for theologians and philosophers. They will appear, seem, act, speak, draw, sing, joke, create and behave as if they are humanly intelligent. They will then be, to all intents and purposes, intelligent
It will get REALLY spooky when they are obviously MORE ‘intelligent’. That’s coming, as well
The Turing Test is just a really weak stipulation, not a test (and one which has been passed. I asked an online chat thing with my bank "Are you human?" the other day, quite well in to the chat, because I genuinely couldn't tell). Google Chinese Room to see why.
Yes yes, I know all this.
The principle of the Turing Test is fundamentally sound, and he was prescient. Once we cannot distinguish between AI and human intelligence when we interact with them, then we might as well call them intelligent.
His method - rooms, conversations, etc - has not aged as well. But the insight remains profound
Let’s take an example. You have a Zoom conversation with an online doctor (who is actually a deepfake invented face, powered by GPT5). The doctor listens to your complaints sympathetically, makes a few jokes that lighten the mood, is highly attendant to your symptoms, and asks after your kids (remembering all their names and foibles). Then the same doctor gives you an excellently accurate diagnosis and recommends precisely the right treatment. The doctor is tireless, cheerful and encouraging, throughout
If you weren’t told, you would go away from that consultation thinking ‘wow, I’m so lucky to have such a nice, intelligent doctor’
Computers are just a few years from being able to do that. They will be intelligent
Would such an AI doctor be able to react appropriately to anything that it wasn't trained for?
What if it emerges the patient can't afford to eat properly, or confided about domestic abuse?
If those, or other edge cases, hadn't been loaded into the database, then it would be left floundering. This is the fundamental difference between genuine AI and machine learning.
Not really - the system should just flag the issue up and pass the call up to a real human being at that point. So you add some fluff around "I'm not 100% sure how to deal with that" and add it to the second / third tier human response team.
That is really quite old stuff - we've been doing it for customer support issues for 5+ years (and it's one reason why firms like web chat as it's lower cost than phone calls with voice recognition).
I have no problem with ID cards . In most EU countries you have show them when you vote . The difference is there is no GB ID card . The governments ID requirements to vote are not about fraud but voter suppression in groups that normally do not vote Tory .
Often asserted, never proven.
Yes if only the bill had been called the Voter Suppression Bill, then we would have known for certain. As it is I suppose the government deserve the benefit of the doubt, given their consistent pattern of honest behaviour... Oh, wait.
I mean, some evidence would be nice. Why do you think "groups that normally do not vote Tory" are too stupid to get a free voter ID even if they don't already have some sort of photo ID (which the vast majority of people do)?
Not a question of being stupid. A question of time, effort, organisation. The point is that younger voters and poorer voters are less likely to have either of the two forms of photo ID that most of us have, a passport or driving license, and so these are the people who will have to get a new ID just to be able to vote. Yet these are also the groups already least likely to vote, and so I would imagine that many won't have the motivation to get the ID, even if perhaps on the day they might have been persuaded to vote. Coincidentally they are also the groups least likely to vote Tory. Meanwhile, impersonation (pretending to be someone else when voting) is an almost non-existent problem. So you are creating a much bigger problem (preventing registered voters from voting on a technicality) to solve a much smaller problem, in a way that will advantage the party that is changing the law. It is voter suppression. It stinks.
I don't think younger voters are less likely to have a driving licence, are they? Certainly when I was that age it was standard for everyone to get their provisional licence as early as they could.
Anecdotal, but I have four kids, aged 29-33. They live in a city. Only one of them has a driving licence. They use public transport and Uber. Owning a car would be a) too expensive, and/or b) not worth the hassle.
Don’t they want to hire a car when they explore foreign countries?
I find this rather sad. I’ve seen so much of the world simply because I’ve been able to rent a car and get out there. The USA, where I am now, is virtually impossible to see, properly, if you can’t drive
The next generation must hope we get self-driving cars very soon. They might just be lucky
No. They enjoy the challenge of exploring foreign countries on public transport. The downside is that yes, some places are inaccessible. But the upside is that you can watch stuff and people without having to focus on driving. And you become more immersed in local cultures and meet more people by using buses etc.
And with all due respect, that’s total bollocks. Not being able to drive is a massive handicap when travelling. And the “not focusing on driving” stuff is ridiculous
I am not having a go at your kids, btw. I strongly suspect mine (mid teens) will be similar. My nephew - 25 - shows no interest in driving
They are a less curious generation. More timid
Sad
You've got this one hugely wrong. For an addled old git like you of course you need your hire car, bless you.
For youngsters, travelling by planes, trains and automobiles is far more fun and you see far more of the country and its people, have far more adventures, and are far more "in touch" with the country you are visiting.
You have simply forgotten what it is like to be young because certain activities you engaged in at that time have rendered that part of your brain a total blank.
I backpacked across the Western US, mainly on greyhound busses sitting next to release inmates, and I remember it very fondly.
OT. If we still had them HYUFD would get my Tory poster of the year award by a distance.
1.His posts are unfailingly fact based. 2.They rarely contain tittle tattle. 3.They're better informed than any other Tory poster on here. 4.They present the full picture. 5.He is an encycopedia of political polls. 6.He presents polls without political slant. 7.His posts are always concise. 8.He never allows himself a flight of fancy
Thanks Roger
But you do spin some polling sometimes? Like quoting the new Kantor in relation to the previous Savanta and calling Labour on the slide?
More importantly, what are you getting from canvassing? Sense there will be a large stay at home vote? Many voters open about switching away from you? Is sleaze starting come up?
I have no problem with ID cards . In most EU countries you have show them when you vote . The difference is there is no GB ID card . The governments ID requirements to vote are not about fraud but voter suppression in groups that normally do not vote Tory .
Often asserted, never proven.
Yes if only the bill had been called the Voter Suppression Bill, then we would have known for certain. As it is I suppose the government deserve the benefit of the doubt, given their consistent pattern of honest behaviour... Oh, wait.
I mean, some evidence would be nice. Why do you think "groups that normally do not vote Tory" are too stupid to get a free voter ID even if they don't already have some sort of photo ID (which the vast majority of people do)?
Not a question of being stupid. A question of time, effort, organisation. The point is that younger voters and poorer voters are less likely to have either of the two forms of photo ID that most of us have, a passport or driving license, and so these are the people who will have to get a new ID just to be able to vote. Yet these are also the groups already least likely to vote, and so I would imagine that many won't have the motivation to get the ID, even if perhaps on the day they might have been persuaded to vote. Coincidentally they are also the groups least likely to vote Tory. Meanwhile, impersonation (pretending to be someone else when voting) is an almost non-existent problem. So you are creating a much bigger problem (preventing registered voters from voting on a technicality) to solve a much smaller problem, in a way that will advantage the party that is changing the law. It is voter suppression. It stinks.
I don't think younger voters are less likely to have a driving licence, are they? Certainly when I was that age it was standard for everyone to get their provisional licence as early as they could.
Anecdotal, but I have four kids, aged 29-33. They live in a city. Only one of them has a driving licence. They use public transport and Uber. Owning a car would be a) too expensive, and/or b) not worth the hassle.
Don’t they want to hire a car when they explore foreign countries?
I find this rather sad. I’ve seen so much of the world simply because I’ve been able to rent a car and get out there. The USA, where I am now, is virtually impossible to see, properly, if you can’t drive
The next generation must hope we get self-driving cars very soon. They might just be lucky
No. They enjoy the challenge of exploring foreign countries on public transport. The downside is that yes, some places are inaccessible. But the upside is that you can watch stuff and people without having to focus on driving. And you become more immersed in local cultures and meet more people by using buses etc.
And with all due respect, that’s total bollocks. Not being able to drive is a massive handicap when travelling. And the “not focusing on driving” stuff is ridiculous
I am not having a go at your kids, btw. I strongly suspect mine (mid teens) will be similar. My nephew - 25 - shows no interest in driving
They are a less curious generation. More timid
Sad
You've got this one hugely wrong. For an addled old git like you of course you need your hire car, bless you.
For youngsters, travelling by planes, trains and automobiles is far more fun and you see far more of the country and its people, have far more adventures, and are far more "in touch" with the country you are visiting.
You have simply forgotten what it is like to be young because certain activities you engaged in at that time have rendered that part of your brain a total blank.
I backpacked across the Western US, mainly on greyhound busses sitting next to release inmates, and I remember it very fondly.
If you haven't done a 10hr greyhound bus journey you have never lived...
Is there a betting market for the name of the National Flegship? Johnson is supposed to reveal the design and name in time for the Diamond Jubilee/Funeral (delete as applicable).
Possibilities...
HMS Duke of Edinburgh (Queen said to be opposed to this I doubt Johnson gives a fuck what she thinks) HMS Britannia (some continuity with the old asbestos ridden floating AA meeting) HMS United Kingdom (very 'on brand' for this government and the favourite I reckon)
Agree Britannia and DofE should be favourite. If not those, I can see them going for a trade link and looking at Golden Hind or similar.
Agree with the main premise though. It’ll be something “low brow” historical. A name everyone knows that tests well in focus groups.
HMS Spitfire
HMS Winston Churchill, obviously.
There's already an Arleigh Burke Destroyer called that. Its Navigation Officer is one of the few surviving RN/USN exchange posts.
All our ships should be named after PMs
The HMS Charles Watson-Wentworth The HMS William Henry Cavendish Cavendish-Bentinck
They cannot go by title along, since others share that
I saw this last night. Lady Bra isn’t it. My thought was why would the Tory’s arrest their own people for big fraud right on eve of important election so it’s fresh in voters minds as they vote. Before the minister of fraud resigned unhappy with inaction there didn’t seem any acknowledgement of problem, but they have timed action inappropriately for the elections.
Isn’t the national crime agency, and the police in general, at arms length from the government? So they haven’t timed anything at all.
🤣 . .
You seem in a bit of a tangle here. Ask yourself your own question: if they are in the pocket of the tories why would they do this?
Lady Mone has an awfully Arcuri look about her.
Yeah I admit I have a tangle to untingle today. I was under impression police are in perder ahead of the elections, can’t issue any more Downing St fines until after voting etc so same police raiding homes of Tory politicians on eve of voting sits awkward with that?
Pre-election purdah does not and should not apply to law enforcement.
But as Turbotubb said, the police are not now giving out partygate fines and calling this purdah, and it’s quite right they have stopped you agree because of impact on elections.
So why is it right to stop the fines Nigel, but, where there stories in press of suitcases of fraud cash can it at same time be right to raid lawmakers homes on eve of election with everything that implies? It shouldn’t have happened should it - it can cost Tory votes on eve of election for nothing more than “implication” or unproven crime.
The police have not stopped giving out FPNs. They’ve just stopped announcing what they are doing.
I have no problem with ID cards . In most EU countries you have show them when you vote . The difference is there is no GB ID card . The governments ID requirements to vote are not about fraud but voter suppression in groups that normally do not vote Tory .
Often asserted, never proven.
Yes if only the bill had been called the Voter Suppression Bill, then we would have known for certain. As it is I suppose the government deserve the benefit of the doubt, given their consistent pattern of honest behaviour... Oh, wait.
I mean, some evidence would be nice. Why do you think "groups that normally do not vote Tory" are too stupid to get a free voter ID even if they don't already have some sort of photo ID (which the vast majority of people do)?
Not a question of being stupid. A question of time, effort, organisation. The point is that younger voters and poorer voters are less likely to have either of the two forms of photo ID that most of us have, a passport or driving license, and so these are the people who will have to get a new ID just to be able to vote. Yet these are also the groups already least likely to vote, and so I would imagine that many won't have the motivation to get the ID, even if perhaps on the day they might have been persuaded to vote. Coincidentally they are also the groups least likely to vote Tory. Meanwhile, impersonation (pretending to be someone else when voting) is an almost non-existent problem. So you are creating a much bigger problem (preventing registered voters from voting on a technicality) to solve a much smaller problem, in a way that will advantage the party that is changing the law. It is voter suppression. It stinks.
I don't think younger voters are less likely to have a driving licence, are they? Certainly when I was that age it was standard for everyone to get their provisional licence as early as they could.
Anecdotal, but I have four kids, aged 29-33. They live in a city. Only one of them has a driving licence. They use public transport and Uber. Owning a car would be a) too expensive, and/or b) not worth the hassle.
Don’t they want to hire a car when they explore foreign countries?
I find this rather sad. I’ve seen so much of the world simply because I’ve been able to rent a car and get out there. The USA, where I am now, is virtually impossible to see, properly, if you can’t drive
The next generation must hope we get self-driving cars very soon. They might just be lucky
No. They enjoy the challenge of exploring foreign countries on public transport. The downside is that yes, some places are inaccessible. But the upside is that you can watch stuff and people without having to focus on driving. And you become more immersed in local cultures and meet more people by using buses etc.
And with all due respect, that’s total bollocks. Not being able to drive is a massive handicap when travelling. And the “not focusing on driving” stuff is ridiculous
I am not having a go at your kids, btw. I strongly suspect mine (mid teens) will be similar. My nephew - 25 - shows no interest in driving
They are a less curious generation. More timid
Sad
You've got this one hugely wrong. For an addled old git like you of course you need your hire car, bless you.
For youngsters, travelling by planes, trains and automobiles is far more fun and you see far more of the country and its people, have far more adventures, and are far more "in touch" with the country you are visiting.
You have simply forgotten what it is like to be young because certain activities you engaged in at that time have rendered that part of your brain a total blank.
I may be an addled old git, ok I am an addled old git, but I’ve seen more of the world than 99% of the people on this forum and 99.9999% of the people on the planet
And part of that is because I can drive. It is simply the case
However self drive cars might come along quite soon and render the argument moot. Perhaps the young are merely waiting for that to happen, and good luck to them. I WANT my daughter to see the world. Not just the bits you can access by bus. The world is marvellous
Anecdote. The other day I bought an Ozark 12-in-1 multi tool from an Alabama Wal-Mart. It’s a really useful pliers, and wire cutter, plus knife, bottle opener, saw, can opener, awl, screwdriver, you name it
It’s highly utilitarian but robust. Steel. Solid. So solid I bought three. Why?
It cost $5
How can such a useful thing cost just $5? Basically nothing. The price of one mildly fancy coffee
It felt to me like Peak Something. Peak Globalised Cheapness? I also felt: this cannot last
Cheap Chinesium, designed to look good in the packaging but lasts about a fortnight.
Ask around for how much the made-in-America Leatherman tool costs, it will be over $100 but last until you forget to take it out of your hand baggage one day forever.
And yet Amazon is full of reviews saying “they last for ages”, “I bought six”
Also, they’re so cheap who cares if you lose one, or it gets stolen? Indeed who cares if it DOES break after six months? You could buy 20 for one Leatherman
That's China for you. I understand high end Rolex fakes, which used to have a seiko movement if you were lucky, are now part-for-part replicas of the proper Rolex movement. And they can knock them out for $200.
And with all due respect, that’s total bollocks. Not being able to drive is a massive handicap when travelling. And the “not focusing on driving” stuff is ridiculous
There's definitely stuff you can't easily do without hiring a car (especially in very car-centric cultures like the US), but there's also so much in the world you can do without one. Even when I owned and drove a car in the UK I never considered hiring a car on a foreign holiday -- I just didn't want the hassle of dealing with unfamiliar traffic laws and customs.
Is there a betting market for the name of the National Flegship? Johnson is supposed to reveal the design and name in time for the Diamond Jubilee/Funeral (delete as applicable).
Possibilities...
HMS Duke of Edinburgh (Queen said to be opposed to this I doubt Johnson gives a fuck what she thinks) HMS Britannia (some continuity with the old asbestos ridden floating AA meeting) HMS United Kingdom (very 'on brand' for this government and the favourite I reckon)
Is there already an HMS Duke of York?
No; WW2 battleship scrapped in the 1950s. For some reason which I cannot imagine, there was no York in the "Duke of"* series of Type 23 frigates, marking the MoD's shift to cringing snobbery in warship naming culminating in the two aircraft carriers.
*In practice, only the estate name was used eg HMS Grafton, but the presence of such names as HMS Iron Duke and HMS St Albans make the intent clear, as does the 'Duke Class' moniker.
I got my watchkeeping ticket on Iron Duke on the North Sea in Jan-Feb. We put into Newcastle for a weekend so the crew could have a fight.
Any truth in the rumour that HMS Duke of York was scrapped for too frequently tying to come alongside into facilities that were not ready to accommodate it and did not want its presence?
I have no problem with ID cards . In most EU countries you have show them when you vote . The difference is there is no GB ID card . The governments ID requirements to vote are not about fraud but voter suppression in groups that normally do not vote Tory .
Often asserted, never proven.
Yes if only the bill had been called the Voter Suppression Bill, then we would have known for certain. As it is I suppose the government deserve the benefit of the doubt, given their consistent pattern of honest behaviour... Oh, wait.
I mean, some evidence would be nice. Why do you think "groups that normally do not vote Tory" are too stupid to get a free voter ID even if they don't already have some sort of photo ID (which the vast majority of people do)?
Not a question of being stupid. A question of time, effort, organisation. The point is that younger voters and poorer voters are less likely to have either of the two forms of photo ID that most of us have, a passport or driving license, and so these are the people who will have to get a new ID just to be able to vote. Yet these are also the groups already least likely to vote, and so I would imagine that many won't have the motivation to get the ID, even if perhaps on the day they might have been persuaded to vote. Coincidentally they are also the groups least likely to vote Tory. Meanwhile, impersonation (pretending to be someone else when voting) is an almost non-existent problem. So you are creating a much bigger problem (preventing registered voters from voting on a technicality) to solve a much smaller problem, in a way that will advantage the party that is changing the law. It is voter suppression. It stinks.
I don't think younger voters are less likely to have a driving licence, are they? Certainly when I was that age it was standard for everyone to get their provisional licence as early as they could.
Anecdotal, but I have four kids, aged 29-33. They live in a city. Only one of them has a driving licence. They use public transport and Uber. Owning a car would be a) too expensive, and/or b) not worth the hassle.
Don’t they want to hire a car when they explore foreign countries?
I find this rather sad. I’ve seen so much of the world simply because I’ve been able to rent a car and get out there. The USA, where I am now, is virtually impossible to see, properly, if you can’t drive
The next generation must hope we get self-driving cars very soon. They might just be lucky
No. They enjoy the challenge of exploring foreign countries on public transport. The downside is that yes, some places are inaccessible. But the upside is that you can watch stuff and people without having to focus on driving. And you become more immersed in local cultures and meet more people by using buses etc.
And with all due respect, that’s total bollocks. Not being able to drive is a massive handicap when travelling. And the “not focusing on driving” stuff is ridiculous
I am not having a go at your kids, btw. I strongly suspect mine (mid teens) will be similar. My nephew - 25 - shows no interest in driving
They are a less curious generation. More timid
Sad
Don't think they're 'less curious, or more timid'. Maybe curious about different things, but very willing to explore.
OT. If we still had them HYUFD would get my Tory poster of the year award by a distance.
1.His posts are unfailingly fact based. 2.They rarely contain tittle tattle. 3.They're better informed than any other Tory poster on here. 4.They present the full picture. 5.He is an encycopedia of political polls. 6.He presents polls without political slant. 7.His posts are always concise. 8.He never allows himself a flight of fancy
Thanks Roger
But you do spin some polling sometimes? Like quoting the new Kantor in relation to the previous Savanta and calling Labour on the slide?
More importantly, what are you getting from canvassing? Sense there will be a large stay at home vote? Many voters open about switching away from you? Is sleaze starting come up?
Ou as it is the newest poll posted for discussion.
There are a few mentions of Boris but overall I would say it is not as bad as 2019 if not as good as last year either
Poor old Lukashenko - he's almost as hated as Putin and it's not as if he's the one invading them (just helping it, supporting it, encouraging it etc). He's just Putin's mini me at this point, albeit much taller.
I have no problem with ID cards . In most EU countries you have show them when you vote . The difference is there is no GB ID card . The governments ID requirements to vote are not about fraud but voter suppression in groups that normally do not vote Tory .
Often asserted, never proven.
Yes if only the bill had been called the Voter Suppression Bill, then we would have known for certain. As it is I suppose the government deserve the benefit of the doubt, given their consistent pattern of honest behaviour... Oh, wait.
I mean, some evidence would be nice. Why do you think "groups that normally do not vote Tory" are too stupid to get a free voter ID even if they don't already have some sort of photo ID (which the vast majority of people do)?
Not a question of being stupid. A question of time, effort, organisation. The point is that younger voters and poorer voters are less likely to have either of the two forms of photo ID that most of us have, a passport or driving license, and so these are the people who will have to get a new ID just to be able to vote. Yet these are also the groups already least likely to vote, and so I would imagine that many won't have the motivation to get the ID, even if perhaps on the day they might have been persuaded to vote. Coincidentally they are also the groups least likely to vote Tory. Meanwhile, impersonation (pretending to be someone else when voting) is an almost non-existent problem. So you are creating a much bigger problem (preventing registered voters from voting on a technicality) to solve a much smaller problem, in a way that will advantage the party that is changing the law. It is voter suppression. It stinks.
I don't think younger voters are less likely to have a driving licence, are they? Certainly when I was that age it was standard for everyone to get their provisional licence as early as they could.
Anecdotal, but I have four kids, aged 29-33. They live in a city. Only one of them has a driving licence. They use public transport and Uber. Owning a car would be a) too expensive, and/or b) not worth the hassle.
Don’t they want to hire a car when they explore foreign countries?
I find this rather sad. I’ve seen so much of the world simply because I’ve been able to rent a car and get out there. The USA, where I am now, is virtually impossible to see, properly, if you can’t drive
The next generation must hope we get self-driving cars very soon. They might just be lucky
No. They enjoy the challenge of exploring foreign countries on public transport. The downside is that yes, some places are inaccessible. But the upside is that you can watch stuff and people without having to focus on driving. And you become more immersed in local cultures and meet more people by using buses etc.
And with all due respect, that’s total bollocks. Not being able to drive is a massive handicap when travelling. And the “not focusing on driving” stuff is ridiculous
I am not having a go at your kids, btw. I strongly suspect mine (mid teens) will be similar. My nephew - 25 - shows no interest in driving
They are a less curious generation. More timid
Sad
You've got this one hugely wrong. For an addled old git like you of course you need your hire car, bless you.
For youngsters, travelling by planes, trains and automobiles is far more fun and you see far more of the country and its people, have far more adventures, and are far more "in touch" with the country you are visiting.
You have simply forgotten what it is like to be young because certain activities you engaged in at that time have rendered that part of your brain a total blank.
I backpacked across the Western US, mainly on greyhound busses sitting next to release inmates, and I remember it very fondly.
I’ve done the Trans Siberian while coming-off-heroin, then got the very first civilian ferry out of Vladivostok, across the Sea of Okhotsk, to Yokohama, Japan
It was brilliant. My non driving kids could repeat that, pretty much
However I’ve also been in a car off roading in: the Naukluft of Namibia, the Sechura desert of Peru, the jungles south of the Plain of Jars in Laos, and across the outback to the underground city of Coober Pedy, Australia
You need a driving licence to do the latter. And they were all magnificent
I have no problem with ID cards . In most EU countries you have show them when you vote . The difference is there is no GB ID card . The governments ID requirements to vote are not about fraud but voter suppression in groups that normally do not vote Tory .
Often asserted, never proven.
Yes if only the bill had been called the Voter Suppression Bill, then we would have known for certain. As it is I suppose the government deserve the benefit of the doubt, given their consistent pattern of honest behaviour... Oh, wait.
I mean, some evidence would be nice. Why do you think "groups that normally do not vote Tory" are too stupid to get a free voter ID even if they don't already have some sort of photo ID (which the vast majority of people do)?
Not a question of being stupid. A question of time, effort, organisation. The point is that younger voters and poorer voters are less likely to have either of the two forms of photo ID that most of us have, a passport or driving license, and so these are the people who will have to get a new ID just to be able to vote. Yet these are also the groups already least likely to vote, and so I would imagine that many won't have the motivation to get the ID, even if perhaps on the day they might have been persuaded to vote. Coincidentally they are also the groups least likely to vote Tory. Meanwhile, impersonation (pretending to be someone else when voting) is an almost non-existent problem. So you are creating a much bigger problem (preventing registered voters from voting on a technicality) to solve a much smaller problem, in a way that will advantage the party that is changing the law. It is voter suppression. It stinks.
I don't think younger voters are less likely to have a driving licence, are they? Certainly when I was that age it was standard for everyone to get their provisional licence as early as they could.
Anecdotal, but I have four kids, aged 29-33. They live in a city. Only one of them has a driving licence. They use public transport and Uber. Owning a car would be a) too expensive, and/or b) not worth the hassle.
Don’t they want to hire a car when they explore foreign countries?
I find this rather sad. I’ve seen so much of the world simply because I’ve been able to rent a car and get out there. The USA, where I am now, is virtually impossible to see, properly, if you can’t drive
The next generation must hope we get self-driving cars very soon. They might just be lucky
No. They enjoy the challenge of exploring foreign countries on public transport. The downside is that yes, some places are inaccessible. But the upside is that you can watch stuff and people without having to focus on driving. And you become more immersed in local cultures and meet more people by using buses etc.
And with all due respect, that’s total bollocks. Not being able to drive is a massive handicap when travelling. And the “not focusing on driving” stuff is ridiculous
I am not having a go at your kids, btw. I strongly suspect mine (mid teens) will be similar. My nephew - 25 - shows no interest in driving
They are a less curious generation. More timid
Sad
You've got this one hugely wrong. For an addled old git like you of course you need your hire car, bless you.
For youngsters, travelling by planes, trains and automobiles is far more fun and you see far more of the country and its people, have far more adventures, and are far more "in touch" with the country you are visiting.
You have simply forgotten what it is like to be young because certain activities you engaged in at that time have rendered that part of your brain a total blank.
I may be an addled old git, ok I am an addled old git, but I’ve seen more of the world than 99% of the people on this forum and 99.9999% of the people on the planet
And part of that is because I can drive. It is simply the case
However self drive cars might come along quite soon and render the argument moot. Perhaps the young are merely waiting for that to happen, and good luck to them. I WANT my daughter to see the world. Not just the bits you can access by bus. The world is marvellous
The places you can't access by bus or Mercedes diesel taxi aren't those you want to take a hired Ford Kuga to.
I may be an addled old git, ok I am an addled old git, but I’ve seen more of the world than 99% of the people on this forum and 99.9999% of the people on the planet
...and as somebody who spends so much time travelling and wants to go absolutely everywhere, of course maximum accessibility matters to you. Most people don't have that much time for holidays -- if you're going abroad for a couple of weeks a year then you could construct a lifetime's worth of summer holidays without the need to drive yourself around, and the ability to get to every last square metre of the planet just isn't a requirement.
Anecdote. The other day I bought an Ozark 12-in-1 multi tool from an Alabama Wal-Mart. It’s a really useful pliers, and wire cutter, plus knife, bottle opener, saw, can opener, awl, screwdriver, you name it
It’s highly utilitarian but robust. Steel. Solid. So solid I bought three. Why?
It cost $5
How can such a useful thing cost just $5? Basically nothing. The price of one mildly fancy coffee
It felt to me like Peak Something. Peak Globalised Cheapness? I also felt: this cannot last
Cheap Chinesium, designed to look good in the packaging but lasts about a fortnight.
Ask around for how much the made-in-America Leatherman tool costs, it will be over $100 but last until you forget to take it out of your hand baggage one day forever.
And yet Amazon is full of reviews saying “they last for ages”, “I bought six”
Also, they’re so cheap who cares if you lose one, or it gets stolen? Indeed who cares if it DOES break after six months? You could buy 20 for one Leatherman
That's China for you. I understand high end Rolex fakes, which used to have a seiko movement if you were lucky, are now part-for-part replicas of the proper Rolex movement. And they can knock them out for $200.
Yep, the new fake watches are so good, that horological auctioneers need to pay careful attention to them.
Which is the £10k watch, and which is the £1k watch (which, as you suggest, cost a couple of hundred bucks out of the fake factory)? https://youtube.com/watch?v=upAJE_XhT2Y
I saw this last night. Lady Bra isn’t it. My thought was why would the Tory’s arrest their own people for big fraud right on eve of important election so it’s fresh in voters minds as they vote. Before the minister of fraud resigned unhappy with inaction there didn’t seem any acknowledgement of problem, but they have timed action inappropriately for the elections.
Isn’t the national crime agency, and the police in general, at arms length from the government? So they haven’t timed anything at all.
🤣 . .
You seem in a bit of a tangle here. Ask yourself your own question: if they are in the pocket of the tories why would they do this?
Lady Mone has an awfully Arcuri look about her.
Yeah I admit I have a tangle to untingle today. I was under impression police are in perder ahead of the elections, can’t issue any more Downing St fines until after voting etc so same police raiding homes of Tory politicians on eve of voting sits awkward with that?
Pre-election purdah does not and should not apply to law enforcement.
But as Turbotubb said, the police are not now giving out partygate fines and calling this purdah, and it’s quite right they have stopped you agree because of impact on elections.
So why is it right to stop the fines Nigel, but, where there stories in press of suitcases of fraud cash can it at same time be right to raid lawmakers homes on eve of election with everything that implies? It shouldn’t have happened should it - it can cost Tory votes on eve of election for nothing more than “implication” or unproven crime.
The police have not stopped giving out FPNs. They’ve just stopped announcing what they are doing.
then that should apply for all the criminal work that must go on, before evidence destroyed, don’t announce it till after elections, otherwise it’s a crime to influence those elections by announcing it. The Tories are being hard done by everyone knows their lawmakers being “raided for fraud” on eve of an election. I’m not defending any party, just asking the same question you all should: would you like this unfairness done to you currently being done to the Tory Party?
Anecdote. The other day I bought an Ozark 12-in-1 multi tool from an Alabama Wal-Mart. It’s a really useful pliers, and wire cutter, plus knife, bottle opener, saw, can opener, awl, screwdriver, you name it
It’s highly utilitarian but robust. Steel. Solid. So solid I bought three. Why?
It cost $5
How can such a useful thing cost just $5? Basically nothing. The price of one mildly fancy coffee
It felt to me like Peak Something. Peak Globalised Cheapness? I also felt: this cannot last
Cheap Chinesium, designed to look good in the packaging but lasts about a fortnight.
Ask around for how much the made-in-America Leatherman tool costs, it will be over $100 but last until you forget to take it out of your hand baggage one day forever.
And yet Amazon is full of reviews saying “they last for ages”, “I bought six”
Also, they’re so cheap who cares if you lose one, or it gets stolen? Indeed who cares if it DOES break after six months? You could buy 20 for one Leatherman
That's China for you. I understand high end Rolex fakes, which used to have a seiko movement if you were lucky, are now part-for-part replicas of the proper Rolex movement. And they can knock them out for $200.
Yep, the new fake watches are so good, that horological auctioneers need to pay careful attention to them.
Which is the £10k watch, and which is the £1k watch (which, as you suggest, cost a couple of hundred bucks out of the fake factory)? https://youtube.com/watch?v=upAJE_XhT2Y
The value was always as a piece of jewellery anyway, a good fake serves the job just as well.
I saw this last night. Lady Bra isn’t it. My thought was why would the Tory’s arrest their own people for big fraud right on eve of important election so it’s fresh in voters minds as they vote. Before the minister of fraud resigned unhappy with inaction there didn’t seem any acknowledgement of problem, but they have timed action inappropriately for the elections.
Isn’t the national crime agency, and the police in general, at arms length from the government? So they haven’t timed anything at all.
🤣 . .
You seem in a bit of a tangle here. Ask yourself your own question: if they are in the pocket of the tories why would they do this?
Lady Mone has an awfully Arcuri look about her.
Yeah I admit I have a tangle to untingle today. I was under impression police are in perder ahead of the elections, can’t issue any more Downing St fines until after voting etc so same police raiding homes of Tory politicians on eve of voting sits awkward with that?
Pre-election purdah does not and should not apply to law enforcement.
But as Turbotubb said, the police are not now giving out partygate fines and calling this purdah, and it’s quite right they have stopped you agree because of impact on elections.
So why is it right to stop the fines Nigel, but, where there stories in press of suitcases of fraud cash can it at same time be right to raid lawmakers homes on eve of election with everything that implies? It shouldn’t have happened should it - it can cost Tory votes on eve of election for nothing more than “implication” or unproven crime.
The police have not stopped giving out FPNs. They’ve just stopped announcing what they are doing.
then that should apply for all the criminal work that must go on, before evidence destroyed, don’t announce it till after elections, otherwise it’s a crime to influence those elections by announcing it. The Tories are being hard done by everyone knows their lawmakers being “raided for fraud” on eve of an election. I’m not defending any party, just asking the same question you all should: would you like this unfairness done to you currently being done to the Tory Party?
But it is not the Tory Party. It is the government and civil service in no 10 that are being prosecuted. They are not the same thing.
Edit: also it is individuals that are being prosecuted (admittedly so far).
I have no problem with ID cards . In most EU countries you have show them when you vote . The difference is there is no GB ID card . The governments ID requirements to vote are not about fraud but voter suppression in groups that normally do not vote Tory .
Often asserted, never proven.
Yes if only the bill had been called the Voter Suppression Bill, then we would have known for certain. As it is I suppose the government deserve the benefit of the doubt, given their consistent pattern of honest behaviour... Oh, wait.
I mean, some evidence would be nice. Why do you think "groups that normally do not vote Tory" are too stupid to get a free voter ID even if they don't already have some sort of photo ID (which the vast majority of people do)?
Not a question of being stupid. A question of time, effort, organisation. The point is that younger voters and poorer voters are less likely to have either of the two forms of photo ID that most of us have, a passport or driving license, and so these are the people who will have to get a new ID just to be able to vote. Yet these are also the groups already least likely to vote, and so I would imagine that many won't have the motivation to get the ID, even if perhaps on the day they might have been persuaded to vote. Coincidentally they are also the groups least likely to vote Tory. Meanwhile, impersonation (pretending to be someone else when voting) is an almost non-existent problem. So you are creating a much bigger problem (preventing registered voters from voting on a technicality) to solve a much smaller problem, in a way that will advantage the party that is changing the law. It is voter suppression. It stinks.
I don't think younger voters are less likely to have a driving licence, are they? Certainly when I was that age it was standard for everyone to get their provisional licence as early as they could.
Anecdotal, but I have four kids, aged 29-33. They live in a city. Only one of them has a driving licence. They use public transport and Uber. Owning a car would be a) too expensive, and/or b) not worth the hassle.
Don’t they want to hire a car when they explore foreign countries?
I find this rather sad. I’ve seen so much of the world simply because I’ve been able to rent a car and get out there. The USA, where I am now, is virtually impossible to see, properly, if you can’t drive
The next generation must hope we get self-driving cars very soon. They might just be lucky
No. They enjoy the challenge of exploring foreign countries on public transport. The downside is that yes, some places are inaccessible. But the upside is that you can watch stuff and people without having to focus on driving. And you become more immersed in local cultures and meet more people by using buses etc.
And with all due respect, that’s total bollocks. Not being able to drive is a massive handicap when travelling. And the “not focusing on driving” stuff is ridiculous
I am not having a go at your kids, btw. I strongly suspect mine (mid teens) will be similar. My nephew - 25 - shows no interest in driving
They are a less curious generation. More timid
Sad
You've got this one hugely wrong. For an addled old git like you of course you need your hire car, bless you.
For youngsters, travelling by planes, trains and automobiles is far more fun and you see far more of the country and its people, have far more adventures, and are far more "in touch" with the country you are visiting.
You have simply forgotten what it is like to be young because certain activities you engaged in at that time have rendered that part of your brain a total blank.
I backpacked across the Western US, mainly on greyhound busses sitting next to release inmates, and I remember it very fondly.
I’ve done the Trans Siberian while coming-off-heroin, then got the very first civilian ferry out of Vladivostok, across the Sea of Okhotsk, to Yokohama, Japan
It was brilliant. My non driving kids could repeat that, pretty much
However I’ve also been in a car off roading in: the Naukluft of Namibia, the Sechura desert of Peru, the jungles south of the Plain of Jars in Laos, and across the outback to the underground city of Coober Pedy, Australia
You need a driving licence to do the latter. And they were all magnificent
Not doing the Trans-Siberian is one of my regrets. Don't suppose I'll have the chance now.
And I don't suppose Leon would be interested in the Virgin Islands, British or otherwise.
Anecdote. The other day I bought an Ozark 12-in-1 multi tool from an Alabama Wal-Mart. It’s a really useful pliers, and wire cutter, plus knife, bottle opener, saw, can opener, awl, screwdriver, you name it
It’s highly utilitarian but robust. Steel. Solid. So solid I bought three. Why?
It cost $5
How can such a useful thing cost just $5? Basically nothing. The price of one mildly fancy coffee
It felt to me like Peak Something. Peak Globalised Cheapness? I also felt: this cannot last
24 quid over here. Can you bring a few back for us?
I have no problem with ID cards . In most EU countries you have show them when you vote . The difference is there is no GB ID card . The governments ID requirements to vote are not about fraud but voter suppression in groups that normally do not vote Tory .
Often asserted, never proven.
Yes if only the bill had been called the Voter Suppression Bill, then we would have known for certain. As it is I suppose the government deserve the benefit of the doubt, given their consistent pattern of honest behaviour... Oh, wait.
I mean, some evidence would be nice. Why do you think "groups that normally do not vote Tory" are too stupid to get a free voter ID even if they don't already have some sort of photo ID (which the vast majority of people do)?
Not a question of being stupid. A question of time, effort, organisation. The point is that younger voters and poorer voters are less likely to have either of the two forms of photo ID that most of us have, a passport or driving license, and so these are the people who will have to get a new ID just to be able to vote. Yet these are also the groups already least likely to vote, and so I would imagine that many won't have the motivation to get the ID, even if perhaps on the day they might have been persuaded to vote. Coincidentally they are also the groups least likely to vote Tory. Meanwhile, impersonation (pretending to be someone else when voting) is an almost non-existent problem. So you are creating a much bigger problem (preventing registered voters from voting on a technicality) to solve a much smaller problem, in a way that will advantage the party that is changing the law. It is voter suppression. It stinks.
I don't think younger voters are less likely to have a driving licence, are they? Certainly when I was that age it was standard for everyone to get their provisional licence as early as they could.
Anecdotal, but I have four kids, aged 29-33. They live in a city. Only one of them has a driving licence. They use public transport and Uber. Owning a car would be a) too expensive, and/or b) not worth the hassle.
Don’t they want to hire a car when they explore foreign countries?
I find this rather sad. I’ve seen so much of the world simply because I’ve been able to rent a car and get out there. The USA, where I am now, is virtually impossible to see, properly, if you can’t drive
The next generation must hope we get self-driving cars very soon. They might just be lucky
No. They enjoy the challenge of exploring foreign countries on public transport. The downside is that yes, some places are inaccessible. But the upside is that you can watch stuff and people without having to focus on driving. And you become more immersed in local cultures and meet more people by using buses etc.
And with all due respect, that’s total bollocks. Not being able to drive is a massive handicap when travelling. And the “not focusing on driving” stuff is ridiculous
I am not having a go at your kids, btw. I strongly suspect mine (mid teens) will be similar. My nephew - 25 - shows no interest in driving
They are a less curious generation. More timid
Sad
You've got this one hugely wrong. For an addled old git like you of course you need your hire car, bless you.
For youngsters, travelling by planes, trains and automobiles is far more fun and you see far more of the country and its people, have far more adventures, and are far more "in touch" with the country you are visiting.
You have simply forgotten what it is like to be young because certain activities you engaged in at that time have rendered that part of your brain a total blank.
I backpacked across the Western US, mainly on greyhound busses sitting next to release inmates, and I remember it very fondly.
I’ve done the Trans Siberian while coming-off-heroin, then got the very first civilian ferry out of Vladivostok, across the Sea of Okhotsk, to Yokohama, Japan
Not as evocative as 'I've seen attack ships on fire off the shoulder of Orion', but the new Blade Runner script still seems pretty solid.
I have no problem with ID cards . In most EU countries you have show them when you vote . The difference is there is no GB ID card . The governments ID requirements to vote are not about fraud but voter suppression in groups that normally do not vote Tory .
Often asserted, never proven.
Yes if only the bill had been called the Voter Suppression Bill, then we would have known for certain. As it is I suppose the government deserve the benefit of the doubt, given their consistent pattern of honest behaviour... Oh, wait.
I mean, some evidence would be nice. Why do you think "groups that normally do not vote Tory" are too stupid to get a free voter ID even if they don't already have some sort of photo ID (which the vast majority of people do)?
Not a question of being stupid. A question of time, effort, organisation. The point is that younger voters and poorer voters are less likely to have either of the two forms of photo ID that most of us have, a passport or driving license, and so these are the people who will have to get a new ID just to be able to vote. Yet these are also the groups already least likely to vote, and so I would imagine that many won't have the motivation to get the ID, even if perhaps on the day they might have been persuaded to vote. Coincidentally they are also the groups least likely to vote Tory. Meanwhile, impersonation (pretending to be someone else when voting) is an almost non-existent problem. So you are creating a much bigger problem (preventing registered voters from voting on a technicality) to solve a much smaller problem, in a way that will advantage the party that is changing the law. It is voter suppression. It stinks.
I don't think younger voters are less likely to have a driving licence, are they? Certainly when I was that age it was standard for everyone to get their provisional licence as early as they could.
Anecdotal, but I have four kids, aged 29-33. They live in a city. Only one of them has a driving licence. They use public transport and Uber. Owning a car would be a) too expensive, and/or b) not worth the hassle.
Don’t they want to hire a car when they explore foreign countries?
I find this rather sad. I’ve seen so much of the world simply because I’ve been able to rent a car and get out there. The USA, where I am now, is virtually impossible to see, properly, if you can’t drive
The next generation must hope we get self-driving cars very soon. They might just be lucky
No. They enjoy the challenge of exploring foreign countries on public transport. The downside is that yes, some places are inaccessible. But the upside is that you can watch stuff and people without having to focus on driving. And you become more immersed in local cultures and meet more people by using buses etc.
And with all due respect, that’s total bollocks. Not being able to drive is a massive handicap when travelling. And the “not focusing on driving” stuff is ridiculous
I am not having a go at your kids, btw. I strongly suspect mine (mid teens) will be similar. My nephew - 25 - shows no interest in driving
They are a less curious generation. More timid
Sad
You've got this one hugely wrong. For an addled old git like you of course you need your hire car, bless you.
For youngsters, travelling by planes, trains and automobiles is far more fun and you see far more of the country and its people, have far more adventures, and are far more "in touch" with the country you are visiting.
You have simply forgotten what it is like to be young because certain activities you engaged in at that time have rendered that part of your brain a total blank.
I backpacked across the Western US, mainly on greyhound busses sitting next to release inmates, and I remember it very fondly.
I’ve done the Trans Siberian while coming-off-heroin, then got the very first civilian ferry out of Vladivostok, across the Sea of Okhotsk, to Yokohama, Japan
It was brilliant. My non driving kids could repeat that, pretty much
However I’ve also been in a car off roading in: the Naukluft of Namibia, the Sechura desert of Peru, the jungles south of the Plain of Jars in Laos, and across the outback to the underground city of Coober Pedy, Australia
You need a driving licence to do the latter. And they were all magnificent
Off roading somewhere or other as an activity is completely different from exploring a country as a traveller.
Like comparing a commercial boat service with white water rafting.
Anecdote. The other day I bought an Ozark 12-in-1 multi tool from an Alabama Wal-Mart. It’s a really useful pliers, and wire cutter, plus knife, bottle opener, saw, can opener, awl, screwdriver, you name it
It’s highly utilitarian but robust. Steel. Solid. So solid I bought three. Why?
It cost $5
How can such a useful thing cost just $5? Basically nothing. The price of one mildly fancy coffee
It felt to me like Peak Something. Peak Globalised Cheapness? I also felt: this cannot last
Has Leon been to the British Virgin Islands? Just asking because it happens to be in the news today.
I'm sure he has although for him it sounds pretty tame. I have; I took a bareboat charter from Tortola for a couple of weeks and it was fantastic. Very lux-y; not Leon's cup of tea at all.
I may be an addled old git, ok I am an addled old git, but I’ve seen more of the world than 99% of the people on this forum and 99.9999% of the people on the planet
...and as somebody who spends so much time travelling and wants to go absolutely everywhere, of course maximum accessibility matters to you. Most people don't have that much time for holidays -- if you're going abroad for a couple of weeks a year then you could construct a lifetime's worth of summer holidays without the need to drive yourself around, and the ability to get to every last square metre of the planet just isn't a requirement.
A fair point well made
However, it’s those last few square metres where-no-one-else-has-been that contain all the truly amazing things. Or maybe I’m just a travel snob
I’m startled by the incuriosity of Americans I’m meeting. They hear that I’m well-traveled and they ask me the question everyone asks - “what’s your favourite country”
In the past I never knew what to say to this dumb-ass question. Now I say (because it’s true): Antarctica
It’s the most amazing place I’ve ever been. It is unearthly and spellbinding and… etc etc
I tell them all this and they look blank and say “ooh no, I wouldn’t want to go there, don’t like the cold”
I DON’T LIKE THE COLD
Wear another jumper you fucking cretin.
I DON’T WANT TO MEET GOD BECAUSE I HATE THE GLARE OF INEFFABLE SPLEANDOUR
Has Leon been to the British Virgin Islands? Just asking because it happens to be in the news today.
I'm sure he has although for him it sounds pretty tame. I have; I took a bareboat charter from Tortola for a couple of weeks and it was fantastic. Very lux-y; not Leon's cup of tea at all.
I may be an addled old git, ok I am an addled old git, but I’ve seen more of the world than 99% of the people on this forum and 99.9999% of the people on the planet
...and as somebody who spends so much time travelling and wants to go absolutely everywhere, of course maximum accessibility matters to you. Most people don't have that much time for holidays -- if you're going abroad for a couple of weeks a year then you could construct a lifetime's worth of summer holidays without the need to drive yourself around, and the ability to get to every last square metre of the planet just isn't a requirement.
However, it’s those last few square metres where-no-one-else-has-been that contain all the truly amazing things.
Apart from you in your hired car. No-one-else. Sure.
The places you are talking about are not accessible by car and hence your point about needing a hire car is moot.
Edit: and did you hire a Ford Kuga for Antarctica?
I have no problem with ID cards . In most EU countries you have show them when you vote . The difference is there is no GB ID card . The governments ID requirements to vote are not about fraud but voter suppression in groups that normally do not vote Tory .
Often asserted, never proven.
Yes if only the bill had been called the Voter Suppression Bill, then we would have known for certain. As it is I suppose the government deserve the benefit of the doubt, given their consistent pattern of honest behaviour... Oh, wait.
I mean, some evidence would be nice. Why do you think "groups that normally do not vote Tory" are too stupid to get a free voter ID even if they don't already have some sort of photo ID (which the vast majority of people do)?
Not a question of being stupid. A question of time, effort, organisation. The point is that younger voters and poorer voters are less likely to have either of the two forms of photo ID that most of us have, a passport or driving license, and so these are the people who will have to get a new ID just to be able to vote. Yet these are also the groups already least likely to vote, and so I would imagine that many won't have the motivation to get the ID, even if perhaps on the day they might have been persuaded to vote. Coincidentally they are also the groups least likely to vote Tory. Meanwhile, impersonation (pretending to be someone else when voting) is an almost non-existent problem. So you are creating a much bigger problem (preventing registered voters from voting on a technicality) to solve a much smaller problem, in a way that will advantage the party that is changing the law. It is voter suppression. It stinks.
I don't think younger voters are less likely to have a driving licence, are they? Certainly when I was that age it was standard for everyone to get their provisional licence as early as they could.
Anecdotal, but I have four kids, aged 29-33. They live in a city. Only one of them has a driving licence. They use public transport and Uber. Owning a car would be a) too expensive, and/or b) not worth the hassle.
Don’t they want to hire a car when they explore foreign countries?
I find this rather sad. I’ve seen so much of the world simply because I’ve been able to rent a car and get out there. The USA, where I am now, is virtually impossible to see, properly, if you can’t drive
The next generation must hope we get self-driving cars very soon. They might just be lucky
No. They enjoy the challenge of exploring foreign countries on public transport. The downside is that yes, some places are inaccessible. But the upside is that you can watch stuff and people without having to focus on driving. And you become more immersed in local cultures and meet more people by using buses etc.
And with all due respect, that’s total bollocks. Not being able to drive is a massive handicap when travelling. And the “not focusing on driving” stuff is ridiculous
I am not having a go at your kids, btw. I strongly suspect mine (mid teens) will be similar. My nephew - 25 - shows no interest in driving
They are a less curious generation. More timid
Sad
You've got this one hugely wrong. For an addled old git like you of course you need your hire car, bless you.
For youngsters, travelling by planes, trains and automobiles is far more fun and you see far more of the country and its people, have far more adventures, and are far more "in touch" with the country you are visiting.
You have simply forgotten what it is like to be young because certain activities you engaged in at that time have rendered that part of your brain a total blank.
I backpacked across the Western US, mainly on greyhound busses sitting next to release inmates, and I remember it very fondly.
If you haven't done a 10hr greyhound bus journey you have never lived...
Has Leon been to the British Virgin Islands? Just asking because it happens to be in the news today.
I'm sure he has although for him it sounds pretty tame. I have; I took a bareboat charter from Tortola for a couple of weeks and it was fantastic. Very lux-y; not Leon's cup of tea at all.
Poor old Lukashenko - he's almost as hated as Putin and it's not as if he's the one invading them (just helping it, supporting it, encouraging it etc). He's just Putin's mini me at this point, albeit much taller.
Yep. He quickly turned when all the sanctions started mentioning both countries - but it’s too late now for Lukashenko, unless he stands up and arms Ukraine.
Has Leon been to the British Virgin Islands? Just asking because it happens to be in the news today.
I'm sure he has although for him it sounds pretty tame. I have; I took a bareboat charter from Tortola for a couple of weeks and it was fantastic. Very lux-y; not Leon's cup of tea at all.
Mate, I flew Concorde to Barbados
Bastard.
(Possibly my biggest regret in life, is not going for a chat with the bank manager when they announced they were going to retire Concorde).
Has Leon been to the British Virgin Islands? Just asking because it happens to be in the news today.
I'm sure he has although for him it sounds pretty tame. I have; I took a bareboat charter from Tortola for a couple of weeks and it was fantastic. Very lux-y; not Leon's cup of tea at all.
Mate, I flew Concorde to Barbados
God you're old.
Concorde was still flying to Barbados in 2001. I know because it used to fly past my house and it was *very* loud. On the BVI, which I visited on many occasions, I can't say that the latest revelations are very surprising. The whole place is dodgy AF.
Channel 4 has secured the rights to show England matches for the next two years. Uefa Nations League games, qualifiers for Euro 2024 and friendlies will shown by the channel, which has taken over as broadcast partner from ITV and Sky.
Has Leon been to the British Virgin Islands? Just asking because it happens to be in the news today.
I'm sure he has although for him it sounds pretty tame. I have; I took a bareboat charter from Tortola for a couple of weeks and it was fantastic. Very lux-y; not Leon's cup of tea at all.
Mate, I flew Concorde to Barbados
God you're old.
So old it was the inaugural flight. Took 3 hours. LHR Barbados
Fucking brilliant. They then drove us around in Rolls Royce’s for three days. I had dinner with Viv Richards et Al. On the last day BA said to us “can all the journalists and flint knappers on the BA Concorde press trip come down to the beach”
Sandy Beach
Bemused (and drunk again on champagne) we wandered on to the beach and then we saw Concorde flying over us (it was taking us home) and it actually TIPPED ITS WINGS to us, in honour. Us lot, on the beach
We were the only people on the flight home, apart from some poor couple at the front who’d actually PAID
On the one hand, if true I think this is brilliant news and I support it. On the other, combined with the U.K. line (and military support) and the suitcases full off cash Biden is tapping into, Putin must be feeling cornered.
Remind me, it’s under a mattress, beneath my stares, for the blast then wait out the fallout, right?
Trying to think of a parallel period in British political history to where we are now in 2022.
1962.
Tories into their third term with their third consecutive PM - an Old Etonian actor manager.
Labour with a relatively new leader.
Two years later the actor-manager PM has been replaced by a new PM, who then loses, narrowly, to Labour in the 1964 General Election.
Anyone find a better match?
Agreed, the next general election will be more 1964 than 1997 if Labour do win.
2022 is unprecedented in multiple ways. We’re emerging (in’s’Allah) from an immense global plague. We face global Cold War, and European Hot War. We are on the cusp of Artificial Intelligence. Etc etc etc. The world is changing at enormous speed, possibly faster than at any time in human history
This is not ‘1964’. It is itself
1964 was just after the Cuban Missile Crisis at the height of the Cold War. There was also the growth of TV and the emergence of the computer and the Space race etc and the cultural revolution of the 1960s
Things moved quite quickly in the 1960s. That does not preclude them moving even faster now. Much faster
AI is much overblown.
This article in the Atlantic is quite interesting on Google Translate. Now don't get me wrong, Google Translate is a great tool, very useful etc. But it's a million miles away from human intelligence.
Which suggests we really are close to proper AI, if not there already
Anybody claiming GPT3 is "proper" AI, is quite frankly an idiot. Its highly impressive, as is DALLE-2, but its not intelligent. They are giant transformers. Yes that means they can create a sentence or a picture never been written or drawn before, but it has no concept of what that sentence means, if it actually makes sense, if it doesn't how to correct it, etc etc etc. They can't adapt to a changing world without total retraining of the whole giant network.
Hence, the Turing Test
You should know this. At some point (very soon, I suspect) the output of Neural Networks like GPT4 will be indistinguishable from human communication and creativity. At that juncture, the question as to whether they are actually ‘intelligent’ will become an abstruse debate for theologians and philosophers. They will appear, seem, act, speak, draw, sing, joke, create and behave as if they are humanly intelligent. They will then be, to all intents and purposes, intelligent
It will get REALLY spooky when they are obviously MORE ‘intelligent’. That’s coming, as well
Will all due respect to Turing, who was clearly a genius, his test is rubbish.
The Benpointer test is much better: AI needs to load and the dishwasher properly. Then unload it and put away all the crockery and cutlery in the right place.
By which mark I am an AI...
By which mark AI is abolished by Ockham, as sensible people have 2 dishwashers and do not need to unload them to intermediate storage.
Environment factoid: a dishwasher uses far less water than normal washing up.
Indeed Fisher and Paykal have a dual draw dishwasher designed precisely to do this.
Channel 4 has secured the rights to show England matches for the next two years. Uefa Nations League games, qualifiers for Euro 2024 and friendlies will shown by the channel, which has taken over as broadcast partner from ITV and Sky.
Time for an update on the Battle for Donbas. As expected, the Russians have sort of fizzled.
They pulled all of these mauled units out of Kyiv, and then tried to reconstitute them for combat in the East.
This is pretty hard and these new units would have been bruised and damaged from the Battle for Kyiv.
The Russians really had one chance - to build these units up - to build up a reserve, and then try to do some bold manoeuvre - and surround the Ukrainians in the East.
The reason that was their one chance is they didn’t have anywhere near the 3:1 attackers to defenders ratio that you need, and so clever manoeuvring was the only option they had.
The Russians needed to clout not dribble. Unfortunately they dribbled. The dribbled by feeding these reconstituted units piecemeal into the front line - trying to fight a kind of attritional battle against the Ukrainians.
The Russian ‘plan’ was grind the Ukr down with artillery and then waves of infantry. Kind WW2 stuff. The only problem is that style of warfare need loads of troops. Which the Russians don’t have. Cut your cloth to suit etc.
So the Russians are squandering / have squandered their one chance. The Ukrainians have done the right thing here.
They are dug in, and so artillery effects them less. And then they are withdrawing in good order, so that they can inflict maximum damage to the Russians. They are trading space for enemy troops. Exactly the right tactics.
(The Russians are also so poorly trained and with such poor morale that they are STILL sticking to main roads which makes it pretty easy to ambush them, or find them with drones (which you use to then direct artillery on them).
So we will see the Battle for Donbas culminate in maybe the next 2-4 weeks.
Basically the Russians are gonna run out of troops, and the Ukrainians are going to counterattack.
More widely, there has been a major strategic shift in the war. UK Foreign Sec Liz Truss has stated that the UK strategic aim is to evict Russian forces from Ukraine (including Crimea, so back to pre-2014 borders). She also said it would take ten years but she’s wrong about that: Russian forces will collapse before that, and we’ll see a coup).
This is a clear statement of intent by the UK, and would only have been made if it was felt that other NATO allies could and would sign up to it.
It’s very welcome after some wishy washy thinking about strategic aims (although the activities were good).
The US at the same time has announced $33 BILLION of funding for Ukraine (or rather Biden has asked for from Congress). That is an extremely clear signal of intent.
Also means that NATO and the US have decided that Putin is bluffing about using Nukes if NATO up the ante.
Strategic outlook: Give it four weeks; we’ll see Donbas go in the other direction, then Crimea will start to come into play.
I have no problem with ID cards . In most EU countries you have show them when you vote . The difference is there is no GB ID card . The governments ID requirements to vote are not about fraud but voter suppression in groups that normally do not vote Tory .
Often asserted, never proven.
Yes if only the bill had been called the Voter Suppression Bill, then we would have known for certain. As it is I suppose the government deserve the benefit of the doubt, given their consistent pattern of honest behaviour... Oh, wait.
I mean, some evidence would be nice. Why do you think "groups that normally do not vote Tory" are too stupid to get a free voter ID even if they don't already have some sort of photo ID (which the vast majority of people do)?
Not a question of being stupid. A question of time, effort, organisation. The point is that younger voters and poorer voters are less likely to have either of the two forms of photo ID that most of us have, a passport or driving license, and so these are the people who will have to get a new ID just to be able to vote. Yet these are also the groups already least likely to vote, and so I would imagine that many won't have the motivation to get the ID, even if perhaps on the day they might have been persuaded to vote. Coincidentally they are also the groups least likely to vote Tory. Meanwhile, impersonation (pretending to be someone else when voting) is an almost non-existent problem. So you are creating a much bigger problem (preventing registered voters from voting on a technicality) to solve a much smaller problem, in a way that will advantage the party that is changing the law. It is voter suppression. It stinks.
I don't think younger voters are less likely to have a driving licence, are they? Certainly when I was that age it was standard for everyone to get their provisional licence as early as they could.
Anecdotal, but I have four kids, aged 29-33. They live in a city. Only one of them has a driving licence. They use public transport and Uber. Owning a car would be a) too expensive, and/or b) not worth the hassle.
Don’t they want to hire a car when they explore foreign countries?
I find this rather sad. I’ve seen so much of the world simply because I’ve been able to rent a car and get out there. The USA, where I am now, is virtually impossible to see, properly, if you can’t drive
The next generation must hope we get self-driving cars very soon. They might just be lucky
No. They enjoy the challenge of exploring foreign countries on public transport. The downside is that yes, some places are inaccessible. But the upside is that you can watch stuff and people without having to focus on driving. And you become more immersed in local cultures and meet more people by using buses etc.
And with all due respect, that’s total bollocks. Not being able to drive is a massive handicap when travelling. And the “not focusing on driving” stuff is ridiculous
I am not having a go at your kids, btw. I strongly suspect mine (mid teens) will be similar. My nephew - 25 - shows no interest in driving
They are a less curious generation. More timid
Sad
Don't think they're 'less curious, or more timid'. Maybe curious about different things, but very willing to explore.
Between the ages of about 10 and 15, my lad was close internet friends with a Singaporean lad and a Finnish girl of similar ages to himself. They played online games and chatted about their everyday lives together, and he even learned bits of their languages. I reckon that, through these friendships, he discovered far more about their respective cultures and mentalities than most travellers to those countries do.
Has Leon been to the British Virgin Islands? Just asking because it happens to be in the news today.
I'm sure he has although for him it sounds pretty tame. I have; I took a bareboat charter from Tortola for a couple of weeks and it was fantastic. Very lux-y; not Leon's cup of tea at all.
Mate, I flew Concorde to Barbados
God you're old.
Concorde was still flying to Barbados in 2001. I know because it used to fly past my house and it was *very* loud. On the BVI, which I visited on many occasions, I can't say that the latest revelations are very surprising. The whole place is dodgy AF.
Has Leon been to the British Virgin Islands? Just asking because it happens to be in the news today.
I'm sure he has although for him it sounds pretty tame. I have; I took a bareboat charter from Tortola for a couple of weeks and it was fantastic. Very lux-y; not Leon's cup of tea at all.
Mate, I flew Concorde to Barbados
God you're old.
Concorde was still flying to Barbados in 2001. I know because it used to fly past my house and it was *very* loud. On the BVI, which I visited on many occasions, I can't say that the latest revelations are very surprising. The whole place is dodgy AF.
Just about wiped out by the recent hurricane.
Shame - I really enjoyed it. The Soggy Dollar et al. Foxy's less so. We spent two weeks bombing around and for the first few days I stayed on Guana Island. Which I am pretty sure even newshound @Leon hasn't been to. Because he wasn't invited.
(((Dan Hodges))) @DPJHodges · 1h I've been clear that Boris should resign over Partygate. But Labour's defence of the Durham event is no longer credible. Why did they lie about Angela Rayner's attendance if she - and they - were confident no rules were broken?
Comments
Environment factoid: a dishwasher uses far less water than normal washing up.
It’s highly utilitarian but robust. Steel. Solid. So solid I bought three. Why?
It cost $5
How can such a useful thing cost just $5? Basically nothing. The price of one mildly fancy coffee
It felt to me like Peak Something. Peak Globalised Cheapness? I also felt: this cannot last
It's about the civil service.
https://commonslibrary.parliament.uk/research-briefings/sn05262/
https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/election-guidance-for-civil-servants/may-2021-elections-guidance-on-conduct
After what happened to Hilary Clinton have to be careful, it could influence a vote on the day and turn out to be not so crooked afterwards.
I guess you couldn’t have purdah if it was murder?
I am not having a go at your kids, btw. I strongly suspect mine (mid teens) will be similar. My nephew - 25 - shows no interest in driving
They are a less curious generation. More timid
Sad
Ask around for how much the made-in-America Leatherman tool costs, it will be over $100 but last until you forget to take it out of your hand baggage one day forever.
Damn stupid of the MoD to name a frigate after Wellington, btw. Plenty of admirals to choose.
The Ironclad Lady
Also, they’re so cheap who cares if you lose one, or it gets stolen? Indeed who cares if it DOES break after six months? You could buy 20 for one Leatherman
https://order-order.com/2022/04/29/jolyon-loses-major-case-over-government-use-of-whatsapp/
So why is it right to stop the fines Nigel, but, where there stories in press of suitcases of fraud cash can it at same time be right to raid lawmakers homes on eve of election with everything that implies? It shouldn’t have happened should it - it can cost Tory votes on eve of election for nothing more than “implication” or unproven crime.
🇵🇱 Duda 92%
🇬🇧 Johnson 87%
🇺🇸 Biden 86%
🇹🇷 Erdoğan 76%
🇱🇹 Nauseda 75%
🇫🇷 Macron 75%
🇪🇺 von der Leyen 66%
🇩🇪 Scholz 30% positive, 54% negative
🇧🇾 Lukashenko 96% negative
🇷🇺 Putin 98% negative
https://twitter.com/AlexKhrebet/status/1519974985988812803
He still has that knife; it is his wittling knife, and the main blade has worn down significantly.
IMHO the Turing test could be passed by something which is a very sophisticated advance but of the same mental properties as paper with writing on it, and much dimmer than the dog.
And, yes, the Chinese Room stuff (John Searle) does the detailed argument well.
HMS Candytuft?
Or perhaps HMS Gloriosa.
What if it emerges the patient can't afford to eat properly, or confided about domestic abuse?
If those, or other edge cases, hadn't been loaded into the database, then it would be left floundering. This is the fundamental difference between genuine AI and machine learning.
Perhaps that is better for the planet but I still mourn the ending of adventure
That said, there are a number of people for whom anti-Brexit is a religion, and they will keep donating to their church.
Depends what you mean by party ... if you mean a poilitical party then the ONLY party that has been investigated is Labout (Durham). No 10 is, so far as I am aware, still the seat of GOVERNMENT unless the Tories have taken over even more than I had realised. So it is Government and Civil Service that are being investigated.
For youngsters, travelling by planes, trains and automobiles is far more fun and you see far more of the country and its people, have far more adventures, and are far more "in touch" with the country you are visiting.
You have simply forgotten what it is like to be young because certain activities you engaged in at that time have rendered that part of your brain a total blank.
The HMS Charles Watson-Wentworth
The HMS William Henry Cavendish Cavendish-Bentinck
They cannot go by title along, since others share that
That is really quite old stuff - we've been doing it for customer support issues for 5+ years (and it's one reason why firms like web chat as it's lower cost than phone calls with voice recognition).
More importantly, what are you getting from canvassing? Sense there will be a large stay at home vote? Many voters open about switching away from you? Is sleaze starting come up?
And part of that is because I can drive. It is simply the case
However self drive cars might come along quite soon and render the argument moot. Perhaps the young are merely waiting for that to happen, and good luck to them. I WANT my daughter to see the world. Not just the bits you can access by bus. The world is marvellous
There are a few mentions of Boris but overall I would say it is not as bad as 2019 if not as good as last year either
It was brilliant. My non driving kids could repeat that, pretty much
However I’ve also been in a car off roading in: the Naukluft of Namibia, the Sechura desert of Peru, the jungles south of the Plain of Jars in Laos, and across the outback to the underground city of Coober Pedy, Australia
You need a driving licence to do the latter. And they were all magnificent
Which is the £10k watch, and which is the £1k watch (which, as you suggest, cost a couple of hundred bucks out of the fake factory)?
https://youtube.com/watch?v=upAJE_XhT2Y
Edit: also it is individuals that are being prosecuted (admittedly so far).
And I don't suppose Leon would be interested in the Virgin Islands, British or otherwise.
https://www.amazon.co.uk/Ozark-Trail-Multitool-Outdoor-Equipment/dp/B017Y51S4K
Like comparing a commercial boat service with white water rafting.
It's chalk and apples.
However, it’s those last few square metres where-no-one-else-has-been that contain all the truly amazing things. Or maybe I’m just a travel snob
I’m startled by the incuriosity of Americans I’m meeting. They hear that I’m well-traveled and they ask me the question everyone asks - “what’s your favourite country”
In the past I never knew what to say to this dumb-ass question. Now I say (because it’s true): Antarctica
It’s the most amazing place I’ve ever been. It is unearthly and spellbinding and… etc etc
I tell them all this and they look blank and say “ooh no, I wouldn’t want to go there, don’t like the cold”
I DON’T LIKE THE COLD
Wear another jumper you fucking cretin.
I DON’T WANT TO MEET GOD BECAUSE I HATE THE GLARE OF INEFFABLE SPLEANDOUR
The places you are talking about are not accessible by car and hence your point about needing a hire car is moot.
Edit: and did you hire a Ford Kuga for Antarctica?
(Possibly my biggest regret in life, is not going for a chat with the bank manager when they announced they were going to retire Concorde).
On the BVI, which I visited on many occasions, I can't say that the latest revelations are very surprising. The whole place is dodgy AF.
https://www.theguardian.com/football/2022/apr/29/channel-4-wins-rights-england-mens-football-matches-live-until-2024-euro-qualifiers-nations-league
Fucking brilliant. They then drove us around in Rolls Royce’s for three days. I had dinner with Viv Richards et Al. On the last day BA said to us “can all the journalists and flint knappers on the BA Concorde press trip come down to the beach”
Sandy Beach
Bemused (and drunk again on champagne) we wandered on to the beach and then we saw Concorde flying over us (it was taking us home) and it actually TIPPED ITS WINGS to us, in honour. Us lot, on the beach
We were the only people on the flight home, apart from some poor couple at the front who’d actually PAID
“A yacht to Tortola”
Lol
Remind me, it’s under a mattress, beneath my stares, for the blast then wait out the fallout, right?
https://www.fisherpaykel.com/uk/dishwashing/
https://twitter.com/threshedthought/status/1519944083233517571?s=21
Time for an update on the Battle for Donbas. As expected, the Russians have sort of fizzled.
They pulled all of these mauled units out of Kyiv, and then tried to reconstitute them for combat in the East.
This is pretty hard and these new units would have been bruised and damaged from the Battle for Kyiv.
The Russians really had one chance - to build these units up - to build up a reserve, and then try to do some bold manoeuvre - and surround the Ukrainians in the East.
The reason that was their one chance is they didn’t have anywhere near the 3:1 attackers to defenders ratio that you need, and so clever manoeuvring was the only option they had.
The Russians needed to clout not dribble. Unfortunately they dribbled. The dribbled by feeding these reconstituted units piecemeal into the front line - trying to fight a kind of attritional battle against the Ukrainians.
The Russian ‘plan’ was grind the Ukr down with artillery and then waves of infantry. Kind WW2 stuff. The only problem is that style of warfare need loads of troops. Which the Russians don’t have. Cut your cloth to suit etc.
So the Russians are squandering / have squandered their one chance. The Ukrainians have done the right thing here.
They are dug in, and so artillery effects them less. And then they are withdrawing in good order, so that they can inflict maximum damage to the Russians. They are trading space for enemy troops. Exactly the right tactics.
(The Russians are also so poorly trained and with such poor morale that they are STILL sticking to main roads which makes it pretty easy to ambush them, or find them with drones (which you use to then direct artillery on them).
So we will see the Battle for Donbas culminate in maybe the next 2-4 weeks.
Basically the Russians are gonna run out of troops, and the Ukrainians are going to counterattack.
More widely, there has been a major strategic shift in the war. UK Foreign Sec Liz Truss has stated that the UK strategic aim is to evict Russian forces from Ukraine (including Crimea, so back to pre-2014 borders). She also said it would take ten years but she’s wrong about that: Russian forces will collapse before that, and we’ll see a coup).
This is a clear statement of intent by the UK, and would only have been made if it was felt that other NATO allies could and would sign up to it.
It’s very welcome after some wishy washy thinking about strategic aims (although the activities were good).
The US at the same time has announced $33 BILLION of funding for Ukraine (or rather Biden has asked for from Congress). That is an extremely clear signal of intent.
Also means that NATO and the US have decided that Putin is bluffing about using Nukes if NATO up the ante.
Strategic outlook: Give it four weeks; we’ll see Donbas go in the other direction, then Crimea will start to come into play.
Shame - I really enjoyed it. The Soggy Dollar et al. Foxy's less so. We spent two weeks bombing around and for the first few days I stayed on Guana Island. Which I am pretty sure even newshound @Leon hasn't been to. Because he wasn't invited.
Shocked.
BBC News - Angela Rayner was at a lockdown event with Starmer, Labour admits
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-61271050
https://news.sky.com/story/angela-rayner-was-with-sir-keir-starmer-at-lockdown-beers-labour-confirm-12601519