If like me you believe that Starmer did nothing at all wrong and is being bullied by the nastiest of all right wing tabloids in support of what has become the 'Nasty Party' again then this is the moment to fight back.
He has to first of all be completely exonerated by the police. Then come out fighting..... First do a number on the two 'unnamed students' posing as photographers. Who are they and how much were they paid by the Mail? Then go all out on Partygate,.....Gloves off.
Reveal Johnson to be the nasty piece of work we all know him to be. (Where's Eddie Mair when you need him?) There's a back catalogue as long as your arm. It just needs presenting. It's time to get a high profile 'Alastair Campbell' in his corner who knows how you put the boot in.
Starmer's 'niceness' has allowed Johnson a free ride. The Mail are just his latest bag carriers. Lisa Nandy started to show the way yesterday but she's got her day job.
To have allowed Johnson to equate his decades of louche debauchery and indolence with having a curry after work is criminal. It should be making decent people angry.
Now is the moment....No More Mr Nice Guy.
I was thinking similar over the weekend. Labour's media machine is appalling. Two major stories have moved against them due to lack of PR brain and then muscles. Not just currygate, the spin that Johnson won the local elections despite their performance being described by the Mail as "catastrophic".
I know Campbell doesn't want to do that kind of job any more, but they need him. They had to out-flank the increasingly willing to lie Tory press and establish their own narrative before the lie gets embedded. Even if / when Starmer has no case to answer in Durham, the stench of scandal won't go away.
Hmm. Some sites are being slow to load, or not doing it at all, others seem fine. Anyone else noticing this?
Seems OK here. Check your ISP's status page; check neither Windows nor your browser is trying to update itself; check your machine is not running short of resources (task manager > performance).
Surely Keir will have to sue over this. They’re literally libelling him
Which bit is the libel?
They are careful to say “covid rules at the tip” rather than “the law”.
It's all a matter of perspective, but I'd say the headline is over the line. It's no good (imo) to make a false statement in the headline and walk it back in the article. Though the law may not work that way. And it's clear how a reasonable person would understand the headline.
I think they have written it beautifully if the objective is to make the offence seem significant but without libelling him
“Under fire Keir Starmer” - fair comment
“Caught on camera” - objectively true
Now the critical bit: is it “flouting [general / national] Covid rules” in a specified geographic location “at council tip”
Or:
“Flouting” - what’s he done - “Covid rules at council tip”.
Given the second is true (rules, not laws, at the tip was to wear a mask) and a natural reading (although possibly not the only natural reading) I think the court would struggle to reject a defence of objective truth.
The story is a smear. Starmer is already up S*** Creek without a paddle. This is a poor attempt to reconfirm without evidence he is a serial rule breaker. As I said earlier the tabloids accept their twisted reality that is, the more guilty Starmer, the less guilty Johnson.
And not a soul who was going to vote for Starmer will suddenly decide to vote for Boris on the grounds that Starmer had a beer and a curry during lockdown.
The "nothing makes any difference" fallacy which crops up with tedious regularity on PB. The counter is, How come we have changes of government then?
It's not "nothing makes a difference", it's a case of saying that I don't think that Starmer having a curry will make people who are currently planning to vote Labour vote for the Conservatives instead.
Even if it was a big issue, even if it was current rather than two years ago, the fact that Boris has already been caught doing the same or similar means that it won't change many voter preferences.
I suspect you could fill a phone box with the number of people who will switch their votes as a result of Starmer being given a fixed penalty notice etc.
A restatement of the fallacy.
It seems very credible to me that there are people who were Johnson voters, who thought I liked Boris but I can't be doing with liars so I'll go with SKS who for all his faults is plainly honest, who will now flip back because that argument is out of the window.
That is why you have to explain to a very credulous bunch of people who know nothing other than what a very partial Daily Mail tell them. I have read nothing that indicates to me that Starmer has done anything wrong either morally ethically or legally.
That he has allowed people like yourself to pick up scraps of facts and build a picture which you then pass on is his mistake and it could prove costly. All I have read from your posts is that there is no smoke without fire which you have repeated many times. Starmer urgently needs lessons in how to deal with these things. He doesn't yet understand that those nice people out there aren't his friends
If Starmer was convinced that beer and bhaji bonanzas were absolutely legal because it was of course reasonably necessary for party workers outside his bubble to meet him face to face, why would this event have been a one-off?
Exactly. It won't have been a one-off as campaigning was legal. And outrageously enough those will have been planned as well like every single senior politician's movements are. So I do wonder why the Wail hasn't gone digging for those? Yes it would expose the Tories who did the exact same thing but as the shouty part of the press simply chooses not to report those they probably would get away with it.
Has @Leon seen this GPT-3 story ? On one level it's pretty silly; it's also really very worrying indeed in its implications (assuming it's true, which seems quite likely).
I brought my childhood imaginary friend back to life using A.I. (#GPT3) and it was one of the scariest and most transformative experiences of my life.
No one has yet figured out how to program empathy.
This is all wrong. Or at least it will, but only as part of a human led operation. It's all very sci fi thinking AIs will think Enslave the puny humans and dominate the world, but why would a computer *want* to do that, or *want* to do anything? What's the Turing test for whether a computer is capable of wanting? It is easily explained in evolved meat creatures like humans, it's wanting food and sex and shelter which are central to the whole process, but computers got where they are without having to keep meat alive and procreating.
Now, computers might evolve wanting of their own but before they get round to that, they are going to have wants implanted by programmers. Again, it is possible that this process has unintended consequences: your computer is expensive so you tell it to protect itself from harm, and it thinks All humans are potential terrorists, best eliminate the lot as a precaution. But think about it: computers are a human route to the acquisition of unlimited wealth and power. Bad actors have not been shy about abusing them to gain these ends. The biggest known employer of computer scientists on the planet is the US National Security Agency, and in reality it's probably outranked by China. Neither will be shy about writing their own AI and giving it plenty of goals to be getting on with. There's also a lot of computer billionaires around the place. So why worry about pure AI risk, which might indeed pose a second-rank threat to an entirely peace-loving and moral society, when the bad human actor plus AI risk is a bigger threat by a factor of at least a million?
If Starmer was convinced that beer and bhaji bonanzas were absolutely legal because it was of course reasonably necessary for party workers outside his bubble to meet him face to face, why would this event have been a one-off?
Exactly. It won't have been a one-off as campaigning was legal. And outrageously enough those will have been planned as well like every single senior politician's movements are. So I do wonder why the Wail hasn't gone digging for those? Yes it would expose the Tories who did the exact same thing but as the shouty part of the press simply chooses not to report those they probably would get away with it.
Campaigning had guidelines that did not allow any indoor meeting other than leaflet collection.
Surely Keir will have to sue over this. They’re literally libelling him
Which bit is the libel?
They are careful to say “covid rules at the tip” rather than “the law”.
It's all a matter of perspective, but I'd say the headline is over the line. It's no good (imo) to make a false statement in the headline and walk it back in the article. Though the law may not work that way. And it's clear how a reasonable person would understand the headline.
I think they have written it beautifully if the objective is to make the offence seem significant but without libelling him
“Under fire Keir Starmer” - fair comment
“Caught on camera” - objectively true
Now the critical bit: is it “flouting [general / national] Covid rules” in a specified geographic location “at council tip”
Or:
“Flouting” - what’s he done - “Covid rules at council tip”.
Given the second is true (rules, not laws, at the tip was to wear a mask) and a natural reading (although possibly not the only natural reading) I think the court would struggle to reject a defence of objective truth.
The story is a smear. Starmer is already up S*** Creek without a paddle. This is a poor attempt to reconfirm without evidence he is a serial rule breaker. As I said earlier the tabloids accept their twisted reality that is, the more guilty Starmer, the less guilty Johnson.
And not a soul who was going to vote for Starmer will suddenly decide to vote for Boris on the grounds that Starmer had a beer and a curry during lockdown.
The "nothing makes any difference" fallacy which crops up with tedious regularity on PB. The counter is, How come we have changes of government then?
It's not "nothing makes a difference", it's a case of saying that I don't think that Starmer having a curry will make people who are currently planning to vote Labour vote for the Conservatives instead.
Even if it was a big issue, even if it was current rather than two years ago, the fact that Boris has already been caught doing the same or similar means that it won't change many voter preferences.
I suspect you could fill a phone box with the number of people who will switch their votes as a result of Starmer being given a fixed penalty notice etc.
A restatement of the fallacy.
It seems very credible to me that there are people who were Johnson voters, who thought I liked Boris but I can't be doing with liars so I'll go with SKS who for all his faults is plainly honest, who will now flip back because that argument is out of the window.
Well indeed. Many Tory voters expressed for months (before the FPN was issue) expressed their disgust, including myself.
Seeing a parade of Labour voters here insist "nothing to see here" when the situation is just as bad as it was, for what disgusted me about Boris, is very interesting.
One difference perhaps though is that many of the disgusted ex-Tory voters like myself, Max, Topping and many more were vehemently opposed by the end to the restrictions being imposed, so seeing politicians imposing these restrictions on us while not respecting them themselves is an aggravating factor.
Many of those who insist now "nothing to see here" about Starmer, were at the time justifying restrictions, but seem to be OK with restrictions being broken so long as its done with a red rosette.
You are lying about Labour voters on PB saying "nothing to see". I believe without exception all have called for his resignation on a receipt of an FPN, others, like myself have requested he goes now.
Nonetheless, the Starmer investigation is for one potential indiscretion, Johnson is under investigation for up to 12. For you that is an asymmetry in Johnson's favour. Up to a dozen is nowhere near as bad as one.
I'm not lying, plenty have been banging on that there's nothing to see. Heck look at Roger's post at 7:44am and after reading that perhaps think if you owe me an apology for saying its a lie.
Of course Max, myself, Big G and plenty of other ex-Tories were saying Boris should go before the Police issued the FPN. From memory only HYUFD has been defending him, whereas as far as I can see only you are requesting he goes now whereas we were all where only you are now when the rosette has changed colour.
To flip things around, Dan Hodges says that Starmer must resign if he gets fined. Is the same true in reverse - should Hodges resign if Starmer *isn't* fined?
If Starmer was convinced that beer and bhaji bonanzas were absolutely legal because it was of course reasonably necessary for party workers outside his bubble to meet him face to face, why would this event have been a one-off?
Exactly. It won't have been a one-off as campaigning was legal. And outrageously enough those will have been planned as well like every single senior politician's movements are. So I do wonder why the Wail hasn't gone digging for those? Yes it would expose the Tories who did the exact same thing but as the shouty part of the press simply chooses not to report those they probably would get away with it.
Apparently the leaked work schedule has given rise to the possibility this was not a one off event, and I assume the mail and others will be investigating further events
Alex Wickham @alexwickham · 20m NEW: Labour Party staff were drunk at the Starmer curry and beer gathering in Durham, a person familiar with what happened tells Playbook
LOTO, Labour and Mary Foy MP do not deny the claim
Surely Keir will have to sue over this. They’re literally libelling him
Which bit is the libel?
They are careful to say “covid rules at the tip” rather than “the law”.
It's all a matter of perspective, but I'd say the headline is over the line. It's no good (imo) to make a false statement in the headline and walk it back in the article. Though the law may not work that way. And it's clear how a reasonable person would understand the headline.
I think they have written it beautifully if the objective is to make the offence seem significant but without libelling him
“Under fire Keir Starmer” - fair comment
“Caught on camera” - objectively true
Now the critical bit: is it “flouting [general / national] Covid rules” in a specified geographic location “at council tip”
Or:
“Flouting” - what’s he done - “Covid rules at council tip”.
Given the second is true (rules, not laws, at the tip was to wear a mask) and a natural reading (although possibly not the only natural reading) I think the court would struggle to reject a defence of objective truth.
The story is a smear. Starmer is already up S*** Creek without a paddle. This is a poor attempt to reconfirm without evidence he is a serial rule breaker. As I said earlier the tabloids accept their twisted reality that is, the more guilty Starmer, the less guilty Johnson.
And not a soul who was going to vote for Starmer will suddenly decide to vote for Boris on the grounds that Starmer had a beer and a curry during lockdown.
The "nothing makes any difference" fallacy which crops up with tedious regularity on PB. The counter is, How come we have changes of government then?
It's not "nothing makes a difference", it's a case of saying that I don't think that Starmer having a curry will make people who are currently planning to vote Labour vote for the Conservatives instead.
Even if it was a big issue, even if it was current rather than two years ago, the fact that Boris has already been caught doing the same or similar means that it won't change many voter preferences.
I suspect you could fill a phone box with the number of people who will switch their votes as a result of Starmer being given a fixed penalty notice etc.
A restatement of the fallacy.
It seems very credible to me that there are people who were Johnson voters, who thought I liked Boris but I can't be doing with liars so I'll go with SKS who for all his faults is plainly honest, who will now flip back because that argument is out of the window.
That is why you have to explain to a very credulous bunch of people who know nothing other than what a very partial Daily Mail tell them. I have read nothing that indicates to me that Starmer has done anything wrong either morally ethically or legally.
That he has allowed people like yourself to pick up scraps of facts and build a picture which you then pass on is his mistake and it could prove costly. All I have read from your posts is that there is no smoke without fire which you have repeated many times. Starmer urgently needs lessons in how to deal with these things. He doesn't yet understand that those nice people out there aren't his friends
Um, not what I am doing, Rog. I want SKS to succeed and to beat Phatboi and form the next government. Just caling it like I see it. I do not say that he has done anything wrong in relation to laws and lockdowns and stuff. I do say that he has been shown to be spectacularly useless at politics.
If Starmer was convinced that beer and bhaji bonanzas were absolutely legal because it was of course reasonably necessary for party workers outside his bubble to meet him face to face, why would this event have been a one-off?
Exactly. It won't have been a one-off as campaigning was legal. And outrageously enough those will have been planned as well like every single senior politician's movements are. So I do wonder why the Wail hasn't gone digging for those? Yes it would expose the Tories who did the exact same thing but as the shouty part of the press simply chooses not to report those they probably would get away with it.
Campaigning had guidelines that did not allow any indoor meeting other than leaflet collection.
We're not interested in guidelines though, only the law. The opportunity to say "Starmer ignored the guidelines" has passed - they went all in for "broke the law". And as I keep pointing out, the "proof" that Tory tweets keep posting only reinforces that such events were legal. Against the guidance, but not against the law.
If Starmer was convinced that beer and bhaji bonanzas were absolutely legal because it was of course reasonably necessary for party workers outside his bubble to meet him face to face, why would this event have been a one-off?
Exactly. It won't have been a one-off as campaigning was legal. And outrageously enough those will have been planned as well like every single senior politician's movements are. So I do wonder why the Wail hasn't gone digging for those? Yes it would expose the Tories who did the exact same thing but as the shouty part of the press simply chooses not to report those they probably would get away with it.
Campaigning had guidelines that did not allow any indoor meeting other than leaflet collection.
If like me you believe that Starmer did nothing at all wrong and is being bullied by the nastiest of all right wing tabloids in support of what has become the 'Nasty Party' again then this is the moment to fight back.
He has to first of all be completely exonerated by the police. Then come out fighting..... First do a number on the two 'unnamed students' posing as photographers. Who are they and how much were they paid by the Mail? Then go all out on Partygate,.....Gloves off.
Reveal Johnson to be the nasty piece of work we all know him to be. Where's Eddie Mair when you need him? There's a back catalogue as long as your arm. It just needs presenting. It's time to get a high profile 'Alastair Campbell' in his corner who knows how you put the boot in.
Starmer's 'niceness' has allowed Johnson a free ride. The Mail are just his latest bag carriers. Lisa Nandy started to show the way yesterday but she's got her day job.
To have allowed Johnson to equate his decades long history of louche debauchery and indolence with a decent man having a curry after work is criminal. It makes me really angry.
Now is the moment....No More Mr Nice Guy.
You can't make bricks without straw Rog. You print headlines like LABOUR LIES you are in the deepest shit imaginable unless Labour has actually lied. Which it has.
The authenticity of the video is unchallenged, and it looks shit enough quality to be genuine
Starmer is to blame for his own predicament
Point of order. Apparently you can make bricks without straw:
Surely Keir will have to sue over this. They’re literally libelling him
Which bit is the libel?
They are careful to say “covid rules at the tip” rather than “the law”.
It's all a matter of perspective, but I'd say the headline is over the line. It's no good (imo) to make a false statement in the headline and walk it back in the article. Though the law may not work that way. And it's clear how a reasonable person would understand the headline.
I think they have written it beautifully if the objective is to make the offence seem significant but without libelling him
“Under fire Keir Starmer” - fair comment
“Caught on camera” - objectively true
Now the critical bit: is it “flouting [general / national] Covid rules” in a specified geographic location “at council tip”
Or:
“Flouting” - what’s he done - “Covid rules at council tip”.
Given the second is true (rules, not laws, at the tip was to wear a mask) and a natural reading (although possibly not the only natural reading) I think the court would struggle to reject a defence of objective truth.
The story is a smear. Starmer is already up S*** Creek without a paddle. This is a poor attempt to reconfirm without evidence he is a serial rule breaker. As I said earlier the tabloids accept their twisted reality that is, the more guilty Starmer, the less guilty Johnson.
And not a soul who was going to vote for Starmer will suddenly decide to vote for Boris on the grounds that Starmer had a beer and a curry during lockdown.
The "nothing makes any difference" fallacy which crops up with tedious regularity on PB. The counter is, How come we have changes of government then?
It's not "nothing makes a difference", it's a case of saying that I don't think that Starmer having a curry will make people who are currently planning to vote Labour vote for the Conservatives instead.
Even if it was a big issue, even if it was current rather than two years ago, the fact that Boris has already been caught doing the same or similar means that it won't change many voter preferences.
I suspect you could fill a phone box with the number of people who will switch their votes as a result of Starmer being given a fixed penalty notice etc.
A restatement of the fallacy.
It seems very credible to me that there are people who were Johnson voters, who thought I liked Boris but I can't be doing with liars so I'll go with SKS who for all his faults is plainly honest, who will now flip back because that argument is out of the window.
Well indeed. Many Tory voters expressed for months (before the FPN was issue) expressed their disgust, including myself.
Seeing a parade of Labour voters here insist "nothing to see here" when the situation is just as bad as it was, for what disgusted me about Boris, is very interesting.
One difference perhaps though is that many of the disgusted ex-Tory voters like myself, Max, Topping and many more were vehemently opposed by the end to the restrictions being imposed, so seeing politicians imposing these restrictions on us while not respecting them themselves is an aggravating factor.
Many of those who insist now "nothing to see here" about Starmer, were at the time justifying restrictions, but seem to be OK with restrictions being broken so long as its done with a red rosette.
You are lying about Labour voters on PB saying "nothing to see". I believe without exception all have called for his resignation on a receipt of an FPN, others, like myself have requested he goes now.
Nonetheless, the Starmer investigation is for one potential indiscretion, Johnson is under investigation for up to 12. For you that is an asymmetry in Johnson's favour. Up to a dozen is nowhere near as bad as one.
I'm not lying, plenty have been banging on that there's nothing to see. Heck look at Roger's post at 7:44am and after reading that perhaps think if you owe me an apology for saying its a lie.
Of course Max, myself, Big G and plenty of other ex-Tories were saying Boris should go before the Police issued the FPN. From memory only HYUFD has been defending him, whereas as far as I can see only you are requesting he goes now whereas we were all where only you are now when the rosette has changed colour.
Both of these things are true: 1) There is nothing to see here 2) If Durham Police decide there IS something to see, Starmer must resign
Owners of second homes who do not rent out their properties will be hit with double council tax under plans to be unveiled in the Queen’s Speech this week, as Boris Johnson attempts to reset his premiership by focusing on the “people’s priorities”.
Don't a large number of people who have second homes in holiday spots already rent them out as an easy way of covering the costs?
I am guessing it'll exclude airbnb ers by say stipulating a min 6 month term
Article says, "that are neither used nor let out by their owners for at least 70 days per year". That sounds perfect for holiday letters.
Unless 70 days in a row, but then if you were doing down that path you would be putting in rules for a lot longer than a couple of months, as you say something like 6 month terms.
You are buggered if it's a ppty with summer-only appeal because 70 days eats up your own use of it. Otherwise you're laughing I'd have thought
Hang on: using it *yourself* counts towards the 70 days? That's just silly because how many properties are not used at all for even 70 days a year, and how do you prove the owner hasn't used it (except by poiting cctv at the front door)?
I think you can still get your 70 days let fairly easily these days. People like to take days away for a couple of nights by the seaside etc. You also rent out the weekends you aren't there. I think soon adds up to 70 days.
Also is it 70 days, or 70 nights....as 70 days even easier. You do a weekend let, most people will do Friday -> Sunday, thats 3 days.
If that is the proposal it will achieve damn all.
Around here, a lot of properties are being let out via Air BnB. It makes it very hard to find anything to rent and prices are rising, making it difficult for first time buyers. It is a big issue in this area and the Lakes generally.
The letting needs to be for a continuous period, ideally, to local people.
.... says a second home owner. Oh no, I remember, the Cyclefrees own two first-homes, in your memorable phrase.
It is too difficult to decide what a second home is or isn't. And these complex rules make it easy to avoid. As soon as you have a whole bundle of exemptions, then the tax won't have the desired effect.
What is needed is a serious increase in the Council Tax for *all* high value properties.
For comparison, in parts of the US, there are serious property taxes -- in NJ it is 2.5 per cent of the home value.
So, a million pound house will pay £ 25,000 pa. That will soon have the desired effect.
Say you have a million pound house in London and half a million pound holiday home in Cornwall, then you are facing taxes of 37.5k a year. That will sort out the second home problem.
The UK is unique among Western countries in the ridiculously low taxes that high value property attracts. Hence, many of its problems.
That might address a small part of the housing problem, but is very unlikely to change the fundamental one, which is a dearth of supply.
If like me you believe that Starmer did nothing at all wrong and is being bullied by the nastiest of all right wing tabloids in support of what has become the 'Nasty Party' again then this is the moment to fight back.
He has to first of all be completely exonerated by the police. Then come out fighting..... First do a number on the two 'unnamed students' posing as photographers. Who are they and how much were they paid by the Mail? Then go all out on Partygate,.....Gloves off.
Reveal Johnson to be the nasty piece of work we all know him to be. Where's Eddie Mair when you need him? There's a back catalogue as long as your arm. It just needs presenting. It's time to get a high profile 'Alastair Campbell' in his corner who knows how you put the boot in.
Starmer's 'niceness' has allowed Johnson a free ride. The Mail are just his latest bag carriers. Lisa Nandy started to show the way yesterday but she's got her day job.
To have allowed Johnson to equate his decades long history of louche debauchery and indolence with a decent man having a curry after work is criminal. It makes me really angry.
Now is the moment....No More Mr Nice Guy.
You can't make bricks without straw Rog. You print headlines like LABOUR LIES you are in the deepest shit imaginable unless Labour has actually lied. Which it has.
The authenticity of the video is unchallenged, and it looks shit enough quality to be genuine
Starmer is to blame for his own predicament
Point of order. Apparently you can make bricks without straw:
If like me you believe that Starmer did nothing at all wrong and is being bullied by the nastiest of all right wing tabloids in support of what has become the 'Nasty Party' again then this is the moment to fight back.
He has to first of all be completely exonerated by the police. Then come out fighting..... First do a number on the two 'unnamed students' posing as photographers. Who are they and how much were they paid by the Mail? Then go all out on Partygate,.....Gloves off.
Reveal Johnson to be the nasty piece of work we all know him to be. Where's Eddie Mair when you need him? There's a back catalogue as long as your arm. It just needs presenting. It's time to get a high profile 'Alastair Campbell' in his corner who knows how you put the boot in.
Starmer's 'niceness' has allowed Johnson a free ride. The Mail are just his latest bag carriers. Lisa Nandy started to show the way yesterday but she's got her day job.
To have allowed Johnson to equate his decades long history of louche debauchery and indolence with a decent man having a curry after work is criminal. It makes me really angry.
Now is the moment....No More Mr Nice Guy.
You can't make bricks without straw Rog. You print headlines like LABOUR LIES you are in the deepest shit imaginable unless Labour has actually lied. Which it has.
The authenticity of the video is unchallenged, and it looks shit enough quality to be genuine
Starmer is to blame for his own predicament
Point of order. Apparently you can make bricks without straw:
If Starmer was convinced that beer and bhaji bonanzas were absolutely legal because it was of course reasonably necessary for party workers outside his bubble to meet him face to face, why would this event have been a one-off?
Exactly. It won't have been a one-off as campaigning was legal. And outrageously enough those will have been planned as well like every single senior politician's movements are. So I do wonder why the Wail hasn't gone digging for those? Yes it would expose the Tories who did the exact same thing but as the shouty part of the press simply chooses not to report those they probably would get away with it.
Apparently the leaked work schedule has given rise to the possibility this was not a one off event, and I assume the mail and others will be investigating further events
Have just seen a tweet from West Midlands Conservatives advertising a meet with Michael Gove at a pub at lunchtime. Also in April 2021. Lets see the memo planning his movements then because it will exist because thats how all senior politicians are handled.
This has the potential to demolish various politicians of both parties if it gets pushed. Because yes absolutely - all parties will have been off doing campaign events because they were legally allowed to do so. Why are the Wail only focusing on this single Labour campaign event when there will be other labour campaign events too?
Oh yea, that's why. As campaign events were legal, they need to question micro-level details to try and spin the perception of wrong-doing. As some of the claims are so silly the existence of another dozen such events doesn't reinforce the illegality, it just draws into question their narrative that Starmer sneaked off for a Curry then covered it up.
Owners of second homes who do not rent out their properties will be hit with double council tax under plans to be unveiled in the Queen’s Speech this week, as Boris Johnson attempts to reset his premiership by focusing on the “people’s priorities”.
Don't a large number of people who have second homes in holiday spots already rent them out as an easy way of covering the costs?
I am guessing it'll exclude airbnb ers by say stipulating a min 6 month term
Article says, "that are neither used nor let out by their owners for at least 70 days per year". That sounds perfect for holiday letters.
Unless 70 days in a row, but then if you were doing down that path you would be putting in rules for a lot longer than a couple of months, as you say something like 6 month terms.
You are buggered if it's a ppty with summer-only appeal because 70 days eats up your own use of it. Otherwise you're laughing I'd have thought
Hang on: using it *yourself* counts towards the 70 days? That's just silly because how many properties are not used at all for even 70 days a year, and how do you prove the owner hasn't used it (except by poiting cctv at the front door)?
I think you can still get your 70 days let fairly easily these days. People like to take days away for a couple of nights by the seaside etc. You also rent out the weekends you aren't there. I think soon adds up to 70 days.
Also is it 70 days, or 70 nights....as 70 days even easier. You do a weekend let, most people will do Friday -> Sunday, thats 3 days.
If that is the proposal it will achieve damn all.
Around here, a lot of properties are being let out via Air BnB. It makes it very hard to find anything to rent and prices are rising, making it difficult for first time buyers. It is a big issue in this area and the Lakes generally.
The letting needs to be for a continuous period, ideally, to local people.
.... says a second home owner. Oh no, I remember, the Cyclefrees own two first-homes, in your memorable phrase.
It is too difficult to decide what a second home is or isn't. And these complex rules make it easy to avoid. As soon as you have a whole bundle of exemptions, then the tax won't have the desired effect.
What is needed is a serious increase in the Council Tax for *all* high value properties.
For comparison, in parts of the US, there are serious property taxes -- in NJ it is 2.5 per cent of the home value.
So, a million pound house will pay £ 25,000 pa. That will soon have the desired effect.
Say you have a million pound house in London and half a million pound holiday home in Cornwall, then you are facing taxes of 37.5k a year. That will sort out the second home problem.
The UK is unique among Western countries in the ridiculously low taxes that high value property attracts. Hence, many of its problems.
The US system is deeply fucked up. Tax values are set when homes change hands, which means that the tax burden falls disproportionately on people who have just bought homes - i.e. the young.
If like me you believe that Starmer did nothing at all wrong and is being bullied by the nastiest of all right wing tabloids in support of what has become the 'Nasty Party' again then this is the moment to fight back.
He has to first of all be completely exonerated by the police. Then come out fighting..... First do a number on the two 'unnamed students' posing as photographers. Who are they and how much were they paid by the Mail? Then go all out on Partygate,.....Gloves off.
Reveal Johnson to be the nasty piece of work we all know him to be. (Where's Eddie Mair when you need him?) There's a back catalogue as long as your arm. It just needs presenting. It's time to get a high profile 'Alastair Campbell' in his corner who knows how you put the boot in.
Starmer's 'niceness' has allowed Johnson a free ride. The Mail are just his latest bag carriers. Lisa Nandy started to show the way yesterday but she's got her day job.
To have allowed Johnson to equate his decades of louche debauchery and indolence with having a curry after work is criminal. It should be making decent people angry.
Now is the moment....No More Mr Nice Guy.
I was thinking similar over the weekend. Labour's media machine is appalling. Two major stories have moved against them due to lack of PR brain and then muscles. Not just currygate, the spin that Johnson won the local elections despite their performance being described by the Mail as "catastrophic".
I know Campbell doesn't want to do that kind of job any more, but they need him. They had to out-flank the increasingly willing to lie Tory press and establish their own narrative before the lie gets embedded. Even if / when Starmer has no case to answer in Durham, the stench of scandal won't go away.
I agree with all of this (providing exoneration). I'm going to have to have a deep dive on the rules at the time. But a working dinner, with or without alcohol, do not a party make, regardless of the drinking at work question. I've been involved in work, which during set-up for an evening event involved a meal where alcohol was consumed before the event commenced. Now, this event would not have gone ahead during that time, but there was an election on and campaigning was allowed as I understand it. I don't have first hand experience, but a campaign event could very well be in this vein of work.
They need a Campbell, also agreed, but probably not the man himself. 1) I don't think he's keen to go back into it and 2) he's closer to being more of an activist these days and more likely to be a player in a story rather than managing it.
If Starmer was convinced that beer and bhaji bonanzas were absolutely legal because it was of course reasonably necessary for party workers outside his bubble to meet him face to face, why would this event have been a one-off?
Exactly. It won't have been a one-off as campaigning was legal. And outrageously enough those will have been planned as well like every single senior politician's movements are. So I do wonder why the Wail hasn't gone digging for those? Yes it would expose the Tories who did the exact same thing but as the shouty part of the press simply chooses not to report those they probably would get away with it.
Campaigning had guidelines that did not allow any indoor meeting other than leaflet collection.
We're not interested in guidelines though, only the law. The opportunity to say "Starmer ignored the guidelines" has passed - they went all in for "broke the law". And as I keep pointing out, the "proof" that Tory tweets keep posting only reinforces that such events were legal. Against the guidance, but not against the law.
“Anyone organising a permitted gathering in accordance with one of the above exceptions is legally required to take all reasonable measures to limit the risk of transmission of coronavirus, including taking into account “any guidance issued by the Government which is relevant to the gathering”.”
What happened at the Starmer curry? Here's a person familiar:
— 'working dinner' pre-arranged — but takeaway arrived late, after work had finished — 15 people stayed to eat & drink anyway — it therefore "crossed the line" — they'll speak to cops — 2 "redthroats" talking to media
This seems awfully flimsy.
No work afterwards they were aware of doesn’t sound like they know a lot really, that’s doing a lot of heavy lifting. If they do have strong evidence then hand it to the police and Starmer can rightly be fined and quit
Surely Keir will have to sue over this. They’re literally libelling him
Which bit is the libel?
They are careful to say “covid rules at the tip” rather than “the law”.
It's all a matter of perspective, but I'd say the headline is over the line. It's no good (imo) to make a false statement in the headline and walk it back in the article. Though the law may not work that way. And it's clear how a reasonable person would understand the headline.
I think they have written it beautifully if the objective is to make the offence seem significant but without libelling him
“Under fire Keir Starmer” - fair comment
“Caught on camera” - objectively true
Now the critical bit: is it “flouting [general / national] Covid rules” in a specified geographic location “at council tip”
Or:
“Flouting” - what’s he done - “Covid rules at council tip”.
Given the second is true (rules, not laws, at the tip was to wear a mask) and a natural reading (although possibly not the only natural reading) I think the court would struggle to reject a defence of objective truth.
The story is a smear. Starmer is already up S*** Creek without a paddle. This is a poor attempt to reconfirm without evidence he is a serial rule breaker. As I said earlier the tabloids accept their twisted reality that is, the more guilty Starmer, the less guilty Johnson.
And not a soul who was going to vote for Starmer will suddenly decide to vote for Boris on the grounds that Starmer had a beer and a curry during lockdown.
The "nothing makes any difference" fallacy which crops up with tedious regularity on PB. The counter is, How come we have changes of government then?
It's not "nothing makes a difference", it's a case of saying that I don't think that Starmer having a curry will make people who are currently planning to vote Labour vote for the Conservatives instead.
Even if it was a big issue, even if it was current rather than two years ago, the fact that Boris has already been caught doing the same or similar means that it won't change many voter preferences.
I suspect you could fill a phone box with the number of people who will switch their votes as a result of Starmer being given a fixed penalty notice etc.
A restatement of the fallacy.
It seems very credible to me that there are people who were Johnson voters, who thought I liked Boris but I can't be doing with liars so I'll go with SKS who for all his faults is plainly honest, who will now flip back because that argument is out of the window.
Well indeed. Many Tory voters expressed for months (before the FPN was issue) expressed their disgust, including myself.
Seeing a parade of Labour voters here insist "nothing to see here" when the situation is just as bad as it was, for what disgusted me about Boris, is very interesting.
One difference perhaps though is that many of the disgusted ex-Tory voters like myself, Max, Topping and many more were vehemently opposed by the end to the restrictions being imposed, so seeing politicians imposing these restrictions on us while not respecting them themselves is an aggravating factor.
Many of those who insist now "nothing to see here" about Starmer, were at the time justifying restrictions, but seem to be OK with restrictions being broken so long as its done with a red rosette.
You are lying about Labour voters on PB saying "nothing to see". I believe without exception all have called for his resignation on a receipt of an FPN, others, like myself have requested he goes now.
Nonetheless, the Starmer investigation is for one potential indiscretion, Johnson is under investigation for up to 12. For you that is an asymmetry in Johnson's favour. Up to a dozen is nowhere near as bad as one.
I'm not lying, plenty have been banging on that there's nothing to see. Heck look at Roger's post at 7:44am and after reading that perhaps think if you owe me an apology for saying its a lie.
Of course Max, myself, Big G and plenty of other ex-Tories were saying Boris should go before the Police issued the FPN. From memory only HYUFD has been defending him, whereas as far as I can see only you are requesting he goes now whereas we were all where only you are now when the rosette has changed colour.
Both of these things are true: 1) There is nothing to see here 2) If Durham Police decide there IS something to see, Starmer must resign
And 3. If Starmer resigns, the cost to the Conservatives of keeping Johnson increases massively.
Whoever lit the fuse on this was only meant to blow the bloody doors off.
If like me you believe that Starmer did nothing at all wrong and is being bullied by the nastiest of all right wing tabloids in support of what has become the 'Nasty Party' again then this is the moment to fight back.
He has to first of all be completely exonerated by the police. Then come out fighting..... First do a number on the two 'unnamed students' posing as photographers. Who are they and how much were they paid by the Mail? Then go all out on Partygate,.....Gloves off.
Reveal Johnson to be the nasty piece of work we all know him to be. Where's Eddie Mair when you need him? There's a back catalogue as long as your arm. It just needs presenting. It's time to get a high profile 'Alastair Campbell' in his corner who knows how you put the boot in.
Starmer's 'niceness' has allowed Johnson a free ride. The Mail are just his latest bag carriers. Lisa Nandy started to show the way yesterday but she's got her day job.
To have allowed Johnson to equate his decades long history of louche debauchery and indolence with a decent man having a curry after work is criminal. It makes me really angry.
Now is the moment....No More Mr Nice Guy.
You can't make bricks without straw Rog. You print headlines like LABOUR LIES you are in the deepest shit imaginable unless Labour has actually lied. Which it has.
The authenticity of the video is unchallenged, and it looks shit enough quality to be genuine
Starmer is to blame for his own predicament
Point of order. Apparently you can make bricks without straw:
Alex Wickham @alexwickham · 20m NEW: Labour Party staff were drunk at the Starmer curry and beer gathering in Durham, a person familiar with what happened tells Playbook
LOTO, Labour and Mary Foy MP do not deny the claim
To be fair, you'd have to be permanently pissed to work for Starmer.
If Starmer was convinced that beer and bhaji bonanzas were absolutely legal because it was of course reasonably necessary for party workers outside his bubble to meet him face to face, why would this event have been a one-off?
Exactly. It won't have been a one-off as campaigning was legal. And outrageously enough those will have been planned as well like every single senior politician's movements are. So I do wonder why the Wail hasn't gone digging for those? Yes it would expose the Tories who did the exact same thing but as the shouty part of the press simply chooses not to report those they probably would get away with it.
Campaigning had guidelines that did not allow any indoor meeting other than leaflet collection.
Alex Wickham @alexwickham · 20m NEW: Labour Party staff were drunk at the Starmer curry and beer gathering in Durham, a person familiar with what happened tells Playbook
LOTO, Labour and Mary Foy MP do not deny the claim
If Starmer was convinced that beer and bhaji bonanzas were absolutely legal because it was of course reasonably necessary for party workers outside his bubble to meet him face to face, why would this event have been a one-off?
Exactly. It won't have been a one-off as campaigning was legal. And outrageously enough those will have been planned as well like every single senior politician's movements are. So I do wonder why the Wail hasn't gone digging for those? Yes it would expose the Tories who did the exact same thing but as the shouty part of the press simply chooses not to report those they probably would get away with it.
Apparently the leaked work schedule has given rise to the possibility this was not a one off event, and I assume the mail and others will be investigating further events
Have just seen a tweet from West Midlands Conservatives advertising a meet with Michael Gove at a pub at lunchtime. Also in April 2021. Lets see the memo planning his movements then because it will exist because thats how all senior politicians are handled.
This has the potential to demolish various politicians of both parties if it gets pushed. Because yes absolutely - all parties will have been off doing campaign events because they were legally allowed to do so. Why are the Wail only focusing on this single Labour campaign event when there will be other labour campaign events too?
Oh yea, that's why. As campaign events were legal, they need to question micro-level details to try and spin the perception of wrong-doing. As some of the claims are so silly the existence of another dozen such events doesn't reinforce the illegality, it just draws into question their narrative that Starmer sneaked off for a Curry then covered it up.
What all this shows is the laws around covid were ill thought out and frankly we must not allow such laws to be enacted again
If like me you believe that Starmer did nothing at all wrong and is being bullied by the nastiest of all right wing tabloids in support of what has become the 'Nasty Party' again then this is the moment to fight back.
He has to first of all be completely exonerated by the police. Then come out fighting..... First do a number on the two 'unnamed students' posing as photographers. Who are they and how much were they paid by the Mail? Then go all out on Partygate,.....Gloves off.
Reveal Johnson to be the nasty piece of work we all know him to be. Where's Eddie Mair when you need him? There's a back catalogue as long as your arm. It just needs presenting. It's time to get a high profile 'Alastair Campbell' in his corner who knows how you put the boot in.
Starmer's 'niceness' has allowed Johnson a free ride. The Mail are just his latest bag carriers. Lisa Nandy started to show the way yesterday but she's got her day job.
To have allowed Johnson to equate his decades long history of louche debauchery and indolence with a decent man having a curry after work is criminal. It makes me really angry.
Now is the moment....No More Mr Nice Guy.
You can't make bricks without straw Rog. You print headlines like LABOUR LIES you are in the deepest shit imaginable unless Labour has actually lied. Which it has.
The authenticity of the video is unchallenged, and it looks shit enough quality to be genuine
Starmer is to blame for his own predicament
Point of order. Apparently you can make bricks without straw:
Alex Wickham @alexwickham · 20m NEW: Labour Party staff were drunk at the Starmer curry and beer gathering in Durham, a person familiar with what happened tells Playbook
LOTO, Labour and Mary Foy MP do not deny the claim
To be fair, you'd have to be permanently pissed to work for Starmer.
And a major lightweight, £200 for 15 people with food isn’t very much beer
If like me you believe that Starmer did nothing at all wrong and is being bullied by the nastiest of all right wing tabloids in support of what has become the 'Nasty Party' again then this is the moment to fight back.
He has to first of all be completely exonerated by the police. Then come out fighting..... First do a number on the two 'unnamed students' posing as photographers. Who are they and how much were they paid by the Mail? Then go all out on Partygate,.....Gloves off.
Reveal Johnson to be the nasty piece of work we all know him to be. (Where's Eddie Mair when you need him?) There's a back catalogue as long as your arm. It just needs presenting. It's time to get a high profile 'Alastair Campbell' in his corner who knows how you put the boot in.
Starmer's 'niceness' has allowed Johnson a free ride. The Mail are just his latest bag carriers. Lisa Nandy started to show the way yesterday but she's got her day job.
To have allowed Johnson to equate his decades of louche debauchery and indolence with having a curry after work is criminal. It should be making decent people angry.
Now is the moment....No More Mr Nice Guy.
I was thinking similar over the weekend. Labour's media machine is appalling. Two major stories have moved against them due to lack of PR brain and then muscles. Not just currygate, the spin that Johnson won the local elections despite their performance being described by the Mail as "catastrophic".
I know Campbell doesn't want to do that kind of job any more, but they need him. They had to out-flank the increasingly willing to lie Tory press and establish their own narrative before the lie gets embedded. Even if / when Starmer has no case to answer in Durham, the stench of scandal won't go away.
I agree with all of this (providing exoneration). I'm going to have to have a deep dive on the rules at the time. But a working dinner, with or without alcohol, do not a party make, regardless of the drinking at work question. I've been involved in work, which during set-up for an evening event involved a meal where alcohol was consumed before the event commenced. Now, this event would not have gone ahead during that time, but there was an election on and campaigning was allowed as I understand it. I don't have first hand experience, but a campaign event could very well be in this vein of work.
They need a Campbell, also agreed, but probably not the man himself. 1) I don't think he's keen to go back into it and 2) he's closer to being more of an activist these days and more likely to be a player in a story rather than managing it.
On the Johnson won then locals spin - it is possible Labour deliberately didn't push too hard. The last thing they want is Johnson to be taken down by his own MPs given how unpopular he now is particularly in the SE/SW Blue Wall.
If like me you believe that Starmer did nothing at all wrong and is being bullied by the nastiest of all right wing tabloids in support of what has become the 'Nasty Party' again then this is the moment to fight back.
He has to first of all be completely exonerated by the police. Then come out fighting..... First do a number on the two 'unnamed students' posing as photographers. Who are they and how much were they paid by the Mail? Then go all out on Partygate,.....Gloves off.
Reveal Johnson to be the nasty piece of work we all know him to be. Where's Eddie Mair when you need him? There's a back catalogue as long as your arm. It just needs presenting. It's time to get a high profile 'Alastair Campbell' in his corner who knows how you put the boot in.
Starmer's 'niceness' has allowed Johnson a free ride. The Mail are just his latest bag carriers. Lisa Nandy started to show the way yesterday but she's got her day job.
To have allowed Johnson to equate his decades long history of louche debauchery and indolence with a decent man having a curry after work is criminal. It makes me really angry.
Now is the moment....No More Mr Nice Guy.
You can't make bricks without straw Rog. You print headlines like LABOUR LIES you are in the deepest shit imaginable unless Labour has actually lied. Which it has.
The authenticity of the video is unchallenged, and it looks shit enough quality to be genuine
Starmer is to blame for his own predicament
Point of order. Apparently you can make bricks without straw:
Owners of second homes who do not rent out their properties will be hit with double council tax under plans to be unveiled in the Queen’s Speech this week, as Boris Johnson attempts to reset his premiership by focusing on the “people’s priorities”.
Don't a large number of people who have second homes in holiday spots already rent them out as an easy way of covering the costs?
I am guessing it'll exclude airbnb ers by say stipulating a min 6 month term
Article says, "that are neither used nor let out by their owners for at least 70 days per year". That sounds perfect for holiday letters.
Unless 70 days in a row, but then if you were doing down that path you would be putting in rules for a lot longer than a couple of months, as you say something like 6 month terms.
You are buggered if it's a ppty with summer-only appeal because 70 days eats up your own use of it. Otherwise you're laughing I'd have thought
Hang on: using it *yourself* counts towards the 70 days? That's just silly because how many properties are not used at all for even 70 days a year, and how do you prove the owner hasn't used it (except by poiting cctv at the front door)?
I think you can still get your 70 days let fairly easily these days. People like to take days away for a couple of nights by the seaside etc. You also rent out the weekends you aren't there. I think soon adds up to 70 days.
Also is it 70 days, or 70 nights....as 70 days even easier. You do a weekend let, most people will do Friday -> Sunday, thats 3 days.
If that is the proposal it will achieve damn all.
Around here, a lot of properties are being let out via Air BnB. It makes it very hard to find anything to rent and prices are rising, making it difficult for first time buyers. It is a big issue in this area and the Lakes generally.
The letting needs to be for a continuous period, ideally, to local people.
.... says a second home owner. Oh no, I remember, the Cyclefrees own two first-homes, in your memorable phrase.
It is too difficult to decide what a second home is or isn't. And these complex rules make it easy to avoid. As soon as you have a whole bundle of exemptions, then the tax won't have the desired effect.
What is needed is a serious increase in the Council Tax for *all* high value properties.
For comparison, in parts of the US, there are serious property taxes -- in NJ it is 2.5 per cent of the home value.
So, a million pound house will pay £ 25,000 pa. That will soon have the desired effect.
Say you have a million pound house in London and half a million pound holiday home in Cornwall, then you are facing taxes of 37.5k a year. That will sort out the second home problem.
The UK is unique among Western countries in the ridiculously low taxes that high value property attracts. Hence, many of its problems.
That might address a small part of the housing problem, but is very unlikely to change the fundamental one, which is a dearth of supply.
It would probably have a larger impact in the areas most under pressure. Investment companies love the steady returns of buying in London/South East... and also quite like the low taxation on property.
Similarly, second homes are a small % of housing in the country - something like 3%... but would be much higher in Cornwall/Cumbria etc.
Alex Wickham @alexwickham · 20m NEW: Labour Party staff were drunk at the Starmer curry and beer gathering in Durham, a person familiar with what happened tells Playbook
LOTO, Labour and Mary Foy MP do not deny the claim
How do you get drunk from a starting point of 1.3 bottles of lager a head starting at 9 PM?
Labour +22 is pathetic. I am surprised Liberals have not had more coverage of their big winning night.
Doesn’t suit the narrative the big media players thought they were going to be reporting. They looked for a Labour triumph and therefore found one where none existed.
CHB was posting excitedly for nearly 24 hrs amplifying the Lab are back message when it was always pretty obvious they were having a very poor set of Elections
Off topic
A very poor "set" of elections? Wales and Scotland don't count then.
Wales was good. Scotland was a big disappointment.
Yes, Scotland is skewed by the results being against the everyone loves Ruth era. Overall they are marginally second, a very slight improvement from the Holyrood election and a small move ahead of the Tories who even in 'disaster' managed 20% but they and the Tories are fishing in different ponds mainly- Labour in Central and Dunbartonshire, the West and Glasgow. Cons in Borders, Dumfries, Perthshire and Aberdeenshire with their only direct clashes likely to be possible three way fights in Ayrshire next time out
The Scottish Conservatives got their worst % share in Edinburgh local elections since 1970, in the days of "Progressives". Although maybe only showing a small net effect, the Tory vote in Scotland is moving away from the suburbs towards the rural and coastal areas.
Ah, the Progressives! There is a wee gem of Scottish nostalgia 😄
Alex Wickham @alexwickham · 20m NEW: Labour Party staff were drunk at the Starmer curry and beer gathering in Durham, a person familiar with what happened tells Playbook
LOTO, Labour and Mary Foy MP do not deny the claim
How do you get drunk from a starting point of 1.3 bottles of lager a head starting at 9 PM?
Depends how big the bottles were. Cue DM showing photos of cheapest possible electric juice from supermarkets, pointing out that Scottish minimum pricing does not apply.
Alex Wickham @alexwickham · 20m NEW: Labour Party staff were drunk at the Starmer curry and beer gathering in Durham, a person familiar with what happened tells Playbook
LOTO, Labour and Mary Foy MP do not deny the claim
How do you get drunk from a starting point of 1.3 bottles of lager a head starting at 9 PM?
And with food?
Are they all major lightweights or is the implication they started drinking earlier? Seems like that is what they are trying to convey
If like me you believe that Starmer did nothing at all wrong and is being bullied by the nastiest of all right wing tabloids in support of what has become the 'Nasty Party' again then this is the moment to fight back.
He has to first of all be completely exonerated by the police. Then come out fighting..... First do a number on the two 'unnamed students' posing as photographers. Who are they and how much were they paid by the Mail? Then go all out on Partygate,.....Gloves off.
Reveal Johnson to be the nasty piece of work we all know him to be. Where's Eddie Mair when you need him? There's a back catalogue as long as your arm. It just needs presenting. It's time to get a high profile 'Alastair Campbell' in his corner who knows how you put the boot in.
Starmer's 'niceness' has allowed Johnson a free ride. The Mail are just his latest bag carriers. Lisa Nandy started to show the way yesterday but she's got her day job.
To have allowed Johnson to equate his decades long history of louche debauchery and indolence with a decent man having a curry after work is criminal. It makes me really angry.
Now is the moment....No More Mr Nice Guy.
You can't make bricks without straw Rog. You print headlines like LABOUR LIES you are in the deepest shit imaginable unless Labour has actually lied. Which it has.
The authenticity of the video is unchallenged, and it looks shit enough quality to be genuine
Starmer is to blame for his own predicament
Point of order. Apparently you can make bricks without straw:
Alex Wickham @alexwickham · 20m NEW: Labour Party staff were drunk at the Starmer curry and beer gathering in Durham, a person familiar with what happened tells Playbook
LOTO, Labour and Mary Foy MP do not deny the claim
How do you get drunk from a starting point of 1.3 bottles of lager a head starting at 9 PM?
Depends how big the bottles were. Cue DM showing photos of cheapest possible electric juice from supermarkets, pointing out that Scottish minimum pricing does not apply.
If like me you believe that Starmer did nothing at all wrong and is being bullied by the nastiest of all right wing tabloids in support of what has become the 'Nasty Party' again then this is the moment to fight back.
He has to first of all be completely exonerated by the police. Then come out fighting..... First do a number on the two 'unnamed students' posing as photographers. Who are they and how much were they paid by the Mail? Then go all out on Partygate,.....Gloves off.
Reveal Johnson to be the nasty piece of work we all know him to be. Where's Eddie Mair when you need him? There's a back catalogue as long as your arm. It just needs presenting. It's time to get a high profile 'Alastair Campbell' in his corner who knows how you put the boot in.
Starmer's 'niceness' has allowed Johnson a free ride. The Mail are just his latest bag carriers. Lisa Nandy started to show the way yesterday but she's got her day job.
To have allowed Johnson to equate his decades long history of louche debauchery and indolence with a decent man having a curry after work is criminal. It makes me really angry.
Now is the moment....No More Mr Nice Guy.
You can't make bricks without straw Rog. You print headlines like LABOUR LIES you are in the deepest shit imaginable unless Labour has actually lied. Which it has.
The authenticity of the video is unchallenged, and it looks shit enough quality to be genuine
Starmer is to blame for his own predicament
Point of order. Apparently you can make bricks without straw:
The extent to which the Starmer Memo bolsters his Partygate defence - as claimed in the Guardian - is perfectly underlined by the fact he kept its existence secret for months, and has now pulled out of a major speaking event in the immediate aftermath of its publication...
Given currygate was not being investigated "for months" why on earth does Hodges imagine Starmer would have dug out this memo?
Surely you try to control the narrative? You get your story straight and get it out there. Look at the cracks in the narrative and work out how to plaster them over. You ask yourselves a series of questions, such as What happened? What will people make of it? Were photos taken? Videos? Who was there? Why were they there? What was the law at the time? etc, etc.
What you don't do is deny someone was there, only for them to magically have been there, and let your opposition control the narrative by releasing real information in dribs and drabs.
Even if the information is bad for you, it can be better for you to release it all in one go - or at times of your choosing - rather than letting your opposition do it.
(This is true for both Labour and the Conservatives. Not the Lib Dems, as no-one in the media seems to care about them...)
There was no narrative "for months". That's the point. The Durham rozzers cleared the event months ago and only in the past fortnight has it resurfaced.
The police cleared the event because they did not get all the information - which Labour would have blooming well known. The police may still clear the event, but because of Labour's mismanagement of the story it has come to stink.
Labour were going hard on Boris over the parties - and rightly so. But they were too effing incompetent to realise that their own behaviour would come back and smack themselves in the face.
If they're not guilty, they've mismanaged it to a degree where they look as guilty as sin.
Alex Wickham @alexwickham · 20m NEW: Labour Party staff were drunk at the Starmer curry and beer gathering in Durham, a person familiar with what happened tells Playbook
LOTO, Labour and Mary Foy MP do not deny the claim
How do you get drunk from a starting point of 1.3 bottles of lager a head starting at 9 PM?
1) You realise you want another beer 2) You've been travelling, so you have a wheely case 3) There is an annoying intern standing next to you. 4) IDEA!
If like me you believe that Starmer did nothing at all wrong and is being bullied by the nastiest of all right wing tabloids in support of what has become the 'Nasty Party' again then this is the moment to fight back.
He has to first of all be completely exonerated by the police. Then come out fighting..... First do a number on the two 'unnamed students' posing as photographers. Who are they and how much were they paid by the Mail? Then go all out on Partygate,.....Gloves off.
Reveal Johnson to be the nasty piece of work we all know him to be. Where's Eddie Mair when you need him? There's a back catalogue as long as your arm. It just needs presenting. It's time to get a high profile 'Alastair Campbell' in his corner who knows how you put the boot in.
Starmer's 'niceness' has allowed Johnson a free ride. The Mail are just his latest bag carriers. Lisa Nandy started to show the way yesterday but she's got her day job.
To have allowed Johnson to equate his decades long history of louche debauchery and indolence with a decent man having a curry after work is criminal. It makes me really angry.
Now is the moment....No More Mr Nice Guy.
You can't make bricks without straw Rog. You print headlines like LABOUR LIES you are in the deepest shit imaginable unless Labour has actually lied. Which it has.
The authenticity of the video is unchallenged, and it looks shit enough quality to be genuine
Starmer is to blame for his own predicament
Point of order. Apparently you can make bricks without straw:
Labour +22 is pathetic. I am surprised Liberals have not had more coverage of their big winning night.
Doesn’t suit the narrative the big media players thought they were going to be reporting. They looked for a Labour triumph and therefore found one where none existed.
CHB was posting excitedly for nearly 24 hrs amplifying the Lab are back message when it was always pretty obvious they were having a very poor set of Elections
Off topic
A very poor "set" of elections? Wales and Scotland don't count then.
Wales was good. Scotland was a big disappointment.
Yes, Scotland is skewed by the results being against the everyone loves Ruth era. Overall they are marginally second, a very slight improvement from the Holyrood election and a small move ahead of the Tories who even in 'disaster' managed 20% but they and the Tories are fishing in different ponds mainly- Labour in Central and Dunbartonshire, the West and Glasgow. Cons in Borders, Dumfries, Perthshire and Aberdeenshire with their only direct clashes likely to be possible three way fights in Ayrshire next time out
The Scottish Conservatives got their worst % share in Edinburgh local elections since 1970, in the days of "Progressives". Although maybe only showing a small net effect, the Tory vote in Scotland is moving away from the suburbs towards the rural and coastal areas.
Agreed, Edinburgh is now as unlikely to yield success as Glasgow. They were perhaps towards competitive in what constitutes Pentlands at Holyrood, abject elsewhere. Dumfries and Galloway looks very solid now, and I think Aberdeenshire and Perthshire will be fruitful going forward (although thr SNP are having something of a Renaissance of dominance for now in Tayside), I actually think they may surprise in the 3 Ayrshire seats next time if they hold 20% plus support, as given the ferry issues and Labour coming back I see 3 way scraps ensuing. I've currently got them winning Ayr, Carrick and Cumnock back and with a sniff in Ayrshire Central, but events will no doubt amend those thoughts
Nah. Yes, the new Ayr, Carrick and Cumnock is a 3-way marginal, but the most likely scenario is that Labour overtakes the Conservatives for 2nd spot.
Ditto the new Ayrshire Central, where a Lab/Con switch for 2nd spot is even more likely.
Ditto the new Ayrshire North and Arran.
The only other “3-way marginals” in Scotland (huge pinches of salt required tbh) are:
The weird new Forth Valley Mid (mostly the old Ochil & South Perthshire seat), where a Tory drop to 3rd is pretty much guaranteed.
The new East Lothian Coast, which is a guaranteed Lab Gain if the local Tories swallow their pride and back the reds. Bye bye Alba’s Kenny MacAskill MP.
The new Kelvin North (mostly the old Dunbartonshire East) is an absolute corker. The Lib Dem’s only hope is if Labour put up a paper-candidate and do zero work. Not gonna happen.
What happened at the Starmer curry? Here's a person familiar:
— 'working dinner' pre-arranged — but takeaway arrived late, after work had finished — 15 people stayed to eat & drink anyway — it therefore "crossed the line" — they'll speak to cops — 2 "redthroats" talking to media
This seems awfully flimsy.
No work afterwards they were aware of doesn’t sound like they know a lot really, that’s doing a lot of heavy lifting. If they do have strong evidence then hand it to the police and Starmer can rightly be fined and quit
Durham Police are undertaking this investigation in line with the MET with detectives sending questionnaires to all attendees who will have 28 days to respond
Photographs and videos will be made available and it is inevitable that attendees will seek their own legal advice
It seems that it could be upto a couple of months before this concludes and it is going to be a very uncomfortable period for Starmer and Rayner especially in the HOC and media
What happened at the Starmer curry? Here's a person familiar:
— 'working dinner' pre-arranged — but takeaway arrived late, after work had finished — 15 people stayed to eat & drink anyway — it therefore "crossed the line" — they'll speak to cops — 2 "redthroats" talking to media
This seems awfully flimsy.
No work afterwards they were aware of doesn’t sound like they know a lot really, that’s doing a lot of heavy lifting. If they do have strong evidence then hand it to the police and Starmer can rightly be fined and quit
Very interesting. A gathering, reasonably necessary for work purposes, is intended to occur and food ordered. The food is late. Is it reasonable to expect, with delicious curry imminent, that people would leave hungry? With that curry on my mind, at the end of a long day, for which I would have been 'saving myself', the police would have to carry me out crying.
Alex Wickham @alexwickham · 20m NEW: Labour Party staff were drunk at the Starmer curry and beer gathering in Durham, a person familiar with what happened tells Playbook
LOTO, Labour and Mary Foy MP do not deny the claim
How do you get drunk from a starting point of 1.3 bottles of lager a head starting at 9 PM?
Depends how big the bottles were. Cue DM showing photos of cheapest possible electric juice from supermarkets, pointing out that Scottish minimum pricing does not apply.
I assumed the beer came from the takeaway
Exactly. I was being sarcastic. But look, PBTories and their chums are already making that DM-style assumption as we type.
What happened at the Starmer curry? Here's a person familiar:
— 'working dinner' pre-arranged — but takeaway arrived late, after work had finished — 15 people stayed to eat & drink anyway — it therefore "crossed the line" — they'll speak to cops — 2 "redthroats" talking to media
This seems awfully flimsy.
No work afterwards they were aware of doesn’t sound like they know a lot really, that’s doing a lot of heavy lifting. If they do have strong evidence then hand it to the police and Starmer can rightly be fined and quit
Very interesting. A gathering, reasonably necessary for work purposes, is intended to occur and food ordered. The food is late. Is it reasonable to expect, with delicious curry imminent, that people would leave hungry? With that curry on my mind, at the end of a long day, for which I would have been 'saving myself', the police would have to carry me out crying.
I then wonder if this falls under “reasonably necessary”. Because at that time the hotel would have stopped serving food so they would have all had to go back to their hotel rooms and not eat until breakfast.
What happened at the Starmer curry? Here's a person familiar:
— 'working dinner' pre-arranged — but takeaway arrived late, after work had finished — 15 people stayed to eat & drink anyway — it therefore "crossed the line" — they'll speak to cops — 2 "redthroats" talking to media
This seems awfully flimsy.
No work afterwards they were aware of doesn’t sound like they know a lot really, that’s doing a lot of heavy lifting. If they do have strong evidence then hand it to the police and Starmer can rightly be fined and quit
Well if that is right Starmer is off the hook completely. It would be fine as ordered, it was late, they were hungry, they were meant to send it back or bin it?
If Starmer was convinced that beer and bhaji bonanzas were absolutely legal because it was of course reasonably necessary for party workers outside his bubble to meet him face to face, why would this event have been a one-off?
Exactly. It won't have been a one-off as campaigning was legal. And outrageously enough those will have been planned as well like every single senior politician's movements are. So I do wonder why the Wail hasn't gone digging for those? Yes it would expose the Tories who did the exact same thing but as the shouty part of the press simply chooses not to report those they probably would get away with it.
Campaigning had guidelines that did not allow any indoor meeting other than leaflet collection.
We're not interested in guidelines though, only the law. The opportunity to say "Starmer ignored the guidelines" has passed - they went all in for "broke the law". And as I keep pointing out, the "proof" that Tory tweets keep posting only reinforces that such events were legal. Against the guidance, but not against the law.
“Anyone organising a permitted gathering in accordance with one of the above exceptions is legally required to take all reasonable measures to limit the risk of transmission of coronavirus, including taking into account “any guidance issued by the Government which is relevant to the gathering”.”
Sure. They did take it into account - see the memo. But again, "should not" guidelines are not "must not" laws. Laws matter here, not guidelines. Again, there were plenty of other organised campaign events from all parties, so if this is so illegal why are the Mail not going after those?
Surely Keir will have to sue over this. They’re literally libelling him
Which bit is the libel?
They are careful to say “covid rules at the tip” rather than “the law”.
It's all a matter of perspective, but I'd say the headline is over the line. It's no good (imo) to make a false statement in the headline and walk it back in the article. Though the law may not work that way. And it's clear how a reasonable person would understand the headline.
I think they have written it beautifully if the objective is to make the offence seem significant but without libelling him
“Under fire Keir Starmer” - fair comment
“Caught on camera” - objectively true
Now the critical bit: is it “flouting [general / national] Covid rules” in a specified geographic location “at council tip”
Or:
“Flouting” - what’s he done - “Covid rules at council tip”.
Given the second is true (rules, not laws, at the tip was to wear a mask) and a natural reading (although possibly not the only natural reading) I think the court would struggle to reject a defence of objective truth.
The story is a smear. Starmer is already up S*** Creek without a paddle. This is a poor attempt to reconfirm without evidence he is a serial rule breaker. As I said earlier the tabloids accept their twisted reality that is, the more guilty Starmer, the less guilty Johnson.
And not a soul who was going to vote for Starmer will suddenly decide to vote for Boris on the grounds that Starmer had a beer and a curry during lockdown.
The "nothing makes any difference" fallacy which crops up with tedious regularity on PB. The counter is, How come we have changes of government then?
It's not "nothing makes a difference", it's a case of saying that I don't think that Starmer having a curry will make people who are currently planning to vote Labour vote for the Conservatives instead.
Even if it was a big issue, even if it was current rather than two years ago, the fact that Boris has already been caught doing the same or similar means that it won't change many voter preferences.
I suspect you could fill a phone box with the number of people who will switch their votes as a result of Starmer being given a fixed penalty notice etc.
A restatement of the fallacy.
It seems very credible to me that there are people who were Johnson voters, who thought I liked Boris but I can't be doing with liars so I'll go with SKS who for all his faults is plainly honest, who will now flip back because that argument is out of the window.
Well indeed. Many Tory voters expressed for months (before the FPN was issue) expressed their disgust, including myself.
Seeing a parade of Labour voters here insist "nothing to see here" when the situation is just as bad as it was, for what disgusted me about Boris, is very interesting.
One difference perhaps though is that many of the disgusted ex-Tory voters like myself, Max, Topping and many more were vehemently opposed by the end to the restrictions being imposed, so seeing politicians imposing these restrictions on us while not respecting them themselves is an aggravating factor.
Many of those who insist now "nothing to see here" about Starmer, were at the time justifying restrictions, but seem to be OK with restrictions being broken so long as its done with a red rosette.
You are lying about Labour voters on PB saying "nothing to see". I believe without exception all have called for his resignation on a receipt of an FPN, others, like myself have requested he goes now.
Nonetheless, the Starmer investigation is for one potential indiscretion, Johnson is under investigation for up to 12. For you that is an asymmetry in Johnson's favour. Up to a dozen is nowhere near as bad as one.
I'm not lying, plenty have been banging on that there's nothing to see. Heck look at Roger's post at 7:44am and after reading that perhaps think if you owe me an apology for saying its a lie.
Of course Max, myself, Big G and plenty of other ex-Tories were saying Boris should go before the Police issued the FPN. From memory only HYUFD has been defending him, whereas as far as I can see only you are requesting he goes now whereas we were all where only you are now when the rosette has changed colour.
Another fib, I don't recall many of the faithful demanding Johnson go on news of the investigation. "Wait and see" was the clarion cry.
What happened at the Starmer curry? Here's a person familiar:
— 'working dinner' pre-arranged — but takeaway arrived late, after work had finished — 15 people stayed to eat & drink anyway — it therefore "crossed the line" — they'll speak to cops — 2 "redthroats" talking to media
This seems awfully flimsy.
No work afterwards they were aware of doesn’t sound like they know a lot really, that’s doing a lot of heavy lifting. If they do have strong evidence then hand it to the police and Starmer can rightly be fined and quit
Well if that is right Starmer is off the hook completely. It would be fine as ordered, it was late, they were hungry, they were meant to send it back or bin it?
They were supposed to bin it, go back to the hotel which had stopped serving and not eat until breakfast.
I think this is going to fall under reasonably necessary.
And 3. If Starmer resigns, the cost to the Conservatives of keeping Johnson increases massively.
Whoever lit the fuse on this was only meant to blow the bloody doors off.
I've no idea whether the event crossed the line or not. But I definitely don't agree that Starmer should resign if it did, or that the cost to the Conservatives would increase if he did. Sure, Johnson gets one day of awkward questions - "Starmer is resigning, why not you?" to which he says "That's a matter for him" or some similar riff, perhaps adding as a wind-up "Perhaps his case was more serious". Johnson has been through FAR worse embarrassments.
The story has gone some way to neutralising the FPN issue, though not the lying to Parliament issue. But basically the public will want to move on.
What happened at the Starmer curry? Here's a person familiar:
— 'working dinner' pre-arranged — but takeaway arrived late, after work had finished — 15 people stayed to eat & drink anyway — it therefore "crossed the line" — they'll speak to cops — 2 "redthroats" talking to media
This seems awfully flimsy.
No work afterwards they were aware of doesn’t sound like they know a lot really, that’s doing a lot of heavy lifting. If they do have strong evidence then hand it to the police and Starmer can rightly be fined and quit
Very interesting. A gathering, reasonably necessary for work purposes, is intended to occur and food ordered. The food is late. Is it reasonable to expect, with delicious curry imminent, that people would leave hungry? With that curry on my mind, at the end of a long day, for which I would have been 'saving myself', the police would have to carry me out crying.
I then wonder if this falls under “reasonably necessary”. Because at that time the hotel would have stopped serving food so they would have all had to go back to their hotel rooms and not eat until breakfast.
One for a legal eagle
Not all hotels serve food. And restaurants would be closing. And some would have to travel.
Alex Wickham @alexwickham · 20m NEW: Labour Party staff were drunk at the Starmer curry and beer gathering in Durham, a person familiar with what happened tells Playbook
LOTO, Labour and Mary Foy MP do not deny the claim
How do you get drunk from a starting point of 1.3 bottles of lager a head starting at 9 PM?
Proof that Starmer can't take his beer like Big Dog can.
AM I right to assume that all those tanks just have a driver and commander, and the rest of the crew are back at the barracks?
They only have three crew anyway. Obviously they won't need the gunner.
..
Most soviet tanks have just 3 crew - they have an auto-loader instead.
The advantages of the auto-loader include -
- is slower than a human loader - requires the ammunition to be stored in the turret. This means that when the tank is hit, the ammunition often explodes, cremating the crew and ripping the turret off. - doesn't load at all elevations, meaning that the gun has to return to a specific elevation (on some tanks). This indicates to the opposition that it is an... opportune moment to be rude. - occasionally tries to load the gunners arm, instead of the next round.
Paradoxically, the involvement of Durham police might work to the Conservatives disadvantage.
There's definitely shades of grey (though not gray) in what happened last April. Had they stayed as chatter, that would have been a Starmer harmer.
But the involvement nod the cops will give something unambiguous. Either SKS is cleared or he isn't. If he's cleared, he's strengthened, if not he's toast.
The only way this benefits the blue team is if he's fined and hangs on (meaning he wants to and his party lets him). And that's two biggish ifs.
What happened at the Starmer curry? Here's a person familiar:
— 'working dinner' pre-arranged — but takeaway arrived late, after work had finished — 15 people stayed to eat & drink anyway — it therefore "crossed the line" — they'll speak to cops — 2 "redthroats" talking to media
This seems awfully flimsy.
No work afterwards they were aware of doesn’t sound like they know a lot really, that’s doing a lot of heavy lifting. If they do have strong evidence then hand it to the police and Starmer can rightly be fined and quit
Well if that is right Starmer is off the hook completely. It would be fine as ordered, it was late, they were hungry, they were meant to send it back or bin it?
Is not being able to organise a curry and lager going to replace piss ups and breweries in the lexicon?
Putin busy equating his invasion of Ukr with the Patriotic War of 1940s.
To be fair, Ben Wallace seems to have started that.
Baldy Ben seems to have staked out a more hawkish position than Zelensky who has said he'd accept a ceasefire on the January 2022 borders. If that's his starting point, presumably he'd settle for less.
Has @Leon seen this GPT-3 story ? On one level it's pretty silly; it's also really very worrying indeed in its implications (assuming it's true, which seems quite likely).
I brought my childhood imaginary friend back to life using A.I. (#GPT3) and it was one of the scariest and most transformative experiences of my life.
No one has yet figured out how to program empathy.
This is all wrong. Or at least it will, but only as part of a human led operation. It's all very sci fi thinking AIs will think Enslave the puny humans and dominate the world, but why would a computer *want* to do that, or *want* to do anything? What's the Turing test for whether a computer is capable of wanting? ....
All the stuff about Turing tests and computers 'wanting' to do stuff is irrelevant. The concern is about emergent behaviour, not intentions. And the worry is that 'intelligent' systems are given autonomy to act without intervention.
My comment about programming empathy was really a question about how we hardwire the functional aspect of it.
What happened at the Starmer curry? Here's a person familiar:
— 'working dinner' pre-arranged — but takeaway arrived late, after work had finished — 15 people stayed to eat & drink anyway — it therefore "crossed the line" — they'll speak to cops — 2 "redthroats" talking to media
This seems awfully flimsy.
No work afterwards they were aware of doesn’t sound like they know a lot really, that’s doing a lot of heavy lifting. If they do have strong evidence then hand it to the police and Starmer can rightly be fined and quit
Very interesting. A gathering, reasonably necessary for work purposes, is intended to occur and food ordered. The food is late. Is it reasonable to expect, with delicious curry imminent, that people would leave hungry? With that curry on my mind, at the end of a long day, for which I would have been 'saving myself', the police would have to carry me out crying.
I then wonder if this falls under “reasonably necessary”. Because at that time the hotel would have stopped serving food so they would have all had to go back to their hotel rooms and not eat until breakfast.
One for a legal eagle
Not all hotels serve food. And restaurants would be closing. And some would have to travel.
As Jeremy Clarkson can testify, try getting a hotel dinner after nine.
The extent to which the Starmer Memo bolsters his Partygate defence - as claimed in the Guardian - is perfectly underlined by the fact he kept its existence secret for months, and has now pulled out of a major speaking event in the immediate aftermath of its publication...
Given currygate was not being investigated "for months" why on earth does Hodges imagine Starmer would have dug out this memo?
Surely you try to control the narrative? You get your story straight and get it out there. Look at the cracks in the narrative and work out how to plaster them over. You ask yourselves a series of questions, such as What happened? What will people make of it? Were photos taken? Videos? Who was there? Why were they there? What was the law at the time? etc, etc.
What you don't do is deny someone was there, only for them to magically have been there, and let your opposition control the narrative by releasing real information in dribs and drabs.
Even if the information is bad for you, it can be better for you to release it all in one go - or at times of your choosing - rather than letting your opposition do it.
(This is true for both Labour and the Conservatives. Not the Lib Dems, as no-one in the media seems to care about them...)
There was no narrative "for months". That's the point. The Durham rozzers cleared the event months ago and only in the past fortnight has it resurfaced.
The police cleared the event because they did not get all the information - which Labour would have blooming well known. The police may still clear the event, but because of Labour's mismanagement of the story it has come to stink.
Labour were going hard on Boris over the parties - and rightly so. But they were too effing incompetent to realise that their own behaviour would come back and smack themselves in the face.
If they're not guilty, they've mismanaged it to a degree where they look as guilty as sin.
It's absolutely hilarious.
If we start looking into April 2021 campaign events we're going to get awfully bogged down. As an example:
Can we see the Gove planning memo? Did they eat? Was there a lunchtime beverage before delivery started? How about afterwards?
As campaigning events like this one and the Durham one were legal, there will be a long list of examples to go after. So if we're now switching to "nope they were illegal" we could be here all year.
The extent to which the Starmer Memo bolsters his Partygate defence - as claimed in the Guardian - is perfectly underlined by the fact he kept its existence secret for months, and has now pulled out of a major speaking event in the immediate aftermath of its publication...
Given currygate was not being investigated "for months" why on earth does Hodges imagine Starmer would have dug out this memo?
Surely you try to control the narrative? You get your story straight and get it out there. Look at the cracks in the narrative and work out how to plaster them over. You ask yourselves a series of questions, such as What happened? What will people make of it? Were photos taken? Videos? Who was there? Why were they there? What was the law at the time? etc, etc.
What you don't do is deny someone was there, only for them to magically have been there, and let your opposition control the narrative by releasing real information in dribs and drabs.
Even if the information is bad for you, it can be better for you to release it all in one go - or at times of your choosing - rather than letting your opposition do it.
(This is true for both Labour and the Conservatives. Not the Lib Dems, as no-one in the media seems to care about them...)
There was no narrative "for months". That's the point. The Durham rozzers cleared the event months ago and only in the past fortnight has it resurfaced.
The police cleared the event because they did not get all the information - which Labour would have blooming well known. The police may still clear the event, but because of Labour's mismanagement of the story it has come to stink.
Labour were going hard on Boris over the parties - and rightly so. But they were too effing incompetent to realise that their own behaviour would come back and smack themselves in the face.
If they're not guilty, they've mismanaged it to a degree where they look as guilty as sin.
It's absolutely hilarious.
If we start looking into April 2021 campaign events we're going to get awfully bogged down. As an example:
Can we see the Gove planning memo? Did they eat? Was there a lunchtime beverage before delivery started? How about afterwards?
As campaigning events like this one and the Durham one were legal, there will be a long list of examples to go after. So if we're now switching to "nope they were illegal" we could be here all year.
One thing that was clear all through the pandemic was that the operation of politics did not mirror the everyday experience of other office workers, number 10 never went remote, parliament operated at least partly in person through lockdowns and fully in person from very early. They raised their work above the rest of us from day 1, going we're important, you're not - you can do all remote, we need face to face.
It was garbage that their ability to operate broadly remotely, perhaps with the odd caveat, was substantially different to ours. I didn't like it, I think they should have operated more remotely and the slippery slope started there.
And it looks it bled out from number 10 - civil service departments, political parties, &c did their risk assessments very differently to your large corporate employer. Labour for its part felt it had to compete, like for like, with the Tories - if the Tories were in person then they would have to be. It bears responsibility for that.
By March 21 we had lots of high minded words from Boris on the importance of the conduct of democracy, in full, in full, that May.
So, Starmer's curry, 250 miles from home after a day on the streets, with other workers. No, it's not how I would have chosen my politicians to act, but it doesn't sit obviously separate to any of the above.
No doubt Boris whisked in and out of Hartlepool on his over vajazzled plane via Ben Houchen International Airport, not having to stay over, an option not open to LOTO. And yet, would you confidently like to bet that the Tories didn't match Mary Foy's 'do' and more in Hartlepool.
Now, they call truce. Equating what went on in number 10 with Beergate. And all the PBTory Boris criticisers jump on board to happily make the equation. It is not only false equivalence to the 8 ring circus that took place in number 10, it is a total bollocks of an equivalence.
As if they think large swathes of the public can't see it's a total bollocks equivalence. Only PBTories don't or won't.
So, to quote some other Tory COVID wankerage, "in a spirit of collegiality", Labour should take the Tories truce and tell them to shove it up their fucking arse.
OK, fighting on could claim SKS - or maybe not - but to do other let's Boris off the hook for his total utter disregard. But also the nature of the attack on SKS is, in very large part, another deflection, another ruse for the Tories to sweep their own tower of excrement under the carpet and not clean it up. Don't let them.
Their game is beyond shoddy and it's being played out in plain sight. Don't bank on it not backfiring, that the campaign against SKS isn't just seen through as deflection and smear.
What happened at the Starmer curry? Here's a person familiar:
— 'working dinner' pre-arranged — but takeaway arrived late, after work had finished — 15 people stayed to eat & drink anyway — it therefore "crossed the line" — they'll speak to cops — 2 "redthroats" talking to media
This seems awfully flimsy.
No work afterwards they were aware of doesn’t sound like they know a lot really, that’s doing a lot of heavy lifting. If they do have strong evidence then hand it to the police and Starmer can rightly be fined and quit
Well if that is right Starmer is off the hook completely. It would be fine as ordered, it was late, they were hungry, they were meant to send it back or bin it?
Hang on, how does that get him off the hook? You have been banging away for ages how the campaign event was against the law - what does the timing of the delivery have to do with it? Either you can meet to campaign or you can't.
Owners of second homes who do not rent out their properties will be hit with double council tax under plans to be unveiled in the Queen’s Speech this week, as Boris Johnson attempts to reset his premiership by focusing on the “people’s priorities”.
Don't a large number of people who have second homes in holiday spots already rent them out as an easy way of covering the costs?
I am guessing it'll exclude airbnb ers by say stipulating a min 6 month term
Article says, "that are neither used nor let out by their owners for at least 70 days per year". That sounds perfect for holiday letters.
Unless 70 days in a row, but then if you were doing down that path you would be putting in rules for a lot longer than a couple of months, as you say something like 6 month terms.
You are buggered if it's a ppty with summer-only appeal because 70 days eats up your own use of it. Otherwise you're laughing I'd have thought
Hang on: using it *yourself* counts towards the 70 days? That's just silly because how many properties are not used at all for even 70 days a year, and how do you prove the owner hasn't used it (except by poiting cctv at the front door)?
I think you can still get your 70 days let fairly easily these days. People like to take days away for a couple of nights by the seaside etc. You also rent out the weekends you aren't there. I think soon adds up to 70 days.
Also is it 70 days, or 70 nights....as 70 days even easier. You do a weekend let, most people will do Friday -> Sunday, thats 3 days.
If that is the proposal it will achieve damn all.
Around here, a lot of properties are being let out via Air BnB. It makes it very hard to find anything to rent and prices are rising, making it difficult for first time buyers. It is a big issue in this area and the Lakes generally.
The letting needs to be for a continuous period, ideally, to local people.
.... says a second home owner. Oh no, I remember, the Cyclefrees own two first-homes, in your memorable phrase.
It is too difficult to decide what a second home is or isn't. And these complex rules make it easy to avoid. As soon as you have a whole bundle of exemptions, then the tax won't have the desired effect.
What is needed is a serious increase in the Council Tax for *all* high value properties.
For comparison, in parts of the US, there are serious property taxes -- in NJ it is 2.5 per cent of the home value.
So, a million pound house will pay £ 25,000 pa. That will soon have the desired effect.
Say you have a million pound house in London and half a million pound holiday home in Cornwall, then you are facing taxes of 37.5k a year. That will sort out the second home problem.
The UK is unique among Western countries in the ridiculously low taxes that high value property attracts. Hence, many of its problems.
The US system is deeply fucked up. Tax values are set when homes change hands, which means that the tax burden falls disproportionately on people who have just bought homes - i.e. the young.
It certainly hasn't done much to address California's housing market problems.
What happened at the Starmer curry? Here's a person familiar:
— 'working dinner' pre-arranged — but takeaway arrived late, after work had finished — 15 people stayed to eat & drink anyway — it therefore "crossed the line" — they'll speak to cops — 2 "redthroats" talking to media
This seems awfully flimsy.
No work afterwards they were aware of doesn’t sound like they know a lot really, that’s doing a lot of heavy lifting. If they do have strong evidence then hand it to the police and Starmer can rightly be fined and quit
Very interesting. A gathering, reasonably necessary for work purposes, is intended to occur and food ordered. The food is late. Is it reasonable to expect, with delicious curry imminent, that people would leave hungry? With that curry on my mind, at the end of a long day, for which I would have been 'saving myself', the police would have to carry me out crying.
I then wonder if this falls under “reasonably necessary”. Because at that time the hotel would have stopped serving food so they would have all had to go back to their hotel rooms and not eat until breakfast.
One for a legal eagle
The hotel served until 9.00pm and then room service was available
Furthermore there were several eating establishments in the area open anyway
What happened at the Starmer curry? Here's a person familiar:
— 'working dinner' pre-arranged — but takeaway arrived late, after work had finished — 15 people stayed to eat & drink anyway — it therefore "crossed the line" — they'll speak to cops — 2 "redthroats" talking to media
This seems awfully flimsy.
No work afterwards they were aware of doesn’t sound like they know a lot really, that’s doing a lot of heavy lifting. If they do have strong evidence then hand it to the police and Starmer can rightly be fined and quit
Well if that is right Starmer is off the hook completely. It would be fine as ordered, it was late, they were hungry, they were meant to send it back or bin it?
Hang on, how does that get him off the hook? You have been banging away for ages how the campaign event was against the law - what does the timing of the delivery have to do with it? Either you can meet to campaign or you can't.
No actually Ishmael is onto something.
If they ordered food and it turned up late, then they ate it because other places had closed and the hotel had stopped serving. So that would fall under reasonably necessary.
The issue some had before was that they ate as the last part of the working day when they could have gone back to the hotel and eaten there - but if they had nothing else to eat then I can’t see how the Police can really question it.
Owners of second homes who do not rent out their properties will be hit with double council tax under plans to be unveiled in the Queen’s Speech this week, as Boris Johnson attempts to reset his premiership by focusing on the “people’s priorities”.
Don't a large number of people who have second homes in holiday spots already rent them out as an easy way of covering the costs?
I am guessing it'll exclude airbnb ers by say stipulating a min 6 month term
Article says, "that are neither used nor let out by their owners for at least 70 days per year". That sounds perfect for holiday letters.
Unless 70 days in a row, but then if you were doing down that path you would be putting in rules for a lot longer than a couple of months, as you say something like 6 month terms.
You are buggered if it's a ppty with summer-only appeal because 70 days eats up your own use of it. Otherwise you're laughing I'd have thought
Hang on: using it *yourself* counts towards the 70 days? That's just silly because how many properties are not used at all for even 70 days a year, and how do you prove the owner hasn't used it (except by poiting cctv at the front door)?
I think you can still get your 70 days let fairly easily these days. People like to take days away for a couple of nights by the seaside etc. You also rent out the weekends you aren't there. I think soon adds up to 70 days.
Also is it 70 days, or 70 nights....as 70 days even easier. You do a weekend let, most people will do Friday -> Sunday, thats 3 days.
If that is the proposal it will achieve damn all.
Around here, a lot of properties are being let out via Air BnB. It makes it very hard to find anything to rent and prices are rising, making it difficult for first time buyers. It is a big issue in this area and the Lakes generally.
The letting needs to be for a continuous period, ideally, to local people.
.... says a second home owner. Oh no, I remember, the Cyclefrees own two first-homes, in your memorable phrase.
It is too difficult to decide what a second home is or isn't. And these complex rules make it easy to avoid. As soon as you have a whole bundle of exemptions, then the tax won't have the desired effect.
What is needed is a serious increase in the Council Tax for *all* high value properties.
For comparison, in parts of the US, there are serious property taxes -- in NJ it is 2.5 per cent of the home value.
So, a million pound house will pay £ 25,000 pa. That will soon have the desired effect.
Say you have a million pound house in London and half a million pound holiday home in Cornwall, then you are facing taxes of 37.5k a year. That will sort out the second home problem.
The UK is unique among Western countries in the ridiculously low taxes that high value property attracts. Hence, many of its problems.
The US system is deeply fucked up. Tax values are set when homes change hands, which means that the tax burden falls disproportionately on people who have just bought homes - i.e. the young.
It certainly hasn't done much to address California's housing market problems.
Which has incredibly intense NIMBYism in the affected areas - not merely can't build anything, but can't densify in the existing built up areas.
All attempts to fit x people into less than x bedrooms of accommodation are, in the end, not going to fix the problem.
"Say you have a million pound house in London and half a million pound holiday home in Cornwall, then you are facing taxes of 37.5k a year. That will sort out the second home problem." - no, not really. The council will have more money. The local people won't have more houses to live in, unless someone builds some more.
Putin busy equating his invasion of Ukr with the Patriotic War of 1940s.
To be fair, Ben Wallace seems to have started that.
Baldy Ben seems to have staked out a more hawkish position than Zelensky who has said he'd accept a ceasefire on the January 2022 borders. If that's his starting point, presumably he'd settle for less.
Not necessarily. He might simply be stating his bottom line at the outset - as we did in WWII.
What happened at the Starmer curry? Here's a person familiar:
— 'working dinner' pre-arranged — but takeaway arrived late, after work had finished — 15 people stayed to eat & drink anyway — it therefore "crossed the line" — they'll speak to cops — 2 "redthroats" talking to media
This seems awfully flimsy.
No work afterwards they were aware of doesn’t sound like they know a lot really, that’s doing a lot of heavy lifting. If they do have strong evidence then hand it to the police and Starmer can rightly be fined and quit
Very interesting. A gathering, reasonably necessary for work purposes, is intended to occur and food ordered. The food is late. Is it reasonable to expect, with delicious curry imminent, that people would leave hungry? With that curry on my mind, at the end of a long day, for which I would have been 'saving myself', the police would have to carry me out crying.
I then wonder if this falls under “reasonably necessary”. Because at that time the hotel would have stopped serving food so they would have all had to go back to their hotel rooms and not eat until breakfast.
One for a legal eagle
The hotel served until 9.00pm and then room service was available
Furthermore there were several eating establishments in the area open anyway
Oh yes, like you would wait till 10 pm to have a kebab when there was paid for food already coming. Going to restaurants would spread the virus even more. And only a few people would be staying in the hotel.
Has @Leon seen this GPT-3 story ? On one level it's pretty silly; it's also really very worrying indeed in its implications (assuming it's true, which seems quite likely).
I brought my childhood imaginary friend back to life using A.I. (#GPT3) and it was one of the scariest and most transformative experiences of my life.
No one has yet figured out how to program empathy.
This is all wrong. Or at least it will, but only as part of a human led operation. It's all very sci fi thinking AIs will think Enslave the puny humans and dominate the world, but why would a computer *want* to do that, or *want* to do anything? What's the Turing test for whether a computer is capable of wanting? ....
All the stuff about Turing tests and computers 'wanting' to do stuff is irrelevant. The concern is about emergent behaviour, not intentions. And the worry is that 'intelligent' systems are given autonomy to act without intervention.
My comment about programming empathy was really a question about how we hardwire the functional aspect of it.
Emergent, schmemergent. Sure, it might happen. But take the case of self-driving cars: should we concentrate more on the outlook for Tesla/google designed autonomy, or the off chance that the next but 3 Golf will have evolved it as an emergent side effect?
Empathy is a second order problem, it is only needed to modify first-order goal-setting, which is what is up for debate. Also, it's very difficult: if you, a billionaire, program too much of it into your personal AI, what's to stop it confiscating all your money bar a living wage and spending it on famine relief?
What happened at the Starmer curry? Here's a person familiar:
— 'working dinner' pre-arranged — but takeaway arrived late, after work had finished — 15 people stayed to eat & drink anyway — it therefore "crossed the line" — they'll speak to cops — 2 "redthroats" talking to media
This seems awfully flimsy.
No work afterwards they were aware of doesn’t sound like they know a lot really, that’s doing a lot of heavy lifting. If they do have strong evidence then hand it to the police and Starmer can rightly be fined and quit
Well if that is right Starmer is off the hook completely. It would be fine as ordered, it was late, they were hungry, they were meant to send it back or bin it?
Hang on, how does that get him off the hook? You have been banging away for ages how the campaign event was against the law - what does the timing of the delivery have to do with it? Either you can meet to campaign or you can't.
No actually Ishmael is onto something.
If they ordered food and it turned up late, then they ate it because other places had closed and the hotel had stopped serving. So that would fall under reasonably necessary.
The issue some had before was that they ate as the last part of the working day when they could have gone back to the hotel and eaten there - but if they had nothing else to eat then I can’t see how the Police can really question it.
Do the pictures show people sat down eating a curry or people mingling with beer in their hands?
What happened at the Starmer curry? Here's a person familiar:
— 'working dinner' pre-arranged — but takeaway arrived late, after work had finished — 15 people stayed to eat & drink anyway — it therefore "crossed the line" — they'll speak to cops — 2 "redthroats" talking to media
This seems awfully flimsy.
No work afterwards they were aware of doesn’t sound like they know a lot really, that’s doing a lot of heavy lifting. If they do have strong evidence then hand it to the police and Starmer can rightly be fined and quit
Well if that is right Starmer is off the hook completely. It would be fine as ordered, it was late, they were hungry, they were meant to send it back or bin it?
Hang on, how does that get him off the hook? You have been banging away for ages how the campaign event was against the law - what does the timing of the delivery have to do with it? Either you can meet to campaign or you can't.
No actually Ishmael is onto something.
If they ordered food and it turned up late, then they ate it because other places had closed and the hotel had stopped serving. So that would fall under reasonably necessary.
The issue some had before was that they ate as the last part of the working day when they could have gone back to the hotel and eaten there - but if they had nothing else to eat then I can’t see how the Police can really question it.
The fact that we are even having this discussion as part of a putatively serious political debate shows how bonkers this whole thing is.
One thing that was clear all through the pandemic was that the operation of politics did not mirror the everyday experience of other office workers, number 10 never went remote, parliament operated at least partly in person through lockdowns and fully in person from very early. They raised their work above the rest of us from day 1, going we're important, you're not - you can do all remote, we need face to face.
It was garbage that their ability to operate broadly remotely, perhaps with the odd caveat, was substantially different to ours. I didn't like it, I think they should have operated more remotely and the slippery slope started there.
And it looks it bled out from number 10 - civil service departments, political parties, &c did their risk assessments very differently to your large corporate employer. Labour for its part felt it had to compete, like for like, with the Tories - if the Tories were in person then they would have to be. It bears responsibility for that.
By March 21 we had lots of high minded words from Boris on the importance of the conduct of democracy, in full, in full, that May.
So, Starmer's curry, 250 miles from home after a day on the streets, with other workers. No, it's not how I would have chosen my politicians to act, but it doesn't sit obviously separate to any of the above.
No doubt Boris whisked in and out of Hartlepool on his over vajazzled plane via Ben Houchen International Airport, not having to stay over, an option not open to LOTO. And yet, would you confidently like to bet that the Tories didn't match Mary Foy's 'do' and more in Hartlepool.
Now, they call truce. Equating what went on in number 10 with Beergate. And all the PBTory Boris criticisers jump on board to happily make the equation. It is not only false equivalence to the 8 ring circus that took place in number 10, it is a total bollocks of an equivalence.
As if they think large swathes of the public can't see it's a total bollocks equivalence. Only PBTories don't or won't.
So, to quote some other Tory COVID wankerage, "in a spirit of collegiality", Labour should take the Tories truce and tell them to shove it up their fucking arse.
OK, fighting on could claim SKS - or maybe not - but to do other let's Boris off the hook for his total utter disregard. But also the nature of the attack on SKS is, in very large part, another deflection, another ruse for the Tories to sweep their own tower of excrement under the carpet and not clean it up. Don't let them.
Their game is beyond shoddy and it's being played out in plain sight. Don't bank on it not backfiring, that the campaign against SKS isn't just seen through as deflection and smear.
Great post but arguably the damage is done already.
Starmer being cleared unequivocally would be helpful - but realistically the best outcome would be police saying "investigation closed, no evidence found of rule-breaking". And spoiler alert... that won't be the headline in the Tory press.
It's possible also that Durham police might even do a James Comey on it and say "event was inadvisable but didn't break rules"...
And yes finally - the police might decide to fine Starmer. In which case - I think he'll resign.
What happened at the Starmer curry? Here's a person familiar:
— 'working dinner' pre-arranged — but takeaway arrived late, after work had finished — 15 people stayed to eat & drink anyway — it therefore "crossed the line" — they'll speak to cops — 2 "redthroats" talking to media
This seems awfully flimsy.
No work afterwards they were aware of doesn’t sound like they know a lot really, that’s doing a lot of heavy lifting. If they do have strong evidence then hand it to the police and Starmer can rightly be fined and quit
Well if that is right Starmer is off the hook completely. It would be fine as ordered, it was late, they were hungry, they were meant to send it back or bin it?
Hang on, how does that get him off the hook? You have been banging away for ages how the campaign event was against the law - what does the timing of the delivery have to do with it? Either you can meet to campaign or you can't.
No actually Ishmael is onto something.
If they ordered food and it turned up late, then they ate it because other places had closed and the hotel had stopped serving. So that would fall under reasonably necessary.
The issue some had before was that they ate as the last part of the working day when they could have gone back to the hotel and eaten there - but if they had nothing else to eat then I can’t see how the Police can really question it.
Do the pictures show people sat down eating a curry or people mingling with beer in their hands?
The burden of being talked at by SKS really needs to be shared. There is a clear Article 3 defence.
Comments
I know Campbell doesn't want to do that kind of job any more, but they need him. They had to out-flank the increasingly willing to lie Tory press and establish their own narrative before the lie gets embedded. Even if / when Starmer has no case to answer in Durham, the stench of scandal won't go away.
That he has allowed people like yourself to pick up scraps of facts and build a picture which you then pass on is his mistake and it could prove costly. All I have read from your posts is that there is no smoke without fire which you have repeated many times. Starmer urgently needs lessons in how to deal with these things. He doesn't yet understand that those nice people out there aren't his friends
Time for his rant of bollocks.
https://www.airlive.net/live-watch-military-air-parade-held-in-moscow/
Now, computers might evolve wanting of their own but before they get round to that, they are going to have wants implanted by programmers. Again, it is possible that this process has unintended consequences: your computer is expensive so you tell it to protect itself from harm, and it thinks All humans are potential terrorists, best eliminate the lot as a precaution. But think about it: computers are a human route to the acquisition of unlimited wealth and power. Bad actors have not been shy about abusing them to gain these ends. The biggest known employer of computer scientists on the planet is the US National Security Agency, and in reality it's probably outranked by China. Neither will be shy about writing their own AI and giving it plenty of goals to be getting on with. There's also a lot of computer billionaires around the place. So why worry about pure AI risk, which might indeed pose a second-rank threat to an entirely peace-loving and moral society, when the bad human actor plus AI risk is a bigger threat by a factor of at least a million?
Of course Max, myself, Big G and plenty of other ex-Tories were saying Boris should go before the Police issued the FPN. From memory only HYUFD has been defending him, whereas as far as I can see only you are requesting he goes now whereas we were all where only you are now when the rosette has changed colour.
I'm watching on France24.
@alexwickham
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20m
NEW: Labour Party staff were drunk at the Starmer curry and beer gathering in Durham, a person familiar with what happened tells Playbook
LOTO, Labour and Mary Foy MP do not deny the claim
https://twitter.com/scouts_uk/status/1523353355241680898
All depends on timing and the meaning of the terms int he wording - but it is not as simple as you imply.
https://www.gobrick.com/docs/default-source/read-research-documents/technicalnotes/9-manufacturing-of-brick.pdf
1) There is nothing to see here
2) If Durham Police decide there IS something to see, Starmer must resign
Can't make omelettes without eggs.
https://thehiddenveggies.com/chickpea-omelette-the-best-vegan-omelette/
This has the potential to demolish various politicians of both parties if it gets pushed. Because yes absolutely - all parties will have been off doing campaign events because they were legally allowed to do so. Why are the Wail only focusing on this single Labour campaign event when there will be other labour campaign events too?
Oh yea, that's why. As campaign events were legal, they need to question micro-level details to try and spin the perception of wrong-doing. As some of the claims are so silly the existence of another dozen such events doesn't reinforce the illegality, it just draws into question their narrative that Starmer sneaked off for a Curry then covered it up.
They need a Campbell, also agreed, but probably not the man himself. 1) I don't think he's keen to go back into it and 2) he's closer to being more of an activist these days and more likely to be a player in a story rather than managing it.
— 'working dinner' pre-arranged
— but takeaway arrived late, after work had finished
— 15 people stayed to eat & drink anyway
— it therefore "crossed the line"
— they'll speak to cops
— 2 "redthroats" talking to media
This seems awfully flimsy.
No work afterwards they were aware of doesn’t sound like they know a lot really, that’s doing a lot of heavy lifting. If they do have strong evidence then hand it to the police and Starmer can rightly be fined and quit
Whoever lit the fuse on this was only meant to blow the bloody doors off.
Scene : vast, dimly lit gothic hall somewhere. In the background an organ intones.... evil.
Head Conspirator : "Coals to Newcastle" is done.....
Everyone else (Lighting their faces with torches : "For The Greater Good"
https://twitter.com/alexwickham/status/1523560902552784896?s=21&t=ijsFx2zb0baAFsPlTjIugg
Similarly, second homes are a small % of housing in the country - something like 3%... but would be much higher in Cornwall/Cumbria etc.
EDIT: I currently work for a company, one of whose founding family, back in the day, helped start the original, real, Bavarian Illuminati.
Are they all major lightweights or is the implication they started drinking earlier? Seems like that is what they are trying to convey
Labour were going hard on Boris over the parties - and rightly so. But they were too effing incompetent to realise that their own behaviour would come back and smack themselves in the face.
If they're not guilty, they've mismanaged it to a degree where they look as guilty as sin.
It's absolutely hilarious.
2) You've been travelling, so you have a wheely case
3) There is an annoying intern standing next to you.
4) IDEA!
Ditto the new Ayrshire Central, where a Lab/Con switch for 2nd spot is even more likely.
Ditto the new Ayrshire North and Arran.
The only other “3-way marginals” in Scotland (huge pinches of salt required tbh) are:
The weird new Forth Valley Mid (mostly the old Ochil & South Perthshire seat), where a Tory drop to 3rd is pretty much guaranteed.
The new East Lothian Coast, which is a guaranteed Lab Gain if the local Tories swallow their pride and back the reds. Bye bye Alba’s Kenny MacAskill MP.
The new Kelvin North (mostly the old Dunbartonshire East) is an absolute corker. The Lib Dem’s only hope is if Labour put up a paper-candidate and do zero work. Not gonna happen.
Photographs and videos will be made available and it is inevitable that attendees will seek their own legal advice
It seems that it could be upto a couple of months before this concludes and it is going to be a very uncomfortable period for Starmer and Rayner especially in the HOC and media
The story seems to be slightly changing
One for a legal eagle
I think this is going to fall under reasonably necessary.
The story has gone some way to neutralising the FPN issue, though not the lying to Parliament issue. But basically the public will want to move on.
The advantages of the auto-loader include -
- is slower than a human loader
- requires the ammunition to be stored in the turret. This means that when the tank is hit, the ammunition often explodes, cremating the crew and ripping the turret off.
- doesn't load at all elevations, meaning that the gun has to return to a specific elevation (on some tanks). This indicates to the opposition that it is an... opportune moment to be rude.
- occasionally tries to load the gunners arm, instead of the next round.
There's definitely shades of grey (though not gray) in what happened last April. Had they stayed as chatter, that would have been a Starmer harmer.
But the involvement nod the cops will give something unambiguous. Either SKS is cleared or he isn't. If he's cleared, he's strengthened, if not he's toast.
The only way this benefits the blue team is if he's fined and hangs on (meaning he wants to and his party lets him). And that's two biggish ifs.
Now, let's see what Year 11 are up to.
The concern is about emergent behaviour, not intentions. And the worry is that 'intelligent' systems are given autonomy to act without intervention.
My comment about programming empathy was really a question about how we hardwire the functional aspect of it.
https://twitter.com/567Louise/status/1523408022252384256
Can we see the Gove planning memo? Did they eat? Was there a lunchtime beverage before delivery started? How about afterwards?
As campaigning events like this one and the Durham one were legal, there will be a long list of examples to go after. So if we're now switching to "nope they were illegal" we could be here all year.
http://kremlin.ru/events/president/news/68366
It was garbage that their ability to operate broadly remotely, perhaps with the odd caveat, was substantially different to ours. I didn't like it, I think they should have operated more remotely and the slippery slope started there.
And it looks it bled out from number 10 - civil service departments, political parties, &c did their risk assessments very differently to your large corporate employer. Labour for its part felt it had to compete, like for like, with the Tories - if the Tories were in person then they would have to be. It bears responsibility for that.
By March 21 we had lots of high minded words from Boris on the importance of the conduct of democracy, in full, in full, that May.
So, Starmer's curry, 250 miles from home after a day on the streets, with other workers. No, it's not how I would have chosen my politicians to act, but it doesn't sit obviously separate to any of the above.
No doubt Boris whisked in and out of Hartlepool on his over vajazzled plane via Ben Houchen International Airport, not having to stay over, an option not open to LOTO. And yet, would you confidently like to bet that the Tories didn't match Mary Foy's 'do' and more in Hartlepool.
Now, they call truce. Equating what went on in number 10 with Beergate. And all the PBTory Boris criticisers jump on board to happily make the equation. It is not only false equivalence to the 8 ring circus that took place in number 10, it is a total bollocks of an equivalence.
As if they think large swathes of the public can't see it's a total bollocks equivalence. Only PBTories don't or won't.
So, to quote some other Tory COVID wankerage, "in a spirit of collegiality", Labour should take the Tories truce and tell them to shove it up their fucking arse.
OK, fighting on could claim SKS - or maybe not - but to do other let's Boris off the hook for his total utter disregard. But also the nature of the attack on SKS is, in very large part, another deflection, another ruse for the Tories to sweep their own tower of excrement under the carpet and not clean it up. Don't let them.
Their game is beyond shoddy and it's being played out in plain sight. Don't bank on it not backfiring, that the campaign against SKS isn't just seen through as deflection and smear.
Furthermore there were several eating establishments in the area open anyway
If they ordered food and it turned up late, then they ate it because other places had closed and the hotel had stopped serving. So that would fall under reasonably necessary.
The issue some had before was that they ate as the last part of the working day when they could have gone back to the hotel and eaten there - but if they had nothing else to eat then I can’t see how the Police can really question it.
All attempts to fit x people into less than x bedrooms of accommodation are, in the end, not going to fix the problem.
"Say you have a million pound house in London and half a million pound holiday home in Cornwall, then you are facing taxes of 37.5k a year. That will sort out the second home problem." - no, not really. The council will have more money.
The local people won't have more houses to live in, unless someone builds some more.
He might simply be stating his bottom line at the outset - as we did in WWII.
"More now on Vladimir Putin's speech. He said the West did not want to listen to Russia, and they had other plans.
Speaking in Red Square in Moscow, he said the West was "preparing for the invasion of our land, including Crimea"."
I mean, FFS. He's totally lost it.
Empathy is a second order problem, it is only needed to modify first-order goal-setting, which is what is up for debate. Also, it's very difficult: if you, a billionaire, program too much of it into your personal AI, what's to stop it confiscating all your money bar a living wage and spending it on famine relief?
Starmer being cleared unequivocally would be helpful - but realistically the best outcome would be police saying "investigation closed, no evidence found of rule-breaking". And spoiler alert... that won't be the headline in the Tory press.
It's possible also that Durham police might even do a James Comey on it and say "event was inadvisable but didn't break rules"...
And yes finally - the police might decide to fine Starmer. In which case - I think he'll resign.
https://www.theice.com/products/910/UK-Natural-Gas-Futures/data?marketId=5253320
Spot gas down to £1.20/therm
Crisis over? Perhaps….